Ex Supervillain

by Shouse, Brenden

  “Cute thing like him in prison? There’s no way someone hasn’t already.”

  Blood vessels stood out on his forehead. I shouldn’t have said that. Elias screeched. Now, usually, a man screeching would be a little odd. Elias, though, was also named Shock Shriek. He was always so straightforward. All of the windows in the building shattered simultaneously.

  I felt something warm and hot drip out of my ears. I raised the gun and shot Elias in the chest. It wasn’t pretty. The screeching cut off. Elias fell to the floor and started coughing up blood. He said something, but I couldn’t make it out over the ringing in my ears. I ran out of the building. The pawnbroker stood up and started yelling, I ignored him.

  Once someone starts shooting, you can’t hear anything for a good couple minutes. Halfway down the street sat an expensive car, the kind of thing I hadn’t owned in decades. I swung the tire iron. It had come in handy after all. I knocked out the tail light. I’d always wondered how the Mercedes bends. Alice’s eyes bugged out, and I pointed at the license plate. It read, ELIAS in big blue letters.

  Alice ran past me, and I scrambled to keep up. Holy crap, we parked a lot farther away than I remembered. We made it to the truck and jumped in. The doors slammed shut, and Alice turned the key the engine rumbled and started, grudgingly. I winced; this truck was in worse shape than mine was. Well, before the accident anyway.

  Alice, for once, was a good driver. Cops screeched through red lights, heading back the way we came. It wasn’t the cops’ fault. Most of them were good guys, the chiefs and the investigators were all corrupt. I regretted tripping the one cop. I couldn’t believe that Elias knew we were coming. I felt my throat constrict, and I started shaking. I grabbed my knees, trying to still them, it didn’t work.

  Alice coughed, “Okay, really? My driving isn’t that bad.” She laughed; it sounded hollow, scared. She stopped after a moment. I couldn’t hear anything over the thunder of my pulse in my head. I didn’t know how to get anyone out of that prison. It was insanity to try to do it.

  It was his plan. He wasn’t just trying to get his son out. He was making sure he buried me. Knowing him, I’d probably end up in the same cell. I took a deep breath. It didn’t matter. Tanya needed to be safe.

  “We’ll find her, Markus,” Alice’s hands clenched the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles had gone white. Wet streaks ran down her face and onto her shirt.

  “You’re right. We’ll get Tanya.”

  “You’ll be safe too.”

  I nodded and reached over to squeeze her arm, “I know.” Another cop car flew by on the other side of the interstate. Alice flipped her blinker on and passed a vehicle without speeding. “Where to now?” I asked.

  “I’ve got a safe house over on Hundred Avenue.”

  “What’s the plan, then?”

  She took a deep breath and swallowed, “I’ve got a couple of people that could help us.”

  “I thought you closed the business.” Alice’s jaw snapped shut. I was very good at making bad things worse. Being the meat shield of your crew does that to you.

  “I want to help you, Markus,” she looked at me.

  “I told you that it was a dream. That vision of yours isn’t going to come true.” Alice deflated even more. It felt like a knife twisted in my gut. “Who are you thinking?”

  We pulled into a parking garage and I followed behind her. A couple of guys in a local youth group stood by the door. One of the three wannabe thugs shoved off of the wall and waddled forward until he stood between Alice and the door. I grimaced; saggy pants were one trend I wished I didn’t live to see come back into style.

  “Where do you think you are going, grandma?”

  “Her and Santa Clause are going home,” I smirked.

  Markus, I got this, Alice warned, shooting me a look. I blinked. It had been a while since she’d talked to me mind-to-mind.

  “Hold on, grandpa. I don’t remember talking to you,” the thug sneered. He pointed down at the bulge in his coat pocket. I cracked my neck and walked up even with Alice. I held my hands up over my head.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  “I want some money, fifty bucks outta do it.”

  “For what, exactly?” I asked.

  I said I got this! Alice said.

  Take the two by the wall. I’ve got this one, I replied.

  The thug cocked his head, “For keeping this elevator safe. It would be a shame if someone found a sweet old couple dead from lead poisoning, wouldn’t it?”

