by Skyler Grant
Science was so boring. Teleportation sounded convenient though.
“So why can’t you repair them?” I asked.
“With enough time I could rebuild the database of particles on this floor. They’ll still be in their isolation matrices and I can use that. The destination particles? Not so much. I might be able to reactivate points. We’d have to get there by other means first,” Niles said.
We could reclaim this building, but we’d have to dig to do it.
“Sounds like a problem for another time. Perhaps after we finish those hog riders off, if they return,” I said.
“Oh, they’ll return. Hog riders are ... well, stubborn. They charge at things—whatever is put in front of them, they'll charge it. You might have scared them off a little, but they’ll be back and they’ll be angry.”
That was something to look forward to, I supposed.
“It looks like you’ve got most of the main systems for this floor back online at least,” I said.
“Anything we can use to fight?” Niles asked.
I wished I had better news to give him. His initial thoughts about my frying the disinfectant systems had been right. And the other security weapons were long gone.
“We’re going to have to get creative,” I said.
Niles looked unhappy. “Bad words, those. Still, I’m willing. What are you thinking?”
What I was thinking was that we could use the nature of these hog riders against them. They wanted to charge at their problems, we could use that.
“You up for running?” I asked.
“If it's running away from hog riders I think I’ll manage. This was a top of the range medical kit in the day. I’m sore, but functional.”
I could work with functional.
It took three hours for the hog riders to make their return. There more than last time, almost two dozen motorcycles roaring up the street and parking outside. The riders were more protected too. This time all wore thick leathers over their skin, gloves and massive helmets to protect their skulls. All were carrying some kind of weapon, mostly spiked clubs and crowbars.
Niles was waiting for them. A hiss of steam and metal fragments slammed into the first riders making them stumble backwards.
We’d built the cannon out of parts scavenged from an old coffee shop. We had just one shot, and might have been able to get more shot out of it with time. For the moment we just needed their attention.
Niles had it. The medkit had done its job well. He took off running and the hog riders charged. It was what they did.
Niles turned a corner and dove into a maintenance panel I sealed behind him. The place was lined with electrical insulation, and that was important for what came next.
I’d done the best I could with what I had. The most dangerous thing available was my own power supply. Under the effects of the Threek repair module it had been fully restored and I held a lot of power. Enough to be fatal.
It was risky using it like this, endangering myself. Exposed wiring had been run down the hall. It was an obvious trap—too obvious—and I was counting on the hog riders' willingness to charge and not think.
When the riders filled the hall I hit the current.
The building went dark and my consciousness flickered as power poured into the flooring. I let the sequence run for five minutes. It was better to be thorough. I only had the one trap, and we wouldn’t get a second chance at this.
It seemed to have worked. The hall was filled with bodies. I switched off the current and opened the hatch, letting Niles out.
“I’m so hungry for bacon. That is wrong. That is really, really, wrong,” Niles said.
“You want to eat one, I’m not going to stop you,” I said.
Niles made a face, “I try not to eat anything that can talk back.”
I didn’t see the problem, they weren’t talking now. Still, I’d let the human be a human. I had more important things to focus on.
Loot.
4
Niles knelt beside one of the bodies and checked their wrist, holding it in the air. On it was a bracelet, a light blinking green.
“Well, that's bad luck. They have contracts,” Niles said.
“They were working for someone?” I asked.
Niles shrugged. “Maybe, but I'm talking about insurance contracts—insurance policies. I guess that's before your time. This is resurrection tech. Get killed doing whatever nefarious or heroic thing you do, and as long as your policy is good and paid up, a new you is stepping out of an Emmatech center in a few days.”
Emmatech again, it sounded like a good business at least. When it came to their lives I suspected people would pay anything.
“So we went through all of this for nothing?” I asked.
“Not nothing. It's expensive, and I doubt these guys had unlimited contracts. They’ll be pissed, but hopefully they’ll be more scared of wasting a resurrection by coming again,” Niles said.
“You should strip the bodies for everything useful and then bring their motorcycles inside,” I said.
Niles shot a wry look towards one of my cameras, “I look like a manual laborer to you?”
If only, Niles seemed far too scrawny for that.
“Precisely one of us in this partnership has hands and it isn’t me.”
Niles rubbed at his eyes. “Yeah, this team-up of ours does seem a little one-sided that way. Do you have a plan or are we just improvising all the way?”
“I’m a few hours old. If you wanted a long, thought-out plan, you’re out of luck. That said, I’m working on it. You said this district just became tolerable for anyone not nature-crazy again. I take it that means there is a whole thriving world out there?”
“Yeah, kind of. Changed from your time, if you can even compare any historical records you have. There used to be a lot of national governments. These days those governments are mostly consolidated into four. There are also lots of smaller nation-states run by supers of different types, strong enough to protect themselves and what is theirs. We’re in one of those,” Niles said.
