Villains Inc. (Wearing the Cape)

by Marion G. Harmon

  “So what do we know?” Seven asked.

  “We know they’re desperate, and they’re less a “supervillain team” than they are a master-villain and a bunch of supervillain henchmen recruited and kept loyal by money and threats. At this point, I believe I can piece together the chain of events. Kitsune, whoever she is, got far enough inside the Outfit to learn the identity of the ‘rogue associate’ Mr. Early informed us about. The heist alerted this associate of his danger, at which point he precipitously dispatched Hecate to tie up all loose ends—which included the unfortunate Mr. Moffat since they couldn’t be sure how involved he was. I suspect that, but for the invaluable intelligence provided by Dr. Cornelius, an untroubled Hecate would have been able to capture Kitsune and wring the identity of any contacts out of her. One of those contacts would have been me, so I am eternally grateful that members of this team were proactive on my behalf.” His look took in me, Artemis, Seven, and even Galatea.

  Vulcan looked lost. “So, if you’re a contact, why doesn’t she turn herself in to you? Or at least pass along what she knows?” Heads nodded around the table.

  “I can only assume Kitsune is playing her own game. Fortunately it seems to include the destruction of the newest incarnation of Villains Inc.. And today was a disastrous move for them.”

  “Why?” Vulcan shook his head. “They lost two goons. So what?”

  Blackstone smiled coldly. “This isn’t the movies. Are you familiar with the classic song, The Night Chicago Died?”

  “My geek-cred doesn’t cover music.”

  “It’s a 70’s pop song about the all-out shooting war between Al Capone’s mob and the Chicago police,” Blackstone explained patiently. “Great song, never happened. Capone was never crazy enough to go to war with the CPD—after all, how could he win? And say he did win that night. He’d be facing the state police, the US Marshalls, the US Army, however much firepower it took to restore order and bring him and his gang in. So he bought or blackmailed cops and judges, worked around the law or made the law work for him, but he never went to war with it.”

  Lei Zi nodded and looked around. “We’re not the police, but we’re the law, the super-powered arm of it, and attacking us head-on, they’ve brought the storm. The CPD, the DSA, all the Guardian teams are making themselves available. When the time comes, we’ll be able to bring a hammer as big as it needs to be. First we’ve got to find them, but one by one or all together, we will. And we’ll bring them down.” Echoes of hard agreement rose around the table, and I felt my spirits rise.

  My mask itched, my wig flattened my hair, and now I was wearing them all the time. I couldn’t see my friends—I’d thought Dane had at least been safe in the Dome, but five minutes more and he could have been in the morgue. They’d attacked us, scattered bodies around, made war in our own home. But now it was our turn.

  Episode Three: Countermoves

  Chapter Twenty Three

  “Light is both a particle and a wave. All futures are both contingent and destined. It’s temporal physics as Zen.”

  The Teatime Anarchist

  * * *

  Even with everything that was happening, the fact that my BFF was now a gynoid robot was still kind of a big deal. Lei Zi kept us for an action review, but I grabbed Galatea-Shelly as we left the Assembly Room, prying her away from Vulcan’s side.

  “Isn’t Crash a cute one?” she asked.

  I closed my eyes. “Shelly, you—dammit, Shell!”

  “Hey! First, he’s only a year older than I am, and, second, I’m not staying this way.”

  “That’s right,” Vulcan said, following us. “Shelly as she is now is a ‘proof of concept.’ When your friend introduced herself to me and suggested this, I didn’t know if 22nd Century tech could interface with the polymorphic neural net that Galatea used.”

  I turned on him. “Used?”

  He grimaced. “I’m beginning to think that even with my poly-neural system, a true AI isn’t achievable. It does well enough around the lab, so when I get Shelly’s new body built I’ll return this one to autonomous function and keep it as a lab assistant.”

  I ground my teeth, but held it in. “And then what?”

  Shelly laughed. “And then to everyone else I’ll be Teen Galatea.”

