A Waken 19.4
One of the cruelest truths is that things simply don't happen at the speed we want them to.
It works both ways too.
The best moments don't last long enough. The worst seem to drag on forever. Weirdly, I think if anyone actually bothered to time it, they'd probably even out but who goes around timing their misery or their happiness? Well, I sort of did but that was a… We'll call it an occupational hazard and leave it at that.
"How long would it take them to write that article?" Weld asked.
Around the room, others looked to me with the same question. Mouser jokingly called us the 'cabal' but we weren't any different from the top of any typical leadership structure.
Chris had his arms crossed, one of two members of the Wardens who represented them in these meetings along with Jouster. Weld sat in a firmly built wooden chair at one end of the table for the Irregulars. Dean and Talia for Londo Bell's general unpowered membership, and Tombstone and Badger represented the independent capes who weren't part of a larger team. The Business, a rogue from Portland, sat in for the non-cape parahumans, rounding out representative membership for everyone in Londo Bell and wanted a say in how it was run.
No pressure.
"Don't know," I answered. "However long it takes to confirm what information they can and make up their minds about how to handle what they can't."
Weld nodded.
"Not sure how to feel about that." Dean leaned back in his seat, staring at the ceiling. "Press is a gamble. Azrael managed to keep manipulating it even after you proved he was a murderer."
"Proving something is true and convincing people it's true are very different things," I told him. "David has left skeleton after skeleton in his wake. People have even talked about them, but things are moving so fast in such a rapid fire fashion. A lot of the accusations have been overlooked or he's twisted them back."
"Constantly claiming Administrator is dangerous," Business noted.
He was former Elite, but a younger member than his name and demeanor would suggest. With Agnes Court now in prison for sedition, the rogue cape membership had held an election and picked him to be their voice. He still dressed like Elite though. Nice suit and gloves, a domino mask, and very well-done hair.
"Yes," I confirmed. "And about as many people have made a decision about that as have taken Alexandria's claims seriously that David has gone off the deep end."
I glanced at the TV, watching as the news about Eagleton finally broke. The government had noted Administrator's presence battling the Machine Army, but they'd taken their time deciding how to announce it. Now that they had people were asking the obvious question.
Why would someone who wants to destroy the world go around dealing with evil man-slayer robots?
"What exactly do the Travelers know?" Badger—a gag hero who clearly loved Mouse Protector but couldn't quite mimic her energy—looked at the other faces in the room. "I still feel like I'm playing catchup on all this stuff no one ever bothered keeping the Wards filled in on."
"The Travelers were from Aleph," Dean reminded. He'd carefully absorbed everything the first time I told it to him. That David had his grandfather killed—and nearly himself as well—maybe gave him more personal investment. "The Simurgh brought them here and then David used them to go after Cauldron before Façade wised up and started going after David."
"And one of their members became half of the villain named Coil," Weld added.
"The other half was Thomas Calvert," I filled in.
Jouster nodded. "Right. And everyone knows he was a Teacher's pet. So they finger David and their connection to him goes right to shady things he did."
"Basically."
"But Alexandria already accused him and he doesn't deny it."
"He wants people to think he did what he did to stop a corrupt organization," Veda elaborated. "That his actions are justified due to the severity of the circumstances."
"But it's easy to pretend the ends justify the means when the means are faceless and amorphous," I determined. "David…" I paused for a moment and closed my eyes. David may as well have killed Noelle himself. It would have been less cruel than what had happened to her… But I didn't feel like making that remark. "The Travelers never set out to be villains. David turned them into villains and people got hurt. Noelle died. It's a lot harder to ignore when they're pointing fingers at him, accusing him of lying and manipulating them."
Jouster followed along, then asked, "And this Marie person?"
"One of Cranial's kids," Chris answered, giving me an odd look because this was the first time I'd openly admitted that the group as a whole was still out there. "Coil arranged for Cranial to be in Brockton Bay. Staged the entire incident with the dead children too."
"As bad as what Cranial did was," I reminded, "I think it's worth remembering she didn't kill anyone. She lost it and she went over the deep end of crazy, but she never set out to hurt anyone. Coil did that."
"And Coil consisted of two Pets." Badger sighed. "Fuck. Sorry. This is just so convoluted. It's the kind of thing thinkers come up with but when you're not a thinker it's just—" He threw his hands up.
"No worries," Jouster offered. "Most of us are still playing catchup and we got filled in months ago."
"Years of shadow games will do that," I said. "It should all be coming to a close soon. David has too many skeletons in his closet from years of schemes intended solely to bring the Protectorate and the PRT crashing down. If I said it myself it would seem opportunistic, but when reporters just running leads say it?" I shrugged. "He was finished before we began. It was only a matter of time."
