At least I’ll get to die doing what I loved: leaving.
My head was pounding, my throat was a desert, my vision was doing flips, and occasionally outright leaving me. The sound of cars coming in and out were like gunshots aimed directly inside of my ears. Everything was a little bit hilarious. The fact that I was just inside of a house, and now I was outside. The fact that the hosts had been arguing about the playlist the entire night. The amount of people that had been inside. The desperation and indulgence that clung to everyone there. The bite marks that Czech supermodel had left on my shoulder. The fact that we had teeth at all - were they bones?
I wasn't dead though. I don't love the word "alive" but I wasn't dead.
I had just taken so many drugs that a guy who looked like me might actually have gotten arrested for possessing all of it. I say a guy who looked like me, not me. Handsome, rich, white. I was so much more than that.
When I was fucked up enough, which was often, I was frequently struck with the brief suspicion that I was in Hell. Not in a particularly mystical way, I just tend to forget that I was almost always wearing these red tinted sunglasses and so everything looked a little bit more red. Aesthetically, it was a mixed bag. Some things looked worse (tits, finely pressed cotton), some things looked better (the night sky, chrome). Mostly, it made a lot of things easier to look at.
"Hey there you are! We were looking for you!"
It took me a bit to register. He had a very generic voice, but as soon as I saw him approach me and my vision stabilized enough to make him out, I grinned a wild grin and dapped him up and gave him a little bro-hug.
Right. That was my friend Rox. Coffee colored skin, wide jaw, wholesomely handsome and wholesomely nothing else. He had a dorky haircut that made him look even better because of the implicit threat that he would be much more handsome if he had a normal one. He dressed like a date rapist that wanted you to think he might be gay. His sweat smelled like chocolate, which he should probably talk to a doctor about and he obviously wouldn't.
He was the one who brought me to this party. Gorgeous Hollywood Hills mansion full of gorgeous people doing very ugly things. We had a fantastic time. What a good dude. It was going to be kind of sad when I abruptly stopped talking to him in four months.
“My man,” I said woozily, like I was controlling my mouth with puppet strings.
“Yo, thanks for ditching us.”
“Best gift I can give most people, darling.”
He clapped me on the back, which was either a little too hard or I barely felt. One of those.
“Is it true that you went off and fucked Nina Novak?”
“Yeah. Well no. Kind of. I started to, but I couldn’t really get into it. Maybe it was the coke dick. Maybe when she got up close she looked way too much like-“
CRASH!
Something vaguely violent happened that shook through the air. Maybe a big chunk of glass shattered. Maybe something caught on fire. Maybe a car crash. You could tell by the relative neutrality of the screams that no one was seriously hurt though.
In another life, it was a sound that would have been deeply familiar to me. I could've told you exactly what kind of crash that was. Maybe I could and I’m just not going to.
I knew I should get going. In case an actual problem started, and one of them showed up.
As all of the real people called cars or, if they were rich enough, got picked up by their valets, I pressed a few buttons on my watch, and in about six minutes a violent blue streak hummed through the sky above us and I was good to go.
There was my darling steed.
The MK3 Unibird, a V-shaped spacecraft about the size of a speed boat, pearl white with blue undertones, dutifully descended to a position about two feet above the ground and slid open its door to invite me in.
I loved the feeling of cool air that gently blew in my face as its levitation thrusters disrupted the flow of air molecules around it.
“Alright, this is me. You’re my GOAT. See you later!”
Rox laughed and shot me a slightly concerned look, which was so unnecessary at times and places like this.
“Are you even allowed to drive that thing?”
“State of California has banned me from operating motor vehicles. Didn’t say anything about spacecraft.”
Oh, the law.
I apparently didn’t quite make it home.
I woke up four hours later, half-naked, with vomit on my seat and unfertilized human DNA dripping from my hand. Outside my window, I could see nothing but a beautiful starry void above me and the swirling blue marble we called home below me.
A phone call was being received by the Unibird’s console – that's what woke me up – which had interrupted a still-looping pornographic video that I am not going to describe here.
Only one person was allowed to call the aircraft directly like this.
Oh it’s just Sophie.
“Percy?” I heard my little sister say as I picked up. Her voice was surprisingly raw.
What is she doing up so early anyway?
“Hey Sophie sorry were we supposed to get brunch or something today? I-”“Percy, where the hell are you? Your location wasn’t registering anywhere.”
“Sorry, it’s -- you know I can only jerk off in space.”
