“Just say it.”

“I don’t wanna.”

“Come on, Sam. I don’t have all day. Just say ‘Next stop’.”

“Why do I have to say it?”

Blake Myers massaged his forehead and fought back an aggravated groan. Kids. Always a headache. “Because I said so, that’s why. Just say what I need you to say and I’ll let you go eat dinner.”

“...next stop.”

“Now say ‘Please stand clear of the closing doors’.”

“This is stupid!”

“Hey, I didn’t make the rules for how this shit works.”

“Just say it yourself!”

“You think it’s easy to just learn a whole other fucking language? When the hell am I supposed to find the time for that, huh? Is it after I work on the border security system? Or before I finish fixing all the problems with the sewers? Or should I do it instead of running the fucking country?! HUH!? Tell me, Sam, if you think it’s so fucking easy!”

Samanta seemed to shrivel under the heat of his sudden tirade. Her eyes grew wide with fear and her body began to tremble. Blake gave himself a mental slap. He’d gone too far. Again.

“Go eat,” he said, waving her towards the door, willing it to open. “We can do this some other time.”

Without a word, Samanta sprinted out of the room. Blake shut the door again and put his head in his hands, letting out an exhausted sigh. Sam reminded him of his grandmother’s chihuahua, who’d been beaten by its previous owner. She’d spoiled the heck out of that dog, loving it, giving it attention, and feeding it the best food, but one loud noise and...

On the outside, Sam had improved immensely since he’d first set up shop in Wroetin. No longer a sullen robot, the now ten-year-old child was more... child-like, for lack of a better term. She argued, she whined, she made sarcastic comments, and just overall acted like the selfish pre-teen pushing against boundaries that ten-year-olds were supposed to be. But it was all just on the outside. Underneath lurked the same terrified child that she’d been back in the early days. All it took was one outburst to pierce that outer coating and bring out that core of fear, and, as much as he didn’t want to admit it, there’d been a lot more outbursts recently.

Exhaustion was a way of life for Blake now. He slept only a few hours a day and pushed himself with little rest while awake. Only his superhuman body allowed such behavior, but there were limits to everything. His brain hurt. His body hurt more. The ‘episodes’ now came as many as three times a day, and their intensity was now more terrible than ever. And with all that pain came his frayed self control. He’d erupt over the tiniest of things, and his own awareness of the problem only helped so much. Blake didn’t know how much longer he could keep this up.

But what choice did he have? There was so much to be done every single day and only he could do it. Nobody else was going to build the robots needed to fully lock down the border with Eterium and keep any unwanted visitors from sneaking in to the country. Nobody else could overhaul Otharia’s transportation infrastructure like he could, building new bridges, fixing roads, and installing railroads. Nobody else could drag this sad excuse for a nation into the modern era. The list went on and on, and every day, as he watched his to-do list grow and grow, Blake felt that he was being pulled under by the tide of responsibility. A responsibility that he’d put on his own shoulders.

Sure, he wasn’t entirely alone in his endeavors. Leo continued to be the steady, reliable workaholic administrator that he always was, while the various ministers had all proved to be at least adequately competent and obedient so far. But how much could he really trust any of these people? They were Otharians and he was not. If given the opportunity to overthrow his regime, there was a gallingly high chance that some, if not all, would take it. Except for Simona. Unless her back story and personality was just an act. But Leo had verified her past. But what if he’d lied to get her into her position? He had nothing to go on but the man’s word.

No. Blake shook his head to clear himself of his doubts. If Leo had wanted to install somebody as Minister of State he could have just recommended that person like he’d done for all the others. Blake would have gone along with the pick. There would be no reason to go through all the song and dance they’d gone through just to get the same result. He had to trust Leo. He had to believe in him and the others, because otherwise he’d tear himself apart with paranoia in under a week. Many enemies lurked outside, be they devout Otharians pretending to submit like their countrymen, foreign agents blending in with the local populace, or entire nations plotting his and his country’s demise. He didn’t need to create more in his head.

A buzzer went off by the door, the screen embedded in the wall beside it lighting up to show an image of another room, with the perspective coming from above like a security camera. Which made sense, because that was precisely what it was — the feed from a security camera, just a small part of the comprehensive security system he’d designed and installed almost immediately after being ambushed by those three chimirin-dosed assassins over a month ago.