I didn't know if it was cruel or hilarious, but similar questions were being asked about Scion himself. His reputation in life had been as a distant and powerful figure. The one 'cape' the Endbringers ran from but who seemed so distracted saving cats from trees that he was never as helpful as he could have been.
That just wasn't striking anyone as 'alien ender of worlds' from the outside.
I think David honestly believed Administrator was dangerous. It was his experience. The last time a golden alien went flying around he was dangerous.
But the world, by and large, didn't know that. Alexandria had calculatedly talked around it in her hearings. She'd made it out like Cauldron feared societal collapse and that motivated their extreme actions. That was true enough, just not the whole truth. She'd purposefully left Scion out of the story to leave David in the wind.
"What about Leet?" Business asked. "You had a reason to approach him like that."
"Not yet. Sorry." I did my best to look apologetic. "Shadow games for just a bit longer."
"Do we really have a spy in the Titans?" Tombstone asked. "Or do you?"
I weighed answering that. There wasn't that much time left really, but lives were at stake. I consulted Future first, and then figured I'd ask Iconoclast since Business was in the room. That one took some convincing because it didn't like me much but it was a pragmatic Shard as much as Business was a pragmatic man.
I glanced away with the answers and said, "Accord is a temperamental man, but world hunger, poverty, the energy crisis? He legitimately wants to solve those problems and his power can solve those problems in the abstract."
A few eyes blinked and some jaws slackened. In a way, it wasn't that surprising if you sat back and thought about it. What did David seek to achieve that was remotely in line with Accord's goals? If David weren't so powerful in his own right he was the exact kind of person Accord loathed.
Leet could figure that out if he thought about it.
"More than that, sooner or later we have to manage the fallout when people realize what powers are. That they're alive and that David isn't lying about Scion. We'll have a new Blue Cosmos and a new war brewing if we fuck that up and Accord can help us manage it when the time comes."
That David couldn't see it spoke to his own shortcomings about as much as anything.
"Just be sure to check his work," I warned. "The guy wants to solve world hunger but killing off a tenth of the population can do that as easily as increasing yields and improving transit. Use his work. Just don't use it blindly."
Business and Chris instantly understood what I meant, which was good enough.
Honestly, the moment was good enough.
Consolation.
Yeah… But it's time.
"This is the last time I'll be part of one of these meetings," I announced.
Weld, Chris, and Dean all instantly got worried. Tombstone and Talia were curious. Business was excited.
To be fair to him, he didn't hate me. Rather, he was the most objective person in the room where I was concerned. Everyone else knew me personally, respected my achievements, or trusted my judgment. They didn't question that the leader of a small team of five was basically leading every meeting in what was supposed to be a grassroots organization.
He and Dean were also the perfect people to formalize Londo Bell's leadership. Dean was compassionate and understanding. Business was practical and object oriented. Both were reasonable men. Weld, Jouster, and Tombstone covered the three largest bodies of heroes in Londo Bell.
"Celestial Being is a small team," I explained. "And likely to get smaller when Chariot focuses more on his development interests and when Lafter retires from active heroing."
I looked over the room and smiled.
Together, as a group, they could produce something human but functional.
"Dean and I started this group, but I don't think I have an explicit reason to have this sort of voice in it."
"I don't know that anyone really minds," Weld said.
Business held his tongue so I said it for him.
"Not yet. Someday though. Londo Bell isn't just about me and it's getting too big to be my personal bludgeoning tool."
"A little blunt," Tombstone defended.
"It's what a lot of people think," Business spoke up, with a mild surprise that he'd spoke. He quickly decided 'in for a penny, in for a pound' and kept talking. "I'm not trying to disrespect you," he said. "I doubt I or others would be looking at the opportunities that are opening up if the hero world weren't getting a serious shake up. You're a big part of why that shake up is happening. Hell, you started the week off by stabbing Leviathan through the heart. I think people are still trying to catch up that you did that, too distracted by the lack of attacks for nine months to put much stock in a second one being killed."
"Pretty sure Japan is still throwing a party about it," Badger commented.
They were. I'd even been offered some kind of hero award because Japan really cared that Leviathan was dead. I turned it down. I didn't want the tag 'Endslayer' on PHO after the Simurgh died and I didn't want an award for killing Leviathan. It had to be done, but death was death. I'd lost any taste I ever had to celebrate it.
Business pointed at himself.
"I love making money and I'd like to not be in prison so I can spend it! But right now, Londo Bell is a contradiction. It's supposed to be a non-hero organization open to all, but it publicly operates as a civilian Protectorate that follows your lead. I understand the necessities of why that is. No one who lives as a parahuman for long lives and doesn't realize there are shadow wars all over and all of this crap with Teacher is serious crap."
