Mastermind

by Steven Kelliher

  “Your lack of enthusiasm concerns me,” Post said coldly.

  “I’m prepared to do what it takes for us to live in peace. You’ll have your gold so that you might have your tinkerer, and if that gets Blackstrike away from the docks, we’ll both be happier for it.”

  Alert: Mission Accepted – “Good as Gold”

  Madam Post demands you rob a branch of Titan Dominion to fund her brewing war with the villain Blackstrike.

  Objectives: Deliver 300 Gold Bars to Madam Post within 3 days.

  Rewards: Increased Reputation with Madam Post of the Doom Docks.

  “Then we have an understanding, Despot,” Post said. “Be quick about it. I have a more difficult time telling my boys to throw useful things in the river.”

  I gave her an exaggerated bow. “My fair lady, things are going to get less bronze around here… and more gold. I’m sure we’ll be firm friends.”

  That was what I said, but the words in my head were different.

  In return, you old hag, I get you. I get power. I get one step closer to Leviathan.

  Nine

  Fetch Quest

  I crouched on a rusted iron fire escape on the corner of 22nd and 31st, on the south side of Titan City. This was meant to be the residential neighborhood, and since there weren’t a whole lot of players who liked to frequent the area, I figured it was the perfect spot to launch my first major offensive… if skulking in the shadows while my minions did the legwork could be considered an offensive.

  Madam Post would get her gold, courtesy of Titan Dominion, and I’d get a larger share of the docks and more Influence – both literal and figurative – over my domain. Everything else would follow. Just lay one brick down at a time, and eventually you’ll have a tower. Maybe even one to rival that ugly, T-shaped eyesore that overshadowed Heroes’ Square. Even now, I could feel Gallant Tower looming over me from its gargantuan perch twenty blocks to the north. Leviathan’s roost, the tower loomed like a monolith. It was never meant to be his. But then, neither was Titan Online.

  I squinted through my mask, gripping the railing of the fire escape more tightly as I watched the scene below, alert for signs of movement from within the bank.

  Sebastian and the gang were meant to scout first, set up a strategic perimeter within the building, lock the doors from the inside once there was a lull in the patronage, and make sure the van out back, a loaner from Madam Post, was running when it came time to make our dastardly escape.

  “Let’s check on that Sphere again, B,” I said for the third time.

  I didn’t need B5 to do it for me. My Sphere of Influence was always available to me as part of my UI, but I’d gotten in the habit of looping the droid in on virtually every move I made.

  Sphere of Influence – 13/15 Slots Filled

  Single Slot Members

  1) Sebastian 2) Sascha 3) Hobb 4) Kayde

  5) Brooks 6) Mickie 7) Axel 8) Alex

  9-13) Southside Sleeves

  The last five slots of my Sphere had been filled just prior to climbing the wrought iron stairs. The Southside Sleeves were a local gang of… well, I wouldn’t necessarily call them muscle. They were a ragtag group of teens and tweens ranging from age eleven to seventeen. To say the south side of Titan City was more blue-collar was putting it mildly. It hadn’t taken much convincing to get the kids onboard with the idea of causing the few suits in the area a bit of stress.

  I wasn’t planning on using the kids to infiltrate the bank, and certainly not to do any fighting. Instead, their charge was to clear out the everyday NPCs in the area. Maybe crack a windshield with a baseball, toss some insults at passers by. Each one of those NPCs was a potential alert to local law enforcement, and just one cop meant notifications to nearby hero players. I may have been getting more of a handle on my power with each play session, but I didn’t know if I was ready to tango quite yet.

  A cursory glance down at the streets had me smiling as I saw a pair of the red-sweatshirt-wearing ruffians chucking rocks into traffic. The sound of screeching tires had me worrying that they’d gone too far and caused an accident. Not the best way to avoid attention. Instead, the car sped off, and the NPCs in the area started to pick up their paces as they headed in the opposite direction. Anything to avoid the unwanted attention of the Southside Sleeves, who didn’t inspire fear so much as eyerolls.

