Page 119 of Xerxes Ascendant
“The chip that Benedict has inside him,” Akira said urgently, his fingers white-knuckling the runepad. He’d told Miles about it the night he’d asked how they fled Upper Xerxes, for the man had also questioned why they hadn’t killed his brother when they’d had the chance. Kyle had been out of earshot in the staff showers, so Akira hadn’t held back his grim description of the threat the mayor posed to the whole city. “You can’t-”
“Taken care of. Easy enough to extract with the right tools – or more precisely, the right favours to call on the right people with the right tools – but alas, Benny proved difficult to the end. He bled out trying to escape the surgeon’s table.”
Kyle’s eyes were wide, his mouth open but not making a sound, and he looked to Akira wildly as if for guidance. “Master...?”
Benedict Mackenroth was dead? They would be fools to take Miles at his word, but the claim would be easy enough to verify.
What an ignoble end.
“You killed your own brother?” Misha said, as horrified as Kyle. Hot pink fingernails rose to cover his mouth.
“Benny killed thousands,” Miles hissed. The office chair abruptly stopped its idle spin. “Hundreds of thousands. You think I should have let him continue to murder more, Misha? Your friend Kyle? Your Master? Your parents and sisters?”
Misha mutely shook his head.
“I would have let him live.” Miles’ tone was wheedling, plaintive, seeking the forgiveness of a handful of Lowers he’d once cared nothing about. “Even with everything he’d done, he was still mybrother. But he woke from the anaesthesia too early, had pulled out the tubes before the nurses could stop him, andthere was so much blood...” He heaved out a shaky breath, and it was that vulnerability, more than anything, that convinced Akira this was no bluff.
Benedict was dead. Holy fuck. What did that mean for Xerxes?
“So now you’re the mayor?” Kyle whispered to the runepad.
Their conversation had attracted quite the crowd; the remaining Coterie members had ceased their murmured post-meeting discussions and begun to drift closer. They looked various degrees of shocked and thoughtful.
“Thought I’d give it a try, Randall. If I can figure out how to work a fucking vacuum cleaner, managing a city can’t be that difficult.”
There was a collective inhale.
“Stars save us,” Master Rho declared loudly, bringing her forehead down onto the table with her typical dramatic flair.
The only one who didn’t look dubious at the disturbing pronouncement was Kyle.
“You’ve got this, Miles!” he said brightly, with all the naïve optimism Akira had come to expect from his adorably hopeless boyfriend. “Although don’t you need to be...uh,electedfirst?”
Miles’ face twitched and he seemed to be trying hard not to laugh at Kyle, which Akira appreciated. Otherwise, he’d have had to climb back over to Upper Xerxes to go beat their new mayor’s face in.
“I suppose we’ll just have to wait for the ballot results then,” Miles said with the politeness and entirely disguised guile of a true politician.
When the younger Mackenroth had first shown up at House Epsilon all those weeks ago, pinning Kyle to the floor with the arrogance of an Upper used to taking whatever he wanted – and from the sound of what he’d been hissing at his rented whore, exercising a fantasy of wielding power over the brother who heldit over him in real life – Akira had dismissed him as merely a spoiled brat. Whiny and petulant; dangerous, to be sure, yet nothing more than a speck in Benedict’s shadow.
He would not underestimate Miles again.
“Good luck!” wished Kyle, and Misha shook his head fondly at his friend. It seemed no one was going to enlighten Kyle about Xerxes’ rigged electoral system or how it had been a staple fixture of their city for over fifty years. Let him live in his little bubble of hope where people earned their success, and democracy was alive and well. Akira would make it his life’s mission to protect Kyle’s bubble.
“Thank you,” Miles said unexpectedly, leaning closer to the camera. “I...really am grateful for you getting me back on my feet, Randall. I thought I was going to die down on those fucking streets.”
Kyle dipped his chin with solemn sincerity.
“I presume this means you have the political support of Benedict’s former backers, Mr. Mackenroth?” Lambda enquired hastily, peering around Akira. “We would be willing to discuss-”
“If the Coterie wants to talk to the mayoral office, they can book an appointment like everyone else,” Miles interrupted. “If there’s nothing else, I’m going to hang up on you again now.”
And he did just that.
Akira felt light-headed. Theta exposed and imprisoned, Benedict dead...could it really all be over? Did they not have to live in fear anymore? Was this the beginning of his and Kyle’s happily ever after?
As if mocking his rare optimism, the lights suddenly failed and the meeting room was plunged into absolute darkness.
Epsilon
