Final Empire (31 page)

Maybe the reason I’d been so at ease with the prospect of going into cryogenics was that it was simply another level of isolation. A bubble within a bubble. Another way for me to bury my head in the sand and pretend that the world wasn’t falling apart all around me, and that so few people were willing to put themselves on the line to make an actual difference. 

I shook my head. “If I go to sleep now, I don’t know what kind of a world I’ll be waking up to.”

“So what’s our next play?” Gavin asked.

“I’m going to pay an old friend a visit back in The City. Someone who’s going to give me some answers.”

“Manhattan?” Karin asked. “Want me to warm up the TT-100?”

I nodded. “Yes. I just need to grab something from my room before we go.”

The elevator opened into a small, sparsely-decorated waiting area,
with soaring windows looking out towards the Manhattan skyline. Beyond the tasteful brown sectional and matching reception desk was a wooden door with a shimmering gold name plaque. I marched towards the door and was summarily intercepted. A slender man with a manicured goatee and a hot pink sweater vest scurried from around his desk, frantically waving me off. “Where do you think you’re going?” he shrieked. “You aren’t on the itinerary!”

I ignored him. When I buried my foot into the door the lock snapped off the hinges, spiraling into the office, skidding across the marble tiles. A cameraman shot me a horrified glare, and a young woman standing behind the mayor gasped and dropped her curling iron. Across the opulent room a pair of shocked maids stood at a towering glass cabinet, dusting and polishing a lifetime’s worth of awards and trinkets and shiny baubles.

“Mister Moxon,” the Mayor said, rising from her chair, her voice barely registering surprise. She wore a blue blazer and matching skirt, chestnut hair that was streaked with silver being curled and pinned into place – no doubt for one of her weekly addresses. “I didn’t know we had an appointment scheduled?”

“I already called security,” the sweater vest shouted from behind me, his high-pitched voice shrieking like a cartoon chipmunk.

“No, that won’t be necessary,” she said with a dismissive wave. “Tell them to stand down. And everyone, please give us the room. Whatever Mister Moxon has to say must be very important.”

The hair stylist and camera man gathered their equipment and shuffled out of the room. The maids followed closely behind, pulling the broken door closed behind them. Without a latch it re-opened a crack after the door bumped up against the splintered frame.

“Gregory, take an early lunch,” she called out, and waited for him to board the elevator with the rest of the team before saying another word.

The mayor and I kept our eyes traced on each other until we heard the elevator doors slide shut.

“Now,” the she said, her expression darkening, “what the fuck was
that
all about, Matthew?”

“Abigail, we need to talk.”

“That’s what schedules and appointments are for,” she said sternly, rapping her fingernail against the face of her wrist-com.

I held both my naked wrists up for her inspection. “Yeah, I tried planning everything out before…now I’m just sorta winging it.”

“Fair enough,” she said, dropping back into her leather seat. “You have three minutes.”

“A multi-billion dollar donation only purchases three minutes with the mayor? You’re more expensive than your buddies in the senate.”

“And you’re wasting my time,” she said icily.

“Fine,” I replied. “Three minutes is plenty. I only need one. What the hell happened to Todd Dzobiak?”

“You saw the news, same as everyone else. Meth head. Stabbed him sixteen times.”

“Yeah, I saw the guy they arrested,” I scoffed. “He looked like a real killer: a ninety-eight pound toothless junkie…and yet he somehow came out of a life-or-death fight without a scratch on him. Todd was the size of a New York Jets linebacker.”

She shook her head and dismissively riffled through some pages on her desk. “I don’t watch baseball, so that reference is lost on me. What I
do
know is that the detective was in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Shit happens.”

“Shit happens?” I shouted, leaning over the table. “I’ll tell you what
my
theory is: I think that the detective kept running into resistance when he was investigating Kenneth Livitski, and he was tired of being silenced. He was going to expose the truth: that America’s fearless leaders are scared to death of this superhuman messiah, and some of them might even be a part of his fucked up cult.”

Her severe eyes met mine. “I think your minute is up.”

“He forwarded me the footage, you know. I could leak it. All of it. Right now.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what footage you’re referring to.” Her mouth twitched. Left eyebrow fluttering. Slight redness appearing around her ears.

“I think you do. And I think you know a hell of a lot more than you’re telling me. I’m not exactly an expert in politics, but I know that when I
do
leak the footage, I could mention that you gave it to me.”

“No one will believe you,” she said, painting on a tight-lipped smile. “It’s a lie, and I’ll sue you for slander. And I’ll win.”

“You’ll sue the richest man on the planet?” I laughed. “Good luck, Abby. I’ll tie you up in court for
years
with my army of lawyers. And in the meantime, I’ll finance whomever wants to run against you. You’ll be the disgraced liar who sold out her own country, and I’ll be the billionaire living in my private fortress where no one can touch me.”

