Ex-Superheroes

by A. J. Markam

  “Fine.”

  “Can we do something about this?” I said, tugging at the metal collar around my neck.

  “Not until they say ‘yes.’” Harding turned to go down a separate corridor but spoke over his shoulder. “Lt. Smith will show you around the ship. If you try anything, she’s under orders to kill you.”

  As Harding disappeared, I turned to Hot Chick. “Is that so.”

  “Yes it is,” she said with a smile.

  “Kill me how, exactly?”

  She fired up her power – literally.

  Flames danced from the ends of her black gloves like somebody’d turned up a gas stove.

  “Aha,” I said with a nod. “I was wondering what your power was. Do you have a stupid-ass codename, too?”

  “Nova.”

  “Not bad.”

  “Better than yours, I hear.”

  I grimaced. “Just show me the damn ship.”

  It was a Kraken-class submarine – the biggest class in the US Navy, with its own retractable hull over a 300-foot-long flight deck. It was only good for sparkjets and other smaller craft with vertical-takeoff-and-landing capabilities, but that exactly the kind of plane I needed.

  Nova led me through the enclosed hangar, past two dozen technicians and mechanics working on half a dozen VTOLs. We bypassed several planes until we reached exactly what I wanted: a 70-foot sparkjet with a full cargo bay, two-person cockpit, supersonic capability, a 15,000 mile range – and no visible markings.

  “This’ll do nicely,” I said as I walked around the aircraft, then added with a smirk, “Looks like you were already prepared to offer me whatever I needed.”

  “Harding was,” she said coolly. “Not me.”

  “Too bad for you, since you’re stuck babysitting.”

  “‘Babysitting’ isn’t exactly the phrase I would have used. ‘Asshole-sitting’ is closer.”

  I laughed. “You don’t like me very much, do you?”

  “I don’t like you at all.”

  I walked over in front of her. “What’d I ever do to you?”

  “Besides the crass sexual innuendos and comments about muzzling me?” she asked, her jaw set.

  “You hated me long before that, sweetheart.”

  That got her dudgeon up.

  “I’m not your sweetheart,” she sneered, “and I hate you because you’re a disgrace to the program and the uniform.”

  “Ohhhh,” I chuckled, then turned back to inspect the ship. “A true believer. Don’t worry, reality’ll beat that out of you sooner or later.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You really must be green, because you’re way too smart to buy the line of crap they’re selling. So let me lay it out for you. The SPCC doesn’t exist to protect ‘truth, justice, and the American way.’ The SPCC is a weapon designed so the US and the rest of the S7 can keep their boot on everybody else’s neck.”

  The US and six other countries – the UK, Germany, Japan, Russia, China, and India – were known as the S7, and were the only nations in the world whose militaries were allowed to use Ephemera to create Super-Powered Combatants. For everybody else, it was illegal.

  Funny how the seven biggest economies on earth just happened to now be the most powerful, too.

  The S7 would supply SPCs to allies – for example, the US had loaned plenty of superheroes to Canada on an exchange program – but nobody else was allowed to create SPCs themselves.

  By the way, no other country in the world agreed to that. The S7 just upped and signed a treaty one day and shut everybody else out of the superhero game… and then started attacking other countries that called ‘Bullshit’ and tried to make their own superheroes.

  Which meant the US and their six buddies had created a hell of a black market for illegal Ephemera and smuggling services like mine.

  You know… back before I got caught and sent to Karkarin.

  Nova wasn’t buying it, though.

  “If you hate the SPCC so much, then why’d you sign up for it?” she snapped.

  “Because I didn’t find out the truth until I was neck-deep in shit. Which is what they feed you in the program. Propaganda, lies, and horseshit. You should really stop swallowing it and start thinking for yourself.”

  She shook her head in contempt. “I can’t believe they let someone like you serve alongside someone like Goldhawk.”

  Okay, that pissed me off.

