Rise of a D-List Supervillain

by Jim Bernheimer

  Nah, better to stick with Andy running the suit when I’m not. Now, if I ever rebuild Roller and Floater, I could maybe go down that route. As soon as I put the finishing touches on Andy’s new body, I can probably set up Floater Mark II in short order. If I fold the wings, I can deploy it from here out the poop shoot. That’ll be a few days of rework, but I can make it happen. Can’t let the Bugler show me up with my own designs.

  It’s a pride thing. Plus, if we increase our use of drones, it might cut down on the desire everyone has to expand our roster and let my secret further out of my control.

  Additionally, the day someone shows up with Holly Crenshaw at this base is the day I turn a mindwiper on everyone and I’ll start over!

  Speak of the devil and she shall appear.

  Athena approaches. “Tell me, what do you make of the Los Angeles version of Cal Stringel?”

  Andy looks at me and I take over the voice channel. “He is most likely an imposter. His version of events relies too much on a device he refuses to discuss.”

  “You supposedly think like the real Stringel, which is a step down for you, but why do you say that?”

  “If there was a device that could generate sufficient protection from a nuclear explosion at point-blank range, the real Calvin Stringel would already be making a set of armor using that as the basis for his shielding or figuring out how to sell it. Instead, he is earning money on the talk show circuit. It does not follow his past behavior.”

  “That makes sense, but he did pass a DNA test.”

  “The most probable explanations are either a shapeshifter or magic. Either would be able to fool your test.”

  “You’re right. Odds are that Stringel left his worthless DNA all over the place and he refuses to be scanned by a telepath. Do you plan to confront him?”

  I do my best to let her comment slide. Andy sends me a message requesting to take over the conversation, but I’m not walking away from this.

  “Perhaps at some point, but there are more important things than worrying about his true identity—in this case, Las Vegas. As long as he is on the television, I know where he is. The truth will eventually surface.”

  “He has been more obnoxious than usual. I wonder if he is sleeping with Bostic just because Lazarus did.”

  Bitch, I think. But as much as I don’t want to admit it, my imposter is firmly aligned with Wendy’s father’s “regulate the Superhuman population” group.

  “I do have to ask,” Crenshaw states. “Why model yourself after Stringel? The man was a loser in every aspect of life.”

  Wendy’s hand touches my shoulder. I look up at her and she mouths, “Stay calm” to me.

  Pausing, I gather my thoughts. “He was successful when it counted. Maybe his lessons in failure taught him how to win when it mattered the most.”

  She sneers. “He was lucky. Nothing more! You might be powerful in that suit, but you’ll never get past all of his shortcomings unless you get rid of the dead weight holding you back.”

  I’m trying hard to not let her under my skin. Before I can reply, Andy cuts my channel off and takes over.

  “Fortunately, the results support my theories and not yours. If you are trying to goad me into some form of action or confrontation, then I would remind you of the human adage about poking the bear. It would be unwise for you to continue this or any other conversation with me.”

  “Athena! Save it for the actual bad guys.” Stacy uses her “outdoor” voice, amplified by her Centurion suit.

  The Goddess of Wisdom, and I do mean that in an ironic way, wanders off. Meanwhile, I glare at Wendy, who obviously gave the order. “I can fight my own battles.”

  “You were getting upset and that risks your fucking cover story! You know I’m right. Let Andy stay on the voice channel until you get off the Chariot.”

  The part that annoys me the most is I know she’s right. “I’m not happy about it,” I state for the record.

  “And I don’t really care. Give it a rest! Despite my gut instincts, I’m sitting this out even though I know I can help, so suck it the hell up, Little Winky.”

  Yeah, that nickname isn’t going anywhere. Thanks a bunch, Stacy!

  • • •

  Despite being banned for life from Las Vegas, I seem to find myself heading there again. Although I heard they rescinded that after I “died.” However like most things related to that, I can’t really appreciate my return. To be perfectly honest, I’m not a huge fan of large crowds, and going from hotel to hotel like they’re miniature amusement parks only gets me so far.

