Hero for the Holidays

by Charles Payseur

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  By Charles Payseur

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  Hero for the Holidays

  By Charles Payseur

  A Spandex and Superpowers Story

  Cody travels from Metro City to the Caribbean island lair of Dr. Devious to look after the place while the supervillain is in space for the holidays… and maybe to mend his broken heart. With Christmas fast approaching, Cody is desperate to avoid reminders of his recent disastrous breakup, and a few weeks of sun and relaxation sound perfect—until a drunk (but very cute) superhero crashes the party by literally crashing onto the beach.

  And that’s just the start of Cody’s problems—angry shark-men, mysterious lava creatures, and a malfunctioning AI all make his holiday getaway anything but relaxing. Amid the chaos of his adventures in lair-sitting, though, Cody might find just what he needs—a new chance at love.

  COME DOWN to the Caribbean, Sanjay had said. Take your mind off things. It sounded almost too good to be true.

  Cody’s stomach lurched as the jet’s propulsion pushed him back into the plush cushion of his seat. There was no way this was legal. Not when the small, egg-shaped craft had landed on the roof of his apartment building in Metro City. Not when a pleasant, robotic voice had asked him to kindly step inside before any local superheroes arrived to stop them. Not with the ground blurring below him, the craft ripping a path through the sky, the gentle hum of an impossible engine the only noise to distract him from his rushing thoughts.

  Was it normal to think of an ex when hurtling toward maybe-certain-doom? Cody cursed himself and tried to put all images of Craig and his carefree smile and his sexy butt and his mischievous eyes and… what was he doing again? At least he was leaving winter behind, and with it the memories of his and Craig’s last Christmas. Rented cabin in the woods. Boxes of wine. Entire sample kit of lube and toys. Cody shook his head.

  Getting out of Metro City was a good idea. No little things to remind him that his relationship had just imploded. No having to see the café where they would go to people watch, or the park where they had once built a snow fort. Just warm sand and… and… and lair-sitting for an infamous supervillain. Definitely a good idea.

  Cody looked down at the landscape rushing beneath the jet. It certainly beat dealing with airport security. In what seemed like minutes, land disappeared and everything was the blue-green expanse of water. He sucked in a breath. He’d never been that far from Metro City—certainly never traveled out of the country—and the sudden change dropped like a weight in his gut. Working in advertising, much of his time was spent arranging ads, for everything from cologne to dog shampoo, that featured happy people on the beach, but he had never even been to the ocean.

  And with that, the gravity of the situation finally sank in. What was he doing? On a jet bound for the island fortress of Dr. Rex Devious, one of the most nefarious villains the world had ever known. And okay, so, yes, Devious was also the boyfriend of Sanjay, one of Cody’s dearest friends, but still. This was in an unsanctioned aircraft probably breaking dozens of international laws, which made Cody a criminal now, too, and all for what? Why had he agreed—

  “Onboard scanning indicates a spike in heart rate,” a robotic voice said, cutting off his racing thoughts.

  Cody started, looking around.

  “Please don’t be alarmed,” the voice said. “I’m Audrey, Dr. Devious’s assistant. I just wanted to make sure you were comfortable. My apologies that I didn’t get to ask before if you had any phobias or anxieties that might make the trip unpleasant.”

  Cody swallowed. “Just… nervous, I guess. I’ve never done anything like this.”

  “Well, there’s a first time for everything,” Audrey said.

  Cody flinched. “Uh….”

  “Was that not the right expression?” Audrey asked, emotion pushing her tone past neutral and into annoyed. “My apologies. I’m in the process of splitting my consciousness into two parts and preparing for interstellar travel while making sure every cape, freeze ray, and massage oil is packed for a month-long trip to Alpha Centauri and back. Here, have some peanuts.”

  Cody opened his mouth to speak but squeaked instead as a small packet bounced off his head and then landed on his lap.

