Act Two, Scene Eleven
Third District Comital Palace
Steelmind stood at the head of the table, his fingers steepled in the best supervillain pose he could manage. Two of his three guests were being smuggled into the house by his paladin-bots as he had planned; his county seat had the personal security of a full squad of the elites, as well as hundreds of the lesser robots. So had his sister’s, though she would not have her meeting anywhere with a computer connection to the outside world. The table was old oak, Victorian; the chairs either were or were good replicas, and the walls were wood-paneled, but in spite of the illusion of antiquity it was no older than any of the other buildings in Novapest. Steelmind had had it retrofitted at the same time he made sure it had the best reception in the palace.
The third had walked up and knocked on the door without anyone particularly noticing or caring. There were some advantages to pre-existing relationships as a way of building factions, and it was on that thought that Julius Balog shared a decorous kiss with his key ally, Junia Domna, occasionally known as Conjure and still trying to think of a better name. Junia was lean, athletic, hair slashed short and ragged, and carried no visible weapons of any sort.
“Another assassin tried to kill me,” said Junia.
“Oh?” He looked at her with some concern. “I hope he’s all right.”
“Oh no!” she said, kissing the top of his head. “I didn’t even think of that! I let a valuable intelligence asset die because I had no powers to inflict nonlethal harm!”
He laughed.
“He’s in your dungeons plus a concussion and minus his right hand.” She patted him on the shoulder.
“Good.” He caught onto her hand for a moment, then released it.
“Don’t think you’ll get much out of him, though,” she said, sitting. “He’s really not good at his job.”
“Probably Elizabeth expressing her feelings about our relationship,” he said dryly.
She sat at his right hand, and the third supervillain to join the meeting arrived. Frederick Rivera, Count Proteus, was lean, hard-edged, balding; at odds with his name. He shook Steelmind’s hand.
“I’m only here to listen to what you have to say, mind,” he said grudgingly. “I haven’t made up my mind yet.”
Steelmind nodded gratefully, and Proteus sat on his left.
Shortly afterwards that the fourth arrived, irritatedly scratching his cheek. He did not look like a Count in the least; he was still wearing a toolbelt. Officially speaking, his name was Steelstorm. He only ever used it as a manufacturer’s mark.
“Sir.”
“Call me Mike,” he said, tired. He glanced at Proteus. “I see the boy brought you here, too.”
“Our sovereign - said he needed to talk.”
Steelmind nodded.
“That’s right,” he said. “I’m glad the two of you were willing to meet me here.”
Call-me-Mike sighed. “You know how busy I am, after that goddamn thief’s run.”
“You managed well when Ilderia made her play,” said Proteus. “And you’re prince-regent or something.”
“Indeed. I am acting as half your king. My older sister,” he said, “is acting as half your queen.”
He paused.
“A house divided against itself cannot stand. These words are as true now as when they were first spoken. No house, no state, and no throne.”
Junia nodded. Mike was slower, but a moment later made the same response. Proteus stood.
“I came for your father’s sake, and you’re plotting against his daughter!”
“I have no intention to kill or injure,” Julius said quietly. “I am plotting how to protect myself from being murdered by her. I will not strike first, but if she strikes I will not wait to be struck.”
Count Steelstorm shrugged. “You know what I’ll do if there’s fighting. Go hide in my fortress. Why do you want me here, specifically?”
“The robot factories are your work. My supply of soldiers is entirely dependent on you. The more forces are available to me, the higher the odds against her and the lower the chance of her being willing to strike first is.”
“Hm. I can manage that.”
Proteus shook his head. “Scheming with the counts behind her back. She is in charge of managing the counts - your father would never do this!”
“How’s your boy John?” asked Steelstorm jovially as Proteus turned to walk out.
He froze, glaring at his fellow Count.
Junia came in as though on cue. “Julius and I were just discussing how unjust his sentence was, but you know how Lizzy is about treachery.”
He gave her a perfectly cold look. “He’s no traitor.”
“Do you think Bloody Lizzy would treat him better if she believed he was innocent?” Steelmind said. “My older sister went through nine pets between the ages of five and eleven, and this is a chance to show her strength.”
“Ilderia was the violent one,” said Proteus.
Steelmind shook his head.
“Ilderia had friends, who she risked her life for. She deliberately refused to target Catherine throughout the war, and made a point of sending her supporters’ loved ones out of the country before and after the fighting began. What has Lizzy sacrificed for anyone else? What has she even risked for anything except her own love of power and glory and violence?”
There was a long pause.
“Whatever else is true, she is my sister. I am not going to kill her. But I have no intention of becoming her next victim.”
Count Proteus sat down.
“I am pleased to have you here with us. Now, with regards to our strategy.”
