“How’d you get here?”
“Grabbed a jetpack and somehow got it working with my mangled hand. It had enough fuel to get me to Oregon and I stole a car after that. As for coming here, Vicky was always nice to me whenever I came to town, so I reasoned I’d spend my last days honoring her memory in a drunken stupor.”
A bit of jealousy crept into my mind and I wondered how close they’d been, but I banished the dark thoughts. Vicky was gone and the Merchant of Death had sold himself some of his own product.
“She was something else,” I said, surprised at the ease of the way I could say that. It’s probably just denial speaking.
“That she was. I looked your design over for the cheap powersuits. Good stuff, Stringel. I might’ve gone with plasma or sonic for lower energy costs, but that’s just splitting hairs. One of them would wipe the floor with a squad of Pummelers. You might want to keep that in your back pocket for down the road. You’ve got an eye for efficiency.”
I appreciated the compliment coming from the dying man. “Is there anything I can get you?”
“Two cases of scotch—good stuff too, not some cheap shit either—and something to eat. She wasn’t exactly stocking the cupboard here. There’s an electric can opener, so you don’t have to worry about if I can get it open.”
“Yeah, I can do that. I’m going to go grab my bag from the front of the truck. After that, I’ll get some sleep and get my head clear. I’ll go shopping when I wake up.”
“What’re you planning?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve got my new armor with me and I’m going to go get her body. It’s the least I can do. After that, I just don’t know.”
“Vicky was talking about your new suit. I’d like to see it tomorrow, if you don’t mind. She said you’d made a number of improvements.”
“If you’re offering to eyeball my Mark II, I’ll take you up on it, but you’ll probably need to be sober.”
He laughed hollowly, and said, “That’s part of my rapid aging process. I can’t stay shitfaced for very long.”
The walk outside seemed shorter than when I’d first arrived. I’d back the van up to the garage tomorrow and help him out to look at the armor.
Even the optimist in me had given up on Vicky, but I could still bury her and say goodbye.
That wasn’t going to be the hardest part.
Every day after would be.
Chapter Thirteen
Banned from Vegas Through No Fault of my Own
It was a struggle to open my eyes. Only one of them seemed to work. I coughed, but that only served to antagonize the rawness in my throat. I smelled vomit and scotch and was fairly certain I was the source of both. The odor taunted me and demanded I blow chunks again.
Instead I rolled away from it and my head slammed into the leg of a coffee table. That gave the rest of my noggin momentary relief from the throbbing pain by concentrating that agony on one small area.
I’m never drinking scotch again, ever!
It was either getting light out, or starting to get dark. Dammed if I know.
Somehow, I pushed my body upright and looked at the disaster area that was once a clean living room. Instantly, I thought that my girlfriend would be pissed...and then I remembered the reason I was in Vegas to begin with. Brushing aside the pain that recollection caused, I tried to reorganize my jumbled memory. I saw there were several more bottles than I recalled scattered around the room, along with a half-eaten grocery store pizza from Vicky’s freezer. I didn’t have time to process much else because the need to reach the bathroom became my number one priority. Lumbering into the hallway, I managed to reach my porcelain destination just in the nick of time.
After heaving my guts, I went back to the first thing I remembered which consisted of walking back in with the intention of going to sleep in Vicky’s bedroom, but Joseph convinced me to sit down and have a few drinks with him.
That’s how bad ideas are born. The clone is gonna give me no end of shit when he sees, but I still can’t hold my liquor, I thought. Where is he anyway?
Once I rinsed and spit to get most of the taste out of my mouth, I did a cursory check of the two bedrooms and neither was occupied. So I went back to the living room and peeked through the curtains. Both the moving van and the SUV were still there, but the moving van was now haphazardly backed into the driveway. That triggered a brief memory of the two of us going out there so I could show off the Mark II.
Maybe he is passed out in the garage.
