Chapter One Hundred and Sixty-Five: News Tonight with Logan Michaels (Patreon)

For all the brutal splendor of Boar Armor, Nanofibre Weave is still my preferred costume.

Light. Airy. Doesn’t restrict my movements, I can use elevators  - you do NOT want to step into a lift in a Greyhound - and it makes me look, well, somewhat human, instead of a metal-encased machine. And it’s not naturally festooned with weapons, either.

Wearing it to formal occasions - whether the office, the factory floor, or a live interview - seems quite normal nowadays.

Of course, with a coat of stealth paint freshly applied, it shines like freshly polished shoes, which has its own advantages.

At least, that’s what I told myself in the studio’s makeup room.

“They’ll be ready for you in a minute, Mr. Belessar.” A production assistant with a headset gave me a thumbs-up.

“Thank you,” I replied.

<Nanocloud>: Nervous?

<Belessar>: A little. Logan Michaels gets three million viewers on a normal night. And today they expect a lot more.

<Nanocloud>: You wanted to go on TV and pitch your views.

<Belessar>: It’s a low-risk way of gaining an incredible boost to both attributes and XP.

<Nanocloud>: That doesn’t mean it’s a good idea, Andrew. You’ve got to stop doing dumb stuff for the quest rewards.

<Belessar>: Hey, it’s gotten me this far. Would my power have pushed me into this if it was a bad idea?

<Nanocloud>: Absolutely. And you know Dad agrees with me.

<Belessar>: Stop it, sis. It’s too late to back out now anyway.

<Nanocloud>: Fine. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

“I’m guessing Nanocloud again?” a familiar voice said from me.

I turned to my ‘PR assistant’. “She still thinks this is a bad idea.”

Agni - in her civilian form - smiled, deftly packing her mini-tablet into her purse. “Sometimes you have to go ahead with an idea and fix stuff on the fly.”

“You didn’t tell me what you think.”

“I’m not here to second-guess you. Either way, would it change things?”

“Not really. I have to do this interview now.”

“Then give it your best shot. Remember, you chose Michaels because he’s known to be fair. Doesn’t have an axe to grind with big business or ultrahumans, but ruthless when it comes to corruption or corporate wrongdoing.”

“He’s my best chance to sway the fence-sitters. People trust him.”

“Then go get him. And don’t be shy about turning on the charm.” She grinned. “I’ll let it go this once.”

“Very funny. I’m not mind-controlling a news anchor on air.”

“Use your natural charm, kid. Remember, the people watching want to believe in heroes. Give them something to believe in.”

Logan Michaels had a kindly, trusting face. The kind of face you could open up to about anything.

The talk show host greeted me with a wide smile as I stepped on stage. “Belessar! Welcome to the show!”

“Thanks, Mr. Michaels.” I shook his hand and sat. “I’m happy to be here.”

“As we are, to have you, and please call me Logan. This is your first talk show appearance, right?”

“Yes, actually. I’m not quite sure what to expect.”

“Well, we’ll try to be less scary than a Carnotaur. How about that, folks?”

Gentle clapping from the audience. I smiled and waved.

My interface suddenly showed a new set of numbers:

SOCIAL QUEST TRACKER:

EACH VIEWER WHO SUPPORTS YOUR POINT OF VIEW AT THE END OF THE PROGRAM COUNTS AS A SUPPORTER. EACH VIEWER WHO DISAGREES COUNTS AS AN OPPONENT.

CURRENT NUMBER OF SUPPORTERS: 113,396.

CURRENT NUMBER OF OPPONENTS: 37,112.

TOTAL CURRENT VIEWERS: 7,846,431.

NET PROMOTER SCORE = (SUPPORTERS - OPPONENTS) / TOTAL VIEWERS.

YOU NEED A NET PROMOTER SCORE OF 50% FOR SUCCESS.

CURRENT NPS SCORE: 1%.

TIME REMAINING: 00:29:33.

Less than half an hour to convince four million people. No pressure.

I focused on Logan’s question.

“How do you find England?”

“The weather’s cold but the people are really warm and welcoming.”

“Thank you. And you’ve received quite a welcome this time, although your first couple of visits were fairly intense.”

“My first was, my second was calmer.” My thoughts caught up as I suddenly remembered that the visit to RAF Gragareth had been secret. “That is, I actually visited Britain once between the Battle of Liverpool and the Battle of London.”

“Oh? I hadn’t heard that.”

“It was a bit confidential, so I haven’t mentioned it. Nothing major happened, though.”

“Did you come over in your civilian identity, then?” Logan grinned.

“Like I said, it was confidential. Sorry.”

“No problem. So, let’s get to confidentiality then. Are you a big fan?”

“I sort of need it to survive, Logan. Being ultrahuman and all that.”

