After silence had reigned for a little while, Taylor leaned forward. She'd discussed it with her demon and thought that it was the only way to figure out what was going on, since it was now obvious that the oddities she'd noticed over the last couple of months were connected in some manner to Faultline and her people too. There were some interesting implications there, definitely. So she said, very carefully, "I may have another part of the puzzle."

Faultline and the others turned to look at her, as did her friends. Lisa seemed, not surprisingly, to already know what she was about to say, and Amy clearly clicked a moment later, seeming very thoughtful. "There's something I've noticed several times which you may find interesting."

"And what would that be?" Faultline asked, sounding somewhat reserved but also curious.

Taylor touched the end of her muzzle. "We have very acute senses," she replied, "including smell. We're probably more capable in that area than any other living thing on the planet. My branch of the Family is particularly noted for this." She glanced at Newter and Gregor, then returned her attention to Faultline who was listening intently. "In a few cases when I've met a Parahuman I've picked up on a very strange scent. It's common to all of them, doesn't seem to register on anything else we have available, and unlike anything else either me or my sister have smelled before."

Faultline nodded slowly, her face under the helmet pensive.

"Both Newter and Gregor have that scent."

All of their visitors stared at her, with Faultline herself going completely still. She looked like she was thinking, with a realization coming to her moments later, her eyes widening.

"Jesus..." she whispered. "You mean..."

Taylor shrugged. "I think so. It fits with what we've been talking about, and what both you and Metis have found out."

Newter discreetly sniffed himself, then looked puzzled. "I can't smell anything," he said.

Taylor smiled. "No, you wouldn't. Believe me, we've been trying to work this out for a while now, and neither of them can smell it either," she told him, indicating her 'cousins,' who were listening with interest. "But I can, and so can my sisters. It doesn't seem to be a normal sort of scent from what we can tell, because it doesn't hang around on things people with it touch. We only notice it when we're in their presence or near them. Nothing else behaves like that in our experience."

Faultline was still nodding to herself, working through it. "Cauldron supposedly sells powers if Metis is right. Which means Cauldron is making capes. Case 53s have that scent according to you. You can smell the same strange scent on some capes as on Case 53s, which probably means they're ones who bought their powers from Cauldron. And if that is true, Cauldron is also making Case 53s."

Newter was looking back and forth between Taylor and his employer, while Gregor was frowning and thinking hard. Labyrinth seemed to find the entire thing interesting although she was watching Taylor most of the time and didn't seem to feel like talking.

"It's an interesting coincidence at the very least," Lisa noted, her face showing she was thinking about it and communing with her power. "And it does hold together as far as I can see."

"I'm certain it's not a coincidence," Faultline growled. "There are already way too fucking many coincidences about the whole Case 53 scenario in the first place. If they have something in common with other capes, and there is a group or organization or company or whatever the fuck it is called Cauldron which is selling powers..."

"It's not beyond the bounds of possibility that whatever it is that they have that can produce a Parahuman for money is also responsible for creating Case 53s," Gregor finished for her, with a nod. "Which would explain the same scent you're detecting being present in each person."

Taylor spread her hands, looking at Lisa and Amy for a moment. "It seems plausible, although it's not certain. We don't know enough yet. I have no idea why that scent is only detectable by my side of the Family, for example. We'll work it out eventually but it's not something we've come across before. And we don't have proof that the Parahumans we've smelled it on did in fact purchase powers, or that there really is a Cauldron, whatever that really is, or that they're somehow causing Case 53s. All we have right now is a lot of circumstantial evidence."

"But it's pretty convincing circumstantial evidence," Amy mused out loud. "Enough to it to make me think there's something there."

"Indeed," the Varga said, looking at them all in turn. "We need more information to work out what that something is, though."

"A larger sample of Case 53s would help," Lisa pointed out. "We only have two so far, which isn't conclusive."

"True," Taylor nodded, "but if you add in the other Parahumans with that scent, the sample size is a lot bigger. And significant."

"We could just ask them, maybe?" Newter suggested somewhat nervously.

"I very much doubt that anyone who paid for Parahuman powers would volunteer that fact," Gregor pointed out immediately, shaking his head. "Either villain or hero, for a number of reasons. And considering how little real information there is out there about this, only rumors and guesswork, I would think that whoever Cauldron are is probably doing something to make sure the information doesn't get out."