He wasn’t. In fact, the garage door was still open; so was the back of moving van. Tweedledum was still deactivated, but he’d been left on all fours, doggy style, with a sombrero on his head and an empty bottle of scotch in one of his hands. Normally, the absurdity of seeing that would’ve made me laugh. Instead, my mind had sobered up rather quickly. It was what I didn’t see that caused my sudden anxiety.
Where’s my damned armor?
The panic sent me back into the living room, I found my laptop was on and connected up to the hidden portion of the Internet that the Wireless Wizard provided, at a ridiculous fee, for criminals. Next to the computer was the empty pizza box with items scrawled on the outside.
Ducie’s Bucket List—The Powered Armor Version
Storm my favorite bars any bar.
Seize the Lagavulin distillery on Islay. Too damn far! Seize the Excalibur hotel. That dragon is asking for it!
Tour the Guinness factory in Dublin. Also too far—tour something else Irish or Alcoholic.
Grow an evil twin goatee and destroy enemies. Barton in California. The facility in Los Angeles.
Go see the real Joe’s house.
Blow it up.
Kidnap mother so she can see the Grand Canyon. She’s never been.
Pushing aside the empty bottles, I stared at the list. There was also a paper towel with a contract between the two of us. It was a barely legible forty-eight hour rental agreement for one set of powered armor in exchange for a quarter of a million dollars.
The clock on the computer said it was PM and not AM. I’d been passed out for something like sixteen hours. I wanted to throw up all over again.
• • •
It took a few minutes to process what was happening because of my pounding headache, but I fumbled my way through the necessary commands and started accessing my main computer back in Mississippi. The telemetry from the suit would be there. I could use it to find my suit and the clone.
He’s at the Grand Canyon! At least he isn’t in jail. How much of this list did he do?
There were also six new messages for me. The first was from Swamp Lord. He was a man who lurked in the bayous of Louisiana. He was one of those types who were sometimes a hero, sometimes a villain and didn’t really give a rat’s ass what the world thought. He could change his body into swamp air, really foul smelling vapor. It made him impossible to hold onto. Swamp Lord had bought a few things from me and was decent enough, if you could get past the body odor.
The subject line of his message was, “Congrats on the EPIC Drunken Rampage.”
It had a pair of video clips attached and as much as I didn’t want to do it, I clicked on the first one. It was someone watching the animatronic show at the Excalibur hotel. Just as the dragon comes out and starts breathing fire, my suit half lands and stumbles around, almost falling.
The crowd and the actors scatter, but whoever this moron was, he kept recording.
“Begone foul beast!” Joseph’s voice booms over the external speakers as he turns my force blasters on it. The robotic dragon wasn’t really constructed for anything more than entertainment value and pretty much disintegrated. The resulting explosion didn’t do much for the side of the hotel either.
Joseph then pointed to the crowd and demanded they kneel and acknowledge him as their king. They did as he asked. Next, the drunken fool selected his “queen” and requested a kiss from her. The rather attractive woman seemed reluctant, but a second demonstration of the force blast
ers encouraged her compliance. Fortunately, he flew off without taking her hostage.
At least he has good taste. Shit! Whatever reputation I had is going to be ruined. Hopefully, the next clip wouldn’t be as bad.
The second one was a collage someone on the internet had put together of my armor performing a simulated sex act on top of the Stratosphere, and at a couple of other Vegas landmarks. There was also the aftermath of the armor challenging Vegas Vic to a fight. The iconic cowboy sign had fared only slightly better than the dragon.
Below Swamp Lord’s congratulations was an email from a Canadian villain who called herself Lady R.
You sure looked like you had the moves on top of the hotel. Why don’t you bring your sweet little mechanized ass up to the frozen north and I’ll rock your world! XXX
I wanted to groan, but even the sounds of my groans made my head hurt.
Rodentia was next, whining about not taking him along to do Vegas in style.
Blazing She-clops commented, I thought what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Whatever, Stringel! Live your dream! You own it!
