Double Lives (Johnny Wagner, Godlike PI Book One)

by Matt Cowper

  Double Lives

  by Matt Cowper

  Cover Design by Brandi Doane McCann

  Book Formatted by Polgarus Studio

  Copyright © 2017 Matt Cowper.

  All rights reserved.

  To Dakroth’gannith’formaz, who would destroy me

  if I didn’t dedicate this novel to him

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter One

  “Alright, you maggots!” a voice yelled behind me. “Get on the ground and put your hands behind your heads!”

  I turned around and saw three armed men surging through the bank lobby. They were all dressed in military fatigues, the sleeves rolled up to reveal their rippling, tattooed forearms – and they were wearing eagle helmets, with white plastic feathers, predatory green eagle-eyes, and yellow beaks curving down from their foreheads, and they had billowing American flags as capes.

  Something told me they voted Republican.

  But while they did look ludicrous, their efficient movements and confidence made it clear this wasn’t their first rodeo. I wondered what fascist glory hole they’d crawled out of. They could be ex-military, ex-CIA, ex-mercenary, ex-Superhuman Support Squad, ex-Perfect Platoon – there were a lot of “exes” one could be in this world.

  Take me, for example. Ex-superhero, now a private investigator. My outfit is called Godlike Investigative Services. I’ve got an ad in the Yellow Pages and a website. I’ve got a cozy office (some would misleadingly call it “small”), a kind secretary (she’s a robot grandma who makes delicious peanut brittle), and the building I’m in is here in the borough of Bootheel, out by Vinnie’s Meatworks and the landfill, so you don’t get all that yuppie foot-traffic on the sidewalks.

  I had been feeling pretty good today. I was in here cashing the first check I’d gotten in a month (standard adultery case, wife was cheating on her husband with the mailman), thinking maybe I’d celebrate by scarfing down a giant meal at Vinnie’s Steakhouse, and I had a 9:30 appointment this morning with a potential client. Then these jarheads decided to rob this tiny branch of the First Z City Bank. They might make me late for that meeting, which meant potential client might get pissed off and march out of the office in a huff, which meant no money for poor Johnny Wagner.

  Guess I’d have to trounce these jokers. Taking down fascists always cheered me up.

  “Don’t worry about a thing, Miss Pickens,” I said, smiling at the teller who’d been processing my check. “I’ve got this covered.”

  “I’m sure you do, honey-child,” Miss Pickens wheezed. She was at least eighty, but refused to retire; said working here kept her mind sharp. I was a bit dubious, since she’d shredded my checks with her bony old-lady hands at least three times. Apparently a lover sent her a break-up note written on gray stationary decades ago, and she’d torn it up in anger and heartbreak, and now holding checks designed in the “Gargoyle Grey” style caused her to reenact this painful memory. Thankfully, the staff here kept plenty of tape on hand to patch back together those torn checks.

  “I’ll get Dak here revved up,” I said, “and these guys’ll be playing drop-the-soap with the boys in MegaMax in no time.”

  “These peons do not deserve even a fleeting glimpse of the God of Destruction,” Dak thought-spoke to me, “but I suppose I will destroy them nonetheless, since they are interrupting our financial transaction.”

  “Quit being all arrogant and fix me up a fireball or something,” I thought-spoke back.

  “I am not in the mood to create fire – or even to talk about it.”

  “What? You still can’t summon a roaster? I thought that was a one time thing? What’d you do, douse yourself with flame retardant?”

  “Do not speak to me in such an insolent manner,” Dak rumbled, “or I will increase my anger to proportions you have not yet experienced.”

  Yup, that’s how things normally went between me and my god. When you have Dakroth’gannith’formaz, the God of Destruction, attached to your shoulder, every day is memorable.

  “You two!” one of the goons roared behind me. “Are you hard of hearing?”