  We’d chosen one of the smaller branches of Titan Dominion, but that didn’t do much to alleviate my nerves. Bank robberies were one of the clichés of comic book villaindom. As such, they were frequent in Titan City, and heroes were all too quick to rush to the aid of the innocent AI bystanders and business owners if it meant gaining a little more Fame and possibly even starting up a potential rivalry with a villain player, if they were lucky enough to come upon one.

  I didn’t like thinking about it too long, since it made me feel like a coward, but we’d also chosen this location specifically because it was one of the boroughs of the city least frequented by heroes when compared to the booming streets around Gallant Tower.

  “They’re taking their sweet time,” I impatiently told B5. If we were in the real world, my legs would have cramped up something fierce, and sweat would be pouring down my face and back. It wasn’t possible to overheat in the game world, but I still felt stifled this afternoon as the artificial sun slowly lost its battle with the artificial sky, which never turned black in Titan Online, but took on more of a midnight purple hue.

  I pressed a hand to my ear, checking to see that the transmitter was still there. I heard the telltale crackle that betrayed a signal and settled back down.

  “You’re quiet.”

  B5 didn’t respond right away.

  “You were quite specific with them,” he said after a time, his tone sounding despondent. “I warned you that Sebastian and the others were low-level NPCs. A task like this has a lot of moving parts—”

  “And they’re just a few of them,” I said, shaking my head. “You worry too much, B5. Sebastian and the crew will do what I’ve asked of them. I only wish you’d have let me bring Scale. At least he could cause a distraction if things get hairy.”

  “Scale’s methods are much too…”

  “You’re really about to say ‘crass,’ aren’t you?”

  “Loud,” B5 said.

  “True enough,” I said sagely. “You’re sure he was up on the roof above Madam Post’s dusty gray head yesterday? And that he’d have come down to help if we’d given the signal?”

  “Yes to the former,” B5 said, “and impossible to know to the latter.”

  “You were right on that one,” I said, marking a black plume of smoke that curled against the eastern sky. “He seems more likely to start fires than put them out. Of course, there’s a time and a place for that. Just not here. Not now.”

  “Agreed.”

  Another long minute of silence stretched, during which I watched NPC shoppers and schoolchildren and businessmen returning home from their nonexistent jobs to feed their nonexistent families and deal with their nonexistent existential dread. I used to love coming to Titan City, if only to wander the streets, speak to the locals, take on missions as small as fetching cats from trees and as gargantuan as dealing with alien invasions.

  I still enjoyed it, despite my best efforts not to, given the shadow Leviathan had cast over the whole thing. That said, my heart still quickened when I saw a hero streak past my perch.

  A siren went off, followed closely by the screeching of tires and then the rapid popping of gun shots. I stood up and leaned over the rusted railing, craning my head around to get a better view of the intersection. A black car with tinted windows thundered through the intersection beside the bank. There was a man in a black suit standing up with his upper torso sticking out of the sun roof. He held a machine gun not unlike the ones Madam Post had provided to us for this very mission, and he sprayed bullets at whatever was chasing him.

  A blue flash preceded a streak of laser light, and a hero in bright azure
spandex and a bright yellow cape appeared in the middle of the intersection, just as the car screamed off. He stood there watching the departing vehicle, and for a moment, I wondered what his deal was, and then he went all shimmery and started to disappear, and I heard the machine-gun fire pick up at the next intersection.

  When he was gone, I pressed my hand to my ear and opened my mouth to ask, but B5 could see everything I could through the supercomputer by hacking into traffic cameras and such. He was well ahead of me.

  “He’s a hero named Vizor,” he said. “Tier four, so I’m afraid I can’t tell you his superpower in any great detail save for what seems apparent. He can teleport, or phase, and he may possess some sort of electrical or energy-based power.”

