by Mia Archer
When he paused like that either he was really thinking about something, the digital equivalent of simulated civilizations could rise and fall multiple times deep inside his computer mind in the amount of time he was taking, or he'd just got caught in another logic bomb that tied up his circuits.
That was the problem with evil super computers. They were prone to being vulnerable to logic bombs hurled by the hero at just the right moment. I'd done my best to program those out, but he still occasionally got thrown into an annoying Kirk loop that reduced the most sophisticated computer on the planet to running slower than a copy of Windows ME that had just been introduced to Comet Cursor for the first time.
"Mistress, are we still planning on world domination?"
Domination. To be honest that had sort of taken a backseat what with my obsession with Fialux, but best not to let on to CORVAC. He got touchy about that sort of thing.
Not for the first time I wondered why a computer that could simulate the entirety of the known universe in a matter of milliseconds needed to dominate the flesh and blood world of humans, but he got pissy when I started asking existential questions about computerized desires and motivations so I’d learned long ago to treat the subject the same as bringing up the whole Jesus thing with Janet in accounting.
At least I assumed every office had a Janet from accounting who talked a little too much about the whole Jesus thing if you brought it up. Or even if you didn’t bring it up.
It’s not like I had much of a basis of comparison having never worked in an office myself. The closest I had was working in the goddamn Applied Sciences Department at Starlight City University.
Before they kicked me out for “malfeasance.” Yeah, turns out that was actually still a word and a charge they used in the twenty-first century.
No one in academia appreciated good evil super science, but I was going to make sure Fialux got to appreciate it firsthand.
"Oh yes," I said. I rubbed my hands together and grinned. "Domination. Complete and total domination. That's the plan."
Just not of the world. Not yet. Not until Fialux was good and captured and out of the way of all my well laid plans. I was going to run this city again.
"Are you sure about that mistress?"
"What are you talking about?"
"You have that smile you use when you are lying to me via omission."
Not for the first time I cursed myself for ever loading that facial recognition software. Like an artificial intelligence really needed to be able to recognize the range of human expression to do its job.
A dark shadow in one of the alleys up ahead shook me away from my reverie about CORVAC and his annoying complaints. I smiled. Hopefully this was exactly what I was looking for.
Now a normal person in this part of Starlight City would probably try to cross to the other side of the street. Hell, any sane person wouldn't be in this part of town at this time of night to begin with. But I kept going.
With a little luck I wouldn't have to wander around all night looking for a crime statistic waiting to happen that was willing to take me on.
Not that it was difficult to run into crime in this part of town, statistically speaking.
As I stumbled past the entrance to the dark alley a voice whispered to me. My grin got bigger. That’s a bingo!
"Hey. You."
I turned, my eyes widened, and I blinked at the voice from the darkness. A moment later a hulking man who looked like he hadn’t seen the pointy end of a razor in weeks and carrying a gun in his hand appeared out of the shadows.
He jerked the gun back, gesturing for me to join him in that dark alley. I quickly bit back my smile and replaced it with a look of pure terror. At least I hoped it was a look of pure terror.
Just like Janet from accounting I didn’t have much direct experience with being terrifying. Consequence of being mistress of my domain. I needed to look the part though.
I was supposed to be afraid, after all.
"Oh sir please don't hurt me!"
I held up my hands and tried to open my eyes as wide as possible. It wasn't too difficult to mimic what a crime victim looked like considering all the firsthand experience I had seeing bystanders witnessing my crimes up close and personal.
Though I hesitated to really call them victims since none of them ever technically got hurt as long as they were smart enough to get out of the way.
"I said get in here bitch," the guy said.
"I swear I don't have any money!" I said.
He held up his gun and pointed it straight at my face. I opened my eyes even wider and tried not to snicker.
A part of me wanted him to just fire the damn thing. After all, occasionally the kinetic force shield I wore caused a ricochet, and I might just have enough time to register the look of surprise before his own bullet bounced back into his quite unpleasant face.
But he didn't do anything so stupid. That was probably for the best. I was supposed to be an innocent victim, after all.
If anyone saw some girl walking around with obvious super science then it would make it very difficult to actually accomplish my mission. It would make this part of town safe for young women wandering around alone for awhile, but that wouldn't help me at all.
"I'm not interested in any money from you bitch," the guy said. "Now step into the alley before I waste you and finish the job anyways."
Talk about your common street thug. No class whatsoever. No sense of style. I rolled my eyes and put my hands on my hips. I was more disappointed than anything.
"Seriously?"
The gun wavered in this hulking gentleman's hand and a look of confusion passed across his face. Probably the first time he'd gotten that sort of reaction from one of his potential victims.
Well. This was his lucky night. It would also be the last time he ever saw that sort of reaction from one of his victims. This would be the last time he saw any sort of reaction from anybody considering what he’d just admitted he was out here doing.
There was a code of honor among thieves, but it didn’t extend to scum like him. He gave my ancient and honored profession a bad name, and I looked at this as the equivalent of putting down a rabid dog before it could cause too much damage.
