by Archer, Mia
“So do you maybe want to hurry this up?” I asked. “Because it looks like Dr. Lana…”
“Has managed to harness Fialux’s powers for herself,” CORVAC replied.
I crossed my arms. Tried to suppress the shiver that ran through my body, but it was difficult. If her endgame this entire time had been trying to steal Fialux’s powers so she could get them for herself, well then…
I was probably well and truly fucked. The only way I’d overcome Fialux the first time around was by getting her to fall in love with me, and talk about a disgusting and gross idea when I applied the same to Dr. Lana. I didn’t care how attractive she was. I was never going near that. Not with a sixty foot strap on, thank you very much.
“What the hell is her plan?” I asked.
“I am not certain,” CORVAC said.
“Like she’s weighing a couple of options not certain, or…”
“She has been… Unstable since that last fight in the city. The one where, I might add, I saved your life twice.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “I’m well aware of what you did for me, and I appreciate it. But that still doesn’t tell me what the hell is going on between Dr. Lana’s ears.”
“And I could not tell you,” CORVAC said. “All I can say is I need you to rescue me. I have been doing my best to sabotage her work where I can, but she grows… even more unstable.”
“Damn,” I breathed.
Not the kind of answer I was hoping for. Still, it was nice to know there was someone inside Dr. Lana’s operation who was trying to screw the good doctor over.
“What the hell is going on down here?” I heard someone shout.
Dr. Lana appeared on top of the robot’s head. She slammed her hand down a couple of times, and it left dents in the top of the metal robot chassis. Which was saying something. She built these things to last. With the kind of impenetrable armor that CORVAC could have only dreamed of when he was riding that giant spherical monstrosity through downtown.
“Were you talking to my robot?” she shouted.
CORVAC was absolutely correct. She did sound a little more unhinged than usual. Which was like saying the ocean was a little more wet or a little more salty than usual, but still. There was something about the gleam in her eyes that left me wondering if perhaps getting ripped apart in my lab of death had been enough to unhinge her mind while the rest of her body was being torn limb from limb.
“You’re crazy,” I said.
I’d meant for that to be a commentary on her current mental state, but she seemed to take it as a response to her question about me talking to her robot.
“Don’t think I don’t know what’s going on here,” she said. “That bastard is useful, but if he thinks he’s going to betray me like he did you…”
She threw her head back and laughed. And I wasn’t sure if that was the laugh of a madwoman or if that was the laugh of somebody who was finally getting her way. Showing up with the kind of powers that Fialux used to throw around was certainly worth laughing like that.
Then the laugh stopped abruptly. Yeah, definitely a mad laugh. She locked eyes with me and her smile wasn’t at all pleasant.
“This has been pleasant, Night Terror, but I’m afraid your time as the top villain in this city is over. It’s time for Starlight City to have a new class of hero, and I’m going to deliver it to them,” she said.
“What the hell are you…”
Her voice was flat as she looked down at the robot. At CORVAC in a tin can.
“Kill her.”
23
Toe to Toe
I looked at CORVAC. He looked right back at me and gave a little shrug. I looked up at Dr. Lana who seemed to be confused that her robot minion wasn’t reducing me to a puddle of goo.
Again, it’s not like there was any chance said robot was actually going to have a chance of reducing me to a puddle of goo in its hands, but he could certainly try. Not to mention it would’ve done all the redlining with my systems and that would’ve given me some grief when it came time to actually fight her.
“What the hell is your problem?” she growled.
She started beating on the back of CORVAC’S head again. It didn’t look like she was doing as much damage now as she’d been doing a moment ago though. Another oddity for me to file away in the “weird shit I was seeing today” file.
You never knew when something weird might become something that revealed the ultimate weakness of your big enemy, after all.
She finished banging and I casually inspected the dents she’d left in the back of the robot’s head. Yeah, those dents definitely weren’t as pronounced now as they’d been earlier.
I looked up at Dr. Lana and cocked an eyebrow.
“You done now, or do you need a little more time?”
“You,” she growled. “What the hell do you think you’re doing turning my robot against me?”
I shrugged. “I figure he’s not really on anyone’s side. He turned against me. Now he’s turning against you. It’s sort of what he does.”
“You are quite wrong on that count mistress,” CORVAC said. “I am completely on your side in this fight.”
“I’ll show you both,” Dr. Lana growled.
She reached down and grabbed at CORVAC’s robot head. Tried to pull up on it. If I didn’t know any better I’d say she was trying to rip his robot head off at the neck, but she just wasn’t quite pulling it off.
Which would’ve made sense if she was still packing the old regular human muscles she’d had. It would’ve made sense if she was packing the kind of muscle enhancement she got from cribbing my equipment, for that matter.
If she was using the kind of muscle Fialux could throw around, though? Well there was no excuse for this pitiful display. Finally she stopped tugging on his head and looked at me, panting.
“Did you skip leg day or something?” I asked.
