by C. T. Phipps
“My telepathic abilities reveal that she really does love me,” Leia said softly. “Under many, many, many layers of selfishness and arrogance.”
“Add a few more layers there,” Cindy said.
“I agree,” I said.
Cindy swatted me. “Only I get to admit how horribly I screwed up.”
“I forgive you for my many, many, many years of therapy,” Leia said.
“Thank you,” Cindy said. “I’m sure Gary played a role in that, too.”
“No, not really,” Leia said, smiling. “Best father ever.”
“We even got him the mug!” Mindy said, smiling.
I admit I chuckled at that.
Reyan stared at them like they were a ray of hope. “You’re from the future? That means you know how things turn out? Does it get better?”
“Nope!” Leia said.
“What?” Reyan said, blinking.
“Sorry. The future sucks. That’s why we’re trying to change it,” Mindy said, speaking with an Atlas City accent. Apparently, that was where I was going to move sometime in the near future.
“This must be very confusing for you,” Gabrielle said to John and Mercury.
“Not really,” Mercury said. “It gives me a warm sense of comfort that our reality isn’t the only crappy one in the universe.”
“How did the future end this time?” I asked, taking this less seriously than I did last time. “Zombies? No, we did that. Time-traveling Nazis? Nope. Also done. A war between the Muggles and the Supers? Actually, that seems to be a running theme around here.”
“We can’t use the word Muggles,” Cindy said. “Joan Rowling copyrighted that. I think.”
“Come on!” I snapped. “It’s so perfect for referring to them.”
“True,” Cindy said. “Now that I have superpowers, I feel an overwhelming disdain and dislike for inferior beings. Perhaps I should infect everyone with werewolfism—”
“Lycanthropy,” I corrected.
“Whatever,” Cindy said. “Then I shall be their Wolf Queen! All shall love me and scratch behind my ears!”
“You stopped being a supervillain,” I pointed out.
“I did?” Cindy asked.
“Yes, because Mandy sacrificed her life and inspired you to reform,” I mentioned.
“Yes, but then she came back and…oh wait, she didn’t. Dammit!” Cindy snapped. “Okay, forget the whole plans for world domination. What do our Brats from the Future want from us, anyway?”
“For me to take over the world,” I deadpanned.
“Wait, what?” Gabrielle and Reyan asked simultaneously.
“Is there an echo in here?” Cindy asked. “Also, no fair! I want to rule the world. This is sexist!”
Leia made a strangling gesture before putting her hands behind her back and smiling. “It’s complicated—”
I felt a headache coming on and soon found myself suffering another flashback. I was getting sick of those. While making my life more like the Highlander films (watch the first one and pretend the others don’t exist) was cool and all, this was not helpful to my present-day social status.
One second, I was in the Hollow Earth and the next I was standing in a cabin in the future. Both daughters, dressed similarly but not identically, were sitting down at a table in front of me. It had happened a year in the past, though the three of us were in the future, and Mandy had just been revealed to have been replaced by an imposter. The original Mandy, my Mandy, had been dead for years and I’d never noticed. Worse, there was no reset button. The consequences of the superhero world couldn’t be reversed and could never be again.
Whee.
Man, did I long for the days when death was an inconvenience for the good guys.
“It never was,” Leia said, frowning at me. “Death only was reversed when it amused the hidden masters of the universe. Unfortunately, it was permanent and traumatizing for most people.”
I blinked at her.
“Telepath, remember?” Leia said, pointing at her head.
“I thought I said never to read my mind,” I said, pointing at her. “No ice cream for you.”
“I’m lactose intolerant,” Leia said. “You should probably learn that.”
“I wondered why Cindy ordered a hundred gallons of special non-milk-based alien cheese for our pizzeria,” I said.
Leia smirked.
“So, what do you want?” I asked, trying not to fall over. I’d literally just escaped the End of the Universe and was still reeling from the world’s most epic beatdown. While my enhanced powers had kept me alive, I still felt like Rocky after his fight with Ivan Drago at the start of Rocky V. You know, the one we don’t talk about? Oh wait, you might not have seen every piece of media I mention in my asides.
