Jamie hesitated, then shook her head.  “It’s fine.”

“The testing will include blood tests, stress tests, MRI, CAT scan, radiographic scans and a Torsten DNA sequencing.  These scans are primarily for our purposes, and if you’d prefer, you can have your family doctor arrange or conduct these tests instead for a small fee.

I guess they’re not worried about the doctor potentially questioning why the patient suddenly wants all those tests taken.

A larger fee will allow you to skip the tests entirely.”

“If you’ve got money, we don’t care if you’re fit to receive the power. Your call.”

Fees and additional expenses.  No.  The testing wasn’t so important that she’d spend her money on it.

I would’ve wanted to take the tests regardless of the extra money required to skip them.

“You can conduct the tests however you want,” Jamie said.

“Good.  You’ll need to forgive me, but I must be blunt.  Cauldron operates on a strict policy of secrecy.  It is crass of me to do this, but know that if you pass on any knowledge of what transpired here, we have ways to find out, and we’ll be forced to employ countermeasures.  This is in effect even if you decide you do not wish to sign anything.”

“Countermeasures”. And this is what she calls being blunt.

I’d go crazy in here.  There’s no personality to this place.

Yeah, there’s being professional, and then there’s being too professional.

Stranger still was the lack of dust.  Since her arrival, Jamie hadn’t seen anyone but the Doctor.  How did the Doctor keep everything so clean?

Maybe they’ve got superpowered cleaners.

“Have a seat.”

Jamie sat in one of the plastic chairs.

“I like to talk and establish expectations before we begin.  You should know that almost every aspect of this experience can be tailored to your tastes.  Cauldron’s usual routine, however, is to arrange one face to face meeting.

I guess that would be this one.

We’ll discuss your budget, your situation and goals, and then we’ll peruse a catalog to find something that fits your budget and will hopefully give you the results you desire.  There is a two month waiting period, during which time I will assign you some testing, some regarding your physical condition, other tests for psychological reasons.”

It seems like a pretty solid system.

“Psychological?  Is that to make sure I won’t flip out and go villain when I get powers?”

I don’t think so. Cauldron doesn’t seem to care about that so much as the powers potentially reacting badly with a brain that’s not quite right. What did they call it again? A d… *searches* Deviation scenario, that’s the thing.

“That is not a concern.  Though your question seems to indicate that you hope to be a hero?”  The Doctor made it a half-question, half-statement.

Yep. Flat out don’t care.

And it seems like she’s evading the intent behind the question.

Jamie’s brow furrowed.  “Wait, so you give powers to people who want to be villains?”

“We give powers to anyone who pays.  Rest assured, if you wish to end this meeting now because of a pang of conscience, we can see you returned to the barn shortly.”

They go after the money, just like a certain other group narratively associated with them.

“Why?  Why not go public?”

“Countries would go to war over what we have at our disposal.  A way to grant powers to anyone who wants them.  They would want armies of parahuman soldiers.

That is a good point.

Even if we did manage to establish ourselves as a neutral party without government interference, Cauldron would be infiltrated by those looking to steal our secrets.  Spies, thieves.”

Yep. The Dealer seemed to be doing that for personal profit (probably starting out as a Cauldron employee and then beginning to sell powers on the side), but I could absolutely see that happening with government spies too.

“And people who wanted to establish a rival business?”

That could happen if they figured out or stole the secret, yeah.

They were reaching the end of the hallway.  The Doctor smiled lightly.  “And that.  Please, through this door.”

Jamie prided herself on her ability to identify evasions and untruths.

I wonder how she’d hold up against Doc Scratch or an Aes Sedai, with their penchants for fooling people while telling the objective truth.

The Doctor was humoring her when she replied to the question about rival businesses.  The idea didn’t seem to worry her.  Why?

Maybe because Cauldron has ways of dealing with those who would try to establish something like that?

“Welcome to Cauldron,” the Doctor said.

And there we have the confirmation / reveal for those who hadn’t caught on.

■

Oh – skipping ahead a bit?

“How did you find me?  I just got an email.”

Ah, so they contacted her.

“I’d have to check my notes.  We have ways of finding interested parties.  If I remember right, you were browsing websites, researching ways to acquire tinker-made armor and weapons?”

Becoming a tinker herself would certainly be a way of doing that.

