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Kinga didn’t like to literally get her hands dirty. Her bloodthirstiness was mostly predicated on someone else spilling the blood. But at the final stage of her flawlessly executed coup plan, she considered the weight of the gun she held in her hand thoughtfully. It was quite a well-designed weapon, sleek and gunmetal black and not that heavy compared to the weight of the consequences that would fall on her shoulders if she could bring herself to pull the trigger.

“Give me one convincing reason to spare your life,” she said. “Just one. But it has to be convincing.” The man kneeling at the wrong end of her gun opened his mouth and closed it a couple of times without producing any coherent words. “No? Not even an attempt? You know how worthless you are, then?” He went from orange to bright red. She nudged the gun against his forehead and he let out a pathetic whimper. “Do you know what doing this is going to do to me?”

“Make you regret it?” he whispered, and she smiled, bright and sharp-edged and mad.

“Oh, no. This is going to get me the kind of prime-time ratings you couldn’t wring out of your most slavishly devoted followers. This is going to get me the gratitude of literally billions of people. This,” she said, pushing the gun against his skull until his head tipped back and he looked up at her in terror, “this is going to get me exactly what I deserve for exterminating a world-class vermin.”

She knew that the only person in the room besides the two of them was her Bonehead camera person, but she could hear her lovers’ voices in the back of her mind, echoes of what they’d said to her before she’d taken the White House. Is this necessary? Is doing it this way necessary? They weren’t there, but she knew they’d see it the instant the footage hit social media, and she knew it might change the way they thought about her. Do you really want this blood on your hands? The thing was, she did want it.

“Any last words?” she asked pleasantly. “For posterity?”

“You won’t get away with this,” he said, and she rolled her eyes and pulled the trigger.

“I really will though,” she said casually as his body dropped to the floor. “Ugh, what a mess.” She stepped over the expanding puddle of blood and walked behind the desk, fingertips dragging across the surface. She sat down, tucked the gun into a drawer, folded her hands, and looked up into the camera.

"People of America, it is I, Kinga Forrester, ruler of Moon 13 and new ruler of this deeply flawed nation. Your illegitimate government has been overthrown as an act of mercy and your incompetent administration and legislators who refuse to work toward the greater good have been dismissed... permanently. I'm sure many of you aren't pleased to hear this. Luckily for the rest of the world, your worthless opinions no longer have an outsized bearing on reality. The arms that some of you have undoubtedly been hoarding have been removed from your possession. I would advise against rioting, because you really don't want to see what retaliation from a mad scientist looks like... but should you disregard this warning, I will genuinely enjoy eliminating whatever threat you pose." She paused, a dangerous grin on her face. “Over the next few weeks, the pernicious weeds of the obsolete government will be uprooted and consigned to the flames, and my new regime will flourish in its place. I will do what the worm I deposed failed to do. I will truly make America great. Not only for white men, not only for the rich, not only for those who seek to poison the Earth and the minds of the people. I’ll make it great for everyone.” She looked around the Oval Office thoughtfully and smiled. “Stay tuned. This is the first day of a better world.” She waited until the Bonehead turned off the camera, and then sighed deeply, dropping her head into her hands.

“You did the right thing,” the Bonehead said, and she nodded. “You really are going to make the world a better place.”

“Thank you, Terry,” she said. She took a couple of deep breaths, walked back around the desk with half a glance spared for the corpse on the floor, and headed out of the room. There was no one left in the White House that she hadn’t brought in with her, and she made a beeline for the room she’d left Max and Jonah in, hesitating just outside the door before pushing it open and walking in with a smile. She found herself immediately pinned by two intense pairs of dark eyes, and the smile weakened. “You saw already.”

“Live in real time,” Max said, and he looked pale. “I thought movie violence would have inured me to that sort of thing, but... no.”

“You hate the sight of blood anyways,” she said, coming over to touch his cheek gently and sit down next to him. “What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that this is important enough for me to deal with it,” he said. “Your hand smells like gunpowder.”

