“God, yes,” Cassie stared up at the screen. “It was every bit that bad and they didn’t do the worst of it. That was Adam—remember Dark Cloak? He made some kind of deal with the fey that turned lets him call on weird shit out of faerie for help. Plus, you know what? They deserved it. They weren’t holding back. They were going for the kill.”

“Except,” Daniel caught her eye, ”they were under someone else’s control when they did it. They might have done the same thing on their own, but they didn’t have a choice.”

Nodding, Cassie said, “I get it, but they were trying to kill us the last time we fought them too. I can’t say that I’ve got a lot of sympathy for them.”

Kayla pointed up at the screen, “I probably wouldn’t mention that if the press asks you for a comment if I were you. Look at that.”

On the screen, a reporter was interviewing Senator Mitchell Abrams, a tall, blond man wearing a blue suit, white shirt, and red tie. I hadn’t seen the man since he’d watched our demo at Stapledon a few years ago. He’d never liked supers and it didn’t sound as though that had changed.

“This is the problem I’ve always had with them,” he said, raising his hand to point at the reporter. “There’s no control over them. I’d been told that the Stapledon program would give us the means to control them, but I don’t see it so far. I’m going to propose cutting federal funding for the program immediately. All of the people involved in this fight were graduates of the program who are even now on call to the government. And what did that get us? Nothing but damage to the property of innocent American taxpaying citizens. How long will it be before the damage is repaired? No one knows. And what about the insurance companies? Will they pay? Businesses and homes have been destroyed and for what? We don’t even know where they are. The government should end all association with the Heroes’ League immediately and we should give due consideration to doing the same with the Liberators since they assisted them.”

The reporter, a woman with brown short hair and a green suit asked, “But wasn’t that the Cabal? The Heroes’ League practically destroyed them a few years ago. Wouldn’t the Cabal go after them any chance they got? And weren’t the Cabal’s people the primary cause of the damage?”

Senator Abrams sneered at her, “It’s people like you in the press that promotes these vigilantes as if they can do no wrong. It’s as if you’ve never heard of Red Lightning and all the other heroes that flipped sides—“

Kayla cut the sound, “Do any of you want to listen to him?”

Vaughn shook his head, “I can’t believe what an idiot that man is. We didn’t make that happen.”

Turning her eyes from the screen, Tara walked over to one of the computers that sat at desks between the table and the screen. As she logged in, she turned toward us, “I think I was right about the counterattack, but I was wrong to think it might happen here. It might be him.”

Haley looked up at the screen where Senator Abrams was still haranguing the reporter, “Are you saying Senator Abrams is part of the Nine?”

Looking up at the screen, Tara frowned, “I don’t know, but I don’t think so. I think the Nine might have… collected him. He shows up on the news when the Nine’s done something. He criticized how you flew into Canadian airspace and other times when heroes fought the Nine. Even though he never attacked the Heroes’ League directly, he had to know.”

Tara paused, adding, “If you’re going to ask Agent Lim for access to the books that you found in Martin Magnus’ house, you might want to do it before the senator does whatever he’s going to do.”

I didn’t know how easy it would be for Senator Abrams to get any legislation through both the House and Senate, but senators did have enough informal power to make working with the FBI difficult. She might be right. I contacted my comm with my implant and sent a message to Lim, asking if we could talk soon.

It didn’t take more than a minute for him to call back. I took the call, listening to it in my helmet instead of connecting it to the room’s system for everyone to hear.

“Rocket,” he said when I picked up. “If you’re calling because of what Senator Abrams is saying, he can’t do any of that for months—if he can do it at all. He’s constantly complaining about superheroes and the Heroes’ League is more popular than he is.”

I didn’t sigh with relief, but I could have. “Great. I was a little worried that you might have gotten some direction from on high to not help us until this was sorted out. Do you know where Martin Magnus’ stuff is? The stuff you grabbed from his house in Chicago?”

For a moment, he didn’t say anything and I wondered if he’d put me on hold. Then he said, “Oh. I’m going to have to check on that.”