Mastermind

by Steven Kelliher

  My name is Despot, tier-five villain of War Town. On this day, I will rain hellfire upon Titan City. On this day, I will bring a monument down. On this day, I will kill a god.

  Let it be known. Today was the day Leviathan died.

  May all who oppose him join me in this charge. May all who adore him, who fawn at his feet and rot in the stagnant waste of his disregard, suffer the same fate as him.

  My name is Despot. Remember it.

  Titan Online was a city full of clichés. That was, after all, the point.

  As such, it wasn’t all that weird to see a small group of caped, spandex-wearing, gadget-touting weirdos camped out on a rooftop, especially one so close to Heroes’ Square, the raised white-stone terrace that made up the center of the northwest section of Titan City.

  Of course, we wouldn’t be caught dead in such a position, among so many heroes and in-game do-gooders, wearing our Sunday best, which included a black trenchcoat for me, a black ninja getup for Blackstrike and rather serious-looking armor on Atlas. It was an aspect of the plan I hadn’t bothered to put any thought into.

  Players wouldn’t have a whole lot of trouble finding us out, but NPCs were easier marks, and for the sake of the mission, they were the ones we needed to fool.

  As it stood, we were dressed in the gaudiest array of superhero garb this side of the bay, and that was saying something. I’d like to say I had commanded Luther to prove himself a master seamstress as well as an inventor. Instead, it had been the venerable, musty Madam Post to remind me of the utter idiocy involved in entering the city without a disguise. She had proffered our current outfits, and they seemed worn enough – even damaged in places – to lend me no shortage of imaginative scenarios regarding how she had come upon them, and who had worn them before.

  My own outfit was the most subdued, which was fitting. It was also the only one that fit. It was a royal purple I’d have preferred to be deep, but other than that, it wasn’t actually too far off from my previous outfit, if a bit more snug in all the wrong regions. The material was more silk than resin, like something a stage magician would wear rather than a combatant. I suppose that was fitting as well. In the place of a hood, there was a high collar. After catching my own reflection in one of the pooling puddles in the brown bricks around the docks, I had taken one of the NPC’s pocket knives and cut it off. I had then torn my black hood free from its coat and stuffed the back into the purple wizard’s suit and opted to keep my halved mask on.

  Based on the looks the rest of the party had given me at the time – and that a few still tossed my way even now – the result of my efforts had not so much erased my villainous appearance as morphed it into the image of a confused, eccentric sidekick.

  The others had fared much better, with Blackstrike donning a white training gi – yes, just a gi, like one you’d see on any seven-year-old taekwondo practitioner – and Atlas donning medieval plate armor over the resin and rubber molding he’d come into the game with. The new plate covered his chest and the fronts of his shoulders, but the previous owner had likely been half as large, and so the suit couldn’t quite make it around Atlas’s torso. Instead, my new acolytes – an attentive if underwhelming clutch from the warehouse – had fastened it across his herculean back with leather belts. Their own, in some cases, resulting in some waistbands being cinched with odd bits of twine and dock rope. As an aside, it added twenty to his armor rating, so embarrassment was somewhat mitigated by function.

  Luther hadn’t bothered to change his appearance, despite my insistence. I could have compelled him to do it. He was, after all, still firmly under my Influence, but I had decided a grumbling, salt-and-pepper-mannered mechanical dwarf would look the same on either side of the bay, no matter what colors he wore.

  “You can do that?” Blackstrike asked. “You can start a crisis event? Just like that?”

  “Just like that?” I let my tone show him how stupid I thought that sounded. “Just by capturing or killing the Mayor of Titan City and destroying Gallant Tower?” Blackstrike just continued to stare, his expression unchanged. “Yes. I think I can.”

  “And we need to do that… why?” Atlas asked. He certainly lived up to his oafish appearance. I suppose the AI knew what it was doing when it guided him through his origin story.

  “Because every time I’ve seen Leviathan take damage – significant damage, I mean – it occurred during a crisis event,” I said, and not for the first time.