Using designs and techniques he’d blatantly and unapologetically copied from technology found in the bunker where he’d first arrived, Blake had finally been able to create working computer screens, making his entire life a billion times easier. To his delight, reversing the design had allowed for the creation of cameras as well. Now every inch of his fortress was constantly being recorded and analyzed for intruders, allowing him to sleep without fear... or at least with less fear. Invisible people could exist, after all. If somebody could phase through solid matter, really anything was possible. After the ambush he’d redesigned the fortress, thickening the walls and doors so it would be impossible for the phasing woman to go from room to room in a single step. Not that he had to worry about her specifically; she’d sent herself towards the planet core with no way back. But there could be others like her still out there...

Blake glanced at the screen. Speak of the devil, it was Leo, holding some papers in his hand, along with a book. Blake pressed a button under the screen to acknowledge Leo’s request for an audience, then headed out of the room and made his way towards the ‘audience chamber’, as he’d come to call it. Just a small room with some furniture, it was the farthest into the core of the fortress that anybody other than Sam and he were allowed to enter. Blake spent the vast majority of his time in the core these days. It was easier to work remotely, he liked to tell himself, but he knew deep down that the main reason was that it was safer. In a world overflowing with threats, there was no reason for him to drag his half-dead corpse of a body needlessly into danger any more than absolutely necessary, even if his body, or what parts of it still worked, were superhuman.

As he walked, his armor flowed up and over his body almost automatically. Though the design was incredibly complex, at this point he could construct it around himself practically without thinking. He kept improving it over time, adding new features and improving current ones, to the point where it made his original version seem like the work of a caveman. Then again, he’d been in a cave at the time, so it wasn’t that untrue.

Arriving at the audience chamber, he lowered his massive metal-encased bulk onto a specially-reinforced chair, closed the door behind him, and opened the other door. Leo entered and bowed to him. Blake hated being bowed to. He would never bow in respect to somebody else and so never wanted or expected the same from others. But much like the man’s insistence on calling him “Lord Ferros”, this was something Blake had learned to just deal with. Some things even he was powerless to change.

“Lord Ferros,” the administrator began, “the investigation into the source of the assassins has completed. I thought you would want to have the results immediately instead of waiting for the morning.”

“You thought correctly, as usual. What does it say.”

“Many of the avenues of inquiry proved to be relatively fruitless,” Leo began, summarizing the report. He didn’t even attempt to hand the text itself to his leader, as they both knew that Blake was still illiterate. The magical, incomprehensible Google Translate that allowed him to speak with his subordinate didn’t apply to the written word. It didn’t even apply to spoken word through speakers, which was a whole other rabbit hole filled with heavy implications that Blake didn’t have the time to really delve into yet. “Given the state of the recovered bodies, we were unable to find any markings that could narrow down our search. The same is true for their clothing — unremarkable armor of quality make. However, we did manage a breakthrough on the knife itself. Specifically the poison.”

“Oh ho? Do go on.”

“It seems that the poison on the blade is an incredibly obscure one, which is the primary cause of the delay. Apparently tracking it down proved quite difficult for the scholar I assigned the task. He only narrowed it down after using the poison on farm animals and watching how they died.” He held up an ancient looking book, its pages open to show a faded drawing of a flower. “The entrada flower was an extremely rare plant that grew in a very small area of Eterium. The oil in its seeds could be refined, and through some sort of unknown method it would become a poison known as ‘bairac’.”

“I can’t help but notice the way you keep using past tense there.”

“That is because, to our limited knowledge, the plant no longer exists. Once its capabilities were recognized by the Eterians, they removed the plant entirely from where it grew and it has not been seen since. This record,” he explained as he pointed to the book, “is the most recent mention of the plant that we have. It’s over nine hundred years old.”

“But it is obviously still around. The Eterians must have it growing in a secret garden somewhere for stuff just like this. It all makes sense, especially since they’re the people who I think stole the chimirin as well. It all makes fucking sense.” The image of Amatza Motrico flashed before his eyes, her unimpressed, smug gaze bubbled forth from his memory. At first, her condescending “I’m the only adult here” act had been an annoyance; now that he knew this, it made his blood boil.

“I came to a similar conclusion,” Leo replied. “Given that only the Eterians have this poison, it would seem that the source of the attack is clear. What should be done about it, my Lord?”

Blake opened his mouth, but stopped himself. He wanted to say that he’d get his revenge, that he’d make them pay, but his wiser side made him pause. He was in no position to start a war right now. Hadn’t he just been complaining to himself about how overburdened he already was? How stupid would it be to add a war with what was widely considered the most powerful country on the continent to his already long list of problems? He was sure he would be able to win in the end, but he’d probably have to shelve most if not all of his other projects to do it. Still, he couldn’t just let them get away with an attempt on his life, could he?