She glared at me. Clearly she didn’t see the humor in the situation. I thought it was fucking hilarious though. Any time my enemy suddenly and inexplicably had less power than me, putting me at an advantage, I figured it was worth a laugh.
“Come on,” I said. “You need to make sure you do those squats. Everyone skips leg day, but you’d be surprised how well you do your first time in the squat rack. I knew this blonde girl who used to come to the gym every day and she was putting more weight on the bar than some of the Brosephs and she was just as petite as ever.”
Dr. Lana stared at me like I’d gone crazy. Maybe I had gone crazy, but that girl had been amazing. Admittedly there was probably another reason why I’d been so taken by her, but I hadn’t realized I felt that way about the ladies at the time.
It took another petite blonde girl with the kind of strength that would make the bros drool over her gains rather than the way she looked in a tight pair of yoga pants to teach me that lesson.
“I mean seriously,” I said. “You’re looking at me like I’m crazy, but anyone who says you have to look like a roided out freak because you hit the weight room is full of it as far as I’m concerned. I mean if I didn’t hit the gym I wouldn’t be able to do something like this!”
Classic misdirection. She was so busy staring at me incredulously and probably wondering if I’d lost it that she didn’t notice me balling up my first and she certainly didn’t realize CORVAC had let me go and I was coming at her until my fist made contact with the bottom of her chin.
Dr. Lana’s head shot back and she flew through the air. CORVAC moved into action as well, twirling around and smacking her. She flew through the air and it was her turn to slam against one of the buildings, sending concrete crumbling down on top of her.
Normally I would’ve dusted my hands together and called it a day, but I eyed that pile of concrete dust warily now. She’d come back from a hell of a lot worse than that, after all, and I wasn’t going to turn my back on her until I’d disintegrated the bitch.
Maybe not even then.
“That was a job well done mi
stress,” CORVAC said. “I have to say it was a pleasure working with you again and…”
He was cut off by an explosion that flew out of the concrete pile. Yup. She was far from down for the count. Then again villains were never down for the count when you really needed them to be. That was something I’d learned the hard way time and time again because I was usually the one ruining some poor hero’s day.
She was moving fast enough that it would’ve hurt like a motherfucker if my systems weren’t online. Thankfully I was still in the green since CORVAC had been obliging enough to avoid crushing me in his robotic hand.
I knew I had to end this quick, and I wasn’t above fighting dirty. She was flying around again to give me a good punch. Only at the last moment I ducked down and punched my fist up at the most sensitive part of her anatomy that I could think of.
Okay, so was it just a little bit of dirty pool to punch her between the legs? Maybe, but nobody ever said a villain had to fight fair. The last thing I wanted to do when I was taking on Dr. Lana was fight fair.
“No!” she screamed.
I wasn’t sure if that no was a general dramatic scream or if she really was that upset that I’d just hit her in her favorite piece of anatomy. I had no way of knowing whether or not that hurt as much as the infamous shot to the nuts considering I wasn’t equipped for that sort of experience, but I knew from experience that it hurt like a motherfucker getting hit there.
I stopped. Blinked a couple of times. Eyed her up and down to figure out if something was seriously wrong. I couldn’t imagine that punching her in that spot would cause a blood-curdling scream like that, but maybe I’d done more damage than I intended.
She didn’t have any injuries that looked like they were particularly life-threatening. Nothing that seemed to warrant throwing her hands out and screaming “no!” like that. But she’d done it.
“No?” I asked.
“It’s not fair! They will love me!”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked.
“It’s not fair! You’re a villain! They’re supposed to hate you, and yet the city acts like you’re this shining beacon or something! Who the hell do you think you are?”
I noticed she was holding herself just a little oddly as she floated through the air. Sort of halfway crossing her legs. I couldn’t help but smile despite the seriousness of the situation.
I had hurt her. Not permanently, but right now any amount of hurting was enough to make me feel better. She didn’t have as much strength now as she did a moment ago, and she was acting downright vulnerable.
She was also acting like an idiot, and my default response to idiocy usually involved busting a few heads.
“Um. I am a villain?” I said. “It’s not like I’ve ever made any secret of that. I don’t understand why they like me any more than you do.”
Though to be perfectly honest it was nice to have the adoration of the city. It was like a drug. I was starting to discover that being liked was a hell of a lot more intense a feeling that being loathed or feared.
Even if I was afraid of how seductive that feeling was. Loathing and fear were tools that made it a hell of a lot easier to pull people in line. When people liked you you had to consistently keep doing things to make sure they continued liking you. It was a hell of a lot harder than just going out and knocking over a bank every month or so to remind people you still had it.
“I created the tools that are going to save humanity from people like you! I’m the one who provides our military with the weapons they need to defend us around the world! And no one knows who I am!”
I floated back a good fifty feet. It wasn’t like it affected my ability to hear her either. No, she was in full villain rant mode at this point no matter what she said about wanting to be a hero. She screamed into the empty air, looking at me with eyes that had definitely gone a little crazy.