  “His weakness is crisis events?” Atlas asked, and even Blackstrike rolled his eyes at him.

  “His weakness is chaos,” I said for what felt like the thousandth time.

  “So you claim,” Blackstrike chipped in. “What’s the word, Smith?” Blackstrike asked without turning to look at Luther. Blackstrike was leaning over the edge of the eight-story building’s short crenellations, one thin black shoe propped up on the edge.

  Luther hissed for him to be quiet and went back to listening to his comms, where he was patched in with Starshot, Bartol and spunky Lyza, the pink-haired NPC who’d been my favorite from among Madam Post’s offering.

  Atlas and I exchanged shrugs as Luther held up a hand to stay protests that weren’t coming. After a few more moments, the tinkerer nodded sharply, and I pressed two fingers against the button that had been hastily sewn into the front of my outfit. Luther winced and nearly ripped the receiver out of his ear, then glared at me, furious. Atlas and Blackstrike both winced as their own earpieces picked up the racket of interference.

  “Just making sure my transponder is functioning properly. I’ll need my instructions to be heard loud and—”

  “It’s working just fine,” Luther said curtly.

  “Good,” I said. I wasn’t nervous yet. I was surprised not to be nervous, and deep down, a tiny thought grew a tiny bit larger. Did I want to do this? Did I really want to try it?

  “Everyone in position?” I asked, distracting myself with forward motion.

  “Bartol has his goons stationed on the north side of the square.” Luther pointed across the way, and we looked out over the main hub of Titan City, past its flowing blue fountains and its glistening quartz steps, and to the white federal building that took up the entire north side, its bronze dome turning back the sun with a dull golden radiance. I squinted and shielded my eyes with one gloved hand. I could just see a hint of movement over the crenellations there – specks that could have been birds but were actually my soldiers flattening themselves against the rooftop tiles, spears held firmly in-hand. The white Influence icons were washed out in the morning sunshine, but they were there, like daytime wraiths.

  “Good,” I said, nodding. Then I frowned. “They had no issues getting past security?”

  “Service elevators,” Luther said, as if it should have been obvious. “They look the part of a crew, anyway. No government-paid janitor’s going to ask twice. Besides, nobody other than us is dumb enough to engineer a full-blown assault on Heroes’ Square.”

  “Deadlock was,” Atlas said, his low voice rumbling for effect. He said it with the air of one repeating a myth. “He assaulted Gallant Tower itself, and with more than just two.” He glanced sidelong at Blackstrike, who didn’t rise to the suggestion.

  “Ah, yes,” I said, smiling fondly. “Who could forget that? One of the earliest major encounters. Deadlock and his crew forced their way into Gallant, scaled the tower, emptied the nest of all its corrupt politicians and fine, upstanding lobbyists, torched the elevator shafts and barricaded the stairwells. Took Leviathan days to get inside. Everyone thought he’d kill Deadlock for sure, but the villain escaped. Not so for some of his compatriots. He brought half the fortieth floor down in the ensuing fight.”

  “Then he moved in,” Blackstrike said, turning his gaze over to that very structure now. “Hasn’t moved out yet. Apparently the mayor took a liking to him after he gave Deadlock and his boys such a public thrashing.”

  “That,” I said, “or he was too frightened to speak up.”

&n
bsp; We examined Gallant Tower as it stood now. Stood, or rather loomed on the east side of the square, casting its blue shadows over the stones below. In truth, it looked like any other major tower in any other major city. Dozens of stories and hundreds of windows, white granite supports gilded with gold at the seams. And all of it rose to a sickle at the top that formed a black granite pommel and a white marble sword. When the sun hit it just right it was blinding to look upon.

  Still too early in the day for that, which was, again, precisely the point.

  “Lyza, you still in the park?” I asked, pressing down on the receiver at my temple.

  She responded in the affirmative.

  Luther grunted. “She’s got the other goons spread out among the walkways and gardens. They’ll head into the tower ahead of us in pairs to avoid detection. Hopefully none of them get pulled aside by the cops on account of their spears.”

