Aloud, I said, “The Nine are sending someone for Jody. I’m getting more details. Be ready to fight.”

Everyone turned toward the windows. To give credit to their base’s designers, the conference room had a great view—windows on all four sides and even the ceiling.

You’d definitely see it coming if you were about to be attacked. On the not-so-bright side, you’d better hope the windows weren’t made of glass.

Via implant, I thought back to Hal, “What details do you have? Everybody will want them.”

He didn’t answer in words. He sent a file of information from my bots. As expected, he’d done a good job of placing them, managing to find what appeared to be the island’s command center.

A room filled with at least 20 people, laptops, and many screens, some hanging on the walls, it reminded me of a call center or a military command center. Our base had a smaller version in a larger room.

Fitting the military image, most people wore green uniforms that could pass for suits or dress uniforms. Where it didn’t quite fit the image came from what the other people were wearing. A few of the guards wore green camouflage, but the rest wore black powered armor shaped like a humanoid crow.

If we weren’t clear on who exactly they worked for, the number nine stood on the left side of the wearer’s chest, over their heart, according to common belief, if not quite in reality.  

One wore black powered armor that I’d seen all too recently—Rook’s armor. I had no reason to think he’d died, but he didn’t need to reappear so soon after ejecting from his smashed spaceship.

If his reappearance made me unhappy, I was still better off than the uniformed henchman that Rook pointed a sharp beak and hooked claw at, his voice raising as he said, “Everything is important right now. Half a message from a Grand Lake asset is several times more important than anything else!”

The henchman, the ribbons and medals on his chest indecipherable to my eyes, appeared to be in his 50s. If the block of colors on his chest represented medals, ribbons, and badges, he’d done a lot for the Nine throughout his life.

Whatever accomplishments they represented still didn’t prevent him from being screamed at by a guy in a bird costume.

Despite Rook waving a hooked claw in his face, the man answered, his voice steady and deliberate, “Sir, I notified Number 1 of the communication attempt as I was commanded. I’d been told that Number 1’s protege was exclusively his responsibility and that no one else was to interact with him without permission.”

Rook lowered his claw to the man’s jacket, placing it just above the henchman’s heart—the middle of the man’s chest but a bit to his left and Rook’s right. If the current version of Rook’s claws included monomolecular blade technology, he’d be able rip it out without any resistance.

From the tightening around the man’s mouth, I guessed that Rook might well have done it as a demonstration.

Matching the henchman’s outward calm and steady speech, Rook said, “I’m aware, as is everyone else, that we’re not to interact with his protege without permission, but I didn’t want to interact. I’ve left standing orders that I be notified if any moves are made against our assets in Grand Lake, and I was not notified of this and had to find out on my own. Tell me, what was the message?”

Glancing down at Rook’s claw, the henchman met his eye and said, “It wasn’t even a message. The asset opened a communications channel and then closed it without saying anything. I informed Number 1, and then you came in. We haven’t yet had an opportunity to follow up.”

I checked the timestamp on the recording, reversing my view to the point before Rook burst into the room and began shouting. Comparing the timestamp of when the henchman ordered another uniformed man to notify Magnus to the last few minutes in my life, I narrowed the communication attempt to when we were chasing Jody across the lawn.

In a sense, it was amazing he had time to even make that small attempt to call them, but he was a speedster. It wasn’t impossible that he’d called as Izzy blasted him unconscious.

That was one more thing that we either had to wipe from his logs or explain in Jody’s false memory of a training exercise. Plus, if we got the info out of Jody’s comm, we could call Magnus.

Moving my attention back to the conversation, I found the end of it. Another henchman ran up (this one didn’t have a chestful of ribbons) and said, “Number 1 said to send in a team to extract the asset or kill him, if extraction isn’t possible.”

Letting the scene fade from view, I looked outside again, checking in all directions without seeing anything special. In a sense, I shouldn’t, because barely any time had passed, but they had more options for teleportation than just Victor.

Plus, they might have assets in Grand Lake.

Dayton was talking into the comm on the sleeve of his costume, “All of our defenses are up, right?”

From the other end, a voice said, “Pretty much. We don’t have the telepathy blocker on.”

Dayton looked over at Daniel and said, “Keep it off.”

I asked, “What about teleportation blockers?”

Talking into his comm, Dayton asked, “Teleportation blockers are up, right?”

“Yeah,” said the voice, “full levels.”

Unless Justice Fist’s staff were already compromised, the situation appeared to only be a normal level of bad as opposed to catastrophic.