  I turned around, and the guy who was obviously the Head Goon was marching towards me, his gun pointed at my chest. He was beefier than the others, with a head the size of a truck engine and tattoos depicting guns, skull heads, American eagles, American flags, and crosshairs running up his exposed forearms. As he got closer, I saw his eyes were bloodshot and twitching. He was hopped up on something (amphetamines, or something stronger, like Overdrive Juice?) and probably reliving an atrocity he’d gleefully performed in some Central American jungle.

  “I’m not hard of hearing,” I said, “but Miss Pickens is getting up there in years, and she’s so stubborn about putting in her hearing aids.”

  “Shut up, boy!” Head Goon shouted in my face, spraying me with some saliva. The eagle eyes glared at me along with the human eyes. “Don’t you realize this here bank is being robbed by Sergeant Killall and his loyal soldiers, Private Headshot and Corporal Rapidfire? Don’t you realize we’re three of the deadliest soldiers in the world, and will kill you and everyone in this building without hesitation?”

  “For God’s sake, get on the floor!” mewled a pudgy, balding man who’d instantly flopped onto the carpet as soon as these asswipes walked in. “Don’t antagonize them! I don’t want to die!”

  “You’re not going to die, Chubby Cheeks,” I said. “Just lay there and whimper and it’ll all be over soon. As for you, Sergeant Killall, I have a question: if you’re so deadly, why are you robbing this bank instead of, say, the Beacon?”

  At the mere mention of the Beacon, these mongoloids tensed up.

  “Private Headshot, Corporal Rapidfire,” Sergeant Killall growled, “I’ll handle this insolent piece of garbage. Get back there and empty the teller drawers and the vault.”

  “Yes, Sergeant,” the two men said in unison. They leapt over the teller counters and started ransacking the stations, throwing money into the cloth bags they’d brought with them. The tellers wailed and wrung their hands, all except Miss Pickens, who stood there looking at us like we’d told her a joke she didn’t quite get.

  “As for you,” Sergeant Killall snarled, poking my chest with the barrel of his gun, “where do you want me to shoot you first? Arm? Leg? It’s going to be a slow and painful process killing you, boy, but I’ll let you have some say in the matter. After all, I believe in Democracy.”

  I looked down at the gun. It was an AR-999, with yet more eagles, flags, and skulls crudely painted on it. Fairly impressive weapon, especially if they were using depleted raxite rounds. I wondered how they got their hands on these bad boys. Maybe from the French; I’d heard they were handing these out like candy.

/>   Not that it compared to my weapon, of course.

  “Oh God…oh God,” sobbed Chubby Cheeks. “I don’t want to see this…I don’t want to see this….”

  “Quit your sissy crying!” Sergeant Killall yelled, kicking Chubby Cheeks in his rotund belly. Chubby Cheeks yelped once, and then fell silent. “Look at you! A goddamn overweight weakling, a pathetic little grub who couldn’t run fifty yards! I haven’t fought on all seven continents so that idiots like you can turn America into a sissy-boy playground!”

  He hocked up a large spitball, and spit it onto Chubby Cheek’s sweaty forehead. “But mark my words, once Sergeant Killall and his True Americans get established, this country’ll be transformed back into the rugged, manly state it once was.”

  “Uh, sorry to interrupt, Captain Demagogue,” I said, “but you’ve ignored my question. You know, I asked you why you were robbing this teensy-tiny branch of the First Z City Bank instead of the Beacon, and you nearly fainted from fright.”

  Sergeant Killall turned back to me, a malicious sneer covering his face. Most people would find it intimidating, but I wasn’t most people.

  “We’re not ready to infiltrate the Beacon,” Killall said, “but we will be. Soon. We just need seed money.” He poked me with his gun again. “Not that it matters to you. You’ll be dead.”

  “Nah,” I said. “I’m sure one of the tellers raised the alarm, and the Elites or some other superteam are on their way. You’ll be unconscious and handcuffed before you even have a chance to misquote the Founding Fathers.”

