“Aah, that was a good meal,” Agni leaned back, contented.

I stared at the remnants of four plates of kebabs, a double mutton biryani, and three egg rolls. “Your true power isn’t flames.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, you’re basically a black hole in human form.”

“Did you just call me fat?”

“No, you’re definitely not fat. You do however manage to store forty people’s worth of food in an alternate dimension. Hence, black hole.”

“Hey, a lot of ultras need calories to fuel their powers.”

“Fine. Next time, we’re splitting the bill.”

“You really are a miser.”

“I grew up poor.”

“And now you’re a millionaire, so stop complaining and get a lady a drink. You can drink, can’t you?”

“Eighteen.”

“Dammit. Fine, a beer.”

I pressed the intercom button, and the waitress’ voice sounded in our booth. “Hello sir, can I get you anything else?”

“Two Budweisers.”

“Sure, sir.”

Agni gave the intercom a sedate smile. “You know, there’s restaurants in Mumbai where they still take orders in person.”

“Sure there are. Tell me about the counterstrategies people might use against me.”

“They’re fairly simple. You’re part Herculean, part elemental, part Inventor and part Master. Bind the Herculean, Snipe the Elemental, Break the Inventor, and Kill the Master.”

“Meaning?”

“If fighting a Herculean, a well-balanced team puts a Master against them. Masters don’t look very different from normal folks, so they hide and sneak up on the Herculean. When they’re within range …”

“Mind control.”

“Exactly. If you don’t have a Master, put them in a pit. Herculeans generally can’t fight at range.”

“Elementals can.”

“Most Elementals need line-of-sight to direct their powers, so the best response is a high-powered sniper from 4000 feet away. Snipe the Elemental.”

“That won’t work against an armored Inventor.”

“True. There are two types of Inventors - those who have drones and operate remotely, and those who put on armored suits. Remote drones can be hacked or broken, but it’s more useful to trace the signal and call down an artillery strike on the inventor’s location.”

“Kill the Inventor and his tech fails … but what if it goes rogue?”

“That is a risk, which is why the general consensus with inventech is to just go ahead and break it. Sometimes they don’t kill the inventor but just cripple him, that’s enough to convince most villains to shut down their tech and surrender.”

“So Break the Inventor could refer to either the tech or the inventor’s bones.”

“Correct. And you know the last one - kill the Master. A Master who controls minions becomes a target. Unlike an inventor, he’s usually not sitting at the centre of a massive communications array, so the main problem is finding him.”

“Don’t Masters need line-of-sight?”

“To establish control, yes, but not always. However, a smart Master will establish control over his minions first, set up implanted commands and pre-arranged directions, and hide while they run amok.”

“That’s probably what the Puppetmasters do, then. Fits with the description.”

“Were you involved in getting the information about the types of aliens?”

“.... I cannot confirm or deny that.”

Agni smirked again. “You need to work on keeping secrets. So, tell me about London.”

“There’s not a lot to tell. We know there’s going to be an attack, and it’s going to be big. Anticipated casualty count is nine million…”

“You mentioned that.”

“... and it’s soon. That’s basically it.”

“Nothing else?”

“No.”

“So, what are you doing to prepare for it?”

“I’m getting my armor up to spec. Building weapons.”

Agni squared her shoulders. “The aliens have attacked in force before. Moscow, Turkmenistan, Delhi, Lagos…”

“Chikaradzuyoi mentioned Turkmenistan as an example of what not to do.”

“He was right to. Turkmenistan was our greatest defeat as a species. We screwed up by the numbers, no coordination, logistics issues, and local commanders arguing for hours with the ultras while the enemy forted up.”

“Well… maybe we can avoid that happening now.”

“Of course we will. The thing is, London isn’t a resource-poor country with few allies and horrible connectivity; it’s the beating heart of the English-speaking world, defended by the finest of NATO, and the capital of a nation that ruled the world for two centuries. And the English are no slouches in a fight either.”

“I know, I fought by their side in Liverpool.”

“So what does that tell you?”

“Should it tell me something?”

“You say London’s going to be bigger than Turkmenistan, in spite of everything we’ve learnt about the aliens since then. In spite of months of warning and preparation. That means the aliens will have something there that’s different - something we’ve never seen before.”

“That sounds concerning.”

“What’s the toughest enemy we’ve fought?”

Rows upon rows of razor sharp teeth, skin like steel… “The Carnotaurs.”

“And what do they have that’s tougher than that?”

“I don’t know?”

“That’s what we need to find out, kid. Because whatever it is they throw at us, it’s going to be something we haven’t seen yet. Do you think your armor’s ready for that?”

“Why do you want to make missiles?” asked Paul.

“I’m going to need them in London.”

“Missile specifications aren’t available off an e-store, Andrew. Also, they’re generally something the military takes a dim view of when civilians - even ultras - start carrying them.”

“Then you’re not going to like my next suggestion…”

“Which is?”

“A… non-conventional warhead.”

“No. You are not making nukes in this house. Or this city. Or, hell, anywhere.”

“Why not?”

“Because manufacturing nuclear weapons is illegal, Andrew, even for ultras. Plus, if you use one in London, how will you contain the fallout?”

“I don’t know.”

“The Brits have plenty of nukes of their own. You need to focus on what you can do that they can’t. Have you got the mass driver working yet?”

“Yeah, it works fine with the Greyhound Armor. The other sets don’t have enough juice to power it.”

