The Wardens would need to know what was happening.

Cinereal’s icon in a white bubble with a point at one corner, a ‘6’ encased in the corner. Six parahumans in her group. There were other bubbles for Valkyrie and her flocks, Narwhal, for Stonewall, Miss Militia, Legend, and Topflight. White for Wardens.

The PRTCJ were looped in with Wardens staff and Patrol. Guarding the staff, setting up heroes, managing portals and setting up camps and waypoints that helped guide refugees out or served as points to defend in case of attack. Their icons were surrounded by bubbles of light green. The same numbers in the bottom right to indicate how many were in each group, but other icons at other corners to mark if they were adjacent to unpowered groups, and what groups those were. Defense, situation management, comms, infrastructure.

Other hero teams got blue. He noted each, wishing there was one that would provide an easy answer. Foresight, the Shepherds, Breakthrough, Advance Guard, Solace, Rooftop Champs, Dream Parade, The Wayfarers, Auzure, Wizard Stars, Trueblue, Erring Right, Rowdyhawks, Sward, Virtuous Industries, Huntsmen, Girls at Bat, Shelter Skelter, Good Vandals, Twee, and then a half-dozen more who were too small for him to remember, or who were offscreen, trusted to handle things like helping out in Gimel’s Europe.

Six mercenary teams that the Wardens had elected to hire. Yellow bubbles. Three Librarians, Palanquin, Liquid Gold, Lickety Split, Trigger House, and Riina.

There were other mercenary groups the Wardens hadn’t hired, but they were marked down on the map as not bubbles, but icons within red ‘x’s. There were a lot of red ‘x’s. Villains. Some of the ‘x’s had diamonds above, to the right, and even below. The numbers of diamonds indicated priority and threat to the city. When mercenaries were also notorious villains, they got treated like villains.

The villains matched the heroes in number, more or less. Many were staying within or near the city.

The door opened, and Armstrong came in the door. Eric straightened up. Armstrong was part of the Wardens’ parahuman science counsel. This whole mess had to be more in his ballpark, didn’t it?

“Armstrong, sir. Do you want to take charge?” Eric asked. “This looks more like Parahuman Science than Command. Cinereal left me as her proxy, but I don’t think she’d be upset if I passed the baton.”

“I will,” Armstrong said. “Fill me in.”

“The Major Malfunctions and Towline, two minor teams, were at the main Cheit portal. It looks like one of them second-triggered and had a broken trigger at the same time,” Eric reported.

“Fume Hood,” Antares said. She leaned against the console nearest to the door, arms folded, head bent. Her hair was bound into a loose braid, damp at the edges, and her face was framed with strands of hair that had gone wavy with the way they’d dried. “She is—was a blaster, compressed gas spheres.”