145 Conspiracies

When we enter the office, the first thing I find myself doing is comparing it to Uppercrust's, and I find it lacking.

Not that it's a bad office or anything, in fact, it's actually very good. Faultline is clearly intelligent because everything, from the colours, black and brown mostly, to the limited décor is clearly designed to give off the right vibe; to make herself seem more intimidating, or competent.

The only issue, is just how easy it is to tell how new she is. The desk looks like it was bought yesterday, same with the chairs, each without a scratch or faded colouring.

The fact that nothing in the office is worn down even the slightest bit just makes her inexperience clear. Even worn down furniture that has been polished and repainted still has signs you can pick out.

Compared to Uppercrust's office, that immediately gave me the feeling of old crime, like I was dealing with a man who had seen it all and done it all, like the room had borne witness to dealings that have had profound effects across the country.

It just doesn't match up.

Other than that, having a weird looking orange child in the room certainly doesn't help with the serious image she seems to be going for.

The kid, Newter I assume, even has a tail and- oh god, I looked it in the eyes. He has freaky pupils that are horizontal rectangles, and there are no whites to his eyes, just his blue iris extending all the way.

It's kind of like my transformed eyes, except instead of being cool and intimidating, his are just freaky, frog-like and just generally unpleasant to look at.

Maybe I'm just racist?

Eh, this town has the biggest neo-Nazi gang in the country, so maybe it's just something in the air?

"Miss Abel, I can't say that I was expecting a visit from someone of your stature, to what do I owe the pleasure?" Faultline asks, snapping me back to the real world.

Thoughts for later I suppose.

Actually looking properly at the woman, I take in her costume with an amused twitch of my lip. She is clearly a woman who values practicality over apparel, because her outfit looks like she wanted to go to prom but had a war to fight right after.

It's an odd mix between a dress and riot gear, though it doesn't look as bad as you'd imagine it would from that description. Though, the welding mask she wears does seem kind of out of place, not to mention low effort, but whatever, my costume is just a shitty Halloween outfit, so I can't really judge.

Her hands are the only part of her that is showing any skin, so I can't get a good guess on her age, but her hands don't have any wrinkles, and she smells fresh enough, so I figure she's probably around my age, give or take a couple of years.

"You flatter me,~" I respond as I seat myself in front of her, resting one leg over the armrest, "between the two of us, you're the only one with subordinates.~ Speaking of, what's with the freaks? You starting a collection or something?~"

Not being able to see her face has suddenly just become really annoying, because I kind of forgot how much harder it makes it to read people. But while I have no clue what kind of face she is making, that doesn't mean I have nothing to work with.

For one, her hands twitched slightly, not enough to clench them or anything, but clearly it was an aborted motion to clenching her fist, meaning that my words angered her, and then there's this 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 I get when I'm dealing with people, an instinctual glimpse into their psyche.

All told, I don't think she's collecting freaks, but rather she seems to care for them to some degree. How quaint.

Belatedly, I spare the kid a glance, to see that he looks like he's about to cry. Whoops.

"They are not 'freaks' and I am not 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 them," she says, her voice carefully neutral.

Heh, she's angry but smart enough to try and avoid pissing me off with her anger.

"Cool, then how come you're with them, or rather, why are they with you?~ I get the feeling that it's for more than just your charming personality?~"

"What does it matter to you?" She immediately counters.

My grin returns, this conversation amusing me, something that is clear in the tone of my retort. "Humour me, maybe I'll be able to help.~"

She seems to regard me for a moment, her caution fading slightly with curiosity taking it's place.

"Why?" One word, yet it seems to hold so much meaning, meaning that she doesn't hesitate to expand upon, "Why would you help? Why should I trust you? Why are you even here anyway?"

"Well, in random order, you should trust me because I'm awesome, and lying here would be pointless, because you're all weak and powerless.~ I'm willing to help, because I feel like I owe it to the Case 53 community to help out a little after I kinda accidentally got Tiamat killed. I swear I thought she'd just murder everyone else, but I guess it was too much, which is a real shame, 'cuz she was quite powerful.~"

I spread both of my arms wide in a 'what can you do' gesture and shake my head as if I'm not completely to blame for her death.

"And I'm actually only here to drop Mimi here off, since she doesn't have anywhere to go and apparently an old friend of hers, an Elle? Is kicking it with y'all. This conversation it just because I heard you dropped a building on Chevalier; I found that funny and you interesting.~"

She seems sceptical, but I also smell a little bit of fear returning at the reminder of my power. Tiamat was a Shaker 10 after all. If she had better materials to work with, or just wasn't facing anyone who can brush her golems aside with ease, then she could probably have taken on a small country single-handedly and won.

But against a singularly powerful opponent, she kind of looses out. I'm pretty sure there's some saying about ants and dragons that can be used here, but I can't remember it.

Eventually however, she concedes, probably a mixture of actually wanting help and being afraid of what I'll do if she denies me, though she seems to be both more calm at the thought of Mimi knowing Elle, and also a whole lot more anxious for the same reason.

How fun.

But instead answering directly, she forwards the question to Gregor with a simple tilt of the head, who answers after a taking a moment to gather his words. "When I woke up, I found myself lost and alone, in a world I did not recognise, surrounded by strangers speaking a language I did not know. I eventually learned, and I worked as a bouncer for a while until Faultline found me. I agreed to join her, and in exchange, she has agreed to assist me in my goal of finding where I came from, who I am and why I cannot remember anything."

As he speaks, I notice the way he strokes his arm, where the omega symbol is branded into his arm under the sleeve.

How interesting. I've always liked mystery novels, the well written ones at least. So I bring my palm to my chin and adopt a thinking pose, so that they all know I'm thinking and they should shut up.

