I suppose I could have just downed the cargo choppers, but generally speaking, I didn’t like killing defenseless people, even cops or the military.
On the other hand, the two bastards in the National Guard Apache weren’t exactly defenseless and as far as I was concerned, it was game on.
My bolts broke the harness and the Type D warbot took a six story plunge into a parking lot. The leg assemblies buckled under the impact.
So, I didn’t exactly defeat it head on, I thought. A win is still a win.
“Missile lock. Missile launch detected,” Vicky’s otherwise pleasant voice interrupted my moment of glory.
Opening the throttles on my jetpack, I accelerated away from the air to air weapon. It didn’t appear to be the kind with advanced countermeasures, so as soon as it got on my tail, I threw my arms backward and unleashed a level three pulse directly into my rear arc. It was something I figured out after fighting the ASH team and learning from the mistakes I had made.
The resulting explosion vindicated my self-improvement program. The Apache crew didn’t appreciate it and started sending thirty millimeter greeting cards in my direction. I banked and dived away, sending my own little “how’re you doing” to the overly enthusiastic National Guardsmen.
Gotta hand it to the pilot. He’s not half bad, I decided as the copter danced away from my bolt.
A trio of bullets rattled my shields and knocked me around a bit and I fired blindly; almost scoring a crippling blow. Instead, it ripped his chain gun off the mount and sent it spinning out of control.
My lucky shot must’ve spooked the pilot and he decided that maybe he shouldn’t try to bag his first supervillain today and it was time to run away.
I started to pursue, but saw something that didn’t just grab my attention; it put it into a stranglehold. Over the LA Coliseum, two specs zipped around in the air as tiny flashes of light could be seen.
It’s Patterson and Overlord! That’s where I need to be.
Forgetting all about the helicopter, I plotted an intercept course, determined to get Ultraweapon, and tried to will my flight system to go faster.
Crossing the distance, I scanned the channels to see if I could hear their conversation.
“...reposition units...request evac from...The Grand Vizier and Mystigal are attacking General Devious. She needs assistance!...Die Patterson!...”
Wait! That last one.
“When are you going to learn, Jerimiah? You’re a delusional fool if you think you’re going to win!”
The Overlord’s name is Jerimiah? Yeah, I’d go with The Evil Overlord too.
“Want to know why I wear the armor, Lazarus? I’ll tell you. Do you remember your old buddy Prophiseer? I choked one last vision out of his worthless husk before I killed him. It was that you would die at the hands of another man in armor. That’s why I’m eventually going to kill you.”
“I wouldn’t put any stock in his words. He had a spotty reputation at best. Besides, you’re in last year’s model, Jerry. You and Devious need to join a support group.”
Getting closer, I could see them better and tagged the Overlord so I wouldn’t accidentally shoot him. That would be awkward...and probably fatal for me.
“Support this!” The Overlord screamed and launched a barrage of energy. It was pretty damned powerful.
“Impressive,” Patterson grunted, weathering the storm and returning fire. “But The Olympians have already taken care of your little band of idiots in DC. Apollo’s Chariot is already on its way and you know how fast they can be here. The clock’s ticking asshole. You know what? I’m done playing with you!”
Ultraweapon turned his full fury on his rival and Old Jerry was suddenly on the defensive. The onslaught got that little voice going inside my head saying that it might be a good idea to just go somewhere else, but then I realized that he might not have enough juice left to stop me and I diverted extra power to my weaponry.
Fire force blasters! Maximum discharge!
Twin bolts of avenging power lanced from my arms into the back of the Ultraweapon suit. My heart was pounding so hard that I could hear the throbbing inside my brain. Seeing him spinning through the air tasted like vindication.
Now to finish him! I thought and willed my blasters to cycle faster.
Elated, I drew closer and prepared to deliver the final blow when Ultraweapon’s flailing descent halted abruptly and he spun on me.
“What the...? Stringel? Is this some kind of a bad joke, Jerry? You invited this worthless gnat?”
