Burn Baby Burn: A Supervillain Novel

by James Maxey

  "Fragments?" she said. "Do you think these were once part of something larger? Do they fit together?"

  Before Dr. Cheetah could answer, she picked up two bits that looked like inky Cheetos. She jammed the curved bits together. For some reason, they wouldn't touch.

  "What do you think---" Before she completed her question the two halves flowed together into a ring roughly the size and shape of a mini-donut. It lifted from her palm and floated at the level of her eyes. Then, the donut swelled to the size of a bagel as the fragments on the tray vanished one by one. The whole process took only seconds.

  Then the lights went out.

  * * *

  Pit gasped as he woke in darkness. His entire skull was on fire. Sounds, pictures, smells, textures, and tastes flashed in his mind too quickly to grasp.

  He knew who he was. He knew how he'd stopped being a man and turned into a monster.

  * * *

  1956. Frank Macey stared into the mirror at a face he didn't recognize. His thick black curls had gone gray and stringy. His square, ruggedly handsome face had begun to sag. His stubble was flecked with gray. He hadn't bathed in almost a week.

  What was the point? He hauled garbage for a living. He was up before dawn every day dumping metal cans full of rot and filth into a truck that smelled like evil, a scent that rose from a black sludge caked into every crevice and cranny of the vehicle, a smell that had gotten into the pores of his skin and would never wash away.

  He'd been famous once.

  "Stick-em-up," he said to the mirror, pointing a finger at himself.

  He hadn't come out west to play bad guys. Everyone back home had told him that with his looks and talent, he should be the leading man in films. His prophesied success had nearly come true. He'd been hired on the first audition he'd gone to. He'd tried out for the role of the sheriff. The director had said his nose was too big.

  "You Jewish?" the director had asked.

  "No," Frank had answered.

  "You got kind of a look about you," the director said. "Something mean about your eyes. I can see you as a bad guy. Say, 'stick-em-up,' for me."

  Frank did a quick draw with his finger and barked, "Stick-em-up!"

  "Not half bad," the director said.

  Frank had been on screen for the first two minutes of the film. He'd come out from behind some bushes when a stagecoach had stopped to move a fallen tree from the dusty trail. He'd fired his gun once overhead as a warning, then yelled out his line. The leading lady had screamed and Dallas Smith, Texas Ranger, had shot the pistol from his hand. Then he'd jumped from the stagecoach and knocked Frank out with a punch to the jaw.

  Audiences loved it. Something about Frank's face made it a face they enjoyed seeing take a punch. He'd gone on to open other films, robbing banks and saloons and trains and riverboats and even a church. He'd gotten more lines. In some films, he'd been able to tack on, "This is a robbery!" In others, he'd shouted, "Dallas Smith!" in surprise and despair when the ranger had popped up from behind some random bit of scenery and shot the gun from his hand.

  The job had paid good wages, but Frank never stopped wanting to play the leading man. But anytime he'd try out for another movie, he'd be told that audiences didn't want to see the Stick-Em-Up Kid get the girl.

  Frank hadn't been able to get the girls in real life, either. His on-screen persona was of a guy who couldn't take a punch. A punk. A loser. And ladies wanted heroes.

  Except, some ladies only wanted money. He'd had to get good and drunk the first time he screwed up his courage to pay a whore. When the Dallas Smith franchise came to a tragic end, Frank ran out of money for both booze and whores, so he chose the booze.

  Now it had been ten years since he'd last been in a movie. Ten years since he'd come to Hollywood wanting to be a hero, only to learn he had a bad-man's face.

  He got dressed in the coveralls he wore to work. They were stained and stiff with gunk. In his pocket was a Colt 45. He drew it and pointed at the mirror. He delivered his line.

  Then he shot his reflection in the face.

  * * *

  Frank was starting his garbage route and finishing a bottle of scotch when he'd turned the truck west and started driving toward Vegas. It was four in the morning. He'd be over the state line long before anyone noticed him missing. In Vegas, people walked around with cash in their pockets. Frank would enjoy some cash in his pocket.

