“Well, I certainly appreciated that I knew where to find you,” I said.
“I’m so glad,” Honeybee replied. “He was quite clear that I ought to--
oh! But I guess I shouldn’t say that and ruin your next surprise.”
“Who was quite clear about what?” I demanded as I tried to slowly bring my arms up so that I could fire my palm blasters the moment her guard was down. “The Maniac?”
“Oh, don’t go and spoil everything by trying to kill me,” Honeybee said as she grabbed a table and raised it over her head like it was nothing.
“Is this part of your idea about foreplay?” I glanced up at the table.
“No, this is me trying to stay alive long enough to deliver my message,” the supervillain said.
“Your message from the Maniac?” I asked again.
“Maybe,” Honeybee said, and then with a wink, she threw the whole table at me.
I activated my thrusters again and propelled myself a few feet up into the air just as the table crashed into the bar behind me. It splintered apart, but I didn’t pause long enough to look at the damage. Instead, I let myself fall back to the ground at the same time I fired one of the tasers in my elbow at the supervillain.
Honeybee grabbed one of her mind-controlled drones and whipped him in front of herself, so the taser electrocuted him instead of her. As the drone fell to the floor in convulsions, I glanced at Norma to see what was taking her so long.
“A little faster, Norma!” I shouted.
“Working on it!” my assistant called as she kicked one of the worker bees in the chest, so he fell backward into a storage closet.
There were already half a dozen other mind-controlled civilians inside the closet, but no more of them would fit, so Norma slammed the door shut and propped a chair in front of it so they couldn’t break it open.
“Oh, that was a close one,” Honeybee snickered as she kicked the electrocuted drone on the floor. “But you’ll have to try again, handsome.”
“Next time, I’ll make sure you don’t drag somebody else into the middle of a fight that should just be between the two of us,” I said.
“Committing to me already, are you?” the supervillain asked. “I’m not really a one-man kind of woman, but for you…”
“And I’m not really a one-woman kind of man,” I said as I looked over to see Norma’s progress with the rest of the drones.
As annoyed as I was by all the civilians that we had to be careful not to kill, I also wanted to make sure that Honeybee couldn’t use anyone else to deflect anything that I threw at her. If I didn’t watch out, I might use my palm blaster on her and accidentally burn a hole through some poor mind-controlled asshole’s skull.
While Honeybee and I continued to circle each other, I saw that Norma was making good progress with the rest of the people in the bar. She had hog-tied a few of them like she was some kind of cattle-rancher, and there were a few others who just looked like they were knocked out cold on the floor of the bar.
So between the unconscious or tied-up civilians and the ones who were now stuck inside the closet, there were only about five drones left that Norma still needed to round up.
“Now, don’t you want to let me affect you?” Honeybee pouted.
“Don’t you want to know what you’re missing out on?”
“No thanks,” I said, and then I sprang forward with my fist aimed squarely at the supervillain’s jaw.
Even though I landed my fist right on her chin, Honeybee’s head just rocked back for a second before she brought her own fist up to slam into my stomach. We both separated long enough to recover our breaths, and then Honeybee crashed into me again, but this time, she was able to slam her whole body into my shoulder.
I stumbled backward but immediately reached out to grab her by the waist of her black and yellow leotard, so I pulled her back with me, and we both fell against the bar. I threw her to the ground, but she caught herself on my arm before she smacked into the splintered table on the floor.
Honeybee was definitely strong. Not as strong as Dynamo, but maybe three quarters without the speed of my girlfriend. If I could just get the right angle, I could take the blonde out with my blasters, but Honeybee was fucking strong, so I knew that I couldn’t afford to let my guard down for even a second. Otherwise, she might sucker-punch me to the throat, and this time, she might actually break something.
I’d have to work on adding something to my suit that might be able to protect my neck better, like a gorget or a bevor. It would have to be a certain kind of material, of course, so I would still keep my full range of motion, and that meant I would have to use a slightly different polymer than I might--
Shit, Miles.
