“Thanks, Harold,” Deimos said with a wink.
He turned to address the crowd. His voice now issued from speakers lined along the warehouse walls.
“And thank you all for coming! Wow, what a turnout. Of course, I’m sure you all would have come even if this wasn’t a mandatory meeting.”
The henchmen laughed, knowing full well that was true. Their loyalty ran far deeper than the $4.50 an hour they were making simply for attending.
“For starters,” Deimos continued, “let me say how incredibly proud I am of all of you. You acquired every part needed for this device faster than any of our past endeavors, and with zero casualties! I know we were all worried about Brady but he really pulled through. Why don’t you take a stand, buddy?”
Deimos pointed to a henchman in the front row who had casts on both of his arms and legs. The henchman was clearly confined to a wheelchair but didn’t dare defy a request from his beloved boss. He attempted to balance himself upright with every ounce of strength his broken body could muster. However, the injured henchman could only manage to strain his head forward briefly before finally falling back defeated into his chair. He was rewarded with a raucous applause for the attempt.
“Love that effort! It’s good to have you here, man. Sorry again about that faulty grappling hook,” Deimos said, turning back to the crowd. “Now, onto the matter at hand. I’m sure you all know I started this little venture at the young age of eighteen. Back then I was laughed at, mocked, and just treated rather unprofessionally. But you all stuck with this crazy kid and his dream and together we became the first villain organization to successfully take the president hostage!”
A spotlight illuminated a framed, poster-sized photograph hanging behind Deimos. It depicted himself, Siren, and a smiling Ronald Reagan. The throng of henchmen cheered wildly.
“Yeah, give it up for Ron! He was such a great sport. And it was all uphill from there!”
Spotlights illuminated four other large, framed photographs lined along the wall behind Deimos. He announced each one like an energized game show host listing off various prizes.
“Erupting Mount St. Helens! Finding the Titanic, then stealing it! Meeting Sting! And who could forget this summer in space on the International Bass Station?”
The henchmen responded to each of their past achievements with fervent applause. The excitement levels in the room were reaching dangerous levels, but Deimos had the oratory expertise of an impassioned John F. Kennedy and knew exactly what he was doing. He held onto their cheers for as long as he felt he could, building the tension ever higher before unveiling the name of his latest invention.
“Here we stand together on the eve of our greatest endeavor to date!” Deimos proclaimed, pulling out a small sealed envelope from his pocket.
His henchmen were all but foaming at the mouth as he opened the envelope and pulled out a small note card.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I give you…”
Deimos read the note card and frowned. He turned it over expectantly but was equally disappointed.
“What the crap, Glenn?” Deimos asked. “Weather Machine? That’s the best that Marketing could come up with?”
“Sorry, boss!” a nervous henchman replied from the front of the crowd. “We couldn’t settle on a name.”
“Seriously, people?” Deimos deplored. “Somebody must have a better idea than Weather Machine. We’ve been working on this for six months for shit’s sake! Okay, let’s handle this real quick. Who named the last invention?”
The crowd of henchmen looked around at each other, shrugging. Siren leaned toward Deimos and tapped him on his shoulder.
“Harold chose the last name,” she whispered. “It was for the henchmen-transporting watercraft, the Motley Cruise Ship.”
Deimos turned back to the crowd.
“Okay, Harold was the last to choose so why don’t we go down alphabetically? John, you’re up buddy. What do we call this thing?”
Again, the henchmen looked around in silence. John was nowhere to be seen. Siren leaned toward Deimos and once more tapped him on his shoulder.
“John went home with a tummy ache,” Siren whispered gently.
Deimos fumed. He gritted his teeth and pinched his brow searching his mind for any name that could be better than ‘Weather Machine.’ The name of a villain’s device was almost as important as how badass it looked. In fact, most of Deimos’ image was built around the rock and roll motif that inspired the names for his inventions. Failure to come up with a name for his greatest invention to date would forever be a smudge on his so-far perfect record. His mind drifted to “Rock You Like A Hurricane” by the Scorpions, but he knew that was a dead end and he was running out of time.
