Fluff

Chapter Forty-Two - Recap (It Could Have Been an Email)

"Let's start with a quick recap of the situation so far," the man up on stage said. "My name is Clark, I'm the Manager of Heroic Interventions for the HRF North East. Today, I'll be going over a very quick summary of the events so far, what we know, and what we're planning on doing from here on out."

Jezebelle shifted in her seat. It was one of those stackable cloth-covered chairs, the sort likely designed to be as uncomfortable as possible. Maybe it was a trick, to prevent people from falling asleep during one of these pointless meetings? She wasn't so sure.

"Since all of our time is precious," Clark said. "We're going to be skipping past some of the more obvious stuff. Still, it's worth covering the basics." He raised a small remote.

A press later and the screen behind him lit up with the HFR logo, slowly spinning over a white background. Jezebelle hissed a little. Hadn't anyone here discovered dark mode yet? Her power let her stare right into the sun, and yet she was still a little annoyed. Though maybe she was looking for things to be annoyed about.

Clark went on about the overall timeline of events, spouting a few days with some clicks of his remote. "Saint Arie's Endgame, like all other Endgames, is unique. And like all unique instances, it follows a certain pattern in its behavior. This Endgame has a type three disposition and is a pale yellow on the Ardoung scale. For those not in the know, that means that it pits heroes and heroic interventionists against villains, but not in a directly lethal fashion."

She nodded along. Probably for the best. She'd heard stories of Endgames that forced Heroes and Villains to fight, often to the death. This wasn't that.

"The pale yellow is an indication of threat. Initially, this Endgame was ranked beige. That's just about the lowest level of danger that an Endgame can pose. After the events of the last few nights, that warning level has increased. Now, this is the most disturbing and dangerous part of all."

Clark clicked on his little remote again, and they were presented with an aerial view of the little city.

"This is, as you can guess, Saint Arie. This photograph was taken hours after the start of the Endgame. At the time, we sent a recon team to scout out the perimeter of the Endgame, and this was the reported size."

Another click, and a blue line was drawn around the outside of the city. Mostly. Some parts were still poking out of the blue area.

"This is five days ago."

Another click, and another line, yellow, this time, for contrast. It was a solid dozen metres further out from the blue line, though it wasn't perfect. In some spaces the growth had been a little faster. The entire city was now fully within the Endgame's territory except for all of the suburban spaces around it.

"And this is yesterday."

A red line this time. Jezebelle leaned back in her seat.

It had grown twice as much since the last measurement. In some spaces, mostly along roads and around some of the developments away from the centre of the city, the growth had been even larger. Surprisingly, it seemed to be a bit slower in some parts, like the housing developments nearby.

"The rate of growth is now officially exponential," Clark said.

A lot of chatter rose up across the room all at once. Jezebelle glanced around herself, then forced her face into neutrality. She knew, on the surface, what that meant. She had graduated high school, and while math wasn't her favourite subject, she hadn't slept through classes.

Anything exponential was usually a bad thing, but it was also usually, something reserved for math questions, since real-life exponentials weren't quite real.

"Alright, alright," Clark said. He had raised a hand to call for silence, and eventually he got it. It wasn't like this room was filled with particularly loud people. "Our research team has punched in the numbers. This is what we predict the growth will look like in the coming week."

Another click, and another image.

This time, the red band was circled by a deeper red one, then the colours shifted from deep red to purple. Seven bands, each representing a day.

The last one fully encircled all of Saint Arie and went some ways out into the area outside of the city. It wasn't as bad as she feared, though the amount of space between the lines grew noticeably between each one.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Fortunately, this is a slow exponential," Clark said. "This is our projection for the full month."

This time, Jezebelle winced. By the end of the month, the Endgame was reaching the edges of the photograph, and was halfway to swallowing the refugee camp and the base they were in right that moment.

"Again, fortunately, Saint Arie isn't too close to any other city. Otherwise we might have a second evacuation on our hands within the month. Obviously, I don't have to say it, but we can't allow the situation to deteriorate this much. Because of that, it is my opinion--and that of a few others--that we may have to allow the any-winner contingency to be put in place."

"The what?" Jezebelle muttered. She wasn't the only one muttering, but it seemed like a lot of the HRF officers were just plain unhappy with the choice.

Someone bravely raised their hand. "What's the any-winner contingency?"

Clark nodded. "In a situation where an Endgame might have an outsized negative impact on the country or civilization at large, it behooves the HRF to make sure that the Endgame ends as soon as possible. That means that, given the choice, we would rather lose than allow the Endgame to continue for any longer than it has to."

"You want us to lose on purpose?" Jezebelle asked. She flinched when she realized that she'd said that just loud enough to be heard across the room. She sat up a little straighter, tried to project a bit more confidence.

"No, not quite. But it's the opinion of the HRF that between a pyrrhic victory and a graceful loss, the loss is the better option. Given that we suspect that there are no more than ten villainous actors in Saint Arie at the moment, and that none of them are particularly strong, it might be best to weigh the pros and cons of allowing them to take the victory so as to not have a rapidly deteriorating situation on our hands."

Jezebelle didn't like it, but she nodded anyway.

It felt too much like quitting.

Clark went on, covering some details that she was hard-pressed to follow. It wasn't until they started a recap of the night the anomalous object had gone missing that she started to pay more attention.

"We have some footage of the villains that originally stole the item, but it's blurry at best," Clark said.

What came on screen was an image of... a person? No, it was obviously a person, or most of one. The head of a short figure, covered in a hood and wearing a mask. Their entire upper body was entirely invisible, but their legs weren't. The shadows around their legs, however, were deeper than they should have been.

"We suspect some Gadgeteer tech was used here, as opposed to a power. Most powers that grant some form of invisibility cover the entire body, not just parts," Clark said. "So this figure is likely using a disguise or equipment to rending their upper half transparent. Their legs, as you can see, are uncovered, but still blurred. This is likely the effect of a power. Our... less-heroic volunteers have listed out some potential Endgame-related boosts that could be responsible for that. Notably Minor Shadow Blend. It's a weak stealth ability. So far the best lead we have is that his person is wearing size six Lil' Runner's brand running shoes."

A children's shoe? The image to the side, of the same pair of shoes but new, and rotated to match what was on the video, seemed to be the same, minus some wear and tear and the disguising shadows.

A shiver ran down her spine.

"Is everything okay?" Obscure whispered next to her.

She glanced over to the woman. "Hm?"

"You look like you saw a ghost?"

"Oh, uh, it's nothing. Just... hungry," Jezebelle said.

Obscure stared with one eyebrow raised, but she didn't question Jezebelle's obvious lie.

A kid? She only knew one group that had villainous kids. She... wasn't sure. Not one-hundred percent, but... it had to be the Boss, right? Did they have a Gadgeteer in their group? They definitely had a few brats that wore such small shoes.

What... what was she even supposed to do with that information? Give it to her superiors? Would that even amount to anything good for her?

She glanced at Obscure, who seemed to have her own issues with how the HRF did things. No, maybe it was best to keep this one to herself, for now.

***