“It’s sad when reality looks more fake than the movies,” Jonah said. “You’ll probably have people trying to discredit this as an edit job and spreading it like a meme.”

“Let them turn me into a meme,” she said, shrugging. “They can’t explain away all the vanishing guns as Photoshop. And they won’t be able to explain away the overnight national citizen registry and new ID and benefits cards as Photoshop either. The human Cheeto got in on a flood of Russian bots and shitty memes. At least I’m pretty enough to make better meme material.”

“You’ve already been memed,” Max said. “We all have. Because of the show.”

“Oh my god,” Jonah said. “Check the fan groups. The fallout from this is going to be hilarious. They’re already crazy devoted, imagine what they’ll say once they realize the three of us are in charge now.”

“You check,” Kinga said. “I need a drink. I wish it could be a stiff one.”

“No alcohol,” Max said, and she rolled her eyes.

“I know, I know. But I need something to help me unwind. I did just kill a man,” she said, and Max closed his eyes and shuddered. “You shouldn’t have watched it,” she added softly.

“I told him not to,” Jonah said.

“I can handle it,” Max insisted. “There’s no point in me sticking my head in the sand and pretending she didn’t do it.”

“No one said you should do that, but you didn’t have to see it happen,” Jonah said. “You looked like you were going to throw up.”

“But I didn’t.” Max rubbed his eyes roughly for a moment, then stood up and came around behind Kinga’s chair and started massaging her shoulders. “I don’t need to be protected, you know,” he said. “We came up with this plan together. I knew what it entailed. Anyways, that’s going to be all over the internet in GIF form in about ten minutes. Better to see it happen when it happened than to trip across some edgelord trying to trigger people with a graphic murder.”

“Assassination,” Kinga said.

“Execution,” Jonah said.

“Whatever,” Max said. “The point is, I was going to see it eventually. I’d rather be the one to choose when it happened.” Kinga squeaked when he pressed his thumbs down the length of her neck, and he let go. “Sorry, was that too rough?”

“No,” she said. “You’re fine.”

“I am fine,” he said, putting his hands back on her shoulders. “I’m fine with it. We couldn’t go an entire career as supervillains without killing someone on purpose. The fact that we made it this long is kind of amazing. The fact that we did a good thing when we finally did it is almost unbelievable.” He paused, then added, “and the fact that I wasn’t the first person you killed is pretty nice, too.”

“I’m not my father,” Kinga said. “And you’re not your father.”

“And I’m not Joel,” Jonah chimed in, then shrugged when they both looked at him. “Sorry, I wanted to be involved.”

“It’s true,” Kinga said. “You aren’t. We’re all pretty similar to those who came before us, but we’re not them. We’re improvements on them. Can you imagine my dad in charge of this country? It’d be a disaster.”

“I don’t know, even your evil psycho dad wouldn’t have been as bad as the petulant toddler you just deposed,” Jonah said.

“He died before Twitter,” Max pointed out. “Dr. F would totally have been the three a.m. seventy tweet thread about world domination type.”

“But he probably wouldn’t have called Kim Jong-Un short and fat,” Kinga said. “He had your dad around for that.” Max winced and leaned down to kiss her behind the ear.

“Thanks for not using me like that,” he said.

“Oh, darling, I put you to much better use than my dad ever did yours,” she said, reaching back to curl her hand around the back of his neck and keep him there so she could turn and kiss him.

“Believe me, I know,” he said. “I usually don’t remember my dreams but every so often I’ll have a nightmare that we’re just our parents all over again and those are horrifying enough to stick in my mind.”

“I don’t think you have to worry about that,” Jonah said. “She obviously cherishes you.”

“Obviously?” Max asked, and Jonah laughed.

“Don’t act like you don’t know how she looks at you. Like you hung the stars in her sky.” Kinga’s lips curved up slightly.

