Mastermind

by Steven Kelliher

  “Even if…”

  She stopped and looked down at her white boots. For a second, I thought she might log out and disappear right then and there.

  “Even if I wanted to help you,” she said, “I can’t.”

  “Why is that?”

  “You know why, if you know half as much about Titan as you claim to.” She looked at me, serious. “I can’t lay a finger – or a ray – on Leviathan. Not that it would do much good if I could. I can’t attack him. Not without incurring a massive penalty.”

  I smiled.

  “Is that all you’re worried about?”

  “I…” She shook her head and smiled, seemingly in disbelief. “You really are unflappable.”

  “You can’t attack him directly,” I said. “Intentionally.”

  She adopted a quizzical expression, but I had her attention.

  “I can’t even believe we’re talking about this.”

  “Why? After everything we’ve seen and after everything we know about him, about them—”

  “It’s Leviathan!” Starshot yelled, not caring if Atlas and Blackstrike took offense. “It’s Meteora. It’s any of their underlings who care to step in. How on earth are we supposed to lift a finger against all that power?”

  “With a plan,” I said, simply.

  “Your plan,” Starshot said flatly.

  I nodded. “He’s no god.”

  “Then why do you need me? If you’ve got it all figured out, why—”

  “Because your power makes the rest of ours look like kids’ stuff by comparison,” I blurted out. That got a rise out of my newfound friends. They stalked over, Atlas shaking the masonry on the flat roof with every step.

  Still, they stopped short of doing anything apart from letting their ire be known in the form of their rigid bearing and close proximity.

  “My power…? Despot, I’m tier five. We’re tier five.”

  “Tier four here,” Blackstrike said, raising a hand. He struck me as the annoying little smartass in the corner of class. Every school had them. I should know. I was one.

  “Who are you two, anyway?” Starshot asked. I was starting to lose her. “In relation to him, I mean?” She jabbed a finger my way. Almost poked me with it.

  “Going to need friends in the new world,” Blackstrike said, his monotone making it difficult to know whether or not he was joking. Given the fact that he was here and that I was alive, I guessed he wasn’t.

  Starshot waved him away like a tumbleweed and turned her ire back on me. “Maybe by the time I reach tier one, if I ever reach tier one—”

  “No need,” I said, squeezing my eyes shut tight in mounting frustration, with Blackstrike more than Starshot. “No need,” I repeated, rubbing at my exposed temple, the side of my head the mask no longer covered.

  “No need,” Starshot said, arms crossed. Now she looked to Atlas and Blackstrike for support. The irony wasn't lost on any of us. They only shrugged in response and Starshot made a short, high-pitched sound of disbelief.

  “Don’t look at us,” Atlas said. “He’s the one with the plan.”

  “Well, then,” Starshot said, the picture of sarcasm. “Let’s hear it.”

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  Twenty-Two

  Allies

  “That’s the plan?”

  Atlas sounded as doubtful as I’d feared they all would. He sounded as doubtful as I would be, if I gave myself too long to think about it.

  “Your part of it, yes,” I said, trying to keep my tone from getting out of hand. My new villain pals were hardly more than acquaintances, and as things stood, I was already asking them to take on the most powerful hero – the two most powerful heroes – in-game. Though I made a habit of pushing my luck, something that had infuriated and probably amused B5, I wasn’t about to do so now.

  “And…” Blackstrike added.

  “We already went over your part,” I said.

  Blackstrike raised a dark eyebrow over darker features. He didn’t seem to belong to any ethnicity I’d instantly recognize in the real world, but rather something out of Dungeons and Dragons. A drow, perhaps, and one with deep, considering eyes. I could tell that whoever piloted Blackstrike was shrewd and calculating, with a deep reservoir of pride running below the surface. He was calm and measured, but he was also someone I didn’t want to make an enemy of. Not again.

