Burn Baby Burn: A Supervillain Novel

by James Maxey

The drone kneed her in the belly and they both went into a tailspin. The drone kept her hands clamped on Sunday's knife hand.

  If this was the last one, it didn't matter if they both plunged into the ocean. If it wasn't . . .

  She eyed the camera cluster where the head should be. Why didn't these things burn? The chimps were geniuses, and were developing a reputation for building advanced materials that were stronger, lighter, and tougher than anything humans had whipped up. But, this was still just matter. Even if the Sundancer body was immune to solar radiation, this thing had to have a melting point.

  She set out to find it. The ceramic knife suddenly warped like a vinyl record, then vanished in a spray of droplets. She felt the old pressure building in her gut as they raced toward the ocean and with a sudden release the wormholes surrounding her doubled, then tripled. The webcam vaporized and the drone went limp.

  Sunday never reached the surface of the ocean, because the surface of the ocean moved as she approached it, boiling away in a flash. She pulled from her spin and climbed.

  She tried to close the wormholes, to reduce her intensity.

  She couldn't find the invisible switch in her mind that controlled them.

  With so much power channeling out of her, the second she switched off, she was going to die.

  And she didn't want to die.

  A blue blur flashed across the corner of her vision. It was Skyrider, racing toward her much faster than the drones had moved. She was carrying a ridiculously large rifle, which she aimed at Sunday. She pulled the trigger when she was only a few hundred feet away.

  Whatever came out of the barrel vaporized when it came within a dozen feet of Sunday. Skyrider veered to avoid a collision, but passed close enough that her rifle turned to putty in her hands. Suddenly, her flight suit caught fire, including her helmet.

  Skyrider slid to a hover and yanked her helmet off, gasping for breath. Her face was covered in silver mesh. As the flaming fragments of her suit fell away, the silver mesh proved to cover her whole body, even her face, sheer as pantyhose.

  Skyrider squinted as she stared at Sunday. "You've got a head!"

  "I'm the original," Sunday shouted back.

  "There are only three left," Skyrider shouted. "But we've got radar locks on all of them and missiles in the air. Time to draw the curtain on your little doomsday play!"

  "I didn't want this!" Sunday screamed. "I tried to stop it!"

  "Then stand down," said Skyrider. "Turn off your flames and surrender."

  "I can't!" she screamed. "I think . . . Dr. Trog pumped the drones full of adrenaline so that they would be living bombs. I'm running on nothing but adrenaline now!" She swallowed hard. "I think . . . I think I'm going to explode."

  Skyrider said, "You don't have to explode! Just turn down your flame and wait. The Covenant employs the finest scientific minds on the planet. We can fix this!"

  "Call them!" screamed Sunday. "I surrender! Just do what you can to save me before I take half the planet with me."

  "Um," said Skyrider. "I can't call them, actually. My radio was in my helmet."

  "I don't have time to wait for you to get help!" said Sunday. She looked down at the glimmering blue ocean. She saw a few patches of white sand in the distance. "Where are we?" she asked.

  "Just north of Midway atoll," Skyrider shouted. "The island is empty except for a research station. Don't move! I'll go use their radio to call Covenant Command."

  * * *

  Pit couldn't believe what he was hearing. Ap was still pumping his fists in the air.

  "We've won?" he asked.

  "Servant ambushed a drone over Nevada and Chinese jets just shot down the last one!"

  "I thought Servant was dragging the island?"

  "How could you know that?"

  "Dr. Trog told us."

  Ap shrugged. "We Covenant move in mysterious ways."

  "Right," said Pit. "Space machine." He rubbed the hole in the back of his skull. "I probably would have got that if you hadn't just pulled a damned metal spike out of my brains. Anyway, if the drones are finished, what happened to Sunday?"

  "Not sure," said Ap. "Skyrider had visual contact, but then we lost her signal."

  Pit shook his head. "Sunday fried her."

  "Don't think so. The lab boys have outfitted her with some fancy thermal underwear."

  "What have long-johns got to do with anything?"

