Mark steeled himself and opened the door to the conference room.

  Tartu was standing by the windows, back to Mark, hands at his front. It was getting dark outside. Twilight neared, and clouds were already moving in. It might be a snowy night.

  Noel stood by the opposite end of the table.

  Mark waited.

  Tartu turned, and told Mark, “I’m not here to open a portal to Daihoon for you. You need to face the charges brought against you in a court of law.”

  Mark had entertained the idea of asking Tartu to open the portal right here and now, but… no. Of course not. And so, Mark tempered his expectations. He had expected shit, but he didn’t expect Tartu to come out swinging with that shit. Mark expected that denial to be buried amongst all the other shit. So Mark just sighed, kept his anger contained, and went to the table.

  Tartu watched him.

  Mark sat down, saying, “If that’s all you have to say then you can run along now, Tartu.”

  Tartu held his head high and took a seat across from Mark. He looked at Mark for a moment. He glared without exactly glaring.

  Mark sighed, rolled his head, and returned the gaze.

  “Why is the Empire aiming for you?” Tartu asked.

  “You say ‘empire’ like there’s only one of them. You’re behind the times, Tartu. Both empires are aiming for me.”

  Tartu nodded politely, as one would in polite society meetings. The tilt of that forehead, the small downcast of eyes; it all reminded Mark distinctly of his Xerkona Etiquette class at Citadel. Tartu was on his best behavior right now. Outwardly, anyway.

  Inwardly, Tartu was taking the long gesture to rapidly reorganize what he knew versus what he was being told. According to his vector, he was very worried about very distant things, and he hadn’t been aware that Okuana was involved now. Or maybe he hadn’t believed it until this moment.

  And then he looked at Mark again, and asked, “Why are both empires aiming for you?”

  “You’re an enemy right now, Tartu. You have never presented yourself as anything but an enemy, so no, I will not be telling you that.”

  “… Fair enough.” Tartu said, “I apologize for Kardi shooting you from that distance. She broke protocol and the entire order of events when she did that. We should have had a normal fight with banter in the beginning.”

  As though he wasn’t angry at all, Mark replied, “The entire event was a shit show from start to finish. A paladin put shavallian in the prop coffee to try and get me that way.”

  Noel had been pissed off to hear that earlier, but it had mostly gone unremarked because of course the Collective tried some shit. So now, Noel had no reaction at all.

  Tartu had a strong reaction.

  “They did not,” Tartu said, his eyes narrowing, disbelief roaring. “Why lie about that?”

  Mark huffed a laugh. “They did… And you really don’t believe me? Inquisitor David was the one who actually did the poisoning. He already confessed to it. I’m sure Eliot can pull it up on that side screen for you—”

  Quark whispered in Mark’s ears, “I can too, sir.”

  Mark amended himself, “My AI can do it, too. Go ahead and show them, Quark.”

  Quark flickered the conference room screen with silver light—

  “I don’t care to see an AI lie that justifies your use of Dominate magic on a battlefield,” Tartu said.

  Mark flicked a hand at the screen, and Quark got the idea of what Mark wanted. The silver retreated from the screen. “Fine. You want to—”

  Noel spoke up, “I don’t think we got around to you giving me your footage, Mark. I would like that footage now. We are sorry that happened. We’ll keep better watch over the food and cut out all food-based scenes with you and yours.”

  Tartu stared in disbelief at Noel. “… No?”

  “It happened, Tartu,” Noel said, backing Mark up.

  Tartu still didn’t believe.

  But Mark felt a little bit better to hear Noel back him up. Mark said, “Please send Noel the footage of the entire event from my perspective, Quark, amended with notes… whatever notes you think appropriate. I’ll review the same tape after this is over here.” Quark beeped in Mark’s ears; a sign of acceptance. Mark added, “And don’t worry about it, Noel. I don’t think there’s much you could have done to prepare against that, either… Also, I am sorry about subjecting the actors to that. Not sorry about the paladins getting Dominated.” And then Mark looked at Tartu. “Not sorry about making you smash your own face into the broken glass of the skylight, either.”

  Tartu’s vector swelled with hate, but for all outward appearances he was calm and collected.

  Mark snorted. “Oh come on, Tartu. You don’t have to hide that you hate me so much. It won’t change my opinion of you! Let it out! Tell me how you really feel, you self-righteous bastard.”

