“And I’m not? She should be a bit more grateful. You want to know what I think. She’s pissed because a ‘nobody’ like me is responsible for saving her ass.”
Her lips purse tightly. “You’re not a ‘nobody.’ Don’t say that. Just do me a favor and try to get along with her. We need her tactics as much as we need your firepower. Right now, you’re our heavy hitter.”
“That doesn’t really say much for you guys.”
She slaps my shoulder, “Quit. I’ve seen you take out a good portion of my team including some of the most powerful around. Technically, you’re two and oh against the Olympians.”
“You’re forgetting that the first one was a poorly executed trap. The second one? Well, they were a bunch of brainwashed zombies and we had two hundred robots to slow them down. Don’t go promoting me to the big leagues just yet.”
“I’ll be back in a minute. Wait right here.”
I start to say, ‘Where the hell else would I go?’ but I choke it back. Curious, I tap into the base feed and follow her as she goes to the room she shares with Athena and watch her pull some familiar books from the dresser. What is she doing with those?
She brings Vicky’s old tawdry romance books back with her. “I grabbed these at that storage depot. They were your girlfriend’s right?”
I’m somewhat choked up for reasons I can’t quite fathom. “Yeah. Have you been reading them?”
“When I’m bored,” she says and laughs, “Even the Goddess of Love needs an occasional inspiration, but you should have them.”
“I’m more of a technical manual kind of guy. Keep them and enjoy them. It’s a nice gesture. I appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome. I’ll speak to Athena and tell her to back off. I’m going to go help her with that inventory, but afterwards can you walk me through some of the maintenance on my armor?”
“Is something wrong? I can fix it.”
“No, but down the road, I might need to fix it when you’re not around. I’m thinking of buying it off of you after all this is over.”
“Really?”
She grins, “I’ve always been considered one of the weaker Olympians, yet there I was holding my own against Hera and Athena at the same time. A gal could get used to that. So, you mind showing me some of the basics?”
“Uh, sure.”
“Thanks. I’ll come by this evening.” She walks off and I focus on the gentle sway of her bottom as she heads out the door.
Okay, I’m officially confused as hell.
• • •
On the security cameras, I follow her back to her room. She pulls Athena in and I turn up the volume.
“Holly, damnit! Do you have to be such a bitch to him? I know you’re still coming off that bug juice, but give him a break.”
“Why are you defending him? He’s not even a ‘has been,’ more like a ‘never was.’ Ultraweapon could run circles around him.”
I wince. Stacy glares at her friend. “Cal’s a lot sharper than you give him credit for. Do you really think Lazarus, without all his engineers and resources, would be that much better? Cut Cal some slack. He’s actually a decent guy and he’s obviously got some self-esteem issues. You’re not making things better.”
Somewhat stunned at her proclamation, I barely catch Athena asking, “How so?”
“Ever see him completely out of his armor? He’ll take off the gauntlets and maybe the helmet while he’s working, but I’ve been here for nearly six weeks and he’s always in it.”
Athena seems unimpressed. “He’s a liability. How many times have we worked with the bad guys only to have them screw us at some critical point? Tell me one time that it’s worked out? That’s right! I thought so.”
“Look, he didn’t do this. He’s a real person too. Even after he let me out, up until we brought you and Keisha back, I was treating him the same way you are right now. I stopped before you got out of the cells when I saw Keisha doing it too. Cal needs some encouragement.”
“If you really want to make him feel better, you’ll do what you usually do, Stacy, jump his bones a few times. That’s the way you’ve handled things ever since we met.”
There’s an awkward moment of silence before Athena speaks up again. “Shit! I’m sorry, Stacy. I didn’t mean to say that. I’m still not right.”
Aphrodite wipes a tear from her eye. “Do you need another pick me up?”
Athena nods her head and I watch Stacy’s aura flare. A tendril of energy flicks out and Athena’s expression softens as a delirious smile spreads across her face.
