Mod Superhero (Book 6 STUBBING on Oct 27th)

Chapter 7.6 - Midas

The flagship of Ava Savanus flew east over the Allied Status at just under Mach 2. Midas hadn't bothered to initiate its cloaking. For anyone with enhanced eyesight, they would've seen the approximate shape of an infinity sign screaming through the atmosphere. Its bulbous shape hid countless advanced technologies, some of which allowed it to fly faster than it had any right to. The rest of that advanced tech was for warfare.

Midas had grown to like the flagship and treated it like any of the Brotherhood's technology—like his own.

And he intended on raining down hellfire on Emmett Laraway and the rest of the Resistance as soon as he got to Belport.

Fucking Belport.

Midas didn't know for sure, but he had a hunch that something was going on there. That shit-stain of a city was the center of all of his problems—Laraway, the lab, Wight, Gnosis...

Midas paced the main deck of the flagship, shoes thudding against the metal floor. He was the only living soul onboard, and his only company were the servant biomechs that occasionally tried to offer him a drink. Though everyone he needed was just a transmission away.

The air smelled faintly of ozone and artificial lavender, the latter probably piped in by one of her pet machines. The lighting shifted subtly with his mood—an involuntary feedback loop between his power and the ship's systems. Dimmer. Angrier.

In a fit, he'd pulled open the collar of his dress shirt, scattering the button across the floor. One of those incessant machines had found the button, folded his tie, and set them both on the small table near the couch.

Nearby wall displays flickered with an update:

TARGET LOST

Midas's eyes went wide. "He's gone? What do you mean he's gone?!"

A waveform of Bastion's voice appeared on the wallscreen. It flickered under the weight of the query.

"Brotherhood and Summit forces are attempting pursuit, but—"

"Show me everything."

Bastion hesitated for a split second—long enough for Midas to feel a quiver of resistance in the ship's systems. Then the screen lit up, flooding with visual overlays, data streams, signal traces, triangulation threads, and time-coded feeds. Pure chaos. A thousand lines of noise intersected across a 3D grid, projected from half a dozen cities. Only one thing stood out for sure—

His toppled statue.

Midas waved the images of his fallen statue aside. He stared at the mess of data, jaw clenched, eye twitching. It was too much. Every time he tried to isolate a feed, three others moved. "This is useless."

A hologram of Ava Savanus appeared on the other side of the screen. She was back in the lab, reclining on Venture's couch in a robe with a drink in hand. The sight of her relaxing inflamed the technopath even more.

"Ava, you must be enjoying yourself. You could've at least gotten dressed and attempted a pursuit."

Savanus made a point of taking a slow drag from her straw. Before she finished, one of her servant biomechs placed another drink just in frame. She dismissed the servant with a casual wave. Venture's stockpile of liquor had been apocalyptic, but at this rate, Ava would polish it off in a few more weeks.

"Now, now," she said. "I can't leave our crown jewel unattended. Besides, who else is going to take care of Magnus's liquor stash?"

At the same time, Magnus felt a servant walking toward him. He glanced back over his shoulder. The servant was roughly human in shape and completely covered in thin armor. But instead of a head, it had a dome that protruded upward from its chest. The glass was frosted, but Midas couldn't help but think that the lump of meat inside it. Midas didn't like the way it looked at him—if that chest-dome even could look.