“He’s the stars and you’re the sun and I’m the moon,” she said.

“I’m the sun? Really?”

“You’re gigantic and you make everyone light up. I think it fits,” Max said. “Also, yellow.”

“Look, just because it’s my favorite color—”

“Shut up and let us call you important,” Kinga said, and Jonah started laughing. “Also doesn’t it go along with your zodiac sign?”

“Astrology is bullshit,” Jonah said.

“It’s amusing bullshit though,” Max said. “Not that I believe in it, but it’s dead accurate for me.”

“Then you should be the moon,” Kinga said, and he shook his head.

“No way. You’re the queen of Moon 13, it’s your planet.”

“Satellite,” Jonah said.

“Whatever,” Kinga said. “Fine, I accept this.” She glanced down at her belly and wrinkled her nose. “I’m going to be waxing like the moon pretty soon.”

“She’s glowing... is it homicide or pregnancy? The world may never know,” Jonah said.

“It’s definitely homicide,” Max said. “Only mayhem puts that shine in her eyes.”

“It’s love, you idiots,” Kinga said. “...and maybe a little bit homicide. And power. A lot bit power.”

“So what do we do now?” Jonah asked. “You said you didn’t want to stay in D.C.”

“Root said she has a safe place for us in New York to start figuring out an actual headquarters,” Kinga said. “And New York City is the center of the universe, after all.”

“It’s less than three hours on the Acela Express,” Max said, glancing at his watch. “We could be in New York by nine.”

“Good,” Kinga said, picking up her phone and starting to text Root. “We can buy out the first class car and go in relative privacy.”

She hadn’t been sure what to expect when they left the White House in a Secret Service SUV they’d liberated less than an hour after the live broadcast of the execution/assassination and her speech went out over every major social media platform. What she found, though, was a crowd of people outside the fence that burst into cheering that she could hear even through the rolled up windows. Next to her in the backseat, Synthia cracked a window open slightly and the volume increased. Kinga’s eyes went wide.

“Guess what,” Max said cheerfully from the driver’s seat. “I think you’re a folk hero.” People were kissing their fingers and holding them up like in the Hunger Games as they passed. Someone was holding up a sign that said I for one welcome our new evil overlord. There were a few angry faces in the crowd, but most of them looked pretty damn happy.

“This is weird,” Kinga said. “This is really weird.”

“This is the first day of the rest of your life,” Jonah said. “Better get used to it.”

“Give her time,” Max said. “She’s recalibrating.”

“Aren’t we all?” Jonah had a point. It was a mostly quiet ride to the train station, and as they boarded the train they all surrounded Kinga to avoid the fuss that would have risen when commuters put together the face on the news broadcast airing in the station and the face of the woman walking into the first class car. Kinga managed to make it to her seat with relative poise, but as the train pulled out of the station Jonah noticed that she was trembling. “What’s wrong?” he asked, taking her hands in his. She looked up at him and there was apprehension in her gaze.

“Doing that felt good,” she said. “Killing him. Pulling the trigger. I haven’t shot a gun since marksmanship in high school but it felt completely different this time.”

“Well, yeah,” Max said. “There’s a huge difference between shooting a paper target and spraying brains on a carpet.” He blanched as he said it, but pressed on. “But I think any sane person would have felt good about killing him.”

“Yeah, but what about the other people killed on our— on my say-so?”

“Our was the right word,” Jonah said. “We decided those together. And you didn’t pull the trigger on those. We’re all equally culpable for those deaths. I’m more worried about how the solitary one you did yourself is affecting you.”

“I liked doing it,” she said quietly. “It felt good. I looked him in the eyes and shot him in the head and it felt really, really good to do.”

“Do you want to do it again, though?” Max asked, worry furrowing his brow as she thought it over for a moment.

