“You’re planning to destroy every soldier in the whole world, every police officer,” I said and took my hand off the railing to fold my arms in front of me. “It’s pretty bad.”
Any amusement in his expression vanished. “Well, plans can change.”
I let out a fake laugh that actually made him take a step back. “You’re still a terrible liar. You’ve been running a scam on me all along. There wasn’t an inch of daylight between you and Weissman at any point after Andromeda.”
His mouth warped and his eye twitched. “What gave it away?”
“The plane he put me on,” I said. “The flight plan said it was bound for Tulsa.”
He shook his head like it didn’t matter, but I could see the lie written on his face. “So?”
“So you were going to have him put me in storage,” I said. “In a stasis unit.”
His lips pursed with fury. “Maybe that was Weissman’s plan, but—”
I drove a fist through the railing and splinters exploded from it. Sovereign took an abrupt step back. “No more lies,” I said.
“Okay. Fine,” he said. The shock in his voice had been replaced with a menace I doubt he even realized was there. “I just wanted you to see the real me.”
“I’ve seen the real you,” I said. “I’ve probably seen more of the real you than you have.”
“You don’t know me,” he said quickly, with a flare of indignation.
“I know what you’ve done,” I said. “What you planned to do.”
“No, you don’t know, you don’t know anything.” He shook his head and now he just looked furious and disgusted. “I can’t believe you figured—” He let out a grunt that sounded primordial. “I was just trying to show you the way. We were fixing the world. Imagine a world without violence. Without cruelty. Without people trying to hurt and kill each other. A place where—”
“Where if you step out of line, the power of a vengeful god descends upon you, prepared to smite you for your wrongs,” I said. “That’s what you were planning to be: the hammer of righteousness.”
“I was—I am going to be the one who makes sure that if someone steps too far over the line, they get what’s coming to them.” He was breathing a little harder now, staring me down. “What if someone had done that for you when your mother was sticking you in here?” He flung a hand out to indicate the box. “What if you had been raised in a world where the threat of violence didn’t hang over you?”
“Except the violence you would do if I stepped out of line,” I said. “You’ve got aspirations to be a petty tyrant. To run an Empire like Janus and the others did. And you’ll rule from on high, making sure the peasants and slaves don’t step out of line.”
“That’s not how it would be,” he said, but he sounded like he was becoming more progressively unhinged. “I want to help people—”
“Provided they’ve survived your genocide and are appropriately loyal to your new regime.”
“It’s not like that!” he shouted, crossing into maniac territory. I could tell I’d succeeded in getting not only his goat but his whole herd. He’d been got. “I wanted to make it a better world! Free from war, crime, poverty—”
“Free from humans making choices,” I said. “A utopia ruled by the iron fist of—”
“If you say ‘a god’ again, so help me—”
“You’ll what?” I asked, staring at him from the landing. “You’ll make me the first to fall?” I took a step down and then another until I stood on the concrete, staring at him, breathing hard, his face reddening. “You know what you want to do? You want to lock the whole human race in a box of their own. Take away all their freedom and choices and power—”
He made this kind of squeaking noise of fury, and I had to steel myself to keep from stepping back. “You see this the way you’ve seen your life play out up until now.” He sounded strangled, like he was barely hanging on. “Everything that’s happened to you is coloring your perceptions of this future. It could be grand—and bright —”
“I’ve seen your future,” I said. “There’s nothing bright about it.”
He cocked his head at me. “What are you talking about?” His eyes narrowed. “What do you know?” He looked at me, face straining, eyes trying to see into my soul. “He’s blocking me. How the hell is he blocking me?”