  “They can pass as walking sticks,” I said, and then, seeing Luther’s expression, “I told them to hide them, or leave them behind. They have guns from Madam Post as it is.”

  When we were already firmly on our way up the magic beanstalk that was Gallant Tower, I’d be relying on Lyza and company to cause enough chaos to cover our tracks.

  I walked over to where Blackstrike stood, or perched, and swept my anxious gaze out to the west, where the deep green leaves twirled and bounced on their dark brown boughs. Beneath them, Titan City’s citizenry walked along cobblestone paths and skipped stones over picturesque ponds. Young couples walked arm-in-arm as elderly couples sat on black iron benches. Serious businessmen sped along carrying in-fashion briefcases, and children ran among the hillocks and streams, adding their lighter sounds to the bustle of the city that spread out from this idyllic center.

  They were pleasant sights and sounds, and we were about to spoil them, to turn them inward, and to shock them with violence and ash.

  “Wondering where she is?”

  Blackstrike was still intent on the entrance to Gallant Tower. He had his arms crossed and might have seemed relaxed otherwise, but I saw the tension in his bearing, and the white blanches on his knuckles as he squeezed the cloth bunched up at his elbows.

  “I know where she is,” I said, wondering what Atlas could possibly have in common with an NPC tinkerer as the two prattled on in the center of the roof behind us.

  Blackstrike let out a short bark of laughter that showed what he thought of that. “Lot of faith you’re putting in a hero,” he said.

  “She came to the docks,” I said. “She went to a meeting with three villains and an army of War Town NPCs, along with one of the oldest NPCs, and one not known for her benevolence. And I don’t think it was curiosity that brought her.”

  Blackstrike shrugged. “She’s been trying to get in with the bigwigs, right?” He nodded at Gallant Tower. Shadows moved behind the glass of the main lobby, but it was impossible to make out much detail. “Probably had a lot of work to do to get back into their good graces after you – well, sort of we – took out that cocky green douchebag over at the plant.” Now he looked my way, and I didn’t look his. “Maybe this was it. Maybe this was her way back in. Lure you here. Lure all of us here so some unfortunate collateral damage can send us to early graves.”

  “Heroes don’t perm,” I reminded him.

  “Most heroes,” he said quickly. “Leviathan and Meteora aren’t most heroes, and they’re precisely the ones you want to throw stones at this fine morning.”

  I swallowed, but I was already shaking my head before I answered. “As everyone on both sides of the bay likes to remind me of late, I’m small fry in this game. At least, they think I am, and you’re not much bigger. I’d like nothing more than for ol’ Levi to be quaking in his bright blue boots or for Meteora to be shivering in her amethyst armor. I doubt either is.” I looked at him steadily and saw the effect my halved façade had on him, though I didn’t know whether the mask or the ashen face beside it unnerved him more. “Their loss. Their last loss.”

  “Incoming.”

  Atlas was the first to spot her. Blackstrike and I saw her shadow dropping from the sky and skittered back from the edge of the rooftop. He adopted a martial stance. I did not.

  She landed in a hero’s pose, with one knee planted on the roof, using mild bursts of bright energy from her opened palms to slow her descent. Her glowing blond locks fell around her in a cascade, obscuring her face. When she straightened, her yellow aura faded.

  “You were right,” she said, looking my way.

  “Really need to tell him that?” Blackstrike said. Starshot smirked.

  “Right about…?” I led.

  “The skies are mostly clear,” she said, pointing up as she walked over. Luther made room for her in a distracted manner as he fumbled with a trio of silver grenades, likely trying to figure out which was which between the swarm and the explosive varieties. “It’s like you said: not many heroes logged in this early in the day.”

  I nodded. Titan Online was most popular in North America, though Russians had also taken to the superhero craze. As such, server load tended to reflect the time of day in the western hemisphere.

  “Then why is Meteora in-game already?” Blackstrike asked. I had already worked out that he was the doomsayer of the group, but it really was starting to grate on me.

  “If Leviathan isn’t, Meteora is,” I said. “That’s how it works.”