“Thanks I needed that. You might have overdone it. Now, I’m horny.”
“In that case, maybe you should be the one jumping his bones,” Stacy laughs.
Crenshaw makes a face. “Not likely. He’s better than the guys in the cells, but not by much. I wonder if Andy is anatomically correct.”
“You’re awful! So can you play nice with Cal? C’mon Holly, give him a chance. I’m not taking any static from you.”
“I’ll try, but he’s still a prick. I do not have a stick up my ass.”
Aphrodite really laughs. “Yes, you do. Now let’s go see how many rolls of toilet paper he has in this dump.”
“Hey, you just called it a dump!”
“It is, but you don’t have to rub his face in it.”
• • •
Her comment about static got me thinking. The result is a belt with a large buckle around St. Croix’s waist. Hermes is looking at it skeptically.
“It looks like something a rapper or a bull rider would wear.”
“Armor will slow you down, but this belt has a base charge and as you move it will recharge. Mind touching her, Athena?”
They touch and there’s a decent electrical shock that both shrug off. “Big deal, I’m a human joy buzzer.”
“You’re both Olympians. That’s more than enough juice to kill any bug landing on you. The wires going up to the rubber gloves, they carry a bigger shock that you can use without zapping yourself.”
My self-appointed cheerleader jumps in, “That’s pretty clever, isn’t it?”
The Cyber Dudes seem to like it and Andy helped me flesh out the design. He and I actually get along. Considering my other idea was putting her into some kind of giant hamster ball and turn her into a human pinball. The belt idea was more workable. Plus, I didn’t have enough plastic to make the ball. Too bad, it would have been epic.
I’m also working on a pair of electrified brass knuckles to use on the Cyclops suit. The synth-muscle can only amplify my punch so much, so I’ll have to cheat the next time I encounter a strongman and I can cheat with the best of them.
Athena renders her judgment, “It’s usable. Good job, Stringel. As soon as you finish those weapons for the androids, we can try to get some of the others liberated. Alright, has anyone come up with an idea to get rid of the bugs?”
Andy speaks up in his digitized voice, “I have completed my analysis of their physiology from the carcasses we brought back when I was rescued. The creatures are fairly resistant to both radiation and chemical attacks. To be effective, we would be forced to use them in quantities that would result in death for the host. That option is not the optimal solution.”
It’s sobering news. I look at it logically. “Why don’t we try to go to the Overlord’s base? He’s bound to have something that lets him control these things.”
“We can’t. Ultraweapon destroyed his base. These things escaped when that happened. If there was something there to control them, it’s gone now.”
“You’re shitting me! Lazarus Patterson is responsible for all this?” A tiny part of me delights in that news.
Stacy speaks trying to defend him, “That’s the report we got. Anyway, I can kill them easily enough, but my range is too limited, I could probably do a football field in size, maybe a square mile if I went all out.”
Athena ponders the idea. “If we could boost your power some, it might be more effective. What about
that throne thing that General Devious uses? It boosts her power. Do you know where her current base is, Stringel?”
She’s obviously mistaken me for someone higher up on the food chain. “I’ve got a vague idea, but it’s not like there’s a Supervillain’s edition of the phonebook.”
Hermes, still looking over her belt, cuts off the fight before it starts. “Don’t we have one of the old versions in our vault at MountOlympus?”
“They’ve changed our codes by now. Do we really want to try to attack our headquarters? No one’s ever succeeded.”
“You got a better idea?”
I’m a little more practical, “What other goodies do you have stashed in your vault? If we’re going shopping for gadgets, why don’t we figure out if it’s even worth going there.”
Taking notes, I’m treated to the greatest adventures of the Olympians as they talk about all the villainous paraphernalia in their headquarters. I’m surprised how many of these adventures I’ve never heard before. Then again, we villains don’t exactly get together and talk about how badly we just got our ass handed to us. I start asking questions about the capabilities of the devices they have in their base.
