Short hop to the left, twist hips three degrees, knife slides over my suit without catching. Flick head to the right while turning to face Mr. Duchenne and his gun, pluck the knife out of the first assailant's hand before he recovers from the thrust, throw, knife slides between the eyeball and socket of our erstwhile client. He collapses in horror and pain, slumping over his previously perfectly-organized desk and bleeding - slightly- into his inbox, right hand slowly going towards the injury. Not permanent, recovery will take thirteen days and be remembered as the worst terror he has experienced since a child.
I pluck the gun out of his left hand and round on the one who previously had the knife. He drops to his knees, hands pressed to the floor, the glistening beginnings of a single tear forming in his left eye. I crack smile that turns into a sneer of derision.
"Now that I have your unwavering attention, allow me to restate my position."
The man behind me is the boss here, but he can still hear past the pain. Besides, I'm modulating my voice such that most of the echoes land directly on the supposedly secret recording device installed just under the mahogany laminate on the third bookshelf from the door. He'll know my demands and follow them to the letter.
"First, you
will pay eight percent of gross into the account we specified in your contract. That was the deal we signed off on for the vial you received, Mr. Duchenne, and that is the deal you will honor, regardless of any deviations from the specifications requested. You were fully informed of that possibility before consuming the vial. Second, you
will not continue your research into either myself or the organization I represent. Yes, I know about that. Should you fail to comply with either of these demands, I will return. I don't think I need to say what I will do with the knife in that eventuality."
Twist body perpendicularly to the bodyguard, nerve pinch on Mr. Duchenne's outstretched hand, pluck from his insensate fingers the knife he just pulled, intending to stab me while I wasn't watching, flip it around, light laceration to the cheek, over the left ear, around his bald scalp. Flecks of blood explode outward everywhere except my suit. Nonlethal, mild scarring inevitable. Terrifying in the immediate term as the sheet of blood drips down from the scalp laceration and into his eyes. Head wounds always bleed hard; perfect for inspiring compliance.
Keep the gun trained on the bodyguard, drop the knife, lift Mr. Duchenne's chin from the right side to avoid the blood rivulets beginning to reach his left cheek. Whisper, "Needless to say, Mr. Duchenne, I am
very creative."
Condescending smile, drop his head onto the newly bloodsoaked desk, small splashes directed towards his suit and none towards me.
"I hope, for your sake, that we do not need to meet again. Door to Cauldron."
Step through the softly glowing portal, one last sneer back as it snaps closed.
Fortunately for him, I will never have need to carry out my threats. He will decide to keep the scar as a reminder, while growing his little gang with the power to outthink one person at a time.
Not particularly useful against me, not that much of anything is. Any other shirkers in the immediate future? No. Other potential threats to our position?
A Path springs to mind immediately. One I can't skip directly to the end of. How disturbing. Usually that question returns nothing. Is this threat immediate or future? Void.
Damn! If this is yet another blind spot…
Calm down. If it's another blind spot, it might be just what we need. Can't take the risk of the threat being immediate, follow the Path.
----
The Path lands me at a computer terminal near the center of Cauldron. Currently, it has me carrying out actions I recognize as those I take when I need to covertly procure information from Dragon, though I still don't know what all this information means. Audio transcripts from the PRT-ENE, including a mirror of the late Kaiser's public execution of the men who captured Shadow Stalker, random databases from the Elite, maps overlaid with information from an Endbringer prediction program Dragon appears to have been obsessing over since that disaster with Coil and the Simurgh victim three days ago. That might explain the blind spot...no. Damn, Dragon doesn't think this 'thing' is an Endbringer.
Interesting. I could instantly tell Dragon's thoughts, but I can't make sense of the data itself. It...feels like a blind spot. But not like Eidolon or the Endbringers. This is too...well-defined. All hard edges, places where my knowledge just stops completely rather than gradually blacking out. I can't use my usual trick of creating a model of the threat because I do not know who or what it is or what its nature might be. It's like this blind spot wasn't created by the entity I killed. If it was, it did something entirely different to create this. It seems like the only things I can natively know about this are the things Dragon knows and that it exists.
Disturbing. Doctor Mother needs to know about this immediately.
Data gathering complete, apparently Number Man needs to see this before her because I send it to him with the message, "I will be there soon. Please peruse." Make my way to his office. By foot, apparently to give him time to look at what I sent him.
I have four minutes and thirty-seven seconds before I arrive. What can I already know about this? Apparently, Dragon is the only person who knows or suspects anything about this, is that right? Void. Damn. I will work from that assumption, no other source of data appears to have been picked up in my trawl. The specific data collected seems...random. I am usually a supreme pattern recognizer, but I could not see anything. Perhaps Number Man can see more, he doesn't have my blocks. Or maybe it's something about how his power views the world. Perhaps I would be able to see the pattern if I modeled him? Void.