“Not randomly,” she said. “He deserved it. I wouldn’t mind doing it again if someone deserved it. But I’m not going to go on a shooting spree.” She slipped one hand out of Jonah’s grasp to reach for Max’s hand. “I’m not a psycho killer yet. I don’t think you have to worry about that happening right now. Maybe later in the pregnancy, I make no guarantees.” Max huffed a laugh and squeezed her hand back.

“As long as you don’t try to murder one of us,” he said. “I’d rather you not kill anyone else just in general, but especially not one of us.”

“As if I’d deprive myself of either of you.” At least she’d stopped trembling, Jonah thought as she took her hands back from both of them. “You know what we should do when we get to New York? We should get Chinese food. I haven’t had decent Chinese food in years.”

“Oh god yes,” Max said. “I’ve missed kung pao shrimp so much.”

“Yes please,” Jonah said. “The last fried dumpling I had before going into space is just a faint memory now.”

“If we figure out our order now and place it when we get into the city, it should be ready for us when we make it wherever we’re being stashed,” Kinga said. “Hey, Synthia, what kind of Chinese food do you like?”

“Face-meltingly spicy General Tso’s,” she said. “Terry’s never had Chinese food, you know.”

“I haven’t had a lot of things,” Terry said next to her. He’d left his helmet on Moon 13 in exchange for a black hoodie printed with Kinga’s logo on the back and a hood almost as deep as an Observer’s cowl to hide the Bonehead markings on his face, but here in the car with only them around he’d pushed back the hood. Synthia took his hand and grinned at him.

“You’re going to love it, I promise. It’s delicious. I bet you’ll really enjoy an egg roll.”

“Where does the egg roll to?” Terry asked. “What happens if it breaks?” Synthia laughed and started enthusiastically explaining different kinds of Chinese food to him. By the time the train reached Penn Station, the five of them had a long list of things to order. They got off the train to find two people and a dog waiting for them: Root, who greeted Kinga with a hug, a dark haired woman who was no taller than Max but looked very, very dangerous, and a Belgian Malinois who nudged his head under fingers when Max offered a hand to sniff and wagged his tail enthusiastically when Max scratched behind his ears.

“Welcome to New York,” Root said cheerfully. “Did you know you’re responsible for five trending hashtags on Twitter right now?”

“No,” Kinga said, wide-eyed. “What’s the best one?”

“I’m pretty fond of #QueenKinga,” the woman next to Root said. “Simple and effective.”

“I like #MadScientistForPresident,” Root said.

“They’re both wrong,” Kinga said. “I was planning on calling myself an empress.”

“Old school. I like it,” the other woman said. “Come on, the faster we get you off the street the better.”

“Okay, but who are you?” Max asked. The woman rolled her eyes.

“This is Shaw,” Root said. “My partner. And our dog Bear.” No one asked what kind of partner. It was clear that more than one meaning applied. “And she’s right. Let’s go, we’ve got transport waiting for you.” The general assumption was that she meant an SUV or van. What they were lead to was a stretch limousine.

“I could get used to living like this,” Max said, still petting Bear, who had settled his head on Max’s knees as they were driven through the streets of the city, and Root laughed.

“It’s not every day you overthrow an illegitimate government,” Root said. “Cause for celebration, I’d say. Better get used to taking the subway, though.”

“Not in the state it’s in now,” Kinga said.

“You’ll be amazed at how quickly things get fixed once there’s no interference from begrudged budgets and obstructionist politicians,” Root said. “The MTA’s a top priority now that She’s in charge of making the world a better place. Infrastructure as a whole is a top priority.”

“Good,” Jonah said. “It desperately needs to be. What about clean energy?”

“Did you know that one huge solar farm in Arizona could power the entire country?” Max said. “Or so I read, anyways.”

