Broker

Otis hadn’t fully internalized just how much of a change she had gone through when she had one-upped him on the path to divinity. Her armor was more elegant than the machined look that it had in the original images circulating of her. It wasn’t dissimilar to some kind of medieval armor now. Gleaming white-silver plates covered her entire body with only a hint of black peeking through at the joints. The sleek look was accompanied by her ferocious new helm. Originally, it had reminded him of something a DJ would wear. Now it was more angular, the flat faceplate molded slightly to emphasize the pink flames burning out of its eye sockets.

He’d fought her once. He knew her strength, her aura, her presence. Domineering and prescient, like a ruler looking down at him with disappointment. The feeling galled him, but he stayed his hand for a moment even as the rage boiled in his brain. He wasn’t a fool. She was powerful, intelligent, and had orchestrated the fall of An Set, and he had no doubt of her role in Liberty’s defeat as well. He’d heard the stories. Fought her personally. He knew her mischief and her wrath.

He balled his free hand into a fist and clenched it tight, a bead of sweat drawing down his neck.

Can I win in a dungeon?

“Look at this coward,” Ishtar sing-songed, floating towards him with a languid motion. Her voice had an etheric quality to it as opposed to that rasp it had before. It seemed to echo and hang in the air. She crossed her legs and floated in the air after getting a bit closer. She laughed. “You’re shaking like a leaf!”

“Is this you? Another one of your abilities?” he demanded, gesturing around himself.

“Who can say?” The supervillain snickered. “I’m certainly not going to explain myself to you, Otis. Especially after how disappointing you’ve become,” she sighed, and her glowing eyes flashed. “You were far more threatening hiding in the shadows. Now that you’re in the light, you can be seen for what you really are. A sniveling child play-acting as a man. Fool’s gold built on lies.”

His nostrils flared, but he held his ground, his fingers tightening around the grip of his weapon. “You have no idea what I’m capable of,” he said.

“Your abilities are based on video game logic,” she said flatly, taking a sauntering step forward. “You follow a guide that tells you what to do. You can’t make any real decisions for yourself,” she continued as she drew closer. He felt his instincts scream at him to step back. His eyes bulged as her rasping words rattled around in his head. “You cheat. Literally. It’s so pathetic I want to cry. You’ve leaned on those cheats for so long you barely understand how your ability works.”

“I’ve taken step-”

“You’ve taken steps to overcome it. You’ve started training. It’s adorable but too little, too late. Now we’re face-to-face, and I know your limits, Marc. I know where the boundaries of your immortality end. Do you want me to tell you?” she asked with an icy cruelty that sent ripples through the air. She tilted her head to the right as she got within striking range. “Or do you want to test and see if you’ll survive this fight?”

His hands shook, a tiny part of him quaking. He nearly lost his grip on his weapon as the woman drew in close enough that he could see his reflection in her helmet. “Still human after all the atrocities,” she teased.

“What are you after?” he snarled.

“Haven’t you been watching the news?” she asked, sashaying backwards with a cruel laugh. “I want to rule this world. I want order. If that means I have to play nice on occasion, I will. You, on the other hand. You want to destroy the world, purge it and wipe it clean. I can’t have that,” she tapped the chin of her helmet. “But I could make use of you instead of wiping you off the face of the Earth.”

His lips curled. “...Make use?”

She whipped her helmet towards him. “Of course! I am a dealmaker, after all, but you knew that already.” She held out a hand. “What do you say, Otis? Serve me, and I’ll put your abilities to proper use. Make something of you instead of the pathetic, aimless mess you are. How can a thing like you become the monster that ends the world? Be a good boy, and I might even show you how to take the next step.”

Temptation was blown away by indignation. “Thing?” he snarled.

“A tool in service to my new world order. You can’t beat me. You won’t achieve your dream. You’ll die here if you don’t agree. So capitulate, make it easy on yourself, surrender, give up,” she said, extending her hand to him. She was suddenly closer, her blazing, hot-pink eyes boring down on him with ruthless malice. “You’ll make a good poster boy when I put you to work in service of my world peace.”

This. Was a nightmare. This was every fear he’d ever held. Every terror he could imagine. Becoming weak again. Being at someone else's mercy. Being told that he would serve the species he had written off. Capitulating to lesser life forms. A cold feeling wormed its way through his guts. His mind spun. He tried to search for a way out. His eyes flitted towards his surroundings. A vast void spread out beyond the marble platform. They were in some hidden space within the dungeon. He hadn’t felt this vulnerable in so long. 

