Note: This story continues a series: See parts 1 , 2, 3, 4 , 5, 6, 7, and 8

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Gary regarded Karl warily as he sat across from him in the busy cafe. "Glad to see you could make it. But how do I know for sure that you haven't been turned like Billy and the others at the base?" Gary asked suspiciously.

"I should ask the same thing about you," Karl snapped. "Last Frank saw, those MPs were tearing apart the warehouse in which you'd holed up. After that, not a peep for two days until you left your load signal for the dead drop and set up this little rendezvous. If they didn't grab you from the warehouse, how did you get out? And if you got away, why would you be reaching out to me instead of going straight to the Pentagon... or the Heroic League?"

Gary looked at Karl critically, and tersely said, "Let's just say I have my concerns about the Pentagon AND the League... maybe even more than I do about you, right now."

Karl looked surprised, and paused for a moment as he looked at Gary appraisingly. "I guess paranoia really is a side effect of all this." Karl sighed heavily, and continued in a more even tone. "Cards on the table: I think there's about a 90% chance that you've been turned and that you arranged this meeting as a trap. I'm guessing you and some--maybe all--of the fine patrons of this cafe you selected are part of this conspiracy and are going to try to make your move once you are sure I actually have the footage with me."

Gary looked irritated, but nodded his head grimly. "Same, although I guess since you came to a meeting I called in a location I chose, you are probably objectively taking the bigger risk."

Gary sat deep in thought for several seconds, then exclaimed, "Right! We don't trust each other, but hopefully we can still work together if we take appropriate precautions. Speaking of which, I see you are wearing one of our button cams: Since I'm not on the other end watching--and I hope to God Billy isn't--does that mean that Frank also got away from the base?"

Karl looked down at his jacket sheepishly and said, "Yeah, I guess you of all people would spot this. Frank and I were able to cut the power to the perimeter surveillance grid and evade the patrols, but we're still trying to understand the situation out here. Let's just say that you aren't the only person about whom we harbor certain... suspicions," Karl said wryly.

"Hi Frank!" Gary said, waving at Karl's jacket button. "I hope you're at least eating better stakeout chow than we normally get for these things. Speaking of a stakeout, you should know that you're not the only one watching right now. And I'm not talking about the people at the next table, either," Gary said, placing his hand on a chunky device sitting on the table.

Karl looked at the device with amusement, saying, "That's definitely not standard kit. I take it it's something homebrew you soldered together yourself?"

Gary smiled for the first time in the very tense meeting and said, "Yeah, this sucker is multiplexing a livestream of our little meeting across five signal bands to the audience. And you should know that the audience I brought is a lot larger than yours. No offense, Frank," Gary said as he gestured again at Karl's jacket button.

Karl nodded, saying, "Great: So even if neither of us is trustworthy, we're both entertaining an audience. If we mess with each other then other people will see it and have the evidence to back it up: Kinda like Mutually Assured Disclosure, I guess."

Gary smiled a bit more and seemed to relax somewhat as Karl continued, "I think I only need to know one other thing before we can go forward: How exactly did you escape those MPs at the warehouse? Frank was watching and he definitely didn't see you get out."

Gary winced, and answered, "Sadly, I had to Shawshank it. I'd chosen that warehouse for my stash because it had access to the main sewer line for the base. I honestly hoped I'd never have to use it, but..."

Karl chuckled and nodded, saying "Well it's no wonder it took you a while to make contact. I'm guessing you needed to spend a whole day in the tub to get that smell off of you!"

Gary smiled ruefully and said, "Well, it was a shower not a bath, but yeah, the residual odor did not give up the fight willingly. And I had to throw out my uniform. But I guess I wasn't going to be going back to the base anytime soon, so..."

Karl nodded seriously and said, "Right. The base. You called this meeting: what are you proposing we should do about the situation there? I take it from what you said earlier that you don't think we should go to the top brass or the Heroic League? That's what Frank and I were hoping to do once we got the lay of the land, but it sounds like we should reconsider?"

Gary looked pained, but nodded and said, "Unfortunately, my friends and I are concerned that the military leadership has been fully compromised and at least some of the members of the League might have been turned. Did you know that several copies of DupliciTy went onto the base yesterday?"

Karl seemed surprised. "Wait, there were supers on the base? Did they do anything to help?"

Gary shook his head. "Unfortunately, no. The copies went onto the base and then left again a few hours later, and the base was still on lockdown. Worse yet, my friends tell me that DupliciTy copies were observed going into locked-down bases across the country yesterday, and afterward all of the bases still seemed to be locked down tight."

Karl sighed. "So if the DupliciTys haven't been part of the solution..."

"They are probably part of the problem," Gary finished Karl's thought. "If I was running this conspiracy and had the capacity to instantly flip people's loyalty like they did with Billy, it would make sense that you'd try to get to the most powerful people before anyone figured out what was going on. So my guess is that some--potentially all--of the supers are suspect."

Karl nodded grimly. "In the absence of fully understanding how they're doing this--beyond the limited info we got from Billy's video--I guess there's no reason to assume that supers would be immune from its effects. And you're right that it makes sense that whoever is running this conspiracy would want to take out the most powerful threats first. It's probably not an accident that they seem to be seizing the military now, and you have to assume they've probably been doing the same to government officials, the media..."

