Mastermind

by Steven Kelliher

  “Damn,” I said.

  “On the bright side,” B5 said with a cheerful lilt, “this leaves you with all fifteen of your Influence slots open, waiting to be filled.”

  “Oh, joy.”

  My initial excitement was already beginning to wane. Influence spheres, inventory, morale – it was exactly the sort of micromanaging I wasn’t looking for. But I had to start somewhere, and while I might not be able to go punch for punch with anyone of consequence, even when I reached a higher tier, that sort of build was as unlikely to stand up to Leviathan as the next. Here at least I had something new, as far as I was aware. Here I had something unique. Something that was potentially very dangerous to other players.

  “Do you understand the prime functions of the abilities the Hive has granted you, Despot?” B5 asked.

  “I do.” Though I didn’t care for the implication that B5 was the source of those abilities, no matter how true it was.

  “What is your goal?”

  I looked at him, wondering if he was somehow fishing around in my head. It wasn’t possible, as far as I knew, and I shook the thought as soon as it cropped up.

  “Knowing your goal will better allow me to assist you in your mission,” prompted the droid.

  “Right,” I said. “Well, I don’t so much have a goal as a name.”

  “The name of an enemy, sir?”

  “The name of the enemy, B. Leviathan.”

  I let B5 run his calculations. The stone that was his heart and mind buzzed in my pocket. The droid seemed to hesitate before speaking.

  “A powerful enemy.”

  “Yes,” I said. “The most powerful.”

  “For now,” B5 said, taking the words right out of my mouth.

  “That’s the spirit.”

  I reached into my coat and pulled out the alien core, brushing off some of the river sludge that still clung to it, dulling those brilliant facets.

  “You would like to keep the core safe, yes?” B5 asked.

  “To keep you safe, you mean?” He didn’t answer. “Will I lose my Influence powers if the core is destroyed?”

  B5’s hesitation might have been my imagination this time.

  “Your powers are imbued, General. The fusion is complete.”

  “Good,” I said, nodding.

  “Still, the core – that is to say, I – contain a vast breadth of knowledge about the world of Titan, its minions, and, most importantly, its supers.”

  “Supers,” I said. “Heroes and villains, you mean.”

  “There are no heroes and villains, General. Not to the Hive. Only temporary allies and adversaries.”

  “We can’t by any chance Influence them as well, can we?”

  “Unfortunately not, General. Though weak in the context of the Hive, their minds are not the same as those we deem minions. It is as if they are of two minds, one close and one far away, as though from somewhere else.”

  That was one way to put it.

  A new thought occurred to me. “You said your memory banks are extensive, and feature information on all potential threats to the Hive, yes?”

  “Correct, General.”

  “Does that mean you can look up players’ – or adversaries’ – stats and abilities?”

  “It is one of my prime functions, General,” B5 said with seeming pride. I smiled. “But my ability to access the Hive’s memory banks regarding supers is limited.”

  “Limited in what way?” I asked, disappointed.

  “I can only display full data on beings whose power is equal to or less than your own, General.”

  “Level-scaling,” I said, nodding. Ah, well. Still a damn useful thing to have. The implications of knowing the stats, powers and abilities of heroes and villains was not lost on me.

  I raised my eyebrows at B5, hesitating only a moment before handing the core over. B5 clutched it as if I’d given him a holy relic.

  “What do I call it?” I asked. “The real you, I mean.”

  “An Ythilian Hive Stone,” he said. The way he said it, you’d think everyone the world over had heard of an Ythilian Hive Stone. That they might even have them lying around in a spare drawer in the bedroom. The lead word did jog something.

  “Ythilians were—”

  “The warlike race from the Qitaran System,” B5 said.

  “You’re a core from one of their ships,” I said, remembering the bit of info from the nights I had spent reading the game narrative before the crisis event.

  “Yes. It behooves an invading race to know precisely what they are up against before breaking the atmosphere,” he said.

  “Seems their calculations were far ahead of their collective resolve,” I said.

  “As you say, General.”

  “You consider me an Ythilian, now?”

  “You are my General.” It seemed answer enough for him.

  “You’re telling me we’re holding the key to more knowledge than any player has ever had before me? That I can see how enemies fight, how their powers work, and even revisit their defeats, study them, learn from them? You’re telling me this has every player’s…” I noticed that B5 tilted his head sharply, almost twitching, every time I used the P-word. “Er, every hero and villain’s information on it? All of them?”

  I frowned at the droid and then looked back at the Ythilian artifact. B5 followed the direction of my gaze.

  “It seems fortune smiles on you today.”

  “So it does,” I said, nodding slowly. I almost ended my session there, but I did my thinking better in-game. Besides, I didn’t have to be at work for another twelve hours at least, and I now had a burning curiosity that I knew could be sated. Uncle Joe and his pizzas could wait.

  “Bring up Leviathan,” I said.

  His eyes flashed. “What would you like to know about him?”

  Before I could answer, I saw that blond, blue-eyed mug illuminated on the screen in front of me in all its cold, glittering glory.

  “Everything,” I said. “His stats, his superpow—”

  “Not possible,” B5 interrupted.

  “Right,” I said, my voice going cold.

  “The Ythilian Hive Stone is meant to be used by the most decorated officers in the fleet. Generals and the like. It can only reveal full data for beings of equal or lesser power than the viewer.”

  “I know, I know,” I said, my shoulders sagging. I felt deflated. I felt defeated, and after such a momentous high. “So, if I can only study tier six supers, where to begin?”

  “Would you like me to bring up any other information about subject: Leviathan?”

  “Any more information? You’ve only showed me his face, which I’ve seen plenty. And you’ve already said there’s nothing else I can see—”

  “Incorrect,” the droid clipped. “I said you were unable to view the subject’s stats or superpower breakdown. You can, however, view past encounters.”

  “What sorts of encounters?”

  “All violent encounters,” the droid said. “Victories and defeats.”

  So, the core was also the in-game equivalent of the video archives available to players and viewers in the real world. Not groundbreaking, but being able to view past encounters alongside private stats and superpower descriptions nearly made my mouth water.

  “Leviathan has no defeats,” I said, coming back to the point.

  “Victories, then.”

  I thought of doing just that, of pulling up a chair and watching every single one of Leviathan’s thousand encounters with other players, with NPCs… with goddamn bathroom mirrors. I sighed.

  “How would you go about bringing down a tier one hero with a threat index that hasn’t left Titan level since he was off beta?”

  “Knowledge is power,” B5 said.

  “Power is power,” I shot back. It didn’t seem to bother him.

  “Perhaps you should begin gathering your own then, sir.”

  “Perhaps,” I said, staring numbly at Leviathan’s monstrous head. I felt like
he was looking at me, like he could see me through the white mask. But that would mean acknowledging me. Acknowledging Streak, which Leviathan had never had it in mind to do.

  I thought about wallowing in self-pity for the thousandth time. I won’t say I never did again, but not then. Not right then.

  Instead, a new thought occurred.

  “B5,” I said, still staring at the screen.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Search: Scale.”

  Another kaleidoscope of green and fiery blue in those slitted lenses of his, and the croc’s ugly, toothy green face leered at me on the monitor in place of Leviathan’s. It was a welcome change, all things considered.

  “Scale is a fellow tier six, if I’m not mistaken?”

  “Indeed, General.”

  “Thought so.”

  “What information would you like me to fetch on him, then?”

  “Everything.”

  Six

  Power

  The communicator I’d been given by the Ythilian Hive Stone – aka ‘B5’ – was already a long way past annoying and edging closer to infuriating. It was a bud, like a Bluetooth headset, except it was too bulky to make it entirely inconspicuous and at all comfortable. It also had a nasty habit of buzzing like a wasp before the voice on the other end piped through.

