On the off chance that I get offed, I have chanced to hide a statement in my computers roughly outlining what I know and what my plan is. It’s not much of a plan. Should be fairly clear by now that I’m not the planning type.
I’ve just gotten really paranoid with all these heroes around, but the natives are restless. The native heroes, I mean. When the other natives are restless, that’s when you see skeletons scalping people. It doesn’t happen often.
They’re all the problem, but Venus and Forcelight are the shiftiest. They obviously don’t trust me, despite my help. See, this is why it’s so hard out there for a pimp. I wonder if one of them knows. But if they know, you’d think Venus would have gotten frustrated to the point of letting me know she knows. I’m exceedingly frustrating. Perhaps I need to let her know that I know. Or, better yet, hint to her that I know that she knows, so that if she doesn’t know, she won’t know.
I don’t know, but see what I mean about Venus making me think all weird and sane?
Ok, ok, OK!
I don’t like her collaborating with Forcelight especially, with them knowing each other so well. But I can’t send them out. None of them. They have to stay in one place because I need to arrange things right.
I know, I could just have them all drop in on another meeting of The Order. We’re setting up shop at City Hall now. The Mayor’s former staff left it to us once Oligarch strode in with Man-Opener at his back. Unfortunately, they practiced a policy of scorched earth and took the coffeemaker with them, so we’re out of that at the meetings. It’s not a problem for me, since I really don’t care that much for coffee. But it’s the little things. You know, stuff that makes the people you’re hanging out with decide not to kill you in a pinch.
That’s important. I wouldn’t be surprised if manners improved some when you know knew that anyone around you could kill you at any time. You know, up until all the killing started. I imagine that part would be quite rude. A lot of amateurs don’t know the polite ways to kill someone. There’s even a specific way to tie a napkin at the dinner table so other victims will know you’re coming back. If you just leave it draped over the corpse’s face, the others will think you’re finished.
It’s called Deadiquette, people, and it’s becoming a lost art.
Anyway, I can’t just have the heroes attack any such meeting and round everyone up. That doesn’t work. It goes against the first point on my plan:
First, maximize the number of potential defenders against the alien attack. This doesn’t mean creating lots of conflict. Conflict doesn’t necessarily create more supers.
I’m trying to do that. I just have to come up with how. I need to keep the group in Empyreal City. I need villains. Hell, I need civilians with machineguns built into their prosthetic arms. And I need heroes. I can’t let them die off or run away, either. It’s not easy to need people, folks. I learned long ago that other people will either let you down or just make shit worse.
The thing is, I can hide. If Oligarch is around, he doesn’t strike me as the type to hide. He’s egotistical, and all about these grand plots to take over something. The sort of guy who could never spend a day just planning to make a really good sandwich instead. Busybodies like that can’t ever leave well enough alone.
Hmm, so I need to eliminate Oligarch…small hiccup, though. What are the odds the heroes would actually take him out? I mean, they didn’t even kill me. They thought about it, sure, but they decided against it. And I can’t do it as Banshee. That’s supposed to be the line that gets drawn. The other villains would give me up to the heroes, or at least refuse to help me out when the heroes come knockin’. I can’t even have people find him murdered with no witnesses around. Why? Because whenever I am forced to inevitably “come out” as Psycho Gecko, I’m going to get unsolved murders pinned on me left and right. Who knows, they might even write a book blaming me for JFK.
And they probably won’t give me any royalties either. I’m still a little nettled at O.J. Simpson for that little “If PG Did It” book he came out with. Not super nettled, but nettled.
Since I can’t make it look like an “accident,” I’ll just have to make it look like an accident. Whenever I arrange this big battle of epic proportions, I’m going to need Oligarch to accidentally die.
I knew ahead of time I didn’t want that to happen at the big dinner we had. It was some fancy Italian place, which was really going above and beyond for the crowd they catered to. Especially Powder, who had survived getting knocked around by The Saurus. Saurus is fine, by the way. Like the other heroes, he doesn’t like laying low and letting villains walk around doing whatever they want.
I think the worst we did at the restaurant was under-tip the waitstaff. Like I said, horribly rude individuals abound. Worse, because so many of them wore costumes, they didn’t have any wallets with them to pickpocket. Most costumes don’t even have room for a wallet, but most people who wear them would never think of putting that kind of personal information within easy reach of an enemy. Which is a shame, because nothing rubs it in quite like the villain beating a hero, then using the goody-goody’s card to pay for a victory meal.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Oligarch went on at the meal. “Congratulations are owed to each and every one of you. We have taken an amazing first step in building a truly better world.”