Hours later, I’m standing alone in my workshop looking at dozens of little note cards spread out on the table. It’s a jigsaw puzzle of how to save the human race. The only problem is that I’m not sure I have all the pieces. Crenshaw has already stopped by to see if I had anything, only to be turned away disappointed. What was she expecting? I don’t shit out miracles on demand! I scribble two more note cards, one for mind control and the other for power boosting and start sorting all over again.
Assuming we get our hands on The General’s throne, and it works, it’ll give Stacy a big boost – maybe five or ten square miles at a time. The next problem would be protecting her as we travel all across the world. That would be in addition to trying to care for all addicts that were suddenly missing their fix.
“Are you doing okay, Cal? You haven’t come out in hours.” Stacy asks after knocking on my doorframe.
Smacking one of my hands on the table, I sigh. “I can’t come up with anything that’s going to work on the scale we need it to.”
“No one’s expecting you to solve it all by yourself. Why don’t you take a break?”
“Has Athena said we need to start targeting Lazarus and his scientists yet?”
“Um, no.”
“You’re not a very good liar, Stacy.”
She shrugs. It’s incredible just to watch her do it. “Okay, she has, but don’t let that get you down. You’ve done an awful lot here, but Lazarus is an organizational genius. This kind of thing is up his alley.”
“Of course there’s one hitch, where in the world is Lazarus Patterson? The bugs are probably using his so-called creative genius rather than his Ultraweapon suit.”
“We’re thinking we could track him with his Blackberry if he’s still carrying it. You know, figure out what cell phone tower his phone is responding to and then track him down.”
The thought of him sitting in a cubicle somewhere, for sixteen hours a day, designing weapons that no one is going to build amuses me. Still, I’m about to be kicked to the curb. Obscurity, it’s just a phone call away.
Wait a damn second! “Cell towers! That’s it!”
Aphrodite is confused. “What are you talking about?”
I fish around through the cards until I find the combination. “I’ve only been focusing on the things in your vault. The delivery system is already in place. I just didn’t think of it until now. The General’s chair will boost your power right?”
“Well yeah, but we’ve been through this before. It’s not enough.”
“Unless we use The Wireless Wizard’s dead zone gear and use the cell phone towers all across the world to carry your signal. His stuff would use the cell towers and people’s own mobile phones as weapons. We don’t have to lug you and the chair all around the world. We can just have a big old bug killing teleconference! There’s The Overlord’s Mindwiper too. The energy might not be able to go through the Wizard’s gear, but if we hit the heroes with the ray and wipe out the last three months worth of memories, they’ll still have the cravings and feel like shit, but won’t remember why.”
She runs it through her mind. “It’s brilliant! I’ll get Holly.”
Of course, there is the small matter of breaking into the Olympian’s headquarters – the most secure location in the world. It’ll be just like a big bank job, a piece of cake, right? Oh wait; I never had much luck with banks.
• • •
“So, are you ready for tomorrow?” Stacy asks, using a diagnostic scanner on her suit as I watch.
“Ready as I can be, I guess. It’s nice that you’re really serious about your armor. Crenshaw just wants her suit to work.”
“I’d watch Lazarus working on his when we dated. Anytime I’d ask questions, he’d get really possessive. It was kind of strange considering he usually had an entire team of techs working on it at any given time.”
“You weren’t on his payroll. Either way, his suit is a corvette and mine’s a dump truck. Plus, I’m used to people giving my stuff the once over. It’s generally haggling over the price that irritates me.”
Rolling her eyes, she chuckles. “Given any thought to what you’ll do after all this is over, Cal?”
“Well, I’ll have to get a new base. Everyone knows where this one is.” I don’t bother mentioning that should we lose, I’ll be welcoming my insect overlords with open arms.
“You could always play for the good guys. I’d vouch for you. The Guardians pay their heroes.”