She studied me for a moment, a bead of perspiration rolling from her brow. “I see you’ve made up your mind,” she said sharply, snapping off her words. “Fine. I’ll show you something. But first, a warning: a single word of this leaves my office – if the media gets even the faintest whiff of what I’m about to tell you – I will find a way to reach down your throat, pull out your intestines and play jump rope with them.”

Holy shit.
By the stone-cold veneer that glossed over her steely grey eyes, I somehow believed she could actually make that happen.

“My lips are sealed,” I promised her.

She expanded a map of the world from her wrist com, where dots had been placed at several different locations. Random cities that had no real significance – a town in Argentina, a rural area of Tazmania, a Siberian ecological preserve – all time stamped with a date and number.

“See these dates?” she said, motioning to the holographic map. “Each one corresponds to a dead superhuman somewhere in the world. And each number represents how many followers he or she had at the time of their demise.”

Eight superhumans dead, twelve thousand, four hundred and twenty-two followers. And I had a feeling I knew where they all went to live after their deity had been disposed of.

“Kenneth really
is
wiping out all of his competition…destroying false prophets.”

“I’m not saying that,” she said, quickly and fiercely. “I’m giving you some statistics, nothing more. I can’t confirm or deny who did what, or where.”

“Uh-huh. And you’re
not
just sitting on your ass along with the rest of the sycophants, doing nothing while he kills whomever he pleases. As long as he stays off of American soil, right?”

“It’s more…” she paused for a moment, letting out a shaky breath. “It’s more complicated than that, Matthew. Sometimes the enemy of our enemy is our friend.”

These spineless bastards don’t worship at the altar of The Living Eye, and they aren’t too scared to move against him. They’re scared of the next Sergei Taktarov – scared of what might become of these superhumans, gaining influence with more and more followers. They’re giving Kenneth Livitiski a license to kill, likely arming him with intelligence and resources, allowing him to locate these targets, snuffing them out quickly and quietly.

“Have you ever read a history book, Abigail? Because when the good ol’ US of A trained and armed the Afghans to fight the Russians, it didn’t turn out so well for us in the end, did it? Especially not New Yorkers.”

“Don’t you lecture me about loss,” she flamed, rising to her feet. “My mother worked in the North Tower. I was a thirteen year-old kid and I lost
everything
that day. You think I
want
this caped maniac flying around the world assassinating people?”

I folded my arms over my chest. “Well you’re not doing much to stop it.”

“I’m the mayor,” she shouted, “not the fucking president. I don’t have the authority. I don’t have the
power.
”

“I don’t have much power either,” I admitted. “Not compared to Kenneth Livitski, or the US government, or even the average run-of-the-mill superhuman. Not really. But I’m going to
use
the power that I
do
have. I’m going to try.”

A ping from the elevator door chimed, and a moment later her assistant slinked back into the office. “I’m sorry, Missus Mayor, but your next meeting is…well, he’s here. Waiting downstairs in the lobby. So…”

I didn’t take my eyes off of her. Reaching into the front pocket of my jeans, I pulled out the key to the city – the oversized gold-plated trinket that was more or less a three pound paper weight. “One last thing,” I said. I wound up like a Major League pitcher (even lifting my front leg for dramatic effect) and whipped the key into her cabinet like a fastball, shattering every award and glass ornament on display. “You can have this back.”

I shoved my way past her assistant, stormed out the door and stepped into the open elevator.

“Missus Mayor,” I said coldly.

She stared back at me and replied with a small nod. “Mister Moxon.”

The elevator doors slid shut.

Todd Dzobiak’s frigid January funeral was absolutely gutting.
I held Peyton close as the freezing rain pattered our umbrella, gazing through a crowd of stoic uniformed officers and grieving family members.

His children wept while their daddy’s casket, draped in an American flag, gradually lowered beneath ground. His wife fell to her knees, sobbing, begging God for her partner back. I knew them only through stories Todd had told me and from seeing the occasional photograph; even if I’d known them personally I wouldn’t have been sure of what to say. What silver lining can you possibly offer when a husband and father is senselessly killed, torn from his loved ones in the prime of his life?

After some kind words from co-workers and family, Mayor Baldwin took the podium. She expressed her deepest regrets for this senseless act of violence, pledging to prosecute the killer to the fullest extent of the law. She then granted Todd’s family a ceremonial ‘key to the city’, as was her go-to move when honoring someone’s achievement. I wondered if it was the same key I’d thrown into her trophy case the day before, or if she just had a cardboard box filled with gold-plated trinkets stashed somewhere in her office, liberally handing them out like lollipops at a doctor’s office (given her previous vocation as a family physician, it wouldn’t have surprised me).

