Origins of a D-List Supervillain

by Jim Bernheimer

  It was one of those cases where I’d have to do the tedious work to prevent me from having to do the hard work. My life was built around that philosophy. Depending on the amount of synthmuscle they had, this brand of robot could carry about a quarter of a ton. Bobby, on the other hand, maxed out at around six tons, but I didn’t think I could program him to install a lighting fixture, on my best day.

  “They both meet at that point,” I said pointing to an area near the parking lot. “We can slip down to that dumpster and use it for cover and I’ll toss a couple of flares to attract their attention. That’s when you get ‘em with the prod. Don’t forget to give it time to recharge.”

  “What’s that thing for?” He asked about the box of cobbled together electronics I had in my duffel.

  “Static generator. It’ll jam their wireless transmissions and prevent them from calling the cops.”

  “That’s what I like about you, Cal. You might not be worth a bent penny in a scrap, but when it comes to planning, you got your shit together.”

  “Thanks.” I think.

  We moved up to the dumpster while the two rounded the opposite ends of the building, I lit the pair of roadside flares duct taped together, and heaved them onto the sidewalk.

  “Now we wait for them to come to us,” I said. Type A’s had crude infrared sensors and the flares should attract their attention long enough for Bobby to get the drop on them. There was a slight flutter of nerves in the pit of my stomach at returning to my criminal career by stealing a pair of robots—grand theft mechanical, if you will. I was violating the parole that I hadn’t really earned.

  I spotted the first one rounding the corner of the near side of the warehouse and steadied myself. Back in prison, I’d plotted out how to be a better criminal, and it was time to see if my studies had made me a better (or is it worse) villain. The robot moved quickly, but I noted a slight gimp in his gait and the engineer in me frowned. It was a sign that they weren’t being maintained properly. Nevertheless, I activated my homemade—technically cave made—jammer, and signaled my partner.

  Having never seen Bobby in action, I’d expected a lumbering brute, but he was surprisingly agile for such a big man. The robot pivoted and raised the arm carrying the taser pistol and fired at the supervillain.

  “Like a bee sting!” Bobby said gleefully and brought the rod down like some maniacal Stone Age hunter taking on his dinner. There was a brief, but brilliant, flash and I smiled, seeing my handiwork in action. The moment was made more delightful by the fact I was not the one risking my comparatively fragile neck.

  As I expected, the robot slumped over and toppled to the ground. The humanoid appearing robot weighed in the neighborhood of four hundred pounds, which is why most owners wouldn’t consider them a target for a robbery.

  The other robot clambered over, firing taser shells from its weapon. There was a blue light flashing inside a clear panel in the robot’s chest. Bobby jumped and covered the thirty feet in a single bound and I knew he’d forgotten my warning. The cattle prod hadn’t charged and clanged ineffectively off the metal armor with only a crackle.

  “Bobby, wait!”

  My useless warning was ignored as Bobby’s fist separated the robot’s head from the body. That meant I was going to fix the robot before I could get any use out of it.

  “Oh, sorry ‘bout that,” he said looking at the mess he made.

  Yelling at him would have been like yelling at a puppy—if that puppy was extremely dangerous and could squish my head like a grape—so I did what any sensible person would do in that situation. I pasted a smile on my face and told him not to worry.

  • • •

  Tweedledee and Tweedledum weren’t much to look. Dee had the noticeable limp and Dum’s head injury sometimes caused the robot to do the oddest things. After programming it to run some pipes for plumbing, I caught it scratching its ass and taking breaks every twenty minutes, and no, I’m not kidding.

