“That’s it?  You say ‘I’m sorry’ and we’re just supposed to accept it?” Regent spoke for the first time since we’d arrived.

What else do you expect that isn’t already covered by the deal?

It seems to me that if you want something more in restitution, you’ll need to tell him what.

Coil stopped, and we were forced to stop or we would have walked right into him.  He spoke, “If you accept my deal, I will undertake no plan of this scale without first consulting you, the Travelers and the independent villains that work for me.  It is my hope that you would be able to inform me about any flaws or unintended consequences regarding my schemes.”

Sounds reasonable.

Grue unfolded his arms, “I can’t say for sure.  Maybe.”

I spoke, “I like the idea, but no offense, I’m not sure I trust you that far.  And don’t say that Tattletale would find out and tell us if you bent the rules and tried to slip something past us.  She’s not infallible.  Sorry, Tattle.”

It’s true – there’s been plenty of things Tattle failed to Know. Taylor might be more aware of that than most.

Tattletale shrugged at that.

“I’ll leave you to think on the idea,” Coil spoke, “There’s no action or gesture I can really take that will earn your trust in one fell swoop. 

All I can do is to work with you, giving you no more reason to distrust me.”

Yeah, that’s how trust works.

My efforts with the local heroes were no better, if for different reasons.

So he’s been attempting to unmask the heroes too…

“For some time, aside from regular payments and some direction, my attention was elsewhere.  It was only two weeks ago that I was contacted by my investigators and told that I had what I wanted on Empire Eighty-Eight.

Okay.

To have it come together at that time, when the Empire was one of the sole barriers remaining before me, it seemed to be serendipity.  I jumped on the opportunity.”

I see, so you’re saying that you’ve been working on this for a long time, and because it just so happened to be ready just when you were at war with the Empire, you didn’t take the time to think through the consequences? Which you could’ve done for almost four years, and pride yourself on doing as a self-proclaimed chessmaster?

I’m not buying it, Coil.

Grue spoke to Coil’s back, “And you forgot about us.  What it might look like.”

Coil turned his head, “Yes.  I’ll admit I am not proud of my failure to see the bigger picture, and I assure you, it is not a mistake I am prepared to make again.”

To be fair, though, every chess player forgets the bigger picture once in a while.

“First off, apologies are in order,” Coil spoke, “Your concern over the way I outed the Empire’s members is entirely deserved.  In truth, it was a plan I had begun before I even knew of your existence, Undersiders.

The Chessmaster thinks many moves ahead.

My initial attempts to divine the secret identities of my enemies were slow to bear fruit, and my hired men often underwent weeks of investigation only to find they had been barking up the wrong tree.

Woof!

“For almost four years, I have invested funds and time in the possibility that I could find the weak point of my enemies: their civilian lives, the faces under the masks.  For years, I was disappointed.  In my early days, I had less money to fritter away, my facility with my own power was not what it is today, and many of the failures on these fronts were costly.

This isn’t really doing much as a defense, just yet, but I’m not sure that’s what you’re going for.

“As I began to amass my fortunes, this became easier.  I could hire better investigators, pay the right people to divulge information and unseal court records.  Pieces began falling into place.  With my recruitment of Tattletale, I was able to avoid a number of wild goose chases.

With money comes the power to obtain knowledge, which, as we’ve been over many times, is power.

It was still slow, and the turnover rate of Empire Eighty-Eight was frustrating, especially as I aimed to have the complete picture, with no member of Kaiser’s empire left unmasked.

Um. You mean un-unmasked?

“Us, and the families of the members of Empire Eighty-Eight that you outed.”

Coil nodded, “So the two main points we need to discuss are the apparent carelessness of my maneuver against Empire Eighty-Eight,

“apparent carelessness”

It seems like he doesn’t actually agree, even though he just conceded that it was too heavy-handed. He might end up arguing that it was necessary for his grander plans.

and the risk your group has been facing in the field.  That said, if these issues are addressed in a satisfactory manner, would I be right in thinking you are prepared to accept my deal?”

My predictions still stand on this matter – accepting the deal seems like the natural way for the plot to proceed.

Tattletale glanced at each of us, myself included, then told Coil, “Maybe.”

“Good.  Shall we walk?  I’ll be more able to answer your second concern when we get to the other side of this complex.”

Hm. How so?

He stepped away from the railing and extended a hand, inviting us to join him.  He walked with his hands clasped behind his back, leading us around the end of the room to the walkway opposite the one we’d traveled to reach him.

Brutus is probably happy with this.

Bitch shot Tattletale an irritated look, clearly unimpressed that Coil had been informed on our negotiations.

I may have been wrong about Tattle wanting to avoid naming the one person who disagreed.

Still, she gave him a response.  “Decided it wouldn’t be so bad to get help with my dogs.  I still think you’re full of shit, but way I see it, you can be as full of shit as you want, so long as I get what I want.”