"It makes sense," Lisa agreed. "I had a hard time finding out what I did. There's definitely someone going around sanitizing various sources on the internet and suppressing this information. It's too hard to trace for it to be accidental. And that strongly implies that whoever is behind it is keeping a low profile and has a lot of resources." She smiled a little. "Believe me, if I can't find it, they're good."

Faultline, who had been listening, turned to Taylor and said, rather angrily, "Who are these capes that have that smell?"

"I can't tell you," Taylor replied. "It would be a breach of the Rules and also a breach of their trust."

"How many?"

"I can't really tell you that exactly either," she said apologetically. "Under a dozen."

"Local?"

"Some are, some aren't."

"Very fucking helpful."

"Sorry, I'd like to, but it would cause more trouble right now than it would solve."

The woman sighed heavily. "Fuck. OK, yeah, I can see your point but it's very annoying."

"I know." Taylor smiled again. "We'll have to work around that for now."

Lisa, who had been looking at Gregor for some seconds now with a mildly quizzical expression like she was trying to work something out, suddenly frowned a little, then looked like enlightenment had dawned. "Gregor, can I see that tattoo of yours again?"

He gazed at her, then shrugged. "Sure." Turning his right shoulder to her, he let her examine it. Taylor and her friends did as well, curiously. At first glance it did look like an omega symbol more than anything else, although it was somewhat taller than it should be. After inspecting it for a few seconds, something prodded the back of her mind. Lisa had her head on one side like the same thing was happening to her.

Taylor and her demon realized it at the same time.

"Surely it can't be that easy?"

'It's idiotic, but it kind of fits.' Taylor glanced at him. 'These people are odd. Like Faultline says, if they're trying to cover this up, they're not as good at it as they should be. Leaving witnesses lying around all over the place, even if they can't remember what happened, isn't good security.'

"I would assume that there is a reason for it. Something that in their mind outweighs the security issue."

'What?'

"I don't know." He gave her a mental shrug. "Not enough information yet."

Out loud, he asked Faultline, "Are all the tattoos exactly the same?"

"Yes," she nodded. "Or, almost. There are tiny flaws in them, which are all different, but when people bring that up the usual answer is that tattooing isn't perfect and it's just where whoever did it slipped up. You can't see the flaws without a magnifying glass anyway."

"They're not all in the same place, obviously, and not all in the same orientation, although most of them more or less point downwards like mine and Newter's," Gregor added. "But every one I've seen looks the same other than that."

"There are lots of photos on the internet too, and I've looked at dozens of them over the years," Faultline went on as the demon nodded thoughtfully. "Everyone has a different theory for what they are. Some people think they're just a result of whatever happened to a Case 53, an accidental byproduct or something of that nature, but I'm sure they're deliberate. It's like someone is branding them."

"I would have thought there would be more information if it's that common," Amy pointed out.

"It gets erased, like I said," Faultline said with a glower. "Sometimes someone starts putting things together in a sensible way, and sooner or later they just… vanish. The data disappears. It's another thing that tells me it's not an accident."

Taylor stood up and walked over to peer very closely at Gregor's tattoo. He flinched a little but then held himself still as she examined it. Close up it was obvious that what she'd initially noticed was real, there definitely were minute white dots hidden in the mark itself, which did indeed look like a tattoo needle had missed. But for some reason she doubted that was the case. Something about it bothered her, and the Varga who was watching through her eyes agreed.

"Hey, Newter, can I see yours too?" she asked, turning to the orange boy. He swallowed then pulled his shirt up. She checked that as well. "Hmm."

Going back to her position she sat down again. The others were watching her. Pulling his shirt down once more Newter looked confused.

"You have a look like you've figured something out," Lisa said.

"I think I might have."

"Me too. I wonder if it's the same thing?"

"It's incredibly stupid."

"Yes, and also pretty arrogant."

"Might be the same thing, in this case."

"True."

Everyone else was looking back and forth between them. Eventually Amy said, "Would you two mind letting the rest of us in on your brilliant insight before our guests explode from frustration?"

Taylor nodded, as did Lisa. "You can go first if you like, Saurial," her friend said.

