Shortly after we had managed to send Coverfire out of the building, reinforcements showed up in the form of several new SWAT vans and the Conservators. It was enough to make Cuélebre decide to pull back, though he made his displeasure with that well known. They all did, actually. None of them could understand why we would be defending someone like Cup so thoroughly. Which, obviously, they had a point. But it wasn't as though we could actually explain the situation. Well, my group couldn't. The others were saving her simply because it was the right thing to do. Even if that whole concept was getting harder and harder to define.

And speaking of the right thing to do, I was so very tempted to grab Cup ourselves and take off with her. I honestly thought that if she had been by herself once that forcefield came down rather than escorted by two officers, I might have tried to make her disappear so we could have a little discussion. It sure could have solved a lot of problems if we just took her and made sure she gave up the… the… boy did I sound like the Ministry or what? Taking the law into our own hands, thinking about abducting a prisoner out of official custody so we could make her tell us how to cure those people, it all sounded suspiciously like the sort of justification my parents might have had.

So yeah, that was an awkward feeling. Yet I still couldn’t entirely put the thought of how much easier taking her with us might make some things (even as it drastically complicated other things) out of my head. But no, she was never out of their sight. For the moment, I couldn't grab her, and I certainly couldn't tell them what was going on. I couldn't tell them about her being behind the biological attack that had essentially crippled the city. Not until we had independent proof of that.

Instead, we all had to just stand there and watch while they took her back into one of the new van. And they weren't taking any chances with it, bringing even more people to escort her to wherever the new holding area would be like she was the president of the United States or something.

Well, not quite like she was the president. I was pretty sure they didn't treat him quite the way they did her. There were certainly less shackles involved at the very least. She had those at her ankles and wrists, and also some sort of special gag over her mouth. It was metal with a little grill in front and had heavy duty leather straps keeping it attached to the back of her head. So she could breathe through it, but apparently she couldn't talk at all. So there was no way for her to use at least that part of her power.

Standing there with the rest of my team, those who were here anyway, we watched her get taken away once more while the other authorities were in dealing with rounding up the few Prev troops who had been left behind. All of the Touched had escaped, of course. Because we couldn't even get a win on that.

Okay, that wasn't really fair. We had won in the sense that we’d kept Cup alive, so once we had what we needed to prove she was behind Sleeptalk, they'd be able to force her to make the cure. And no, I definitely wasn’t so frustrated by yet another delay in actually saving my parents that I felt like screaming into a paper bag until I passed out, why do you ask?

Paige put a hand on my back while we were standing there. “We’ll get her,” she murmured under her breath, just loud enough for me to hear. “One step at a time. The important thing right now is that she’s still alive to deal with later.”

My head bobbed slightly. “I know, I get it. The important part is keeping her alive long enough to actually do something about it. That doesn’t stop me from wanting to walk over there, grab her by the ear, and drag her back to the shop. Or even better, tell someone about the…” I paused, grimacing behind my helmet. Now really wasn’t the time to get into all this. And I definitely couldn’t let on that anything was wrong. No matter how much I wanted to do that whole paper bag screaming thing. Or possibly bullhorn screaming.

Instead, I managed to collect myself as Big Top, the Conservator visiting from Chicago, walked up to us. The man, standing just slightly under six feet tall, wore his usual costume of a red and black long-tailed coat, gold shirt with red bowtie, black pants, and a matching black top hat with a gold band. The top half of his face was covered by a gold cloth mask, with dark red lenses over his eyes.

Was it bad or weird for me to think that Grandstand pulled off the ringmaster outfit costume better? Though we were pretty lucky that she wasn’t with Cuélebre anymore. I couldn’t even imagine how bad this whole situation would’ve been if the woman who could make herself unseen by everyone or force everyone to pay attention only to her had been here to mess with us.

Shaking off that thought and about a dozen others that tried to scramble into its place, I focused on the man as he approached. His voice was tired, but still upbeat. “Hey there, ahh, Avant-Guard. We sort of met the other night, during the whole… Scions thing.”

He started to extend a hand to me, and I almost took it before Sierra interrupted. “So is this place actually safe or what? Cuz call me crazy but I still feel a little jumpy right now. What if there’s a second attack while we’re all just standing around?”

