Tragedy, Act Five, Epilogue

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Act Five, Epilogue

July 4th, 2013

James Merrero slowly became aware that he was awake, which he supposed must mean that he wasn’t dead.

There was a tube down his throat and a tube in his arm and more tubes throughout his body and a whole mess of tubes that were in bits of him he normally didn’t like to think about. He wasn’t in pain, he just knew he ought to be.

Jay remembered the fight, the wonderful, wonderful fight, where he had fought better than he ever could as Luminosa and done it in his own real body and then he remembered hitting a car. His leg had broken and the car had broken, too.

... His leg did seem to be in a cast.

He considered escape plans, but there weren’t very many he could manage by himself so he went back to sleep.

- - -

Over the course of the next few weeks, he came to understand his situation much better. The hospital staff were unwilling to discuss politics but were willing to share that there was no chaos, that the situation outside was calm and peaceful, and that his body was shot to hell. They understood that he’d used Serum #24 and they were, for his sake, quite grateful that there’d been a counteragent in a cloth-wrapped package in his cape. This didn’t stop them from explaining a few very important facts regarding his health to him.

He’d live. He’d live for another twenty years, unless he did something incredibly stupid like injecting himself again. He might live for another thirty, with luck. Forty was not likely. He would need a wheelchair for the rest of his life; if he was lucky he could manage with a walker. A cane would be pushing it.

It was worth it, he thought inside his own head. Once, just once, I got to live the way my father lives.

It was almost a month later when he woke up to find Catherine by his bedside. She was dressed formally, which meant body armor and a silver circlet, and he smiled at her. She had no idea how beautiful she was, did she?

“Jay,” she said.

“Your majesty?” he guessed.

“Yes.”

“I’m very glad to hear it.” He paused. “What happened?”

“Everyone died,” said Catherine. “Julius died, Lizzy died, Solaris died, Prudence died, Livia died, Nicator died, and so I am ultimately the winner by virtue of being the last candidate standing. I am unambiguously the queen. The shield is back down; I’ve been recognized as the legitimate ruler by the world. You would be the only surviving count if I hadn’t abolished feudalism.”

He smiled.

“And if you weren’t on trial for grand treason,” she said, watching his expression.

He didn’t have the energy to protest. This wasn’t something to make excuses about, this was something to live with.

“We found your secret lair,” she continued. “We found the Luminosa projection suit. It’s mine now. We found your discs, and the computer that could play them.” His smile vanished.

“If you are to be believed, you were simultaneously working for my sister, my brother, Whisper, Prudence, Countess Zero, me, the revolutionaries, and five or six others. I’m going to ask you whose side you were really on, and you’re going to tell me.”

“Why should you believe me when I say it this time?” he said, tiredly.

“You don’t mean to say that the ‘confession of loyalty’ you gave me was the truth.”

“You remember when we talked, when I wore Luminosa?”

“I do. You talked about loyalty to Saint-Andrews.”

“I lied.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“But you see I really am loyal to you,” he said. “I hate every Power in Novapest except you. I hated your family, I hated my father, I hated Ilderia and her friends, and I love you.”

That shocked her, he could tell.

“You expect me to believe that was your motivation from the start?”

“Your majesty - ” he sighed. “Catherine. Do you remember the first day you arrived? How I was the only one to welcome you back? Do you remember how I stood watch as Luminosa, when I knew Mase was coming for you? Do you realize that I have betrayed and murdered almost literally everyone else I’ve ever met to put you on the throne? There’s no rational reason for that. I could’ve left. You have to realize that I could have left. I killed them all because I hated them, and I love you because you’re the only person in Novapest who isn’t incredibly, monstrously evil.” He glanced aside. “I include myself in that, by the by. I was wasting my life and you still wanted to do good, even though you had no powers any more than I did. You tried to talk your father out of splitting the country! And you tried to make peace with Ilderia! And we talked while you were over at college, and…”

Now she was looking at him with pity.

“You set this up. You set all of it up.”

“The dominoes were already going to fall,” he said. “There wasn’t a stable way out. But I pushed them to take out as many of your rivals as I could.”

“You murdered thousands of people.”

“Indirectly.”

“And I’ll bet you were the one who spread the evidence that Lizzy murdered my father, too? So that I’d be on the throne, and owe it to you?”

“So you’d rule,” he said simply. “You don’t kill everyone you ever met for favors.”

“I despise you,” she said.

“That’s fair.”

“You had the power to push the dominoes. You didn’t push them to minimize the death toll, you pushed them to maximize it. You’re probably the smartest person on the island, you know? And what you decided - for my sake - was that you wanted to kill my parents and my godmother and most of my friends.”

“Prudence was an accident,” he said.

“I will not forgive you.”

“No.”

“Why did you try to be Luminosa?”

“What else would you do if you stumbled on a source of A-ranked superpowers?” he asked. “Not use it?”

“And you didn’t assassinate Lizzy as Luminosa because...?”

“If I was going to be Luminosa, I was going to be Luminosa,” he offered helplessly.

“I suppose that’s enough reason not to kill you,” she said. “I ought to, but - “ She shrugged. “You can call it human frailty or you can call it a reward for putting me in power or you can call it a byproduct of declaring a general amnesty before I knew what you’d done -” He half-smiled, and she went on “- but I will let you live instead of exempting you from the amnesty.”

He nodded.

“James Merrero, I sentence you to exile. You have money?”

He was a professional embezzler. “Yes.”

“Good. Once the doctors discharge you, you can have twenty-four hours to get off my island. If I see you here again…”

She chose her words very calmly.

“You killed my brother. You killed your brother. Those weren’t decisions you had to make. They were decisions you chose to make. You could have chosen differently. If I ever hear your voice again, your amnesty will be revoked.”

He nodded.

- - -

His seat on his flight out was first class. The airplane was turning, and he looked out the window at Catherine’s city below.

It should’ve been a grey cube, but with the sunlight striking it as it was, it was beautiful. It was shimmering blue and gold, and it was the only home he’d ever known. And he’d never see it again.

James clutched his cane with his right hand, and turned his face away and wept.

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