The reality is that we’re stealing one of the Gulf Coast Guardians’ planes and heading east.
Smiling inside my helmet, I give them the key code to open the outer door and say that we’ll be letting them out of the cells shortly.
Returning to the control room, I say to the rest of the team, “It’s done. All that’s left is to set them loose.”
Andydroid, Aphrodite, and I have the technical part of the mission, making the Wireless Wizard’s equipment work with the throne. The rest have to protect us using whatever they can for as long as possible.
• • •
Amidst the hordes of Type B guard-bots, I fire my Gatling mini-gun wildly. Blasts of energy and concussion grenades strike my opponents indiscriminately. There is no shortage of targets. The Type B’s aren’t even humanoid; they’re just rolling balls with heavy stun guns attached on rotating stabilizers. The bad guys usually equip them with something much more offensive, but the Olympians make up for it in quantity.
I use my jetpack and strafe them, swooping through the masses, cutting a path, and drawing fire away from my teammates. It’s weird being part of a team and I’m trying to adjust to it.
Athena and Aphrodite are struggling with Poseidon. The Sea Lord’s dense skin allows him to soak up their best attacks like a sponge. Super strength and high-pressure blasts of water keep them busy. Once Stacy killed his bug, it sent him into a berserker rage. She’s probably regretting that now.
Hermes is holding her own against both Demeter and a squad of robots. Andydroid and the Cyber Dudes help me with the robots and the gun emplacements rising out of the ground. Landing, I feel the ground shake as a pair of Type D Warbots step out from the faux Greek columns surrounding the headquarters. The “Death Dealers” are coming up next. They’re going to need massed firepower to beat and we’re too spread out at the moment.
If we don’t turn the tide soon, we might not even make it inside. This is the part where I usually run away – except I know that there’s nowhere to left to run. I toss the mini-gun to Andy and trigger my jetpack. Accelerating into the backside of Poseidon, I slam him into one of the sculptures, trigger a full electrical discharge, and give him a helmet-mounted force blaster noogie. The power levels in the suit immediately begin dropping at the continuous release of energy.
It’s everything I’ve got and I know it might not be enough. Pulling him into a full-nelson, I trigger my flight system and drag him skyward. If he can survive the crushing depths of the ocean, a big drop shouldn’t kill him.
I manage only about a few hundred feet before Poseidon breaks my hold and nearly dislocates a shoulder. He twists and wraps an arm around my neck. I’m staring into his enraged face as his other arm cocks back a fist. Oh shit!
Activate sonic generator! Fire force blaster! Earmuffs clamp down a millisecond before the high decibel wail begins. It takes a second blast from the helmet gun before he lets go – my own version of “catch and release”. I’d like to say that his plunge into a Type D Warbot was completely planned and perfectly executed, but it wasn’t. It was luck, pure and simple. Either way, it’s what we need.
I dive bomb the giant robot as Athena and Aphrodite hammer away at it. My weight hits its upper back, driving it down to the ground as its servos and stabilizers adjust to my sudden weight. I go right for the Poseidon-sized dent in the shoulder and start ripping armor plating away and firing into the inner workings. Sending my last two concussion grenades down the hole, I fly off and let the primary and secondary explosions rip it to pieces.
My shields protest against the blasts of the remaining turrets and the other Warbot. I’m swatted back down to the ground and rise out of a freshly made crater, already checking my diagnostics and firing my Cyclops blaster. Hurling chunks of the destroyed robot at its companion, I play kickball with a Type B.
That’s strange, Athena and Hermes are still standing, but the Warbot is attacking me. Must be a glitch in the threat selection programming.
Faulty subroutines or not, it’s one of the last things standing between us and the exterior of the Olympian’s Headquarters. I reach for my sledgehammer and find it missing – lost during the fight somewhere. It doesn’t matter.
Hermes zips up next to me and shoves the mini-gun in my hands. I feel her popping a fresh clip of twelve grenades into the launcher. Her face is bleeding and her voice is ragged, “Take it out and we’re in!”
