Final Empire

by Blake Northcott

  “Sure,” Dzobiak said with a nod. “But that proves nothing. One of them could have just been damaged. Or on the fritz, maybe?”

  “I’m not buying it. It’s too big a coincidence. And besides, New York State just renewed their contract with the Frost…er, Moxon Corporation this past Summer, so most of these units were brand new.” I’m still getting used to the sound of my last name being attached to the word ‘Corporation’. It looked obnoxious printed on my business cards and letterhead, but it sounded insufferable coming out of my mouth.

  “So someone disabled them,” Dzobiak said plainly, but sounding marginally more convinced. “Let’s say that’s true. Who did it?”

  “You’re the detective, dude. Start detecting.”

  He let out a short laugh. “All right, well you’re the smartest man alive or some such shit, so why don’t you give me something to go on?”

  “Northern Fringe, power grid,” I commanded, and my wrist-com illuminated once again. The map re-appeared, displaying the same geographical area, but this time a series of bright blue lines ran beneath the streets of The Fringe. “The more affluent parts of New York run on a combination of solar and nano generators – those CDUs are very difficult to disable because there are no power cords to cut. But this part of the Fringe…” I ran my finger along the lines that converged with the glowing dots, “still runs on standard electricity. It’s the ancient wiring that’s been there since the 1970s, and it won’t be swapped out until my thorium reactor project begins next year. The superhumans chose to fight here, right where they knew the units were disabled.”

  “Okay, so someone cut the wires in advance,” he conceded. “And that someone is probably long gone by now. I know I’d be.”

  “Maybe not…there are security cams everywhere in The Fringe, not to mention people walking the streets pretty much twenty-four-seven. It would be a huge risk to tamper with a unit when you know someone is watching. You’d have to be invisible.”

  Dzobiak knitted his brow. “Wait...there’s a bunch of invisible people walking around New York? When did this start happening?”

  “There always have been.” I double-tapped the holographic map and a live feed winked open. It was a street-view camera from downtown. A pair of teenage kids in torn winter jackets sat on the sidewalk, propped against the wall of an abandoned post office. They were clutching cardboard signs as tourists strolled by without offering so much as a sidelong glance. “All you’d need is a screwdriver and some wire cutters. I doubt anyone would notice if one of the homeless were paid to disable the CDUs.”

  A light sparked behind the detective’s dark eyes. “Find the kids who snipped the wires, and we have a lead on the superhuman son-of-a-bitch who won that fight.”

  “And whoever put them up to it,” I added. “Ask convenience stores if any regulars have been using large bills instead of loose change.”

  Dzobiak opened his wrist-com’s interface. “I’ll put some blues on it right now and get them to canvass the area.” He was about to start typing a memo when an incoming message icon blipped into view on the corner of his HUD.

  “Answer,” he commanded.

  “Todd?” A shaky voice projected through the com. “It’s Marty at the front desk. Remember when you told me to tell you if something was ever…you know – going on? Like something bad? Like, for example, if someone was—”

  “Spit it out, Marty,” Dzobiak cut in.

  “R-right,” the officer stuttered. “Well those ‘people who shall not be mentioned by name’…they’re here. And they look really, really pissed. Like, a lot.”

  Dzobiak clicked off his com. “You’ve got sixty seconds,” he blurted out, his deep baritone voice more panic-stricken than I’d ever heard it. “Maybe less.” I’d never seen the stoic detective this rattled, and it sent a shot of ice-water through my veins.

  “Holy shit. I’m going to call my lawyer.” I had barely finished my sentence when a pair of footsteps clacked outside of the interrogation room.

  Santiago flung open the door. “There you are, you slippery bastard.” She was accompanied by a hefty, well-dressed man with graying hair and a thick moustache. “He’s all yours.”

  “That’ll be all, Santiago,” the man grumbled. “Thank you for your assistance.”

  She nodded and walked off, but not before sneering at me like a petulant child.

  Dzobiak painted on a grin, turning to the figure that loomed in the doorway. “She’s a peach, isn’t she?”

