Our bodyguards wheeled on the spot, a set of guns training on Newter, where he clung to the side of the building.

He seems to be coming in peace. Especially if he has figured out who Taylor is, he might be inclined to talk it over and explain that the girls should give the papers to him.

They had been covering the possible approach points from the ground.  They hadn’t been expecting trouble from directly above us.

Heh. Bit of an oversight there, considering the group knew they had something Faultline’s Crew wanted and the Crew had Newter, but we can’t expect everyone to think of everything all the time.

“I heard of the Case 53 thing,” Lisa told him, backing away.  “The rest is new.  You work for them?  No.  But you’re related to this.”

I like how Lisa immediately answers herself in the middle of this.

“Gregor, Shamrock and I were test subjects.  Guinea pigs to test the new formulas, so the buyers don’t get fucked.  According to Shamrock, three in five of us don’t even survive.

Ohhhh!

That’s who the redhead was! I forgot about Shamrock, the super-lucky gambler in Vegas, but I do remember her pretty clearly now that the name was brought up.

It seems Shamrock knew a bit more about the whole thing. Is she also how they got the vials in the first place? Assuming of course that stealing from Faultline’s Crew was how the Merchants got them.

One in five Subjects are retained and brainwashed so they can protect the business and enforce the contracts.  Shamrock was going to be one of them, but she escaped.

Ahh, I see.

The rest of us have our memories removed, and we’re released as part of the ‘Nemesis program.‘”

Looks like I had it backwards. The Nemesis program is for the ones that don’t serve Cauldron.

But why do they do that? To normalize the idea of monstrous capes, preventing customer complaints?

“Enough that there’s a whole enterprise here with a private army.  There’s this bit that very politely notes that breaking the rules will get you hunted down and executed by Subjects, capital S.

That would be what happened to the Dealer.

So how many vials did the Dealer buy? Or did he, as I had thought, steal them?

Clients are warned that these guys are entirely loyal to Cauldron, will not accept bribes.  And these Subjects are apparently something different from Deviations.”

I’m thinking Deviations are the Case 53s, and Subjects are test subjects that didn’t become monstrous.

“Cauldron calls us Subjects.  The PRT calls us Case 53s,” a voice said from above us.

!

Newter?

“Regular people call us monsters.”

Ouch.

Somehow “monster” feels more insulting than “monstrous”. I assure you, I’m only using “monstrous” as a value-neutral description for lack of a better one (”Case 53s” doesn’t count, I’m lacking an adjective, not a noun).

What presumably-Newter is saying here does seem to imply that the Case 53s are not Deviations, though.

“What’s on the other pages?” I asked.

“Sixteen is accounting.  Bank statements, confirmation of money exchanged, a list of what was bought.  Seven figures base price, more for this Nemesis program, still more for some powers.

Nemesis program… hm. Not sure what to make of that. It’s probably not literal – I doubt Cauldron sells custom-tailored enemies for their new parahumans.

Don’t have all the pages I’d need to get it, but I’m getting the sense the more unique powers and the stronger ones cost way more.”

That makes sense. It’d make sense for those to be harder to make, but even if that isn’t the case, hiking up the prices for the good stuff is sound business.

‘The sense’, she’d said.  Her power filling in the blanks.

Yeah, I got that.

“Pages eighteen and nineteen refer back to something called the ‘Nemesis program’, potentially revoking it, they’re talking about debts, services required by this ‘Cauldron’ using the clients’ powers.

So then… the Nemesis program means they pay for their powers by way of serving Cauldron with their powers?

There’s a bunch of specifics on how the time, effort and risk of said services would factor in with one another.”

Makes sense. Gotta quantify that stuff if the Nemesis program is what I just described.

I wish to give written evidence of the verbal exchange between Cauldron and client one on February 18 2011.

Timeframe!

And hey, that’s not all that long ago either. Just a couple weeks, give or take seven years.

Client one is informed that client four scored a borderline failure on the psychological testing and that results may lead to a Deviation scenario

Deviation? Interesting…

Maybe not all people who get powers this way end up with monstrous forms and amnesia (though the amnesia might be something Cauldron deliberately give them when they drop them off anyway). Maybe those that do are referred to as having deviated, and in the case of test subjects, those that deviate are dropped off somewhere because Cauldron doesn’t want them? Though doing that instead of further testing does sound like bad science.

Clients two through six are noted here in as much detail as is allowed given the agreed-upon confidentiality.
■  Client two is the elder of client one’s two relatives noted here, female.

You know what would be crazy? If it turned out these clients happened to be New Wave kids. Doesn’t really fit with what we know about New Wave or about Cauldron’s victims, though, but that would’ve been a bit of a twist.

Client three is the younger of client one’s two relatives noted here, male.
■  Clients four and five are client two’s friends.  Client four is female.  Client five is male.

Alright. Is that relation actually relevant to the contract? It seems a little odd for the contract to make special note of the fact that some of the clients are friends.

■  Client six is the friend of client three, male.

It is pretty neat that 2 and 3 got to bring their friends along, though.

Both vials and protective containers are noted with the numbers specific to each client, each containing the requested upon products from the catalogue. 

There’s an entire catalogue? That has some implications, mainly that Cauldron is pretty serious about merchandising these vials, and that they can customize the powers in the vials to some extent.

I was going to go reassure Charlotte, but Lisa retrieved the papers I’d given her and smoothed them out against her leg, and the widening of her eyes caught my attention.

Time to Learn™!

“It’s a letter or contract from the people who made the stuff, talking to the guy who’d bought this stuff.  Let’s see, we have… page two.  Pages eighteen and nineteen.  Page twenty-seven.  Page sixteen.  Wonder if we can put a narrative together.”

Well, at least you know where to start.

This kinda reminds me of the horror game subgenre where you go around a creepy place and reading notes and pages scattered everywhere, such as Amnesia.

…I suppose bringing up a game series called Amnesia is oddly appropriate given that this is almost certainly connected to Case 53.

“You probably could,” I said.

She glanced over one page, then handed it to me as she moved on to the others.  I read it.

Excellent, I think we’re about to actually see what the pages say. I’m down with this.

But we’d made it.

😀

Far more successfully than I thought you might have to settle for at certain points, too. You’ve got Bryce, for one thing.

We moved at a light jog for a good distance before Brooks called us to a stop.  We lay Bryce down for him to look at, and he decided we needed call for a pickup to get the boy more serious medical attention.

Makes sense. Sounds good for transportation, too.

While we waited for the car to arrive, Lisa, and I sat down on a nearby set of stairs.  The other bodyguards were still on duty, still watching for trouble.

We about to get some private talk between the two of them?

Charlotte stood a distance away, hugging herself.  She looked like she wanted to leave, but lacked the courage to go alone.

I can’t blame her. Hell, maybe going alone is how she got caught up in this mess in the first place, for that matter. Even if it wasn’t, though, this is very understandable.

A handful of others had found escape routes too, I noted.  Merchants were crossing the parking lot at a run, or helping wounded buddies limp away.  We weren’t so conspicuous.

Let’s hope we don’t run into Spitfire out here.

Hell, it’s entirely possible Spitfire is actively looking, if Faultline did indeed spot Taylor catching the papers.

I hurt.  I’d been cut on the arm, and I’d taken my lumps in too many other places to count.  My knuckles and fingertips were scratched raw from climbing the walls of the maze and moving rubble, my cheekbone throbbed where I’d been elbowed, and my fucking contact lenses were still irritating.

Oww.

Never ever something I could get used to, even with other things taking up my attention.

Heh, yeah, sounds about right.