Obviously, nothing really comes to mind. The only time I've seen that symbol is on Case 53's, but still, I have a theory.

"Well, I don't have any answers for you, but do you wanna hear my theory behind Case 53's?"

I wait for Faultline and Gregor both to nod her heads before I start. I don't particularly care if the kid wants to hear it or not.

"Did you know that you can buy powers?" I ask, and everyone present pauses for a moment at the sudden non sequitur, as well as the information itself, "yeah, it's wild. Honestly, I was a little bit mad when I found out about it. Like, there are just people out there with powers that didn't even have to go through a Trigger like us, how unfair is that?~ Though, saying that, I was totally planning on buying a bunch of powers, just to give them to random people for fun, but apparently they cost something in the range of one hundred million, at a minimum."

I let the information soak for a bit before continuing.

"Now, I may have a lot of money, but not that much, and I don't feel like owing favours to people who can sell powers. But back to the point, my theory is that whoever is selling powers is also the one leaving the Case 53's lying around. I mean, it makes some sense right? Mysterious organisation selling powers, and then there's these guys who suddenly appear out of nowhere, looking deformed and without any memories, and they always have powers? Curious right?~"

Leaning back in my chair, I point a thumb at Gregor standing behind me. "My bet is that they are just failed experiments, discarded for whatever reason, maybe even to bolster a specific groups Parahuman forces? Most Case 53's do end up with the PRT after all, isn't that an interesting coincidence?~"

That finally get's Faultline to speak up, her tone containing a healthy amount of scepticism, which is fair enough.

"Are you saying that you think it's the government or PRT specifically that's figured out a way to artificially induce powers, and that they're leaving Case 53's, failed experiments, without any memories of the procedure and in a location they can be picked up to keep working for them? Isn't that a bit too conspiracy theorist? Everyone knows that one of the first things governments around the world figured out with the advent of powers was that you can't force a Trigger."

Her words only serve to grow my smirk.

"Of course, and who exactly told us that Triggers can't be forced?" I ask, and I'm just going to assume her eyes widen, because I still can't see her face, "besides, you do know about that whole Pastor incident, right?"

Ignoring the main point for now, likely so that she can think about it later when I am not in front of her, she responds to my question with one of her own.

"I have not, but I presume I am about to?"

"You know me so well,~" I coo at her caution, once again lessened. I guess she's figured that I'm not going to just snap and kill her by now, which is nice, I guess, "to tell the truth, you probably have heard about it, even if you didn't realise it. Freedom, California. Ring any bells?~"

Slowly she nods her head, clearly dragging the information up from the back of her mind.

"It's a Quarantine Site, no one in, no one out, right? The second one, I believe."

Giving her a thumbs up, because I know people in this business always find it to be a jarring gesture, since they all consider it too childish to give thumbs ups, before I go back to explaining my illegally acquired knowledge.

"Yup, there are only seven Quarantine Sites right now, the most recent being my own fault, funnily enough.~ But over in Freedom, this Pastor guy Triggered, and while it's not clear exactly what his power is, it seems to be able to grant other people powers, either by forcing a Trigger or something else, I don't know.~ Point is, we all know Trump powers like Eidolon's and Teacher's exist, so to just dismiss the possibility of powers generating more powers altogether seems a little silly, don't ya think?"

I've seen the video that the PRT has of the incident, this guy, dressed up in a pastor's clothes, even if I'm not sure if he was actually a pastor or not, he just places his hands a girl, then the camera glitches for a bit and then he's standing with two kids, a boy and a girl, both of whom have these glowing cracks spreading through their body, while everyone else in the church cheers them on.

Personally, I just think they're a pack rabid cultists, and that they've probably all killed each other by now anyway, because cultists be crazy.

"How do you even know all of this?" Faultline asks, making me give her a playful wink.

"Do you not have a source inside the PRT?~ I hear it's all the rage these days.~ You should really get someone on the inside, because some of the stuff they're hiding away is absolutely wild!~ Have you ever heard about the Machine Army?" I completely fail at hiding my rising excitement as I speak, not that I was trying particularly hard, and Faultline clearly notices.

"I have not."

At her words, I can't help myself and jump to my feet, laying my hands over her desk and leaning forward as my grin splits my face. "Me fucking 𝘦𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳! There's a whole ass swarm of self replicating, self enhancing fucking shapeshifting robots that have just subsumed an entire town and is constantly attempting to expand, assumedly with the end goal of converting all life to machine, AND NOBODY FUCKING KNOWS ABOUT IT!!"

I shout out, raising my arms in the air as if questioning the world.

"It's so fucking 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 and they've just locked all knowledge of it away! Point is," I say, calming myself down from my tirade, "you should totally get a line in with the PRT, they have so much fun shit hidden away, and who knows, maybe you'll even find something on the 53's, though, for that I'd still suggest simply following the trail of powers being bought. You'll find something eventually."

"I'll keep that in mind."

Before the conversation continues any more however, I suddenly remember why I'm here in the first place. "Ah, right," I say, snapping my fingers, "where's Elle at? Cuz I still have some work to do that I've been putting off, so let's get this lovely little reunion on it's way, shall we?"

=================

A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!

This was supposed to be the last chap before lusia leaves brockton, but once again I got distracted talking about interesting things. Also, lusia is probably going to visit a quarantine site or two, depends on A: how much information I can suck out of the wiki's, and B: how interested lusia would be in the information she can suck out of the PRT database

I was wondering how I had 7 chapters saved up until I realised that I hadn't posted todays yet ;(

(5+)Advanced chapters with the links below!

pat/reon.com/user?u=41732867 (get rid of the first slash or check the description)

Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses