Villain

by Michael Grant

  For what felt like a very long time she looked at her finger, then up at him. “You’re one of them. You’re a mutant. Like on TV. You’re Rockborn!”

  “Well,” he said with a sort of shy shrug, “I’m not a monster.”

  “No.” She stood up and walked slowly around him. Then she frowned as if concentrating hard and reached a tentative finger to touch his cheek. “Are you. . . green?”

  “Only after too many burritos,” he said. Then, in a more normal voice, “It seems like I am. But people don’t seem freaked out.”

  “Freaked out? Why would they be? You’re . . . gorgeous. I mean, really. I can’t stop looking at you.”

  It was an odd feeling, being inspected this way. He was simultaneously vulnerable and all-powerful. And yet it felt erotic.

  “The casino downstairs is full of cops and security and ambulances wheeling people out. I thought there had been some kind of terrorist thing. Was that you?”

  He nodded.

  “Why?”

  He shrugged again, even less comfortable and yet even more excited. “I was testing my power. It seems like anyone who hears my voice has to do what I tell them. No matter what.” He did not tell her about the drunk tank or the cheesecake incident. He had the feeling that they made him seem immature.

  “How did this happen?”

  “Would you like something to eat or drink? I can call room service . . .”

  She shook her head slowly, and a long strand of black hair fell forward to bisect her forehead. “Why me?”

  “I, uh . . .”

  “Is it about sex?”

  “No,” he lied quickly. “No, I would never make you, you know . . .” He smiled, and she smiled back. And he had not made her smile! Of course, he reminded himself, she wasn’t smiling at the old Dillon, but at the new and improved Dillon.

  “Good,” she said, still smiling. “Because then I would have to spend the rest of my life getting my revenge.” Her mouth was still smiling, but her voice was not. Then she shifted tone. “So, wow, Dillon. Wow. What are you going to do with this power?”

  “Well,” he said sheepishly, “I’m not sure. It’s mostly why I . . .” He let his thought trail off.

  “It’s why you brought me here?”

  “Kind of.”

  She let loose a sudden, sharp bark of laughter. “Oh, my God: you want me to be your henchman. I’m a minion! Hah!”

  Actually, he’d been thinking “girlfriend,” but as soon as the rather old-fashioned word “henchman” was out of her mouth, he echoed her laugh and said, “Yeah!”

  “Do you have a name yet?”

  “Dillon?”

  She shook her head pityingly. “That’s not a supervillain name. Lex Luthor is a supervillain name. Or Ultron or something.”

  “I’m a supervillain?” He was a bit taken aback by that thought. But he had done some villainous things already; he had to admit that.

  “Of course you’re a supervillain. Mind control isn’t really a hero thing, it’s a villain thing.” She was nodding now, nodding and looking at him from different angles, considering. “The Dominator? Mastermind?”

  “Seriously?” He laughed, getting into it. “Am I going to need a special outfit?”

  “‘No capes, dahling,’” Saffron said, using a movie line that warmed Dillon’s heart. “Definitely no spandex. No, I see you in something”—she waved her hands over him as if trying to conjure an outfit out of the air—“something kind of classy. You’re too gorgeous to want your face covered by a mask.”

  Again she had used that word, “gorgeous,” and it sent Dillon into a hazy, happy sort of fugue state. No one—not even his adoring mother—had ever called him gorgeous. He felt the unseen audience growing impatient and almost said, Give me a break, I’m working on it!

  “Gorgeous, huh?” he said, hoping to get her to repeat it. He doubted he’d ever get tired of hearing it.

  “You’re what my grandmother would call a real charmer,” Saffron said. She snapped her fingers. “That’s it! That’s your name! The Charmer!”

  “The Charmer.” He tried it out and liked it. And as soon as he had absorbed the name, he realized Saffron was right: something kind of classy was called for. “You want to come shopping for an outfit? We can take anything we want, and there’s a mall downstairs.”

  “I don’t like shopping, usually,” Saffron said. “But in this case?” She plucked the collar of her Venetian robe. “I need something to wear, too.”

