Origins of a D-List Supervillain

by Jim Bernheimer

  I’d been working with some class A “home use” powercells when I’d built my prototype compressor, Promethia and the US Marshals had confiscated those. The likelihood I’d ever see those again was about the same as Lazarus showing up at my trailer and delivering a personal apology. Along with my spare compressor, I still had one class A, but that wasn’t going to cut it.

  “I’ve got a half-dozen A cells and two class B industrials. How about two grand and two A cells?”

  “What about the B cells?”

  He scratched all three of his chins. “Both of them need serious reconditioning and either one is out of your price range. I got them damaged from a construction accident.”

  “I can recondition a powercell, Joey. How about I recondition both and you let me walk with one?”

  It was Joey’s turn to frown. It was the second time today I had asked him to skirt the edge of the law. To own a class B powercell, you had to have some kind of paper trail. Class C and above required government clearances.

  “Just write off the one as being unsalvageable and sent for destruction. Bust up one of the A cells and turn it in in its place.”

  Smiling, I knew I had him. True, I was offering to do several thousand dollars’ worth of repair work for him at cost, but he’d hardly paid retail for them to begin with.

  “Strings, my man,” he said. “You got yourself a damned deal!”

  Instead of three days of Florida beaches and wasting my money chasing tanned bodies, I spent it hunched over a workbench in the back of Joey’s shop, but all that work scored me an industrial powercell, well, at least one that could hold eighty percent charge, but beggars can’t be choosers.

  • • •

  In one of my more paranoid moments, I bought a bulletproof vest. Fortunately for me, Barton wanted me humiliated and destitute instead of dead. Joey would have been awfully suspicious if I had asked him for one.

  “Hey, Stringel,” Dougie said. “Anything going on?”

  “No, I’m good.”

  “Oh, it’s just that you haven’t been such a whiny little bitch lately.”

  It was his way of giving me a compliment. Somehow, I doubted he had any training in spotting changes in employee behavior and linking that to criminal intent. His idea of profiling consisted of watching women walking by and seeing how big their racks were.

  While building a pair of force blasters, I’d kept a low profile. That meant none of my usual outbursts at work for over two weeks running.

  “I’ve accepted that there is nothing more to be done,” I replied.

  “So, no more calls from lawyers and suppahero bidness?”

  “If I never see another superhero again, I’ll be a happy man.”

  Dougie grinned, giving me a look at how badly coffee and chewing tobacco can ruin tooth enamel. “That’s good. I just wanted you to know that if you keep this up, you’re in the running for employee of the month.”

  “Thanks,” I said, hoping that I didn’t sound sarcastic. That honor would go great alongside my magna cum laude from UCLA. In a shop of seven mechanics and two women working the front office, competition for that coveted distinction, and the parking spot accompanying it, was positively cutthroat.

  “Anything else, boss?”

  “I’ve got a Durango that needs an oil change, flush and fill, and the rotors either need to be turned or resurfaced.”

  Nodding, I told him I could take care of it. The job would consume the rest of my day and required only enough attention to make certain I didn’t forget to put the drain plug back in. That way, I could spend the rest of the day on my mental chalkboard designing my super powered crimesuit. Although, I will confess to a five minute interlude while I fantasized what my blasters could do to this place.

  My high school guidance counselor always stressed the importance of having goals. If I ever go to my ten year reunion, I’ll have to look her up and thank her for that advice.

  The class B cell was heavy, checking in at fifty pounds. Without my power compressor, I would have been forced to carry two or three to power my blasters, which would have left me virtually immobile without some kind of Waldo or synthmuscle exoframe. That was the beauty of my invention. It was really a lightweight capacitor and if my calculations were correct, I could squeeze eight full power shots before running the cell and the compressor dry.

