"It does seem like Endbringer fights are mostly detrimental to their organizational goals. But - they're the ones who gave Eidolon powers, right -"

"Sure, but we never know in advance what powers we're gonna get, not even Contessa—"

"Wait, what?"

"—uh. I kinda have something to tell you."

This much was in Cauldron's documentation. Not that he'd look surprised anyway. 

"Contessa can't actually see the vials. When we said she was just a precog who could tell what powers people would get, that was a lie. The—Case 53s, the ones with the physical changes and memory loss, they're experiments—"

"They're us?"

"...yeah, yeah they are. They're—they're all people who were dying, who were gonna die if we didn't—we offer them a second chance, just like we were offered one, just like I got off that goddamned wheelchair and those fucking tubes and then we can live again—but it's the same choice."

"I thought we'd stopped that! You—Alexandria, even Eidolon, you all knew—"

"We knew how you felt about it, and—and it was necessary, it is necessary, to save the world—"

"But it kinda doesn't inspire confidence they weren't hiding other horrible stuff. Also Boots would be real mad about the erasing their memories and I don't see how that bit is necessary."

"So they won't tell people about Cauldron—every rumour is controlled, there has to be just enough that some people will look into it but if a parahuman who became a fifty-three gets mad at us and talks then we lose that control."

"And you can only do total amnesia or nothing?"

"Yeah."

"How confident are you in that?"

"Very, I know the parahuman who does it, their power is very—absolute."

"And the conditions under which unreleaseable 53s are kept?"

"I don't—actually know what those are." He sounds like he feels very guilty about this. "Doctor Mother says they're kept in the best we've got to ensure they're not released but will be useful against Scion. I'd expect they're in another world—aren't they...?"

"We're just going off the documentation, which could be misleading or incomplete. It's not pleasant reading material, though."

"Not pleasant how."

"Epic, the file header on our summary was 10113-Cauldron-misc -"

He makes a hard copy for everyone.

If you read between the lines: Cells. More-or-less spacious, and actually don't have a fourth wall, but there's a parahuman made of wind keeping an eye on them (the Custodian), and the Number Man keeps them contained if they ever try to escape.

"...oh."

"Yikes."

"Elves are possibly not very equipped to evaluate if that's necessary or the best you could do. But, uh, this is not an organization of which conspiracies to cover up atrocities for some greater good are unthinkable. If they thought the monstrosities could maybe be turned, or if Eidolon can control them..."