Mastermind

by Steven Kelliher

  “Of course, Starshot won’t go down so easily next time,” B5 warned, seeming like he was talking more to himself than to me. “But I’m certain you have already accounted for that eventuality.”

  “What?” I asked, so lost in my own thoughts I hadn’t considered the obvious. It dawned on me just before B5 said it.

  “Surely Starshot benefited from your Rivalry bonus as well,” he said. “She may have come up on the losing end of your exchange with her, but that was only after she had already blasted Scale half a mile away. She defeated you once before and has doubtless been doing smaller-scale missions in Titan City too. If I were a betting man, I’d hazard a guess that her Fame has outstripped your Infamy in short order. At the very least, she’s now tier five as well. The computer says so.”

  “Son of a—”

  Starshot

  Tier 5 Hero

  Threat Index: Moderate

  Mind: 40

  Brawn: 10

  Agility: 25

  Armor: 10

  Charisma: 15

  Superpower: Righteous Rays

  Description:

  Starshot harnesses energy from the sun, merging it with her cells to power projected radiation, causing damage and significant concussive force. She may release energy however she pleases, in short bursts or one massive attack, so long as she has energy to do so. This allows the hero to fly, hover, release defensive or offensive bursts, all through the same energy source.

  Starshot may focus all her energy into a single blast. Doing so grants her a 30% damage bonus, but saps her energy reserves to zero, leaving her vulnerable.

  Current Energy Capacity – 80 (Scales with the mind stat)

  Base Regeneration Rate – 12 energy regained every 15 seconds

  Regeneration in Direct Sunlight – 24 energy every 15 seconds

  I couldn’t worry about dealing with the upstart hero right now. There would be time for that later. Who knows? Maybe she’d had enough of me. That, or maybe she was bright enough under all that faux heroism and shiny bluster to realize I was through playing, in a manner of speaking.

  “Okay, let’s focus on the now,” I said. “What should be our next play? What do we need more than Luther’s tech and Sebastian’s charm and Carlyle’s dread?”

  I heard the big man bark a laugh behind me and then a curse as another member of the crew was left to shoulder whatever burden they’d been carrying as Sebastian composed himself.

  “I know you’ve had your eye on Marks, the mercenary,” B5 said.

  “I have indeed,” I said carefully, looking sidelong at B5 while the computer brought up an image of the masked arms dealer. “He’s not just a secondary source of tech, B—”

  “Guns,” B5 clarified. “Not tech in the way Luther imagines it.”

  “He’s not just a purveyor,” I continued, “he’s said to be one of the best shots in-game. That includes heroes and villains.”

  “A stretch,” B5 said. He dipped his head at my steady stare. “Fine. Let us allow that this Marks is a good shot, especially from range.”

  “Useful in a pinch,” I argued. “Would have been very useful last night.”

  “Not as useful as my proposal,” B5 argued. He was bold. I’ll give him that. “You are on the right track. You should be searching for eyes. Just not the kind positioned behind iron sights.”

  I rolled my eyes. B5’s green orbs dimmed as he saw it.

  “You’re going to bring up the damn rats and snakes again, aren’t you?”

  “The Dens are some of the most influential businesses on this side of the bay,” B5 said, beginning his sermon for the third or fourth time.

  In all, there were three Dens scattered throughout the more populated areas of War Town: Rat, Snake and Rabbit. Though all three were centers for illicit activity, they each had their specialties, and both NPCs and top-level villains frequented the establishments, either for some quality roleplay or to keep an eye on their fellows. Sometimes, on rare occasions, players even used the establishments to conduct official villain business. As I well knew by now, villain alliances were rare, but not unheard of. And making trouble at a private meeting in one of the Dens was met with swift retribution, both by and on account of the member NPCs and the member villains.

  In the beginning, the clubs were owned and operated by AI-installed NPCs. They didn’t last long, lacking the cunning and mental fortitude to deal with ambitious players who saw the clubs and their underlings as potential gold mines of, well, gold. And favors. Not to mention security. Even some of the mightiest heroes in Titan City would be signing their own death warrants by making trouble in such highly trafficked areas.

  The Rat Den was known for snitches, after which it was named. The proprietor was a villain known as Maestro. He had eyes and ears all over the Warrens, and likely throughout much of Titan City itself. The Snake Den was rife with soldiers. Experienced guns, knives and everything in between. Originally, all had been NPC mercenaries, until players filled the niche. If you had enough gold, you could hire out alliances. You only had to hope you had paid more than the next guy or gal who wanted you dead. It was relatively safe to hire out a Snake or two once, but making a habit of it was bound to get you bit.

  The Snake Den was the establishment of a pair of sister players. Well, their characters masqueraded as such. I had no idea if they were related in the real world. I didn’t know their names, only that their superpowers were steeped in agility and mind, a combination I found unsettling to think about. They were also tier-two villains, and partners through and through. A villain partnership of that magnitude was only topped in rarity by danger, and I wanted nothing to do with them.