A better world? Sounds like someone’s buying their own propaganda. He’s unstable and delusional. Tsk, tsk. It’d be a favor, really. Gotta put folks like that down before they wind up hurting themselves and everyone around them.
“I have opened negotiations with organized crime and the unaffiliated criminals of our city to join our Order, as lesser partners, of course.” He smiled. The poor, hallucinating freak. It’d be so easy to put him out of his clear misery. I mean, just look at how pained he looked eating that penne? He’s clearly drunk on pasta and power. All it’d take is one or two good stabs to the throat with the fork I had in my hand.
But no. Too difficult to pass off as an accident. No one at the table, save for Powder getting her little fix, would likely believe I just happened to trip and fall twelve feet to jam my eating utensil into Oligarch’s jugular.
Besides, I’m having the alfredo tonight, and I hate mixing red and white sauces like that.
In a more subdued, conversationalist tone, Oligarch said to me, “By the way, your idea to fix cannon emplacements around the city is great. Please do so at your earliest convenience.”
I nodded. I already had a couple more in place, hidden. Military surplus, which is how I got them so quick. I still have to rig them so they’ll work remotely under my control or as automated systems. That means autoloaders. Most buildings are not made with that in mind.
See, that’s part of the second part of my plan: infrastructure. I don’t know why aliens would pick this planet to invade, or why they’d pick this country to invade, or why they’d pick this city. In fact, technically speaking, I don’t know for sure that they do. But I’m figuring they probably do for some reason. Urban environments are not an ideal battlefield for most confrontations. They can be made even less fun if a city has defensive weapon emplacements, hidden bunkers, underground tunnels, and the occasional explosive device.
He sipped his glass of wine, then looked around at all of us. “It will not be this easy every time, but days like today give me confidence in our ability to make this world into the utopia it deserves.” See, crazy talk. I wasn’t the only one who thought so, either.
“What are you on?” some guy called out in a general way, avoiding identification.
Oligarch smiled. “I think we are headed for utopia if we can make it happen. We have the tools, tools like advanced robotics, miniaturization, nanomachinery, and chemistry that goes beyond what mortal man is capable of. The pieces are there, but mankind is too enamored of the concept of independence. For the good of everyone, we must break their laws and drag them to utopia. They require a strong hand.”
This guy’s almost as bad as I am at monologuing. “If they’re so damn dumb they can’t fix their problems themselves, then why do they even deserve a paradise?” I asked.
“We give them paradise because we are their betters. Being better means granting mercy.”
Can’t say I’m big on mercy, and I doubt he would be too if he was at someone else’s mercy. Mercy is fine for the powerful, but not so much when you’ve been the bottom of the totem pole. And it’s more than humans show. Like with my nanites. Someone got a hold of them and figured out how to make more that’ll work for anybody. It’s a revolutionary invention that would drastically cut down on worldwide mortality. What do they do? They’re jumping through hoops so they can make people buy it instead. Explain how doling it out in proportion to money is merciful to a mother and father watching their son go blind from Robles disease, when it could have been given to them instead?
If you’re looking for some grand philosophical statement about how much better I am, that’s not what I’m saying here. I’m just explaining why I hate these people and want them to die.
And I need them to have any hope of surviving. Even Terrorjaw over there, whose maw smells like a skunk getting pegged by a string of garlic.
That brings us to the third part of my simple plan: cooperation. I need to get heroes working together and villains working together. Even heroes and villains working together. Under rule of law, criminals can still flourish. Under rule of Oligarch, he’s notably discriminatory against the whitey tighties of truth and justice.
So Oligarch has to go, but The Order has to stay.
“Oligarch, I have another idea in mind you might like. My company’s had something of an infestation at the docks. Giant bugs. I think it’s about time I was also seen with The Order, and we can clean out some pests. How about a show of power that lets the little people see how merciful we can be?”
Oligarch held his glass out in my direction. “Wonderful idea, my idea. You are a fine example of the cream rising to the top.”
Nope. That was just me resisting the urge to spit alfredo sauce back up in his direction.
I’ll tell y’all one thing. This invasion better be worth it, with ships and lots of enemies and huge explosions. If this turns out to be a bunch of alien bishounen pop stars trying to sleep with easy earth women, I’m going to be sorely disappointed.
Hopefully that’ll be the only sorely I’ll be, too, seeing as I’m now an easy earth woman.
You hear me, horny aliens? This taco cart is closed!
World Domination in Retrospect 
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