Secrets of a D-List Supervillain

by Jim Bernheimer

  There was a long pause before he replied, “Why? You already know what it does for you.”

  “Yeah, but I was thinking I could use it to translate all that lizard scratch and see if there’s anything that will save Andydroid from spending the rest of his days as a statue. The Grand Vizier thought a translation would be helpful.”

  Technically he never used those words, but I wasn’t above name dropping to help my cause.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “She-Dozer has requested that I let others try it on so that we can recruit the person it grants the most useful power to.”

  The whistle blew as Baylor’s long field goal attempt dropped short of the goalpost and rolled through the end zone. I waited until the whistles and announcements subsided before speaking again.

  “I’m just asking for a loaner, Jin. If you’re uncomfortable with Sheila’s idea, tell her you’re letting me borrow it while you think it over. I’m just trying to help Andy.”

  “I will consider your request,” he spoke, after another few seconds of silence.

  “Thanks,” I said, and pondered whether or not to try my luck with another hot dog request when the vacated Florida State bench erupted in some kind of fire and began to burn. “Charmer! The bench is on fire!”

  It looked like a metal bench, maybe aluminum and my mind started generating a list of things hot enough to burn metal.

  Jin’s reply was drowned out by the screams of people below, but I could see his chains shred the windbreaker he wore seconds ago and he moved like a giant daddy long legs toward the burning metal. Players from both teams began sprinting for the tunnel, followed by the frantic disarray of the marching band that had been trying to take the field, along with the cheerleaders, and any other unfortunate soul down there.

  Switching over to the circuit law enforcement was using, I said, “Whatever is going on, She-clops and the Menace are making their move. I’m going airborne.”

  Activating the hoversled, I eased it off the top of the stands and got over the field while the announcer called for everyone to remain calm. Charmer’s longest chains, the forty footers, wrapped around the burning bench that was already beginning to sag to the ground and melt, and flipped it over.

  I jumped back onto our “Guardians Only” channel. “What’s the word?”

  “Some kind of enhanced thermite. I’m going to put it all in one pile to contain it all and not let it spread.”

  Surveying the scene below, I concluded, “Hurry up. I’ve got a hunch that they’re nowhere near this stadium.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because, if they were looking for hostages, injuries, or anything else they’d have done it while the players were sitting there. Instead they wait for halftime and cause havoc without the injuries. It’s a diversion. The real stuff is going down somewhere else. Neither of them flies and there’s no way in hell they’d get themselves caught up in this mess. Come on, we have to go!”

  “I will contain the situation first and then follow,” he said.

  “It’s a crowd control issue, leave it to the stadium security,” I protested.

  “People come first,” he said in an adamant tone.

  I began accelerating on the sled and muttered, “Jin, do me a favor. If I ever start acting like you, shoot me.”

  Pulling up the map of the city with the locations of every bank and credit union in Waco with the current traffic patterns shown, I narrowed it to three suspect sites and informed the locals and the feds. They replied that they were directing a helicopter to one of the locations.

  “I’ll take the one that’s near the on ramp to the interstate. Be careful on the approach. She-clops can shoot you out of the sky,” I stated. It’s the one I would pick in the situation. I wanted to kick myself as soon as I said it. I could’ve just as easily picked the other and let the cops show up where the robbery was in progress. No! I had no intention of turning into a clone of Jin. In this case, being right was more important. There was that TV head doctor who always asks people if they want to be right or happy, well I’m happiest when people realize I’m right!

  Traveling as the crow flies; I cut across the city with ease. I also took my own advice and dropped to the rooftop levels. There was less of a chance of me ending up as a splatter on the pavement. Without my armor, I felt practically naked up here.

  Approaching the credit union, I saw a non-descript black van backed up to the rear entrance and it brought back memories of the “good old days.” I banked away and set down on a nearby warehouse while calling it in. Toggling the vision enhancement built into my helmet, I took a gander to see if I was dealing with a Saturday cleaning crew or Jeannie and Dave.

