Deimos began to crawl toward Siren. The wind and snow whipped at his face, blocking out all other sights and sounds. He inched past the weather machine, it was too long gone to think about stopping the storm now. The only thought that consumed his mind was reaching Siren.
The giant man finally ended his pounding on the magnetic field and again turned back to the wall. He ripped off a chunk and hurled it toward Siren. She dove out of the way, but the projectile continued past her and crashed into the weather machine. Whitesnow exploded in a brilliant burst of electricity and snow. Everyone was blasted backward except for the giant man, who withstood the explosion unfazed.
Metallic framework from the machine soared upward, slicing off two of the fan blades from the hovering drone. It spiraled down and crashed into the street outside the lot.
◊ ◊ ◊
Deimos groggily opened his eyes. His body was uncomfortably contorted in a snowbank ten feet from where he was before the explosion. All he could see was pure white. All he could hear was a high-pitched whine. He tried to get up, but both of his leg braces were now mangled and unworkable. Grabbing a piece of wood, he forced himself out of the snowbank and into a seated position.
He looked around frantically as his vision slowly returned to him. He saw the henchmen scattered about, hurt but alive. Professor Paws whimpered behind him from the snowbank and crawled out. His eye had been badly cut by debris in the explosion. Terry rushed from his position to tend to Deimos, who absentmindedly brushed him off, so Terry instead turned his attention to the bleeding pup. As Deimos looked around, he realized Siren and the giant man that attacked them were nowhere to be seen.
“Ciara!” he cried out. “Ciara, answer me! Where are you?”
In the distance, a phone was ringing. Deimos didn’t even register it at first, but then the ringing grew louder. He looked up and saw another drone approaching them, except this one was dangling a rotary telephone beneath it on a small platform. The drone hovered above the lot then descended toward Deimos. It hovered an inch above the ground and an internal mechanism activated, dropping the vintage telephone and its platform onto the dirty snow. The drone quickly accelerated upward and flew back the way it came.
The men looked at each other, befuddled. The rotary phone was ancient by current standards and should not have been able to work without being plugged into a phone jack. Yet, the phone continued to ring while completely detached from any wires or power source.
“Um, I think it’s for you, boss,” Terry said finally.
Deimos looked down at the phone skeptically but remained seated. Glenn bent over and grabbed the sleek black phone, holding it up to Deimos. After several more rings, Deimos caved. He picked up the handset and put it to his ear. The henchmen crowded around the earpiece to listen.
“That was quite the show,” a voice said through the phone. “Sorry about all the hubbub, Deimos. I had to make sure it was you.”
“How do you know that name? Where the hell is my wife?” Deimos shouted.
The voice chuckled, bemused.
“You two got married? That’s great, Deimos. Good for you. Don’t worry about Siren. She is in safe, albeit dumb hands. She’s currently en route to my headquarters as we speak.”
“Goddammit, who are you?” Deimos fumed.
“Don’t you remember how I feel about giving out my name? Does this ring any bells?” The voice paused, then coldly said, “There’s no place in this world for villains anymore.”
Deimos froze. He was unable to speak. He instantly flashed back to the night thirty years prior when the spy known as Agent X killed his henchmen then threw him from a rooftop after saying those exact words.
After a moment of silence, the voice continued, “Now do you remember?”
Deimos choked out, “Agent X.”
“Yes, but considering we’re old friends perhaps I’ll give you a hint for who I am. Have you heard of my modest little company Crymson Tech?”
“You’re Hans Goenn?” Terry blurted.
Hans chuckled, “Well, that’s what they’ve been calling me. Deimos, while you’ve been playing dead these last thirty years, I’ve been busy. Very busy. I’d love for you to come by and see what I’ve been up to. I’m sure you know where I’m located, just go downtown and look up. Be here precisely at eight tonight. If your friends know what’s good for them they’ll leave town. I only want you, Deimos. Understand? It would be in Siren’s best interest that you come alone.”
The dial tone blared from the earpiece as Hans hung up. Deimos stood dumbfounded, staring down at the phone, unable to move. In a burst of anger he ripped open the phone, removed its battery, and threw the pieces as far as he could. Terry, Glenn, and Harold surrounded him expectantly, watching and waiting for his next move, but Deimos simply looked down at his hands. They were shaking uncontrollably.
“Well, shit,” Harold said, clearing the air. “Agent X is Hans Goenn? That dick that killed all our friends is the same rich prick who cured MS?”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Terry said. “He’s the one person responsible for ending the Villain Movement. Why would he send one to attack us?”
“You really think that big lug was a villain?” Glenn questioned.
Deimos ignored the henchmen as their words faded out into inaudible chatter. His head was swimming and he couldn’t hold down a single thought. He gripped his hands to stop their shaking. Professor Paws approached Deimos and began licking his hands. It helped calm him, but not by much. He heard Terry calling his name and looked up.
“What do we do next, boss?” Terry asked again.
Deimos broke eye contact and looked back down. He couldn’t bear to look at his henchmen anymore. Tears poured freely from his eyes.
