[Ramiro POV]

  Brockton Bay is an interesting city.

  Not that it took a visionary to figure that out, any two-bit shmuck with two brain cells to rub together could come to the same conclusion. The city with the most parahumans per capita in the United States was bound to be at least interesting.

  But things were getting weird.

  "What are they doing?" I asked, pointing at them.

  Parahumans were weird in general. Expecting them not to cause some sort of problem eventually was a lost cause. So, it stands to question, why were they just… hanging out in the damn park?

  And why was no one doing anything about it?

  "They're…" The guy next to me, Manuel, squinted at them. "They're pying hopscotch, I think?" He shrugged and picked at his ear.

  "Yes, I gathered that. What I mean is, WHY ARE THEY PLAYING THAT?"

  And why was noone doing anything about it.

  I might've shouted a bit too loud—especially for a drug dealer—but watching gang members in their ridiculous costumes skipping along a hopscotch grid set off some kind of deep, primal wrongness in my brain.

  Sure, fixing up the park was nice of them. Putting the tree back with the swing and all? Great. But surely no one was actually letting their kids py around them, right?

  Even if the clones did look like teenagers themselves.

  "Because they can? Man, I don't know what to tell you, I'm just here to buy more of that stuff."

  Manuel, as always, just didn't care about the important happenings in our community. Honestly, it felt like I was the only one worrying about these clones half the time.

  "You can call it weed, cannabis, Mary Jane, or whatever the fuck you want, man. No need to be shy about it." I sighed in defeat. There was no arguing with this guy anyway.

  "I mean, yeah, but this is the fancy stuff." Manuel's weak-ass point, paired with his stupid little smile, made me grit my teeth.

  "It smells like cookies and cream ice cream. How's that fancy, dickhead?" My sharp retort made him wince. Stupid product was goofy even by my standards.

  Not that my standards were high to begin with. Starting as a Merchant drug dealer meant you didn't care about quality, just how much you could get out there.

  "Whatever, just give me the money. I got pces to be." I handed him the damn weed with a look of pity. It was bad having to sell all this goofy shit, even if it didn't smell like ass.

  "Same price?" Manuel, the idiot, asked. Again.

  "Yes. The Doppel's were strict about that."

  Ciming territory gave you a certain level of power to enforce rules just by… well, wanting to. And the thing about ciming territory like the Doppel's did? Most people ended up helping them inadvertently.

  After all, they were a surprisingly effective task force when it came to putting out parahuman-reted fires. The park cleanup and the hard ban on selling drugs to kids were just the cherry on top.

  I barely hear Manuel thank me as I pocket his money. I'm too focused on the parahumans in the park as they mingle with us mortals.

  I see Who's Who kick Duchess in the foot, making her trip and fall ft on her face. Duchess just huffs and grins, getting up instantly and starting to chase her as she weaves through the stupidly improvised park like a child.

  Everyone is just watching them. Like they really are children.

  Who's Who is using actual normal kids as obstacles while Duchess, in her stupidly formal outfit, has to awkwardly maneuver around them.

  I don't know how they drugged the water supply in the Docks, because seeing people just be amused by capes is not something that happens. I'm not even sure if it's something that should happen.

  It's like if a group of dumbass bears started parading around and people just started cooing at them! Yes, they are stupid, but they're still bears! they're still dangerous.

  I shake my head as I watch Who's Who try to climb a tree like a squirrel, only for Duchess to stand below, raising an unimpressed eyebrow and preparing to whack the tree with her staff. I don't need to see more. I refuse to endear myself to these monstrosities.

  Then Who's Who falls from the branch with a loud thud. To the loud cheer of children.

  And once again, because it bears repeating, Brockton Bay is an interesting city.

  Come evening, I'm driving toward Julio's pce, a small old-timey arcade with some offices upstairs. I'm running a bit te.

  To be fair, It's because have a feeling this is where the other shoe drops.

  Oh yes, I'm out of stock. The goofy products that Duchess allegedly created tend to sell out fast. That, combined with how the price per gram stays stable and is surprisingly cheap compared to normal product, makes it fly off the shelves.

  Normally, restock day is just a future payday for me. But this isn't my restock day, and yet, I've been recalled.

  Ominous. Worrying.

  The Doppel's act like morons—I'm pretty sure they are—but somehow, they're actually competent at managing their territory through more than just shows of force. Given that, to a cape, every problem looks like a juicy excuse to flex their powers, that wasn't exactly a high bar to clear.

  Good thing for them, really. After Lung's whole reign of terror, people were tired of just having to endure capes and their antics. So having an actual force that doesn't simply take whatever they want?

  Well, I'd point to the PRT, but… yeah. They barely show up in this part of the city.

  Still, the Doppel's have done an outstanding job, going to every drug dealer in the territory… in alphabetical order, stating their rules, and then just… asking them to join them and betray the Merchants?

  That takes so much distilled stupidity that it circles back into being a genius move. Somehow.

  Of course, I bailed on the Merchants. I'm a smart guy, after all, and no matter how goofy it looks, bio-Tinkertech drugs for cheap are always going to be a hit. I wasn't alone, either, about 70% of the guys jumped ship. The rest? Choked out of the market by the simple fact that customers prefer buying from people with at least some morals, rather than… whatever the hell the Merchants were doing.

  Even if the ones running the show were clones.

  So now I'm here. Car in the parking lot. About to enter what might just be the st room I ever step into, nothing to sweat about really.

  "Come in."

  I grimaced at her voice, opening the door to find the woman of the hour, Miss Bootlicker herself. On either side of her stood Mason and Haruto, two other local dealers. They looked a bit too serious for my liking.

