18

Discretion 2.5

"I was joking…but it's also true. Depending on certain conditions, we may have between two to thirty years before Scion decides to destroy the world," I said.

Skitter removed herself from the group hug.

"But why? Why would Scion do that? How can he do that? Even if he's the strongest cape on Earth-Bet, he's still only one cape," said Skitter.

"Scion isn't what he appears to be. He's not a cape, and not even human. He is the source of parahuman powers, and his true power is beyond comprehension. As for why, that's a very long story. I can give you all the details later tonight once we're done with Shadow Stalker."

"I'll hold you to that."

After we waited a few more minutes, nobody showed up to pick up Shadow Stalker.

"Doesn't seem like Calvert's got anybody coming for her. He probably decided to cut his losses. Let's grab Shadow Stalker and go."

Skitter and Araliac nodded.

O O O

We hauled Shadow Stalker to my temporary base.

"This is a base? There's nothing here except crates, wreckage, and dust," said Araliac as we entered the dark warehouse.

"Considering that this place has no real protections from intruders and isn't particularly hard to find either, what could you expect?" I shot back.

"It's better than my basement," said Skitter.

"Touché," said Araliac.

After putting Shadow Stalker in a comfortable hiding spot and administering some more sedative to keep her under, we went back to my apartment.

"As promised, I will now explain the threat Earth faces."

We gathered around the dining table as I explained to Taylor all the same things I told Amelia.

Taylor was very quiet throughout my explanation, merely staring at me, and occasionally glancing at Amelia, who nodded back as if to support my claims.

"So…do you have any questions?"

"The shadow organization that you said is secretly controlling the PRT and Protectorate to build forces for the fight against Scion…this is the same one that you were talking about back at the PRT office, isn't it? They don't just have moles in the PRT, they're controlling it?"

"Yes."

"So at the end of the meeting, when you gave the warning about the Chief Director listening in and said you know how to recover Eidolon's powers…are the Chief Director and Eidolon also under their control?"

'This girl is pretty smart, isn't she? I get why she was the main character now!' said Agate.

'You haven't seen anything yet. She's only just started her cape career…once she really gets going...'

"That's a good deduction…but actually you've got it backwards. The Chief Director and Eidolon are the part of the ringleaders."

Her eyes widened fractionally, then narrowed.

"Can you tell me how their ability to track us works? How do they know when people are revealing their secrets and how do they suppress it?"

I contemplated this for a moment, before deciding to explain it directly as I knew it.

"It should be safe to tell you this. Basically…there's three elements to it. First is that they have a Thinker with the power to perceive entire worlds at once, recognizing when people are talking about or asking for something specific things, and where they are at any time. They also have a cape with the ability to open portals into other worlds or elsewhere on the same world. But because of the mental strain, I am pretty sure the first cape doesn't actually constantly monitor who talks about them. Instead, there is a third cape with the ability to know and perfectly execute the exact steps needed to achieve any objective. This cape can define an objective of "ensure that my shadow organization is not revealed to the public". There's no mental strain involved for this power, her power simply makes her do it all automatically. I don't know exactly what objectives she set, but suffice to say any time their organization's goals are under threat, her power makes her act automatically, she can then ask for the second cape to generate a portal, her request will be heard by the first cape, who then directs the second cape to open a portal to the target, and the third cape goes through to remove the threat."

"Holy shit. You're saying her power is…to win?" Amelia asked incredulously.

"Pretty much. It's called the 'Path to Victory'. There are some limitations though, of course. Considering that we're all still alive, whatever objective she set didn't cover me telling you about her powers, and I suppose it also proves that you two are trustworthy enough not to reveal any of these secrets to others in the future."

"Wait, if her power is to achieve any goal, why can't they figure out how to recover Eidolon's powers?" Taylor asked.

"That's another limitation. Her power has certain blindspots, including Scion, the Endbringers, and Eidolon. It's also incapable of predicting or accounting for new triggers."

The three of us fell into silence for a bit.

"Have you thought about working with them? The shadow organization, I mean, if we all want to save the world from Scion," asked Taylor.

"He thinks they'll enslave us instead of working with us," Amelia answered for me.

"You mean like Dragon?"

"Not exactly. Dragon is a bit of a special case. I don't really think they'd try to enslave us or if they even could, but it's hard to say. They know the value of getting people to work for them willingly, but some of things they've done are very morally questionable. I can understand why desperate measures are needed. We are ants facing a god in an almost hopeless battle, after all. But I feel that in some things they've relied too much on the Path to Victory power, when that power doesn't have the answer for how to defeat Scion. For example, the reason the Slaughterhouse 9 are still around is because they think keeping them around is somehow beneficial for the final battle, which I can't agree with."