  I threw back my head and laughed, “Oh, I’m sure it would be awfully inconvenient for you as well.”

  The thug pulled his gun out, “I didn’t ask for no back talk.”

  “And I didn’t ask for an ugly troll to wait in a parking lot,” I said. The other two thugs tensed, and their hands reached for their pockets. I looked back to the would-be mugger. The gun was now pointed at my head, sideways, of course. Two fun facts, number one, only idiots hold a gun sideways. Second, my hands were over my head and had a very short distance to travel to meet their friend, thug one’s gun.

  I swung my hands up, forcing his hand up and ducking. My left hand grabbed the barrel of the gun and twisted it out of his hands. I kicked him in the chest, and he flew back. The other two thugs hadn’t moved, Alice’s face was twisted. She might have held the thug’s bodies still, but their eyes were wide. Alice’s mental powers had already come in handy more than once. I sniffed. The smell of urine permeated.

  I bent down over the thug, “Don’t ever come back here.” His head practically bounced up and down. He was in his mid-twenties and was covered in ink. The edge of a tattoo peeked out from his shirt, “Property of Skinfli-”.

  Skinflints. My hands clenched into fists. Skinflints recruited young and branded their people. They prayed on kids to do their dirty work. Skinflints. Elias has ties to them. I rubbed my eyes. You’ve got to be kidding. I looked over at Alice. I made a mistake, I felt a spot of fire in my back, and an exploding filled my ears. Blood shot out in a cone and splattered over Alice and the thug closest to me. The ringing noise blocked out whatever Alice screamed at me. It was a pistol, short-range.

  My hand snapped back around, and I knocked a gun out of the downed thug’s hand. I didn’t see the other weapon. I punched his face repeatedly until Alice pulled me off of him. He was bleeding with his mouth hanging open. I couldn’t tell whose blood was whose. She helped me up and walked forward to the elevator. My body was made of fire. The edges of my vision went black. I forced the darkness back. I couldn’t faint, not yet. She ripped her jacket off and wrapped it around the exit wound on my chest. Red already started seeping through the white fabric.

  Alice’s yes met mine. Her eyes glowed, literally glowed, looking iridescent. She dragged me to the elevator, sliding me across the ground. The thugs stopped thrashing and stood up. They had an empty look in their eyes. Empty and dead, just like I was. The strain seemed to tire her even further. The three thugs all stood up and retrieved their guns. She pulled me into the elevator and slammed her fingers onto the keypad. The doors closed, and gunshots echoed in the nearly empty parking garage. I sagged against the wall. The blackness started seeping back in.

  Alice groaned, “Stupid, stupid, stupid.” I closed my eyes and fainted.

  8

  Chapter 8

  Waking up sucks. It feels like when you come up from under the sweet, cold water and straight into a flamethrower. Never mind, Tanya says I suck at analogies. I groaned, and that made the pain way worse.

  “Don’t talk right now,” Alice said softly.

  Need water please, I felt the psychic link snap shut.

  “Don’t use that. It’ll wear you out more.” I groaned again. That was a mistake. I felt a cold hand on my forehead. She rubbed her hand along my head and cheek.

  “I’m getting you some water. Don’t worry.”

  “Laptop please.”

  She signed and walked out of the bedroom. The door creaked shut behind
her. I wondered what she used to close the wound before everything faded to black once again. I sat up. I managed to open my eyes this time. The room looked like a hospital room. Medical equipment and doodads filled the room. I could see the master bath looked like it had been converted into a makeshift operating room. I guess all of the piping was already set up. Alice sat on a chair next to my bed. One of those rolling hospital thingies sat next to the bed with a closed laptop, a glass of water, and a notebook.

  She looked over at me, “Use the notepad, please.” I nodded, surprised that didn’t hurt too. “You’re okay, Markus.”

  I nodded again. I grabbed the table and pulled it closer to me. I reached for the cup, but tipped it over. She knocked a bottle of morphine over my legs before grabbing it back from me. I knew I needed it, but I could get addicted to things incredibly easy. She finished wiping the table off and checked the laptop before setting it back down. She opened it on the Wikipedia page for the prison. I raised one eyebrow.

