As they work on Brass Cog, the silence only punctuated by the groaning of machinery, Roth catches Donald by surprise. "Sykes." Roth says, carefully. "When we get out of this, I'm going to tell everything I told you to Command. I don't know what's going to happen, but they can't just erase me from history. Not anymore."
"I thought you fit the John F. Kennedy mold pretty well." There's little mirth in Donald's joke.
"I'm serious here," Roth snaps. "Even if they erase me, execute me, throw me into a hole for all eternity, I'm a public figure thanks to my beta forks, one of which is still going to be running for president of the US. I want you on that team."
"Is this really the place for a job interview?" Donald asks, slightly hysterically.
"The best way to find out how someone reacts in a crisis is to watch how they act in an actual crisis. So in other words, this is the best time for an interview And I'm impressed. You've stood up to the SPD. To me. To way too many people, gotten in way over your fucking head, but you've just fought through that shit. You're a survivor. A damn well undervalued one." Roth grins wolfishly. "And we're Syndics. We exist to ensure that resources are allocated efficiently."
"Okay," Donald says, dubious. "So you want me to… help you turn a secret conspiracy into a not-actually-secret conspiracy?"
"We've been working in the shadows for so long, acting as the secret power brokers of the world, ignoring what the Masses have been doing and letting them play in the playground, confident that we can work through middlemen just fine. And we ignore it every time we learn that a little bit of influence on the right people can be just as powerful as all our carefully curated ties and connections."
"Speaking from experience, aren't you?" Donald asks.
"I know. What I've done was a mistake. Oversight was a mistake." Roth admits. "But that doesn't change my point. Things have been falling apart for the last 16 years, Donald." Roth says, sadly. "We can't keep playing the long game when we don't know what might happen a year from now, let alone 20 years from now. We need to start preempting disaster, otherwise we'll get preempted in turn."
"Like you wanted to 'preempt' people in Manhattan?"
"That was a mistake." Roth snarls, gritting his teeth. "But the principle isn't wrong. We should be guiding the masses, because we actually do know better. We know more about the world. And that's why I want someone like you on my team. No matter what happens to me-that beta fork running for president is still going to exist. And he's probably going to win. People want simple solutions," Roth snaps. "Donald, look at me. I'm a goddamn genius with the best education money can buy, with the best information sources that anyone can get, and I wanted a simple solution to Reality Deviants. I wanted to go back to an imagined golden age in the 1990s, a simple hot Ascension War, that never really existed. And because I wanted that world where black was black and white was white, I nearly killed millions of people. It's ironic," he laughs bitterly. "For someone opposed to the Traditions and how they want to bring back an ugly past, I wanted to do the exact same, in the end. So I want someone like you to use those dreams, to use that belief, and channel it into something productive."
Donald realizes that the anger in Roth's voice isn't targeted at anyone else. It's targeted at himself. "What makes you think I'm going to do any better?" Donald asks.
"You didn't end up nearly killing half of Manhattan's population because of a grudge," Roth replies. "So way I see it, you're probably at least more fit than I am to make decisions on this. And probably more fit than the people who agreed with me."
Donald pauses for a moment. "Who agreed with you, and what do you think they want?"
Roth sighs. "The worse-off, or at least, people who
think they are. Sleepers are angry; they know things are wrong, even if they don't know why or how to fix it. Rage is a hell of a force."
"True, I suppose you'd know." It's a cheap shot, but Donald enjoys a moment of vindictiveness at seeing Roth flinch. "So you've harnessed a monster, in the name of fighting monsters. How's that saying go, again?"
"Nietzsche specifically said that monster-fighters should 'see to it' that they don't fall - or Fall, as it were," the elder executive responds archly. "At the end of the day, short of my beta-fork publicly throwing in the towel, he's projected to win the election and head up the world's largest economy for four years. Your choice here is whether or not you're on his team when he steps into the White House."
Sykes weighs his options. "Tell me: what do you call your beta-fork?"
Roth blinks. "Beta-One."
"One? You've got more than one beta-fork running around?" Donald grunts in exertion as he strains to adjust a comically-large hex bolt.
"You've had one yourself, bub," Roth retorts as he steps in to assist.
"One beta-fork!" Donald yells back, cursing 'goddamn steampunk bullshit' under his breath as he strains against the titanic bolt. "One clone, which was made to replace me, and
exploded to boot!"
"'Let he without an exploding beta-fork cast the first stone,'" Roth responds, wiping his brow and stepping back from
Brass Cog. "Beta-One is keeping up the public appearances and work needed on the campaign trail, and thank God for that."
"And once he's in power," Donald probes, "how many
independent decisions will he make?"
Roth frowns. "You keep treating my beta-fork like it's some independent entity."
"Because
he is!" Donald shouts, earning him a sidelong glance from a few of the cyborgs on the other side of the hangar. "You're so ivory-tower that you can't even see just how out-of-touch you still are today!"