“Having it all generated in one place isn’t efficient,” Root said. “But the offshore wind farms that’ll be going up on both coasts will do a lot to even that out, and solar farms are a good option throughout the country, not just in the Southwest. As those come online we’ll be deactivating dirty power plants in order of how much pollution they generate. The intention is to generate 90 percent of the nation’s energy from wind, solar, and hydroelectric by the end of 2020, up from 17 percent this year.”

“Is that realistic?” Max asked. Root smiled.

“It’s very realistic when we take away subsidies from the fossil fuels industries and give them to renewable energy industries instead.”

“It seems like you’ve got this all figured out,” Jonah said.

“I’m not the one who figured it out, but yes. Saving the world is what She was created for, after all. And given the fight we’ve had to put up in order to be in a position to do it... we’d like to move on it as efficiently as possible since we’ve been delayed. Kinga’s takeover is the perfect diversion and excuse. The entire country will be goggling at how she did it and what she does next, and no one will be paying attention to the behind-the-scenes machinations that are already in motion, and that she’ll get to claim as her own plan to improve the country once people start cluing in.”

“So what should my next big move be?” Kinga asked. “I have to establish a new seat of government pretty soon, I have to reassure the global community that I’m not a threat despite being a career antagonist...”

“Well, it is the weekend,” Max said. “So you’ve got a couple days to plan.”

“Go to the UN,” Root said. “That’s the fastest way to get your word out to the world. And I have some ideas about where to locate your headquarters.”

“Oh?”

“The most poetic being renaming, revamping, and repurposing Trump Towers. It’s got fifteen floors of office space now that were mostly abandoned during the issues with security after the election. The penthouse is pretty nice, if gaudy. And you did seize it as part of your coup. Along with a few billion dollars and several other properties in New York alone, if that’s not to your tastes.”

“It does have a certain poetry to it,” Kinga said. “It’d need to be totally remodeled though.”

“Well, of course,” Root said. “I wouldn’t expect you to live in the ode to tackiness it is now.” The limo stopped, and Root glanced out. “For now, you’ll be staying in the Palace until you decide on a permanent residence. I thought it was fitting for a newly minted world power.”

Kinga tried not to look too awed as they checked in, wanting to seem cool and aloof. Max and Synthia had no such reservations, taking in the opulence with wide eyes, and Jonah was enthralled by the architecture. By the time they made it up to the top floor and into their extravagant suite with a gorgeous floor-to-ceiling view of the city, they were all impressed and feeling a little out of place in a setting so fancy. Root set down her messenger bag on a table and started handing out smartphones as Shaw swept the suite for anything suspicious.

“These are on a secure network,” she said. “They’re unhackable, technically because they’ve been hacked already by me. Fingerprint secured, I’ll help you set that up—”

“I think I can figure it out,” Jonah said dryly. Root smirked at him.

“I’ll help anyone who needs help set that up,” she said, and Max, Synthia, and Terry all held up a hand. “The black box icon on the home screen is a messaging system that only we can access for individual and group messaging purposes. I’d advise using it exclusively. If you haven’t already deactivated your Facebook accounts, you might want to do that.”

“What about Tumblr?” Max asked. Root looked like she wanted to laugh.

“Maybe set it to password protected,” she said. “All of you but Kinga are still anonymous right now. Lock your shit down before that changes.”

“The place is clean,” Shaw said, coming out of the third bedroom with Bear at her heels. “Everything’s been arranged as planned.”

“Good,” Root said. She went back into her messenger bag and came out with a manila envelope full of documents. “Here are your new IDs. Everyone in the country will have one of these by the end of next week, you’re the first ones to get them.”

“I get an ID?” Terry said blankly when she handed him one. “But I don’t even have a last name—” He blinked as he read it. “I guess I do now.” Synthia tilted it to look at it.

“Terry Osseo. I like it,” she said. “Look, I’m officially a Forrester.”

“You were always a Forrester,” Kinga said, and Synthia shrugged.

“No birth certificate, no official name.”

“Didn’t Grandma bother forging one for you? Dad forged mine and Max’s.”

