The financial link will at least keep him locked up for a while while more digging happens.

"Last minute advice?" she asks Tattletale. "There's nothing rock-solid here, but it's enough to hold him while other leads are followed."

"Hold him? If you don't kill him he'll have a contingency escape plan - maybe someone from the inside helps, maybe he gives the signal and a team of hired rogues break him out. The important thing is he can use his power to try a plan in one timeline and act normal in the other one, repeating until an escape plan fucking works. And if he gets out he goes to ground and we never find him again."

'I don't think you realize how fucking prepared he is."

"I can't just murder a suspect, that's not really how this works."

"I think you will kill him if you're convinced anything else is to risky, which it is."

"I don't even know for sure that Calvert and Coil are in fact the same person, just that they have apparently occasionally exchanged money! I don't especially fancy personally deciding who should be guarding his cell for the next while but in your estimation would that work?"

"I don't expect it will? It'd fuck with his power but you'd have to get lucky and he can try multiple times."

"Coil qua Coil doesn't even have a kill order, so even if you have a way in mind to prove for sure it's him I can't kill him for you, sorry to disappoint."

"Well, I know for a fact he has at least a connect with Faultline's crew that triggers if he's captured, and I'm sure they're not the only contingency"

She doesn't actually know this for a fact but it's an easy guess.

"See, you can list scary things that happen if he's left alive till the cows come home, but it does not get him a kill order or enough evidence for me to bull one through on short notice."

"Well, fuck. I took a gamble on you actually being competent enough to deal with him."

"I took a gamble on you having enough information to make a charge stick! I guess I'll feel very stupid if Coil kills me but you can't just do murders by telling me they need doing."

"Well, I doubt that you'll be able to hold him using standard procedures."

"I could probably get one of his mercenaries to elaborate on crimes Coil did, but he's too fucking careful for it to be easy to prove he's Calvert."

"Costume has gloves, so no fingerprints... I can do a writing analysis, but it's pretty tenuous..." Bot gets underway on that.

Writing analysis says they have similar writing, but nothing definitive.

"We could pull in other capes - not sure who would have a way out of this? Armsmaster might have something he could pull out of his ass." Shadow Stalker could be persuaded to kill Coil she bets, but Lorica doesn't need to know that.

"I suppose it can't hurt to check!"

Lorica heads up in person this time to investigate the contents of Armsmaster's ass inventory.

Armsmaster is tinkering, there's a sign on his door informing people they better have a good reason for entering.

Yeah. The bot's used to monitoring Lorica for a good time; it's not as good at Armsmaster but it can try to find the best time in the next fifteen minutes.

There's a fifteen second stretch break coming up soon, she can interrupt during that.

In she goes. "I'm terribly sorry about the timing. Tattletale is attempting to turn in Coil, but she thinks he needs dead and I've only got enough for an arrest. Do you have anything that might help?"

"Hrmph."

"What do you have on him?"

"She directed me to a hideout and talked the goons into handing over the password for some drives, which have a ton of information on Empire 88. She has identified him as having a body double, so he can have one identity working in the PRT - she says it's the genuine article in the office right now, Thomas Calvert -" The birthday card bot didn't go far after dropping that off - "and the double acting as Coil simultaneously. She claims he has a Thinker power, experiencing two timelines and picking his favorite; came to me because it has to guess around me, and expects that it'll suffice to let him activate contingencies from within custody to escape."

"Fucking hate Thinkers."

"I have lie detection working - won't hold up for a trial but it will hold up for cutting through this nonsense."

"Still won't be enough to get a kill order I think, but there's precedent for expediting trials for capes and sending them to the BIrdcage if waiting isn't safe."

"Should work. Might have to not have any human guards."

Armsmaster listens to something on his earpiece briefly. 

"If you don't have anything ready to go for that Dragon will help."

"I have plenty for watching him but not that can physically interfere with a rescue op without backup."