Heh, a decent philosophy.

I do wonder if Coil used his power to ensure she’d come to this conclusion, though.

“I suppose I’ll take what I can get.”  Coil sighed a little,

Hehe.

“Which leads me to our subject of discussion.  Would I be right in assuming these reservations our Tattletale has mentioned have something to do with me, and how I operate?”

A matter of trust. The e-mail incident was kind of a hit against it.

Grue and I both nodded.

“And you’re among these individuals with doubts, Tattletale?”

“Sorry.  I’ve worked with you for a while now, I know what you can do, I even like and respect you.  What you’re going for.  But this last play of yours was fucked up on a lot of levels.”

Oh yeah, and the whole thing with Tattle’s thoughts on the e-mail – her disapproval of it causing not only the E88ers to be targeted, but their families too.

“Yes,” Coil conceded, turning back towards us, “You’re right.  Too heavy handed a maneuver.  A tactical nuke where a rocket launcher might have sufficed, with undeserving parties suffering for being too close to the real targets.”

That’s a good metaphor.

“We keep getting through these fights by the skin of our teeth.  We’re not up to it.  Just a few days after we helped take down the ABB, a situation that had two of our members facing down Lung and Oni Lee, we were up against the Protectorate, the Wards and Empire Eighty-Eight in the span of forty-eight hours.

Yeah, that’s fair. It’s been pretty intense.

Even with your people and your powers to help, we’re not strong enough for this.”

“I see,” Coil turned to face the lower section of the sub-basement and look down at his people.  He rested his hands on the railing, “Are you terminating our arrangement?”

Tattletale shook her head, “We’d rather not, but it depends on what we agree to here and now, in this meeting.

This could get interesting.

We talked this over for the past week, and I’ll be blunt.  The one person who wasn’t keen on taking your deal changed her mind,

eyyy, told ya it’d happen

but the rest of us now have some serious reservations.  And it’s not just the issue of our safety.”

Hm… Concerns over trust, maybe?

Coil nodded.  “Well, let me start by saying I’m pleased to hear about your change of heart, Bitch.  Can I ask what prompted it?”

So he knew about Rachel’s reservations, despite Tattle sounding like she didn’t want to name names. It’s been a week, though, so it’s not far-fetched that Brian mentioned it at some point. Besides, Tattle did narrow it down by using “her” and kind of implying it wasn’t herself.

Shrimp aside, what is “this”? Is Tattle saying that the Undersiders are not only rejecting his offer, but resigning? Seems a little harsh, though, and not really good for the Undersiders.

Maybe she means Tattle giving Coil information without knowing what Coil will be using it for?

We found Coil at the end of the walkway, talking to four people who most definitely weren’t soldiers.  Each wore a suit, and none seemed the type to carry a gun.

Like, actual businessperson suits? Interesting.

There was a heavyset woman, a man who must’ve been fifty or sixty, a man who stood no more than four feet tall and a blonde woman who barely looked out of high school.

Tag yourself, I’m the smol man.

“Cranston, can you have it for tomorrow?”

“Yes, sir,” the blonde woman replied.

Cranston? Seems like an uncommon name. All the better to remember, though, hopefully.

“Good.  Pearse, the soldiers?”

Seems like an alternate spelling of Pierce, but I can’t help but imagine it being pronounced like “pears”.

“Squads Fish, Nora and Young are suited up and ready for your okay,” the short man spoke.

I like the squad names. I wonder if there’s some sort of system to it? Maybe it’s based on the squad leaders’ names, or something.

“And the replacement recruits?”

Pearse handed Coil a set of folders, “I’ve put post-its on the most promising.  We need two to make up for one soldier that was recently injured, and one that decided to skip town.”

A deserter, huh? I wonder how much the soldiers know about the bigger picture goings-on.

Coil tucked the folders under one arm, “Good.  Duchene, I’ll talk to you later tonight about our preparations.  The rest of you, I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

I’m gonna take a 50/50 guess that Duchene is the heavyset woman.

The suits marched off, with all but the fat lady passing us to go the way we’d come, along the metal walkway.  The woman headed down the stairs to the lower area with all the soldiers, and a group of people that weren’t in uniform flocked to her.  People with clipboards and crowbars.  The construction crew?

Definitely seems Coil is in charge of this construction, not just hiding underneath it for some reason.

The man who had opened the door for us inclined his head in the direction we were to go.  We traversed the metal walkway, and passed more of Coil’s soldiers.  I saw one squad of six below us was gearing up, pulling on masks and checking their guns.  Five seconds later, we passed Circus on the walkway, in a costume and makeup of red and gold.

Oh, hi there.

Oblivious to us or our passing, she was leaning against a wall by a stack of cardboard boxes, standing intimately close to a young soldier with close-cropped red hair and an ugly scar running down one side of his neck.

Hmmm… ❤