I tip back a bag of nuts and roll up to the projected map in the conference room. The others have been doing their best to keep it updated from news reports, radio broadcasts, and personal observation. Pharmedica's in control of most of Downtown, the Dream Enforcers have taken over three quarters of Cherry, the Butterflies are pressed up against the western quarter of Cherry and the bit of West Forchester enclosed by the force field, and Dillan's Fist of Derring-Do has control of Parkville. Uptown is contested, with chunks belonging to Pharmedica, the Fist, and the police. Vista Grande is firmly in police control, of course, though Pharmedica is making slow progress there as well. Then there are the pockets of Hemopalooza along the southern edge of Downtown. And around it all, the circular border of the force field.

I shake my head and pull my mask down over my mouth before I turn to face the room. "We've got five main problems. The force field and how to bring it down safely. The rest of Pharmedica. The gang war. Hemopalooza. And," I say with a nod to Cupid, "whatever the hell Rob is up to with you guys."

"Hey!" says Buckler. "We're holding back the tide, man!"

"How? Where'd you get the manpower to hold Parkville?"

Buckler and Cupid don't respond, but Paula tilts her head. "They've been recruiting. Normal people, mostly, but we know the Cueballs were already taking in stray supers before, and when we ran into Hemopalooza, these two already knew what was going on with the serum. So we can assume they've been dosing people too, just like Pharmedica."

Cupid flushes. "We ain't nothing like Pharmedica! What we do is voluntary and we warn people first!"

Hannah nods. "So does Pharmedica, now. That's all she meant."

Cupid opens his mouth, but I interrupt. "So it's a superpowered arms race between the Fist, Pharmedica, and Hemopalooza, who are maybe friendly with Pharmedica. Have the Enforcers or the Flies figured it out yet?"

Everybody shakes their heads. "They think we're still using the needles we stole from Pharmedica," says Cupid. "We used those up already." He raises his sleeve to show a bandage. "We're doing it the hard way now. A lot of people want the chance to be heroes and make a difference, even if it's risky. We're doing good things, Wheels."

Hanna squints at him through her improvised mask. She traded out her respirator while I was at the vending machine. "You have qualms."

"We're doing good things."

Hannah frowns. "Stop using your power on me, Cupid."

"What did I say earlier?" snarls Paula as her hair ignites.

Cupid raises his hands. "Sorry! Reflex. It's hard to hold it in sometimes, you know?"

Paula glares for a moment, then snuffs her hair with a chuckle. "It is, isn't it?"

Hannah nods and continues. "I believe that you're doing good things. But is that all you're doing? Field Goal and his inner circle don't make you suspicious? They don't cross the line, or keep secrets, or manipulate the rest of the group?"

Buckler stands with a scowl, but Cupid sighs and pulls him back down. "No, man, she's right." He turns back to us. "Those guys are up to something. I didn't want to believe it, but the more I see the less I trust 'em. But they aren't the Fist. We got a lot of people now. People who want to do good things."

"Fair enough," I say with a nod and a sense of relief. We've reached him. "Halon, can you work with Cupid, Buckler, and Dillan to help them clench the Fist? We need to make sure they've got their newbies in hand so we can pull the rug out from under Rob's feet when this is all over, or maybe before then depending on what the Cueballs are up to."

"Sure."

I turn back to the map. "The biggest issue right now is the force field. It cuts us off from help, lets Pharmedica throttle our resources, and carries the threat of a sudden collapse if they think they're losing. That'd bring lots of flooding, wrecked stuff, and dead folks. If necessary, we can ignore the gang war for now. It's mainly confined to Cherry, and if we can get the Fist cleaned up and on board, we should be able to stomp 'em good after. But I wonder if we can use this, somehow." A big part of how I shattered Hemopalooza the first time around was by manipulating the gangs. Particularly the Butterflies; the Dream Enforcers and Hemopalooza were already in inherent conflict. Hemopalooza didn't like the Flies either, but the Flies are a tough nut and tended to keep to themselves. I changed that. It involved a fair bit of sabotage, trickery, and advice from Hannah to get them to really go at each other, but once they did it created openings for the Dream Enforcers to attack Hemopalooza's flanks, and in the ensuing chaos the Hemothugs started making mistakes -- mistakes I exploited hard until every single member of their leadership was dead or behind bars. Then to avoid any comebacks, I made sure that all of their resources were either destroyed, confiscated, or taken by other gangs. And it worked, up until all this contagious superhuman insanity gave them a new angle to play. "Any ideas, Hannah?"

