Power(14)
“God, you men and your—” I cut myself off before snarling at him. “It’s about power. You want it, and that means you’re willing to take it from everyone else in order to secure it for yourself. And I’m going to—”
“Stop me, I know,” he said, almost resigned. He looked weary. “Same old argument, huh?”
“Same old story,” I said. “Some douchebag wants to take over the world.”
“It’s a very different story,” he said. “You don’t know anything about me. Either that or you aren’t listening.”
“I’m listening very carefully,” I said, “but your actions are screaming so loud I can’t hear a word you’re saying.”
He gave me a hard look. “I just wanted to make sure you were all right. And to tell you … I’m sorry for what Weissman did.”
“No, you’re not,” I said. “You’re mistaken if you think you are. You’re planning to do so much worse than what he’s done so far. At least an Evil Overlord could admit it to himself.”
“Good night, Sienna,” Sovereign said, turning away from me. “See you soon.”
“Not if I have anything to say about it, asshole,” I muttered as the dream world faded around me.
Chapter 7
“Sovereign is going to phase two,” I said, my knuckles cracking as I forced them against the cold surface of the conference room table.
“He’s going to make weapons using the Tesseract?” Reed asked, a little light in his eyes and a quirk at the corner of his mouth.
“Hah hah,” I said. “‘Do I look to be in a gaming mood?’”
“Nice,” Reed said, arching his eyebrows. “Though you going with a Thor quote seems a little out of place.”
“Felt right to me since I’ve killed two of his brothers now,” I said. “Back on subject, we seem to have deprived Sovereign of the ability to efficiently hunt metahumans to extinction the way he and Weissman were doing it, so he’s decided to skip ahead to subjugating humanity.”
That declaration sucked all the air out of the room. I was surrounded by Ariadne, Reed, Janus, Li, Scott, Kat and Zollers. It was a grim lot already, and my words took any happiness that might have been lingering completely out of the equation.
“Where’s Senator Foreman? Shouldn’t he be here for something as important as this?” Reed asked, breaking the silence while shifting in his chair, arms folded over his leather jacket.
Li shook his head. “He’s busy.”
“Doing what?” Reed asked, his eyebrow turned upward. “What could possibly be more important than stopping Sovereign from taking over the damned world?”
“Making sure the ‘damned world’ doesn’t find out about Sovereign trying to take it over,” Li said humorlessly.
“Great,” Ariadne said, looking just as weary as she had for the last few weeks. “What do we do now?”
“How do you know about this? About this ‘phase two’ starting?” Kat asked, just a little guarded. I couldn’t tell if she was holding back because she thought I was going to hit her or something.
“He told me himself last night in a dreamwalk,” I said. I caught mixed reactions around the table, but they all denoted at least some surprise. “He stopped in to reassure me that he had nothing to do with Weissman’s little play to kidnap and torture me.”
“Yeah, right,” Scott said, expression darkening, “he probably gave the order himself.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” I said, “but it doesn’t matter because kidnapping me ranks pretty far below genocide in my estimation, and since he’s already up to that, I don’t really have a lot more disdain I can add to his personal pile.”
“So, he’s reached the point where you can’t get any madder at him?” Reed asked, his lips again hinting at a smile. “I honestly didn’t know such a thing was possible.”
“That’s because you’re not there yet,” I said, “though you seem to be rapidly heading that way. We need answers. We need insight. We need—” There was a knock at the door, “—a do not disturb sign, maybe?” I finished lamely. “Come in.”
The door opened and a geeky, dark-haired guy with hipster glasses breezed in. “Oh, hi,” J.J. said as he entered, as though there was no meeting going on.
“J.J.,” I said, my voice at a pitch I reserved for warning people before I started to beat them senseless, “we’re a little busy right now.”