Final Empire (27 page)

“Yeah,” he said with a nod, “it’s pretty dope.”

“You must miss it,” I said.

He brushed a messy curtain of blond hair from his face, blinking expectantly. “Miss what?”

“The fans. People asking for your autograph, the paparazzi, the book signings…being cooped up here in the fortress can’t be easy on you.”

“You’d think so,” he said thoughtfully, “but these missions are what I missed more than anything.”

I chuckled, scanning the immediate area for another unopened beer. “I know, you’re an adrenaline junkie. You need to have your life in danger just to get your heart rate going.”

He shook his head. “No…I mean yeah, the battle in the desert was a blast, and so was Venice, but I mean being
here
, with you guys. Being with friends.”

I pressed my lips into a thin line and tried to manage a smile – or at least fashion a passable representation of one. He was a dim bulb, but he couldn’t have been
this
clueless. No one liked McGarrity, least of all me. We tolerated him, and even that was a struggle at the best of times. His nearly nineteen million followers knew him only from simulcast feeds and iTube clips, where he came off like a heroic comic book character, rushing into battle with sword blazing. If they spent more than ten minutes alone in a room with him I’m sure they’d be cancelling their membership to his fan club.

“When we survived The Spiral back in Canada,” he explained, “it was the first time I’d ever been a part of anything. The first time I’d ever felt included. Sure, I’d been a part of clans and raiding parties and every type of video game team you can imagine – but that shit was
real.
We had each others’ backs in a real life war zone.”

“I punched you in the face,” I reminded him.

He cocked his head like a confused puppy, running his hand along his jaw line. “Huh. That’s right. Ah well, I probably deserved it.”

“What about your fans?” I asked. “And people you know back home. Don’t you hang out with them?”

“I hang out with ‘friends’ the same way that Kenneth does. They’re just people who follow me around with big doe eyes, telling me I’m the greatest. It was the same when I was a video game champion. Don’t get me wrong, having people blowing sunshine up my ass twenty-four-seven was nice, but sometimes it was lonely. That’s why Kenneth is dangerous…I know from experience that lonely people can start going a little crazy.”

The Living Eye seemed anything
but
lonely on his own private island, his flock worshipping at his dais, but it was an interesting theory. “So you think Kenneth is lonely?”

McGarrity shrugged. “I think he’s surrounded by people telling him exactly what he wants to hear: that he’s this world destroying bad-ass who should be running things.”

“And how exactly does
that
equal loneliness?”

“Because I know what it’s like to be in a room full of people who think you’re a god, and at the same time feel completely hollow. It’s not the number of friends you have, man – it’s the friends who are there for you when no one else is.”

I ran my fingers through my dark hair, sagging into my seat. “He invited Brynja to tag along. Come back to the island with him.”

McGarrity leaned in, eyebrows raised. “Shit, really? Right in front of you?”

“Yeah, well…it’s not like
we’re
a thing, me and her.”

“But she’s hot,” he said without missing a beat.

“She’s a clone of my girlfriend, Steve.”

“Whoa, are you saying…” he jolted upright as if a realization had struck him like a lightning bolt, “Brynja’s a
robot?
I never noticed before, but she kind of does have a Terminator-like vibe to her. Like when she looks at you she’s deciding whether or not she should execute you.”

“A
clone,
not a robot,” I explained. “She’s a real person.”

“Doesn’t she have blue blood?” he asked, now looking perplexed.

“She
did,
yeah – but only since she came back from the dead. Now she’s just…” I blinked hard waving my hand in front of me, as if the gesture would somehow swipe away the fog of confusion that I’d created. “Look, it’s complicated. The point is that Brynja is
not
my girl – Peyton is.”

McGarrity’s interest had clearly waned. He was patting down the pockets of his bath robe, searching for something. “Whatever, dude. Kenneth straight up put the moves on her, and she left with a guy he
used
to have a bromance with. That shit has to sting.”

“First of all,” I was quick to correct him, “Kenneth and I didn’t have a ‘bromance’, whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean.”

Steve slid off the couch and began crawling around, riffling through the garbage strewn across the floor. “If you say so,” he replied offhandedly. “But you two definitely had a dudevorce.”

“A ‘dudevorce’?”

“Yeah, you know – you’re both dudes, and when you split, it was a divor—”

“I get it,”
I snapped.

McGarrity plucked a small green tablet off of the floor. He held it up to the light, squinting at the microscopic writing printed across the side. Still on his knees he popped it into his mouth, washing it down with the remainder of his beer. “Your buddy doesn’t want world domination,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “The dude wants a dime on his arm – and Brynja is about as close to a perfect ten as he’s ever going to find.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Steve crawled back to the couch and resumed his previous position, the leather cushion still indented from where he’d been sitting. “I don’t know. I’m pretty drunk. Don’t listen to anything I’m saying.”

I dropped my eyes to the floor. “Whatever his motivations are, he’s heading down a dark path. It’s a path I can’t help but feel I might have set him on.”

