VT - Chapter 15 : Discussion Galore, Cauldron Meetings & Unexpected Caller.... (Patreon)

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Brockton Bay

–Taylor Hebert—

The entire world was reeling from the well deserved death of the Slaughterhouse Nine. Not just because someone had finally destroyed the entire S9 in one go, but they had done so within such a short period of time, without suffering any casualties, and without risking the activation of the many contingencies that monsters like Jack Slash certainly had on hand. 

Why else would the world not treat them more akin to an Endringer Event and declare a Truce to hunt them down to the last man? Sure, the Siberian was kinda scary, but there had to be some kind of weakness, right? There must be something else stopping the heroes from moving in on them.

That was what she had told herself for years. That there must be some other reason why the heroes couldn't wipe that blight off the face of the planet. 

As it turns out, there was a weakness for every single member of the S9, and someone had indeed exploited them to get rid of the entire group in one go. It was surreal, and the world was still struggling to believe that a single entity could do this when the most powerful people in the world couldn't.

Grand Chariot.

The name popped up in her mind as she thought of all the PHO posts she read about the group that killed Jack Slash. They were not really that active on PHO, and had just posted a single thing, which contained videos of every individual member of the S9 being killed by some robots. The discussions on PHO were still ongoing.

They ranged from trying to find their existence, to questions about what they were doing until now, to what functions each of those robots had, and the most controversial event, which was the destruction of the floating ship.

She had seen the leaked videos, along with the ones that Grand Chariot themselves had released, of the large aircraft carrier sized ship floating in front of the Triumvirate, who were getting ready for an attack of some sort, only for the ship to self-destruct. It was a truly extreme and wasteful move, as most of the PHO agreed that the single ship was probably worth hundreds of billions of dollars, with many Tinkers and Thinkers confirming that all the technology in that one ship was nothing short of revolutionary.

It was clearly a work of Tinker, or a group of Tinkers, and they had just destroyed it without any hesitation. It was as if they knew that the moment they had used something to get rid of the S9, they were going to have to meet the Triumvirate and then destroy that ship. It also confirmed that the ship was entirely remotely operated, as were the suits.

People on PHO were really divided about the wastefulness of that particular move. Some argued that it was the height of irresponsibility to destroy such a prized possession to escape the Triumvirate, especially when, from most reports, they were not even inside that ship. The other side argued that it was the right move.

The government was not really known for making good use of assets, and there was a good chance that the Tinker group, because how else could you build something of that scale that worked flawlessly, would be pressed into service for the government. After all, from what little they had seen, that Tinker group’s creations could have a real difference in Endbringer fights, not to mention other conflicts.

Normally, she would have labelled the words of Void_Cowboy as nothing more than conspiracy theories, but now, she had to agree with him somewhat, something she never thought would happen in her life. From what little she had seen of that group, she could tell that they were invaluable, and that if they so wished, most major countries would likely do anything to get them, be it money, threats, or anything they might need in terms of resources. Though, judging by what they managed to build under everyone’s noses, and then considered it disposable enough to destroy it, meant that they were not lacking in terms of resources anytime soon. 

People could infer from their posts that the group had been waiting for the right time to do anything, and the right time was likely when their own defensive protections were in place. After all, if they could sacrifice such a state-of-the-art ship, then it stood to reason that they had something far more advanced.

Sighing, she got off the bus, ignoring the crusted hair due to Emma’s shenanigans of the day, and walked towards her house. It had been three days of constant chatter, no matter what she looked at, about Grand Chariot and their role in the world in the coming days. 

She snorted as she remembered some foolish news people arguing about taking the entire Tinker group and nationalising them, in the name of the Endinger emergency, so that the group could be forced to churn out such machines by the dozen, making America the strongest country on the planet once more, without the use of capes.

It was all cape discrimination, and anyone with an ounce of brain cell could see that whatever he was suggesting was impossible to implement. After all, they had no place, no person, no face to match the name, and as such, they could be anywhere.

They could be a remnant group from one of Professor Haywire’s portals. They could be a new group on Earth Bet. They could be a group entirely made up of Tinkers. They could be a mixed group. They could be aliens, for all she knew. Anything was possible at this stage, so she resolved to ignore some of her usual media sites for the money and focus on the more important task at hand.

Finding the person who knew about her identity, and as such, could expose her the moment she went out of the house to become a hero and save people. No, he could expose her right at this moment without any repercussions. The burden on her end was far higher, and it grated on her immensely to know that there was someone out there with intimate knowledge of not just her but the specifics of her power as well, and that there was nothing she could do to stop or apprehend them.

