Pushing that odd train of thought onto a different track, I ask, “So when do you think you can slip away from those turds who are holding you back?”
“Oh, you mean my team? They are my friends, you know. Considering I have to put up with Bobby, you could be a bit more charitable. Cecil is taking up sculpting. He wants me to pose for him when he gets better.”
“Hephaestus? Probably wants you to do a nude. His wife probably wouldn’t appreciate that.”
The original Hephaestus, who left the island with Stacy and her cohorts, died on their second mission when he tried to handle Fiery Doom by his lonesome. His brother inherited the Olympian power and replaced him. Cecil was the only member of the Olympians that was married.
All the rest are the hottest singles on the market, especially my girlfriend.
“Nah, Cecil wants to sculpt me in my armor with my helmet off.”
I reset my internal paranoia meter back to the regular level of “They’re out to get me!”
We continue to chitchat for at least ten more minutes until Wendy uses the intercom to ask everyone to meet in central command in her cheerful “Now!” voice.
“Gotta run upstairs for a few and see what the boss lady is upset about. Good luck with Volcano Girl. Call you back in a few.”
“Tell Wendy I said hi,” she says as I turn over control of Mega to Andy and disconnect. The two of them are cordial enough, but there is always this slightly off feeling whenever my lover and my baby mama are in the same room.
Sometimes I almost think it is jealousy. Stacy’s powers bring that out in women. It kind of goes with the whole Love Goddess theme. Mostly, I believe that Wendy sees Stacy as something that distracts me from being both a better father to Gabby or as a member of the team.
I wind the disconnected cables up, strap them to my puppeteer suit, and climb the steps. At the top, I throw open the door and say, “You summoned me, oh bitchy one?”
“Holy shit! Cal Stringel!” someone says in a deep voice.
Standing next to the short, Italian-American superhero is a six-foot-six, hulking Bengal tiger/human hybrid wearing a tuxedo. He has Gabby in his arms and she is happily tugging on his facial fur.
“You two headed out on a date or something? I’m kinda in the middle of an op, but I can babysit,” I ask, masking my surprise at seeing Paper Tiger. Wendy drops hints every so often that she wants to bring him on to our little dysfunctional squad, but I thought I’d get at least a heads up out of common courtesy. We could have at least baked a cake or come up with a new member hazing routine.
Damn! Now I want cake.
“Cut the shit, Cal!” Wendy snaps. “He’s here because Bobby let the cat out of the bag, so don’t go looking at me like that!”
I honestly am not looking at her “like that.” I am still thinking about what kind of cake I can talk Andy into making tonight. “What happened?”
The animated drawing possessed by Wendy’s boyfriend answers, “Your associate figured out that the fight at the port was just a distraction and the real target was my team’s headquarters. It was Apostle’s people.”
There are several surprising things in Paper Tiger’s sentence. Bobby figuring something out is one. The other is someone wanting to attack the beat-up old former high school and National Guard armory that serves as the home for the Gulf Coasters.
“What were you storing there?”
“Not a damn thing. All they did was kidnap José.”
“Can one of his clones tell you where they are taking him?”
“Pulsive killed them all. Looked like he was doing it on purpose, too.”
José Six-Pack and I used to be on good terms—at least as much as I ever get along with the heroes. His power to make five copies of himself wasn’t all that spectacular. It just meant there were six normal guys who could think like one person. Excluding Stacy, José and Bo qualify as the closest thing to actual friends I had during my stint as a Gulf Coaster. Hell! He even offered to set me up with one of his cousins when Stacy dumped my sorry ass.
Granted, Rosita wasn’t a very good-looking cousin, but considering the miserable sack of whiny crap I was at that time and that my own looks aren’t exactly in the top tier either, it counted in my book. Unfortunately, Lazarus Patterson sent a bunch of robots to kill me, and she was dating someone else by the time I got back on my feet. Things worked out in the end and for that I’m grateful.
Returning to the matter at hand, I ask, “Are you going to attempt a rescue?”
“We’re not sure where to start,” Tiger admitted. “False Idol mind controlled him and José locked down our main systems and power grid, while the telekinetic and the strongman trashed the place. Plus, we’re licking our wounds from the fight at the docks. I’m hoping you guys can help.”
My jaw clenches while I weigh the risk. Wendy doesn’t hesitate. “We’re in.”
José was her teammate, too. She was the one who promoted him from being the groundskeeper and security guard for the Gulf Coasters to regular member.
The main screen shifts and Andy’s face appears. “Bobby is requesting an extraction. I have instructed him to remain hidden at his present location.”
“Cal,” she commands. “Pick up the dumbass and send him back through the suit. Since everyone thinks Mega is Andy, he can take it to Gulf Coast HQ and break the lock on the computers and get the power grid back up. Maybe we can get a lead from whatever the surveillance cameras caught. Since False Idol is influencing him, we can’t count on José giving us any breadcrumbs to follow.”
“Understood. I am going to run back to my portrait at HQ and check on things,” Paper Tiger says and looks at me. “I should be more surprised that you’re alive, but your secret is safe with me, Mr. Stringel.”
“Call me Cal,” I say.
“Charles,” he replies and hands Gabby back to Wendy, minus the fur she’d been pulling from his face. He leans down and nuzzles against Wendy’s cheek before heading back into her bedroom.
I wait thirty seconds for him to transfer back into the portrait frame. Charles has a weird power to draw human/tiger hybrids and make them come to life. The drawings can have wings, be cyborgs, and have all kinds of weapons, but they always have to be hybrids of humans and tigers. It isn’t especially powerful, but he can travel through his frames to anywhere that has a sketch or painting. It gives him unmatched mobility and the power to be on the other side of the world in less than a minute. He’s almost as much of a recluse as I am turning out to be.
Introverts of the world unite! But don’t interact with each other!
Like I said, pretty weird. If I had his powers, with my “artistic talent,” I would have odd, stick-figure-looking cat blobs. It wouldn’t be pretty.
• • •
After installing the fake Andy head inside of Mega, I land my suit in the back alley of a strip mall and watch Bobby come out from behind a dumpster, where he had waited for his ride. From the look on his face, he seems pleased with himself.
I can’t say the same thing. My secret is now in the hands of someone I barely know, and he’s another hero. I don’t know if his mind can be read when Charles merges with a picture. We only have two more mind blockers and he might not be able to use them.
Watching Bobby squeeze his huge frame out of the largest teleportation mirror fragment, I cringe in fear that he’ll break it. It’s not like I have another to replace it. Plus, there is always the unfortunate discovery that these fragments are vulnerable to magic. That doesn’t help me rest easy. My supersuit, something I bragged could be the most powerful thing on the planet, has a massive glass jaw. I know enough magic to be dangerous—to myself. To protect my technological baby, I created some defenses that worked in a test environment. I’m not eager to see how they work in the real world.
“Welcome back,” I say. “The others are waiting for us upstairs.”
“You been feeding my animals, like you promised?”
Bobby’s small zoo is annoy
ing. One of the ferrets is a damn escape artist. “Andy has.”
“So any idea what’s going on?”
I try to come up with a suitable answer, but Bobby spots Paper Tiger, who must have finished his errands. “Oh, he’s here now. Long time no see.”
Wendy lit into him. “What’d you expect would happen when you told him you were working with us?”
“You’re always saying what a good guy he is, and I couldn’t exactly get in contact with you with no phone. I made a call and trusted a hero that you keep saying we should trust. Deal with it.”
There’s an awkward pause after Bobby’s statement. Paper Tiger breaks it by offering his paw. “Charles Phipps.”
Bobby takes it, and asks how his cousin, She-Dozer, is. He actually seems sort of concerned. I find that odd. He hates Sheila, like close to how much I hate Lazarus Patterson.
Maybe I’m not the only experiencing a personal growth spurt.
