“Why?”
“The live ones. A few clones who were being physically conditioned to be bodies for new hosts had the sentience to escape. Only a few out of thousands, but that’s all it took.”
“Little mistakes ruin big plans.”
“Too true. I tried to buy time by eliminating Agent O’Farrell and putting the New York Guardians on the defensive, but my top team failed. My spyware let me know that the CIA gave the superheroes the locations for my most important bases. By morning my cloning facilities will be destroyed because hitting things is the only way superheroes solve their problems.”
“You don’t seem concerned.”
“Their fists aren’t strong enough to smash my idea. I won’t end the age of superheroes throughout the nation, which was my ambition, but with some creative adaptations I can prove it is possible to eradicate them.”
Portia scrutinized the Handler’s face for any sign of agitation or humor but found none.
The Handler said, “War is an art, not a science. Its value lies in its meaning. Like any piece of art it’s never completed, only abandoned at some stage due to the limitations of the world and ourselves. Nothing made by an imperfect thing will ever be perfect, but those little flaws make it worth something.”
“I disagree. To me, if a piece of art isn’t perfect, it’s worthless. A small perfect thing is superior to sprawling grandiosity.”
“Your small perfection is a mere detail in my big picture. All you know is that I had you recruit villains for me, right?”
“Before you made it clear quantity mattered more than quality, I tracked down broken men and women who once threatened heroes. And, on some occasions, I returned their mindless bodies to staged crime scenes.”
The Handler walked down the catwalk. “Yes. You did a great job placing Wyckedblade’s original body, after we extracted the mind, where Sergeant Hammer would find it so he could kill him. And your hijacked prison van added some talent to my first wave.”
Portia followed him. “I’m still not clear on what the first wave is.”
“It’s the next stop on our tour. To your left are the brainchildren of Doctor Hellgrun, a man who saw possibilities between the double-helix of DNA.”
Portia looked at second capsule containing a large fetus with snail-like eyestalks. “Why did he create these horrible things in the first place?”
“As I said, he saw possibilities. Our clones need more than year in our holding pens to develop their muscles, mental capacities, and immune systems, and we use that time to see if they develop something that could make them useful as assassins against a specific type of superhero. If not, they get buried in a pit. If they do, we replace whatever sentience they achieved in their short lives with the mind of an experienced killer. If you look to the lower-right corner, you’ll see how.”
Portia squinted. “Is that a fat old woman with tubes going into her chest?”
“That’s Swapper, one of the Ultra-Geniuses. She can transfer one personality to another as long as she can see both bodies at the same time. But it's heavy work on a brain. I had two psychics before her, one of whom committed suicide by projecting himself into a corpse and another who became prematurely senile. Poor Swapper recently had a stroke and her mutated brain is too complicated to clone. She may not survive making another transfer. I need a replacement.”
“Trista Gianni, right?”
The Handler nodded. “The only living American psychic with enough potential power to make a full-mind transfer.”
“I don’t think she would enjoy being forced to work until a premature death.”
“What she wants is irrelevant. You should see the projections for her psychic power level’s increase. She could well be a threat to the world within a few years. And she defeated my top team in Boston, I had to change my plans.”
“How?”
“With Trista, I could’ve implanted more minds into more assassins. Agent O’Farrell’s apparent suicide would’ve thrown them off the trail, and the attack on Griffin Island would’ve left the New York Guardians too disorganized to pick it up quickly. I could’ve moved everything before the CIA updated its addresses. Then I would've been back on my original schedule.”
“Trista barely slipped through my fingers at Griffin Tower.”
“She’s a tricky little minx. After Midnight Rider got her to safety, she received a phone call. I had her location, but no one left who could infiltrate a wealthy vigilante’s lair. And she and the agent made it back to New York via private jet, so I couldn’t make a move without revealing myself.”
“Shall we try again?”
“No, we won’t have time to get any new clones in fighting condition, especially since the Iron Pirates raided my second cloning facility earlier this year. I’m resorting to a far cruder method to get more expendables for my first wave.”
The Handler slid his security badge through a card reader to raise the sliding door at the end of the catwalk. “In here, you’ll see my first wave.”
Portia looked at the man in a black doctor’s uniform with a green double-helix on his chest. “Is that Doctor Hellgrun?”
“No, merely of his apprentices.”
“Where is the doctor?”
“The CIA wanted Doctor Hellgrun returned when they ordered my project terminated. What they got was Doctor Hellgrun’s original body with the blank mind of a n clone. His mind and intelligence were swapped into a clone’s body. That body happened to be a jellyfish-like monster. It’s like something from a H.P. Lovecraft novel. I let him build it in return for developing this cloning facility. He also made a small squadron of squid people, bred them until they were an army, and was kind enough to wait for my permission before retaking his island.”
“How did you manage to build an army without him?”
“It’s simple arithmetic. There are more bad guys than good ones. Heroes have rogue’s galleries, but villains don’t have collections of heroes. I used recruiters like you to bring me fodder.”
