by Drew Hayes
No sooner had they exited their building than the car was there, human-appearing helper bots coming to cart away their luggage. If Wade wanted, he could have upended the entire travel industry overnight with these helpers, to say nothing of slotting them into manual labor jobs. Tori hadn’t seen everything behind the curtain, but she had a hunch these inventions were what kept a massive structure like the guild functioning. She’d certainly never seen Thuggernaut or Xelas scrubbing toilets. The latter would probably blow one up if she tried.
It was one more pointless, nervous thought atop an array of them. Despite her soft spot for the guild, going back would always be a slightly scary prospect. The people she’d aligned herself with were not to be trifled with. Even trying to live under the radar, there was an inherent danger to all of them. Ivan, easily the most domesticated villain of any she’d met, had proven that point earlier this week. These people lived by their laws, not society’s, but breaking them still carried consequences.
“Where do you think we’re going?” Beverly was looking out the window as the streets rolled past. They were heading toward a highway junction; once there, they’d get a better idea of their destination’s direction. “Can’t be back downtown. No way even Wade could do that much construction without someone noticing.”
“Never underestimate Doctor Mechaniacal’s ingenuity, especially with the pockets of Wade Wyatt backing him up.” While Ivan was her mentor and teacher, Doctor Mechaniacal was the villain Tori had grown up respecting most. He was a builder like her, who’d gone down the same path she wanted to travel: inventor, entrepreneur, a person in charge of their own destiny.
The car hit the highway junction and turned east. It rolled along past several exits, then took one much sooner than either woman was expecting. The car wound its way along a twisting side street that was surrounded by trees before finally breaking over a hill, lending Beverly and Tori their first glimpse of an exceptional view.
Huge sections of grass framed either side of the wide road, dotted by walking paths leading off to tennis courts, several structures of various sizes, and a massive pool. Directly before them was the major feature, though. A huge building that dripped with luxury dominated their field of view, so large it nearly obscured most of the visible golf course directly behind it. The architecture made it look old, yet there was not a single worn or unpolished section that Tori could spot. It was gorgeous, already twinkling with countless bulbs in the fading light of evening.
Lined up before it was a procession of vehicles, each similar to their own without being completely identical. One by one, the cars approached the front and unloaded their charges. There was a moment Tori was afraid they’d ended up at the wrong place somehow, but when she saw the distinctive form of Thuggernaut emerge next to a shorter shape that was most likely Johnny Three Dicks, there could be no question about it.
“That son of a bitch bought a country club.” Beverly already had her phone out, typing away on the bright digital keyboard. “Here we go: Astmire Country Club, founded in the early nineteen hundreds, did the usual rich people bullshit and fell out of fashion as better options came on the scene. Bunch of stories about them trying to rebrand and stage a comeback. Guess the Ridge City Riots were their breaking point; looks like they sold not long after. Don’t recognize the name of the company they were sold to: Majestic Meadows Management. Shell?”
“Has to be, right?” Tori agreed. She was scanning all over, taking in the scenery. Beautiful though it was, this all still felt off. They were much too exposed. Any cape with half a brain could coordinate a raid on this facility. The last guild had been a fortified building downtown, surrounded by civilian structures that limited the amount of force a cape could use. This place was easy pickings.
Reminding herself of her own words only a bit prior, Tori gave Doctor Mechaniacal the benefit of the doubt. He’d been running this guild since long before she joined. If this was the new base he’d chosen, then there was a good reason for that. And she wouldn’t have to wait long to find out.
The car eased to a stop, letting them off in front of the massive building. She and Beverly both hopped out, their bags already unloaded by the time they came around the back. Sharing a brief look with one another, they picked up their luggage and headed toward the door. Another helper-bot was waiting for them, this one with a smile that flirted at the edge of the Uncanny Valley.
“Welcome to the Sprawling Wyatt, a private club for only the most exclusive of members. Please, let one of our staff show you to the changing rooms. I’ll sure you’ll want to get ready before the festivities begin.”
Ivan sat, examining the room. It was a fine chamber for the Council of Villains to gather. Huge, circular wooden table, nice carpeting, comfortable chairs. This would be a good place for conferences. His fingers drummed against the smooth, polished surface of the table. The single item was probably more expensive than anything in Ivan’s home, even before it was partially destroyed. Wade didn’t skimp on the nicer things in life, especially not where the guild was concerned. This new base was a testament to that, and the club itself was merely the surface level of that expense.
They’d already had the meeting where Ivan brought the others up to speed on his Starscout situation. The odds of it blowing back on the guild were infinitesimal, but in a world where the impossible was commonplace, only an arrogant fool left such things to chance. Now, the others knew about the situation, and could take steps to protect themselves just in case. The only part Ivan didn’t divulge was how, exactly, he’d been in contact with Lodestar to get punished, along with the fact that she’d be serving alongside him. There was a difference between keeping the guild up to speed and betraying a friend’s trust.
