Act Two, Scene Fourteen
Jim Skullcracker climbed the stairs to the top floor. His genial expression was still there, but behind it he was thinking hard. The floor was two units, broken by a narrow hallway with the stairs down at one end and the door into the rest of the floor at the other, keeping it as one unit separate from the rest of the building.
He made it to the door, knocked, pressed the buzzer and spoke into the receiver.
“Nick. I want to talk.”
The pause lasted long enough for someone to put on armor, then the door opened. Nicator said, “James,” and left it at that.
“Jim, Nick.”
“Come in.”
The apartment, despite the size, was spare, spartan. Armor maintenance tools. One desk with a small laptop computer on it. Two chairs. One bed, one cot. A flask oddly discarded, shaped to fit in a hip pocket.
Nicator closed and locked the door, waved Jim to a seat.
“What are you here to talk about, Jim?”
“I want to know what I’m doing here.”
Nicator sighed metallically. “I need someone reliable and competent who I can trust.”
“Yeah, I guessed that, Nick. If you’re catching a couple of capes you don’t need me for that.”
“No?” he said, helmet distorting his voice.
“This is your turf, not mine. You’ve got the camera setup, you’ve got the crew, and you could kick my ass in a fight anyway. You’re a cape-killer. I’m a bank robber.”
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“I got lucky.”
“You’ve never been lucky a day in your life,” said Jim Skullcracker. “It wasn’t luck when you stepped on that coil. It was doing a bad job of hiding your powers, though.”
“And what are those powers?” Nicator asked softly.
“Scientifically enhanced physical abilities, electrokinesis, and a uterus.”
Nicator stared.
“Hey,” said Jim, “I don’t have one.”
Nicator cracked up laughing.
“When did you learn?” she said, after catching her breath.
She raised her hands to her helmet, unlocked it, lifted it. Under it was Victoria’s frozen face. The flask was lifted from a nearby bench, and she drank.
“Took a couple months. The initial rec said you were from Novapest, and you had the accent, right, and were new to the black hat life, but you could fight. Minus the accent, that means ex-hero; with it, it means ex-knight, especially since you had no problem with killing. So you were doing it for practice - because you got better - and for money.”
“Practice for what?”
“Not the armor. You knew how to use an eight-million-dollar suit when I had you recommended to me,” he said, “but you were rough when you started. Like you weren’t quite used to your body.” He met her eyes. “And you had electric powers. Not very common, not like brick or tinker. But you were trying to hide them, to pretend you were just some other boiler.”
Her mouth twitched slightly. “Not hiding well enough.”
“Countess Ilderia, I presume?”
She nodded once, and, voice smooth, “Yes.”
“I heard you were dead.”
“I had Splicer make me a body-double at the same time he made me my new face and left it somewhere the Tyrant’s snipers could find it.”
He shrugged.
“How did you know it was me? There are eleven other people in the world with electric powers. There could have been a twelfth.”
He put his hands behind his head, elbows spread, and leaned back. “I just thought, ‘Nick here would be a perfect fit for Ilderia if only he was female.’ Then I realized I didn’t know you were male except by your say-so - and that a man with your powers would be much less suspicious to the Tyrant than a woman.”
Victoria’s armored arms crossed.
“And what do you intend to do about it?”
“You’re trying to make yourself queen. You want me to help.”
“Eventually. Do you want to be a count?”
“Hell no,” said Jim Skullcracker. “Do I look like I’m crazy? I want a retirement home.”
Her lips twitched.
“That’s it?”
“You already offered me all the money I could ask for. I don’t want anything more, aside from somewhere I can run if I need to. I just don’t like being lied to.”
He nodded.
“Good luck, your majesty.”
Only after he was gone, the door closed and the footsteps retreating down the hall did she grin and grin and laugh in eternal, glorious triumph.