  Using a thrift store backpack, I crafted a harness that would carry my power supply. With the weight restrictions, I was pretty much limited to what I could carry in the deep pockets of a set of black coveralls. A red, insulated ski mask, from when I used to be able to afford that form of recreation, would cover my face along with a pair of those yellow tinted, light enhancing glasses. For the control interface, I had a belt with an oversized dial on it. It went beyond crude, but often the easiest solution to a problem was the ugliest. The dial had five settings. On the lowest, the blast would toss an average-sized man about ten feet and smash through most regular glass windows. The next settings up carried enough force to bust a door off its frame and seriously injure a human. Anything beyond that and they’d be scooping the body off the ground into a black bag, since three through five were meant for walls, bulletproof glass, and safes.

  I had no plans to be a murderer, though I could convince myself to make an exception for a certain lawyer. From my point of view, it’d be justifiable, but I wasn’t sure the judicial system would agree.

  My lack of carrying space left me with two options: banks and jewelry stores. Banks always meant federal agents and possibly superhero involvement. It was higher risk with greater reward. One big score could net me enough to build my powersuit. It also meant human interaction and I wasn’t interested in that. Jewelry stores meant more trips to Miami or other pawn shops to unload the goods. That path would add lengthy delays to my plans, but Dad always used to say that “slow and steady wins the race.”

  At that moment, all I had was time.

  • • •

  Second thoughts? Yeah, I started having them as soon as the force blasters were finished. Up until then, I was just planning crimes. The day I test fired my blasters was when shit got real. The first place I decided to knock over was a chain jewelry store, figuring they would be insured. I toyed with the idea of robbing the pawn shops, but, considering I might need them to fence my goods, that seemed problematic. Also, I could easily be distracted by all the other shiny objects inside a place like that.

  From the amount of sweating I was doing, I worried that the police would be able to track the water trail back to my trailer. Somehow, I doubted a double wide could ever be considered a criminal lair. It was around two in the morning, when the cops would be camped out by the bars and looking for easy ways to make their ticket quotas. Dialing the belt controller up to level three, I blew open the back door and scrambled through the opening. A second burst from my left hand took out their server closet. Unless they sent their security feed offsite, I’d just rendered their cameras useless and destroyed the recorded data.

  Most crooks down this way wouldn’t even consider that, I thought, mentally patting myself on the back. I blew the power panel for good measure, but the alarm had already been triggered. It was more for the sake of not listening to it while I broke into the drawers below the display cases and poured rings, necklaces, and earrings into a pillowcase.

  Yes, I was using a pillowcase. Don’t judge me. Given my costume, I looked like a trick or treater, so it seemed to work. “Function over form” was what I always said.

  At the two minute mark, I lumbered back out to the red Hyundai and tossed the pillowcase onto the floor of the passenger seat and then dropped the backpack assembly on the seat above my haul. It was a little uncomfortable with the cables running to the wrist mounted force blasters and the wires going to the belt controller assembly, but I pulled away before the fourth minute had elapsed. My route took me away from the direction the police cars would be coming. It was a twenty minute drive back to Argos.

  Severa
l times one of Barton’s legal thugs implied to the judge that my acts were criminal in nature. At least now, I’d given them cause to say that.

  “I need a criminal name,” I said aloud, basking in the joy of my first heist. “Blasterman? Ultrathief? Nah, that one would be a dead giveaway. The blocky powercell, almost makes me look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, maybe I should use Quasimodo.”

  Since I didn’t have the synthetic muscle to make a pair of gauntlets, my force blasters were mounted on my wrist instead. The way the cables ran off of it made them seem like those shackles they make prisoners wear.

  “Powershackle? Closer. What about Manacles? I like it. Almost sounds like my name. I’ve got it! ManaCALes!”

  It didn’t seem like a stupid name to me.

  • • •

  One of the things I always found amusing about my time working with Patterson and his supersuit was that after he fought in a battle, especially the times he’d gotten beaten, the entire project would gather in an auditorium and watch every piece of footage of the battle—like we were a damned football team watching game film.

  It was fun watching everyone trying to deflect the blame.