His arms pointed at me and I saw the glow of his force blasters just as I was trying to issue the command to fire.
“Die!”
I’d never been hit so hard in my life. Twice at close range and two more times while I fell. The first two stripped away most of my shielding and sent me in the other direction like a batter connecting with a hanging curveball. The next one slammed into the armor’s plating during my descent and I couldn’t breathe. With the wails of every alarm I’d installed in the suit going off like an angry drunken garage band at three in the morning, I dropped from the sky. The fourth would have probably killed me, but I’d corkscrewed and my somewhat intact rear shielding took the brunt of it before I went face first into the stands of the stadium.
• • •
When I came to, almost everything was offline, except the alarms. Amazingly enough, I wasn’t dead. The faceplate was cracked and the feedback from the interface made me feel like I had a skull fracture... or maybe I did.
Ten fingers and ten toes, I thought. I could still feel them. The rest of my body was in so much pain that I almost wished I was paralyzed. I could see the blurry timestamp on my HUD and tried to do the math. It took a little longer than I’d expected, but it looked like I’d been out of action for at least twenty minutes.
The automatic repair systems had kicked in. The suit’s left arm was dead and I was pretty sure the arm inside of it was broken as well. The legs were okay. Flight system was at forty percent capability with only one of the two tanks online, so I’d need to conserve my flight time. All the front shield generators were burnt out and the rear ones were hanging by a thread. Frontal armor was breached in three separate areas.
I used my one working arm and forced myself to stand, or to do a close approximation of standing, and tried to get my bearings. Neither Patterson nor the Overlord was anywhere to be found. I’d been left like a hunk of garbage to be found by a cleanup crew. It was pathetic. I was pathetic!
One step at a time, I worked my way to the exit of the empty stadium burdened by the weight of my complete and utter humiliation.
In the sky, I saw the blazing visage of Apollo’s Chariot. As if things weren’t bad enough already!
Instead of giving up, crawling into a hole and dying, I flew north out of the city, staying low and trying to look as inconspicuous as a semi-mobile wreck could. Spotting a slowly moving freight train coming from the Port of Los Angeles, I decided to become a technological hobo and hitch a ride back east.
Knowing my luck, I’d figure out a way to screw that up!
I broke into one of the cargo cars and found an empty spot to sit down and feel sorry for myself.
That was one thing I was actually quite good at.
Chapter Sixteen
Maybe the End of the World isn’t Such a Good Idea
At some point in the nearly two years since I took the slow train out of Los Angeles, I stopped caring about everything. Yeah, I’d always been a bit short when it came to the milk of human kindness, but ever since the gnat had been swatted away by Ultraweapon, I’d lost pretty much all interest in everything and anyone.
Sure there’d be moments like those first few weeks when I’d gotten back to the junkyard where I’d work at a fevered pitch on an idea for the Mark III suit that would prove to the world that I wasn’t a third rate Ultraweapon imitator, but it would never get anywhere. All I had to show for it was reams of half-finished schematics, part of a torso assemb
ly and an arm that would be the start of the brand new suit.
In truth, the three things I’d completed consisted of my junkyard doggie and two self-destructs; one for the junkyard and one for my suit. For some inane reason, Hillbilly Bobby had insisted on one for the hole in Alabama, so I already had the design. Considering there was only one exit to the base, it seemed like a bad idea to me. As for my suit, I converted one of my cargo holds in it into a spot for an overloaded powercell that would take me out if I ever needed to call it quits. One thing I’d settled on during that train ride was that I wouldn’t be going back to that prison no matter what, even if it meant blowing myself sky high.
The Junkyard Doggie, well, I ended up using that prototype Promethia warbot frame to make a surprise for anyone who decided to disturb me in my scrap yard of self-loathing. I’d used up the rest of my parts for pulse cannons, outfitting my robot and setting up some gun emplacements in the rest of Home Sweet Shithole.
