Dyantyi shouldered his way into Rai's penthouse suite, their makeshift base of operations. He'd objected at centering their activity somewhere so visible, but Rai had shrugged off his concerns with her usual impunity and hunkered down there. It had been three days and her bed still looked entirely untouched, feeding Dyantyi's pet theory that the woman didn't sleep.

  "You're twelve minutes late," she said, hidden from Dyantyi as he ducked into the bathroom to wash the still-oozing wound on his arm.

  "I got held up." He was out a minute later, applying fresh gauze to the gouge on his shoulder. He stumbled to a stop at the sight of Maldonado, and some fidgety minion of hers, seated at the conference table Rai had set up in the suite's living room.

  "Hello," Maldonado chirped, prim and polite as always. She was dressed impeccably, a senior executive wearing a thousand-dollar haircut and a shark's smile. The man at her side was close to the opposite: visibly out of shape, in a flannel and cargo shorts, eyes baggy and nailbeds picked raw.

  Rai sat across from them, statuesque, one eyebrow crooked in amusement at Ditantyi's wound. "Busy night?"

  "Why's she here?" Dyantyi nodded toward Maldonado, whose grin widened.

  "Thrilled to see you too," Maldonado cooed.

  "She's promoted. Senior strategy analyst. Meet your coworker." Rai said this casually, as if remarking on the weather, but Dyantyi knew she was all too aware how rankled he'd be by this news. He resolved not to let it show too much.

  "Isn't her whole specialty intel? What happened to compartmentalization?"

  "Well, when you threaten a major government official and a famously indiscrete billionaire with death via your brian powers, some of your security hygiene has already gone out the window," Maldonado said.

  "She's speaking for you now?"

  "I know you don't trust her. Frankly, neither do I," Rai said, directly to Maldonado's face. To her credit, the woman seemed to take this in stride. "But she's proven herself to be a one-in-a-billion analytical talent and it would be a misstep not to implement her on the ground while her allegiances still align with ours."

  "And her friend?"

  "Field expert," Maldonado said, before the man beside her could think to speak. "Working mostly under me. No need for formal introductions."

  Dyantyi made a mental note to dig into the guy's identity when he had a second. He turned his attention back to Rai. "Got good news and bad news."

  "Don't patronize me," Rai warned. "Bad news first."

  Dyantyi rolled his shoulder, felt his wound protest at the motion. "We're losing Murderers faster than initially predicted. I still think that singling out Phoenix's operation, since they're our most widespread, unified competition here, was the right call. And his base-level grunts are the pushovers we expected them to be. But we undershot how strong his Apostles are."

  "Losses?" Rai said. "Don't be vague. Quantify."

  "Sixteen today. Thirty-eight since day one."

  Maldonado let out a low whistle, as if she wasn't already intimately aware of this. Dyantyi glared at her.

  Rai's composure was unwavering. "That is quite bad news."

  "It's a sixty-six percent reduction in your offense," Maldonado added.

  "Well, if you're just counting bodies, sure," Dyantyi fired back. "But these aren't normal soldiers. Our survivors and winners often eat and absorb the losses, and their firepower grows proportionate to that."

  "I know. I took that into account." Maldonado said, slow and even, like she was explaining the times tables to a particularly slow first grader. "It's over eighty percent if you're counting personnel." The woman's assistant glanced from her to Dyantyi like a kid stuck between a pair of quarreling parents.

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  "How'd this happen?" Rai asked.

  "Like I said, we underestimated the Apostles." Dyantyi fought the urge to look away, to show any sort of weakness here. "Once we instructed active Murderers to go for regular acolytes instead of the big dogs, Phoenix's men started setting up bait traps, using their lower-ranked combatants to lure fighters in toward ambushes with Apostles lying in wait. It was effective, briefly, before we caught on. If-"

  "How many of those losses come from our elite corps?" Rai cut in.

  "Only one. So far keeping them bound together in one unit has rendered them close to unstoppable. Lennox alone has claimed two Apostles for himself."

  "If they're so effective, why are you limiting their reach by clumping them up?" Maldonado asked.

  "All due respect," Dyantyi said, voice dripping with disrespect, "the fuck do you know about conducting an urban guerilla warfare campaign?"

