Why are we here?
Certainly this wasn't a novel question. People had been pondering this very query since man first awoke to reason. Evidence of long-dead peoples who had only just discovered fire hinted at some form of religious experience. Even they wondered at the grand purpose of the universe and their place in it.
I lived my entire life with that question, but I never expected to be able to answer it. And the answer only brought more questions. Was I always 343? Was my life nothing more than a dream I recently awoke from. Was this the dream? Would I awake in a hospital bed only for this experience to be lost from my memory as the dreary of sleep faded?
I didn't know the answer. Limited omniscience was surprisingly useless when it came to the things you actually wanted to know.
Speaking of omniscience, it was about time.
I looked up from the bench I was seated on, a vanilla ice cream cone purchased from the store across from me in either hand. In the life I'd left, going to the mall was often a fun occasion where you could spend too much money on fun things with your friends or family. It could also be a stressful outing where you have to tolerate idiots seemingly incapable of following the most rudimentary rules of common decency, but it was always a memorable experience regardless.
That wasn't the case here. I could feel the indifference in the air. People were going through the motions, uncaring about the motions themselves. Depression and despair clung to their bodies like leeches, sucking away their vitality.
I suppose it made sense. An endbringer had just struck. No one liked to be reminded of their certain end, even less so when that end would likely be at the hands of an unthinking monster that slaughtered cities of people without rhyme or reason. Still, that didn't excuse the wrong I'd come to right.
A small form unknowingly backed into me, too occupied desperately scanning the crowd around themselves to notice me. The little one gasped in shock, whipping around as they moved away. The young girl's blonde hair swept in front of her face with the motion, though it did little to hide the panicked sadness in her eyes.
I smiled warmly down at her. "Hello there. Is something wrong?"
"I…I lost my daddy." the girl said, teetering on the edge of tears.
"That's no good at all. How about you and I go find him, hm? In the meantime, would you like some ice cream? I accidentally bought one too many. Lucky you!"
The girl looked perplexed as her eyes tracked to the ice cream cone I offered her. Hesitantly, she took the ice cream from me and gave it an experimental taste. Her eyes lit up in joy as she began devouring the ice cream.
Chuckling, I stood up and held my hand down to her. "Let's see if we can find your father, okay? Oh, and you can call me Three."
The girl paused mid lick of her ice cream to look up at me weirdly. "Like a number?"
I nodded patiently. "Just like the number."
"That's weird."
"It is? I wouldn't know. It's always been my name."
The girl didn't take my hand, instead holding her ice cream cone securely in both hands as she followed along at my side. I walked slow enough for her to finish her ice cream, winding us around to where we would meet her father. The ice cream distracted her from her fear and anxiety. No sooner had she finished it than a gaunt man with manic eyes ran around the corner.
"Has anyone seen my–"
"Daddy!" the little girl cried happily, running forward with her arms raised.
The man sagged in relief, falling to his knees to pull his daughter into a hug. "Daddy's right here. You're okay." He said quietly.
I observed the exchange in silence until they parted. The man stood up and walked towards me with a hand extended, a grateful smile on his face.
"Thank you. I didn't know where she–"
"A time comes in one's life when they must decide what is truly important to them. I believe this is your time, Jonathan."
The man paled. "How do you know my–" His voice cut off in a gasp as I gently took his hand. All at once, the poison he'd abandoned his daughter in the middle of a crowded mall to inject himself with was gone from his veins. All dependencies and cravings fled with it.
"I wish you a pleasant life." I said as I released his hand. He was no longer addicted. Now it was up to him whether he would start again.
I knelt down in front of the girl and patted her head. "Be a good girl, Amy. Your daddy needs you."
Amy bobbed her head up and down. "I will! Thanks for the ice cream, Tree!"
I stood and walked away. Jonathan was still recovering from the shock of suddenly being drug free for the first time in four years. It wasn't until I was already down the hall that he called after me.
"Wait!" He took Amy's hand and started after me, only to realize I'd vanished when he looked down at his daughter.
I had other places to be today.
X
This was one of her least favorite parts of the job. Alexandria, Rebecca under the mask, did not like having her entire day stripped away so she could sign autographs and give speeches that no one really listened to. There was too much she could be doing, both in and out of costume, to justify her presence here. Unfortunately, it was a mandatory part of her cover. If one of the Triumvirate went unseen for too long, people began to ask questions. It was better to head those off than deal with them after the fact.
"Wow!" a little boy said, eyes wide as he looked at the signed lunch box he was holding. "Thank you!" he cried, clutching the lunch box to his chest as he scurried after his parents.
Rebecca allowed herself a small smile. Seeing the people she fought so hard to defend was the only thing that made these outings worthwhile. Seeing them reminded her that no cost was too great to preserve what little happiness she could for those who remained after the end.
"That's a very fatalistic view, Rebecca."
Alexandria's attention snapped to the next person in line. He was an elderly man. Broad-shouldered with fraying, receding hair and pale skin, he was far from imposing, but Alexandria was on her guard all the same.
"Please," the man said, holding up a hand. "I'm only here to talk. No one else can hear me. As far as they know, you're just giving me an autograph."
Rebecca's Thinker power gave her no indication the man was lying. He must have been a powerful Shaker then. A possible Master as well. She needed to inform–
"That will not work either. I am just here to talk. Once I have said my piece, I will leave." the man said patiently.