“Focus on that, then. And your combat skills - you need to practice with the armour in order to be effective.”

“Anne, you have any ideas on nanobots?”

“New types, you mean?” my sister asked. “Nothing particularly. I can still handle acoustics and visual feeds, but there aren’t enough to make them able to lift. Or deliver much of a punch.”

“How many have you right now?”

“Two million, sixty-seven thousand, four hundred and thirty-three.”

“... That’s precise.”

“Turns out Swarm Command has a counter that tells me exactly how many units are under my control at any time. It currently reads 2,067,434.”

“What’s the one-unit difference?”

“That’s me, silly. Anyway, with Nanoprogramming at Level 3 and Cloud Energization at Level 5, I can field about ten kilos worth of bots. I could probably watch everyone in the city if I wanted to….”

“Let’s avoid that temptation for now. We can find Agni when we need to.”

“You mean she can find us.”

“Well, we can reach her too. We just light a candle and speak into it. She’ll keep an eye out for her name being spoken in front of a flame.”

“Andrew,” Paul asked, “did Agni ask that you pray to her? Because it sounds suspiciously like a religious ceremony to me.”

“Yeah, we light a candle in the chapel,” smirked Anne. “Are you going to start calling her your goddess next?”

“This is an international terrorist we’re talking about….”

“And she wants you to worship her. Not bad, bro.”

“Can we please be serious, guys? And focus on the aliens about to attack London?”

“Agni told you that we could expect something we’ve never seen before.” Paul pulled up a list on his notepad. “Maybe one of the Mind-of-the-Hierarchy races will be there?”

“That’s a possibility, but I don’t see how a single Xeranai would make a difference. Or a single Puppetmaster….”

“Who said it had to be single? Might be a major deployment.”

“Or it might be an Archon. Sarvenimazarus was quite clear that Archons are at the top of the pyramid; one of them might be the equal of a dozen of our top-tier ultras.”

“So what do you know about an Archon’s abilities?”

“Amoeboid form, can assume any shape they want to and can vary their size as needed. Other than that, invincible flying engines of destruction.”

“That’s not helpful. I mean their weaknesses, vulnerabilities…”

“I don’t know. I’d have to Observe one to learn that. Or the corpse of one. However, the Raptor scion mentioned that there aren’t any Archons in orbit around Earth.”

“So you can’t plan for an Archon as such - okay. What’s your strategy if you do have to fight them?”

“Delay.” The answer came instantly. “Delay and observe. Contain the damage, and fixate the Archon’s attention on the harder targets - those who can take a lot of damage and keep going.”

“Damage sponges, basically.”

“We call them Herculeans, but yeah.”

“All right, so you delay and have the Archon fight the Herculeans. How do you keep him focused on them?”

“.... They have responded to challenges in the past, right?”

“So you get the Herculeans to issue challenges to the Archon and delay until - what?”

“Evacuate the city, I suppose? Find a vulnerability?”

“Fine, so the strategy for dealing with an Archon is watch and hope. What if it’s not an Archon, what’s the next biggest threat?”

“Puppetmaster or Xeranai.”

“How do you fight the Puppetmasters?”

“Actually, Agni made a very good point. The standard strategy for fighting a mind-controller is ‘kill the Master’ - should work for Puppetmasters, too.”

“Expand on that.”

“We figure out where the Puppetmaster is located and focus our efforts on punching through. Get up close and personal and destroy it.”

“Good point, and how would you do that?”

“Verschwiden. Or any other invisible ultra. Give them a mindshield and a nuke and let them get close to the Puppetmaster.”

“All right. Xeranai?”

“The Xeranai are the ultimate inventors, so that’ll be tech against tech. Probably battlesuits of their own. Or Xeranai tanks…. Essentially we match them with our own tanks and jets.”

“So the Xeranai are a standard military force, and our militaries will essentially have to do the heavy lifting. Fine. Is that all the possible risks?”

“There’s the Carnotaurs.”

“Humanity has fought Carnotaurs before.”

“We fought Lesser Carnotaurs. That implies the existence of Medium and Greater Carnotaurs, which could be a lot tougher. And as a terror weapon, it’s hard to match them.”

“Well, city-destroying monsters are a lot more terrifying than individual superhumans - superaliens, rather - so I understand what you mean. What do you do about it?”

“I’m not sure. All previous Carnotaurs have been brought down by a combination of the military and ultrahumans.”

“But they’ve left a trail of dead in their wake.” Paul pulled up a list on his tablet. “After Turkmenistan, the death counts have been highest where Carnotaurs have been deployed. How do you put one down, fast?”

“One million damage.” I calculated mentally. “That’s the effect of forty kilos of TNT applied directly. Eight direct hits from a tank, or … a guided missile.”

“A missile with a forty-kilo TNT warhead. Any reason this can’t be fired from an attack helicopter?”

“None whatsoever… I need to talk to Frasier, don’t I?”

“Yes, you do. Check with the military what they have for rapid response to Carnotaurs, and plan your actions around that.”

“I’ll go meet him tomorrow. Anne, anything you think I should ask Major Frasier?.... Anne?”

“Huh?” My sister shook off her distraction. “Sorry, I was checking on something from the nanobot feed.”

“I hope whatever you were watching was age-appropriate,” I teased.

Anne blushed. “It’s nothing important. Or inappropriate. Just…. girl talk.”