When the funeral had ended, Peyton and I made our way across the damp cemetery towards our rental car, and a shrill voice screamed my name. “Matthew Moxon! Is that you?” A fresh-faced reporter raced up beside me, trying to steady his camera as he jogged.

“No comment,” I grumbled, picking up the pace. Since Arena Mode I’d remained out of the spotlight as much as possible, always refusing photo ops and turning down interview requests. I’d hoped to retain at least some measure of anonymity. I’d always assumed that an average height, average looking guy with short brown hair was generic enough to blend into a crowd, but in New York City my face was instantly recognizable.

By the time Peyton and I were in our SUV we’d been surrounded by paparazzi, snapping photos, palms slapping the hood and windows, begging for a quote. I offered the one-fingered salute as I sped off, knocking two reporters backward who were trying to prevent me from pulling away. If one of them wanted to sue they could take it up with my lawyers in a decade once I’d been thawed.

We arrived at a nearby landing strip and Karin flew us back to Fortress 18. I prepared for my evening’s activities.

“To Todd Dzobiak,”
I said, reaching across the hardwood table, clinking my stein against Gavin’s.

“To the detective,” he repeated, before downing his entire Guinness with three massive gulps. He wiped the foam from his mouth with the back of his sleeve and slammed the glass down. “So, what are we doing here, Mox?”

“Consuming alcohol.”  I motioned to the side of my half-empty cup, eyebrows raised. “Partaking of the libations, destroying precious brain cells…”

He narrowed his eyes, clearly unconvinced. “Here? In Glasgow?”

The Scottish bar I’d dragged Gavin to was a three-hundred-year-old stone mansion on the outskirts of town which had been converted into a pub. It was a brilliant patchwork of ancient and modern, and I’d wanted to visit for longer than I could remember. Time-worn tables that had been in use since the place was built, scarred and battered from centuries of wear. The crumbling grey walls and iron chandeliers added to the charm, and the bar relied on a network of candles to illuminate its dim interior. Patrons chortled and chanted and clinked glasses all around us, as you’d expect to see in any popular water hole on a Saturday evening – though that was only half the reason people gathered here. The upper levels of the mansion had been outfitted with immersive virtual reality rigs. Unlike the relatively cheap headsets that were commercially available, these full body units took things to the next level: bungees suspended a user from the ceiling, giving them a full range of motion; light sensors detected even the most subtle tick or muscle movement; and contoured compression bandages could replicate nearly any physical sensation. Coupled with next-gen oculars and audio implants, they could experience any fantasy setting imaginable. Ever wanted to be an international superspy? Pull off a heist? Fight an army of orcs while riding a fire-breathing dragon? If you’ve imagined it (or seen it on film) it’s probably available. With the world seeming to perpetually teeter on the verge of political, economic and social disaster, drinking yourself into a blackout was no longer enough to take your mind off of the misery that surrounded you. Venturing off to an entirely different world for a few blissful hours was the next step in escapism.

“I know you too well,” Gavin continued. “You wouldn’t drag me halfway across the world for a pint unless there was a damn good reason. If you wanted to toast your buddy we could’ve done that at the fortress.”

“Can’t I just spend some time with my bro? Just to…you know – ‘bro out’ a little bit?”

He laughed and unbuttoned his white collar, loosening his crimson power tie. “That sounded almost convincing.”

“Give me a break, Gav. I’m gonna be frozen solid soon. Let me at least do some damage to my liver before I get locked in the box.”

“Hey, I’m not complaining,” he said with a small wave of his hand. “I’m just glad you’re not in the freezer yet, and I get to spend a little more time with my ‘bro’.” He looked me in the eyes – the uncomfortable stare that men only reserve for other men when they’re feeling especially sentimental (or have downed enough alcohol to loosen their inhibitions). “I’m gonna miss you, man.”

I smiled and offered a tiny nod. For someone who rarely expressed human emotions, I’d been experiencing these odd, foreign sensations lately…Peyton refers to them as ‘feelings’. I’ve been told it’s perfectly acceptable to have them, and even that crying once in a while wasn’t off the table. I’d cried very recently, though, so I felt like I’d filled my quota for the year. “So,” I said, clearing my throat. “Another round?”

“Always!” He jutted his hand overhead, glancing around the darkened room for our waitress, before adding, “This round is on you, by the way.”

“Hey, the
last
one was on me.” I blinked hard, trying to jog my memory. “At least I
think
it was.”

“Glad your brain hasn’t deteriorated to the point where you can’t perform simple mathematical equations. You are correct, my brilliant friend. And the
next
one will be on you as well.”

Once Gavin had ordered additional beer, and a plate of deep-fried Mars Bars to go along with it, he continued with his line of questioning. “So are you gonna tell me why we’re here, or do I have to start guessing?”

“I met with the mayor of New York,” I explained. “She told me what happened to the detective. He was getting too close to exposing them, so he was killed.”

