“Oh.”  Alec said.  “Fuck.”

“Exactly.”

Yeah.

Lisa shook her head forcefully, “I didn’t get the sense of anything like that, and that’s not how his power operates.  Besides, he expected we would agree anyways.  He wouldn’t jeopardize that with a gambit like this.  It’s too crude.”

“Alright, we’ll join you.” *two minutes pass* “Wait, did you use your power to make us join you?” “Yes.” “We’re out.”

“So it was just him attacking Empire Eighty Eight on a new front, and a fucking bad coincidence for us,” I said, as much to myself as anyone else.

“What’s going on?” Alec asked.

I took a deep breath and tried to explain just how bad the situation was.  “Coil just made a big play against the Empire, and it looks like it was anonymous.  Bitch and I got in a fight with some of his underlings at almost the same time.”

Ahh, shit.

And Lisa was already heavily against the play even before this was brought to her attention.

“I don’t-” Alec started.

“Look at it this way,” I interrupted, “Kaiser and every single one of his twenty-ish superpowered flunkies are going to be pissed enough to want to kill someone, after Coil went and turned their lives upside down.

Yeeah, and the Undersiders have become fantastic targets.

Kaiser and his people know who we are, from our cooperation against the ABB.  Specifically, they know who Lisa is.  So who are they going to blame for this, if not the group his people were just fighting with this very afternoon, the group with the very talented information gatherer in their ranks?”

Name: The Undersiders
Status: Fucked over

The email had been sent at 1:27 pm this afternoon.  Less than an hour ago.  That was the really bad news.

“Coil did this?”  I murmured.

Why is it especially bad news that this is a recent development?

Lisa nodded, tightly, “Yup.”

“With your help, I’m guessing?”

“Only a little.  He asked me a few times, to give him my thoughts on some stuff, put him on the right path, eliminate possibilities.  I didn’t think he’d get this far, or go this far.  Once I got him on the right track, he apparently used private investigators and hackers to dig up the rest of this and get the photographic evidence.”

“Fuck,” I muttered.

Damn.

“I don’t agree with it,” she said.  “It’s crossing a line.  It’s not just messing with the enemy, there’s going to be a ton of collateral damage.”

“Why weren’t you answering your phone?” Brian changed the subject.

I feel like she was rather preoccupied with this.

She blinked a few times, startled, “My phone was nearly a goner, so I grabbed a fresh disposable to talk to the boss.  I didn’t want to use the phone with the rest of your contact info in it, just to be safe.  Alec was with me the entire time.  He should’ve gotten any calls.”

“Check your phone, Alec” Brian spoke, terse.

Alec did.  His eyes went wide, “Oh fuck.”

Hehe.

“Part of being a member of this team is being on call if we need you.  I swear,” Brian growled at Alec, “I’m going to kick your ass so hard-”

Lisa looked from Brian to Alec to me, “Something happened.  Is anyone hurt?”

Something tells me she didn’t need her power to figure that out.

“Yes, something happened, no, nobody’s hurt.  That’s really not what concerns me,” I told her.  I pointed to the screen, “Did Coil plan this?  Is this a scheme of his, him using his power?  Using his destiny manipulation or whatever to create some general coincidence, put us in a bad spot, and force us to join him?”

That’s… a good question. I’m also curious how much power Coil actually has over how the outcomes he decides come along. If he were to use his power to decide that the Undersiders would join him, would the power create coincidences to enforce that without Coil knowing exactly what the power was doing?

Krieg was alleged to be a James Fliescher.  Head of a pharmacy chain, in turn connected to Medhall.  Father of three, married.

Hm, sounds like a good opportunity for some money laundering.

According to the notes in his block of information, he took a vacation twice a year with his family.  The email stated that the zip file had copies of inter-company emails where he’d told his coworkers he went to places like South America or Paris, and flight records showed that he was lying.  He always went to London.  Twice a year, every year, for nearly twenty years.  Not once, during these trips, had Krieg been seen in Brockton Bay.