  “Unless cleaning crews carry shotguns, I think I’ve found the spot,” I said and chuckled. “Then again, this is Texas!”

  Blazing She-clops must’ve hired some local muscle to help with the heist. There were five altogether. Thermals told me one was in the driver’s seat and that he was the getaway driver. Two were loading and the other two carried what looked like your typical off-the-shelf Remington pump action shotguns. Provided I didn’t try to go toe to toe with them, my heavier shield should be able to take it. For a change, I felt I had the edge.

  That should’ve been all there was to it. Instead, I cringed as I heard the sirens rolling up the street; I knew that it was going to be a long afternoon.

  Ah yes, the stealth approach, I thought.

  Climbing back onto my sled, I flew the opposite direction from the one that the six squad cars and SWAT van were coming from and hoped their noise would help cover my landing on the credit union’s roof. With any luck, the hired muscle would be so distracted by their immediate problems that they wouldn’t notice that I’m right above them with the high ground.

  Using the crude voice commands built into the helmet, I dialed up a level three pulse from my force blasters and fired at the right front side of the van. The tire exploded, and I probably bent the axle. The van wasn’t going anywhere in the near future. Instinctively, I ducked as one of the men swung the business end of the shotgun in my direction and fired. Yeah, my vest would’ve protected me, even if it had gotten through my force field, but I possess an aversion to being shot at. Reaching into my belt, I fumbled with a tear gas grenade and lobbed it down into the mix. My helmet worked like a filter, and I could still see these yahoos with my thermal scan.

  Switching over to taser pulses to save energy, I popped over the low wall and snapped off a couple of shots. One hit, but the other missed, badly. Six SWAT team members take advantage of the men reeling from the tear gas and charged in to overwhelm them. I was just about to do a mini-victory celebration dance when someone roared and the van was pushed aside like it was a Radio Flyer wagon.

  Dave Evans, The Passive-Aggressive Menace waded into the fray, tossing friend and foe aside. He stood about six foot six inches tall and had short curly black hair. Clearly the aggressive side was in charge. Gunfire simply bounced off his skin and there was a crazed look beyond anything I’d ever seen on his face. Sure, I’d seen him lose it, but on some level he still knew that he was in prison and held back.

  We weren’t in prison at the moment, and he didn’t seem interested in going back. He hadn’t seen me at the moment, and the chickenshit part of me wanted to keep it that way, but I decided to suck it up and pretend to be the hero no one actually thought I was.

  “Level four,” I said, and pushed my right hand at him. The burst of energy slammed into Aggressive and knocked him sideways. It was a good sucker punch and he definitely felt it, but it wasn’t going to be nearly that easy.

  Cutting over to my private circuit with Jin, I said, “Move your ass, Charmer! The people you claim to care about are getting their asses handed to them!”

  “I’m on the way!” His response wasn’t nearly as good as, “Turn around, I’m here already.” However, it was a damn sight better than, “I haven’t left the stadium yet.”

  I’ll take what I
could get.

  Though it had been tempting to dial it up to level five and hit him with a full alpha strike, I knew two things: my luck isn’t all that great and he has a partner. My limited charging capacity meant that if I wanted a decent rate of fire, and to actually have enough juice to last more than a minute, I had to cycle one blaster at a time and I couldn’t go higher than a four without the risk of losing my force field.

  Dave didn’t seem to recognize me, but it wasn’t like we were buddies or anything. The only thing that mattered to him was that he hurt me.

  His weapon of choice, the getaway van! Holy shit! Holy shit!

  Since prayer wasn’t going to help me, I dived to the left and released my chambered force blast at the mangled wreck, with the screaming driver still stuck inside. My bolt created enough of a nudge that I didn’t get the opportunity to see whether my single shield generator was actually Ford Tough.

  The van impacted on the roof behind me only a few feet from my hoversled and that caused me to breathe a sigh of relief. I’d have flown back commercial rather than ride behind Jin all the way back! Seconds later, the vehicle dropped into the building.

  That’s going to make a mess! I thought and wondered if there was a chance She-clops was now pinned underneath it.

