by Logan Jacobs
Prologue
At around two in the morning, I woke up and found that I couldn’t fall back asleep. It wasn’t that I was distressed, far from it. In fact, when I stretched my limbs in my body temperature-reading, sleep pattern-sensing, biodata-responsive four-poster smartbed and glanced over to the other side to see the naked marble curves, glossy black hair, and chiseled cheekbone of the heaviest-hitting female superhero I’d ever encountered, I couldn’t help the smile that spread across my face.
But my lovely and lethal companion, Dynamo, was fast asleep, but for some reason I still had a lot of restless energy bubbling up inside of me. So, I very carefully inched my way out of bed, tiptoed across the carpet, and snuck out of the room.
I padded down a hallway lined with Renaissance portraits and Renaissance-style portraits of some of my ancestors and some of the inventors and engineers that I most admired until I came to the elevator. Then I got in and rode down four floors until I reached The Cellar.
The Cellar was my glowing white minimalist bunker of a workspace. I developed all my products and displayed prototypes of all my most significant patents there. The Cellar also hosted projection screens and a control panel for the Criminal Diagnostic System, the citywide surveillance database I had developed to enable conventional law enforcement and, more importantly, superheroes, to immediately pinpoint the locations where crimes were likely being committed. The Cellar was not only the heart of my home; it was also in some ways the physical manifestation of my mind. Which had been described as both brilliant and twisted, often by the same people. My new favorite nickname was “evil genius,” which had been awarded to me by the most famous superhero in Pinnacle City, who also happened to be a colossal douchebag.
“What can I do for you?” came a seductive purr over several of the nearest loudspeakers as my AI assistant, Aileen, sauntered up to me. Physically, she was the perfect woman, or at least something very close to it, with her gleaming chrome curves, taut muscled abdomen, and miles of perfectly shaped legs. She didn’t look human though, since she didn’t have skin yet to disguise her metallic construction, or hair to cover her bald head, and the ends of her arms could transform into a dozen different implements besides the shape of human hands. That was just one body that she could inhabit, though. Her consciousness was a computer program, and she had access to all of my devices. Not to mention any other devices that she was able to hack into, whether authorized to do so or not.
“I can’t sleep,” I explained to her.
“Would you like me to sing you a lullaby?” Aileen suggested. “I can download any--”
“No, thank you,” I grunted. “I was thinking, how about you find me a supervillain? Someone who’s up and about right now who comes up on the C.D.S. No one major, someone that I can handle on my own without help, within the next few hours. Since I should still try to get some sleep before the sun comes up.”
“One moment please, I will generate a list of candidates,” Aileen replied.
“Good girl,” I said as I got out my dark gray heavily teched out supersuit and zippered and buckled it on over my boxers. I didn’t have any genetic superpowers like Dynamo, but my suit gave me enhanced speed, strength, protection, and had inbuilt weapons.
“Five miles from you, there is a supervillain known as Sucker, who leeches the energy from his victims and any who attempt to combat him,” Aileen announced. “If he gets within a close enough range, he can reduce the strength of someone like Optimo to that of a mewling kitten with the vitality level of a bedridden septuagenarian. The effect is temporary and immediately lifted as soon as you attain a safe distance.”
“Too powerful,” I said. “I’d have to do more research on the biological mechanism for that-- it is biological, right? Not some kind of chemical weapon?-- before I’d approach someone like that. Next.”
“Six miles from you, there is a supervillain known as Crisscross, who induces an effect similar to extreme intoxication on his victims to make it difficult for them to fight back, and then carves X’s into their bodies, usually their foreheads, after he has subdued them,” Aileen said.
“Are we talking mildly tipsy or falling down drunk?” I asked.
“The latter,” Aileen replied.
“Next,” I said.
“Four miles from you, there is a supervillain known as Cockroach, who gets that name from poisoning people’s food and being incredibly difficult to kill,” Aileen said.
“Well, what makes him so difficult to kill?” I asked.
“He can’t really be injured via blunt force or sharp force,” she replied. “It’s the way his body is composed, if you smash him, he just compresses instead of breaking. Like if you cave his skull in with a hammer, it will look squashed, but he won’t lose consciousness, and it will gradually reinflate to its normal dimensions. Also, if you stab him, he just doesn’t bleed. And as soon as you remove the stabbing implement, his organs reseal themselves. If you shoot him, his body absorbs the bullet.”
“But he doesn’t have any offensive superpowers?” I asked.
“No,” Aileen said.
“Sounds perfect,” I said. “Set my watch to track him.”
“Shall I accompany you?” Aileen asked. “I am even more indestructible than Cockroach.”
“You’re also a lot shinier,” I said. “Stay home for now.”
Aileen was my secret weapon. I was a bit of a public figure already simply due to my business ventures and handsome face, but I’d gained even more notoriety when I seduced Dynamo away from Pinnacle City’s premier superhero organization, The Wardens, in order to become my lover and teammate. Well, the public knew about the sex part, or at least they assumed that since we were publicly dating. But they didn’t know that not only was Dynamo still fighting crime sans the Warden badge that legitimized her use of violence, I was also doing so alongside her, as well as equipping us both. Hunting down and killing supervillains had very recently become my new favorite hobby. That wasn’t exactly legal, of course, so I was trying to keep it on the down low. Along with the existence of my stunning robot assistant, whose supernatural intelligence and suspiciously sourced information would probably spook the hell out of most people and have various imbecile governments send inquiries.