“What? No, I didn't ‘know’ that. Percy come to Ironheart right fucking now. It’s Dad. He’s-”
Ironheart had changed since I last saw it. That made sense. Dad loved tinkering with things, improving them, upgrading them.
And I hadn’t been there for the better part of a decade. I figured I would never come back at all.
I know what some might say to that. You didn’t think you’d have to come back for your dad’s funeral?Well, it genuinely didn’t occur to me that he would die. At least not before me.
Ironheart was our family estate. It would be more accurate to call it a fortress than a house. It was all sleek metal and perfect geometric configurations. Where a normal American home might have had satellite dishes or chimneys, we had automatic response ion cannons. It was the size of a public school and flanked by outdoor courtyards of flat marble and still silver water features that gave it an unmistakable sense of grandeur. To say its frame would withstand a nuke would be an understatement. I was pretty sure me and Sophie could have been eating cereal in our pajamas as kids and not even noticed a nuke. The perimeter was patrolled by a small platoon of security guards piloting MK2 SWORD units, nine feet tall with faceless helms and long elegant nanite barrelled machine guns the size of a person. Their presence amused me. They were practically cheerleaders at this point. The boss’ kids were long since gone, and if a threat emerged while Spartacus was in the house he would have suited up his damn self and taken care of it, in a unit that made the MK2 SWORDs look like kitchen knives.
And now they were literally guarding a tomb. I wondered how much longer they would be getting paid to do that.
Was that my decision now? Was this my house?Fuck this was going to be a headache.
There was something strangely peaceful about Ironheart at night, even if walking towards that metal fortress in the moonlight felt more like you were on a spy mission than entering someone's home. Elysium Hills was a somewhat objectively beautiful neighborhood that dad and his buddies had brute forced into existence in the middle of a perfectly good chunk of desolate Mojave desert.
The sights of lush grasses that shone the blue – green of their sacred bloodline’s eyes. The sounds of crickets and bullfrogs, the low static hum of advanced circuitry, the tut-tut-tut of the massive cooling fans necessary to maintain all the heavy machinery. The smell of vomit and stomach acid in my mouth (okay maybe that was just me).
As I approached the house, waving past layers of security with my watch, the armed guards who took notice of me lined up and saluted me. How do you even respond to something like that? I knew once upon a time. But now I just snorted and shook my head before giving a little paparazzi wave.
The front wing of the house looked like the lobby of a Fortune 500 office building, and I was received with equivalent hospitality.
“Recognized. Percy Domino. Welcome back, Master Percy.” rang the neutral synth-toned voice of Sebi, the house’s master AI, from the overhead speakers.
Sebi showed up in her actual body moments later, greeting me with a bow.
Sebi wore a perfectly pressed white blouse and black slacks. Not a single strand of synthetic black hair was out of place on her flawless ‘60s bob. She had a beautiful, pale, rounded half-moon face that was vaguely Asian-looking in the way that all of these tech geniuses in California seemed to be into. Her rack was big enough that it was dubiously a neutral design choice.
Has it gotten bigger since I left?
“Welcome, Master Percy. Would you like something to drink?”
I realized Dad being gone was a good opportunity to set the record straight on a few things I was curious about.
“Say Sebi. Did Dad ever fuck you?”
Didn’t know robots paused like that. I might have discovered a glitch.
“Would you like something to drink?”
“Yes please. Mexican cinna-cilantro lemonade, cooled at 3 degrees Celsius. And then 15 minutes after that, a glass of our best Suntory.”
I actually wanted to know though. I might have been depraved, but even I had my lines. And I wasn’t going to fuck a robot that my dad already had.
But I only got a maybe. Which I had to take as a yes.
What a cautious boy this house made me.
Oh, come on. Don’t look at me like that. She wasn’t a real woman. Dad had sworn off making machines that were actually conscious more than a decade ago.
The cool glass of lemonade made me almost believe I was alive again. Impeccable service, I’ll give them that.
I threw my messy, sticky clothes to the ground right in the living room as soon as I was inside. Sebi would come pick them up later. I would have a long shower, then I would see my little sister, and then, in the coming days, I would see many people who would be far less pleasant to see.
Cape funerals were an aesthetic disaster. I always thought part of the beauty of a funeral was the way it turned the crowd into a unified black mass that might have resembled a murder of crows from a distance. No such thing in this world. See, rather than an elegant suit or dress, they wore their costumes – sorry, uniforms.