"OK." After a moment's thought, as everyone now focused on her, the Varga with slight amusement since naturally he knew what she'd realized, and the others with varying degrees of curiosity and impatience, she held out her hand. On it appeared a thin flat metal replica of the tattoo symbol. Picking it up with her other hand, she showed it to them.

"How did you do that?" Newter asked, looking intrigued.

"It's one of our talents, don't worry about it right now," she explained with a smile. "It's not important. Anyway, this is the symbol all Case 53s have, correct?"

Faultline nodded slowly. Gregor leaned forward and watched with interest.

"OK." She rotated it from the usual downward opening position to the opposite, so the arms of the omega pointed up. "Watch."

Taylor gently and slowly turned the symbol about the vertical axis, forming new metal in the original position, so that over a few seconds it formed a three dimensional hollow bowl-like shape with the omega cross-section. When she'd finished, she carefully put it down on the table on a little stand she made. She pointed at it with one taloned finger. "What's that?"

Everyone studied the metallic object. Faultline gaped, then scowled like she wanted to kill someone. "I don't fucking believe it!"

Gregor reached out and picked up the tiny literal cauldron she'd made, the shape an instantly recognizable one when it was a solid object rather than a stylized tattoo. He shook his head. "How did I not realize this?"

"No one seems to have worked it out," Lisa commented, "or if they have, the information and possibly them has been removed."

"They signed their work with their own name?" Newter gaped. "As a visual pun? What the fuck sort of conspiracy does that?"

"One that thinks it's much more clever than it really is, I suspect," 'Raptaur' growled. "Metis is correct, it speaks of a mix of arrogance and stupidity. And I believe we can be completely sure at this point that Cauldron does indeed exist. There is simply too much evidence and this… signature… only reinforces it."

Faultline was fuming by her scent but she was managing to suppress most of the signs other than that by a great effort of will. Amy looked thoughtful as did Gregor, while Newter and Labyrinth were peering at the little metal pot with interest, the orange boy frowning a little.

"It's still not incontrovertible proof," Lisa pointed out. "But I would agree that it's far past coincidence. The only way they could have managed to suppress this sort of conclusion for so long has to be the result of Parahuman powers, including some impressive Thinker abilities. I can't believe we're the first ones to work it out."

"Seems unlikely," Taylor agreed with a nod. "The shape sort of stuck out when the name's added to the equation. I'd have expected someone somewhere to have come to the same conclusion sooner or later."

"If this group, whoever and wherever it is, are making both normal Parahumans and Case 53s, what I want to know is why?" Faultline asked after a few more seconds of trying to control her obvious anger. "I get the capes, they presumably charge a lot of money for that service, or maybe some other deal is arranged, but why turn people into… abnormal shapes?"

"There's no need to sugar coat it," Gregor chuckled "They make monsters. Some of the changes are worthy of that name."

"Hey, I'm no monster, I'm just orange with a tail," Newter protested, looking mildly offended but also slightly amused.

"Nothing wrong with a tail," Taylor grinned. "And the color is nice too. I agree, neither of you are monsters at all."

"Both of us got off lucky compared to a few people I've heard of," Gregor sighed. "Some of them are… severely modified."

"My own research suggests the same," Lisa nodded. "As far as I can tell there are approximately a hundred or so known Case 53s with visible physical divergences from the human standard, and a considerable number more that look human at least on the outside but have internal changes in most cases. The only definitive commonality is the tattoo and the memory loss as Faultline mentioned."

"The memory loss has to be deliberate, I would agree with that," Amy added thoughtfully. "That particular form of retrograde amnesia is vanishingly rare in the population in general. To have it occur in every known case is essentially impossible accidentally. Either it's an artifact of whatever process produces a Case 53 in the first place, or it's a secondary effect applied at the same time."

"Presumably via a Parahuman ability," the Varga suggested. She nodded.

"Most likely. It would be difficult to arrange in other ways with any consistency, and without causing other damage. I could design something to do it but it would be a fairly delicate procedure. A Parahuman with the ability to selectively erase specific memories would seem to be the more likely scenario. An odd variant on a Stranger power, perhaps..." She thought for a little longer, then shrugged. "Possibly a Tinker designed machine instead. I would expect that would also be feasible, but it's not my field. Armsmaster or Leet might know."