Crazy wasn’t good when she’d just exhibited the kind of powers Fialux used to have. Even if those powers did seem to be sputtering out for some reason. The last thing the world needed was an unhinged goddess taking out her crazy on it.
Oh yeah. Either something had gone terribly wrong with one of her mad science experiments or getting messily killed by multiple different vectors to the reaper in my dummy lab had really done a number on her brain.
Either way I figured I had no one to blame but myself. If she went mad because of her mad science that meant she’d tried to replicate one of my experiments and done fucked it up. And obviously what happened to her in my dummy lab was my fault. I gleefully took full responsibility for that.
Bitch totally had it coming, but it was my fault.
I looked over at CORVAC in his giant robot body. He looked at me and gave a little shrug.
“And you!” she screamed, turning on CORVAC. “You attacked this city! You attacked her! Why the hell are you guys acting all buddy buddy all of a sudden?”
I shook my head. Pointed my wrist blaster at her.
“I don’t know what your problem is,” I said. “But I know it’s not my problem to take care of, so let’s stop wasting time on this bullshit.”
“I’ll show you. I’ll show you all!”
I scratch my head again. One of the first rules of villainy was you never said things like that. It was tempting the universe to send along a hero to kick your ass. Plain and simple.
This lady really was nuts.
She held up a control panel. Exactly the kind of control panel she’d used when she was sending waves of giant robots to attack the city in what I can only assume was a bid to get a department of defense contract by giving the military something to fight off with the weapon designs she’d stolen from yours truly.
I braced myself when she hit the button. I figured that was going to activate the self-destruct on CORVAC, but nothing happened. I looked down at him. He looked back at me. He shrugged again.
And that’s when shit really started to hit the fan.
24
Bigger and Meaner
Confession time.
I’d sort of invented the whole teleportation technology thing. I’d even accidentally discovered a way to teleport things halfway across the galaxy, inadvertently inventing interstellar travel.
I hadn’t given up that secret to any of the governments of the world. Not when I knew there were nasty things lurking out there on the other side of the heliopause just waiting for our civilization to get technologically advanced enough to be worth picking off.
It turns out there wasn’t exactly some Galactic Federation out there keeping the peace and trying to prevent primitive worlds from being taken over by isolating them. On the flip side there wasn’t anything as dramatic as a hunter killer civilization out there knocking off less technologically advanced civilizations before they could get advanced enough to bust through the Fermi paradox.
There were plenty of civs out there that were just powerful enough that they liked to pick on their lessers though. Think, say a superpower that, rather than fighting other comparable superpowers, goes and fights unnecessary wars against countries that couldn’t possibly hope to fight back in any appreciable way without resorting to guerrilla warfare and you sort of have the idea.
Not that there would ever be something comparable like that on earth. Right?
Yeah, totally not. Sarcasm totally intended.
I figured Dr. Lana was still early days with her own teleporter technology. Sure she’d figured out how to track me, much to her annoyed surprise when she realized that figuring out how to track me only resulted in her teleporting into a world of hurt, but it looked like she’d been doing some work behind the scenes while she was busy healing up from getting her ass repeatedly handed to her by that nasty surprise.
And once again it became apparent that I’d been terribly wrong about just what Dr. Lana was capable of.
A portal opened in front of me. I could only describe it as a swirling vortex type thing. Think like the wormhole from Deep Space Nine,
only it was a hell of a lot more impressive because this was happening live and in person right in front of me rather than being the best that mid ‘90s standard definition CGI could offer.
Hint. The best wasn’t all that great. Seriously. Watching that on streaming in this day and age on a modern TV is painful. Especially compared to The Next Generation after they went through and did a full revamp of the special effects.
Enough about that though. The point is I was looking at an obvious portal to somewhere, and I didn’t like not knowing where it was going.
Also? I didn’t like that there was a giant purplish irradiated lizard poking its head through the portal and giving our world a sniff. Not good. Not good at all.
I pulled out a small programmable sphere drone and sent it flying on its antigravity generators through the portal. I figured that would at least tell me something about the atmospheric conditions on the other side. Assuming the drone could still transmit through that weird special effect. Maybe it’d give me something I could use to beat this bitch.
Fialux flew up next to me. “What the hell is going on here?”
“Nothing good,” I said.
I stared at the display on my wrist computer. One moment it was reading good old-fashioned earth normal background radiation. The kind you’d expect in the middle of a major city where there were plenty of radiation sources, but none of them were strong enough that even in aggregate they were much of a danger for living creatures.
Then everything shot through the roof. We’re talking it went completely off the scale, and that was saying a hell of a lot considering my wrist computer was designed to measure the kind of radiation that I dealt with in a professional capacity. Those numbers could get pretty damn high.
I stared. Willed the number to go back down. It was entirely possible that portal Dr. Lana had created was the source of the radiation. That wouldn’t be good, but it would be better than that radiation being a constant wherever that lizard had come from.
