“And so you’ve spent the last year trying to find a way to purchase powers, with the intent of righting that wrong?”

And protecting her father, I suppose? If it’s not too late for that.

No, wait, her dad’s definitely alive, unless he got killed while she was on this trip. He was the one who was supposed to use the GPS tracker if she didn’t return.

“I want to stop him.  And not just him.  I want to help things make sense again, even if it means playing unfair because they’re playing unfair.

I think “Jamie” might get along with Taylor.

Crime should have consequences.”

But yeah, sounds like a recipe for an antihero.

The Doctor typed something onto the keyboard, paused, and then typed something else. “Madcap.  Well, the good news is that he isn’t one of ours, so there’s no conflict of interest. The bad news is that the PRT rated him as a striker seven.”

Pretty high rating… So what does his strike do? Incite madness?

Jamie’s face settled into a grim expression.  “I know.  My dad has resources.  I took the time to look up Madcap’s records.”

“Having looked into your finances-”

“I’ve got a place in the city that was left to me.  My dad doesn’t know about it, so it’d be easy to sell it and not have anyone close to me get curious where they money went.

Huh, that’s convenient.

Current housing market says I could sell it for three-quarters of a million dollars.  I just have to sell it.”

Not bad!

“Too true.”

“Finally, after about a year of court appearances and one minor appeal they managed to squeeze in there, it was decided.  The pair was supposed to go to the Birdcage.  Except someone broke them out.”

We do know Ramrod did eventually end up there, at least, after Lung, Bakuda and Paige.

Unless of course there’s some bullshit going on with the Ramrod in the Birdcage being fake or something.

“I think I’m beginning to understand.”

Jamie gnawed on her lip for a second.  Just thinking about it pissed her off.  “His name is Madcap, and he’s a mercenary that specializes in breaking people out of jail.

Hm. I guess either they predicted they would get caught, there’s a fourth person who would want Ramrod and Fleece out, or Madcap was a personal friend of the pair or otherwise had personal interest in getting them out.

Sometimes even when they’re in the convoy on the way to the Birdcage.  And it’s just… wrong.  It’s not the way things should work.  Months or years of investigation, good police and good heroes risking their lives to finally catch someone and arrest them, a year of trial, and all it takes is one fucking asshole with powers to free them?”

Yeeah.

“Countermeasures?”

“Our response will reflect the gravity of the offense.  We have clients who have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the products and services we offer.  It is our obligation to protect them.”

Ah, fair enough, it’s not always murder.

“What kind of countermeasures?  Would you kill me?”

“We try to avoid murder in the course of doing business, not just because of the moral issues, but because it draws attention.

Makes sense. Kill someone and you’ve got an investigation going.

For leaks, our usual procedure is to discredit the individual in question and deploy our in-house division of parahumans to drive them into hiding, remove their powers or both.”

Removing their powers is a thing they can do? I suppose it doesn’t make any less sense than giving them powers in the first place, but that’s an interesting tidbit.

Try to avoid murder.  The phrasing implied the Doctor or Cauldron had gone that far before. She didn’t like that, and she especially didn’t like the fact that the Doctor was phrasing things so she’d miss that detail if she wasn’t listening carefully.

Of course, the Doctor is doing customer service. She’s not going to lie about the terms or their neutral morality, but she’ll try to make Cauldron sound good.

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.