"I don't have enough grasp on the situation," she says. "We think the Butterflies were working with Pharmedica before, since they weren't targeted by the illegal testing. But Pharmedica and the Butterflies seem pretty hostile now, and there's at least one Dream Enforcer among Pharmedica's current forces. The Enforcers also had some kind of alliance with the Cueballs just before the attack on City Hall, but the Cueballs are clearly working against Pharmedica. I can't make enough sense of this to manipulate them yet."

"Right. Then we leave the gangs for later, but keep an eye out for patterns." I tap on the big circle encompassing most of the map. "Meanwhile, this force field needs to be my focus. Flame, you and Spook are going to be working with me on this one. We need to either find out where Heels is, or find a way to punch enough holes in the force field that she gives up on trying to maintain it."

"The force field's perimeter doesn't move," says Hannah. "Operator's tracked it. And it's stronger than the one they used at City Hall. We've thrown everything we could think of at it with no measurable changes beyond some shimmer when we hit it with a car."

I nod. "And it's holding back the full fury of the Tonbosa River, to boot. I assume Spook already tried sweeping a bunch of radio frequencies?"

"Yeah," says Hannah. "Including x-rays, thanks to Tamara. It seems like it's very specifically permitting only the visible spectrum, and absorbing everything else. Not even a reflection."

"Absorption. Hmm. How much power have you tried pumping into it?"

She shrugs. "You'd have to ask them or check the notes, but the biggest thing we tried fit in the back of a van."

I shake my head. "Not practical to overpower, then. Do we know if it's a full sphere or just a dome?"

"Sphere," says Paula. "One of the news programs said some geology students holed up at Tonbosa U. did the seismography."

"So, no tunneling under." I turn to Cupid. "What about you guys?"

"Um..."

"You mess with emotions, right? Does your power go through? Can you feel or affect people on the other side?"

"I don't feel people in the first place. I just bend emotions. Haven't tried reaching through it."

"Alright, test it when you can. What about the others? Buckler, you make shields or something? Can you make them on the other side? And what if they intersect with it?" Buckler shrugs. "Other people in the Fist?" They both shrug, and I groan in frustration. "Have any of you even tried to probe this thing? What are you even-"

Hannah bounces a crumpled up piece of paper off my head before my rant can gain momentum. "Cut the newbies some slack, Wheels."

I pause, then take a deep breath. "Right, sorry. But when you guys get a chance, I want everyone to see how the force field reacts to your powers. We might get some insight about how to break it."

"Field Goal," says Cupid suddenly. "I dunno if his power can get through, but I mean, gravity, right? We ain't exactly floatin'."

I snap my fingers. "Yes! Good catch. So it's permeable to visible light and gravity. Not sure how we can use that, but maybe it'll lead somewhere. Other ideas?" I turn to Hannah and Paula. "What about the magnetic field? Do compasses still work?"

Hannah shakes her head. "Joe's compass just lists aimlessly unless there's metal nearby, and it doesn't react to metal on the other side of the field."

"Okay. Other than power-interactions, I have no ideas on cracking this thing yet that don't involve big explosions or building sized laser installations. Gotta attack it from the other end, so let's talk Pharmedica. Heels hasn't been seen since I fought her the other night?"

"Heels?" asks Cupid. "That's the chick with the invisible shoves? We ran into her a couple times. Why?"

"She's the one making the force field."

"I've seen her push stuff away from her, but I haven't seen her do anything like that."

"She can only do one at a time. Every time she changed the force field around City Hall, she got rid of the old one first. So as long as she's holding up the one around the city, we don't think she can make others."

Cupid frowns. "That doesn't make sense. Why would they risk her? She's a good fighter and all, but it doesn't seem worth it..."

"What do you mean?" asks Buckler.

