Chapter 46:
"The problem children left the secure area of the palace," Thor declared. He was on the figurative hot-seat, with the Royals all collectively glaring at him. Even his wife was giving him the stink-eye.
This whole business was kind of a drag, and the case of blue-balls he'd gotten from getting interrupted while trying to rub one out was just icing on the cake. The only justice was that Star no longer bitched at him for looking at girlie books when she wasn't in the house. He hadn't yet convinced her to 'help him out' by videoing herself playing with toys, but he'd at least gotten some relief—until now.
"Why the hell would they do that," muttered Princess Bubblegum? Glaring at the Lady of Spies, she said, "I mean... It doesn't really make sense. I would've camped out outside the nursery..."
"The Seneschal is in their hands," Thor remarked. Frowning, the King rumbled, "Lollipop's leading them around by the nose..."
Glancing up, Finn asked, "what's the status of the rest of the palace...?" Thor responded, "the sub-levels are locked down. The Seneschal appears to have invoked Case Red just as all the madness was getting started. A small strike team infiltrated the secure area of the palace, using recently hired servants as insiders, but..." "Lollipop saw through them," Bonnie rumbled.
Finn grimaced. Though they were in possession of the decorpsinator serum, he was a little squeamish about using it. He'd told James the Prophet that it wasn't natural to revive the Candy People over and over and over as James wanted. A glance at Cherry suggested that she might not give him a choice, though.
Burn that bridge when you get there, Finn, he thought. His wife was on a very slippery slope just now. She had the capability to keep herself alive essentially forever if she wanted. So far, she'd been happy with that and maybe helping out a few close companions.
Shaking off the urge to worry at that, the big man said, "ok, here's what we're going to do... We're going to freeze the fighting, for now. I'm going to deploy a couple of the battle bots to up the pressure on the New Yorkers, but we won't go in unless we have to. See if you can get the City Council on the line. I'd like to defuse this, if I can."
Bowing, Thor swore that he'd get it done. The gathering turned to Fionna, who's pale face was a worrying admixture of placid and pensive.
"A bunch o'these guys killed their buddies, then did themselves in," the Bad Bunny declared. "I don't get it..." "Cleaning up, Fi," Orzsebet replied. "This is what you do, when the operation is so blown, that you dare not even try running for your life."
Finn's blue eyes locked with hers. "The Firm was a hidden world, unknown to outsiders for centuries after the fall of humanity, Your Majesty," the Lady of Spies remarked. "No-one ever knew there was anything there beyond a mere handful of opportunistic agents working for their own ends."
"You kill anybody who gets caught," Bonnie muttered. In airy tones, the Agent Princess responded, "they kill themselves, Princess Bubblegum. They have nowhere to go, and falling afoul of the Firm already guarantees a very ugly death."
As the candy monarch fumed, the slim spy-girl explained, "Mr. Wells cut those men off. Even if we tried, most would still take death as the out because they'll be hunted down and killed anyway. Only, it won't be a lethal pill, it'll likely be torture." The spy-girl shivered, telling Finn all he needed to know about how ugly that would be.
"Moving on," Finn muttered. "Fi, I need you to check all the nodes. I'm sure most of those guys are gone, but there's still a chance that maybe he's got new guys coming in or some guys that the original group didn't know were there..."
The big man's eyes flicked to Orzsebet's. The spy girl's studiously neutral expression told him he was right about the hidden eyes that might be watching the obvious spies.
Nodding, Fionna said, "I'll do that, daddy. How long...?" "Until we've got our arms around things, Fi," Cherry replied.
When she had Fionna's attention, the Mafia Princess opined, "there's too much stuff moving right now. They wanted you in Jungle Kingdom, but I'm not sure if they had some cockamamie scheme to kill you or just wanted you tied down. Right now, we don't know if Jungle Kingdom's safe. If you leave..." "...they could smash another node," Fionna sighed. "Ok..."
"Alright," Bonnie declared, "that brings us to Stilt-Town. What're we doing there? Bill's there with Olesia..." "Big Brother Bill sank a bunch of their boats last night," Star announced, "but he and Olesia had to quit about halfway through."
When an irritated Bonnie demanded to know why they'd stopped, Cherry interrupted, "because we'd really rather he didn't lose his mind, Bonnie. Olesia's under strict orders to shut things down if he looks like he's losing the plot..."