Steelmind looked around the room.
“My sister has never learned patience, and will strike before there is any chance my father has recovered from his grief. As soon as she does, we must be able to counter it and then to prevent her from striking again.”
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Steelmind nodded.
He paused.
“If my father is unable or unwilling to intervene quickly, we will need to resort to extreme force. Her powers help remove the temptation to use lethal force against her; as she is immune to all kinetic weapons, the only effective weapons we have are directed-energy weapons, primarily electric, magnetic or mad-scientific, which we can use against her if she’s out of her armor.”
“Can any of you think of any way she can be hurt inside Girardoni, aside from electromagnetic pulses and hard radiation, both of which I would prefer to avoid deploying in a populated area?”
“You could do it, couldn’t you?” Proteus said.
“The Girardoni stopped connecting to any other computer systems the very day that open battles ceased,” Steelmind said.
The tall count shrugged slightly. “I could stop her if I could touch her. She’d kill me first.”
“Yes. She’d kill everyone first,” Steelmind said. Junia ruefully nodded.
After a moment - “If no one has any other ideas on this topic...” Julius glanced at Steelstorm.
“Don’t ask me.”
“Very well. Then we move on to the political issue. When my sister attacks, which of the Counts will stand with us?”
He glanced at the table, and a hidden screen in the center lit up with a map of Novapest, the thirteen counties clearly marked. All of them glowed faintly white.
“The Counts of the third, eighth, and twelfth are in this room. The counts of the fourth and eleventh are my sister and her ally, respectively.” The three counties he’d named first glowed blue; his sister’s glowed red.
“This leaves us with eight unaffiliated counties; the first, under Countess Prudence, the second, under Count Heavyhand, the fifth, under Count Pyre, the sixth, under Count Solaris, the seventh, under Countess Livia, the ninth, under Countess Whisper, the tenth, under Count Just, and finally the thirteenth, under Countess Greenrose.”
Those eight kept their glow.
“Of those, Solaris and Whisper act as a pair.” They changed color to a dull gold. “They are also the most important to recruit. Solaris is loyal to my father, but Whisper is ambitious, and the best information I possess suggests that if the war continues for too long, she will convince him to become a third, independent faction, and anything that could be done to bring them to our side would be extremely valuable. Solaris is one of the most powerful supers in the world, a weapon of mass destruction in his own right, and of all the Powers in Novapest only Lizzy might be able to match him on near-equal terms - and vice versa.
“Do any of you have thoughts on how to deal with him?”
“Offer Whisper Tower’s rehabilitation,” Proteus said.
“Not likely to do enough on its own,” Steelstorm added and Proteus nodded ruefully. “Money and whatnot will help,” Steelstorm said, “but they’ve got a kid and he’ll be second in Novapest anyway as the only boy with two counties. Only thing left for him is to be first.”
Nods all around.
“This brings us to the second,” Steelmind said. “Prudence is primarily interested in her own survival. I find it unlikely she would be willing to engage on any side. Unless her daughter would support us?” He looked at Junia, who shook her head.
“Mercy’s mother never listens to her. No high hopes anyway. She doesn’t fight.”
Julius nodded, dimmed Prudence’s light to grey.
“Heavyhand is apolitical, but we might be able to bring him to our side under normal circumstances. However, I understand he quarreled with Alejandro.” He paused.
“He quarreled with Alejandro,” said Proteus firmly. “If the boy’s not dead, he’s fled the country.”
“And,” said Julius, “this means that Robert would be the heir.”
“Poor second district,” Junia said, “if it’s got him as a count.”
“Some of that may be a facade,” said Julius cautiously. “He’s highly intelligent, certainly, but my latest information suggests that he is in Lizzy’s pocket.”
Heavyhand’s county split in two diagonally; one side white, one side red.
“We will need to ensure that we quietly enhance Heavyhand’s security, to foil any attempt by Lizzy or her agents to assassinate him.”
Steelstorm snorted. “Kill Heavyhand!”
“You don’t think it likely?”
“He’s taken every separate shot from Minerva’s sixfold blaster and kept going. He may not hit as hard as he used to, but unless Lizzy’s willing to do it herself, there’s not much her assassins can do to him.”
“Poison,” said Junia. “The way Livia would do it. Or asphyxiation, or drowning. There’s lots of ways to kill someone that don’t involve stabbing them.”
Julius nodded soberly, and Steelstorm flipped a hand up in surrender.
“The fifth county,” Julius continued, “is under Pyre’s mismanagement. Pyre is personally very powerful even if he only has three knights and insignificant military forces. Fortunately, he should be extremely easy to recruit. I understand he is in debt to the tune of more than nine hundred million dollars, and the interest on that sum is greater than the fifth county’s reported GDP. We could bring him to our side very easily by offering to pay off the debt.”