  The man lumbered past the threshold, overwhelming our senses with the stench of cigar smoke. He yanked a leather wallet from his overcoat and let it fall open, exposing a glittering bronze badge with an emblem I’d never seen before, though the acronym splashed across the crest in bold letters was unmistakable: S-T-C.

  “You’re excused as well, Detective.” He brought a reddened fist to his mouth before barking out a series of rapid-fire coughs. “I’ll be speaking with young Matthew alone from this point on.” The way the man enunciated the word ‘alone’ was foreboding.

  Dzobiak shook my hand and wished me luck before leaving, slamming the door at his back.

  “I’m Walter Wells, Director of the Superhuman Terror Commission.” He slid off his overcoat and squeezed into the metal chair across from me, barely able to maneuver his legs under the table. After a few uncomfortable groans and another hacking cough he commanded his wrist-com to bring up my file.

  “I’m in the middle of calling my lawyer,” I said, finger poised over my wrist. “If you’ll just give me a second to—”

  “Lockdown,” he shouted to no one in particular. My com’s wireless signal immediately died, and the interrogation room door latched shut behind us. A pressurized suction hissed from around the frame, which I assumed was a soundproofing measure. “You won’t be in need of any legal counsel, Matthew. You’re not under arrest.”

  “So I’m free to go?” I asked, not making any attempt to mask my sarcasm.

  “You’re free to stay seated,” Wells grumbled, his face reddening, his unkempt white eyebrows creasing together with agitation. “And get comfortable, we’ll be here for a while.”

  This was a shakedown. It had to be. There was no possible way that the NYPD or this new commission could believe I had anything to do with the attack, although if what Detective Dzobiak told me was true, I wasn’t sure this guy needed any concrete evidence in order to lock me away.

  “Every block of The Fringe is monitored by security cams,” I explained, motioning towards his com. “Pull up the footage and you’ll see exactly what happened this morning.”

  “I’d like that, Matthew. But there’s one little problem.” Wells displayed what was supposed to have been the security feeds. Video windows blinked open, hovering above the table, but they showed nothing but static. “Every camera for miles around the crime scene had been disabled the night before, along with the CDUs. Convenient, wouldn’t you say?”

  I could feel the heat rising in my face, perspiration gathering on my brow and upper lip. “What about satellite imaging? Or bystanders who were there recording the fight? I didn’t do anything – the video will prove that.”

  “We’re waiting on confirmation from Langley,” he said gruffly. “If a satellite was monitoring the area we’ll review it, but at this point it looks like a long shot. And no one has come forward with personal recordings, so that’s probably a dead end, too.” He brought up photos of the crime scene, taken just moments ago; the decimated city block littered with bodies and debris; cars overturned and lamp posts toppled. “So far we have a dead mystery woman, three dead cops, several million dollars in property damage…and you, standing at a crime scene wearing battle armor.”

  “I didn’t kill that woman,” I shouted, leaning forward on my elbows. “Or the cops in the helicopter. And if you’re concerned about property damage I’ll pay for it right now. Call the mayor. I’ll cut her a check for triple the cost.”

  “This is about more than just money,” he s
houted, pounding his bloated fist into the table’s metal surface. “I’m not going to allow a terrorist attack to go unpunished on my watch.”

  I shook my head, blurting out a caustic laugh. “I’m a terrorist, now? That’s interesting, because I thought I was the guy who spent billions of dollars to repair The Fringe after the last attack. Doesn’t that strike you as the exact opposite of what an actual terrorist would do?”

  Wells coughed again and grumbled something under his breath. He poked a pudgy digit into his com, triggering photos to cascade through the air; photos dating back to the original Arena Mode during the summer of 2041. “I’ve reviewed your career, Matthew. Colorful, to say the least. Several confirmed kills, including Cameron Frost…”

  “That was completely sanctioned. I had every right to defend myself.”

  “Then,” he continued, “there was the incident in Toronto.” He pulled footage of a man sailing out the window of the CN Tower in a whirlwind of water and shattered glass. It was an overhead view, likely captured by a satellite. “You hired a superhuman to do your dirty work on this particular occasion, leaving a waiter dead.”

