How to Become a Henchman, A Novel: The Henchman's Survival Guide

by J Bennett

  Incidentally, I also recognize exactly where they are. I barely stifle a groan. The Professor’s using his old hideout, the one in the basement of my house. Matthew gave me a secret tour of it a few months after I moved in.

  Suddenly, Professor Hersherwitz is back on screen, making some lame joke about how he always dreamed of being in a “heavy metallic bond” when he was a kid.

  “That was The Professor,” Ollie says. He blinks and hits the table with both palms. “Wow. Wow. Wow! The Professor. The Professor is back. He obviously survived that fall into the solar furnace. Perhaps he needed all this time to heal. Did you see that he was walking with a cane? And the scorches on his lab coat? He’s very different now.”

  Indeed. Just as I saw in the tryouts, Leo is obvi taking The Professor’s character in a grittier direction. This vil was a darker version of his old self; less maniacal laughter and bumbling, kooky scheming, and more jaded anger and burning threats. The audiences will heart it.

  “Don’t know. It just looked like an old man despo for a little more screen time to me,” Adan says. He leans back in his chair and folds his arms across his chest. “Maybe a sponsor felt sorry for him and gave him a short run.”

  For all Adan’s seeming casualness, I notice his jaw is tight. Something must be going on in that Fame Gaming little brain of his.

  “Yawn,” I say, following his lead. “That was sadpocalypse. Total has-been. And taking over all the screens to threaten the whole city? Get a new playbook.”

  “What?” Ollie swivels his head toward me. His blue eyes are round and wide. “That was The Professor. The original villain of Big Little City. He’s obviously launching a comeback. This is big. Wow. Wow. Wow. I wonder when his first episode will drop. Did you see that he had three new henchmen? I wonder if one of them is Energy. This is huge.” He slaps the table again. “Remember when he tried to mind-warp Apache into betraying the Honor League?”

  “Didn’t Apache get sued by the Apache Nation?” I respond.

  Ollie ignores me. “Or when he teamed up with Disappear and they made all the 3Ds in Iconic Square vanish?” Ollie is sputtering a mile a minute. I can’t tell if he’s going to give himself a stroke or an orgasm.

  “Alice is right,” Adan says. His face is carefully bland. “The Professor’s just another has-been.”

  A has-been who’ll be plotting his city-dominating capers in my basement and inviting all manner of drama. If any capes figure out the location of his lair, my house will be ground zero for the next big cape-vil fight.

  Hmm. I pon if I can renegotiate a cheaper lease on account of the increased hazard.

  “Don’t underestimate him,” Ollie pipes back up. “That’s just what Pogo Girl did, and he trapped her in a block of gelatin. That was the end of her show. The end. The Professor is very wily. And he almost tricked Beacon into that solar furnace.”

  “But he didn’t,” Adan says. “He’s washed up. He’s drooling if he thinks Beacon will even notice him, especially with Shadow running around.”

  I flinch at that name. My ribs don’t appreciate the movement. Shadow’s been quiet the last two weeks. Too quiet. It makes me nervous. What’s he been doing? There’s only one answer that makes sense: scheming and preparing for something big.

  If he had a Stream or a show, maybe I could get some sense of what he’s up to, and when he might strike. But he doesn’t. He’s an utter mystery.

  The lesson continues on our holo-screens. I try to pay attention, but now I’m picturing Shadow’s grease-covered face. Those red-red eyes and that terrifying smile.

  Next to me, Adan is antsy. He keeps glancing at his Band as if trying to mentally will it out of class-imposed sleep mode. Obviously, someone is a little more interested in The Professor’s return than he let on.

  Irony of ironies, I happen to know exactly where The Professor is plotting. Bet I could squeeze a nice finder’s fee out of Adan for the info, except that I signed a pretty spectacular non-disclosure agreement when trying out for the show and as part of my rooming lease. Seeing as I can’t even afford 3D print cartridges, I’m not exactly in a position to fight a lawsuit.

  “We have an exciting assignment to complete,” Professor Hersherwitz exclaims. “It’s time to be a molecule matchmaker!”