“There’s no reason to rush to a decision right now,” Blake said. “I’m going to sleep on it. We’ll make them pay for this at some point. It doesn’t have to be tomorrow.”

“As you wish.” Leo bowed again.

“Anything else while you’re here?”

“Not at the moment, no.”

“Alright. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I’ll see you tomorrow for the council meeting.”

“Yes, Lord Ferros.”

Blake let his assistant out, and then retreated to his bedroom, where he flopped down onto his bed face first. When he’d said that he was going to sleep on it, he’d meant it literally. Decisions like this took thought, the kind of thought that he wasn’t capable of with how frayed his self-control had become. It was the perfect excuse to put everything on hold for just one night and sleep a good twelve hours straight. Who cared that it was just after sundown? Not him. Closing his eyes, the tucrenyx melted away and he fell into slumber before he even realized it.

*     *     *

Blake’s eyes opened to darkness. The buzzing of his alarm clock rattled in his ears, but something was off. Where were the lights? Long ago, he’d set up the lighting in his room to emulate the sun. Given that the central rooms to his fortress had no windows, it was important to keep his body’s rhythms working right. He could always override the lights’ dimming if he was still working, something he’d been doing basically every night now. Given that his alarm was going off, the room should have been lit like it were mid-morning, but instead there was only blackness.

With a groan, Blake rolled himself over to look at his clock. Once upon a time it would have been a simple maneuver, but with only his right arm working fully the task required actual sustained concentration. Now fully rotated, Blake blinked his bleary eyes and checked the time on the clock he’d placed across the room and puzzled over the numbers in his sleep-addled mind. A three, a four, and a two shone back at him through the darkness. This world used a different time system than Earth. Instead of twenty-four hours in a day, the locals divided the day into twenty hours, with one hundred minutes in each. While Blake tended to shake his head in scorn at the way the natives usually did things, he couldn’t help but admit that this made a hell of a lot more sense than Earth’s system, except for the fact that they didn’t seem to have the concept of seconds. Minutes was as low at they went. Still, three forty-two was fucking early no matter what system you used. Why had he set his alarm for such an absurd time?

He hadn’t. Finally, enough neurons in Blake’s skull shook off their lethargy for him to realize that the buzzing he was hearing wasn’t his alarm clock at all. It was the higher-pitched, more insistent tone of his door buzzer. Blake’s blood ran cold. Everybody who worked for him knew how much he loved his sleep. They wouldn’t do this without a damned good reason... which meant an emergency.

His armor flowed up over his listless legs, giving them support, and he staggered to his feet. By the time he made it to the door, the armor was complete, prosthetic arm, mask, and all. The screen beside the door activated to show a nervous and sweating middle-aged man. The lights reflected off his shiny, sweat-covered scalp, and his pronounced gut trembled as he fidgeted in front of the door. Between his half-asleep brain and the overhead camera angle, it took Blake several seconds to recognize the man as Bernards Bergmanis, one of the two chief Many handlers in his employ.

Rushing down to the meeting room, he unceremoniously opened the door, causing rotund man to hop back in surprise.

“Emergency?” he asked the Many handler before the door was even fully open.

“M-my Lord! I ap-p-pologize for i-interrupting your slumber, but-”

“Calm down. What happened?”

“Gustil is calling a meeting in under half an hour. They said that it is of the gravest importance that you attend.”

“Thank you, Bernards. Go get everything set up. I’ll be down there in just a moment.”

“Y-yes, my Lord!” the man replied with a quick bow before turning and racing off faster than Blake had thought possible for a man of his size. Blake sighed. This screamed trouble.

Akhustal Palebane and Iorweth Morgan were both already present. One look at both of them was enough for Blake to realize that he wasn’t the only person whose worries usually kept him up at night. The King of Kutrad’s lower face was still wrapped in bandages even several months since the injury to his face and the man who spoke for him sat to his side. Blake couldn’t help but find this strange. How long did it take to heal a broken face or jaw? Surely he should have been at least past the need for bandages by this point?

As for the Chos, it seemed that Blake had found the one world leader more run down than he. Dark bags hung beneath her eyes. Her hair was a mess. Her eyes seemed to always be staring out into the middle distance, unfocused on the moment. Thanks to Otharia’s traditional disinterest in the goings on of other nations, Blake did not have access to a spy network like everybody else, so he had no idea what could have caused her to be like this.