A gentle laugh amongst the audience. The NPS tracker climbed to 2%.

“Very true, very true. There’s a movement in favour of having ultrahumans register with their real names in some countries. What are your views on that?”

A softball question, nice. “The nature of ultrahuman work means that we tend to have rather dangerous enemies. Supervillains generally won’t declare their identities, and if only the heroes do, you’d leave them vulnerable to attack, or to their families being abducted or blackmailed.”

“Police personnel face that threat every day too, don’t they?”

“Policemen are specifically supposed to avoid ultrahuman crimes for exactly this reason, Logan. That’s why the US has DURABLE to track and monitor ultrahuman activity, and the UK has…” I trailed off.

“Whitehall Department 1221,” supplied Logan helpfully.

“Yes, that.”

“So, you’d visited England three times, and then you decided to start a business here. Would you share what prompted that thinking?”

This was a question I’d prepared for, so I took a deep breath and launched into my spiel. “At the Battle of London we saw how effective nanofibre weave armor was in protecting frontline fighters, so I talked to the British military about it and we worked on a plan to start mass-producing it. BAE Systems came on board as a manufacturing partner and I’ve been helping them get it off the ground.”

“Yes, and we understand you received a contract to make several thousand suits for the Royal Army. How’s that going?”

“Quite well, actually. We should be in a position to ship suits soon.”

The NPS tracker shot up to 5%. Evidently that bit of news was well liked.

“And you’ve recently revealed that you can supply even more equipment - the famous Boar Armour, which you used in Liverpool.”

“Yes.”

“Will each of these suits be as powerful as you were there?”

“Not quite; my combat performance is a combination of the armour, additional equipped weapons systems, and my skills.”

“Your skills?”

“I practice with the armour a lot. In fact, I practically live in one suit or another most of the time.”

“And you have actual training routines you do with the suits? Not just, you know, Boar Punch and all that?” Michaels thrust a fist into the air, in some vague approximation of a punch.

“The Boar Armour doesn’t have a special ‘punch’, although you can definitely use it that way. Mostly, though, I practice what are called Armour Katas - pre-planned sequences of moves that are designed to maximize manoeuvrability and damage to the foe.”

“Like karate katas? Are you trained in martial arts, by any chance?”

I smiled, remembering the lessons Mr. Saito had taught me. “A fair bit. It helps.”

“That’s interesting, indeed. So, martial arts practice, armour katas, weapons design and maintenance, a whole lot of production and manufacturing work, your interactions with Phoenix Company and with other notable ultrahumans. Where do you find the time?”

I laughed. “Some days I don’t have an answer to that.”

“Indeed, perhaps your real superpower is multitasking.”

“No, that’s Nanocloud.”

Another titter across the audience. The NPS was climbing gently, now at 14%.

“Quite, quite. Two inventors in the same family, although with fairly different specializations.” Michaels grinned cheekily. “Any sibling rivalry there?”

“Not really. We work fairly well together.”

“And you achieve impressive results. Isn’t Nanocloud a little young for frontline combat, though?”

“Our parents know, and in any case she’s quite firm in wanting to be a part of the defence.”

“The Stratospheric Guard discourages the participation of minors in alien defence operations.”

My silence seemed to prompt Logan to move on. “Let’s return to the topic of manufacturing. Recently, the British government announced the costs of production of your Nanofibre Weave and Boar class combat armour were far lower than the purchase price. In fact, it’s estimated that almost ninety per cent of the cost of the Boar class battlesuits is pure profit.”

“That’s not entirely correct, Logan.”

“Oh? Did the Ministry of Defence get their figures wrong?”

“What the Ministry of Defence communicated - something which they were aware of - is that the variable cost of each additional suit is about fifty thousand pounds. So if we were making forty suits and you asked us to make a forty-first, we’d need to buy an additional fifty thousand pounds worth of materials.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

“All companies have overheads, Logan, and research and development costs. We need to pay salaries, pay rent on our factory land - which is owned by the UK government, so that’s money back to them - pay for electricity, computers, and the phone bills. We also need to keep putting money into improving the suits.”

“You mentioned improving the suits. Can you tell us about some improvements?”

“Sure. The first version of the Nanofibre Weave Combat Armour didn’t have air-conditioning. After the Battle of London it was pointed out that might be a problem.”

“So the new ones are air-conditioned? That’s a nice feature.”

“It’s also necessary. Heat and exhaustion can slow down a soldier.”

“Well, I’m sure the troops will appreciate the touch. Did it drive up the cost of making them?”

“Drove them down, actually. The R&D costs also cover a lot of experiments.”

“But those experiments are for future technology.”

“They’re for better weapons and armoured suits. Eventually, the enemy catches up with whatever you make, so I’m going to be working on the next generation weaponry.”