Beer was my best friend and we welcomed each other with open arms. I still couldn’t touch the hard stuff. Thank you, Clone Ducie! Hygiene and I weren’t nearly as tight as we used to be. I’d grown a scraggily beard and let my hair get to the point where I could feel the grease on my scalp.
The problem was I couldn’t stay motivated about anything except television and the internet. Most days, my suit sat around like the shell of the man I once was. If it could’ve talked, I bet it would have been begging me to take it out and do something.
I’d pull a robbery or two, now and then, just to keep the money flowing. My newfound drinking habit wasn’t exactly cheap, but when I was running short, I’d always scrape up the initiative to do just enough to get by.
Cal Stringel—Just enough to get by! It could be my motto.
Most of my income was now coming in off special request builds. I still built a really nice pulse pistol and my jetpacks might not be the lightest in the business, but they got the job done.
I avoided any work involving the top tier villains and wanted nothing to do with The Overlord’s organization or any of the others. In General Devious’ case, it wasn’t even possible. She’d been captured in Los Angeles and was now enjoying her stay in the Dakota Supermax wearing an inhibitor collar and pushing her wheelchair. Her fanatics had tried, and failed, to rescue her twice, while most of the others in her organization caught on with The Overlord, or someone else’s forces. Hell, the only people who could get a job with the Overlord these days were people with a genetic engineering expertise. Right now was a terrible time to be support staff for a supervillain. That nugget told me Jerry had done a little giving up of his own about keeping in stride with Patterson’s armor and started looking for other methods of conquest.
Part of me knew that I’d never catch up to Patterson’s suit. He could hire a thousand people just like me to make his suit stronger, faster, and more lethal. General Devious’ warning to not try and run with the big dogs kicked around in my mind, but then again, she was in a comfy prison cell right now and I’m the one still free—mostly.
As for Patterson, the man continued to live the life of Riley. If the gossip magazines and television shows were to be believed, his romance with Aphrodite had hit the skids and that was probably the only negative thing that could be dredged up these days. I guess I’d be sad, too, if the hottest woman in the world gave me the old heave ho. Somehow, I doubted Stacy Mitchell would ever give me the time of day.
It must really suck to be him, I thought and looked down at the jetpack I was finishing up for this one clown...I mean customer, who wanted to be able to rob high rise apartment buildings with ease. The number of jobs he’d have to pull to pay for the purchase and the fuel didn’t seem to be worth it, but I wasn’t going to argue.
To me, it was the equivalent of using my armor to knock over a gas station, but his currency helped pad my coffers just the same. I was beginning to think of myself as some kind of chipmunk hoarding my little pile of cash for the inevitable rainy day.
As I made the last minute adjustments to the equipment in front of me, I caught my reflection in the polished metal of the jetpack. The mangy beard and sunken eyes made me look like some kind of redneck TV extra. I had to think back for the last time I’d had a good night’s sleep.
Oh, yeah, it was two days before Vicky died. I should probably at least shave and make myself presentable, or at the very least make an effort to stay downwind of him.
Looking over at Tweedledee’s dormant head mounted on the computerized workbench, where I hadn’t built a weapon in what seemed like months, I considered reactivating him just to have some company, but decided against it. In my mind, I heard Bobby’s voice saying that if I was lonely, I should just get a dog.
Wouldn’t be a bad idea, I responded to the imaginary voice.
Or, he continued. You could always, I don’t know, bust my ass out of jail!
Bobby, c’mon, man! You know I ain’t got the juice to pull that off. I’d need months of planning and, most importantly, I’d need Vicky.
I could help, Vicky’s voice chimed in. It sounds like fun.
I’d take you up on that, if you were really here and I wasn’t imagining this. It was further proof that I needed professional help, but the free flowing apathy kicked that can down the road for another couple of months.
That does kind of stink, she replied. Why don’t you stop listening to us and get cleaned up?
