Rise of a D-List Supervillain

by Jim Bernheimer

  Of course, my future plans won’t help this clone. The animal noises begin as I watch clone José grimace. I can see him actively trying not to look at any of the images and trying to throw off the experiment in his own special way.

  Good for him! Stick it to the man!

  As the animal noises grow more intense, I witness Doc Mangler switching on the rest of his gear. The clone covers his mouth with his hand, but I don’t expect that it will do any more than give him a few extra seconds of protection. Or maybe not, if this new crap is absorbed through the skin.

  Seconds pass and then suddenly, clone José’s screams join the animal noises as he collapses to the ground and begins writhing in pain. I spare a glance over to the real José and see my friend is suffering from the feedback.

  Yeah, I’m pretty much an asshole, but even assholes don’t like to watch people they like in pain. This is a shitty situation all around.

  Time passes. It feels like something along the lines of five minutes, but I suspect that it is really around two. The José on the ground is now covered in brown fur, complete with long ears and white fur markings all along his ass.

  The clone has turned into, and I shit you not, Peter Cottontail. The common rabbit is a far cry from a fierce wolverine.

  Mangler moves closer to the sealed booth and activates his recorder. “Experiment Three Seven Two survived the transformation, but did not turn into a wolverine as I had hoped. This continues the trend of seeing a lower rate of success with the directed transformations from the clone over the results of the volunteers. My suspicions are that the subject’s familiarity with the process and the accompanying pain trigger the fear instinct with the resulting transformation becoming not the wolverine, but the prey of the wolverine. I will compensate by dosing the donor with mood-enhancement drugs to see if a lessened fear and anxiety level will improve our success rate. Sedating the test subject is also a possibility.”

  The rabbit hybrid is struggling to get to his feet when Doctor Mangler depresses a button on the tablet he holds. The effect is nauseating. The power flickers and dims as the resulting electrical power is driven into the cage. Even if José had managed to get a body that was stronger, it couldn’t have protected him from the electrical current. The end result is a dead rabbitman.

  White Rhino laughs as a pair of Type-A robots are summoned. “Wonder if he would taste like chicken? Too bad you can’t find something that preys on lemmings and then hit Congress and the White House with it, Doc. Then you could show all the politicians to the nearest cliff.”

  The robots draw blood samples from the body and then carry it over to a sealed tanning-bed-like coffin, where it’s either superheated or irradiated, I can’t be sure. Whatever it does, it must kill off any of the remaining agent. Perhaps another minute goes by before the robots bag the whole body and carry it to what looks like an oversized dumbwaiter. I suppress a smile. The dumbwaiter constitutes another way down to this level. I’ll have to keep that in mind.

  Mangler turns back to me. “Now, back to our discussion concerning your employment, Mr. . . . Harrell, is it?”

  “Correct, sir.”

  “You and your suit will be in service to me for a period of one year. You will be paid a flat fee of fifty thousand U.S. dollars per month and you will receive a two million U.S. dollar payment at the end of this year period. Unlike the area effect weapons we plan to deploy, you are to be a surgical instrument that will deliver my product to specific individuals.”

  “Keeping the suit running is going to burn through thirty to forty grand a month, so make it one hundred grand a month and you can lower the bonus at the end to one point five million. Plus, my slate with the base is clean. Wouldn’t want to spend a year working for you only for them to come along and tell me that I’m going to do another year for them, right?”

  Praetorius gives me an appraising look. “Your current slate will be clean starting now, should you accept the good Doctor’s offer. If you succeed, I’ll negotiate for your services after you leave his employment. Any charges you run up from this moment on—they are a different matter. If you fail or betray us, I’ll personally have you thrown in that booth and we can find out whether the magic that made you is stronger than the science of the Doctor.”

  The old me would have jumped at that offer. It’s probably one of the best offers I’ve ever gotten in my career as an armored grunt. Too bad I’m not interested in those kinds of jobs nowadays. I try to tap back into the much younger and much stupider Cal Stringel to lie to them one more time.