All that remained now was the revelry. Then would come the trouble. Because when the toasts were drunk and the party finished, they would go back to being a guild of villains. A guild where Ivan no longer quite knew where he fit. Before, it had been simple. He had a promise to keep, a debt to repay. Well, partially repay; some debts could never truly be made whole. But the star had fallen from the sky. He no longer had to hold the worst of the world at bay to keep its people from needing their champion.
Had this issue come up a year prior, Ivan would have easily abdicated his position on the council and taken a more removed role, coming in only when truly needed. That had been before, though: before Tori, before training an apprentice and getting more involved, before remembering why he’d help found this place.
Before seeing what happened when the guild’s darker influences ran about unchecked.
He still wondered: if he’d been more involved, would he have sniffed out Balaam’s plot? Maybe not—the theatrical mage hadn’t made it onto the council without merit and skill of his own—yet Ivan couldn’t help thinking he’d have caught something.
Ivan knew himself better than most. He knew he functioned best when he had an objective, a goal, something to keep him moving. Fatherhood was excellent in the long term, but that didn’t fill the days, especially given his visitation schedule. He needed more, something to work toward. It was a serious matter for contemplation; however, Ivan realized that it likely wouldn’t happen tonight. He’d be better served by getting out of his head and paying attention to what was going on.
Wade tended to keep a few surprises, even from his fellow councilors.
The first version of the meta-suit had been a prototype, which was the polite version of saying it was an iteration that worked despite the sizable accumulation of mistakes in its design and construction. That still put it a cut above all the prior attempts that couldn’t even clear the bar of functionality, but there had been ample room for improvement.
Aside from the basic adjustments, like fine-tuning her systems and smoothing out some clunky parts in the design, Tori’s first major upgrade were the entry options. Like before, her meta-suit broke apart; however, it now also had a specialized intake and expulsion system, permitting her to jump in and out using her f
ire form. Of course, that would only work once the suit was on and powered up; otherwise, it wouldn’t stand in place while she went exploring. Between the museum fight where she was nearly captured and scrambling to put her suit on when Rust Tooth attacked Ivan’s house, Tori had decided a quick way in and out was essential.
The next serious update was to the beam weapon on one of her gauntlets. This one had been tweaked, adding a cover to the lens on the palm so it wasn’t capable of being targeted, while also streamlining the charge sequence. But the biggest change was that she now had the systems on both hands. This gizmo had saved her life, and was one of her only ways to deal out a lot of hurt in a short span, so it had definitely earned an expansion. Working them in alongside the fingertip torches was tough, but the upside to a closed guild meant that there had been ample time for such endeavors.
Her last major change was possibly the most effort-intensive of the bunch, but also had the biggest overall impact. Like the suitcase she’d brought it over in, her new suit had been fitted with dozens of smaller, less potent, miniature gravitational anomaly generators. Tori had noticed her suit’s lack of mobility the last time she’d taken it on a real run. Because of the weight, it clanged and clanked around, not to mention moved with less grace and precision than she might have liked.
The new gravitational network wasn’t meant to make the suit light enough to fly, which required far more power. Instead, this new system worked to manipulate the meta-suit’s weight constantly on a lower level, allowing the user to move around with weight near equivalent to a normal person’s when walking around, or to swing with the full heft of a metal fist. The system wasn’t perfect yet—there was still a seconds-long lag when switching between the weight settings—however, as Tori locked her last boot in place, she could feel a tremendous difference. Thanks to spreading it out over a network, displacing the gravity took less power than using the meta-suit’s full strength to move. Given further calibration, she could probably get it even more efficient, but that would have to wait for another day.
With her suit almost fully donned, Tori examined herself in the mirror. The new metal pieces were dark, like the rest, with flashes of red light shining through. She saw no reason to break a good motif. Unlike before, there were no odd lumps or bits of wire poking out. This reworked design had a bit of polish, both literal and metaphorical. Smooth lines, efficient design, she could have marveled at her work for hours. Sadly, that would have made her late, and this was not the place for such rudeness.
Carefully, with more tenderness than the item required, Tori lifted up the final component—a new helmet, with a few minor upgrades and the same glowing red eyes. There was no reason she had to make her meta-suits like this. Her villain apprenticeship was over. She was free. If Tori wanted to work on meta-suits that were more market friendly, she could: make a prototype of that, get funding on her terms, start the next phase of her life. And maybe she would, when she was ready. But this wasn’t just a meta-suit anymore. This was something more, something personal. Tori would always make the suits for this place intimidating, because if she was donning it, there was a good chance she wanted to be scary.
A small hiss from the helmet’s lock as it sealed onto the torso section. For a moment, darkness, and then the screen before her grew bright. Visual systems cycled through their start-up sequence before locking into the standard viewmode. This showed what was in front of the user, along with additional information that could be toggled through as needed. No such features were required in the moment; just seeing was more than enough.
Tori had vanished. In her place stood Hephaestus, known thief and suspected connection with Fornax.
