4.3 HFC

We adjourned to Faultline's office. It was only Taylor, Faultline and me. She was in her chair, Taylor sat on a small couch to the side and I was in one of the uncomfortable chairs in front of the desk. Her office here was similar to the one at the Palanquin.

"You first," Faultline said.

"Fine. Most of this I learned when Dinah came into the warehouse and I made that phone call. Do you remember?"

"Yes."

"I had called Calvert to get Panacea's number. I tried to skirt around why but he correctly deduced exactly what had happened. That Dinah Alcott had escaped to us. He knew this because he was Coil, the person who originally hired you to kidnap her in the first place. And the person whom she escaped from. He told me that if Dinah was not in my possession he would remove her from play."

Faultline frowned. "He gave her to you?"

"No... I don't think so. I dug around and I'm pretty sure he 'rescued' her during the Red Sky incident. That action had a big influence on his election to chief director. I believe he fully intended her to join the Wards or something and to be able to use her in a more official capacity. But then she actually escaped and actually ran to us for help. He adapted to the situation."

"But that still gave him half a year to drag information out of her," Taylor said. "If that's true how did we manage to take over Brockton Bay so easily? Calvert should have known everything we were planning before we did."

I bit my lip. "I honestly don't know. It doesn't make sense to me. If Cavlert knew capes would become scarce I don't know why he would want to become the director of the entire PRT. In a world where capes are a thing of the past the PRT gets disbanded and he's left with nothing. I don't understand."

"I think I do," Faultline said. "But to confirm my suspicions we need to use Dinah."

"I don't want to make her use her power," I said. "She'll have to volunteer it."

"Of course."

Luckily Dinah was downstairs. She lived in the office, after all. I had on more than one occasion offered to take her back to her family and she always refused. I found her sitting in her room watching the television. She looked at me with knowing eyes and wordlessly followed me back to Faultline's office.

"No one will ask you a direct question," I said. "You can volunteer anything you want."

"I'm okay, Maddy." She said. "I want to do this."

Faultline led us back to the conference room where a bunch of our parahumans had been lined up. Once Faultline had double checked something or other she addressed Dinah and me. "Alright Dinah. If you would, please indicate who keeps and who loses their powers come Valentine's day. Those who keep them will move to the left side of the room, and those who lose them move to the right side of the room."

Dinah nodded and said she knew most of the answers already from when Calvert forced them out of her.

I lost mine and was shunted to the right. Taylor kept hers and went to the left.

Faultline, right. Shamrock, left. Spitfire, right. Gregor, left. Newter, left. Dinah, right. Bakuda, right. Squealer, right. Skidmark, right.

"This is only a small sample, but some of you should see the pattern," Faultline said looking at those who were keeping their powers. It was Taylor, Newter, Shamrock and Gregor.

All four of them wore shocked expressions on their faces, but I had absolutely no idea what was going on. "Care to share with the rest of the class?" I asked.

"Cauldron," Faultline answered, "is an organization that experiments with and sells superpowers. Gregor and Newter are case fifty-threes. They were experimented on by Cauldron. Shamrock purchased superpowers from them. And we have a strong suspicion Taylor is also a victim of Cauldron. On the other hand, no one on our side of the room has any known affiliation with them."

That was hard to believe. It was impossible to believe, but at the same time it made way too much sense not to believe. After all, people were going to lose their powers. It's not an absurd thought that they could be bought or induced. "Your guess is that people who get their powers naturally will lose them, and those who bought them or were given them forcefully will retain them."

"It is."

"I assume you have evidence Cauldron actually exists and actually does this."

"We do, though we would have had more if we had that flash drive. But testimony from Shamrock implies their existence and we have in our possession these superpowers-in-a-can."

"We have what?" I asked. "We have—we can make parahumans?"

"Four. We could make four," Faultline said. "I know what's going in your head and no we have no idea how to possibly replicate it. We're not going to be able to pull off what Cauldron is doing and no one here wants to."

Shot down before I could get a word out.

"Furthermore, we're certain that some members of the PRT or Protectorate or both are aware of its existence. Which is why the PRT wanted that flash drive back."

I sighed. "I have to admit I'm a bit miffed you kept all this from me. But since apparently there's a whole lot we were keeping from each other, I might as well say this: Alexandria was also ex-director Costa-Brown."

"...chief-director-of-the-PRT Costa-Brown?" Taylor asked.

"Yes."

