Love for the Cold-Blooded. Or

by Alex Gabriel

  “That is a nonsensical question,” Nick said at last, flatly. “I would not be a villain. Why would you even —”

  “But if you were.”

  “I would not ever —”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Pat waved Nick’s irrelevant objections away. “Everyone and their grandmother got it, fine. Noted and acknowledged, moving on. If you were a supervillain, Nicholas Andersen, which one would you be?”

  Nick huffed and puffed for a minute longer, but then settled back with his arms crossed over his chest, scowling faintly. It was a thinking pose, and it wasn’t long before he shot another dark glare Pat’s way. “Battleram.”

  It came out so baldly Pat blinked for a second, thrown by Nick’s sudden surrender. Another second and the actual reply hit him, and he snorted out a laugh.

  Immediately, Nick froze, shoulders firming into a defensive line, mouth thinning.

  “No, no!” Pat waved both hands frantically and jumped forward, hopping on the sofa next to Nick to bump his shoulder with a friendly fist. “That’s cool, man. Battleram was awesome. Old school, you know? No fancy stuff, just a real solid grasp of the basics.”

  “I… suppose,” Nick said slowly. He was radiating skepticism, but his posture had once again relaxed into comfortable looseness, and Pat gave him a blinding smile in reward. Nick blinked, seeming slightly stunned.

  Battleram had been Pat’s mom’s mentor, the closest thing Pat had had to a grandfather — a gruff, taciturn old guy with the bushiest eyebrows Pat had ever seen, and a face as craggy as the side of a cliff. He’d moved to the seaside after he retired. Pat and his sisters had visited him over the summer several times, back when they’d all been kids. The man’s lair had been full of medieval siege equipment Pat wasn’t allowed to climb on, and the cookies he’d baked had been tooth-breakingly hard, but absolutely delicious when dipped in milk.

  “Do you bake, then?” Okay, that had probably sounded weird. Pat hurriedly talked on, steamrolling right over Nick’s half-formed response. “What am I saying, of course you don’t. But you like cookies, right? I’ll bring you some one of these days. I bake a mean double chocolate shortbread.”

  Nick opened his mouth, but didn’t say anything, and finally just shook his head, a smile lurking in the corners of his mouth. “You are the weirdest person I have ever met, Patrick.”

  Pat snorted. “Like I don’t know that’s a total lie. You work with Nexus and Star Knight, and you only just met Bitterfly.”

  Nick acknowledged the hit with a small nod. “Which villain would you be, then?”

  “Me?” Pat flopped back to lounge comfortably against the cushions. Wow, this sofa wasn’t just large enough for the entire swim team, but also super comfortable — Pat’s couch had always been prone to poking loose springs into soft places when you grew too complacent, but this was like lying on clouds. If clouds had perfect lumbar support. “I wouldn’t go into that biz for a million thalers, dude. Horrible hours, totally exhausting, and not exactly stable and secure work.” Not to mention no time for your family.

  When Pat looked over, Nick was watching him with strange focus. It didn’t feel bad, though, so Pat just grinned and kicked out a foot to jostle the man’s leg. “I want to build something, you know? I want to make things run smoothly, make sure people can… Everyone wants the chance to do their own thing, right? And to do that you need — well, lots of things, but one of the most basic things you need is a place that lets you live well. That gives you the chance to do what you do, whatever that is.” Pat suspected he wasn’t explaining it very well, but Nick was still giving him his undivided attention, so he went on anyway. “I always wanted to build a place like that. Not a single building, but something more stable and enduring. Even when someone crashes into an apartment block or whatever, or takes out one branch of public transport, there should always be a solid infrastructure in place to catch the slack, so people can go on living their lives and doing their thing. You know?”

  Nick did know, Pat was sure of it. He didn’t say anything as Pat trailed into silence, but it was clear in the thoughtful cast to his expression; the way he nodded slowly, almost somberly.

  There was a small scratch at one side of Nick’s chin. Pat found his eyes drawn to it almost irresistibly… and from there to his mouth. Nick had a surprisingly well-swung mouth; you’d think Silver Paladin’s alter ego should have thin, heroically ascetic lips or something, but no, instead he’d ended up with the perfect mouth for kissing.