Seeing the form, part of her had been worried it would feel strange to be back in the suit… like this was a delusion from her time training, and in the cold light of reality, things would feel different. The fear had been baseless. In that moment, she felt the difference come over her. Even if she hadn’t understood it at the time, she was thankful Ivan had forced Tori to divide her identities. It was good to have a line between Tori and Hephaestus.
With the armor in place, Hephaestus opened the door to find Beverly in costume and green dragon form—which meant she was now Bahamut—along with one of the butler-bots.
“About time,” Bahamut rumbled in the rougher voice of her dragon.
“One cannot hurry perfection.” Hephaestus sounded different as well, Tori’s voice run through a minor distorter. The effect could be increased when she was talking to capes, but it defaulted to a lower setting to keep communication easy. “Besides, I don’t think we’re late.”
“Not yet, but the hour draws nigh. If you would both follow me.” The butler turned and headed down a new hallway, and the suit of mechanical black metal and the humanoid green dragon followed.
Chapter 12
When they arrived at the staircase winding downward, into what had no doubt originally been a wine cellar, Hephaestus felt a hunch tickle her mind. Perhaps Doctor Mechaniacal hadn’t left them exposed after all. If the country club up top was a simple façade, there could be any manner of facilities installed into the lower floor.
Together, she and Bahamut made their way single file down the stairs. It was big enough to accommodate even their most sizable members, albeit not by a large margin. Stepping down into a short hallway, they followed the only path forward.
There had certainly been some renovations down here, though not quite to the scale Hephaestus was imagining. Lights hummed along the walls, the air crackled with power, and Hephaestus felt more at home among the staggering amount of tech lining the walls. Most of it was no doubt designed to conceal this place’s existence and protect it from outsiders; however, at least some had to be related to the enormous metal gateway at the far end of the room—a perfect arch that seemed to lead to a stone wall, energy sparking along its various spires and panels.
“If you would please be so kind as to wait, the next gate will be opening shortly.” Another helper-bot was standing by the arch. Except... this one didn’t look quite right. Tori might be subpar at reading people, but she was an expert when it came to technology. This bot had a mild slump in its stance, and the hints of a mischievous twist at the edge of its mouth. On a human, minor blips, but machines didn’t get to deviate and have individual quirks… except for the ones that had achieved sentience, of course.
“You can drop the hologram, Xelas.” Hephaestus was, admittedly, taking a swing. Then again, there were only so many troublemaking AIs associated with the guild, and Xelas loved to mess with people.
The image of a plain man flickered away. In his place stood a metallic woman of great renown in the scientific community. Xelas, the first artificially-created lifeform to sue for and win her freedom, might have ended up on the side of the capes if not for the circumstance of her creation. Even if that had happened, she’d have never been right for them: a guild of villains was where she belonged. And few ever looked as at home in the guild as Xelas, her artificial face capable of displaying very real emotion, when she so chose.
“Can’t blame me for seeing how you lot treat the non-sentients. Have to watch their backs.” Stepping away from the wall, Xelas motioned to the arch before them. “Anyone think they know what this is?”
Bahamut started to raise her hand, then thought better of it. “Teleporter? I mean, we saw people come in here, got led to this room, and now no one else is around. It’s either a teleporter or you’re about to kill us and use that thing to get rid of our bodies.”
Hephaestus hadn’t actually considered that, which was all the more worrying when Xelas gave an enthusiastic nod.
“Not where we’re taking things tonight, but I like your instincts. You’re sort of right in that it’s a teleporter, and sort of wrong. It’s a linked gateway. I’ll spare you the technobabble; just know that achieving true teleportation using pure tech is crazy difficult, even with the former laws of physics being turned more into guidelines. It’s been done, but th
e only people who could properly use those devices were the ones who invented them—that’s how complex they were. Creating a linked system between two gates, on the other hand, is way more doable. We didn’t have the technology perfected when the last guild was being constructed, however this time, our options were expanded.”
Beneath the gauntlets of Hephaestus, Tori’s fingers itched to dig into this strange system’s circuitry. It was insane how far ahead people like Wade and Professor Quantum were. If she were attempting to invent this on her own, it would have been an impossible task. Luckily, one of the upsides to being a villain was that stealing went right along with the territory. Not that she planned to copy any of their designs—just learn from them, and then integrate that tech into her own works. A teleporting meta-suit, for example, would have tremendous possibilities.
“Sounds pretty awesome. Why the wait?” Bahamut lumbered slightly closer, giving the metal a test sniff with her scaly snout.
“This thing takes a ton of power to run. During normal operations, we’ll have a real helper-bot here to turn it on and off as needed. Tonight, knowing villains’ tendency to stagger in regardless of starting time, Doc left it running on ten-minute intervals. Next one is coming up soon. In fact, both of you should get ready.”
At Xelas’s words, the air around the arch grew heavy, like the wind just before a lightning storm. Sharp blue bolts ran from one side to the other, increasing in number until the whole space looked like a web built by some sort of electric spider. Without warning, the center appeared to ignite, creating a wave of rippling energy that finally stabilized into a mostly-constant wall of blue light.