Backed by energy spears, force blasts, rockets, and a kitchen sink or two, I take flight and advance on the almost ten meter tall machine. Other than Ultraweapon’s suit, it’s the pinnacle of Promethia’s technology. It’s the next best thing to fighting Patterson himself and I’ve never been more eager in my life.
Less than a minute later, amidst ground shaking explosions, the huge robot topples into the side of the building and disintegrates in a flaming mass of destruction. I emerge from the wreckage and, for the first time, understand what I am truly capable of.
• • •
Inside the base, Hestia, the remaining Olympian, proves to be little trouble, but we know that she sent out the alarm. The clock is ticking. We’re down to one fully-functional Cyber Dude and Andy. Hermes is looking downright awful as she speed-eats, replenishing her energy. Already two bugs have tried to land on her and suffered a shocking demise. Athena’s damaged armor lies in a useless pile at her feet. She’s dressing in thick clothes to protect her from the bugs.
I’m connecting fresh powercells from the Olympian’s stock when Athena issues the orders. “Stacy, get Andy and Stringel into the vault. The rest of us will buy you time, so make it work!”
The Olympians’ vault – for a technogeek like me, is like Christmas come early. I could spend a full week in here just looking around. The throne is easy to locate. Size and image matter a great deal to the General. I’m already running cable to the base power supply while Andy and Stacy search for the Wireless Wizard’s telecommunications gear and the Overlord’s Mindwiper.
The good news is that Hestia, who maintains the base, is an obsessive compulsive type. Each display is meticulously labeled. The bad news is that there are an awful lot of them. Athena and Hermes deploy the few remaining Type B robots to keep the normals out of the way, but when the big dogs get here, they’ll make short work of them, and we’ve taken out all the other defenses.
“How’s it coming?” Athena’s voice comes over the announcing system, “We’ve already got incoming. Looks like WhirlWendy and a few other Guardians.”
“The chair’s powering up, maybe ten minutes before it’s charged. Stacy’s getting into the Wizard’s suit. She’s going to need time to figure out how to use it. Andy’s still looking for the Mindwiper.”
“I don’t need to tell you that time is of the essence.”
“You just did.”
“Bite me, Stringel!”
“If you run out of energy spears, don’t forget the stick. You can use that too!”
Athena breaks contact in a huff as Stacy glowers at me. She’s trying to fit gracefully into a suit clearly made for a three hundred pound man, “Cal, what did I tell you?”
“I was only trying to be helpful and give her a fall-back strategy. Andy, while you’re looking for the Mindwiper, see if you can find something using a standard power cable. The General’s throne has a second interface. We can get it powered up faster with another cable.”
“Don’t ignore me, Cal.”
“Sorry Stacy, there are people in this world who don’t get along. Holly and I are two of those people.”
She pauses for a moment, bunching up the fiber mesh of the suit and connecting it to the backpack with the satellite dish attached. “You do know that you’re going to have to make a better effort to get along with my best friend if you’re serious about being my boyfriend.”
Despite the obvious danger of approaching superheroes and the time crunch surrounding us, that phrase stops me in my tracks. I sputter, “Come again?”
“Hopefully, yes,” she grins at me.
“Are you serious?”
“Why not? But let’s work out the details after this whole save the world thing, okay?”
Andy interrupts my stupor by shoving a power cable into my hands and I gather my scattered wits about me. I scramble to get the cable connected to the throne and load a code-breaker into the keypad. Given that they’ve had this chair for a few years; my cracker should break it in less than five minutes.
I’m off the chair and back by Stacy helping her with the backpack. “Looks like the interface is on the left wrist. Activate it and tell me what you see.”
“It’s mapping out the nearby sites for the Three-Oh-One and Two-Oh-Two Area Codes. Wow! I can use the cell towers to see, sort of. Oh no! Apollo’s chariot is inbound.”
“Andy! Get her in the chair. I’ve got a minicomputer attached to the keypad breaking the code. When it finishes, punch it in and lower the headgear. I’ll go see if I can buy you a few minutes more.”