  Dillon had to restrain the urge to dance with pure joy. He had his first henchman, and she was amazing. She’d caught on right away, she had a sense of humor, and she was obviously attracted to him. They could walk through any mall—the Fashion Show Mall, the Bellagio, the one right here in the casino—and take literally anything. And he could do it all with Saffron on his arm, like one of those big shots who came to Vegas with a beautiful underwear model on each arm, spending money like water.

  Amazing!

  “Yeah, let’s go shopping,” he said. “Then we can . . . well . . .”

  Saffron’s voice was pitying. “You don’t know what to do with it, do you? The power, I mean.” She laid a hand on his chest, sending waves of pleasure through him.

  “Maybe we could figure it out together?”

  “Dude,” she said, still pitying. “There’s only one thing for a supervillain to do. Take over the world.”

  That rocked him back on his heels. “Take over the world? What?”

  “Take over the world,” she said, dreamy now, her vivid imagination overflowing with incredible scenarios.

  “Look, I can make people do things, but—”

  “Dillon,” Saffron said, “it’s not just about what you can get people to do. It’s what you can get people to believe. You can maybe mess with people’s minds. You can make them believe things that are not true, whatever you want to put in their heads. Like they were computers and you were writing the software. You could easily be president. If you got on CNN, I mean, if it’s true that people have no choice but to obey you? You could literally be king of the world.”

  Dillon stood stunned. He’d called Saffron because she was hot, and because she was smart and imaginative. And because it was not much fun doing everything alone. But she had ramped things up much further and much faster than he’d expected.

  Take over the world?

  Sure. Maybe. But why?

  “I believe there’s a reason for everything that happens, you know? Which means you were given this power for a reason.” Saffron looked intently into his eyes. “Things like this don’t just happen. This is part of some larger plan. You were meant to have this power, which means you were meant to use it.”

  Dillon nodded along, not quite convinced, and still half thinking he would just tell Saffron to strip off her robe and her bikini and . . . But his thoughts were not alone in his head; the Dark Watchers, his audience, were listening. And they were liking what they were hearing. He could sense their pleasure, their anticipation.

  “Well . . . okay,” Dillon said with a shrug. “How do we start?”

  Saffron smiled. “Let’s start with school and work outward.”

  Dillon winced. “You want me to be a superpowered Dylan Klebold? I’m not into killing people, I’m just trying to have a few laughs.”

  “Don’t be silly, Dillon. You don’t need dead bodies, you need living slaves. And of course one other thing.”

  “What?”

  “A queen, Dillon,” she said. “A queen.”

  Interstice

  DEKKA AND SHADE had agreed to communicate only through secure, encrypted WhatsApp.

  Shade: D it’s Shade. Can you give me info on the ranch?

  Dekka: Sending you some notes. If you’re going there be very careful. Dangerous place.

  Shade: I have a new weapon.

  Dekka: Why there and why now?

  Shade: I don’t trust the government.

  Dekka: Who does?

  Shade: We
can’t just wait to be picked off. I have a camera. Going public.

  Dekka: Need help?

  Shade: No. Take care. SD

  Dekka: OK. Sending notes. Good hunting. DT

  ASO-6

  THE DISAPPEARANCE OF US Coast Guard cutter Abbie Burgess mobilized faster ships than the undersea research flotilla. Other Coast Guard cutters steamed to the scene at top speed. They found less than the helicopter had, just a single identifiable piece of wreckage: a wooden box containing an ancient sextant that must have been someone’s prized collector’s item.

  There was no sign of any hostile ship or creature that might have been responsible for the cutter’s destruction. But a French satellite captured a fuzzy picture of a creature that looked like some unholy blending of killer whale and crab. The French estimated the length at over two hundred feet, twice the length of a blue whale.

  The name given to this creature was “chimera,” a mythological blending of different species.

  The captain of the USS Nebraska, an Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarine, was not warned about mutant sea creatures; his “enemy” was the Russian navy. The Nebraska was heading north to take up station in the Norwegian Sea, where it was to spend a month cruising submerged, ready should the need arise, to fire off its twenty-four Trident II missiles, each boasting eight nuclear warheads. In all, the Nebraska had the ability to create 192 Hiroshimas—every Russian city from Moscow down to Yeysk, a city smaller and even less significant than Jurupa Valley, California.