I needed to focus.
Honeybee still had a grip on my arm, so she jerked me forward like she was going to try to spin me around and then slam me into the bar again.
I let her spin me into a half-circle, but then just as she started to really gain traction, I used my momentum to ram my knee into her stomach instead.
She spluttered and reached out for a broken beer bottle, but my armored forearm easily blocked her next blow. The blonde supervillain swore, bounded over the bar counter, and then spun back around with the protection of the bar between me and her.
“He said you were good,” Honeybee panted. “He said that I should take you alive, but that he really wanted me to take the black-haired superheroine. Dynamo, right? I guess she didn’t come to play today?”
“Guess not,” I growled at the idea that the Maniac had been thinking about Elizabeth at all.
“Then he’s gonna be really disappointed,” the blonde supervillain said. “Still, maybe I can make him forget about Dynamo if I--”
“Was that it?” I demanded. “Was that the whole message? That the Maniac wants me and Dynamo? That’s not really news to me, you know.”
“He just wants you to know that he’s coming and that you have…”
Honeybee trailed off as she glanced at a clock on the wall. “That you have less than thirty-six hours.”
Then the blonde supervillain dropped down behind the bar. When she popped back up a second later, she had a lighter in one hand and an open vodka bottle in the other.
“You’re kind of a one-trick wonder, aren’t you?” I smirked. “And when you can’t get your way with mind control, you’re just shit out of luck, or am I wrong?”
“I am not!” Honeybee said. “I’m--”
But she never got to finish telling me what she was.
Instead, I fired my palm blaster straight at her throat, and it burned through all her muscles and blood vessels until her head suddenly fell off to the side, and then a second later, her body collapsed and followed her head down to the ground behind the bar.
I jumped over the counter just to make sure that Honeybee didn’t have some kind of surprise regenerative ability, but the supervillain laid completely still as her blood spilled out into her coiffed blonde hair. When I was sure that she was permanently put down, I turned back to face the rest of the bar and saw that Norma had some civilian asshole in an MMA chokehold.
“Is she dead?” my assistant gasped.
“Yep,” I said. “Let him go and see what happens.”
“But he’s still fighting me!” Norma said.
“Probably because you’re choking him,” I pointed out.
“Oh, fair enough,” Norma said and then released her hold on the man.
He stumbled away and pawed at his throat, but when he finally stood upright again, he didn’t instantly try to attack my assistant again. The other conscious drones all suddenly blinked and looked around themselves, like they couldn’t quite remember where they were, and all sounds of struggle from inside the closet fell silent.
“I think you can let them out now,” I told Norma. “Her effects on them should be gone now that she’s dead.”
“I can’t believe how quickly you took her out,” my assistant replied as she pushed her glass
es up her nose beneath her mask.
“See, and I thought that it took me longer than I had expected,” I said. “She was quite strong, but more of a lover than a fighter, so I don’t think she really knew what to do with me when her pheromones didn’t work on us.”
“Well, she wasn’t that much of a lover,” Norma grumbled as she kicked the chair away from the closet and opened the door. “She did kill those people in the fire on High Street, and who knows how many others?”
The people that Norma had trapped inside the closet all stumbled out like they had just woken up from a fucking coma, but nobody looked permanently damaged, so I nodded to the door.
“Let’s get out of here before we have to play nursemaid to all these civilians,” I said.
“What about the ones that I tied up?” Norma asked.
“Just leave them,” I said. “We’ll call the paramedics in, and they can take it from there.”
As we hurried toward the bar exit, I told Aileen to call in emergency responders to Patch’s, and when she said that they were already on their way, I slipped out the door with Norma as fast as possible. The former
drones in the bar all looked like they were about to have a fuck-ton of questions, and I didn’t want any part of that.
I had done my job, and now it was time for someone else to do theirs.
