by Peter Moore
“What do you mean?” Peanut asked.
“I mean, like, do we have an actual manifesto or something? Anything that in any way documents what we stand for? What we’re about?”
Peanut made a snorting sound. “Dude, we’re not about writing books or pamphlets or whatever. If I want to write, I’ll do it in English class.”
“It’s not about writing. It’s about getting ideas together so you actually know what you believe, what you’re trying to accomplish. Even anarchists have guiding principles.”
Javier said, “We’re not being philosophers. We are not talkers. We are doers.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Doers? Sorry, but I don’t see too much getting done at all. Javier, you’re probably the one who does the most around here—at least you build your little devices—but then nobody does anything with them. Planning and scheming may make us feel all badass and everything, and we don’t like the heroes and we talk about changing things, but in the end, really: what are we actually doing?”
To tell the truth, I still don’t know where all this came from. I was on my feet and even a little out of breath. I realized then that I had raised my voice, and weirdest of all: I had gotten kind of impassioned. Yes, I had some antihero feelings, and yes, I didn’t much like the priorities or values a lot of people had—all that was true. But I never, ever would have viewed myself as political. And yet, there I was, in our secret lair, standing in front of these guys, these would-be villains, delivering this call to action, and they were all looking to me as if I had answers. Answers to questions I didn’t even know.
Like a radio tuned to four different channels at the same time, I could hear thoughts from all of them, all at once.
Who does this guy think he is?
Hey, he’s not bad. He’s pretty smart.
Who died and put him in charge?
This kid has better ideas than Javier does. And he’s smarter, too.
I knew there was more to him than it looked like.
He has a point.
“Yes, okay,” Javier said. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we should have some type of statement saying exactly what we are all about.”
I looked at him.
“No, I am being quite serious,” he said. “It’s not such a bad idea. Why don’t you work on it?”
“Me.”
“You. You’re the smartest one here. You could make it sound good.”
“But I don’t really know what you guys want. I’m new. I wouldn’t even know what to say.”
“You seemed to have a pretty good idea two seconds ago. We’ll let you know if we agree or not. What do you guys think?”
There was general assent all around.
“Okay, I can do that,” I said. “But there’s something we need to decide before I can even start.”
“What’s that?” Boots asked.
“If we’re serious about wanting to be a villain team, we need to have a name.”
“A name,” Peanut repeated.
“We already have one: Vital,” Javier said.
Layla shook her head. “Doesn’t exactly compare to Troika, the Barbarian League, the Gorgon Corps. No, Brad is right. We need a new name. Any ideas?”
THE HELLIONS Our Screed
(first draft)
We are dedicated to righting the wrongs and injustices of the miscreants known the world over as “heroes,” which we view as a corruption perversion of the word itself and all it should stand for.
Whether they work for nefarious government entities or are self-formed teams, corporate-sponsored or independent, national or international, we vow to stop them by whatever means and measures we deem necessary.
Should this require violation of existing “laws,” we will do it.
Should this require theft, we will do it.
Should this require destruction of property, we will do it.
Should this require disruption of government agencies, we will do it.
Should this require takeover of corporate tentacles, we will do it.
Should this require loss of life or liberty, we will do it.
The Hellions will not rest or cease or desist from our mission until we have seen true justice reign or we are dead. Whichever comes first.
The Hellions are:
?
?
?
?
?
(Hey: WE NEED TO PICK OUR VILLAIN NAMES ! ! !)
Home Sweet
So I hear you’ve been spending a lot of time out of the house,” Blake said. It was so great to have him home from Hawaii after a month without him. “Where you been?”
“Hanging out.”
“Yeah? With who?”
“Some friends from school.”
He cleared his throat. “I hope it’s not with that girl.”
I especially liked it when he came into my room un-invited and pried into my personal life. “Which girl is that?” I asked. I still hadn’t looked up from the computer screen on my lap.
“You know which girl. The one we talked about before I left. Colleen Keating.”
“Layla.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
“How was Hawaii?”
“You’re changing the subject.”
“That’s right.” I looked up from my computer. Of course he didn’t look tan. His skin was totally protected from UV rays. Blake didn’t know what a sunburn felt like. Or even a mosquito bite, for that matter.
“Why are you changing the subject?”
“Because. It’s not up to you to decide who I hang out with.”
He put on his smile, which only made me angrier. “I’m your brother,” he said. “You really don’t think I should look out for you?”
“This doesn’t feel like ‘looking out.’ It feels like you trying to act like a parent. I already have a mother, and my father’s gone. You’re not him, and I don’t need another, thanks.”
He nodded. “That’s debatable, but anyway.” Blake folded his arms across his broad chest. He was going to wait me out. I just wanted the conversation to be over.
“I’m not sure where this is all coming from,” I started, “but I don’t know why you think you’re in a position to tell me what to do. If I want to hang around with Layla Keating, that’s my business, not yours.”