  “Interesting,” I said, aware of the sudden furious beating of my heart. I might be frustrated with the state of Titan Online, but I couldn’t help but marvel at how many unique origins the AI managed to put out. Hundreds of thousands of players scattered throughout twin cities larger than any in the real world, and all of them utterly unique.

  “Threat index?” I asked, my curiosity piqued. It was certainly a flashy costume.

  “Neutral,” B5 said in a monotone.

  “Pffft.” I made a shooing gesture with my left hand and plopped back down. “Pretty low for a tier four with a flashy power like that.”

  I thought I saw shadows moving within the sun-glared windows of the bank across the street, but it was hard to tell.

  “What’s eating you up, B?” I asked. “Stake-outs are sort of your specialty, aren’t they?”

  “Providing data and analysis is my specialty, General,” B5 admonished.

  “And…” I drew it out, rolling my head around in an exaggerated gesture that I hoped the omnipresent B5 could see from his command center.

  “And?” B5 asked.

  “And you don’t agree with this mission.”

  “Not at this juncture.”

  “That’s the happiest you’ve sounded all afternoon,” I scolded. “Listen, B, this is the best way to get what she wants and to get it quick. Once we have Post, we have the docks. Once we have the docks, we have an operation. A real operation. Not to mention a little added Infamy and power as insurance against Blackstrike.”

  “As you say, General.”

  I leaned forward as the front door to the bank opened once more. I shaded my eyes against the glare the windows reflected back at me. “Ah,” I breathed, “now there’s the handsome mug I’ve been waiting for.”

  Sebastian had cleaned up rather well, all things considered. He was still far too bulky to pull off the old suit we’d stuffed him into, but his shoes were shined and his greasy blond locks were slicked back. The shades were the icing on the cake. He exited the bank and walked toward the corner I was facing, and in place of the curt nod or the slight shake he was supposed to offer, he grinned broadly and raised a meaty fist and meatier arm and waved, fingers splayed.

  I was too shocked to get angry, and Sebastian – NPC or not – was too friendly to stay mad at.

  A quick check around showed no law enforcement NPCs close by, and Sebastian’s overt signal meant the boys and girls were in position inside the bank, all dressed in various states of semi-believable bank-going attire, empty briefcases and all.

  I started down the stairs, cursing the fact that I’d climbed so high for a stake-out that had turned into more of a laze about. It wasn’t long before B5 made another go at me.

  “This will put you on others’ radars. Maybe even Leviathan’s.”

  I had to laugh at that one. “If you think robbing a bank is going to put me on that one’s radar, you don’t know him very well.”

  “I don’t know him at all.”

  “Exactly,” I said as I rounded another flight, black paint slipping right off of the rattling rail as I went. “Trust me, B. It’s going to take a lot more to get on his radar. I doubt even bringing down half the city would pique more than his passing curiosity. He needs a challenge. He needs excitement. He needs a touch of fear, and I’ll bring it to him in good time.”

  I heard the crackle that would precede B5’s next argument and cut him off.

  “By the time I’m on Leviathan’s radar, I’ll be beyond the point of fearing it, and he’ll be beyond the point of doing anything about it.”

  “Very well, Despot,” B5 said, taking the hint.

  I cut across 22nd Street and took Sebastian up in my wake as we headed toward the front door of the bank.

  We paused before the entrance and I pulled my mask off. In a way, I felt like Karna was the mask here, and Despot the identity I wanted to keep stowed away, at least for the time being.

  I did a mental accounting of my team members. I had placed each of them into the role I felt most appropriate, given their stats and key traits.

  Sebastian was my muscle, but he was also my shield, which is why I planned to keep him close by. Sascha was on surveillance inside of the bank, since her key trait was ‘Suspicious.’ Hobb could have been the muscle, since he was actually the strongest member of my team, but his key trait, ‘Unwavering,’ meant he was best suited to be the calm, collected getaway driver. He was waiting in the van in the back alley, along with Brooks. As steady as those two were, Mickie was a bit of a flake. He was stationed inside the bank, because I figured chaos could come in handy, as long as it was aimed in the right direction.