Huh. Maybe he’s got a secret mistress or something in London. Or secret business, for that matter.

The list went on.  And on.

Every piece of information connected to others.  Even the info on the mooks like the ones I had met earlier with Kaiser’s business, showing how they were employed as low level employees of Medhall and its derivative businesses.  It seemed like everyone had a criminal record except the people at the top.

I’m guessing the only reason more people at the top don’t have criminal records is that they don’t get caught, or if they do, they don’t remain on top.

In short, It was comprehensive enough it would take a special kind of willful ignorance to not buy into what the email was selling.

Yeah, no, it’s pretty damn thorough.

The email had been sent not only to Lisa, but to the Brockton Bay Bulletin, a half dozen other local news stations, and several national ones.  Everyone that mattered, and a few that didn’t.

Whoever sent this (I’m currently thinking it’s Coil) clearly wants this to go public. If it were just a matter of wanting the E88 members arrested, they could send it to the Protectorate. Although if it’s Coil, it wouldn’t make sense to send it to the Protectorate – Coil is trying to discredit them, and serving them a massive victory over the E88 on a silver platter isn’t going to help towards that goal.

Also I hope they Bcc’d Lisa. Otherwise all the news stations would now have her email address.

There were other images as well, showing Max Anders with a gorgeous twenty-something blonde, and Max Anders with an older brunette woman at a coffee shop, their table strewn with what looked like paperwork.  I scrolled down to confirm my suspicions, the blonde appeared in another picture with her twin sister.  Fenja and Menja.

Hm, I don’t remember Kayden’s hair color when not powered up. Could the brunette be her?

The brunette woman was Purity, according to the email.

Yup!

Far mousier than I might have thought, given the sheer presence she had in costume.  Real name, Kayden Anders.  Interior decorator.  Single mother of one Aster Anders.

She kept his name? I wouldn’t have guessed, what with how much she’s come to dislike him.

Purity was promoted to Kaiser’s second in command in the same week that Kayden Russel took Max’s hand in marriage to become Kayden Anders.  Their separation occurred within the same time period as Purity leaving Empire Eighty Eight to apparently strike out on her own.  Little citations pointed to files apparently in the attached zip file.

This really goes into some detail, huh.

Also, I wonder if this bit would still be here if Interlude 3½ hadn’t been a thing – if I remember correctly, you guys told me that happened because of donations, right?

“Fuck,” I muttered.  “Fuck!”

Lisa looked up at me, frowned, then spoke to the person on the other end of the phone, “Can we finish discussing this later?  I’ve got to talk to my team about this.  Kay.  Later.”

Yeah, something’s evidently very bad here.

The email was a list.  At the very top of the list was Kaiser.  Following his entry were his lieutenants, Purity, Hookwolf and Krieg, and the rest of the members of Empire Eighty Eight.  It wasn’t even limited to people with powers, noting some powerless captains and even some of the lower level flunkies.

…with their civilian names? Damn.

The list included pictures and text.  Beneath each of the villain’s names was a comprehensive block of data, noting their civilian names in full, professions, addresses, phone numbers, the dates they moved to the city and the first appearances of their costumed identities in Brockton Bay.

Ahh, that and much more. Well then.

If Coil has made that public, there are going to be a lot of people who’ll have reason to go after these members in their civilian homes. I don’t really feel much sympathy for them, but it’s a questionable move for (at the very least) the reasons Lisa mentioned.

There were pictures of them in costume paired with pictures of their alleged civilian identities, roughly matched in angle and size for easy comparison.  Most of the entries had zip files attached, doubtless with more data and evidence.

Kaiser.  Max Anders, president and chief executive officer of Medhall Corporation, a pharmaceuticals company based in Brockton Bay.  

There it is. I’ve been spoiled on his surname for a while, but now that cat’s bag has been opened. The cat had torn a hole in the other end of the bag already, but still.

Father of a Theodore Richard Anders and an Aster Klara Anders.  Twice divorced, currently living in a penthouse apartment downtown.  Drives a black BMW.  Native born to Brockton Bay, son of Richard Anders.  Richard Anders, according to the email, was Allfather, the founder of Empire Eighty Eight.

