In the Midst of Callousness 4 (Patreon)

In the Midst of Callousness
Chapter 4

-VB-

August 7th, 1999
Brockton Bay

An anxious silence fell upon Brockton Bay after the deaths of the Slaughterhouse Nine, which triggered a nationwide celebration.

For the people of Brockton Bay, it was the idea that nothing good ever came without the downsides from a long experience of the downward spiral their city has had to suffer.

For the capes of Brockton Bay, they were horrified by the fact that the Bastard decided to settle in the town. The Bastard’s reputation preceded even before he came, and the pain he’s unleashed upon them and everyone else has left them … skittish.

For the leaders of Brockton Bay (civilian, military, federal, state, criminal, and others), the idea that Brockton Bay was the sight of the Slaughterhouse Nine’s death was a welcome change that was sure to help their standing and their vision of the city.

Regardless of a group or an individual’s outlook on the future of the city, they all wanted to know one thing.

What was the Slaughterer of the Nine, the Bastard, doing at this moment?

-VB-

I stood over a sleeping beauty. Unlike the eponymous fairy tale character, my sleeping beauty was not a fairy tale character, not a cursed or bewitched woman, or even in any unusual circumstance that wasn’t me creepily looking at her sleeping form.

Taking a deep breath, I let it out slowly.

I knelt down on the side of the bed and brushed her hair away.

She won’t wake up. I made sure that she wouldn’t for the duration of my visit.

I sighed.

“Such a beautiful person. A kind person.”

I traced the curve of her jaw.

“But your home life… it is toxic.”

I sighed again as I stood up. It was time for me to go. Sedating her for long periods of time was never my intention.

I pulled out a portal gun and put down an orange portal with a zoom discharge from the gun. I looked back at her one more time before stepping through the portal and quickly dismissing the wormhole.

Now back inside my base, I allowed myself to perk up. “Alright, I had my recharge!”

Silence met me where there shouldn’t be, and I looked around.

My clones glared at me.

“What?” I asked them.

“Oi, we want to go see her, too!”

“You’re me, shut up! You literally see her through my eyes!”

The clones all roared back at me, and I yelled back at them.

It would have been great if all of my clones had the same power as I did, but the parahuman power responsible for the daily clone production didn’t impart - or connect? - the clones to the network of parahuman powers I had. All they had was the Aura that we were originally supposed to get.

Wrong world and all that.

Seriously, I thought I was in Atlas when I arrived in New York City during winter. It certainly would have fit. It wasn’t until I talked with the first passerby that I realized that I was at the wrong place.

“Okay, jokes aside,” the first clone who spoke up clapped once to get everyone’s attention. “How is she?”

“She’s alright. Her recent divorce struck her hard.”

All of us grumbled.

“You sure we can’t beat the shit out of him?”

I sighed. “I’m vetoing as the original.”

“But he hurt her!”

“She hurt him first.”

“We don’t care about him, though!”

“... I’m trying to be impartial when I am very biased here. Can you not? Seriously, stop.”

The clones all grumbled and walked away, aside from two of them. Both of them wore black berets that singled them out as “commanders.”

“Report.”

The black beret with a gold strip pin stepped forward. “Our parahuman mercenary company is in full swing. Currently, we’re on retinue of the Elite in the Deep South. They prefer to use us to fight the subversive powers of the Fallen, because our Aura protect us from certain effects.”

I turned to the black beret with blue strip pin.

“The Factory continues to produce goods as directed,” the clone spoke quietly.

“And the weapon’s efficacy?”

“Still under testing, but we have determined more or less that it is an acceptable weapon to use against the Enemy.”

I sighed.

I hated the Factory. All of my clones hated the Factory. Merely being in it was a death sentence waiting to happen, but when I made it, I had been desperate. It made everything I needed when I needed it when I needed it, but the problem laid in the cost of the material.

The Plasma Grenade and Portal Gun were the results of the Factory, but they were also the reason I lost one and twelve clones, respectively.

And the Weapon that we were testing cost us half of us.

The Weapon, though, was worth it.

If it killed the Enemy, then the sacrifices would have been. I just needed to keep playing my part out there to keep the Enemy’s attention away from the Factory and the clones working in it. Even the mercenary company was a decoy to lead investigations into me away from the Factory.

The Factory was … kind of like my own Cauldron, but I didn’t bring in other people. No, I just sacrificed bits and pieces of myself.