She had a point, even from the dark corners of my mind. I boxed up the jetpack and turned off my equipment. Before I shut down my browser, I scanned the message boards and travel advisories. If I was going out later today, it would be useful to know the places to avoid if I didn’t want to run into any superheroes. Just another service the Wireless Wizard offered. I had to hand it to the guy, he quit the villain business and just sold secure computing services to us. It was a good gig, and I was more than a little jealous.
Scanning the screen at one of the message boards, I saw a rumor that Patterson was trying to track down the Overlord’s latest secret base.
Jerry, you better watch out, I thought. Old Lazarus is trying to press his advantage before your next world domination scheme is ready. In the old days, I would’ve been angrier, but I’d accepted my life as a D-List Supervillain. Hell, I’d probably write a memoir, if I thought it would sell.
Not seeing Andydroid or any of the Gulf Coasters in my travel plans, I closed out and went to make myself resemble a close approximation of a living being. It was hard not to reflect on the wasted potential of my life. My twenties could be summed up with: went to college, went to work for an asshole, decided to be a supervillain, went to prison. When I got out, I tried to be a better supervillain. Unfortunately, that didn’t go over so well.
Now, approaching my thirty fourth birthday and celebrating almost a full decade of mediocrity, I was pretty sure that if I did write that book, it wouldn’t be anything that I’d want to read.
• • •
The sale and delivery went off without a hitch, which was unusual. I was already on my way back from Montgomery. My limited warranty covered mechanical defects from operation only, not including damage caused by combat or use of this device during the commission of a crime.
It’s all in the fine print, trust me. Then again, if there was a catastrophic system failure, I probably wouldn’t have anything to worry about, but repeat business would suffer.
Making my way back, I caught some of the chatter from the news channels that something strange was going on, on the west coast. The first reports were something about zombies, but that shit hadn’t happened since fifteen years ago in Haiti. Besides, something like this was more likely to happen in New Orleans instead of Oregon. Also, I seriously doubted that someone could pull that off under Grand Vizier and Mystigal’s noses. For that reason alone, I discounted it and kept on flying.
Two hours later, I’d stopped discounting it and was staring at the television screen and trying to figure out what the hell was going on. This zombie pl
ague, or whatever the hell it might be, was spreading, and a state of emergency was already declared for everything west of the Mississippi, along with Western Canada and Northern Mexico.
Just to be safe, I sealed up the armor, and hooked up the re-breather unit. I lined all the spare air bottles up along the wall. Running the numbers with the food paste, the water, and everything else, I could operate sealed for several months without having to worry about necessities.
It made me glad I listened to Vicky and took a shower this morning.
• • •
By six p.m. I’d seen the bugs for the first time. They’d gotten into a news station in Duluth while it was on the air and I’d watched the anchor and the attractive eye candy next to him try to brush them away before suddenly stopping and going all glassy eyed. The little critters were small; only about as big as a grasshopper.
“All of you will join with the hive mind,” the two said at the same time. “There is nothing to fear.”
Watching them stand up and walk away, didn’t really make me feel reassured.
Yeah, the armor stays on.
I sat there watching the country go silent one state at a time. St. Louis had tried widespread insect fogging and supposedly the Olympians went there to assist the Silicon Sisterhood in stopping this, but I wasn’t sure. Three hours later, the Olympians were broadcasting from their headquarters in the suburbs of DC that they had a solution, but would need all available heroes and villains to try and implement it.
I seriously considered it, but passed on that kind offer. If they were desperate enough to need a cellar dweller such as myself, they were in deeper trouble than the Buffalo Bills in a Superbowl appearance.
The message boards lit up for a few minutes after that announcement, with everyone trying to decide if they could get some money, pardons, or a chance to sleep with an Olympian for their participation, but shortly afterwards, there was a message from the Wireless Wizard that he was taking VillainNet offline because all the traffic on the internet was disappearing and he was running out of places to hide our collective bandwidth.
Origins of a D-List Supervillain Page 24
