Blackjack Villain

by Ben Bequer

  “Shivvers ambushed us.”

  “Accessing the hard drives,” Mr. Haha said aloud.

  In the distance, we could hear the whine of the helicopter engines as our ride approached.

  “How could he harm her?”

  I turned to spot the helicopter, which was nearing quickly as it came over the forest line.

  “Deleting drives,” Mr. Haha said. “Check that, reformatting for true deletion.”

  “I don’t need a fucking play-by-play, Haha,” I snapped at the robot. “And Shivvers had a special weapon.” I showed him the still bleeding wound on my shoulder. The back of my shirt was caked with dark crimson.

  “Most interesting,” Zundergrub said, taking a few steps towards the house. “You must have left some forensic evidence behind. Blood or-”

  “Don’t worry about that,” I said.

  The helicopter circled overhead and started to land in a nearby flat area, about fifty feet away.

  I picked up Influx and started to the landing chopper.

  “You done yet?” I asked Haha.

  “Done. The entire system is crashed without a trace of us ever being here.”

  “Then let’s get out of here,” I strode away towards the helicopter, not even bothering to lower my head to avoid the propellers, nor cover my face from the tornado of snow lifted up by the blades. Hopping aboard, I placed her body on the floor of the helicopter in front of the shocked co-pilot. “Do you have a tarp, or-”

  He nodded and dug into a crate, pulling out a blue tarp and handed it to me. I spread it along the floor, fighting the wind kicked up by the helicopter’s rotors and placed her atop the tarp. Mr. Haha came in and stood next to me.

  “We should bind that,” he said and ripped a swath of his dirty kimono, wrapping it around my shoulder. When he was done, I knelt down and finish covering Influx’s corpse. I closed the tarp around her upper body, leaving only her face uncovered. Her eyes were open, her jaw and mouth caked with blood. I used a corner of the tarp to wipe some off, but it smeared along her cheek further marring her beautiful face.

  It was peculiar because he had use a similar amount of force against me and my wound was a scratch compared to hers. Somehow my skin was stronger than Influx’ and I was able to withstand his attacks. If Shivvers had attacked me first, Influx would still be alive.

  I had almost finished shrouding Influx’s corpse when I noticed we weren’t in the air yet

  “Why the fuck are we not in the air?” I raged.

  “We’re waiting for Zundergrub,” Haha answered. “There he comes.”

  I stared out of the cabin, back to the house, and saw Zundergrub walking towards the helicopter slowly.

  “Hurry, damn you!”

  The doctor didn’t, ignoring me as he came onboard. His imps were flocking around him, like a pack of dogs wanting a treat from their master.

  “Get us out of here,” I yelled at the co-pilot who repeated my command into his headset and ran into the cockpit. The engines roared and the vehicle slowly lifted off the snow in a cloud of whiteness.

  “We should leave it,” Zundergrub said with disgust, referring to Influx’s body as one would that of a dead animal on the side of the road.

  I exploded, not caring whether he was inciting me or not, and stormed across the helicopter. I grabbed Zundergrub and slammed him into the cabin, bending the aluminum bracing. He yelped in pain and clawed at me but I pressed his thin frame farther into the wall.

  “Why don’t we fucking leave you?” I snarled into his face. “You useless fucking piece of shit. I ought to-“

  “Blackjack, he didn’t mean to insult,” Haha said trying to intercede, but nothing could tear me off Zundergrub.

  “Nobody touches her,” I said. “You understand? No one touches her body.”

  “No one is going to touch her.” Haha gently pulled me away from the doctor. “Right?” he motioned to Zundergrub, who wasn’t moving, even to straighten his rumpled clothing. He slowly slinked down to the seating.

  I knelt beside Influx and finished wrapping her exposed legs with the blue tarp.

  “I’m closing the door,” Haha shouted over the roar of the engines.

  “Not yet,” I said, leaving her body and moving to the open door.

  “Thus let me live, unseen, unknown,” he began.

  I waited until the helicopter was high enough off the ground to have cleared the ground clutter and took out one of my last two remaining explosive arrows. I knocked it, aiming at Shivver’s house.

  “Thus unlamented let me die,” Haha continued.