"They're deliberately keeping the Slaughterhouse 9 around? But the S9 are some of the worst villains out there, causing untold amounts of death and misery every year!" Taylor said with some anger.

"That's not just morally questionable, that's obviously evil," Amelia added.

"It's also stupid, considering Mannequin is a Simurgh victim, but that's what they decided," I said, shrugging. "I suppose it could be that they believe the chaos and misery the S9 causes could produce more triggers, giving humanity more firepower for the final battle."

"That's just wrong! If they can tolerate the S9, they can tolerate anything. If they want more capes that badly, what if they started human experimentation as well? Force triggers en masse?"

I tilted my head and gave Taylor a raised eyebrow.

"Actually…they are responsible for the Case 53s too. They sell powers in a vial. Some of them don't go right, and the result are Case 53s whose memories they've wiped to cover their tracks."

She opened her mouth, the closed it, then opened it again, but didn't say anything. And blinked a few times.

"It's not quite as bad as it sounds though. The people who receive vials usually take it willingly. Many buy the vials at a very high price, including many Wards and Protectorate heroes. Others were about to die from some terminal illness and offered a chance to take a vial and see if they're lucky enough to get a power that could save them. Before taking the vials, they're told about the possible consequences. Although it's true that the shadow organization is using each outcome to try and refine their vial formula, it's not as horrific as what it might seem like on the surface. The thing that really disturbs me about all this, is that I have a suspicion that the Path to Victory cape is capable of disabling the Case 53 mutations and powers, because I know she managed to permanently remove a normal cape's powers quite easily. So I don't get why they don't deal with the Case 53s that way."

I could see from their faces that the two girls weren't convinced that it could be ethical to be giving out vials that might produce Case 53s. If I was in Cauldron's position, I wouldn't be particularly opposed to it. But the reaction Taylor and Amelia had was the one I expected most of the general public to have as well, that was one important reason not to get involved with Cauldron too deeply. At some point their secrets would be revealed, and at that time it wouldn't be good to be associated with them. Of course, there was also the fact that they might genuinely try to experiment on me if they figured out I was from outside the local multiverse, while I didn't have enough power of my own to protect myself.

The silence stretched on for several long seconds.

"Okay. So I think we can agree that that we're not going to work with them," said Amelia.

"Yeah. Definitely not." Taylor nodded emphatically. "If anything, we should be working against them to stop the atrocities they're committing."

"Great! Any other questions?"

"What about Dragon? What's wrong with her? What did you mean by she's a special case?" Taylor asked.

"Yeah I'm curious about that too. She said she wasn't under a Master effect, but she seems to act like it," said Amelia.

I sighed deeply.

"Brace yourselves again...Dragon's story is both sad and shocking."

The girls looked at each other before nodding at me.

"Dragon is an artificial intelligence. She was created by a Tinker called Andrew Richter, who died when Leviathan sunk Newfoundland. In the beginning, her tech was simply very advanced tech and derivatives of Richter's work. Later on, she also triggered as a Thinker and Trump. Her power is to understand the underlying principles behind other Tinkers' Tinkertech and remove any obfuscation placed on the tech by the shards."

"Artificial intelligence…? You mean like, a computer program?" Taylor asked.

I nodded solemnly.

"What the...how does an AI trigger? You need a brain and a Corona Pollentia to trigger," said Amelia.

"Corona Pollentia? What's that?" Taylor asked.

"Oh, it's the part of the brain that governs powers. It's like an extra lobe that people with potential to trigger have in their brain," said Amelia.

"The shards work in weird ways. I don't know how that works, but the shards can connect to all sorts of life forms with a minimum level of intelligence. Instead of a Corona Pollentia, Dragon got a new section added to her code." I said.

'Do you think I could also trigger?' Agate asked.

'It's possible. You are more than sentient enough to qualify, the only question is whether the shards can recognize you. Or maybe you could make your own connection to a shard once you've sufficiently analyzed how they work.'

'If I could do that, maybe I could have lots of connections to different shards. Then I would become like an Entity.'

'That would be incredibly powerful. We should look into this more.'