“Then I will monitor you whenever there is a public surveillance camera present along your route and remain in communication,” Aileen said.
Unlike human women, such as Dynamo or my personal assistant Norma, Aileen did not have a sense of pride that compelled her to prove herself, or a fear of missing out on a fun adventure or the emotional capacity to care about me or anyone else, so leaving her behind to go on a mission solo did not require any kind of drawn-out argument. I was her priority, and she was programmed to put my well-being and happiness above all else. She was also programmed to comply with my commands even if she felt that they were contrary to my best interests. The fact that she didn’t warn me against going after Cockroach implied that she too believed I could handle him, and Aileen always knew better than I did.
I’d created her to be that way.
I collected a coil of rope, a large butcher’s knife, a plastic bag, some duct tape, and put them all into a briefcase.
“Monitor the house while I’m gone too, and keep Dynamo and Norma safe,” I said. “See you soon.”
Then I headed out into the night.
My watch showed me a visual of where Cockroach was, so I started jogging toward him. In my supersuit, with the micronized boots that added power to every stride, and with the exoskeleton components on the legs that reduced the percentage of its own weight that my body bore, jogging four miles only felt equivalen
t to jogging about two without the suit on.
It was a weekday night, and there were very few other people around. None on the streets so far, and just a few lone cars zooming by. In some ways, I loved Pinnacle City best at night, when most of its citizens were abed. That way, instead of actually interacting with strangers and getting annoyed with their emotional sensitivities and stubborn irrational beliefs and unpleasant habits or whatever else it was that repulsed me about a given individual, I could just think of the citizenry as a vague sea of peacefully sleeping bodies and feel benevolently toward them.
As I ran through the empty streets, I realized that I didn’t really love people. I loved our civilization and society. It was the glittering buildings that brought the thought to my mind. They were genuinely impressive. Skyscrapers, to me, were a visual representation of the height of human achievement. And when they glittered with lights that humans had designed and powered, that to me was more meaningful than the stars, which were just arbitrary natural phenomena.
As I approached Cockroach’s location, I entered a retail district with a lot of clothing shops, bakeries, and delis.
“Why does he poison people anyway?” I asked Aileen through the radio on the suit’s wrist. “Are they just random people? Or people he bears a grudge against?”
“It’s people who purchase food that he deems overpriced,” Aileen answered. “He targets upscale restaurants, sometimes boutique coffee shops, organic smoothie shops… apparently his family could never afford to feed him enough as a child and he developed a grudge against people who pay what he considers inordinate amounts of money for what they consume. It’s a class warfare thing.”
“Well, guess he wouldn’t like me very much,” I said. Sure, I ate pizza and fish sticks sometimes. But I preferred dining out at Michelin star restaurants and gave Norma a blank check to spend however much she wanted on groceries weekly. If you factored in the cost of building my favorite chef, Aileen, then even a grilled cheese sandwich made by her would be prohibitively expensive for bottom the ninety-nine point nine percent.
I’d never had any sympathy for people who resented other people purely for being rich. If they took issue with the way a specific individual, or a corporation, had made their money, then that could be a legitimate criticism. If they judged someone for the way they spent their money, well, people both rich and poor blow money on a lot of really stupid shit. But equating wealth with evil? That was just jealousy talking. I was pretty sure that most people who preached socialism, or even communism, wouldn’t feel the same way if they had the skills, or the luck, to make even just a few million dollars themselves.
I also despised the hypocrisy of politicians who advocated for drastic wealth redistribution policies while declining to redistribute their own substantial fortunes. But at the same time. People who inherited their wealth with no effort or talent were also another form of lowlife, and I had no patience for spoiled trust fund brats who never worked a day in their lives. I look upon the corporate empire I had built purely on the foundation of my own genius, talent, and hard work.
It was the way of true capitalism, and perhaps that was my only true religion. Then again, it wasn’t perfect. There were too many opportunities for those who already had the money to write laws that ensured that it was harder for those following them to have an opportunity. Socialism for the rich was just as bad as socialism for the poor.
“You are quiet,” Aileen purred in my ear.
“Just thinking about building a utopia where hardworking and intelligent people can have opportunity,” I sighed. “But before I rule the world, I need to take care of the rampant crime.”
“You should be getting closer to your target,” she said.
“One block ahead,” I replied to Aileen as I slowed to a walk and tried to make myself inconspicuous in the shadows of the buildings that I passed.
“The name of the deli is Zanzina,” Aileen told me.
I saw the name “Zanzina” written out in electric red letters above the storefront. As I snuck up to it, I could see that the door which I assumed had been locked for the night like that of every other closed store in Pinnacle City, was slightly ajar. Then I glanced through the glass window front and saw a dark figure applying some kind of solution to empty vats lined up for a self-serve buffet.
