by James Maxey
“We aren’t leaving you,” said Reverend Rifle.
“Yeah, you are,” said Gator, managing a brave grin. “Can’t feel my legs. No way I’m swimming out of here.”
“We’ll carry you,” said Reverend Rifle.
“You’ll kill me if you do,” he said, with surprising coherence despite unfathomable pain. “I’m messed up bad. My fastest route to an emergency room is to get captured.”
“You’ll spend the rest of your life in jail if they take you in,” said Kracker, who’d made it back to his robotic feet.
“I ain’t worried about telling my story in court,” said Gator. “I ain’t done nothing I’m ashamed of.”
“He’s making sense,” said Jenny. “With injuries like this, he might never walk again if we move him wrong.”
She was right, of course. We all took for granted that the Legion would treat him lawfully. Which made me wonder not for the first time what the hell we were doing. What if there was no conspiracy to frame me? What if this was all an honest misunderstanding, and every move I made was only digging my hole deeper?
“I got something in my belt,” Gator said, his voice barely audible. “Fourth pouch from the buckle on the left. Give it to me.”
Jenny fumbled around for a second, trying to unsnap the pouch without hurting him. She pulled out a tiny silver flask.
“Four ounces of pure grain alcohol,” Gator said, with a pained giggle. “Pour it down my throat. All of it. Got a problem with that, Rev?”
“No,” said Reverend Rifle, taking the flask from Jenny. “None at all.” He opened the steel stopper. The fumes made my eyes water from a yard away. “This is going to burn,” he said.
“Can’t feel worse than I do already,” said Gator, chuckling. He opened his mouth wide.
The reverend started to pour. Gator’s face twisted into a mask of pain, but he never closed his mouth, and he never coughed or spit out a single drop. A few minutes after he swallowed the last few dribbles, his eyes closed and he started to snore, his head slumped on his shoulder.
While Jenny, the reverend, and myself had been occupied with Gator, Kracker had been more interested in the tech in the room beyond. The vault was cut off from the outside world electronically, but on the inside there were cameras watching all the different areas of the vault. He was clicking through screens on a monitor.
“Find the rifle?” asked the reverend as we joined Kracker.
“I’ve found what we came for,” Kracker said. “Follow me.”
Chapter Eleven
Doom Raptor
I’D BEEN WORRIED about Kracker’s true motives. I’d never liked him when I worked for the Red Line, even before he’d outed himself as a racist. I mean, Rose Rifle also had some dumb ideas about race, but beneath this she still had a deeper goal of making the world a better place, and you had to respect a woman in her seventies who had the nerve to go out and fight on the front lines against super-powered goons. And, sure, Chopper had been a violent sadist, but you could look past his methods to find a sense of duty that drove him to fight to save his city. But Kracker? As near as I could tell his sole motivation as a vigilante hacker was to prove how smart he was. He hacked good guys and bad guys alike. He seemed to think he was smart enough that everything he did was right, like when he dumped Cut Up Girl’s sex videos onto the internet. He’d reasoned that by turning her into a household name he probably kept her out of prison. But the fact that he more or less destroyed her life? I don’t think he ever gave it a second thought.
I’d been worried his only reason for breaking into the vault was to loot it, and felt my worries grow as we made a bee-line for the Hall of Ray Guns. Gravity guns, heat rays, disintegration beams, shrink rays, magno-grenades, warp projectors, and time-freezers were only a few of the world-changing technologies in handheld form all around us. Kracker didn’t even take a second glance.
Jenny, on the other hand, stopped in front of one of the display cases and let out a short, sharp laugh. She’d spotted Micro-Bandit’s size-changing gun. Even if you didn’t have a dirty mind, it was difficult to see it as anything other than a fourteen inch long dildo with a handle attached. The whole thing was made of black plastic with a bulb tip and wire veins running the length of the shaft.
“Do you think the Micro-Bandit was compensating for something?” Jenny asked.
“They all were,” said Kracker. “You think it’s just a coincidence that so many evil geniuses have the intellect to create futuristic technology, then can’t think of anything better to do with it than put it into a gun and use it to rob banks?”