  The Pod gives us each our own screen, and we pull nervous molecules from opposite sides of a dance floor, using ionic, covalent, or metallic bonds to convince them to dance.

  Ollie is done in a flash and wants to gab more about The Professor. Adan’s molecule couples bicker and stomp back to their sides of the dance floor. He frowns. My matchmaking attempts aren’t going much better, but I finally manage to get all the happy couples to the floor.

  As soon as class is over and our Bands unlock, Adan is out the door, mouthing commands to his colorful parrot Totem.

  “Aww, he didn’t even say goodbye,” I say sarcastically to Ollie.

  “He seemed very busy. It’s likely not personal,” Ollie assures me as he scrolls through an extensive database on The Professor from his Band. “I often forget to say goodbye as well. But people expect you to say goodbye. And to say hello. Or Ta. Did I say hello to you at the beginning of class?” He thinks on this. “Hello, Alice.”

  I smile at him. He’s all kinds of weird, but I like it. “Hello, Ollie.”

  I stand up from the table and realize that I don’t know what to do with myself. Usually after school I like to hit Palinksy’s, but that’s a no go on account of the canceled gym membership and the absolute zero dollars in my account. I can’t even go to Culprits and do homework because they make you buy something before you can grab a chair.

  A nasty voice whispers in the back of my mind, What’s the point of even doing homework?

  It hits me all over again that I’m utterly broke. Destitute. I’ll never be able to make the second payment for this semester in two weeks.

  The same toxic thoughts churn in my mind again and again. I’ll have to ask Lysee for a loan. Matthew would lend me some money, too. The thought of borrowing money from my friends fills me with shame. This is how it starts: Begging for loans that you can never pay back. Next thing you know, your friends are gone, your house is gone, and you’re living in some blink-and-miss town sharing a cargo container with a stranger just so you have enough UBI left over to buy gov nutra-packs. Thank you, President Sage Anders.

  This is how people sink into their Bands and their Goggs and never come out again.

  No, I think. No loans. That path is poison.

  “Did you know that The Professor once melted the train tracks with an acidic compound?” Ollie says as he follows me into the hallway. “The BLC Express would have derailed, but Beacon used her anti-grav boots to jump on the roof. She swung into the engineering room and stopped the train just in time.”

  “Yeah,” I mumble to him. Everyone remembers that ep. It was the first iconic fight between Beacon and The Professor and put Beacon on the map as a hero. It also spawned dozens of copycat train battles over the years.

  Ollie opens his mouth again, but I hold up a hand to quiet him. As the total hopelessness of my situation reasserts itself, I decide that I don’t actually like his kind of weird after all.

  “Ollie, I think I’m going to head to the library to study,” I tell him.

  “K. K. Good idea. We need to update the Professor’s database with this new launch. That should be our first action. Then we must figure out when his first episode will drop, and then we can…”

  “Alone,” I snap. “I want to study alone.”

  “Oh. Yes. Of course.” Ollie nods, but I notice his eyes are suddenly dancing away from me. “I’ll just, I’ll review the video archives on The Professor. We can discuss it at a later time.”

  “Yeah. Great. Whatever.” I know I’m acting like an utter troll nugget, but I just want to get away from him and basically all of humanity right now. I lengthen my stride.

  “Wait,” Ollie calls after me.

  I turn around, holding
in my frustration.

  Ollie waves. “Goodbye, Alice.”

  Chapter 17

  The suit is tops, really. I could spend all day bragging about its features, but we wouldn't want to give any vils that info, right? Truthfully, the suit is only a tool. My best weapon, always, is my heart.

  Shine, Interview with Reena Masterson

  My footsteps echo loudly on the sidewalk, and I pull my jacket tight around my body as I walk the final mile home. Each streetlight blinks on as I approach, offering a puddle of light against the darkness.

  “Bob,” I call.

  “What?” my Totem grumbles, appearing in a wash of light across my forearm. He flosses his teeth.

  “Any transactions?”

  “Uh, let me see,” he says, not missing a beat on the flossing. “Hmm, calculating, calculating…. Nope. Nothing. Zero.”