Deimos sighed and shrugged dejectedly to the crowd.
“Fine. If there aren’t any other suggestions, I guess this is called Weather Machine. For those of you that weren’t here during construction, it is exactly as it sounds. It’s a big tower-type thingy that controls the weather. Tonight, when we threaten the UN with our demands, we’re going to have to tell them that along with having the ability to create such a device, we lack the collective cognitive ability to come up with a better name than Weather Machine.”
A young female henchman from deep in the crowd coughed awkwardly and raised her hand. Deimos looked at her, confused.
“Yes?” he inquired. “This isn’t Sunday school, Linda. You can speak up.”
“Well, could we call it the Purple Rain Machine?” Linda propositioned in a cracked voice.
Deimos’ eyes lit up as he mulled this over.
“Like that Prince album, but it’s a rain machine?” he asked.
Linda nodded her head earnestly as nervous tears filled her eyes.
“My God, that’s brilliant!” Deimos said, much to the henchman’s relief. “We’ll have to make a quick run for some purple spray paint, but still great work! You know what? You’re promoted! Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce Linda, your new branch manager, and the Purple Rain Machine!”
The crowd of henchmen exploded into cheer. Those surrounding Linda patted her on the back and offered their congratulations. She blushed deeply.
Siren approached Deimos with two champagne glasses. He took one and held it up to the crowd to quiet them down.
“Let’s get real for a minute,” Deimos said, grabbing Siren’s hand. “I look around tonight and see myself surrounded by more than coworkers. I see friends, family, and the greatest love a man could ever hope for. I am so grateful for each and every one of you. Thank you so much for making this kid’s dream a reality, and here’s to the next seven years!”
Deimos and Siren raised their glasses to the applause of the henchmen. They kissed passionately to even more uproarious cheers. This was set to be the greatest night of any of their lives and, thanks to the Purple Rain Machine, the air was quite literally electric.
With all the cheering and celebrating filling the warehouse, nobody was able to hear the two dozen armed mercenaries shuffling into formation outside. No one even heard the front door as it was smashed in by a battering ram. It wasn’t until the first gunshot went off that they realized they were being raided.
At the furthest end of the warehouse, a swarm of mercenaries burst through the splintered wooden door with their weapons drawn, faces masked, and assholes puckered. They were trained to kill and quickly set to doing just that. A barrage of bullets fired from their automatic rifles at the unsuspecting henchmen. Even though the henchmen’s jumpsuits were bulletproof, nothing is that bulletproof. In a matter of seconds, hundreds of armor-piercing rounds tore through the henchmen’s suits like an overeager teenager in a cheap condom. The twenty henchmen standing in the back row fell dead, but their sacrifice gave the remaining henchmen enough time to react and run for cover.
A stray bullet ricocheted and grazed Siren’s left q
uad. She fell onto Deimos, screaming out in pain.
“Take care of them!” Deimos shouted to his henchmen.
He positioned himself under Siren’s arm and hurried her to the back exit. The henchmen quickly drew their standard-issued stun guns, the Electric Ave Pew-Pew, and fired electrified pellets from cover. The glowing, cyberpunk-styled weapons were wonky but effective and easily stunned the first wave of mercenaries through their thick body armor.
The next wave of mercenaries immediately spilled through the door, this time being led by a spy in black tactical gear. The spy spotted Deimos escaping with Siren. He motioned to three mercenaries and they all took chase as the others provided cover fire.
Deimos slammed open the back door with his free hand while supporting Siren with his other. The two rushed into the darkened alley behind the warehouse and the door shut behind them, drowning out the mercenaries’ gunfire. Each limping step toward safety shot searing pain through Siren’s leg but she grimaced through it.
Before they could get far, the door behind them clanged open and the sounds of gunfire returned. They turned to see the spy in black rushing toward them with his weapon drawn. Deimos pulled Siren down behind a nearby dumpster as the spy and his lackeys opened fire on their position.