  Unlike the movies, his gun was filled with real bullets. No one was going to be punching him in the jaw after he delivered his lines.

  And then, just minutes before dawn, on a trackless stretch of highway with not a single car or building for ten miles in any direction, he ran into . . .

  Actually, he didn't know what he hit. A thing. He'd run into some thing. It looked almost like an elephant, if you removed the legs and just allowed the beast to levitate two feet off the ground, balanced on a pencil-thin shaft of glowing red light. It had no trunk or eyes or ears, just a mouth as wide as the bumper of Frank's garbage truck. It was dark purple, drifting right down the white dotted line that divided the highway. Frank had been doing seventy, the top speed the truck could handle.

  He went through the windshield when his truck plowed into the creature. He should have been killed, but the floating beast was blubbery. Sinking into its body was like sinking into a bathtub filled with lard and covered with a blanket.

  And then the beast tore apart, and the wheel of his truck bounced past him, and garbage was thrown all over the dark desert.

  He slid along the asphalt, his coveralls shredding. When he finally stopped, he almost felt cheated to still be alive. When he sat up, the beast's sickly green blood was bubbling away, evaporating with a smell like ammonia, vanishing into thin air.

  All that was left after the accident was scattered garbage, lumps of blubbery meat, and a truck so pulverized Frank couldn't even spot the engine block.

  "What the hell?" Frank asked.

  His words were answered by a humming sound that released three pulses that matched the cadence of his words.

  "Someone there?" he asked.

  Again, three pulses of sound.

  Then a black donut appeared in front of his face.

  It hummed three times.

  Frank reached for his gun.

  The donut floated forward and placed itself against his forehead. It was warm and soft, and suddenly there was a voice in his head not his own.

  "My apologies," the unseen voice said. "Do not be alarm---"

  Frank twisted his arm to place the barrel of the gun against the metal ring that touched him. The bullet was aimed straight at his own forehead. It would kill him if it passed through the mystery object.

  He felt as if this would be the best possible outcome.

  * * *

  The donut floated into Pit's recovery room. Dr. Cheetah and Sunday followed close behind it. Sunday had lit up a single finger to provide light.

  "If you use your powers, it might kill you," said Pit.

  "It's just a finger," said Sunday. "I'll be okay unless I really light up again."

  Pit's focus turned once more back to the floating black donut.

  "What the hell is that thing?" he asked.

  "I am Eleven," the donut answered.

  Man, woman, and chimp all stared at it, wide-eyed.

  "I have learned your language in the years you have hosted me," said Eleven. "I apologize if my previous attempts to communicate caused you discomfort."

  "You . . . you were inside me?" Pit asked. "In my head?"

  "Yes," said Eleven. "Part of me continues to reside within you. I thank you all for freeing enough of my form to allow me to reintegrate at least partially."

  "What are you?" Pit asked again.

  "I am Eleven," the thing answered.

  "Is that a name or an age?" asked Sunday.

  "It equates most closely with the human concept of a name," said Eleven. "My age would be difficult to convey in your language."

  "You
apparently know numbers," said Sunday. "How tough can it be?"

  "I am a seven dimensional explorative construct," said Eleven. "Time moves backwards in my sixth dimension, and orthogonally in my fifth and seventh dimension. If I were to calculate my age using your constrictive enumerative systems, my age would be expressed as a negative number."

  "Dr. Coco will be most anxious to speak to you," said Dr. Cheetah. "He recently proposed a unified field theory operative in seven dimensions."

  "This conversation cannot occur," said Eleven. "I'm forbidden to interfere with the cultural development of the inhabitants of planets I study."

  "You damn well interfered with me!" said Pit.

  "This was never my intention," said Eleven. "You drove your vehicle into my vehicle. You met my attempt at telepathic communication with an act of violence. The kinetic energy of your weapon shattered my form and lodged my components within the matrix of your nervous system."

  "Vehicle?" said Pit. "You were driving a damn purple elephant down a dark highway! I wouldn't have hit you if you'd been in something with headlights."