  Then there was the small matter that B5’s voice, which, in my view, was already a little too high-pitched for a robot, went higher still in the transfer.

  “Shh!” I lowered myself to the edge of the square where I’d first met the inhabitants of Madam Post’s roving gang, and their apparently unwelcome green visitor. A pair of dockworkers – thugs, given the right motivation – strolled past down below, locked in some meaningless, largely empty AI-driven conversation.

  “I assure you, they cannot hear me, General. Our communications are quite secure.”

  I gritted my teeth, rolled my eyes behind my mask, and waited until I heard the workers’ footsteps recede before I responded.

  “It’s not you I’m worried about them hearing, B5,” I said, craning to check the alleys and winding roads between the ramshackle warehouses across the way. “It’s my increasingly annoyed responses.”

  “Perhaps you should refrain, then, General?”

  “…”

  “General?”

  “Perhaps,” I conceded.

  I sank back down as another group trundled past lugging a large pine crate with crowbars resting on top. I hadn’t seen a boat pull into port and wondered if the docks ever saw them. Quite the oversight by the devs if not, but then, I didn’t think many players frequented this part of town. War Town wasn’t a desirable place to be for heroes, but it had plenty of attractions for villains. Places to spread influence – the non-superpowered type – and make connections with high-level NPCs. Places to set up shop, so to speak, and to hide from hero teams. Sometimes, even places to set up grudging alliances with other villains. Always a risky proposition.

  My vision started to blur and my mind to wander as I watched the NPCs work at the bindings of the crate. My thoughts weren’t as clear as they had been two days before, when I’d stumbled upon my secret base and the droid who was now my ever-present servant… or handler.

  Shortly after discovering the base, I’d decided to log out. It was a good thing I logged out when I did, as I had been scheduled for a shift just an hour after. Turns out I’d spent a whopping twelve hours in-game, trudging through the origin story and then, well, you know the rest of it. I’d say I was ready and rested when I patched back in, but I wasn’t.

  The silver lining was that any fear I might’ve had over confronting an opposing player – especially a potentially lethal villain – so early into my progress was dispelled almost entirely on account of mental exhaustion.

  It also helped me drown out whatever it was B5 had been prattling on about this time.

  “Therefore, I must submit to you again my stance that you should focus first on building your Sphere of Influence and amassing a small but focused group of followers before you—”

  “We’ve been over this more than once, B5, which is already twice as much as we should have been,” I said, my tone more bored than threatening. “What do you think we’re down at the docks to do if not to spread Influence and build my… what did you call it? Sphere?”

  “True enough,” B5 said, “but Despot, perhaps Madam Post’s gang isn’t the best place to start.”

  “Nonsense,” I said, squinting at a particularly large brute elbowing past his colleagues. “I’ve already got a few fast friends around these parts.”

  “I’d hardly call a group of thugs who happened to turn their eyes on a bigger threat just long enough for you to slip away unharmed and unnoticed ‘friends.’”

  Damn, but I had a sassy servant.

  “Then there’s the small matter of Scale.”

  “Right,” I said, scanning back to the north, where the docks sprouted up from their sludgy mires. I’d been camped out for over an hour and had yet to see a sign of the fellow. Of course, I now knew he was semi-aquatic, along with a host of other things, thanks to the AI’s parting gift in my origin story. The green gemstone had told us much about Scale, but I had a lot on my mind. “Run through it again for me, B.”

  “Which part?”

  “First the thugs, then our pal Dock Croc.”

  “Despot—"

  “Just do it.”

  “Very well.” He sighed. A robot was actually sighing at me.