“I always figured it was nerd peer pressure or something,” I said.
“You’d know the actual cause if you bothered reading anything more challenging than comic books,” said Kracker, his voice dripping with condescension. “The clinical diagnosis for this specific psychosis is technophallokleptomania.”
“You’re making that up,” I said.
“I don’t understand why you’re skeptical given the evidence before your eyes,” said Kracker. “Sufferers are simultaneously obsessed with technology, penises, and theft. It’s a somewhat controversial diagnosis, since it’s founded on largely discredited Freudian ideas, but people with this condition subconsciously repress homosexual urges by forming emotional bonds with technology. Their unconscious worship of the phallus manifests in the suggestive shapes of the weaponry they design. They experience sexual pleasure in successfully using their techno-phalli to dominate others.”
“People be crazy,” I said. “And we’re crazy if we keep standing here talking about guns. If Golden Victory shows up, we’re in trouble.”
“I told you he’s in Japan,” said Kracker.
“Fine,” I said. “So maybe it will be She-Devil or Anyman. We have our pick of Legionnaires who can whip us.”
“Then let’s get the rifle before She-Devil shows up,” said the reverend. “Pity the gun’s not here with the others.”
“There’s a separate vault for ‘magical’ items,” said Kracker, making air quotes. “It’s where they keep the Faun’s crown and the Wood Witch’s Weed Wand. We’re almost there. It’s on the other side of the robot repository.”
“Great,” I said. “My day wouldn’t be complete without some creepy robots.”
“What’s creepy about robots?” asked Jenny.
“The repository’s where they store Bad Mother’s crime babies,” I said.
I didn’t have to go into an explanation of why this would be creepy, because at that moment Kracker opened the hatch that led into the repository. This was the second largest space in the vault, dug even deeper into the bedrock than the rest of the place. Only the alien ship hanger required more room.
The repository was longer than a football field and almost as tall. In the far corner, Technosaur’s Doom Raptor loomed over all the other robots. Up in the rafters, on the Doom Raptor’s eye level, were various weaponized drones, a quartet of mecha-pterosaurs, and a giant, floating, robo-brain trapped inside a force field. Down at ground level, we were surrounded by self-driving tanks and other war machines, including some big-ass laser spiders. Most of the machines were more weird than creepy, and, honestly, looking at the saddles on the mecha-pterosaurs, I couldn’t imagine anything cooler than flying one of those bad boys across the Manhattan skyline. If Kracker suggested we steal one of these, I knew, in my heart, I’d help him.
What gave the room its creepy air were Bad Mother’s crime babies. There were, like, a thousand of them, all hovering in mid-air, their eyes open and tracking our movements, their faces utterly devoid of expression. Except for the fact they were hovering, they were indistinguishable from actual babies, at least at a glance. With my ape nose, I can testify that they don’t smell as bad as real babies. Even before I left the Butterfly House, I really wanted to fight Bad Mother. First, she’s a psycho with plans for world domination, my favorite kind of punching bag. But the fact she decided to weaponize babies makes me especially wa
nt to punch her. I don’t know. Maybe I’m projecting. Since my own mother was a supervillain who tried to raise an army of animal-men to do her bidding, maybe my desire to fight Bad Mother is my subconscious way of wanting to strike out at my own mother, Anastasia Moreau. Most of my life she’s been in prison, though, like most supervillains, she seems to get hold of a lot of get out of jail free cards. Honestly, I have no idea if she’s currently in prison or on the run. For the most part, I tune out any news about her.
We crossed through the warehouse in silence, looking up at the crime babies as they gazed dully down at us. After half a minute, I realized we weren’t heading toward the door on the other side of the room, the one that led to the magic chamber. Instead, we were walking straight toward the Doom Raptor.
“Did you take a wrong turn?” I asked. “Wouldn’t the gun be through there?” I said, pointing toward the north wall.
“Sure,” said Kracker. “And She-Devil has probably rigged it with some kind of spell that will turn us into toads when we touch the door.”
“So what’s your plan?”
