by Ben Bequer
“Who was it?” I said, not realizing I was choking him to death.
“Put…me…down,” he said, and I let him go, stepping away from him as he got his breath.
“Who was with you and Fangness?” I said ready for anything.
Pummel scanned the woods around us, and realizing he was alone, settled his gaze on me. He looked ready for war.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Pummel. I’m not the bad guy everyone says I am.” I waited for that to sink in. “Think about it. I could have finished you, easy.”
“He was talking about her,” he said. “Dammit, I should have known.”
“Known what?”
“I think they had history. I think he had history with Apogee.”
“What ‘He?’ ‘He’ meaning Epic?”
The hero shook his head in frustration.
“No, Underworld,” he said, and my heart sank.
Chapter Eighteen
I left Pummel behind to recover, running to the spot I’d last seen Apogee, switching from infrared to night vision, then to UV-light, trying desperately trying to see if I could spot Underworld, knowing it would be impossible. He wielded psychokinetic powers that bordered on the divine, given to him by some dark entity from another dimension, including the ability to sidestep into that alternate dimension, and take others with him.
I had been taken to that shadow world once, back on Hashima, moments after dropping Epic like a sack of potatoes. It was a world of horrors; all of the terrible things you have ever thought or done stewed like toxic waste and dumped on you. In my case, I was forced to relive Influx’s death, to see her as she probably was after falling into the depths of the icy North Atlantic, her skin rotted and picked at by the fishes. Apogee had forced Underworld to free me by punching him in the face until he spat me out. Now she was trapped in that nightmare with no trail for me to follow.
“Bubu, tell me you found her,” I said. What I got in return was a pair of keyed squawks that told me he was in trouble. Standing here was not going to make Underworld reappear, so I switched drone views, and noticed quite a few were missing before finding the one hovering over Bubu’s shoulder.
A man in Metal Gear Solid wannabe armor had a hi-tech rifle drawn on him, shouting commands with the clipped tone and smug authority that spoke of military or police training. They weren’t far from our egress point, but must have been around the bend of the hill because I didn’t see or hear them. I activated the tracking beacon every drone was equipped with, their exact location appearing as a small, flashing red dot on the contacts.
Engaging the boots sent me rocketing into the air, more a controlled leap than true flight, but I covered the distance with the short burn. I cleared the base of the hill and saw them, timing my fall with another spurt of thrust and crashing to the ground between them. The guy took a step back, a pinpoint of red light coming to rest on the center of my chest.
As the dust of my arrival dissipated, I was able to identify the hero. He was Death Dealer, a former marine and Gulf War veteran, turned vigilante, turned hero. He had a reputation for being merciless, but lacked super powers, relying on training and gear to get the job done. His helmet was an impassible mask, but I saw him tense as he recognized me.
“Semper Fi,” I said, turning back to Bubu.
Death Dealer released the stock of his weapon, lifting his left hand to his mouth, intending to report us. “Don’t do it,” I said, reaching for him, but he sprayed me with automatic fire from the rifle. I spread my arms, hoping to catch the bullets with my chest as I crossed the distance between us and batted the weapon away. I shot a glance back and saw Bubu had dropped to the floor to avoid the barrage. Death Dealer flicked his wrist, and drew a combat knife in a wide arc that slashed the front of my shirt. He squared up in a fighting stance and sidestepped around me, looking for an opening.
“Really?” I said and stepped forward, inviting him to attack. He struck with speed and skill, slashing at my chest, switching hands to stab me in the flank and then the neck. I stood impassive as he jabbed me in the thighs, looking down to see that even as my black on black rig frayed under his attack, the suit Superdynamic designed had yet to lose a stitch. He looked tired, stepping back, the knife pristine. I didn’t let him catch a breath, stepping in, getting hold of his suit, and tossing him into the woods. His screams faded and I didn’t hear him crash.
“You alright?” I asked Bubu, but he was already getting to his feet.