Big Top focused on her. “It’s okay. Trust me, I get the… instinct. But we’ve got men up on the roofs, and others watching nearby intersections. I don’t think Cuélebre wants to come back around for another go at it. They took their shot and missed. Speaking of which, I just wanted to thank you all for jumping in there. I know it…” He paused, taking a breath before letting it out. “It couldn’t have been easy to throw yourselves into helping save someone like that, despite whatever claims she might be making. But we’re glad you did. I’m glad you did, for whatever that might be worth. She’ll get a fair trial and then--well, I suppose we’ll go from there. Everyone alright?”

Boy was that ever an accidentally-loaded question. The stress of the moment very nearly made me laugh in his face, impossible as that would’ve been to explain. Instead, I forced myself to shrug and tried to make my voice as normal as possible. Maybe he’d excuse the strain in it as just being tired. “Better than a lot of people around here. Why were they moving her anyway? And where’s she going?”

Hey, it was worth a shot.

As expected, however, Big Top shook his head ruefully. “Sorry, can’t tell you the second part. As to the first, someone got wind that one of the gangs was planning an assault against the place she was being held before--”

“The jail?” Murphy interrupted pointedly. “You mean the jail, right? Because I don’t know why they would keep her anywhere except for the fucking jail.” She was clearly going to go on in that vein, but Roald gently put a hand on her arm to make her stop. Which she did, albeit reluctantly.

Big Top, for his part, gave a soft sigh. He looked over his shoulder at the rest of the people helping to get things cleaned up before answering. “It’s a bit of a delicate situation. She’s cooperating, which involves telling the authorities a lot about where the Scions have loads of stashed weapons. Dangerous weapons. She’s even giving away their safe houses, where we’ve found some of their members holed up. So, since she’s playing along and has a few of the higher ups convinced that she’s telling the truth about being forced into it, she’s in… let’s call it protective custody.”

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Oh, there were a lot of things I wanted to call that. But I bit back the instinctive response and simply replied, “So they found out there was a threat to her, started to move her and they attacked then. Sounds like Cuélebre wanted you to find out.”

Big Top gave a soft cough. “Yes, we’re getting that impression. But she's going somewhere even safer now. She'll be out of everyone's reach, so don't worry about it.”

Worry about it? Hell no, why would we worry about the idea that the one person who could actually fix Sleeptalk was being taken away to some secret location that was supposedly safe from anyone trying to find her? I couldn't think of any possible reason that could backfire in a truly catastrophic way. It was fine, all fine, definitely fine. Perfect even.

Oh, right, I was probably supposed to say something there. I was so lost in my long, silent scream while trying my best not to visibly or audibly freak out that I just sort of stayed silent for an awkward time. Fortunately, Paige jumped in before things got too weird. “Well, I sure hope they take care of her. It sounds like she's pretty instrumental to helping a lot of people. As long as they can keep her under control and actually get useful information. And as long as she doesn’t start playing them. You know, leading them to a few good places so they let their guard down, then steering them right into a trap.” Her voice was pointed by the end.

“They’re being careful, believe me,” Big Top assured us. “Speaking of which, sounds like they need us back on the job.” He pointed to his ear, apparently indicating some sort of communicator we couldn’t see. “Seriously, you guys already helped out more than we could’ve expected. Silversmith and the rest of his people, they’re lucky to have a group like yours around to help pick up the slack. But you should get some rest now. You all seem pretty exhausted.” With that, the man gave us a lingering look before turning to start walking away, calling over his shoulder, “Just don’t push yourselves too hard!”

After waiting until the man had left and we were once again alone (well, as alone as we could be when the whole street was full of crime scene technicians and whatnot), I let out a little sigh. “I guess he's right, we should get out of here.” I couldn't help but shift my gaze a little to take in the area where the Minority were being debriefed. Boy, did I ever want to go check on Izzy myself. But we had to be more careful about that sort of thing. We couldn't do anything that might let people connect the two of us, not even the authorities. Hell, especially not the authorities.

So, instead of heading over there, I simply turned with the rest of my team as we left. None of us said much as Alloy created a platform out of a couple of her marbles to lift us up to one of the roofs. As Big Top had said, there was a guy up there. He nodded politely, but kept his attention focused on the nearby streets. We just kept going over to the next roof, then the one after that.

We were several blocks away before Paige stopped us and gave Sierra a look before asking, “He didn't touch any of you, did he? I don't think he did, but I want to be sure. We need to be sure.”

Roald was the first to respond, with a confused, “Who, Big Top?”