I walked in, and Cockroach looked over at me in surprise. His face was normal enough, blond with a vaguely triangular shape, sallow complexion, and longish greasy hair. He probably didn’t recognize me, but the sight of my supersuit probably convinced him that I wasn’t just a passerby who had wandered in by accident looking for a late-night snack.
“Most heroes have a snappy one-line like: ‘stop evil-doer!’ Or other such nonsense. Mine is: ‘I’m about to murder you, fucker.’”
“Wha?” He dropped the brush and the solution that he was applying to the vats, drew a handgun, and pointed it at me.
But I was already moving.
I sprinted two steps, threw myself down, and slid across the floor until I landed up against the opposite side of the metal buffet stand. A couple of shots rang out and pierced the stand on either side of me, but my suit would have stopped them from really hurting me, so I wasn’t too worried.
I sprang into a squatting position and rammed into the top of the stand as hard as I could with my augmented muscles. The cart rolled a few inches because of the wheels, then stopped when it struck Cockroach’s body on the other side and toppled over and pinned him beneath it. I jumped on top of the stand, saw his outstretched arm with the gun protruding, stomped on his wrist to make him release it, and grabbed it. Since Aileen had informed me that bullets couldn’t harm this guy, I just put it on safe and jammed it into my utility belt. Meanwhile, Cockroach’s wrist, which had bent the wrong way when I stomped it, made some unpleasant popping and cracking sounds as it jerked itself back into proper alignment.
Well, that was easy.
As Cockroach stared up at me from beneath the stand his face contorted into a feral snarl and he started thrashing his way out.
More out of curiosity than anything else, I stomped down on the center of his face as hard as I could, which was harder than the vast majority of humans could do due to my force-amplifying boot. The cartilage of his nose crunched inward first, but that wasn’t the most spectacular aspect of the damage. His eyeballs also got pushed back into his head, and his front teeth got torn out by the roots.
But there was no pain reaction, and within seconds, so fast that at first I thought I might just be imagining it, his ruined face started reforming itself back into its original shape.
When it was only halfway repaired, he lunged out from under the stand and started sprinting for the door. He didn’t seem particularly strong, but he was exceptionally fast. That fit in with Aileen’s description of him as more of an escape artist than a dangerous fighter. Without my suit on, I might not have been able to catch him, but since I did have it on, I leapt over the stand, sprinted after him, and took a running jump that ended in a successful tackle.
Cockroach thrashed wildly in my arms as if he knew his life depended on it. Unfortunately that brought his face into such close proximity with mine that I was fully able to appreciate the fact that his bad breath practically qualified as a superpower in and of itself, so I just tried not to breathe too deeply as I dragged him backward a few feet toward the upended buffet stand. Then I used my foot to reach out and kick the briefcase that I had dropped earlier within reach of my hands.
Before I could unlatch it though, Cockroach started squirming out from under me again and bit down on my wrist with his nasty, half-rotten teeth. I probably would have contracted sepsis and died if he could have pierced the skin, but human teeth weren’t nearly sharp enough and the human jaw couldn’t exert nearly enough force to cut through my suit.
I planted my knee in his gut, grabbed one of his wrists and twisted it behind his head in what wasn’t any kind of properly executed grappling hold that I knew of, but worked
anyway since he was so much weaker than me. Then I set my other elbow against Cockroach’s neck and activated the built-in taser there. The shock traveled through his body, but contrary to my expectations, he didn’t twitch, scream, or go limp. He really did just seem to absorb all kinds of damage.
I was going to have to take it to the next level.
I straddled his chest in an effort to control his movement, and then I landed a few more punches in his face. My blows crushed his teeth and nose again, and I unlatched my briefcase while he was stunned, but then he suddenly slithered out from under me and dashed for the door again. Fuck, this asshole was slippery, but that was okay.
I lunged at him, missed, landed by a pyramid of glass olive jars, grabbed one, and hurled it at Cockroach’s head. It shattered against his skull, and he tumbled down like a smacked bowling pin. I sprang up, jumped on top of him, and then dragged him back over to my now open briefcase as he struggled. First, I grabbed the cleaving knife out and attempted to chop through his neck. But as the knife passed through, his neck resealed itself behind the blade without his even losing consciousness.
“How the fuck is that possible?” I muttered. “Don’t you have a spinal cord?”
“Fuck you, pig,” he growled.
“Are you calling me a pig because you think I’m law enforcement, or because you think I’m rich?” I inquired as I grabbed the rope out of my briefcase and looped it around his neck in a slipknot.
“You’re enforcing the system of inequality--” He tried to run for the door again, despite the fact that that caused the rope to tighten around his neck, and he seemed strangely unaffected by what should have been an abrupt shortage of oxygen. Also, the floor was slick, so his momentum caused me to start sliding after him as I continued to keep my grip on the other end of the rope.
“By stopping you from murdering people who buy meals?” I asked as I activated suction cups on the soles of my boots so that they glued themselves to the floor. Then I squatted down to lower my center of gravity and started reeling Cockroach in like a fish on the end of a line.