“Shit,” he said, pointing over my shoulder.
Heroes started dropping out of the sky, and I knew my escape was done. Soaring above, in a slow, looping arc was an armored flyer, his lit eyes, scanning in my direction. I turned back to Bubu, who was lit by the reflection of the makeshift laptop mounted on his chest.
“I can’t jam shit,” he said, as if reading my mind. “Everything is offline, bro.”
I switched to infrared and scanned the field for any sign of Apogee, but there was no sign of her. I eased Bubu back, backpedaling toward the secret exit we had just used.
“We're going back?”
I said nothing, pushing him away as the armored flyer altered course towards us. Thrust bloomed in twin sunrises on his back and he gained a massive amount of velocity, intent on dive bombing us. I thought it might be FTL, hoped it would be, as we had history, some of it good, but this was Ubermecha, who only knew me as a genocidal maniac. I glanced and saw Bubu running full tilt. Ubermecha’s impact would knock me out, but Bubu would be liquefied.
Toggling my thrusters, I shot towards him, our angles destined for intersection. He responded by bringing his arms forward, fists clenched in the perfect hero pose, ready for our game of chicken. Mere yards from our collision, I dove, zipping past him, then rolling out of the dive and firing in one sweet motion. The arrow hit Ubermecha’s jetpack and exploded. The blast lit the night sky, a beacon illuminating my position that would be visible for miles. Ubermecha lost control as gouts of thick, oily smoke bleched from the jetpack, and he crashed into the base of the hill, tearing up strips of earth before tumbling into a copse of trees and out of sight.
“Bring the whole thing online,” I said. “Open the floodgates.”
“You sure, bro?” he said, his voice tinny and crackling over coms as he was well ahead of me and already in the tunnels.
“No point in saving it for later,” I said, reaching the secret exit and running inside and closing the metal hatch. It was thatched and interlaced with vegetation, making it almost impossible to notice, especially at night, but I couldn’t leave such a weak point open to Epic’s troops. I ran fifty meters down the entrance tunnel then fired an acid arrow at the stone roof. In moments, the caustic acid ate at the supports and rock structure, causing a massive cave in near the entrance.
“What was that?” Bubu asked over coms.
“I shut us in,” I said. “I don’t want anyone sneaking up behind us.”
“Yeah, so what do we do?”
I paused, looking down the dark hallway. Bubu and I shared a funny look as we both thought the same thing.
“What do you think,” I asked.
“Might as well try it out, right?” he said.
“A demo,” I added.
“A beta test,” he threw in.
We both laughed and ran for the elevator to the surface.
* * * *
The view Bubu brought up was from drones flying overhead, tightly zoomed on the hill’s plateau. Epic and his main team landed their jet exactly where I had expected, in the flat parking space offset just beside the roundabout driveway at the main entrance. The invading heroes kept tight around the jet, and from the way Epic trolled the edges of the hill and looked down into the valley, it seemed like he was coordinating, rather than actively searching for me. Debris was piling up near the jet and I knew where my missing drone feeds had gone.
As the elevator started to climb, Epic walked to the area our hatch had exited from, around the back of the castle and looked down,
nodding, obviously communicating with someone. Rejoining the group, he pointed at the castle, and they moved towards it as a group. He reached the front door and after a joke to his companions, actually knocked.
“I’m so sorry,” Bubu said. “But we didn’t order a costume party,” he added, and I laughed as the elevator rose to the main structure. I saw the whole thing through my eye reticle, with Bubu switching cameras to give me the best view at all times. Unfortunately, we didn’t have an audio drone near the front door, and I hadn’t thought to patch the front door speaker system to the main computer. Something to think about the next time I built a villain lair to capture a mechanical nemesis.
Epic and his boys laughed at Bubu’s joke, finding the whole thing terribly amusing. Bubu, though, didn’t relent.
“You guys strippers?”
Again, laughter, with Epic doubled over, reeling.