  “In the meantime, you’ve almost arrived at your destination. You’ll be passing over Isle Devious in fifty-four seconds. Please ensure your tray table is up and in the locked position, and your bag is securely held. Any luggage lost after missile impact is not the liability of Dr. Devious or his affiliates.”

  Cody blinked but reached down to the bag at his feet. Then the words caught up to him. “What do you mean, missile impact?”

  The inside of the jet came alive with red flashing lights and a nearly deafening alarm. Cody pushed himself back into the seat, clutching his bag to his chest. His heart beat like the Morse code of a sinking ship, and he looked around for anything that might tell him what was going on. Which was when he saw the twin points of light from outside and far below. Rocket plumes. Missiles. Heading right for the jet.

  “On behalf of Dr. Devious, I’d like to thank you for choosing to fly with us today. The local time is eleven in the morning, and the weather is a sunny eighty-five degrees. Please watch your step upon exiting, and have a nice day.”

  This couldn’t be happening. Not even a supervillain would send a jet halfway around the world to fetch him just to blow him up upon arriving. Right?

  Cody couldn’t take his eyes off the missiles approaching. He should have been searching for an emergency door or a way to maneuver the jet. He should have been doing something, anything but watching his certain death get closer and closer and—

  The air around him shimmered, and Cody’s vision speckled. There was a rushing feeling, like being awakened from a dream of falling. And the missiles collided.

  It was like watching everything from a distance. The jet exploded, the sky a chaos of noise and metal. Like fireworks. There was a moment of faint heat, and a wind that pushed back Cody’s hair. His mouth hung open. He was dead. That was the only explanation. He was dead and somehow detached from his body, a ghost that might rise or fall or be stuck in the sky for all times, a lonely wisp that perhaps could haunt migrating birds.

  Except his butt was wet. And ghosts didn’t really have butts, did they? Cody looked down and realized that it wasn’t just like watching the explosion from a distance. It was watching the explosion from a distance. Because he was on a beach, near the water’s edge, bag still hugged to his chest. The ocean stretched forever in front of him. He sniffed, a faint smell of burned metal on the wind.

  Stiffly, he stood, and a packet of peanuts fell from his lap onto the damp sand.

  “Cody!” a voice called from behind him.

  Cody turned to see Sanjay running across the beach toward him, waving. Behind him, a man in a bright purple suit followed, eyes on the sky, mouth bent into a wide grin.

  “Cody,” Sanjay said when he was closer. “Thank you so much for coming. You have no idea how much it means that you’re able to watch the lair while we’re away.”

  Though his mouth moved, opened and closed, Cody couldn’t seem to force words through it. He licked his lips and took a deep breath.

  “Yes, thank you,” the other man said. He had to be the island’s owner, Dr. Rex Devious. “And thank you for testing the automated defense field. I don’t want anyone to think that just because I’m spending the month away, it means they can loot my base for tech or resources. I trust the teleportation worked with no ill effects?”

  This time Cody managed a strangled grunt and nod.


  “Good, good,” Rex said. “Then I’ll leave Sanj and Audrey to show you around. I have just a few more items to check off my to-do before I’m ready. But lovely to meet you, Cody.”

  Rex held out a hand, and without thinking, Cody took it and pumped twice. Then Rex turned around and was off again, waving his arms in front of him and speaking to the air. Or perhaps to Audrey?

  Cody felt like the world had just gone out from under him. Which, he supposed, was actually the opposite of what had happened. But he was grateful when Sanjay took his arm and led him farther into the island.

  “AND HERE is the dining area,” Sanjay said, sweeping his arm at the large and empty room.

  That wasn’t to say it was without features. An entire wall was actually clear, giving a view of a bubbling, roiling mass of liquid magma. Opposite that, a number of tables and booths done up in different styles sat vacant, and beyond those were doors back into what had to be the kitchen.

  “Everything is pretty much automated,” Sanjay continued, “so you’ll just need to let Audrey know what kind of food you want, and she’ll do the rest.”

