by C. T. Phipps
Mandy stared at the screen, which was an unrecognizable stream of ones and zeroes mixed in with little free-floating boxes containing all manner of events across the city. I was amazed at how quickly she’d adapted to using such an advanced piece of equipment.
My wife was magic.
“A group of bank robbers rose from the Falconcrest City morgue and ate the attendant. They’re now robbing the First National Bank...again.” Mandy scrunched up her nose as if she couldn’t quite believe what she’d said.
“It begins. The dead are rising from the grave to take their revenge upon the living. Whoever has the other six cloaks is not using them correctly. Perhaps deliberately.”
“I guess asking you about your history will have to wait,” I said, sighing. “Okay guys, I’m going to go burn some zombies in honor of my should-have-been-a-superhero-wife. Then I’m going to rob the First National Bank… again!”
Both Cindy and Diabloman cheered, Mandy sighed.
Yeah, it was good to be a bad guy.
I had to keep telling myself that.
Chapter Thirteen
Where I Encounter My First Zombies
The Falconcrest City First National Bank had been having a bad two days. If it wasn’t insane killer ice cream men, it was insane killer zombie ice cream men. The Ice Cream Man had returned from the grave and was now robbing the bank with the same five or six henchmen I’d fought earlier. I was watching them through the lobby glass doors, doing a bit of solo reconnaissance.
The Ice Cream Man was standing over the bodies of a couple of dead half-eaten employees with a huge mallet in his hands. Which offended me since that was out of his theme. Maybe if was ice-cream cone shaped, it’d be appropriate, but this was just wrong.
Having only been dead for a day, the Ice Cream Man didn’t look too different. Well, except for the fact he was missing a number of teeth and half his head was caved in.
“I want everyone to know being dead hasn’t changed my rosy attitude! Ha! I’m going to kill and eat you all! Then I’m going to find your children and eat them! Hehehe. If you don’t find that funny, well, I guess you have to be dead to get it.”
During this disturbing display, the Malt Shop Gang was once more attempting to empty out the vault. All of them had been transformed into zombies, parts of their head or necks missing from where someone had bitten them. I presumed the Ice Cream was the party responsible but, for all I knew, a host of zombies was running around Falconcrest City.
Still, according to Cloak, the bulk of Falconcrest City’s zombie problems were a few months away. It would take time for the other Reaper’s Cloaks, once merged with hosts, to create an army of the dead. Right now, it was just the Ice Cream Man and his crew and I was certain I could handle them.
Walking in through the front door, I addressed the crowd, “Hey, Cream Puff. We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”
“Watch the revolving door. You don’t want to get me caught in it.”
“Good point,” I said, pulling my cape close behind me.
“You!” the Ice Cream Man hissed at me, his voice lisping from where I’d knocked out his front teeth. “You killed me!”
“Yes, yes I did.”
“Thanks!” The Ice Cream Man replied, swinging his mallet at me. “Allow me to return the favor.”
“Sorry, Chuckles, not happening,” I turned insubstantial to avoid the blow before conjuring a free-floating fiery ‘M’ behind me to signal my henchmen. “I suggest you duck now.”
Diabloman drove a stolen armored car through the lobby entrance, shattering the glass windows and sending their fragments flying in every direction. The vehicle smashed into our foes, crushing the first two of the Ice Cream Man’s thugs under its wheels. The other four were thrown up against the wall like rag dolls, much to the screaming horror of the hostages around them.
Cindy stepped out of the armored car’s passenger’s side, carrying a fire-ax marked with the inscription, “How’s My Hacking?” and a phone number underneath it.
“Wow, Boss, that was a great entrance!” Cindy said, chipper as always. “You timed it perfectly!”
“Thank you,” I said, magically stepping through the armored car and picking up a pistol.
“Cloak, shooting a zombie in the head will kill it, right?” I asked.
“That or decapitation. I recommend you tell the police to cremate the bodies, however.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Headshots only, guys, please.”
