“Are you sure we should do this?” H-Bar asked for the dozenth time.

The team’s knee jerk reaction was obvious and Liam had to know what it’d be. And still he made the call. H-Bar hated the idea they were falling into Liam’s trap by playing things by the book. Even if he still didn’t know what that trap might be.

“We already decided this was the right course of action. It gives us more credibility, something we desperately need,” Ullr said.

“If this goes public, it’ll throw the entire Hero certification program into chaos.”

“Better the program than us.”

H-Bar agreed with Ullr on that, but all the same a pang rang through his heart. They were dragging even more people through the mud to save themselves. He idly wondered if there would ever be a point where he’d stop the team from doing that. H-Bar dashed the thought as an answer he didn’t like came to the surface.

“We’ll cross that bridge if it happens, for now let’s get inside. The meeting is about to start.”

With a final sigh H-Bar followed Ullr into the conference room. The team didn’t share his fears about Liam, thinking he was paranoid that the kid had a plan. He’d tried to explain, giving it his best effort, to no avail.

Pulling up chairs and connecting to the call, the two arrived just as the meeting was set to start.

“I’m glad everyone could make it,” one of the Heroes on the screen said.

Her orange and black costume was a mockery of Halloween. Though H-Bar would never say that to her face, just looking into her glowing orange eyes was enough to make him shudder. It was well known that many Cowls simply gave up when she came knocking.

“I’d like to start our meeting today with our friends at The Hunt,” the woman, Orange Breath said. She was the leader of the Chicago Hero team. As the leader of the largest team in the Midwest, she was responsible for running the regional DCP meetings.

Taking the cue, Ullr cleared his throat and began. Such a simple act carried the precision only a true leader could produce.

“As you’re all aware, last week we found a traitor in our midst. Despite our best efforts, he was able to escape. During the last week we’ve been doing our best to track the man down. Today we intercepted a phone call to his sister-,” Ullr said before being interrupted by another Hero.

“How dare you bring his sister into this? There are limits to what we can do and forcing an innocent person to do interviews to fix your problem is below our station,” the Hero, Harbinger of Hope said. The silver star on the Hero’s chest blazing brighter as the leader of the Cedar Rapids Hero team spoke.

“Do you think they forced her to do an interview? Don’t make me laugh. Your competitiveness with The Hunt is showing through,” another Hero, Gilded Dragon, said. The black details on his silver mask seemed to ripple like scales as he talked.

Gilded Dragon wasn’t completely wrong. The Cedar Rapids team was the largest in Iowa, but still trailed behind The Hunt in efficiency and fame. That caused a competitive divide between the two teams. In normal times that was fine, it helped push both groups to be better. However, things had changed since the incident with Liam. It had caused the Cedar Rapids team to question everything that was going on. This second guessing was becoming a serious nuisance for The Hunt.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

What Gilded Dragon got wrong was the interview. When they released Liam’s name to the public the plan was, in part, to get Melody to talk. The hope was it’d drive Liam to do something stupid. A single mistake was all The Hunt needed.

“They unmasked a Hero,” Harbinger shot back.

There was muttering on the call as a couple other Heroes joined Harbinger, expressing their displeasure. The Hunt had known it wouldn’t be the most popular of moves, but they’d done it anyway.

The sound was soon drowned out by Gilded Dragon, “He killed three people, not the most heroic person in the world.”

“That doesn’t change what The Hunt did.”

Were all DCP meetings like this, H-Bar wondered. How could Ullr stand it? Not being a team leader H-Bar was excused from them. If today was anything to go off of he was glad of that. He was only in this meeting as support if Ullr needed help answering a question. In the future he’d put up a better effort to avoid this responsibility.

“The man doesn’t deserve the title so we won’t give it to him,” Orange Breath said. Cutting off the argument before it became anything worse. Continuing she asked, “Now Ullr, what was the news you wished to share?”

“We were able to trace the call and find out where Liam was staying,” Ullr said.

H-Bar noticed most of the Heroes on the screen frown at that. It seemed showing Liam’s face was one thing. Saying his real name was something else entirely. Ullr had to be careful with what he said and stop everyone from joining Harbinger.

“When we got to the location, an old apartment, we found it empty. We must’ve missed him by minutes. But that’s not what’s really worrying. We ran a history on the property and found large quantities of ammonium nitrate being purchased. It was bought in the form of fertilizer and was being shipped for the last few months. We believe Liam is building a bomb.”

News of the potential explosive, but no mention of the unknown person. They’d decided that could come later if it was needed. For now keeping it from the other teams was the safe call. At least until they knew more about who the other person was and what was going on.

If the other teams found out there were more people involved and the case had the possibility to spread they’d demand a bigger role in the search. That was something The Hunt couldn’t afford. They needed to reach Liam first and tie up that loose end.

It took a moment for the other Heroes to react, but when they did it was with an eruption of questions and advice. H-Bar was stunned for a moment by the wave of sound.

He tried to follow everything that was being said. Plotting how each person reacted to the news. Trying to gauge what they were thinking and how best to respond to them. A few nods suggested The Hunt’s message was getting through. A few others were on the fence. Even with H-Bar’s best efforts there was too much going on for him to track everyone and he knew he’d missed some.

While H-Bar was searching faces, he reached one that set his blood cold. The face was wearing a green and brown mask. H-Bar could swear he’d seen the thing before, but couldn’t place where. What was more worrying than an unknown face was that it wasn’t from someone on a local team.

Someone from outside the Midwest was taking an interest in the case. In order to get into a regional DCP meeting the person had to have substantial clout themselves or friends in high places, neither option was something H-Bar was excited about.

The man made no move to take part in the call. He watched and listened, showing no reaction to anything being said. Never once venturing his opinion. H-Bar would give anything to know what the man was thinking.

Staring into the man’s eyes H-Bar could swear the man was reading his thoughts. The more he watched the more nervous H-Bar got. This was very bad, whoever this was his interest couldn’t be good.

Like turning on a light bulb realization brightened in H-Bar’s eyes. That was Nudge. The Watch had taken note of this case and sent a representative to observe the meeting. And not just anyone, but someone notorious for his disdain of dealing with other people.

H-Bar wished he could go back and stop the team from bringing Liam on board. Unfortunately, no one had an ability to go back in time so he was stuck here, with a feeling of impending doom. H-Bar watched the rest of the meeting, thoughts of Liam and Nudge dragging him down.