  “Audrey is… the robot I met earlier?” Cody was trying his best to remember everything that Sanjay told him, but between the descriptions of the rooms and the gushing reports of what he and Rex had planned for their starry vacation and the lingering shock from his arrival, Cody was having trouble keeping everything straight.

  “Artificial intelligence,” Sanjay corrected. “She keeps most everything running smoothly. Really, I don’t think we’d manage without her.”

  Cody thought of the jet again and shuddered. “She’s not able to watch the lair while you’re gone?”

  Sanjay laughed. “That’s just what Rex thought we’d do at first, but Audrey is a bit of a space nerd. She’s never been. Not really. And she said that if we were taking a vacation, then she should be able to as well. It seemed wrong to tell her she had to stay behind.”

  “But you said that she’ll be here too?” Cody remembered her having said something about it on the jet, but he didn’t want to think about it.

  “Yeah, she’s attempting to split off a part of herself to stay behind and monitor things. She won’t be able to communicate with herself over the distance, but apparently when she returns, the two parts will join back together and return to normal. Because we don’t really know how that will go, we thought it best to have a human watch over things. And frankly, all of Rex’s friends are… a bit untrustworthy.”

  “Let me guess,” Cody said. “They’re all supervillains.”

  Sanjay nodded and shrugged. “So thanks again for agreeing to this. I only hope you’re not missing anything too fun back home.”

  Looking around the room, Cody thought of all the reasons it would be hell to spend Christmas in Metro City. No boyfriend meant no excuse not to go to his family’s Christmas Eve dinner, which meant dealing with interrogations from his parents and siblings about how he let Craig get away. They all loved Craig. His easy way with words, his connections, his generous gifts, even the way their names sounded next to each other—Craig and Cody, so cute! He’d already had to field questions from his mother on when they were getting back together, despite knowing Craig had cheated on him. A lot, apparently.

  “I’m definitely not going to be missing anything,” Cody said.

  Sanjay led him deeper into the lair. They’d gone over most of the living areas and the observation and entertainment lounge. A digital library of just about every film and show ever made would definitely help to distract him from a broken heart. Now they pushed into areas that felt less lived in and a bit more ominous.

  Sanjay pointed to a large metal door. “That’s the robotics and central processing lab. It’s just been rebuilt, so there shouldn’t be any reason to go in there.”

  “Rebuilt?” Cody asked.

  “Gravity kinda destroyed it when Rex tried to build a computer program to transform digital currency into cat pictures.”

  “Aww, that’s almost sweet.”

  “I know! I think I’m having a positive effect on him.”

  They both laughed and continued on with the tour. By the end Cody was dizzy, exhausted, and not really sure he could find the bathroom if he needed to. But still he followed Sanjay to the roof, where the spaceship waited that would take them to the stars and back.

  “I can’t believe it’s already been two years since our first Christmas together,” Sanjay said as he passed a bag to what looked like a small ghostly penguin butler. The penguin promptly carried it into the ship.

  “Which is exactly why we have to make it special,” Rex said, appearing from inside the ship. He stepped close to Sanjay, and the two shared a quick kiss.

  Cody forced himself to look away, a tendril of jealousy wrapping around his heart. Sanjay was a dear friend, and Cody wanted only the best for him, but at the moment, he couldn’t help but remember that he’d be alone this Christmas. Alone on a strange, tropical island with plenty to do, maybe, but still alone. He made himself smile as Sanjay and Rex turned back to him.

  “So, think you can handle everything while we’re gone?” Rex asked.

  It was an impossible question, given everything that had happened already. But Cody nodded all the same.

  “Great,” Rex said. “Just in case, I loaded a list of emergency contacts into the island’s communication interface. But really, just ask Audrey if anything doesn’t make sense or you need help.”

  “That’s what everyone else does,” Audrey’s voice said from the ship. “Just don’t stress my iteration too much, okay? The lab wasn’t at one hundred percent when I did most of the work on her. On me? Anyway, just try to keep a low profile.”