  We were standing around an old wooden table in the center of Madam Post’s audience floor. The table was caked with a half-inch of yellow-white dust, and my haphazard map of Heroes’ Square rested on a piece of uncrumpled brown packing paper I’d rolled out over the surface. Blackstrike and Atlas stood opposite me, while Madam Post’s head thugs took up the ends. One was a male with salt-and-pepper hair cut in a military style. He was likely a repurposed NPC from a different plot thread, one whose background would come in handy for Post’s dirty work. The other was a young female with bright pink hair. She was small but carried herself with an air of confidence most of the others lacked.

  Apart from them, the rest of Post’s minions fanned out around us, watchful for signs of betrayal, and only as curious about the proceedings as their programming called for them to be. There was no sign of Luther. Post had informed me that the eccentric inventor had chosen one of the abandoned, dried-out sewer junctions as his temporary workshop. He had all the help he needed down there, as well as access to Post’s funding and resources, which were not insignificant. I only hoped he managed to wrangle something together for the impending assault before it was too late.

  As for my own men, there were only six left in my Sphere aside from Luther. Six who had not been at the base when Meteora had come calling. Lucky errands, those. They stood on either side of me, four of them each holding one of the tinkerer’s shock spears, with none looking overly confident.

  True, I could have waited. Blackstrike had asked me why I was rushing into this and Atlas had echoed the sentiment. Even Post herself – lounging on her carrion throne like an overstuffed vulture as she took in the planning with a dispassionate, unaffected air that couldn’t fully dissuade me from the notion that she was extremely uncomfortable at the prospect of Blackstrike finally being in her presence – wondered at my seeming need to have the conflict out as soon as possible.

  I told them the reasoning. It was simple, really: as long as I lived, Meteora or one of Leviathan’s other cronies would come calling again. Next time, they wouldn’t take half measures. And next time around, I was unlikely to be the only one to take the fall, especially if they found out I’d been snooping around the southern districts of Titan City trying to make an ally out of one of their own.

  I wasn’t lying when I said it, but I had to admit, it was only part of the reason I wanted to get things rolling so quickly, and a small part at that. The larger part could be explained in any number of ways, using any number of details, from Sebastian’s blood-stained blond hair, buried under two tons of black and gray rubble, to B5’s melted visage and the faintly buzzing stone I still carried in my pocket. But it was best summed up in the old way.

  Revenge. That was what I lived for now, and it was high time I got around to it, no matter what the online communities said about the matter.

  In my gut, I knew Leviathan’s superpower, which meant that I held the key to how to beat him. Maybe it wouldn’t be this build, nor the next. But now that I knew it, there would be no stopping me seeing it done, sooner or later. I’d committed to keep trying already but with this knowledge my victory now seemed inevitable. Or so I thought. It emboldened me at any rate, and it was a far cry from the fatalistic attitude I had carried into this origin. I supposed I had Leviathan to thank for that. Nothing like hatred to reignite passion.

  I caught myself staring at Blackstrike and swallowed, straightening from my position at the table. I wondered if I’d been staring too long, but then he finished chewing on his lower lip and said, “Okay, then.”

  “O… Okay, then,” I repeated.

&nbs
p; “Looks like you and I are partnering up,” he said by way of clarification. His ensuing smile seemed genuine, and I tried to put thoughts of a possible betrayal in the field out of my mind. Apart from Atlas, Blackstrike was a loner, through and through. He wasn’t unlike me in that regard. As such, it was unlikely he held the sway or the forethought to make connections among the hero ranks to undo the whole thing. To undo me.

  Not that it mattered.

  I looked to Atlas next. “And you?”

  He shrugged. “If I read it on the page, I’d say you were crazy,” he said. “Now that I’ve heard you explain it, three times, I… still think you’re crazy.” That drew a few laughs, even from me. “A tier-four villain going head-to-head with Leviathan in hand-to-hand combat. The Leviathan. If you’re wrong,” another shrug, “then I guess it’ll be quick. If you’re right,” a shake of the head, “you two are going to have to make room in the highlight reels.”

  “No doubt you’ll dominate them.” I winked. It was true. If our plan went off without too many hitches, Atlas would likely be the one the industry focused on, but players would know. They would know who pulled the strings.

