Cauldron meeting 2002 Febuary 2nd

Doctor Mother

I looked around the table, Number man had settled in, handling our books, he understood what would happen if he crossed us, I took a mug of coffee as we all filtered in.

"Ok year's over, let's go over the resources, numbers, and what we can do to keep civilization from collapsing and prevent the destruction of the human race."

It was pretty much all laid bare, of 21 endbringers we had 1 defection, 1 death, 2 were running around causing havok and the rest were still in their cage but were trying to escape. Zion of course was a ticking time bomb waiting to go off, villains were off destroying civilization brick by brick and we were stuck trying to stack the deck to keep our house of cards from collapsing.

"Number man?"

"My alternate banking network has been set up, I calculate a 10% increase in stability."

I nodded and sat back. Alexandria sat close to Hero, the wedding had just taken place and the newlyweds played footsi, I ignored it, and turned to Eidolon.

"How's the case 53 project going?"

"Protectorate recruitment up 10%."

I looked at Alexandra.

"DC?"

"It took some backdoor lobbying and manipulation but Congress has undone the murder-sucide pact that Reagan left us with. We have talked with the Elite and they have agreed to back down and play ball."

She tapped her fingers on the table.

"We're trying to channel capes away from the villain lifestyle, it's better to have regulated rogues helping the economy then having gangs shooting up the place."

I looked at Number man.

"Plus 20% to stability with the new measures."

Finally Hero.

"How's the space program going?"

"We're funneling in as much money as we can, the new antigravity lets you do space travel with 1920s tech if need be, NASA's taking advatage of it, we're sending up as much as we can."

I stared at him.

"Are you sure this little pet project of yours will pay off?"

"The Earth needs resources and there's an entire solar system full of resources."

I stared at him.

"And all of that vanishes once the leader of the Endbringers attacks."

"That issue can be solved by approving project World tree."

"Which involves trusting an Endbringer."

Hero froze and then nodded.

"Yeah it does, but look at it this way, we need resources, we need a place to put the ever increasing number of refugees, and we need hope."

"Hope?"

"We need to be able to point to something and have people know there's light at the end of the tunnel. That there's a future worth fighting for, people don't realize just how much we rely on space, on satellites, on a bunch of stuff that once they're all gone it's going to hit people hard."

"So next question, how stable is Ironwood?"

I flipped through the files, as Alexandria talked.

"His relationship and um parenthood seems to have had a stabilizing effect."

I read through the file, Icy prone to bouts of depression, introverted personality, lots of issues with her parents. Her psych file basically showed someone who was on the path to-

"87.992% chance of sucide if she had remained on her past corse, 7% chance of sucide on currence course, this jumps up to 22% if Ironwood dies."

I stare at Number man.

"You were going to ask any ways, and don't bother asking if she was going to have a nervous breakdown, that ship has sailed, as for burn out that's a given."

I looked over the reports, functional but not necessarly healthy, healing though.

"Do you think she's going to quit the Protectorate?"

Number man closed his eyes.

"48.87% chance."

I thought about it, Alexandria interupted.

"We can afford to lose one Tinker, what she's doing now is vital to the cause."

She leaned back.

"I'm backing hero's plan, we need all the resources we can get especially if we want the plan to work."

With that we got to the next point of business, trying to stabilize as much of the planet as possible.