  “He tried to kill me!” I shouted, throwing my hands in the air. “I’d just been stabbed. My bodyguard jumped in before he could slice me into fish sticks.”

  “Mmm.” With another swipe he displayed a crime scene photo from Fortress 23 where Valentina – the bodyguard in question – lay motionless, face down in a crimson pool. “And then after you no longer had use for this superhuman assassin, you electrocuted her to death on your property in Alberta. Convenient, since the land had recently been declared a sovereign nation. No laws, so you couldn’t be convicted of any crimes.”

  “You’re twisting the facts, here.”

  “Am I?” He poked his com twice more and the holographic slideshow disappeared. “You have a history of violence, and a history of using superhumans to kill on your behalf.”

  “I have a history of protecting the Fringe. I’ve spent the better part of this year transforming this dilapidated pit into a livable city.”

  His shoulders bounced a few times and he breathed out a snort. “Matthew Moxon, ‘Mister Philanthropy’. I know you’ve been dolling out billions to fix the damage caused in last year’s attack, and I’m sure the citizens appreciate it. I’m sure the Mayor appreciates it too...as well as your sizable campaign contributions.”

  Wells shot me a self-satisfied, knowing glance, as if what he’d just said was the equivalent of moving a piece into checkmate.

  He wasn’t wrong. I had given the Mayor a significant contribution early this year in the hopes of getting some face-time with her. Standard operating procedure when an investor wants to get an ambitious project off the ground, at least according to my lawyers. The contribution was completely above-board, though it’s not like my company had issued a press release to brag about it. If the director of the STC had this much information on me, he didn’t get it on the flight over here; he’d been tracking me for quite some time. And thanks to whomever was setting me up, he probably had even more information that he was keeping under wraps.

  Sensing this impromptu Q and A couldn’t possibly be going any worse, I let out a shaky breath, trying to calm my frayed nerves. “Look, I don’t know what you think all this means, but this picture you’re painting, this isn’t who I am. You don’t know me.”

  “Oh, I know a lot about you, Matthew. Quite a bit more than you realize. But what you don’t know about me is that I’m new to Homeland. Up until six months ago I’d spent my entire career with the Securities and Exchange Commission. I came out of retirement just to pursue this case.”

  “You came out of retirement three hours ago?”

  “This case opened back in April during the attack on The Kremlin. And you’ve been our prime suspect ever since.”

  Shit. It was worse than I’d thought.

  “And,” he continued, “six months later here you are, sitting right across from me. Just like I knew you would be.” Wells tapped a finger into his temple. “I know how guys like you think, Matthew, because I’ve put a hundred of you behind bars.”

  “Like me...?”

  “We’re in Manhattan,” he explained, “the epicenter of the world’s economy. The megatowers in this city are filled with loaded pricks just like you. Smug little jackasses who have more money than they know what to do with. You’re all the same. And in the end, you all get caught for the exact same reason: you get complacent. Complacency leads to boredom, and when people get bored, they screw up.”

  At this point I was so frustrated I’d almost wished he would arrest or shoot me just to end my suffering. Maybe that was his strategy: continually spew out piles of bullshit until I finally broke down and confessed. He was no longer trying to extract information. He was toying with me.

  “Wow, that’s deep. Ever think of putting that on one of those decorative plaques that people hang in their bathroom?”

  He snorted again, his lips curling beneath his silver moustache. “At the SEC I bagged Wall Street scumbags all the time, and it was always because of just one, stupid slip-up. You made your mistake, Matthew. You couldn’t set up the game and walk away, could you? you needed a front row seat.”

  I scratched at my forehead in mock confusion. “Maybe it’s just your dizzying intellect that’s throwing me for a loop, but I’m not keeping up with your line of thinking.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said sharply, “Allow me to elaborate. This is precisely what happened: after the ‘Occupy Fortress 23’ movement ended and you were in the clear, things got boring. Ten months of being domesticated and you went stir crazy – we used to call it ‘cabin fever’ when I was a kid. No more superhumans to fight, no more Arena Mode, hiding out in your fancy tower with nothing to do...then one day your big brain gets an idea: now that you’re a billionaire, you can start an Arena Mode tournament of your own.”