He shook his head and then turned to shut the door. I wondered if he was actually going to try to physically intimidate me. Instead, he sat down in the desk chair, which creaked under his two hundred and twenty-plus pounds of muscle.
“Actually, it kind of is my business. Literally.” He thought for a moment, then sighed.
“What?”
He looked at me for a few seconds, then started talking. “I’m going to trust you with something. This is important.”
“Okay.”
“The thing is, I found out yesterday after I got back that two oil companies pulled their sponsorship from me.”
“Why?”
“They didn’t say. Not the truth, anyway. Their explanation was something about prioritizing investments or something. The real reason, I’m pretty sure, is because I’ve been on leave from the JF and they don’t want to back me anymore.”
“Well, that sucks.”
“Yeah, it does. Don’t tell Mom. She’d be real disappointed.”
“Won’t she find out sooner or later?”
“Not if I can get myself back in fighting form and persuade the sponsors to stick with me. And that’s kind of why I’m on your back about this Keating girl. Having a brother who associates with someone like that just isn’t good for my image.”
Blake should have quit while he was ahead. I’d actually started to feel a bit sorry for him. I did a lit
tle internal shrug and thought, Oh, well. Sucks to be you.
Everything was all about his hero status and his sense of superiority.
Heroes first. Always.
Which was exactly the attitude we—the Hellions—were planning to destroy.
Financing
No need to remember to bring a debit card and no worries about having a big enough balance. Getting money from an ATM is no problem at all when you have biomechanical-merge abilities. It was pretty cool to see.
Layla moved her hand in front of the screen and then the buttons, eventually finding what she needed about a foot to the left and a foot below the screen.42 Boots was running an interference generator to mess up the recording from the camera.
A bunch of weird icons scrolled over the screen, then froze. The cash door snapped open and twenty-dollar bills started rolling out, dropping right into the backpack Peanut was holding open to receive them. When the machine ran out of twenties, tens and then fifties were dispensed.
By my count, that ATM gave up $12,520 without the slightest protest or hesitation.
“Whose account did we just rob?” I asked while we walked away.
“Nobody’s,” she said. “The bank’s. And it would take a team of accountants months to figure out where the numbers don’t match. Not even worth the effort.”
“Cost of doing business,” Boots said.
“They probably lose track of ten times that amount every day of the year,” Peanut said.
Did I feel guilty? Even though it was a multinational bank with assets I could barely begin to imagine, it was still stealing. Right? Sure. Whatever.
That particular bank, I should note, was a major contributor to the Justice Force, funding its jets, headquarters, and training facility/summer retreat. Hitting the heroes in the money belt was just an added benefit of our robbery.
As we walked away from the ATM, I understood why it would be so tempting to use powers for personal gain. I wondered why more people didn’t go that way.
We took down four more ATMs before the night was over.
It wasn’t as if we were stealing the money just for fun or to buy ourselves expensive electronics or anything like that. No, our plans for the money were all strictly business.
First off, Layla and Boots needed supplies to make our lair truly secret: secret from prying eyes, ears, and electronic surveillance. We were stepping up our operation, and we needed to act professional. That included having a real state-of-the-art lair.
The other thing was that we were about to go on our first official mission and we just didn’t have a thing to wear.
Not long before, we had agreed that we didn’t want anything as cheesy as team uniforms or matching logos. We decided we each wanted to pick or design our own costumes, based on whatever abilities we had or images we wanted to project.
One big issue I had to consider for my so-called costume was physical protection. This, of course, was a concern for all of us if we seriously expected to tangle with powered heroes. It turned into another heated discussion in the lair.
“The thing is,” I said, “if we go up against someone like Myoman or Diesel or Iron Justice, it doesn’t matter what we’re wearing. Any one of them could rip any of us to little pieces without breaking a sweat.”
Javier wouldn’t sit still for that kind of talk. “Speak for yourself. I have a twenty-two strength level.”
Peanut laughed. “Yeah, dream on. You don’t have a quarter of that.”
Boots chimed in. “Easy, now. No need for hostility here.43 Look, Javier. Even if you do have S-twenty-two, Meganova and Gammarama have levels in the eighties, probably, and they’re not even close to being the strongest heroes. No way any of us can stand up to that, no matter what kind of protection we put on.”
Javier was quiet for a couple of seconds before he spoke. “Okay, yes, that’s true. But what if we’re against someone with lower-level powers? Then it probably wouldn’t be bad to have some protection.”
“As much as I can’t believe I’m saying it,” I said, “I kind of agree with Javier. We could be up against regular old police, for example.”
Peanut laughed. “The cops? You’re afraid of Regular cops? What kind of p—”
“Can you outrun a bullet?” I asked. “None of us are accelerates, so we can’t dodge them, either. I can’t think of a good reason not to wear KevFlex.”