“What’s so funny, bros?”
Epic composed himself and keyed the intercom, and though I couldn’t hear what he was saying, I saw him distinctly mouth the word “Blackjack.”
“Gambling is illegal in Romania.”
A few giggles here and there, then Epic waved them back and threw a punch at the front door. It exploded inward with such force that there were shards embedded into the walls of the entrance foyer. Our ride ended and I jumped out, giving Bubu a little salute as I ran to find my mark before they made their entrance. Epic shuffled over and keyed the intercom again, eliciting another round of laughter from his team before shrugging and stepping over the shattered door.
“This bro has no sense of humor,” Bubu said over coms as I reached my spot, and saw them sweep into the entrance. They were an impressive bunch, the best available, no doubt, as Epic wasn’t one to run with scrubs. I saw Princess Armada – or so she called herself, as she wasn’t formally associated with any country or royal line. She was taller even than Epic, wearing resplendent silver armor that reflected every light off its surface. She wielded a long spear and shield, and from what I’d read, was as strong as they came, and deadly with her weapons. She stood close to Epic, denoting more than a passing relationship between them. He also deferred to her at the lead of the formation, which let me know she could take a punch.
Standing next to him on the other side was a black woman dressed in long black robes and an elaborate feathered headdress. She was Gryphonette, a shape-shifter who could transform into a version of the mythical creature, with the head and wings of a falcon, and the body of a horse-sized lion. I found it interesting that she was a reformed villain, now running with the world’s A-team as if none of her nastiness had ever happened. It was Gryphonette that saw me first, her yellow bird eyes tracking me on the second floor balcony that overlooked the main foyer. She would have no trouble powering up to my position with her huge wings, while the rest of them would have to run up the twin staircases that swept to either side of me down to their position.
“Crash their coms,” I whispered to Bubu. He obeyed with a squelchy pop that blacked out all of the castle’s wireless communication, except the direct radio line I maintained with Bubu. We piggybacked our coms onto the same signal the slave program used to control the drones.
Epic took it in stride, but a couple of the others had to pull the earpieces out, tossing them aside. I took some satisfaction from their discomfort, but that withered to ash the instant I saw Coach. Take all of Epic’s people, known and unknown, add Apogee and I to the mix, and she was still the most frightening person within a ten mile radius. Calling her power mind control was a disservice. The wispy silver tendrils she commanded allowed her to possess as person, controlling their actions, but also creating a link that granted her access to the victim’s thoughts.
I learned exactly what her powers felt like during the D.C. fiasco. Zundergrub herded a group of heroes into what amounted to a shallow grave, ready to execute them, but I had stepped in and put an end to it. Coach had tagged me without warning, faster than I could react. I was helpless, beaten, but she read my mind, saw I was on their side, and let me go. I still recalled her last words, directed at the collection of supers who had no intention of letting me walk.
“He’s one of us.”
She was tipping middle age, but still looked fit and dangerous. She wore a different costume than last time we had met, armored plates covering her chest and upper arms over leather with a padded helm that still let her greying hair drift down to her shoulders. Her expression was grim, any connection we had evaporated. I switched my view to ultraviolet and saw her tendrils already sneaking across the walls and behind the tapestries. I made her my primary target; the reticle would keep her position on the HUD even if I couldn’t see her.
Rounding out the team were the sisters, Bamma and Slamma. Bamma was a freak of nature, tall and statuesque, like something out of a Hentai drawing, wearing a tight leather red and white racer girl suit with tinted goggles. She smacked her gum and posed, hands on hips, as if the cameras were rolling and ready to capture her beauty in detail. Of all the heroines in the world, Bamma was probably the only one with a more impressive figure than Apogee, though her upper body was enhanced by at least one liter on each side. The things were ridiculous.
