Interlude – Weld
He focused on the video and hit play again.
From start to finish, the clip only covered the first few minutes of the conference, but it was enough.
They did look similar. Similar height. Similar builds. Same hair. They carried themselves differently, but lots of capes learned to do that. Alexandria stood like an immovable object, inhumanly still even. The Chief Director looked like she was disdainful of the whole process. He'd met Alexandria before, but never the Chief Director.
Masters. Strangers. Even tinkers. Still, it couldn't be true. How could no one have noticed?
"Hunch?"
"I don't know." He shifted in his seat on the other end of the video call. "I have a bad feeling, but…"
Is it because Façade told the truth, or because she lied? Weld normally wanted to say Hunch's power living up to his name was no big deal. At the moment, it seemed profoundly agitating.
Did Kamil know? No. He'd never do that. But how couldn't the directors know? Legend and Hero must. They'd known Alexandria twenty-five years. How high did it go, and how deep? How did the world turn so fast?
Not just Cauldron or Alexandria. There was the stuff about Blue Cosmos too, and Teacher. Weld wanted to write Façade off as insane, but he couldn't. He couldn't let it go.
"It's bullshit," Cloak grumbled. "There's no way."
Façade said Cauldron did it to protect the balance.
That's why he couldn't let it go.
Balance of power is how the PRT thought. If the heroes got too strong, the villains got desperate. If the villains became too dominant, they took the city. Collateral damage exploded in both cases. Fighting got worse.
The PRT prioritized minimizing damage.
Releasing capes to fill power gaps is exactly what they'd do if they could just make capes and lacked anything approaching a conscience.
"What if she isn't?" Gully asked.
Hunch didn't like that any more than he did, from his body language. "Then what?"
A good question.
"This is stupid," Hash declared. "The Simurgh set this up. She's trying to divide us!"
"We know that," Weld replied. "That doesn't make what Façade said a lie."
The truth can cut deeper than any lie. Weld didn't need to wonder how to deal with a lie. The truth…that got complicated.
Could Weld walk away from the Wards? Did he want to? He couldn't believe Chris, Alec, Lily or the others knew anything about this. If the PRT was that corrupt, it wasn't their fault. Was it right to leave them? Could he stomach being in the house of the people who…
He didn't even know what he'd lost, if anything. How could he? That known unknown only made the sense of loss worse.
"It's time," Hunch noted.
Weld checked the time. It was time. "Right. See you in a bit."
"Yeah." Gully's feed died, followed by Cloak's. Hash went next and then Hunch.
Weld checked the computer lab for a moment. It was late in the afternoon. Everyone else should have left Arcadia by now, and he felt more secure using the servers here than the ones at the PRT building.
That's what really ate at him. He didn't feel fear, but the anxiety was crushing. The sense of being trapped on all sides. Enclosed. Surrounded even. That some of the people surrounding him were good people somehow made it worse.
If the PRT was behind everything, what could he do about it? They provided his clothes. His food. His stipend. A place to live. School. Friends. Without them, how would he get any of that? He needed them, and that's what took the hurt and the dread and made it painful.
Even here he wasn't certain they couldn't know everything he was doing.
Opening his PHO email, Weld put in the link Nyx sent and connected to the video chat.
Nyx herself greeted him, hunched over with her knees up to her shoulders as she often sat. She sat on an open floor with a little sunlight shining across her, her sister standing behind her. She waved at Weld and he nodded.
Nyx was an odd person to know.
'Gloomy' described her typical disposition, and her history… Well, it's not every day you meet someone who can say they used to be in the Slaughterhouse Nine. Of course, back when she was a member the group was apparently different. More a roving band of villains than a marauding circus of psychos.
Nyx left when Jack Slash took over, and she managed to stay under the radar long enough for the PRT to decide she wasn't causing trouble.
Her sister helped.
Looking at the connection list, Weld recognized a lot of names. And there were a lot of names. Gully. Hunch. Cloak. Hash. Peregrine. Sveta. Bishcash. Even Mouser. How did Mouser get to a computer? Sveta said they banned her from the internet after the whole pudding fiasco.