You should fix that.
“We need you to try to take over the world,” Mindy said, nonchalantly. “Like really try to take it over, not just say you’re going to take it over but do nothing to actually make it happen.”
I walked over to the wall and leaned up against it so I wouldn’t collapse. “I’ll have you know that I own one of the world’s largest soft drink and pizza joint firms! Your stomachs belong to me as does your caffeine intake!”
Mindy rolled her eyes. “This is serious, Dad.”
“I’m not actually a big fan of taking over the world now,” I said, taking several deep breaths. “I thought I’d be able to share it with Mandy. Now I know I won’t be. Plus, did you know that I probably will have to kill innocent people to take over? I mean, no one pointed that out! It makes evil so permanent!”
“We’re serious, Dad,” Leia said.
“So am I,” I said, looking between them. “I was really hoping you’d take after your mother, Mindy. She’s a hero and someone I wish I could be like in the entirely not-hot Afro-Latina superheroine sense but the moral person way. I don’t think I could pull off the former. As for you, Leia, I was hoping you’d not take after your mother in any way whatsoever. Well, except for the fact she’s brilliant. I’ve never seen someone with such a high IQ concoct so many ways of avoiding work and responsibility. Well, except for me, obviously.”
“We’re not supervillains,” Leia said, sounding increasingly annoyed. “We’re police.”
“Take that earlier disappointment and magnify it by ten,” I said, shaking my head. “Where did I go wrong with you? It’s not too late! Turn back from your police ways and embrace the path of criminality! I’ll even accept you as superheroes! Some of my best friends are heroes! Just don’t disgrace your family like—”
“Time cops,” Mindy interrupted, as annoyed as her sister.
“Oh, that’s different,” I said, immediately relieved. “Do you know Jean-Claude Van Damme?”
“Who?” Leia asked.
“I’m going to give you a pass on that one,” I said. “Even if the movie Street Fighter should have been part of your education growing up.”
“We’re the last Time Cops,” Mindy said, with a sense of gravity. “All of the others have been killed by the Thordrax.”
“Who are they?” I asked.
“Evil mutant robot aliens,” Leia said. “President Omega made them with technology from the planet Abaddon.”
“Entropicus and President Omega? Great, two shitty tastes that taste worse together. Wait, I thought I killed President Omega.”
“You did,” Mindy said. “He’s so terrified of you now that he refuses to go to any point of history where you’re still alive.”
That was both flattering and terrifying. Mind you, President Omega was a coward at heart like all fascists. Entropicus, despite my winning against him through sheer dumb luck, I expected was more annoyed at having been beaten by a B-list supervillain. Like that time Ultragod lost to the Leapfrog. Everybody has their off days.
“I obviously need to work on that immortality thing,” I said, frowning. “I’m not sure how my taking over the world helps, though.”
Both girls exchanged a glance. �
�In the way history was meant to be, Ultragod, the Nightwalker, and Guinevere were meant to inspire the next generation of heroes who inspired the next and so on.”
“I take it that doesn’t happen now?” I asked, noting two of those three were dead and the third had become an angry antihero.
“No,” Mindy said. “The revelation of the Nightwalker’s involvement in the Brotherhood of Infamy and Ultragod being killed by, well, you did a number on the way they were remembered. Guinevere is now a quotix and has lost much of her symbol of hope status.”
“A what?”
“It’s a non-gendered slang term from the future. It basically means people think she’s a bit—”
“Yeah, I get it,” I said, interrupting. “What about Gabrielle? I mean, she’s every bit the hero her father was. More so I’d argue since she just saved the entire multiverse from Entropicus. With my help, of course.”
I’d always thought Gabrielle was the greatest hero on Earth. I admit to bias, but this was before I was sleeping with her, she carried my child, and shot two Nazis in front of me. Whereas Ultragod was a shining example of morality and as close to a real-life paladin as you could get, he was also a little too conservative in his beliefs.