Faultline looked between them all, then at her friends. "I still want to know why they do it. I'm not so concerned about how it's done, unless you guys can figure out how to reverse it. I want it stopped and the people involved to pay for what they did."

Amy considered her, then looked at Newter, who gazed back wide-eyed, apparently somewhat worried by her interest. "I don't have any proof, but one possibility I can think of is that whatever method they use to create capes on demand isn't a hundred percent reliable," she finally said.

"And perhaps when it goes wrong, a Case 53 is the result?" Lisa asked, looking intrigued. "Yes, that fits. Very well. But is it happening to people who paid for powers and had things go bad, or are they finding random people and experimenting on them?"

"Could be both," the violet lizard pointed out. "Depending on how unreliable it actually is, they might be experimenting a lot, and only occasionally hit the jackpot. Or it might work fine most of the time and throw up a bad outcome every now and then. We don't have enough data to do more than make conjectures at this point."

"My guess is that it's at least reasonably reliable or they probably couldn't find people willing to buy powers from them at all," the Varga put in. "If it was totally random, or biased heavily towards undesirable outcomes, that information would almost certainly get out no matter how careful they were. It would put off all but the most desperate. And desperate people are not often also wealthy, which I would suspect is one of the selection criteria they use." He shook his head. "That doesn't mean they're not experimenting as well. Possibly they have a number of variations on whatever method it truly is and use a safer one on paying customers while using the less safe variants on other subjects. Such as Newter and Gregor."

"And the memory erasure is to prevent them being traced back to Cauldron."

"Exactly." He frowned as they listened. "Although that does, yet again, raise the question of why they would literally sign their work and release them into the world with no backup when good security would suggest either disposing of them or retaining them would be far more sensible. And branding them is simply stupid whichever way you look at it, since it again gives out far more information than a competent group of conspirators would desire. If nothing else, it makes sure sooner or later someone will realize they're all linked."

"Although they then seem to put in a lot of effort cleaning up any public knowledge or speculation in that area," Gregor noted.

"Which wouldn't be necessary in the first place if they didn't leak so much information," the demon replied, looking at him. The man nodded, seeming annoyed.

"It's like there's one part of them that have one set of operating procedures, and another part that works differently and at cross purposes, and neither part talks to the other," Lisa grumbled.

"That may in fact be exactly the case," the Varga shrugged. "Depending on how large the group is. Possibly there is some subtle point to the data leak and it's deliberate, but if so I completely fail to see what it is. The more likely explanation is that they are simply incompetent and either preposterously lucky or have enough applicable Parahuman abilities to compensate for their deficiencies."

"Or possibly have enough influence at a high level to have someone else clean up after them," Faultline said slowly and thoughtfully.

Everyone looked at her. She scanned their faces. "What I mean is, the fucking PRT has entire departments dedicated to looking for Parahuman trouble, villains planning things, you name it. They've got a Thinker division specifically set up to catch shit like this. Why haven't they worked any of this out?"

"Possibly they have," Taylor said, feeling somewhat angry. "And someone, somewhere, managed to cover it up." It was a paranoid thought, but it wasn't an implausible one. Not when there was this much evidence just sitting there apparently being ignored. Faultline was right, it was too obvious when you sat down and thought it through carefully, and Taylor was certain that the PRT did in fact look for things of this nature. They were by no means idiots even with the problems she knew they had, both from personal observation and from what her father had told her.

"That would require some high level access," Faultline responded after a few second, sounding worried.

"Or a lot of people in lower but carefully picked positions," Lisa said. "It's more likely to my mind that it's a small number of people higher up, though. The more people involved in a conspiracy the more likely it is that it'll leak. It would make sense to restrict it to the smallest number possible."

"This is making me very worried," Newter said quietly. "You guys are making it sound like there's some group out there that is controlling all sorts of things for nefarious reasons, selling powers, making Case 53s, and who knows what else, and is high enough in the government that even the PRT can't stop them. It's worse than some of the stranger theories on the internet and those can be crazy."