  “Pat,” Nick said. Pat watched his lips form the shape of the name, and his heart skipped crazily for a second.

  He wanted to kiss Nick. He wanted to kiss him badly, and it would be easy — they were already very close, Nick nestled into one corner of the couch and Pat sprawled out right next to him. Pat would only have to push himself up and lean over a bit to slide his mouth over Nick’s, feel the shape of his name take form against his own lips.

  But it felt…something had shifted, and it felt strange to be doing this with Nick right now. Pat wanted to, it was why he was here, but —

  “Pat,” Nick said again, at exactly the same moment Pat blurted out “do you ever play video games on these huge-ass screens?”

  Nick hesitated, seeming only a bit more startled than Pat. Where had that come from, anyway? Well, sure Pat had wondered, but —

  “No,” Nick said, infusing the word with a slight questioning lift.

  Right, of course he didn’t. “You are such a loser, dude. How can you have a sweet set-up like this and never use it for the best stuff? I mean, this island scene is real pretty and all, but what else do you do with it? I bet the wildest thing you get up to is watch the news or something, right?”

  Nick blinked. “It’s an ideal display for equations and designs when I work on —”

  “Oh my gods, you need serious help. Lucky for you that I’m here to save you from your chronic uncoolness.”

  Nick was frowning slightly, but it was clear he was more puzzled than upset. More than enough permission, as far as Pat was concerned.

  “AI,” Pat called, raising his voice. He’d never communicated with the AI by any means except data interface, so he wasn’t sure what to expect, but what he got was a low, pleasant thrum that reverberated through the room, sort of a non-visual nod of acknowledgment. Even the sound design was nicer up here in the billionaire’s lair. “Can you get Mars Ascending running on the wall screens? It’s a computer game, you should be able to download it directly from an infoweb store. We need the multiplayer version, needless to say.”

  This new thrum was somewhat lower in pitch, and Pat would have taken it for assent if it hadn’t been for Nick’s sigh. “Confirmed, AI.” He pronounced it ‘Ay’, like a name rather than an abbreviation. “Go ahead.”

  Ah, right. That did make sense — couldn’t have any and all random passersby ordering around the mansion’s system.

  “Request processed,” the AI said obligingly, with no noticeable delay. “Mars Ascending downloaded and available. Graphics, audio and game engine altered for maximum results.”

  Was that a smug tone, or was it just Pat’s imagination? What a suck-up, seriously. Ay clearly had a serving heart so passionate and true that even AHM Suze would approve, though it was made of silicone and electricity rather than flesh and blood.

  “Right then — throw it up on screen, Ay baby! And you, Nicky boy, grab some manual controls from wherever. Datapads are good, as long as we can hook them up to the system.”

  “What a technical challenge. I wonder how I’ll be able to manage.” Nick’s glare would have withered a lesser man in his boots. Pat, who was wearing sneakers, grinned cheerfully until the man snorted in disgust and took himself off to fetch two datapads from a near-by workbench. Like he’d ever had a chance, really. Pat had three older sisters, and thus vast experience in inducing wiser heads to get in on his stunts despite their better judgment.

  By the time Pat had his improvised controller in hand, the AI had dimmed the lights an
d started the intro animation on the screens. It well and truly took Pat’s breath away. Man, he was a genius. The effect was even better than he’d imagined — like they were really right in the middle of space, surrounded by the velvety void of the universe, distant galaxies wound across the darkness in elegant sprawling twists. The consuming blaze of the one star that wasn’t distant flashed by on the right, seen only in a passing glance; the star’s planets whipped past all around them, the point of view arrowing through the center of the solar system into the empty void before veering sharply to dive back in. And there was Mars, looming closer as they swooped down to skim over its surface, the craggy, baleful red expanses of desert and dusky cliffs —

  Pat almost fell off the couch because he was leaning into the movement, caught at the last moment by Nick’s restraining arm.

  “Oh my gods,” Pat said, weakly, muzzily. “This is gorgeous.”

  When he managed to tear himself away from the enchanting view (somewhat aided by the game’s distinctly less enchanting logo shimmering into being across the infinite reaches of space), Nick was watching him rather than the infinite reaches of space opening up all around on Nick’s amazing, gorgeous, genius screens.