  “B,” I said, squeezing my eyes shut for a moment. “I know I need allies. I know I need money. I know I need resources. And I know I need more Infamy to tier up and increase my stats. But I don’t have time for all that. Well, I do, but I… I’m not going to take the time you want me to take. I’m here for one reason. One mission, remember? And I’m going to do it my way. A tier one… whatever the hell I’m supposed to be, still might not be a match for someone like Leviathan, but I’ve got less than no shot if I don’t get there.” B5 was silent as he turned it over. “We’ll get there, B. You just need to exercise a little trust in me. Do that, and I promise I’ll do the same for you.”

  I don’t know why I felt the need to justify my actions to an AI-controlled minion, but there it was.

  “Understood, Despot,” B5 said. “The Ythilians tend to exercise more caution in these circumstances, is all.”

  “The Ythilians lost, B.”

  The next silence seemed a little more brooding than the last.

  “You say my power, my Influence, only works on NPCs, right?”

  “Correct.”

  “Well, it seems to me that having players – villains – under my Influence would be quite the boon to our shared mission, no?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “There’s always a way, B5. As long as you’ve got the will.” I paused, awaiting a response. It didn’t come, and I smirked. He was learning, after all. “Now, run through it again. I recognize Blondie there.”

  And so, he did. He told me all of the measly stats for Madam Post’s thugs.

  “Remember,” he said like a mother warning her babe, “Influence doesn’t work like mind-based psionic powers. Instead, minions will weigh your words and react based on your charisma. If the hard check fails, your performance – for lack of a better term –will have to do the rest. Be advised: suggestions are more effective than commands.”

  “Got it. And Scale?”

  “No sign of him.”

  “Oh, he’s here,” I said, my eyes tracing the ripples in the gray water below. “I’d guess he’s got a lair nearby, and I’d guess our local boys and girls know it.”

  I pulled up his stats on my UI – a luxury that no other player had, as far as I knew.

  Scale, Tier 6 Villain

  Mind: 5

  Brawn: 20

  Agility: 15

  Armor: 20

  Charisma: 5

  “And give me the rundown on that superpower.”

  “Very well,” B5 said
, unable to keep the trepidation from entering his voice.

  Superpower: Rage

  When activated, Scale’s base brawn, agility and armor stats double for 20 seconds. Following Rage, there is a significant cooldown penalty. During this time, Scale’s physical stats are reduced to half of base level for 2 minutes.

  Players didn’t have weaknesses in Titan quite the same way they did in certain comic book runs. But knowing exactly how a player’s superpower functioned went a long way toward giving you the means to beat them. In a way, weaknesses in Titan Online were tied directly to strengths. Learn the latter, discover the former. Though perhaps weakness is the wrong term to use when hunting for a way to stop other players.

  Limits, then. Every hero and villain in Titan Online had limits, clearly defined, albeit private, knowable only by said player and the almighty AI itself.

  But not Leviathan. For him, there was only raw brawn, armor and agility, granting overwhelming strength, silly movement speed, near-limitless durability, and no hero or villain yet discovered could rival him in any combination of the three. Oh, and his mind and charisma stats were also apparently too high for psychics or magic-users to mess with him, or for even the most serious tech to threaten him.

  I’m not even sure if anyone but those in the highest offices of Valorous Industries knew how his superpower worked. For years, I thought they’d leak it out. Ratings were still higher for Titan than for any other game by some order of magnitude, but a slide was a slide, and trajectory was everything in the entertainment sphere. Gamers can turn quickly, and experienced players had already begun jumping ship, trying to find the next big thing, and hoping to get into a build at the ground level, as if any one of them might become the next Leviathan.

  But that was all quite beside the point. I wasn’t hunting Leviathan – yet. I was hunting a fellow tier six. Cutting my teeth, as it were.

  I remained rooted for another few minutes, reciting the stats and the particulars of Scale’s superpower in my mind. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t start feeling just a touch of the same fear B5 so desperately wanted me to feel. He was AI-controlled, which meant his reasoning didn’t quite go as far as mine. But then, he was a program designed entirely to keep me alive. If he thought I shouldn’t do something, then maybe—