  “I think your deal works. Count me in!”

  Chapter Eleven

  Why Heroism Can Sometimes Be Like Herpes

  “I thought you and the Rhino were seriously going to fight there, Raptorman,” Bryce says. “Couldn’t quite see how he reacted when you did that magic thing, but I’m pretty sure he reevaluated his position pretty quick. So, why’d you lie to me about being a Mangler?”

  “It’s the easiest explanation, and it’s not like we are bros or anything.” The guy almost seems offended that I fed him some bullshit.

  Naturally, I want to give him a second helping. That’s a heady reminder of what it’s really like to be a villain. You can lie as much as you want, not caring one bit.

  I sort of miss it.

  “So yeah, it was more of a magical accident, and since it’s not going to go away without some serious coin and a decent sorcerer or sorceress who is willing to look the other way, that’s why I’m working. I heard it through the grapevine that the General has a few medicine men, a fakir, and a couple of bokors on her staff. Maybe if I make enough, I can get one of them to try and cure me.”

  I have no doubt that tidbit will make its way back to my new employers, but that should make them think they have leverage on me. Besides, once you start lying, it’s hard to stop and when needed, my relationship with the truth is more flexible than at least an Olympic bronze medalist in gymnastics.

  “If you and White Rhino went at it, who would win?

  “Me,” I say without any hesitation. “Why?”

  “Without the suit?”

  “Also me. Once again, why?”

  “Might post it on the betting board and see if I get any takers,” he says, sounding cryptic.

  “Betting board?”

  “Yeah, we place bets on who would win in a fight. Rhino likes to tussle and assert his dominance over the Manglers. You’re pretty much an unknown right now, so if I get in on the early action I can get some favorable odds if the two of you fight.”

  “There’s not a lot to do around here, is there?”

  “We’re paid well, but gotta do something to pass the time. Just picked up four large a couple of weeks ago when my bet on that Stringel guy still being alive paid out.”

  Now it’s my turn to be somewhat offended. “I wouldn’t rule out a shapeshifter or a clone. The story sounds fishy to me.”

  “Yeah, Bragg down in IT didn’t want to pay up and says that he wants the money back if it turns out to be a fake, but it’s pretty hard to fool a genetic test, so Barry caved and paid out a sweet forty-to-one longshot.”

  Shrugging, I bare my fangs in what approximates a smile. Personally, I think my own survival should rate a better payout, but I suppose I have a certain amount of bias in this matter.

  • • •

  “Aw, man! You went to the lowest level?” Dean asks. “I’ve never been there before. What’s it like?”

  “Machines, some robots, more machines, and a really pissed-off Gulf Coast Guardian.”

  Bryce dropped me off after the meeting and I haven’t seen him again in the twelve or so hours since. I wonder what odds he got on my potential fight with White Rhino and if I should place a bet on myself out of principle.

  Shit! Maybe I’m getting bored, too?

  As for Dean, he’s been hanging around, apparently with no other task than to keep an eye on me, unless the General doesn’t mind slackers on the payroll. If so, I’d like to ap
ply.

  I’ve got the suit sealed and pressurized. For the next fifteen minutes, the reading on the gauge attached to the suit is the only thing I care about, but that doesn’t stop Dean recounting his life story to me. It would be nice to start in on Floater Mark II using their equipment, but I don’t intend to bite off more than I can chew.

  Dean likes to sail. He started when he lived in Rhode Island.

  My life is so much better knowing this.

  He takes his son out when he gets vacation from here and he has his weekend visitation. He owns a small catamaran berthed in Puerto Vallarta.

  That at least gives me an idea of what’s within traveling distance, maybe a hundred miles or so of Mexico’s Pacific Coast. It also makes me glad that Wendy and I are on decent terms, even though she’s never really been my ex. Hell, it doesn’t qualify as a friends with benefits. More like two ships passing in the night that spawned a little tugboat nine months later.