  “It’ll give you an overview of the prison. You can go from there,” Alice sighed. I crossed my arms, a big mistake. I swallowed to try to cover my wince, but she saw through it. I could see it in her eyes. “I’m going send someone in here to watch over you.” I nodded. I grabbed the notebook and pen and began writing.

  Who?

  “My Granddaughter. Her name is Prudence.” She better be aptly named. I didn’t have time to deal with a hothead.

  How long will you be gone?

  “I’m not sure. There are things with the business that need to be taken care of, along with contacting some people who owe me favors.” I nodded, and she walked out, closing the door behind her. I pushed the table to the side and leaned back in the bed. The blackness swallowed me again. I lurched up and gasped. It took a couple of seconds, and everything resolved back into the makeshift hospital room in Alice’s safe-house.

  “Heya, mister.” A ten-year-old girl with dirty blonde pigtails and a pink dress swung her legs on the chair Alice had been sitting in earlier. I rubbed my eyes. The pain came back with a vengeance. A tiny hand rested on my forehead, and I looked up. Pigtails had her hand on my head. Her fingers glowed, and she frowned. “My name isn’t Pigtails.”

  My body seemed to explode with pain. The pain ebbed, slowly getting better. The jagged pain I’d been trying to ignore every time I had to breathe faded. I looked up at Pigtails and her little brow furrowed. The expression looked far too adult to be on her face.

  “My name is Prudence. Don’t laugh. It’s not my fault my mother picked the stupidest name ever.” I bit my lip, I hadn’t been planning on laughing, had I?

  The pain continued to lessen, now feeling like more of a dull ache. The relief hit me, coming in waves. The girl opened her eyes. Her pupils had changed colors to an iridescent purple. The color in her eyes darkened as the light on her fingertips lightened back into yellow hues.

  Pigtails, er, Prudence sagged and breathed in and out quickly, gasping for air. Her face was covered in sweat. She staggered back to her chair and sat down.

  “What, what did you just do?” I asked. She nodded, looking at my chest. I pointed at the bandage, hoping against hope. I’d never heard of a gift like hers before. I’m hoping she wasn’t just another mentalist who could mess with pain. I peeled the bandage back. A little pinprick of silver stood out against the mass of curly hair on my chest.

  “You healed me?”

  She shrugged, “Kinda.”

  “Is it permanent?”

  “Has been so far,” she added, I nodded and sagged back against the bed. I wasn’t going to faint again.

  “You should sleep,” Prudence sighed.

  “Why is it metal?” I waved at my chest. She didn’t answer, but instead leaned back against the chair. She snored a lot. I didn’t think such a horrendous noise could come out of a person, especially one so small. I pulled the table over the bed and opened the laptop. I searched for the prison, starting with the Wikipedia page. It’s a lot more reliable now than they were in the early two-thousands. The site was all academic and only let experts add to the files. There would still be some incorrect details about the prison, obviously, but there would be enough for me to start looking.

  There weren’t any floor plans, but that was to be expected. We wouldn’t go in blind, though Alice would already have some of the info I needed.

  “Mhmm,” I heard a voice say. I blinked and looked up. Alice frowned at me and looked over at Prudence who was asleep in the chair. “That girl is going to be the death of me.” She pulled a folding chair over and sat down next to the bed. She leaned over and rested her arm on the bed. “What do you think?”

  I rolled my eyes, a very dignified thing for someone my age to do, “Don’t patronize me.”

  “What? We both know that you’re already working on a plan, what is it?” She folded her arms and leaned back, “Humor me.” The part of me that wanted to blackout had gone away, thank goodness.

  “It’s almost impossible, Alice. From what I understand of the layout, they designed it so that the only way in or out is with rapid force.”

  She nodded, “Go on.”

  I spun the laptop towards her, “The schematics show that they have cameras everywhere, lots of guards, motion detectors in every hallway, biometric scanners and long strings of passcodes on every door. They also have blast doors and a lot of other stuff that will make our lives a lot more fun.” I crossed my arms, “Satisfied?”

  “I am now.”

  “Alice, I’m sorry I didn’t follow your lead.”

  Alice raised an eyebrow, “Wow.”

  “Wow, what?”

