I'm Not A Hero!

by Mia Archer

  “How have you done this?” it asked. “How have you incapacitated me?”

  “Simple,” I said, moving in closer because I knew I was in zero danger as long as this thing was possessing my oldest and fattest grey cat. “You’re inside Fat Louie. I’ve done enough experimenting on your friends to know the whole possession thing you’re doing with the city’s cats is a two way street.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “What I’m talking about is you inherit some of the characteristics of the creature you inhabit. Maybe that’s not how it works on your world, but here with felis catus it goes both ways. Which means, in this case, when you possess Fat Louie here there’s no amount of mojo you can work on his brain that’s going to overcome this cat’s natural inclination towards laziness.”

  The alien inhabiting Fat Louie’s body tried to make some noises that sounded very close to hissing and spitting, but ultimately even that was too much work for Fat Louie’s brain.

  “I very specifically chose a cat that was so old and lazy that the neural pathways for laziness had carved a deep groove,” I said. “You can try and try to overcome that laziness, but plenty of your pals have tried and none of them have ever managed to do it.”

  “Fuck you,” Possessed Louie spat at me.

  “Oh my,” I said. “Looks like your survey of human entertainment gave you a bit of a potty mouth. How about that?”

  “What are you going to do to me?” it asked.

  “Well that depends,” I said.

  “On?”

  “On whether or not you’re willing to talk,” I said. “You see I’ve been taking the advice of my computer and not letting any of your buddies I caught know that I’m killing you when I’m done with you.”

  “So why would you tell me this now?” Possessed Louie asked.

  “Simple,” I said. “That isn’t working and I’m getting impatient. I figure it’ll be easier to threaten your life now and make it clear that I fully intend on following through on that threat if you don’t tell me what I want.”

  I hit a button on my computer. A false wall behind me went down revealing a series of glass jars similar to the one the alien parasite had been in. All of the jars behind me also contained alien parasites, but they were all good and deceased.

  “What have you done?” the alien hissed.

  I hit another button on my wrist computer. This time one of the flat panels built into the wall started playing a recording of Bassmaster. A fishing show.

  “Why are you showing me this?” Possessed Louie hissed.

  “Did you know we have creatures that are an awful lot like you on this world?” I asked. “I guess that shouldn’t come as a surprise. Parasitic worm seems like the sort of niche that would show up in a lot of ecosystems, though admittedly I haven’t done enough exploring of other worlds to figure out whether or not that’s actually the case. Xenobiology was never my thing.”

  Up on the screen a grizzled old fisherman in a boat that probably cost more than most budget cars pulled out a wriggling worm and extolled the virtues of whatever dirt they’d pulled the thing out of. It sounded like so much pseudoscience to me, but I’m sure whoever owned that particular dirt was making a pretty penny selling the worms that lived there to gullible idiots who were willing to pay any price to get an edge on their fishing game.

  The grizzled old man speared the worm on a hook and it wriggled some more before it was dropped into the water.

  “You monsters!” Possessed Louie screeched.

  The cat started to shift and shake. Well then. I’d gotten enough of an emotional response out of this asshole alien that it was actually slightly overcoming some of Louie’s natural lazy instincts.

  Not enough to get the cat to move his fat ass, but it was impressive.

  “Yeah, on this world we use worms like you for bait to catch our food,” I said.

  I’d had CORVAC run through quite a bit of footage on this show to get just the right video to send the right message.

  No sooner had the unfortunate worm hit the water than a reasonably sized fish leapt up and devoured the thing.

  “What kind of sick society are you running?” Possessed Louie hissed.

  “The kind of sick society that produced me. I’m considered pretty bad even by the standards of this sick society, and I’m going to take you on a fishing trip if you don’t tell me exactly what I want to know,” I said.

  I held my hand out. A fishing rod materialized in my hand. I smiled, and once again the worm’s raw emotion seemed to be overcoming Fat Louie’s natural tendency towards laziness just a little.

  Only this time the massive cat was moving away from me. Good. We were finally getting somewhere with these assholes.

  6

  Customs

  “Do you really think it was wise to kill the worm after you were done with it?” CORVAC asked.

  I ignored him. I was busy. I’d heard other older villains, the few who were still kicking around and telling their stories from prison, talking about how airports used to be a hell of a lot easier to infiltrate.

  Supposedly they were difficult these days, but that was because most of the people trying to infiltrate these places weren’t above the law no matter how much they liked to pretend they were.

  The fact that they were giving those interviews from prison was proof enough of that.

  “It seems only reasonable that if you are going to tell these aliens that they are going to be let free if they tell you what you want to know then you would actually release him once he told you what you wanted to know,” CORVAC droned on.

  He seemed to be enjoying that he had me in a situation where he knew I couldn’t talk back. I was trying to look unobtrusive as I made my way through the line.

  I was surrounded on all sides by the usual people you expected to see at the airport. Families getting ready for a vacation to Disney World. That was an even happier place than usual for Starlight City residents since no self-respecting villain ever tried to conquer Florida.

