“Jason,” Boris said. “What did you do?”

  “You know we’ve been discussing how to demonstrate the power I’ll be bringing to bear, to deter the powers of Earth from doing something ill-advised.”

  “I’d say that clearly didn’t wiven the impending arrival of ic pirates, but how and why do you already know who they are?”

  “It started when a member of the Cult of the World-Phoenix paid me a visit. Now that the liweeh and Pallimustus is repaired, Earth’s dimensional membrane is going to stabilise over time. The World-Phoenix sent me a courtesy message that she was easiris on high-rankers accessih, beginning with gold-rankers. The usual rules on invading domains remained in pce, of course.”

  “And?”

  “Danielle Geller had ahe World-Phoenix owed me a favour, you see.”

  “For what?”

  “I stopped the ic Throne fr to turn her from her current form bato the Boundary. You know about the World-Phoenix’s inal ination?”

  “It was before even my time, but I have heard about it. You keep calling the World-Phoenix ‘her.’ It doesn’t have an actual gender.”

  “She did when we were hanging out, so it’s a habit. Plus, using ‘it’ instead of ‘they’ as the gender-ral pronoun seems weird to me. It feels like treating them as if they weren’t people.”

  “They aren’t. Not irictest sense. Irue state, a great astral being doesn’t have a mind or identity as we uand it. They’re too alien. It’s why they have their prime vessels.”

  “I don’t think that’s erue. Plus, I’m pretty sure most of them were getting into the whole mortal body thing, when they were in my soul.”

  “Well, if they aren’t going to rebuke you for it, her will I. You say the ic Throne was trying to turn the World-Phoenix bato the Boundary?”

  “It was a stant struggle, apparently. It was the reason she agreed to the sundering in the first pce, and fought the restoration. But the restored throne apparently took her current state as the new baseline. No more issues. I didn’t do it that way on purpose, but she still saw it as a debt. Maybe she felt bad about killiens of thousands of times for what ultimately proved to be no reason.”

  “I don’t know, Jason. I think that’s an opportunity many people would relish.”

  “That’s a little hurtful. Anyway, that visit gave Danielle Geller an idea. We’d already been talking about how to manage a show of for Earth, but there were several problems. If we picked a fight with any of the Earth powers, it would u the entire diplomatic approach I’m after. And even if I did, there’s no for Earth that could put up enough of a fight that we could properly demonstrate our power.”

  “I’m starting to see,” Boris said. “You need aernal antagonist. Someone you stand with the Earth against. You asked the Cult of the World-Phoenix te one.”

  “That was just courtesy on their part. The real favour was having the World-Phoenix open this universe up to gold-rankers, but keeping the ban on diamond rankers iil I reach diamond rank myself. The ban wouldn’t be released immediately anyway, but I don’t want other diamond-rankers showing up before I’m ready to deter them.”

  “That’s actually a good idea.”

  “You don’t have to sound quite so surprised.”

  “Jason, I’ve been oh all this time. I saw how you did things here on your st visit, and terrible ideas were kind of your thing.”

  Jason’s expression turned hard.

  “I had no idea what I was doing. I was forced into bad choice after bad choice, and I didn’t see you out there helping, Mr ‘I was here the whole time.’ Where were you, and your army of high-ranking messengers, Boris?”

  “Doing more to help you than you will ever realise. Some of us simply ma without making a grandiose spectacle of ourselves. Did you ever notice how none of the threats you ran into were quite more than you could handle? Almost as if someone was quietly eliminating any threats that would kill you instead of pushing you to grow stronger.”

  “Some of those threats did kill me. Because I took on things no one else could. It’s not like there was an army of angels who could have dealt with it.”

  “We have to maintain a low profile, Jason. If the Orthodox messengers find us here, that’s all the pretext they o ihis world. And, against our best is, we were preparing to reveal ourselves and intervene when huma harvestiy cores. Fortunately, the transformation zoopped f. Thank you for that, by the way.”

  “You’re wele,” Jason said angrily, and the pair sat in sullen silence.

  After a while Boris spoke up.

  “When is Aning here?”

  “She’s on the road now.”

  ***

  Sitting in the back of a car driven by one of Jason’s bnk, shadowy avatars, Anna sighed as she reflected on what her life had bee. On one hand, there was no question that she was at a crux point for the future of the world. The chaos of the st couple of decades had calmed, the ges approag a culmination point. Deade in the few years would shape the age, both for the p and for humankind.

