Mastermind

by Steven Kelliher

  “Get that damn door open,” I said.

  “It’s a few goons with guns,” Blackstrike said, dismissive.

  “Best not to take any chances. Could be high-level NPCs.”

  Alert: Lyza, Ruslan, Yuri, and Brock have been killed.

  Sphere Update: 4 Slots Vacated. 13/20 Slots Filled.

  Damn, I thought. Not Lyza. I’d just taken a liking to her. Maybe this was a sign I shouldn’t grow too attached to my minions. It was, however, a sign that these new incoming guards were serious business. We were running out of time.

  But it took a full minute, and a few more grumbles than was usual for Luther, before I knew something was wrong.

  “What is it?” I asked, switching my gaze between the steel door and the hallway to the right and the elevator beyond it, expecting the mayor’s private army to bust in at any moment. When they did, I wanted to have their charge firmly under our control.

  “Luther—”

  The dwarvish man slammed his tools down and sat back on his haunches, one hand drifting back into his work bag almost on instinct, searching for some new tool that would help him. He looked utterly defeated, and I looked from him to the open control panel in front of him, exposed wires, loose screws and all.

  “I can’t,” he said. No explanation. No nothing. Just that. Two words that sounded like the hardest he’d ever uttered.

  “What do you mean, you ca—”

  “I mean I cannot, damn it! I mean it’s beyond me.”

  Sometimes I forgot Luther was a middling-level tinkerer at best.

  “Then who can open it?” Blackstrike asked.

  “The mayor,” Luther said, tossing a wrench so it skittered across the floor. He looked like a dejected child more than a frustrated old man. “Or a hero or villain powerful enough to take down two feet of solid steel.”

  “Not even sure Atlas could break into that,” Blackstrike pondered, but the gears were already turning for me.

  If the mayor could open the safe room, it stood to reason…

  “You did well, Luther,” I said. The squat, grumbling man looked at me with his arms crossed. He seemed to be searching for some sign of sarcasm, or a joke at his expense. Even Blackstrike raised an eyebrow at me, but I found that I meant it.

  “Did well?” Luther asked, blinking away his confusion and letting it give way to fresh anger. Anger to distract him from his own failure. “How on earth are we supposed to get in now?”

  “The mayor’s guards,” I said, turning toward the elevator just before it hissed open on the other side of the glass entrance to the penthouse.

  “Oh,” Luther and Blackstrike said in unison.

  The guards looked as serious as the late Lyza had made them out to be. They were dressed in black, with black helmets and black tinted goggles with all sorts of hoses and wires connecting various devices. One of them shattered the glass door with a heavy-booted kick, and they spilled into the penthouse with military precision.

  Before we could raise our hands, they had taken up positions flanking us on three sides, penning us into a box much less safe than the mayor’s.

  Blackstrike took a half step forward but Luther snatched him by the sleeve and pulled him back roughly, and I swallowed and stepped forward, looking far more confident than I felt.

  “Why aren’t you outside?” I asked, spreading my arms out to show that I wasn’t armed. I had tucked my stasis gun into the back of my purple waistband.

  The guards didn’t so much as tilt their heads in any direction but mine. After a few seconds, the one in the middle spoke up.

  “Not our problem,” he said.

  “Not your problem?”

  “Mayor’s our problem,” another said.

  “Well, I think it’s the mayor’s problem.” One of them raised his baton threateningly at that, and I held up my hands, palms out. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hey, guys. We’re all on the same side here. We need to speak about what’s going on down there.” I kept waiting for the white mist to start forming above their heads – even one or two of them – to signify that my attempted Influence check was working. Unless they were even higher-level than Luther, I should have had enough slots available to recruit one or two.

  I had the sudden and growing fear that it wasn’t the lack of space in my Sphere of Influence that was preventing the change, however, but their mind stats. Perhaps these uber guards were smarter than they looked. I was reminded unpleasantly that I needed a new interface with which to parse the Ythilian Hive Stone’s info, and I sorely missed B5 and his analysis.