  Releasing the string, the arrow flew the distance between the rising helicopter and the house in an instant and exploded, blowing the house to a million bits of concrete, dry wall and tile, illuminating the forest. Flames erupted at the base of the first floor, beginning to spread as the house disappeared behind the hillside.

  “Steal from the world, and not a stone tell where I lie,” Haha finished.

  * * *

  I sat on the deck beside her covered body as the helicopter carried us away. Mr. Haha would occasionally try to re-eulogize but I wasn’t in the mood for Alexander Pope’s or anyone else’s words to comfort my grief.

  Frankly, I couldn’t believe it.

  We’d seen her stand up to Captain Miraculous, a Class-A super, and probably the most powerful guy west of the Mississippi and his healer wife, Bad Karma. She stood toe to toe and was winning when Cool Hand half-cracked Karma’s head open. It made no sense for her to fall to the hand of some old guy with a magical dagger. It just wasn’t fair.

  Then to have Zundergrub dismiss her, talk of leaving her body behind was too much for me. I didn’t even dare look in his direction, in fear that he would make a face or say something that would set me off. It was a long way down.

  I didn’t have much time to think about it. I could hear the whine of the helicopter turbines growing stronger and stronger and felt a strong bank to the port side. The chopper then rolled hard in the opposite direction and I knew something was wrong.

  “That’s peculiar,” Haha said.

  I got up and walked over to the cockpit, sliding the door open to reveal the pilots.

  “What’s going on?”

  The co-pilot looked at me and I could tell from the expression his face we had trouble.

  “We’re being followed,” he told me, and I looked over at the 3d radar holo projection in between the two pilots and saw three red dots to our rear, and coming fast.

  “How long do we have?”

  The pilot was still throttling up, but he shook his head.

  “They’re traveling more than twice our speed,” he said. “We’re fucked.”

  A German voice came over the radio but none of us understood, then they switched to English. “Enemy vessel,” the voice began. “You are ordered to power down and land or we will fire upon you.”

  “How long?” I insisted.

  The pilot shook his head. “Get on the rear turret,” he told the co-pilot who went to the rear cabin and up the stairs to the rear turret gun.

  “You got this, right?” I asked, following him, but the look he gave me didn’t reassure me.

  “What is it,” Haha asked when I returned to the main cabin.

  “We’re being chased.”

  I picked up my bow and the one remaining explosive arrow. I had no more tricks, one special arrow and done.

  Our turret opened up, and we could see tracers from the chasing gunships flashing past the viewports

  Haha slid the door open for me and the wind exploded inwards almost knocking me back. The robot grabbed my waistband with one hand and the bulkhead with the other, bracing me, and keeping me from falling out as the helicopter banked back and forth to avoid enemy fire.

  “That wound is still bleeding,” he said as I leaned out and tried to spot the gunships almost getting torn in half as a line of tracers stitched the fuselage. Fragments of metal and flame exploded near me, and a loud explosion rocked u
s from the rear, filling the cabin with smoke.

  Zundergrub took cover from fires that erupted from the rear turret.

  “Get an extinguisher,” I yelled, pointing at one that hung on the wall, but the doctor ignored me. He spoke to his imps, who hurled themselves into the fire to put it out.

  I eased out the door again, secured by Mr. Haha. Firing an arrow from a vehicle traveling over five hundred miles an hour, at another going similar speed, was nearly impossible. But instead of thinking of the distance I had to fire the arrow, I decided to give it a minor shove, put the arrow in the path of the oncoming gunship and let them run into it. I should have fired a normal tip arrow first, to gauge the distance better, but there was no time.

  One of the gunships flared out slightly, anticipating our helicopter’s banking motion, confident we couldn’t retaliate with a destroyed turret. He inadvertently made the shot easier for me. I fired the arrow but immediately lost it in the dark night sky. An instant later an explosion lit the night and when the flames died, the only thing that remained of the gunship was a few bits of debris that plummeted out of the sky.

  “Yes!” Mr. Haha yelled. “Nice shot!”

  I moved back into the cabin shaking my head. “That’s all I got, though.”

  Dr. Zundergrub had climbed up the turret, where a vortex of wind exploded inwards.

  “The man is dead,” he said, his hair a total mess. “And we are on fire.”