So the mourning crowd was lined with owl masks and medieval armor and space helmets and witch hats and so many capes. Not to mention the people who didn't even need costumes to stand out. The ones with antlers or green skin or collapsing stars for heads or robotic bodies or 24 foot tall frames. Forgive me if I felt a lack of elegance here. I always thought that if I were in charge, I would mandate that every hero have a sleeker black version of their uniform so that there would at least be color continuity during the unfortunately quite frequent funerals amongst this community. Priorities like this were probably why I was never put in charge of anything.
I was tense and nauseous and incredibly hung over so I zoned out for a lot of the procession, but when I saw Aunt Joan step up to deliver that the eulogy, I had to pay attention. She was just the kind of woman that had earned it. Dad's best friend, a revered elder stateswomen, and now one of the last living members of the original Covenant. She looked incredible for her age, if not for her neatly parted short silver hair, she couldn't have looked older than 45. She was wearing a black pantsuit that cost as much as a car, and it was good to see that at least some of us still had the decency to dress normal. There was so much energy in her movements even now. This was not a woman who enjoyed sitting down.
“They call me the ‘greatest explorer in the universe’. I always found that title rather presumptuous; after all the whole thrill of exploration comes from the fact that there is so much out there we don’t know yet, including, potentially, better explorers. But I hope that is enough to give a sense of perspective to my next words. I have scoured the corners of this galaxy and beyond; visited other dimensions; alternate timelines; even cosmic afterlives, and in all my voyages, I have never met a man, a leader, quite like Spartacus. Our dearly departed friend, Dirk Domino, or Spartacus, as he was more commonly known, would not want us to dwell for very long on his funeral rites. He was an efficient and unsentimental man, an engineer and an architect and an administrator who would have wanted all the important men and women gathered here today to get back to work as soon as possible. Well, that's too bad. He's welcome to come and object if he would like.”
Resounding laughter. Joan Voyage was always a vibrantly charismatic woman. You’d have to be to get an alien prince to marry you before you could even speak their language.
“Dirk Domino did not just build jets and fortresses and cannons and mech suits. He built our world. Many of you now are too young to remember a world that Spartacus did not oversee. Before Spartacus said ‘Let there be Light’. After the Dark Generation, our way of life was nearly extinct. In the 80s, superheroism was able to re-emerge gloriously, with the founding of the Covenant, and we have American Dream and Lady Liberty II to thank for that, may they rest in peace. Though it is a small mercy that Jessie Liberty did not get to plan this funeral, as she would have insisted.”
More laughs.
“But it wasn’t until Dirk Domino built Utopia that we became the Cause. Imagine, if you will, ducking out of work or school, and changing into your uniform in a back alley, hoping no one sees you before going out to protect the public. Maintaining a separate civilian job in order to pay the bills. Designing, constructing, repairing, and paying for your own equipment. Lying to your loved ones in your community about where you were, what you were doing, the most important part of your life. Responding only to emergencies you stumbled upon or had become too disastrous to ignore. If you can believe it, this is what life was like for most capes before we had Utopia. He brought structure, unity, coordination, civilization, and order to a calling that too often ruined the lives of the most noble among us, and descended into messy and unaccountable vigilante justice. The gratitude that we and the entire world owe him for that is something I'm not sure even he could calculate. The world is a safer, brighter, and more hopeful place for having had him in it, and it will be up to all of us to ensure that it stays that way after he is gone.”
You could feel the gravity of her words on most people in the crowd. Heavy enough to almost sink them into the dirt. Even the ones who could fly. They weren't just mourning a friend and colleague. They were contemplating the changing of their world.
I couldn't really say the same.
“But he hasn’t just left behind the Utopia corporation, and the Cause that it fuels.”
Oh, do we have to do this?
“He has also left behind two wonderful children who I have had the pleasure of getting to know since their infancy.”
By far the funniest part of your speech, Joan.
“More than anyone else, let our hearts be with Percy and Sophie Domino today, as they have lost more than a leader. They have lost a father.”
I have to say. We Dominos did not literally have superpowers, of course, we were a line of scientists. But the extraordinary way that I was able to avoid eye contact with so many people I did not want to see at this moment? It made one wonder. Maybe I should get tested.
“They may not follow the same path as their father, but they live their lives boldly, and without apology, with the freedom that he wanted of every citizen he protected. I know that in his final days, some of which I was lucky enough to spend with him, they were often on his mind.”What an amazingly diplomatic way to call us deficient trust fund baby apostates. God she was good at this.
“We all knew that he was a man who did not know the meaning of rest. He would work day and night at Utopia Tower, overseeing the world, long after many functions of his original job could have been automated. He simply insisted his hands were the best to hold everything together, and he was right. It was bewildering to watch, but whenever someone asked him why he was toiling so tirelessly he would always answer the same. He would just show you their photo in his wallet.
