I pointed at the unconscious Bryce.  “An errand.  Didn’t mean to get in your way.  I only grabbed the papers as a spur of the moment thing, and because they would’ve been ruined if they’d just drifted all over in there.”

And of course because Lisa wanted her to, but it’s probably best not to mention that.

But yeah, as far as recovering the papers goes, the Crew are lucky Taylor was there.

“That wasn’t much of a concern.  One of my teammates is collecting the papers as we talk, and I expect she’ll find nearly all of them.  The ones that she could find with some luck, anyways.”

Hah, good point.

Luck is a really good power.

“We’re honestly not looking for trouble, and  I have no problem with giving you these.” I banished the bugs on the paper and stepped forward to extend it towards him.

Yeah, this is a good, peaceful way to resolve this situation.

Lisa followed my cue, offering the others, “Wouldn’t mind copies of whatever you’ve got.”

Hehe, of course.

“Which is?”

Newter glanced at the papers, “I’d really like to know.”

Still some open questions, I see.

“So you followed us.”

“Something about the way that one moved,” Newter pointed at Jaw with his tail, “Reminded me of some other mercenaries I’ve come across.  Don’t bother shooting, by the way, I’m too quick.”

Ahh. The bodyguard was a little too bodyguardy. I guess he’s figured out they work for Coil, too.

Lisa gestured, and the bodyguards lowered their weapons.

Newter frowned, “I gathered you were mercenaries, decided to spy, but finding you’d taken the papers was a surprise.  Who are you?”

People with an interest in information, just like you.

Lisa looked at me, without a ready answer for once.  I looked over at Charlotte and sighed.  She’d already put some of the pieces together.  She could probably figure it out from here.  

Yeah, and Minor showed no surprise, either. Chances are more of the bodyguards have figured out who Taylor is, too.

I might as well control when that happened, so I wouldn’t get caught off guard further down the road.

Yeah, that’s fair. Seems like a decent idea. We don’t want Charlotte approaching Taylor on street shouting “Holy shit you’re Skitter?”

I raised the piece of paper, as if to hand it to Newter, and I directed bugs to cluster on it.  In moments, the half of the paper closest to him was dark with various flies and creepy crawlies.

Heh, this is a neat way of telling him.

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.