Of the people—well, lifeforms, since there is an android and possessed piece of artwork here too, in the room—Wendy looks the least happy, while Charles brings Bobby up to date on José’s abduction. It makes me wonder how invested she is in her relationship with Paper Tiger. Any time Stacy came around, Wendy would always mention that she should bring Charles here—and now he is.
Are his drawings anatomically . . . No Cal! Don’t go there. Probably better not to ask.
As Bobby makes a snide remark about how worthless José’s powers are, I am stuck thinking about Wendy’s control issues.
That’s when it hits me! Control! Sonofabitch! That’s why. “A control. Shit! They need him for a control. You told us Apostle is working with Devious and Doc Mangler. They’re going to experiment on José!”
Andy backs me up. “It is a plausible scenario. He is the only known individual capable of producing a stable clone. Perhaps Doctor. Mangler is preparing to test a new protocol in his Improved Human Procedure? It is also possible that he may be testing a method for creating multiple Manglermals at the same time.”
I don’t like that theory any more than the rest of the group.
“All right, here’s what,” Wendy starts.
“I think we should—” Larry says at the same time.
“What about—” I contribute to the verbal mayhem.
Everyone stops when they realize how stupid we all sound.
Tiger is the first to get out something we can understand. “Mangler has been operating out of Mexico and Central America according to the folks I know at Interpol. I’ve got one of my sketches in Mexico City and can drop in on K-Otica and Spirit Staff there. They might have some information.”
I nod. Both were former Gulf Coasters when I used to be a bad guy. They should be willing to help a former team member out.
“I can put out feelers on VillainNet, acting like things are getting too hot up this way, to see what kind of jobs are happening down that away,” Bobby says, shocking damn near everyone in the room. “Might tell us more than those two ex-Gulf Coasters ever could.”
Wendy’s eyes are almost as big as saucers, but she replies, “Good idea, Bobby. Run with it.”
For his part, Bobby has this look on his face like he ate something that didn’t agree with him. He seems a little different, coming back from his spying mission, and I file it away to talk with him about it later. Now just doesn’t seem like the right time. He wanders away from the center table and heads for the couch, where several beers and an endless variety of television wait for him.
We toss around a couple of scenarios that look promising. From the corner of my eye, I see Wendy frown as Bobby abandons the conversation.
“The only one out of Bobby’s group who knows what is going on is Pulsive,” Wendy states. “Do you think we should hunt him down?”
“Maybe,” I reply. “Any one of the three of us can take him, though I’m not really sure whether Larry’s TK can affect Eddie in his electrical form.”
Larry scratches the scruff on his chin. “If I can’t directly hold him, I’ll dump a pond on top of him or wrap him up in metal and short him out.”
I want to smile as my mind pictures Larry with Eddie wrapped in steel, telling him that he’s “grounded.” Larry’s come a long way from when I put that necklace around his neck and brought his insane power down to a slightly less insane level. He’s beginning to think beyond the direct attacks and how to use his power as more than just a battering ram.
If our fight happened two years from now, I probably wouldn’t be able to stop him without using the gauss cannon. Good thing he’s on my side.
“I can talk to Stacy and see if she can get Zeus down here. Eddie’s Achilles heel is his fear of that particular Olympian.”
That piques Paper Tiger’s curiosity. “So Aphrodite knows you’re still alive?”
“Yeah.”
“And you’re . . .”
“Like bunnies.”
“I was going to say back together, but I guess that covers it. Good for you two, then!”
The cynic in me senses his relief, since he’s obviously wondering where Wendy and I stand. I could put him at ease and tell him we do our best to co-parent Gabby Gabby Doo and kick ass on the battlefield, but beyond that, I enjoy annoying her and she enjoys yelling at me. Granted, it is an odd system, but we make it work.
“All right,” Wendy says. “Let’s get back to the problem at hand. Let’s get a jump on this before something else happens.”
Not five seconds after Ms. Open-Her-Big-Fat-Mouth says that, Bobby hollers, “Hey, Cal! You might want to come see this. Someone’s in California pretending to be you!”