"That's a really huge scandal," Faultline said. "Or it would be if it got out. Fuck, that actually makes sense. Did you—"

"Yes, as soon as I suspected I looked into it. No one confirmed it for me for obvious reasons, but I'm convinced it's the truth. Once you know what you're looking for all the facts fit together."

There was a moment of silence as we all tried to absorb everything we'd been told. Superpowers were bought and sold in secret by some group named Cauldron. And it's likely that only the "Cauldron capes" are the ones who will retain their powers. Whatever natural phenomenon causes people to trigger is going to stop and those of us who triggered will have our powers revoked.

Let's say it's Valentine's day. Something happens and this revocation occurs. What happens immediately after is that, once news spreads, almost assuredly the villains who managed to retain their powers will start shit. Those who still have power will crush their enemies who lost it.

Unless Calvert knows exactly who will retain their powers and has his PRT agents shut them down hard before they can start anything at all. It would be a tremendous show of strength on his part. I'm sure that's his opening move.

The question that remains is what happens after the initial reaction settles down and the PRT keeps the world safe. A handful of heroes, a handful of villains. The culture wouldn't necessarily change but the infrastructure would. The PRT wouldn't need to be such a huge organization.

With only a few heroes left in America they would probably be assigned to a single unit that's designed to counter villains. Villains who would also be few in number.

The PRT would have no reason to exist. Or if it did remain, it would be some small little organization that had strike teams that could deploy whenever villains are discovered. Everything wouldn't be as open. It would be more secretive and elusive. Openly operating villains would be a thing of the past unless they were as strong as Taylor was.

But all of that restructuring would be on the order of months and years. Stuff would happen before that. After the initial reaction there would be a small grace period where people wondered if powers would come back and how to proceed. With the entire PRT at his disposal and ready to obey his command, what would Calvert do?

What would I do?

"Fuck," I said aloud. Faultline and Taylor turned towards me.

"What is it?"

"I... I would invent a threat." I stared up at the ceiling. "If the heroes and villains are gone and there's only the PRT, its existence would be useless without a threat to fight. If I ran the PRT and I was in danger of being shut down because there's no more villains... I would invent villains to fight. I would invent us."

"Us?"

"HFC. When the Valentine's event happens and there's no more powers, we won't be necessary. We'll just be a group run by an overpowered master. To survive we'll have to be more aggressive. We'll have to throw away our cooperation and combat the PRT openly and without remorse. Calvert wants us to do this. Which means he'll force us to."

"Without villains there's no heroes, is it?" Taylor asked. "So that there will be heroes, Calvert will make us the villains."

I nodded. The system will persist only because we will artificially continue it. The future Calvert wants is one of a civil war. Where he stands on the side of the heroes to fight against the blight that is Taylor and her thralls. And neither side will win. There will be just enough fighting so that both sides can validate their existence.

Taylor and Calvert will control the world. Something like that.

"You're forgetting something important, Madison." Taylor said.

"Am I?"

"The Endbringers. What if they're still around?"

I bit my lip. Fuck. I actually did forget that and it actually is important. If past Valentine's day the Endbringers still exist and there's no heroes to fight them, well, there's some naturally occurring villains right there. Except—

"It's generally assumed that the Endbringers have some sort of goal that's not killing people, right?" I asked.

Faultline nodded. "If that was their goal they could destroy this planet rather easily. We're lucky that's not their goal, but no one has any idea what their goal actually is. They're less lethal when fighting parahumans. Any PRT versus Endbringer scenario would end in disaster for us every time."

"In a world with only a handful of heroes it's impossible to say if anyone would bother fighting them in the first place."

"I'm sure some would," Faultline said. "And if Cauldron's goal is not to kill us all—which I don't think it is—they would probably provide enough parahumans to fight against them."

Taylor groaned. "So basically Calvert isn't sure what will happen, but has plans for both. Either the Endbringers will be his enemy and Cauldron will create enough capes to battle them, or we will be his enemy." She put her face in her hands. "Who would have thought I'd root for the Endbringers to stick around."

If the Endbringers exist, Cauldron will continue making capes and the status quo will be sustained. The PRT will matter because capes will still be plentiful. Even if they're artificial. And Cauldron will be immensely powerful.

If the Endbringers don't exist, Calvert will prod us into becoming the villains. If we don't agree we'll be killed, so we'll become the villains. That's not necessarily a bad thing for me, but Taylor doesn't seem interested.