"But the point is to change that," I finished for him with a smile. I wasn't offended. If anything, on this front Business was the most unbiased person in the room. "Londo Bell was founded and named because everyone is too divided. But at the moment the heroism is overshadowing the other elements especially with the drama of the feud between us and the Titans."
I rose from my seat and repeated myself.
"It's time to step out and let Londo Bell start making choices without me. If anyone from Celestial Being belongs in these meetings, it should be Veda or Forecast who can contribute to them in ways beyond their work as heroes." I turned toward the door. "Things with David are coming to a head soon, and that is my cue to step back."
Weld watched me, saddened but focused. Dean was resigned. Chris and most of the others were confused because they didn't understand why I'd step away. I never told them what was going to happen when I cleaned up David's mess.
That was it.
I was never going to lead Londo Bell in any capacity forever. That wasn't the point of why it existed. When Blue Cosmos was plotting a race war and we needed an organization that Teacher hadn't corrupted, it made sense. We needed the organization and direction. Not to toot my own horn but I did have talents.
But I didn't want to go too far with my ego.
An errant thought did occur however as I turned toward the door.
I glanced back toward Dean. "You know Shino?"
Dean's brow rose. "The big guy with the piercing?"
"Him. He's opening a sushi place. Reviving the family business from back in Miyazaki. Big grand opening coming up. You should bring Vicky."
His face turned slightly red. "Why would I—"
"Dude," Tombstone accused. "We all know why."
Dean glanced around, finding similar expressions on every face. Even Talia's.
"Just ask the girl out already," Business stated bluntly. "I recognize love as a scam invented by greeting card companies to sell sentimental crap printed on cheap plasterboard and I've noticed."
"Seriously," I insisted. "It's that obvious."
With that, I went to the door. I registered a sudden shift in Chris' demeanor, moving from confusion to dread. He'd noticed, after all this time. Something was coming and I'd been preparing for it for a long time. Guess I'd have to talk to him after all. I didn't want him blaming Weld or Dean for what I'd never told him.
Weld getting up to follow me in a rush was what tipped him off.
I was halfway down the hall when he caught up with me, his metal face long and solemn.
"How soon?"
"Soon enough you won't have to worry about the next confrontation between us and them becoming a brawl." I turned to the door and started walking. "It will be a brawl." I grinned and clarified, "Don't worry. It's going to be rather one-sided."
He nodded, walking along with me as I went.
"How you doing?" I inquired.
"Never had much time to prepare for a friend to go away," he answered. "Suppose it's a bit like finding out someone has cancer but that's never happened to me before."
I chuckled. "Don't be so dramatic. I'm not dying." I reached for the exterior door and pushed it open. "I'll be back."
Weld smiled. "Right."
Not everyone believed me on that. They thought I was just trying to reassure them and I wasn't sure anything I could say would make it better. Our world had been dark for so long. When we lost people, they tended to stay lost. None of us were conditioned mentally or emotionally to be optimistic about these sorts of things.
All the more reason to make my way back as quickly as I could, I supposed.
Leaving the building and Weld behind, I crossed the large open lot toward my workshop. There were a few police vans parked inside the fence, a group of about a dozen men gathered up and watching as Lafter pointed at a Tieren behind her. Akihiro and Orga were nearby with some Tekkadan members.
Across the way, trucks were being loaded with boxes of Helpers coming out of the Factory. Trevor was doing final inspections with help from two other tinkers, one of whom had an idea for how to mass-produce superconductors that remained stable at room temperature. A group of Wardens were on standby, about a dozen of them waiting with Vista for Chris to finish his meeting before they went off on some goal that was their own and I hadn't asked about.
I tried to imagine that going on. Growing more as the years went by.
It brought a smile to my face.
There are simple things worth enjoying. Then there's the complex things, like seeing everything you wanted to achieve already trucking along and ready to keep going. Even if you're not around anymore.
Which made my next conversation a more difficult one to contemplate.
Opening the door to the workshop, I descended the stairs and stopped mid-way down. Veda didn't have camera coverage of the sixth and seventh steps. It was a good place to smooth myself over because… Well, all good things come to an end. That's the saying, right?
I wondered how often they ended in much the same way they began.
Continuing into the workshop, I spotted Amy sitting on a stool and leaning against a table. Riley was beside her, working a few machines and pointing at something on a screen. Having a 'colleague' had done a lot for Riley's mental health. So had forcing her to sit down and talk to Therapist Amy. Thankfully, Amy had gotten over her annoyance at being put upon and had simply taken a role in helping to manage Riley.
The results were positive in my opinion, and at the moment they were busy and focused on their work at the far side of the room.
Neither even noticed me enter so I let them work and kept walking.