He was working towards a world where his children could live without fear. And in that way, we can all see that he has succeeded. Perhaps too little fear, sometimes, as those of us who have seen that MK3 Unibird streaking across the California night skies a little too close to the ground can attest to.”
I flipped her a polite middle finger. She shot me the smallest of smiles.
“His children have grown very independent, and can be hard to get ahold of. When we on the Board discussed the possibility of this event years ago — Dirk was always an insufferable contingency planner — Lee asked if he was sure his son would even remember to show up. But he just said ‘Don’t worry, he’ll at least make sure he gets his inheritance.’”
Okay that was really funny. Doubt it was actually Dad who said that.
“Let us hope that in a way, we all will. Not because we have much to take from him in his death. But because we have much to carry for him.”
We all knew the words that would end her eulogy. The same words that ended every speech, every wedding toast, every lecture, every event, Hell probably every Bat Mitzvah among their people. Those of the Cause.
“I raise my hand, my head, my heart to bring Utopia to the world.
My breath for the Cause.
My cape for the Cause.
My blood for the Cause.
My life for the Cause.
Vivat Utopia!”
That mantra, probably some of the first words we ever heard in our lives, rang from hundreds of overlapping voices belonging to some of the most powerful people in America, maybe the universe, followed by a sliding two-finger salute that always looked to me like a pantomime of slitting your own throat.
My voice was not among them. Sue me, I was hungover.
At military funerals, I was told, they would fire rifles into the air to commemorate the dead. Always sounded a little paltry to me. Pathetic even.
As the final words rang out, the ground kicked up as the considerable swath of fliers started raising themselves into the air like they were being raptured.
And the unaccountable private paramilitary crusade that my dad had assembled over the course of his life fired a salvo into the sky that possibly could have killed God. Only to hear the way they talked today, God was already dead.
Every projectile weapon you could imagine and many you couldn’t erupted into the morning air. Heat vision. Lightning bolts. Dragon fire. Graviton beam emitters. Atomic rays. Machine guns. Ice storms. Chi blasts. A cloud of blackened dog skulls that screamed with the voices of the damned. A rainbow spurt of weaponized candy.
It was superfluous and nauseating and absurd and awesome all at once. That, if nothing else, I would never get used to.
It was too warm outside. Warm and thick. It felt wrong. I felt like funerals are usually supposed to be cold. They weren’t places where you sweat.
Why wasn’t it raining? Surely we had a couple of capes who could make it rain on a funeral, right? Captain Stratosphere. Thunderbird IV. Kusanagi. Nimue. Miss Never Ever.Dad never really had a sense of style.
I spotted my sister as I went out for a smoke, ever the well-mannered lady, scrolling through her phone in the middle of a funeral.
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Sophie Domino was almost as much of a household name as our father. Her heart shaped face, with high cheekbones, a signature mole on her left cheek, and plump cupid’s bow red lips, framed by luscious wavy chocolate brown hair, was a regular fixture on magazine covers and billboards. A model, influencer, and brand ambassador, she had chosen to go the route of leveraging her innate proximity to wealth and fame from birth to passively generate wealth and fame without doing much of anything, which made her the smartest of all of us.
I snatched her phone out of her hand and held it out of reach for a second as she elbowed me in the ribs (as if her frail underweight frame could do any damage) before returning it to her other hand with a magician’s flourish.
“Damn. Who raised you?”
She rolled her eyes at me.
She was quick. A lot of people would have answered and drawn out the joke, whether intentionally or unintentionally, but this was one of those things that should be one-note. She heard it, didn’t appreciate it, moved on.
“It’s kind of hype, isn’t it?” I said, exhaling a weak little puff away from her face.
“Oh God. What?”
“How many likes do you think you're going to get on the post where you talk about dad’s death? Maybe with a pouty selfie in a black dress attached? Gotta be in the millions right?”
“Shut the fuck up.”
A smile broke through here. Then a laugh. There she was.
“Easy millions. I’ll make sure to post it at 6PM EST for maximum engagement.”
“And they call me the cold one.”
“They don’t call you anything.”
I offered her a cigarette, which she refused. A few minutes of comfortable silence followed.
“Hey,” I managed, “you okay?”
“I think so, actually? Oddly enough. How about you?”
“Yeah. Yeah it’s just another fucking day.”
“In the coming weeks, we’re going to have to do a lot of-“
“I’ll handle it. Don’t worry about it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I don’t have a fucking job. You at least pretend to.”