Sierra nodded. “That dude can spy on people by touching them and putting one of his other selves in you. You know how his power is all about how he has the minds and abilities of a bunch of different versions of himself who were in different positions at the circus? The lion tamer can control animals, the strong man is super strong, that sort of thing. Well not only can he pass those aspects on to someone else and give them those abilities temporarily, but they can also secretly sit in the person without them knowing and spy on everything they see and hear.”

Well, no wonder she had interrupted when Big Top had started to shake my hand.

Shaking his head, Roald asked, “Do you really think he'd do something like that and start spying on us? He's one of the good guys.” He paused briefly before wilting a little. “Okay, maybe that's not the best defense. I just really like Big Top. But why would he want to spy on us? As far as they know, we're just a few teenagers who’ve, you know, been helping out.”

Paige cleared her throat and offered a shrug. “And maybe they still think that. They probably do. But we're also a mystery in some ways. We're not under their control, and there's a lot they don't know. I can't say he would violate trust like that, but I can't say he wouldn't either. We don't know enough about him, and it's not worth the risk. Not considering everything we've got going on.”

She was right, the last thing we needed was for some almost entirely unknown new member of the Conservators to find out what we were doing. It would be way too hard to explain, if he would even give us the chance to try. We were just going to have to be careful about not letting him touch us, just in case.

And speaking of reasons to be paranoid, once we were square on that front, I called the shop to make sure everything was okay back there. Honestly, part of me was expected to hear that Pittman had managed to escape while we were gone. My stomach started to clench a little as it rang a few times. Before I could get too upset, Paige spoke up. “They're coming, the phone fell behind the table.” When I looked at her, she tapped her head. "We’re linked in to the security feed in the workshop. You didn't actually think I'd leave that bastard without having a way of watching him, did you?”

Sure enough, a second later, Fred answered, sounding a little out of breath. “Hey, sorry, it's all good. We're all good. Phone fell behind the table and I had to dig it out from under one of those stuffed animals with th--never mind. He’s still here, we're all here. We're okay. How's it going there?”

Letting out a relieved sigh and nodding toward Paige in thanks, I replied, “Well, Cup’s alive and still in police custody. Call that what you will. Not sure if it's good or bad. How about we settle on, it could be a lot worse?”

I could hear the man's relieved sigh. “Fine, we can work with ‘could be worse.’ Couldn't get any answers out of her while you were there, huh?”

“Let's just say an opportunity didn't present itself,” I replied lightly. “We're going to have to do this the long way. Just like we planned. We find those labs he told us about and dig up some proof about her being involved. If she wants to keep this arrangement she's got, she'll have to give them the cure.”

Obviously, there were some issues with that plan. Including an awful lot of question marks about how exactly it would work and how we would actually tell the authorities. But it was the best we had.

After exchanging a few more words with Fred and making sure everything was okay back there, I disconnected and turned it back to the others. “Well, we could do what Big Top said and get some rest--”

“Fuck that,” Peyton interrupted flatly. “If we're gonna prove Cup was behind all that, we need to get started. Let's go to the first address and see what we can find. Who knows, maybe we'll get lucky right off the bat.”

Yeah, none of us actually thought that was likely, but it was nice to daydream about it for a second. Still, she had a point. If we were going to deal with the Cup situation, we needed to get to work.

So, Paige told us where we were headed first. Obviously, she had all the addresses locked in and knew where the nearest one from here was. It was only then that I realized that she had been looking that way the whole time she was looking out over the roof. She knew what we were going to do. I just hoped she wasn't crazy enough to have thought she could go over there herself if we hadn't planned on doing it together. Hell, speaking of which…

“You guys should stay away from the lab,” I pointed out once we were standing on the roof across the street from the place in question. “Let us go in while you wait for us to give the all clear. Just like when we were going after the teleport machine. They could have all sorts of defenses set up to mess with you.”

It was pretty obvious neither of them liked that idea. Not even a little bit. They both wanted to argue, but in the end, each sighed and agreed. None of us wanted to risk the idea of Pittman having the ability to either shut them down, or worse, take them over. We couldn’t let that happen.

So, they stayed there, promising to shut down the comms so they wouldn’t listen in and accidentally overhear a command phrase until we sent them an all-clear signal. Meanwhile, Murphy, Roald, Peyton, and I looked to one another before nodding. It was time to go in there.

And hope we found something that could prove Amanda Sanvers was just as much of an evil bitch as everyone had thought she was.