"Much of this is speculation, Newter," the Varga assured him. "However, the evidence does suggest that there is considerably more to whatever Cauldron really is than just the power selling and the unfortunate people such as yourself. If they exist at all, and everything points that way from what I can see, the only way they could feasibly continue to function with such poor operational security is by either having someone cover for them, having some potent Parahuman powers that aid this, or a mix of both."

"I would guess that they're not actually part of the government," Lisa added. "Even a bad spy agency is probably better at this sort of thing than these people seem to be based on the evidence we have. But they might know people high up in the government, or be blackmailing them, or even Mastering someone important. Which is a very disturbing thought now that I say it."

He looked at her with wide eyes and nodded. "That didn't actually make me feel any better, Metis."

"Sorry. I wish I could give you a better answer, but I need more information than we currently have."

Everyone was silent for a time, thinking the concept over. After a while, Taylor got up and went over to the computers, starting up a web browser and typing in some search parameters. Moments later she clicked on a specific link and began examining the results, while 'Metis' joined her, watching over her shoulder with a thoughtful air.

"What are you doing?" Faultline asked, curiosity apparently pulling her from her thoughts, which weren't nice ones based on her expression.

"There's something else I realized," Taylor replied over her shoulder without looking away from the monitor. Lisa moved to the next computer and repeated the search with a few refinements, pulling up more images of the type she was interested in. Both of them compared the results. "That tattoo presents more information than just Cauldron trying to be clever. But I need more samples, so I'm looking for other Case 53 tattoo photos, high resolution ones." She zoomed in on the image she was currently examining, which was from a PHO post from about two years ago, saw what she expected, and nodded to herself.

"How about this one?" Lisa commented, indicating another image on her monitor. Taylor inspected that one as well.

"Yep, that's good. Any more like that?"

"Couple here, these ones aren't high resolution enough to make it out properly… Hold on, here's a good one." They both studied the next picture. "How many do you need?"

"As many as we can find."

"OK. I'll have a look in the PRT database too." Both resumed searching while everyone else got up after exchanging glances and joined them, watching them work.

"What are you actually looking for?" Gregor asked after another few minutes.

"We're comparing the missing parts of the tattoos," Lisa replied absently, concentrating on her screen.

"Why?" he responded with a glance at his boss. "They're random glitches as far as the common theories go. People have searched for some sort of pattern to them ever since they were first noticed, but no one can find one."

"They're not us," Taylor muttered, concentrating hard. The Varga was watching through her eyes and his and made a few suggestions, causing her to add search terms and examine the resulting new images.

No one said anything for twenty minutes, other than exchanging looks as they worked, collating images from both public sources and the PRT internal database using their affiliate access. Eventually, having tracked down over a hundred images of different tattoos covering both the obviously physically divergent Case 53s and the rarer human-appearing ones, she and Lisa leaned back on their tails.

"That's all the ones I can find that are good enough to see the defects," her friend said. "Is it enough?"

"Yes. I'm going to have to think for a bit."

"About what?" Newter burst out, unable to contain his curiosity. "What's so interesting about some tattoos with missing parts?"

"The missing parts are an encrypted code," Lisa said, turning to him.

He stared at her, then looked at Faultline, who seemed somewhat startled. "A code?" he echoed.

"A code," she confirmed. "They're not random at all. They've been run through an algorithm to add entropy to them like a password file on a computer, which makes them look random enough to fool most people."

"Even the PRT?" Faultline asked, sounding a little dubious. "I don't like them, but even I'll admit they have some fucking good people in their research departments."

"If we're right about Cauldron, it's entirely possible that they could suppress this research in the PRT without anyone noticing," the Varga pointed out. "Either by covering up the results, or just managing to divert interest away from a detailed examination of precisely this part of the puzzle. And in any case, breaking the code from such a limited sample set would be extremely difficult for human researchers in the first place, even assuming they realized what was there to begin with."

"We're much better at math than they are," Taylor smiled, still pondering the problem with most of her attention, the Varga and her working on the equations at a level she'd have found utterly impossible to explain to anyone else. Even Randall or Lisa would have had massive issues following more than a small amount of what they were coming up with. "Ah. Metis, go back to… four images ago in that series?"

"Sure, here you are," Lisa replied, clicking and dragging.

"Thanks…" She peered at the image and tested her mental calculations on it. "OK, yes, that makes sense."

