Villain (Book 1): Villain 1

by Laddusaw, Cole

  CHAPTER THREE

  While Deimos was wasting away at work, Siren was taking his advice from that morning to heart. She was already in the process of making a day for herself and Professor Paws, but she wasn’t going to have any old dog day afternoon. Siren was determined to throw the best damn birthday party Professor Paws ever had.

  Due to her being an adult without children, Siren had access to disposable income that wasn’t available to her peers. As such, she was no stranger to dog birthdays, random weekend getaways, and drunken late-night purchases. Some would say that she was simply filling the hole that only a child could fill, but others would say that’s a gross figure of speech and call them a pedophile.

  At that particular moment, Professor Paws’ second birthday party of the year was in full swing. Those in attendance all agreed it topped the first birthday party by a mile. Of course, the only two there were Siren, who was five margaritas deep, and Professor Paws, a creature whose existence was only possible due to controlled evolution by breeding the smallest, dumbest inbred offspring of a higher level species. That being said, the party did turn out pretty good.

  Featuring a music playlist stacked heavily with Led Zeppelin, Siren and Professor Paws kicked off the party with a dance contest. Despite being cursed with four legs and no rhythm, Professor Paws was a decent dancer. When “Black Dog” came on, he spun around in circles so fast that he almost caused Siren to drop her blender full of margarita, which she had been using as a cup. However, it is possible that Professor Paws wasn’t actually dancing since he stopped as soon as he got a hold of his tail. Once he started licking his nether regions, Siren immediately disqualified him for indecent exposure and declared herself the winner.

  After Professor Paws spoke his mind on the judging of the dance contest, or maybe a mailman was walking past outside, they moved onto playing his favorite video game: Contra. While Siren expertly maneuvered around the map, shooting enemies and collecting weapon upgrades, Professor Paws rested his paw on the controller causing his character to run constantly to the right.

  “Quit phoning it in, Professor!” Siren shouted drunkenly when the dog’s character died for the thirteenth time. “I’ve seen you play better than this.”

  That was only half true. Years ago, on one of Professor Paws’ real birthdays, Siren had been hitting the sauce pretty hard. Drinking isn’t something she turns to often, but it had been a particularly bad day and alcohol is a great helper for not giving a shit about those sorts of things. Deimos wanted to do something to cheer her up so he suggested she and Professor Paws play Contra on his old NES. At first she thought it was a dumb idea, but Deimos insisted he had been training the dog to play for months to surprise her. Siren was just drunk enough to believe him and agreed.

  When they plugged in the NES and started playing, Siren was surprised to discover that Professor Paws was actually quite good. Both his paws covered the controller, but his character on screen was skillfully running around the map and shooting enemies. They beat the entire game together and Siren still told the story about how it was one of the best nights of her life.

  What Siren didn’t realize was that Professor Paws’ controller was unplugged and that Deimos was using a third controller that he had modded to work wirelessly. Deimos meant to tell Siren the truth ages ago, but after seeing how happy it made her, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. So every now and again when Siren had been drinking, she would attempt to get Professor Paws to play Contra with her, and Deimos would be forced to keep his mouth shut.

  Convinced that Professor Paws was playing poorly due to his disagreement on the judging of the dance contest, Siren decided it was time for the pup’s birthday photoshoot. She taped a few pieces of green construction paper to the wall so that it covered a large square of space near the floor. Deep in her closet she found a stuffed bear dressed as a doctor that Deimos had given her ages ago when she was sick. She helped Professor Paws shove his front legs into the arms of the coat and it ended up fitting perfectly. After messing up Professor Paws’ hair a bit, the scene was set and Siren snapped off a few photos of him in front of the makeshift green screen.

  Half a blender of margarita later, Siren had the pictures open on her laptop and was editing out the green background. She copied the clean image of Professor Paws wearing the lab coat onto a picture of the Back to the Future Part II movie poster. She haphazardly altered the title to Bark to the Future Part Poo and chortled to herself.

  She saved the image and emailed it to Deimos. He replied immediately.