  Instead of taking in a show, or even getting a lap dance, I’m providing fire support while Aries and Hestia are trying to tag team Infernex, Velocizapper, five Manglermals, and Twin Taser Tanya.

  High-speed energy balls impact my shielding. VZ and Triple T aren’t going to get through in this or any decade, but they’re trying to keep me occupied. Infernex is the real threat and has drawn all of the strongest Olympians’ attention while Tia tosses a pair of wolfmen aside and wipes camel spit away from her face, courtesy of the Humpback of Santa Fe. The goddess of home and hearth is the weakest, physically, of the twelve, but she makes up for it with her intense training. She knows four different styles of martial arts and knows how to vary them based off her opponent.

  “Andy?” I ask. “Have you located Blackjack and Slot Machine yet?”

  “Negative,” he answers. “They have been missing for over twenty minutes.”

  “Have to count on them taking care of their own business, I guess.” The Sin City Sentinels might have been overrun by this mini-HORDES reunion. I didn’t really like the first time I experienced a huge matchup of villains against a bunch of heroes, and I can’t say that I’m enjoying this stroll down memory lane that much, either.

  There’s a lot of shitty bad guys out and about. I should be impressed how General Devious pulled this one together. It makes me wonder what she’s really after.

  Triple T is a former swimsuit model who got a little chunky after having a kid. After a few-fat shaming incidents and at least one psychotic break from reality, she gave in to her anger in a spectacular fashion, with an exoframe and a pair of tasers. Tanya is still pretty hot, but now wherever she goes men flee instead of staring at her open-mouthed. Let’s just say that after she stuns her victims, Tanya drags them off somewhere else to play with them.

  And people say I have issues! I don’t get it either.

  Velocizapper continues to splatter my shields with his high-speed bolts of energy. It’s pretty damn annoying. Most any motorcycle off the showroom floor could leave this jackass in the dust, but he gets the bonus of the little water balloon-like gobs of electricity, which are sort of dangerous. It’s kind of a jack-of-all-trades and master-of-none situation; he wasn’t fast enough to rate on the speed scale or the energy projection scale.

  In other words, strictly C-List material supporting an A-Lister like Infernix.

  “Are you sure I can’t just kill these losers?” I ask my boss.

  “Wouldn’t send the right message,” she answers. “Try to play nice.”

  “Zapper and Tanya qualify as serial killers,” I offer, hoping she’ll let me take off the kid gloves.

  “But if you show you can do the hero thing without resorting to gore, your little sweetheart will be all impressed.”

  Wendy’s mocking me. She does that an awful lot.

  While lending what little help I can to Aries, I advance on the others to help Hestia. If I can’t turn these scumbags into blood smears on the side of the Luxor hotel, then I can pummel them into submission.

  It really makes no difference to me.

  VZ recognizes my change in tactics, and starts pulling his little group out of the way of my charge.

  Wendy taps me on the shoulder. “Pull one of your plasma cannons back for a sec. I think I can handle that fucking turdburglar for you!”

  She walks up to the mirror fragment where the cannon has backed away and puts
the tips of her gloved fingers just through the event horizon.

  My wind speed meter surges and VZ along with the Humpback are blown aside.

  “It was pissing me off, too,” Wendy says. “It probably goes against your religion or something, but break his little speed suit.”

  I’m not as offended as she thinks. Back in the day, I tried to buy the plans for VZ’s speed suit to see if the tech was compatible with my Mark II suit, but the little shit wanted too much. Besides, I prefer strength and protection to synthmuscle sprinting amplified by little rocket pods paired with a glorified bug zapper.

  Reaching down, I yank the main power leads on his feeble tech, rendering him as fast as a dickhead wearing thirty pounds of metal. Turning to the remaining villains, I see Hestia has had enough of Tanya, leaving me with the Manglers. I turn on the externals. “Robert Barker was famous for hosting the game show The Price is Right. He would usually end each show by reminding the viewers to spay or neuter their pets. I suggest you surrender, now.”