Besides, I had other things on my plate at the moment, and that included figuring out what the Maniac’s goddamn master plan was. I knew he had one, and it clearly involved Dynamo in some way, but that was probably just because he knew how close she was to me.
After all, I had taken the closest person in his life away from him when I killed the Shadow Knight, so I was sure that the Maniac had some sick sort of vengeance in mind. That was the whole reason that he was playing this game with me, just like it was the whole reason that he kept recruiting supervillains to attack Grayville and keep me busy.
But if he thought that he would wear me out or make me let my guard down, he clearly didn’t understand the game that we were playing, and he wouldn’t understand it… right up until the moment that I finally killed him.
Chapter 9
Once we were back at the mansion, I let Norma head back into the house first, while I pulled out my phone to call Beacon. I hadn’t heard from him all day, but I had also told him that I would contact him after we finished everything on our end.
“Miles!” Beacon answered after the first ring.
“Did you get your target?” I asked.
“Yep, just about an hour ago,” Beacon replied. “I was going to call you, but I didn’t want to interrupt you if you were still in the middle of your fight.”
“I was, so thanks,” I said. “Did you have any problems?”
“No, it got a little sticky toward the end, but I killed him,” Beacon said, “and I even got out of there before the reporters showed up.”
“Good,” I said. “Then go get some rest tonight, okay? You have a company to run, after all, and I’m sure I’ll need you again to stop the Maniac.”
“Should we, uh, be worried about his plans?” Beacon asked. “I know he threatened a whole bunch of stuff, but so far, nothing has really
happened. Other than a bunch of supervillains all teaming up to attack the city at once, anyway.”
“Apparently, we have less than thirty-six hours,” I said, “but since we’re talking about the Maniac, I would guess that it’s actually a little less than that. It all depends on his mood, of course, so the reality is we have at least twenty-four hours to figure out his plan and stop it, but hopefully we’ll have about twelve hours after that, too.”
“Shit,” Beacon sighed. “I guess that’s more than we knew before.”
“Yep,” I agreed, “and I have a feeling I’ll have more to tell you in the morning. Now go get some sleep. Tell Julien to wake you up if I call back.”
“You got it,” Beacon replied. “Thanks, Miles.”
I stretched as I got out of the car and then headed inside to join the rest of my team where they were all seated around the kitchen table.
Penumbra had made spaghetti and meatballs, and Norma had just brought over a little more pepper to finish it off. Aileen stood to the side of the table with her head tilted to the side like she was running two dozen different programs at once.
As soon as my gorgeous girlfriend saw me, Elizabeth served up a steaming portion of pasta for me and then gave herself some, too. Everyone
had changed into civilian clothes except for Norma and me, so we quickly ducked out to change into something a little looser.
“So, I called Beacon, and he said that he got his target, too,” I said as I came back and seated myself in front of my plate of pasta. “So I’d say we all had a pretty successful day, wouldn’t you?”
“Definitely,” Penumbra said. “We were so productive!”
“It’s true,” Elizabeth said. “Now there are five less supervillains for Grayville to deal with, and that’s also five less supervillains that the Maniac can’t use against us anymore.”
“Did Norma tell you what Honeybee said?” I asked.
“That we have less than thirty-sex hours to stop the Maniac’s plan?”
Norma gulped. “Oh! I meant thirty-six.”
“Somebody’s got something else on their mind,” Penumbra giggled.
Elizabeth just glared across the table at the slender blonde until she fell quiet, and Norma shot her a grateful look.
I was glad that Elizabeth knew about Norma’s feelings for me and seemed to actually be more protective of her for that reason. I already knew that Elizabeth didn’t mind sharing me, thanks to the threesome we just had with Aileen, and I already knew that they liked each other and that my superpowered girlfriend always tried to give my assistant a confidence
boost. But still, it was good to know that her feelings extended to Norma, too.