  "Not that kind of thermal underwear," said Ap. "It's a silver mesh networked into the space machine. It detects highly energized particles that collide with it and automatically cuts and pastes them into the earth's core. Sundancer can blast all she wants but Sarah won't even get a tan." Suddenly, Ap stiffened, and sat up straighter in his chair. "Hold on. I'm getting a message from Simpson." He grabbed Pit by the wrist. "You wouldn't be a World War Two buff by any chance?"

  "I spent most of the war years drunk," said Pit.

  "Too bad," said Ap. "We're about to be tourists at one of the most iconic sites in the Pacific!"

  Then Pit experienced the familiar sensation of being folded by the space machine. The backs of his elbows twisted to slide along under his nuts as his eyeballs bent to stare directly at one another. Then he dropped to his knees on a beach of white sand.

  Ap was by his side, and Servant and Skyrider were standing in front of him. It was high noon, with the sun directly overhead. Except, as he looked to the west, the sun was also down on the horizon.

  "What's he doing here," Servant growled, staring at Pit.

  "You want me to just leave him?" asked Ap.

  "I want him in a cell!"

  "He's eaten himself out of every jail he's ever been thrown into," said Skyrider. "He's probably safer in our custody." Pit tried not to stare, but he could see all of Skyrider's lady parts through the mesh of her thermal underwear.

  "Here's the situation," said Skyrider. "Sundancer says she feels like she's about to explode. She's putting out enough radiation that if she were over a population center right now, people would already be dying. I've already had Simpson cut and paste the researchers here to safety, but safety isn't what it used to be. If she experiences the sort of exponential flare up we witnessed in some of the aborted drones, she could carve a hole out of the planet that would rival the comet impact that killed off the dinosaurs. Nowhere is safe."

  "Cut and paste her out into space," said Ap.

  Skyrider shook her head. "We never got any targeting nanites into her. And, with the radiation she's putting out, satellite sensors just go blind when we try to get a lock."

  Servant shook his head. "Is this a joke? Let's just break her neck."

  "The problem with that---" Skyrider never finished her sentence.

  "Up one mile, Simpson," said Servant. He vanished.

  They all stared at one another, wondering what to do next.

  Suddenly the sun overhead began to fall toward them.

  "Ghost mode!" shouted Ap.

  Sand and seashells flew all around them as Sunday and Servant slammed into the island half a mile away.

  "Breaking her neck might trigger the explosion!" Skyrider shouted.

  "Servant!" Ap screamed. "Stand down! Stand down!"

  A volcano began erupting where the two had crashed. Beads of flaming lava rained down, sizzling as they burned little holes into Pit's clothes and the flesh beneath.

  "He's not answering!" Ap said, sounding panicked.

  The heat and light pouring of the spit of land were almost unbearable. Even here, the sea was boiling. Hurricane force winds hotter than a furnace nearly knocked Pit from his feet.

  Pit lunged at Skyrider and grabbed her by the shoulders. "Strip!" he said.

  "Excuse me?" she asked.

  "Take off that fancy underwear! I need it. I'm the only one who can stop her!"

  "Johnny, if you record a single frame of this I will murder you," she said, eying Ap.

  "You're going to do it?" Ap asked.

  "I don't have a better idea!" she sa
id, lowering the invisible nanozipper that sealed the front. Pit averted his eyes. It was what a good cowboy would do. She shoved the suit into his hands and said, "Ap, I can't stay here without protection. You're safe in ghost mode. It's up to the two of you!"

  Ap nodded.

  Then, she was gone.

  Pit struggled to pull on the flimsy garment. He didn't know what the hell it was made of, but it was tough. Real panty hose would have ripped as he pulled them on over his jagged toenails. Not that he'd ever tried that, mind you. The springy fabric stretched over his clothes, but he felt like his balls were being pushed up into his belly as he tried to yank the suit tight and pull the hood over his head. When he finally had it on, Ap pointed out the zipper, which Pit would never have found on his own.

  "I'm coming with you," said Ap.

  They marched into the inferno across bubbling earth, along shores now completely dry as the ocean was pushed back a mile in every direction. Once or twice Pit fell, and had to crawl in the face of the horrible winds. Even protected from the heat, his mouth and nose and eyes went completely dry in air where every molecule of water had been torn asunder.