His hands shook as his sword lowered to his side. He could live if he just gave up. If he put aside his dreams of deification, of being the end. Of being the protagonist of this world’s final great story. She might even let him taste a piece of his dream if he just obeyed. The words wriggled their way into his mind like whispers. You aren’t special. You aren’t powerful. You’re a failure. You walked into a trap like a fool. The guide thought for you, and now you don’t even have it anymore. You are just an instrument without a player.

You don’t matter.

He stared into his terrified reflection in her helmet. Was that really the face of a world killer? His jaw shook. No. The word was like a glacier that sprouted in his mind and gut, the mass pushing through the whispers. The rage and terror, the sense of ineptness, the impotent feeling that suffused his very being began to crack under the weight of something else: pure ego. His mind shuddered as a tear welled in one eye and dripped down his face. 

If I didn’t matter, why are you so dead set on stopping me? It’s not me who should be afraid. It’s you. 

His expression eased, horror replaced with a placid smile. The smile widened as light returned to his blue eyes, a glow that burned to life in his reflection. He took his fears and crushed them into powder. He consumed them. Devoured them. Ate them and feasted upon the icy chill that ran through his veins. It gave him clarity. Ahh… this must be what Felwinter feels like. Amazing.

He drank it in. How had he forgotten what it felt like? Had he been pretending to be what he wasn’t for so long that he’d forgotten? Some would call him a villain. Some would call him a hero. Others would worship at his feet. Yet the only thing that mattered to him was that he was the center of this story. This was supposed to be fun. When had he started to take it so seriously? This was his world, his game to play.

Ah, Ishtar’s words before An Set blew himself up. They scared me. I couldn’t admit it before. He flicked his glowing blue eyes up at her. These are all of my fears manifested as one. I know where I am. I’m in a nightmare. A waking nightmare. A nightmare so real it’s taken control of a dungeon. Even so, they are what they are. His lip twitched. “Your power is so amusing,” he said pleasantly, his cold smile reflecting back at him. “You seemed adamant about my services. You must need my help, whoever you are.”

The nightmare Ishtar took a step back. “You’re… awake?”

He bared his perfect white teeth at her. “Yes. More awake than I’ve been in a long, long time. What a convenient way to go through therapy. More people should try this kind of thing,” he said with a laugh.

Nightmare Ishtar flickered and buzzed like she was an image with poor signal. “How?”

“You laid it on a little too thick,” he said. “Your earlier stuff was good work, but then you had to go and pummel away at my psyche. Subtlety is better. You must be desperate. Are you stuck in here too?”

Her eyes narrowed behind the helmet, but she said nothing.

His head tilted sharply, and he fixed her with a stare, his smile widening. “To start, I would appreciate it if you stopped rooting around in my head. It’s impolite. You know what I do to the impolite, don’t you?”

For a moment a young woman stood in front of him, a teenager, barely older than Riot or Felwinter. She wore a white gown, and her black hair fell around her face as her haunted eyes stared at him. Flat and gray. She was pretty but in a hollow way. Like a horror monster that crawled its way out of a well. “I can’t let you leave,” she said, her voice weak and tired compared to the domineering voice of Ishtar.

“Because you can’t defend yourself out there?” Otis said with an easy smile. 

The girl hesitated. “What do you want?”

I knew it.

“In exchange for your life?” he laughed. “Give me your best offer. One way or another, I’m getting out. If I tear my way out by force, who knows what will happen? I assume you figured out how to turn yourself into the anchor monster here? You want me to close the dungeon without killing you, right?”

Her flat expression turned hard. “I can be useful,” she stated, as if the very idea she wasn’t was an affront. “In fact, I already have been if that crybaby is any indication. I just want out of here.”

He raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. “We’ll see,” he hissed, flexing his fingers, sparks dancing around them as the world around him began to shift. She closed her eyes and faded away, leaving him alone. He smiled and flexed his power. A power that he would master. A power that was his, that belonged to him and would obey. He felt his instincts shift at the core of his being, a change taking place as the words appeared in front of him:

<Access Granted. Debug mode enabled. What dungeon features would you like to edit?>

His smile was nothing short of insane.