I went to the back where my big wall of monitors was.
Dinah sat in my chair, phone in one hand and a pencil in the other. She had a half filled sketchbook on one thigh and a school assignment of some kind on the other. She'd clearly been multitasking as various news feeds played on half the screens and as Veda supplied information from social media and our associated thinkers on the others. Dinah's eyes darted back and forth, watching it all passively and waiting.
"Burning the oil?" I asked.
"Just waiting," she mumbled.
It was her habit now. She could only answer so many questions in a day. She needed to save her questions for where the answers could make the most difference. Veda and other thinkers did their work and she watched, looking for opportunities and thinking.
She'd grown a bit since severely overworking herself late last year.
Thinking smarter, not harder.
I pulled up a spare chair and sat, looking up at the screens myself.
It was a flurry of the usual news. Talking about political changes in how the government was approaching parahumans. The DPA. Londo Bell. Titans. The situation with the dissolution of the EU and the push to form a new charter in its place. The first Protectors team had deployed to Costa-Rica, supporting Red Cross and Samaritan's Purse workers with the aftermath of an earthquake that struck the region a few days ago.
Hannah was front in center in the footage, going along with Mouse Protector and Ursa Aurora.
"Good for her," I commented.
Dinah's eyes followed mine. "Guess. The whole thing with Lafter was never her fault."
"Yeah."
"Titans tried picking a fight again." Dinah pointed without looking at the screen. "Houston."
"Veda broke it up?"
"Told ours to pull out." Dinah glanced at me. "They want to fight."
"They want us to start a fight," I clarified. "Claim they were hit first."
And really, that would only work if they could honestly claim to be innocent when the first punch was thrown. As an expert in manipulating circumstances, I could warn them that was a very dicey proposition. But why would I?
Never correct an enemy when they're about to make a mistake.
"It won't last," she noted.
"No."
"Between them and us, we're taking large villain groups out faster than they can form. The smarter wannabes are wising up, staying low or just not being villains at all. Other villains are joining us because the Titans are pressing them and they were never that attached to being villains to begin with."
"The world is shrinking," I agreed.
"Ironic."
I nodded in agreement. "Cauldron created the PRT and the Protectorate and guided their development to keep a degree of control on capes and their world. Do what governments no longer could. Enforce some form of order, even an oppressive and inhuman one. Twenty years later it all fell apart and in the wake the cape world was shrinking on its own. Now?"
"The Elite are being obliterated on both ends," Dinah observed, looking at one screen.
"Those who just want to make money with their powers and aren't committed to the blacker side of the group are ditching it and joining Londo Bell instead," I concluded. Business was far more proactive there than Agnes. He was actively trying to convince others to leave the Elite. "Those who don't leave are being caught up in arrests and investigations. Blue Cosmos weakened the Elite's political and administrative influence for years with lobbying. Now, multiple nationally organized groups of heroes are destroying what little remains."
"The Endbringers are dying," Dinah mumbled. "You didn't give yourself enough credit when talking to Leet on that."
"Depends on how you look at it. For everyday people living their everyday lives, one less monster is a drop in a bucket."
"And for capes?" Dinah commented.
"For capes it's world shattering."
I glanced to one station playing video of Leviathan's death. Countries terrorized by the Simurgh had stronger reactions than those that hadn't been when she died. It was the same with Leviathan. I figured Singapore would be rejoicing.
"The end of the Endbringers immediately calls into question the purpose of the truce between capes. The Nine are gone too. Gesellschaft is being hit just as hard as the Elite. The Machine Army and Madison's resolution make people question the future of the quarantine zones."
"If heroes didn't need villains to fight off Endbringers and other S-Class threats," Dinah surmised, "there's no reason to tolerate them at all."
"And Londo Bell and the Titans are both as large as the Protectorate ever was and aren't being hindered in their efforts by outside forces like the PRT was. The law is changing too and with it villainy is harder to fall into and simply making a business out of a power is getting easier."
"And for that the Titans point at us and say we're enabling villains."
"Is a villain a character trait or a legal status?"
"That's not the point."
"I know."
"We're letting them smear us and threaten us." Dinah watched me closely. "I don't get that. It's not how you do things. You'd never have let the Empire or the ABB push you around for nine months without consequences."
She was right.
I glanced at the screens, watching them and asking, "Notice anything different?"
Dinah blinked and turned her attention to the news feeds. I waited, confident she'd figure it out. Age be damned, Dinah was not a stupid kid. She never got the chance to be a stupid kid. Not conventionally, at least. She had to grow fast and learn faster because that's what the world did to capes.
The old world, at least.
