This wasn't going to do anything. What a waste of time. A stupid idea.

Jasper shook her head. Ringmaster wouldn't have held onto the file if he thought it wouldn't be useful, right? What else was there to do with it?

She rubbed her forehead. She'd fallen to the back of the group as they approached the apartment building. What the hell did the public think of Starr? She'd been under the impression that while the elite supported him, most ordinary people knew he was hurting them with every move he made.

But maybe there were more people hovering in the middle than she thought, doing just well enough to not care if Starr was thrown out. People who benefited enough from current laws to be comfortable. People who didn't want the risk that came with a shift in power.

Jasper's mind kept wandering from the topic of Starr, though. Back to what Grace had said, about finding her family on Earth. Family that didn't exist. Not really.

She'd spent so much time lying about what she knew about the spacetime warps, about knowing Holly and Jax and Thea on Earth, about her age. If Grace found out that Jasper knew this and didn't tell her, she'd think the worst of Jasper. Not that Jasper cared—

No, she couldn't lie to herself anymore. At some point in the past few weeks, she'd started to genuinely care. Maybe it was because she understood what Grace was going through, even if it had been decades since she was in that place herself.

Still, at some point they'd deal with Starr, and Grace would...well, where would Grace go?

She deserved a shot at figuring that out. As soon as possible.

But the thought of telling Grace the truth hidden in the Sky Labs files made Jasper feel sick. She wasn't really one to deliver bad news. Easier to keep it to herself. Damn it, this was going to be rough.

The team made it into the apartment. "All right." Jasper collapsed onto the couch and closed her eyes. "Did we accomplish anything today?"

"It's certainly been...insightful," Thea said.

That sounded like another word for 'bad.' "Just tell me."

"Based on what I'm seeing, a lot of people see this as another terrible thing Starr has done or at least been implicated in, and they want something done about it."

Jasper opened one eye. "That sounds good, right?"

"The problem is, that isn't how it looks from the outside," Thea said. "The average person who goes on the net here in Kronos is going to see a lot of articles and posts dumped by the government and upper class citizens on Starr's side. And I think there are people in the government posing as ordinary citizens trying to sway opinions in favor of Starr."

"How are they explaining the audio file?" Holly demanded. "It's very clearly a conversation between Starr and Ringmaster."

"They've spun it as some kind of trick by Ringmaster to make Starr look bad. I think some are claiming the audio is pulled from other clips of Starr, though they haven't presented any as proof."

"Can you stop the government from making these posts?" Jasper asked. Even if there was no concrete proof, Starr's fans would happily believe he was being framed without asking any follow-up questions.

Thea laughed, but it was cold and short. Not reassuring. "Me, against what must be hundreds of government techs working around the clock? No. I can manipulate technological devices, not the entire internet."

"Right. Okay. Well, this is something." Jasper rubbed her forehead.

Holly folded her arms. "Jasper, how much do you know about public perception of Starr?"

"Uh. How much do you know?"

Holly shrugged. "I doubt what I learned growing up was unbiased. And even if it were accurate for the time, I lost almost fifty years." Her eyes narrowed.

"Yeah, yeah. Okay." Jasper jumped to her feet. "I have a new plan."

"Oh, boy," Holly muttered.

"Thea, keep monitoring the net. I know you can't do much to influence people, but I want to see how much of a chance we have. Even if the elites are on his side, if we can get enough power in numbers—"

"Whoa, wait," Jax chimed in. "Are you trying to start some kind of rebellion?"

"No," Jasper said. "I mean, not yet. I don't know. I want to get an accurate picture of the public's thoughts before we try planning anything crazy."

Thea nodded. "I'll track how things play out over the next few days. See what data I can put together."

"Good." Jasper began pacing back and forth. "Holly, Jax, get in disguise and get out on the streets. Talk to people. See what you can learn."

"Sure thing," Jax said.

Holly frowned. "The hell are you going to be doing?"

"Angel and I have to take care of something."

Confusion crossed Grace's face. "We do?"

"Yeah." Jasper tried to mask her anxiety. She didn't want to worry Grace, at least until they were out of the apartment. "In fact, you should probably pack a day bag. I'd like to leave early tomorrow morning."

"What?"

"Care to tell us where you'll be going?" Holly asked, eyes narrowing. "Or how long you'll be gone?"

"Uh, I..." Jasper had to deal with this. How the hell was she going to deal with this? She needed to tell the rest of the team what was going on, or at least give them enough information for them to stop harassing her. "Angel, could you—?"

A loud beep resonated through Jasper's skull. She cried out and pressed a hand to the side of her head.

"Jasper!" Grace exclaimed.

Jasper staggered backward and sank onto the couch. "I'm fine. That was just—loud. What the hell?"

Thea glanced at the smartsphere sitting on the counter. "You're connected to Mia. There's probably—"

"Incoming signal detected." Mia's voice wasn't much quieter than the beep had been.

"Mia, disconnect," Jasper ordered.

The top of the smartsphere lit up, and Mia's voice transferred from Jasper's head to the sphere. "Incoming signal detected," she repeated.

"From where?" Jasper demanded.

"Channel labelled 'R1.'"

Jasper's eyes widened. "What the hell?" she whispered.

"What is that?" Grace asked.

Jasper stood up again and stormed over to the counter, where she grabbed the smartsphere. "That's the channel Ringmaster was broadcasting race information on. Mia, open the signal."

There was a burst of static, followed by a deep, distorted voice that broke the tense silence that had fallen over the team.