I stop and can only stare at cell phone footage of a naked guy stumbling out of the water onto the beach. Mercifully, an onlooker tosses him a towel. The words below provided by the news station ask, CAL STRINGEL ALIVE?
“What happened to you, dude?” someone asks the person who looks too close to the guy staring at me in the bathroom mirror every morning.
“A damn nuclear explosion happened! Where’s my team? I can’t believe I lost another set of armor! Shit! Shit! Shit!”
Everyone is staring at me, waiting for my reaction. My mouth starts moving and I’m not sure what is going to come out.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”
Chapter Two
An Idea Millions of Years in the Making
“Aw,” Bobby says. “You said the ‘F’ word!”
I’m in no mood for his shit. On the screen, there’s a person who looks just like me, wrapped only in a beach towel, and trying to pass himself off as me. Never in a million years would I have suspected that someone would try and steal the shitty life I had back when I faked my death.
Things have improved since then, but seriously, what the flippin’ hell?
“Cal, don’t do anything rash,” Wendy cautions.
All the eyes in the room are on me, waiting for me to flip out or something.
“It’s not me,” I pronounce and shake my head. “He asked about his team before mentioning his armor. Think about it.”
Wendy LaGuardia laughs at my shallowness. “You’re right. I don’t think you stopped moaning about losing the damn set that was turned to stone until you had built a new one!”
“He still complains about it,” Andydroid adds. “I recorded three instances in the previous month.”
Everyone shares a laugh at my expense, except for Paper Tiger. Charles doesn’t know me that well and isn’t sure whether or not he should join in.
“So why aren’t you already jacking into Mega for a trip to California?” Larry asks.
Wendy offers her opinion. “Because he is stupid under normal circumstances. It’s like the angrier he gets, the smarter he gets. Plus, he knows I’d fucking stop him from going off half-assed like that.”
Taking a deep breath along with her backhanded compliment, I try to explain. “We’re either looking at a shapeshifter or a clone, Larry. A clone, unless they’ve perfected the process, requires all
kinds of special equipment to stay alive. It’s why that clone of Joe Ducie never stayed away from the Overlord’s base for more than three days.”
It’s true. Clone Ducie started aging rapidly and pretty much fell apart after the Overlord’s cloning equipment was destroyed. Damn shame too, because I liked the guy. When he died, it was almost a mercy death and left me wondering if clones had an afterlife. Of course, José’s kidnapping at the same time this impostor arrives on the scene makes me curious if the two are connected. I’m too angry to get a good read on my gut instinct.
“I agree with Cal,” Wendy states. “We know where the real Cal is. Thanks to the media, we will know everywhere that fake is pretty much every second of the day. The fake could be in it for the fame and money, or he’s a plant for someone like Devious or the Overlord. What we don’t know is where Apostle’s people took José. He’s our priority right now.”
She heads off my objections with an open palm. “I’m not ignoring this. We just have to stay dialed in to our rescue mission. Whatever game the fake is playing will come out in the next few weeks. My hope is that we have the Six-Pack back by then and we can give this our full, undivided attention.”
I yield the battlefield to her, but don’t completely withdraw. “We’re stacking up enemies pretty quick, between this crap, your father, and that shit the government is doing to try and duplicate Seawall’s powers…”
“Huh?” Paper Tiger interrupts. “What’s that about Seawall? We brought him in.”
Wendy gives me a dirty look.
Guess she didn’t want to get into that today. And today started off so nice and quiet. Oh, just deal with it, boss!
She looks at the tuxedo-wearing tiger man. “Bobby fought him in Nevada at that brothel.”
“I heard about Bobby killing three federal agents there, but nothing about Seawall.”
Bobby replies. It’s his story to tell, anyway. “Seawall went and cut a lab rat deal. Uncle Sam’s making this little patch, which instead of helping you quit smoking, gives you Seawall’s powers for a minute. Guess they don’t trust you heroes as much as they used to and are thinking ’bout taking matters into their own hands.”
Rise of a D-List Supervillain Page 2
