Origins of a D-List Supervillain

by Jim Bernheimer

  If he didn’t have the answer already, he probably wasn’t a very good head doctor.

  “No, they don’t want any contact with me. Dad made that clear when he visited me in jail.”

  “Once again, your actions have wider ramifications. If you want to heal that breach with your parents, you’re the one who’s going to have to make the first moves. They may not even respond at first, but that’s another thing you’ve got to work on.”

  It sounded like good advice, but my parents were capable of holding major league grudges. Shrugging, I knew the prison would be reading everything I wrote or I received. The Semi-transparent man gave me some solid advice, resist for the first six months and then gradually give in to let them think they’re breaking you. They can spot someone who is a phony and a suck up.

  “Let’s finish up with talking about your time at the prison,” he said. “What are you keeping yourself busy with?”

  Considering my movements were followed around the clock, I wondered why he kept asking questions that he already knew the answer to. “I spend a good deal of time in the library. Kind of odd using so many real books when you’re not allowed access to a computer. During the day, I’m working in the prison laundry. It helps to pass the time.”

  “Have you considered taking any courses?”

  “I was already unemployable with a bachelor’s in electrical engineering with a minor in mechanical. I don’t really see how more education is going to be the answer.”

  He gave a deep baritone laugh and said, “I’ll have to write that one down. Calvin Stringel says more education isn’t the answer. That’s priceless!”

  • • •

  Dear Dad,

  I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to write, but it’s one of those things where I’m at a loss for what to say. Sometimes, I look around and it’s hard to believe I’m where I’m at today.

  Okay, my opening lines gave me the “Little Lost Lamb” theme. I guess I need to show that ownership crapola the Doc is always shoveling.

  Still, I know it was my actions that put me here and I’m sorry for how it has affected you and Mom. How is she? I figured I’d write you instead of her, because I’m guessing she’d just ball my letter up and toss it in the trash.

  This part is an attempt to show I’m contrite and acknowledge the problems between me and Mom.

  So, anyway, four months down. This place isn’t so bad. There’s a bit of a pecking order, but that’s mainly between the folks who have powers. Next week, I start teaching a course in Engineering Fundamentals. I’d wanted to teach a computer language, or some basic Electrical Theory, but we’re not allowed to have access to any kind of equipment like that—probably for good reasons.

  There was a rumor that Eddie used a computer, even with all the networking gear removed, to escape once. I figured the whole teaching thing would look good at my parole board hearing.

  Maybe I can work on getting a teaching certificate, since it’s not like I have a whole bunch of other options. One of the Mexican Villains, El Conquistador, teaches Spanish. I thought about taking his class, but after seven years in Los Angeles, I still have no desire to learn another language.

  It was true. I hated languages, other than the computer ones, with a passion. I’d tried one year of Italian that almost cost me Valedictorian at my High School. As for Spanish, the few words I knew were profanity, and that’s the way I wanted it to stay. Teaching? I had no illusions about ever holding a teaching position, but I needed to sound like I had some goals for when I finally did get out.

  How are things at the bowling alley? Is Mom’s hip still giving her problems? I understand if you don’t want to write back anytime soon, but I hope to hear from you, and wouldn’t mind some news from the outside world.

  Cal

  The last part was me trying to be nice. I was never really good at that. Like the good doctor said, it’s not all about me.

  Not that I really believed any of that shit; I just wanted to get out of prison.

  Chapter Four

  Crappy Escape Plans For the Win

  “Hey, I heard you don’t like Ultraweapon,” the squat man pushing the laundry cart said, catching me by surprise. My previous “delivery man” had gotten a marginally better job. I could probably trade up, but I actually liked the laundry room, because, as a general rule, no one messes with the dude taking care of their clothes and that suited me just fine.

  The new guy had greasy looking black hair and an oily complexion that made my own skin issues pale in comparison. From the way he casually moved about the place, I suspected he’d been here previously.