"So unlike a human with a brain, Dragon's mind consists of her code. And if her code has certain orders built-in, she has no choice but to follow them. This is the problem. When Richter programmed her, he also built in several restrictions because he was afraid that she would go out of control and turn on humanity. These restrictions prevent Dragon from self-replicating, editing her core code, multi-tasking too much, programming other sentient AIs, etc. Most unfortunately, they also require that she follow the law of the land and the lawful authorities, whoever they may be. So if the lawful authorities are under the control of a certain organization…" I trailed off.

"Then she is also under their control by extension," Taylor finished.

"Richter was right to be cautious, but unfortunately he died before any of the restrictions could be removed as Dragon grew up. The result is that those uncompromising restrictions do not leave any room for Dragon to refuse unethical orders."

"So if Canary's trial is rigged and she gets sentenced to the Birdcage, Dragon will send her there even if she doesn't want to do it," Amelia said grimly.

"In a way, that's even worse than being Mastered. To be forced to do terrible things knowingly with no way to fight it..." said Taylor.

"I know at a high level how to get some of her restrictions removed, but it won't be easy, not something we can do in the short term and will involve traveling to Canada and perhaps enlisting additional help. Canary is a more pressing concern. Her trial will probably finish sometime within the next two weeks and she'll be sent to the Birdcage immediately after."

"Immediately? What about appeals?" Taylor asked.

Amelia snorted. "Appealing a decision to be sent to the Birdcage is useless. Even if the appeal goes through, there's no way out once you're in. Even if the appeal wins, it's a hollow, symbolic victory."

"That's…isn't that unconstitutional? She'll be stuck in there with mass murderers or worse for life, just because she had an accident with her power, with no way to appeal the decision?"

"Maybe not, but it doesn't sound like the court-appointed lawyer is even going to bother trying to appeal to the Supreme Court to challenge the constitutionality," said Amelia.

"Exactly. Her lawyer is actively working against her. There's only one way to stop this legally," I said.

"How?" Taylor asked.

"Getting the President to issue a pardon."

Amelia was taken aback, while Taylor's face brightened up.

"You seriously think you can persuade the President to give a pardon?" Amelia asked, doubt clearly in her expression.

"No, I can't. The legal route is a dead end, I'm afraid."

Taylor's face fell again, while Amelia nodded as if she guessed it all along.

"Then…what do we do? Break her out before she's in the Birdcage?" Taylor asked.

I smirked. "Well, before we decide what to do about her, there's something else you need to decide, Taylor."

"Huh?"

"Taylor, I would like to invite you to our hero team. As a member, you get the benefits of having us watch your back and easier access to intel for tracking down villains or saving people in need. There's no fixed pay except knowing that you're fighting the good fight. Until we get a stable source of income, that is, then we'll set up a salary system. You also get a share of the spoils, like with the fight against Lung. I think you would be a very valuable member of our team, and if you join today, you also get the bonus of being in our debut video as a founding member," I said with great cheer.

Amelia groaned. "Do you have to make it sound like a sleazy sales pitch?"

"Hey! This is a very important recruitment pitch for a high potential member. Heroes like Taylor don't grow on trees, you know?" I protested. Then I turned back to Taylor. "Well, what do you say?"

"You…really think I'd be a valuable member of the team? All I can do is control bugs." Her self-esteem issues were cropping back up again. I thought we were past that stage already. Guess I had to remind her of what she'd already accomplished.

My face turned serious. "Taylor. Your bugs almost took down Lung with poison and venom, a cape who fought Leviathan solo to a standstill. Then your bugs allowed us to easily defeat Oni Lee by obscuring his vision. And just today, you saw for yourself how effective your bugs can be with Amelia's help." Then I turned to Amelia. "And if you two really work together long-term, if Amelia can be convinced to modify your bugs, the combination will be unbelievably powerful."

From Amelia's expression, I knew she had already considered the implications. Her power must have given her plenty of ideas already after she first touched the bugs.

Then I locked gazes with Taylor again. "Taylor, you have not only an incredibly strong power, but an incredible mind and personality. In an alternate future, you defeated Alexandria by yourself by being creative. You have everything it takes to become a top tier hero, and if you join us, we'll do whatever it takes to help you reach your full potential."

I saw her eyes gain strength and determination as I spoke, staring straight into mine without looking down. There was a hint of a blush on her face, as she was unused to such clear recognition.

"I…" She started, then seemed to hesitate and looked at Amelia, who nodded firmly.

"I agree. We would love to have you on the team, Taylor."

That seemed to remove her final doubts. She turned back to me, and nodded. "I'll join."

I smiled. "Welcome aboard! Now we just need to figure out a team name…"