  There was a chime inside the helmet that let me know the recharge cycle on my right blaster had finished and I was armed again.

  “Come down here and let me kill you!” Dave yelled and ripped through the steel weighted net one of the SWAT members had tried to subdue him with.

  “Can’t we just talk this one out, Dave! It’ll be just like old times.” He’s bound to revert to Passive any time now, just keep him talking.

  “Who? Oh, that’s you, Stringel! Where’s your fancy suit? I was hoping to rip you out of it through your arm socket.

  “It’s at the dry cleaners,” I quipped, and fired just after my left blaster finished charging. He easily dodged my energy pulse this time.

  “Well, since you ain’t coming down...” Aggressive said, and leapt.

  My suit had a really nice tracking suite which would have really helped my targeting right then. As it stood, the Mark I eyeballs were all I had to work with, and my blast clipped his legs and sent him pinwheeling into his less than graceful landing.

  “That hurt,” he growled.

  Of course, I’d been trying to catch him center mass and knock him back to the pavement. Instead he was up here, on the roof, with me, and I was already backing up. The indicators for my force blasters seemed to crawl in comparison to how fast Aggressive was recovering.

  I ran toward the hoversled as fast as the heavy equipment would let me. Dave reached me first and his fist hammered into my right side sending me flying through the air and down the hole made by the van. My body hit the roof and made a Stringel sized dent in it. I struggled to my knees and rolled down the hood and onto the debris covered carpet, probably looking as bad as I now felt.

  Ow! Ow! Ow! Dammit to hell!

  The force field and protective vest I wore absorbed most of the impact, but I knew I’d have the mother of all bruises on me—assuming I lived through this. My shield was almost completely down from his single punch and now everything was charging even more slowly than before. It took both hands to pull me up and help me stand, using a nearby desk as a crutch.

  “Hello, Cal,” a female voice said, snapping me out of my AmIStillAlive mode. The icon indicating my right force blaster disappeared, going offline. That actually helped me since I no longer had to distribute my limited power supply three ways.

  “Jeannie,” I said. “You look nice. How are things?” She wore a red headed wig as part of the whole “Blazing” theme she was going for. Also, wigs can get dropped when fleeing and make it easy to blend into a crowd.

  “Well, let me see. I was trying to score a decent payday when this loser asshole dropped in and ruined everything, but now I get to kill him!”

  Since the right blaster wasn’t working, I grabbed the World’s Number One Mom mug from the desk with that hand and chucked it at her.

  A ruby lance of energy from her eye destroyed it.

  “Pathetic, Cal,” she said. “See what happens when you go over to the other side? Consider this a mercy killing.”

  I dropped the force blaster to a level two and fired, our energy met and cancelled each other out, but I was already moving. I jumped behind a couch, not that it would do me a world of good against her. Still, it gave me enough cover to yank one of the two remaining tear gas grenades out and pull the pin.

  “Catch this!”

  As expected, she destroyed it, but that merely dispersed the gas faster. Sure, my shield was about as good as a thin bed sheet at the moment and half my weapons were offline, but my helmet sure had a nice filter on it!

  Who’s the sucker now?

  Blazing She-clops realized what was going on pretty quickly and began coughing and screaming. Her eye bolt lashed out and destroyed the couch in front of me. The explosion sent me on a short trip through the air where the nice hard wall was waiting to arrest my momentum.

  • • •

  “He’s coming around,” a voice intruded through the throbbing mental fog I drifted on. I started to mumble for my armor to start a diagnostic sequence and initiate repairs. Seconds later, I recalled why that was a stupid idea.

  I’m really beginning to hate the sight of paramedics, I thought. Jin was standing next to the man, with his chains flexing back and forth, almost like they were nervous.

  “What happened?”

  “She-clops nailed you, but the gas made her easy to subdue. The Menace was more difficult to capture, until he reverted to his more docile persona. You should have waited for me.”