  Finally, there was the Rabbit Den, the home of a player known as Anastasia, whose power – it’s in the name – was to resurrect herself when she was perm’d. Sounded OP until you considered the fact that she had to trade a full tier to do it. Still, it was a potent power, and one that gave the player one of the longest life spans of anyone in-game. Despite having been killed before – how many times depended on who was asking – Anastasia was an OG villain, and was still sitting pretty as a tier one.

  Anastasia had won the Rabbit’s Den – then known as the Cat’s Den – in a game of chance and threats against the previous villains of the sometimes-rival, sometimes-ally Rat and Snake Dens. She had then taken to renaming it, and nobody knew why. Surely a cat was more threatening than a rabbit.

  I always supposed it had something to do with luck, and that Anastasia had transitioned the former gentleman’s club into more of a gambler’s paradise was in keeping with the tradition. Still, she had to be up to something behind the scenes. Something more than rolling dice and collecting bribes. She was tier one – multiple times – for a reason. She had been killed – multiple times – for reasons. And nobody who’d ever given the order had lasted long after.

  In short, Anastasia was one of the most threatening players in the game. And, for some reason, B5 wanted me to risk getting on her bad side.

  “B,” I said, adopting a tired tone, “it just isn’t something we’re going to see eye to eye on.”

  “Think of what could be learned by having someone on the inside of Anastasia’s operations,” B5 said, doing his best to approximate what he must have considered an earnest tone. “General.” He leaned forward with his silver hands held out in front of him, miming the act of proffering something to me. A bowl, perhaps. “Think of the information that passes through the Rabbit Den. That passes through Anastasia’s ears. She knows everything. Villain movements, territories, networks, alliances – both real and surface. Her reach is vast. And I’d be willing to bet that reach isn’t limited to this side of the bay alone.”

  It was times like these that reminded me of B5’s origins. He still thought of everything in terms of a potential invasion, first and foremost. Sometimes, I wondered if he was blurring the lines between my mission and his by mistake, or if he was trying to nudge me in a direction more suited to his Ythilian pro
gramming.

  As it would happen, a much closer threat was in the offing that night. One we should have seen coming.

  A static crackling sound filled my ears and set them to ringing. Luther had installed speakers in some of the stalagmites on the center platform of the base, along with master and individual switches built into the supercomputer. It would allow me to give orders to my men with transmitters in the field, either as a group or individually.

  My momentary annoyance at the disruption gave way to worry. I looked at B5, hoping that whichever of my men triggered the system had done so by mistake.

  “Who is it?” I asked. B5 nodded at a button Luther had set into the planning table in the center of the platform. I shook my head and pressed down. “Who is it? What’s the emergency?”

  Static came back in, and then a gargled voice over the comms.

  “That sounds like Brooks,” Sebastian said. The big man was busy carrying another pine crate toward the entrance to Luther’s subterranean lair. He set it down as I beckoned him over.

  “Where is he?” I asked him.

  Sebastian shrugged. “Down at the yard, I think. The junkyard, that is. Remember the one you and the star girl—”

  “Yes, I remember it!” I shouted. Sebastian seemed taken aback, and I tried to rein in my emotions. “Yes,” I said more calmly. “I remember it.”

  “He’s there.”

  “What’s he doing there?”

  “Collecting materials for the tinkerer,” Sebastian said. “Like you told us.”

  “Who is with him?” I asked B5. After glancing at the droid, I looked around the chamber, trying to count which of my men were present.

  “Vincent, maybe?” Sebastian said, scratching his stubble.

  B5 had made his way over to the planning table. He tabbed away on the keyboard set into the side and a faint blue light emanated from a disc in the center of the table. It seemed to create a fog effect, and soon enough the whole table was enveloped with an opaque mist.

  “Does the map work?” I asked.

  “Should do,” B5 said with a shrug.

  “Locate Brooks and Vincent.”

  The planning table flashed with a gray-white burst that was followed by a flicker of red. The mist began to undulate, shifting until it solidified into a topographical map of the junkyard and surrounding environs. The area was northeast of our current position, on the northern side of the graywater rivers that separated the docks from the inlets in the bay.

  Two red dots flickered to life. They seemed to be standing still on one of the snaking trails between the junk mountains.

  “Try them again,” I said, fearing the two men were already dead but knowing I’d have been notified if that were the case.

  B5 pressed down on the receiver. He didn’t speak audibly, but the lights behind his eyes adopted that strobe effect.

  “Desp… Des…”

  My eyes widened as I turned toward the droid.

  “Despot?”

  “Vincent?” I asked, leaning forward.

  “Brooks, sir,” came the panicked reply. He sounded out of breath.

  “What’s the situation, Brooks? Have you found something?” I was still hoping against hope that the situation wasn’t quite as dire as it sounded.

  “Not exactly, sir,” he said, breathless. “More like something… someone found us.”

  My heart froze.

  Blackstrike.

  I knew it before Brooks gave the response.

  Madam Post had said the villain was preparing for an assault on her sometime soon, which meant he likely knew about me, and about our association. I had no doubt that he had learned of my battle with Starshot. Why else would he be at the junkyard?