  “Shell—”

  “Um,” Vulcan cleared his throat, finally getting a clue. “I’ll just be down in the lab. You girls go ahead and talk.” Watching him go, I tried to swallow my dislike. Shelly watched me, which felt utterly weird since she did it from two feet up. Vulcan had built Galatea tall and leggy.

  Artemis touched my arm and leaned in. “Let’s take this downstairs,” she suggested softly, trying not to laugh, turning us towards the elevators. When we got to my rooms, Shelly started on her list before we’d closed to door.

  “First, I really—”

  “Shell, stop.” I turned and hugged her. “I get it, and I’m sorry. So, how’s this going to work?”

  “Really? You’re okay?”

  I forced a smile. “You just surprised me, is all.”

  “Great!” She spun around. “Vulcan’s auto-molding a younger body from my old sketches—remember the Robotica character I designed?”

  I groaned and she giggled happily; the sketch had looked like a Japanese anime robot: cute, big-eyes, but with visible seams and machine joints.

  “Thing is,” she said, suddenly serious, “I’ll have to transfer myself into Teen Galatea. I’ll be able to keep up my Dispatch links, but not the part of me dedicated to our neural link. So when I’m the new me, I won’t be able to be with you, know what I mean?”

  So, not a copy: a real move. Somehow I kept my smile.

  “You won’t be Shelly the Teenage Ghost? So no more one-sided tickle fights. I can live with that—you’re still my wingman.”

  She threw her arms around me and I held on. A brain transplant. What could possibly go wrong? I tried not to think about it, and caught Artemis watching me carefully.

  * * *

  Dr. Beth re-examined my aching ribs before he released me back into the wild. The other CAIs could have covered for us but, more than ever, Blackstone considered it important that patrols continue and right now that was just me. The news crews got plenty of footage of me taking off on my evening flight; dusk-patrol, Atlas called it.

  But once night settled in, I broke procedure and went home.

  Shelly had slipped me some info earlier about my new costume: it held up so well because Andrew made it out of a polymorphic-molecule weave spun up by Vulcan at Blackstone’s suggestion. The stuff was almost as tough as I was, but more importantly, Vulcan gave it chameleon-suit capability; even the mask had been coated to change, and if I wrapped my cape around my head, the heavy silver snaps on the bodysuit were the only parts that didn’t blend right into the environment with the click of a hidden tab. I had mixed feelings about it; Vulcan gave me the wiggins, but we owed him more and more.

  With all the old-world streetlamps and huge oak trees, our Oak Park neighborhood was as dark as I could want. Switching on the chameleon setting, I came in high and dropped hard into the shadowed back yard.

  “Hope, what are you doing?” Shelly whispered in my ear as I hit the grass.

  I swallowed around the hard block in my throat. “Breaking Def-1. Not one word, Shell.”

  A hurt silence, then “Both Platoons are still on duty. One’s in the garage watching the property and internals, the other is down the street monitoring the neighborhood. They caught you coming in, but I cleared you with them.”

  I winced. “Shelly, I’m sorry—”

  “S’okay, really. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “I—yeah. Goodnight.” I switched the earbug to vibrate, sighing. Great, Hope—way to treat your best friend.

  Floating up, I switched off the security on my bedroom window and climbed over the sill. College Bear watched me from the bed, obviously surprised to see me. Peeling off my gloves, I dropped my boots beside the bed, unsnapped
my cape, and set my mask on the bedside table. Much as I wanted to strip down and throw my whole Astra costume into the back of my wardrobe where I couldn’t see it, I didn’t. Damn Def-1.

  Curling up, I wiggled a bit—still uncomfortable with the new uniform—and held onto College Bear. The collar of his letterman’s jacket scraped my cheek as I closed my eyes. He didn’t complain, but a few minutes later the hallway floor creaked and heavy knuckles rapped on my bedroom door.