“There is no we, Terry. There hasn’t been a we for thirty years. Fuck! I knew this was a mistake. What happens next is that I’m going to go to Crymson Tech alone and hope that whatever Hans is planning doesn’t involve Ciara. You all should listen to him and skip town. Enough people have been hurt because of me and I won’t-”
Deimos was cut off by a snowball striking the side of his face. He looked up angrily to see that Terry had been the one who threw it.
“What the hell, Ter-,” Deimos began before Terry threw another snowball at his head. “Goddammit, Terry. Stop it!”
“No, you stop it! Stop this melodramatic, cry-baby bullshit!” Terry shouted.
The men immediately fell silent and stood staring at Terry with their mouths agape. He had never spoken like that to anyone, so to start now with the man he had admired his entire life certainly took them by surprise.
“I have had enough of this sad sack, good-for-nothing version of you,” Terry continued. “I have been in this piece of shit city for over three decades with nothing to show for it because of you! Never doing too well at work so nobody would notice me, never settling down with a family, or getting too close with anyone for that matter. All three of us gave up our lives to follow you, to always be near you so that if you ever needed us we would be there because we are your henchmen and that’s what we do. But maybe I should leave because apparently the villain I knew really did die in that fall. All I see now is some broken, frail, scared little man.”
“Terry, I-” Deimos tried to respond.
“No! You don’t get to speak. You’ve spoken for me all my life. Now it’s my turn. So sit on your broken ass and listen!”
Terry took a few deep breaths to calm himself and Harold exchanged a wide-eyed glance with Glenn. Watching Terry finally stand up for himself was equal parts hilarious and terrifying.
Terry caught his breath and continued, “The first time I met you I was a scared shitless teenager. You were robbing the factory my dad owned. You had such amazing gadgets and were so cool and collected. You hardly had to lift a finger to gain control of that room. Do you remember what you said to me that nigh
t? You can talk now.”
Deimos thought for a moment then chuckled softly.
“Yeah. I said, ‘Hey kid, don’t just stand there looking like an idiot. Grab a box and help me.’”
“And do you know what I did next?” Terry asked.
More tears welled in Deimos’ eyes.
“You picked up a box and helped me steal from your dad’s factory.”
“You’re damn right I did. And I never looked back. Do you know why I did that? Why I left my friends, my family, my whole damn life for some villain I didn’t even know? It was because you inspired me, that day and every day after. You helped me see something in myself that I didn’t even know was there. That’s why all of us followed you. It wasn’t because of the hollow promise of a new world order, or riches beyond our wildest dreams.”
“Yeah, you didn’t pay us shit,” Harold interjected.
Terry ignored him and continued, “It was because you brought out the best in us. When I was with you, I became capable of things I never would have dreamed possible. I went to space when I was seventeen for shit’s sake! Who the hell can say they went to space without a high school education?
“But our background didn’t matter to you. You didn’t care where we came from, or what we did before, or who we used to be. As long as we came into work and gave you everything we had, you accepted us. And I did, man. I gave you everything. So to see you sitting here still pissing your pants over some guy that caught you off guard thirty years ago is downright embarrassing for me. I mean, are you the same person that inspired me to do great things, to follow my dreams, and achieve the impossible? Or are you some nobody who rolls over in the face of danger, too afraid to even try and fight back?”
Deimos sat for a moment staring up in disbelief. Terry, who he had always written off as the timid one of the group, had ripped his entire life apart in a few choice words. The worst part was that he was absolutely right. Deimos had let one bad event rule his entire life. If he wanted to stop the same thing from happening again, he would need to know when to say enough is enough.
Deimos wiped the melting snow off his face and held up a hand to Terry. He heartily accepted it and pulled Deimos up out of the snow.
“Thank you, Terry,” Deimos said. He turned to Harold and Glenn. “Thank you all for not giving up on me. I’ve been afraid for so long that I think I forgot who I was.”
Glenn and Harold approached Deimos, patting him on the back.
“No sweat, man,” Glenn said. “You went through a lot.”
“Yeah, just don’t let it happen again,” Harold chimed in.
They all hugged for a moment, embracing tightly like a family that hadn’t seen each other in years. When Deimos finally pulled away, he turned to Glenn.
“Well, Glenn, both Terry and Harold have had some pretty great monologues in the last twenty-four hours. You better step up your game, bud.”
“Just saving the best for last, boss!” Glenn said, handing Deimos his plank of wood.
Deimos accepted it, steadying himself, then hobbled back and surveyed the area. His mind was clear now, sharp, as if the fog engulfing his conscience for the last thirty years had dissipated in an instant. He reviewed the events that transpired in a new light and with a fresh perspective.
“Hans called me Deimos,” he said finally.
“Yeah, and he called Ciara Siren. So what?” Harold asked.
“It only means he doesn’t know our identities yet, so he hasn’t been looking for me through traditional means. He must have kept the Purple Rain Machine and monitored the city for its energy signature over the last thirty years.”
“Wow, what a stalker,” Terry said.
Deimos pondered for a moment longer. He smiled and turned to his henchmen.
“If this were the eighties, back before Agent X, what would we say about this? How would we react to this kind of attack?”
