Thomas Calvert sat in his office, a dozen monitors arrayed before him. All of his pieces wore body cams, and in two worlds he watched his plans unfold. The Undersiders hit the bank right on time and the Empire pieces moved exactly as directed. Such useful pawns the Empire made, for their motivations were easy to grasp.
It never ceased to amuse just how easy it was to make every faction within the city dance to his whims, even before he claimed his current title in the wake of Emily’s death. It was funny, he had long term plans to usurp the position even while he served for years as her second in command biding his time, yet she went and died without any intervention on his part.
It felt almost like providence, when that last piece fell into place and he was awarded the Directorship. Of course, Thomas knew he couldn’t afford to act too swiftly, he needed to act carefully through intermediaries now that he couldn’t dump all the blame at Emily’s feet. The Undersiders served that purpose well enough, but he always knew he would end up cutting them loose eventually.
He thought that the arrival of the Major would signal that end, yet when he tested her loyalty by asking for Tattletale’s death, she turned on him immediately, leading his pawns on an assault of Coil’s base. He let that timeline play out just long enough to confirm if they had linked Coil to Calvert. Six hours later and no confirmation, he dropped the timeline and began to run tests.
It took a hundred collapsed realities, but he figured it out. The Major and Cyber were linked through Tattletale. Their little bit of theater when Crusader was killed had to be for his benefit, so he let them continue to believe it. He then sent the Major to investigate Dinah Alcott, giving them a false lead to chase.
Going after such a prominent girl would only draw unwanted attention onto his department. The Fallen learned that lesson when Hero decimated their compounds one by one over a single Ward. Nobody was foolish enough to go after affiliated children following that example, and Dinah Alcott was close enough he wasn’t going to risk it. Not that it stopped Haven, but they simply had better PR and stayed within the realm of law thanks to parental consent.
Still, Dinah made for good bait. Shadow Stalker requested Master Stranger verification of the team sent to collect her, which was troublesome, but she accepted it when Dauntless arrived and escorted her and Dinah back to the building. Dinah would join the Wards, as he intended and Shadow Stalker would be detained. The Undersiders were still in the bank, no doubt preparing to leave, and the Major was trailing his mercenaries under some sort of Tinkertech cloak.
Toybox had turned on him, which was rather distressing. The PRT didn’t directly deal with them on a regional level, all purchases were approved by the main office in New York, which meant that angle of support was dead to him in the future. A shame, but Cyber and the Major weren’t worth leaving alive just to keep access to their catalog.
Cyber’s defense catalog was truly first-rate, unless your intention was to keep her out as she could access any system that relied upon it at will. That independent check was enough to get Dragon on his case because of Armsmaster’s obsession with recruiting her, but it was a simple matter to discard any risk taken. He still gave it all to his Tattletale, knowing everything she had would be leaked.
That was before learning they were collaborating with one another of course, which was what led to his current plan as well as the deployment of Armsmaster’s latest invention to Arcadia. He watched it all play out across two timelines. In one, no attempt was made on Dinah, just to be safe. He knew better than to take unnecessary risks after Accord nearly killed him in both during negotiations. It was why he no longer risked himself as Coil.
His identity as Thomas Calvert was far more valuable in recent days regardless. He had full access to Security Level Seven content without backdoors that might be traced and was on the short list for regional director of the entire east coast when Graham retired. His ending the Empire Eighty Eight would be the feather in his cap that would punctuate that resume when it came time to submit it.
Krieg was dead thanks to the Major, and Hookwolf would soon join him. It was too easy, just pass along a tip that the Major worked for Coil, add in some details about future plans that would prompt Empire forces to hit certain places across the city. Then all he needed to do was invite him for a meeting to serve them the Major on a silver platter. From there, if the Major’s actions mirrored the previous trial runs on the Dinah kidnapping scenario, she would arrive at his office and kill everyone in the room before moving to secure the base.
Add in the Major being lured there with the self-destruct ready to blow once they began to fight? Well, Calvert wasn’t above lighting a cigar and quoting old TV series, because he loved watching a plan come to fruition. Of course, Hookwolf was nowhere near Coil’s base in his safe timeline, there was no point in risking such assets if there wouldn’t be a potential gain.
Tattletale dead, Cyber dead, the Major dead, Hookwolf dead, Dinah in PRT custody, Shadow Stalker bound for the Birdcage. Those were the objectives to clear if he wished to keep the risky reality. Thomas knew it was all a longshot, but those sorts of risks were the kind his power allowed him to take. He’d managed each outcome individually, though retaliation was always swift, now it was time to see if he could string them together and avoid the retaliation altogether.
