"Okay, so, I have an idea," I said.

It was Saturday evening, and I'd had some time to think, and Lisa had had time to settle into her new home in... The Warehouse, I guess it was called. She'd softened up a little, and informed me that I was welcome in her apartment at any hour, although if I was going to show up when she was sleeping, I had to bring her an energy drink, and that calling ahead would be preferable at all times.

"Your power is... basically, being Sherlock Holmes, right?" I asked.

"Pretty much, yeah," Lisa said. "For a little while, anyway. Something about you makes it a lot easier to do that, but usually, I've got some pretty sharp limits on what I can do before I ruin my next week and spend it nursing a migraine."

"...Fair enough," I said. "Well, if it's possible, would you be able to, say, amass a convincing body of evidence that I could show to a judge or whatever and get an arrest warrant for Thomas Calvert?"

"That... might be possible," Lisa said, carefully. "It'd definitely fuck him over, even if he didn't go to jail- having this shit on the books even just as accusations would absolutely ruin any attempt at doing any open politicking in his own name, and he definitely wants to do that. But... well, then we run into trouble. He's not exactly in the city domination game because he's a sane, level-headed man. He's gonna lash out at you if he finds out you're behind this, and he's also gonna lash out at a bunch of other people just because they're there. You might be able to ignore someone trying to kill you, but something tells me you'd feel worse about being the reason that someone else got killed."

"Mm. Point. Okay, so we've gotta go about this real carefully, then," I said, tapping my chin. "Do a proper decapitation strike, so that there's no gap between him knowing anything is up and him being in jail waiting for a trial. Which... is going to require a lot more detective work from you, to pull it off."

"Fun," Lisa said, incredibly unenthused.

"Sucks to be you, doll," I said, reaching out and clapping her on the shoulder. "Good luck with that."

"Fair warning," Lisa said. "Coil's gonna know something is up, since I just disappeared in the middle of the day. You're gonna have to be... careful, if you're ever around him."

"So I've gotta be a shut-in who doesn't go anywhere or do anything," I said. "Wow, that's going to be so hard for me."

"Yeah, it will, because now you've got friends who actually like you, and who you haven't alienated with your boner," Lisa pointed out.

"...Fuck, right. Uhhh-"

"No, Gallant probably isn't going to hold a grudge. He's got reservations about hero work and the use of violence too. That's a big fight-starter between him and Glory Girl."

"Okay, that's... better than nothing," I said. "Well, good thing she wasn't there to hear me say that."

"By the way, you really need to sort your shit out sooner than later," Lisa said. "Sure, I might know you're an incredibly annoying and unfuckable sad-sack of a woman in her thirties, but to those two, you seem like a hot and charming boy their age, and you really don't wanna wait for one of them to make a move on you."

"That's..." I grimaced, inhaling through my teeth.

"Okay, let me spell it out for you: those memories aren't fake, dumbass," Lisa said. "Yes, you really are a Jumpchain protagonist and you really are a woman in your thirties. If you won't move past this stupid self-loathing bullshit for your own sake, do it for the people around you."

"Alright, alright," I said, closing my eyes. "I will... take that under advisement." I didn't want to believe her, honestly. For a lot of reasons, but the murders were a pretty compelling one. "Do you need anything from me while I'm here?"

"Not really," Lisa said. "I'll talk to the Red Hand once you leave, and see about getting some help with the investigation."

Oh god, the Red Hand, now weren't they a fucked up group for me to think about. A cult of shapeshifting psychic titninjas who were devoted to "my" service, and over whom "I" frequently asserted an implicit right of ownership, in both hand and heart.

Desperation makes people do unsavory things, sure, but fuck's sake, Rose, you should've disbanded the Red Hand once you stopped being desperate. Told them to find their own purposes in life. And go about hiring spies for your intelligence agency the normal way.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"Good luck," I said, instead of any of that, and walked out.

---

"Hey, Vicky," I said, as my song came to an end.

"Hm?" she asked, looking up from the latest issue of Parahumans Weekly, a godawful rag that she hate-read every week for some godforsaken reason.

"If I, hypothetically, came across compelling evidence that a public figure was, in fact, secretly a supervillain, what would you recommend I do with that information?"