Stacy looks worried. She motions for me to open my helmet. When I do, she leans in and kisses me. “Good luck, Cal.”
I scoop up the mini-gun and head to the door. “I’m counting on you to save the day, Aphrodite. I’ll concentrate on saving the next five minutes. Seal the door behind me.”
Opening the door, I charge out, trying to banish childhood memories of Newman and Redford running out to fight the entire Bolivian Army.
The sight before me makes me wish for a plain old army – I might have a chance against that. Instead, I see Ares hoisting Athena over his head like a rag doll while some flying hero I don’t recognize rips the clothes away with his claws. A swarm waits close by and a bug immediately jumps on Holly Crenshaw.
Hermes is still sprinting around, but she’s slowing down and going to be overwhelmed any second now. Athena stops struggling and points an accusing hand at me. Oops! Someone just told everyone about our little scheme. I zero in on the crowd around Ares. Fire all concussion grenades! Activate sonic generator!
The high-pitched piercing whine and the detonations of forty millimeter grenades at least show that I’m going out with a bang. Maybe I should go e-mail the Spartans, because my last stand is going to be on the steps of MountOlympus. I swivel the business end of my energy mini-gun around and cut loose.
“Eat hot plasma!” Of course no one can hear me over the sonic generator, but that’s not the point. I concentrate my fire on the ones that come charging, heedless of the ear-splitting pain.
The crowd pushes me in through the opening where the doors once were. It actually works to my advantage, limiting the people who can kick my ass at any given time to only five or six. The mini-gun is ripped from my arms and I resort to flailing limbs, electrical discharges and bolts from my helmet blaster.
I stand my ground, giving much better than I'm getting, but it’s like a bear being surrounded by wolves. I can’t hold them for long! Shields begin to falter and an uppercut from a visibly bloody Ares sends me flying into the wall and triggers a warning klaxon in my ear.
Suit power at six percent! I fire the last shot from my helmet blaster and struggle to stay on my feet. It doesn’t work. The view from down on my knees is better anyway.
That’s it! I’ve done all I can. The heroes, most driven to the brink of sanity by the loss of their bugs, close in.
I’m watching my life flash before my eyes, trying to fast forward to get to the parts involving the love goddess when the doors behind me are blasted off their hinges. The hairs on the back of my neck rise as the air around me crackles with power.
A bolt of energy washes down the hallway over my head knocking everyone back. Andy comes out with what must be the Mindwiper in his hands and starts zapping everyone in sight. He drops a pair of fresh powercells at my feet.
The energy boost gets me back up to thirty-five percent, allowing me to bypass damaged systems. Standing, I cast a glance over my shoulder and see Stacy. She's bathed in light and glowing like the goddess she truly is. I stumble forward and grab the mindwiped Ares.
He opens his eyes and I help him up. “What’s happening?”
“Invasion of the mind controlling bugs, Olympian. Welcome back to the right side.”
“Who are ... I don’t feel so ...” he doesn’t finish, but manages to power puke all over my suit.
“That’s it, get it all out and go guard Aphrodite. Make damn sure no one gets close to her! I’ve gotta go protect Andy.”
• • •
Days later, the infirmary is full and the corridors are littered with the walking wounded suffering withdrawal from a drug they can’t remember. Everyone has lost the last three months of their memories except for me, Stacy, Andydroid, and a few busted Cyber Dudes. We were even forced to zap Holly and Keisha after they were reinfected.
Stacy hasn’t left that throne except to eat and go to the bathroom in two days. I stop by to see her, as often as I can. When she isn’t speed dialing through the area codes and making international calls, she’s broadcasting thoughts of happiness and peace to areas already cleansed of the vermin. I wouldn’t want to pay the Olympic-sized phone bill they’re going to have after this. They’re supposed to be getting her some damn help any day now. She’s been working her ass off for them as it is.
Naturally, being one of the few fully functional supers, I’m already on riot duty and putting out fires all over WashingtonDC and the surrounding area. Every few hours, I feel Stacy’s empathic wave pass over and everyone is calm for a short time and then the shit starts up all over again. It’s worse than any war zone imaginable.