  They didn’t, but they ran off in several different directions. I can honestly say that I’ve never seen a half-man, half-camel run that quickly.

  “Interesting sense of humor you have there,” Hestia says, coming up alongside of me. A glance over at Triple T shows that the Olympian has removed the swimsuit model from the fray.

  “A side effect of using Cal Stringel as a template,” I say. “I suppose you do not approve?”

  “He was OK by me,” she says, much to my surprise. “I didn’t mind him so much. Actually thought he was occasionally funny. Not sure about him now that he’s supposedly back. Stacy doesn’t think it’s him. Now that the riffraff is out of the way, how about you and I flank Infernex and help Frankie put that bastard out of commission?”

  “Agreed,” I say and glance at Wendy, who is equally stunned. Now I have to move the Olympian into the “Not Necessarily an Asshat” column.

  Boss lady gives me the slashing throat gesture and I cut off the external. “Let Andy handle this. I’ve got an idea.”

  “What’s up?” I ask, trying not to sound miffed that Andy is tagging in to fight the boss at the end of the level after I spent the last few minutes clearing it.

  “We all agree that you can pass for a Mangler, right? Get some different clothes on and a tracking device. You’re going to help one of those two losers escape and lead us right back to one of Devious’s lairs. If we’re lucky, you can figure out if José is there and we can send a massive rescue party.”

  I am conflicted. She wants to send me out there without my suit on, in the middle of a city-wide fight. I’d be practically naked. On the other hand, there’s a chance we can find my hombre from Mexico.

  Why in the hell did I ever ask her to lead this team?

  Chapter Eight

  Getting a Bad Raptor

  “I built the most badass blend of tech and magic so I wouldn’t ever have to put my ass on the line again. Now look at me!”

  My scales are a blend of light green with pink splotches where I still have flesh. In other words, I look like a six-year-old decided to color a dinosaur with only two colors of crayon.

  A baggy pair of cutoff blue sweatpants works for my stubby, partially-formed tail. An extra-long black T-shirt covers the magical belt that gives me the power to hold the transformation. I hadn’t really spent much time devising weapons or anything else that my dino/human hybrid form can use, so I rip the trigger guard off a plasma pistol and strap a tazer club to my left thigh. I put on a shield vest just to feel like I have some form of protection. It would be really nice to take those invulnerability patches, but Andy still hasn’t cracked the chemical code. We may have to find an actual organic chemist that we can trust.

  The most important items I grab are a pair of bootleg mindshields. If there’s even a chance I’ll cross paths with General Devious, I’ll need them.

  It will have to do. Wendy gave me a whopping five minutes to get myself outfitted for fieldwork. It would have been nice if she’d mentioned the possibility two weeks ago. I might have had time to whip up something more useful.

  “Are you finished yet?” Wendy demands over the intercom. “Infernex is out of commission and Aries wants to head to the next trouble spot.”

  “Coming, Mother!” I lisp, flicking my slightly forked tongue.

  “I got your mother right here! Now move your damn ass!”

  Charles must be a patient man … or whipped. That works, too. For the record, I was under mind control the one time Wendy and I slept together.

  Tossing one last furtive gaze around my room for anything that I can use, I decide to go before I start regretting it.

  Oh, wait! Too late!

  Getting down to the basement, I see Andy has the suit backed between two overturned shuttle vans, supposedly looking for anyone who is injured.

  “He’ll drop you here,” Wendy said. “Wait until Andy is clear and then go rescue a loser. Let me guess, you’re going after the swimsuit model?”

  “No way. I’m going to use this as an opportunity to paw, or claw, I guess, all over Velocizapper’s tech.”

  “Oh. Forgot about the shiny toy angle.”

  “Update Stacy, in case I get caught.”

  “Already done. She wished her ‘Little Winky’ good luck. Seriously, Cal, be careful out there.”

  I give her a wave of my claw and I slide down the poop chute into the dry heat of Nevada.

  “No further enemies detected in this area. Meet me over there and I will fly us to the next location. Bring Infernex with us and we’ll leave the others to local law enforcement,” Andy shouts to the Olympians and gives me the thumbs-up gesture with the Megasuit.