  "Hi, Madeline. Bossman." I greeted them with a fragile smile, doing my best not to look at her too much.

  "Remmy, take a seat."

  Madeline, daughter of Julio, owner of the arcade. She sat behind a desk in the small office, her permanent smile making my skin crawl.

  She was dressed in a buttoned white shirt, a pencil skirt, and small gsses perched on her nose. Sharp features, blue eyes. That same too-perfect smile.

  She was a weird one.

  She was… the distributor? I didn't know the specifics of how the gang worked, but she was the one who got to talk to the Doppel's on occasion. Which meant, by definition, she was my higher-up, the one I reported to and got product from.

  Bossman herself.

  What the hell is this about?

  "Do you know why you're here, Remmy?" she asked. The smile never left her face, her soft voice making me feel sick.

  "Ma'am, I have no fucking idea."

  Her smile tightened just a bit. Probably a mistake to talk like that to my boss, but I was realistic, I'm probably being lined up for execution. Might as well go out like a man.

  C'mon, show your true colors, you capes.

  Madeline shook her head in amusement, opening a folder and pulling out a few papers. She read them aloud, casual as can be.

  "Ramiro Galrdo," she said slowly, as if trying out my st name for the first time.

  "Highly intelligent individual. Resourceful to an extraordinary degree. Paranoid about capes. Fully aboard only because of benefits…"

  She kept going. Listing every damn thing I'd done since I joined the gang.

  I was sweating now.

  None of that was hidden, or even hard to find out. The Doppel's did promise some freedom of speech, and maybe I had once or twice given my opinion about them to a customer.

  But surely, surely, they'd keep their word… right? Mason and Haruto didn't look surprised, which meant they'd probably been through this too.

  Madeline reached the end of her list and finally looked up.

  "So…" Her smile was as still as ever, her gaze boring into me."What do you have to say for yourself?"

  I took a deep breath.

  "Ma'am, with all due respect, fuck capes in general."

  Madeline only narrowed her eyes as I kept talking.

  "After all these years, capes gotta do more than be slightly friendly to gain anything substantial out of me. I'm not like you. I can't just worship the ground they walk on just because they might be better than the ABB or the Empire." I was running out of breath from all my shouting, but her smile only seemed to widen.

  Mason and Haruto looked very pale, trying way too hard to blend into the background.

  Aw man, I'm toast.

  "…She's right behind me, isn't she?"

  "Good evening."

  "AH-!"

  I jumped to the side as the cape, who had just appeared out of nowhere, fshed me a cheeky smile.

  Madeline was snickering now. Of course she found this hirious. Probably didn't even know about it and still was taken by surprise.

  Fucking capes.

  "Good evening, Miss Overlook," Madeline said, delight dripping from her voice. The other two in the room mumbled greetings to the cape.

  Overlook didn't look like much, just an edgier version of Vista, if I had to guess. A wine-red and bck costume with jagged lines stamped across the dress and skirt, and the spikes. Can't forget the spikes.

  The weirdest part was the loose jacket over it, pstered with what seemed to be stickers of random objects that changed everyday.

  "Yo, I'm here for the usual restock," Overlook said, her voice so childish and dismissive it made me pause.

  Vista is like… really young isn't she?

  "Of course. You three, watch and learn," Madeline ordered. We scrambled to look mildly professional while Madeline cracked open a copy of Dune, with the exception that the pages were bnk.

  What the hell is happening?

  Overlook made a show of peeling off one of her jacket's stickers, this one a book, its edges flickering and making it actually hurt to look at. Then, an actual book started bulging from her jacket, as if yanked by her fingers.

  With a tug, she pulled the whole thing free. We gaped as she flipped through the pages and grabbed an entire dispy rack beled Chocote Mint Cannabis.

  "Okay, so here's 25 packets. Let's count." The twelve-year-old clone started tallying the bags while Madeline logged it on her ptop.

  Overlook then shoved the dispy rack into Madeline's book, where it fttened onto the page like a sticker. Madeline just smiled as Overlook also yanked an empty rack from the Dune book, muttering about reusability and saving money.

  "Uh… why are we watching this?" Haruto squeaked. Overlook smirked at him, all cocky in amusement.

  "What's it look like? You're getting promoted. We're ramping up production, so we need… uhh, more middle managers guess, I guess. And you three are just smart and skeptical enough to nd the job."

  "…"

  Maybe jumping ship from the Merchants was a mistake.

  Madeline cackled at my expression as she and Overlook worked in scary sync, trading racks of product for stacks of cash. I paid attention, just because I got promoted today didn't mean the Doppel's wouldn't drop the other shoe eventually.

  I won't be tricked, you cloned capes.

  "Oh, by the way, we got this printed, for scary points." Overlook peeled off a folder sticker and spped a poster onto Madeline's desk.It was a wanted poster. The Doppel's didn't have bounties, just kill orders. So, seeing Overlook's costumed face grinning under 'WANTED ONLY DEAD' was a real morale booster.

  Jesus, she looks young in it.

  "Ooh, it looks good," Madeline said, skimming the poster. "Want it framed in my office?"

  "Yup! Gotta keep up the scary vilin aesthetic we got going on." Overlook preened, soaking up the attention.Fucking capes. The whole lot of them are insane.

  Thank God I can jump ship anytime.

  Overlook, meanwhile, noted how "hardworking" Remmy was… already pnning to snitch to their glorious leader about a new potential asset.

  Damn, I'm good at this vilin thing.

  BioedwinMX