Her sister, Slamma, was almost a diametric opposite, blonde instead of dark brown hair, wider shoulders and a reversed suit pattern. Unlike her sister, she was all natural, but more muscular than I found sexy in a woman. She was a teleporter where her sister was more of a rolling tank of destruction, yet Slamma could pack a punch as good as anyone. The two women had formed a deadly duo for many years, and Epic had somehow convinced them to work with him.
I felt small and petulant in the face of the talent arrayed against me, like a child caught mid-tantrum, on the cusp of a whipping. I had my gimmicks, the bow and arrows, the castle, but these people were the best, not the maniacs I had been planning against. Too much had transpired for a peaceful resolution.
The good news?
There were only six of them, one more than I was expecting, but the traps might still work. I had to lure them in and separate them. Then piss them off to the point where they turned their brains off and hit the throttle. They would be eager to put a fist through my skull. I was Charles Manson, Bin Laden, and the Nazis all wrapped up in one easy to hate package, and it would be insincere to say I didn’t see them as a bunch of smug, preening, assholes. All I had to do was split them into manageable bites.
But first there was the standoff.
“Long time, Epic,” I said. “How’s the face?”
* * * *
He winced, shaking his head in disgust. I expected him to send his flyers at me, along with the teleporting chick. Hell, I was waiting for it. Instead, he decided to monologue.
“We really have to do this?” he said.
I scanned his team, making sure the women felt me ogling them.
“I just noticed,” I said after a long pause. “You’ve got all girls on your team. Makes the plane ride back more interesting, I suppose.”
Princess Armada glared daggers at me, but the others were unfazed. Bamma, in fact, shot me a little wink between popping her gum. She was big in Japan, and everything about her spoke of tapping into their cultural love of all things American, the louder the better, big hoop earrings, blood red lipstick and big, almost 60’s style hair – those ginormous tits. I smiled and winked back at her.
“The only woman you have to worry about is Apogee,” he said, threatening with a pointed finger. “What’d you to do her?”
It took me a moment to realize he was talking about the video we had produced and broadcast for their viewing pleasure. It was an attempt to get them to rush the castle, but it had proven a waste of time.
“You should be less worried about me and more about your own team,” I said, my façade cracking, anger seeping out. “How the fuck could you bring Underworld here?”
“I heard you ran into my teams outside,” he said.
“Yeah, and he took her to that fucking
nightmare dimension of his,” I said, recovering a little of my calm.
“She’ll be fine,” Epic said, and believed it. “I’m sure he took Apogee to the Abyss for easy transport back to the jets.”
I should have been surprised how much faith he had in the obviously unbalanced hero, but I didn’t have room for it. I filed his ignorance regarding Underworld’s grudge against Apogee away with the other things I was going to teach the idiot today.
“Pity you can’t talk to your boys out there anymore,” I said, slipping back into character. “We’re jamming you in here. By the way, do you guys have a name? The whole team, I mean.”
He blinked twice.
“We were called the Impossibles, back in the day. Clever name, if you really think about it. You guys should be the Epics…or no, that’s too on the nose. The Titanics! Oh, yeah. I like that.”
“Blackjack-“
“Feel free to use it, Epic,” I said. “No charge.”
“He’s just wasting our time,” Bamma said, her voice tinged with an Alabama drawl. “Let’s just tie the boy up and get the job done.”
“Bigger, badder men have tried, darling,” I said.
“You can’t beat us, Blackjack,” her sister added in an equally colorful Southern accent.
“Remember that when you’re begging for mercy,” I said.
“This isn’t you, Blackjack. Call this off while it’s not too late,” Epic said.
“What I’m wondering is what you’re going to do once I put you down again. What hole are you going to hide under?”
I paused, looking at his team.
“I see you got a whole new team. Too embarrassed to run with the same people that saw you get put down like a dog, huh?”
His face twisted in anger at the mention of our last meeting, and I doubled down. “Well, it’s important all of you know,” I said. “I’m not playing around here. Some of you are going to get hurt if you don’t leave now. Some of you might not make it out. This place is deadly. And I’m not holding back.”
