"I'm telling yah, dude actually turned into a fuckin' minotaur, I got news all the way up in Dallas talking about the "deep south monster brawl" and civilians are actually coming up and begging me for selfies and autographs."

"Ha! Look at you Silver, you're becoming a real Guardian after all," Pinky teased and Silver scowled in her direction. Apparently the group had run into him on their way into the bar and he was more than happy to join them and catch up.

"I'm about to take you up to the fight club and beat that smile off your face girlie," he shot back and Pinky smiled at him in a way that made me feel uncomfortable.

"Well don't go making any promises you're not gonna follow up on," she said with a purr, causing Freak to let out a guffaw of a laugh.

"Has anyone ever told you that you're really fuckin' weird Pinky?"

"Duh and or hello?" she said, her attitude flipping on a dime as she blew a kiss in his direction. "The club has the equalizer buff, I'd love to fight a werewolf, are you saying you've never had that particular fantasy?"

"Hey he didn't extend the offer to me, but I'm always up for a brawl," Freak said with a shrug.

"Also, isn't everyone on this team a little weird?" Swansong said from my side, holding a glass in both of her hands at my side.

"Speak for yourself Swan, I'm completely normal," Freak said, picking up his mug of beer.

"Right…" I said, my eyes sweeping the crowd.

Jon had been eager to get back into his Command Room, saying something about "cleaning up the bugs" and grumbling as he added another post-it to the dining room table. I didn't necessarily think things would be so perfectly aligned that we would manage to actually run into Calypso again the very next day, but… why would she wait if she did pass through there so regularly?

Since The First had gone out of his way to keep me from getting killed, you'd almost have to think that he would want to talk with me at some point. Or maybe I was just fooling myself and we'd never bump into her again. It had just been a theory that she was still in contact with him even after he withdrew all of his claims from around the world.

"Honestly, I don't think it's possible to be an Augment without being a lil damn weird… we deal with shit that is by it's nature fuckin' ridiculous," Silver said with a shrug, looking down at his wrist where he actually had a watch. "Now I do actually got some time, if y'all do wanna brawl, I'd be more than happy to go have a little free for all. I just added the last Augmentation to one of my skills and I'd love to give her a test run."

"You can do free for alls up there!?!" Pinky asked, jumping out of her seat and staring around the table with her eyes glinting like gems.

"I mean, there's a max of six people to any arena, but yeah, you can," Silver said with a nod as Pinky whipped her head between Freak and myself.

"For what it's worth, Freakenstein should probably stick around here since he's the only one that we know is able to see past whatever form of obfuscation Calypso uses," BrainCraft said, looking up from the tablet that he was almost always working on. Part of me was curious what he was working on all the time, but his powers were technology based. "But if Loophole wanted to join you guys, I'm sure it wouldn't be that big of a deal."

"Oooooo, Loooooophole come on, don't you wanna see how you stack up?" Pinky said, practically jumping on the idea.

I hated how suspicious this act alone made me. While I knew Jon wouldn't have brought up the concern if he didn't have good reason, and honestly, his logic made damn perfect sense to me, the paranoia over who I could trust had reared its ugly head in full force. Pinky certainly could have been overtaken, Jon had even pointed out that BrainCraft had conveniently used her to test if his detector device worked correctly and we had no idea if reenabling the Acceptance Matrix would reinforce the forced timetables that came with leveling. It wasn't even something we could check with the P.A.I.s about because they clearly weren't given any information on what happened when the Matrixes were disabled.

It was only after all that went through my head that I realized BrainCraft had just… brought up the fact that we were waiting for Calypso in front of Silver like it was no big deal. Sure, maybe he didn't know why we were waiting for her and maybe it didn't matter if he knew in the first place, but given the fact that he was the one who brought up moles in the first place, randomly revealing details of what we were up to just seemed suspicious as hell to me. Jon was right, I needed to figure out a way to head her off before she could approach the table.

"I think I'm actually good for tonight," I said slowly, putting an arm behind Swansong and draping it over her shoulder as casually as I could. Even though we had gotten closer, even gotten at least a little physical, I think we were both still getting used to even just casually touching each other. Or maybe I was just getting in my head about it, because Swan seemed to happily lean into me as my hand rested against her arm. "Kinda had more than enough fighting, especially after the giant chicken, y'know?"