"Got it?"

"Yep. It's two dimensional matrix very similar to a 2d bar code, like you see on shipping packages and that sort of thing, encrypted with a two hundred and fifty six bit key elliptic curve algorithm, then cut up and spread across the tattoo in a pattern based on Fibonacci prime numbers." She zoomed in on one image so that part of the tattoo filled the screen. "The missing dots encode just over a hundred characters in simple ASCII form, once you reassemble it, decrypt it and convert it from the matrix." Indicating the various groups of dots as she spoke, she added, "Each character string seems to have the same header, and ends in a thirty two bit checksum, like a record in a database."

"Which they are, I'm almost certain," Lisa put in.

"Look, this is what that one there decodes to," Taylor went on, indicating the PRT document that was open on the other monitor showing the tattoo belonging to a Case 53 called Gully, a Ward from San Diego. She typed a rapid string of text, then double-checked it and nodded.

They all looked at the result in the text editor she'd opened:

CXRD/EXD/00004086/F02-41/N01-25/W04-04/Q12-22/xxxxxx/B01-08/OE0001/010000000000/20080821/F5E37EC9

"So what does that mean?" Newter asked after a few seconds, sounding baffled.

"Well, the last eight digits are definitely a checksum, using a basic CRC32 algorithm," Taylor replied, tapping the screen over the numbers. "The field immediately to the left is obviously a date." Pointing at the other end of the cryptic string, she carried on, "The first field is the same in all cases. The next one is EXD in every case with visible physical differences from normal humans."

"What is it in ones who look human on the outside?" Amy asked, sounding intrigued.

"NOD, whatever that means," Taylor replied. The violet lizard nodded slowly. Looking at Faultline and her friends, she paused for a moment, then went back to the screen. "The field after that is the interesting one. If you look at the dates and this field, it's steadily incrementing as the date increases."

"It's a serial number or ID number," Lisa said.

"That would certainly be my guess," Taylor responded.

"What does this one decode to?" her friend asked, bringing up another PRT photo for some Case 53 apparently called Garrote. Taylor studied it for a few seconds, running the math, then typed again.

CXRD/EXD/00003959/X23-17/N03-23/W04-60/xxxxxx/xxxxxx/B01-00/OE0013/101000000000/20080212/4D3C4E7C

"Interesting..." Lisa looked at the string, then back at the image. "Checksum matches, so your algorithm is certainly working. There's one hundred and ninety one days between the dates, and the serial number incremented by one hundred and twenty seven. A ratio of just over one point five to one."

Taylor nodded, then looked over her shoulder at Gregor's arm. "Yours decodes to this..." She typed once more.

CXRD/EXD/00003493/R06-79/G03-21/xxxxxx/xxxxxx/xxxxxx/B01-00/OE0003/000000100000/20060403/3683E252

The man looked at the screen and scowled. "That date is the day I first found myself on the street."

Faultline was staring at the monitor too, her face set like stone.

"Eight hundred and seventy one days between Gregor's date and this later one for Gully, and the other number incremented by five hundred and ninety three. The ratio there is one point four six eight." Lisa turned to look at Newter. "Let's see yours again."

Rather uncertainly he pulled his shirt up once more, Taylor looking at the tattoo, then typing out the relevant string.

CXRD/EXD/00004280/L18-62/M02-18/xxxxxx/xxxxxx/xxxxxx/B01-20/OE0001/100000001000/20090529/39887DBE

"Slightly lower ratio, now just over one point four six to one," 'Metis' noted. "Does that date mean anything to you?" she added, glancing back for a moment. The orange boy nodded, sighing.

"Yeah, it's the day before I woke up."

"It seems that you have indeed cracked the code," the Varga commented, although he'd done a lot of the work and already knew this, something that slightly amused Taylor for a moment. "There is a disturbing implication from those numbers."

"Which is?" Faultline asked, sounding quietly furious. Apparently she hadn't spotted it yet, although glancing at her friends, Taylor could see both Lisa and Amy had.

"If you extrapolate back from Gregor's number, using that same ratio of one point four six, it tells you that assuming that it actually is the average number of Case 53s per day Cauldron was producing, they started doing it about six and a half years before him. So they've been doing this since around nineteen ninety nine at least."

