Free to Play
Interlude 1.B
The Number Man appreciated Freebie's candor, if not her conviction. He stood up from the chair and offered a hand - an implicit gesture of trust. Freebie grasped it with her thin, feminine hand and shook.
"If you ever change your mind, you can contact me through the e-mail I gave you. My financial services remain at your disposal, should you choose to reconsider."
"Thank you for the consideration, but I am sure I won't have a need of it." Freebie replied, likely smiling behind her elegant porcelain mask. "Uber, can you please let our guest out the door?"
"Yes, boss." Her heavily-armored guard saluted, and stuck to the Number Man's back as they exited the office and wandered through the partially-refurbished base. Most of the errant Mario and Sonic posters had been torn down along with a lot of other junk. The hidden base was clearly getting a makeover. A few of Freebie's powered lackeys were cleaning up Uber and Leet's old messes and were installing more furniture and equipment.
Number Man threw a brief glance at one Freebie's first business partners. "Uber, right? I admit I am more than a little curious why you've decided to support your current boss. Is her business model not an anathema to your own vision of how video games should be appreciated?"
The villain - or former villain - let out a laugh. "Lots of people ask me that. I don't want to spill all the details, but let's say Freebie convinced Leet and I that it's better to work together with developers than stay as fans."
"A very prudent decision." The mathematical Thinker nodded, understanding Uber's point more deeply than he intended to reveal. They strolled through a barren corridor that led upwards.
"Hey, we can see the way the wind is blowing. When another game's come to town, you can either play along or get played." Uber stated as he went through an elaborate set of security procedures. "Well, here's the exit. Goodbye."
The Number Man exited the hidden base and took a meandering tour through the block. Only when he was absolutely sure no one was watching did he say, "Door me."
The clinical interior of Cauldron's hidden facility was a welcome facade after staying confined in one of Uber and Leet's ramshackle abodes. Doctor Mother greeted his return with a look that oozed discontent. "So she has refused your offer?"
"As expected." The man said, taking a seat at the table. "Contessa could do better."
Yet that wouldn't have advanced Cauldron's goals due to Freebie's idiosyncrasies. Better to meet her with an unassuming face, and accept her rejection with grace. It mattered little in the long run. The Number Man could simply continue to keep an eye on Freebie's capital through her existing bank accounts and investments, though he loathed the inefficiency.
"Freebie is an interesting woman. Neither villain nor hero." The Number Man started, trying to parse his words. "She is difficult to read, but her inexperience reveals more than she prefers."
"Is she in it for the money? Power? Control?"
That was very difficult to pin down. "All of them, and more. Freebie has a larger goal in mind, that's what I can safely surmise. All the rest is coincidental. Sure, she covets money, but she has made no attempts at maximizing her profit. If she did, she'd run her business as a monopoly and ask for billions for her services."
Doctor Mother nodded in understanding. "Money can only get you so far. And excessive wealth always brings unwelcome scrutiny."
"Yet she is not aiming to distribute her products as widely as possible either. I've seen no indications that she intends to expand her business beyond Brockton Bay."
The insistence on sticking to her hometown was irrational. Brockton Bay's glory days were over. The place was a dump. Free2Play would have been much better served if she operated her business in a more favorable and dynamic environment. Yet Freebie would never think of doing so. It was one of her many flaws.
"We shall stay our current course, then." Doctor Mother concluded, and stood up, ready to get back to her duties. "As long as she does not prove detrimental to our ultimate goals, we shall leave her be, and let the world grow accustomed to the novelty of buying superpowers."
Allowing Caudron to sell their own, superior products more openly in the future, if the need required it. If anything good could be said about Freebie, it was that she didn't compete with Cauldron, but rather enabled them. Even more, Freebie was doing something different, changing the failing cape landscape into something new and different. How it would turn out, no one knew for sure. There were too many variables and they grew by the day. But when the game finally reached its end - as all games did - Cauldron would be ready to pick up the pieces.
Somer's Rock saw little uptick in business even with the increase in cape activities. Very few new parahumans even knew of the importance this old and musty pub. Much of the clientele consisted of the older guard, the born and bred Brocktonites who found even Fugly Bob's too modern for their tastes.