  The smoky mound beside the red dots on the planning table began to shift, and static feedback echoed throughout the base once more. I turned a sharp look on B5 and he cut off the audio feed to Vincent’s transmitter, which must have been damaged in the initial attack.

  “What’s happening, Brooks?” I asked. “Talk to me.”

  “Big one,” he said. “Came right through the mountain like it was paper.” He sounded even more out of breath than he had before.

  “And the other one?” I asked, leaning forward. My breath started to sweep some of the mist away, distorting the three-dimensional image below me. I stepped back and it resolved. The two red dots were beating a path south, toward the docks. Right toward the river my base bordered.

  “Above,” Brooks said. “Smaller. He’s tracking from above.”

  “Are you two armed?”

  “One gun between us. Vincent has it.”

  I thought about telling him to shoot, but something about the whole situation just wasn’t adding up. If two tier-four villains wanted to kill a couple of low-level NPCs, they would have done so. Instead, they seemed to be toying with them. As far as I could tell, neither Vincent nor Brooks had actually sustained any damage. Again, I would have been notified by the AI if they had.

  “They’re hunting,” I said, more to myself than anyone else. Sebastian and a few of the other men in the crew had gathered around the planning table. They watched the red dots scamper through a maze of misted mounds with fearful expressions.

  “Sir?”

  “Keep running,” I said. “Run toward the river. Jump in, and we’ll pull you out once you’re downstream.”

  “Vincent can’t swim.”

  I didn’t respond. Instead, I looked up toward the iron stair behind us and the entrance to the tunnel.

  “You won’t reach them in time,” B5 said.

  I knew it was true.

  “Another one!”

  “Damn it,” I said, gripping the table. The red dots had stopped a stone’s throw from the river’s edge. They now stood side-by-side.

  “Who is it? Describe him.”

  “Big, but not as big as the one behind us. He’s… green. Wait… is that Scale? Scale, is that—”

  A new bout of static and one of the red dots winked out.

  Alert: Vincent has been killed.

  Sphere Update: 1 Slot Vacated. 16/20 Slots Filled.

  “Brooks!” I shouted.

  “Vince—”

  “I know. Get out of there. Don’t try to fi—”

  I heard shots ring out. It was difficult to tell whether they were coming from Brooks or one of the others in the scene. We couldn’t see the players on the map. For an instant, I thought Scale had betrayed me. Had led my men into a trap. I heard him roar and Brooks yell.

  The roaring sound continued, but it faded, and a much closer sound took up the bulk of the feed. It sounded like panting.

  “Brooks?”

  “Running… sir. Run… running.”

  “Is Scale—”

  “He’s fighting—”

  Another burst of static as the red dot met the river and then disappeared into it.

  “Up!” I shouted at Sebastian and the others. “Go to the river and fish him out. He’ll be here soon if he survives the current.”

  I looked at B5, wondering what I should do. He read the situation and came to the same conclusion.

  “Scale won’t last long against two tier-four players,” I said.

  “No.”

  I looked down at the map and watched the vapors swirl, though it could tell me nothing.

  “Pull him up on the supercomputer.”

  B5 rushed over to the panel and tapped away. After a few seconds, Scale’s ugly visage filled the screen, along with his stats.

  Scale HP: 32%

  “General?” B5 asked, turning toward me. I swallowed.

  Scale HP: 24%

  It was too late. I knew it was too late. And yet, I very nearly gave the order. I very nearly sent my men to their deaths, and myself along with them.

  Scale HP: 4%

  He was in the respawn window. Now it only remained to be seen if they really meant business, or if they were just looking to farm some Infamy, send a message to the players on this side of the
docks, and retreat.

  We had our answer before the thirty-second respawn window was up.

  Scale’s ugly, boney face filled the screen and then darkened, and a bright red X crisscrossed the visage – his death, emblazoned and final.

  I stood there slack-jawed for what felt like an eternity. The rest of the crew had long enough to either drift closer to me or farther away, depending on their level of intelligence. Even Luther banged open the entrance to the cave within the cave below the platform and poked his goggled head out, wondering why his next cache of materials was taking so long to arrive.

  “Get the crew together,” I told Sebastian.

  B5 inched closer to me. “General, I think we should first consider whom we might be up against—”

  “Now.”

  There was no further argument. If these guys had done in Scale, it meant I couldn’t be far behind. I shoved more sentimental thoughts to the side. I had connected with Scale the previous night. It was true. His death probably meant yet another player rage-quitting what had once been the greatest game in the world, though I hoped against hope he would make another character and find us.

  But nobody followed the old rules any longer. If Leviathan killed, why wouldn’t lowly villains?

  Well, if that was the case, I’d be happy to oblige them. We’d let the chips fall where they may.

  Sixteen

  Rendezvous

  The vibe was decidedly… not good.

  I don’t know what else I was expecting, meeting with two hostile villains beneath the belching chemical towers and the latticework of iron and plank walkways of the War Town plant, but I’ll say it anyway. The vibe was not good, and neither the stasis gun at my hip nor the shock spear across my back and beneath my cloak did anything to change it.