  “What?” I blurted out. He couldn’t have possibly been suggesting what I thought he was.

  “Sure,” he said with an exaggerated shrug, “it’s illegal here in America. You could have gone to South Africa or the United Arab Emirates, and started a tournament somewhere sanctioned, but what’s the fun in that, right? You’re Matthew Moxon: the guy who literally gets away with murder. Why play by the rules?”

  “I never wanted to kill anyone,” I said as calmly as I could manage, though I’m sure my eyes told a different story.

  “At first,” he fired back, leaning in on his elbows. “But it got addictive, didn’t it? The carnage, the chaos? The god-like power to take someone’s life on a whim? So you set up a network of superhumans to fight to the death in a populated area for your sick amusement, but even that wasn’t enough for you. Just like Frost, you had something to prove. You wanted to jump into the fray, be part of the action.”

  “This is such bullshit,” I snapped, gripping the arms of my chair so firmly I felt like I might tear them off. “I don’t have to sit here and listen to this. I know my rights, and I want my lawyer. Right fucking now.”

  Director Wells’ voice grew eerily calm as he carefully selected his next few words. “I don’t think you understand the gravity of the situation here. There is no lawyer on the way. There never will be. As of right now, with the power granted to me by the government of the United States, I am officially revoking your citizenship, Matthew Moxon. You are no longer an American.”

  “What the fucking fuck? You can’t do that!”

  “I can,” he stated plainly, “and I just did. Homeland has been doing it ever since the terror attack in The Fringe, and I’m doing it now.”

  He pulled a pad and pen from his jacket pocket, sliding it across the table’s polished metal surface. “This is how things are going to work, Matthew: you’re going to tell me how and why you killed that woman in The Fringe. Then, you’re going to tell me where your jet flew off to, and give up the names of every accomplice, including a list of every superhuman who has agreed to participate in your per
verse little game. Depending on how forthcoming you are, I’m going to decide what we do with you next. If you tell me something useful, it’ll be twenty-five years in Hell’s Kitchen Penitentiary, no parole. If not, you’re coming with me for enhanced interrogation.”

  I studied Wells’ bloated face, trying to resist the urge to reach across the table and bury my fist into it. Sweat, pupil dilation, facial ticks – I took it all into account…he wasn’t bluffing. He believed I was really responsible for what had just occurred, and he had the power to do exactly what he was suggesting.

  This was it. I had no lawyer, no constitutional rights, and I was no longer even an American. Once this session was over, the most likely scenario was me in handcuffs, staring at the inside of suffocating black bag. And then, if history was any indication, I’d be transported somewhere in the world where the rules surrounding interrogation were much more relaxed – and I’m sure the definition of ‘enhanced’ was synonymous with car batteries and jumper cables and something to do with my testicles.

  Too often we’re paralyzed by choice. It’s a bizarre human phenomenon: if we’re presented with too many options we freeze up, our brains unable to make a quick and rational decision, even if one or more of the options seems desirable. And sometimes the opposite happens. I knew where this was heading, and I knew exactly what I had to do. The decision was made for me.

  I snatched the pad off the table, flipped it open and began scribbling. “Hmm…that sounds like a really good offer,” I mumbled without looking up. “But I actually have a pretty good counter-offer. I think you’re going to like it.” Once my illustration was complete I held it up for his inspection, just inches from his face. It was a doodle of a hand – my hand, specifically – giving him the one-fingered salute. “How about this: I tell you nothing, and you can go suck a bag of dicks.”

  “You little shit,” he barked, lunging across the table. He grabbed two fistfuls of my t-shirt but I quickly shrugged him off, jamming a palm into his pasty face. I leaped to my feet and kicked the edge of the table, launching it forward into his sizable gut. He doubled over, letting out a woofing sound as he collapsed. I’d hoped the dry snap that echoed through the room was his ribcage.