None of them were present at this moment. The closed sign in front of the door came up rarely, and even fewer customers knew what it represented.
The door wasn't even unlocked, really, as one guest aptly demonstrated. The individuals inside looked up at the new entrant. Kaiser - in full metal regalia - made a contemptuous sound. "I know punctuality is a very fuzzy concept to you, but thirty minutes is too much."
Lung waited until he took a seat at the central table before making a reply. "There are too many heroes on the streets these days. Perhaps you have no problems wading in their blood, but I prefer to be discreet."
"Gentlemen, please. Let us address the topic we came to discuss, preferably without posturing." Coil interjected. He had been the one to call this extraordinary meeting in the first place. Extraordinary in that he made the condition that none bring any lieutenants or other lackeys. The more villains gathered in one place, the more the meeting risked falling into pointless pissing matches. The current situation was too dire to allow that to distract from the main issue.
"This shit's fucking stupid." Skidmark said as he leaned back and put his mud-crusted boots on the table. He ignored the ugly stares. "Why the fuck we need to talk? We got a good thing going here! We send our underlings to Freebie, and we get a free supervillain. What's not to like?"
Coil shook his head. "You do not see the bigger picture. Yes, in the short term we benefit from Free2Play's generous offers. But what comes next? Her entry into the Brockton Bay cape scene has completely upset the playing board. We, the established criminals, have all been turned into her pawns in a game where she sets the moves."
Skidmark got the gist. "She's fucking us around. Gonna screw us in our ass if we let her do her thing."
Kaiser nodded. "Took you long enough. The largest issue facing our gangs is that we will be unable to maintain long-term parity with the heroes. Freebie offers upgrades to any hero or rogue, but bars this essential service to even minor villains. We can sneak past this restriction to an extent if our villain has kept a low profile, but overall it means that our 'free' villains will be significantly out-powered by the 'free' heroes."
"Heh." Lung let out a snort. "You are all running scared for nothing. These heroes are nothing compared to us. The boosts Freebie offers are minor enhancements from what I've seen so far. There is only so many times you can polish an old shoe."
"That may be true, and we do not know the extent a boost can improve one's powers, but enough heroes boosted many times can still skew the balance of power of this city, to our detriment." Coil warned the gang leaders. "Let us not be complacent and let the change creep up on us. I suggest we act more proactively."
"And what kind of 'proactive' solution do you have in mind, Coil?" Kaiser poked back, leaning back with two armored hands behind his head. "Pray not your usual method of kidnapping and threatening your targets."
The skeletal supervillain shook his head. "She has become too high-profile for such underhanded tactics. I suggest we approach her openly instead."
"Uh," Skidmark scratched his unwashed hair. "Won't she just call her pet army and drive us off?"
"Not if we wave the flag of truce. It's simple, really. We come up to Freebie and make her an offer she can't refuse. If we present a united front, we will have a high likelihood of success."
"I do not like this talk of compromise." Lung interrupted. "Freebie is a nuisance, a disruption of the natural order. Unlike the three of you, I have no interest in pumping affiliated gangers into the city to get powered up, and then send them back where they came from in order to strengthen your little alliances with other gangs. I am not part of a 'Gesellschaft' to whom I need to pay any tribute."
Kaiser irked in his seat. "None of us can be as humble as you, Lung, to keep your ambitions limited to the poorest districts of a single middle-sized city. Truly you are a model of small-mindedness."
"What did you say?" The Asian rumbled from his seat, sitting straighter and leaning forward. "It seems you are underestimating my reach."
"Gentlemen, gentlemen!" Coil raised his voice, trying to keep this meeting from turning into a total clusterfuck. "We are all mature enough to recognize each other's strengths. Freebie is counting on our disunity to keep us from protesting her actions. Let us find what little common ground we have and direct our enmity to the real enemy."
"Uhh.." Skidmark looked up from the line of coke he had just finished snorting. "What does enmity mean?"
Coil refrained from palming his face, an action Kaiser was more than willing to do in his stead. 'And I thought this would be easy with the four of us. This is going to be a long night.'