Before he could even say hello, another person appeared — Minister Motrico, the Eterian Minister of External Affairs. The sight of her set Blake’s fury blazing once more, but he was able to just barely hold himself back. He had an image to maintain, one of the calm, collected, ruthless overlord. Once again, he thanked fate that he’d decided to use a mask.

“Have you been able to establish contact?” the woman asked the Kutradian, a look a concern on her normally carefully controlled face. The king merely shook his head, and Blake noticed a spot of fear in his eyes. What was going on? The Eterian looked over to the large Stragman woman. “What about you, Chos?”

“...wha?” Palebane responded after a moment, her eyes focusing in on the others for the first time since Blake’s arrival.

“Have you been able to contact Redwater Castle?”

“No, I didn’t try. Why, do you think that’s what this is about?” A look of horror swept over her face. “Oh no, that would be the worst possible-”

“The worst possible timing?” interrupted a lithe elf that had just appeared. “What’s wrong, my dear, something happening with you and the rest of your happy tree friends?”

“Princess Pyria, this is not the time for your petty grudges,” scolded the Eterian.

“Oh come off it, Motrico,” the Drayhadan replied. “I’m twice your age. Stop acting like you’re my mother.”

The Eterian opened her mouth to retort but held in her words as the final member of the group appeared and immediately began to speak.

“My fellows, I bring the gravest of news,” the King of Gustil Hamza Adivar began, his features grim. “Redwater Castle has fallen. With every passing hour more and more Ubrans flow through the pass into the shrublands. Nocend’s darkest hour has arrived.”

“Spirits protect us!” Minister Motrico muttered at the confirmation of her fears.

“Hold on,” Blake said. “What happened to the castle? You all told me it would never fall in a thousand years! What happened to all those boasts from last time?”

“Lord Ferros, the time for blame can come later,” Minister Motrico began.

“No, he’s at least partially correct,” King Adivar interjected. “While he may not have meant it this way, ‘What happened to the castle?’ is indeed a crucial question, in large because we do not actually know the answer. No beacons were lit until the Ubrans had already made it most of the way through our side of the pass, meaning the castle fell at least a day before the first beacon. Yet not only were there no beacons, but we received no messages from our Manys. I assume the same is true with you all.” The rest of the group nodded. “That means we have no idea how the castle fell, or what weapons the Empire has up their sleeves. We will have to make our stand mostly blind to our enemy’s capabilities.”

“We know enough,” the Eterian replied. “We know that they will have a large numerical advantage. We know that it will take the combined might of the entire continent to push them back.”

“Indeed,” the Gustilian agreed. “What troops I have in the area are focusing on hit-and-run attacks to slow their forces down as much as possible. Every soldier in Gustil will be on the march by the morrow. The pass is narrow enough that they cannot get their full army across for another several days. There is still time to act. This is not over yet.”

“Eterium will assemble and march as quickly as we can,” Minister Motrico stated definitively. “Our troops stationed in Begale should be able to reach your position before you make your first stand. The rest will follow as soon as can be done. You have my word.”

“And you have my thanks.”

“I am merely honoring the pact that all our countries made. The treaty has held for generations because the Empire has long been the greatest threat to our survival and I am not foolish enough to overlook this.”

“King Morgan, how soon will you be able to get your forces on the move?” the Gustilian king asked.

The Kutradian wrote something down and the man beside him spoke. “My King says that every unit will be headed west by midday tomorrow.”

“Including your cavalry?”

King Morgan wrote again. “Of course. My King would like to remind you, however, that jaglioths are not built for sustained speed. They will not arrive as soon as you may hope.”

“Then we will simply have to hold the Empire off a little longer,” King Adivar replied with a courageous smile. He turned to the Akhustal Palebane, who looked deathly pale now. “Lady Palebane-Chos, when can your people arrive?”

The confident aura that Blake was used to seeing from the giant bear-lady was missing today. Instead of answering immediately, the woman stared off into space for a moment, mouthing something to herself. When she finally spoke, Blake could hear the shame in her voice.

“We... we will not uphold the pact. We cannot.”

“W-what?!?” the Eterian minister cried, her eye wide with shock. “You are the single greatest threat to the Empire! Nobody else can field the numbers that you can! With your warriors, we would be able to nearly match the Empire soldier for soldier! I know that your country is going through a little turmoil, but this must not come second!”

Princess Pyria let out a mocking laugh. “Amatza, sweetie, I don’t know what your spies are telling you, but this is much more than a ‘little turmoil’. Her entire society is falling apart. Isn’t that right, Palebane?”