  They reached the crater where Servant and Sunday had fallen. It was now a sheet of glass. In the center a giant man was sprawled, covered in third degree burns. He wasn't moving. The flesh was half gone from his monstrous face.

  "Servant!" Ap cried out as he ran toward his fallen comrade. He knelt and placed a hand on the big man's chest.

  "He dead?" Pit asked.

  "I don't know," said Ap. "I think he's breathing, but apparently his invulnerability had limits." He grimaced. "The radiation here is killing all radio signals. I can't get Simpson to grab him."

  Ap stood, and they kept walking into the blast furnace wind.

  Further down the beach was Sunday. She sat with her knees drawn up to her chest, her arms wrapped around them, staring at the sunset.

  Pit slogged through magma to reach her. He placed his hand on her shoulder.

  She looked up. "Is there hope?" she asked.

  Her eyes had already answered the question.

  He dropped to his knees and wrapped his arm around her. She rubbed her cheek against his cheek. They kissed once again. Her lips were completely dry.

  "I can't stop burning," she whispered.

  "Then don't," he said, his voice trembling. "Just . . . do what you do best. Burn, baby. Burn."

  And then he opened his other mouth and closed his eyes. There was a familiar tickle at the back of his throat, and a burning sensation that lasted a long time. When he opened his eyes she was gone.

  Ap stumbled as the hurricane force wind suddenly died. "What just happened?" he stared at the bubbling sand where she'd just sat. "Did . . . did she just get away?"

  "Naw," said Pit, his voice barely audible. There was a pit in the center of his chest where all his breath felt trapped.

  "Is . . . is the world safe?" Ap asked, scratching his hair, or trying to. In his ghost mode, itches apparently were impossible to relieve.

  "Naw," said Pit, swallowing hard. "No more than it ever was. Nobody ever gets out of here alive."

  "Let me get Simpson online," said Ap. "Time to go home. Well, my home, at least. Guess you're going to have a new home."

  "Yeah," said Pit. "Guess I will." Then he shoved his fist into his mouth. He swallowed. And kept swallowing.

  * * *

  Pit arrived in a world of trash. The place was a vast ring he couldn't begin to measure, in orbit around an elongated star that poured out heat and light. He'd pulled off the thermal underwear and shouted at her for days, or what felt like days. There was no way to measure time. She never showed any signs of hearing him.

  There wasn't much gravity. Things in the ring did tend to pull together, though. Hungry for the first time in memory, he'd found an intact jar of pickled eggs in the garbage. He was certain he'd die of the thirst their vinegar saltiness left in his mouth until he found an old soda machine and managed to pry it open with a crowbar he'd swallowed back in 1973. For a long, immeasurable time, he drank sodas and ate from a desiccated deer carcass while he watched living chickens and goats cavorting in the distance.

  He'd started needing to pee after about his third soda, and had to take a crap not too long after that, wiping himself with pages from a Dallas phone book. It wasn't his first clue, but it felt like proof that he was normal again. Whatever Eleven had done to freeze his body in time no longer had any effect on him.

  One day he found a typewriter. An old one, a Remington, completely manual. Just like the one he'd written his screenplay on. To keep from going crazy, he'd started typing, filling up scrap paper and bits of card and anything flat he could roll through the machine. When the letters had finally faded to nothingness, he thinned out ink from a ballpoint pen using his own urine and soaked the ribbon to refresh it. He was surprised when this actually worked.

  He was always worried that one day he would run out of paper. But, in the end, he ran out of memories. He ran out of things to say.

  So he'd placed a pistol against the roof of his mouth.

  And then, for a time, he'd been dead.

  * * *

  It was nighttime when he woke up. He was stretched out on short, thick green grass, like what you'd find on a golf course. He sat up and saw a glimmering sea in the distance.

  He could tell from the air that he was back on Pangea.

  Eleven floated before him.

  "I've completed my mission. It's time for us to leave."

  "Oh," said Pit. "What mission was that?"

  "I came here to catalogue the sentient beings of this planet. I've finished my recording of the beings of this world, as well as the five sentients from this planet that currently reside on Mars."