She noticed it watching some daily talk show from one of the big broadcast networks first. The host was talking to Tecton and Grace in Chicago. They were there with their old Wards team and Myrddin. He'd held off from joining Chevalier and had instead been one of the few former Protectorate members to join the Wardens, lending name recognition to their new ventures.
In Chicago, they'd switched to offense and were cleaning out the city with help from dozens of heroes from surrounding areas.
On another screen, Hannah was again at the center, coordinating with the corrupt officials making life difficult in Costa Rica, playing nice with them while subtly threatening anything shady they might try with her mere presence.
News was already emerging from China that the 'resistance' had scored some kind of big victory over the Yangban and Laiyo was getting a lot of attention for playing peacemaker between the different political groups trying to overthrow that government.
One screen showed Relena with multiple former EU representatives, arguing for a new EU charter that tried to redress the deficiencies of the original.
"The future," Dinah answered.
I smiled. "Before it was always about what we'd lost. The shattering of the world as we knew it. The chaos and the destruction. Trying to cope and assign blame, searching for answers."
"It's shifted."
"It's about getting things done now."
I was no historian but I think things come and go in cycles. Everything ends eventually, and often in a way that people don't realize it's over until it's too late. So they scramble. They search. Things get more chaotic and uncertain until something just clicks and groups of people start fixing things.
It wasn't perfect, but so what?
That's the world.
"It's a brave new world," I whispered. "The way things are done are changing. How people see their place in it all is changing. This fight between Londo Bell and the Titans is nothing but the last vestige of a dark age we have the opportunity to emerge from."
Dinah turned her attention back to me and I met her eyes.
"What's more important?" I asked. "Our pride, or accomplishing everything we set out to do more than a year ago when we first came together?"
"Change the world," Dinah said.
"Change the world," I agreed.
I saw Dinah swallow. "It's time, isn't it?"
Veda's avatar stepped around from behind the monitors, looking at me with a sense of looming dread. She'd been watching silently of course. She was very busy these days. Lots of projects on her plate and of course, the whole drama around me. It had made things a bit more complicated but only in how my pending departure hung over us.
She was contemplating what came after and how she'd handle living in a world where I was distant. Unreachable. Absent to them, for all intents and purposes.
I did my best to smile honestly. "Yeah. It's about time now."
She resisted at first. Dinah took herself seriously and she wanted others to take her seriously. She didn't want to be treated like a child. Generally she succeeded and she had a certain maturity to her that let her keep up the act naturally.
Some walls should be knocked down though, and she let that one drop this one time.
Dinah leaned forward in her seat, spilling her homework and sketch pad onto the floor.
Her arms closed around my waist and she hugged me tight.
My hand went to her back and I held my other arm out. Veda was slow to move, but she came forward and I closed the arm around her. She bowed her head, one arm going around my back and hugged me as I hugged Dinah.
Back in the beginning, before anyone even knew any of our names, it was the three of us. Four if we included Administrator and five with Future.
Never thought of it that much before but it was.
Dinah had got involved with me before I'd even picked a cape name. Veda was born into it. Never given much of a choice in whether or not she wanted to be involved. Everything Celestial Being became, everything it achieved? They'd been there helping to make it happen.
And now I had to leave and it was the two of them who would keep going without me. Lafter was retiring to live a quieter life. Riley ultimately would be going with Amy, not us. Trevor was always in our periphery as much as our core. Lily might go her own way as well in time once she got her life sorted.
That was okay. Londo Bell was the culmination of everything Celestial Being was created to achieve. If the name faded away and its members continued on in other ways, I wouldn't be disappointed. But that wouldn't be my choice.
It was Veda and Dinah who would make that choice because it was Veda and Dinah to whom the name should belong.
"Gonna be weird," I mumbled, "isn't it?"
"Yeah," Dinah replied.
Veda nodded.
I grinned. "You'll be okay."
"Yeah."
Veda nodded again, reluctantly.
"Just do me a favor and don't build any gaudy statues in my honor. The embarrassment might kill me when I get back."
"Okay," Dinah agreed.
Veda whirled at lightspeed because she wanted to speak but was caught in a loop for what to say. Not much different from anyone else really. That was okay. I had the advantage of knowing her sentiment without her having to try and find words to express it and gave her a knowing look in return.
She blinked.
Ah. Yes.
Yeah. It's okay. Don't stress yourself out.
She nodded once more and mostly stopped thinking about it. "How much longer?"
I glanced toward the screens and consulted with Future. The answer was quick because everything was in motion now. Leet would tell David about my spy. He'd feel compelled to do something with it and that wouldn't work because Leet was smart enough to figure out it was Accord but also clever enough to simply let David walk into my trap. Neither of us wanted him succeeding and Leet was just about finished. He didn't need the distraction for much longer.
"Three days."