Portia looked at the operating table. Junkyard Kat, the amber-eyed woman from the prison van, was strapped to it. Her head held in a place by a vise. Her mouth contorted but no sound came out. The physician plunged a large hypodermic needle into her tear duct.
“The first wave consists of mindless clones and minor villains incapable of following orders or working independently. Normally I’d brainwash them through isolation and deprivation in my hidden camps, but speed is of the essence. I had them drugged to paralysis so the physician can insert a stimoceiver into their frontal lobes. That little electronic device will make them more willing to follow orders by overriding all other impulses. All it takes is a specialized microphone to make them slaves. Do you think this will be a good fate for your girlfriend?”
“I’m not sure Venusta has enough of a brain to hold a microchip. You can try, though. I left her with instructions not to leave the waiting room for any reason.”
“Why did you do that?”
“I want to see how many of your security guards it’ll take to put her on the table.”
“That wasn’t very nice.”
“‘Nice’ is a thing I am to get what I want, nothing more.”
“You're brilliant, Portia, but cold. Where is your passion?”
“I have none.”
“Everyone is passionate about something.”
“I'm not like other people. I pretend to feel emotions.”
“Interesting. Heroes are motivated by pride and rage, while villains are driven by greed and envy. Why would someone with the self-control of a saint but the soul of a shadow make it her life's work to hunt villains?”
“Out of boredom more than spite. I enjoy the challenge, the chase, even the occasional loss.”
“Then why not hunt heroes?”
“No one mourns villains. No one calls a lawyer when I take their loot. Heroes are protected by vengeful allies and property laws. Too much hassle for too little reward.”
The Ha
ndler pressed an intercom button. “Security, bring the girl in the waiting room to the holding pen.” He released the button. “We won’t have time to send her out. She’ll be part of the token resistance the superheroes find here.”
“What did you mean by send out?”
“If you look to the left, you’ll see many of them being loaded into a truck. Four trucks already left. The first is going to Boston, the second to Baltimore, and the third is going to Philadelphia. One, driven by Puca, already left for Manhattan. That’s where this one is headed.”
“You send your soldiers away as the enemy approaches?”
“While the idiots in capes leave their protected hideouts to tear apart my facilities, many of which are merely offices for my profitable shell companies, these second-rate goons will run amok in their cities.”
Portia watched Flayer carry Junkyard Kat with his metallic whips and place her next to the horned, muscular, and senseless All-Beef Patty. Four men with identical faces strapped the woman with metallic dreadlocks to the table.
The Handler kept walking. “Most of the casualties will be the superhero team reservists, local neighborhood do-gooders, and law enforcement personnel. They'll let the big-name superheroes know what’s happening. At that moment, I won't be their priority. They'll rush back to their homes.”
“That’s quite a prediction. How do you know they’ll fall back?”
“Because they won’t let their cities be destroyed, especially when most of them realize they were sent on a wild goose chase.”
The Handler opened another door. This one led to a room with a wall covered by flat-screen monitors. Some showed the rooms he and Portia walked through. Others showed rooms with supervillains standing in their motley costumes, some with weapons brandished, others emitting energy or flames through their hands, and a few that were so monstrous that “grotesque” was the only word Portia thought of to describe them. One showed Malone standing at attention in front of men in urban camouflage.
“Behold, my second wave. These are the mercenaries, intelligent villains, and calculating murderers with their minds transferred into cloned bodies customized to fight superheroes. They’re in hidden places I never told the CIA about. All are in close proximity to their target cities. After the superheroes exhaust themselves running back and forth, this second wave will come in and kill anything in colorful tights.”
“So superheroes and survivors from your first wave?”
The Handler nodded. “By tomorrow night, when the cities are in ruins, the world will realize how ineffective the superheroes they worship are. They’ll come to realize these arrogant idiots have no right to impose their will upon us. After the dust settles, I will call the CIA to discuss eliminating all but the ones who could be useful to the government.”
“And only villains will be left?”
“The mercenaries, like Malone, and foreign-born villains, like you and Flayer, will be paid to leave the nation. The ones in cloned bodies, like Puca, well, her body was a year old when she got it four years ago, and I deliberately forgot to tell her the cloned bodies only have a five-year lifespan. Even if she and the others elude capture, they’ll die soon.”
“As for me, I’m ready to accept my final payment and move on.”
The Handler pointed to a monitor in the lower-right corner. “Your girl is putting up a fight.”
The image showed two uniformed security men sprawled on the ground as Venusta vaulted over the secretary’s counter.
“She’s yours now, in every sense of the word.”
“Well, it’s not like I’ll need those cloned security men for much longer anyway.” The Handler slid his card through another reader to open another door. Portia followed him into an empty room with black holes against the plain white wall.
“Portia, despite your recent failures, I respect your intelligence and discipline. I’d like you to be my second-in-command.”
“Quite a promotion.”
“There will be no danger. Minor masterminds like Puffin and Count Clockwork have their goons-for-hire ready to assist me. All you’ll do is help me keep track of what happens and when to who so everyone goes where they belong.”
“Sorry. My plane to Fiji leaves from Newark in three hours.”
