Act One, Scene Eleven
They met at a diner. The Thunderer, who was occasionally paranoid, had explained to Captain Crush that the Titanium Tyrant had made a general policy of hiding video cameras in bars (to find heroes’ secret identities) back when he was a professional supervillain, and why should he stop just because he was a feudal monarch instead of a criminal monarch?
Diners were probably safe, though. Well, mostly safe. And they were outside the Fifth, so that was another reason they’d be fine. They sat in a booth by the wall, drinking non-alcoholic drinks. Intelligence and clarity both mattered.
“This new guy is crazy,” said the Captain. “There’s a pecking order. There’s Seniority. We may be losers, but he still can’t push us around like that.”
The Thunderer considered. “He’s ambitious, that’s all. He’s got a message from the woman who’s pulled Pyre’s ass out of the fire every time he got burned offering Pyre everything he wants, and Pyre doesn’t even want to kill him.”
“You think he’s going to take over.” The Captain frowned. “You think he’s going to shoot Pyre in the back and have himself made Count. Why? It isn’t as though he’d inherit.”
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The Thunderer smirked. “The only family member within two generations is a traitor. Who inherits?”
“The Crown.”
“The same way Reckon got the fourth. The king likes competence. He’s a Continental with powers and armor, he’s fast and he’s smart and if he stops Hood Guy he’ll be on the shortlist for a county.”
“Zero picked him!” Crush hissed. “Ilderia’s dead, Tower’s dead, Alberich’s dead - she’s the only rebel count left, and she’s knocking over banks right and left in America. Where do you think he got the money for that tinker-made armor? The Tyrant’s not dumb, he’s not going to make one of Zero’s goons a count.”
“Who knows he works for Zero? There’s lots of ways to get money.”
“Pyre, me, you…” The Captain opened and closed his mouth.
“Oh, shit.”
“So, we’ve got two options,” said the Thunderer. “We can go tell the Tyrant, or we can pretend we’re total idiots and hope he doesn’t kill us.”
The Captain considered. “If we tell the Tyrant, Nicator will have us both killed. If we pretend we’re total idiots, the Tyrant already knows we’re total idiots, right?”
“Right,” said the Thunderer. “Unless one of them has this room bugged. In which case, either the Tyrant will kill us for concealing information from him or Nicator will kill us for selling him out.”
Captain Crush considered a moment, and then his expression brightened. “No!”
“What?”
“Look, we’ve got this. If the Tyrant has this room bugged, we just told him, so we don’t need to go tell him again, he knows. If Nicator has this room bugged, he knows us telling the Tyrant was an accident because we’re complete idiots! We don’t need to do anything. Just sit here and wait.”
- - -
Victoria shook her head, pulled out the earbuds. “Still not worth hiring a sniper,” she said. “They may not be loyal, but they’re still on the asset side of the column.
“There is no reason to let disloyalty get in the way of victory.”