Villain (Book 1): Villain 1

by Laddusaw, Cole

  Deimos sighed and rubbed his face with his hands.

  “You’re really putting me in a bind with that request, kid,” he said. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather be an environmentally conscious, but ultimately realistic about the means of production type of villain?”

  Eve crossed her arms and shot daggers at Deimos. Her face said it all.

  “All right. I’ll see what I can do,” Deimos grumbled.

  After apologizing to Terry, which Deimos felt went on for far too long, they all returned to Redbeard’s Revenge for lunch. According to the ship’s chef, they had over three weeks worth of supplies if they didn’t want to start rationing. That was of course calculated with The Buzzard and his henchmen in mind. Deimos felt three weeks was more than enough time to get started, and if need be they could always fly to the nearest port town for more supplies.

  Deimos met with the ship’s medic Veronica over lunch. He wanted to discuss an idea he had for creating a bio-concrete in order to construct the lair. His hypothesis was that the volcanic ash on the island should have a high silica content given the location of the volcano’s eruption. Much like the Romans that came before them, Deimos knew this would provide a hearty base to their concrete production. They could then dredge the ocean floor for the calcium carbonate-rich seashells needed for the rest of the ingredients. Deimos was sure to make a note for Eve that several henchmen would be tasked with returning any living creatures they pulled up back into the ocean, which she was fine with. Veronica then went on to state that if Deimos gave her a week, she could create a limestone-producing bacteria that would allow the concrete to self-heal.

  “Is there anything you can’t do?” Deimos had asked, amazed.

  “Yes. Fix broken ribs,” Veronica replied coldly. “So please, again, take it easy.”

  Immediately after their meeting, Deimos and Siren flew Indiana Drones to scope out the volcano’s crater. It was decently sized, nearly one thousand feet in diameter, with tall concave walls and an emerald green lake at its center.

  Deimos was giddy with excitement as they flew around taking measurements and soil samples. Building a lair from scratch was a childhood goal of his, but building one inside of a volcano was something entirely outside of his wildest dreams. He took a moment to appreciate the fact that less than a week ago he was working under the thumb of a tech-illiterate jackass in a dead-end job. Now, he was defeating supervillains every other day and building his own secret volcano lair. He couldn’t contain his excitement, and he and Siren made love in Indiana Drones hovering above the emerald lake.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  The next few weeks flew by for Deimos. His soil samples had proven exactly what he had hoped—they were on an island rich in silica and limestone. Deimos initially calculated they would need around ten million pounds of concrete, but this seemed unrealistic given their time frame. It was Siren who figured if they utilized the natural wall of the volcano and used a circular design for the lair they could significantly cut back on their needed supplies. This sat quite well with Deimos and the work started immediately.

  Once all of the jobs had been delegated, it seemed as if a fire was ignited in the hearts of any naysayers to Deimos’ plan. Even The Buzzard found himself picking up extra shifts for running the kilns, dredging seashells, digging the trench to empty the lake, and collecting ash and limestone.

  Early on in the process, a friendly competition arose between the two henchmen factions to see who could complete the most work during a single shift. A tally was displayed in the galley for each job showcasing the name of the winning henchmen for that day. Captain C offered up the golden turtle shell as a trophy to give to whichever henchmen had their name displayed the most at the end of each week. The winning henchman would then be allowed to sign the shell and choose where they wanted it displayed for the following week. More often than not, it was hung up in the galley for gloating purposes.

  By the end of the first week, the ocean dredging crews had already recovered two tons of seashells and detritus. The process of burning it into calcium oxide only took several days, which they were then able to slack with water into a plaster to mix into the concrete. Given they had as much volcanic ash as they could ever need, Deimos calculated that they would have enough concrete to lay the foundation and put up some walls before the end of the following month. This was a bit behind his initial schedule, but considering their circumstances, Deimos was pleased nonetheless. The only problem was since everybody was working so hard, they were burning through supplies quicker than anticipated.