“Name your price for one night’s work.”
“You don’t understand me. I didn’t become the villain who preys on other villains by being greedy. I did it by setting goals and achieving them through rigorous self-control. I may not have enough to live in luxury for the rest of my life, but I can spend a few years at five-star resorts. That’s what I intend to do.”
“I understand you well enough to know you took my money as readily as any other mercenary.”
“As Machiavelli said, mercenaries are useless and dangerous because you can’t pay people enough to give their lives. The money was merely a reason to tolerate you. Before we met, I matched my wits against villains because I am the spider that eats other spiders.”
“Then why are you turning down a chance to be a part of my masterpiece?”
“Masterpiece?”
“Millions of little strokes coming together to create one big picture.”
“I see your big picture, and I don’t like it. True art is ordered symmetry, subtly blending into complexity to create something sublime. You attempted something on a grand scale but compromised your vision in the interest of time. Your perspective is so warped and uneven you don’t realize how likely you are to fail.”
The Handler laughed. “Aren’t you a harsh critic? I am the artist of war. I brought together thousands of strokes, inferences, and illusions to create one thing. Years of planning and preparation for a moment that will influence the world. That, my dear, is art.”
“To you, maybe. All I see is a portrait of hubris, self-gratification, and other truly destructive male pathologies.”
“I did the best I could with what I have. Artists never have enough time and money, so we always compromise with reality. But if not our these visions of what could be, these dreams we manifest, what is the point of creating anything at all?”
“Some dreams aren’t worth manifesting. Be honest, Handler …”
“That’s the Handler.”
“You were ready to lead a mutant army in the seventies, but your superiors denied you the opportunity. Six years ago they let you create another army, but this time when they ordered you to abandon it you refused. You want this war to happen, whether there’s a reason for it or not.”
“I fight to save humanity from the self-made gods’ might, from death, from slavery.”
“Mere justification. You can’t force freedom on people. We can only accept it our own terms. Only when we are actualized are we actually anything.”
“When all is done, there will be no more heroes resisting change or villains trying to subjugate everyone, only a world for humans to become what they are meant to be.”
“Please. There will still be cruelty and exploitation. Nothing is more capable of inhumanity than humans.”
“I can't expect a cold soul like yours to feel the warmth of my passion.”
“What drives you isn’t passion, it’s madness. With that, I will leave and never speak of what you showed me. I won't return to this hemisphere until after the dust settles”
Dejected, the Handler walked to the wall. “I’m really sorry you see it this way, Portia. I hoped you would help me against the titans’ mischief and to deliver us from slavery. But if you’re right, if it is madness that drives me, I’ve gone too far to go back.”
He reached into his coat and drew a Beretta 92. His shoulder stayed low as he spun and fired with a single practiced motion.
Portia doubled-over before she heard the bang. She grabbed her stomach and felt warm blood over the stinging burn of hot metal in her flesh.
“What the …” said Portia.
The Handler blew across the Beretta’s barrel. “Every artist wants to do that to a critic.”
Portia’s right arm straightened. A 9mm pistol sprung into her hand.
The Handler fired again. Portia fell over backwards when the bullet went into her chest.
“The only value of anything is its meaning,” The Handler stepped on her wrist and pressed until she dropped her pistol. “To me, a spider that eats other spiders means as little as any another pest.”
He pointed his Beretta at her head to administer the coup de grace.
Chapter Eighteen: Mindscapes
Trista gasped when she saw Vijay. Stray strands of black hair poked under the huge mass of white bandages covering his head. His puffy cheeks strained against the straps of the respirator over his mouth. Dozens of tubes connected to a stack of machines ran into his arms and under his blanket.
But she also remembered how Vijay told the other Prospects about her villainous past. And how he constantly insulted her. And how he tried to make her his sex slave as a reward for helping the Idea Man. That was enough to drive the pity from her mind.
“Could going into his mind hurt him?” asked Trista.
“The doctors don’t recommend it,” said Stormhead.
A familiar voice on the other side of the room’s partition said, “There’s a prissy Eurotrash accent I didn’t want to hear again.”
“Noah? Is that you?”
Ruby said, “I’m here too.”
“Well, shut up, both of you,” said Stormhead. “Trista, do what you must. It will be no great loss if Vijay dies.”
Pinwheel tapped a few keys on the laptop. “That’s cold.”
“His treachery nearly destroyed us.”
Pinwheel handed the laptop to Trista. “It’s logged into the hospital’s wi-fi. I copied every hacking program he downloaded onto this computer, but I don’t have the passwords to unlock his accounts.”
Trista pulled a chair to the foot of Vijay’s bed and put the laptop below his feet. “I have to ask, how did a boy from Virginia get so good with computers?”
“First, I’m from North Carolina. Second, while I do enjoy an occasional bluegrass festival or rockfish derby, I still grew up in the digital age. And I’m not that good. I can swap a hard drive or clean out a keyboard as well as any office temp. This hacking stuff, I don’t know anything about.”
The Prospects (Book 2): Nothing Poorer Than Gods Page 19
