Derek slapped Obould as hard as he could across the face.
He jumped up, more surprised than angry. “What the hell was that for!?”
“Honored Power, what are your orders?”
He blinked. “What?”
“You are the Power of the orcs now, Knight Obould. What are your orders?” Derek held out the phone, still vibrating.
He looked at it, then at Derek, then nodded very slowly and took the phone and answered it.
“Grom? No, it's Obould. I'll explain later. How's the assault? Good. Move to a holding pattern. You're the distractions, don't get yourselves killed.” He hung up and dialed another number quickly. “Garona. No, no, he's... incapacitated. What's the word on the infiltration?”
Good. He seemed to be adapting to the role quickly enough. Derek turned to Akane.
“Keep him safe,” he said, and she nodded. “I'm going to see if I can help Dispater.”
Between himself and both bodyguards, they did eventually manage to coax Dispater into a nearby secluded storefront, which he seemed to find comforting. He kept babbling about “eyes in the sky” and how they couldn't find them inside, so they left him alone. Both warbloods remained on watch outside, but he wouldn't let them in. He had Derek's phone number on speed dial, and he swore up and down that he would call if they did anything funny. Derek was pretty sure they weren't sleepers. They would have activated by now if they were. But that wasn't really something you could explain to someone in the middle of a panic attack.
About five minutes later, after Derek had walked back to Obould and Akane, his phone started to ring, surprising him.
It wasn't his normal ring, either. It was just a series of five beeps, then a pause, then five beeps again. He answered it hesitantly.
“Hello?”
“Derek? This is MC.”
He blinked. Very odd. He hadn't expected to hear from her again after the rat thing. “Uh... right. Hello. What can I help you with?”
“You're at Whorestown, right? The succubus lair?”
“Yeah, I'm in the back with... the orc Power. What's going on?”
“I need to talk to him. Right now.”
Derek glanced over. Obould was still on the phone, barking out orders. “He's busy right now. Just tell me what you need.”
She sighed in frustration. “I just need to know if they got their 'Mother' out.”
“Not yet,” Derek said. “I'll let you know the second they find her, okay?”
She sighed again. “Yes, all right.”
“But Derek, she's out.”
Derek looked up to see Akane blinking at him. He frowned. “What?”
“They got her out,” she said. “They're just having trouble finding the other prisoners. Apparently Malcanthet had her somewhere separate.”
“Wait, did I hear that right?” MC said in his ear. “Let me talk to the Power. He needs to hear this.”
It was Derek's turn to sigh this time. “Fine.”
Obould was still on the phone, but he put it down when Derek walked up. “What?”
“MC's on the phone,” Derek explained, handing him his cell. “Something about the captives.”
He frowned. “MC? That 'sarian hacker?”
More like communications specialist, but Derek didn't feel like arguing the point. “Yes. She says it's urgent.”
He took the phone. “Be quick.” He blinked. “What? Yes, we got her out.” Another pause. “Wait. Wait, what?” He shook his head emphatically. “No. Look lady, we're not part of Necessarius. We don't take orders from you.”
There was a roar overhead, behind them. It wasn't an animal roar, it was the deep and powerful thrum of an engine. Derek glanced back. There weren't any shuttles due until noon. What could it be?
Jets. Three of them, actually, painted black with a horizontal red stripe. They looked like they were coming in fast, but even Derek's extremely limited knowledge of aircraft told him that wasn't right. They were actually flying as slowly as possible, to maximize the amount of time the target was in their sight.
“Bombing run,” Derek whispered. “Obould! Bombing run!”
He stared at the jets, and Derek was afraid he would freeze again. But he recovered his wits in time and started yelling into his own phone for everyone to withdraw.
They did, as fast as they could, rushing away from the 'scraper like an outgoing tide.
Seconds later, six missiles hit the center of the building, exploding in a fiery mess of glass and concrete. Derek could see bodies, mostly on fire, falling to the streets below, but little else.
Then six more missiles struck from the south, aiming towards the top of the skyscraper.
Then another six from the north, and another six from the east. All twelve of these were aimed at the ground levels, which were now completely abandoned by the Monster Liberation Army.
The eighty-story tall 'scraper began to crumple to the ground, seemingly in slow motion. Dust and ash billowed everywhere until Derek could barely tell what was going on. He still saw the vague shape of the building slam into the wall of shorter structures that surrounded it to the south-west, keeping it from collapsing all the way to the street. But he could feel the building groaning, its weight straining to bring it closer to the ground.
A Necessarian bomber came in a few minutes later to drop a few more payloads on the foundation, just in case some rats fled to the sewers. The resulting shockwaves finally caused the 'scraper to finish its tumble, slamming into the street and shattering the concrete in every direction. Luckily everyone had already evacuated by then, urged on by Obould and the other warlords.
It wasn't until later that they found out Malcanthet had escaped after all. She had fled into the sewers the moment the army showed up, minutes after her little speech. She was long gone, and Butler had killed at least twenty prisoners—more, if you counted the brainwashed slaves—for nothing.