  NPCs. Hell of a thing to stop the plan of a century.

  “We’ll decide what is and isn’t a problem. And right now,” the guard nodded at Luther and his bag of tools, along with the control panel, “you look like the closest one.”

  “There’s chaos in the streets,” I said. “People are panicked. There’s a hero taking on a pretty nasty-looking villain right outside.” It didn’t have the desired effect.

  “So?” another chimed in. His voice was gruffer than the others. “DC will take care of it.”

  Disaster Crew was made up of Titan City NPCs. They were a low-ranking cog in the city’s justice and security system charged with cleanup on all super-related encounters. Essentially, they were glorified street janitors. Given the way the uber guards chuckled at their expense, they were not held in high esteem, even among NPCs.

  “Look,” I said, taking a chance by moving closer to the lead uber guard, who raised his rubber-strapped chin along with his baton. “The truth is, this is all part of a show.” He must have blinked dumbly behind his visor. I sighed. “It’s a distraction,” I clarified.

  Wrong choice of words. The guard standing farthest to my right moved in threateningly.

  “Not me,” I said quickly. “Them! Outside. It’s a show. An act.”

  “For what?” the lead guard asked.

  “The hero is no hero. She’s here for the mayor,” I said, imploring. “Once she’s done with that brute down there, she knows the mayor will invite her in for a photo op. Maybe even a reward. When he does, she’s going to strike.”

  That brought a genuine peal of laughter that started at the far left and rippled through the rest. The middle uber guard slapped the baton into his opposite hand.

  “You must not know Buck very well,” he said, but some of the others seemed less certain.

  The guards exchanged visor-covered glances, and I tried to quell the beating of my heart as the first bits of swirling digital vapor coalesced above their helmeted heads. “Look, the mayor’s in trouble, and unless you want to deal with what’s coming yourself, you’d best let me through.”

  There was a pregnant pause, and the lead guard gave a sharp nod before turning toward one of his fellows. One with a white icon emblazoned above his head.

  Alert: Castle, Mayor’s Personal Guard, Influenced.

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  And what a welcome sight it was.

  Castle

  Uber Guard, Special Forces

  4 Slots

  Mind: 40

  Brawn: 60

  Agility: 60

  Armor: 50

  Charisma: 15

  “I think you’ll get along with Bartol,” I said with a smile.

  Before the commander knew what hit him, Castle smashed his visor in with the butt of a nasty-looking baton. Blackstrike surged into motion too, his white gi flashing as he lanced a kick into the gut of another guard. I drew my stasis gun and took aim at the guard farthest back, toward the windows, and fired. His finger froze midway down on the trigger as the field enveloped him.

  Luther stepped between Blackstrike and our newest ally and hurled a handful of black marbles toward another guard. When they struck, the guard looked confused for a moment, and then the tiny balls sprouted miniature thickets of two-inch-long spikes, gouging him in a hundred places. He fell, writhing, and Blackstrike came down with a stomp to finish him off.

  When i
t was done, we were surrounded by unconscious – or dead – super-soldiers, and I nodded appreciatively as Blackstrike dyed one sleeve red with an errant wipe of his temple.

  “Guess you do hit harder than you look,” I said.

  Blackstrike shrugged and cast a dismissive look at his vanquished foes. “They weren’t much.”

  “What’s your HP at?”

  “Eighty-eight.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Doubt my armor’s much better than yours,” he said. “Now, about that door.”

  The guard I’d turned moved purposefully. If the mayor was watching from inside, I imagined now might be about the time he pissed himself.

  Castle stepped up to the control panel on the steel door. There was a slight delay, and then we heard great gears turning and metal bars shifting into and out of place. When the racket quieted, there was an echoing click, and the door eased inward.

  The mayor looked as pathetic as I’d hoped. He had flattened himself against the back wall, palms flat against it as if he might be able to push himself right through it. There was a wet spot at his feet, and I almost laughed before I caught sight of the glittering shards of crystal in the mess.

