Almost Infamous: A Supervillain Novel

by Matt Carter

  Copyright © 2016 by Matt Carter

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Talos Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  Cover illustration by Adam Wallenta

  Cover design by Jason Snair

  Print ISBN: 978–1-940456–50-8

  Ebook ISBN 978–1-940456–51-5

  Printed in the United States of America

  To Scott Carter,

  The greatest hero I’ve ever known.

  1944–2015

  A BRIEF HISTORY OF SUPERHEROES

  The Stone Age of Superheroes

  1854: At the Battle of Balaclava, shields created by Corporal Langston Hicks protect charging British cavalry and result in an overwhelming victory for the British over Russian forces. The “Charge of the Light Brigade” is henceforth known as the first public confirmation of superhuman existence.

  1854–1900 (approx.): Amid intense fascination and fear of superhumans due to the British Empire augmenting their military and political strength with superhuman aid, a general wave of fear and disgust by humanity keeps many supers in hiding.

  1867: Infamous Wild West outlaw, Jill “Blackjack” Winchester, outs herself as a superhuman, widely regarded as both the first professional supervillain and superhuman to use a codename.

  1871: Sailors of the HMS White Walrus become the first humans to survive first contact with the xenophobic, reptilian natives of Lemuria. Shortly after, representatives of Atlantis reach out to the British Crown with an offer of peace in an effort to outdo their Lemurian rivals.

  1870–1900 (approx.): With superhuman aid, scientists like Tesla, Moreau, and Edison make scientific discoveries decades past what conventional technological wisdom believes possible, helping reshape the public image of supers more in their favor. Many smaller, less ethical “mad” scientists push the boundaries of science and accidentally create many proto-supervillains.

  The Iron Age of Superheroes

  1898: The 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry, under commander Theodore Roosevelt, is one of the first military units primarily filled with superhumans. Their battlefield prowess and raw power brings a swift end to the Spanish-American War. Cuba is soon after made the forty-sixth state to enter the Union.

  1914–1916: World War I is triggered by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. This global conflict (exacerbated by the navy of Atlantis informally aiding the Central Powers) sees widespread use of superhumans in battle, improving their public image and bringing a swift end to the conflict while bringing a singular brutality to warfare that had yet to be seen. Conditions under the Treaty of Verdun financially punishing Germany and illegalizing humanity’s use of Lemurian and Atlantean technology keep tensions around the world lingering.

  1917: The islands of Hawaii are seized and claimed by cultists and redubbed New R’lyeh. Weakened by the war and not seeking the wrath of such powerful magic, world leaders acknowledge the new nation.

  1917: Bolstered by superhuman forces, the Bolsheviks seize power in the Russian Revolution. Through efficient programs managing the superhuman population and putting them to work for the greater good, the Soviet Union rapidly becomes one of the most prosperous and powerful empires of the twentieth century.

  1922: An Egyptian tomb unearthed by Howard Carter releases the trapped energies of the Egyptian pantheon upon the world. Their public revelation and general declaration of peace (some outliers aside), as well as the acknowledgment of other deities including Maui, Ishtar, Raven, Tezcatlipoca, and Sun Wukong, confirm to the world that gods walk among us.

  The Golden Age of Superheroes

  1930: Miguel Díaz dons a handmade luchador outfit and emigrates from Mexico to the United States as El Capitán. Declaring neutrality from any government influence, he decides to use his powers for the betterment of mankind and soon becomes the world’s greatest superhero. His example of costumed vigilantism is soon followed by many with increasingly flamboyant identities and costumes.

  1938: The Empire of Japan’s invasion of China combined with border tensions with the USSR trigger World War II, an even more destructive and globe-spanning conflict than its predecessor. Superhumans around the world are pressed into service, while costumed superheroes use their celebrity influence to drum up support.

  1940: After Japanese naval attacks on America’s west coast, President Roosevelt orders the internment of Japanese-American citizens. Sixteen-year-old Kazuo Nagano escapes internment and, despite lacking superpowers, uses his genius intellect to transform himself into vigilante the Gamemaster, fighting against government oppression and corruption.

  1941: Seeking an end to the war, El Capitán, the Gamemaster, and French superhero Stone Spirit meet in Amber City. From this meeting they create the idea for the Protectors, a civilian team of superheroes not answering to any particular government and aligned with the goal of saving humanity from this destructive conflict. Nearly a dozen other heroes soon join this team with the goal of world peace.

  1942: One year and a day after the founding of the Protectors, El Capitán raises an American flag in Berlin, declaring an end to the war.

  1943–1950 (approx.): Despite postwar prosperity, tensions begin to rise between the allied empires of the United States, the USSR, the British Empire, and Atlantis in a nonviolent but vaguely hostile “Cold War.”

  1947: At the height of a competitive “Space Race” between the United States, USSR, and Britain, a spacecraft from the mysterious Gray race crash-lands in Roswell, New Mexico, confirming the existence of alien life. Technology salvaged from this craft makes the US the dominant spacefaring nation for decades to come.

