Ex Supervillain

by Shouse, Brenden

  “Then what did you think was going to happen?” Tanya asked, looking back.

  “I was hoping I was wrong,” I admitted.

  “Shouldn’t we go to the police?”

  “No, we won’t get out. Hell, these guys might be with them.”

  “Why not?”

  “It is not important right now, Tanya.” I swerved in front of another semi and then veered onto the exit. I looked behind me again. The van was no longer in sight. It wasn’t going to be this easy, no way. We reached the top of the hill. I jerked on the wheel, drifting through the red light and to the left, back towards home.

  “I don’t see them anymore, Dad.”

  I frowned, “Doesn’t mean they aren’t close.” The ability to drive so recklessly through traffic was a definite upside to being a Tweener. A form walked out onto the street. The man had a white beard and wore a blue and black suit. His eyes glowed like electric arcs.

  Elias.

  The man flung his hands out in front of him, and electricity flew from his hands to the car. I spun, thankful for forgetting to put my seatbelt on and threw myself in front of Tanya. I ripped hers off while kicking the door off of its hinges. The seatbelt came undone, and I threw her out of the car. I could already feel the crackle of electricity overcoming his muscles. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the car swerve to the right. An antique store replaced the street. I was flung toward the dash.

  3

  Chapter 3

  Beep… Beep… Beep. My eyes snapped open, and I took a deep breath. Tubes and machines surrounded the bed. The room was white. A dry erase board was on the wall on the other side of me. I looked down and saw that I was covered in sheets and wearing a hospital gown. A chain rattled as I tried to move my arm. Tanya. My heart sped up and sounded like it wanted to get out of my chest.

  “Tanya!” I screamed. I fought to get my breathing under control. The accident, I should’ve seen it coming. The door opened. Someone walked in, and heels clicked against the tile. Long dark legs walked in front of me. My head snapped up. “Veronica?” She smiled at me, the smile a wolf gives a trapped animal.

  She leaned over on the footboard, “Hello, Markus. Nice to see you again.”

  “Where is my daughter?” I demanded.

  “I don’t think you understand-” I ripped my hand away from the sideboard of the hospital bed and lunged forward. I stood up and grabbed her by the front of her jacket.

  “I said, where is she?”

  “I don’t know,” Veronica shrugged. “She wasn’t in the car.” I dropped her, and she coughed. “You won’t get away with grabbing a federal agent like that.”

  “Funny, you said you were a cop a little bit ago,” I muttered, sitting back down.

  She sneered up at me, “You were never this out of control before.” I jumped off the bed and landed a couple of feet away. A pain went off in my stomach like someone had shoved a fist in my gut. I steeled my face and looked down at Veronica.

  “No one took my kid before,” I growled.

  “Tell me…who was it, Long-Sight, Hex, the Indigo Queen?” The Indigo Queen was dead. She had died on my last job. It had never been aired that she had been killed, only someone with connections would know what happened that day, besides myself.

  “I was unconscious, remember?” I mumbled.

  “We’ll get you. We always get our man.”

  I smiled, “Except for Long-Sight, the Indigo Queen, Hex, and every other criminal worth his weight in dog crap.” She stood up and brushed herself off.

  Veronica walked to the door and glowered at me, “You are not allowed to leave.”

  “You think you can stop me?” I laughed.

  She slammed the door closed. I tore the handcuff link off of my wrist and tossed it to the floor. It clanked and bounced as it landed. The smell of antiseptic hit me in the face. I took a deep breath and tried to stop my hands from shaking. No, no, no. I had to think. I had been driving recklessly. If I were, at least technically, in police custody and escaped, then they’d have my nuts over the fire. I gritted my teeth. They are going to start monitoring everyone.

  It might help with Elias, but no one else. I needed to get help from somewhere. Alice, she could help. I looked down at my hospital gown. I needed to get out of here first, though. There was a telephone on the left side of the hospital bed. I could use it to call out, but what good would that do? I’m sure Veronica and her people would be monitoring the outgoing calls, at least mine.