  Maybe my programming was a little too “true to life.” Regardless, Bobby’s secret lair was beginning to take shape, or at least possess the basic services like lighting and ventilation. We still needed a water source that wouldn’t flood the base and a more capable power plant than just four Type A powercells daisy-chained together. I used to look down on the Civil Engineering majors at college, but here I was, managing an underground construction project on a scale that would make most of them jealous; aided by a pair of buggy, repurposed guard bots, and Bobby’s superhuman strength. Saying that it was a labor of love wasn’t quite true, for me it was more like a creepy obsession with completing this job. It didn’t help that Bobby was reluctant to start acquiring the things I needed to build my set of armor until he got what he deemed to be a “respectable hideout with all the fixin’s”

  At the moment, the best super powered criminal I could manage would be something along the lines of the two-gun taser bandit and his odd robots. That seemed like a step backward from my time as ManaCALes.

  Bobby would leave town for a job at least once a month and I’d always be concerned. I was still entirely dependent on him. Other than the occasional “shift” I worked at Floozies and my parole meetings with Leonard, my life pretty much revolved around furnishing that damned hole in the ground. My host’s assessment of his cousin proved to be spot on. Leonard was about as dim as the lighting in the cave when I first arrived, but other than the night we stole the robots, I’d been too damned busy to actually plot any crimes.

  Three cheers for being on the straight and narrow. Hip-hip, whatever!

  I was ruminating over these thoughts and only half watching a porno on the big screen, in what I now termed as Central Command, when the motion detectors I’d set up in the silo went off. With Bobby not due back for two days, I became immediately concerned. One hand reached for the taser pistol and the other grabbed a controller box which I could use to set Tweedledee and Tweedledum into guard mode. Before I could even lift the pistol from the table there was a rush of wind and a woman standing right in front of me.

  “Stringel?” she said. The woman wore a blue, padded Kevlar polymer outfit, with a large black V emblazoned on her chest. Strapped to each thigh was an empty holster and the two on her belt were empty as well.

  Blinking, I recognized Maxine Velocity or Max V as she was known and recalled that the only other time I’d seen her was the day both of us got out of prison. “That’s me.”

  The woman removed her mask revealing short, curly brown hair. Her most distinctive feature was her red, perpetually wind burnt cheeks from when she ran with her face exposed. Maxine had a lean, athletic body, completely devoid of almost any feminine curves and it was tough to tell whether she was actually attractive, because her face was in constant motion. She emptied her backpack on the table and ten plasma pistols fell out.

  “You need some kind of elevator or something,” she muttered in disgust.

  “I agree,” I said, disliking the rope ladder arrangement we had upgraded to, at my insistence. Bobby used a chainfall setup to lower anything big that we needed. Unfortunately, the power to run anything like that just wasn’t available yet, let alone all the work that would need to be done in the shaft that Amydillo had created.

  “So, how can I help you? I’m guessing Bobby is working for you?”

  “Something like that. Anyway, Hillbilly Bobby swears up and down that you can fix just about anything and I’ve about had it up to here with the pricks who’ve been supplying me,” she said almost too fast for me to follow. “These pistols are shit! They stopped working after only twenty shots apiece and half of them are fried. Think you can make something better?”

  “Where did you get them?” I asked, letting the useless taser drop from my hand and already picking up one of the pistols. It wasn’t a Promethia design, but more like a crude copy, very crude. The emitters were oversized, inefficient, and the whole design was poorly conceived.

  “My Aunt’s people,” she answered and crossed her arms.


  “In that case, General Devious should hire some better quality engineers. How many do you want and when do you need ‘em?”

  “Twenty-Four and as soon as possible,” she replied, glancing over her shoulder at the moaning trio of naked women on the screen.

  Sheepishly, I hit stop on the remote. I’m cool like that.

  “You could have left it on,” she said. “I might’ve slept with the brunette a few times, if that’s who I think it is.”

  Her comment caught me off guard, but I recovered quickly. “I’ll need materials.”

  “Make a list. I’ll get it either before or after I break the arms on the man who gave me these. How many shots will I get out of yours?” Maxine asked, slowly cracking her knuckles.

  “Thirty,” I said trying not to let it bother me. I figured I was mostly successful.

  “What’s your price, gadgetman?”