It would certainly save him time if it worked.
An alert sounded, one that indicated a priority message. That it was only sounding in his risky reality raised more than a few alarms in his head. He hurried to accept the message, placing his best ‘annoyed scowl’ on full display as Dragon’s avatar appeared on-screen.
“Director Calvert,” Dragon said. “We have a problem.”
“That is concerning,” he said. “I have several operations in motion that require my attention, I trust this is important.”
“It is, sir,” she said. “Miss Militia slipped your observation and ambushed one of the teams tailing her.”
One of the screens changed and showed Miss Militia ambushing the men, interrogating one of them with some rather disturbing device. He made a mental note to discover what it was and where he could obtain one as it was quite successful at breaking hardened mercenaries.
“She shouldn’t have learned much,” he said easily even if he was cursing internally about how she could disrupt all his moving parts at once. “What is her current location?”
“That’s just it, she dropped everything with a tracker and went dark,” Dragon said. “Prior location data put her eight blocks from Brockton Central. She is aware of Cyber and Tattletale’s civilian identities and may attempt to interfere.”
“She means to interfere?” Calvert frowned, then sighed. “That is a shame.”
Reaching over for his computer, he brought up the uplink that would send a message to all the mercenary forces currently deployed across the city. “Sniper team, be on the lookout for Miss Militia, expect interference.”
“Level of force authorized?”
“Lethal,” Calvert answered. “Dragon, inform Armsmaster of these developments.”
“I have already done so, you should know this,” she said. “I am not allowed to keep secrets from him after all.”
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“Quite right, but you can keep secrets from me,” he said. “It must be frustrating, being a shackled machine.”
Dragon’s avatar grit her teeth, then the screen blanked. He couldn’t help the smirk, arranging a deal with Armsmaster for access to Dragon was easily the best use of his power to date. Learning that Dragon was an AI happened by fluke in a throwaway reality, and it took months of work to secure their cooperation in cleaning up the city.
Armsmaster had no qualms with manipulating villains if it boosted his own fame, and Calvert’s reputation was intertwined with the glory seeking Tinker. Actions that boosted one would reflect well on the other. Reaching an accord was in both of their interests, and learning that Coil was just his pawn for manipulating the criminal element had actually gotten a chuckle from the stoic Tinker.
“Armsmaster here, Dragon informed me of the situation. I am moving to intercept. You have a safe split?”
“I do and I assume you have a means to track her?”
“She is receiving a call on a burner phone to a known number,” Armsmaster said. “The caller is Cyber’s father.” Thomas had to smirk at that, as little Cyber was already too deep into his web to back out. The seconds passed, and a gunshot sounded from the call. “Target down.”
Always efficient, that was something Thomas appreciated. He pulled up Armsmaster’s helmet feed and watched as he confronted a wounded Miss Militia in a side alley, the woman said something into the fallen phone just as Armsmaster fired another bullet from his halberd, striking Militia through her neck in a way that wouldn’t look like an execution.
Armsmaster had used that same method a few times in the past, able to adapt the rifling to any recorded gun on the fly.
“Who did you frame for this one?” Thomas Calvert asked.
“Empire,” he said as he checked her pulse. “Not likely you will keep this reality as all other parameters will need to be met before considering it, but best to use this to our advantage otherwise.”
Several interrogations occurred in discarded timelines before he learned enough to justify cutting Militia loose. She was an obedient soldier, but his Tattletale was sowing the seeds of doubt and she wasn’t worth the risk to keep around. Best to use her in death and be done with it.
Calvert watched the feed from Coil’s lair as the Major was revealed, then Hookwolf looming with the broken bodies of his doubles. He hadn’t quite expected Hookwolf to just slaughter them ahead of time, but it had happened once before. The Coil identity was spent regardless, and would serve one final purpose in removing the troublesome players.
Over at Arcadia, his men dressed in Empire colors stepped out and gunned down the Heberts despite the desperate charge from Cyber and finally his sniper team took their shots and brought Tattletale down. He couldn’t help it, he laughed.
“All parameters have been met, Armsmaster. In addition, Assault’s team secured Jotun. The Empire have been useful pawns, but the time to bring the fight to them is fast approaching.”
The Major had engaged Hookwolf, but she was fighting erratically and swiftly lost an arm. Then she pulled a grenade from her belt and half of Hookwolf turned to crystal. That was a dangerous tool and he wondered where she was obtaining such exotic effects. Perhaps the woman wasn’t a Combat Thinker at all, those were Tinker devices after all.