“So we have less than thirty-six hours to stop him?” Elizabeth repeated as she stabbed a meatball with her fork. “Are we any closer to figuring out his plan?”
“Hey, at least the rest of the supervillains have backed off,”
Penumbra said. “There haven’t been any more reports of anything major since I got back around lunch. Just small-time stuff that the cops have been able to handle.”
“That’s good,” Norma said. “Right? That’s good?”
“Yeah, that’s what we wanted,” I said. “We wanted all the other bad guys to lay low for a while, so we can concentrate our full attention on the Maniac.”
“Well, he blew up the bridges all leading into Grayville,” Elizabeth said. “Could it be a bunch of bombs all set to go off at a certain time?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “The Maniac wants something dramatic, and he’s already played the bomb card, so it would have to be something else.”
“Plus, it would have to be something that made everybody go crazy,”
Norma said. “I mean, because we’re all supposed to tear each others’ skin
off and everything.”
“Oh, right, that,” Penumbra sighed. “I almost forgot.”
“Creator,” Aileen suddenly said as she took a step toward the table.
“I have traced it.”
“Traced what?” Norma asked through a mouthful of spaghetti.
“You mean you’ve traced the signal?” I asked.
“What signal?” Penumbra asked.
“Where the initial broadcast came from,” I said. “The one that the Maniac hacked into all the TV stations with.”
“Yes, I have traced it back to the source,” Aileen said. “It is one of his former hideouts.”
“Well, he does like to go back and re-use old ones sometimes,”
Elizabeth said, “so that makes sense. Which hideout?”
“It is a warehouse in the eastern quadrant of the city, beside a trucking company’s loading bay,” Aileen answered. “He has not used it in approximately six months.”
“At least u
ntil now,” Norma muttered. “We don’t actually think he’s still there, do we?”
“Oh, I highly doubt it,” I said, “but I’m sure he left us some sort of clue there, or at the very least, some sort of trap.”
“Isn’t that reassuring?” Norma rolled her eyes. “So when are we headed there?”
“As soon as you all finish eating,” I said and then pushed myself back from the table. “If we have less than thirty-six hours, I want to get going as soon as possible.”
“Then the spaghetti can wait,” Norma said as she stood up, too.
“Let’s suit up.”
“Do you want us all to come with you, Miles?” Elizabeth asked.
“Yes, but I’ll have Aileen stay in the van,” I replied. “I know you got your first taste of action tonight, so I’m sure you want more, but I still don’t want the Maniac to know about you just yet.”
“I am your secret weapon,” Aileen said, “so I understand.”
“If the Maniac is there, then I might have you come in and help us fight him,” I continued, “but I’m sure it’ll just be some kind of ambush like he planned for us on the yacht, and if that’s the case, then he doesn’t need to know that you exist.”
“I look forward to his surprise when he discovers everything that I can do,” my robotic assistant said.
“Likewise,” I said with a smirk. “But everybody else will come into the warehouse with me, so get changed and meet me at the van.”
“You got it, boss,” Penumbra said as she floated up away from the table and darted across the living room.
It didn’t take us long to slip back into our suits and meet up at my soccer mom van. Norma sat up front with me, while Aileen, Elizabeth, and Penumbra all stayed in the back as I drove as quickly as I could toward the warehouse that had sent the transmission.
There was much less traffic on the road now than there had been earlier that day, or even earlier tonight, so it seemed like things had started to settle down, at least for the moment. Of course, I was sure that people were still panicked thanks to the Maniac’s message, but they must all be hiding in their homes or trying to build a raft to get across the water that surrounded Grayville.
But the supervillains in the city were quiet, and that should buy us a little more time to deal with the Maniac. Sure, he might have enlisted a few more to ambush us at the warehouse we were headed to now, but I had a feeling that the supers we had just killed today had been some of his best hires. And if that was the case, then he had probably just hired some armed thugs to carry out his dirty work at the warehouse.
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