Act Two, Scene Twelve
Jay had tested the building with twenty different kinds of anti-spying detectors as soon as he learned it was the one Count Fear had chosen, and as a result he was the last of the four to arrive in an old coat turned inside-out, a frazzled wig, tall shoes and a limp. It was the best he could manage on short notice.
Lizzy had officially driven off in a car to go to some sort of county meeting, and had arranged for her shapeshifting bodyguard, Mase, to take the trip for her, while she took Mase’s part and vanished into the mists. It was a simple matter for Were, her captain, to let the other members of the guard take care of business, remove his mask, and walk into the crowd an ordinary man. All of this Jay had expected when he arrived.
The fourth member of the group, he was displeased to discover, had simply shrouded himself with an aversive psychic aura to provoke strong don’t-notice-me in others and taken moderate precautions to avoid robots.
“That isn’t going to work on Steelmind,” said Bloody Lizzy. “You know he has cameras everywhere.”
Count Fear waved a hand. “Please, queen. This is my county. If I don’t know it, who does?”
Jay considered himself entirely heterosexual, which still meant that he had to remind himself that the attraction he was feeling was the fringe of Fear’s emotion-projection as he boiled around Lizzy. Whatever his tastes were, Fear would be his last choice.
Jay shifted his chair slightly away from her. She didn’t seem to notice it at all, ignoring the artificial emotions Fear manufactured the same way she ignored everything that wasn’t either an obstacle or an opportunity.
“All right, everyone,” she said. “This is the planning meeting for killing my brother and making me queen.”
There was no response, aside from Were nodding.
“There’s no need to screw around with lies. You’re my lieutenants, not sheep, and the situation is actually pretty simple. My father’s retired and left me and Juli in charge. As long as Dad’s alive, we can’t start anything.” She paused. “Now, I’m not talking about killing him. Morality aside, that’d be stupid - all the older Counts and Knights would try to kill me, just for revenge. But he’s an old man, and he hasn’t been keeping track of his health, and he’s not bothering with safety any more now that he’s got nothing to live for. One of these days. He’ll touch the wrong wire with bare hands and then we’ll be fine.”
She leaned back in her chair, putting her feet up on the table.
“So. Right now, we figure out who’s scheming with Julius. Whenever one of his people breaks a rule, we drop on them with both feet. We want to make sure that they’re ‘killed resisting arrest’ if it’s cheap to do it - only except him, of course. He needs to live, though if he gets beat up a little it shouldn’t be a problem. But it should be over pretty soon; in a month or in a year, maybe one of the assassins after Dad succeeds, maybe he just has a heart attack. When the Titanium Tyrant dies, the fighting starts, and we win.”
She pulled a coin out of her pocket, flipped it casually. It held the eye of every man in the room.
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“I’m yours, of course,” said Fear.
“Of course,” Were added. “Who else?” said Jay.
“Nobody’s seen your brother for a few weeks, have they?” Lizzy asked Jay.
“No,” he said. “I can’t think where he might have gotten to.”
“Cut the crap,” she said. “We’re in private.”
James raised his eyes to heaven. “I believe he decided to take a trip to the States. Rather in a hurry. He seemed to believe that our father was irritated at him.”
Count Fear laughed. “Was he?”
“Even more after he vanished.”
“Does that make you the heir?” Were asked.
“Not if he returns and reconciles,” Jay said.
“You think that’ll happen,” Were said.
“God alone knows,” he said with a grin. “But this is only a long-term advantage to us. Until he dies he’ll give me nothing but money and precious little of that.” He hadn’t set out to ruin his reputation, just to make the pain stop, but that was before he’d discovered that he had a chance even without the right genes. Now it was an asset he couldn’t have bought.
“Something can always happen to unfortunate parents,” said Fear. “They very rarely watch their step.”
“My ‘unfortunate parent’ made a career out of fighting the Survivor,” Jay said. “He was the only brick to be made Count for a reason. Still, if something could be arranged, we would have three of the thirteen Counts firmly on our side, while he has only Steelstorm as a firm ally. The other eight -”
Bloody Lizzy coughed.
“I know how my brother thinks,” she said. “He thinks this is ‘a military affair’. He thinks he’s playing chess. Be careful you don’t make the same mistake, Jay. We aren’t going to fight a war. We’re going to kill them. The other eight Counts don’t matter. What matters is how hard we can hit the first time anyone throws a punch.”
James didn’t say anything. She’s right. If they tried to fight a war, Steelmind would win. They’d die the same way Ilderia’s troops had died, trodden under the mechanical feet of the Royal Army, given by the law to Steelmind and hacked by the power, if necessary, of Steelmind. Even he had no idea how deep under the palace the warehouses went, where all the troops not ‘necessary to maintain order’ were stored.
“Were.”
“Ma’am.”
“We have twelve Knights.”
“I do.”
“How many more can you get if things heat up? We need people who’d be willing to move on a moment’s notice. Smart, tough, loyal to a contract if not to me.”
His response was immediate.
“None safely, who I can trust, for a decent price. Drop the loyalty standard a little, I could put together three or four independents into a hit team, or hire one of the teams that’s out of prison, but there’s no way of knowing that they’d stick with you instead of getting bored.”
Seeing she was disappointed, he shrugged. “Most professionals looking for a boss have one. Most of them who are still independent don’t play well with others; either they’re not professional or they want to be archvillains. I’ve been picking them up where there’s a great deal, but there’s normally not. A month ago there was a good crew dissolving and I might’ve picked up a few from it, but they’ve all moved on to new jobs at this point.”
“If money is no object?”
“Two if you gave me a month, another three or four if you’d give me two years. Hell, if money’s really no object, we can hit a Continental prison and cherry-pick some B-rankers, maybe even an A or two. But that’ll be loud and get us into trouble. The more money you spread around...”
“The less safe it is,” she said, sing-song reciting a creed, and James flinched visibly.
“We do have one more advantage,” said James quietly. “I’ve been hearing rumors of a superhero causing trouble, mostly in Pyre’s district.”
“He’s hit mine, a few times,” Fear admitted. “Nothing significant.”
Were looked annoyed at himself. “I hadn’t heard.”
“Supposedly, he has very strong magnetic powers,” said Jay. “And the alloys that make up Steelmind’s robots are magnetic.”
Bloody Lizzy smiled. “Do you think we can recruit him?”
Were shrugged. “Plenty of white hats put on a black once they’ve had a few weeks or months of hard work and no pay.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” James said, making a note.
“Is there anything else?” Lizzy asked. “If not -”
Jay coughed.
“Yes, Jay?”
“I don’t suppose there’s any Serum #24 in the royal armory that no one’s watching?”
Fear chuckled. “You want powers that badly?”
Jay ignored him. “A few dozen vials at least. If all that matters is how hard we throw the first punch...”
“Good idea,” said Bloody Lizzy. “I’ll take care of it.”