Count Steelstorm removed a phone from his pocket, began typing on it. Taking notes on the meeting? He wouldn’t be that stupid. More likely he’d come up with an idea for a new weapon and wanted to remember it.
“Do any of you have objections to this plan?”
“Is he worth nine hundred million?” Junia asked.
“Will Elizabeth make the offer if we don’t?” Proteus countered.
“Precisely. We have considerable wealth which we can draw on and which we will have no use for if we lose. All we need to do is approach him and offer to pay off the debt if he and his knights and his ‘soldiers’ join us.”
Steelstorm looked up. “His army does include some sentry drones. They were good models, when I sold ‘em - but he hasn’t been doing maintenance on them. Doubt they’ll last much longer.”
“Then we’d best make use of them while they’re here,” Julius said. “If no one else has any comments, we’re moving on.” He looked at Junia Domna. “Livia Domna, Countess of the Seventh. Who controls the single largest non-robot army on the island.”
There was a pause, until she felt bound to say something.
“She exists, unfortunately.”
“Politically speaking, she is your mother.”
“No, I just share a couple genes with her. She is, literally, a murderous fascist. She buys children with genes she likes so she can torture them as a way of turning them into her slave-soldiers.”
The supervillains just looked at her puzzledly.
“She’s a horrible person,” said Junia. “Who hates me. And I hate her. The only way you could get anything out of her would be if she was dead and then you’d want to burn her to ash and bury them in consecrated ground.”
“Worth considering,” said Julius, and she laughed.
“I’m well aware you weren’t suggesting matricide. But she is not my mother, nor even my mother-in-law, and so I trust in your... expertise, regarding Livia. I believe her order confirming you as her heir still stands?”
“No. I’m not going to try to kill her,” said Junia. “Anyway, they’ve been trying to kill her since the thirties, and it hasn’t worked.”
Julius shrugged.
“Like my sister, I have access to the royal files on her. She isn’t even bulletproof; all she has is the usual Idealist top-percentile physical conditioning, fast healing and pain resistance, added to which are disintegration powers and an army of bodyguards. How would you recommend killing her, Mike?”
“Hire Azure.”
Proteus smiled drily.
“Hey,” said Count Steelstorm, “if you want it done right...”
“Agreed,” said Julius. “If we want to kill her, hiring a reliable professional would be the most certain record. We don’t at the moment need to risk it - a failed assassination attempt that could be traced to us might be enough to push her onto the enemy side - but the time may come...” He considered. “I don’t believe we have enough expertise at stealth to frame my sister for trying to assassinate her. Nor the same for the other neutrals.”
As if to mirror the second county, the seventh was divided into two parts, one blue and the other a new sharp green.
“She is neutral to us, or a potential rival, so long as she lives.”
He pushed his glasses up.
“The Tenth County, then. ‘Just,’” he said, in audible quotation marks. “We didn’t find the evidence until recently, but you should be aware that he funded Ilderia during the war.”
Proteus’s lips narrowed. “A trimmer.”
“Yes. He’s personally within an order of magnitude as rich as you are, Mike,” Julius said, and Steelstorm raised a rueful eyebrow.
“Second place?” he asked, and Julius shrugged. “Probably.”
“He’d be an ally of ours if he was less craven,” Julius said. “His business would suffer under my sister. But I would not trust his oath of loyalty if he gave it.”
He dimmed to gray.
“Of course,” he continued, “the same pattern holds for the countess of the Thirteenth.”
He looked at the thirteenth county with distaste.
“Greenrose sold out her friends and benefactors for money. I expect she will serve us for more money, and that will be simple enough to get for her. We’re offering Pyre nine hundred million; we can double that and there should be no problem.”
Nods around the table.
- - -
“No,” said Greenrose. “In fact, hell no. You can tell your boyfriend to take his eighteen hundred million and shove it up his ass.”
Livia’s daughter gave her a frazzled look. “It isn’t like I want to bribe you.”
“Yes, that’s rather the problem, isn’t it? If you did want to bribe me,” Greenrose said, “I probably wouldn’t be so offended. Now shoo. You can tell your boss I won’t accept his sister’s offer either, if you like. If she makes one.”
“You made your name being bought and shouldn’t be offended when someone tries to buy you,” snapped Junia.
“I wasn’t bought with money,” said Greenrose. “Nor, thank you, have I ever been. Nor do I intend to be. Now get out.”
She was still sitting in the same seat an hour later. There had been four shields against the outside, four superheroes guarding Saint Andrew’s island, and now there were a hundred by the law and none in fact. How long had it been, she wondered, since she’d been trusted? Not since she’d first killed a friend - not since she’d crossed the only line that had ever mattered.