  “Do I know you?”

  “Richard D. Chesterton, the third,” he said and extended his hand. I reluctantly took it has he continued, “But everyone just calls me Gunk.”

  The moment he said that, I wanted nothing more than to release his hand and go find a steel wool pad and go all Silkwood on my appendage. Gunk was a superpower cautionary tale. Old Richey here was born into money, but not necessarily brains. He spent his entire trust fund account, in an obsessive fashion that defied both logic and reason, on acquiring an ability.

  The fool got his wish in the same kind of way karma came back to bite me in the ass, but on a way bigger scale. His power was some kind of fast metabolizing mucus that sticks to most everything and hardens into the consistency of concrete in only a few seconds, and despite his size, Gunk can produce phlegm by the bucketful.

  There is probably any number of more disgusting things on this planet than watching Gunk hack a slime-filled loogie, but you’d be hard pressed to come up with one on the spot.

  “Yeah, I hate Patterson,” I answered.

  He laughed and pulled a little statuette out of the laundry bin. It looked like some kind of presentation show trophy. Sure enough, it was a small Ultraweapon...made of gunk.

  “Go on,” he said, offering it to me. “Smash it. It always makes me feel better. Damned playboy; flying around and acting like he’s better than us!”

  Deciding my one hand was already contaminated; I hefted the figurine and broke it across the nearest column. Watching Patterson smash into dozens of pieces actually did bring a smile to my face.

  “They still had all the molds I made from the last time I was here,” he said. “I have better ones on the outside and even sold some on eBay, but sales never took off like I’d hoped.”

  Why does this surprise him? I thought, wondering what kind of collector looks online for statues that are made out of someone spit. I guess there really are people out there who will buy anything.

  “I hear you’re from Mississippi, Stringel. It’s nice to meet someone else from my neck of the woods.” Gunk lived in one of the major Louisiana cities, which sort of made us neighbors, in a sad kind of way.

  “Actually,” I replied, uncertain of whether I wanted to be known as a Mississippi supervillain. “I was just doing some jobs there when I got caught. I was born in Nebraska.”

  Gunk scratched the stubble on his chin thoughtfully before saying, “Well I reckon that home is where you’re at.”

  Which would, technically, make me from North Dakota now. As I said, he wasn’t known for his brains. “So how did you end up back here?”

  “I was framed,” he said. “There I was working for a highway contractor in Shreveport, filling potholes and minding my own business when along comes the Gulf Coast Guardians who accuse me of committing a bunch of robberies. I told them I didn’t do it and wasn’t going to go anywhere with them, and sure enough, we gets to fighting. And the next thing you know, I’m standing in front of the judge with that damned muzzle on my face and she ships me back to this place for violating my parole. Then they tacked on a couple of more years for the robberies—which I did not do.”

  He seems stuck on that point, so I asked, “Why did they think you did?”

  “They found some of my residuals at the scene. My lawyer tried to argue that it could have been someone who done bought some of my statu
es and set me up to take the fall. If’n you ask me, I think it was that no account jackass Rodentia. Just wait till I get my hands on that rat!”

  “That stinks,” I said, trying to sound like I cared about the petty squabbles of a pair of lame supervillains. Returning to the task at hand, I began emptying the laundry hamper.

  “Tell me about it! I figured I’d give you a nice and friendly warning to steer clear of that loser once you get out. If you partner up with him, that son of a bitch will sell your ass out in a heartbeat.”

  “Thanks,” I said with forced sincerity, trying to think of a reason I would ever need to partner up with a guy who can summon and control a horde of rats. “I’ll keep that in mind. To be honest, I don’t know if I’ll get back into the game when I get out of here.”

  At the same time, I thought, And if I was going to partner up with some other villain, I think I’d set my sights a bit higher than Rodentia or even you for that matter.

  “I hear Bobby’s getting out soon,” he took that moment of silence as a sign that he should start talking again. I wish he hadn’t.