"Boooo, you're no fun," Pinky said, making a face at us. Swan stuck her tongue out at her, a smile tugging at her lips.

"I think he's plenty fun," she said before turning and kissing me on the cheek. "And I'd prefer to spend time with him than have him go off and fight 'just for fun.'"

"That's so cute it makes me wanna vomit," Silver said, clearly teasing, tossing back the rest of his drink before looking around the table. "Well, any of y'all wanna join in then?"

"I'm good," Duskbreaker said, standing up and stretching. "I was actually gonna go get some sleep if you guys were gonna be going off and doing random stuff. You know, take advantage of the rare quiet night."

"No judgement there," I said, nodding over toward the doors. "Catch up with us later man. Good work out there today."

"I- uh… thanks," Duskbreaker said and I was almost sure I saw him squirm uncomfortably before he shuffled out of the booth. "Can we uh… maybe not start any turf wars tomorrow?"

"No promises," I said looking over toward Freak and Pinky. "You'd have to stop those two from trying to claim every token just to see who would come to fight them for it."

"Our fearless leader knows us so well," Pinky said a bit too dramatically, looking around the table again. "Seriously? It's just gonna be me fighting with Silver though? Come ooooon you guys are so boring."

"Y'know, a guy's almost gotta be offended that you'd only wanna fight if someone else were involved too," Silver said, tilting his hat backwards at her with a raised brow and a sideways smirk. "Or maybe yah just think you need the help, I get it, I am pretty damn ferocious."

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This of course got a rise out of Pinky and I rolled my eyes as she started spouting out what could only be described as trash talk, the two of them heading for the spiral staircase near the giant robot head. Freak looked after them almost longingly but just shook his head with a laugh as he turned back to his drink.

"That chick has got a hell of a lot of spunk," he said.

"Spunk? Okay grandpa," Swan said with a giggle.

"Hey, it's a perfectly cromulent word thank you very much," Freak shot back and I scrunched my face in confusion.

"Cromulent…?"

"It's a Simpson's reference," BrainCraft said without looking up. "And a rather old one too at this point, but it never hurts to embiggen your vocabulary."

"Ah… yeah my grandma never really liked that show and Codex was always more obsessed with anime and Augment stuff, so we never had it on," I said, still feeling a bit confused but not wanting to press it.

"So I've been wondering, how is it that you're able to pick Calypso out of the crowd when the rest of us can't? I assumed she was doing something related to Mind Control, but Duskbreaker hasn't changed his mask since he broke free from Clockwork Tyrant and he was here with us when you delivered the letters," BrainCraft said, taking the sudden silence as a chance to change the subject.

"Oh yah know, it's a Hidden Power thing," Freak said with a shrug.

"Hmm, I thought your Hidden Power allowed you to absorb any large scale hit without reducing your health," BrainCraft replied curiously, his attention drawn from his tablet over to Freak.

I felt my gut turn and my arm tensed up ever so slightly as I tried not to stare suspiciously at BrainCraft. Swan must have noticed it though, a comforting hand placed on my chest as she looked up toward me curiously. I shook my head and briefly wished I could send her a chat message from within the room to explain.

While Jon and I had agreed to keep our suspicions between the two of us until we had more concrete evidence, I was already wondering if I should talk to him about bringing Swan in on it as well. Unlike Pinky who had obviously turned her Acceptance Matrix off but then had a clear moment where she could have been compromised, Swan had barely ever been alone with BrainCraft and maybe I had rose-tinted glasses on, but I just felt like I could trust her. Still, that wasn't a decision that I could make alone and even bringing her in raised the potential that our suspicions were discovered.

"I mean, that's certainly a part of my hidden power, but Loopie can do more with his than, well yah know," Freak said, cutting himself off as he realized we didn't have one of the privacy screens up.

"Ah, true enough. Fascinating though, damage resistance and some sort of other resistance that just happens to coincide with whatever Calypso is doing," BrainCraft pressed again and Freak gave him a smirk.

"You're a little nosy sometimes, aren't yah? I mean, it is called a Hidden Power after all bud. Just cause Loopie's filled us in on most of his doesn't mean we're all eager to spill the beans, er… no offense buddy," he said without taking his eyes off of BrainCraft.