  Captain C offered to take Redbeard’s Revenge out pillaging for supplies, but The Buzzard reminded him that they relied on the ship both for dredging seashells and cooking their meals. He instead proposed building a runway on the beach at the far end of the island so that he could take his henchmen in the Skyraiders on a supply run. They all agreed and temporarily halted the concrete production process. With everyone’s collective efforts, they were able to compact enough land for a seven-hundred foot runway. Before nightfall, they had unloaded five of The Buzzard’s planes and carefully shipped them to the island one by one using two of Captain C’s speed boats driving in tandem.

  Deimos felt this could not be a long term solution since they needed as much land as they could to support Eve’s plan for a self-sustaining farm. He proposed to The Buzzard that they instead convert ten of his planes into drones and retrofit the remaining Skyraiders with buoyant skis in order for them to perform water take-offs. The Buzzard agreed in the way he did, with a furrowed brow and a grunt, and he directed Deimos to ten planes that didn’t run as well as the others. He gave Deimos full access to his ship and tools before leaving to find supplies.

  The Buzzard returned the following morning with the four henchmen he had brought with him. The space under the Skyraider’s wings, which used to carry their payload, had been modified to secure crates of food supplies. When Deimos asked where he was able to secure so much food so quickly, The Buzzard simply ignored the question but replied if they needed more he could get it.

  The lair building process continued in this fashion for several more weeks with Deimos, Terry, Glenn, and Harold building drones while Siren, Eve, and several of Captain C’s pirate henchmen tilled the land. As those weeks dragged on, Siren found herself slowly forced into the position of team mom, though it was not entirely unwanted. It began with henchmen coming to her with questions about their jobs, and slowly shifted to them coming to her with questions about life in general. Her kinder approach to their inane pesterings was a skill that could only be achieved after decades of teaching petulant children. The henchmen found her to be much more palatable than The Buzzard’s rough demeanor, Deimos’ overcomplicated solutions, and Captain C’s utter misunderstanding of nearly every topic brought to him. It wasn’t long before Siren was managing every job on the island.

  Only two events of note occurred during that time. The first was Terry and Glenn officially quitting their jobs. In actuality, only Terry quit his job. Since Glenn owned the car dealership he worked at, he figured the few employees that he had would notice his absence and catch on eventually. The second event was Eve befriending The Twins.

  It didn’t happen immediately. Eve had taken it upon herself to make sure The Twins, or as she soon learned to call them, Sasha and Aria, were well fed and taken care of. Similar to Eve’s interaction with Yasuke, the girls were at first wary of her and refused to speak. Also similar to her interaction with Yasuke, this didn’t bother Eve one bit. She found herself sitting outside Sasha and Aria’s closet door after each meal talking about her newest songs, celebrities she used to date, and all of the latest gossip happening in Hollywood. It didn’t take long for Sasha and Aria to start asking questions like, “What’s pop music?” and, “Are all famous people crazy?” Soon, they were begging for Eve to stay longer to tell them more about what was trending and which musicians were, according to Eve, the
biggest posers.

  Up until then, Sasha and Aria had only been allowed outside twice a day to use the restroom and walk around the deck. They were restrained the entire time but never once tried to escape. However, one afternoon while Deimos was tinkering with Veronica’s desalination machine, he noticed two figures of cream and black complexion streak past the door. He rushed out to stop them, only to crash into Eve.

  Sasha and Aria turned around and hurried back toward them.

  “Oh my gosh, are you okay?” Aria asked, tending to Eve and completely ignoring Deimos.

  Deimos crawled back and covered Eve with his body.

  “Stay back!” he shouted. “We have a prison break! Prison break!”

  Eve pushed Deimos off of herself in a huff.

  “What the hell is wrong with you, old man?”

  Sasha held out her hand and helped Eve stand. Deimos watched them in disbelief with his mouth agape.