Strange. Usually I can predict him with perfect accuracy. It must be something about this data specifically which blocks me. Anything else? All of the maps and location-specific data were from Brockton Bay, so I can assume this threat has at least something to do with the city. Dragon's obsession with Armsmaster's death clearly drove her to collect all of this, but she either hasn't determined why the probability fields on her map are shaped the way they are yet or, perhaps, I could not find that data due to the block. Always a possibility with something like this.
What
don't I know? Who or what is causing these discrepancies? How do they relate to Armsmaster's death? Why the specific pieces of data I collected? I can pinpoint rough centers for each of the circular protrusions on the probability maps easily enough, but Dragon was only able to connect those to the deaths of Shadow Stalker, some apparently unrelated civilians, one John Doe, and the entire 'Echidna' debacle I was forced to personally end behind the scenes by manipulating Sundancer into incinerating her former friend. Had I not done so most of the city would have been ravaged, and we cannot afford that with an Endbringer attack projected in the next few weeks. Was that somehow related as well?
All of that returns Void. Excellent! That gives me more definite boundaries for this hole in my omnicognisance. I can't know who or what is causing this. It appears the only things I can learn are what I can directly infer from the information Dragon pulled. Interesting…
This almost certainly means that this block has nothing to do with my normal blind-spots. With those, I can start from the inside, as it were. Observe their behavior from afar, collect that data, then use it to build a model of behavior which I can fine-tune over time. Something about this data prevents that approach from working at all, which probably implies a new source of blind-spots.
If so, I have no doubt this is a precursor to even larger problems. However, that isn't the concern right now. I need to have some kind of grounding when I walk into Number Man's office, so I'll start from the outside, as this data appears to demand. Path to mentally organizing this data in the way most likely to allow me to move forward...that Path also leads to Numer Man's office. Strange. What about this prevents anyone but him from solving it?
I can't know the answer to that.
----
The moment I walk through his door, Number Man stands and smiles brightly. He's...energized, in a way I haven't seen of him since he began working with Cauldron instead of Jack.
"I want to thank you for that little diversion, Contessa. Truly a fascinating puzzle. I've never seen anything quite like it! Tell me, how did you
do that? I didn't think something which did that would be possible!" He beams at me.
I stop, affecting confusion. It's rare when the emotions I display are also the ones I feel. "What...do you mean? What do you think I did?"
That stops him in his tracks, his smile replaced with a look of confusion to match my own. "You can't think I'm fooled by that, Contessa. How did you make a puzzle which couldn't be solved with my power?"
Can't be...oh...oh no.
I gesture towards his desk and computer, which I note still has several of the diagrams I sent on the screen. "Sit down and explain to me exactly what you discovered, please."
Number Man's confusion doesn't appear to abate, but he also expresses a little bit of that smug pride he was so famous for as Harbinger. "Naturally!"
We both sit down, and he begins to explain, "It took me over two minutes to discover this, but I could not make any headway on this conundrum if I was using my power to do it. Once I had an idea I could set my power on unraveling it, but nothing unique or new could be generated by my power alone. It was...well it was the most
cerebral experience I have had in quite a long time. I was forced to, as it were, manually take the results of chains of calculation and determine their implications and consequences myself, segregating my thoughts entirely from my senses. It was the first time I'd had to close my eyes and plug my ears to solve a problem since I've had powers. Something about this data, or more likely, something about the force this data implies, makes it impossible for us Thinkers to Think our way through it."
My mind races as I realize the implications. "Which made it impossible for me to make any headway at all. I'm not sure if it is even possible for me to disentangle my humanity from my power, especially considering that I spent my entire adolescence with it telling me what to do."
Number Man purses his lips slightly, apparently disappointed at my interruption. "Indeed. A puzzle which only Man can solve, and to which Gods are blind." He turns back towards his computer. "In any case, allow me to explain to you the particulars. The short version is that all of this data constitutes a series of encoded messages and the encryption keys to unlock them. The only reason I figured that out is by wondering how any of this was connected in the first place, then stumbling upon the idea...manually, as it were."
I smile slightly as a few things snap into focus. The rest, however, remains out of my grasp. "I...I can see that, now. What do these messages say?"
Number man smiles widely. "They are names."
I'm taken aback a bit, before some more data clicks into place and I begin assembling the picture from the outside in. "Names...of the victims?"
He clicks on a few things on the screen. "Indeed. Let me show you some of them."
I take a glance as he continues his explanation. "Let's start with Emily Piggot. This recording of the minutes before her death was quickly quashed by the PRT, but it became public for a few days before they could come up with a convincing reason to discredit it. I won't bother playing it, I'm sure you already know all about it." I nod, and he continues, "The recording sounds entirely normal because it
is. However…" He pulls up a program I don't recognize until I Path it, "when using this open-source compression program on the file, the first six characters of the zip file's plaintext become a specific base-ten number."
He flicks a few things out of the way on the screen, then pulls up something I am
very familiar with. "Incredible." I whisper.
Number Man nods in satisfaction. "Indeed. That number is how far down you have to go on the Elite's marketing list for Brockton Bay to find the name Brad Meadows."