If the Valentine's event doesn't happen then the status quo remains and Calvert remains in control of the PRT.

I had to admire what he set up here.

"I think my theory is his contingency," I said. "Calvert probably assumes the Endbringers will stick around. And he'll work with Cauldron directly to control the cape population. That seems like the best outcome for him—controlling the PRT, Protectorate and the entire parahuman population."

The other options weren't as good. If HFC had to step onto the stage as the big bad villains it would be a little more forced. It might not work out quite as well.

Taylor and Faultline were in agreement. There was a pause while we exchanged glances before Taylor finally spoke up. "So what are we going to do about it?"

I shrugged. "Let's think about it. I'm kind of weary. Unless there were other secrets you want to share?"

There weren't. I didn't blame them for keeping things from me. Even really huge important world-changing things like Cauldron existing. I understood that there was no reason to share that with me until this moment.

What drew my fatigue wasn't that I was tricked or lied to. It was the magnitude of the content itself. A secret organization selling powers was one thing. The power they had at their fingertips was worrisome, but it wasn't the most troubling thing. What troubled me wasn't even the implication of them existing.

It was the prerequisite. Superpowers could be bought and sold.

It didn't matter that I had no clue how this was true. I had no clue how powers worked, where they came from, or why triggers happened or any of that stuff. But that glaring, neon-red fact:

Superpowers can be bought and sold.

Somehow it made them real. I didn't even realize this had been happening, but the culture of capes took powers for granted. These mysterious, ethereal "super powers" were handed down to us from on high when we needed them. Physics-defying abilities that let us act beyond what normal people could.

A lie.

A bold-faced lie that the public assumed was true. It was a lie I should have realized immediately. A lie I should have realized before I even got powers in the first place, a lie I should have—

—a lie I probably would have realized much earlier had I actually written that assignment for Gladly instead of stealing it from Taylor. I smiled at the cruelty. I suppose in some karmatic way I brought this too-late realization upon myself.

Physics was not limited in scope. Physics did not put itself on pause so that we could use superpowers. Physics was omnipresent and encapsulated all of everything. Nothing defies physics. And the fact that I could teleport by myself of my own abilities meant one thing:

I could teleport by myself of my own abilities!

The power was borrowed and would soon be taken away. But that didn't mean the power was gone forever. It was something that was possible. And it was Cauldron that was researching this possibility. Whatever other motives Cauldron may have, they were experimenting with powers and learning how they worked.

Calvert must be doing his best to worm his way into that organization.

And now I had to as well.

Once I was back in my own office I put my feet up on my desk. Dinah was here but she was playing a game on her phone. I watched her play the game for a minute without thinking about much. I'd only been at HFC for an hour and a half, maybe two, but I was already exhausted. I flipped on the television to watch some mindless program.

I muted a commercial and noticed Dinah was staring at me. "What is it?"

"Are you going to stop everyone losing their powers?" She asked.

"I dunno. Maybe. Today I've taken a thousand steps in the right direction." Though they were steps Faultline and Taylor had taken long ago. "I still don't know how powers work. If I could somehow contact Cauldron I might know but I have no idea how I would do that. My head is all befuddled."

"Want to play a game?"

I shrugged. "Sure. It'll get my mind off it."

"I'll go get some cards," Dinah exclaimed and trotted off. A game might be nice to clear my head. I needed to take a break and come back in a more organized manner. Right now I was mentally exhausted. An easy game against Dinah would be fine. It's not like she would use her powers or anything.

Such hopes were dashed when Shamrock came back with her. "I brought this person," Dinah said innocently. Shamrock gave me a wave.

"You can't play games without me, you know."

They pulled up chairs around my desk. My heart sank and I carefully cleared off some of the stuff around me. A game against Dinah would have been easy, but against Shamrock

She pulled out a deck of cards and shuffled. "We may as well start off with an easy one. Ever play Old Maid?"

"Of course."

Shamrock pulled out the face cards and shuffled them. "I don't feel like playing with the whole deck. Every round is just discarding a bunch of nonsense when there's so few people anyways."

"Sure."

"Also, if it's impossible for someone to draw a card the game ends right then and there. I don't like dragging things out pointlessly."

"Fine, whatever."

After shuffling only the face cards she dealt them out. There was still a little bit of initial discarding. "We'll do a little warm-up before we start betting," Shamrock said. Then she reached over to her left and grabbed one of Dinah's cards, discarding a pair.