“Like the Greyhound Armour?”

“Like making it affordable. The Greyhound, unlike the other suits, is incredibly expensive.”

“You’re charging half a million pounds for each Boar suit and the Greyhound is expensive?” Michaels smiled gently.

I noticed the NPS drop slightly. “Believe me, I know whereof I speak. The Greyhound costs a lot more.”

“More money, more capability.”

“Well, yes.”

“So, is the Boar Armor a hundred times more effective than nanofibre weave?”

I frowned. “Not really. The damage absorption potential is roughly two-and-a-half times.”

“And yet you charge a hundred times as much.”

“That’s not exactly a fair comparison, Logan. They’re different tools for different applications.”

“Why charge a hundred times as much money for something that only provides two-and-a-half times the protection?”

I wracked my brains for a second. “Logan, it’s not about the cost. Ideally, a response force should have a mix of kits - some nanofibre weave, some Boar armours, and some Greyhounds. Each is designed for a different role, and they work best in combination.”

“I see. So each has its advantages and disadvantages?”

“Yes. They’re different products. Armouring is only one aspect of the suit; the Boar has a dedicated power pack capable of firing heavy weapons, power-assisted lifting, eight hours endurance and allows you to perform a power-assisted charge that can knock over small cars with its momentum...” I trailed off.

Probably better to not give away any more secrets.

“So what’s the Nanofibre Weave got going for it then?” asked Logan.

“Stealth,” I replied. “The Nanofibre Weave is better suited for infiltration and sniper work. It masks all thermal and radio scans, so on a dark night you can’t detect a sniper wearing it.”

“What you’re wearing now is nanofibre weave?”

“Yes, it is.”

“It’s quite shiny.”

“That’s because the stealth paint is freshly applied. Give it a day and you won’t be able to spot it after dark.”

“I see. I’m given to understand that Phoenix Company were the test users for this?”

“Well, I used it first, but they did use it at London.”

“Is there a reason you didn’t give them Boar Armour?”

“Truthfully, I only had two sets of Boar Armour available at the time.” I paused for a moment, holding back a wave of regret. “I regret not giving them to the girls, though. Maybe Maria would have survived.”

Logan nodded in sympathy. “I’d like to offer my condolences, and that of everyone at the studio. Your friend Maria Esperanza was a fine young woman…. Just to remind our viewers, the late Maria Esperanza was a soldier of Phoenix Company who made the ultimate sacrifice at the Battle of London, fearlessly charging an alien.”

For a few seconds, the two of us were quiet. Idly, I watched the NPS meter tick upwards. 33%.

“Let’s talk about Phoenix Company,” said Logan. “We’ve seen many videos about these brave women.”

“They most certainly are.”

“Can you share with our viewers how you first came into contact with them?”

“The members of Phoenix Company are drawn from surviving victims of the Grunters. Several of them were held as prisoners by Grumman and Gravitic for years. When I raided the Grunter headquarters outside Tanisport, I was able to get them free.”

“And after that?”

“Well, the Tanisport police asked them to testify against the surviving members of the Grunters, and they did.”

“But you didn’t arm them then.”

“Actually, I already had. During the escape from the Grunter complex, I’d given one of the women a laser rifle. She handled it quite well.”

“That’s interesting. So you gave it to her as a gift?”

“Sort of. They were escaping, and I was a bit busy trying to track down the rest of the Grunters.”

“Is it true that you killed all of the Grunters in the complex?”

“Only the ones in power armour. And they had plenty of that.”

“But yours was better?”

“Not really. There were at least five in there who had armour just as good or better.”

“So - how’d you win?”

I shrugged. “I was prepared. They weren’t. In battle, the side which takes the initiative has an advantage.”

“Did you know, before going in, that the women were being held captive?”

“Yes. Part of the reason for the mission was to rescue them.”

“Only part?”

“The other part was to end the Grunters as a threat, once and for all.”

“... You went in there with the specific intention of killing them?”

“They were using powered armour to blackmail the city and enslave people. They’d attacked stations and killed policemen before. Should I have offered them tea?”

NPS SCORE: 44%.

Logan Michaels smiled genially. “Not without poison.”

Laughter from the audience.

“Seriously, though, it must have been hard to make that decision. To go into a battle, knowing that you would be killing human beings.”

“It wasn’t easy.”

“But you chose to go in, and we can be sure that the women who now form Phoenix Company are grateful to you for that.”

“They’ve stood by me, too, and I’m equally grateful for that.”

“That’s good, that’s good. I’ve heard that some of those who were held there were underage.”

I thought of Junie, and the others still in therapy. “Yes.”

“So, did you make suits for each of the survivors?”

“No, only a few volunteered.”

“And they used the suits before, too, I understand. At the so-called Battle of the Courthouse Steps?”