  “Why?”

  “Bec—”

  “Because,” Starshot spoke up for me, “they are the two most popular heroes in-game. The two most popular players worldwide. And because their sponsorships have about a 60% overlap.”

  Blackstrike looked at her like she was the dumb one. She rolled her eyes.

  “Sponsored players have quotas to fill. They play Titan like your dad swipes into work.”

  “But nobody fights those two anymore,” Blackstrike argued. “No villains challenge them—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Starshot said, revealing a bit more of her previous habits as a viewer than she’d probably like. “The fact that anything can happen at any time – that a new Deadlock could arise from War Town and bring unholy terror down on Titan City – or that the AI and the devs could enact a new crisis event from on or off-world at any hour of any day, brings in plenty of eyeballs. And…” She trailed off and shook her head, seemingly lost in her own thoughts.

  “And…” Blackstrike, Atlas and I said at the same time.

  “And even if they know nothing’s going to happen, VR modules are the new reality TV anyway.”

  The three of us exchanged looks that ranged from open confusion to feigned knowledge.

  “Today,” Starshot said, “Meteora is across town, touring on one of the in-game morning talk shows.”

  “Aren’t those shows for NPCs?” Blackstrike asked. “Window dressing for the game world?”

  “Once upon a time,” Starshot said. “Now, people stream her appearances on virtual talk shows with NPC hosts and NPC audiences just like they stream everything else.”

  How was that for layers of simulation?

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “Why?”

  Starshot sighed. “It doesn’t matter if Meteora doesn’t stop any crimes today. Her stream already had several hundred thousand viewers this morning before I logged in. She could make coffee, watch the news or throw a party. People will still watch because she’s doing it in a place that doesn’t exist in the real world. At least, a place nobody like us will ever get to be in in the real world.”

  “Ah,” I said, understanding dawning. “You’re saying viewers are coming for the lifestyle porn and staying for the superhero drama.”

  “Or the opposite,” Starshot said, her tone making it difficult to tell whether or not she was joking.

  I decided it was too close either way.

  “That’s where we come in,” I said, spitting a hate-filled gob onto the rooftop. It sizzled slightly on impact, which let me know the morning was already getting later,
and that the server was only going to get busier from here.

  Viewer habits didn’t affect me. Not really. But for some reason I cared deeply about what Starshot had just said. I cared to the point that it made me sick. And rather than allow that acid pit to bore a hole in my virtual stomach, I turned it into a fireball, and filled my chest with it.

  Titan Online was sick. Sick enough that it might not be able to be saved. If viewers were truly here to watch Meteora make a cappuccino rather than rain fiery hell over her enemies, maybe they didn’t deserve it. They didn’t deserve the silvery towers and they didn’t deserve the refuse-filled gutters. They didn’t deserve the bold, corny heroics or the dastardly deeds. They didn’t deserve stories.

  I had set out to get revenge. That much was true, and I wasn’t about to convince myself otherwise. But I had also harbored a small nugget of glowing hope that I might be able to save the world. At least, to save the world I cared about by killing the oldest, stalest story in it. The story of Leviathan and all his deeds. The story of evil dressed in white.

  Now, a part of me just wanted to burn the whole thing down, and let the pieces fall where they may.

  After all, I had no illusions that I would live out the day, no matter if we succeeded. No matter how hard we failed.

  I shook myself from my bitter reverie.

  “Atlas,” I said, coming back around. The big man with his glinting metal breastplate bent at the waist. “How strong are you, really? Full bore, I mean.”

  Atlas frowned deeply and tossed suspicious glances at both Starshot and Luther, who was still fiddling with his gear, albeit in a more controlled manner now. His eyes paused on Blackstrike before swiveling back to me. He opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was a stalling drone.

  I sighed.

  “We’re about to take on the two most powerful heroes in the game, and we’re about to do it in the middle of Heroes’ Square, in front of hundreds of thousands of viewers that will turn into millions, depending on how long we last. I already know how your powers work, remember; what’s a few more ears?”