“This is a flattering picture of me,” Max said, looking at his. “Those are rare.”

“You’ll need a new one soon,” Kinga said, and he made a questioning sound. “You both will. Because I want to have the wedding before I start to look pregnant.”

“You don’t look pregnant now,” Jonah said, and Kinga shook her head.

“I’m starting to show. If you can’t notice, I definitely can.”

“We’ve got a little time,” Max said. “I mean, you did only propose this week. It’d be one hell of a shotgun wedding to do that overnight.”

“Of course we won’t do it overnight,” Kinga said. “I want an opulent wedding suited for a head of state. That’s going to take a little time to arrange.”

“I have some ideas about this,” Max said.

“Good, then you can plan it!” Max’s eyes widened.

“I might need some help with that...”

“Ooh, let me help,” Synthia said.

“I’ll help too,” Jonah added, and then his stomach grumbled loudly. “...but can we get dinner before we start planning anything? I’ve had fried dumplings on my mind since Kinga said Chinese food.”

“I know the best Chinese place in New York that’ll deliver here,” Shaw said. “I guess we can stay until food gets here... right?”

“Of course,” Root said. “I know better than to get in between you and your beef and broccoli.”

“Hey, look at this,” Terry said. He’d turned on the TV, and he stepped aside so everyone could see it: Anderson Cooper on CNN, and a screenshot from Mystery Science Theater 3000 that had caught Kinga looking particularly evil.

“What’s in store for the nation under the rule of a mad scientist?” Anderson asked. “As of yet, there has been no word from Ms. Forrester aside from the broadcast from this afternoon. The nation waits with bated breath. Surprisingly, there have been no reports of violence breaking out, possibly due to the mysterious disappearance of what seems to be every gun in the country from Revolutionary Era muskets to fully automatic weapons. No one knows how or where these weapons have gone.”

“I should make some kind of statement, huh?” Kinga said. “I probably shouldn’t leave this all weekend, right?”

“Let’s work on that tonight,” Root said. “After dinner. We can have a press release ready for tomorrow morning.”

“Make it tomorrow afternoon,” Kinga said. “Because all I want right now is to change into pajamas and let my hair down.”

“There are clothes for each of you in the bedrooms,” Root said. “And I think you deserve to relax after the day you’ve had.”

“I think we all do,” Kinga said. “We actually did it, guys. We overthrew the United States government. I killed the President. If I wasn’t pregnant I’d be demanding champagne right now.”

“You can have a drink without hurting the baby,” Shaw said. “Trust me, I’m a doctor.” Kinga shrugged and went to investigate the clothes waiting for her.

“You don’t look like a doctor,” Jonah said, and she smirked.

“I was a doctor. Then I was a special ops agent.”

“And what are you now?” he asked. Shaw glanced at Root and her smirk became a smile.

“I’m an asset of the entity that’s going to save the world. And I think after today you qualify as Her assets too.”

“I wouldn’t go quite that far yet,” Root said. “But possibly soon.”

“Room service? Your best champagne and seven glasses, please,” Synthia said into the hotel phone, and gave them all a wide-eyed look as she hung up. “What? I’ve never had champagne. And we deserve it.”

“I guess we’re doing that, then,” Max said.

“Good,” Jonah said. “I think it’s fitting to drink a toast to the version of the world we’re about to facilitate the birth of.” Kinga came back out of the bedroom in a royal purple pajama set, and he grinned at her. “And to our new empress.”

“How about to our pending nuptials?” she said, grinning back. “I think we have quite a lot of things to toast tonight. Maybe you should call down for a second bottle, Synthia.”

“I said a drink,” Shaw said. “Not getting drunk.”

“I’m only having one,” Kinga said. “But that doesn’t mean the rest of you have to. This is worth celebrating, isn’t it?”

“I’d say so,” Root said. “Congratulations, sweetie. It couldn’t have happened to a madder scientist.”