"So, having fun with the Protectorate?" Tattletale asked Claire. Jim had left, probably to get Ann home and find out if Taylor wanted to join them. Abruptly, Tattletale's smirk grew.

Damn. It. Claire banished any thought of Tayl—

"Oh don't worry, I'm not gonna try to unmask anyone. Not all of us like living the open life like you do."

"Fair Claire and Master Jim feel there is no need to hide behind masks," Blinky said.

"Like I said, not all of us like that," Tattletale said, grinning at Blinky. "And here's the father figure. Aren't you worried about them getting frisk—wow, they haven't? I mean, there might be some problems, but they—"

"If you're finished talking about our relationship," Claire said, her voice frosty.

Tattletale stopped and then took a breath. "Sorry," she said.

Claire didn't think so. This girl liked to poke, and it didn't take more than a few moments on PHO to notice how many people were speculating about if, when, and how much sex Claire and Jim were having.

"Fine," Claire said, glancing at Mr. Blinky. "Why are you interested in saving Dinah?"

"Well, for one thing," Tattletale said. "It fucking sucks to be her right now…"

"And we'd better wait for Jim, to explain the rest," Grue said.

"Indeed," Blinky said. "But perhaps we should sit down and await Master Jim, rather than standing in the foyer." Meanwhile, Regent was sitting down on their couch, and rummaging through Jim's games.

"Foyer?" Regent shook his head. "Should I take my shoes off?" he asked.

You are all really not making a good impression, Claire thought. On the other hand, from Grue's stance, he looked like he agreed with her.

"Hey guys," Jim said. "I found Orb Weaver." Next to him, Taylor stood in her costume, looking out at them through her goggles.

Tattletale's grin grew. "Small world." She turned serious as they walked to the table and sat down. "Okay, first warning. You cannot talk to anyone in the PRT about this. Like, at all. Coil has all their code words, everything."

Jim shrugged. "He might be surprised."

"No, no he won't." Lisa said. Now her voice was grim. "Coil recruited me when I first showed up in the Bay, gun to the head, silver or lead, the whole thing. I recruited the rest of the Undersiders, but they didn't know everything about our boss. He paid us to do little jobs, and after the Lung thing, decided that maybe we should go hero."

"A crime lord," Claire said.

"Yeah, because when you've taken the Bay over, having some 'heroes' on your payroll can be useful," Tattletale said. "But here's the thing. I know how Coil's power works. Or sort of. He wanted me to find out some things about it. I wasn't able to figure if he was doing precog, or actually choosing from alternate realities, but he has two timelines. He can do what he wants in each timeline, and then choose the one where it works out."

Claire blinked. "How is that…"

"Parahuman power bullshit?" Tattletale shrugged. "But it's…"

"You get two shots of winning a fight," Jim said. "That's scary."

"It's way underselling what he does. Sometimes, Coil knew things, things I thought were secret," Tattletale looked a little ill. "Because, if you have two timelines… Why not just have one where you're talking to your minion and the other one where you're pulling her fingernails out while you're asking questions."

"What?" Claire asked.

"Yeah, I can't be sure, but he keeps the information from each timeline, so I bet all he does is goes and tortures the people he needs to get info from… No need for double agents with a paper trail. No need for a virus that might leave signs. He knows that Dragon is vetting the PRT's information because he assured me it wouldn't be a problem." Suddenly there was no smile on her face at all. "I bet that he's had… special time with you two, as well."

Claire started feeling ill. Like someone who keeps saving in a game so they can always go back… Suddenly those fun bits where they just said 'forget about the goal' and ran around shooting everyone they could before the cops got them didn't seem as fun.

"So how does this involve Dinah?" Jim asked.

Tayl—no, Orb Weaver was sitting, just… still. Creepily so, with no sign of that awkward enjoyment she'd been displaying a few hours ago.

"He fucked up. He had his two shots, but he… changed, collapsed, whatever the hell he does, after she got Butchered. He wanted her because she was a precog and now he has a precog gunning for him, along with the rest of the Teeth…" Tattletale smiled. "But I know how we can get her, and take down Coil, once and for all.