The only thing of note she had of them was a single phone and some weird grey patch that looked and felt like just an ordinary patch instead of technology capable of contacting the person over long distances, and instantly at that. It was probably just some creepy weirdo with some kind of Mover power? Who was playing some sick game on her. Even so, that did not make her feel good. After all, even if a Mover was less dangerous than some Tinker in the long run, as she might never get to see the face of her tormentor, it didn’t make the information in their hands any less dangerous.

Sighing, she reached her house and, after skipping the broken step, pushed the door open and walked inside, exhausted beyond belief. She just wanted to get a hot shower and pass out. The days were getting more and more blurry, as she did nothing but wake up and be the Trio’s bitch, day in and day out. Father was too gone to care about what was happening around her.

For a brief period, when she was in the hospital, he seemed to have snapped out of it, but over time, her old Father returned all the same, making her feel all alone in this cruel world.

She scoffed. Melodramatic thoughts were nothing new to her, but tonight, it just felt somewhat different. Intense enough that she found herself tempted to assemble the phone she had in pieces in her room right now.

......

....

God, just how much more pathetic could she become?

She asked herself and hopped in for a long, hot shower. Maybe that would help clear her mind.

___xx__

Cauldron Compound

“What are we going to do about the Case 53s now?” Alexandria asked the table, which had only the Doctor Mother and the Number Man present. David had declined the invitation to the meeting, knowing what was on the agenda and utterly uninterested in it. 

“William Manton’s corpse being delivered right to your office gives us multiple messages all at once.” Doctor Mother replied.

“Yup. One is that they now know about both your identities. They knew that William worked here. They know that Cauldron exists. They know about the Entities. They know that Legend is kept in the dark. They know what excuse you gave to him for the Case 53s. They also know that by delivering Manton’s corpse at the right moment, they had removed that particular option.”

Rebecca grunted, “Now what? WE can’t stop our search for the Silver Bullet. They know too much, can do way too much to be hidden for so long, and yet, we can’t find hide nor hair of them. Does Contessa have something?”

Doctor Mother replied smoothly, “No. She has no new information to add at the moment,” easily hiding the worry she felt about their most useful and arguably most powerful member suddenly faltering in the face of that organisation.

“Well, we at least know that they are an organisation, but with a special caveat.”

Rebecca looked at Kurt with confusion. “What caveat? Of course, they are an organisation. How could one person possibly build all of that? They need Tinkers with at least half a dozen specialities to make that one ship alone. Who knows how many more they might have if they so easily destroyed it.”

Kurt slid his tablet towards Rebecca, who did not look at the tablet, but at Kurt himself, waiting for an explanation from the man himself, who just grinned and replied.

“Alright. So, you are wrong, as in they need just half a dozen tinkers. No, they need over 2 dozen Tinkers to reliably build all the tech they need to fit into that single ship, and get this, they probably have either a Master to make all the Tinkers work together, or they have a Super Tinker of sorts, who can take all the built stuff and then merge it all together seamlessly.”

Doctor Mother replied, “That would explain the sheer potency of that ship. To wipe out Crawler to atoms, and more, all the while they remained hidden must mean that they have other cape members as well.”

Kurt nodded, “Yes. We are likely looking at an organisation that has atleast a couple dozen capes, with a mix of all types of capes. My bet is on the Super Tinker theory. I don’t think any single Master that can make all these Tinkers work together exists, or even if they do, they won’t be doing good things.”

“We can’t assume their actions are borne from a desire to do good. There are plenty of ways they could take advantage of this newfound fame for any nefarious goals they might have.” Rebecca pointed out, to which Kurt just shrugged, not having anything to say to that. His job was to crunch the numbers, keep the global economy chugging along into a stable decline instead of going downhill instantly, and help Cauldron with other accounting.

He had no real say in the decision making power of Cauldron. Neither did Rebecca, but she did not quite know that yet.

___xx___

Somewhere on Earth Bet

–Simon–

He was in the middle of making some last minute tweaks to the life support bogies based on what little data he had managed to gather from the small deployment during the S9 hunt, when he heard something.

A faint and distinct ringtone rang in the office as he stood up and opened the nearest terminal. He frowned as he saw the caller was Taylor, or rather, the phone he gave her. A single push of a button hijacked every single thing in that phone and showed him everything, including the fact that the girl had the phone jammed next to her ear.

Hesitantly pressing accept, he activated the voice modulation and said, “Hello, Taylor.”