Pulling up her feed, she seemed to be lazily watching the screen in front of her from under some bedsheets. A shadow moved around behind her. A friend?
Checking through the list, Weld didn't see Gregor or Newter. He'd hoped they might come to this. He wanted to ask who hired them and if they knew anything about Façade.
Even without them though, he'd never seen so many online at once. One hundred and twenty. That was nearly every 53 in the Protectorate and Wards. A few villains and rogues too. The network kept everyone connected. Being a Case-53 went beyond one's legal status, at least when it came to their shared problems.
A few names he didn't recognize. Selene, for one.
"I think that's almost everyone," Nix said to her sister.
And she insisted the elongated woman beside her was her sister. Had for nearly ten years. Thinking of Fenja and Menja, Weld believed it. Nyx and Nix had near identical powers, which was rare enough. They also looked a lot alike, if one accounted for Nyx's appearance.
"Guess so," Nyx replied. "We'll save the recording and share it with anyone who asks for it. Before we start, no one has to worry about anyone tracing this call." Weld tilted his head. Peregrine asked why. "Because a tinker is rewriting all our screens as we talk and making the conversation more mundane than it really is."
"Why?" Cloak asked.
"We all know why," Mouser answered. "Come on, Cloaky. Catch up."
"How did you get internet access again?"
"This is why I dumped you. This and your performance in—"
"Can we not do that again?" Gully begged. "You're already in the asylum, Mouser. There's nowhere left if you mess someone up again but prison."
Mouser pouted. "I was going to say group therapy..."
"Focus please!" Nix said with a raised hand. "The tinker is helping us out, but she can only keep up the act for an hour or so. Gotta make our time count."
That got everyone settled and Weld sighed in relief. Mouser really just didn't get it sometimes. He knew she had issues to work through, but being catty suited her far too well. She loved poking the bear just to poke it.
"Who is she?" Mantel asked. "The tinker."
"She'll join us later," Nyx answered. "But she is a hero and is concerned about what will happen after Hartford. She volunteered her time to give us a chance to talk without fear of being punished for speaking our minds. Of course, if someone decided to talk that's up to them. At least it will be a choice made by one of us instead of for us."
No one complained about that. Maybe there had been enough of it.
Nyx was one of the oldest 53s, and one of the first to appear. It came with respect, regardless of her background. She'd helped a lot of them when they got started and kicked off the entire network connecting them all together.
"There's someone who wants to talk," Nix said. "Two someones, but I'll go second."
"Please listen." Nyx took the computer in front of her and turned it around.
Weld sputtered. "Faultline."
"Yes," the mercenary replied. Newter and Gregor stood behind her, and just off in the corner by a door Weld saw Grue and Spitfire.
"Gregor."
"Hello, Sveta."
"Sup," Newter said with a wave.
"Who is she?" someone asked.
"Faultline," Weld answered. "She's a mercenary."
"A villain," Gully corrected.
"I prefer contractor," Faultline said. "And at the moment, my contract is to show you all this."
She reached under the table in front of her and pulled up a briefcase. Popping it open, Gregor reached inside and produced a worn silver cylinder. He set it on the table, and Newter produced another.
"What are those?" Peregrine inquired. She leaned toward her screen and squinted. "Division?"
"Nice thermos," Mouser commented.
"These are what provided powers to Façade and Genesis," Faultline declared. Screwing one of the cylinders open, she removed an empty vial from inside. "According to the Travelers, all of them received their powers from one of these. Two are currently with a tinker. One I've sent to a thinker I know to investigate. These are the two that remain."
Powers from bottles. The old Cauldron rumor. Weld became very aware of his brand, thinking about it. A 'C.'
"How do we even know those are real?" Cloak asked.
"Because you thin—"
"Mouser!"
"Fine. Fine."
"It's possible they're not," Faultline admitted. "They are rather elaborate."
She lifted one of the cylinders and turned the base toward the camera. There, etched into the bottom, was a very familiar 'C.'
A few of the others started shouting, accusing. Then more started shouting back. Open your eyes. It's a lie. The PRT did this to us. No they didn't.