  “Ah,” Blackstrike said, stepping into the safe room and twisting around to see the screens the mayor had been watching us on. “Thought you’d enjoy our demise with a bit of brandy?”

  “What my associate means to say,” I said with an audible clearing of the throat, my eyes glancing back toward Castle, “is that we are here to rescue you, good Mayor of Titan City.”

  Blackstrike moved past me like a shadow and grabbed the mayor by the collar, yanking him bodily away from the wall. I smiled at him.

  A percussion boomed. For a second, I thought the C4 charges had been set off by mistake, but only I had the detonator, as far as I knew. But then I felt the wind tickling the nape of my neck.

  And then I heard familiar laughter.

  Before I turned, and despite the echoing screams from the square below and the blasts and booms of Atlas and Starshot’s battle, I could make out the faint whirring sound of a viewer bot echoing off the glass and granite and sinking into the plush white carpeting of the vast penthouse at our backs, which was now open to the airy heights, the windows having been blown out completely.

  Meteora has arrived.

  Tier 1 Hero

  Threat Index: Titan

  Meteora was intimidating to look upon. Her bright purple armor put my procured suit to shame, and what she lacked in Starshot’s radiance, she made up for with the deadly, firelit aura that surrounded her.

  “What say you, faithful viewers?” Meteora purred, speaking to the black lens that hovered on the borders of our exchange. “Shall I take out the trash?”

  And it was then, when I saw the red, black-bordered void that was the viewer’s lens focusing in on my stretched, half-covered face, that I made my decision.

  For a would-be mastermind, I wasn’t thinking all that straight. I leveled the stasis gun and fired out of rage and instinct. The shimmering globe raced across the white-carpeted room and hit Meteora in the chest.

  Encounter Begins!

  Despot and Blackstrike vs. Meteora

  Stasis Effect Failed

  The stasis field evaporated like so much water.

  It was no shock. Meteora’s powers were undoubtedly tied to her mind stat, as was Luther’s tech. My low-tier gun would be useless against her. A mind stat at or exceeding fifty would be enough to mitigate the effects of the weapon, making it highly useful against most NPCs, but borderline useless against decently-tiered players, especially those with magical or mental powers.

  May as well have thrown a pebble at a rhino, in other words.

  Blackstrike was busy restraining the mayor. He tried to edge past me with the NPC in tow, but Meteora’s red eyes pinned him to the spot. Without further delay, she raised a hand, palm glowing orange, and smiled.

  “I certainly hope I don’t miss,” she said with a wink towards the viewer, playing it up for her fans. “Blast this size could bring the whole penthouse down.”

  A translucent beam of shimmering silver energy parted the space between Blackstrike and me, striking Meteora in the chest. This time, she didn’t shrug it off. This time, the stasis field enveloped her completely, expanding as she sent out a panicked flare against it, and then contracting sharply, painting her form in a bright white outline.

  Stasis Effect Successful!

  Meteora stunned for 60 seconds. Immune to all damage for duration. Any attack will break the stasis effect.

  Blackstrike still held the struggling mayor in his grips, one arm locked around the front of the politician’s neck. In unison, the three of us twisted to look behind.

  Luther was standing above his discarded tools and disheveled bag, red-faced and straining. The veins of his neck bulged, and his right arm was extended toward Meteora. He wore a metallic glove that looked like a collection of wires, washers and sparking circuits. There was a blinding white light in the center of his palm, and it was from this outlet that the silvery beam that had trapped Meteora emanated.

  I should have known the tinkerer had more tricks up his sleeve.

  The black viewer bot continued to hover, the lens shifting in front of its ruby-red center. It skittered backward as I approached and took in the whole scene. Meteora’s teeth were chattering as I circled. She couldn’t log out mid-encounter, but I could tell she wanted to. Her eyes shifted toward me, twitching.