Face gone hot, Bonnie sank down in her chair, studiously avoiding looking at Simone. Finn could imagine what she was thinking from her expression. Her son was down in the lab, not risking his neck in a foreign land.
Finn, as the father of both young men, wouldn't have had either of them in the situation Bill now found himself in. More to the point, Simone's placid face told that far from thinking those ugly thoughts, her mind was on more important matters. Bon was just as much her boy as Bill was, since he'd spent a lot of his formative years at the treehouse until he became 'interesting' to his birth mother.
"Does he need more men," Finn asked? "He lit out of King's Island with just a token force." "I have guys on standby, daddy," Star responded. Leaning on the arm of her chair, Young Bonnie remarked, "I can go, daddy. Star should stay here unless she really needs to go... The enforcers and whatnot listen to her more than me..."
The flush on the wood-nymph wonder's face told the tale. Star wanted to go to King's Island, since her kids and husband were there. Stilt-Town was just a step in the right direction.
"Ok," Finn responded. "You're a go. I'd like to actually talk to some of these people, though..." The curvy pillow-person put out her tongue at him.
Rising, Young Bonnie headed out, declaring, "if I leave now, maybe I can get there before things get really ugly..." Watching her go, Finn sighed heavily. Star wasn't the only person who was worried.
Turning back to his son-in-law, the big man said, "I want the special team to slip around the blockade in the hills and get eyes-on with the rebels. Use the water-gate to come in behind them. If things turn south... if they even muss the Seneschal's hair, waste them." "It will be as you say, sire," Thor replied.
"Alright," Finn declared, "last item of business... I want a good scrub on security for the rocket base, the nuke-fuel storage, the nuke-fuel caverns, and the big gun. If they're busy in the new lands on the other side of the ocean, there's a good chance it's because we have no eyes there."
"Finn," Bonnie interrupted. "Peebles," Finn retorted. "I know you think this is all about King's Island, but I'm not convinced. Insight's behind this. They have to know that there's no way for anybody in New York to get into the War Room or to get control over the big gun from King's Island. Now that Lollipop's invoked Case Red, they won't even be able to spin up the antigravity system or the invisibility cloak. Right now, they got a big nothing, and I don't think this Gordon Wells is stupid enough to not know that."
With a grimace of irritation, Bonnie murmured, "you're going paranoid, Finn." "Yup," the King of Ooo retorted. "I got no choice, babe. I have to look not just at the problems right in my face, but the other shoes waiting to drop."
Turning to his cabinet, the big man announced, "it's all hands on deck. I need to know from the capos if there's anybody buying lots of guns on the down-low. I need to know from finance if there's obvious signs of money moving around. I need Wizard City to account for anybody who's got anything like an invisibility spell or a teleportation spell... anything like that..."
Locking eyes with Bonnie, he said, "I need to know if there's any missing eggheads, Peebles. We lost track of Starchman and all his guys. Before we realized it, he'd ginned up a mushroom bomb and a mini airship to carry it for the Bandit Princess."
Swallowing her pride and objections, Bonnie declared, "it'll be as you wish, Your Majesty." Giving her hand a squeeze, the King of Ooo said, "thank you, First Minister."
The meeting broke up, with the gathered princesses and princes getting up to go or shutting down their holo-projections. As Finn gathered himself to go too, Orzsebet sidled up to him.
"You wish something, my Lady," he asked? Her face flushed. At the same time, she murmured, "you're finally using all that you have, Your Majesty. Just one thing..."
Frowning, he replied, "go on..." "Now that you've found yourself surrounded by power, you're starting to think too big...," she replied.
His eyes narrowed, as he considered those words. "You wouldn't be doing things this big," he mumbled.
"Of course I would," she retorted, "but the actual attack would be... small... I'd get a hundred men in the streets rioting outside an important conference. I'd pull the fire alarms and set off the sprinklers. I'd have a kidnap squad waiting in the garage. And when the security team finally managed to get the mark home and into his safe-room, I'd have a trusted servant that I'd bought off administer a pin-prick carrying deadly poison."
Finn's eyes got big, but before he could say another word, Orzsebet kissed him on the cheek, turned and strode off. There was no fake wig-wagging of her ass today, telling him with more than words that he'd seen the true heart of the Lady of Spies just then.