"Probably longer," Lisa pointed out, "I'd think that they ramped up from the first experiments or whatever is actually behind this. Six and a half years is probably the low end. I suspect it was more like a decade or more until they hit a fairly steady rate."

No one said anything for a while, merely stared at the strings of characters on the monitor and thought about the implications.

Taylor could smell Faultline's fury, and Gregor's scent told her he was also very annoyed. Newter seemed confused, upset, and curious. Labyrinth, who was so quiet she was hardly noticeable, put a hand very carefully and gently onto his shoulder, making sure not to touch any exposed skin. He looked down at it, then at the girl, who seemed sad.

"Where are they all?" Faultline finally said, breaking the reflective silence. "There are no more than maybe a hundred, hundred and twenty Case 53s with visible differences known that I've been able to find out about, and maybe fifty or so at most with the tattoo and memory loss but no obvious changes. Newter's number is over four thousand! Where are the rest of them?"

Everyone looked at each other. "I have no idea," Taylor admitted.

"I would guess that they're either dead, or Cauldron still has them," Lisa said. "Possibly only the ones we knew about actually survived whatever did this to them in the first place, and they're the only ones left. Or on the other hand, Cauldron might be keeping the rest for some reason. Possibly the Case 53s are actually the rejects they just dumped or something like that." She shrugged. "We just don't know, there's not enough information to know so far. This is all speculation based on some cryptic text we only can deduce so much from."

"What do those other numbers mean?" Labyrinth asked, speaking for almost the first time since they'd arrived. She pointed at the screen, causing Taylor and the others to look too.

"I'm not sure," Taylor replied, shaking her head. "There are seven six digit fields, some of which don't seem to be used, one always has this 'B01' prefix followed by a number, the others don't follow any obvious pattern. Except that the second part of each of those fields adds up to a total of one hundred in each case."

"Percentages, perhaps?" Amy suggested, studying the monitor.

"Maybe. Then there's that 'OE' field with a number in it, most of which are 1, and what looks like a binary code."

"There are twelve bits in that part," Lisa remarked, inspecting the results. "Twelve fields, on or off… I know what that is."

"Enlighten us then," Taylor told her friend, who seemed pleased with herself.

"How many power classifications do the PRT use?"

"Twel..." Gregor, who'd answered, trailed off with a look of insight. "It's a power set matrix."

"Yeah, that's what I think it is. You're technically a blaster, right?" He nodded. "Your code has one bit set here. Newter is a Mover/Striker, his number has two different bits set. Gully is a Shaker, one bit set in hers, different to either of your codes. And this Garrote person is a Brute/Mover combo, she has two bits set. One of which is the same as the one in Newter's code. I'm almost certain it's a shorthand encoding of the twelve PRT power classifications in the same order they normally list them." She pointed out each digit in turn. "Mover, Shaker, Brute, and so on."

"I agree, it seems a very plausible interpretation," the Varga said after a moment, as they all looked at the data again. "This would appear to be a simplified experimental record of whatever Cauldron did to produce Case 53 individuals. Presumably for their own benefit, although I remain puzzled as to why they release their subjects in the first place. The marking of them only adds to the puzzle. Encoding data about them in their tattoos is almost sensible if one ignores the idiocy of the tattoo in the first place."

He shook his head. "Possibly there is some reason we're missing but on the face of it this organization would appear to be rather deficient in both common sense and ethics."

"And we have no idea who they are, what they want, how they're doing this, why they're doing this, or anything useful at all!" Faultline exploded, throwing her hands in the air and stomping back to the table where she slumped in a chair.

"Not quite," the demon replied, turning to her. "We've learned or deduced some useful data that appears to be internally consistent and matches both your and Metis's research. Saurial has cracked their encoding scheme and we can make some fairly good assumptions about the information in the tattoos, which in turn allows us to get a clearer picture of the problem and the scale of it. And we can be fairly sure that the people involved are in fact not very good at subterfuge, despite their probable own belief to the contrary."

"And we have a reasonable hypothesis that they're connected to some part of the government, and most likely the higher echelons of the PRT," Lisa added, standing up and walking over to the table as well. "They're selling powers, making Case 53s either deliberately or accidentally as a byproduct of that, and for reasons that we don't yet know are releasing some of them into the wild with their memories erased."