  “And what about our golden girl?” Blackstrike asked. “I thought she was, to use your words, ‘pivotal’ to the whole thing.”

  More than you could know.

  Instead of saying it, I smiled. “She’ll be along. Soon. We gave her enough to think about. Can’t fault her for taking her time.”

  “I’d think it was a trap, if I were her,” Madam Post croaked from her dilapidated throne. Atlas and Blackstrike turned their attention to her, the three of us waiting for her to continue, as she always did. She swiveled her black crow’s eyes our way. “Are we sure it isn’t? A hero, served up on a trusting golden platter.” She licked her yellow, filed teeth. “Not an opportunity most in my position would pass up.”

  “You didn’t get into your position by being as foolish as the rest,” I said. She smiled a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. I returned one, sickly sweet. “I’ve no doubt you’ll continue the trend. Starshot is important to the plan. She is, as Blackstrike says, pivotal, if not vital.”

  “It’s a lot of faith to put into the very people you’re trying to bring down,” Post said. I was growing more and more used to the way her eyes lingered on mine after she spoke, and more and more uncomfortable with how much intelligence I saw behind them. A part of me wondered if the devs knew how far their creation had gone; if they knew how much of the AI was in each of its children. Most of all, I wondered how long they would keep running on their predetermined rails, and how many shoves they’d need to break free of them.

  I cleared my throat, willing my thoughts into order. “Only the few,” I said. “Only a few of them need to fall, for now. After all, what fun would it be if the game were to end?”

  A strange look crossed Madam Post’s face, and I saw it reflected in the various captains, thugs and dock workers scattered around the place, both at the table and far from it. I hadn’t meant it as a reference to the world of Titan Online, but more a truism, but something had caught them about the mention.

  The strange feeling passed soon enough, and the NPCs in the faux audience hall resumed their various tasks, whether it be carrying boxes out into the yard, ferrying supplies to the grumbling Luther Smith in his workshop, or giving me hardened and threatening stares.

  “She is coming, though. Right? Starshot is coming.” Atlas said it. I hesitated before I answered, and his gargantuan shoulders deflated. “You said she told—”

  “She did,” I said quickly.

  “And what’s to stop her from going to her friends in Gallant Tower and telling them about our little meeting?” Blackstrike asked.

  The statement had Madam Post swiveling around in her chair and planting her flat leather shoes on the cardboard-covered pallets that made up her musty dais. Her eyes went wide, exposing the bloodshot rims.

  “Nothing,” I said, raising a hand to stay her bubbling outburst before it could start. “There’s nothing stopping her.”

  Blackstrike’s concerns brought up a host of images that were spectacular in my imagination, albeit unpleasant. In some, Meteora brought the whole place down in a fiery inferno, leaving not a soul – NPC or otherwise – unburnt. In others, Leviathan himself tore the roof off and descended on cold, judgmental currents, intent on finishing things before they went far enough to cause him trouble.

  Still, I figured the most likely scenario involved the two of them sending whatever slavering, bumbling, bright-sashed idiots hung on the edges of their good graces crashing through the walls, visiting their justice on our den of evil before our machinations could trouble their would-be gods. In this last scenario, we would likely take a few out before we passed, and I tried to imagine I’d take comfort in that.

  “Fine,” Blackstrike said. “She’ll be along or she won’t.” He placed his hands flat on the table, fingers splayed. “While we wait to see what will or won’t happen, why don’t you tell us her part in it? What role could a hero possibly play in bringing down the beasts we’re after? And don’t say espionage. I’ve met her. She wouldn’t get past an NPC doorman without the guilt overcoming her.”

  I smiled at the image and Blackstrike did too, thinking I was appreciating his joke. In truth, I smiled because it was true. Starshot was too pure to lie convincingly. She was too pure for this whole business, and yet she had agreed with me in the end. If that wasn’t a confirmation that I was on the right path – that we all were – then I didn’t know what was.