  I hold back a sigh. My platypus rap, “Swimming Upstream,” has only been up on my Stream for an hour, so I wasn’t expecting an avalanche of micro-tips. Also, the song is utterly terrbs, and I have one of the lowest Stream followers of anyone I know. So, really, this is what Grandma Rosario would call a hail Mary. Still, I’d spent all afternoon and evening in the school library finishing the lyrics, recording it, and adding background music. Right now, “Swimming Upstream” is not only my best shot at earning a little crypto currency, it’s also my only option.

  I take a deep breath, hold it in for a sec, and then release. I had a lot of time to ponder in the library today, and I’ve decided that I will find a way to stay in school come hell or high water. I don’t care how much I have to degrade myself or what lines I have to cross. I’ve got to earn my degree and get out of this town.

  I already know my next step. When I get home, I’ll beg to use Matthew’s Anders 3200 3D, and I’ll print out the platypus costume I made this afternoon with a free trial of some expensive design software. I’ll re-record my platypus rap in costume and maybe add in some awkward dance moves. If I have shining luck, the video will go viral and viewers will shower me with micro-tips for making them laugh.

  To up the chances of my vid getting traction, I’ve got to up my Stream following. Shouldn’t be too hard — it only requires me to sell my soul and start a massive begging campaign aimed at anyone I’ve ever known.

  I groan when I realize I should def ask Adan to follow my Stream. He’s got a ton of followers. Maybe Lysee can put the word out to her massive Stream following, too, like a public service announcement for a sad charity case.

  Just as I turn into the woods to take the shortcut to the mansion, my Band vibrates. I actually yelp with excitement and twist my arm to turn on the screen. Did someone actually pay to watch my platypus rap? Is this drooling idea actually going to work?

  Then I see the bright red exclamation point throbbing on the screen. This isn’t Bob notifying me of a micro-tip payment. An alert is coming through. They only use alerts for tornados, floods, high radiation days, some extra major vil rampage, or when a sponsor pays gobs of money for some stupid new show promotion.

  I tap the exclamation point to open the alert. Better to get the bad news over with. Reena Masterson’s familiar face appears on screen. They use real humans in Biggie LC to read the news. Even though it costs more than CGI, viewers appreciate the authenticity, especially since Reena has been the face of Biggie LC since the town’s semi-reality transformation. She really is a local icon.

  “Citizens of Big Little City,” she announces gravely, “details are still coming in, but at 8:06 PM, police responded to a hostage situation taking place on a Light the Darkness tourist bus.”

  I suck in my breath. Everyone knows tourists are off limits. It’s in the city rules. Sure, if they happen to be in a bank or gobbling burgers at Redemption Café during a heist, they can be inadvertently swept up in the action and even knocked around a little — but vils always go easy on them. Purse thieves don’t target Torys, and no one would attack the buses. Even if it wasn’t in the rules, we all know that scaring Torys would be far too damaging to our town’s economy.

  “Weapons fire was exchanged,” Reena says, and she swallows thickly. “We can report that three tourists and two police officers have been killed. More than a dozen tourists were injured. Police Chief Memphis McDonald was gravely wounded and is currently at Alton Hospital, where he has been listed in critical condition.”

  “Pause,” I choke out. I didn’t even realize that I’d stopped walking. My knees suddenly feel weak. Living in Biggie LC carries risk, sure, and capes and vils get hurt all the time. A few have died. Dozens of townies have been seriously wounded. There’s always a possibility of severe injury or death, but it’s never the true intention of the actors. Not until now. This is real. This is blood.

  This is murder.

  It also isn’t lost on me that I could have walked right into the middle of the scene if I hadn’t taken the back roads around Iconic Square as usual to get home. I hesitate before continuing the broadcast because I already know what Reena is going to say next.

  “Play,” I whisper.

  Reena looks down, then back up. She’s been the face of all the town’s biggest news stories as long as Biggie LC has existed. So many young girls squeezed into polka dot dresses and muscled men with blindly white smile have come and gone on the other news Stream, but Reena has remained. Her short, dark hair, elegant makeup, and simple-but-classy suits have always been comforting to me. She seems to have never aged.