“Is that what it’s called?” I chuckled.

“I believe there’s a video of it. A close-up, and with you emerging from a newsvan. How did that happen, by the way?”

“It’s no secret. I asked a reporter to help me in return for an exclusive.”

“That would do it. How did you choose the young women who fought Gravitic?”

“I didn’t, they volunteered.”

“But surely there must be some criteria.” Logan chuckled. “Physical fitness? Mental fortitude? Marksmanship?”

“Not really, just those who volunteered.”

“Nobody with pre-existing medical conditions that would prevent them from taking part in a firefight?”

I shook my head. “They’ve all passed fitness tests, and they train regularly.”

“Phoenix Company certainly is fortunate to have some fine individuals in their ranks. And brave, too.”

“Very brave.”

“In fact, I’d like to delve a bit more into your relationship with Phoenix Company, if that’s all right?”

“Sure.” As long as he didn’t make me talk about more military secrets…

“Would it surprise you to know that most of them admire you greatly?”

How do you respond to that kind of question? “I think it’s more of a mutual admiration. We respect each other.”

“Mutual admiration and respect, that’s good. And do they do everything you tell them to?”

“I can’t think of an occasion when they haven’t.”

“So, they follow your orders. Every order.”

“Absolutely.”

“What was your view on the Playboy offer to Commandant Cullen?”

The question caught me off guard. “The what?”

“A few months ago, Playboy offered Commandant Cullen a hundred thousand dollars to appear in their magazine.”

“... I think it’s in extremely bad taste.”

“Is that why Commandant Cullen turned it down?”

“I suppose so.” Wait, why was the NPS number dropping?

“Thank you, Belessar. If I may probe a little further, would you say the women of Phoenix Company see you as an authority figure?”

Did they? I wondered for a second.

Maria’s words came back to me - ‘Whatever you need.’

“I believe they do, yes.”

“And they do everything you say.”

“Yes.” My NPS was now at 29% and still dropping.

What was going on?

“Would you say you’ve used your authority fairly? They did follow you into a life-and-death fight, after all.”

“They make their own choices.”

“But as you just said, you have a great deal of influence on those choices. After all, they do everything you ask.” Logan Michaels’ eyes bored into me, not at all friendly. “Including actions that risk their lives. Because you asked.”

I flinched inwardly. Despite Daisy’s words all those months ago, there was still a part of me that felt guilt. Guilt at asking Phoenix Company to place themselves in the line of fire.

“You have a tremendous influence over these young women,” continued Michaels. “It’s a heavy responsibility. Who do you share the burden of leadership with?”

“Umm….”

“Who advises you on what they need, instead of what you want, and tells you when your decisions don’t respect their choices?”

“I think they can do that quite well themselves.”

“But you just said they’re very disciplined. Obedient. They follow your orders without question. So if you ask something that’s wrong for them, that doesn’t respect their choices, they’ll still do it.”

As the NPS number dropped to 8%, I frantically searched my thoughts for an answer. “That’s not how we work.”

“Most corporations today follow the Giovenne protocol to ensure that the needs of diverse groups are represented. Have you applied it to your relationship with Phoenix Company?”

“I’m not even sure what that is…”

“So you may be in violation of it without knowing.”

“I can’t answer that...”

“Have you ever been intimate with any members of Phoenix Company?”

It took a second for my brain to process the question.

“No.” I said firmly, anger creeping into my tone. “I have not. And that question is totally out of line.”

Logan Michaels stared at me with pity in his eyes. “You’re asking our audience to believe that there’s never been anything between you and the very loyal, very obedient members of Phoenix Company, who have shown their total loyalty to you.”

“Nothing. Never.”

“Recently revealed court documents showed that several of the Phoenix Company members were victims of mental tampering. What are your views on that?”

“The Grunters had a Master amongst their ranks.”

“Of course, the Grunters did it.” Michaels’ tone dripped with sarcasm. “That’s why they’re relentlessly loyal to you.”

“No, that’s not why!”

“I believe you said that Phoenix Company is absolutely loyal to you. Absolutely loyal.” Michaels leaned back, eyes hooded. “Kesselthear describes his people the exact same way. So does the Chinese Communist Party - their ultrahumans are absolutely loyal to the state.” The talk show host leaned forward. “Can you control people’s minds, Belessar?”

… Did they know about the Geas I’d placed on Wallie Sims?

“Thank you,” Michaels said, “that’s all the answer we need.”

“I didn’t say anything,” I protested.

“We understand certain capabilities of your armour must stay confidential,” Michaels continued. “And we needn’t pursue this any further if it impinges on national security.”

…. Did the man just imply that my armours could mind-control people? On national TV?

The NPS went negative.

And as I sat there, waiting for the next question, I was wishing I’d listened to Anne.