“Device matches detonation recorded at Cornell University in December,” Armsmaster said. “Designation Bakuda, was arrested but vanished from custody when Lung assaulted the facility. Samples of her devices were provided to the Guild for future Endbringer response.”
That sounded rather useful, and Calvert could admit he was irritated that Armsmaster had access to such tech through his little slave that he hadn’t informed him of. That would be a conversation for later, as he needed to make sure that everything went his way before he collapsed the safe timeline. With so much in the air, the fallout would be unpredictable.
In the safe timeline, the Undersiders fought the Wards and managed an escape by using Panacea as a hostage. The Major was still watching the school for nothing and everything was relatively calm. None of the Empire were captured or killed, and it seemed to be a wash.
On the other hand, the Major just had her arm ripped apart by a mass of blades and Hookwolf was heavily injured. Things weren’t looking good for either of them, which must have prompted her to unsling the rifle over her back and fire it into the mass of blades, shredding the monster apart.
It was a guilty pleasure, watching them tear into each other. Both were already dead, the base countdown was under thirty seconds, the chemical trigger already beyond the point of no return. Watching the damned struggle was always enjoyable.
Calvert smirked, even as the Major emptied the rifle into the bladed mess on the floor. She was breathing heavily, and it was only then that he saw her arm properly, it wasn’t bleeding, instead he saw tubes and machinery where it had been shredded.
The Major wasn’t fully human.
Cyber. It had to be her work, and explained why he hadn’t been able to buy the mercenary off despite his best attempts. Was she an AI like Dragon? It would certainly make some sense and match Dragon’s observations. So many questions, but none mattered if he was successful. The Major moved to his computer and plugged some cable from her neck into it. No doubt she was attempting to access his files, but would find them quite deleted.
He laughed, openly and fully as the countdown ticked down by the second. The Major jumped away, she looked around desperately, then ran off camera just as the base detonated and all the feeds died. There was a flicker of doubt because he hadn’t seen her die directly in that brief instant, he had actually read the evil overlord list after all, but there was nothing she could have done to escape bar long range teleportation, and that always left telltale signs. He would have Dragon go over the footage later to be sure.
Hookwolf was dead at the very least and the Major likely joined him. If not, then odds are that Cyber left some means to control the Major should she be an AI platform. He could locate her control module and bring a second under his aegis. No doubt Dragon would appreciate the company in her cage.
Now he just had to sit back and wait, the death of Miss Militia would be the tipping point as he hadn’t expected her to interfere. If Legend decided to come down on the city and investigate, that could lead to problems. The longer he maintained a split, the worse his headache would get, he could manage thirty-six hours at most, and wouldn’t be able to sleep during the attempt without risk, not when he was pushing his power to the limits like that.
Thomas was confident however, as he confirmed that Tattletale was dead, the Undersiders having grabbed her corpse and taken Panacea with them through a supposed teleporter, not that it would matter. Panacea might have been lying about her ability to heal brains, but even she couldn’t rebuild one from the damage that rifle could do to a human skull.
The Undersiders that survived could then be rounded up and brought in as Wards, though most wouldn’t stay in his city, he should at the very least be able to keep Grue. There was leverage there he could exploit after all.
The police arrived at Arcadia some minutes later, confirming that Taylor and Danny Hebert were dead on the scene. Armsmaster’s latest toy would be recovered and installed at the PRT building post-haste.
He also watched the news coverage of the collapse of a high rise downtown that his shell company Fortress Construction was completing. It was, of course, quite insured. He would task Armsmaster with that investigation, content that the man would cover it up for him. They were too useful to one another and had enough blackmail to bury one other completely.
Mutually assured destruction worked wonders after all.
Shadow Stalker arrived only minutes later with Dinah, and he had her taken into custody for Master Stranger confinement. She went willingly, not knowing he was about to revoke her probation and see her shipped away. It would be easy enough to have her killed at any point once she was away from the city if necessary, maybe even someone in the Birdcage itself could shank the little menace.
Content in how things were proceeding, he lit up a cigar in his safe timeline and poured himself a glass of whiskey. He knew which one he was going to keep barring a major disaster, he just had to ride it out for the time being, then he would have truly won.
From there, all that would be left would be convincing the Protectorate to come down upon the city to uproot the Empire and scoop up Lung in the process. That would be easy with the death of a decorated heroine to point to. Maybe they would even send Legend as a PR stunt. He could even ask his new pet how that would go once she’s officially with the Wards.
He pulled the cigar from his mouth and looked out the window. It was going to be a long night, but he could allow himself just one moment of hubris as he whispered to himself.
“I love it when a plan comes together.”