  The second gunship retreated for a few moments, recovering from its lost companion, but moments later opened up again with renewed vigor. Bullets tore through the bulkhead, forcing us down for cover. I looked up and saw Mr. Haha standing, fearless, smoke drifting from a few holes in his kimono.

  “You’re hit,” I told him.

  Haha nodded his big rabbit head. “It felt tingly,” he said, staring at me. “We should rewrap that wound, Blackjack. You’re losing a lot of blood.

  I was too busy to notice the wound, but Shivvers’ slash continued to bleed, and I was already feeling tired and drained. I reached for a first aid kit bolted to the helicopter’s cabin as another barrage tore into the helicopter. Smoke was everywhere and the pilot banked madly to avoid the gunship. The problem was our helicopter couldn’t outmaneuver the agile interceptor chasing us.

  “We can’t take much more of this,” I said looking out the open door. Below was the North Sea. If we fell into those frigid waters, we would die of hypothermia in a few minutes. There was no saving us now.

  “Have you any arrows left?” Zundergrub asked.

  I shook my head. I thought of the Nuke, sitting in my quiver, but it was too heavy, too ungainly to shoot in these conditions.

  “A few normal ones,” I said.

  He smiled, reaching into the darkness and grabbing one of his imps, a tiny blue demon with wings and whispered into its ears. The imp understood what the doctor had in mind and started crying and bawling. Zundergrub slammed it hard into the deck, dazing it and tossed the monster at me. It was a thin, pathetic looking creature - maybe a dozen inches from head to toe - more like a child’s toy than anything threatening.

  “What do I do with this?”

  “Skewer it in one of your arrows, and fire it at that last ship,” he said, ducking to avoid more enemy fire. After the last barrage, the engines clanked and slowly faded. An explosion rocked the inside of the cabin, flames licking at our faces. Dr. Zundergrub’s imps did their best to stop the flames, and the man himself was now helping with an extinguisher.

  “And you have the nerve to call me useless,” I heard him mutter, but ignored him.

  I got up and moved back towards Haha, who still stood his ground. “You ready for more?”

  He grabbed me by my belt and nodded, now with a few holes in his head and ears. Before I could do anything, he spun me and I felt a sudden snapping pain near the wound. I flinched but he held me fast. Turning to look, I saw he was stapling my wound closed. The staples themselves weren’t penetrating my skin, but merely grabbing a bunch of flesh to force the slash closed. When he was done, only a slight trickle seeped through.

  “That should hold it,” he said

  The imp twitched in my hand. I hooked my arm around the bow and grabbed an arrow, placing it inches from the creature’s heart. It looked at me, pleading for its life in a strange peeping tongue. “Sorry, little guy,” I said and impaled it through the chest. Brownish blood spurted all over my hand, and it shuddered a few times before it died in a squealing, sticky mess.

  “Now mold it into your arrow,” Zundergrub said, watching me. “That way it’ll be more aerodynamic.”

  I did as the doctor told me, and found it easy to smear the azure beast along the arrow. Its flesh was soft and pliable, and its bones seemed more like cartilage. When I was done, the new arrow head was like a blue teardrop, as lightweight as any of my arrows. I readied the arrow on my bow. Haha grabbed my belt and I leaned out of the chopper.

  The gunship pilot knew what was coming, and started banking to avoid my fire, the distance growing between us. Beyond it, I saw a third ship following us in the distance, staying far from my range. It was much bigger than either of the gunships, with multiple thrust blooms burning behind it.

  We were losing speed and altitude fast and below, the water was getting closer and closer. One thing was for certain, we were going to crash soon.

  “Bank hard left,” I shouted to the pilot, and he complied. The surprise maneuver closed the distance between us and the last gunship. I aimed and fired.

  It wasn’t as dramatic an explosion as my first arrow. This arrow stuck into the gunship fuselage and there was a slight bluish flash that lit up the night. The flare grew and grew, until the enemy ship was engulfed in cerulean flames and exploded violently, leaving nothing behind once the flames abated.

  Haha pulled me back in and I collapsed on the deck. I was lying next to Influx’s body which had rolled around a bit, and was partially clear of the tarp.

  “We’re going down!” the pilot yelled from the cockpit. “Grab onto something.”