  Our getaway plan wasn’t anything fancy. Grab the cash – in this case, shiny, metallic cash – and get in the truck while the least fancy members of my squad ran interference with whatever law enforcement did decide to show. Axel and Alex had the same key trait, and ‘Toughness’ could go a long way in a bind.

  A business type made his way toward the entrance, but a quick look from me to Sebastian had the big brute towering over him, silently suggesting he find another branch this afternoon.

  It annoyed me that, given the pseudo-hypnotic nature of my superpower, I still had to sweeten the deal to get certain NPCs to play ball on my terms. But there had to be hard limits on a power like Influence, or else the whole world – at least, the part of it not run by players – would be on my side. Still, we’d already found Madam Post more amenable to my suggestions after showing her I had guile and a set of balls. Surely there were ways to increase my chances of pulling off a successful conversion with other NPCs seemingly out of my lowly tier six reach.

  I peered into the lobby and saw a few of my men lounging about or standing awkwardly, already drawing more attention than I’d have liked. I eyed the security camera in the entryway. If this were a real bank, we’d already be flat on our stomachs, waiting for the cuffs. I nodded at Sebastian, who smiled at me and swept a corner of his suit jacket open to reveal the black handle of the gun Madam Post had given him.

  Together, we strode through the doors of Titan Dominion sub-branch sixteen as if we owned the place. And for a few minutes at least, it seemed like we did.

  “I’m here to make a withdrawal,” I said confidently after making my way up to the teller. My delivery was a bit more awkward than I’d have liked.

  Given that my charisma score was so high, the teller – an attractive young woman with chestnut-brown eyes – only looked slightly nervous at the sight of the towering brute standing over me. She even looked as if she were about to fill my request, but a slender man in a black suit and thin glasses emerged from a back room and shoved her out of the way.

  I frowned at him and he looked down at me without so much as tilting his chin down. I could see every perfectly-rendered hair in his reedy little nose. His lifeless eyes scanned the lobby, and found plenty amiss, even if he wasn’t saying so quite yet.

  “Do you have an account with us, sir…?”

  Arthur, Titan Dominion Bank Manager

  Mind: 70

  I didn’t even bother reading the rest of his stats. He was too smart to Influence, at least at my current level.

  B5 had warned me that the NPCs running the Titan Dominion branches would
be hard to corrupt, likely requiring an Influence check with a charisma score at least twice what I was currently rocking. That whole overpower concern came into play with money as well, it seemed. Even in Titan Online, a virtual world populated by comic book heroes and super-powered villains, money went a long way.

  “Despot,” I said. I heard the crackle of B5 over the transmitter as I broke from the script and did my best to ignore it. The bank manager noticed and raised an eyebrow. “And I don’t so much have an account as… well…”

  Ah, screw it.

  “There’s a safe in the back,” I said, raising my right hand and making a fist. I heard the other five of my crew in the lobby snap into action, pulling out their weapons and leveling them at the nearest security guard or teller, or – in the case of Mickie, one of my less intelligent members – an actual camera. “Or a series of safes that contain gold coins. I would like those coins. I’d like them promptly.”

  NPCs didn’t feel fear, but many of them were good enough actors that they’d have you convinced. The tellers certainly played their part, but not this dude. The slender man played his cold, calculating role to a T. I almost had Sebastian wring his neck then and there, but I needed him.

  “Do it. Now,” I said.

  “I will not be doing that today, sir,” the cheeky bastard intoned. He reminded me of a rat masquerading as a man.

  “I assume you’ve pressed the silent alarm, and the authorities are on their way?” I sneered, leaning over the counter. I snatched a handful of his shirt and tie and yanked him forward. It felt good to exhibit some physical power over something. Reminded me of my last build. “You know the cops in this town. You really think they’ll get here before we kill you and clear the vaults out ourselves? You really think they’ll make a difference when they do get here? We’ll kill them, too. And it’ll be your fault.”