  The chimera attacked the Nebraska, which was cruising at twenty-two knots at a depth of two hundred feet. The chimera’s tentacles fouled and froze the ship’s screws. It twisted the dive planes and crushed the superstructure and its periscopes and antennae.

  The Nebraska sank to the ocean floor, but without hull integrity being breached. A hundred fifty-five officers and sailors rattled around like dice in a cup as the chimera, which could hear them, set about getting at them, tearing at the sub’s outer skin as if it was an oyster shell protecting juicy tidbits within.

  CHAPTER 10

  It Takes Six Seconds to Fall Five Hundred Feet

  “I THINK SHADE Darby is going after the Ranch,” Dekka said, pocketing her phone. Like Shade, she’d been forced to steal phones and switch them out regularly. They were dangerous tracking devices, but on the other hand, they were vital to keeping up with the wider world. And to communicating with Shade.

  Armo had taken it upon himself to handle the refilling of the Kawasaki’s fuel tank. He tapped off the last drops of gas and replaced the pump handle.

  “Did she say why?”

  Dekka, leaning back against the Chevron pump, shook her head. “Nope. But I can guess. She’s a smart girl. She realizes it’s hopeless the way it is, so she’s trying to change the game by attacking.”

  Armo smiled. “Well, you have to kinda like a girl who thinks ‘hopeless’ means ‘attack.’”

  Dekka wanted to agree, but it all sounded so much like Brianna, the Breeze. To hell with the odds—attack! But the bigger issue was what she, Dekka, was going to do. She and Armo. They had talked it over with Sam and Astrid and had reached the same conclusion: in the end, they could not survive unless they managed to cause total anarchy. And what kind of victory was that?

  Nothing had depressed Dekka more than Sam failing to come up with a clever plan. The master of the last-minute save had nothing. But Astrid had suggested an answer that might be close to what Shade had in mind, in some ways.

  “What did you think of Astrid?” Dekka asked Armo.

  He shrugged and looked more serious than his usual easygoing smirk. “She’s smart. Beautiful, too. Not that I would ever . . . I mean, that Sam dude has a reputation. He’s a warrior, and basic warrior code, you don’t try to move on a fellow warrior’s woman.”

  Dekka blinked. “Sometimes you’re just downright odd, Armo.”

  “Just sometimes?” He grinned.

  “What about her idea?”

  Armo screwed the gas cap back on. “You mean go totally public and all? Isn’t that what Shade is doing?”

  “I assume. What do you think of that?” Dekka had come to like Armo, though she did not have a very high opinion of his intelligence, or his weird obsession with Danes, Vikings, and whatever warrior code he thought he was following. But his answer surprised her.

  “I guess it’s harder to kill someone you know.” He shrugged and looked away as if expecting to be humiliated for having said something stupid. “I mean, someone says, ‘Let’s kill all the mutants,’ that’s one thing; ‘Let’s kill Dekka and Armo,’ that’s a whole different thing. You know, if we’re real people to them.”

  “Mutant Lives Matter?” Dekka said wryly. “You’ve got a country where half the people can’t get their heads around black folks or Latinos or gays or trans people being actually human. Now we’re going to get them to care about people who turn into freaks? I don’t mean to sound cynical, but it comes with being black, female, and lesbian: this country hasn’t exactly been kind to people like me.”

  “Well, some is better than none, right? I mean if even some people don’t think we need to be wiped out . . .” Then, shaking his head, he asked in an undertone, “How did my life turn into this?”

  Dekka smiled. “I know, an easygoing, cooperative guy like you? Ending up in a shitstorm?”

  Armo laughed. “I know, right?”

  “Okay. So what do we do? How do we take this public? I can tweet and Instagram like I have a couple times, but there are so many spoof accounts. . . . Some fake Dekka has three times as many followers as I do.” She shrugged. “Anyway, the big TV networks and newspapers will be on the government’s side. They’re all owned by billionaires who just want to make money. We are bad for business, we Rockborn freaks. People don’t shop when the world is blowing up.”