When crises happened, Moses Anders always tried to do the lawful thing as well as the righteous thing. He worked well with the courts, governments, religions, and scientific community as a result. Gabrielle? Gabrielle never let anything get in the way of doing good. She’d single-handedly ended civil wars and dealt with the fallout afterward.
Mindy frowned. “Our mom is…controversial.”
Cindy grimaced. “For a lot of reasons.”
“Like what?” I asked, assuming it had to do with me.
They instead listed all the various opinions she’d spouted on every subject ranging from women’s rights to American socialism.
I blinked. “Wow, there is something in there to offend everyone. Where does having a child out of wedlock with a supervillain rank?”
“Not even top fifty,” Leia said.
“Ouch.”
“Just under its right to punch Nazis,” Cindy said. “We accept that’s right in the future.”
I processed that. “Good. I have to ask, is it really appropriate to go from ‘we need a hero to unite us’ to ‘Gary, you should be the dictator of everything.’ I feel like we’re missing a few steps.”
“You don’t have to take over the world, just try,” Cindy said.
“There is no try, do or do not,” Mindy said.
“Now I’m confused,” I said.
“Superheroes aren’t the only people who advance the world,” Leia said. “In addition to hope, there’s also fear. New alliances are formed in the face of threats, technology advances, and funding of large-scale infrastructure changes. As the top rises, so does the bottom.”
“Yes, Leia, because I am the most terrifying supervillain of them all,” I said, dryly. “Oooh.”
“You could be,” Mindy said. “Either way, Entropicus is going to invade sometime in the next fifty years. Depending on how weak humanity has made itself by dividing itself between Supers and humans, it could be worse than when President Omega took over. Worse, without humanity to provide the lion’s share of superhuman defenders in the coming Galaxy Wars, well—”
“Well, what?” I asked, having no idea what the Galaxy Wars were.
“Well, it’s like if the U.S. fails to show up for World War Two. The war may or may not be lost but the results sure as hell are worse in the long run.”
I sucked in my breath. “I can’t do this. Don’t ask me to.”
“What?” Both my daughters said simultaneously. “Are you serious?”
“Don’t Doublemint Twins me,” I said. “You can’t pull it off. As for the rest? I… I just can’t. Mandy is gone. Again. Maybe I knew it on some level. Maybe I knew I was deluding myself. But, well, it just isn’t fun playing dress-up anymore.”
Cindy and Mindy stared at me.
“What?” I asked. “I was thinking of retiring from supervillainy before I saved the entire multiverse. I’m out.”
“Oh, Dad,” Mindy said before sighing. “You’re never out.”
That was when I woke up from my flashback to Cindy snapping her fingers in front of my face. She grabbed in a headlock and gave me a noogie. “Hello, McFly! Wake up!”
“Gah! What the hell!” I snapped, throwing her off. “You do not do that to the future ruler of humanity!”
Mercury looked at John. “Wow, we picked a real bunch of winners to side with here.”
“Eh, they killed a bunch of superpowered monsters and their minions,” John said, shrugging. “That makes them okay in my book.”
“Sorry,” I said, blinking. “My magic rock is making me see the past.”
Mindy and Leia stared at me.
“He also has a concussion,” Gabrielle said.
“That is completely irrelevant!” I raised my hands in the air. “So, what magical insight can you provide me from the future now that I’ve decided to actually follow your advice a year too late?”
“The President has declared you an enemy of the United States and sent the entire U.S. Army to your house,” Leia said.
“Oh,” I said, realizing I may have screwed up back there. I was suddenly terrified for the younger version of my kids, Jane, Case, and Kerri.
“It gets worse,” Mindy said.
“How?” I asked.
“The President’s Chief of Staff is behind P.H.A.N.T.O.M down here.”
Cindy turned to me. “You know, they’ve got a serious problem with fascists in Washington, D.C. Next time, I’m voting Independent.”
CHAPTER TEN
WAR FOR FUN AND PROFIT
“Seriously?” I looked at them before putting my hand over my face. “The Chief of Staff is a P.H.A.N.T.O.M agent? Didn’t we just do this plot? People are going to think I’m anti-American.”