By the end of the first week, I’m almost convinced that we should have just let the bugs win. If it wasn’t for Stacy, I’d go back to my base and hide out until all this was over.
Landing, I go to pickup fresh powercells and start connecting them. There’s a crowd out front, so I go in through the roof entrance. Andy nods to me and waves. Most of the other heroes are uneasy in my presence, unsure of what to make of me. The still convalescing Poseidon is especially wary after learning that his stint in the infirmary was at my hands.
“If it isn’t my favorite dispatcher, how are things, Andy?”
The remarkably human-looking mechanical being hooked to the telecom board blinks several times, processing hundreds of phone calls. “It’s not good out there, Cal, but you know that better than I do. They’re mindwiping St. Louis, Kansas City, and the Dallas/Fort Worth area today, but we’re still behind schedule. Entire cities are burning.”
“Yeah, people figured out how to cut out the bug glands and extract the drug from them. Now they are fighting over the dead bugs as well. That’s only made things worse. What’s with the crowd?”
“The President is giving his first speech and trying to do what he can. Are you not supposed to be en route to the riots in Richmond?”
“Low on energy,” I answer looking at the big screen and see the gaunt and tired face of our President. There’s Stacy right next to him and next to her is ... Ultraweapon.
“My fellow Americans and citizens of the world, we are climbing out of the abyss. Every hour brings us closer to putting this dark time behind us. We are diligently working to get more the memory erasing units out to all the countries. One hundred units alone today left for Europe and another two hundred are heading to Asia. Three additional empaths are now on duty and our heroes are providing around the clock infusions of positive energy. Things will get better! These are surely our darkest days, but the light of hope is on the horizon.”
I tune the stuffed shirt out. Considering my felon status, I couldn’t have voted for him even if I wanted. Instead, I’m staring at how close Ultraweapon is standing to Stacy.
“... and I’d like to thank the people up here who were directly responsible for our salvation from science gone awry.”
“What the hell?”
Everyone in the command center makes an effort to avoid looking in my direction.
“Screw it! I’m going out there!”
Zeus and A
pollo stand up and move in my way. The lord of lightning says, “You’re not going anywhere. You’re supposed to be in Richmond anyway.”
I flip my mini-gun around and spin the barrels making my intentions clear. Hermes shouts, “No one do anything! I’ll be right back!”
From the corner of my eye, I spot Hermes speed into the screen and whisper into Athena’s ear. They immediately exit stage left. The hothead and the lightning rod look ready to rumble and I’m quickly getting into a mood to oblige.
Andy’s head swivels a full one hundred and eighty degrees and says, “May I request that this fight not occur so close to the fragile equipment of the communications center.”
Crenshaw storms into the room and shouts, “Stringel! Stand down!”
“You’re on thin ice, Crenshaw. Choose your words carefully.”
“Look, be happy you’re getting a pardon and a paycheck. You want someone to blame, I made the call.”
“Why?”
“I see no reason to act like we’re buddies. Here’s the deal – the world is still recovering and it needs the reassurance that the heroes were looking out for them.”
“Even if it’s a lie?”
“Damn straight! They don’t need to know that the only reason we’re free is because some petty crook was too scared to get out of his armor and got lucky.”
“So this is how the hero gig works. The guy who caused all this gets lauded for the greater good and the guy who fixed it gets a knife in the back!”
“Just hold up your end of the deal, Stringel. You’ll get your money and a pardon. Then, you can get the hell out.”
Somehow, her words fail to have a calming effect. The only thing that stops me from cutting loose is Stacy walking into the room with Ultraweapon.
Her eyes immediately light up. At least someone’s happy to see me, “Cal! You’re here! I thought you were in Richmond.”
“That’s where they wanted me.”
Her gaze shifts between Athena and the armored warrior standing next to her. “I see we’ve been busy making backroom deals, while I’ve been stuck on that damn throne.”
Confessions of a D-List Supervillain Page 7
