The breakfast spread was excessive by any reasonable measure.
Fourteen dishes across a table built for thirty. Three staff whose only job this morning was to make sure nothing cooled and nothing was ever more than an arm's reach from replenishment. The chandelier above it cost more than most buildings. The windows looked out over the Kapia Skyland from an elevation that made everything below appear appropriately small.
Lux Wig sat at the head of it and ate a single soft-boiled egg.
He was not a large man. He had learned early that size was a crude form of presence and had developed more sophisticated tools. His suits were made by one person in the world who made suits the way he wanted them made. His hair was silver in the way silver hair is silver on men who have decided their silver hair is an asset. He ate his egg with the focused attention of someone who applied deliberate thought to everything, including breakfast, because the alternative was carelessness, and carelessness was how you ended up third.
He was working on first.
"Good morning, Mr. Wig."
His robot assistant RX-9 moved into the dining room with the smooth efficiency of something that had never once been late.
"RX-9 You look just like the woman of my dreams. It's always good to see you but I do wish your boobs were a little bigger than you'd be more of a realistic woman." A gentle smile crossed his lips.
RX-9 "It is a Joy to see you Master, one look at you makes me hordy."
Lux Wig "The word is horny, seems like another software issue."
The cloth stirred faintly. Lux's eyes flicked toward the subtle movement, sharp and alert. He watched for a beat, then dismissed it, letting his gaze drift away as if it hadn't mattered at all.
He sighed "Report."
RX-9 produced a thin luminous display at a readable angle.
"Overnight update. Your three main businesses are running smoothly." The display arranged itself simply. "Oxygen distribution across the eastern sky-lands, stable. Mylon water, ahead of schedule. Miracle Giver production, scaling up."
Lux nodded. "Give me the simple version."
"Of course." RX-9 adjusted. "You own the oxygen people breathe in three sky-lands. You tax it. They pay because they have no choice." A pause. "Mylon water you distribute for free. It's popular. What most people don't know is that Mylon suppresses natural conception over time. When people find they can't have children, they come to you."
"And what do I sell them," Lux said.
"Miracle Giver. A fertility supplement. Expensive. Effective. Available exclusively through Wigg Pharmaceuticals." RX-9 continued without inflection. "You created the problem. You sell the solution. The gap between those two things is where the majority of your current income lives."
Lux tapped the edge of his spoon against his egg.
"Increase the oxygen tax by three percent across Kapia, Blue Dove, and Stargate," he said.
"Understood. Anything else?"
"Yellow Rock projections."
RX-9 pulled up a new display. Geological surveys. Depth readings. Numbers that rewrote what it meant to be wealthy.
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"The Yellow Rock deposit beneath Dragon Hive," RX-9 said, "contains enough raw material to produce artificial abi at a scale that has no precedent. It can be synthesized, packaged, and sold to anyone on the planet who wants more power than they were born with." A pause. "Anyone who controls that supply controls the abi market entirely. Conservative estimates place the value at..."
"Enough to make me the first trillionaire on the planet," Lux said.
Not a boast. Arithmetic.
"Yes," RX-9 said.
Lux looked out the window at the world arranged below.
"The Pyraz family," he said. "Update."
"The Hammerian arrangement continues to be productive. The Pyraz family controls significant military and political infrastructure across the upper sky-lands. Their partnership gives you eyes and reach inside Dragon Hive's governmental structure without your name appearing anywhere." RX-9 adjusted the display. "They are useful."
"They are," Lux said. "I enjoy working with the Hammerian's. They're simple men with simple motivations. They want to control the island. They want hierarchy. They want the old Hammerian order restored." He almost smiled. "Straightforward. Manageable."
"The Parasite King wants the same thing," RX-9 noted.
"Yes." Lux finished his egg. "Both the Hammerian's and the Parasite King want to control Dragon Hive. They want it for different reasons and through different methods and neither of them particularly likes the other." He set down his spoon. "Which one wins is not my concern."
"And if they come into conflict?"
"Then one of them is removed from the equation and I work exclusively with the survivor." He picked up his coffee. "My job is not to pick sides. My job is to make profit. I have positioned myself to do that regardless of which direction Dragon Hive falls." He looked at the window. "The island destabilizes, I move in. Yellow Rock becomes accessible, I extract. Whoever ends up holding the island when the dust settles will need someone to monetize the resources beneath it."
"And that someone is you."
"That someone is me," Lux confirmed.
His voice was perfect. Not a trace.
RX-9 moved through the door. "Apologies for the interruption, Mr. Wigg. The Parasite King is requesting an audience."
Lux opened his eyes.
"Send it through," he said.
The screen that opened was not technically a screen. It was a negotiation between technology and something older that had agreed to use technology for the duration of this conversation. The Parasite King existed on the other side of it the way weather exists, not contained by the frame, simply visible through it.
His abi level was a number that didn't parse as a number so much as a condition. People who spoke with the Parasite King through screens reported that the room got heavier. That something in the back of the brain that was very old and very honest started quietly suggesting that attention was required.
Lux Wig sipped his cold coffee.
He was not afraid. Fear was a choice and he had chosen not to make it because fear was bad for business and the Parasite King was, whatever else he was, a business relationship that needed managing.
"You're questioning my timeline again," Lux said. He hadn't let the King speak first. He never let anyone speak first.
"The Promise Seed, once I have that I will have the Philo power of coercion consent" the King said. His voice moved through the screen the way deep water moves. "Time is running out human."
"You'll have both."
"The Philo gives me the instrument to direct the parasite forces with precision," the King said. "Without it the incursions become random. Random incursions destroy the things you need intact." A pause that had mass. "Including what lies beneath Yellow Rock."
Lux said nothing.
"I know what you want, Wig," the King said. "I have lived on this island longer than you have been alive. I was here before it had a name. And I know what lies beneath the ground the way you know what lies in your own house." The screen seemed to breathe. "Yellow Rock is not yours to touch. Not until our arrangement is fully satisfied. Whatever you have planned, whatever number you have run in your head about becoming the first trillionaire this planet has produced, it waits."
The muscle along Lux's jaw moved once.
"I understand the transaction," he said.
"I need to hear it properly."
A long contained pause.
"I will deliver the Promise Seed," Lux said. Each word measured and placed. "I will deliver the Empress's Philo. You will maintain operational control of the parasite forces. Dragon Hive will be destabilized but not destroyed. Yellow Rock will remain intact." He met the screen's presence without blinking. "I fulfill my end because I expect the same in return. That is how I do business."
The King considered this.
"See that it is, I cannot contain the Para-Guards much longer" he said.
The screen went dark.
Lux sat in his dining room.
Lux Wig "No matter the cost I will become the richest man and then I will say farewell to this world. I'll terra-morph a better one for you spike."
On the wall hung a image of a white dog.
"I am so happy"
The words were empty, a turkey without seasoning.
He stepped away from the table, then paused. Slowly, he turned back toward the chair at the far end of the massive dining table. He couldn't shake the feeling that someone was there. After a moment, he dismissed it and walked off.
What he didn't see was Roxlaw, Jupiter Man, seated not exactly where he'd been looking but instead in the seat that was right in front of him.
Invisible.