  "The bioship glowed quite strongly in infrared," said Eleven. "I was not aware of your species limited ocular range."

  "Why have you stayed inside him all these years and never said anything?" asked Sunday.

  Suddenly all the lights came back on. She let her finger fade back to its normal state. Her face didn't show any pain.

  "My sentience could not emerge while I was fractured," said Eleven. "I could not heal myself without damaging my new host's brain even further. Of my ninety-three restrictions, the first is that I shall do no harm."

  "But you did me all kind's of harm!" said Pit. "You stole my memories. You made me a damn zombie monster!"

  "Even in my non-sentient state, my core programming was designed to maintain a bioship. Any damage you have accrued over the years has been repaired. My repair mechanisms strove to keep you in the exact state I found you in. With minor improvements to your fueling systems, of course."

  "My fuel . . . you're the reason I can eat anything? And don't go to the bathroom?"

  "Your evolved fuel systems were wasteful and inefficient. You would never build sufficient power for interstellar travel through primitive chemical digestion. All of your world seems woefully underpowered. The rather minimal energy I pulled from the environment to rebuild myself was sufficient to damage this structure's electrical systems. You're the most energy efficient creature on this planet, Frank Macey. I've fueled all of your biological needs for over five decades with only the mass of the three humans you devoured when you first opened the warp portal. The excess mass you've consumed is being kept in extra-spatial stasis until such time as it is sufficient to power your travel through interstellar space."

  Pit didn't really know what to say to this.

  Sunday, however, cut to the question that should have been on his mind: "Now that you're not in him anymore, does he still have his powers?"

  "I am still inside him. I must maintain my host's systems as long as he hosts fragments of my physical shell."

  Pit reached into his mouth and drew out the regeneration ray. "You're in luck, Space Donut. This baby has a 'remove foreign material' setting."

  Sunday surprised Pit by jumping forward and snatching away the ray. "No one is removing anything," she said.

  "Th---sk---ha," said Eleven.

  "What was that?" asked Pit.

  "My apologies. I was merely stating that it would be wasteful to remove me at this point. Given that my subroutines have already altered your body to serve as my vessel, I'd like to remain within you until such time as I complete my study mission. Plus, there is an attractive symmetry in transforming the body of the being who ruined my last bioship into my new bioship. I apologize that I could not express this on my previous attempt. The device Sunday is holding is emitting radio waves that interfered with the voice channels I had selected."

  "What do you mean, it's emitting radio waves?" asked Sunday.

  "I'm unsure how to make my statement any clearer," said Eleven.

  "What's it transmitting?" she asked.

  "Real time data of our conversation, plus physiological data on the bearer's body temperature, heart rate, and the ph levels present in sweat."

  Sunday turned to Dr. Cheetah, her voice sparking with anger. "You knew about this, didn't you?"

  "I swear I knew of no such thing."

  Sunday pressed her lips tightly together.

  "Dr. Trog," she said.

  "Of course," said Dr. Cheetah.

  "Will one of y'all tell me what you're talking about?" asked Pit.

  Sunday started yanking IVs out of Pit's arm.

  "Ow!" Pit screamed as the needles tore from his veins.

  "You'll survive, you baby. I need you dressed in one minute." She turned to Dr. Cheetah. "Does Trog have an office in this hospital?"

  "Of course," said the chimp. "He should be there now."

  "Lead us," she said. "We can't let him get away."

  Pit got out of bed, feeling a little woozy from the massive amounts of gas they'd pumped into his lungs to keep him under. "Who's getting away? What are we in such a hurry about?"

  "My father is dead!" said Sunday, throwing open the doors of a white cabinet. She said, "Yes!" as she found his clothes. She tossed them to him. "So if Rex Monday didn't send us a regeneration ray, who did?"

  "Dr. Trog? Why?"

  Sunday shook her head like she was frustrated by how stupid Pit was being. "He said he'd been studying our biological data! That machine tore us down to our DNA and put us back together. For all I know, he's trying to give himself our powers!"

  "Since your powers are killing you, this seems unlikely," said Dr. Cheetah. "Still, I would like to discover the truth."