“I’ll turn on the Doom Raptor and use her laser eyes to take out the door.”
“Her?” I asked. “I always thought of the Doom Raptor as a guy.”
“Technically, it’s a robot, so it’s neither,” said Jenny.
“That’s true to a point,” said Kracker. “But the Doom Raptor was designed around the scaled up skeletal framework of a female t-rex, not a male one. I’ve always found it annoying that, just because it’s big, the media assumed it must also be male.”
“Gee, Kracker, I never guessed you were a feminist,” I said.
“You never guessed a lot of things about me,” he said, as he turned around to face us. He placed his robotic claw on my shoulder and said, “For instance—”
I don’t know if he finished his sentence, since at that moment his robot hand crackled and threw off sparks as a jolt of electricity ran through me. My whole body went stiff as a board and I fell backward, smoke curling around me as the air filled with the retched smell of burnt fur.
I couldn’t move and couldn’t see anything except for dancing sparks blotting out my vision. I could still hear stuff, but it was all muffled echoes, as if I was underwater. I heard Reverend Rifle shout out, “Kracker, what are—” followed by a loud boom. This was followed a few second later by several sharp cracks, like the report of a rifle. Something hot and sharp jabbed me in the bottom of my foot and I sucked in my breath from the pain, arching my back. Shaking off my shock induced paralysis, I managed to sit up, though my vision was still obscured by a curtain of sparks.
Jenny started cursing, though I could barely hear her through the rattling sound of a machine gun kicking into action. Bullets ricocheted around the room in a cacophony of pings and dings, like every cowbell in the world being played with feverish intensity.
I pulled up my foot and saw a dent where a ricocheting bullet had bounced off my thick skin. It hurt like the devil, but I grabbed hold of the leg of a laser spider and managed to pull myself up, wincing as I put my weight on my foot. My whole body felt made of rubber as I looked around, trying to make sense of what was happening.
Kracker’s robotic arm had turned into a Gatling gun, spraying bullets hot and heavy at a mechanized tank. Every couple of seconds, Reverend Rifle would poke his head around the edge of the tank and take a shot, aiming at Kracker’s faceplate. His bullets bounced off with little more than scratches.
Meanwhile, Jenny had moved to one side, ducking behind the Doom Raptor’s claws and now leaned out and directed a string of obscenities at Kracker. His armor glowed red hot, but if he was in any pain, he didn’t show it.
I didn’t know why Kracker had attacked us and I didn’t care. It was time to go ape. I gave out a Tarzan bellow and rushed him, coming up from behind. He started to turn but I caught him by the butt and the back of the neck and lifted him into the air, as his Gatling gun sprayed the crime babies above us. About half a second after picking him up, I realized the whole maneuver was kind of stupid, since Jenny’s pyrokinesis had left his armor hotter than a stove. I wasted no time in tossing him away. He landed on his gun arm and the spray of bullets suddenly stopped.
He rose to one knee, and said, “Nice try. But you don’t really think—”
I didn’t let him finish his sentence. I leapt forward and gave him my best roundhouse punch straight to the center of his helmet. A spider web of cracks filled the visor. I drew back to hit him again, but from behind me there was another loud crack. Kracker’s visor exploded into a million shards and there was a hole where Kracker’s left eye used to be.
From this hole came an eruption of sparks instead of blood. Kracker smirked as he looked at my shocked face with one good eye and said, “You honestly didn’t know?”
“Know what?” I asked. But before I could get an answer from him, the son of a bitch zapped me again! I never even saw him move his arm. Man, I hate getting Tased. I mean, I doubt that anyone enjoys it, but I think I get it worse than most people, since the jolt causes all your muscles to tense up at once, and, lucky me, I’ve got a lot of muscle. As I slumped over, I heard Reverend Rifle fire shot after shot. Unless his aim had suddenly gotten a lot worse, I imagined that Kracker’s face had to look like Swiss cheese by the time the reverend emptied his clip.
Kracker laughed. “You want to fight dirty? Let’s fight dirty.”
Then he exploded.