Faultline meanwhile reached up and removed her mask. It's a motion that got Weld's attention because it's not how capes behaved, but why wouldn't she? Teacher unmasked her…
The sound of footsteps drew his eyes up.
She stood in the doorway, looking at him sympathetically. It hit him like a truck then. A giant obvious truck that somehow made him feel foolish and stupid all at once.
Taylor walked into the room, quietly pushing the door shut behind her. Walking along the wall, she turned onto his row of computers and took a seat beside him. She didn't speak, and she didn't need to.
Weld saw the pieces.
Teacher and the unmaskings. That thing with Coil and Deputy Director Calvert. Taylor's unmasking. The lawsuit he wasn't supposed to know about. Cranial. Vista's kidnapping and how everyone responded to it. Madison and all the Case-53s trapped in the quarantine. Now Façade and Hartford.
All the pieces, like a puzzle he needed to finish. He didn't know how the pieces came together, but he knew the image.
Taylor turned the computer on and connected to the group chat. Her face joined all the others as she adjusted the webcam and it only took a moment for someone to notice her.
"Who's that?"
"A troll?"
"I knew this would go bad. We're in so much trouble."
"That's Newtype," Weld identified.
Taylor pulled a small paper from her pocket and unfolded it.
"Subject manifested physical mutation," she read, "of excessive scar tissue growth. Tectonic abilities appear unrelated but striking. Results suggest O values cannot be entirely relied upon to produce unique powers. A Ward in Chicago possesses similar abilities through a separate expression."
On her screen, Gully started to cry.
Taylor turned the page over.
"Subject manifested physical mutation," Taylor continued, "taking on anonymous feline characteristics. Examination shows no fundamental alteration of genetics. Confidence that physical mutations are not the purposeful design of the agent, but a side effect of not knowing how to configure its host."
Mouser pouted.
Taylor set the page down, and said nothing else.
"She got those notes from Façade," Faultline clarified. "They were in the case with the Vials. Our theory is that there was a lab at Madison and that's why the Simurgh attacked. The Travelers happened upon someone trying to escape with research."
"They contain short summaries of several formulas," Taylor said. "How they were made, and what the results were when someone drank them." She glanced to Weld apologetically. He shook his head. She didn't have anything to apologize for. This wasn't her fault.
But, was it true?
"Which makes it my turn I guess," Nix said with a long face. She glanced at her sister and Nyx raised a long arm and touched her back. "I have no memory of about ten years of my life."
Everyone looked away from Taylor.
"I woke up about eight years ago," Nix explained. "Hero and Legend were there. They told me I got into a fight with Nyx trying to save her."
"We've fought once or twice," Nyx commented, "but my powers cannot induce memory loss."
"I didn't think much of it," Nix admitted, "but now…"
"Façade's power let her see the memories of capes she touched," Taylor revealed. "There were some she went after. Ones she thought were part of Cauldron. When she got to them they didn't remember anything. There were just holes in their memories. Myrddin was one. Magic Hat was another."
Faultline came right out and said, "It is probable Cauldron has access to a cape with a master or strange power that can manipulate memory and they use it to ensure their secrets won't be revealed."
It only took a moment for everyone to start shouting. Hunch and Peregrine focused on calming Gully down before she did something foolish. Weld couldn't blame her. Alexandria was her immediate superior. Mouser, for once, actually looked hurt and cut her connection. Peregrine stared in disbelief.
"What do we do?" Cloak asked.
"We tell the PRT. That's a villain and—"
"Who cares?! We can't ignore this!"
"They could be making it up."
"Nyx believes them."
"They're not making it up. It sounds so true, doesn't it?"
"Everyone stop," Weld said.
It took a moment, but one by one the others fell silent. He leaned forward, resting his face in his hands. What was it Façade said before speaking? Forget the Simurgh. Forget the PRT. Forget Teacher.
"The truth is the truth," Weld repeated.
He raised his head and looked at Taylor. She reached out, placing a hand on his and nodded.
Weld inhaled and nodded back. "So let's find the truth."