  “Hello, Matt. Oh. Hey, Dean,” Gina says entering the room. “I’ve got news about Omar.”

  All those years of being a self-important asshole work against me as I pretend to give a shit about Omar’s condition. “What’s the latest?”

  “They’re going to try and ease him out of the medically-induced coma tomorrow. The surgeon said it was touch and go there, but they think he’s going to make it.”

  Hurray for the douchebag! “That’s good to hear. Though, I might be gone before he’s fully conscious.”

  Which will be a good thing, I add in my head. Man! I really want a new drone!

  “I’d heard that you were going to do some jobs for Praetorius,” she says. Her eyes flit over to Dean and it seems like she wants to say something more and then decides not to.

  Office politics on a supervillain’s base must be a bitch of epic proportions.

  “Yeah, that’s why I’m double checking the suit. The seals have to hold.”

  “Be careful,” she advises. “Word in the halls is that you’re not a real Mangler, and who knows what that stuff will do to you?”

  Dean doesn’t look completely surprised, so I can assume Bryce ran his mouth, probably after getting what he thought were his best odds.

  If I really were Matt Harrell, accidental magical lizardman, I’d be angry at this horrid breach of trust!

  “I see news travels fast,” I say, deciding to sound peeved, but not make a scene over it.

  She smiles at me. “If you could run that suit at the speed of gossip around here, you’d be faster than Hermes.”

  “Wouldn’t your telepathic boss have an issue with gossiping?”

  Gina adopts a more serious face. “You’re still an outsider, fair game and all that. We know not to talk about her business, and we know what happens to those that do. Hang around long enough and you’ll have her in your head one day.”

  “Sounds like a party I wouldn’t mind missing.” Considering I’d actually had a telepathic conversation with the woman during the HORDES fiasco, it’s not something I would care to repeat. I’m fairly certain the last thing I would ever see before she killed me would be the momentary look of surprise on her face, and if I die looking at a woman, I plan on it being Stacy—far in the future, when I am a very, very old man.

  • • •

  “Get in your suit,” Bryce states, shouting over the alarms. “They need you on the lower level!”

  I’m already way ahead of him and am over halfway dressed. Sadly, all the progress on my new drone is a couple of really bad concept drawings. My artistic skills are mediocre on the best days. Like most activities that don’t involve slashing things, claws seem to get in the way. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Even if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you. That sprayer attachment ready?”

  “As it’s ever going to be,” I answer. That’s not entirely true. I wouldn’t mind another three or four operational checks on the sprayer attachment, or the suit in general, but that’s the engineer in me talking. Plus with this many alarms, I’ve got a pretty good idea what’s about to happen. My ride is here and as fortune would have it, the bad guys want me to go back down to the guy I’m here to rescue.

  I fight the smile trying to form on my face and take a last look around the room I plan to pillage like a modern-day Viking. I know I’ll just jinx myself if I start to think this is going to be easy. Once I get José free, I’ll still have to go through an entire base worth of villains to get out of here. Or I could hunker down and wait for the cavalry to come rescue us.

  It’s good to have options. I’m not picky.

  “Head for the back elevator,” Bryce commands.

  Finishing the power-on sequence, I lumber out the door toward the rooms. I can immediately tell that the suit’s kinetic power stabilizers are off. Being a step up from a standard human, I’m a bit stronger and faster, and the VZ suit still can’t quite compensate for it. My mind starts to determine how I can engineer a fix for this, but I try to push those nervous thoughts aside and press forward. I quickly stumble down the hallway like a giant, metallic drunken toddler. The reversed knees still feel just as odd as when I run in this form. If I had more time, I’d have transformed back into my human form and slipped into the armor after I swiveled the knees back to the front.

  The damn suit is a thoroughbred and I’m trying to take a leisurely trot down a hallway!