—

Otis awoke in the real world, his eyes taking a moment to refocus while he got to his feet. He panned his gaze to the right and spotted the nurse who had first met them sitting with a vapid expression on her face, drool dripping from her lip. Weak little creature, crushed after so long under the weight of the nightmare. He turned away from the uninteresting parasite and focused on two people he actually appreciated. Felwinter was sitting against a wall and glowering as her senses came back to her. He walked over.

“Enjoy your dream?” he asked.

She flicked her eyes up towards him and sneered back. “Not my favorite.”

He chuckled and turned to look at Riot but found him already walking away, moving through the door that led into room four forty-nine. Otis moved after him and heard a squeak of pain. He stopped at the threshold and found Riot standing there, his hand around the throat of that same young woman he’d seen in the nightmare. He was lifting her off her hospital bed with his left hand, while the fingers on his right hand started to glow. The girl just hung limply in his grip. She was still alive, but she wasn’t fighting back.

She looked at Otis with cold, flat eyes as her face started to change color.

Otis let her suffer for a few more heartbeats before speaking. “That’s enough, Riot. Put her down. I want her alive.”

Riot dropped her without a second thought, and his hands fell to his sides. My, my, It looks like she wasn’t joking. What did she put this guy through? Otis wondered as Riot turned to face him. A single tear streamed down the right side of Riot’s face as he smiled at Otis. 

“Works for me,” Riot said merrily even as his voice trembled. His face was a two-sided mask of mirth and misery.

Otis approved of this change. He grinned back at his Herald, “I’m afraid so, Riot. You’ll have to take your anger out on someone else,” he explained as Felwinter stepped up behind him. He glanced over his shoulder at the fury in her eyes that was focused on the young woman. “This means both of you.”

The girl rumbled out a faint cough and shot a sidelong look at Felwinter. “Lunatic.”

Otis turned to look at her. “And I’m still deciding what to do with you.”

She turned her head to return his stare without an ounce of guilt on her face. Her lips twitched, and the air seemed to chill a little. “So, when do you kill me?”

“Depends on my mood. I might not,” Otis pointed out as he walked inside. He gestured to Felwinter, who moved to the opposite side of the bed from Riot, and the two of them looked down at her. She sat on the bed, unmoved by their approach. “You see, we have a bit of a problem,” he said and rested a hand on his hip. “You dug a little too deep there. I’m trying to decide whether or not that usefulness you implied you had outweighs knowing something you shouldn’t.”

Her expressionless face twitched into a slight frown. “What do you want?”

“Answers,” he said. “I’m very curious about you.” He gestured to Riot. “Find her chart.”

Riot nodded and searched the room for a moment before finding a clipboard lying on a counter covered in dust. He wiped it off and read it over briefly before looking up at Otis. “Comatose patient, the date reads the same as the flash. Age…” Riot’s shaky voice trailed off, and he barked out an eerie laugh. “Fifteen?”

Exactly as I thought, he mused and looked back at the girl. “It’s been two years. When’s your birthday?”

“December Twentieth,” she murmured, and Riot nodded to confirm it with what he saw on the chart.

Otis exchanged a look with his Heralds. Felwinter was the first to speak. “That can’t be right,” she said thoughtfully. “She’s got a few more weeks before she should show signs of awakening, let alone a case file spanning the past two years.”

Otis grinned and gestured to the young woman dramatically. “And yet here she is, a Mythic no less, based on the power we encountered. Something’s changed.”

She gave him a dreary scowl. “Did you get the answers you wanted? Did I pass your test?”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” he said. “How much do you remember of our encounter in that dream?”

“Everything,” she said and didn’t even blink at the tension rising from Riot and Felwinter. She shrugged her shoulders, and her frown turned into a small smile. “No hard feelings?” she asked.

Riot and Felwinter both stared daggers in her direction but didn’t dare say a word with Otis watching. He grinned. She enjoyed it, he thought before whistling in appreciation. “Well, I certainly could use someone with your talents. Searching a person’s memories through their nightmares could come in handy,” he said.

“I already agreed,” she muttered and looked him in the eyes. “I know better than anyone what you’re capable of. I won’t say a word.”

His smile grew wide. “Good… Now, why don’t you introduce yourself to your new peers? I’m sure you have a few good ideas for a name after rooting around in my head.”

The stony-faced girl stared back at him, not breaking eye contact. “My name is Amy Dala. You may address me as Melinoë, Herald of Otis.”

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