  “That’s not gonna happen,” Killall said, chuckling. “You see, we brought along a little toy: a Micro EMP. It’s fried all the electronics in this building. The tellers can hit their little alarms all they want. Doesn’t make a bit of difference.”

  “A Micro EMP?” I said, genuinely impressed. “An EMP of any size is hard to come by. I’ll give you guys a few points – but you’re still losers.”

  Killall lowered his gun to my leg. “I’m going to enjoy perforating you, boy. How long do you think you can take it? You look a little tougher than that slob over there, but every man has a breaking point.”

  “How long do you think you can last when I shove that pea-shooter up your rectum?”

  “Still running your mouth, huh?” Killall growled. “Some people just don’t know when to shut up.” He jabbed me once again in the leg with the barrel of his gun, this time hard enough to make me wince and grab my thigh.

  “Alright, Dak – freeze this prick,” I thought-spoke.

  “Freeze? You must be joking, John Wagner,” Dak thought-spoke back. “I am the God of Destruction. I do not trifle with ice and snowflakes.”

  “Listen, Dak, you need to think outside the box. I’m not talking about snowflakes, buddy. I’m talking cold, like absolute zero cold. You freeze this dumbass solid, and then you give our arm a bit of the ol’ super-strength, and I’ll be able to shatter him like glass.”

  “Your plan intrigues me. It would certainly be destructive.”

  “So that’s a yes?”

  “Yes, I will do it gladly and ruthlessly. A hominid reduced to slivers of ice – I cannot wait to look upon it.”

  “First, though, how about some intimidation?”

  “Very well. Intimidating enemies before destroying them makes my godhead blister with satisfaction.”

  Thunder shook the bank. Sergeant Killall’s eyes widened, and some of the tellers and customers whimpered.

  “What the fuck is that?” Killall hissed. “It’s like a goddamn thunderstorm.”

  “Oh, that?” I said nonchalantly. “It’s nothing much. Just the anger of a god.”

  And Dak’s voice boomed through the air. It sounded like boulders cracking, like enormous waves breaking onto a seawall, like a hailstorm pounding a roof, all at the same time.

  “Foolish mortal! You dare challenge Dakroth’gannith’formaz? Your hubris is unparalleled in the annals of history!”

  “Dakroth who?” Killall said, looking at the empty air around him as he tried to figure out where Dak’s voice was coming from. “What’s going on?”

  “What is going on is your imminent destruction,” Dak said. “John Wagner, remove your jacket and show this lout the power of the God of Destruction!”

  I whipped off my jacket and threw off the glove on my right hand. Killall took two big steps backwards.

  Like I said, I have a god for an arm – specifically, my right arm. Most of the time, me and Dak keep it looking like a normal arm, at least in outline: I’ll have fingers, a forearm, an elbow, a bicep. But the arm itself was always swirling with all sorts of wild colors and designs. There could be sunbursts of red and orange one second, slicing arrows of black the next, depending on Dak’s mood. It was like the world’s best screen-saver.

  Right now, it was pulsing blue and white, like a blizzard blasting across a glacier. I raised my arm and pointed my open palm at Killall. Killall smiled and leveled his gun at me.

  “So you’re a superhuman,” Killall said, his eyes twitching even more crazily. “Good. You’ll be the first one I’ve killed.”

  “Nah, you lose this election,” I said, “because I vote ‘No’ to roided-up right-wing meatheads.”

  A blue-white blast flowed out of my hand and hit Killall. He staggered backwards, his eagle helmet clattering to the floor, and yelled something I couldn’t hear.

  Even though I was focusing the blast as best I could, the cold was still intense; it felt like the temperature in the room had dropped fifty degrees. I tapered off the blast so I could look at our handiwork. Killall’s hands were frozen solid, along with his gun. He gaped at the shining blue block of ice and shook it futilely.

  “You did not freeze this cretin’s entire body, as you said you would,” Dak rumbled. “Do so – NOW.”