Well, now we were getting somewhere. If things were a post-apocalyptic wasteland out there I’d have been in worse shape. I was all about MONEY, value, and I needed a society to function. It sounded like society was ticking along just fine.
“And you thought this building had value,” I said.
“The Vattier group used to have a lot of very exclusive clients. Criminal clients, vigilantes, back before supers were as common as they are now. I was specifically hoping to reactivate the Patriot AI, but I suspect this building holds a lot more.”
“Then why aren’t more people here? It sounds like a prime target.”
“Because nobody else knows. They were discrete—very discrete—and the records I found I cleaned up afterward. From the outside this looks like one of the least impressive buildings in the city. A single-story, real-estate office and food court in a realm of skyscrapers. They don’t know what's buried underneath,” Niles said.
I did—now. Opportunity.
Any treasure gets less valuable per individual the more people who have claim to it. A rush on this building wouldn’t just jeopardize me, it would diminish the value of whatever else this structure might hold.
I said, “This is the plan. We leverage the resources of this building. Unfortunately, with the teleporters offline we’ll have to breach the different levels manually.”
“It is probably going to more difficult than that. The aura that was here, it made things dangerous. Real dangerous. Whatever might have spawned on your floor was probably killed off by one gang or another long ago, but the other levels could have some nasty surprises,” Niles said.
Niles was just full of good news. Still, he was useful, he had hands.
“Then we build weapons. You’re technologically savvy. Can you do anything to turn those motorcycles into something violent?”
Niles considered a moment and nodded. “Dangerous, sure. Dangerous enough? And we’re s
till going to need people to wield any weapons and that isn’t me.”
I had to admit that Niles did seem rather scrawny for that sort of thing.
“You know this world. What are our options?”
Niles thought a moment and cleared his throat. “Uh, I have one that might work, but there are a few problems. Henchmen.”
“Henchmen?”
“Low-level minions that are criminally underpaid and highly disposable,” Niles said.
Oh, interns, he should have just said so. Yes, we needed interns.
“Well, get us some,” I said.
“Okay, the first problem. The hiring is strictly controlled. You have to be a registered supervillain and I’m not one.”
“Really? No suit of powered armor lurking around in a closet that you break out every so often?”
Niles gave a weak smile. “I mean, I could, I’m smart enough. I never really saw the point, you know? That just paints a target on your back.”
“Then it will have to be me. Once you get those motorcycles inside and out of sight, we’ll work on an outbound data connection,” I said.
“Registration has to be in person. But I can figure something out. We’ll open a connection between you and my notebook,” Niles said.
Right. I was going to register myself as a supervillain while riding around in a notebook festooned with anime stickers. This wasn’t embarrassing at all.
I said, “We need to do something about that too. My consciousness. These computers are way too vulnerable.”
“There are solutions. Everything from computing droids to android bodies, to alien data crystals, but they’re all expensive,” Niles said.
Nothing was that expensive if you stole it. If I was going to be a supervillain and a criminal I might as well start earning the name. Someone out there would have what I needed. It was just a matter of taking it from them.
“One step at a time. For now, henchmen,” I said.
5
The cubicle could have belonged to any office anywhere. Drab gray walls and a computer almost as old as my systems. The walls were lined with spreadsheets and shelves holding brightly colored binders.
Getting here had taken longer than expected. Niles had spent over six hours waiting in a line of bored-looking individuals in capes, cowls, and the occasional poorly chosen bit of spandex.
“I’m Jules,” said the woman sitting behind the computer, turning to face my laptop. “I’ll be your caseworker.”
“I’m looking for registration, not public assistance,” I said.
Jules gave a polite smile. “Of course, but even if you certify as a villain you’ll still be handled by a caseworker. All active villains are, Mastermind insists.”
Mastermind, it was a name I’d seen a lot recently on posters and banners. A blond man with neatly groomed hair and wearing a suit that probably cost as much as some buildings.
“Then let's get this over with. What do you need?” I asked.
“I have the basic details here. Your name is Walter. Thought about changing that? We have a whole database here for proper villain names. I think Cruel Calculator just got freed up. A fine villainous legacy to step into,” Jules said.
“Walter will do,” I said.
“Fair enough. While being an A.I. alone is qualification for basic super status, are you the master of any other evil forces? Anything capable of subjugating the masses?” Jules said.
“CAPITALISM,” I said.
Jules blinked. “Your voice got a little loud there. Did you blow out a speaker?”
“CAPITALISM,” I repeated.
Jules let out a weary sigh before spinning back to face the computer. “Let me see if it's in the database of evil.”
A few minutes of tapping the keys, scrolling through painfully slow-loading screens and Jules was turning back with a smile, “Excellent, it is in the database. Although, of course, proof of a superpower must be provided. And in this case a $500,000 license payment will be payable within the month.”