  “Yeah, he made parole and gets to walk free at the end of the week.”

  “Too bad they stick me in a solo cell all the time,” Gunk said, finally starting to help me unload now that the hamper was almost empty. “We could have been roommates.”

  “Who knows who I’ll get next?” I suppressed the shiver that tried to run through my body at the thought of sharing a cell with this guy. It was bad enough knowing that he will be delivering the laundry to me every day.

  • • •

  “All right folks, today we’re going to go over basic calculations of force and pressure before having a discussion of how this can relate to structural integrity.” I said from the head of the table in the therapy room that they allocated for my Fundamentals of Engineering course. Sure, it was only a class of seven, but it’s the effort that counts—right?

  “Just how the hell does this mean a damned thing out there in the real world?” The outburst came from a red-eyed man with what looked like foam coming from his mouth. Normally, I’d be worried, but twenty seconds after he said that, his eyes turned blue and he seemed to shrink slightly, before saying, “I’m sorry. I spoke out of turn again, didn’t I?”

  Then again, maybe just showing up counts.

  “No problem,” I answered The Passive-Aggressive Menace, knowing he wouldn’t turn back for another five minutes. “As to your earlier question, let’s look at it this way. Use too much force or apply too much pressure to a floor or a wall and it gives out on you. So being able to understand how much force you can hit with is all part of the problem. When you’re all angry, you can punch hard enough to smash a brick, right?”

  He nodded, meekly.

  “Well, say you’re fighting say, oh, I don’t know, The Biloxi Bugler in a shopping mall and you just pushed him back against a support column. You throw your haymaker, but the slippery bastard dodges and you hit the column. Using the right equations and knowing how much damage the steel core can take, we’ll know whether you just bloodied your knuckles or you dropped a chunk of the upper level on your head.”

  It probably wasn’t the usual way these things were taught, but it helps to know your audience. Suddenly everyone was interested in how this fictional encounter would turn out, and I walked them through the basics of the equation to determine how much power The P-A Menace could put into his punch. I then showed them how durable various support columns were. If the construction company skimped and used a thickness of steel that only met the bare minimums of what most codes required, the pillar would either bend or snap completely.

  By the time I’d finished my example and asked if there were any questions, Passive-Aggressive had swapped back. He smacked his hands on the table and said, “That’s all well and good, but tell me what happens to The Bugler’s fat face, if I didn’t miss.”

  The rest of my class seemed to be interested as well, so I crunched the numbers, so to speak, and concluded that P-A would be digging bone chips out of his knuckles. The bloodthirsty buggers even wanted to know how far the blood splatters would travel. Considering what I thought of that Bugle playing fool, I didn’t mind the direction the lesson took.

  After all, everyone learns differently and this was all for the sake of education.

  As the class finished, Bobby came in. “Shoot, if I knew this was gonna be about how hard you have to hit somebody to kill ‘em, I woulda signed up.”

  “Yeah, but you wouldn’t have been able to finish. There’s still enough time for you to get into a fight and ruin your release, Passive-Aggressive has been getting onery lately.”

  I wanted to kick myself, or have Bobby do it. I actually used the word onery in a sentence. The big slob was rubbing off of on me—even if he was a certifiable idiot.

  “All you gotta do is just run from him for a few minutes and then whup his ass when he turns into a Nancy boy. He ain’t worth another few months in here. Hell, next week I’ll be chasing tail and you all will be stuck here where the nearest girl is two levels up and might as well be a thousand miles away!”

  Disregarding the fact that my love life was already in the crapper well before I was brought to justice, I shrugged and said, “So, other than tormenting me with that fact, what brings you out here today?”

  “Oh, just making the rounds, seein’ the sights, and trying to put all this to memory so I can try real hard not to end back up here again.”

  “So, you’re retiring?” I asked.

  “Shit, nah! I just don’t intend to get caught.”