I eyed everyone suspiciously as we drew and discarded. There didn't need to be a practice round for a game of Old Maid unless Dinah didn't understand the rules. But the game was simple enough. Whoever ended up with the joker as the last card lost.

With so few cards the end crept up on me faster than I thought it would. Shamrock had two cards, Dinah one, and I had none. Shamrock gave me a cruel smile as I reached towards her hand. She must have had the joker so her smile confused me.

I drew a queen, and then Shamrock took Dinah's card, and then Dinah took mine. No one discarded and the hands looked exactly as they did a round ago.

"Ah," I said. "I lost."

"Yeah." Shamrock confirmed. Unless I drew the joker the game would continue indefinitely. Since each time was a fifty-fifty chance it wouldn't be long before I eventually drew it. Instead of continuing Shamrock slid me the joker and then she took Dinah's queen and paired them off. "Now that you understand the basics, let's bet a little. How does ten thousand per hand sound?"

I coughed. "T-Ten thousand?" That was a ridiculous amount. I'm not betting that much on Old Maid of all things. "I don't think Dinah has that much."

"I think a question from her is worth at least that much," Shamrock replied. "How about it Dinah? Want to wager a question a round?"

"Sure," Dinah said. Damn you, Dinah. Now I would look like the weak one if I didn't bet.

Shamrock's grin pissed me off. She looked down on me like some animal. "Fine," I said through gritted teeth.

"Excellent. Trust me, it'll be fun."

She shuffled and dealt the cards again. But there was something different this time. The joker was sitting in my hand but all I could do was stare. It was terrifying. It felt like poison in my hands. I had to get rid of it any way I could.

Luckily all the cards in my hand were literally touching my hand. So when Dinah reached out and tried to grab an innocent jack I swapped the cards with the joker with my ability. The color drained from her face when she took it. Sorry Dinah, but I don't want to lose that much money.

Shamrock acted completely nonchalant, but this was her wheelhouse. There was no way she didn't read Dinah's obvious tell. Shamrock drew from Dinah, and Dinah's face brightened. It's pretty obvious what's happening.

"Yay," Dinah said aloud.

Yeah.

Dinah drew something and paired it off and then I drew something and paired it off. And as soon as I put the cards down and looked up my heart sank. Shamrock had two cards and Dinah had one.

Fuck, I screamed inside my head.

"Fell for the same trick twice in a row, huh Madi?" Shamrock asked. "You usually present yourself as better than that."

My hand trembled as I grabbed the joker out of Shamrock's hand and lost twenty thousand dollars with it. Ten to Shamrock, ten to Dinah. Shamrock casually gathered up the cards again and shuffled. "W-Wait," I said. "I'm dealing."

She nodded and slid the cards over. I tried to calm myself as I shuffled the cards but it was hard. I had lost twenty thousand dollars in a minute. The people at Winslow would have killed for that much money. Hell some of them probably had.

This time I was the one who dealt the cards out to everyone. For the third time in a row I started with the joker, but I silently accepted it. The last two games had taught me an important lesson. The loser wasn't the one who had the joker in the end.

It was the person who had to take it away in the end.

I let the game go as it had before but this time I made sure to hold onto that joker. Even when Dinah reached out and was going to grab it I switched the cards and held onto it. This was the trap that Shamrock had laid in this game. The false idea that the old maid was poisonous.

When the game reached its completion my heart sank for a different reason. I had successfully set up the same situation Shamrock had to me, except it wasn't directed at Shamrock. I had put Dinah in the loser's chair. I don't think she even understood that she'd lost until she drew the joker and I paired off the jacks and won.

Shamrock laughed. "Shouldn't you be happy at your victory, Madi?" She asked. "Or did you tunnel vision so hard on victory you didn't realize who would be hurt along the way? Guess you and Taylor have that one in common."

I bit my lip and handed the cards over to Dinah to shuffle and deal. I was down ten thousand, Dinah was down one question and Shamrock was up twenty thousand. But I had paid attention: it was always the person to the right of the dealer who lost.

This game might have no agency at all. Everything could be predetermined from the first go-around, like a game of Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Mo. Shamrock's been playing me from the start.

If she didn't think I would notice that then she's about to get a cruel lesson.

"Thank you," Shamrock said playfully as she grabbed a card from Dinah. She hadn't paired anything off. That brought it to my turn, where I drew the joker from Shamrock.