  “Dibs on playing the princess,” Pat said quickly, and then cackled evilly as Nick merely raised his eyebrows before shrugging careless acquiescence.

  “Sure, Patrick.” So that was how he was going to play it, was it… as though he was only doing this to humor Pat, and wasn’t actually interested at all? They’d see about that. Pat was willing to bet his Jaguar couch cover — possibly even his BadMadRad album — that the genius of Mars Ascending would spark Nick’s ambition and competitiveness in a heartbeat.

  All hoagies were fighters at heart. All good hoagies, anyway.

  Pat built himself an amazing Princess of Mars, a fierce warrior in red iron armor wielding the Star Shard, a photon sword that shot lasers. Nick chose the Paladin of Pluto and fitted him out with silver armor and the Salamander Shields, which was so sad Pat almost couldn’t make fun of him for it.

  Almost. “I might have figured you’d pick the one character called Paladin and then try to dress him up as you. This is a roleplaying game, you’re not supposed to play yourself, you freak.”

  Nick gave him the judgemental stink-eye. “I’m not the one wearing a metal corset. Do you have any idea what that kind of ridiculous armor design would do to your sternum if you caught a blow to the mphm—”

  He broke off on account of Pat’s palm across his mouth. “Psst! She’ll hear you.” From the left-hand side of the room, the awesome life-sized princess in her gorgeous armor gave them a fierce grin, swinging the glowing Shard idly in one hand. Straight ahead, the paladin bestowed a stern, authoritative glare on them, the Salamander Shields imbuing the air around him with a fiery sparkle.

  The guy did have a great chest, Pat had to give the game designers that. Also, nice back view there. Whoa… really nice back view. Pat had played games with Paladin before, but he didn’t remember ever seeing that butt; he was sure he would have remembered.

  Hang on. Had the AI been tweaking the character designs for attractiveness and improved the Paladin’s butt? Wow, Pat had to hand it to Nick — the man sure knew how to design an AI with the right priorities.

  “You go first,” Pat said generously when the prologue started up, stranding their characters on opposite sides of an inhospitable moon swarming with void crawlers. He half expected Nick to demur out of some misguided sense of chivalry or whatever, but he’d underestimated him. Nick simply nodded blandly, as though there was nothing that mattered to him less, and went first.

  Turned out Pat should have been more cautious. It took Nick two minutes to master the controls and half that time to understand the game play mechanics, and then all bets were off. In no time, he was kicking ass and taking names with moves that Pat hadn’t even known about, like a scary-effective combo of Shield Cover and Solar Grenade that lit up the entire godsdamned hemisphere, nearly blasting the princess into orbit right along with half a battalion of crawlers.

  “Fuck me!” Pat yelled, wrestling his character into a quick spinning tuck that took her safely to the dark side of the moon. Once she was safe, he turned and slapped Nick’s chest angrily. “You have so played this game before, you lousy liar.”

  Smugness played around Nick’s mouth, crinkling the corners of his eyes. “I have not. I’ve never had an interest in video games.”

  Oh, it was so on.

  Nick tried to pretend to indifference for ten more minutes before giving up. Another ten minutes, and they were shoving and yelling at each other as the unarmed shuttle they’d stolen wove through the middle of a pitched space battle, the darkness of the void lit to near-solar brightness by photon bursts blooming all around. In the middle of the princess diving out of the airlock like a total boss, Nick tried to snatch Pat’s controller, shouting something about sticking together. Hello, the paladin should shut up and follow the princess’ lead if he was so eager to stick together, and Pat knocked Nick away and —

  Everything froze into abrupt stillness. Lasers searing through space, the glow of overtaxed stardrives, metal hulls blackened and dulled by weapon damage, and Pat’s super-cool princess stretched out across the entire wall in a deadly lunge, mouth opened in a soundless, bloodthirsty snarl, her power whipping around her like a gathering storm.

  “Mr. West, you have a call,” the AI said into the silence.

  For a moment, Pat blinked in incomprehension. Then, the buzzing of the phone in his pocket caught his attention, and he dug it out hastily.

