20

Discretion 2.7

Agate watched as eventually Calvert was called into Piggot's office. Deputy Director Renick was seated to Piggot's right.

"Hello, Director, Deputy Director. I trust that today's proceedings have sufficiently demonstrated my compliance with PRT rules and regulations?" He said calmly as he sat down in front of Director Piggot's desk.

Piggot gave him a frown.

"Thomas, we haven't found anything on you, but I can't say that you're all clear yet either."

"I would be happy to cooperate with anything else you would like to investigate," he said pleasantly, ignoring Piggot's almost hostile tone. "But, I have to admit, I am rather curious what is the cause for the sudden security review. It has been quite some time since our branch of the PRT has had such an extensive review. Are there any major developments I should be aware of?"

Piggot leaned forward and stared into Calvert's eyes. "It's because we haven't had one in such a long time that we needed to do this now. Nothing more to it. You, on the other hand, had to be investigated more thoroughly in particular due to a very strange development today."

"Oh? What would that be?"

"Shadow Stalker has gone missing."

Piggot observed Calvert closely. There was no change in Calvert's expression.

"That's quite a surprise. But what does that have to do with me? I don't interact with the Wards on a regular basis."

"You tell me, Thomas," she said, then she gestured for Renick to speak.

"Just prior to her disappearance, at 8:13 this morning, Shadow Stalker called in to the PRT emergency line. She claimed to have been called by a PRT Commander Thomas Calvert who warned her about a villain targeting her."

Calvert had a look of surprise. "I don't remember ever contacting Shadow Stalker about anything like that, nor am I aware of any villain targeting her."

"Given the timing, as you were already undergoing a security review here, we know that you could not have been the one to call her. Still, that doesn't preclude the possibility of you having made arrangements for somebody else, or a voice recording, to have made the call to Shadow Stalker."

"I see no fault in your logic," said Calvert, nodding. "I suppose that if you're telling me this now, you are satisfied that I did not in fact make any such arrangements?"

"We believe that you are not aware of having made any such arrangements," said Piggot.

Calvert blinked and nodded slowly. "I understand. You have not ruled out the possibility that I was made to forget. I cannot deny that it is possible, but hypothetically speaking, if somebody wanted to use my name to give Shadow Stalker a warning, I don't think it would be necessary to get me involved. I have had no significant contact with Shadow Stalker since she joined the Wards, so she has few means to verify my identity. Moreover, if their intention was only to give a warning to Shadow Stalker, they may not need to prove their identity to her in the first place for her to take the warning seriously."

"That is true, but if they only wanted to warn Shadow Stalker, they could have done so anonymously. They must have had a reason to use your name, unless they chose it from high ranking local PRT officials at random," said Piggot. Then she sighed. "But, I cannot hold you here indefinitely, and our main priority is to find Shadow Stalker. You are free to go, Thomas."

"Thank you, Director."

As Calvert nodded and left, Agate continued to track him.

It was a little bit surprising that the PRT let him off so quick, but after thinking about it for a bit I realized that there was no strong evidence yet to suggest that the Shadow Stalker's disappearance was a malicious plot by the imposter. From the perspective of the PRT, it would merely seem that Shadow Stalker rashly took action by herself after receiving a warning about a villain targeting her, which may actually be true for all they know, and then jumping to conclusions about the PRT being compromised by a Master for not warning her first. I had expected the PRT to consider it a possible defection of a Ward with all her accusations against the PRT, but it also made sense for them to think that Stalker was just hiding from the threat she was warned against. There was also the fact that the police were after her civilian identity, so if the PRT was already aware of that, and they probably were, they may think she decided to hide from the police as well.

I turned my attention back to the poker table.

"Fold," I threw my cards into the discard pile, then I stood up and left the table. Amelia followed after me with an annoyed expression on her face. Although she wasn't old enough to be here, it was no real trouble getting past the guards with a little bribe and our disguises.

"I thought you said you were going to make money, not gamble it!" She whispered loudly after we went to an abandoned corner of the casino for a break.

"I am. But that doesn't mean I should win every hand…it's a game of math, observation, and deception. For example, that table just now was bad. There were several players working together," I said.

Despite what I said, my purpose here tonight was not to make money. While money was indeed tight, it wasn't tight to the point where we actually needed to deliberately go out to make money, as there was nothing in particular I could spend it on yet. If my plans worked out well, I intended to gain sources of income and wealth soon that would easily eclipse anything we could make here.

"So? Can't you just use your power to see their cards?"

"I could, but I don't need it. I have better uses for my power, like trying to find a certain villain. Besides, if I play too well, they'll get suspicious, and if they're working with the house, that won't end well for us," I said. Although I could have cheated using Agate, I never did so because there were always better things for her to be working on.

And that same logic was also why the money that we could make here wasn't that important. At best, we could make a few thousand, and if we were lucky, five digits. What could that possibly buy? I joked about hiring Uber and Leet with Amelia earlier, but like my proposal to work with Bakuda, it was very unrealistic.

Uber and Leet were a small-time cape villain duo that followed a gaming theme, complete with a video streaming channel. Uber's power was to become an expert at any kind of skill the more he focused on one. Leet had the power to Tinker up any Tinkertech.

That might sound great on the surface, but Uber's power was limited to technique level skills, and not the mastery of a field like a true expert. He could pull off perfect individual martial arts maneuvers but couldn't integrate them into an actual fighting style. Leet's creations had an increasing chance of failure the more it resembled something he made before. It was a limitation that required vast sums of money to work around, because it applied to components he made too, not just the final products. There were some fanfictions I'd read which suggested otherwise, but going off of what I remembered of the duo's actual performance in canon, they were next to useless in most cases.

I knew this because they failed horrifically when hired by Bakuda for a cheap few thousand yet were fairly useful when employed by Coil, who had the resources to spare to help Leet make the teleporter and bug controlling device, most probably because he could afford to spend a lot of money buying non-Tinkertech components or non-Leet Tinkertech components so that Leet would only need to use his power on the final product which substantially raised his overall success rate.

"Aren't there better ways of making money than this? It seems pretty risky…"

"For us, there are many. For most normal people, making money is tough. All the people here, how many do you think are actually rich enough to be gambling their money away?" I gestured to the various people in the casino in a wide sweep.

She turned to look at them, but didn't answer.

"See how they wear expensive jewelry and brand name clothing? It's all a façade. They're just trying to appear rich, to live a life that they desperately want but can't actually afford. Most of them are probably addicted to gambling too."

"And you're going to profit from their misfortune?" She countered.

I smiled. "See that man in the tuxedo, with the pretty lady beside him over there? He is not wearing many luxury items himself, but the woman is. That is the sign of somebody truly rich. He is here to show off to his girlfriend, and show off his trophy girlfriend to everybody else. He can afford to lose a lot of money, and still win what he really wants. And that's who you're going to make money off of today, not the rest of these unfortunate folk."

"Huh? Don't you mean who you're going to make money off of?"

"No, you're going to play this one," I pushed her along.

"Wait, no! I don't know how to play!"

"Don't worry, I'll be your advisor. See how that guy's girlfriend keeps hanging off his shoulder, trying to give him suggestions? I'll do the same for you."

"D-don't you dare hang off my shoulder!"

O O O

Through Agate, I watched as Calvert went home, bought groceries, and made dinner. Then he made a call to Creep, and headed to his base. He gave orders for his body double to take care of some things with Fortress Constructions, the company he controlled under a different identity, before sitting down.