  Tartu glared. For a moment, he held back. Then he spat, “You were blessed with the power to heal and lead, and yet you decide to stand on the front line like a complete idiot. That was the start of my problem with you, but then you—” He sneered, disbelieving even himself, as he continued, “You agreed that a dragon is your brother, and not some horror thrust into your life that you should kill as soon as you can? I still can’t believe any of that propaganda here on Earth. Why are you venerated at all! Why did they not agree to fight together and kill that dragon, no matter the cost! It would solve our adamantium needs for the next thousand years! Addavein only left Earth so he could come back stronger and more able to kill and subjugate, and since you’re not working to undermine him, and are, in fact, working to pave the way for the tyrannical return of dragon emperors, then you MUST be working for him! You aren’t a hidden dragon; that would be too easy to check. You passed that check! So instead, you’re just DELUDED AS FUCK and a conspirator!” He added, almost as an afterthought, “And you sell his adamantium for him! Legitimizing him!”

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  Thankfully, Tartu had ranted for long enough that Mark went from being furious, to being angry, to being miffed, and then contemplative. Should he tell Tartu about his adamantium blood situation? How selling Addavein’s metal was a lie? No. Absolutely not. With that decision made, Mark decided there was no talking Tartu out of any of his shit, so Mark went a different direction.

  Mark said, “Nice ideals you got there. No notes! Killing dragons seems fine to me.”

  Tartu was flabbergasted.

  Mark moved on, “So how about we move on and figure out how this next phase of this Attack the Gate scenario is going to play out? I’m thinking that as long as it’s all normal heroic and villainous grandstanding like today’s robbery should have been, then I’ll take a minor fall, but still evade capture. The idea of pretending that I can’t dominate you whenever I want will benefit my public image. So I’ll probably try and dominate you and then purposefully fail. Inject some drama into the whole thing, you know? But you should know that I can put you down whenever I want, Tartu.”

  Tartu raged at the beginning of Mark’s words, and he calmed down just as fast. Mostly. He was still furious on the inside, but the facade was back and firmly in place. Tartu said, “I understand it’s to be some sort of villainous meet and greet, with you buying favors for the attack on the gate?”

  “As far as I’m aware, yes,” Mark said.

  Both of them glanced at Noel, without really taking their eyes off of each other.

  Noel said, “Well… Yes, that is the general idea. Will there be interference from the Collective? Or anyone else? I don’t know. If there isn’t, then I would ask for a real fight, like the one we should have had today. I’d like you to keep away from dragonist and imperialist politics, though. How about we remain on the topic of Mark selling Addavein’s metal for him?”

  “No,” Tartu said, “I would prefer to switch to the issue of him controlling the minds and purposes of everyone around him to fuel his own dark ends. That is the real problem, here.”

  “Fine by me!” Mark said, “And I’ll be sure to break out the big guns if you overstep, which includes, but is not limited to: theft of my adamantium, involving outsiders, breaking script, and trying underhanded shit that would involve my capture by any outside forces. The reappearance of shavallian will make me Brown Note you.”

  Tartu was confused. ‘Brown Note’?

  Mark did not elaborate. He would find out what that meant the hard way.

  Tartu breathed in, then said, “Despite how it might look, I am not happy that those people got involved in our fight, either. I’m going to beat you and your entire team without tricks, and without outside assistance.”

  “Great! Love it. I’m done here,” Mark said. “You can leave now, Tartu. I need to sleep for tonight’s event.”

  Tartu stood and walked to the elevator without another word. He pressed the button and waited.

  Noel got up, saying to Mark, “We’ll talk later, before the party. Expect a call by 10:30; half an hour before final setup. Tonight’s first show goes out at 9 pm! Be sure to watch it!”

  Mark nodded.

  Noel got to the elevator just in time for the doors to open and for Tartu to walk inside. Noel joined Tartu, and soon the two of them were going down, their vectors bouncing off of each other. They were talking about something and Tartu got a little more angry, but Noel was as calm as ever and… kind of excited.

  Mark tsk’d.

  Noel thought all of this anger was great for the camera.

  Mark got up and walked to the internal staircase that led upstairs, to Blackthorn’s penthouse, thinking all the while about how he was approaching a point where he just wanted to toss the whole table, to upset the whole apple cart. But Mark had no idea what that meant. How could he break two empires of Daihoon, to prevent them from bothering him, while also leaving them intact enough that their people didn’t suffer…

  What a bizarre thought.

  Mark laughed to himself.

  “How much hubris can one guy hold,” he rhetorically asked himself.

  ‘Breaking empires’? That’s just insane.