  “Sweetheart?” Dad asked through the door. “Can I come in?”

  I sat up and wiped my eyes. “Sure.”

  He opened the door, turning the light on, and I blinked. He wore sweats and, sitting on the edge of the bed, he smiled at College Bear. “I think I can do better than a stuffed animal,” he said. “C’mere.” Opening his arms, he changed. The heavy oak bed protested as he transformed into the tough, living steel of Iron Jack.

  My breath caught. “Oh, Daddy…” He wrapped his arms around me and I held on tight and closed my eyes and didn’t think. Humming quietly into my hair, he rocked me slowly until I sighed and relaxed.

  “Better?” he asked, and I nodded.

  “So,” I giggled wetly. “Who tipped you?”

  “To quote a red-headed juvenile delinquent, ‘well, duh.’ She keeps us in the loop—she called us about the Dome attack before it even hit the news, to let us know you and Jacky were alright.”

  “I’ll bet she didn’t tell you that today I choked someone and threatened to squeeze till they passed out, or that I wanted to kill a man.”

  “No, she left those bits out.”

  “Dad? Was I wrong?”

  He knew I wasn’t asking about today, and his arms tightened for a moment.

  “No sweetheart, you weren’t wrong. But if you’ll listen to your old father’s advice—” I snorted, giggling, and he chuckled. “Anyone who says with age comes wisdom is full of it, but experience does give you perspective. I think you knew what you were going to have to give up, but you didn’t understand. Not just college with your friends, but peace, and safety, and even childhood. You never had it easy, and you’ve had to finish growing up fast.”

  I sniffed. “I’m so scared,” I whispered to his shoulder. “Not for me—well, except occasionally. For everyone else.”

  “Hah.” Dad chuckled drily. “I wish you would be more scared for yourself. I can’t tell you how often you’ve scared the life out of your mother and me. Do you want to talk about it?” I nodded again, moving around to rest my head on his broad shoulder, and told him everything as he held me. Blackstone, Dr. Cornelius and the demon and what came of it. Mr. Shankman’s media attacks. Everything.

  He sighed when I finished. “Ah, the glamorous life of a superhero.” I laughed again and he gave me a last squeeze. “Your mother is downstairs heating up every leftover in the fridge. Are you going to come down?”

  I nodded and he kissed my forehead. “Good. I think we can make it a game night.”

  Chapter Twenty Four

  It’s easy to mistake Verne-science for the real deal, until you realize that it’s only as real as a Merlin-type’s magic. There’s no difference between a talisman that protects you from possession and a psychic shield that runs on triple-A batteries, or between a fireball-throwing wizard and a guy in powered armor firing an impulse-cannon. I still prefer Verne-tech; magic is weird.

  Astra, The Chicago Interviews.

  * * *

  I wasn’t very gentle, but my first priority was to make the idiots stop shooting. Flipping the stolen Lexus over worked nicely—they lost their guns as the windshield shattered, and I pulled the stunned gang-bangers out through the windows before they recovered enough to try and scramble, cuffing all four with nylon zips.

  Dad had driven me back to the Dome in the morning, my costume in a gym bag, and sent me in through the secret parking-garage entrance. Blackstone said nothing at the morning briefing about my night off the reservation, but I’d still felt like the time at Lake Willahoo that Shelly and I had snuck across the lake to the boy’s camp. The morning got eventful when Dispatch sent me after a carload of gun-happy gang-bangers; we don’t often get called in for lawbreaking normals, but when bank robbers shoot a guard and then go on a high speed chase shooting wildly at any patrol car that gets close, the police like to involve us.

  “Bitch!” One of them complained as I propped them up against the car. “It’s not fair!”

  “Karma hurts,” I said. According to Shelly, they’d announced their intentions by shooting the unsuspecting guard first, then terrorized and pistol-whipped patrons while they cleaned out the tellers. Wailing sirens drowned out his swearing, and in moments Chicago’s finest arrived to manhandle them into the backs of their police cars. Patrolman Jobs tipped his hat.