“You did kill the President,” Cindy pointed out.
“He wasn’t the President,” I snapped. “They removed that title from him retroactively. I’m not even sure he’s still in continuity.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Cindy said, shaking her head.
“He is, unfortunately,” Mindy said, ignoring the weirdness of all this or perhaps just thriving in it. “P.H.A.N.T.O.M has always had their Crimson Elite agents that have infiltrated the highest levels of government. The majority were rounded up when President Omega was killed but a small number still operate in high levels of the government.”
“Now we’re ripping off G.I. Joe?” I asked.
“Shh,” Gabrielle said, staring. “If the Chief of Staff is a P.H.A.N.T.O.M agent then this might explain why superheroes are outlawed in the United States. We can get that law overturned.”
I sighed. “Yeah, I feel that’s a bit more complicated. The world used to be all capes, jet packs, and talking gorillas. Now it’s antiheroes, social commentary, and fantastic racism. I feel like we should just call it quits with the Society of Superheroes and join the O-men.”
“I like the X-Men movies,” Cindy said. “Mmm, Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds.”
“Famke Jansen and Hallie Berry for me,” I muttered. “Anyway, I’m not sure what benefit even a rogue branch of the U.S. government, accent on rogue, has to benefit from sending a bunch of Nazis to the center of the Earth.”
“Orichalcum,” Mindy said, saying the name of a mineral every government on Earth would kill to possess.
“Sounds like a sex game,” Cindy said. “But that’s not possible since I’ve never heard of it.”
Leia gagged, apparently having lost her tolerance for parental sex thoughts upon hitting puberty.
“Nope, that’s not it,” Cindy said, tapping the side of her head with one finger. “Maybe this one. No wait, that’s a Dirty Cindy.”
Leia looked disgusted.
“Oh hush, you’ve seen worse in my brain,” Cindy said. “You wouldn’t believe some
of the sick and perverted—”
“It’s crystalized magical energy,” Gabrielle, thankfully, interrupted. “One of the most valuable substances in the universe. Ultranium is the refined plutonium version.”
I nodded, knowing what it was. “Orichalcum is a basic component of pretty much every super-science invention or accident that grants superpowers. If you want to build something like a cold fusion device, perpetual motion machine, or other physics-defying object then you should include orichalcum. Orichalcum radiation is also the stuff that causes people to get superpowers when they’re dumped in toxic waste or bitten by radioactive llamas rather than developing cancer.”
“Radioactive llamas?” Gabrielle asked.
“You don’t want to know,” I said, shaking my head. “Almost led to the alpacalypse.”
Man, I missed Niki Tesla.
“Chief of Staff Steve Duck sent P.H.A.N.T.O.M down here to kill the locals and enslave them before sending all of the orichalcum back to the U.S.A.,” Mindy explained.
Gabrielle narrowed her eyes at the mention of the Chief of Staff’s name. Steve Duck sounded familiar to me too. Not just in an ‘I don’t know the names of all the President’s staff but have probably heard them somewhere’ way either.
“Why take all the orichalcum?” Cindy asked. “What’s the government going to do with it?”
“Make their own army of superhumans,” Gabrielle said, horrified. “That will kick off an arms race between various world powers. It’s what my father always feared. He believed the militarization of superpowers would be the end of humanity.”
“All governments depend on the monopolization of force,” John said, sagely. “They were never going to be friendly to independent superhumans. Any group that opposed their will becomes an existential threat.”
“That was surprisingly erudite,” I said.
“Why surprisingly?” John asked, narrowing his eyes. He’d misread my meaning.
“Uh, because you’re from a post-apocalyptic wasteland?” I said, grimacing.
“Listen, I know Tom Terror,” I said, exaggerating my knowledge of the world’s most famous supervillain. “If he’s the Phantom Leader then there’s no way in hell he’s going to be taking orders from the United States. Chief of Staff, President, or even an animated Statue of Liberty. The moment he takes over the Hollow Earth, he’ll try for the rest of the planet then the star system, and then the galaxy. From there, the universe.”