  The window in the room had an excellent view of the parking lot. Unfortunately, it was four floors down. There’d doubtlessly be a crunch. I was getting old, and I wasn’t very flexible. No cops that I could see were in the parking lot. I glanced back at the bed. There weren’t enough linens to get me down. I might have enough to get halfway, that would still hurt, but if the doorway were blocked, I’d have to make do.

  I pulled on the door latch and opened it. Two cops holding stun sticks turned to look at me. They were like cattle prods that were fused with old batons. They could turn them up high enough to kill someone. For a Tweener or a strong Enhanced, it would just hurt. A lot.

  “Heya fellas, how’s the weather?” I smiled. One of them sneered from behind his sunglasses. He looked like Arnold from the old Terminator movie.

  “Get back in your room.”

  My guts twinged again. My insides were pretty messed up from the crash. I winced, Tanya wasn’t Enhanced, or even a Tweener, she’d be feeling a whole lot worse than I was right now.

  “Sure thing, Arnie,” I said.

  “What did you sa-” I closed the door on him. I smiled despite myself. The window it is. I started ripping the sheets and tying them into knots. The process was mind-numbing. I had all of my sheets tied up in a long rope. I locked the door, turning the knob as slowly as possible. If they got suspicious, hopefully it would keep them busy long enough. I looked at the bed. This was going to be the worst part. I checked for wheels, no such luck. I had gotten over my theory that the universe was out to make my life difficult until yesterday. Ever since then, life had been nothing but a party, with me being the piñata. I gritted my teeth and tried to lift the bed.

  I got it an inch or two off of the ground and felt something tear in my stomach. I dropped the bed. It screeched as it landed on the floor. I fell against it, gasping. The pain was incredible. I could hardly breathe.

  “Hey! What’s going on in there?” I heard one of the guys yell. The doorknob jiggled. Just great.

  I stood up and my eyes watered, I grabbed my makeshift rope and tied it around one of the motors. I looked up; both of the cops were hurling themselves at the door. Amazing. I opened the window and threw the other end of the rope out. I climbed out of the window and slowly slid down the rope. The pain in my gut flared to life again. I felt the tears coming to my eyes.

  The door splintered, and the goons rushed into the hospital room. I gasped. I tried to swear, but hey, I was a little too busy to think of some new colorful expression. I looked up. Arnie sneered down at me from the window. I loosened my grip, falling faster. I was already almost at the end of my makeshift rope. The cop I had named Arnie jumped out of the window and started sliding down.

  I looked down. There was no way I’d be in better shape from that fall than Arnie or his buddy would be. The window at the of my rope was cracked. I swung my feet over and caught them on the ledge. Tears welled up in my eyes again. I held onto the rope with one hand and threw the other towards the top of the ledge that held the window. My stomach screamed in agony. I let go of the rope and swung the rest of the way onto it. I yanked on the window and pulled it up.

  Arnie’s feet dropped below the ledge and kicked me. I fell backward and dropped into the room, hitting a chair on the way down. I stood up, a part of me regretting the fact that I had never gotten my powers. I was stuck being a Tweener. It was so cruel that being almost immortal didn’t deaden the pain. The hospital bed in this room was practically empty. I looked around for something, anyt
hing I could use to smack Arnie.

  The only source of light in the room was an old, brass floor lamp. I grabbed it, yanking the cord out of the wall and making the room dark. Arnie picked that moment to drop down through the window. I spun around as I heard his boots thud onto the floor.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Arnie asked, folding his arms.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said, swinging the lamp at him. It slammed into him and knocked the wind out of him. I felt another twinge from my stomach, and I ran out of the room. I slammed into the second cop who was waiting outside of the door. He tripped backward, and I slid into the opposite wall. I hate car accidents.

  Nurses screamed and started running down the hall, except for a shredded nurse with biceps that pushed his scrubs to the limit. I ran down the hallway. I could hear their footsteps following me through the twisting corridors. I threw open a door and jumped down the stairs, hurling myself down three at a time. I made it to the basement level. I had to put some distance between myself, the cop, and the nurse. I looked up. A patrol car rolled into the parking garage.