“The Shells are refusing to work,” the Chos admitted, her voice weak. “Nothing we’ve tried has broken them. The next migration is only a few days away, and without the Shells I must use the soldiers in their stead. If I were to send them to you, the migration would fail. Stragma would die. I cannot allow that. I’m sorry.”

A stunned silence swept over the room. This time it was the Eterian who stared blankly ahead, her eyes unfocused as she contemplated the ramifications of what she’d just heard.

“The Drayhadans are well known to be the greatest defensive warfare specialists around,” the Kutradian speaker read, breaking the silence. “Perhaps with that expertise, we can buy enough time for the Stragmans to resolve their issue and send reinforcements.”

“Ah, a fine suggestion,” the Gustilian king replied.

“Unfortunately, Drayhadal will also not uphold the pact,” the elven princess remarked unenthusiastically.

Minister Motrico gasped in astonishment. “Princess Pyria, surely you jest!”

“If only,” the elf replied with a detached tone and a roll of her eyes. “Drayhadal signed a secret peace treaty with the Empire some four hundred years ago. I don’t agree with it, but I do not have enough say to sway this decision. The old fogies are too busy looking inward to notice the beast creeping up behind them. My hands are tied.”

The declaration seemed to rip the life right out of the three northern rulers. The Gustilian king looked like he’d just swallowed a grenade. Minister Motrico turned to Blake, a desperation in her eyes that he’d never expected to witness from such a composed official. “Lord Ferros,” she pleaded, her face as white as a ghost, “I know you are not of the pact, but surely you are wise enough to see that we must work together to save us all.”

Blake leaned back in his chair, laughing to himself on the inside. Who would have thought such a perfect opportunity would present itself so soon? “Tell me, Minister, have you ever heard of bairac?”

“No, I cannot say I have,” the woman replied, puzzled by the non sequitur.

“I have,” Princess Pyria said. “Poisons are a... hobby of mine, you could say.”

For some reason, this revelation did not surprise Blake one bit. “Well then, would you be so kind as to educate us all?” he requested.

“Bairac — an ancient poison that was considered one of the four most deadly poisons known centuries ago. Made from a plant that only grew in the Lemac Valley in Eterium, it vanished from the world when the plant was eradicated from its home. Since then bairac has faded from the world, only appearing every few decades inside the bodies of people the Republic of Eterium wants really, truly dead.”

Blake hadn’t thought it was possible for the Eterian to get any whiter, but once she put two and two together she managed it somehow. “Lord Ferros, I assure you, the Republic of Eterium has never acted against your life,” she desperately pleaded. “I swear it on my life! Why would we try to kill a future lucrative trading partner?”

“Why indeed?” he replied.

“Please, Lord Ferros, you must believe me! We would never-”

“I will enjoy watching you burn.”

The room went silent, save for a single mournful sob that escaped the diplomat’s lips.

“This is the end,” the Gustilian king muttered. “The end of all of us. A bunch of fools.”

“Well, this has been fun,” Blake said as stood up. “Let’s do it again some time.” He strode from the room and did not look back.

*     *     *

Blake moseyed through the halls in high spirits. Such a wonderful way to start the day! Oh, the look on that smug woman’s face! He wanted to laugh out loud just thinking about it.

The only problem was that now it was still way too early and he had nothing to do. He hadn’t planned on waking up this early, and now he was far too wired to go back to sleep. Quickly going through his mental list of projects, he began tossing out the ones that needed the help of others, then the ones that were best done during a certain time of day. In the middle of it all, a single project popped into his head and he smiled. Yes. Now was the perfect time to work on that. Given the upcoming war, it might even find use earlier than expected.

Soon Blake was atop one of this transports, a small army of skitters surrounding him in the predawn light as he made his way out of his fortress and towards the outskirts of Wroetin. There, on the other side of the wall, stood a massive metal building, newly constructed just weeks before. While taller than the wall to the city and equally as wide, it was the length of the building that most found truly remarkable. Over four times as long as it was tall, the building was nearly as long as his fortress looming in the city’s center.

No windows could be found on this mysterious building. No door either, for that matter. Only impenetrable walls of solid metal as far as the eyes could see... and then some skitters patrolling for good measure. This was the housing for one of Blake’s big dream projects, and he wasn’t going to show it off until it was truly ready. So far, only he and Sam had ever been inside.

The metal flowed out of his way as he walked directly through the nearest wall, reforming behind him as if it had never moved. Once inside, he looked up and grinned. He was getting closer, he could feel it. Soon it would be ready, and he’d change the world once more.