She stuck her tongue out at me.
“For the record,” I said, “I hope you’re not this okay at my funeral.”
Another eye roll.
“I want ugly tears. Mascara smeared. Bosom heaving. Screaming at God.”
“I’m not going.”
“What?”
“Too little engagement. No one famous is going to be there. Wouldn’t get any likes.”
I laughed enough to start coughing.
“Cunt.”
“No, I’d hold my own,” she said, with a soft smile, “or throw a big party instead. Your spooky ass is going to be watching me exclusively from Heaven, and I wouldn’t want you to get bored.”
“Yeah. ‘From Heaven’.”
She frowned a little.
As funny as this was, the thought of dying and leaving her alone made me feel sick. It's not that I hadn't thought about it before. I had. Many times. It was maybe the only reason I’d never killed myself in my mid-20s.
In all His mysterious wisdom, God made some people who would just never be able to fend for themselves. And as a counterbalance, some people who would fend for everyone else. Like Dad. Like the Libertys. Like all the capes who sat on the Covenant, who wore Utopia’s colors.
Sucked to be them.
We spent a few hours just cooling off in Ironheart because we knew there was going to be at least a few days of posthumous logistics to go over. I had already told Sophie I would go over all of it and she could go home, but she chose to stay to keep me company.
Must have been a slow work week. Ha.
She was such a loser. I would die for her.
She was taking a nap on the couch next to me, curled up like a baby lamb. I was watching one of those Netflix original shows about a biracial woman and her perfectly diverse group of friends navigating trauma and mental illness and sexuality and all that shit. This one was actually really good, though. I swear. There was no trace of irony in my voice when I said that. I was almost annoyed at how good it was because it implied that a lot of other things that looked like total garbage on the surface might also be really good, and that I can't neatly interpret the world based on how things look within my first three seconds of thinking about them. I was legitimately on the edge of my seat, wondering if the main character is going to end up getting together with the really handsome depressed twink who was ghosting her but really sad about it. Also the actress who played the mom probably deserved an Oscar. Emmy. Emmys are for TV, right?
I wondered if I could be on an episode of this show. Like as a guest star. I've never acted before in my life, but did they let you do stuff like that if you were rich enough? Probably. I mean they let you do pretty much anything if you're rich enough, I found. And I was really fucking rich. Especially after today? Oh, I was loaded. I might buy the entire show. I might buy myself a congressman for my next birthday.
The familiar sound of perfectly spaced footsteps drew my head towards the staircase, where a sonorous, almost musical voice called out.
“Good afternoon Master Percy. Mistress Sophie.”
It was Vincent, our family butler. Vincent was a full glossy chrome art deco metal man in a sleek 60s lounge suit. More of Dad’s corny nostalgia. Now we don’t have to get into the gender politics of our male robot servant being an obvious machine while our female robot servant looked exactly like a person. I mean I could get into it. But we don't have to. Probably other things to get into were going to come my way in a few minutes.
“Yo. Don’t wake her up.” I said.
“Mrmm?” Sophie said, getting up and wiping her eyes.
“Why would you do that? She’s had a long day.”
“Isss fine Percyyy.”
“My apologies Master Percy. Master Sophie. I thought you should know that Ironheart will have guests this evening. The Board of Utopia will be convening in your father’s study to receive an important message regarding his final wishes, and your presence has been required.”
“This isn’t something the lawyers could figure out for us? I thought the inheritance shit was settled.”
I had no real basis for saying this. I just assumed this was the kind of thing other people did for people like me.
“I'm afraid not. This is a matter of utmost importance and confidentiality that requires both of the late master’s children in attendance.”
Can’t be that important if we’re invited.
“Thank you Vincent.”
“Alright,” I said, nudging my sister, “lock and load. Looks like we’re throwing a party.”
“Ugh.”
“Don’t you like parties?”
“Not with a bunch of old people sitting around.”
“Really? I’m told that’s an important way to get ahead in your industry.”
That woke her up more, to summon the energy to throw a pillow at my head.
“You’re awful.”
I got up and started walking to the kitchen.
“Sebi, send an auto-dispatch to pick up grocery loadout 14 from Kennerman’s. I guess we’re going to have to prepare some charcuterie boards and wine pairings.”
“Master Percy,” Vincent said, “I am not sure that will be required.”
“People are coming to my house, Vincent. Do I look like a fucking barn animal?”
I would, in fact, look like a fucking barn animal a few hours later.
Sophie spent a while fussing over what outfits we would wear for “the gathering". She loved giving things titles. This would be The Gathering. I swear every appliance in this damn house at one point had a name. Even the ones that didn’t speak.