  Nothing riles Reena. She’s interviewed the worst of the worst vils. I remember her shouting out story updates in the middle of Evil Santa’s reindeer rampage last Christmas. I swear she’s taken hostage and dangled from rooftops at least twice a year, but none of it ever seems to phase her.

  On screen, her brown eyes are glassy with tears. “A police spokesman has identified the main suspect as an unsponsored villain known as Shadow.” A holo image of Shadow appears on the screen, and I recoil at the sight of those glowing red eyes.

  “The suspect is currently at large,” Reena says. “Police continue to search the surrounding areas. They ask that if you have any information about Shadow, you contact the Big Little City Police Department immediately.” Reena stares hard into the camera, wrestling to keep her voice even. “Deputy Lieutenant Lance has requested that all heroes and citizens avoid confronting Shadow. He is considered armed and extremely dangerous.”

  “Pause,” I say again. I don’t need to hear the rest. Armed and extremely dangerous. Yep, I got that loud and clear when Shadow blew up my restaurant. My stomach churns. Biggie LC has always attracted weirdos, including people who actually think they are real superheroes. Others have tried to grab eyes and attract a sponsorship with bold and violent attacks, but they never last. Neither will Shadow. With so many cams around town, all equipped with facial recognition, he won’t be free for long. They’ll have to call in a real police force and they’ll get him.

  This is what I tell myself as I continue picking my way through the woods, using the flashlight feature on my Band to light the way.

  At least this news has put my situation into perspective. After all, things could be worse for me. I could be dead like those officers and Torys, or in some surgical ward with robos slapping synthetic skin onto severe laz burns like they might be doing with Chief McDonald.

  I remember how he took my statement the first time I was mugged. I’d only moved to town two months prior, and I was intimidated by the big, meaty officer, with his bulbous nose and ruddy face. I’d stared at his famous finely oiled moustache while I’d mumbled my statement, and Chief McDonald had let me know without actually saying the words that it wasn’t likely the police would catch the mugger or get my dollars back. At least he’d been honest and friendly. He’d even gotten me to laugh with a lame joke as he led me out of the station.

  What do you get when you cross The Arachnid Queen with corn?

  The answer? Cobwebs.

  Har, Har, Har. Puke emoji.

  Terrbs joke, but I
didn’t feel as shaken when I left the police station that day. Chief McDonald had that way with people. He was mostly a striver, like all the rest, preening for lens time, but he also had a heart.

  And now he might be dying.

  I shiver as I make my way through the woods. The soft ground muffles the sound of my steps, and I jump at every noise around me. It’s not Shadow. Of course it’s not Shadow. He has everywhere else in town to hide. The chances of it being here are so…

  I jump as the wind rattles the branches. I force myself to take a deep breath. Time to think about something else.

  “I’m swimming, swimming, shi- shi- shimmying away,” I whisper to myself as I turn the last corner and set eyes upon the mansion. Soft lights glow from the top story windows. I sigh in relief and take a step forward.

  A flicker of movement at the edge of the house catches my eye.

  I freeze.

  Shadow. It’s my first thought. His malevolent face grins from my memory.

  Buddha balls! My heart gallops in my chest, and I try to force my breathing to slow down.

  “Go dark,” I hiss at my Band. The screen fades as I silently crouch behind a tree. Did he see me? Was it really Shadow? I suck in a breath and try to calm my frantic thoughts. Maybe it’s just someone who got lost wandering around at night? Except who would be strolling all the way out here this late? After Shadow’s attack, even the most despo strivers won’t be jogging alone in the woods anymore.

  Slowly, I turn my head to peer around the tree. I don’t see anything at first. I wait. Ten secs. Twenty secs. Maybe I was just imagining things. All the stress from being destitute is already cracking me up.

  Just before I step from my hidden position, a man dashes out of the trees and leaps onto the side of the mansion. I stare as he begins climbing up toward the roof. I pon how physics and gravity have apparently stopped doing their thing.