I pick up a piece of metal on the bench and flex it in my hands nervously. “Me? Punching the clock and picking up a paycheck, bankrolled by Uncle Sam and Promethia? I don’t see it. Plus, there’s some bad blood between me and the guys here on the GulfCoast.”
She’s trying to rehabilitate me. “Give it some thought. You keep saying how no one’s ever given you a fair shake.”
“We’ll see how it plays out. What about you? If we win, you’re going to be stuck on that throne playing ‘Miss Twelve Step program’ to a few billion people all going through withdrawal at the same time. That’s going to be thrilling.”
“Yeah, I’m trying not to think about it, but it’s going to be even worse for you guys. I’ll be safe in Headquarters and you’ll be out there dealing with all the depressed and suicidal people. I’ll take being inside over riot duty any day.”
“Riot duty?” I check the list of things I’ve signed up for, that isn’t on it.
“I’m guessing Athena hasn’t spoken to you about this yet.”
“That’s a fair assumption.”
“We’re going to be so shorthanded after this that we’re going to need everyone to pitch in.”
“So you’re recruiting me?”
“I figured you might need a bit of persuasion.”
I mull it over. “I don’t have any other plans. I’ll do it, but only because it’s you asking.”
Stacy smiles at me and disconnects the scanner from her armor. “Good. I’m glad that’s settled. Now, I’m going to go take a long hot shower and get cleaned up. Mind if I use the one in your bedroom?”
As I fumble for an answer, she sets the scanner on the workbench and laughs. “Funny, that’s basically how we met isn’t it?”
“Yeah, if I hadn’t turned on the camera in the bathroom to record it we’d both be little drones right now.”
“Do you have cameras in these showers?”
Inside my armor I gulp and stammer, “No, just in the main rooms and the cells.”
“That’s a shame. You could always bring a camcorder in and do it old school.”
The world stops for a moment as I try to process what she just said. My climate control inside the suit seems to be failing. All I can manage to squeak out is, “Are you serious?”
“Yes. Tomorrow, we could die or worse, be turned into slaves. I want to
do one last thing that’s my choice, of my own free will, and I’m feeling the need to work off the pre-battle jitters. How about it, Cal?”
There’s absolutely no arguing with that logic. Count me in!
Chapter Five
War Dialing FTW
This morning, I’m still trying to rationalize what happened. It couldn’t have meant anything to her. It was just a diversion, merely something (or someone) to do. Though she said she was impressed because she reached what she calls, “the second level,” something that doesn’t happen that often. It’s this other thing where she ends up venting some of her powers. All I can say about that is it got me right back in the game and both Holly and Keisha were giving her shit about it this morning because they caught some of the backlash. I try to push it aside and focus on the task at hand.
“Listen, you two are essential to our plan to raid Promethia. We can’t pull it off without you.” I say trying to sound sincere.
Gunk and Rodentia are lapping it up, just looking for a way out. They’re nowhere near cured and that’s exactly the point.
“Our team here will head out to Promethia’s West Coast offices and our other team will assault the West Coast Guardians' base. We’re certain they have a weapon there that will stop the bugs. Rodentia, we’ll need lots of your furry creatures and Gunk, we need you to ... to start making mucus.”
I finally came up for a use for these two losers – decoys. They will “escape” shortly and waste no time finding the nearest bugs. The bugs aren’t deep thinkers and are probably bigger suckers for lies than the heroes. With any luck, most of their super-powered drones will be hours away on the west coast when we attack New Mount Olympus, outside of Washington DC. That’s good, because we’re going to need time to get this all to work.
One of the perks about being a bad guy is that I’m not above using people. It’s doubtful that any of the heroes would’ve come up with this one, except Stacy. She's probably had a lot of experience using people. I’ve recently been added to that list, or maybe I’m jumping to conclusions. Either way, I need to stop thinking about her!
Confessions of a D-List Supervillain Page 6