  1949: United States president Thomas E. Dewey is the first sitting world leader to walk on the moon, and is famously photographed shaking hands with El Capitán in the Sea of Tranquility.

  The Silver Age of Superheroes

  1950: Triggered by humanity’s deeper exploration of space, the First Gray Invasion of Earth occurs. Millions of lives are lost and large portions of East Asia and Africa, still recovering from World War II, are laid to waste. With most militaries disabled by Gray technology, humanity is saved by an expanded roster of Protectors, who repel the invasion and kill the Gray Emperor.

  1951–1964 (approx.): Earth is invaded periodically by alien races including the Grays, the Traknet, and the Roball Empire. An increased emphasis on Earth defense technology and a higher superhero population help defend Earth from serious damage. The required global unity in defending against these attacks prevents the Cold War from escalating.

  1950–1969 (approx.): Postwar prosperity creates an explosion of supervillains looking to acquire this wealth for themselves. Looking to stand out from others, villains often strive to become more over-the-top and flamboyant than their peers. In response, superheroes become more flamboyant and colorful. Campy one-liners, themed schemes and henchmen, and ostentatious displays of wealth become common for bo
th superheroes and villains.

  The Bronze Age of Superheroes

  1969: In response to the foundation of the Villains Union, the world’s first major team of supervillains, El Capitán and the Gamemaster, with the help of a reformed Blackjack, recreate the Protectors as a world-spanning team of superheroes in many subteams. The villains escalate their numbers and plots in kind, kicking off a conflict they dub the “War on Villainy.”

  1970: The Protectors open the Tower, the world’s greatest prison designed for housing supervillains.

  1969–1993: The War on Villainy is waged around the world, with civilian- and government-sponsored superheroes slowly imprisoning and exterminating the entire world supervillain population. Superheroes get an increasingly militarized look, with increasingly violent tactics approved, and edgier attitudes beloved, by the public.

  1993: With the defeat of Otis Shylock in Chile, and every last known supervillain eliminated, the War on Villainy is declared over.

  The Digital Age of Superheroes

  1993–Present: Even without supervillains and few wars to fight, superheroes are still a part of daily life. They star in movies, dominate tabloids, and wield tremendous political power for the betterment of mankind. Occasional attempts at villainy are made, but the heroes quickly defeat them before any damage can truly be done. Losing their edge from the War on Villainy, they take on colorful costumes and kinder images.

  Under their benevolent protection, all is well.

  1

  THE REQUISITE ORIGIN STORY

  Like anyone who ever attended a public high school, I first considered becoming a supervillain during a mandatory assembly on the dangers of peer pressure.

  They’d promised us a superhero guest speaker this time, and not just some guy off the street in a cape and spandex suit who hangs around playgrounds (like last year), but a real one with powers and corporate sponsors who would offer us a truly “life-enriching experience.” Whether or not this was worth getting excited about was yet to be seen, but considering the fact that the last “life-enriching experience” we had came in the form of a guy in a bright green bunny suit rapping about saving the rainforest, we had reason for skepticism.

  Still, when the lights dimmed and the stage curtains were raised to reveal a large, cardboard cutout of the Protectors’ logo and a banner that read DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO BE A HERO?, most of the students in attendance sounded impressed.

  Well, except for some junior in back who shouted, “YOU SUCK!”

  The air fell still and, with a dramatic flourish, one of the windows at the side of the auditorium burst open. There were shouts of surprise and screams from the freshman girls, and almost as many cell phone cameras held in the air as there were people in attendance as a glowing, crackling ball of electricity floated in through the window and hovered above the stage. With a dramatic explosion and a roaring clap of thunder, the ball transformed into a muscular man clad in bright-green spandex, a flowing blue cape, and brighter blue, spiked hair. His eyes were hidden by a bright-yellow domino mask, but his smile was so broad and toothy and white that you could see it shining from the back of the auditorium.

  “Hello, boys and girls and inter-gendered Lemurian residents of Hacklin’s Hall High School. I… AM… THUNDERHEAD!” he said with a dramatic flourish of his cape, surrounding himself with a shower of sparks. For emphasis, a curtain behind him was ripped aside, revealing a cardboard cutout of him and his Twitter handle (@YourHeroThunderhead).

  He laughed heartily at the audience’s cheers, unaware that he had set his cardboard cutout and one of the stage curtains on fire. A couple of his personal assistants were quick to run from backstage and extinguish the ignited curtain before the sprinklers went off.

  “I know that life today is tough for children like you. I know… I was a child once myself,” he said, giving us a knowing, sympathetic nod. “You are faced with daily challenges that are almost as great as the ones superheroes, like myself, fought against during the War on Villainy! Every day you are faced with gang violence, sexual assault, drug abuse, deforestation…”

  Saying all that, I severely doubted he’d ever visited Hacklin’s Hall, Indiana. Our town was as innocuous as any American suburb in the country. You might find all of these issues in locations like on the eastside of Amber City or New R’lyeh or the Detroit Exclusion Zone, but not in Hacklin’s Hall.

  Problems like those would make this town too interesting.