Gavin spit a mouthful of beer back into his stein, eyes snapping open. “Holy
shit,
dude. She actually admitted that they had him executed?”

“She didn’t know who did it, but she pretty much admitted it was a cover-up. And there’s more. Kenneth is apparently America’s newest ally. All this time I thought he was a loose nuke, but he’s not; he’s an invisible drone, being used to take out superhumans around the world who have power and influence.”

“Wait,” Gavin said, lowering his glass. “How does America know they can trust him? How can they be sure once Kenneth has wiped out the rest of the big boys he won’t just go into business for himself? That’s the scary thing about monopolies…when there’s only one game in town, the consumers have nowhere else to go.”

“That’s exactly my point,” I sighed. “Everyone who wants to worship at the altar of a superhuman will end up on The Living Eye’s doorstep, and before long he’ll have an army. The shit is about to hit the fan, Gav. The riots that Taktarov’s followers caused earlier this year will look like the Macy’s Day Parade compared to what’s on the horizon.”

“So you had to tell me all of this in Scotland because…?”

“It’s Brynja,” I finally admitted. “She keeps telling me I’m ‘thinking too loud’, whatever the hell that means. I needed to get as far away from her as possible because I
have
to think about this. I need to talk about it with someone impartial.
And
I have to consider the possibility that Kenneth…”

“That he really
could
be the next Sergei Taktarov.”

“No,” I said, my voice etched with sadness. “I’m worried he could actually be worse.”

“Brynja is tight with Kenneth, right?”

“Yeah, they met early into the Arena Mode tournament and they formed a quick bond. She trusts him – always has. And she wants to believe that somewhere beneath this insane new exterior is the old Kenneth she used to know.”

“You want to believe that, too,” Gavin said thoughtfully. It was a statement, not a question.

He was right.

“More than anything,” I sighed. “But I saw his eyes when we met back in Switzerland. This crazy, swirling madness…he’s so far gone.
Too
far gone, maybe. Something has to be done. Something drastic.”

Gavin glanced from side to side as if to scan the bar for eavesdroppers. “So your mind is made up?” he asked, leaning forward. “You’re just gonna whack him?”

“It’s not that simple. I’ve killed people before, but it was different during Arena Mode; it was life or death, me or them. I’m not an executioner, and I’m not going to murder one of my friends, no matter how crazy he’s acting.”

“Then what?”

“I need to try and talk him down,” I explained. “One last time. Maybe he’ll listen to reason.”

Gavin peeled off his suit jacket and unbuttoned his sleeves, rolling them to his elbows. Despite the gloomy weather and chilly temperatures outside, the air was uncomfortably thick inside the pub, warmed from hundreds of sweaty bodies and burning candles.

“I always wanted to start my own business,” he began. “Ever since I could remember. While my friends played video games and hung out in holoforums, I’d spend my free time reading these autobiographies about the most successful businessmen on the planet. I wanted to know how they did it, how they went from nothing to billionaire. As a kid from the Dark Zone I was starting at as close to ‘nothing’ as I could get, so you can imagine these were the stories that interested me most. A lot of them were really fascinating, and some were even inspirational. But then I started reading news stories about exactly
how
these giants of industry built their empires. It’s scary how similar they are: someone has success selling computers or fast food or popular fashion, and they get a few million bucks in their bank account. They expand over the years, grow their operations, and then, before long, they’re cutting corners; ten-year-old kids sewing their shirts, genetically altered foods soaked in pesticides, employees building wrist-coms on assembly lines who are forced to work so many hours they die from dehydration. All to add a few dollars to their bottom line.

“The guys at the top
all
started as naïve bright-eyed kids, usually running their businesses right out of their parents’ garages. Most of them kind, well-meaning people just wanting to make a difference. Before long they’re running soulless conglomerates that are doing so much more harm than good.” He shook his head slowly, staring into the freshly-poured amber liquid foaming at the top of his glass. “I’ve always wondered how these guys sleep at night. They must
know
what they’re doing – the blood that’s being spilled to just to pad their bank accounts with a couple extra dollars that they’ll never live long enough to spend.”

“What’s your theory?” I asked.

“That they surround themselves with ass-kissers who tell them it’s all okay. ‘Group-think’, ‘hive-mind’, call it what you want: it’s a powerful concept, Mox. And a dangerous one. Get enough believers to agree with the same thing and nothing becomes too horrific – no atrocity too great.”

I groaned. “That’s bleak as all hell, Gav. True, if history tells us anything, but very, very bleak.”

“That’s business, my man. And business is life. Kenneth is quickly becoming the president and CEO of his own twisted corporation. And ain’t
nobody
gonna tell the boss that he’s wrong. No one ever does as long as he’s holding the power. The Living Eye is going to keep getting gold stars from his expanding horde of maniacs no matter what he does.”