The next time the one-eyed freak asked me to build her something I was going to charge double.
Another message from a villain I didn’t know gave me props for knocking Blackjack and Slot Machine down a peg. That sent me in a panicked search for reports elsewhere and I proxied out to the real Internet and found news stories on the local TV websites. Sure enough, old Jojo had thrown down with the Sin City Sentinels.
Minor Supervillain goes on a Major Rampage
In the text of the story, I found the time of the next item on the list and called up the suit’s video from my main computer. Joseph had arrived at a brewery and demanded a tour, along with more scotch, becoming upset that the place didn’t make that particular drink and began trashing the place. The local hero duo of Blackjack and Slot Machine tried to capture him there and a brief fight ensued. It ended with Joseph chucking a small brewer’s tank at them and leaving them a yeasty mess before flying away. Slot machine’s blaster cannon had hit the suit a couple of times and I immediately checked the current suit status. Shielding was at only fifteen percent and armor integrity at sixty. Half my shield generators were shot and several minor systems were down.
Already, my mind was adding up the damage and it sounded like more than the sum Ducie had promised me!
Besides, I haven’t even fought a hero in my suit yet, and he just fought two!
Quickly, I cross referenced the status with what the values were at the time of the fight with the sworn protectors of Sin City. Whatever happened, it was after that fight. The blaster cannon had only pounded my shields and chipped away at my armor.
Ducie, I typed, after installing a chat program into the HUD remotely. Voice coms would take much longer and I was out of patience. What are you doing in my suit?
Watching the sunset, Stringel. Can you come get me? The flight back from LA took the rest of my fuel. I don’t want to spend the rest of my rental period hoofing it back to Vegas.
I tried to figure out how he managed to fly to the west coast and then to the Grand Canyon while staring at his list and typed. Refresh my memory. What exactly did you do in LA?
The reply came back on my screen as the chat program gave Joseph’s dictated reply. I greased that bastard lawyer that you insisted on, if that’s what you’re asking. Funny, after all this time of being called The Merchant of Death, that’s the first person I’d ever directly killed. Dragged his screaming ass out onto his balcony and tossed the idiot off and yelled, ‘Pull.’ It was just like shooting a clay pigeon. However, your targeting system is out of calibration; you might want to check that.
“He killed Barton! Everyone’s going to think that was me!”
Joe’s house? I asked.
You mean Joe’s crater. Too bad he wasn’t there. I’ll be sure to send him the picture though.
My day wasn’t getting any better. The real Joe Ducie was one of the few people I still respected.
What’s this about the Los Angeles facility? You didn’t attack Ultraweapon’s headquarters did you?
Didn’t do as much damage as I’d have liked, he responded. Blew a few holes in the place; probably killed a few more people, but they had a pair of warbots on the site. You need better shield generators by the way. Still, I did manage to land a few shots on them.
That explained the damage and the added body count didn’t do much to brighten my mood. Thank God Patterson had run off with Aphrodite to Hawaii for a celebration.
You trashed my armor! I’m supposed to be going to the Pacific Northwest.
Don’t get your panties in a bunch, Stringel! I’ll cover the repairs. It’s not like I’ll need the money for much longer, besides, the way I see it, you owe me.
His audacity made me blink. He’d caused hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of damage to my creation and had the nerve to say I owed him!
How so?
I’ve got my contact looking for Vicky’s body already and he’ll contact you when he gets it. He’s identifying all the dead for the Overlord. You going up there will just screw things up more than they already are. Sure, I wanted to kill someone, but it was your guy I killed, so quit your bitching!
The clone had several good points. The only part about Barton’s death that truly bothered me was that it’d be pinned on me. If I was ever caught again, the murder would mean I would never be offered parole.
Guess I will have to make sure I don’t get caught, I thought.
Returning to the keyboard, I typed, Did your boss escape?
He always does.