  I walked over and got right up in her face. “I knew Goldhawk. He was part of my squad, and he didn’t like the situation any more than… I did…”

  Suddenly it all clicked.

  “Wait – you knew him, too, didn’t you?” I asked.

  Nova stared off into the distance and nodded silently.

  “Friend of yours?”

  She clenched her jaw and tried not to show any emotion. “And a mentor.”

  Goldhawk had to have been killed along with everybody else three days ago.

  Shit – now it suddenly it all made sense why she was so angry at me.

  All the people she’d ever looked up to – dead.

  And I got away scot-free, cuz I most definitely was not a fuckin’ hero.

  “How many people did you know?” I asked. “Of the ones who died.”

  “Almost a dozen. Four of them were good friends.”

  Nova had teared up, but she was holding it together.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Goldhawk was a good guy.”

  She looked at me with furious contempt. “He was a hero.”

  By most people’s reckoning, I’m sure he was. Not by mine. But he was a good guy.

  Shit got complicated when you were a professional assassin for the government. They couldn’t call you by your real job description, so they just called you a hero instead.

  When I didn’t say anything, Nova must have taken that as a challenge to his memory or something. “He was a decorated soldier who risked his life.”

  “So was I, once upon a time.”

  She narrowed her eyes angrily. “He wasn’t a traitor.”

  “Yeah – that was one of the few things I didn’t like about him.”

  Now she was spitting mad. “I don’t know what the hell Harding was thinking, bringing you on – ”

  “His options are limited, that’s what he’s thinking. And the SPCC’s always been A-OK with doing whatever it takes whenever their options are limited.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  I turned around and walked back to the ship. “Serve a few more years in the Corps, you’ll find out.”

  “Tell me something – did you become a traitor because you got so jaded? Or did you get so jaded so you could justify being a traitor?”

  “I got jaded because of all the people I was ordered to kill. And I quit because I didn’t want to find out what comes after ‘jaded.’”

  “That’s profound,” she sneered. “You should put it on a coffee cup.”

  “There’s probably already one with it in the gift shop,” I said, jerking my thumb back towards the rear of the hangar.

  “What – oh,” she said, realizing I was joking, then went back to being angry. “You think you’re funny, don’t you.”

  “And handsome, too. Don’t forget about handsome.”

  She rolled her eyes. But before she could say anything else, Harding walked into the hangar. Next to him was a soldier in camo carrying a bundle of stuff in his arms.

  “It’s a go,” Harding announced jauntily.

  I smiled at Nova, though I addressed Harding as I spoke. “You don’t say. The SPCC is willing to work with a traitor just because their options are limited? Do tell.”

  Nova glowered at me.

  I switched to looking at Harding. “What about the pardons?”

  The general handed over a piece of paper with an official military seal. I scanned it and saw it was all there: a pardon for me, and a pardon and $10 million payday for any individual who helped me assassinate SPCs who
had taken over metropolitan areas, contingent upon blah blah blah. It got boring, so I skipped to the end.

  All of it was signed by the man at the top, the one no longer physically in the White House. Obviously a copy from a laser printer, but it wasn’t like they were going to Fed-Ex the original out here in the next two hours.

  Harding basically read my mind. “That’s about as official as you’re going to get.”

  “That’ll be enough,” I said as I folded up the paper. “I’m gonna need some cash, though.”

  The soldier beside Harding handed over a stack of greenbacks. I shuffled through it quickly, estimating the count. Maybe $25,000.

  “This is it?” I asked.

  “All we’ve got is American,” Harding said. “You’ll have to get local currencies if you go somewhere else.”

  “That’s not what I meant. People know me as a baller. I have a cover to maintain. This?” I said as I held up the wad of cash. “This’ll get me through a day. Two days, tops.”

  “That’s tax-payer money, McNeil. You’re not getting to lead a lavish lifestyle on the taxpayer’s dime.”

  “Well, then, it’s going to be a quick trip, seeing as we need to refuel the jet wherever we go,” I shot back.