There were positives, however. Belial was killed. His daughter, Fierna, escaped, but did not turn up again, leaving the chem-heads leaderless. The Satanists were decimated, though their Beast survived. Lizzy came running into the hospital room straight from the shower when she heard the news. She had dried off a little, but not much. It was a nice bonus at the end of the day.
That was the legendary Battle of Shendilavri. For all the pain and bloodshed, for the broken buildings, still lying fallow in Rivenheart, people only remembered one thing. They only whispered that if even the Mother Monster could be kidnapped and tortured, then that could only mean one thing. Even for all of Butler's reforms and peacekeepers and alliances, there was only one thing that was true:
No one was safe in Domina City.
Chapter 33: SAPIENTIS
RICHARD
Richard Martinez had been the President of the United States of America, ever since last year, when he was sworn in after winning in a historic landslide election. He pledged to defend his nation and its people from threats both within and without, to improve the standard of living of everyone under their domain.
Yeah, that wasn't working out so great.
He had a whole laundry list of problems—the Chinese, Soviets, and Koreans all sponsored terrorists against anyone who looked at them funny, ninety percent of his country's budget was earmarked for a military which was completely useless against anything in space, and his two predecessors had spent the past twelve years pissing off the sorts of people who could throw asteroids at his new house.
And yet, he still found his attention continuously drifting to Domina City.
“The City of the Lady.” A lot of religious groups—including the Vatican itself, if his memory wasn't too foggy—had been involved in the original project, so they got to pick the name. It was Latin, and was supposed to refer to the Virgin Mary. The idea was that the name was supposed to foretell the city remaining pure and unspoiled.
Nope.
It was a writhing cesspool, a horrifyingly dangerous stain on American soil—even though it was on an isla
nd. Sending spies was dangerous, sending anyone else completely suicidal.
Or so everyone said.
But they didn't know. They barely ever spent any spies, and those that did got killed within days of arriving. The rare new immigrants never talked about conditions there, and they usually died soon too. All evidence pointed to the city being exactly what they thought it was, but they simply didn't have enough evidence to really know.
The thing about Domina was that it shouldn't be important, at least not as anything more than a symbol. Thirty years ago, it was the first international attempt to see if the human race could make colonies of criminals and a small guard population that would set up infrastructure on their own.
That didn't work, which Richard could have told them when the project was first announced—even though he was eleven at the time—but everybody learned all sorts of valuable things that they should have known already, and when the space colonies were launched, other than the Reiner Gamma crisis, everything went smooth as butter.
Still, something had to be done with Domina, so all the heads of state at the time got together to figure it out. Instead of just giving up on the stupid city and letting the inmates/civilians kill each other, the esteemed leaders of the world came up with a different idea. “After much debate and deliberation,” the history books said. All things considered, Richard was pretty sure that was code for “snorted lines off the table.”
Because what you'd think should be done is that they would either send in a bunch of humanitarian aid, or let everybody die. What they actually did was decide to send more criminals to the stupid island. Not a lot, really, just anyone who qualified for one of the space colonies, but who didn't actually want to go into space for whatever reason. Richard still didn't have the exact numbers, but it was looking like a million or so a year.
And like adding more fuel to a fire, Domina City kept burning. What else could you expect, when every single person there was a criminal? Or the children of criminals, which was practically the same thing in that environment.
But he had a chance.
He could save Domina City. That would be something worth doing. That would get him chapters in the history books, instead of just some name nobody remembered on a list nobody cared about. Hell, that would get him entire books, written about him and his decisions.
He had a few proposals he was chewing over, but right now Senator Grain's was the one he was focused on. Grain had an idea about building an internet hardline to the city, but Richard wasn't sure how much success that would have. It might work, but he didn't know, and he didn't want to throw a few million dollars at something he didn't understand.
“Mister President,” his aide, Ms. Silk, said as she walked up. “You wanted more information on Domina?”
“On their internet specifically, my dear,” he corrected her, something he rarely had to do. It was no exaggeration to say this woman ran his entire campaign and cabinet. More useful than his stupid vice president, that was for sure. “We can deal with the rest later.”
“Well, perhaps this will help.” She turned on the TV, flipped through the channels, and fiddled with the settings to rewind ten minutes or so.
It was a news program, the interview segment. A young newswoman was talking to an old, bearded man. The screen proclaimed him to be “Professor Lake Sage,” right next to the line “September 14th, Friday.” They were too close, actually. It looked like the date was his name or something. Richard's wife had made him more aware of poor formatting like that.
“Now, Professor Sage,” the woman said. “You claim Domina City simply does not have an internet?”
“That is correct, Stacy,” the man said. “The only internet there is a few separate systems, each controlled by an individual corporation. These are the networks that connect—occasionally—to our own internet.”
“That's horrible!” the woman cried. “Doesn't that violate the Internet Freedom Act?”
“Actually, no,” the professor said. “You see, the corporations are not charging anyone to use their networks. They're not offering it for free, either, but by not charging, they don't violate the IFA.”