  I love it! I see you two have been busy.

  Yeah, but Professor sucks at Contra now, Siren sent back. When Deimos didn’t respond she followed up with, Are you coming home soon?

  I need to meet up with the guys for a bit. I won’t stay long.

  Siren replied, Take your time. I love you, and closed her laptop.

  She turned off the music and carried Professor Paws to the bedroom. They cuddled up to watch trashy TV reruns and wait for Deimos, but within minutes they were both fast asleep.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  The entrance to Gizmos was impossible to miss. It had a lime green door and bright yellow neon sign that made the bar stick out like a sore thumb among the washed-out gray and white buildings of Downtown Los Rebeldes.

  Deimos had been meeting with his old henchmen at Gizmos on the first Saturday of every month for years. Siren was always invited, but she knew the guys had a special connection and wanted them to keep that for themselves. She also had an agreement with the aging henchmen that every time they met up they would try to nudge Deimos into inventing something or starting a small business, anything that might lift his spirits and get him out of his slump.

  Deimos’ repeated claims that stepping out of line would only put them in danger had grown tiresome to Siren and the henchmen. The shtick of this meek ‘Damien Briggs, software developer’ that Deimos had become was wearing thin on them. They missed the confident Deimos that had once single-handedly incapacitated a platoon of mind-controlled baboons by defeating the rogue villain Mind Master in a breakdancing competition. What Siren didn’t realize was that the cracks in Deimos’ cover were beginning to show. Between trouble at work and his overall disappointment in his quality of life, Deimos was beginning to slip.

  As Deimos walked toward the shining emerald bar, he recollected his thoughts from the day. It had taken him all afternoon, but Deimos eventually fixed the GUI updates Gary was complaining about. It was an easy fix, something that could have taken him five minutes to complete, but being called into work on a Saturday and getting yelled at by Gary had put him in an especially bitter mood. Because of this, Deimos had instead pushed the actual work he was called in for and spent most of his morning creating a virus that would infect Gary’s computer as soon as he loaded the program’s new build.

  Deimos knew that he couldn’t mess with Gary’s computer too much otherwise he would get blamed for it. Gary was dumb but he would certainly be able to connect the dots. In a stroke of villainous genius, Deimos devised a tricky little program that would only affect certain keystrokes and mouse clicks in randomly timed intervals. Every now and then, when Gary was typing, different letters would appear than the ones he meant to input. Or, when he tried to click on something, his mouse would jump to another location, causing him to click on something completely different. It was petty and childish, but it was the most villainous thing Deimos had done in years. The wails of frustration that issued from Gary’s office the remainder of the day put Deimos in such a good mood that he almost forgot he was at work.

  Deimos entered Gizmos and spotted his friends immediately. The three aging henchmen were seated in a booth at the rear of the dimly lit bar. Glenn was chugging from a flask he had snuck in. He was slightly overweight, balding, and maintained an air of that good old New Jersey sentiment, “The fuck you lookin’ at?”

  Next to Glenn sat Harold. He
looked like a spry Billy Dee Williams and, according to him, he did very well for himself among the women at his retirement community. He too was balding, but he kept it hidden underneath a green cabbie hat, a standard among old balding men.

  Across the table from them sat Terry. He happened to be the only one of Deimos’ henchmen who still had a full head of hair. He had strong features, which he was sure to keep visible by maintaining a smoothly shaven face, making him appear even younger than he already was. His chiseled jaw and deep blue eyes were only overshadowed by his perfect, charming smile. The men deeply resented him for his youth and natural good looks, but it was in the way brothers would resent their younger sibling for somehow inheriting all the good genes when they were left with large noses, bad joints, and thinning hair.

  Seeing how many empty glasses were on their table, Deimos assumed they had been waiting for a while. His assumptions were confirmed when the henchmen saw him and began to bang their half-finished beers on the table in synchronization. As he got closer, they started to whisper.

  “Deimos… Deimos… Deimos…” they chanted to the beat of their glasses.