  It was Cea. Pat frowned at the display for a second before getting up with an apologetic half-shrug to Nick. “Better take this, give me a sec. Can you adjust the combat mechanics a bit? The shuttle’s autopilot is way too defensive a driver. Flyer. Whatever.”

  Nick shrugged, expression falling into stiff unreadability.

  “Hey.” Pat wandered away from the sofa, lowering his voice. “Is this urgent? This, uhm. Isn’t a great time. I’m kinda in the middle of something.”

  “It’ll only take a second. You don’t have to say anything, and the line is secure.” Of course it was. It was Cea, after all. “Guess what, Patpat! Your turn for minion duty is upon you. Or should I say my turn for minion duty is upon you?”

  Well, that hadn’t taken long. “Who is it?”

  “Sir Toby!” Cea paused for effect, but went on after the space of half a breath when Pat didn’t reply. “It’s like your dream come true. Don’t thank me, go ahead and buy me something nice instead to express your gratitude. You have the cash, now that you’re peddling your ass to random hoagies on the side.”

  “Oh,” Pat said, and then didn’t know how to go on. He cast about for a suitable thing to say for a moment before settling on: “Yeah, that sounds good. What’s the timeline here?”

  “There’s a preliminary minion meeting tomorrow morning, with a costume fitting immediately after. Sir Toby’s eager to get the show on the road. The location is secret, of course, so someone will drop by to pick you up bright and early at eight.”

  “Yeah, okay.” Pat exhaled slowly, closing his eyes to gather himself. His mind must still be caught up in the game; he couldn’t find his way back into the real world properly. Even he could tell that his reaction was off, though. He’d never been freakishly enthusiastic about minion duty the way Hell was, but getting to assist a challenger as great as Sir Toby was pretty damn awesome by any standards. Usually Pat would have been over the moon.

  “Patpat?” Cea sounded puzzled. Clearly she’d been expecting him to be more enthusiastic about the news. “Sir Toby’s a big deal. We can’t go in half-assed on this.”

  “No, I know,” Pat said quickly. “I got it. It’ll be great.” And it would be; there was no reason why it shouldn’t be. “No worries, I’ll be awesome. He’ll be singing my praises day and night.”

  Cea snorted. “Yeah, yeah. Now get back to whatever it is you were doing, baby broth
er. And no freebies for hoagies, you hear.”

  Nick was glaring at Pat with extra emphasis when he returned to the couch. Pat guessed it wasn’t good hooker manners to answer the phone in the middle of a session with a client — they could have been in the middle of fucking, after all. What would Pat have done then, asked Nick to hang on a sec while he chatted?

  “Sorry, bro,” he said apologetically. “Scheduling emergency. Won’t happen again.”

  “Sudden urgent appointment?” Nick looked pinched and displeased, all priggishly tight brows and ridiculously straight posture.

  Pat shrugged a vague affirmative as he plopped back down, scooping up his datapad with markedly less enthusiasm than before. His princess was still as glorious and awesome as ever, the frozen space battle still nearly as tangible as the superhero perched stiffly next to Pat. “Whatever. You change the settings?”

  “Patrick.” Nick looked weirdly on edge, and his posture was still that of a man with the Star Shard up his ass. “Pat. I’ve been meaning to ask.”

  Pat gave him the inquisitive eyebrow. For one long, weird moment, Nick just looked at him, expression tense and unreadable; then, he abruptly shook his head and turned away. “Never mind. We have a solar system to defend, so let’s get back to it.”

  They tried, but neither of their heads were truly in the game anymore. Nick was sullen and distracted, glaring indiscriminately at enemies, allies and even their own characters as though all of them had personally offended him. As for Pat, there were too many thoughts swirling around his head to let him concentrate on the tale of Princess and Paladin setting the galaxy on fire. He had to rearrange his schedule for tomorrow, and for who knew how many days and weeks after. He might want to warn his professors he’d be missing a lot of classes. Maybe he’d have to take time off from his night job, too, and…

  Usually none of this would have been much of a problem, but right this moment, it all seemed like way too much trouble. And for what, really? Sir Toby was cool, but… Pat just wasn’t feeling the minion thing.