  Harding gritted his teeth, then nodded once. The soldier handed over a slip of paper with a long stream of numbers on it.

  A Swiss bank account number.

  “I assume your contacts will take that?” he asked.

  “They will if there’s enough money in the account.”

  “We’ll refresh it as you use it. Memorize that number and destroy it.”

  “Already done,” I said, and handed the paper to Nova. “Here, torch that for me, will you?”

  She shot me a couple of eye-daggers, but took the paper and lit it up in her palm.

  “And here are your clothes,” Harding said as his camouflaged butler handed over a small stack of clothes. “That’s all we could scrounge up in your size from the men onboard.”

  A pair of jeans and a black t-shirt with a shitty rock band logo on it.

  “I see what I’m going to be spending some of my 25 grand on,” I muttered.

  “There’s a few caveats to your mission,” Harding said.

  “What?”

  “You can’t recruit anyone with a crime higher than manslaughter, unless the victim of the crime was another supervillain.”

  I raised one eye. “Why manslaughter?”

  “We don’t want any Genocide Gols in on this. Not exactly a good look for the US government to be recruiting serial killers.”

  I shook my head. “I wouldn’t recruit murderers anyway. You can’t trust a murderer to have your back.”

  Nova scoffed. “But you can trust a thief?”

  “More than the US Army, babe,” I shot back.

  “In addition, Lt. Smith is now your handler and teammate,” Harding said.

  “Not my handler and not my teammate. My subordinate. She takes orders from me,” I said, jerking my thumb at my chest.

  “The hell I do,” Nova snarled.

  I ignored her and spoke to Harding. “If you want this to work, I can’t have some noob second-guessing me in the middle of a fight unless you want us both ending up dead.”

  “Sir – ”

  Harding held up his hand, and Nova fell silent.

  “Lt. Smith, you will follow McNeil’s orders, so long as they do not jeopardize the overall mission of exterminating all SPC warlords with extreme prejudice. That is a direct order.”

  She slumped a little, but nodded. “Yes sir.”

  “Good,” I said with satisfaction.

  “But Lt. Smith will be piloting the ship,” Harding added.

  Nova perked up at that one.

  “No she won’t,” I snapped.

  “It’s the SPCC’s,” Harding said. “It’s on loan to you. It’s worth $150 million in taxpayer money. She’s the pilot.”

  “I was a goddamn smuggler! I cut my teeth on evasive maneuvers – ”

  “Non-negotiable,” Harding said.

  “You want to blow up this deal over who flies the goddamn plane?”

  “Do YOU?” Harding said. “If so, I can put you back in cuffs right now.”

  Shit.

  I’d known Harding long enough to know he wasn’t going to budge.

  Whatever. I’d see what I could do about getting behind the pilot’s seat later, after we were airborne.

  “Fine,” I groaned. “Whatever.”

  Nova looked especially smug.

  “Where are you headed first?” Harding asked.

  “Depends. Where the fuck are we?”

  “Off the southern coast of Australia.”

  I frowned. “Is that where Karkarin is?”

  “Was.”

  Son of a bitch. And all this time, everybody thought it was near Hawaii. I guess it was… if you can call 5000 miles away ‘nearby.’

  No wonder Doug Parth had been in on the jailbreak. The Australian mafia was just around the corner.

  I thought for a second about what was in the general neighborhood, and who I knew.

  “Who’s running Tokyo?” I asked Harding.

  “We would prefer you target an American city first,” Harding said. “DC, New York – ”

  “And I’d prefer to build my fuckin’ team the way we discussed, without any interference from you. So who’s running Tokyo?”

  Harding glared at me, but he wasn’t letting me fly the plane, so fuck him.

  “Hiroshi Takamura,” Harding said. “You probably know him as Antimatter.”

  “Oh. Great.”

  Hiroshi Takamura, aka Antimatter, aka Anti for short. I’d never done business with him before, but I’d been in the same room with him several times in the company of other supervillains. Spent enough time around him that I would immediately remember him by sight.