Gary interrupted, saying "You don't know the half of it, unfortunately. Once my new friends became suspicious of the League, they started to notice all sorts of odd meetings and interactions."

Karl nodded, saying, "That makes sense. But you keep mentioning your friends. Who are these friends of yours, and why do you think you can trust them? Why should I trust them?"

Gary frowned and said, "Honestly, my friends and I don't completely trust each other, either. And we're not powerful like supers are. But we do have one ace in the hole: Transparency."

Karl looked at Gary dubiously, and Gary continued. "It's not that dissimilar to what you and I each decided to do for this meeting: ensure your safety by having someone watching your back. In this case, it's more than a dozen someones, and we're watching each others' backs 24/7. Since I first warned the group about what happened to Billy, we realized that the conspiracy needed to work in darkness to succeed. To flip Billy, they apparently needed not only to have physical access to him, but had to do it in seclusion. My friends and I are making sure that whenever we are around any other person, someone is watching."

Karl looked bemused as he gestured at Gary's device, saying, "Hence your little streaming box. Very clever! But what if someone takes the subway or just has a bad signal and you lose their stream. Or if they have a depleted battery on their kit? Do you just assume they've been compromised and kick them out of your little panopticon?"

Gary frowned at Karl, saying, "I don't think it would be prudent for me to cover all of the tech and procedures we're using to deal with that, but yes, we have thought of that and addressed the issue. Every member of our group is an open book to one another, and if any one of us violates that, they'll get shelved. Like I said, if you're facing a conspiracy that thrives in the shadows, shining a bright light on things is your best course of action. Speaking of which, my friends are very, very eager to see the footage of Billy's subversion you recorded. Did you bring a copy like I asked?"

Karl nodded, saying, "Of course you know it's just a copy. While Frank and I have been trying to get the lay of the land, one simple thing we have been doing is using good old snail mail to send memory cards with copies of the video and a short explanation to every powerful and influential figure we could think of--or get the mailing address of--and those will hopefully be showing up in people's mailboxes in the next day or two."

Gary seemed pleased, agreeing with Karl by saying, "We're on the same page, then. The best way to fight this conspiracy is transparency: we need to blast the message out as widely and deeply as we can. My friends can help with that, too. And since it's just a copy, there wouldn't be any problem giving it to me, even if I were part of the conspiracy, right?"

Karl agreed, saying, "Yes, other than the very real risk that this was an attempt to trap me and Frank, I agree that you should get a copy and pass it along to your friends." Karl pulled a SD card out of his jacket pocket and slid it across the table to Gary, who quickly picked it up and put it into his pocket.

Gary said, "Speaking of traps, my fear is still that this is one. Now that I have the recording, I need to get it safely back to my safehouse, which means that you and Frank will need to cool your jets for a while as I make my escape. My friends have tapped into the security cameras in this cafe and are watching it and the surrounding neighborhood carefully. What I'm going to need you, Karl--and Frank, since I know you can hear me-- to do is just sit on your hands for 15 minutes after I leave. I've given Frank's picture to all of them, so if I see you or anyone else following or attempting to convert me after I leave, they'll upload the footage of our meeting and that subsequent interaction to all of their friends online."

Karl nodded, saying, "Makes sense. And I know from personal experience that you are a handful to tail when you don't want to be followed. Like I said, as long as this doesn't turn out to be a setup to make me join Evil Team Billy And Friends, I am perfectly happy to sit here enjoying my artisanal coffee as you help us spread the proof of this conspiracy to as many of your friends as possible."

Gary quickly gulped down his coffee and grabbed his device, saying, "I hope you don't mind if I leave you with the check? I've got places to go and people to meet. I hope you stay safe Karl... and Frank!" Gary called over his shoulder as he hustled out the door.

Karl nodded amiably as he watched Gary walk briskly down the street. "Well, Frank... it's out of our hands now," he said to his jacket button.

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Some time later, Gary peered up and down the hallway outside the apartment he was using as a safe house, then slowly closed and locked the door. He carried the device over to a desk and opened up his laptop. After logging in, he opened up a conferencing app and was greeted by the faces of more than a dozen of his "friends."

"So what's the verdict, folks? Any issues with my footage or with the cameras you used to check on me and Karl?" Gary asked the panel. "I am positive that even if the conspirators had a full-spectrum surveillance team and a dedicated satellite, I would have either lost or spotted them."

"Everything looked solid," one of the panelists said. "Karl stayed at the cafe for exactly 15 minutes after you left, then paid the check and left. He didn't talk to anyone else in the cafe or outside, as far as we could tell. Emily actually analyzed the faces and vehicles around you on your route and there were no repeats or unusual patterns. And most importantly, you footage was complete and validated with no artifacts on the time signature, and there was no point where you appear to have been approached or converted. It looks like you are still good," he concluded. "So now can we get a look at this video file Karl gave you? And can we trust that it hasn't been tampered with?"