  “If the offensive systems performed better, the shields wouldn’t have taken such a beating.” I patently ignored the comment from Owen, because he was full of shit and offensive systems wasn’t the reason Lazarus was resting in a hyperbaric chamber at that moment.

  “Don’t look at maneuverability! Ever since the latest upgrades were installed, the suit is quicker. Maybe internal structure could work another shield emitter into the skeleton.”

  Derek probably kissed a picture of Patterson’s ass every morning before he kissed his wife. He was the scientific equivalent of a cockroach—ready to scurry at a moment’s notice.

  “There’s no wasted space in internal structure. If we cram anything else in there, we’d have to amputate one of the pilot’s limbs. Feel free to pitch that idea to the boss.”

  Owen wasn’t done. “Maybe ATAI could have done a better job predicting Mistress Magma’s attack patterns.”

  Rita took offense to that. “She shoots flames from her hands, it’s not rocket science! Her temperature exceeds the current rating of the suit shielding and armor. Block it, shoot her first, or dodge it.”

  Todd’s response was a bit more succinct. He gave Owen the finger.

  “Okay,” Ducie said, cutting off the bickering. “Mr. Patterson is recovering and we have forty-eight hours to get the suit back up and running and come up with a winning strategy against a five foot three she-volcano. I need ATAI to run simulations and determine a minimum safe distance, if Ultraweapon runs into her alone again. I also need team scenarios because I’d rather have the rest of the West Coast Guardians with him.”

  Four members were responsible for the Adaptive Threat Assessment Index. It was a database of supervillains, and oddly enough, superheroes. Yeah, Lazarus Patterson was that paranoid. The ATAI team were a fun bunch; Todd, Rita, Matt, and Brad. They were a fountain of knowledge when it came to super powers. They ran simulation after simulation of Ultraweapon versus everyone else.

  Whenever we upgraded the suit, they ran it against the “Imaginary Larry” test first. Larry was an insanely powerful telekinetic, with equal emphasis on insane and powerful. By all accounts, he was the strongest person on the planet. In over two hundred simulated battles, Ultraweapon only beat him twice in a stand up fight. The first time came after my force blasters were installed. I think I got a bonus that week.

  I needed my own threat index. The Gulf Coast Guardians technically had responsibility for this region. They usually stayed in the area between New Orleans and the major cities of Texas. I didn’t think I’d have to worry about them for a while. Andydroid was based out of Atlanta and the northern parts of Florida. This was something of a “dead zone” for super powered folks. In fact, the only potential problem I might face would be The Biloxi Bugler.

  If Ultraweapon could only beat Imaginary Larry once in a blue moon, the Bugler stood about as much of a chance against Ultraweapon. He had a sonic bugle and a death wish. Best I could tell, he didn’t even wear a bulletproof vest! If I was in this to build some kind of reputation, I think I would have picked someplace better, but until I had my own suit, fighting superheroes wasn’t something on my agenda.

  Still, I needed my own self-assessment after pulling my first job. The police suspected the perpetrators used explosives and linked it to possible gang activity. For the moment, I was in the clear, and I used that time to improve my chances of success.

  Things would be much simpler if I had a getaway driver I could count on. Almost half my time was spent getting back into my car. The car was the other problem—it wasn’t really suited for a crime spree. I needed something a little bigger and more useful. Like any venture that wants to be successful, I’d have to reinvest a portion of my profits back into my enterprise.

  The gold rings I could just melt down. Those places that buy gold with few questions were a blessing. I could mint my own coins, or just give it to them as a bar. The biggest issue with the gold was ensuring that I didn’t mix the metal qualities.

  The jewelry I’d have to accumulate until there was enough to take to Miami or go straight to Joey’s New York connection.

  • • •

  I traded in the Hyundai right after my first “payday.” Replacing it was a used nondescript white van—the kind you see on the highway and don’t give a second thought to. Paying cash for a new one was tempting, but somehow I guessed Barton’s squad was tracking my finances, so I played it safe.