So for my outfit (I just can’t bring myself to call it a costume), I knew that I needed some kind of mask if I wanted to keep Mom from being dragged into this.44 The other thing I knew for sure: no way in hell was I going to wear spandex or anything old-school and tacky like that. I wanted to go as low-profile as possible. But I also did want some physical protection.
So I got a KevFlex shirt, and over that, I would wear a vest I had specially made. It was lined with pouches containing electro-rheological fluid. This meant that when an electric field was applied,45 the fluid in the pouches would turn from soft gel to heat-resistant and largely bulletproof plates. I could turn the vest into armor at the flip of a small switch.
I got a dark-blue-and-maroon double-breasted leather jacket. I found a piece of black leather, cut it into the shape of the Greek letter psi, and sewed it onto the jacket, right over my heart:
I added sap gloves: leather with sealed pockets filled with fine steel shot covering all the knuckles. I read that a punch delivered while wearing these gloves could bring an ox to its knees. I got pants made out of KevFlex. Boots with jointed titanium plates built into the soles finished off the outfit.46
The other big decision I needed to make was what I wanted to call myself. We didn’t have our villain names right away, but that came very soon. We did have money. We had an undetectable lair. We had costumes. And within four days, we had completed all our preparations to execute the plan we had made for our very first mission.
We were ready for action. It was time for the world to meet the Hellions.
Prep
Even in the darkness of an alley, one block away from our target, I could see what we looked like, and it was almost impossible not to be embarrassed.
Five kids, wearing absurd costumes, standing in an alley at one in the morning, thinking we were pretty cool. We looked like a collective joke. Most likely, anyone who saw us would just laugh.
Of course, the main attraction of the costume that Boots picked was…boots. Up to midthigh and with hidden slash pockets for throwing knives and other stuff she wouldn’t tell us, it was pretty hard not to look at them. Which, of course, was the plan: distract and attack. If you did have a chance to look up at her face, the zebra-stripes makeup covered her Maori tattoos and would probably make it hard to ID her. She picked the name Snakebyte, a fairly clever play on her computer skills.
Peanut went the bizarre route. He wore a red-and-black unitard (he couldn’t resist showing off his physique) and antique steel gauntlets going from his first knuckles up to his elbows. The crowning part of his costume, though, was the mask. He bought himself two bison skulls from a creepy store called Bones-R-Us, and he had Javier affix the skulls with their long, curved horns to a hockey mask. It was very weird and undeniably disturbing, which, I guess, was the point. He took the name Baculum, which I told him meant a catastrophic plague causing a huge number of casualties.47 He was very excited about that name.
Javier took the black leather approach, head to toe, including a creepy-looking mask he got at a fetish store. He named himself Black Dirk. I tried to explain that very few people would know that a dirk was a type of dagger, and his name sounded ridiculous. Not surprisingly, he wasn’t interested in my opinion.
I had on my liquid-armor-and-KevFlex suit, topped off with the navy-and-maroon leather jacket and a standard-issue hero/villain black domino mask, which I lined with ViewStopper quartzlon. (Wearing a plain old mask would be point
less if going up against a hero with intersight.) I went with the name Mindfogger.48
Definitely the best-looking one of us, in my just slightly biased opinion, was Layla. I wasn’t quite sure what the theme was, but she sure looked fantastic. She wore combat boots, flesh-colored KevFlex tights under fishnet stockings, some kind of biker shorts, and then this unbelievably hot black-and-red top (she told me it was called a bustier or maybe a torsolette; I can’t remember which and I don’t quite get the difference) and sort of a modified Mardi Gras mask. It was something to see, if a little bit over the top.49 She picked the name Bionica. She had no bionic parts, but she felt that her biomech-merge abilities made this a reasonable choice.
Boots was monitoring her interference generator. Layla had just gotten back to the alley with Peanut. They had big overcoats on and left their masks with us so they wouldn’t attract attention in the critical part of the mission they had just completed.
“Everything is cool?” Javier said. “Any problems?”
“Not one. Worked like a dream,” Layla said.
“Good. You happy now?” he asked me.
“Ecstatic,” I said. This part had been my idea. In fact, it was done at my insistence. Layla and Peanut had gone down into the subway. When a train came to a stop at the station one block south of where we were, she put her hand on the lead car and did her biomech-merge thing, completely disabling the engine. They did the same thing at two other stations. This meant that there would be no trains—and no passengers—in the tunnels that wove around the area where we were pulling off our job. I said that if we didn’t clear those tunnels, I wasn’t going to be a part of the operation. Layla sided with me, much to Javier’s annoyance.
“You are on?” Javier asked Boots.
“I’m on, they’re off,” she said, looking at the waveforms on her palm computer.
Javier nodded. “Okay, then. I think we should take a couple of moments to observe this moment, which is going to go down in history as the start of—”