  “No, Dak, I changed my mind,” I thought-spoke hastily. “I’d rather knock off his head with a punch. Hurry, change my arm.”

  The colors of my arm changed from blue-white to dull gray, like concrete. I could feel the immense strength coursing through it; it was like someone had attached a tank to my shoulder.

  “You bastard!” Killall roared, still shaking his frozen appendages. “I’ll—”

  “—be arguing with your cellmate about gay marriage and gun control shortly, I know,” I said.

  I stepped forward and wound up, and sent a right cross at Sergeant Killall, True American. There was a loud crack, and some teeth went flying, and Killall crumbled to the carpet.

  I didn’t pause to gloat, though, because there were still two more goons to deal with.

  “Alright, Dak, gimme some more of that ice,” I thought-spoke.

  “No. You lied to me.”

  “I’ll freeze their entire bodies this time, I promise!”

  “Your promises always wither and die,” Dak said, “but nonetheless, I will give you one more chance to prove you are not a liar and a fool.”

  My arm changed back to blue-white as I dove across Miss Pickens’s counter, knocking the poor lady aside. I didn’t want to break her hip or anything, but I also didn’t want her in the crossfire. As I landed behind the counter in the teller area, the two remaining goons swiveled their guns onto me.

  “For America!” they yelled in unison.

  They started firing, but I got off my freezing blast a half-second before them. Their bullets stopped in mid-air, covered in tiny icicles, and then fell to the floor, and the blast continued on to the two men, freezing their arms and weapons exactly as I’d frozen Killall’s.

  “Alright, another order of super-strength, Dak,” I thought-spoke.

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “You have manipulated me heinously,” Dak said. “I will not aid you any more. While I would enjoy destroying these oafs, you need to be taught a lesson.”

  I didn’t have time to argue, because the goons were banging their iceblock-hands on the counter, trying to free themselves. I grabbed Miss Pickens’s wooden stoo
l and lunged at Private Headshot, giving him a headshot of a different sort. He banged against the counter and fell to the floor like his sergeant.

  Corporal Rapidfire had more fight in him. He kicked at me, going for a low blow, but I managed to deflect it to my thigh. It still hurt, though, and I staggered into Rapidfire and accidentally headbutted him, knocking off his eagle helmet. He grunted and raised his iceblock, catching me under the chin. My jaw snapped shut, causing me to bite my tongue, and Rapidfire sent another booted foot my way, aiming for my ribs.

  I caught it, though, and, stealing Rapidfire’s idea, I sent my ten-year-old sneakers into his groin. He gasped and his eyes rolled into the back of his head.

  “That’s the most action your package has gotten in a while, ain’t it?” I said.

  “Fuck…you…liberal scum…Muslim loving…tax and spend….”

  I grabbed a small glass container on the teller counter holding lollipops and bubblegum, dumped out the candy, and cracked it into Rapidfire’s dense skull. He went down to a knee, but he wasn’t quite out yet. I sent a few more blows into his temple until he was kissing carpet.

  Panting, I dropped the container and massaged my jaw. A little blood, but no teeth had been knocked out. Not a bad performance – but then again, these guys were just run-of-the-mill soldiers, despite their bluster. I was an ex-superhero, and that’s a job that really teaches you how to handle yourself.

  “I am angry, John Wagner,” Dak rumbled. “You should have fed my hunger with the lives of those soldier-robbers. I desire extreme destruction, and I desire it NOW.”

  “Fine! Go ahead and blast the wall. Will that satisfy you?”

  “I am never satisfied. You know this.”

  I shook my head as my arm started swirling gray and black. Looked like Dak was in the mood for a dark energy beam. I raised my arm, and a jet of black surged out of my hand, like oil exploding from a pipeline. It slammed into the drive-thru teller’s station, obliterating it and leaving a gaping hole to the drive-thru lane. Cool air flowed into the bank, along with the sounds of the city.