  "Not as much as you." Maldonado shrugged. "But I'm a quick learner."

  "Regardless," Rai said. "It sounds like a change in strategy is in order."

  "Maybe not." Dyantyi cleared his throat. "I still have the good news. Phoenix is losing manpower much quicker than we are. Basic estimation I've got is that he's lost fifty, maybe sixty since day one. A third of those were Apostles. Our mole thinks he lost thirteen in one night, somehow."

  "The knight," Maldonado said, nodding sagely. "They tried to corner a Demigod too early in the game. A lucky misplay for us."

  Dyantyi squinted at her. "If she already knows everything, why am I here?"

  "You both have your roles," Rai assured. "You're the premiere expert on Phoenix and our operations on the ground. Maldonado's using her connections and our new sat data to track Demigods and lone actors. I need eyes in both arenas."

  "Speaking of lone actors, I vote that we focus our remaining forces on picking those off, and leave Phoenix to keep shooting himself in the foot," Maldonado said, inspecting one perfectly manicured nail.

  Dyantyi barked a laugh. "You can't be serious. They're losing men but they're still a massive threat, one that can generate fresh manpower constantly. Phoenix needs to be nipped in the bud now. We don't even know if the one-offs have any interest in fighting."

  "They will, once they figure out what's at stake. And unlike Phoenix, these lone wolf types aren't operating in groups, they're vulnerable. Some of them don't know how to use their Fields in the first place."

  Dyantyi's stomach churned a little at that. "You want to waste time picking off small fry?"

  "They're an easy way to strengthen our Murderers. Like you said, our fighting force is one that gets stronger with each win, so logically the move would be to maximize the quantity of wins, instead of making judgements about quality."

  "I don't like the idea of targeting innocents."

  "They're not innocents. They're Field Manipulators in a city that's about to become an active warzone. At best they're already dead, and at worst they're potential future threats."

  "That's a pretty fucking bloodthirsty way to-"

  Rai tapped a knuckle on her desk and the two fell silent. She took a moment to look out the window at the Minneapolis skyline, took a few meditative breaths before responding. "Maldonado's right. Keep the elites on the war effort, instruct all remaining Murderers to target isolated Sensitives, prioritizing the newly awakened. Budget for a commensurate bonus to pay following each confirmed kill, if the power boost they'll get from absorption isn't enough of a motivator already."

  "This is reckless, Ms. Rai," Dyantyi urged. "I don't have tabs on all of the newly-awakened, but they're bound to be in public. Hell, one of them's probably still in the hospital now. We'll draw attention."

  "That's what the Mops are for."

  "Mops can't un-fuck a pediatric ward."

  "Well, then we'll have cops on us too. That's fine. The feds already know I'm here, they've agreed to stay out of the way."

  "You can't possibly believe they'll-"

  Another rap on the table cut him off. Dyantyi chided himself. Rai didn’t make a habit of offering third strikes. "Of course they won't. But they're not sufficiently mobilized to step in yet. We have a window. And a little undue attention isn't going to hurt us. We're days or weeks from the social order beginning to break down."

  "Like I said, you already blew your cover on the plane," Maldonado added. "Intentionally, of course."

  "You're prepared to do this?" Rai asked, leveling her steely gaze at Dyantyi. "If you aren't, I have others who would gladly take the reins."

  Dyantyi could have sworn Maldonado's eyes twinkled at that. He frowned. "I can do it. We'll mobilize first thing in the morning. If you have any intel about numbers and whereabouts-"

  "Maldonado has plenty, and I'm sure she'd be happy to assist."

  "As a clam," the woman said, her smile perfect and diplomatic and infuriating.

  "Great." Dyantyi flexed his shoulder again, felt the wound, a cut he received two hours ago while helping two top Murderers chase down a pair of acolytes. He'd caught a bit of shrapnel, flung out by the last surviving quarry of the pair, a teenage boy who flailed and screamed as he fought, as his attempt to run away had been cut short by his master. He had been puppeted back into their line of fire. The boy had cried the whole time they'd fought. He felt a twinge from his conscience at that, that old, calcified organ of his. It was uncomfortable, but not intolerable. He'd lowered his head in respect but now he refused to look back up, sure that Maldonado was staring at him.

  "We'll start hunting at sunup."