  “Would you idiots keep it down?” Deimos said in a strained whisper.

  “Oh relax, Damien,” Glenn said snidely, shooing Terry over to make room for Deimos. “These other idiots aren’t even paying attention.”

  Deimos looked around. Glenn was right. There were only two other patrons and both of them had their heads in their drinks at the opposite end of the bar. Since the end of villainy, there weren’t many people willing to put up with the unkempt drab of a hole-in-the-wall like Gizmos. That being said, even Gizmos wasn’t a shell of the villain bars that came before it. It was a cheap replica made in the early 2000’s to fill a niche resurgence of ‘80s nostalgia. In fact, almost nothing remained in Los Rebeldes from the days when villains strode through similar bars in droves, regaling their recent victories or defeats.

  The three henchmen downed their beers and Terry motioned to the bartender for four more.

  “Come on, boss. You’ve got some catching up to do,” he said.

  “I think only one for me tonight, boys,” Deimos replied.

  A stunned silence fell over the henchmen. They stared at Deimos for a moment, their mouths agape, then erupted in protest.

  “We hardly all get together like this!” Glenn shouted.

  “What the hell is one?” Harold grunted.

  “Now, now,” Terry mitigated. “I’m sure Damien has a fine enough reason for wanting to leave his three closest friends on the one night a month they have together.”

  The three men looked expectantly to Deimos. He couldn’t meet their gaze and glanced away.

  “I feel like turning in early, is all. I’m exhausted from work,” he said unconvincingly.

  The answer was completely unacceptable to the henchmen and they erupted into another bout of protests.

  “Work?” they shouted.

  “Do you know it’s Saturday?” Terry asked.

  “It’s Saturday, man,” said Glenn.

  “Nobody works on Saturday,” Harold stated.

  Their bartender brought them their round and the henchmen eagerly reached for the beers. Deimos grabbed his and took a healthy swig.

  “You guys, a lot of people have to work on Saturday,” Deimos said. “Our bartender, for example, is working.”

  The henchmen gave Deimos quizzical looks.

  “...On a Saturday,” Deimos continued.

  The concept didn’t seem to resonate with the men. They stared at him for a moment longer before chugging their beers.

  “Nah, man. Saturday,” Glenn said.

  “Saturday, Damien,” said Terry.

  “Nobody should work on the Lord’s day,” Harold interjected.

  “That’s Sunday,” Deimos replied.

  “Whatever. All days seem the same to a retired bastard like me,” Harold said.

  The men laughed and took more swigs of their drinks. Each sip of the cool beer pushed Deimos’ day further out of his mind. Memories began to flood his head from days long past, back when he would drink beers with his henchmen after long days of villainy. They would shoot the shit, talking about anything and everything, simply enjoying the company. Those were the moments Deimos missed the most and the reason he could only bear to see his friends once a month.

  “So, uh,” Terry began with the eloquence of a stubbed toe, “are you designing anything cool at work?”

  Glenn nodded and winked, picking up what Terry was throwing down.

  “Yeah! You, uh, make anything fun today?”

  Deimos eyed the men skeptically.

  “Nope. Still working on that same program that I told you about the last time we hung out.”

  The two men shrugged to each other, internally disappointed, and racked their brains for more brilliant ways to subtly bring up Deimos inventing again.

  That was until Harold shouted, “Thinking ‘bout making inventions anytime soon?”

  Terry and Glenn slowly shifted their gaze to Harold, shooting daggers. Harold certainly lacked the tact that the other two also lacked, but at least they had tried.

  “No,” Deimos said, “I have no intention to invent anything ever again. Do we really have to go through this every time?”

  “Definitely,” said Glenn.

  “Absolutely,” chimed Terry.

  “It’s your wife’s fault,” Harold grunted.

  Deimos rolled his eyes and took another sip. He was halfway through his beer and fully intended on leaving when he was done. He shook the bottle as if to state this fact.

  “Oh come on!” Terry pleaded. “Don’t you want to invent something incredible that nobody has even thought of before?”