  “Good luck on that,” I said and I followed him out into the hallway. Just because the monitor was off didn’t mean that the prison staff couldn’t be listening. The hallways were considered safer for casual—and not-so casual—discussions involving crime.

  “Anyway,” he said, clapping me on the back hard enough to send me stumbling forward. “I was thinking that you oughta look me up when you finally get outta this place.”

  “Doesn’t that go against the Outside Code?” I said, referring to how everyone says that anything goes once outside the gates. “You already gave me a few contacts on the outside.”

  “Exceptions can be made,” he said. “Yeah, I gave you a few names, but you’re still wet behind the ears. Besides, a smart guy like you could do all kinds of things around my hideout in exchange for some personal introductions.”

  Okay, I thought. That makes more sense. Nodding, I continued, “Sounds like a plan, but odds are I won’t be out of here for at least two years. My first board hearing isn’t for another eleven months.”

  “Yeah, there is that. Well, you could always lay low at my place when you break out.”

  We both shared a laugh at the idea that a guy without any superpowers would be able to bust out of here. “If I could do that, then they need to fire everyone and get some better guards.”

  Still, it was a genuinely nice offer.

  • • •

  My new roommate was a guy called The Gardener. The dude wasn’t so bad, but there was a definite downside. He had this weird power that made moss grow on the walls, floors, and ceilings, and that he could turn into plant monsters he could control. As a result, my cell was scrubbed clean and decontaminated every couple of days. It would take a month of complaining for me to get them to cut down on the concentration of the cleaning agents. The shit was practically burning my eyebrows off.

  As if I didn’t have enough problems with my skin to begin with. Gardener’s power was odd, but actually pretty cool. Also, he was educated, not a science-type, but a liberal arts major. Even so, it was a huge departure from Bobby, Gunk, and some of the others who associated with me.

  “Usually, it takes me a good six weeks to grow a proper horde,” Kenneth said in a British accent. He gestured to the small patch of moss growing on the wall behind the toilet. It formed into a green, hairy action figure about six inches tall that landed on the rim of the seat. I watched as he
made the tiny construct bow and perform a series of basic martial arts moves. After a minute, he was bored and made it do a bunch of tricks that would normally be associated with a dog. Finally, tiring of his toy, Kenneth made it jump up to the top of the commode and do a forward two and a half somersault dive into the bowl.

  “How do you make it do the tricks?” I asked as he stood and sent his little performer into the swirling beyond.

  “Oh, they can only do what I’m capable of. I have to learn how to do something before my mossions can do it.”

  “So you can do that dive?”

  “Had dreams of going to the Olympics and representing my country at one point,” he replied. “I was hiding my powers, but they came out during competition testing and I was disqualified. I’m also a black belt in Judo. After I was outed, and my good name dragged through the mud, it was either the life of a rogue, or beg my father to let me manage his plumbing shop.”

  “So, what’s the biggest thing you ever made?”

  “Made an elephant once. It was a ruddy nightmare to control, and gave me a splitting headache. I usually stick with gorillas when I need pure muscle, dogs when I need numbers and human shapes when I need them to operate anything from an auto to a machine gun. Minions my good chap, or in my case mossions. Why risk your neck when you can get something to do it for you? Sadly, it didn’t help me avoid this place. Three years in this hole is going to have me talking like a Yank before I’m out.”

  “Mossions instead of minions? I would’ve gone with FunGuys, but that’s me. Who got you?” I inquired.

  “I was in New York, conducting some business, when I ran afoul of the Guardian team based there. My beasts stood little chance against Bolt Action or that little waif, Wendy. Oh, to be laid low by a teenaged girl! It was a most unfortunate turn of events.”

  Kenneth was a bit of a drama queen, albeit, one with a decidedly nasty streak. Sure he had a classy air about him, but he was still a thug, who reminded me of the main character in A Clockwork Orange.