  I reached over and held Influx’s dead hand as we hit the water.

  Chapter 9

  When I came to, Mr. Haha was inadvertently choking me to death with his ridiculous strength. Ironically, he thought he was saving me. I coughed out a mouthful of water, and he got the message, releasing me so I could finally breathe.

  Dr. Zundergrub was treading water near me, “Are you injured?” he asked but I ignored him, looking back at the foundering wreckage of the helicopter. With a flash of secondary explosions, the helicopter slipped into the depths, taking Influx’s body with it.

  “I tried to get us as close to that rig as I could,” a fourth voice chimed in. I looked around and noticed the pilot had survived. He bobbed in the water with a life vest around his body and pointed to a partially lit oil rig, a few hundred yards from us.

  The seas were rough, bouncing us around like helpless children. I couldn’t understand how Mr. Haha was floating still, as he was basically a bunch of metal and wax, but I wasn’t about to start asking him questions. Dr. Zundergrub floated with the assistance of one of his imps, a large green one that acted like one of those noodles that kids use in swimming pools. The pilot had his vest, but I had nothing. I was basically treading water.

  We slowly made our way towards the oil rig in the distance as a third German chase plane flew near us, spotlights flashing to and fro as they looked for a sign of survivors. As we swam under the huge structure, the German drop ship could no longer follow us with their spotlights, so it flew higher over the rig, angling towards its helipad.

  We reached the boat launch and using Haha as a ladder, we climbed up to the steel structure. I sat on a set of stairs that wound upwards about five stories to the oil rig’s main superstructure.

  “Now what?” Zundergrub asked.

  “I don’t know,” the pilot shouted. “This was the only thing I could see on radar near enough for us to reach.”

  We were quiet
for a while the only sound our heavy breathing, the lapping of waves and the heavy wind under the rig. None of us had any idea of what to do, where to go. Influx’s death left us leaderless, and we were foundering.

  “Where are we?” Haha asked.

  “Somewhere in the North Sea,” the pilot said. He was as wet and miserable as the rest of us. “I’d say 200 to 250 miles northeast of the Dutch coast.”

  “The last German ship landed on the rig. It looked like a transport.”

  “So what do we do?” the pilot asked.

  “We finish this,” I said and stood up, reaching for the compound bow attached to my belt via a safety line.

  I led the way up, scanning ahead for a sign of enemies when suddenly a cloud of drones opened fire on us, peppering the stairs with bullets. The doctor took cover behind one of his shield imps, and I dove for the deck. Haha stood his ground.

  I was about to fire a few arrows to destroy them but Mr. Haha put his mannequin hand out for me to hold fire and his floating lights and cameras attacked instead, entangling with the drone weapons and assimilating them as his own.

  “Oh, I have new toys,” Mr. Haha said.

  “Send them up there and give those guys our regards,” I said.

  Haha paused for a moment and all his weaponized drones few up through the superstructure.

  “Good idea,” Zundergrub said. “We shall cleanse this place of the despoilers,” he added and whispered to the horde of demonic imps that bounced around him. They cheered in glee and ran up the stairs, barreling up to the rig.

  “Let’s hurry.”

  We ran up the stairs.

  Gunfire erupted from the rig when we were about halfway up the stairs, so Mr. Haha, the pilot and I double-timed it, leaving Dr. Zundergrub behind. Reaching a platform, we saw an elevator and jumped in. The firing was merciless, and as we rose in the elevator, Haha and I could hear the tell-tale whine of miniguns.

  “About a dozen,” Haha reported. “A full tactical squad, well-armed and trained. Damn, there goes my last camera.”

  The elevator reached a service deck near the top of the rig and opened into a large, wide storage area replete with heavy machinery and piping. Across the large room stood our enemy, a dozen or so heavily armored commandos battling Haha robots and Zundergrub’s minion. Two men in heavy armor sprayed the room with 7.62mm ammunition from modified M134A2 Vulcan miniguns. They were culling Dr. Zundergrub’s monstrous creations, with the help of a half-dozen other commando wielding lighter weapons. One of the armored men was screaming, overwhelmed by the demons, while a few others tore them off his body. The beasts ripped at gaps in his armor.