"I'll begin final preparations," Veda said stiffly.
"It can wait." I glanced toward the ceiling. "Pretty sure we had some game time scheduled with Lafter."
"We did."
"It's not three days yet."
I eyed in the direction of the door and Veda took the message quietly. Her avatar stepped away, and I turned my attention back to Dinah. I wasn't worried about Veda. Sad as it was, she was ready to be without me. She'd manage just fine.
As for Dinah, "You know your time is really going to start once I'm gone, right?"
She reared back, looking up at me with a confused expression.
I looked to the screens, explaining, "Right now, there are two capes you can't see looming large in the world. It's handicapping you pretty bad. So long as David and I are shaking the world, you're not fulfilling your full potential, try as you might."
Dinah grimaced. "That's not—"
"There aren't many capes like us and few who can end up being so big in the world. Once David and I are out of the way, you're going to be one of the most powerful capes in the world. You and Veda. The spectators might give the Gundams all the credit, but we know what Celestial Being's real power was."
Dinah frowned. "Information."
"World's not going to be all smiles and rainbows just because we settle David, Leet, and resolve the network collapse. There'll be a lot left unfinished."
"Yeah…"
I looked her in the eye. "You can do it."
She nodded, bowing her head until her hair hid her eyes.
Dinah so rarely allowed herself to just act her age. It was good for her, even if the moment was a sad one. One of the travesties of the cape world—and one I hoped would change—was that child parahumans were denied a proper childhood. They chased their dreams of heroism and making a difference only to be broken down and punished because the world wasn't that easy. Dinah's journey started terrified of all the horrible things that might happen to her, using her power to find any route of safety to cling to.
She'd grown past that, but still.
"Want to come up and play Warhammer?" I asked.
"Ever notice we talk about peace a lot but we play a lot of war games?" she quipped, taking the chance to lighten her own mood.
"Eh. It's just a game with little plastic army men." I shrugged. "Big deal."
"In a bit," she offered as she turned her attention back to the monitors. "Gonna finish this first."
"Okay."
I stood up and left her to think and feel. Sort her own business out. She'd manage it.
In a way she was lucky. Her Shard was a bud of Prime Future. Even in the Shard Network, I'd never be far away. I'd tell her but she'd just feel guilty about it, so I kept it to myself.
Calm?
I've had months to come to terms with it, Administrator. Why bother moping about it? I paused, glancing back into the workshop and looking it over. All good things come to an end.
With that, I left my workshop for the last time.
I'd done the only repairs I'd need. All spare parts for any level of damage short of death were prepared. The final upgrades to Eirene were in place.
It was home in its own way. A lot of the machines would break down once I was gone. Nearly all of them actually. Veda would build new ones and we'd managed to ensure the Haros wouldn't fall apart in my absence—really didn't want that to happen—but… yeah.
"Bye."
It was time to start getting on.
Outside, I looked up at the sky and called, "Doormaker. Can you send Relena over?"
A portal opened a moment later and Relena stepped through.
"Taylor," she greeted. She was wearing what was, for her, casual attire. A nice blouse and skirt with conservative leggings and fashionable—but not ostentatiously so—boots. "Good day."
"As any other," I replied.
I started walking and she followed me. Orga was nearby and waved to me. I waved back. Veda was setting out the rulebooks and the Haros were arranging the table. It took a bit of time to set up and play a skirmish game but it was something that required a bit less constant work to do than Dungeons and Dragons and it was a decent change of pace.
Worked a bit better with Lafter's busy schedule too.
"Ready?" I asked.
"I could do it in my sleep if these slackers weren't so busy slacking!" Lafter replied from Kyrios.
In retrospect, Lafter made a deceptively good drill sergeant.
Haros laid out chairs around the table and I took one while Relena took another. She looked over the table skeptically.
"It'll be fun," I insisted.
In the meantime, I filled her in.
Mostly about what I'd been doing overseas because she was the one who'd have to deal with it ultimately.
"Kombozi is a decent man," I explained. "He's been forced to make hard choices, but he wants to make things better. He's just never been in a position to really do much more than survive."
"He has a history," Relena noted. "He used to be part of the White Fangs. They committed the terrorist bombings in Ireland seven years ago."
"I know… But we don't get to choose where we're born or how. I don't know that we have the right to judge how anyone in a different time and place kept themselves alive so bluntly. There is a difference between those who struggled to endure chaos and those who thrive on violence."
"True," she agreed, watching as Veda began moving pieces around.
"And even so," I continued. "What's the alternative? What do you think a renewed and invigorated EU will do once Veda delivers the first colony?"
Relena glanced away, thinking.