I stalked past him into the darker parts of the alley. I definitely didn't want this to be seen from the street.
He did a double take as I shoved past him and he looked down at his seemingly worthless gun in confusion. I chuckled. There was a metaphor for his soon-to-be-ended life if there ever was one.
Then he grinned and followed, no doubt thinking that maybe I was a little crazy, but at least he was going to have his fun.
"That's more like it," he said, reaching for his belt.
"You don't have anyone else here with you, do you?" I asked.
I glanced around the alley but it didn't look like anyone else was hiding in the shadows. Partly I wanted to make sure there'd be no witnesses, but mostly I wanted to make sure there was no chance of me salvaging this and maybe attracting a little heroic attention.
His belt buckle stopped jingling as he looked up at me with that quizzical expression. I imagined the dumb lug wore that sort of expression most of the time. At least when he wasn't trying to be menacing and threatening.
He seemed like the kind of common street thug whose two settings amounted to menacing and confused.
"Well it's just me…"
"Do you do this sort of thing a lot?" I asked.
He shrugged, the oddity of the situation seemingly made him forget the gun he still held in his hand as he awkwardly tried to undo his belt buckle while keeping control of his weapon.
From where I stood keeping control of his weapon was definitely a problem. A problem I planned on fixing.
"I suppose a couple times a month maybe. It really depends," he said.
Huh. It really said something about the police presence in this part of town that he was able to get away with this sort of thing every couple of weeks.
No more. Best to be absolutely sure though.
"You’re sure you're definitely not a robber?"
This time he grinned. "What's the fun in robbing a bitch?"
"Thanks," I said with a grin of my own. "That's all I needed to hear."
I reached up and undid the top few buttons on my dirty shirt. It was a ragged number I got from a thrift store and then rolled through some mud to be certain it had the right amount of grime for this part of town.
My assailant’s grin grew even wider as he saw me opening my shirt, but the grin turned to a frown as I pulled the shirt open revealing my suit underneath.
It was dark, but I was never one to let a little darkness get in the way of style. My suit was black, but my logo glowed a faint blue day or night so anyone could tell who they were going up against regardless of the current lighting situation.
So I was sure he could make out the logo on my chest. Good branding was important for a villain, and there wasn't a criminal in the city who didn't know the Night Terror brand. Or what it meant to get in the way of that brand.
His eyes grew wide and his mouth worked silently as he held up his gun.
I cocked my head and grinned.
"Come on. We both know that's not going to do you any good," I said.
He dropped the gun. Good idea. Then he turned and ran down the alley towards the supposed safety of the street. Not such a good idea.
I held up my wrist blaster, let loose with a focused beam, and a moment later there were only tiny disassociated atomic particles where criminal scum once stood.
I dusted off my hands and moved out of the alley whistling a tune. I'd have to find darker pastures to get the sort of trouble I was looking for, but I could at least rest assured that I’d cleaned up a small part of the city tonight.
14
Back Alley
"Give us all your money," the gruff voice said.
I narrowed my eyes as I backed against the dark alley wall. "Are you sure you're after my money?"
The big guy hefted a tire iron in his hand and looked at me as though I'd sprouted horns. "What are you talking about? Of course we're after your money. Now pay up or else."
I breathed a sigh of relief. For a part of town that was supposedly the most crime-ridden area in the state, hell, maybe even in the hemisphere considering the hero population the crime statistics were able to support, I was having a hell of a time finding some crime to get victimized by.
It was enough to make me wonder if the police department was padding numbers in an attempt to inflate their budget or something, but no. There were so many heroes out there that there had to be enough petty crime to support them.
It was a predator and prey relationship. You had to have so many herd animals to support a lion or a wolf, and you had to have a certain baseline of low to high level crime to support a city teeming with a heroic ecosystem as developed as Starlight City.
Too bad for these guys they’d just run into the apex predator in this city.
Oh well. Time to trot out the innocent victim act again. I had to admit this whole incognito thing was pretty fun.
"But I don't have any money!"
A couple of the guys behind the big one turned to each other and grinned. The big guy didn't grin, but he did start smacking his tire iron against a big meaty fist.
"Well now that is a problem," he said. "Because if you can't pay the toll then I'm afraid I'm going to have to hurt you now."
I threw my head to the sky and screamed at the top of my lungs. "Help! Somebody please help! Oh for the love of God won't somebody save me!"
The big one raised his tire iron. "You need to shut your mouth right now before you start drawing the wrong kind of attention."
Now it was my turn to put my hands on my hips and cock my head at this guy.
"Are you serious?"
He stopped his advance and the tire iron lowered slightly. He was clearly just as confused as the guy I’d vaporized earlier.
"What are you talking about?"
"You're worried I'm going to call a hero down on you, right?"
"Well… Yeah?"
"And you're saying that if I don't stop screaming it's going to be bad for me?"
"Well… Yeah!"