“Yeah, I know. I’ve seen a zombie movie before.” Cindy proceeded to strike every downed zombiefied (Is that even a word?) member of the gang in the head with her fire ax while I searched for their leader. I caught sight of the Ice Cream Man’s mallet but there was no sign of the psychopath himself.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.” I tossed aside my pistol. “How did he escape? He’s not inconspicuous!”
“Out the door in all likelihood.” Diabloman shrugged. “I was driving the car and Cindy dealing with his henchmen. You were doing your theatrics. It’s nobody’s fault. Take comfort in the fact you managed to get him to retreat.”
I wasn’t at all comforted. “God, he’s going to become my archenemy, isn’t he? Deranged childhood icons should be restricted to KISS albums, dammit.”
“Do we go after him?” Cindy said, pulling her ax up from where she’d disposed of the last of the zombies.
“Nah, we have better things to do. Okay, Cindy, Diablo, let’s start loading up the cash!”
“You’re robbing us, again?” the same overweight woman from earlier asked.
“Yep,” I said. “Try not to take this personally. Banking in Falconcrest City is about as hazardous as aid work in a war-zone. You should think about finding a new job.”
“Wise counsel. I suggest you follow it,” Diabloman began picking up the cash on the ground. “What will you be doing during all of this?”
“Supervising!” I shouted before surveying the crowd. “Does anyone need medical attention? My henchmen drove an armored car through the front window and I don’t want a murder rap on my police record. At least, not one for people who didn’t have it coming. Do any of you have it coming?”
In unison, all of the bank employees and patrons shook their heads.
“Good. Now, back to the medical attention issue,” I said, sighing. “Anybody hurt?”
“One of the zombies bit me!” One of the employees said, holding his neck.
Cindy lifted her fire ax over her head. “He’s becoming one of them! We have to kill it now!”
“Hold on!” I raised a hand to stop her. “Uh, Cloak, is that true?”
“Only if they die from it.”
“Okay, Zombie Victim Number Three, you can go. Someone, take this guy to the hospital. In the meantime, I’m drafting...” I started picking out employees at random. “You, you, you, and you go help load the money on the back of the truck.”
Oddly, the employees were quite willing to help out once the injured man was escorted away. I was about to comment on their ‘service with a smile’ policy when my cellphone rang, again.
Picking up my cellphone from my belt, I saw it was Mandy. Tapping my earpiece, I said, “Hello?”
I’d just barely managed to persuade Mandy to stay behind as support. Frankly, in retrospect, I wasn’t sure that was the best decision. My wife could kick ass better than me. It was just I didn’t want her tainted by my crimes when she was about to embark on a fantastic career of saving the world.
Or at least the city.
“You’ve stepped in it this time.” Mandy grumbled.
“I love you, too, Mandy. What’s wrong?”
“The Night Computer is linked to all of the police reports and news broadcasts in the city,” Mandy explained. “This—”
“Impressive, most impressive,” I interrupted. “How’s that work?”
“I could try explaining it to you, Gary, but your computers skills suck. Now do you want my help or not?”
“All right,” I decided she wouldn’t have called me unless it was urgent. “What’s wrong? I’m not afraid of the Falconcrest City police…at all. Besides, I think I have a deal with the Chief of Police. I take care of rival supervillains and he doesn’t send me to jail.”
At least, that was how I thought it was supposed to work.
“The Chief of Police was overruled by Mayor Jackson. He’s called in superheroes to deal with you.”
I was now far less confident. “Superheroes? Ones who aren’t ancient?”
“Master Warren fought crime past the point he was a hundred.” Cloak sounded offended.
“And we saw how that worked out for him,” I replied, sniffing. “I plan to retire before I’m ninety like a rationale person.”
“The Mayor called in the Extreme,” Mandy said the words like a Marine might say terrorists.
“Those aren’t superheroes,” I said, sick to my stomach. “They aren’t superheroes at all.”