"My apologies," BrainCraft said, immediately backtracking as Freak seemed to loom slightly. "I didn't mean it in that way, I was just curious if we could isolate how she was being avoided. It would give us more options for being able to signal her. I can assure you, if it were relevant I'd share what my Hidden Power does, though I promise it's nowhere near as exciting as what you two can do."

"All I can say is it's some sort of mental effect but it's not Mind Control. My power doesn't specify exactly, it's just an added resistance that I get," Freak finally said, his energy changing in a moment as he sat back and looked around the room once more. "My P.A.I. is always laughing about the actual name of my Hidden Power though and I'm not sure I get it."

"Eh, isn't that just like them though? Mine has been a lot more quiet recently, but she is always laughing at jokes I don't understand," I said, chiming in before BrainCraft could press the topic any further.

"Heh, yeah true enough," Freak laughed, looking at his nearly empty glass before he started to look around for one of the NPC waitresses.

I was going to have to make sure I filled Jon in on pretty much everything that happened. Maybe it was just because I was looking for it, but it almost felt like turning the light onto something that should have been glaringly obvious. He was always careful with how he approached a conversation, always trying to control the flow of it and only ever gave just enough information.

And unless this was actually some sort of act for my benefit, something that would only make sense if BrainCraft somehow knew we were suspicious of him and for some reason wanted us to be more suspicious, it almost certainly meant that Freakenstein wasn't in league with him. I don't know what it was about that realization, but I finally realized that it wasn't just about what BrainCraft wanted. It was about what TechWarden wanted.

If he was behind this and it wasn't just some sort of paranoid delusion, even going right down to having BrainCraft raise the possibility of a mole, he wanted to sow distrust.

As I sat there contemplating all of this, ignoring as the waitress came through and took new orders from around the table, things seemed to quiet back down. I finally broke my gaze from my drink after a solid minute had passed, looking over at Freak briefly and meeting his eyes that flickered from mine and then off to the side. There was something there, like he was trying to communicate something to me without actually having to say it.

My gut clenched and I activated Area Sense, letting the clutter of the room briefly overwhelm me as the myriad of new sensations hit my brain. While I still had trouble differentiating objects, my continued use of the skill had been slowly making me a lot better at making logical guesses. There were figures that dragged through the area, clearly people walking around, and I felt my eyes dart toward the groups that caused these interruptions. If I was right, Freakenstein had seen Calypso and he had been trying to signal me because… because he didn't trust BrainCraft either.

I couldn't help but look over at him out of the corner of my eye as I continued to probe the room. It was easy to underestimate Freak. He was big and boisterous, and he was always happy to fight. But Freak was also smart. Much smarter than he let on and I was going to have to find a moment to talk to him in private just to see if we were on the same page.

As much as I probed my covered area, searching anywhere I felt someone moving, I couldn't see anyone that Freak would have been trying to point out. If she was somewhere nearby, I had to hope she was planning on communicating with us and not just walking away if Freak wasn't about to get up to go chase her down.

Almost as if to prove my point, a few minutes later after the waitress had returned with a platter filled with drinks and food, when Freak was just starting to dig into a plate of over sauced chicken wings, his fingers drenched in the sauce, a knock happened at the end of our table. It actually caused all of us, except for Freak, to jump, looking over to the source.

I had seen her once before, from a distance outside of the Common Ground, and I thought she had been a bit of a sight to see even then. But up close, Calypso's outfit really did make her look like a mermaid, with shimmering scales accenting each piece of her gear, the bright opalescent colors standing in contrast to her dark skin. I had to weigh my options quickly, even knowing that my Time Bank had just reset. I needed to have enough time to find her without her approaching the table just so I could probe for the contents of BrainCraft's letter, that alone could give us a lot of information. But that didn't mean there wasn't any benefit to talking with her for a moment or two just to see what would be said. That ran the risk of me not keeping close enough track of time though and losing the option of trying to find her at all.

There was also the risk of overusing my power or running out the clock entirely if searching for her was futile… What I really needed was some sort of sign that it wasn't just the table she was coming to meet, but that she'd be looking to deliver whatever message she had to me personally. She was just about to speak up when I had yet another gut reaction, deciding to shoot for the fences. I probably should have prompted BrainCraft to use one of his privacy devices, something that for all I knew were actually recording devices, but it really didn't matter if I was just going to rewind all of this anyway once I got my answer.

"Hey Calypso, were you looking for me? Because I really hope The First is ready to have a chat."

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