  Another bright yellow flash lit the bottoms of the white clouds.

  “Tier five, and she’s already as bright as you,” I said, referencing Starshot.

  She issued a strangled growl that sounded like a choking cat.

  I went nose-to-nose with Meteora. I looked into those bright demon’s eyes and saw the dark, swampy facets in between the molten rivers. I saw the hate burning through them, and the quivering fury behind her trembling lips.

  The thought of Starshot brought up another one. I thought back to our second meeting in the junkyards on the borders of War Town, and remembered how I had caught her in a stasis field. I also remembered how she had trembled with anger, like Meteora trembled now, and how Starshot’s built up energy had exploded outwards when the stasis had ended.

  What would such an explosion do here, in these confines, and with Meteora’s power? What would it do to her? Could she survive it?

  I didn’t speak loudly, so the viewer hovered in close to hear. It was like a buzzing insect, and the proximity seemed almost too much for the hero to bear.

  “Much as I’d love to stay and chat,” I said, “he’s the one I’m after. You are, to borrow your term, trash. Nothing more.”

  Meteora’s eyes began to glow molten red. I could see the shimmering stasis shell around her body beginning to blink and waver, the edges looking less like water and more like heat on a summer day.

  “Despot?”

  Blackstrike was standing in the middle of the room. He was wide-eyed and kept glancing between the viewer and the door. The mayor struggled in his grip, to no avail.

  Meteora thrashed. Well, not outwardly, but her muscles tensed, her veins bulging, going from a dull and bloody red to a ruddy orange, like a campfire. Her gown began to tear, small rips forming around the shoulders as her muscles engorged with the power she attempted to call up.

  “Despot!” Blackstrike shouted. “Now!”

  “Right.”

  I gave Meteora one last smile. And then I saw Luther, straining with his sparking gauntlet, and the feeling of elation was dashed.

  “It’s time to vacate the premises,” I said, ribbing the tinkerer.

  “C… can’t,” he said through chattering teeth. “No time.”

  It seemed to take everything he had just to maintain his ghostly, temporary grip on the hero.

  I opened my mouth to argue, but Blackstrike had already dragged the mayor back down the hallway we’d come in.

  “You… you have it?” Luther asked. I f
rowned, not knowing what he meant. He switched his shaking eyes with some effort to my belt, and I remembered the detonator.

  I nodded.

  “Luther,” I said, hating how emotionless it sounded, even though my heart hammered against my chest, “I daresay you’re the best inventor I’ve ever known.”

  He barked out a short laugh, but it didn’t sound bitter. “I’m the only inventor you’ve ever known.”

  The clock was ticking, but I had to say something to mark his sacrifice.

  “The world will know what your creations did, and to whom.”

  I left him there, locked in his private battle, and tried to keep my thoughts from turning the wrong way. Unbidden, images of B5, Sebastian and Scale came up, all those who had fallen to see to my revenge. Sure, more of them were NPCs than not, but that didn’t make it any less painful. Any less raw. They were real to me.

  Real to me.

  I repeated it in my mind, looping it over and over like a mantra that propelled me out of that rumbling tower.

  I darted left upon exiting the penthouse, seized the handle of the door to the stairwell, and nearly ran headlong into Blackstrike with Castle shadowing me.

  “Let’s go!” Blackstrike shouted.

  “Nice of you to come back for me,” I said, winking at the mayor he had left cowering against the wall one flight down. I wasn’t nearly as nimble as Blackstrike, but I thought I acquitted myself rather admirably in the realm of the controlled fall.

  “You idiot!” Blackstrike shouted, outstripping me with ease. “Why did you waste time?”

  “All this and you still don’t trust me?”

  He was right, though. I had lingered too long. The building shook, nearly sending me over the rail and plummeting to my death down another dozen stories to the hard concrete below, but Castle caught and steadied me. Meteora had broken free, and from the sounds of it, she had burst out of Luther’s stasis field with quite a bit more pop than Starshot had burst out of mine.