The woman looked between them then slumped a little in the chair, sighing loudly. "But we can't use any of that to either stop them, or do anything to help the Case 53s we know about."

"Not yet." Taylor joined them, the others following. "We need more information. And we might be wrong about some of what we've come up with, although it does seem to hang together pretty well, especially the code. I'm sure I got that right."

"You did," Lisa assured her, nodding. "It all fits together much too neatly to be an accident. And I know how good you are with math."

"So what do we do now?" Newter asked, picking up the last can of soda on the table and opening it, then taking a drink.

"I'll decode all the tattoo photos I can find and document the results," Taylor told him. "Do you want a copy, Faultline?"

"I do." The woman pulled out a card and slid it over to her. "Please email it to me at that address. I'll find as many other images as I can, I have a collection of them on my computer I'll send you. Maybe I can figure out more of the code, and it may be useful in other ways."

"Do we mention this to the PRT?" Gregor mused out loud.

"I would suggest that until we know more of this organization's abilities and resources that would probably be unwise," 'Raptaur' replied, looking at him. "If we're correct and they are in some way able to influence the PRT, or are merely spying on them, that would tip them off that someone knows more about their actions than I suspect they desire. Considering how effectively they seem able to trace and suppress information about them, it could cause issues."

"Not for us, probably," Taylor smiled, "But I wouldn't want you guys to have problems."

"Yeah, somehow I doubt anyone is going to have much luck fucking with the Family," Newter snickered.

"We'd like to believe that," Amy chuckled. "Hopefully we won't need to prove it."

"I'd suggest that you are very careful about who you tell, Faultline," Lisa put in, looking seriously at the woman. "Raptaur is right. These people are a complete unknown and could be extremely dangerous. We need to be discreet and continue to gather information without letting them work out that we are. If they have Thinkers searching for leaks, which I suspect is the reason they're so good at shutting down discussions on line about them, we're probably safe since we know Thinkers have a lot of trouble with us. But that doesn't mean they couldn't use more conventional methods to track you if they get wind of this."

Somewhat reluctantly and with a lot of thought apparent, Faultline finally nodded. "OK. I can see the reasons but I don't like it."

"Neither do I," Taylor told her honestly. "There's something very weird going on and I doubt it's for particularly ethical reasons. I might be wrong, they might really be on the side of good, or at least think they are, but from what we can see they've got a very strange way of showing that. And if they really are some sort of evil conspiracy or something, we may have to do something about it."

"Which is difficult without knowing who they are or where they are," Amy said, sounding annoyed.

"Or why they're doing any of this," the Varga added. "That particular question is, I think, key to the entire situation. How we'll answer it, I don't currently know. But we'll keep an open eye for anything else we come across on the subject."

"Thank you, all of you," Faultline said after a little more thought, sounding both tired and peeved, although somewhat pleased even so. "Not quite what I expected from this visit but it's a lot more than I had before we came."

"It was our pleasure," Taylor smiled. "Even if it was a little odd. We learned a lot too."

The dark-haired woman appeared to think of something and looked at her. "How did you break that encryption?" she asked curiously. "I don't know much about that sort of thing, but I thought the entire point was that it would take years of computing power to try all the combinations or something like that."

Taylor shrugged. "It would be a lot of work, yes," she replied, "doing it the hard way. I had to work out a general solution to the entire class of problem, which was much quicker. It has some interesting applications too."

"So you basically defeated an advanced cryptographic algorithm in your head in under half an hour?" Gregor stared at her.

"We're really good at math," she grinned.

After a good ten seconds, he somewhat faintly said, "Apparently you are. Impressive. And terrifying."

"It comes in handy in more places than you'd think," Lisa snickered.

He looked at Faultline, who looked back, then both of them shrugged.

"OK, then, we probably can't do anything more about that issue for now," Taylor said. She studied Newter, then Gregor, before turning to 'Ianthe'. "But we might be able to help with a couple of other things."

Her friend nodded with a toothy smile, staring at Newter, who swallowed.

"Have I mentioned that I'm really good with bioshaping?" the violet lizard said, studying him very intently. He paled a little. "And there's a possibility I can show you something interesting..."