Everything falls into place. "Hookwolf. He died later that night, of suffocation and electrocution." I commandeer Number Man's mouse and rapidly fire through the data on the screen, just to confirm. "Yes...the medical codes for those mechanisms of injury, plus the angle between that location and PRT headquarters, plus the exact time of death...Put them into THIS program..." My Paths finally begin to work, allowing me to type out the hashing algorithm I need, "and you get the number which corresponds with Maximillian Anders. The same kind of data on that John Doe who died in the car crash and was too mangled to identify leads to...Stormtiger. He and everyone with him died when Coil collapsed his headquarters on them...that trail appears to go cold here, but there are so many more!"
Number Man relinquishes his computer to me entirely, realizing it is useless to resist my frantic confirmations. "This one starts with Coil's second, goes through one of his subordinates, to the man himself, who died to Echidna. That one leads to Armsmaster, who leads to Miss Militia, who leads to Velocity, who is still alive. Brandish's death leads to...Marquis? He's still alive. Nothing leads to Fenja and Menja, but they lead to Crusader, who leads to Cricket, who leads to Othala, who is still alive, while all of the others died in precisely that order when Echidna destroyed the headquarters. All of these non-cape deaths," I highlight a large block of names, "Are people at varying levels of the Empire, stemming from the video of Kaiser's execution of the men who ostensibly-but-didn't kill Shadow Stalker."
I stop for a moment as it hits me. "Almost the entire Empire and the leadership of every hero group in Brockton Bay was wiped out in under two weeks, and to the outside observer it all happened entirely organically."
"Yes." Number Man answers grimly. "That is exactly what happened."
----
"What is this about, and why is it more important than my discussion with our client?" Doctor Mother asks sternly.
I give the answer I need to. "A new kind of blind spot."
As I knew she would, she immediately sits down and accepts the laptop I offer to her. She flicks the screen on deftly, then raises one eyebrow. "What...is all of this?"
Number Man fills in for me. "We have discovered some kind of threat which prevents Thinker powers from discovering anything new about it. Once you have had a thought independent of any power influence, the power can solve questions directly related to that thought, but it cannot go further. We are hoping you can fill in the blanks we cannot."
The Doctor's eyes flick up at me. "Does this affect you, Contessa?"
I give a terse nod. "It affects me the most. I never developed means of thinking without my power. The only reason I found this at all is because Dragon was working on it and had accrued enough data for Number Man to begin to make sense of it."
Number Man nods and takes over again. "The threat appears to have a few rules. We believe it requires the civilian names of each of its victims before it can kill them. This is because the codes we summarized for you always output the name of a future victim and appear to follow direct chains from name to name. In addition, all of these names are encrypted in a variety of information streams which are either public or could be easily extracted with access to the right equipment. We also believe the person who dies must personally know the name of the person next in line, as all of the lines follow close progressions between people who would have known each others' names."
I continue. "We also believe this threat is, in some way, a human, and likely not a Thinker themselves. We surmise this from the fact that they extracted Hookwolf's name from Emily Piggot, when his name was already public knowledge due to his Birdcage sentences. In addition, they do not attempt to create any one-time pads. Though there are several different message formats requiring different encryption schema, those schema do not change between kills. Whoever this is likely has limits to their cognition within those expected of a baseline human."
Doctor Mother's frown deepens throughout our explanation as she begins poring over the summary we prepared for her. "What, precisely, do you hope I can determine here?"
"Ideally, the identity or general location of the person behind these killings." I replay. "They are endangering the safety of the entire city by eliminating those who might have protected it from an Endbringer strike, and the violence their actions have stirred up significantly increases the chances that the next attack happens there. If you cannot do that, we hope you can determine how some of these death chains are starting. Brandish and Piggot are obvious, their names were public knowledge, but none of the others make much sense as starting points. Their names and involvement with the targeted organizations should have been unknown."
I see her fall deep into thought, even closing her eyes for a moment. Ten seconds after she closed her eyes, she opens them again, makes a few clicks on the laptop, and smiles. "Most of these people were unrelated, but they all appear to have passed through notable places."
I cock my head slightly. "Explain."
She gives me a smile I have never seen before. Path...hah. She has never needed to explain anything to me. It's a novel experience for her. I suppose I can let her have that, just this once.
She flips the screen around for me to look.
"Pitter and the Empire thugs were both at the warehouse where Shadow Stalker died within a few hours of each other. Fenja and Menja, and Echidna for that matter, were killed in the same battle. Those are the only obvious loose threads I see."
Number Man's face lights up. "You think this person was at both of those locations?"
She nods. "I am unsure how this helps you, but that commonality is too prominent to be coincidence, I think. Somehow, our unknown threat discovered these names by being near their targets."
I frown. "I was also near that battle, though I was never in sight of the fighting. Do you think I am in danger?"
Doctor Mother's face jerks towards mine, horror immediately evident in every facet of her bearing.
"I do not know."