  She swung her leg over the Kawasaki, and Armo climbed on. But Dekka did not fire up the engine. She stood there astride her bike with Armo behind her, lost in thought.

  Finally Armo said, “What is it you want to do, Dekka?”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “I asked you first.”

  “What I want to do is something stupid,” Dekka admitted.

  “You mean, go give Shade some backup even if she says no?” Armo asked. Dekka’s silence was affirmation, so Armo said, “Yeah, me too.”

  “If we go back up the 5 or the 101, they’ll be looking for us. How about a long detour? We could come in from the direction of Yosemite. From out of the east.”

  “One thing, though,” Armo said. “I think it’s time for me to get my own bike.”

  Dekka twisted around and said, “Your own bike?” Then she noticed Armo’s gaze fixed on three motorcycle gang members just parking by the gas station’s convenience store. Part of her would actually kind of miss having the big goof seated behind her. Not that Armo was much for conversation, but he was good for an occasional sentence or two. But it made good sense: the police BOLO (be on lookout for) would be for two people on one bike, one black female, one white male. Even experienced police tended to see only what they expected to see, and two bikes with one rider each was not one bike with two riders.

  “Advice?” Armo asked. “I’ve never owned a motorcycle before.”

  Dekka peered at the three motorcycles, all Harley-Davidsons, all customized, all with ape-hanger handlebars. Then she looked past them to a motorcycle mounted on a trailer behind a pickup truck. She pointed with her chin. “If it was me, I’d go for that yellow Yamaha there. Plus, anyone owns a bike that expensive probably has theft insurance on it.”

  Armo swung off Dekka’s bike and sauntered across the lot.

  “Need help?” Dekka called after him.

  Armo turned, walking backward, and made a face that said, Me? Need help? He ignored the bikers, who prudently ignored him back, then hopped up on the back of the trailer. The driver climbed out of his seat and came rushing around, yelling.

  And then he stopped
running. And froze. And stared slack-jawed at the creature now sitting astride his bike.

  “You have theft insurance, right?” Armo asked in a voice twisted by low growls. “I don’t want you to suffer. But I need your motorcycle.”

  The man nodded dully and said, “Are you Berserker Bear?”

  “Am I what?”

  “Berserker Bear. Sir.” The man cautiously drew out his phone. “Can I take a picture? Because no way the insurance company believes this . . .”

  “WTF is Berserker Bear?” Armo demanded.

  “It’s what they’re calling you on Twitter. I didn’t make it up! Don’t blame me!”

  “You can take a picture, but if you post it, say I do not like the name Berserker Damn Bear. It sounds like something from Build-a-Bear Workshop. I mean, come on, people, I want a cooler name.”

  “Yes, sir, Mister . . . Mister Bear.” The man who was about to lose his motorcycle clicked a picture of Armo, fully morphed, flexing his arms, and because of the angle and because Armo’s morphed face was neither quite human nor quite bear, the photo appeared to be of a leering, bipedal, probably insane polar bear on a yellow Yamaha.

  “Berserker Bear,” Armo muttered darkly, and powered up the engine. “Gonna have to do better than that.” Then he drove the Yamaha right off the back of the trailer, swung into place beside Dekka and said, “Ready.”

  He revved the engine until his whole body vibrated.

  Dekka unleashed a huge and rare grin and did the same.

  “Dude called me Berserker Bear,” Armo said.

  “They call me Lesbokitty.”

  “Yeah, we gotta get new names.”

  “You know, Armo,” Dekka said. “I was just remembering this quote I heard once. It was from a soldier in World War II. His whole unit was in a trap, surrounded, situation totally hopeless.”

  “So what’d the guy say?”

  “‘They’ve got us surrounded . . . the poor bastards.’”

  Armo threw back his head and laughed aloud. “Now that is some hardcore Viking shit! Hah! We’re surrounded, Lesbokitty—let’s ride!”