The bullets clanged noisily on the dumpster but didn’t pierce it. Deimos looked to his left at an adjacent alley. He thought he might be able to sprint across without getting shot but there was no way Siren would be able to, given the state of her leg. Deimos turned back to Siren but before he could speak she grabbed his face and kissed him passionately.
“Go on. I got this,” Siren said confidently.
She turned the gem on her choker 90 degrees to the right. It clicked into place, powering on the resonance amplifying device Deimos had built into it. Deimos nodded knowingly. As soon as he heard the mercenaries reloading, he took off down the side alley and out of sight.
“Take care of the girl!” the spy shouted as he sprinted after Deimos.
The mercenaries pointed their freshly loaded rifles at Siren’s position and cautiously approached. Behind the dumpster, Siren took a deep breath and released it slowly. She promised herself that if she got out of this alive she would fire whoever forgot to empty the dumpsters that week. After a brief moment of disgust, Siren started to sing.
Beginning with a series of different pitched hums, Siren easily found the resonant frequency she wanted and belted it out at the top of her lungs. The choker amplified the frequency a hundredfold, causing the metal in the alley to begin to vibrate. The mercenaries dropped their weapons as their eardrums burst in quick succession. They fell to the ground and vomited profusely as blood drained from their ears. Within seconds, they were unconscious.
Siren stood and surveyed her damage. She limped angrily to the pile of unmoving mercenaries and smacked the nearest one in his face.
“Which one of you assholes shot me, huh?” she yelled. “These are custom leather pants, you dicks!”
Meanwhile, Deimos had climbed up the fire escape of an adjacent warehouse with the spy in hot pursuit. Lights along the perimeter of the building bathed the roof in bright, neon light. There was no place to run to, no walls to hide behind. The only item of note on the roof was a small wooden crate. It stood alone, directly in the center of the flat open space.
The moment Deimos pulled himself over the fire escape he beelined for the crate. He threw it open and pulled out a chrome, blinking belt and hurriedly clipped it around his waist. As soon as Deimos had clipped on the belt, the spy leapt up from the fire escape and fired his weapon. However, his bullet was deflected midair by an unseen force before it was able to reach Deimos.
“You like that?” Deimos asked. “The belt repels all metal at a three-foot radius of my body.”
“Nice toy,” the spy replied.
Deimos scoffed. Spies never appreciated any of the cool inventions he made. He didn’t even bother telling the spy that he had named it Hells Belts after his favorite AC/DC song. The reference would be lost on a square like him.
What bothered Deimos was that this brain-dead spy called his invention a toy. If he took the time to expound even a fraction of the physics that went into generating an electrostatic field without an external power source on a device small enough to fit into a belt, the spy’s head would likely explode from sheer intellectual overload. Deimos made a mental note to run some tests later and see if that was actually possible.
The spy removed anything metal from his gear; his pistol, walkie-talkie, belt, and combat knife were all tossed carelessly aside. He fully intended on killing Deimos that night and wasn’t about to let three feet of science he didn’t understand get in his way.
“So, what the hell are you doing here?” Deimos questioned. “We completely flew under the radar this time, I made sure of it. And there isn’t a chance in hell one of my guys sold me out. By all accounts, nobody should know we’re here. Yet here you are with your soldiers and your guns…” Tears began to well in Deimos’ eyes, a rare crack in the wall of his persona. “You killed my friends. Shot the love of my life! Just who the hell are you?”
“You can call me Agent X,” the spy replied coldly.
“Holy shit,” Deimos sputtered, regaining his composure. “You can’t be serious. That is so lame.”
“Like you’re one to talk. What the hell does Deimos even mean?”
“It’s the Ancient Greek word for dread, the personification of terror. I have a knack for instilling fear into my enemies, and tonight you really pissed me off. So get ready to know fear.”
Deimos flicked a switch on the side of his belt and the lights switched off, plunging the rooftop into darkness.