"Villains of the Janus System," the voice said. "With Ringmaster's status unknown after his disappearance into the warp over Iros, it would seem that no winner was announced for the races. A real shame, considering how many were still in the running.

"For those who have forgotten the rankings," the voice continued. "We had several prominent names neck and neck at the top of the list. Cutthroat, South Siren, Grim Machine—"

"Those are the top three?" Jasper muttered. She'd thought her victory on Sa Ren would put her higher.

"—Of course, we were unable to see the results of the last race."

"Think it's one of Ringmaster's lackeys?" Holly asked in a low voice.

Thea lifted the tablet she was holding. "Let me get back to you on that."

The distorted voice was still going. "I propose we see this through to the end. My name is Skybreaker, and I'll be stepping in to run the races. And hand out the prize money at the end." The voice chuckled. "I can't say exactly what Ringmaster had planned for the rest of them, seeing as how he was apparently more interested in jumping into a hole in spacetime. But I have a few ideas of my own. More details will follow soon." There was a pause. "This is going to be fun."

The transmission ended.

Jasper's hand tightened around the sphere. "Who could have gotten access to Ringmaster's signal?"

Thea sighed. "I was never able to pinpoint exactly where Ringmaster was broadcasting from during the last few races, and whoever this is, their encryption is just as good." She frowned. "Maybe even better."

"Who cares?" Holly asked. "We only got involved with the races because Ringmaster was working with Starr, and Ringmaster's gone now. I've never even heard of Skybreaker!"

Talk about terrible timing. Jasper blew out a deep breath of air. "Okay. Skybreaker hasn't even provided details yet. We can deal with this later. Right now, focus on Starr."

Did Jasper want to get back into the races? They'd been brutal, much worse than she'd expected going in. She'd actually thought she would have fun, but everyone else just wanted to kill her, which was annoying.

On the other hand, if she didn't show up, all those other villains might think she was giving up—

"If that's all the planning we're doing right now, I'm going to go shower," Grace said. "Unless you wanted to share more details about where we're going tomorrow."

"I'll get back to you on that," Jasper said absentmindedly, still staring at the sphere in her hand.

Grace disappeared into the hallway. Once Jasper heard the distant sound of a door closing, she spoke, keeping her voice low. "I have to—" Jasper sighed. "You guys remember when I found you?"

"Yes." Holly's arms folded. "When my family held us prisoner and threw a bunch of researchers at us to try figuring out the spacetime junk."

Jasper glanced at Thea. "I know we haven't talked about it much since everything that happened on Iros. But Thea slipped and called me Jade on Sa Ren, and that's the name I used at Laika Academy on Earth. I think the rest of your memories are buried somewhere. You might be able to figure out what happened after you went through the warp."

"What does this have to do with wherever you're running off to with Grace?" Holly asked.

"Oh. Right. Sorry, I got distracted." Jasper shook her head. "I didn't tell you kids the truth when I found you." Eesh. That made her sound old. She was, but still. "At the time, I was just focused on getting you out of there and figuring out why the hell my crew was five years younger, forty-five years later on an alien planet. And then we were focused on Starr, and I could never bring myself to explain—I mean, it's all so insane. We're nowhere close to understanding what happened."

They were all staring at her, their faces unreadable. Jax looked the most sympathetic, Thea didn't give much away, and Holly looked only slightly less annoyed than she usually did.

"But Jax and Thea have families on Earth, presumably," Jasper continued. "I don't know what the deal with that is, but you deserved to know. I guess I figured I had no way to get you back there, so what was the point? I mean, I spent decades trying to get back to my family only to..." She trailed off as memories flashed through her mind. The hospital. Her parents. "What I'm saying is, I made a mistake."

That last line did something. Thea's eyebrows lifted, Jax's eyes widened, and Holly looked...impressed? "The great Jasper Van Terra finally owns up to doing something wrong," Holly said, resting a hand on her hip.

"Ha, ha. Look, we're dealing with a lot right now, but Angel's got it the worst. And things are about to get even harder for her."

"Why's that?" Thea asked.

"I—found some information. And I have to explain it to her. First."

"So you're not going to tell us?" Jax asked.

"Not yet. I want to see what she wants to do—I mean, she's not gonna wanna stick with us forever." Jasper folded her arms, trying to sound nonchalant despite the fact that she was stumbling through her words. "This whole team thing—it was to take down Starr. Thea, I know you're trying to track down info from Earth on possible relatives of yours, and Jax's."

Thea nodded.

"And Holly—well, I don't know what you want, but you're not going to be full of teenage angst forever."

Holly rolled her eyes.

"Will you at least tell us where you're going tomorrow?" Thea asked.

"I'll get back to you on that. But I have to go prep some things." Jasper didn't actually plan on sharing her and Grace's destination until they returned. Yes, probably a stupid thing to say after her spiel about not keeping secrets, but this was different. It was about making this as easy as possible for Grace.

Would she have gone through this trouble when she first met Grace? That day they'd broken out of prison, Jasper had told Grace she was a cybernetic lab experiment without a second thought. She'd laughed at finding out Starr was after Grace, so focused on the idea of a new tool she could use against him.

God. Grace had watched Kara Callisto die right in front of her, hadn't she? Jasper felt another twinge of guilt. She'd nearly forgotten about that, but Grace probably hadn't.

So, what? It's not like much had changed in the past month. Jasper's hopes for defeating Starr were starting to slip, but they just needed a new strategy. She'd been trying the same thing for years. Clearly, neither the public nor the Earthguard thing was going to be of much use.

It would take time to sort out the details, but a new plan was beginning to form in Jasper's mind.