Sensing a threat besides Amy

Kid Win pulled his phone out of his pocket. He showed me. A list of letter and symbol codes, each with three lights marked beside them. Green lights most of the way down. A few yellows. Mostly consistent. A number of lights had black circles in the middle.

Amy was orange.

"Is this tinker data, because I can't-"

"It's not," Vista said. She showed me her phone. The same display. "Contessa, Dinah Alcott, and other thinkers are updating with their best guesses about threat levels."

"Green is good, I hope."

"Green is good. Green is saying the threat level is negligible. Icons suggest if a team is currently handling or suppressing them. Can you see the distinction between green and lime?"

I had to tilt the phone to view the shades in more nuance, given the ambient light. "Sort of."

"Suppressed or temporarily handled. It's working," Vista said. "What the Wardens are doing is working."

Kid Win explained, "Smaller threats like Little Midas and the Machine Army are out there and not handled, but they're yellow. Your sister is the one big threat we haven't fully dealt with, and the danger she poses is getting worse over time."

"Holy shit," Vista said. She glanced at me. "When?"

"Last half hour," Kid Win said.

I was tense.

What the fuck, Amy?

*****

What are you doing, Amy?

And why the hell does it feel, deep in my gut, like this isn't the thing we should all be worried about? Are we overlooking something or someone in that long row of green and lime-green lights?

***

I had a bad feeling. It was hard to put my finger on.

If I had to, if I was challenged to, I kind of felt like the way Amy had said 'just' was the kind of way the old me would have said it. The old me who had faced down a human trafficker that had coerced and sold teenage girls into prostitution and knocked his literal teeth out.

***

"I have oversight too, don't worry. Family, a colleague, protectors, a small army of loyal parahumans who've defected to our parahuman-only state, and the rest of Shin. I'm protected. I know I'm protected, because I know I'm inconvenient enough to your power base that you'd want to remove me."

She sounded high. I felt agitated, deeply uncomfortable, with that dark and paralyzing cloud of panic creeping in. I didn't think drugs were involved, but…

***

"I hate it. I hate that I'm walking away feeling like this might not have been worth it, because I can't shake the feeling that this isn't the thing that breaks the city and sets everything off."

***

I began taking notes. Rune, other stuff, and in the midst of it typed:

This Amy stuff is taking up too much focus
This might not be the biggest danger

And deleted it.

Kenzie's reply appeared a few seconds later.

TATTLETALE THINKS SO TOO

- Sundown, Various Chapters