Rebecca forced herself not to react as she realized the panic button woven into the fabric of her pant leg was missing.
"Talk then." Rebecca said after a brief moment of hesitation. The more she could learn about this man, the better prepared she would be when this inevitably came to blows.
"It won't come to violence. Hopefully none of my interactions here will devolve into fighting." he said, sitting down on a chair across the table from hers. That chair had not been there before. Some kind of teleportation power that pulled objects to himself?
"You're thinking too small a scale, but that isn't what I came to discuss." The man leaned forward. "Why do you do what you do, Rebecca?"
His casual use of her real name unsettled her, but she refused to let it show. Many years of practice kept what was visible of her expression under her mask blank as she said, "I fight to save as many people as possible. To preserve a world where everyone is free to live as they will."
The man raised an eyebrow. "You fight for freedom? An interesting response. I wonder, if we were to ask the hundreds you have interred against their will what you fought for, would they answer, 'Freedom'?"
"The criminals I have captured made their decisions. They broke the law, and now suffer the consequences." Rebecca's Thinker power was in overdrive, trying to uncover every secret of the man. All people had microexpressions that appeared when they spoke, nervous fidgeting, any number of nonverbal cues her power could parse into information, so why was she unable to read anything from the man's movements. He wasn't sitting still, but her power could not find purchase on him, sliding off an impossibly impenetrable exterior.
"They are not who I was referring to, Rebecca. I speak of those you take from other worlds; the failures who even now are trapped in the steel-walled cells guarded by your Custodian."
Unbidden, her hand balled into a fist beneath the table. Cauldron had a leak. A serious one. Rebecca didn't know how this man had gathered the information he did, but she knew she needed to keep it contained. She would be having a long conversation with Contessa once this was over.
Wait…
The man had summoned a chair. The man was elderly in appearance. The man knew things he shouldn't.
Rebecca's eyes narrowed behind her mask. "You are the man who took the powers of the parahumans in the Asylum."
Rebecca read the report of the man who broke Garrote's cell in the Asylum. He had a brief exchange with the girl, then vanished in the same manner he appeared. One moment he was there, the next he was gone. When he left, suddenly every single parahuman held in the Asylum lost the ability to use their powers. Their mental states were fixed, and all physical failings caused by their powers were remedied.
It was an unprecedented event. How had he taken their powers? Did he now have access to those same powers in the same manner the Faerie Queen made use of the powers of those she killed? If so, what were his intentions for using those powers?
Naturally, Rebecca had set a task force to the mission of investigating the man. The cameras had a clear view of his face, so it should have been trivial to track down who he was outside of the mask. That plan his a snag almost immediately.
Two operatives were conversing on the man's likely nationality. Master/Stranger protocols were called when the two investigators realized they did not see the same man when they looked through the footage. After screening both of the investigators and proving there was no outside influence affecting either of them, more investigators looked through the footage. Every single researcher reported seeing a different man sitting across from Garotte, some even going so far as to draw the face they saw to compare it to others. The infiltrator was given a Stranger Rating on top of his Mover rating and the footage was classified.
Rebecca hadn't gotten around to watching it herself yet, she'd been too busy cleaning up after the Simurgh, but she imagined the face of the man sitting across from her would be the face she saw in the footage.
"I am." he easily admitted, not showing any signs of unease at her statement.
"What was your goal in the Asylum?"
"The same as my overarching goal – to help. I could fix everything right away, but that treads too much on free will for my liking. Instead, I'll just do what I can to restore everyone's ability to make their own choices, be they good or ill."
He sat up straight. "That brings us back to my reason for being here. I am here as a courtesy to warn you that all the innocents you have caged will be healed and freed. I will distribute them to worlds you have no way to reach to ensure your organization never bothers them again. This will, likewise, prevent them from bringing to light the many travesties you have committed in the name of 'Freedom'. While I do not approve of many of your choices, I realize there were scant few other avenues available to you, so consider this my olive branch. I am giving you the chance to do better. In a year's time, Cauldron won't be needed any more. Use the opportunity I give you to make a truly positive impact on the world. Live up to the ideals you claim to stand for."
The man paused, shrugging his shoulders minutely. "Or don't. It's your choice."
"Who are you?" Rebecca said, trying to gleen something, anything from this conversation. Whatever defense he had that concealed him from her Thinker power was aggravatingly effective.
The man nodded, tipping a stetson that wasn't on his head a moment ago. "343. I bid you good day, Rebecca. Do try to be better." He was gone the next moment. The space he'd occupied merely turning vacant in the blink of an eye.
"Hi, Alexandria!" Rebecca nearly leapt out of her chair in alarm as the next person in line for the signing, a young woman appearing to be in her early twenties, stepped up to the table and slid a poster towards her. "I'm like, your biggest fan! I have all of your…" The woman kept talking, blabbing about the merchandise she'd collected and how much she knew about Alexandria's TV show.
Rebecca heard her, but her focus was on the table in front of her. The poster the woman wanted her to sign was old, one of the first released back in the Golden Age, when heroes outnumbered villains and Endbringers weren't even dreamt of. Alexandria was featured hovering above a crowd whose arms were all reaching skyward. Her chest was puffed out exaggeratedly as she stared out into the distance. The words, 'Defender of Freedom!' were bolded at the top of the poster.
Freedom…
Rebecca signed the poster quickly, then had an excuse drummed up for her sudden departure. She left the venue and took to the sky.