She wanted us to match. But she couldn't decide on a theme until she popped an Adderall and then she was dealing with too many ideas for themes.
The aesthetic she created could be best described as a blend between British librarian and snazzy 70s drug den. I was wearing corduroys and a tweed jacket that felt like it was made out of a rug. These were some thick gnarly fabrics we were dealing with at times, and they probably would've been itchy if they weren't made of the highest quality. She looked like the glamorous divorced mother of a Muppet.
It shouldn't have worked, yet it did; but either way I knew that she had too much fun dressing me up and I was going to let her get away with it. She threw in a tiger rug and some lava lamps in the study to complete the look.
We sat in deep-set armchairs, smoking spliffs and listening to Marvin Gaye on the stereo system before our fun was rudely interrupted by the beginning of The Gathering.
“Well you kids look like you’re having fun,” said Joan Voyage as she entered the study, having arrived first, as she did to many things in her life.
“Aunt Joan!” Sophie said, running up and wrapping her arms around her.
A small, genuine smile crept on my face, and I gave her an unsure hug. Sure, I hadn't seen her in years, and I had very much dodged any of her attempts to contact me, but it wasn't because I had anything against her as a person. Just the world that she was a very important part of. I'd like to think she understood that. Her and Uncle Lee were cool like that.
“Hey Percy. Glad you could make it.”
“You have any idea what this is about?”
“I'm sure it's just your father being mysterious and dramatic about a bunch of formalities. Hopefully, you two can go back to being left alone soon. Sorry about all this.”
“Oh no, it's okay. We have so many things to do here. Neighborhood barbecues, high school reunions.”
She let out a soft exhale and shook her head.
Lee Davenport, aka Love Machine, formerly known as Sex Machine, also received warm greetings from me and Sophie. A rockstar turned legendary superhero, former Covenant member, and bearer of maybe the longest “Controversies” section in Wikipedia article history, Uncle Lee had also known us since we were children, though I had no idea why he was friends with someone like my dad.
He was probably the most relatable figure among them all, as when he was my age he was also the coolest guy in the world. But now he was just another British silver fox with perfectly combed hair, glasses, and a blue suit, looking like an accountant.
Man getting old must be tragic.
Glad I'll never have to deal with that.
The others were not as familiar to us.
Michael Mandon, a.k.a. Gladius, the COO of Utopia and Dad's personal protégé, formerly his sidekick, though we weren't supposed to call him that anymore. He looked like Idris Elba after being forced to fight off everyone who wanted to fuck Idris Elba at once. He had earned those battle scars in some of the greatest cape battles of our generation, and probably knew his way around Dad's machines better than anyone else. He was almost certainly going to be running the place after Dad, and it sounded like he would be doing a good job. Not that I paid much attention to that stuff. I just hoped we wouldn't have to go to board meetings now. What was going to happen to his shares?
Xintong Liang, CFO of Utopia and second wife of founding Covenant hero Dragon Kick. Formerly managed some of the biggest hedge funds in the world before being drawn into cape society by her husband, who I believe won her hand in a duel? She was a tiny Chinese woman with a bored and judgmental look on her face. I related to that. She probably wasn’t too keen on The Gathering either. She looked at me with almost naked contempt. I related to that too.
Troznok, a creature standing maybe three feet tall, politely took off his top hat as he entered the study. He was covered in bushy swirls of maroon fur, some forming the shape of a mustache and beard, with big beady eyes and even more enormous foxlike ears. Troznok would have been painfully adorable if it weren’t for his thick and harsh Eastern European accent that always sounded like he was barking orders at you. A - kobold? - metalsmith from some underground realm or another, he was a vital co-collaborator on many of Dad’s most deranged death machines.
A deep black planter hovered in, out of which grew a stock of thin branches and mushroom bulbs, vaguely arranged into the shape of a person's upper torso. This would be the psychic sentient spore organism known as Cloros.
Yes. This is the world that I grew up in.
I believed The Good Neighbor technically had a seat on the Board as leader of the Covenant, but it looked like we wouldn’t be seeing him. Understandable for the most powerful being on Earth to have a schedule that didn’t make room for The Gathering.
“To all those gathered here,” Vincent said, “I bid you a good evening. I hope you have been enjoying your stay at Ironheart. It is my solemn honor to share a message left by the late Master Dirk for all of you.”
He dropped a holodisk and suddenly my father was standing in the room with us again. It was kind of surreal actually. Not for anyone else in the room, I was sure, who had probably seen their fair sure of literal ghosts.