“Antiheroes,” Mandy said, using the universally accepted word for those superheroes who went off the reservation. Those heroes who decided killing, torture, and collateral damage was justified as long they got a few pick-pockets or pot-dealers along the way.
The Extreme were the worst of the bunch.
Every Falconcrest City citizen over the age of twenty remembered their rampage through the city’s underworld during the height of the Nineties. Everyone thought they were a better solution to the city’s supervillains than Sunlight or the Nightwalker. Right up until they collapsed the Falconcrest City Bridge trying to deal with one of the Toy King’s robots.
Forty-nine people had died.
The Extreme received probation and a revocation of their license to operate in the city limits.
A license which had apparently been restored.
“The police have cordoned off the area,” Mandy said. “Try and get yourself out of there.”
“I will,” I said. “I love you.”
I worried it might be the last time I ever said those words. Putting two fingers in my mouth, I whistled for my henchmen’s attention.
“Diablo, Cindy,” I said, pointing at the piles of money already loaded in the armored car. “Take as much cash as you can and try to lose yourself in the surrounding buildings. I’ll distract them so you can get away.”
Cindy looked confused. “What’s wrong?”
“The Extreme.”
“The Extreme?” Cindy’s already pale skin turning almost white. “You’re kidding.”
“As much as we’ve all come to cherish my wonderful sense of humor as I rob and kill people, no I’m not kidding.”
“Oh, thank God!” one of the bank patrons said. “The superheroes are here to save us!”
“Diabloman, break his leg.”
“As you wish,” Diabloman said, kicking the man in the kneecap so he went down screaming.
“Thank you,” I said, sighing. “Hurting idiots helps me think.”
“Just about every supervillain I’ve talked to paints these guys as the angels of death,” Cindy said, clutching her fists together as she looked furtively around.
Diabloman agreed. “As the Dark Lord spoke when he saw the Archangel Michael descending upon him: We are in some serious shit.”
“No kidding. What we need to do is assemble what we know about these guys and use it to discover their weakness. Then we need to run the hell away and pay someone to exploit it.”
“I fought them and barely survived,” Diabloman grunted, crossing his arms. “Afterward, I did a great deal of research on them. The Extreme were part of the President’s answer to the rising tide of supervillainy. They had special authority to execute supervillains on behalf of the government. The military armed them with specialized weapons and guns.”
“Wait, superheroes who kill.... and carry guns?” one of the bank tellers said. “That’s just wrong!”
“I know!” I threw my hands in disgust. “It violates the ‘superhero catches villain, put him in jail, villain breaks out, superhero catches him again’ social contract. I swear they might as well be cops. In any case, these guys kill.”
“Can superheroes do that?” Cindy asked, horrified.
“Antiheroes can,” Diabloman said, “After the Great Crash of 97, the government disavowed all knowledge of the Extreme’s activities and shut down the American super-soldier program. Its members were cut loose to act as mercenaries for cities and countries who could afford their services. The fact the Mayor has called them in means he’s desperate.”
“I heard they’re reviving that,” Mandy said in my earpiece.
“Even the government wouldn’t be that stupid,” I said.
Cloak made a noncommittal noise in my head.
The Mayor calling in the Extreme was flattering in a disproportionate response sort of way. After all, I’d only been a supervillain for twenty-four hours. The Ice Cream Man had terrorized the city for years. Of course, it also meant that these guys weren’t going to be satisfied with driving us away from the bank. They were here for my head. I did, however, wonder why they were being called in against me rather than the hundreds of other supervillains in the city. Mandy had said they were here for me, specifically, which made no damned sense.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve killed three and there’s been no civilian casual... well, not counting all the people who died today and the bank president. Well, okay, the Ice Cream Man came back so it’s technically two so... never mind. The point is the Extreme are bad guys!”
“We’re bad guys.” Cindy pointed out the hole in my logic.