  “Nope,” Deimos stated defiantly.

  He remembered how earlier that day he had created a computer program simply to mess with his boss, but certainly that didn’t count as an evil invention. As he was lost in thought, Harold slammed his fist down on the bar, startling the others and knocking over a few of his empty beer bottles.

  “It’s been three decades, man! Nobody gives a shit about villains anymore!” Harold scolded. He smacked Deimos’ hand away from his beer and pointed behind him to the bar’s TV. “Perfect example. Have you seen what The Buzzard has been up to lately?”

  Deimos turned to the TV and saw a commercial was on. An elderly man, who Deimos immediately recognized as a villain from his heyday called The Buzzard, was talking into the camera. The Buzzard was a Vietnam ace pilot who had gone mad from the atrocities he saw at war. For over a decade after, The Buzzard commanded a small army of his own and reigned hellfire over cities across the globe that went against his code of conduct, all while wearing a regal, feathered costume made from real birds of prey. But now, as Deimos watched him on the television, he could see that nothing was left of The Buzzard that he knew. All that was on the screen was a kooky, frail old man in a poorly constructed bird costume. Still, this was the first villain Deimos had seen publicly since the late ‘80s. He watched the commercial with quiet intensity.

  “Hey, everyone!” The Buzzard squawked in his commercial. “It’s your favorite carpet retailer in Los Rebeldes County here. Back when I was The Buzzard I used to carpet bomb your city, but now I’m carpeting your homes! So come on down to Buzzard Carpets on Sunrise and Lowland where we have the widest selection of carpets this side of the Five! Don’t believe me? Here’s testimony from a real-life customer!”

  The commercial cut to a close up of a man’s face covered with fresh wounds.

  The man spoke out in a forced monotone, “Buzzard Carpets is the best. If you want carpets, you should come here.”

  When the camera zoomed out, it became apparent that the man was tied to a chair with a gun pointed at his head. Deimos noticed the chair was in the middle of a giant nest.

&n
bsp; “They have the lowest prices and the best service,” the man continued. “Thank you, Buzzard Carpets… There. I said it. Now where’s my family you sick son of a-”

  In a quick BANG the commercial cut back to The Buzzard.

  “You heard it here, folks. Buzzard Carpets on Sunrise and Lowland! We’re the only carpet retailer in town, but that doesn’t mean we can’t also be the best!”

  Deimos turned back, unimpressed with Harold’s example, and returned to his drink. It was clear to him that the ex-villain had gone insane while in hiding over the last thirty years. Deimos could relate. Terry, on the other hand, looked utterly horrified.

  “Did that guy just die?” he whispered. “Why couldn’t they edit that last part out?”

  “Hey, did I ever tell you I almost did an internship for that weirdo?” Glenn interjected.

  “Were you cheating on me, Glenn?” Deimos mused, warranting a laugh from his henchmen.

  “No, no. This was back before your time.” Glenn replied. He settled into his seat and pushed aside beer bottles to give himself room to regale his story. “So first off, I got a letter from a falcon saying that I got an interview with this guy. A fucking falcon!”

  This gets a few laughs and Glenn takes a swig of his beer before continuing.

  “Anyway, I go in and I’m meeting with some rep who’s asking me all these questions. It started fairly standard. ‘What was your upbringing like? Why did you decide to join the Villain Movement? Do you have any priors?’ You know the racket. But then the questions got weird and eventually she asked what kind of bird I most relate to. Like, what the hell? Who asks that stuff?”

  “Bird brains,” Harold said with a chortle.

  “Exactly!” Glenn replied. “I’m thinking okay, a buzzard is a bird of prey so they probably want me to say another bird of prey. The first thing that comes to my mind is an eagle. Go America, right? So I tell her I’m an eagle. But get this, she then asks me to make the sound an eagle makes. Like that somehow portrays how good of a henchman I’ll be.”

  The men were really rolling at this. Terry spit up his beer in a loud guffaw that surprised even him. Glenn took a preparatory chug while soaking in their laughs.