[h2]Alessa Heather: Little Owl Cafe[/h2]
...Collin.

Collin was a mole for the Community.

She’d come up with the notion of using Ira’s abilities to save him from his powers’ negative effects to begin with.

‘Well, don’t I feel stupid,’ she murmured under her breath, frowning to herself. Her chest was tightening, with anxiety, with annoyance, with... [i]anger[/i] even. How dare he. He... he’d led the Wards for a year before being incapacitated, how much of that was he feeding-

She exhaled, forcing herself to relax, straighten up, and think it over as she realised her body language mirrored Evelyn’s. If this was anything like with... with Dean... ugh, she didn’t need to remember the warehouse again, and Kendall throwing up into her drink at that exact moment didn’t help matters at all. The point was, Dean hadn’t been in his right mind, and there was a good chance Collin might not be either. Though, if that was so, he might be long gone as far as being an ally went... no, no “might”. That wouldn’t help any of them here. He [i]was[/i] a threat, and for the sake of argument, his inability to be un-brainwashed had to be the presumption, no matter if it was true or not in the moment.

So. Evelyn could close the trap, so to speak, if they could just set the bait; she imagined that meant preventing him from using his power once he realised he was busted, and she imagined Evelyn would indeed have that in hand. They needed to see what they could come up with as far as tricking Sonar to begin with, then; the implication they were going after Patriarch directly might be a good idea, but it was too obvious, as if they were intentionally putting themselves in harm’s way.

Although... what if they [i]pretended[/i] they’d be putting themselves in such a situation without realising? If a mission was announced, and it happened to put them in an easy position for the Community to capture them all in one fell swoop... and, of course, they’d need to find a way to scan for who Sonar was contacting as a result, though she imagined Decoy would have that handled. Yes, this could work well for them all.

‘I think,’ she began slowly, ‘that we should use ourselves as the bait, going off of Evelyn’s statement. We wouldn’t actually need to put ourselves in harm’s way, mind; we’d just need to make him think the Community could capture us as a group. Turning all of the Denver Wards into minions would be an irresistible prize for them, right?’ She looked to the other Wards, wondering whether they had anything to say about that. Plus, if it turned out Collin [i]wasn’t[/i] the mole, he wouldn’t say anything at all, and that’d clear his name. She could only hope.

[hr]

[h2]Raymond Haywood: The Airport[/h2]
Hmph. Blucifer was down, eh? Of course a major threat would target the most obvious landmark in the area to announce themselves - though if nothing else, at least he’d avenged the creator’s death, if that thought gave the dead man any comfort. As he continued along his route, a couple more updates came in - the possibility of other Thinkers present, as one might expect considering a terrorist attack had just happened; and the announcement that the Jacks other than Raymond himself ought to keep their equipment packed. Not a problem for him, then.

‘I shouldn’t need to say this, but all of you stay vigilant,’ he quietly tacked on to Chatterbox’s instructions. ‘The last thing we need is for anyone to get caught out and killed.’ For now, he’d stick to his initial route, following his own advice by keeping a watchful, albeit subtle, eye open for anybody who wasn’t meant to be present - that is, non-thralls. He had his tools to collect from the assigned location, which he reckoned he’d reach very soon, and once those were in hand, it’d be a simple matter to find a place to get in uniform and prepare himself for the attacking Cape.