  Come to think of it the only hero I’d ever known who made a go of it in Florida was a buff guy who could naturally chill the air around him to a comfortable seventy degrees which made him a sought after commodity with the beach party crowd. Last I heard he was heroically cleaning up with a new beach bunny every night, and more power to him as long as he stayed down there and out of my hair.

  “I know you have taken a turn for the villainous recently, mistress, but even so…”

  “Even so you need to shut your mouth,” I hissed. “I’m in the middle of something here!”

  That earned me a few looks from the occasional flyer crowd. I hated being here. I was a frequent flyer myself, but I always did it with antigrav rather than relying on outdated tech like heavier than air flight.

  I looked longingly at a group of business travelers who were moving through the line a heck of a lot quicker than my line. Unfortunately I couldn’t go with them, as tempting as that was. Not when I was pretty sure there was a target right in front of me in the slow line.

  A little old lady with white hair and a massive red hat. She wasn’t the target, but the cat carrier she had slung over her shoulder looked nice and juicy considering there was a low key alien invasion of parasitic worms taking over cats under everyone’s collective nose.

  I checked the radiation monitor in a specialized detector I’d put together just for the occasion. I couldn’t show up in my suit which meant I was absent the usual sensor suite that let me keep an eye on the world around me.

  Sure enough the signature I’d first seen when I sent a probe through to the other side of the portals Dr. Lana opened during our fight with the giant lizards showed up loud and clear. I grinned.

  Just what I was looking for. There was a worm in that cat. That meant the asshole who’d ended up dining with the fishes hadn’t been lying to me.

  They were trying to get out of the city, and they weren’t being very subtle about their invasion of the ca
t snatchers. Why bother when air travel made their job so easy?

  “Hey, what the hell is that?” someone asked.

  I cursed and turned to see a middle aged dude with a long beard and a “Don’t Tread On Me” shirt staring at me with open hostility. Which was odd since I didn’t have the type of skin color that would usually make that kind of prick suspicious of me on a plane, but I guess in Starlight City he was willing to question anyone using a bit of technology that wasn’t obviously a smartphone.

  I hadn’t had time to add this particular detector to my smartphone lookalike. Which meant I looked suspicious now instead of blending in with every other asshole in line burying their nose in their phone while they waited for their turn in the massive civil rights violation that was modern flight.

  “Nothing,” I said, tucking it into my pocket.

  “Like hell that was nothing,” the guy said. “Hey! Someone get over here and have a look at this chick! She was using some weird technothing!”

  I sighed. Obviously this guy was a tourist. He hadn’t learned the first rule of Starlight City. Other cities had rules about keeping your head down and moving along so you didn’t attract the attention of the kind of people who preyed on tourists.

  It was sort of the same in Starlight City, but the unspoken rule was if you thought you saw someone using a piece of tech that was beyond modern humanity’s capacity you shut the fuck up about it lest you get dragged into whatever it was they were doing.

  “Look buddy,” I said. “I’m late for my flight to Chicago and I really don’t need to…”

  “Like hell,” he said. “I’m tired of letting your kind walk all over us. Someone get over here and take care of this bitch before I do!”

  My hackles rose. I didn’t take kindly to that kind of language on the best of days, and today was hardly the best of days considering all the bullshit I’d been through recently.

  “You really don’t want to do this,” I said, trying to keep my voice low.

  “Oh I think I do,” he said. “If the government isn’t going to take care of this then maybe we should!”

  He gave my shoulder a shove. I looked down in astonishment and had to remind myself that I was in hiding here. Still, it was weird seeing someone acting like an ass because he didn’t know the dangerous ground he was treading.

  I turned to look down the line. Not because I was particularly concerned about the TSA agents who were making their way down the line to see what the trouble was. No, I was worried about the cat and the little old lady.

  I zoomed in with my contacts. These things really were so useful, though it was going to open a can of worms when someone figured out how to manufacture them independently and commercialize them.

  A little paw stuck out of the carrier. And that fluffy paw deftly worked at the latch on the carrier. Not the sort of escape artistry you expected to see in a cat.

  “Damn it,” I growled.

  The TSA agents slipped past the little old lady and I missed what happened next. One moment the carrier door was closed and the next moment it was wide open and there was no sign of the cat.

  “Motherfucker,” I said.

  The asshole’s eyes went wide. “What the hell did you just say to me?”

  I turned back to him. “Oh. Sorry. That wasn’t aimed at you.”

  The guy snorted. A self-satisfied smirk. I got the feeling this guy went through life pushing people around and saw it as the natural order of things that I’d immediately back down when I thought he was willing to throw down to get his way.

  It had to be a sad way going through life. Getting all of his self-worth from his ability to beat on other people and his willingness to use force despite everything society said about not doing that sort of thing.

  Maybe that’s why I said something stupid that probably would’ve been better left unsaid.

  “Obviously it applies to you too,” I said.