  “Which shouldn’t be too difficult,” Rex said. “The island’s defenses are all set, and I’ve let most of my regular nemeses know that I’ll be gone and won’t be causing problems. My holiday gift to them, really.”

  “And people call you bad,” Sanjay said. They kissed again.

  “Well, don’t let me keep you,” Cody said, suddenly very much wanting to be alone. “Have fun, and Merry Christmas!”

  “To you too!” Sanjay said, then followed Rex into the ship.

  Cody retreated inside, where he watched from behind the blast shields as their ship streaked up into the sky and beyond, out of sight and into the waiting dark of space. Then he went in search of a decent sandwich.

  APPARENTLY SUPERVILLAINS had access to some very interesting porn. And delicious sandwiches. But still, somehow, Cody was bored. He’d thought getting distance from Metro City, from Craig, would have been enough. To forget. To heal. To get his head back on straight. But things kept on reminding him of what they’d had together. What Cody had lost. He couldn’t even bring himself to be angry about being cheated on and dumped. Somehow, despite everything, what he felt most was sad.

  Out of ideas, he went in search of something to drink. From what he’d seen of the island, there’d probably be a whole cave of fine whiskeys and wines. Maybe even a microbrewery. He chuckled, imagining there was a decent market for small-batch beer brewed on a supervillain’s island fortress. Devious Drafts. Maybe he’d ask Sanjay if they’d ever considered it.

  A search of the cafeteria yielded nothing, though. He tried querying Audrey, but the AI was apparently busy. The interface he’d used to order sandwiches was still up, but he couldn’t get it to show beverage options. There were a few coolers near the back of the room, but those only contained bottled water and a soda selection that was obviously catered to Sanjay’s tastes—the man loved any kind of cherry flavor.

  Walking on, Cody peeked into the rooms he only half remembered from his earlier tour: gym, armory, library—there was one room that was just a scale model of Capital City, with a lizard costume hanging near the entrance—laundry room, superhero surveillance room. He stopped when he got to the robotics lab that Sanjay had pointed out. The huge metal doors were imposing, but more unnerving was the sound coming from the other
side. Inching closer, Cody listened to what might have been saws and welding noises. Wasn’t the lab supposed to be dormant with Dr. Devious away for vacation? Of course, perhaps Audrey was making repairs to something, or refining the island’s defenses.

  Not wanting to push for an answer, Cody hurried on, taking a side stairwell that spiraled downward. Wine cellars tended to be in basements, so maybe pushing deeper would reveal to him where Devious had stashed the potent potables. As he descended, though, the air grew hotter, dryer. Weren’t wine cellars supposed to be cool? He shook away the worry. At least he was getting away from the lab and its strange noises.

  At the bottom of the stairs, he walked out into a large cavern and realized immediately that he was not in a wine cellar. One probably didn’t store alcohol anywhere near rivers of lava. The area was immense, and aside from the stairs leading back up, it didn’t appear carved or shaped. Instead, the walls were rough and vaulted to a point high above. He couldn’t see the sky, so this had to be some cavern within the volcano, either naturally formed or made using the magma of the island’s core.

  He stepped out to take in the sights—a large river of molten rock twisting through the room, disappearing into the walls at either end. Maybe it was a testing room, somewhere that Dr. Devious could try out his latest inventions without fear of wrecking his labs and without worry of being observed by anyone keeping tabs on the outside of the island. Here and there were columns of partially crumbed rock. Target practice? He looked around for another exit and saw another stairway across the river of lava.

  “Yeah, probably not,” Cody said to himself, realizing he definitely should not have wandered off exploring the lair of a supervillain. Sitting back down with a smutty book out on the beach suddenly sounded like a very good idea. He turned around.

  “You… friend?”

  The voice was booming, filling the entire cavern like a pipe organ in a church. It came from all around him, and Cody froze, heart skidding to a panicked stop somewhere in his throat.