Huh. I guess Kaiser “inherited” the E88 in a more conventional sense than I thought.

Allfather, huh. How much more self-aggrandizing can you even get than practically calling yourself God? Rather fitting for the leader of a group with Nazi leanings, though, what with the importance put on having a strong leader in nazism and other forms of fascism.

From the pictures, it was clear to see how the armor fit around his face and body, how both Kaiser and Max Anders had the same height and body type.

This isn’t DC – it’s not gonna be enough to put on some glasses to prevent people from recognizing you. Here, people can realistically tell whether people have similar physique with or without full body armor.

The TV was on, showing ads.  Alec lay on the couch, his feet on the coffee table, a meal on his lap.  Lisa sat on the other couch, laptop resting on her legs, a phone to her ear.  She turned her head as we came upstairs, gave us a funny look, then returned her attention to her laptop.

Anti-climactic normalcy it is!

“Why the fuck aren’t you answering your phones?” Grue raised his eerie voice.  He flipped up his visor and banished the darkness around him.

Lisa frowned and held up a finger.  She continued talking into the phone, “-don’t agree with this, and if you’d asked me, I would have said you shouldn’t do it.  No, yes, I think it’s an effective measure.”

Hm. How long has she been on the phone? If she’s talking to Coil, and has been for a significant amount of time, that might explain why Brian couldn’t reach Coil and Taylor couldn’t reach Lisa.

Alec… might just have been preoccupied, I guess.

She pointed to the laptop, and I stepped forward, moving the bugs off my face and down to the center of my back, where they would be present but not in the way, resting on cloth rather than skin.  I looked at the screen.

And – discussed after this quote because I forgot to write about it before looking at this bit – what is this “effective measure” that Lisa would’ve advised whomever she’s talking to against doing?

I feel like the screen is going to show a news story involving something Coil decided to do.

“My problem is that it’s not just them.  It’s their families,” Lisa spoke into the phone.  “Unspoken rule, you don’t fuck with a cape’s family.”

Ah shit. Yeah, that’s the kind of thing that sets the entire community against you.

I read the contents of the email she had open.  I felt a ball of dread settle in the pit of my stomach.  I leaned over the back of the couch and put a hand on her shoulder to steady myself as I reached down to press the pagedown key on the laptop.  I read more of the email and then hit the button again to scroll down again.

Ah, email, not news story. Fair enough.

When I’d read enough of the page to verify my suspicions, I hit the home key to return to the very top of the page.  I checked who else had been Cc’ed on the email and the time it had been sent.

The narration is conspicuously avoiding immediately saying what the email told Taylor. Hm.

Brian was walking with long strides, and he had long legs, which forced me to do little jogging spurts to keep up.  It wasn’t tiring, I was fit enough from my running, but it was embarrassing to feel like a small child trying to keep up with a grown-up.

Looooong.

New theory: Brian is Slenderman, but no one has noticed.

Either way, we did make good time getting back to the loft.

Brian put his finger to his lips as he pulled on his helmet and flipped his visor down, emanating his darkness to hide the costume.

Yeah, probably a good call, in case some enemy has infiltrated the Loft.

That said, Taylor is still without her costume – if she’s gonna go in before they’ve made sure no one malicious is there, she’ll need to cover herself in bugs again.

I grimaced and brought bugs up to cover my face, calling more from the area to form the beginnings of a swarm.  Brian – Grue now – reached out and coated the front door of the loft in darkness, then opened it without the slightest of creaks or squeals.

“Knock knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“Yeah, that’s what we’re wondering too.”

Before we ascended the metal stairs leading to the second floor, he coated them in a layer of his power to render our footsteps utterly silent.

I didn’t anticipate the scene in the living room of the Loft.

Hm. Probably either devastation, or anticlimactic normalcy. Maybe there’s an ongoing fight, but I think they would’ve heard that before they entered.