  The guy was fast. Unfortunately for him I was faster. Even more unfortunately for him I was working with CORVAC again which meant no sooner had my hand come up than my suit materialized around me giving me the kind of strength this guy couldn’t dream of no matter how much time he spent in the gym.

  He was so mad that he didn’t seem to realize exactly what he’d gotten himself into. I could tell the Starlight City natives in the crowd from the tourists, though, because no sooner had my hand come up than they were all gasping and backing away.

  I grinned. It was nice to be recognized.

  The guy stared. To his credit the look was still one of pure disdain rather than fear. It was a stupid look, the kind of look that was going to get him in trouble, but at least it was consistent with how he’d been acting before he knew who I was.

  “Who the fuck are you supposed to be?” he growled.

  Okay then. Maybe he didn’t know who the fuck I was. Meanwhile the locals were backing away as fast as they could, and in at least one case someone who was obviously from Starlight City with family or friends who were obviously from out of town was trying to push them away from the brewing confrontation.

  “The name’s Night Terror,” I said. His eyes went wide. “You might’ve heard of me.”

  My punch was a hell of a lot more effective than his. I moderated it just a little, but he still went flying back and landed against a support beam. Plaster and dust rained down on him.

  A good thing they’d redone the whole airport in the past decade or so. Otherwise that guy might’ve found himself in the middle of a bunch of asbestos rather than plaster.

  I turned to the TSA agents. They’d stopped in their tracks and looked like they wanted to be anywhere but where they were standing.

  So basically the standard look I always got from government types when they realized their desire to be anywhere but where they were was in conflict with their job which required them to jump into the fray.

  “I know how much they pay you at these jobs,” I said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” a skinny dude asked.

  “I think she’s offering to bribe us,” a fatter older dude said. He looked like he was actually excited at the prospect.

  Considering what they made on the job it was hardly surprising that he’d be excited at the idea of a good old fashioned Night Terror bribe. I knew security professionals swapped rumors that they could retire on what they got from me if they were lucky enough to get a Night Terror bribe.

  Which wasn’t entirely true, but it was close enough to the truth as made no difference. Like I suppose they could retire if they lived the rest of their lives in a trailer park and lived very frugally, but it was still a nice chunk of change.

  The only problem was there wasn’t a chance I was doing anything like that when there was a crowd gathered taking video of our little confrontation.

  “Not a chance,” I said. “But if I were in your shoes right about now I’d be seriously considering whether or not what you make is worth taking on one of the worst villains in the world. We all know you’re going to lose, so why not lose with some dignity and your health intact?”

  This seemed like a situation where a threat would be far more effective than bribing them. They looked at each other, shook their heads, and melted into the crowd.

  “Good idea,” I said. I looked to the rest of the crowd and sighed. So much for staying inconspicuous.

  7

  Baggage Handling

  As I watched the retreating TSA agents it suddenly occurred to me that I needed to ask at least one of them a few questions.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “But I need one of you back here.”

  The TSA agents were making their way through the airport as fast as their legs would carry them. Like they didn’t want to stop and talk with me for some reason.

  I couldn’t imagine why a normal wouldn’t want to talk to me. I also wasn’t going to let them get away with trying to get away from me.

  “Get back here!” I shouted.

  I fired off an anti-Newtonia
n bubble and the rest of the crowd had the good sense to get the hell out of the way the moment I pointed my wrist blaster.

  That didn’t help the fat TSA agent who had his back to me. The bubble hit him and one moment he was moving as fast as his stubby legs would carry him, every day was leg day when you weighed as much as that guy after all, and the next he was frozen.

  I walked over and stared at him. He was frozen, but that didn’t mean his hearing was busted.

  “Listen to me and listen good,” I said. “I’m going to let you out of this thing, and you’re welcome to run if you want to. First you need to tell me how the hell to get to baggage handling though.”

  I let the anti-Newtonian field fall. The guy stared at me for a long moment, then he barreled into the crowd again. Damn it.

  “Does anyone else know how to get to the baggage area?” I asked.

  Unfortunately there was no one around who knew. That or they weren’t interested in sticking around long enough to tell me what they knew.

  I sighed.

  “If I may mistress?” CORVAC asked.

  “What?” I growled.

  “I believe you would be able to simply find the aliens by using your detector. There is no need for all this subterfuge,” he said.

  “Yeah, but the subterfuge and not getting caught is the fun part,” I said. “Catching aliens driving around in cats is the easy part.”

  “Yes, but you have already been caught which means your real life stealth game is over,” CORVAC said. “So perhaps it is time to get down to business before those cats are able to put their plan into motion?”

  “You take the fun out of everything,” I said. “But you have a point.”

  I floated up and now even more people were trying their best to get the hell away from me. This part of the airport was nice and open with a vaulted ceiling that provided enough room for several heroes to have a battle. I’d read something from the architect saying he’d done that so people on the ground would be able to escape if any battles broke out overhead.