Alternatively, becoming a different kind of parahuman could eliminate the need.

Jamie nodded.  “I was.  So many were fakes or scams that I wasn’t willing to trust the ones that did look legit.”

Even the legit ones were probably not particularly safe, really.

“We own several of those sites.  All are fakes.  That might have been where we first noticed your activity.”

Ah, that makes sense. Dummy sites specifically designed to detect people who might be interested in obtaining powers or something like them.

“That’s a little creepy.”

Maybe a little bit.

“Creepiness is an unfortunate reality when you’re forced to operate covertly, without a steady customer base.”

I wonder what the laws Cauldron is working around are like. It makes sense that the authorities wouldn’t want the sale of powers, since it increases the chances of people like, well, Shatterbird getting powers, but what are the specifics?

“Jamie.”  It was the name her parents had been planning to give her baby sister.  They’d broken up before that happened.

Not a bad name.

“Jamie it is.  Come.  I have an employee that is relocating this section of my offices to this spot, but it taxes him, and there’ll be less wait for the return trip if we don’t strain him.”

Ahh, that’s a really neat way to spin this. Why use portals when you can just move the location you’re in?

Jamie looked over her shoulder at her car.  The GPS wouldn’t do her much good here, she suspected.  It would take a leap of faith.

I mean, it might be confused until the office is put back where it should be, but unless the office is in a place the GPS can’t find (underground or something), it ought to work fine for finding Cauldron’s base.

She hurried over and stepped close to the Doctor, crossing that border from packed dirt and moldy hay to clean tiled floor.

There was a rush of wind, and the surroundings swam violently for two or three seconds.  When the image had resolved again, they stood in the middle section of a long hallway.  It looked like a hospital, sterile, white, clean, but it was empty.  There were no people, and there was no equipment.

So pretty much the essential secret lab aesthetic. I like it.

And there was no car in sight.

I just thought about the possibility of it being someone we know from before that doesn’t usually stick to Brockton Bay, such as one of the heroes who showed up to fight Leviathan. Maybe even a bigshot like Legend or Myrddin.

Plenty of those can fly. Maybe the person she’s meeting doesn’t need a car.

Sighing, humiliated, she donned her shoes, opened her car door and prepared to leave.  She wouldn’t speak of this to anyone.

“Leaving?  After coming all this way?”  The voice was female, rich with hints of a French accent, but the English was probably better than her own.

Called it!

Well, not who it was, but the part about getting ready to leave and then being interrupted by the person’s voice (this is why I suggested the person showing up behind her).

French accent, huh. Canadian, maybe? Possibly a Vasil?

She turned, then stepped a few feet in front of her car to look inside the barn.

A woman stood there, dark-skinned, with her hair cut into a short style that was more utilitarian than stylish.  She wore a doctor’s lab coat and held a white plastic clipboard with both hands.

…ohh.

I think we’re dealing with Cauldron.

So much of what our POV character has been suggesting makes sense with that in mind – the secrecy, the potential of it being a hoax, it all clicks with that lab coat.

Prediction: She’s going to conclude that she did get played and then someone’s going to show up (possibly behind her) right as she’s getting ready to leave.

For some reason I’m imagining a bearded pirate-like man, perhaps with a hook hand, but I kind of doubt that’s where this is going.

Her weight shifted from foot to foot, as her impatience manifested in restlessness.  Eight minutes before she found out if she’d been played for a fool.

She used her shoes to kick a few loose stones from the dirt driveway, smoothed it out, and then kicked them off.  Barefoot, she planted her feet a shoulder width apart, then bent her knees as though she were sitting down in a chair, her arms outstretched in front of her for balance.

Hehe. Gotta do something.

Boredom is something we avoid at all costs.

She bent low, straightened, then repeated the process several more times.

Deep breaths.

Is this some kind of yoga or meditation thing? Or maybe she’s got a power that involves this.

Centering herself, she began on the next form, placing her feet perpendicular to one another, and transferring her weight from one foot to the other, from toe to heel to the heel of the other foot.

Really seems like some sort of yoga.

Her digital watch interrupted her exercises with a steady beeping.  She’d set an alarm for the meeting deadline.  Right this minute, she was supposed to be meeting someone.

Those were some of the quicker eight minutes in this story. I think more time might’ve passed in the last four paragraphs than in several chapters of Parasite.