  Oher hand, it felt like the man with his hand on the fulcrum of the world was incapable of taking it seriously. Looking out the window, the city was a mix of vampire movie, Raymond dler novel and the wet dream of a teenager with way too much eye makeup. There was an uy to it, like passing through the pages of a bd white graphiovel. The type where the protagonist was always a grizzled man who died in some mase sacrifice at the end, like a modern-day Spartan.

  The car stopped and the avatar opened her door, holding an umbrel to shield her from the rain. She avoided looking into the single, giant eye it had in lieu of a face. It led her through the building and to the elevator, both of which reinforced the artificial, period-movie feel of the city. The elevator opened onto an old prohibition-style bar where she had to look around through the enclosed booths and dim lighting to find Jason and Boris Ketnd. her was talking, which was odd for both, and there alpable tension.

  “Did I walk in on something?” she asked.

  “Just a difference of perspective,” Jason said. “Take a seat.”

  Anna looked at the booth, and around at the bar. The patrons were indistin the dim lighting, and her silver-rank hearing picked up nothing but muffled murmurs. She suspected specialised privacy magic, tweaked to maintaimosphere. Sliding into the booth, she settled her gaze on Jason.

  “There’s something we o discuss before we get to whatever yht me here for,” she said. “A rger that impacts our broals.”

  Jason didn’t reply, but gave a jerk of the head indig she should tinue.

  “This city is indicative of something that is only going to cause us problems,” she said. “Problems, Jason, that stem entirely from you.”

  She waited fer, or denial. Instead, he leaned back with a ral expression.

  “Please elucidate,” he said.

  “You like to be distinctive, Jason. Irreverent. To pull people into your own pace, and take them out of their own fort zoo act strangely, and make people put up with it, which they do because you have the power to make them. And the more powerful you grow, the more eborate you get, like this ic book city.”

  “I’ve found that the people of Earth are already more than eager to exploit me, Anna. If I stop doing things my way and start toeing whatever lihey wao, that only tells them that I’m within their ability to influence.”

  “You’re wrong, Jason. When you don’t take things seriously, you’re telling people that you aren’t to be taken seriously. That you’re unwilling to promise, to meet people halfway. bined with your power, that makes you e off as a toddler with a rocket uncher. You told me that you want to approach things properly. It’s an assurahat, without which, I would not be a part of this.”

  “Then don’t be. I have you ba New York City this time tomorrow.”

  “Jason—”

  “I am fully aware that I o wear a suit to meetings and not talk about Knight Rider, Anna. I will act with resped yself with appropriate reserve. Does that meet with your exag standards?”

  Jason’s ess was uncharacteristic to Anna’s ret enters with him. She didn’t know if it was his growing proximity to Earth or whatever flict he’d just had with Boris, but knew when to pick her fights.

  “Let’s move on to what brought you to ask me here. I’m assuming it was our visitors from the Uates.”

  “This world has been opened up to the wider os,” Boris expined. “There are rules around intruding on worlds that have not decred themselves open to the iunity, that I will be happy to expin iail ter. What is important for now is that a powerful force will be io deal with Jason, at the behest of certain members of various global powers.”

  “How powerful are they?”

  “Enough that, using the access they’ve been offered, they pluhis world with impunity,” Boris expined. “Which is very much their iion. The US officials came here to warn us, and offer an allian dealing with them.”

  “ we deal with them? Even with the USA helping?”

  Jason and Boris shared a look.

  “Anna,” Boris said. “You still don’t uand what we’ve been telling you about the power scale we’re dealing with. Against the people that are ing, every essence user oh could form an alliand they would still all be sughtered. The only two forces capable of fronting them are my messengers, and the group Jason is bringing with him.”

  “Are you sure? Aren’t these people prepared to deal with Jason specifically?”

  “I was ed,” Boris said. “Until I discovered that Jason was the one whed all of this.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because it meets a need we’ve already discussed several times, without finding a solution,” Jason said.

  “You mean the demonstration of power?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “So, to be clear, you’re saying that you’ve masterminded what amounts to an alien invasion so you beat them to show off how strong you are?”

  “Yes.”

  “You didn’t sider sulting me on any of this?”

  “I did not. You would have taken a signifit amount of time to talk around to this idea, if you could be vi all. Our window to initiate this was small. We worked through a group that is famously difficult to tact.”