  I coughed as the EMT told me that it was bruised ribs and maybe a concussion. As ManaCALes, I’d been beaten soundly by the Bugler, but this time was more of draw with an advantage to me. My track record was improving, but it still hurt.

  Rasping, I answered Chain Charmer, “If I had, there’d be a whole bunch of dead police officers.”

  Jin smiled, which he rarely did in my presence. “So, people do come first? Does this mean that I get to shoot you, now?”

  “No!” I hacked out a protest. “If too many of them had died, I’d have had to fight The Menace and She-clops at the same time, because my partner thought a damned aluminum fire was more interesting to look at!”

  Charmer actually laughed. “You sound like you almost believe that. They’re taking you for precautionary X-rays and we will leave in the morning, if you’re able. When we get back, remind me and I will lend you the necklace.”

  Something had changed his mind and I wasn’t about to ask him what, because I probably wouldn’t like the answer.

  I’d gotten my ass kicked many, many, in fact too many, times. This was the first time anyone ever offered me jewelry afterward.

  Yeah, I’ve got a head injury. I decided as they finished loading me onto the gurney. With my helmet off, I could see Jeannie surrounded by the Feds. Her wig was off and one arm was in a sling. They’d forced this ridiculous piece of headgear onto her that looked like a bad mix of Phantom of the Opera meets a fishbowl. I found it more amusing than she obviously did.

  “Hey, Jeannie!” I called out.

  “Go to Hell, Stringel!”

  I waited a second, and then said, “Hey, Jeannie!”

  “What?” she demanded.

  “So how are things?” I repeated my earlier question as if nothing had happened.

  Her profanity laced rant wouldn’t heal my wounds, but it soothed my aching spirit. Since I wasn’t going to risk pissing off Jin, I had to get my jollies somewhere else.

  • • •

  “You’re a lot more heroic than you give yourself credit for,” Stacy says, and runs her fingers through my hair.

  “No need to go insulting me,” I say, and act hurt while making faces at Gabzilla.

  “I think Clops had a thing for you, Strings,” Bobby comme
nts. “I ran into her on a... job... recently and she was asking me a bunch of questions about you. Maybe that’s why she was so angry about you working the other side?”

  I laugh and say, “I never really thought about her that way, but if you say so. Music. Play Don’t know what you got till it’s gone.”

  Naturally, this starts an argument about whether or not Cinderella counts as Classic Rock.

  Chapter Six

  I Can Haz Magic, but Does I Wantz Magic?

  “You don’t really believe that?” Stacy asks, while admiring the rail gun. I’m down in what used to be the prisoner area, checking on Andy’s suit maintenance while he watches my daughter. After getting Bobby all riled up, I thought it best to bring my newly reunited girlfriend down to this level and continue the story.

  Laughing, I respond, “Nah, I just like to yank Bobby’s chain. It’s fun to see him get all spun up from putting Arena rock bands in with his beloved Lynyrd Skynyrd. Honestly, he’d be less likely to hit someone who says a bad thing about his mother then if they insult his favorite band.”

  “That’s low, Cal.”

  “Well, I am a petty man. Hell, I already immortalized my pettiness in a novel for the whole world to see! Anyway, that’s like saying the Semi-Transparent Man passes for a real superhero. I have to admit, when I was in prison with him, I had no idea he was really a mole for Unky Sam. What’s with the look?”

  Stacy banishes the “I just swallowed a glass of sour milk” expression from her face. “I had dealings with him before and let’s just say he’s about as pure as the driven snow.”

  I’m tempted to ask if STM belongs in the same group as Mather, but reminding her of the other guy I killed, pretty much in front of her, could be a downer. It doesn’t seem like a good time to mention that.

  “This is cute,” she says pointing at the graffiti decorating the barrel of the rail gun, where it says Knock, Knock Mother Fu.

  “Bobby’s contribution. If you get close enough to Megasuit to see the end of the pistol, you’ll see the C, K, E, and R. The movie poster from A Christmas Story is my idea. Except my Red Ryder uses three inch diameter BBs that travel at supersonic speeds. They’ll do more than just put an eye out.”