Technically, he was the one who destroyed the base. Instead, he got away, the heroes got away, but Vicky and a whole bunch of others didn’t. That really rubbed me the wrong way!
So when can you be here, Stringel?
Hang tight, Ducie. I need to clean myself up and then it’ll take me a little while to get to you. Stay out of sight, and try not to blow anything else up since you can’t fly away. Do you need anything?
Bring me more of the nectar of the gods! I’m starting to run low. Powercells and fuel. Also, some burritos and a fresh set of clothes.
I acknowledged his request and went to grab a quick shower while wondering how I was going to get the smell of his alcohol out of my armor. The death of my girlfriend still dominated my thoughts. The fact that I would soon be wanted for murder was a sudden and unwanted distraction.
Whatever reputation I’d made for myself was a lost cause. I sincerely doubted that many people would take me seriously and somehow I didn’t think I’d be very welcome in the city ever again. When it came to Las Vegas, they say your luck will eventually run out. My luck ran out, got some friends, and came back to beat the crap out of me. About the only thing left was to change the way I look at things and be more like Swamp Lord and not give two shits what anyone thought.
In for a penny, in for a pound, I declared and pulled up the video of Barton’s house. If I was going to get blamed for it, I might as well enjoy it.
• • •
Standing on a hill with a nice view of the Gulf of Mexico, two weeks later, I held two urns. Joseph’s contact got as much of Vicky’s body as could be identified and Ducie went with me to retrieve it. He made it back to Mississippi with me and three days after that he died, looking forty years older than when I found him in Vegas.
The cagey bastard showed me how to fine-tune my shield generators to get more performance out of them. Sober, he’d been as sharp as the real Ducie and driven to be the better of the two. Drunk, he was a riot and I was forced to lock him out of my armor for fear of a repeat performance.
“It’s quiet here, Joseph. You can keep Vicky company. The two of you always got along. Thanks for the money and the tips on fixing my suit. It almost makes up for pinning four murder charges on me and making me swear off hard liquor from now on.”
I spread the ashes and then reached into the cardboard box and removed the first of the five bot
tles of scotch he’d never gotten to and upended it.
“I don’t know if there’s a heaven for clones,” I said, starting on the second bottle. “Then again, you and I both know you’re not headed there. Odds are we’ll see each other again.”
Less amusing thoughts waited for me with the second urn. Vicky was the first person I’d ever truly loved. I’d put the ring on one of her remaining fingers before using the plasma rifle for a cremation job on the cheap.
“Originally, I planned to bury you. I couldn’t decide whether to do it here in Mississippi, or in Missouri. Naturally, I cheated. I’m spreading half here and tonight I’ll fly out to the place in Missouri to spread the rest. Actually, I was going to keep a little bit just in case I ever do make it to Costa Rica. As nice as it sounds, it wouldn’t be the same without you. Hell! I’m taking the Mark I armor to the base in Alabama, because every time I look at it, I think of you.”
Stopping for a minute, I found the words were getting more difficult. Talking to her had been easy. I’d never bantered like that with anyone before. Her wit and my sarcasm fed off each other. Now, it was like I could have food, or I could have drink, but not both.
“I hope you don’t mind the arrangements. We never really talked about things like this. Besides if we’re being honest, let’s face it; out of the two of us the one who was going to die in the middle of a super powered battle was supposed to be me. So I can say without reservation that I’d never in a million years have asked you about funeral plans.”
It felt good to get that out and I began to spread the ashes a little away from where I put Joseph’s.
“You’d have laughed over that whole insanity in Vegas. You’d be giving me a ration of shit over how easily I let him into my new armor when you had to work on me for months to get into the Mark I. I can hear you now, ‘I should have just gotten you drunk!’ Yeah, I’m an idiot.”
The anecdote was an attempt to calm me down and deflect with a little humor. She always said that my sarcasm was a defense mechanism, that if I could find a way to power shields with it, that I’d be invincible.
Origins of a D-List Supervillain Page 20