  He moves away while I continue to crouch.

  A minute later, they’re airborne, and I can slip out of my hiding spot. I scamper across the street to where Velocizapper had his hands and legs zipped tied around a mailbox, courtesy of Hestia.

  “They sent me to get you. You want to get out of here?”

  “You bet your scaly ass I do! Cut me loose.”

  “Yeah, yeah, keep your pants on, Granny!” It takes a couple of seconds for my claw to saw through the plastic bands. “Is your suit still able to function?”

  “Shit! I don’t know. They messed it up pretty badly. Wasn’t expecting to run into those fuckers!”

  VZ is a short, thin black guy who is Hermes’s second or third cousin. His real name is Omar, and he pretty much sticks to the West coast, so I never really crossed paths with him. He was actually on that cruise where the real Olympians snatched their replacements, but he’d gotten off to do some sightseeing two days before the ship disappeared.

  Sucks to be him.

  He feels justifiably cheated, like he should’ve been the new Hermes or something. It probably doesn’t excuse the homicides and whatnot, but I can’t exactly point fingers at anyone, now can I?’

  Then again, I’d be pointing a claw right now. “What about me?” Tanya demands.

  “I thought you don’t want help from any men.”

  That even got a laugh out of Velocizapper. I tell him to check his suit out while I go and free the angry model.

  “Suit’s trashed!” Omar declares as I watch Tanya climb of the wreckage of her crude exoframe. It makes me glad that I’m with Stacy and now have something resembling standards that make insane people less attractive. Back in the day, I’d probably be drooling all over her.

  “Is it worth salvaging?”

  “Yeah, I can fix it. Gonna take some time though, and money.”

  “OK, I’ll carry it. You lead the way.”

  “Hey! What about mine?”

  Her suit isn’t worth my time. “That’s a piece of crap. Why should I bother? You can just hop out and blend in with the fleeing tourists.”

  She hurls a few expletives at me before running off, like I care. Instead, I turn back to Omar. He has a control suit on that would be a bit more difficult to hide in a crowd.

  “Which way do yo
u want to go?”

  “The Stratosphere,” VZ answers. “We’ll catch the cargo helicopter they’ve got hidden on top of the parking garage near it.”

  “Cloaking field?” I ask. “Won’t be worth a shit when it takes off.”

  Omar gives me an appraising look. “You know your way around tech. Nice. Nah, they got some Boker covering all of them with an illusions. By the time it lifts off, there’ll be so much air traffic in the area that no one will be the wiser. Pretty easy when you got all the right codes and emergency air traffic protocols.”

  It isn’t a bad plan. The General has several hidden assets all over the city. More importantly, I’m still trying to figure out what her plan is with attacking Las Vegas. Both she and The Overlord usually have a hidden agenda in their plans.

  Testing the Olympians’ response time?

  Drawing out my team?

  The always popular stealing something?

  I can’t waste any more time on speculation.

  With no answers forthcoming, I follow VZ down the strip, the sounds of sirens and explosions surrounding us, seemingly coming from every direction.

  I look back over my shoulder to see if Tanya or anyone else is following us as VZ turns to go down a side street. Seconds later, I bump into his back and almost knock him over.

  “Hey, watch it!”

  Only then do I see what’s caused good old Omar to stop in his tracks.

  At the other end of the street is Holly Crenshaw, Athena herself. Of all the stupid people to run into in Las Vegas, I find her!

  It looks like she’s taken a break from the fighting to work her communicator. She looks up and I see her leer at us and smile.

  Two big jumps from the goddess of wisdom brings her right by us. “Omar! Fancy meeting you here! I daresay that Keisha will be happy to see you! And you brought a little playmate!”

  Dodging her first energy spear, I chuck VZ’s suit at her to buy me some time. Her second explodes and knocks forty percent off my shield vest. I go spinning into the wall as Omar is thrown bodily into the side of a minivan. He makes a dent in it and crumples to the ground, unmoving.