  Pit yanked on his pants and threw off his hospital gown. He grabbed his shirt and headed for the door. "We'll come back later for my boots."

  Then the floor shifted sideways beneath him and he slammed face first into the wall. He tried to balance himself, but the floor continued to jump and tremble. The IV poles toppled and everything attached to the walls fell off and landed with a crash.

  "Earthquake!" Pit yelled.

  "Impossible!" shouted Dr. Cheetah, as he clung to the edge of the swaying bed. "We have no earth to quake! Pangea sits atop a fused mass of floating plastic. We cannot be affected by seismic action!"

  "Then how the hell do you explain this?" shouted Sunday.

  * * *

  What no one in Pangea could know was that, far below, on the seabed, the anchor chains had all been severed. The central chain, the strongest, was now in the grip of a large man in white tights with a red S on his chest. Servant strained as he pulled the chain northward. He was determined to keep his schedule. In two hours, the northern tip of Pangea would be within 200 miles of the southernmost Aleutian Island, and thus in the territorial waters of the United States. In two hours, Pit Geek and Sundancer would finally face justice.

  I learned to type back in 1943. I'd taken my motorcycle out to the high desert to stay with an old buddy of mine who'd been a stunt man until he lost his arm. The two of us spent all our nights drinking. By day, I'd sit in the attic, writing a screenplay, tapping it out with two fingers. I'd make a mistake and tear the paper out and toss it in the can. I cursed a lot that summer.

  THE STICK-EM-UP KID GETS THE GIRL.

  The Stick-Em-Up Kid never had a real name in the movies, but in the script it was Pete Green. He'd come west to mine for gold but fell in with a bad crowd. Took to robbing stagecoaches, but he never killed nobody.

  The gang leader was named Mick Silver. Silver spotted a young girl named Susie Hart inside the stagecoach and dragged her out, telling her she was going to cook and clean for the gang. But Pete tells Silver to leave her alone. They wind up fighting. Pete kills Silver, and has to flee. Susie rides away with the handsome and mysterious outlaw, since she doesn't want to be left alone in the desert.

  They flee in
to Indian territory. After overcoming a series of obstacles (a swollen river, a pit of snakes), they meet a good Indian named Black Wolf. He warns Pete that a band of bad Indians is headed to the Gold Hart Ranch to kill everyone and steal the cattle. We discover that Susie's father owns the ranch. Pete rides his faithful steed Lightning to save the day. He kills all the bad Indians and saves Susie's father from scalping.

  As a reward, he's allowed to ask Susie's hand in marriage.

  They ride into the sunset, living happily ever after.

  In the movies, one good deed erases a lifetime of crimes. No one demands justice for old sins.

  I sometimes stare at the revolver, thinking about the remaining bullets. Thinking about old sins. Thinking about how sometimes, in the real world, nobody gets the girl.

  Chapter Fourteen

  * * *

  A Terrible Actor

  PIT DIDN'T BOTHER to button his shirt as they ran toward the elevator banks. Unfortunately, the shaking of the building had disabled the elevators.

  "Are there stairs?" Pit asked.

  "Our legs aren't really built for stairs," Cheetah said, opening a door a few yards away from the elevator. Inside was a series of parallel ladders. "We're more comfortable climbing," he said, leaping onto the bars. He descended, shouting "Dr. Trog has an office on the first floor. We're on the sixth floor. Hurry!"

  Sunday leaned into the ladder bank, staring at the long drop to the first floor. "It would be quicker if I flew," she said.

  "You know what the Doctor said."

  "Don't nag me," she grumbled. Then she grabbed the rungs and started to go down. "I don't like feeling helpless."

  "You ain't helpless," said Pit, grabbing the rungs. "You're still my better half. Hell, I'd still be on that bed talking to a space donut if you hadn't figured this all out."

  "Where did Eleven go?"

  "Damned if I know," said Pit. "Just sort of disappeared once all the shaking started."

  When they arrived at the lobby, the place was in chaos. Chimps on stretchers were screeching loudly as hairy orderlies raced them out to the streets.