"If she's all that's keeping that force field up, why bring her into fights? If she dies, they lose the force field. Then all those soldiers piling up outside get to back us up."

I nod. "That's a very good point. They should be keeping her hidden somewhere."

"Are you sure it's her doing it?"

I tilt my head. "It seemed like it, but... No, I think you're right. These guys are sneaky. They knew where the police snipers were. Burnscar was clever with his displacement illusion, and Heels also had an illusion that threw off her proportions slightly. When the Fist showed up, they could have fled right away but they stuck around just long enough for Dillan to heal the ones I'd hurt. Their teamwork wasn't great in the one fight I saw, but their planning was spot on. Heels must be a decoy. It fits better." I glare at the map and think. If Heels isn't making the force field, then taking her out won't help. Gotta find whoever is making it. Step one will be sticking a tracker on a Pharmedican to see where they're teleporting to all the time...

Hannah frowns. "Speaking of illusions, didn't you say you saw the Fist shrinking when they flew away after the fight?" I nod and she turns to Cupid. "What was up with that?"

"That's Stage Assistant. She's... kind of weird. Just a disembodied voice. She does these illusion tricks to help us hide sometimes, or gives us tips about where Pharmedica are going to be, but she won't help us in a fight and mostly isn't around."

I glance quickly around the room looking for distortions or shimmers, but I don't see anything. "She's invisible?"

"She's a ghost. She doesn't have a body anymore."

"So she could be here right now listening in."

He shrugs. "I guess. I don't think she really follows people. I get the impression she just wanders around the city and lets us know if she spots stuff. She's kind of... not all there."

Paula snuffs a small flame she'd been playing with and looks at Cupid. "Where'd she come from? How'd you recruit her?"

"All I know is she came with Field Goal's crew, but they don't really treat her like she's one of them."

"Probably not Jones, then. Somebody new. Speaking of Jones, what's going on with the rest of the Cueballs? Jones, Jacob, and Tom. They aren't in the Fist?"

He shakes his head. "I think Tom might have died? And the other two left town."

"When?" I demand.

"I don't know? A day or so before the attack on City Hall?"

"No. I ran into the Cueballs that afternoon. Rob, Jones, and Jacob, and they had Cassie and Terence with them. If they left Forchester, it had to be in those few hours between then and the attack."

"How have the Cueballs behaved regarding them?" asks Hannah.

"I dunno. What do you mean?"

"Are they sad their friends are gone? Stressed? Frustrated? Ambivalent?"

He shrugs and looks at Buckler. "They don't really talk about them," says Buckler, "but they don't seem upset at all. Except maybe about Tom, but that seems kind of..."

"Forced?" says Cupid, and Buckler nods.

Hanna squints. "There's something going on there. I think those three aren't gone, but they want everyone to believe otherwise."

"Why?" asks Paula. "What do they gain?"

"Subterfuge," I mutter, remembering my own strategy against Hemopalooza. "Those three are doing something in secret. Manipulating events somehow. Rob's doing all this for a reason." I look at Cupid. "The obvious angle with joining the Fist is manpower to help him seek vengeance against Pharmedica, and to keep him in power afterward. But all of the Cueballs were at Pharmedica; they should all have powers, and even without powers Jacob and Jones are tough, skilled fighters. So whatever they're up to must be more valuable than their direct assistance in fighting Pharmedica. How can they provide that level of assistance? By undermining Pharmedica. They've infiltrated it."

Paula twirls a flame around her hand, then shakes her head. "No. The Fist is struggling too hard. The more we learn, the less sense this makes. They're recruiting existing supers, creating new supers, using Stage Assistant to spy on Pharmedica, and they've got agents planted among Pharmedica's ranks? Yet they keep having meaningless fights where Pharmedica inevitably teleports away as soon as the Fist gains the upper hand? And at no point does all this intel allow the Fist to identify and disable their teleporter, or set up an ambush at their hidey hole, or otherwise do anything meaningful? I don't buy it."

"Hey!" says Cupid. "We've made them bleed! And we've killed several of them! I... I personally..."

"Sure," says Paula with a wave of her hand. "They've had some losses. But were any of those people important? Does it ever seem to slow them down?"

"It's... it's only been a few days."