My father was a severe looking man with tiny eyes and a triangular chin. The best way to go as an old white guy is to look like a wizard, and he had the physiognomy for it, theoretically, but not an ounce of whimsy that could’ve sold it.
“I want you all to know that I died without regrets,” he said. “Unfinished business, sure. Things I wished I had done differently, of course. But by God, I built something, we built something, that saved the world. And I have the utmost faith that it will continue to save the world long after I am gone. Because I built Utopia to endure.
It is the subject of Utopia’s future that I will be addressing right now.
As I'm sure you've all noticed, the company is presently without a Chairman. Don't worry, I did not forget. But I thought I would be best to announce my decision to the people closest to it first.
I know the decision that I have made will come as a surprise to some of you, and to those of you who might feel taken aback by it, I apologize. You may come to doubt my decision. I'm sure many will. And doubt is fine, healthy, even, as long as the doubt is curious and constructive, and does not lead to defection and sabotage.”
The room was getting uneasy. I could tell this wasn’t going in a direction people expected it to.
I didn't really know anything about the politics of Dad's workplace these days, but it surprised me that any decision he could make would be this controversial. The dude was pretty much above reproach.
“So without further ado, I am announcing that, in addition to the assets previously distributed in my last will and testament, my controlling shares in Utopia will go to my children, Percy and Sophie, with the intent for whomever they choose between them to succeed me in my position as Chairman and CEO.”
There were gasps. None louder than mine. But I’m sure there were other gasps.What?What?What?
“I will give you a minute to process this before continuing.”
Crosstalk erupted. Way too many eyes were on me than I was comfortable with.
“He has to be joking, right?” I said, and no one answered.
Joan moved closer to me. Not next to me. Just closer.
The lava lamps started at me menacingly, now far too bright. The material of my tweed jacket, despite its quality, turned out to be itchy after all. I was suddenly far too aware of my heartbeat.
A nauseous smile crept along my face and I said, in my best reassuring tone,
“Guys I swear we’ll sell you our shares ASAP. This is fucking crazy. This is -- this isn’t going to happen.”
I think a part of me knew how pathetic that sounded. As if Dirk Domino, the man probably most responsible for ending the Cold War, would somehow leave room for an obvious cop out like that.
So many stares. So much buzzing. I really shouldn’t have smoked before this. I positioned myself in a way where it was easiest for Sophie to hide behind me.
“Percy, Sophie, your inheritances have been placed in trust to be managed by Vincent for the time being. After one of you has served in this role for five years, the trust shall be released into your care. Should you fail to fulfill this, Percy, Sophie, all assets therein will go directly to the treasury of the Utopia corporation.”
Oh my God he was serious. Oh my God how fucking dare he.
I’ve had enough of you. I’ve had enough of you. I can’t wait to strangle you in Hell.
“Raygun!” I called, and the iron tomb that was my house whirred to life, obeying its new master, a panel on the wall opening like a birth canal and launching the weapon into my hand.
ZAP! ZAP!
I fired a few green shots right at his stupid floating head, going white with rage.
“Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you-”
He wasn’t being subtle here. He was holding her inheritance hostage to make me do this.
Fuck with me, I’ll hit back. That’s fine. But-
“Keep her name out of your fucking mouth!”
ZAP! ZAP! ZAP!Burning holes in walls, furniture. Not people. I made sure not to aim at people.They just impotently passed through the hologram, barely interrupting the broadcast, not putting a scratch on his stupid face.
“Vincent, bring me the old man’s corpse so I can piss in his mouth.”
“I’m afraid that command has been disabled by the master administrator.”
My sister squeezed my hand. I lowered the gun. Joan took it from me, gently.
The stares were getting bigger and meaner and louder. Somehow the plant thing was staring too, I could tell, even if it didn’t have fucking eyes. They were looking at me with something. Horror. Pity. Suspicion. Nothing I liked.
“I’m taking it obviously,” I said to the air, “not Sophie.”
I felt Sophie nod in affirmation behind me.
“So no need to even look at her. Am I clear?”No answer.
Oh God.
Michael Mandon was barely even trying to contain his rage. Rage that, of course, would be directed at the closest living DNA to the guy who was currently pissing him off.
Deep breaths. Deep breaths.
Those weren’t working.
“I can be like the King of England,” I squirmed. “Like technically the main guy but not doing shit. I promise I don’t want to get in the way. You won’t see me. You won’t. Fuck.”
“Furthermore,” my diabolical cunt of a father continued, “the Hundred Hands system will require the thumbprint of one of my children every morning to be turned on.”