Agent X slow clapped sarcastically.
“Wow, do you use that line on all the good guys? The dark won’t help you. I already found you once tonight, I can do it again.”
Unbeknownst to Agent X, the darkness was indeed helping Deimos at that very moment. Unseen by the spy, Deimos flicked off Hells Belts and pulled a second device from the crate. At first glance it would have appeared to be a handheld satellite dish. It had a smooth, curved plastic cone that was affixed to a sleek handle. Deimos grabbed a cord attached to the bottom of the handle and plugged it into his belt.
Agent X stepped cautiously forward into the dark, his arms raised defensively. Deimos turned a small knob located on the handle of his device. When he pointed the dish forward, the approaching spy immediately stopped dead in his tracks. Sweat formed on Agent X’s brow as his heart began beating profusely in his chest. He gripped at it painfully.
“What the hell is this?” Agent X grimaced.
“Fear is a complex human reaction,” Deimos replied. “Not everyone is afraid of the same stuff. I found it was easier to make people feel fear. What you’re experiencing right now is a highly concentrated electromagnetic field directly affecting your heart rate.”
The device, which Deimos had named Tears And Fears after the famed British pop-rock band, was something he had designed back in his college days. Whenever he felt like having a day off from classes, one quick burst of Tears And Fears had his professors feeling the world’s worst stage fright and they would quickly excuse themselves. A few tweaks to his original design had made it an effective non-violent incapacitator.
Feeling the full effects of this weapon, Agent X was experiencing blurred vision, muscle weakness, and a severely increased heartbeat. He lunged forward into the dark, swinging wildly. Deimos was easily able to step out of the way of the woozy spy who tripped forward and smashed into the wooden crate. Agent X screamed out in pain as a large splinter of wood pierced through his forearm.
“You son of a bitch! Fight me like a man!” Agent X cried.
Deimos backed up several feet toward the ledge, still pointing Tears And Fears at Agent X. The sight of the bloodied man screaming in pain was almost too much for him. If A
gent X withstood another minute of the magnetic field he might even have a heart attack. Deimos had never killed anyone before and never truly intended to, despite the numerous times he had threatened it. In fact, most of his inventions were nonviolent and ultimately used for the betterment of humanity, a trend that seemed to have been lost in the modern-day Villain Movement.
Despite this, Agent X was the only spy who had gotten this close to killing him. He was also responsible for Siren getting shot, which was unforgivable. Deimos knew a day might come where he would have to kill for his beliefs, but staring down at the grisly, gasping man, Deimos couldn’t bring himself to do it. He powered down Tears And Fears and Agent X’s heart rate returned to normal.
“Look, let’s just talk about this...” Deimos began.
Before he had time to finish his peace offering, Agent X lunged at him. He pulled the wood shard out from his arm and wielded it like a dagger. Blood splattered from the gaping wound and squirted on Deimos’ jacket.
“What the hell? This is custom-fitted, you psycho!” Deimos yelled as he stumbled back and away from the attacking spy.
Where Deimos knew the edge of the roof was located, Agent X did not. He lunged forward, missed Deimos, and was sent sprawling over the side of the roof like a confused, bloodied rag doll. Seeing this transpire, Deimos leapt to Agent X’s rescue. He reached out and grabbed the spy’s damaged arm at the wrist. He fell forward and landed on Hells Belts, breaking it. The lights switched on as Agent X swung back into the side of the building. The spy’s already damaged arm slammed into a brick jut. His weakened forearm snapped and his bone tore through the skin above his wrist.
“Augh, fuck!” Agent X screamed.
He stared fearfully at his arm, which was barely held together by a thick chunk of tendons. Deimos looked down at the wound and fought back the urge to vomit.
“Sorry. Let’s be honest, you probably deserved that,” Deimos said half apologetically while trying to maintain his grip on Agent X’s blood-soaked wrist. “Ew, looks gross though.”
Villain (Book 1): Villain 1 Page 2