  “… political dissidence, and genocide. But those are easy problems to fix—ones we superheroes strive to eliminate every day. There is one problem, however, that you face that takes everyday heroes, heroes like you, to fix: PEER PRESSURE!”

  He paused for dramatic impact, letting the words sink in.

  Again the junior in the back shouted, “YOU SUCK!”

  Then a childish voice from off stage chimed in. “Golly, Thunderhead, what’s peer pressure?”

  Thunderhead looked to the side of the stage with an exaggerated searching look. His smile broadened.

  “Why if it isn’t my newly appointed sidekick: Iguana Boy!”

  A spotlight shone on the curtain to his left, illuminating a small lizard that clung to it. With a dramatic leap, the lizard flew onto the stage, transforming into a teenage boy (he had to have been at most thirteen), dressed in a garish, green-scaled bodysuit complete with claws and a tail. The small microphone taped to his chest led me to believe his appearance was not as impromptu as Thunderhead had wanted us to believe.

  He waved to us enthusiastically and barely flinched when the ball of paper chucked from the audience hit him in the shoulder.

  “That is an excellent question!” Thunderhead said, slapping Iguana Boy on the back hard enough to knock him forward a step. “According to the fine people at Merriam-Webster, peer pressure is…”

  “We know what peer pressure is,” Vic grumbled beside me. He had enough sense to be quiet about it, especially after the paper-thrower was escorted from the auditorium by several of Thunderhead’s entourage, with a few faculty following close behind.

  “Yeah, but there’s gotta be like, what, five or six people here who missed all the lectures? This assembly is for them,” I said, twirling a pen between my fingers, bored.

  “This sucks balls, Aids.”

  That’s Vic Benedict for ya, always the poet.

  Vic had been my best friend by default, since we grew up on the same street. He said he called me Aids because it was easier to say than Aidan, but I think he just liked calling me Aids. I enjoyed hanging out with him because he was funny, sometimes, and occasionally got his hands on explosives. He claimed to like hanging out with me because he thought I was cool, but that was a bold-faced lie and we both knew it. The thing was, I didn’t really care because being best friends with Vic—even if he talked to my video games more than me—was better than being best friends with no one.

  While we didn’t have much in common, the key to our friendship—at least for me—was that he didn’t care that my life was going nowhere. It was obvious to everyone (including myself) that my future likely entailed graduating high school the middle of Hacklin Hall High School’s Class of 2016, moving on to community college, then real college, as I would probably have no idea what the hell I wanted to do with my life. (Grad school was even an option if I so chose, as both my folks had met at one and always said how it changed their lives.) Then I would end up Aidan Salt, middle-manager of some low-level company that moved paper from one warehouse to another, had a wife that resented me, two-and-a-half kids who didn’t want anything to do with me, and a heavy drinking problem. He also didn’t care that I’d probably die at the age of fifty-seven from something like pancreatic cancer or a car accident or maybe just eating a bullet like my old Uncle Rex.

  No, Vic didn’t care about much but what was right in front of him, and with graduation right around the corner, it was kinda nice to have one person who didn’t care about my future.

  “They should’ve got
ten El Capitán,” he said.

  “They’d never get us El Capitán,” I replied.

  “How do you know?”

  “Well, first, El Capitán’s appearance fee has to be through the roof, and I don’t think our PTA is that generous. Second, El Capitán is ‘America’s Greatest Protector,’” I said, trying to add the emphasis they always put in El Capitán’s commercials.

  “He did one for those kids in Somalia!” Vic said, defensively.

  “They were refugees. He saved them.”

  “Lucky bastards,” Vic pouted.

  “And we’re nowhere near that lucky,” I said, tapping my pen on the chair in front of me for emphasis. “We’re lucky they even sprang for a Protectors reserve member. I was thinking they’d get someone from one of the satellite teams, or maybe one of those corporate heroes.”

  “Captain Cola would’ve been cool. He’s a pretty kickass dancer.”

  “Captain Cola versus Lemon-Lime Lad would have been better,” I said with a snicker.

  “Yeah, but they’d still find some way of turning this all into an ad,” he complained.

  “Like this one won’t?” I asked, trying to remember any of Thunderhead’s sponsors.

  Vic raised an eyebrow. “Wanna bet on that, Aids?” He always liked making bets with me, mostly because he usually didn’t have money and I sucked at gambling.

  “No.”

  “Aw, come on, five bucks!” he pleaded.

  “No.”

  “A five-dollar bill! Minuteman’s face on a rectangle of green paper! Almost enough to buy a cup of coffee!” he continued.

  “I don’t drink coffee”

  “Almost enough to buy her a cup of coffee.”

  Damn. He got me.

  I fished through my wallet and found a five-dollar bill hiding between a couple of twenties and handed it to him. Minuteman’s face stared up at me solemnly from the bill, the tip of his tri-corner hat shading the eye he’d lost fighting during World War I. Vaguely, part of me wondered if he knew back when he first strapped on that star-spangled cape and chestplate that someday his sacrifices would immortalize him on the dollar bill that might finally get me into Kelly Shingle’s good graces (and, hopefully, her pants).