Magical Engineering

“Honestly, I’m surprised there wasn’t more resistance. I was expecting heavier weapons at least,” I said as Pryte and I took seats in the most comfortable room we had found so far. It looked like someone’s private office, but it was big enough to work for the purposes I had in mind, and I figured it was just another show of power to have stolen some bigwig’s personal room.

“I don’t know enough about the weapons on this planet to give you a good answer, but I assume firing more powerful ammunition in an enclosed space might cause some issues for their own men,” Pryte replied.

“Oh yeah, true, and they still wouldn’t have done much to the shields, I suppose. Guess they hadn’t really been counting on me being tired of them already,” I said. Even if I wasn’t entirely sure my shields would have held, I figured they were spying on the room, and I’d rather let them think I believed their weapons were useless.

I wasn’t usually this good at bluster, but considering the underlying anger that I felt for the GPA, it was easy enough to keep up the guise. I held no fear in the idea of facing off with them. But I felt a need to control myself from going too far, and getting to play the smug asshole in dealing with them was doing wonders to tamper down the rage.

“I wonder if they are stupid enough to try to take the gate to Alexandria while we are waiting.” Despite his words, Pryte didn’t at all look worried about the possibility, and he was right not to be. I had left Alpha behind just in case something like that did happen.

“If they want to make that level of a mistake, I welcome them to try,” I replied, still sure we were being spied on. I suspected had Connie been here, she’d have judged my acting skills poorly, but this was almost a fun distraction in the sea of shit that we had recently dealt with, and I was going to try to enjoy that instead of letting the anger win.

We spent the rest of the wait discussing some of the fights we had won in the Arena, making sure to go into detail about the level of magic others in the squad were capable of. If I were going to make this a threat of power, I may as well go all out. Just as I was getting to the Mel’s single blow ending attack, the door finally opened.

“So, you made a pretty big scene just to see me,” Roberts said as he walked in, closing the door behind him.

“We did ask for some pacemakers as well. Any news on those?” I asked, as Pryte snapped his fingers next to me.

A weird static hum blanketed the room following his snap. The lights dimmed briefly for a second, and a loud latching sound came from both the door and the window. That was new. What had he done?

“I figured we might want a private conversation with no chance of interruptions,” Pryte said without further elaborating. I could pick out a few of the mana threads, but I couldn’t tell if it was a spell or something else.

Roberts dropped his head into his hand and rubbed his temples before finally speaking. “What exactly did you want to speak to me about, because with this stunt, I promise the GPA isn’t going to just let things go back to normal. I don’t think you understand how much they wanted to cut off their relationship with you already.”

The man looked like he had aged ten years recently. How much pressure were they putting on him? All the more reason for what I was about to offer, because as many problems as we may have had in the past, I actually believed he cared about people far more than the new alliance did.

“If it wasn’t obvious, we are done with them. They’ve made at least one play against me, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was two. And to be clear, if I had any proof they were involved in the second thing, I’d be ripping this place apart until there was no GPA left. But I don’t want to do that,” I answered.

“What the hell happened?” the former president asked, giving me a very serious look.

“We were attacked. My grandson was taken.”

“Damn. I know I’m sorry isn’t enough here, but I don’t have any better words.” Roberts looked serious, another reason I could appreciate the man. He was the rare sincere politician.

“That means more than you realize, and the fact that I knew you’d feel that way is part of the other reason I’m here. Come work for us.” I looked directly in the man’s eyes as I made the offer, curious about his reaction. It wasn’t a small choice I had just offered him. This was something that would fundamentally alter his life going forward, for better or worse.

“What’s the catch? We didn’t exactly get off to a good start when we first met, so I find it hard to believe there’s no strings attached.” His eyes narrowed as he met my own appraising gaze. It was a fair question.

“I want your expertise. As good as Pryte is at the political game, he’s not a native of Earth. He doesn’t have connections. And I’ll never be the kind of man you are, emperor or not. I’m tired of fighting with the GPA for anything. I want all the scientists who want to come to the city, and I want them as soon as possible. Getting your help seems like the best way to do that.”

The trickle of scientists that had been allowed in so far, while extremely helpful, especially the two who had helped Karlinovo with saving the city, just wasn’t weren’t enough. There were tons of fields we could be working on, given enough manpower and expertise. And while initially we had seemed poised to get that, once the GPA took over, that flow had dramatically slowed.

“Ah, now I see why you didn’t want us overheard. You want a list of scientists, engineers, and specialists to go along with me. Look, Dave, I don’t dislike you exactly. In fact, of the people that could have ended up in charge, you’re probably one of the better-case scenarios we could have ended up with. But I need a promise if we are going this route,” Roberts replied, a serious look crossing his face.

“I don’t know what I have that I can promise here, but what do you want?”

“No dictators. I understand, at least in name, you are the emperor, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a true single source of power. There are plenty of constitutional monarchies that do exactly that. People have the right to govern themselves.”

“Done. I don’t even want to be emperor. The fact that we haven’t just taken over the world stems entirely from that. I’ll rule the Empire of Dave only in the sense that it seems to be required that someone sits at the top for Spiral interaction, but I do not want to be making decisions for the lives of the people that live within the empire. I want them to do that for themselves.”

I was considering going so far as to bring Roberts in on the issue of the deepscales once we returned, well, maybe not immediately, but eventually. At the very least, it was probably best he met our jester captive. Hell, I haven’t even done that yet. I also didn’t know where Timon was keeping him, so that was something else to check on when I returned.

“Then I think I can agree to join you. We need to head back to my office and collect my folders there.”

“Wait, why do you have folders? You were already planning on jumping ship here, weren’t you?” Pryte asked, cutting into the conversation.

“I was strongly considering it. Things have been getting more and more tenuous. But it’s probably best I explain once we are back at Alexandria,” he answered.

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What the hell had been happening in the world? Considering how divorced I was from geopolitics at this point, it was possible it could have been anything. But if Roberts had already been considering running, it seemed like something significant had to have changed.

A chat window popped into view, distracting me from my thoughts.