"But I've already made it clear I don't have any money and you’ve already made it clear that because of my lack of money things are already going to be bad for me. What possible incentive do I have not to yell if you're going to beat the shit out of me no matter what I do?
The big one raised the tire iron to the side of his head and scratched. I wondered if maybe I'd broken him with logic.
If so then it was a hell of a lot easier than breaking CORVAC with logic. This guy didn't strike me as the type that did much in the way of critical thinking. Although by the way he handled that tire iron I had the feeling he was something of an artist with it.
Everyone had their own skills in their own areas. It wasn’t for me to judge. Even if his imperviousness to logic and rational conversation meant it was going to hurt a lot more for him when we tangled.
"Aw hell," he said. "Now I'm going to beat the shit out of you just for being a smartass."
I shrugged. "Suit yourself."
I readied my wrist blaster. It didn't look like I was going to get any sort of heroic help. And if I wasn't going to get any sort of heroic help then I was just going to have to rely on the blaster at my side.
It was a pity. This was definitely the best chance I was going to get all night to draw Fialux's attention.
Oh well.
The big one raised his tire iron and ran towards me with a snarl. I was just about to raise my wrist blaster out of the rags at my side when a shadow descended and a guy next to the ringleader disappeared with a scream.
My buddy with the tire iron skidded to a halt and looked up into the shadows overhead, searching for whatever had just grabbed his minion.
I blinked. That definitely wasn't one of my tricks. The other guys standing around the alley with various crowbars and other blunt instruments looked up in terror. One pulled a gun. Not that it would do him a damn bit of good if there was a hero lurking out there.
From the glares he was getting from his buddies they were well aware of that fact. It was almost a pity. I wanted to see that look on their collective faces when they realized who I was.
I guess you couldn’t have it all.
"It's the Wing," one of them whispered.
"Well if it's the Wing that's fine by me," the leader said. “He ain’t getting none of ours tonight, and he ain’t got any real powers!”
I arched an eyebrow. The Wing? I had no idea what they were talking about. A new hero I hadn’t heard of was rare, but to be fair I had been distracted lately.
The big guy hefted his tire iron and grinned at his buddies, though it was a sickly grin that didn’t look nearly as confident as he was probably shooting for. "I hear the Wing can bleed. Not like that new Fialux chick that’s been shutting down business around the city."
"You can't make something bleed if you can't hit it," another one said.
The first one turn to say something, but whatever he said turned to a strangled scream as the shadow descended out of the darkness once again and pulled him up. The sound of something getting the crap beat out of it drifted down from the shadows above followed by silence.
The shadow dropped down in the middle of us. It turned towards me.
"Run!"
Then it was running forward and engaging the other two guys.
I crossed my arms under my breasts and rolled my eyes. Great. I come out here looking for Fialux, and instead I end up pulling what looked like a normal.
Just my luck that I come out here looking for a living God and I end up getting one of the numerous mortal heroes that seemed to pop up in the city on a more or less regular basis.
I’d put a few of them out of business myself over the course of my career. Not lately since they’d all learned better than to fuck with
yours truly, but once upon a time it’d been a going concern for me.
Not that many of them lasted long enough to get to me in the first place.
Usually the mortal heroes ended up dead for one reason or another. Getting killed by a regular thug because they didn’t have bullet proof armor. Getting killed by a regular thug because they did have bullet proof armor but also had exposed areas. Going up against a super villain who didn’t have my reservations about killing unless it was absolutely necessary.
There were a lot of ways for a normal hero to die in this city. It was a pity this one hadn’t shed his mortal coil. If there was already an active hero out here tonight it meant there was less chance Fialux would bother with this part of town. Why get involved in a situation that was already well under control?
One of the thugs raised a crowbar and was about to get the drop on the hero when he went stock still. Just for a second, but that was long enough for the hero to turn and get in a sucker punch.
I frowned. It was dark, but I was pretty sure I’d seen what I’d just seen. What was that all about? The thug went down with a thunk and the intrepid hero turned to me again.
"I said run!"
Even more interesting. That voice was decidedly gravelly. Like someone gave him some bad advice about gargling rocks or smoking too much to sound intimidating. He sounded like he needed a sore throat lozenge is what he sounded like.
The final thug broke free from the hero and ran towards me screaming with a tire iron raised over his head. I realized it was my buddy the leader who’d been threatening me at the beginning.
He’d somehow managed to last until the very end, not that it was going to help him very much.
Maybe he figured if he was going to get the crap kicked out of him then at least he was going to take me with him. The new hero turned and followed at a sprint, but it was obvious he wasn't going to make it in time.
The thug’s snarl turned to a wide smile.
"Damn it! Run!" The hero shouted.
I let him get within two steps of me before I hit a button on my wrist control and my rags were teleported a few feet to the right revealing my Night Terror suit underneath. As my disguise dematerialized one of the matter transporters in my belt materialized my trusty mask over my face and the HUD sprang to life feeding me the information I craved in situations like this.