  “Everyone has his or her part to play,” I said. He didn't seem satisfied by that response, but I got ahead of his next one. “If we’re all concerned about each other doing their part, we’re even more doomed than you already think we are.”

  “And that’s pretty doomed,” Atlas said.

  The big man had a dry sense of humor, and one that revealed him to be a sight smarter than I had first taken him for.

  “Starshot knows her part,” I said. “It’s up to her whether or not she wants to play it.”

  There was a considered silence that I was about to break when Post asked the question that was on the tip of everyone’s tongue.

  “What’s Leviathan’s weakness?”

  “I already told you,” I said. “I told all of you.”

  “You told us something that’s worth as much as nothing,” Blackstrike said. “You told us that shiny rock in your pocket showed you his weakness.”

  That got Madam Post’s attention. I had caught her staring at the frayed hems of my trenchcoat, just as I had caught her goons doing the same. I had no doubt that one of them would have made a grab for it already if they knew what it did, and if they felt crossing me – as well as the villains I’d brought along – was worth the risk to obtain it. As it stood, she wasn’t sure, but she was intent on my reply.

  “No,” I corrected. “I said it showed me his strength.”

  “We’ve all seen his strength,” Post said. “I’ve been in this world a long time, and I’ve never seen anything or anyone can rival that one. If you don’t fear God, you fear Leviathan, no matter which side of the bay you’re on. And you mean to tell me that confusion is his weakness?”

  “Chaos,” I said, deadly serious. “Chaos is his weakness, not confusion. Though the two are close enough that I can understand your own level of conf—”

  “Spit it out,” Post said. “What do you know about Leviathan? Convince us we’re heading into something more than an open slaughter. Convince these brave, fearless men and women they’re not heading to their doom.”

  I had to bite down to keep from answering angrily. I wasn’t about to spill every last secret I owned. Every last secret the stone had shown me or had yet to show me. I almost told Madam Post to shove her concerns where nobody could be bothered by them, and to leave the real work to real players, and not lyrics on rails.

  In a manner of speaking, I did.

  “Leviathan only seems to be the str
ongest being in Titan City because he has defeated the strongest foes. He only seems to be the fastest because he’s matched speedsters step for step and blow for blow. He only seems the most impervious to harm because, well, nothing has really harmed him before. His psyche only seems unbreakable, uncoercible and unmalleable by the most powerful psychics and tricksters around the world because none have been able to bring him to heel.”

  I only realized how it all sounded when I had finished, and saw the blank, expectant stares reflected back at me. I was also quite out of breath, which did nothing to ease the renewed sense of tension in the room.

  “Leviathan is the mightiest, the fastest and flashiest, and the boldest,” I said, regaining some modicum of my former composure. “But not all at once. Therein lies the key. His strength makes up his weakness, and his weakness, I assure you, is chaos. Chaos that we will create.”

  “What is he, a chameleon?”

  The voice was light and clear as dawn, and it came from above.

  Madam Post’s men drew cudgels, crowbars and hammers from seemingly every orifice imaginable as they searched for the intruder. Only a pair of them – the two leaders at the table with us – drew guns. Post was keeping her stash well-hidden, primed for her use only, and I guessed in the event of an emergency. She was only going to extend herself so far in my foolhardy quest. To her programming, it was an investment. One with little chance to succeed, but immense reward in the off chance it did.

  “Come down here before someone shoots me by mistake,” I said without turning.

  I heard Starshot drop down from the rafters and saw the dust kick up, sweeping a clear lane all the way to Post’s dais as she broke her fall with a burst of energy from the bottoms of her boots.

  Starshot has Arrived

  Tier 5 Hero

  Threat Index: Moderate

  “Did you put a hole in my ceiling?” Post asked, her threatening tone lost in the pettiness of the question.

  I turned and saw Starshot gather herself and straighten. Her eyes and outline still glowed enough to make the thugs closest to her exchange nervous glances, and her hair danced on currents of power the rest of us couldn’t see. She gave me a curt nod and smiled at Madam Post, ignoring Blackstrike and Atlas, as well as the NPCs in attendance.