This was good. This was a good thing. What I needed in the end was for Dinah to end up with the joker. That way I could force Shamrock to take it away in the end and it would finally be her loss. It would bring the scores back to a tie.

However, Dinah wouldn't be willing to hold onto the joker. By how readable her face was Shamrock could easily grab it at will even without superpowers. She could just slide her fingers along Dinah's hand until her face brightened up.

So I would hold onto it for her. Until there were only a few cards left. So I made sure she drew something else from me. She happened to pair it off, but that was the first one. Then I drew from Shamrock, paired it off, and she drew from Dinah and did nothing.

That left Dinah with only one card, but Shamrock still had tons. The game wasn't close to over yet. So I didn't give Dinah the joker. She paired off something else, leaving herself with an empty hand.

I reached over and was going to take something from Shamrock's hand, but her grin was malevolent.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Think about what's right in front of your face instead of ten steps ahead."

I scrunched my brow and tried to understand what she meant. I would draw from her, probably pair something off, and then she would...

...be unable to do anything.

"Fuck," I said. "Dinah has no cards."

"Yeah," Shamrock said with that grin. "She doesn't, does she? Here, take this. It doesn't really matter."

I wordlessly drew a card from Shamrock, then she put her hand down and shrugged without being able to do anything. She had said it at the beginning. If anyone was unable to draw the game ended right then and there. And I'd stupidly held onto the fucking joker.

"...it was poison after all," I said softly.

Shamrock gathered up the cards but I stopped her.

"No, I'm done," I said. "I can't do this again."

I had already lost thirty thousand dollars. Thirty thousand dollars on a game of old maid. That was my mom's yearly salary, gone in ten minutes. It was cruel and unfair.

"You seemed to grasp the rules well enough," Shamrock said.

"Don't patronize me. I was taken in completely, right? The first two games you tricked me into thinking there was only one way to win. Since it was counter-intuitive I thought I was on to something. And the third game only confirmed my theory. This made me easy prey in the fourth game when I was fooled by how the game usually would go. Something I never should have fallen for if I hadn't been completely under your control."

"Huh?" Dinah asked. "Wasn't it just luck?"

I shook my head. "Not against this person. This "Sudden Death" Old Maid seems simple with simple rules, but against this person nothing is that simple."

Shamrock leaned back in her chair. "You're right on all accounts. Did you know there's actually a rock-paper-scissors championship? A lot of people give it shit, but miraculously the same people end up in the finals year after year after year. Even a game with the most simple of rules can be mastered. And things that seem to be only luck are usually anything but."

I rose out of my chair. "I've had enough for today, I'm going home."

"One thing," Shamrock said. I turned back to stare at her. "Try thinking about how I controlled the game. I'd like next time to be harder."

I responded with a grunt and left my own office. No one was going to say anything to me if I didn't work anymore today. It's not like I was an employee of some corporation, I was the director of a soon-to-be mercenary empire. I could leave whenever I damn well pleased.

Stupid Shamrock.

I managed to make it home in time for dinner. It was a more rare occurrence than I would have liked. My family was all smiles as I joined them for the pot roast, talking about their days. My parents had jobs of which they made less than twenty dollars an hour. I didn't dare tell them what just happened in the past half hour.

Gambling is a game that makes you feel like a complete idiot.

"How was your day, sweetie?"

I took my time swallowing my bite. "Uneventful. A lot of talking, not a lot of doing." Though I have to hand it to Shamrock about one thing, I had completely forgotten all of that Cauldron nonsense. All I could think about is how stupid I was for losing that much money. That might have been a kindness on Shamrock's part but there was no way I would ever see it that way.

I choked on a carrot when I realized what Shamrock had actually done. That last game Shamrock had ended up with a bunch of cards, completely going against how all three previous games had gone.

But it was weird. It was weird that she didn't discard anything even though there were only face cards in play. I couldn't verify it but at some point she must have had a pair and just ignored it. And if she was willing to do that she was probably cheating all over the place with her telekenisis.

Nothing to do about it now. When dinner was over I grabbed the box of thin mints I bought earlier and took them to my room. I had to somehow put Shamrock's stupid game out of my mind and focus on what really mattered.

There was still a lot to process from what I learned today, and getting some of it written down would let me see things more clearly. So I took my laptop to my room as well. Though the sheer danger of the information would demand me delete and shred anything I actually do write down. For good measure I disconnected my laptop from the internet.

At some point I fell asleep at my desk.