Lim’s face appeared on the screen. I couldn’t even guess where he was—someplace dark that wasn’t his office, for sure. The grey marble behind him and the hint of light reflecting from it suggested that he might be outside.

The polished marble in particular would fit with being in Washington D.C. or a suburb with federal buildings. Lim could easily have been mobilized by the AIs to take down one of the Nine’s outposts.

The helmet and armored black vest with the letters “FBI” on the front told me it wasn’t a normal day at the office. On the other hand, I didn’t hear shouts or gunshots through the connection.

“Rocket,” he said, “you’ve been busy.”

“Sorry I didn’t let you know,” I said, my implant translating my thoughts into speech for the comm system. 

“We got what I assumed was your information about who the Nine controlled in the Bureau, local Nine bases, and influenced figures… There were even triggers to use and who they were connected to,” Lim said. “It was the most complete information on the Nine’s locations and assets that I’ve ever seen.”

He paused, “If that wasn’t you, who was it?”

“We,” I began, deciding that I did not want to explain Hal’s friends, “have a connection with a group that got into the Nine’s systems. They distributed information to the right people for the right task.”

Lim nodded. “I’d say so. I knew it wasn’t you personally, but there had to be a connection. Some of what we got was the Nine’s internal documents. Not everyone could get those. I thought you might be able to. Not only that, a lot of people got directions with a very specific time, order of operations, and the person to handle it. As long as people followed directions, it was easy. I’ve seen reports from all over the world at this point. It’s a crazy amount of detail. Was Lee involved?”

“With part of it,” I said, because Lim didn’t need the full story, “ but not everything. You know about the League jet’s AI and it was designed to simulate battles to find the optimal combination of tactics and strategy? Feed it enough information and you get good results.”

Sighing, Lim said, “I can’t say I entirely trust an alien AI, but you’re playing to its strengths. We can’t know for sure, but if everywhere went as well as it did here, this might be the end of them. Where are you, by the way?”

“The Nine’s headquarters, specifically, their submarine base. I’ll pass along the exact location after we’re done.” I had my implant make a note to remind me to ask Hal if he had a specific plan for when to notify governments about the base.

Of course, given that we had Cabal soldiers fighting other Cabal soldiers above us, the fight may have already been triangulated by earthquake researchers.

That thought prompted another note to my implant to check on how everything on the surface was going. The vampires would have to stay out of direct sunlight.

Lim muttered something and shook his head. “I know we were riddled with the Nine’s assets here in D.C., but it’s a gut punch to have missed out on that.”

I shrugged. “Sorry. If it’s any consolation, we’re in international waters right now, but the Nine being the Nine, I’d bet there are strings tied to some country. By missing out, you’re probably avoiding an international incident. Maybe you can get in on whatever muti-national task force they send in after we’re done.”

Lim snorted. “Unless you stick around the submarine base, probably not. I’m in the middle of a couple of different operations related to the Nine’s assets at the moment. Anyway, I thought I’d check in for where you fit in with all of this and if I was right in guessing I’d been left out of the loop.”

“Sorry,” I began.

“Don’t worry about it. Supers specialize in doing what we can’t and I’ve been expecting you to go up against the Nine soon. I just didn’t expect it to be on this scale. You already had international visibility, but after this… Well, expect more international calls and not all of them will be friendly.

“I don’t mean to rain on your parade. I don’t know how you did it, but between you and your allies, I think you may have just taken down the biggest criminal organization in the world.

“Anyone who plans to replace them will have you in their crosshairs. On the other hand, they may also fear getting your attention and given what I’ve seen today, they’ll be right. Crap. I got a text just now… I can’t tell you any details without permission, but someone following Hal’s instructions hit the jackpot. I’ve got to go. No, wait—”

“What?” I asked.

Shaking his head, Lim said, “I’m an idiot. The main reason I called you to today was because of Ray. After we picked up his body, the Xiniti contacted us, insisted that we hand him over, and that we wouldn’t tell you until today, but not until dawn in D.C. Does any of that make sense to you?”

“Kinda, yeah,” I said.

He stared into the camera. “Is it ever going to make sense to me?”

“Let’s hope not.”

He nodded, “Right. I probably shouldn’t ask, but did someone change the nature of reality when I wasn’t looking? Combine a bunch of universes? Destroy a universe? Absorb a universe or two and now we’re going to have a bunch of new teams and villains that we think always existed?”

“Uh… None of those specifically. Has that ever happened?” I did my best to keep my voice even and unworried.

“I can’t talk about it,” he said, “but I will say that I’m sure it would be a huge pain in the ass if it did.”