Gary nodded and smiled, saying, "The video footage uses the same anti-tampering algorithm I developed and which we've been using for the shared footage. The validation stream is hardware encoded and is internally consistent and self-referential. While you might be able to create a fake validation stream to cover minor edits to a secured video, it would take a supercomputer to do it and probably several days of compute to achieve, even then... and a LOT longer if they did any serious edits. In this case, they wouldn't have had time to do that, so once I finish transferring the video and you run your own checks on the validation stream, you'll know for sure that it's authentic. I've started the transfer to the group dropbox now. Looks like the file should be done transferring in about 35 minutes."

One of the other panelists chuckled, saying, "What, the future of the world hangs in the balance and you apparently are using late 1990s DSL to transfer the file to us? How big is that file?"

Gary laughed, responding, "Uncle Sam doesn't believe in low-res video when the taxpayer is footing the bill. HD for all my friends, even if the fiber in this apartment isn't the best."

Another panelist chimed in, "Well, you should use this time to fix yourself some food, Gary. I know you didn't eat anything this morning before heading to the cafe and just had coffee there. And you must have walked about four miles on the way home. You have to be starving!"

"Thanks, Emily. You sound like my mom," Gary said jovially. "I would never have set up this buddy system in the first place if I knew it would lead to so much nagging about my odd sleep schedule, poor eating habits..."

"...And questionable hygiene," Emily added, laughing.

Gary smiled and responded, "Just be thankful I didn't figure out how to get odors to transmit over this thing," he said, gesturing at the streaming device. "Well, while you all deal with the file transfer and validation, I'm going to try to address my questionable hygiene and poor eating habits. And if Jonesy keeps yammering on about my outdated tech, maybe I'll get some bonus sleep, too."

As the assembled video conference participants merrily seconded Gary's mocking, he put a frozen pizza into the oven and then headed to the bathroom. "Guys, make sure you yell loudly if you smell burning pizza or see anyone come into the apartment while I'm in the shower," Gary said as he entered the apartment's bathroom. As he pulled his shirt over his head, he muttered to himself, "Ugh, Emily was right about my hygiene being questionable. A little more of that and Billy and his friends could find me by smell, alone!"

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As Gary turned off the water and stepped into the steamy bathroom, he felt truly relaxed for the first time since his world had been turned upside down. As he dried himself off, he was thankful that against all odds, he had been able to navigate this new world filled with unknown, powerful enemies and was finally poised to strike back.

Gary wiped some of the condensation off the mirror, tied his towel around his waist, and turned on the sink faucet. He opened the medicine cabinet mirror to look for his razor and shaving cream, put them on the edge of the sink and was closing the mirror when he felt a series of sharp stings up and down his spine. Gary gasped as his limbs locked up and he felt a surge of electric shocks travel up and down his body. Although he was unable to move even his eyeballs, Gary was startled to see another person's face slowly begin to appear next to his in the mirror. As the waves of energy spreading from his back washed away more and more of Gary's mind and will, he felt the intruder's hand reach out and almost lovingly stroke the parasite that he had placed on Gary's back. The overwhelming sensations Gary was experiencing roiled around his head, building more and more concentrated energy. Then, in a moment of sharp release, all of that energy seemed to pour out of his eyes as they flashed bright blue.

The intruder, who he now recognized as the superhero Invisitor, flashed his eyes back and whispered, "Welcome to the conspiracy, my new friend!"

Gary responded with an ecstatic smile and whispered back, "Thanks for inviting me! I look forward to conspiring with you, and I guess Karl... and Frank... and DupliciTy?"

Invisitor nodded. "Yes, you're a little late to a very large party, but hopefully you can make up for lost time now. Between you and your nosy friends, we have been getting a little worried about people spoiling our fun."

Gary responded agreeably, "Happy to help in any way I can, of course. But wait, how does making sure I give my nosy friends an impossible-to-edit-or-fake video file that shows what you've been doing help the cause?" he said with confusion. "Did you deliberately edit the file to make it seem like the evidence had been faked in order to destroy our credibility?"

Invisitor shrugged and said, "That was one option we considered, but then we realized there was a better solution. You can thank Billy for the plan, since he was the one who realized the authentication system would only flag the video if it had been edited after recording... so we used the same equipment, and the same people--Billy says 'Hi' by the way--to record a new, perfectly authentic video. But this time, the video followed our plot. In our version, the tech retrieved a patch cable, not a parasite. The shirt is dropped on the floor accidentally, not deliberately. And so on. And when they test it the authentication will show that the video file was not edited in any way. "

Gary chuckled, "Very clever. You'll sow doubts within my little group, which I'll help stoke from the inside. Speaking of which, I'm guessing you were inside the cafe with us and followed me back here?"

Invisitor nodded, saying, "You really gave me a workout! Good thing I'm in good shape or you would have lost me a few times."

Gary chuckled in response. "Well, you should just be glad I didn't use the sewers, again. I was very careful to look for tails. Your invisibility gave you an unfair advantage this time, but if we'd done the sewers I would have been able to smell you later!"

Invisitor said, "Well, like you said at the cafe, our ace in the hole has always been transparency!"

Gary laughed, and then prepared to shave, then eat, and then betray all of his friends to his alien masters.