  A childhood memory flits across my mind of the day when I was twelve and my dad rented a power tiller. I hadn’t expected that damn thing to drag me across the yard, but my dad thought it was a riot.

  Reaching the elevator, I wait for Bryce to come work the controls while I lament not having built a true hand actuator instead of these tri-bladed claws. Like my lizard hybrid form, these claws are also kind of limiting. Pushing the elevator button isn’t exactly easy.

  Sometimes I forget that what might be utterly cool in a fight might be a pain in the ass when I’m not actually fighting. Better not mention this to anyone. The only one who wouldn’t mock me is Andy, and he’d give me that kind of curious look that says he wouldn’t have considered this idea in a thousand years . . . calling it stupid without actually calling it stupid. I don’t need another reminder of that time when it was just me, Andy, and Bobby, I still had on the necklace that let me understand all languages, and I decided that because Assembly is a machine language that I could learn how to speak it..

  It took a week for me to give up on that dream of walking up to Ultraweapon and telling his suit to turn off. I wouldn’t be able to talk directly to technology. It would have been epic. Instead, I could watch porn from any country and not need the subtitles.

  Bobby still tells that story, and I resist the urge to kill him—most of the time.

  “Why didn’t you press the button?” Bryce demands, strapping a holster with a plasma pistol to his side and then tapping something on his datapad.

  “I push it with these, Captain Obvious, and I probably smash the controls. Seems like a really dumb time to take out the only elevator that leads to the lowest level when something stupid is going down.”

  That manages to shut him up, or the chirping from his datapad keeps his attention as we board and descend.

  “You gonna share?” I ask, shifting in my suit uncomfortably. I might be nervous, or I might have shorted myself on the cooling system requirements. It’s not like I can just start venting my excess plasma here, unless Mr. Leonardo wants that golden brown, deep-fried tan.

  “Word on the street is that we’re going to get hit by some supers and the Federalis.”

  “Wonder if it’s reliable. Maybe it’s a drill?” Figures there’d be someone connected enough to warn them and the Olympians wouldn’t move unless they clear it with the government types. Yet another example of why unsanctioned super teams make perfect sense.

  “Nah, I doubt it,” he answers. “Praetorious wouldn’t run one with so many hired hands around. You all just complicate things.”

  He has no idea how much I plan on complicating th
ings!

  We reach the bottom and the door opens. Instead of just the guard sitting at a desk, there are a pair of armed Type-A robots blocking the entrance to the high security lab. They shouldn’t be much more than a speedbump on my way out of here with José, but I don’t discount the problems they could cause.

  “Pass him through, Yurkas. I need to get to my turret.”

  “I don’t think this is a drill,” the man with the shaved head states.

  “Tell me about it, but if you want I’ll trade places with you.”

  “No thanks. I’ll ride it out down here. Watch your back out there, Leonardo.”

  I move toward the door while Bryce gets into the elevator. Apparently, there’s a modicum of camaraderie amongst the foot soldiers of an archvillain. It cements the feeling that I’d have never fit in here. Sure, I am a nerd, a geek, but I’m not good in big groups. If some people are to be believed, I’m equally as bad in small groups.

  Mangler’s still down here, hunched over a fancy molecular analyzer, accompanied by White Rhino and a Mexican woman I don’t recognize—

  one of the General’s people, I have to assume. She’s staring at a monitor and I see her cock her arm back and swing an open hand, in frustration, I guess.

  “About time!” Rhino shouts.

  If I had built five claws on each hand instead of just three, I’d give him the middle claw, but as it is, I simply can’t spare a rat’s ass for him. “What’s going on outside?”

  “Heroes and Mexican army,” the woman answers and swings again. At that point I recognize her—2K Bitchslap! As powers go, the ability to deliver a stinging, open-handed smack across the face to anyone within two kilometers makes her hard to defend against, and terrifying to normal people without powers, but against anyone with a superpower, it is pretty lame and more of a distraction than anything else.