  “Quick!” I screamed, “They’re after me!” The cop stepped out of the car. He pulled the baton off of his belt loop.

  “I’m sure you’re fine, sir,” he said. I started hyperventilating and fell on my knees. Acting classes have a lot of uses. The cop walked forward, the badge on his uniform said Langly.

  “Mr. Langly please, then- the- they’re trying to kill me!” He walked closer. I did my best impression of a terrified, but harmless old man. Langly stopped a little less than two feet away. I smiled, Amateur. I swung my legs out and kicked at the back of his, dropping him to the ground. I jumped forward, past him as he fell. He’d left the car running. Maybe today wasn’t going to be so bad after all.

  I threw the patrol car into reverse and squeezed the tires as the car shot backward. I felt a grin cover my face as I drove back out of the bottom level of the parking garage. I braked and turned the wheel, drifting until I was facing the other way. Time slowed, my eyes darted around the front of the hospital, scanning for the threat.

  Veronica stood with a judge in her left hand. No, no, no. I finished drifting and floored the car. It was too close. The bang went off, and a window shattered. Five more shots sounded as the tires squealed. Bullet holes covered the dash. I looked down and saw my shirt get wet and dark. I felt the blood running down my stomach and chest.

  A distant part of myself started screaming. The rest of me was desperately trying to stay awake. I couldn’t afford this now. I turned on the lights on the squad car and floored it up the on-ramp, being able to a hundred in a sixty-five was the only possible upside of today.

  4

  Chapter 4

  My back creaked in protest as I tried to stand. The warehouse was in an older part of town and didn’t come with security cameras. I looked around at the shipping containers stored here. It didn’t look like anything illegal was going on here, hopefully. I kicked the tire and screamed. I had the mother of all hernias, I’d been shot in the chest in three different places, been in an accident, and Tanya was in the hands of Elias Cobalt. There had to be a reason he took her. When I get my hands on that him, I swear to AI above, I’m going to rip him to pieces.

  I needed to calm down. I’m sure would get a call soon from Elias, but for now, other things required my attention. I needed to deal with the here and now. I pulled out my cell phone and dialed a number marked Ron’s Vegetable Delivery Service. It rang a couple of times before someone picked up on the other line.

  “Hello?”

  “I need a delivery.”

  “Of what?”

  “Some potatoes, with filling.”

  “Anything else?”

  I thought for a second, “Some carrots, maybe a couple of cacti.”

  “Is that all?”

  “No, make sure Alice is delivering, tell her… an old friend needs to see her. Actually, I’ll talk to her.” The phone crackled as I was transferred. I bit my lower lip, it had been a while since I had used the insider lingo, decades actually.

  “Hello?” A feminine voice answered.

  “Hi, Alice.”

  “Markus?”

  “Yeah, I need some help.” The door to the warehouse creaked and slid. The moonlight lit a growing patch of the concrete floor. Low voices talked and sneaked in, I jumped and rolled behind one of the shipping containers.

  “I heard about Tanya, Markus,” she said softly. I peered out past the edge of my hiding spot. I was one hundred percent screwed. There were at least ten of them. All of the ones I could see were carrying suppressed semi-autos.

  “I’ll call you back,” I whispered.

  “I’ll be there in five.”

  “What? How?”

  “I knew you were going to call, what you ordered just now told me where you would be out of the four potential areas.”

  The phone clicked and I crouched down as far as I could. My ears picked out the padded footfalls of the troops. They weren’t cops. If I made a mess, it would be cleaned up by morning. But, if I hid, Alice would be here, and she would get me out. These guys were doubtlessly with Elias, so if I killed them, it would hurt him a little. I smiled. This was going to be fun.

  Ten minutes later, I heard the rumbling of a delivery truck. A squeaky door opened and slammed shut. I stepped back from my container and took a picture of all of the masked thugs. I sent it to Elias’ number with the caption, “Only ten?” written beneath the image.