  "There are men on Mars?"

  "You've met two of them," said Eleven. "As for their offspring, I'm unsure you would classify them as men."

  Pit looked at his hands. They were young and strong again. Well, not young. He looked like he had when he was in his forties or fifties."

  "Was I dead?" he asked.

  "You had regressed to your lowest biological threshold," said Eleven. "Only the bacteria in your gut were still active."

  "Do they count as part of me?"

  "Who else would they be part of?"

  Pit looked up at he stars. "You left me in there for a long time."

  "In the relative time frame of your four dimensional existence, you were only gone two weeks. I saw no need to retrieve you prematurely."

  "Two weeks? It felt like decades."

  "Then subjectively it was," said Eleven. "There is no precise formula for reconciling times between the two realities."

  Pit stood. It was then he realized he was naked. "You couldn't pull me out some clothes?"

  "They will serve no purpose where we're going. If there are sentient beings in the Centauri system, it is highly unlikely they will care if you are wearing pants."

  "How are we getting there?" he asked.

  "We shall walk," said Eleven. "But I know a short cut." Then Eleven splintered apart and splashed against Pit's chest. Pit looked down and found himself covered with triangular stripes, like a tiger.

  "Ready?" Eleven asked.

  "No," said Pit. "I can't leave without . . . without knowing what happened to Sunday."

  "She perished," said Eleven. "She lost the last of her control and exploded after you swallowed her. Enough solar material flowed through her wormholes that she became massive enough to organize the detritus in the zero space into an orbiting ring. This took many, many years. Due to the time variance, though you followed her inside by only seconds, she had been there for decades. If the channeling of solar mass failed to kill her, by the time you arrived she had long since failed to receive the primitive but necessary chemical fuels that powered her life functions."

  Pit closed his eyes and breathed slowly. He'd had a long time to accept the reality that Sunday had died. What had he expected to feel now that
it was confirmed? He missed her just as much as ever.

  "You fixed me," he whispered, holding up his hand. He opened his eyes, staring at the stripes that now coated it. "Fix her."

  "We're a braided life-form," said Eleven. "I can restore your cognitive abilities because your thoughts are my thoughts. Even if I could reassemble Sunday's material form, she would not be the person you knew. For now, her presence within our dimensional hold is most fortuitous. The solar radiation she emits will provide plentiful power for our travels. Were it not for her, you would need to devour a mass the size of Mount Everest to generate the required energy for us to escape this planet."

  Pit nodded. He crossed his arms across his chest.

  It wasn't fair, but that wasn't the way of the world. Some travelers reached the end of their journeys while those who loved them traveled on. Like every other person, all he could take were memories, and the warmth of knowing that he would always carry some part of her inside him.

  Only, less metaphorically.

  He stepped forward, and was gone from earth.

  On a world with green skies he gawked at unfamiliar stars. Despite his grief, he tilted back his head and laughed, so hard he had to wipe tears from his eyes.

  He'd gotten out alive.

  Other Books by James Maxey

  * * *

  Nobody Gets the Girl

  Richard Rogers was an ordinary man until he met the super-genius Dr. Nicolas Knowbokov. Now trapped in a world that has no memory of him, Richard is an invisible, intangible ghost to everyone but Dr. Know and the scientist's two sexy superheroine daughters, Rail Blade and the Thrill. Assigned the codename Nobody, Richard becomes the world's ultimate spy, invisibly battling the super-powered terrorist army run by the mysterious mastermind Rex Monday. The fate of the free world is at stake as the superhuman battles escalate, wiping entire cities from the map, threatening the survival of all mankind. Who can save us from the looming apocalypse? Nobody!

  Bitterwood

  Dragons rule the world, united under the powerful dragon king Albekizan. Humans have been subdued for centuries, existing only as slaves, pets, and prey. Yet one man, the mysterious Bitterwood, strikes at dragons from the shadows, fighting a long, lonely war of resistance. When Bitterwood is blamed for the death of Albekizan's beloved son, Bodiel, the king launches a full-scale campaign to rid the world of the legendary dragon-slayer---even if he must kill all of mankind to do so.