"Oh," I say with a sinking feeling. "I understand now."

"Hmm?" says Paula.

"I mentioned that Heels had an illusion to distort her proportions? Made it harder to hit her exactly where I intended?"

"Yeah."

"She wasn't just distorting things. Her fighting style was familiar. She's Jones. It's a full disguise, not a distortion."

"But then that would mean... the real Heels. She did die in that attack on her transport, like the police thought."

"Yeah, and probably Burnscar too. He's the one making the illusion, after all. I bet he's Tom or Jacob. I didn't really get to fight him, so I'm not... no, wait. He's probably Tom. He spoke once or twice, and it wasn't Jacob's voice. Nowhere near deep enough. Unless the illusion isn't just visual."

"Okay," says Hannah. "But what Flame was saying about intel..."

Paula shakes her head. "I was wrong. Bad premise. Why have we been believing that these guys really are Pharmedica? What evidence did we have? Just their own word, the syringes that bestowed powers, and that pair of known Pharmedica employees. But now we know the syringes aren't anything special, and if those two aren't the real Heels and Burnscar..."

Hannah's eyes widen. "That explains everything!"

"I don't follow," says Buckler, and Cupid doesn't look like he's faring much better.

"Rob's playing both sides," I say to them. "He set up this fake Pharmedica to be the bad guys, and he set up the Fist to be the heroes."

"Why?"

Hannah sighs. "We know he's very anti-establishment. He was probably like that to begin with, but the city's corruption and collusion with the real Pharmedica pushed him over the edge. He can't trust the government anymore, and he's not content to coexist. What he's doing could be a ploy to amass power for a revolution or something along those lines."

I nod. "Toppling a government is hard, so he needs an army and supporters, and he needs time to set it up. So, he built Fakemedica as a scapegoat. They can be blamed for trapping Forchester in this force field and for executing his revenge on the mayor and his cadre."

"Yeah," says Hannah. "And then he can step in as a hero and exploit the fear and confusion to unify people under his brand of extremism. Convince them he's got the answers and the power to strike back against the oppressors."

"And meanwhile, the force field maintains the pressure and keeps the outside world from interfering."

"Also," adds Paula, "since he's got control over both groups, he can stack the deck and make sure that things don't get too lethal, letting him use the fights as a way to train his troops. If things start going badly for either side, he just calls a retreat, and Dillan can cure the wounds. That even works for the other side, since they could use Tom's illusions to present themselves as random civilians."

I look back at the map and another thing clicks. "The Dream Enforcers. A plan like this needs a lot of manpower to kick off, and most of the Cueballs are in the Fist. Who are the other Fakemedicans? We know Zappy used to be an Enforcer. Maybe the rest were too. I bet Rob used them to pad out the Fakemedican ranks until they could get their own recruitment going."

Hannah nods. "It fits. And since Rob's playing both sides, he can keep the rest of the Dream Enforcers out of it, freeing them up for their war with the Butterflies."

"What about Mrs. Williams?" says Cupid.

"Who?"

"Amanda Williams. The Hemopaloozer Pharmedica had working for them before I- before. She's gone now. But if Pharmedica are mostly Dream Enforcers, there's no way they'd accept a Hemapaloozer."

"Never heard of her," says Paula. "How known was she? Maybe they didn't recognize her."

Cupid frowns and looks at Buckler, then shrugs. "She mostly kept it to herself, but she was helping them sort out their money or something. I only knew because I was dating her daughter and noticed stuff. But I didn't have any proof, and... and she was scary, man. I got out of there. And then a year later..." He looks at Buckler again.

"She was there," his friend mutters. "When they got my sister. Her mask slipped off in the fighting. I looked her in the eyes as she..." He swears quietly, then looks at me. "You rescued me. You didn't get there in time for Kathy, but I was next, and then you were there. Never got to say thanks. Sort of. Sorry. Still kind of pissed off. Forty seconds sooner, maybe twenty, and she'd still be here. Pisses me off."

"Sure," I say carefully. I'm not certain, but I think I remember what he's talking about. "This was behind Chestermart? In the winter?"

"Yeah."