The henchmen thought briefly. Glenn raised his hand and Deimos pointed to him.
“Well, disregarding who did it, I don’t think this would even phase us,” he said. “I mean, we were up against guys like Hans almost every week.”
“That’s right!” Terry chimed in. “This is Ciara’s, like, sixth time being kidnapped. We literally had a drill posted in the lounge for events like this.”
“Plus, this whole tactic is pretty reminiscent of that night Agent X raided us,” Harold added. “It’s a fairly standard surprise attack. He charges in, barks and bites, then hopes it’s enough to make you lose your senses.”
“Precisely,” Deimos stated. “Except this time we aren’t going to run.”
He hobbled over to the nearest crate, which had been blown apart from the explosion, and poked through its contents. There were a few charred Electric Ave Pew-Pews but they seemed to be in good condition.
“What about Ciara?” Glenn asked.
“She may have gotten older but she isn’t any less capable,” Deimos replied. “Trust me, she can handle being on her own for a while. Also, it might be best that we stick to our villain names from now on just in case.”
“What’s the plan, Deimos?” Terry asked, smiling. “We go over there and get Siren? Some kind of smash and grab?”
“Don’t forget he wants me to meet him alone,” Deimos said with a chuckle.
The henchmen laughed. It almost seemed foolish now in retrospect. Hans was an amateur at villainy and this seasoned crew of misfits could smell a trap from a mile away.
Harold coughed pointedly to gather the group’s focus.
“What are we going to do about the Elephant Man in the room? That lummox he has working for him seems pretty capable. Could pose a problem down the line.”
“He didn’t seem to be the sharpest three hundred pound behemoth in the shed,” Deimos said, “but you’re right, he might be difficult to deal with.”
His eyes wandered over the scattered weather machine parts and drifted to the hole in the wall that the giant man had made. He spotted the drone that had been spying on them lying broken in the street. His eyes lit up and he turned back to the half-built flying craft they had been working on.
“But I may already have a plan,” he said. “I hope you guys are okay with working through the rest of your weekend.”
The three henchmen turned to each other and smiled. One by one they put their hands into a circle. Terry glanced down and noticed Professor Paws looking up at them with his one good eye. He lifted him up and helped put his paw into the mix.
“Just tell us what to do, boss,” Terry said.
Deimos smiled and slammed his hand into the pile. If there were any time fitting for a classic ‘80s montage, that would have been it. Unfortunately, in real life if you want something done you have to actually do the work.
Deimos began by having the henchmen pull the unfinished flying craft out of the quickly melting snow. They laid out all the pieces and gathered the remaining thrusters that had scattered around the lot in the explosion.
Terry was sure to take time to clean the wound around Professor Paws’ eye. He fashioned the pup an eye patch to keep him from scratching at it. It just so happened that the eye patch happened to vibe quite well with the lab coat Professor Paws was still wearing. He was beginning to look like a mad puppy scientist.
Meanwhile, Deimos recovered the computer tablet and pulled off its backing. It was in decent condition, but water had seeped in from the melting snow and the internal components needed to dry before he tried turning it on. He set it aside for the time being and helped his henchmen recover parts.
Once all of the pieces were gathered for the flying craft, the henchmen began welding it together. Most of the wiring had already been completed so the rest of the work was not unlike assembling an adult-sized LEGO set. They simply put the pieces in the correct places and welded them together.
As the henchmen did t
his, Deimos huddled over a workstation he had fashioned for himself in a separate corner. His leg braces were removed and he had them laid out on the table among the gears and components that had survived the Whitesnow explosion. With steady hands and a skilled eye, he began soldering the pieces together in a meticulous manner.
After an hour, Deimos checked to see if the tablet was working. To his relief, it booted up. He went to the MIT website and downloaded their open-source software on an exoskeleton they were developing for paraplegics. He took an hour to rework the code to his specifications then set the tablet aside for later.
Deimos refocused on his task by first removing the high capacity batteries from several Electric Ave Pew-Pews and wiring them into his soon-to-be upgraded leg braces. Using the power supply from Whitesnow, he was able to fully charge the batteries and connect them to key points along the joints. His contraption was starting to take form. The leg braces now had their own internal power source, a convoluted assortment of movable gears, and approximately one hundred feet of complex wiring all ready to receive their orders.
With the microchips from Whitesnow, Deimos was able to connect the tablet to his new and improved leg braces. He uploaded the code he worked on earlier, which would allow the gears in the leg braces to be controlled by electrical impulses sent through a series of nodes. The nodes would have to be inserted directly into his spinal column, but that was a painful sacrifice that Deimos was more than willing to make for what he was about to achieve.
However, as Deimos looked over the state of his invention, he couldn’t help but feel dissatisfied. It wasn’t going to be enough. He had Terry bring him over a few of the thrusters meant for the flying craft and set back to work. He updated his code and wired four microthrusters into the braces; one for each thigh and calf. Finally satisfied, Deimos closed the whole thing up by welding reinforced metal plating over the exterior of the braces, leaving room for mobility at the joints.
Villain (Book 1): Villain 1 Page 7