  “Wow, that must have been hard for you to apologize.”

  I spun the laptop back around and pulled up my file. I listed all of the obstacles to our mission on a document. I included a copy of the prison’s layout. Hopefully, the silence would unnerve her, and she’d talk first. I’m not petty or anything. I kept adding any relevant information. I checked the clock. It had been thirty-five minutes. She wasn’t going to talk first.

  “Do you have a printer?” I asked, breaking the silence.

  She sighed, “Of course. In the other room.” She stood up and walked towards the door.

  “Alice?”

  She stopped and spun around, “Yes?”

  “Thank you. For everything.”

  She nodded and walked out. I sighed and started printing the pages in the document I’d compiled. I could hear the dull whir of the printer in the next room. After a few minutes, she walked back in and held the small stack of papers out to me. I put them on the table. She moved the blankets and pulled the bandage off of me. Her eyes seemed glued to the little silver speck on my chest. She leaned me forward and gasped.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Your chest. The exit wound is completely sealed, Markus.”

  I twisted to see, “It is metallic, though.” She bit her lip and squinted her eyes. “What? Is it usually not metal?” I asked. Alice looked from my back to the sleeping Prudence. Then back at me.

  “No, Prudence just makes the body heal itself. Usually, the person is tired.” Alice’s eyes met mine. I could see the hope or the excitement in her eyes.

  “No,” I shook my head, “it’s not that.” I’d been stuck as a Tweener for a really long time, my evolution was being impeded somehow. I was going to die a Tweener.

  Alice’s smile sagged, and she turned around and stormed towards the door. “Men,” she muttered before closing the door.

  Prudence shifted in her chair before settling back down. I started sliding to the edge of the bed before remembering what Alice said. I moved back to my spot and took a deep breath and exhaled it, trying to force the frustration with it. It didn’t work very well, but then again, it never really helped me that much. I felt the puke trying to work its way up my throat. I forced it back down. I was healed, hopefully. I didn’t have time for this. I was okay, I needed to move on. I took a deep breath and tried to stop the shuddering. It
worked better than it had a couple of minutes ago. Alice stood in the doorway, frowning.

  I grimaced, “We’re going to need help.”

  She nodded, “I’ve got people who can help with that.” Alice walked over to the bed and peeled the bandage off of my back this time. I flinched. The silver speck on my chest where the bullet had exited had disappeared. It had turned into a little dime-sized circle of pink. Alice jerked her head toward the door. “You’re good, let’s talk out here.”

  I looked towards the little kid sleeping on the chair and nodded. The living room of the little condo had two couches end to end against the walls. The walls in this room were painted a deep blue. I sat down and heard the couch creaked underneath me. I wrinkled my nose at the old smell that the couch gave off.

  Alice threw herself down next to me, “I haven’t been here in a while.”

  I nodded, “Who do you have in mind?”

  She held up a USB drive and wiggled it around in her fingers. She opened the laptop and stuck it in. She flicked through the files and opened one up. A picture popped up. The man in the photo was clean-shaven, short, and looked angry.

  “Jonathan Excalibur. He’s a twenty-seven years old bank robber.” This kid’s face looked arrogant.

  “Enhanced?” I asked.

  “Yep, he can mess with probability.” I looked at Alice. She shook her head, “No, he’s only a level one.” Dang it, a level five would have been better. A gift like that would have made my life much easier right about now.

  “Too bad, it would’ve been nice to get to have a plane crash and explode on top of Elias. “In a freak accident, of course.” Alice smirked. Voices murmured in the hallway. I spun to look at Alice, “You invited your people here?” She frowned and shook her head. She squinted and looked through the doorway before turning back to look at me.

  “No, definitely not mine.”

  “Who then?”

  She frowned, “Cops.”

  My heart started pounding, “What do they want?”

  Alice looked at me with her jaw open, “How should I know?” She ran into the bedroom through the linking door and came back out, carrying Prudence over her shoulder. She stood by the couch and tried to wake her grand-daughter up. I could hear the cops walking down the hall, knocking on doors. They knocked at the door next to us. Alice kept shaking Prudence, and I felt the tingling of Alice’s gift as she tried to wake the little girl up.