"Uhg. That one was a mess. They kind of all are, but that one... Uhg. I think the cops got all of them, that time? Except the tall guy. So that was probably how she got nabbed by Pharmedica. The real Pharmedica."

Paula nods. "I remember reading about that one in the paper. I'm sure they printed her name, but there were so many being arrested by then. Wouldn't be surprising if nobody recognized her, especially if she was one of the ones who bothered with a mask before."

"You know," I say, "when I was fighting them, it seemed like Butch and Coach really hated and distrusted each other. In hindsight, Coach is black and Butch is white. Maybe they do know who they are."

"Yet they're working together," muses Hannah. "Not mind control, or you wouldn't have noticed. Coercion of some sort? Common threat? Flame, you said those Hemos you fought were a mixed group. Old habits die hard, but if Butch was willing to reluctantly go along with their new doctrine, that explains him. More generally, if they aren't in on the charade, then 'Pharmedica' would seem to be right in line with Hemopalooza's new agenda of 'cleansing' or 'upgrading' everybody's blood. But Coach, hmm..." She stares at the ceiling for a few moments, then nods. "Powers. That has to be it. Powers are a huge game-changer. If the Dream Enforcers don't know the serums are just blood, I can see them biting their tongues and holding a truce with Hemopalooza until they could steal a batch for themselves, or get the Hemopalooza members killed off..." She nods sharply. "That's it. Pharmedica would have to have some losses for the charade to be credible, and they have. If we dig into it, I'll bet my brakes nearly everyone the Fist has killed will turn out to be Hemopalooza."

"Hmm," I say, rubbing my chin through my mask. "So if we leak the truth about the serums, the Enforcers lose most of their incentive to tolerate Hemopalooza. What about their link to the Cueballs? Would the Enforcers break out of Fakemedica entirely?"

Hannah nods. "I think so. Hemopalooza and the Cueballs know, while the Enforcers don't. If we spin it right, we could make it look like the Cueballs trusted Hemopalooza more than the Enforcers. They won't be able to handle that."

I grin. "And if we spill the beans about the Cueballs and Dream Enforcers treating Hemopalooza as expendable, ensuring that they take all the casualties, we can break that alliance as well. If we can get most of the Fist's new members onto Team Cupid before that and then show Rob's true colors at the same time, we can totally upend this whole situation."

"What happens to Pharmedica's recruits?" asks Cupid. "The ones who ain't in on all this?"

"Good question," says Hannah. "With the Fist providing a more upstanding alternative, most of the folks at Pharmedica's recruitment drives have been kind of... skeevy. Power-hungry, iffy morals, desperate, that kind of thing. Most will probably follow the Enforcers out since they offer a similar kind of salve for insecurity. The sketchier ones who really buy into the powered-supremacy overtones Pharmedica have been giving off will go with the new Hemopalooza. I don't see many siding with the Cueballs; the way they're playing both sides will feel like a betrayal."

Hmm. "So essentially we'd be shifting most of Fakemedica's firepower into the Dream Enforcers, who'd then be in a two-front war with the Butterflies and Hemopalooza. The Cueballs would be left with a lot of enemies and no Fist or Fakemedica to back them up, but they'd still have their Force Field of Damocles strangling the city and no real incentive not to just drop the field out of spite and then flee to start over in Mexico."

Hannah shakes her head. "It would be worse than that. We've had a few days of the water rising outside, and people have mostly gotten out of the way. The damage would be pretty bad, but not many would die. The real danger is that they could get some oxygen tanks for themselves, seal off the whole force field, and then light some big fires. That would kill everyone, not just the stubborn people who refuse to evacuate the flood zone."

"Right... So, what I was saying about prioritizing the force field stands. We need to see if anyone else has powers that are useful for putting holes in it, or else track down whoever's responsible and make them take it down, one way or another. So. Flame, Spook, and I will work on that, while Halon gives Cupid a hand with the Fist and figures out the best way to inform folks when it's time to pull back the curtains."

Everyone seems to be in agreement, so I use my good arm to pull up a chair next to Paula and read more of Joe's notes while Hannah, Paula, Cupid, and Buckler discuss the particulars of the Fist. All that talking and thinking took a toll on my healing body, though, and soon I pass out again.