At ground zero of the blast, I would have been killed if Kracker’s armor had been rigged with any kind of lethal charge. Instead it was more like getting hit with a concussion grenade, a bright flash, a loud bang, and a feeling like my whole body had been slapped by God. I shook my head, rising to my hands and knees, and saw that the blast had been enough to knock out Jenny and the reverend. With my head throbbing, I worried for a second I was about to join them in unconsciousness. I took a deep breath, fighting to keep from collapsing.
I looked up to where Kracker had been and found that his armor was no longer there. Instead, there was a short, skinny, bipedal lizard with a fringe of bright blue feathers adorning its bulbous head. The lizard kicked away the remnants of the armor that had covered it as I rose on trembling legs. I gave out a groan as I recognized the thing’s true identity, then whispered, “Technosaur!”
“Indeed. I could never have reached the Doom Raptor without you. I hope the fact I’m going to kill you now doesn’t make me seem ungrateful.” The lizard leapt toward me. The world exploded into a bright white light. I fell to my back, clutching my crotch. Talk about fighting dirty. Getting kicked in the balls was even worse than getting Tased.
I wasn’t really listening, but that didn’t stop Technosaur from talking as he walked to the unconscious form of Reverend Rifle. No, wait, not he, she. I vaguely remembered sitting in on a Legion briefing where I heard Technosaur was female. She claimed to be the last, immortal survivor of a race of super-intelligent dinosaurs that had ruled the world 65 million years ago. She’d apparently been stuck in suspended animation until a few years back. As befits a villain with 65 million years on her, she decided to engage in an old school supervillain monologue. If she’d had a mustache, I’m sure she would have twirled it. “Kracker offered me his services after he left Port City. I decided he would be more use to me dead. I needed a human representative among the superhero community and knew that no one would notice if he’d been replaced by a robotic double. He was bigoted, foul-smelling, and disdainful of human social norms. Any non-human traits that bled through the programming of his automaton would be dismissed as part of his degenerate personality. His scooter hid glitches in his human gait, and his oversized carcass was large enough for me to wear him like a suit when needed.”
As she spoke, she picked up the reverend’s fallen rifle. She pressed the barrel to his temple and pulled the trigger. There was a click as the hammer fell on an empty chamber.
Technosaur let out a sigh as she tossed the rifle away. “Shooting people
point blank isn’t my style anyway. I control technology far more sophisticated than your primitive boom-sticks.” She pressed a button on her belt. Suddenly, all the crime babies in the room turned their eyes toward her. “My omniwave can easily hijack the programming of these mechanical infants. Children, finish off these losers for me, won’t you?”
“Yes, Mother,” the crime babies said in unison.
Then things got a little crazy.
The babies shot toward us, eyes filled with murder as their tiny fingernails extended into razors. I tried to rise, intending to throw myself over Jenny to protect her, when suddenly a tank flew through the air, crashing through the front ranks of the attacking babies. The babies all whirled around to see the source of the attack and my eyes followed theirs. Just inside the doorway stood Smash Lass and Elsa Where.
Smash Lass and Bad Mother had fought many times and the crime babies turned in mass to massacre her. Smash Lass leapt to meet their charge, with crime babies exploding like little pink grenades as she threw punches with her naked fists. Meanwhile, other crime babies slashed at the air where Elsa Where looked like she was standing. Elsa Where drew back her fist and threw a punch with all her weight behind it. Behind me, I heard someone scream, “Ow!”
I turned and found Technosaur leaning against the Doom Raptor’s enormous claws, blood dripping from her toothy jaws. She pressed a button on her remote control and a dozen crime babies swooped down to form a whirling fence around her. Across the room, Elsa Where’s image was knocked back as one of the crime babies managed to land a punch on her invisible form.
Elsa Where landed on her feet but despite her advantage of fighting from an unseen position, she was only human in strength and toughness, while the crime babies had steel skeletons and electro-muscular systems strong enough to tear open bank vaults. Despite the near crippling pain of standing upright, I leapt to the top of the Doom Raptor’s claw and snagged the first crime baby that came near, grabbing it by the ankles and using it as a bat to knock aside the other flying rug rats.