  “He’s n,” Boris added. “The Cult of the World-Phoenix finds you, not the other way around. Not unless you get into Iice.”

  “Iice?” Anna asked.

  “We’re not going into that right now,” Jason said. “It’s too much. Boris will expin, after we’re done. Which is better, since he’s actually been there.”

  “I will,” Boris said. “But I also would have liked to weigh in on your decision in this, Jason. ic attention on this world is dangerous to my people. You fight one dimension ship full of pirates, but not a full-blown messenger invasion. Even if they are restricted to gold rank.”

  “Invasion?” Anna asked.

  “Again, for a ter expnation,” Jason said. “Look, Anna, the decision has been made. Now we deal with it.”

  “There’s not much point in being your political sultant if you aren’t going to sult with me, Jason.”

  “I know,” he ceded. “But sometimes that’s just how it’s going to work.”

  “That’s just how it’s going to work? You arbitrarily staging an alien invasion? That isn’t something you just decide for the Earth, Jason.”

  “Yes, Anna, it is. Your job is to keep people from starting a war over it. This pn wouldn’t have worked if the people of Earth weren’t willing to sell out their ow for a ce to get rid of me. We both remember what happe time I was here. How many times did you apologise for the work ing after me? For any of this to work, the world has to accept that I ’t be trolled and I ’t be eliminated. You were the one who said I needed a oo fight, like the Ameris unifying against the vampires.”

  “I didn’t mean stage an alien invasion!”

  “I didn’t. I engineered a situatiohe people of Earth and a manageable enemy happeo find each other. It could easily have happened without my intervention at all.”

  “That’s true,” Boris said. “The Jakaar fleet is always on the lookout for weak and exploitable worlds, and this is within their realm of operation.”

  Anna shook her head.

  “I ime to process this. Space pirates? What the hell kind of—”

  She cut herself off a out a long sigh.

  “You ’t just py with the world like this,” she told him. “Are you so powerful that you do whatever you want, without sequences?”

  Jason g Boris, then back to Anna.

  “I’m sorry,” he told her. “I’m letting old memories y behaviour, when I told myself I wouldn’t. Boris, you please go over everything iail? Answer her questions about the pirates, and the iunity. You know it better than I do anyway. Anna, we’ll talk again when you have more information, some time to process it all, and I’m less on edge.”

  Before anyone else could speak, Jason’s avatar vanished and An out anh.

  “If he’s going to be like this,” she said, “none of this is going to work. I thought he was w on improving his diplomacy. If he’s going to do things like this, without sulting the people he gathered specifically to sult, it doesn’t matter how polite he is iings.”

  “In fairness, he did sult with his people,” Boris said. “Just not the ones here. But yes, this was not Jason at his best. I have to take at least partial bme for that. He and I have never really discussed the fact that I was here during his st visit. That I remained hidden while he felt outmatched, betrayed and alone. Helpless to watch people die around him.”

  “It doesn’t matter what he went through. It’s not about what’s fair. When things g, aarts alienating nations and the magical fas, he doesn’t get a do-over because he has a sad backstory.”

  “No. And he knows that. He’s frustrated because he could quer the world in a long weekend and start running it how he sees fit. He knows how bad ahat is, but it’s a tempting one, believe me. When you have power beyond a certain level, it feels strahat there are any problems you ’t just crush. This p has been my home lohan any human being. I see the injustices, and I get the urge to unleash my people, take over and put things right. But that’s not how it works. As much as it feels like you go in and make things better, you ’t impose positive ge from the outside, using your own principles. Everything you do will turn into poison, usually soohan ter.”

  “You’re sayihat powerful? Waltz in and quer the world powerful? He keeps saying it, but it’s hard to take him seriously whealks as if he were some kind of god-king.”

  “Then you should take him seriously, because he is o’s plicated, because it always is with him, but to my people, it’s simple. We have what we call astral kings, but god-kings is essentially what they are. That’s one of things Jason has bee, and my people aowledge that, even when most of them are his ehey respect him. They fear him and my people don’t fear a lot. When they see him, they try to kill him in a frenzy, run for hills, or kneel down in worship.”

  He slid out of the booth and looked over at the bartender.

  “I know Jason has told you a lot,” he said. “I’ll try to expin what he hasn’t, and give a different perspective on what he has. That’s going to take a long time, so I’m going to order some food. And some drinks. Would you like a drink?”

  “I think I’m going to need one.”