"...Well, I would, personally, talk to Carol about that," Vicky said, apparently unwilling to call her own mother 'Mom' when the woman in question wasn't present. "She's a lawyer, so she's got a good idea of what would and wouldn't stand up in court, plus who to talk to as far as prosecutors go for bringing criminal charges against someone. I... would really advise you to be careful, though."

"Oh?" I asked. Internally, I was a little impressed; so far she hadn't said one uncontrollably bonerous thing. I guess she only did that when the conversation wasn't about something she was interested in.

"There's a sort of... gentlemen's agreement, between capes," Vicky said. "That the mask is sacrosanct, and what you do in the mask stays separate from who you are without the mask. Now, personally, New Wave thinks that's a load of horseshit, and we don't play cops and robbers with fucking criminals. We stop them from hurting people by whatever means necessary, and fuck whatever playground rules they wanna act like we broke when they already broke the basic social contract of 'don't fucking rob people or do hate crimes or a flying brick shaped like a hot blonde is going to kick your fucking teeth in.'" She sighed. "But, well, there's a price to pay for sticking to our guns, and, uh... well, ask about Fleur and Uncle Mike if you wanna know the exact price we've paid. That's... kiiiiinda why I want you to talk to Mom about this, actually- she'll keep you out of this, and say the evidence came from an anonymous source who fears retribution against themselves or their family. Which, you know. You should, you absolutely should, criminals do not play around except when it's convenient for themselves."

"I... see," I said, nodding. "Well, that was an interesting hypothetical. Let me pose you another hypothetical: the PRT Threat Classification system is strictly defined by the tactical considerations involved in fighting someone, correct?"

"It is, and that's not a hypothetical, that's just a question of fact," Vicky said.

"I'm building up the necessary context so you can be properly annoyed about what I'm about to say," I said. "Anyhow, what's the orthodox tactical definition of a Trump?"

"Kind of a wildcard, but, their essential thing is about messing with other parahumans' powers. The most common forms are auras that disable other powers, and auras that strengthen other powers while also having some sort of catch, but there's other variants."

"I see, I see. What about Tinkers?"

"That's actually more complicated, but basically, a Tinker has to either have a strong reliance on equipment or have a diverse set of abilities that change between fights, with most Tinkers having both, but some Tinkers only having one- Dauntless is considered a Tinker because his power is in his gear, not himself, even though that gear doesn't really change besides getting stronger over time. There are also a few Tinkers who do internal implants and stuff, which can't really be separately targeted or disarmed from them, but it's mostly gear-reliance without versatility."

Heaven help me, this kid is adorable when she's nerding out about... uh... the fine details of the secret police and their paramilitary tactics. Look, being into superheroes is a lot different in a world where they're real and might break your legs for selling someone ten grams of weed.

"I see, I see... So, a parahuman with a frequently-changing set of abilities is considered a Tinker, according to the PRT, whose threat classification schema is the reason why Tinker is a commonly-used term."

"Yeah? Where are you going with this?"

"Eidolon is a Tinker, not a Trump."

"Oh you son of a bitch I hate your fucking guts."

---

"Hrm," Dean said. "Well... If that evidence was actually convincing, then I'd say the PRT is the best place to go to with that. Dealing with supervillains is, uh. Kind of their entire reason to exist."

"And, if I had evidence there was an unacceptable risk that the villain in question had moles in the PRT who'd bury the evidence and alert him if I ended up talking to them?"

"Well, then you'd want a meeting with the Director specifically," Dean said. "Or with Armsmaster. Which... I can arrange, if this is not a hypothetical?"

"It is a hypothetical... for now," I said. "Let's say... I know more people than just you, and... some of them are pretty good at investigative legwork. Hypothetically, in the event that a sufficient amount of evidence lands in my lap, I would want to talk to Director Piggot about this, with as few other people in the room as she will allow. But, until then... this is strictly hypothetical. A fun little thought experiment between friends, that nobody outside this room would care to hear about. We talk a lot of weird shit, after all."

"That we do, that we do," Dean said, nodding slowly. "That we most certainly do..."