The elder Syndicate executive blinks, then holds up a finger. "Little-i Ivory Tower?"
Donald chuckles, the sudden burst of anger leaving him as quickly as it came. "Yeah, yeah. It's still a fair comparison."
"Comparing me to the Nu-Who? That's low, Sykes."
"Hey, if the Oxfords fit..." Donald turns back to the war machine, glancing over its esoteric reactor controls. "You've made a clone whose sole purpose is to be your stand-in for the scut-work of actually meeting constituents and hearing peoples' complaints. You've harnessed a wave of populist anger - stirred it up at times, even - in the hopes of pointing it in the 'right' direction. You're ignoring regular peoples' complaints, everything from economic disparity to social unrest, in order to 'preempt the next disaster.' Everything you've done relies on the ends justifying the means."
"You're no saint on that front, bub," Roth replies dubiously, flipping open a nearby maintenance hatch and fiddling with several controls inside. Donald's reactor console beeps several times, and another indicator light blinks green.
Donald nods. "Indeed. But let's turn that question around for a second; why
should we keep making these hard decisions?"
Roth stands up, futilely trying to brush oil off his pant legs. "They're necessary, Sykes. You know that as well as I do."
"Are they?" Donald shoots back. "How many 'hard calls' separate us from Oversight, or Control? And how often do we duck behind that reasoning?"
"Hmph." An ugly wave of anger passes over Roth's face, but the stormcloud fades slowly into a contemplative expression. Roth turns back to the brass machine, his face still pensive, and works in silence for several minutes.
"You've changed," Donald observes. The Warren Roth of months past would have shown a blank expression, of titanic anger suppressed by iron self-control. Donald doesn't know what to make of the 'new' Roth, but the initial signs are somewhat promising.
"Not enough," Roth responds, shaking his head. "The hardest part of shaking one's prior convictions is the struggle of rebuilding
truly new ones; it's easier to justify fresh paint over old ideas." He adjusts several knobs on the Etherite machine's controls, and the two men work in semi-companionable silence.
"How would you do it?" Roth asks after a long pause. "How would you fix this busted, broken shithole of a world?"
Donald chuckles. "The Technocracy spun off-kilter after 1999, but the world's kept spinning since then; the biggest disasters since then have been of our own design. We're smart enough to change the world, but it's always a struggle to ask whether we truly
should."
"Power vacuums get filled, Sykes," Roth shoots back. "You saw what happened in Moscow: the moment we stepped back, the hemophages took advantage of it."
"Indeed, and I don't think you'd find many on either side who'd want to create one." Donald winces as the EDE in
Brass Cog's reactor gnashes at its cage, and double-checks the 'etheric shielding' keeping the creature contained. "But if we take up the reins of power openly, what separates us from the sorcerer-kings that the Order of Reason was formed to fight?"
"Nothing," Roth responds bluntly. "That ship sailed decades ago, Sykes, and we both know it. We're already running the world, just poorly. I'm proposing that we be honest about it."
"How's that new paint working for ya?"
Roth scowls, turning back to the cluttered workbenches standing around the Etherite war-machine, pausing for a moment as he steps over a reddish-brown stain on the catwalk. "This
is a new idea, Sykes. I started this campaign intending to inspire resistance against me - RD, shapeshifter, and the like." He glances down at his hands. "Increasing escalation and retaliation, a feedback cycle heading out of control. You know how that would've gone."
Donald nods. "What's different this time around?"
Roth spreads his hands. "You tell me. What
should I change?"
"My first thought would be that you don't get to duck responsibility that easily," Donald responds, his voice heated despite himself. "You put yourself on this track, after all. But I'm not the one you should get input from. Start with Beta-One, the guy who's actually been in the trenches. Go field some calls from constituents - don't
fix, just
listen."
Roth frowns disapprovingly. "I can get a clearer picture from five minutes on my phone. Is some Sleeper whining about their job supposed to be more informative than a hypereconomics analysis?"
"No, no,
no!" Donald snarls, punching the reactor console. "For the love of whiskey, just fucking admit you don't know everything!"
"'More things on Heaven and Earth than are dream't of in my philosophy,' then?" Roth asks, his mouth quirking up. "Righto, Horatio."
"Just fucking kiss already!" Elsa's voice drifts faintly from across the hangar.
The two men laugh, the tension temporarily broken. "Look," Donald begins hesitantly. "I'm more like you than I really want to admit. You
are smart, but speaking from experience there, that just means you can reason your way into bad decisions more easily than someone without Genius could. If you really want my advice, you'd give Beta-One a real name and let the guy take the reins, mistakes and all. Let Sleepers take charge of Sleepers, and let's focus on the
now instead of perpetually obsessing about the future."
"Hmph." Donald figures he'll take what he can get.
Vote: [X] Negative(ish)