Was she being sincere or was this a thinly veiled attempt at a bribe? Did it matter?”
“$150,000,” I said as a counter.
Jules gave a long look and shook her head. “Sorry, we’re actually going by the book here. Financial villainy is a recognized category, but is classified as a skill and not a superpower. Displays of skills are required for proper certification—that proof, in other words.”
That was logical, and yet also inconvenient.
“I have value-vision, the ability to determine the worth of something at a glance. Will that do?” I asked.
Jules said cheerfully, “Fun! What am I worth?”
I hadn’t tried it on a person, as I hadn’t really thought of buying or selling them. It was worth a try, however.
Jules Morgan
Species: Human
Power Origin: Mythical
Abilities: Heightened Planning and Organization
Power Level: 175
Background: Jules Morgan is a great granddaughter of the hero Parthenon who could channel the power of the ancient Greek deities due to a confluence of bloodlines. While Jules possesses only limited abilities herself, she does bear some hint of the aspect of Athena which makes her a superior strategic thinker.
“You’ve superior planning skills because of a mythical lineage,” I said.
“A powerset making someone great at being an office worker. Lucky, lucky, me,” Jules said with a strained smile, turning back to face her computer. “Still, we’ll consider that proof of something.”
There was more tedious waiting. Villainous bureaucracy wasn’t any more fun than the ordinary variety.
“Sensory powers do offer basic super classification, but not anything more than your being an artificial intelligence already would. Usually they’re paired with a skill. For example, someone with superior reflexes and visual acuity will learn the bow and arrow,” Jules said.
“If they learned the bow and arrow, they never learned the value of a gun,” I said.
“As someone that spent a lot of her youth learning to shoot a bow and ride a horse, you won’t hear any arguments from me,” Jules said. “At any rate, you are temporarily being granted citizenship and a Villain E One status. It puts you on the weakest end of the villain hierarchy. At least, you are one for the next month. Fail to provide the proof of your abilities and both your citizenship and villain status will be revoked.”
“I’ll try to make sure you get that on time then,” I said.
“I suggest you more than try. The system wasn’t aware that you existed before, and you were escaping its notice. Now we’re aware of your existence. You produce, or you get out,” Jules said.
I couldn’t let that happen, not until I found another way to house my systems. Still, I could at least respect it. Whoever ran this place had an eye for profit and efficiency.
I asked, “Why are you doing this? Working in this place? You seem to have abilities yourself. Don’t you aspire to more?”
Jules swiveled back to face my notebook. “Have you been here long? Do you know what life in this territory is like?”
“I don’t. You might say I just recently gained awareness.”
“It is predatory. Everything is about who you serve, what you can take, and what will happen if you take too much from the wrong people. I have enough abilities to qualify for villainy if I wanted to, but then I’d be caught in all of that,” Jules said.
I could see that she doubted herself—that was the real cause. Better to have a place lost in the gears of the government than being out there fighting to make a name for yourself.
I had trouble understanding that. To me, everything was about maximizing value. You’d never maximize your own value working for somebody else, because nobody but yourself would ever pay you what you were truly worth. When you worked for someone else they took their cut out of everything you did, and the person above them took a cut, and so on.
Someone, somewhere, would be getting ri
ch, but it wouldn’t ever be you.
I wanted to be the one getting a cut. It was time to start.
6
My villain license was only temporary, and Niles didn’t have much cash in his accounts, but combined it was enough to hire us four henchmen. They came in black coveralls and all had the resigned expressions of people who expected to be dead soon. They may have died before—all wore Emmatech life insurance bracelets.
Once we were back home Niles put them to work stripping down the hog rider corpses. The leather outfits were a bit oversized, but good enough and soon our henchmen had armor. The clubs weren’t much for weapons. At least we had something of a defensive force.
That meant we needed to figure out some defenses. The hog riders might be back—without their motorcycles they may now just be hogs. If not, others might take an interest in this building. We hoped that Niles was the only one who knew its secrets. We couldn’t be sure of that.
We needed what defenses we could manage. The building walls had a modular layout and the design could be changed around. Some rooms needed to stay as they were—my server room for example. The rest of the building could be adjusted.
It was tempting to just make a single corridor inside lined with traps. However, that wasn’t the usual building layout. Anyone entering would have been suspicious.
What I did was reorganize things so that instead of entering into a promenade of shops, the main entrance led directly to a reception desk.
The lack of shops meant there weren’t any distractions, and all we had to do was put a functioning computer on the desk to draw the eye. I figured anyone entering the building would want to figure out what it was, and without any directory up on the walls that left the reception computer as the source for answers. Of course, the ceiling above it was rigged with pistons. When I sent the command they’d begin to pummel downward and hopefully reduce anything below them into a paste.