  “I said I would be here in five,” a familiar voice said.

  “And it took you ten,” I whispered. She chuckled and walked over to me. Her dark eyes pierced me. She still walked with purpose and confidence the way I remember.

  “Shut up.” I opened my mouth, and she glared at me. “I spent a lot of time finding this future, and if you don’t shut up for the next ten minutes, I swear to AI above.”

  I snapped my jaw shut—her ability to see the future had saved my bacon more than a couple of times. I smiled despite myself, I’d forgotten just how much of a smart-aleck she could be.

  “Get in the truck, Markus.”

  I gave a half-cocked salute. Alice snorted, and her heels clicked toward my car. Rumors about her said that she possessed a bit of illegal mind-reading power. The rumors were true. I closed the doors to the warehouse as the yelling started. Any enjoyment I’d had in this seemed to shrivel up and die. Mind reading was invasive. It wasn’t like old movies where people didn’t know they were having their minds read. Real-life was different. It sucked a hell of a lot more.

  The sounds were muted by the rumble of the delivery truck’s engine. I sat back and tried to force my revulsion down and sleep. The door creaked and slammed shut. I snapped up and almost hit my head on the sun visor. She looked into my eyes and swallowed.

  “Has it been ten minutes already?” I mumbled.

  Her eyes stayed on the road, “Those guys weren’t from Elias.”

  “Wait. What?” I swallowed, “Who, why? That doesn’t make—”

  Alice shifted the truck into gear, and I lurched back in my seat, “They might not be after you.”

  “You read their minds. How do you not know?”

  “Those guys weren’t told anything to prevent mind readers from knowing what’s going on. They were told to kill anyone there, but they had no idea who the order came from.”

  “It could still be…” I started. Alice shook her head and swallowed. She sagged against her seat.

  “I don’t think so.”

  I leaned back and felt my heart thumping in my chest. I looked out over the skyline of Newopolis and tried to control my breathing. Alice turned on the radio, and the song “Cruise” screeched over the speaker system. I looked over at her. Her hands were clenched in a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. Her eyes were wide like an owl’s.

  “I closed the shop,” she said finally.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Permanently, the no
n-vegetable delivery part of the business.” I felt my face color. She wouldn’t be able to tell. It was too dark.

  “Oh?”

  “I’m out of the game.”

  “Will you still help?”

  “Markus-” She cut off and swallowed. Our truck changed lanes and sped around someone going forty-five in a ninety. “Are you going to get back into the game yourself?”

  I felt the heat in the pit of my stomach flare to life again, “How can you ask me that? After Margaret?” Alice nodded and took a swig of her coffee. She changed lanes again and sped around a couple of junkers pouring black smoke out of their exhausts. “Alice, no, that vision of yours isn’t coming true now. I’m sixty-five for the love of AI above.”

  She shrugged and frowned, “It might.”

  “That vision of yours almost killed me,” I said, “several times.”

  “A hero rises from the-”

  “Stop. Why’s Elias after me?” I asked.

  “Because a hero stopped a bank robbery, and the savior broke Erik Cobalt’s arm and left him for the cops.”

  “Wait. What? Elias doesn’t have any kids.”

  “A bastard, he was a small-time criminal before Elias.”

  “Have you seen the bank?”

  “No, why?” She asked.

  “The place was a dump.” I banged my head against the dash, “I’m screwed.”

  Alice whipped the truck around, weaving through city traffic as if we were a small car and not a two-ton metallic tank, “Not necessarily.”

  “Really?” I said, “A Tweener versus a class three Enhanced?” Elias had always been simple, arrogant, but simple. His super-villain name reflected that. Shock Shriek. Someone who could send electrical pulses large enough to disrupt power in military bases and with a voice loud enough to shatter reinforced glass.

  “Elias always underestimated you,” Alice replied. I rolled my eyes, something Tanya had told me wasn’t very adult. I looked out the window and braced myself against Alice’s nutcase driving. I wasn’t in danger, or the alarm bells would be going off, but still. “I’m a good driver,” Alice sighed.