  “Back when I worked for Promethia, there was a rumor that you’d managed to steal the schematics to the Ultraweapon armor.”

  “It turned out to be an old copy, his first generation, and he’d hidden a worm in it that wiped our mainframe, but I made two copies. Auntie’s scientists eventually cleaned it up, but the General didn’t want to invest in something that was already dated. Are you saying you’re interested, Stringel?”

  “Call me Cal,” I said. “And yes, I am. The schematics and fifty grand.”

  With the old drawings, my knowledge of the improvements since, and my own, ideas it would shave months, if not a full year, off my design.

  “The schematics and fifteen grand.”

  “Twenty grand seems more in the neighborhood of what I was thinking; besides you can afford it.”

  “Wrong neighborhood, Cal,” she said and smirked. “Just because I can afford it doesn’t mean that I’m willing to pay it. Just for that, I’m lowering my offer to schematics and ten grand.”

  “Fine!” I said, admitting defeat. “Deal.”

  “Don’t worry, Sweetpea,” she said, sounding haughty. “I deal with your type all the time.”

  “All right, give me a couple of minutes to put a list together.” I didn’t like my nose being rubbed in it.

  “Where’s the bathroom?”

  I pointed down the hallway. “First opening on the right, Bobby’s got the port-a-potties there.”

  “You’re kidding me!”

  “I wish I was,” I said. “The base is a work in progress, very slow progress. We’re still a month away from running water. If you make sure Bobby gets a nice bonus, your future visits will include more amenities.”

  “Wonderful,” she deadpanned and raced off in search of bladder relief as I pondered how having the runs would cause problems for someone moving at superhuman speeds. The engineer in me wondered how fast her shit would move.

  Sighing, I scooped up a pad of paper and a pen, and began to scribble whatever I thought I might need in order to prevent my own set of broken bones. Naturally, I threw in some of the things I needed, which had nothing to do with her equipment. She was lowballing me after all and I had to make up the margin one way or another.

  We’re both criminals after all.

  • • •

  “Nice work, Cal,” Maxine said as I watched her quick draw with four of the pistols. I’d made a favorable impression on her when I took the time to measure her hand to make certain the grips were sized for her.

  It had taken me a week longer than I’d initially promised, but the design was pretty slick.

  “Pulse action, dual energy emitters,” I said watching her toast a pair of targets. “It cuts down on your range, and you’ll lose most of your punch over twenty-five yards, but they’ll give you a greater rate of fire, and I’m guessing you’re no stranger to hit and run tactics. Much better than the tinkertoys you were using. The microcells in them are warrantied for fifty recharges, but I’d recommend replacing them before then.”

  “Considering you’re the supplier, I’m guessing you would,” she said with a smirk. “Good stuff though; too bad you’re so damned slow.”

  “I don’t have your powers,” I said, once again trying to hide my jealousy. If I did, Bobby’s base and my suit would be done already—except I probably couldn’t use a suit then—but I wasn’t about to rain on my own little parade.

  “It’s not all fun and games,” she said, putting the pistols on the charging stations so quickly that I couldn’t even follow.

  “Careful when you do that, sensitive electronics! So, what’s the downside to your powers?”

  “Ever been in the line at the grocery store and the person in front of you separates their cart into the part their going to pay with food stamps, the part that’s going on their credit card, and the part they’re paying with a check.”

  “And there’s a price check on at least two of the items?” I added for effect.

  She nodded. “That’s every single conversation I have, except when I’m around another speedster or a telepath like Auntie. You might think you’re quick with your wit, but to me there’re seconds in between every single word you say. Everyone else is in slow motion and I’m the only one moving at normal speed. Drives me apeshit, sometimes! Remember the girl from your movie? I had her and five of her friends because that’s how many I have to have to even have a chance at getting off. You slowpokes just can’t move fast enough for me.”

  “That’s way, way, way too much information,” I protested.