  “What’s happening?” Deimos asked. “Why are they out of their holding?”

  “Sasha and Aria have been cooped up long enough. They’ve been locked away their entire lives and I’m not going to allow them to be held as prisoners any longer,” Eve said, offering her hand to Deimos and hoisting him up. “We’re going to go for a swim.”

  “Sasha and Aria? They have names?”

  “Of course they have names, moron. Everyone has names.”

  “But they killed two of Captain C’s henchmen! They can’t be trusted,” Deimos pleaded.

  “That was before they knew any better. You can’t blame them for something Hans made them do,” Eve replied coldly. “Sasha and Aria are my friends. Start treating them like it.”

  She turned and walked away without giving Deimos time to respond. Sasha and Aria ambled after her like two puppies following their mother.

  Deimos wasn’t convinced and followed them for a while. They swam, like Eve had said they would, and played on the beach. Later, Eve showed them how to put on makeup. Much to Eve’s delight, Sasha attempted to emulate her own makeup by altering the skin tone on her face. Her skin morphed and altered colors to the point where she ended up looking more like a Picasso painting, but Eve was thrilled nonetheless.

  As the day wore on, Deimos wore down. He saw what Eve had tried to convince him of; these were simply two girls who had a rough upbringing trying to enjoy their lives. He spoke with Siren privately on the matter, who assured him she would keep a close eye on them. If the girls tried anything funny, she could easily incapacitate them with a quick resonant song.

  Sasha and Aria were warmly welcomed into the growing villain commune. Deimos was worried they were welcomed a little too warmly and stated that if they were going to be working with the rest of the henchmen, they would need to start wearing clothes. Captain C had a few silk outfits that didn’t irritate the girls’ skin too much and they agreed to remain clothed whenever around other henchmen. Even still, Siren frequently caught them stripped naked while working on Eve’s farm. She never told Deimos, but instead quietly swapped out the male henchmen working on the farm for a few of the female henchmen from Captain C’s crew. This was ultimately the right move as it seemed Sasha and Aria had a bit of a green thumb. Under their tender care, the farm grew its first crop—tomatoes.

  The time spent on the island building the lair was the happiest Deimos and Siren had been in their entire lives. It was as if they had a family to care for again, and everyone else truly cared for them, too. Far off and alone in the Pacific Ocean on their tiny speck of land, the spirit of the Villain Movement was alive again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Doctor Isaac once again found himself alone in his lab. Every single one of Crymson Tech’s employees were on leave pending the mountain of lawsuits and investigations currently plaguing the company. At first it appeared that Hans was cooperating with the investigations, but nobody had seen him in person for over a month. His lawyers were supposedly still in contact with him, but Doctor Isaac doubted that very much. In fact he believed, or rather hoped, that Hans was finally receiving the medical help he so desperately needed.

  The last time Doctor Isaac saw Hans he was red in the face, sweating, and his mind seemed to be in a constant state of duality. One minute he would be angrily berating Isaac for the failure of his program, the next he would be panicky and looking over his shoulder as if someone was right behind him ready to attack. His final task for Doctor Isaac, before disappearing to God knows where, was to destroy all assets from the genetic research program, including his last two living subjects Triceratop and The Veteran.

  The final days in the lab dragged on and Doctor Isaac found himself visiting the two supervillains in their hyperbaric sleep chambers more frequently, unable to complete his task. On only one occasion was he brave enough to actually pick up the lethal injection he was meant to administer, but he never had the courage to do it. A slow drip of morality had been building up inside the conscience of Doctor Isaac since his attempt to save The Twins. An idea was forming in his mind that where he had failed with his girls, perhaps he could succeed with the saving of these two men.