It was a nice day, so we'd set the table up outside under the fall sun. The Compound was fairly quiet for an afternoon, but it usually was on Wednesdays. People had places to be and things to do. Even Orga had to leave to go to back-to-back meetings basically until the next morning.
There were people around of course but they mostly weren't watching Relena or me.
"I think," I continued, "one big problem with what I want is that powerful and rich countries simply taking over the regions where they can build the orbital elevators is a much quicker route to money and power than working with the locals for mutual benefit."
I moved some of my pieces around the makeshift field before me.
"And I think that so long as South America and Africa are basically stateless and ruled by ad hoc governments of warlords and community headmen, it's very easy and unfortunately true that such a state would probably be a general improvement for the living conditions in those places."
"True," Relena agreed.
I nodded. "And that colonialism might start off benevolently, if we want to be very generous. But eventually, no matter how good the intention, it'll twist around. It'll just be a new form of empire and empires will lead to oppression and war."
"I think that assumes the orbital elevators will be pursued. Many people are too preoccupied with present problems to even consider that you actually succeeded in sending Veda to space."
"They'll deal with it eventually. It can't be ignored."
Relena nodded. She agreed with me. She just had a lot on her mind.
"The best shot I can give those parts of the world that fell apart," I argued, "is to find someone there who wants to put it back together. Someone who isn't going to go total asshole along the way. The kind of person who's usually too good to survive a cutthroat world unless they keep their head down and their ambitions limited."
"And you'll have Veda support them," Relena concluded. "Supply them with the information they need so they can start rebuilding."
I nodded once more. "One piece at a time, and there isn't a lot of time. I think the world will start eyeing potential construction sites in the next four or five years. There aren't that many that are actually viable. If we don't get those areas back on their feet and in a position to advocate for themselves, then the coming future won't be peaceful enough."
"I don't think it'll be that simple."
"Of course it won't. Fighting changes people. Achievement changes people. Power changes people." I closed my eyes and sighed. "A good man today could very easily be a tyrant tomorrow." I chuckled. "Set out to change the world, and the world changes you."
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions," Relena quoted with a nod.
"With the unspoken caveat that there's no roadmap to tell you which way hell is."
But a choice had to be made all the same. The Protectors would probably fail on their own, noble as their intentions were. With them however, there was a small window of opportunity. They just needed to find local help. Local leaders and capes who could pull their people together and start retaking their world from the chaos it had fallen into.
It would be bloody. It would be violent. People would die.
I couldn't change that.
The best I could do was help it move towards something better and trust good people could keep being good.
"It's going to be very busy," I said. "You're going to have a lot of work to do."
"So it seems." She glanced down at the table. "I'm not sure this is the best use of my time."
I smiled and reached for one of the game pieces.
"You and I have a lot of things in common, Relena." My finger pushed the little model over a few squares.
"We both work too hard?" she asked, expecting me to repeat the same criticism she was accustomed to.
"We both need to learn to just sit back and enjoy," I corrected. "Is the world going to fall apart in the next few hours?"
She stared at me.
"That's a no," I informed her. "So, unless something seriously bad comes up that immediately demands our attention, we're going to sit here and play with little plastic orcs and goblins."
To my right at the head of the table, Veda—in her teen avatar—called out, "Lafter, it is your turn."
"Greatswords charge and archers fire on the left!" she called from Kyrios. The suit's head turned, and she darted back two steps, avoiding a punch from a barely standing Tieren. "Stop trying to control the feet! I keep telling you to let the system do it for you, all you have to do is direct the legs where you want them to go!"
She swung around, smacking Kyrios' elbow into the suit's back and sending it tumbling. The other two Tierens tried to pincer her but were a bit too slow to execute the attack at the same moment the first struck.
To them she snapped, "And what did I say about maintaining your balance? I get to fly; I don't have to worry about falling over, you do!"
Veda did the rolling and moved the pieces about the table. Thankfully the models were all set into trays so a large number could be moved easily. Lafter was so busy now between school, training, Akihiro, and her new job teaching people how to use mobile suits. It was hard to really make any time with her outside of school now that everything was going on.
So, tabletop games under the sun while she beat some sense into her trainees was what we fell into. It wasn't a bad motivator honestly. If Lafter could kick their asses while playing a game they still had a lot of learning to do.
"They're getting better," Relena commented as she watched.
"True." They could actually almost land a punch now. Emphasis on almost. "Still a long way to go."
The scene had become something of a spectator sport in general. Members of Tekkadan gathered inside the fence with some capes to watch. If we hadn't replaced the chain link fence with proper concrete walls I'd expect people would drive in to watch.
Relena watched me as Veda finished moving Lafter's army around. "The future of these weapons doesn't concern you?"
"Of course it does," I answered.