  “Thanks, Astra,” he said with a grin, changed to a scowl as he watched one of the perps smack his head squeezing into the backseat. “High-speed chases suck. Forget the guns—the cars are lethal weapons.”

  “No problem, officer. I’m always glad to help.”

  “We know, but you handle yours, we’ll handle ours. You’ve got enough to do.” We shook hands and he turned away as I took off. He was nice, but I found myself frowning. I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of theirs and ours. Lots of supervillains could be handled by a trained officer with the right weapons and gear; crazies with guns could be handled by any Atlas-type and lots of other breakthroughs. Maybe the New York police had the right idea.

  Shelly and I talked, and everything was right—a good thing, since she told me Vulcan had a blank neural-mimetic matrix ready for her transfer now; she’d be in the process of moving house for the next few days. I ruthlessly squashed every are you sure you want to do this response and promised to come down to the Pit to check on her.

  That afternoon, Blackstone announced that Orb and Dr. Cornelius would be returning to LA—but before they left, we needed to know what Dr. Cornelius had been working on. Truth, I’d been too wigged by Monday night’s little adventure to ask. He took us all downstairs to the maintenance and security level where Platoon kept his armory and the staff kept everything else.

  The secured armory had been expanded to include a new room and, stepping across the threshold, I felt the world balloon into the same infinite space stuffed inside four walls that I’d felt when Dr. Cornelius cast his spell at Mr. Moffat’s apartment. Nobody else seemed to notice, as, crowding into the room, we found ourselves looking at the Dome.

  Someone had helped Dr. Cornelius make the kind of high-detail model the most expensive architectural firms did up when they wanted to impress clients. Enclosed in banker’s glass, the diorama took up the whole center of the room. It even included the surrounding walks and cherry trees, and around it and through it, with a draftsman’s precision, Dr. Cornelius had traced the kinds of circles and symbols we’d seen at the Wicked Witch’s house. To me, the lines looked more solid than the surface they’d been drawn on. Beyond the diorama and opposite the door, a solid display cabinet of the same thick banker’s glass was even more disturbing; it held dolls of us.

  The Sentinels were contracted with Adrai’s Figures, a company that produced porcelain celebrity dolls, and each of us had a run of a few hundred. The eighteen-inch dolls were individually hand painted and outfitted in hand-stitched reproductions of our costumes, but as high quality as those were, I’d heard of artists who bought these expensive collector’s dolls and repainted them so realistically that enlarged photos could almost be mistaken for studio-shots of the real hero. They re-dressed the figures in just as much detail, and could resell the artistically enhanced dolls for ten to fifty times their original price. We were looking at a full lineup of the redone dolls, each standing inside its own magic circle of realer-than-real lines.

  “Our biggest fan’s figure-collection doesn’t look this good,” Quin said.

  She didn’t seem at all bothered by it, but looking close at my doll made me feel like I’d wandered into a funhouse’s mirror-room, and when I
looked back at the model of the Dome I got the dizzying conviction that I was looking at the real thing from high over Grant Park. Laying a hand on the glass, I caught Dr. Cornelius watching me out of the corner of his eye.

  “Each figure has been ceremonially named,” he said as we stared at the displays. “And I’ve tucked twists of hair with threads from your costumes into their outfits. Sympathetic magic is crude, but effective. These are essentially sophisticated poppets; they’re warded against magical attack, so you are too. The same with the Dome; I had them use scrapings of paint and concrete from the actual Dome in the model.”

  Riptide crossed himself. “Dios. You cast a spell on us?”

  “Yes, and before you decide to burn me at the stake, I conferred with Father Nolan—the magic tradition I use is not geotic, and therefore falls under the category of accepted magic traditions recognized in the Pope’s encyclical on breakthroughs and the supernatural.” He smiled drily. “If you’re Baptist, you might have a problem.”