“Badder guys!” I corrected her. “Gun-toting lunatics! Now get your asses going so you can get away safely. I’ll deal with these guys myself.”
“Gary, I don’t think you’re getting the whole henchman-supervillain dynamic. I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to protect us but the other way around,” Cindy said, a concerned look on her face. “Besides, I’d be very upset if you died. You’re kind of screwy but I like you. I also like Mandy. We should make her your second-in-command.”
“I’m her second in command.” I grinned in our spite of our situation. “It’s why our marriage works.”
“I will not abandon you,” Diabloman said. “You are a man worthy of following. Sort of.”
“Just go!” I shouted, hearing the grinding noise of tank treads rolling up. “You can repay me by giving me your shares of the loot.”
“Like hell!” Cindy said, her demeanor changing in an instant.
“Let us focus on survival first and profit later,” Diabloman said, grabbing her by the shoulder and dragging her off.
“Do you have any idea how you’re going to deal with this situation?” Cloak asked.
“I don’t know; I’m making this up as I go along.”
Turning around to the gigantic hole in the bank’s front entrance, I saw a monstrous tank-like vehicle that had pulled up sixty feet away. The thing had four different sets of treads made of three different sets of smaller treads, seemingly just for aesthetics sake. Really, who sees a tank and says, ‘this needs more treads?’
The vehicle was armored like a tank, possessing multiple laser emplacements and one gigantic central gun. It was about the size of a motor home, having ample room for a team of seven. Spray-painted along the vehicle’s side were the words, “This Machine Kills Supervillains.”
I bet Cindy felt unoriginal now.
A loudspeaker popped out of the vehicle’s top before a harsh male voice said, “Merciless, by the authority invested in us by the Mayor of Falconcrest City, you are ordered to come out with your hands up. If you do not surrender within ten seconds, we will open fire and destroy you!”
I held up my hands and exited through the front door. “Okay, okay, no need to get huffy about it.”
“I am surprised by your actions. You have a spark of nobility underneath your glory-seeking immaturity.”
“Thank you.” The beginnings of a plan formulated in my head.
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br /> “You’re going to fake surrender and kill them when their guard is down, aren’t you?”
“Yep,” I said. “That’s the plan.”
“Of course.” Cloak didn’t even bother to sound disappointed this time.
“I surrender!” I shouted to the tank, lifting my hands up over my head. “I’m unarmed! I’m a poor innocent misguided youth in a costume. No superpowers whatsoever.”
“Good,” The voice on the loudspeaker said. “That makes things much easier.”
The vehicle’s central gun turned around and aimed at me. Taking a hint, I turned insubstantial. A huge cannon blast passed through me, hitting the bank instead. A shower of glass and flame washed over me.
As the sparks died down, I tried to fathom what had happened. “Cloak, did they kill everyone in the bank trying to get to me?”
“Yes. Yes, they did.”
“Including Cindy and Diabloman?” I bit my lip, feeling their loss. There was just a small chance they’d made it out alive.
“Apparently.”
“Fuck.”
Chapter Fourteen
Where I Discover the Problem with Killing Superheroes
“You damned psychos!” I screamed at the Extreme’s mobile headquarters. I had never been so mad in my entire life. Spitting and kicking the air, I screamed, “You’re fucking cowards! Every last one of you!”
I didn’t care too much about the people inside the bank, at least the bystanders. I wasn’t going to go out of my way to mourn a bunch of people I didn’t know. Diabloman and Cindy were a different story.
Diabloman almost certainly deserved it after all the stuff he’d done over the years—to people both innocent and otherwise—but he was my friend. Cindy meant a lot more to me. She’d been my first kiss, first sexual experience, and first henchwench. Sure, she was a sociopath money-hound but who wasn’t nowadays?
Either way, the Extreme was going to pay for what they’d done, every last one of them.
“Come on out and fight you bastards!” I shouted, expecting them to fire again from the safety of their tank.