  His power was he could generate tiny amounts of antimatter near his body. I don’t know if you know what happens when antimatter hits matter, but it ain’t pretty. Big boom, lots of energy.

  Normally you’d think that was a problem – I mean, you use your power once and you blow off your hand, right? – but Hiroshi could psychokinetically contain the antimatter and channel the energy so it didn’t hurt him. As a result, he could throw blasts of pure energy that could punch through five inches of steel. He could even use antimatter streams under his feet to propel himself through the air at hundreds of miles an hour.

  So basically he was a flying, energy-shooting motherfucker.

  But that wasn’t the bad part.

  No, the bad part was Hiroshi was a straight-up, stone-cold killer. He’d been part of Japan’s S7 strike force, where he got a reputation for being the guy who would off women and children when his teammates got a little queasy about it. Then he figured out he could make about a million times more money outside the law, so he killed his entire unit on a mission and stepped out to become a supervillain.

  He wasn’t crazy, though. He didn’t enjoy killing. He just had ice water in his veins. No emotion whatsoever.

  Some supervillains killed for money. Some killed for power. Some killed just to watch their victims’ expression change.

  Not Anti. He didn’t necessarily want you dead – but if that was what needed to be done, he’d do it with the same emotion as signing his own name on a piece of paper.

  Not the guy you necessarily want to go head-to-head with.

  I sighed. “Is it just him, or – ”

  “He also has a subordinate named Spike.”

  “Ohhhh yeah. Good ol’ Spike.”

  I didn’t know his real name, but Spike was an American from Brooklyn, with the ‘fuck you’ attitude to match. He’d started off as the enforcer for a bunch of goons in Newark, then became one of the mob’s first experiments in black-market Ephemera.

  When they’re exposed to pure Ephemera, most people just develop mental-based powers. A much smaller number turn green, or grow gills, or what have you.<
br />
  But Ephemera that hasn’t been processed by a professional lab down to the .0001 percentile can have some nasty side effects. Like death.

  Even if you do survive the process, it becomes far more likely you’ll get the short end of the stick when it comes to powers.

  Spike didn’t just draw the short end of the stick, he got the shit end.

  Basically his entire body mutated. He turned grey, and his eyes turned black with white pupils. His skin became thick and tough as a rhino’s. Not only that, but he grew tens of thousands of two-inch-long, razor-sharp quills across his entire body. They laid down at an angle across his skin, not standing straight up, but he still kind of looked like a jacked porcupine from hell.

  Some guys would have lost their minds. Not Spike. He supposedly fuckin’ loved it. He liked beating people to death before, but you had to use a pesky bat, or brass knuckles, or a cue ball in a sock. Not anymore. He could just shred ‘em like a food processor now. Course, the clean-up was a little messy – all that blood and skin stuck to him – but Spike supposedly didn’t mind that at all.

  Not to mention his powers made him goddamn nigh invulnerable. All that thick skin was nearly as tough as Kevlar. And on top of all the other shit, he got the ability to regenerate his wounds super-fast. You could shoot him in the chest with a shotgun, knock a hole in him bigger than a basketball, and two minutes later he’d look like you scratched him with a plastic spoon.

  Word is he stayed a Jersey mob enforcer for about, oh, two months. When they only wanted to use Spike for intimidation – and believe me, I’ve met him, he’s plenty intimidating just walking into a room – Spike decided to go looking for bloodier pastures. The goombahs didn’t agree, so Spike slaughtered them all, providing a nice little ironic ending to the Newark Mob. After that he went and worked for a series of supervillains. Apparently Anti was the latest of the bunch.

  Spike wasn’t particularly ambitious. He didn’t want to be the Numero Uno. He was more than happy to be an enforcer as long as he got to kill somebody every so often. If Anti was using him, then Spike was probably being given free rein. Not good news.

  But Harding had only mentioned Spike and Antimatter.

  “Is that it?” I asked in surprise. “Just the two of them, running all of Tokyo?”