  As this idea was still taking root, Doctor Isaac continued with his other duties. The failed experiments were easy enough to dispose of. Several misplaced limbs and organs were all that remained of his genetic program since he usually purged their supply every few months. However, the data that Doctor Isaac had meticulously kept over the years was too valuable for him to simply delete. After all, it was his life’s work. He felt that this information belonged to him and had the potential, in better hands, to do some real good in the world. So instead of simply wiping the drives as he was directed, Doctor Isaac first copied his decades of research onto hard drives and packed them safely away into a series of bankers boxes.

  The day finally came for Doctor Isaac to leave the Crymson Tech lab for good. It would be swarmed the next morning with federal agents turning over every inch of the place. All of his data had already been stored in a secure location away from their prying eyes. The only thing left for him to do was to decide the fates of Triceratop and The Veteran.

  As he stood there, the lethal injection laying on the table beside him, Doctor Isaac knew what he had to do. He ignored the injection and instead deactivated The Veteran’s sleep chamber. The Veteran’s mind wasn’t nearly in as bad of shape as Triceratop’s. He had simply been given a daily mood inhibitor along with some electroshock therapy, his military conditioning took care of the rest. After a few days without the inhibitor he would be back to normal. As for Triceratop, however, he required a bit more work.

  Doctor Isaac had no idea if the mental block and constant interference from Triceratop’s helmet were reversible. It was entirely possible Triceratop would never be the same man he was before Hans intervened in his life. Regardless of this, Doctor Isaac felt that it was his responsibility to at least give him a fighting chance. He opened up Triceratop’s chamber and carefully removed his helmet.

  A powerful stench exploded outward and smacked Doctor Isaac squarely in the nose. Whatever was left of Triceratop’s hair was matted and had begun to mold. Doctor Isaac powered through and shaved off the remaining hair, careful not to bump the protruding wires and metal disk embedded in Triceratop’s skull. These were what connected the mental blocks to Triceratop’s helmet and would need to be disconnected carefully in sequence.

  Once Triceratop’s head was shaved and his wires were disconnected, Doctor Isaac connected the helmet to his laptop and opened up its command-line interpreter. He believed Triceratop’s best chance at regaining his memories was to effectively reverse the electrical impulses that had been used to inhibit key neural networks. If they were lucky, those connections would reform and Triceratop would return to being the man he once was. It was a long shot, but it was the best he could do.

  As Doctor Isaac was working on Triceratop’s helmet, The Veteran started to come to.

&nbs
p; “Wha… What’s happening? Where am I?”

  “Hang tight. We’re getting out of here,” Doctor Isaac assured him.

  Doctor Isaac reconnected the wires and returned the helmet to Triceratop’s head. When he was sure The Veteran was ready to leave, he set a timer to deactivate Triceratop’s sleep chamber. He didn’t want to be anywhere near Triceratop when he came to. There would be no telling what mental state he would be in. Even if all of his memories didn’t return to him, he would undoubtedly be a trifle displeased to see a man who had played a part in making the last seven years of his life a living hell.

  Doctor Isaac hoisted The Veteran under his arm and walked him out of the lab. Together, they drove far away from Crymson Tech, never looking back.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The year was 2004. It was a beautiful spring day in Egilsstaðir, Iceland and Alexander Viktorsson was returning from a long day of logging at the tree farm located outside of his village. He drove his beat-up red pickup truck back home with the windows rolled down, smelling to high heaven.

  His father had always told him, “If you come home smelling like shit, then you had a good day.”

  If his father’s motto were true, then this had been a particularly good day. Alexander smiled as he drove home, thinking of his late father, entirely oblivious to the fact that this day held the first event in a series of many that would lead him on a path to becoming the world’s first supervillain.

  Alexander arrived home before sunset and was warmly greeted by his boyfriend Darweshi. He had met Darweshi two years earlier when he was studying at the University of Iceland as a foreign exchange student from Kenya. They were immediately inseparable and quickly fell in love. When it came time for Darweshi to return to his home country, he instead applied for a temporary residence permit and moved in with Alexander.