Stacey just looked confused. Richard was sure that like a lot of newscasters, she had been chosen based on her looks and voice rather than her brains. He had been in Sage's shoes before, and he didn't regret not being there now. Being interviewed by idiots was never fun. “I'm not sure I understand. Are they exploiting a loophole somewhere?”
“Far from it. You see, their networks are completely private. Corporate secrets are stored there, so anyone even trying to access it would be violating international law. They do, sometimes, need to connect to the outside internet for business, but that is using completely private wireless networks. The only connection to Domina we have is—legally, I must note—controlled by corporations. In fact, if they tried to give the public access, they would be the ones breaking the law.”
“Ms. Silk,” Richard said, “how reliable is this man?” He looked like that guy who played Father Time on those commercials for digital watches.
She frowned and adjusted her glasses. “Well, he did work for one of the city's corporations for about five years, and only came back six months ago. The fact that he was able to return at all speaks volumes.”
“Not many boats go in, and fewer come out,” Richard said. Prisoners were their primary import. Plus the spies the various governments slipped onto the boats.
“Very few,” she emphasized. “Only five or six a month, both ways. Planes are even worse.”
“I'm just not sure I understand,” the newswoman continued. “Unless the corporations are actively suppressing infrastructure, why don't the civilians just start up their own internet?”
The professor nodded. “Good question. That puzzled me at first as well, but I quickly discovered the reason. The cultures disrupt any attempts to create new infrastructure—such as internet.”
Now this was interesting. They had very little information on the cultures, other than the fact that they existed and were some type of gang... thing. There were rumors that they had something to do with the toy maker, but nothing concrete. Personally, Richard assumed it was just the mixing of rumors, since that annoying machine had come from Domina in the first place, but it would be good to hear it from an actual resident. Ex-resident, whatever.
“Cultures,” Stacy said slowly. “I've heard that word in relation to the city before. What are they?”
“The simplest explanation would be to call them giant gangs,” Lake said. “But that is inaccurate. They do not have leaders or organization. They are simply a number of gangs united under nothing but their fashion sense.”
The newswoman raised an eyebrow. “I'm not sure I understand.”
“Basically, calling the cultures a gang is like calling goths a gang,” he explained patiently. “There are gangs within the cultures, many of them quite violent, but they are not gangs themselves.”
“So, what sets these cultures apart?”
The professor waved his hand airily. “Oh, all sorts of things. The demons put plastic horns on their heads and paint themselves red or black, the vampires only come out at night... that kind of thing. Mostly, it's just a bunch of crazy kids, but they get extremely violent when given half the chance.”
“So any time anyone tries to set up a high-powered wi-fi tower...”
“One of the cultures firebombs it. Drives off the workers. They do the same thing with new factories and anything else that might change the city.” He shook his head sadly. “They're kids. They're lashing out.”
“Is there any way to solve this problem?”
“In my professional opinion? Not without sending in the army. And sending soldiers against people aged fifteen to twenty would cause truly horrific public backlash.”
Richard waved his hand, and Ms. Silk turned off the tv. He leaned back in his chair and sighed.
Ms. Silk didn't say anything. She was very good at just letting him t
hink. Honestly, that was most of the reason he kept her around. Most of the assistants he had ever since getting out of the army wouldn't stop yapping.
“Raziela,” he said slowly after a few minutes. “What's your take on this?”
“Well first, I've told you to call me Raz, Mister President.”
He rolled his eyes with a smile, and made a “go on” motion with his hand.
She was quiet for a for minutes more, her face furrowed in concentration. She kept her hands busy organizing papers.
Richard didn't prod her. You didn't rush a genius, whether they were an artist or a bureaucrat who could organize a party for six hundred people with only an hour's notice.
When she had the coffee table in something resembling order, she spoke up.
“I... think the Professor had the right of it,” she said slowly. “Sending troops against young people—even very violent and dangerous young people—is only going to cause problems.”
“Hm.” She was right, of course. “So we need to solve this problem indirectly. Without violence.”
“And without spending much money, either,” she noted. “Remember most of the budget we had free went to the USP.”
He sighed. Stupid space program. Trying to buy back Shaohao hadn't been a good idea in the first place, and now that word was out it was completely out of the question. The media had painted it as an under the table hostile takeover, which had led to massive public outcry. The fact that it basically was a hostile takeover hadn't helped. It was hard enough cleaning off mud when it wasn't true.
“Okay... what about that gang leader? The one who's bribing the senators to stay out of the city?”
Ms. Silk hastily dug through the papers to find one in particular. “Ah, yes. Here it is. It says his name is... Butler. Artemis Butler.”
Richard chuckled. “Right. The girl's name.”
She nodded. “Not a good idea to say that to a gang lord, sir.” She flipped the paper over, reading the back. “Analysis says he's just another violent opportunist. He was on the first ships of workers, and has been building his gang for the past thirty years.” She shrugged. “Looks like he wants to keep others out of his playground.”
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