And then one of the kindest, most sincere sentiments I’d ever heard in my life came from McGarrity’s mouth, carrying a hundred times more weight considering the source: “I know you feel like crap about what you did to Kenneth in Arena Mode. You weren’t yourself, though. How could you have been? You were dying of brain cancer. You made a shitty decision
one time
, but that doesn’t mean you’re a shitty person.” He reached out and patted me twice on the leg, offering a friendly nod.

“What I did to Kenneth…” I said, my words catching in my throat. “There’s no forgiveness for that. He has every right to hate me. And I deserve to be hated.”

“If he wants to hate you forever that’s his loss, man. You might be old, and annoying, and think you’re right all the time…which also falls under the ‘annoying’ category, by the way.
And
you ramble a lot about details that no one really cares about. And your hair does this weird thing where it sticks straight up…”

“Is there a ‘but’ coming any time soon?” I said, snorting back a chuckle.

“
But
, you’re also a stand up guy. I’ve never seen anyone so loyal to their friends. If
I
can forgive you for the rambling and the arrogance and the hair thing, Kenneth can forgive you for Arena Mode. And I think he will. Just give him time.”

“Thank you,” I said with a weak smile. “I think.”

“You’re welcome,” he belched, covering his mouth with his fist. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I just realized that the aspirin I found on the floor was actually the most powerful hallucinogenic I’ve ever had…so I have some barfing to do before it fully kicks in. Which way is the nearest bathroom?”

The party that began in the common room had spilled down the hallways.
Beer bottles and crushed cans littered the corridors, and potato chips crunched underfoot with each step. A goat from the research lab strolled the east corridor, absently munching on what was left of a grey fedora. I lacked the energy to call one of the techs to come and retrieve it – I’m sure it would eventually wander back towards one of the elevators.

Sliding a keycard over my chamber door, it whooshed open, and sent a shaft of fluorescent light into the darkened room. Peyton lurched upright in bed, sending a bottle crashing to the floor.

“What’s going on in here?” The room was filled with more debris than the hallway; half-eaten sandwiches and fruit and overturned plates were scattered throughout. A holo-screen flickered in the corner, where a cooking show blared at full volume.

I collapsed the screen as Peyton stumbled to her feet. “Did you know that they have room service in your fortresses?” she slurred. “Just like a motel. Or a hotel. Which one is classier? I always mix those two up.”

When she approached I used my thumb to prop open one of her eyelids. “Are you drunk?”

“Well that is a very,
very
specific question,” she snapped, swatting my hand away. “Mister Moxon, is this an interrogation?”

“It was more of a rhetorical question, actually.”

She folded her arms. “Always with the big words, mister fancy pants.”

“Okay—?”

“I could ask
you
a question or two, you know!” she shouted, jabbing a fingertip into my chest. Her fingernail left an indent in my skin.

“I’m sure you could.”

“Like where have you been for the last five flippin’ hours while I’ve been waiting here, by myself, with only Captain Morgan to keep me company? I
could
ask you that, but the thing is, I know I won’t get an answer. You know why? Because you never tell me
anything
.”

“I had to go meet with Kenneth,” I explained, “and detective Dzobiak, and Brynja for this—”

“It’s always something,” she cut in. “Isn’t it? Always going on a quest to save the world. Why don’t you stay here for just
one night
and save your relationship?”

Her words sliced through me. I didn’t know our relationship was in any need of saving. “I’ve been doing nothing
but
stay home for the better part of a year, and you kept telling me to get off my ass. Now that I’m out trying to make a difference you’re chewing me out?”

“Working with charities, attending benefits, coming into Moxon Corporation and actually conversing with the people you employ –
that
makes a difference. This nonsense with Kenneth? It’s not helping
anyone –
it’s just meddling.”

I coughed out a caustic laugh. “Meddling?”

“Yes,” she said sharply, “‘to meddle’, go look it up: the act of sticking your stupid nose where it doesn’t belong.” She reached out in an attempt to poke the end of my nose but I slipped out of the way. She lacked the energy to go for a second attempt. “It’s like you’re allergic to happiness. Can’t you just let the police take care of police business? Detective Dzobiak and Kenneth Livitiski and Brynja don’t need you – I do.”

“What is this really about?” I asked suspiciously.

“Oh, don’t pull that crap on me, Matt. Not this time.” She stomped over to her dresser and began tearing clothes from the drawers, tossing them into a pile on the floor.

“Pull what?”

“The mind reading thing,” she shouted, continuing to fling shirts over her shoulder without looking back. “Like you know what I’m secretly thinking all the time. You
don’t
.”

It was one of those rare moments where I’d wished I had Brynja’s abilities – that I actually
could
read minds, because I perpetually felt like I had no idea what Peyton was thinking, and was being summarily punished for it. “Well if you just
tell me
what the real problems are then maybe I can actually help you. Stop speaking to me in these generalities.”

“Okay, Matt – you want me to get really specific?” (when she said the word ‘specific’ it came out sounding more like ‘pacific’, but I decided to let it go). She turned away from her dresser and stomped back towards me. “Here it is: you know that box you have hidden away in the basement of this lab? The one you refuse to open? Tell me what’s inside of it
right
now, or this,” she wagged her finger back and forth between us, “whatever the heck this train wreck is between us – it’s over. For good.”