  The getaway driver was a problem, but surprisingly I had trust issues. The answer came in the form of a project I’d been a part of in my second year at UCLA. Our engineering department built a self-driving car. I still had most of the notes. It wasn’t as complex as people made it out to be. The idea wouldn’t take hold in this country anytime soon. People saw it as taking away their personal freedom. It probably just wasn’t marketed correctly. If they sold it as a built-in designated driver, it’d sell like hotcakes, especially around here.

  My driver was a blow up sex doll wearing a blonde wig. I named her Tracy, in honor of the dead woman who made this all possible. Beyond that, I used the GPS unit from my cellphone, a laptop, webcam, and some simple control equipment. It would get around this county and obey almost all traffic laws—I did make an exception so it wouldn’t pull over for the police.

  It seemed prudent. There was also an untested override which I hoped I’d never have to use, where I programmed it to behave like one of those console driver games.

  • • •

  “Hit it, Tracy!” I said, jumping into the back of the van and closing the doors. Job number seven was actually in Alabama. I didn’t want to be exclusive to Mississippi and make the investigators jobs any easier and give them any kind of a pattern to lock in on.

  The route I programmed into Tracy took me out of town headed southeast. I was on my way to Florida and figured they’d be looking for my van going back west. Also, getting a bit bolder, I pulled this one at a different hour, because after the job in Jackson, the news started calling me the two a.m. bandits, still assuming that more than one person was involved.

  So tonight, Tracy and I were the Midnight Cowboys. I even started singing that I Wanna Be a Cowboy song. Sure it wasn’t as good as Biz Markie, but few things were.

  Halfway through the second verse, I saw the flashing blue lights.

  “Shit!” I exclaimed and started pulling on the ski mask back onto my face. I used some stolen plates I’d taken in Jackson. “Tracy, alter our travel path to route three in one minute.”

  At thirty seconds, I opened the back door and shoved my hand out. I dialed the setting to level three and sent a burst into the patrol car’s engine block. Metal crumpled and there was a big dent in his front like he’d just run into a telephone pole.

  The pursuit was neutralized, but my worries had just begun. By the time I re
ached Florida, the dashboard footage of the incident was picked up by the national news. Exposure was something I’d hoped to avoid and now I was on most of the major channels and the 24 Hour Hero channel.

  A level four pulse had left the stolen plates an unrecognizable mass at the center of a small crater on a country road off the interstate. I pulled out a stencil and spray painted “General Contracting” on it and used a heat gun to dry it and weather the paint in short order. It would protect my secret identity for now, but the cat was out of the bag.

  • • •

  My problems only grew when I got to the Sunshine state. Two of my pawn brokers had been burnt down under “suspicious” circumstances. The only good news was that it wasn’t Joey. I was halfway to my goal of having enough money to make my own suit, but my middle men were becoming scarce. If Barton’s folks caught wind of this, they could easily sick the feds on me. That suit would come in handy when that happened, but I’d need to get the money and drop out of sight.

  With that in mind, I came to the only sensible conclusion; I’d have to pull a bank job.

  Chapter Three

  ManaCALes Versus the Biloxi Bugler

  In response to my crime spree, I saw an announcement that The Bugler would be expanding his patrol radius. That gave me an idea. If he was going to be away from Biloxi, that’s where I would be. I found a bank with no jewelry stores nearby. The whole broad daylight thing still didn’t appeal to me. My plan was contingent on my force blasters being able to penetrate the vault.

  Unfortunately, it wouldn’t leave much charge for anything else. I’d picked up a couple of A cells, but they’d be useless in the van until I got back to them. For this job, I picked a Friday night with a big cross city high school football game. That would keep most of the police busy elsewhere.

  To further complicate things, Tracy drove me by a substation and I sent a class four pulse into one of the big transformers to kill the power for a couple of blocks. That would stretch the city’s emergency services pretty thin.