"I have observed that there is no technological advance that cannot be weaponized at the first opportunity," Veda proclaimed. "It cannot be helped. Either we do it on our own terms, or someone else will."
"Only a matter of time." I nodded to myself. "Especially with the drive to produce replicable tinker-tech. This technology is out there now. You can't close the box after you've opened it."
"The Haros' turn," Veda announced.
Three of them, each wearing a different military-themed hat, sat at the end of the table opposite Veda.
Yellow straightened his single-starred Army helmet and declared, "Full assault, full assault!"
Purple wore what I simply called a 'Napoleon hat' because I didn't know the actual name and argued, "Send in reserves! Reserves!"
Green waved a prod in the air. "The flank, the flank!"
"These weapons…"
Relena's eyes narrowed as the Tierens went back and forth trying to circle Lafter as Kyrios danced around. One might complain it was an unfair fight, but anyone who planned to fight capes in any capacity should be prepared to fight unfair.
"I understand their purpose," Relena mumbled. "Restoring power to civil authorities, even if it is insufficient to deal with every villain, will redress some of the consequences caused by the existence of parahumans."
"That's the point."
"But it won't stop there."
"No. It won't. Sooner or later, someone will do something stupid." I caught one of the Haro's dice before it rolled off the table. "But that's life and the world. Someone will always do something stupid and the really stupid? They get innocent people hurt. So it goes."
"You're not infuriated by that?" Relena inquired.
"Of course I am, but…" I set the dice down and spun it with my finger. "There are good people out there, and sooner or later those problems will be solved. Just one more step on the ladder." I shrugged. "Matter of perspective, I guess."
"You've changed."
Veda raised her head, watching intently as Relena watched me.
"You're… cooler," she thought aloud. "Less aggressive than you were before."
"Suppose I am." I didn't really disagree. "I'd say calmer though."
"Things are still a mess."
"They're always going to be a mess. It's how we approach the mess that matters." I flicked the dice back to Green. He grabbed it and rolled it immediately. "No one ever got anything simply pointing out that a mess is a mess. That's an observation, and not a particularly brilliant one."
"You've always been proactive."
"Only way to achieve anything in the world is to act."
Slightly perturbed, she asked, "Then why have you been so passive?"
The Haros began moving pieces around the board, though I thought it was mostly random. That or they couldn't agree so they just did all three of their proposed plans at once. It was a novelty to have no idea what they were trying to do, honestly.
"Define passive?"
"The Titans for one." Relena's body language said volumes about that subject. "You've largely allowed them to direct the narrative since they appeared. You could have disarmed them immediately simply by exposing everything we know about David."
"And what evidence do we really have?" I'd point out Count would be the key witness but bringing her up would only hurt Relena. "I could say everything outright, but that just becomes he said she said. We're women. We know how that goes."
"Sadly," Relena agreed.
"When people can't tell who to believe, they pick based on irrelevancies. Even if we could prove what we know, plenty will just ignore us. We'd still be exactly where we are."
"That's no reason not to try."
"Try smarter, not harder."
"Explain."
The Haros finished their turn and Veda started hers. She continued watching me as she played—her hands easily doing one thing while her eyes did another. She was the only one who knew what was coming and had been watching me dance around it like that was its own spectator sport.
"Wait for it."
Relena cocked her head to the side. "Wait for what?"
She, like most, was annoyed that I was still being cryptic about everything. I understood her feelings, but thinkers and Zero were a threat and lives were on the line. I'd said it all before and the plan needed to go just right to work.
Still.
I checked the time on my phone.
I had a very good feeling that we were almost there. Kinue's article would take time to write. She needed to do her best to confirm some sources and decide how much she believed what the Travelers or Marie claimed.
Sitting back, I glanced toward the sky and felt the wind on my face.
In the sky above, Administrator loomed out of sight. Her eyes were turned south, watching from far away.
Everything was in place now.
I'd had to carefully manage information because while David lost most of his thinkers, he still had a few plus his various other pets.
By now though, Leet had no doubt told him I had a spy feeding me information and I doubted he'd figure it out. He'd look at Accord, just like everyone else. Especially once thinkers he did have picked up on what I'd just said in the meeting. On top of that, Kinue's report would take time but he'd catch wind of it fast and realize his chicks were coming home to roost.
His time was running out.
And he'd be pressured. With Leviathan's death fresh, he'd feel the need to make a big move and score a PR win. Something to head me off as he felt me slipping further and further away.
All according to plan, and hopefully this would all end exactly how I wanted it to end.
"Waiting for what?" Relena asked again.
"Hm?"
She frowned. Oh, right. Never answered her question. "Sorry. It's not complicated honestly. I just had to set it up very carefully. All there is to do now is wait for someone to do something undeniably stupid."