  “Well, I figured the sooner I told you that, the sooner it would shut you up. But since you do such good work, maybe I’ll have you tune up my vibrator. I want to add another five thousand rpms, but I don’t want the damned thing to explode. Whatdayathink?”

  She probably enjoyed the cringe on my face, but I shrugged and said, “If the price is right.”

  Pinching my cheeks like an overzealous relative, Maxine laughed, “Spoken like a true business man! You’re a funny guy, Cal Stringel. Maybe if this business arrangement works out, I’ll let you work on my private toys, but for now, just stick to building pistols. Here are the keys and the address to a storage locker in Huntsville where there’s a duplicate of your order, except for the extra crap you snuck in there last time, and twenty grand. Better get started on the next batch there, Snailman, because I’ll be back for them at some point. Consider yourself on retainer.”

  “Fair enough, Ms. Velocity. Nice doing business with you.”

  Maxine zipped out of the room and up the exit shaft.

  “Too bad she’s a lesbo, Cal,” Bobby said coming out of the hallway from the private rooms. “Otherwise, I think she’d rock your world.”

  “How long were you there?”

  “Long enough to hear that you have your first steady client, not too shabby. It also means you can start chipping in for our salaries at Floozies and for the things you keep saying we need around the base. But that’s why I steered her in your direction in the first place.”

  There went half that money. Bobby wasn’t nearly as stupid as everyone, including myself, made him out to be.

  “How’d you know it was going to work?” I asked.

  “Wasn’t certain,” he said. “Still, you pick up a whole bunch being the hired muscle. Most times you just stand there and keep your trap shut, probably something you’ll have to learn. I can see you having problems with that.”

  I started to take offense, but realized he was probably right.

  Enjoying the look on my face, Bobby continued, “The heavy hitters are so used to having bodyguards and extra muscle around that they stop noticing us after a while. It’s like fishing. You can get a few interesting nibbles, if you’re willing to wait around long enough.”

  “Do you have any other nuggets of criminal wisdom for me today, Master,” I said laughing.

  “Seeing how good those guns are got me to thinking that I need to get you to make me some weapons too.”

  “Are you a decent shot?”

  “Nah, I like hittin’ things too much. I don’t need nothin
g fancy, just a pair of clubs that won’t snap like twigs when I take a swing.”

  “What about an ax or a sledgehammer instead? I could put a shield generator on something like that.”

  “Nah, clubs,” he said, adamant. “I like the feel of a piece of wood in my hands.”

  “If that’s what you want,” I said, realizing this wasn’t going to go anywhere. Just when I was starting to give Bobby some credit for not being such a yokel, he goes and asks me for a pair of over engineered baseball bats.

  Sighing, I knew Maxine’s vibrator would have been more of a challenge.

  Chapter Six

  My Mouth Tends to Get Me in Trouble

  Life, such as it was, progressed; just not at the speed I would have liked. Maxine turned out to be very protective of her employment of me. When I asked her to drop my name to any of her friends, colleagues, or what have you, she actually concentrated so that she could reply slowly.

  “You work for me, Cal. You only work for me. If I catch you working for anyone other than me, not only will I terminate our retainer arrangement, but I’ll terminate more than that. You can barely keep up with my needs and outfit this shithole at the same time, but you think I’ll be your little brokering agent. Think again.”

  “That’s not it!” I protested—even though it was.

  “Sure, it isn’t,” came her mocking reply, laced with rapid-fire laughter. “Besides, in lieu of this month’s payment, there’re three spools of synthmuscle in the storage locker.”

  “Really?” I asked, not bothering to hide my greedy look. It was enough to do the entire lower torso and more than my usual retainer would cover. “Where’d you get it?”

  “I was raiding one of Patterson’s warehouses and it was just lying there looking for an owner. I could’ve probably given it to my Aunt’s people, but they make their own, even if it isn’t as good as Promethia’s. I figured, given your history, you’d appreciate it more.”