"And you are doing this out of the goodness of your heart." Blinky frowned. "Forgive me, Lady, ah, Tattletale, but we have had experience with those willing to betray their benefactors. Sometimes, they are honest, but sometimes…"

"Coil had something for us all," Tattletale said. "I can't say it, but well, none of us had a lot of options. But now…"

"Now we do," Grue said. "If we keep doing what we're doing, we might be able to become Protectorate affiliated."

"And the thing is, Coil isn't exactly someone who I trust," Tattletale continued. "What if he needs some heroes to go bad in the future…"

"He has you," Jim said. "But what's to keep him from using his power to mess with us?"

"Simple. He's running scared. Coil isn't great at thinking on his feet, not like me."

Says the woman who needs our help to get out from under her boss, Claire thought, and Tattletale's smile grew a little fixed.

"But a precog coming for him, one with the Butcher's other powers and the Teeth? He's keeping one of his… futures, timelines, whatever, safe. Far away from his other timeline so there's no chance they'll both get caught and that means…"

"He can't use them for anything else," Orb Weaver nodded. "But if one was killed, the other one would be free to act, which means we need both of them."

"Or…" Tattletale smirked. "A way to get to both of them."

"And how do we do that?" Claire asked.

"That's… A work in progress right now, dependent on us getting Dinah." Tattletale frowned. "Coil really wants his pet-precog and if we can convince him that we've got her…"

"He'd probably drop the safe component of his power so he could use it to its full extent. There'd be a period where he would be vulnerable…" Orb Weaver leaned forward.

"Yeah. He'd be really eager to put Dinah into a little box for his use…" Tattletale said.

Orb Weaver went still, staring at Tattletale.

What is… Oh. Oh, shit, Claire thought.

"You know who I am. Does Coil?"

"I haven't told him," Tattletale said.

Grue looked shook his head, his motion annoyed. "You just finished telling us that sometimes he probably tortures you." the Undersider's leader said.

"I…" Now Tattletale's smile had gone sort of fixed, staring at Orb Weaver. Claire could hear some rumbling outside, sort of like some pissed off bugs.

"Would that include my family?"

Grue muttered something like "…really fucked the dog hard, here…"

"I don't… Look, I didn't intend to tell anyone, or use it, but—" Tattletale paused. "Normally, the rules say that you unmask to each other if there's an…" She smiled, sort of. "I mean, it beats being eaten by bugs, right?"

"I'm thinking about it."

"You're really hard to read, I can't tell, how are you…"

"Fine."

"Good," Claire said. "Bathroom, and I'll be there as well."

"But you're an open cape!" Tattletale said.

"And you know where to find me, so we'll be even," Claire said. "Also, we can have some girl talk."

At that, Orb Weaver twitched but said nothing else as Claire started pushing them into the back.

Blinky shook his head. "So!" he cheerfully said. "I do have some snacks left over. Is—"

Regent, from his position on the couch, playing the game that he hadn't asked Claire and Jim if he could play, thank you very much, raised his hand.

Nope, I need to have some girl talk between the Woman With No Filter, and the Biblical Plague she annoyed. Then I can think about what to do about the other guy.

"So," Jim said. "She has a plan?"

"Yeah," Grue replied. "It's a good plan… I think. If Tats can get inside Dinah's head, we should be able to get her, and then…"

Get inside the teleporting, superstrong, blood seeing, has a bunch of homicidal personalities screaming in her ear, precog's head. Jim wasn't certain that qualified as a 'good plan'.

"Sorry if I don't unmask," Grue said. "But I've got family as well, and if this goes bad, I'm just grabbing the money I can, my family, and getting the hell out."

"Makes sense," Jim said. "So part II, after we get Dinah?"

Grue fell silent for a moment. "That's where Panacea and Glory Girl come into play."

"You do know that Panacea's on the outs with her family."

"Yeah. Tats said she was depending on it."

"And also, nobody is going to let her get anywhere near the Butcher until we have her."

"Yeah. What's why we're going to get some help."

"From who?" Jim felt his reserve cracking. It didn't hurt that Grue also looked tense. Does he have to deal with this all the time? Poor guy.

"Ever heard of Faultline's Crew?"

Oh great. The sort of criminal merc group. 'I'm sorry, Director Piggot, see you were compromised, and I know I promised not to go off the reservation again, but this was totally important and I promise it will never happen again… until it does, because well, so far I'm not doing real good keeping this particular promise.'

When did I start missing goblin hunts where all they wanted to do was kill me?