Wait a minute. Wait a minute.
I let a smirk return to my face. He wouldn’t think of this. And they’d all be so impressed at the lengths I was willing to go to save them the hassle of answering to me.
“Ha! Watch me cut off my hand, bitch!”
“Alright guys,” I exhaled with pregnant relief, “don’t worry. I’ll go to the medical bay, get some preservative gel, and you’ll get a gross little key you can carry along with you given a little preservation effort.”
"Still-living cells will be required, to make sure none of you attempt to use either of my precious children as embalmed tools, or Perseus tries to cut off his hand to give you as a key."
"You motherfucker!" I spat.
“Unbelievable,” Michael Mandon said, not under his breath.
Ms. Liang shook her head.
My father’s ghost proceeded to shoot down between three and seven more potential loopholes right as I thought of them.
“Percy lad, calm down,” Lee said in a stupid well-intentioned voice, “it’ll be alright. It’ll be a rough few weeks, but we’ll get you through it and you’ll learn the ropes. Ain’t that right?”
A few very hesitant half-nods.
“Surely Dirk knew what he was doing here. You’ve had your fun. Can’t fault you that. And maybe it’s about time you came home.”“Did he? Did he, Lee? Did he know what he was fucking doing?”
Peace.
A voice sung in our heads, which I intuited must have come from Cloros.
There are no enemies among us. Let us be at peace.
God that was cute.
No enemies among us? Dad had just given me millions.
“I thank you all for your time and understanding,” Dirk Domino concluded. “With love, I bid you farewell. Vivat Utopia.”The hologram shut.
“Activate Admin key 11A user Perseus Domino,” I whispered desperately.
The entire house flashed red for a moment.
“Admin protocols activated. Systems on alert,” Sebi’s voice rang out.
“I hope you all know that it would be a very bad idea to try to kill us in this house,” I said through my teeth.
“Percy, don’t be ridiculous,” Lee said. “Give him a moment, the boy just lost his bloody father.”
But I could see Joan’s hand moving towards her belt as well as she stepped further in front of me.Yeah. Okay. Okay. No one in this room could take her, right?
What felt like ten hours passed.
“I’m out of here,” Michael Mandon said, shoulder checking me on his way to the door in a way that was so totally an accident.
Feet started to rise.
“God help us,” he muttered as he left.
Didn’t you see? That was him trying.
There is no God anymore. Only chaos.
“As Chairman I hereby adjourn this meeting,” I said with all the vigor of a ghost.
Clink. Clink.
Fizz.
Away from judging eyes and dress codes, in the cold comfort of our childhood home, waited on by ambiguous virginal androids, champagne in hand, my sister and I had no choice but to laugh.
“He really fucking got me there,” I said. “You have to give it to him. Checkmated. Cornered. Outplayed. God I fucking hate him.”
“You say that like it’s hard.”
“Hey fuck you. I had a good decade-long run of being slippery.”
“Mhm. Yes, very impressive.” Sophie murmured.
“Percy, this is such a mess,” she said.
“It’s so bad.”
“It’s so fucking bad dude.”
“I’m not qualified for this shit at all.”
She sputtered some champagne out of her nose guffawing at this.
“What was he thinking?”
“Putting the world at stake to make some kind of petty vindictive point to his disappointing children? You almost have to respect that.”
I raised my glass.
“To Dad.”
“To Dad.”
“To Dirk Domino. Enjoy watching me skullfuck your life’s work in record time you sanctimonious cocksucker.”
“Okay but like you’re not going to actually fail on purpose, are you?”
“I’m not a psychopath.”
“Citation needed.”
“Sophie.”
“Yeah?”
“You know I couldn’t let you go in there instead, right?”
“I know. Thank you. I’m not smart enough for this shit. You at least could be. If you tried. Which you won’t. But you could be.”
“No it’s not that. You’re not stupid. You’re just good. And that’s not going to fly in there.”
“You’re good too.”
“Okay, maybe you’re a little stupid.”
She paused for a few seconds, and then flung her watch-clad hand towards the western wall.
“Raygun!” she yelled, as the house magnetically spat the weapon out into her hand.
I dove behind a couch as she took aim at me.
“Security protocol 106.5 low light safety toggle override code 13.2! Security protocol 199.2 maximum power!” I called out.
The light of the house flickered out, and smoke and sprinklers assaulted our eyes and noses, completely throwing off her aim.
We spent the better part of the next hour wrecking the house and pretending to try to kill each other.
Hey, we were just acting like the locals.