by Logan Jacobs
He swung the saw again, but his attack was slower, and he intentionally went in a wide circle to slice through all of my selves so that he wouldn’t miss the real one. It went through one, then two, and then I easily leapt backward to avoid the whirling blade.
“I see you!” he screamed, but I darted forward again and karate-chopped him across the wrist. His arm broke with a painful sounding snap, and he dropped the saw.
But then, his faintly bloodshot sullen stare fixated on my eyes.
I still had the same thoughts, but my physical movements were suddenly completely disconnected from the impulses that my brain was sending. There was absolutely nothing I could do about it as I felt my body bending down to pick up the saw that the badly crippled Virus could no longer hold for himself.
Then I slowly brought it to my own throat.
So that was what had happened to Norma when she pointed the gun at me. I couldn’t even turn my head to look at her, or talk to her, or communicate instructions to Aileen, because my body wouldn’t obey my commands anymore. My body was no longer mine.
“My boss, who you are so eager to meet, might be interested to meet you too,” The Virus remarked as he watched me hold the saw to my throat. “He might even want to talk to you. So maybe I won’t have you kill yourself just yet. Hmm, but I need some way to punish you for your actions today. How about your assistant? She’s not very loyal anyway, is she? Tsk tsk.”
I lowered the saw and turned toward Norma, who had lowered the rifle and was standing stock still.
I tried with all my mental energy to stop myself from walking toward her, but it had no effect, and my feet started to move.
I tried to make eye contact with her and will her to break free of The Virus’ control and run. Or knock me out with the butt of the rifle, or something.
But nothing worked. We were both just the puppets of The Virus.
I screamed inside of my own brain. I should have done more research. I should have had twenty back up plans. I should have done hundreds of things differently, but now Norma was going to die because I had gotten lazy and overconfident.
Then a shot rang out and The Virus’ kneecap exploded. Fragments of bone sprayed everywhere, and he flopped onto the ground.
I lowered the saw and then gasped in surprise at finding that I was able to do so. Norma’s face was also twisted in shook, and we stared at each other for a few grateful instants before I spun around.
Aileen smiled serenely as she rolled toward us from the other end of the hallway and rotated her nipple back into an upright position.
“Based on my observation of your interaction with him, I believe he can only control your body while he is looking at you,” Aileen said. “So don’t let him look at you again. Perhaps a blindfold will help?”
“How did you even get up here, Aileen?” I asked her as I stepped over to the Virus and pulled a handkerchief out of my pocket. “I know you can’t wheel upstairs.”
“I popped a few screws out of my elbow joints to extend my arm reach and reprogrammed the retractable spikes on the stairs to isolate the trigger mechanism for each individual step so that I could use the spikes to boost myself up to the height of the next step and roll onto it,” she explained. “I kept getting wedged, so that’s why I needed to use my arms too. Sorry it took me so long. Oh, and you’ll have to fix my pinchers. They don’t work anymore.”
“Not to worry,” I said as I let out a long exhale. “We’d be dead if not for you. I know I built you myself from scratch, but you continue to amaze me. I just wish we’d had better intel on this guy beforehand.”
“We wouldn’t be dead,” Norma corrected. “I’d be dead. Thank you for saving my life, Aileen.”
“Of course,” the AI woman happily chirped. “You are my friend, Norma.”
“This wouldn’t have even happened if I had done more research on his power,” I growled as I walked over to the injured man. “I’m mad at myself, but I swear to both of you that this will never happen again.”
“I know,” Norma whispered as she stepped beside me. “I’m just glad we are all okay.”
“Well, someone is about to not be okay.” I dug my knee in a little, and The Virus groaned. Then I wrapped my handkerchief around his face so that we couldn’t see his eyes.
“Someone quite skilled has done a thorough job of erasing information about both him and The Chief,” Aileen said apologetically. “If I had known about his superpower, I would have warned you.”
“No one knows about The Virus!” the man groaned and tried to lift his head up, but he couldn’t see past his blindfold. I also guessed that the gas he had inhaled, the broken ribs, and the shot kneecap were causing him too much agony.
“Now we know,” I growled at The Virus. I motioned at Norma to keep behind him just in case his blindfold slipped off. “So why don’t you tell us where The Chief is?”
When he said nothing, I punched him in the temple with the hand that wasn’t wearing the power glove.
When he kind of just moaned but still didn’t say anything useful about The Chief, I stretched out his good arm on the ground and said, “Norma, hand me that saw.”
She obliged.
I positioned the saw very gently on top of The Chief’s wrist. Then I started to very gently move it back and forth without turning it on. The metal was still sharp, and it began to tear through his flesh.
It didn’t take him long to start screaming.
“Anything you want to tell us?” I asked.
He hesitated for a long moment and then he moaned, “Fuck you.”
“I think I found the on button.” I shrugged and then the blade started to spin to life with an angry whine.
“Stop! Stop!”
“I kind of don’t want to now that I’ve turned it on!” I yelled over the sound of the blade, and then I gently brushed it across his arm where there wasn’t any previous cut. His skin ripped open with surprising ease, and a cupful of blood splattered across his face and my chest.
“Nooooo!” he screamed. “I’ll talk!”
“Oh?” I hummed as I pulled the saw away from him.
“It’s in the old car tunnel, the old car tunnel by the Taganoola shopping mall,” he said.
“What’s in the old car tunnel?” I asked.
“The Chief’s lair,” The Virus answered.
“He could be lying,” Norma said. “Why would they put it right by a shopping mall where there are so many people around? People that might observe their activities and call someone?”
“It’s underground, they can’t see anything,” The Virus said, “and the mall is a ready pool for taking hostages or subjects to experiment on.”
“Well, that got dark real quick,” Norma said.
“There is a fire spreading from the basement, we need to evacuate,” Aileen said suddenly. “Well. My alloys can withstand temperatures of up to twenty-five thousand degrees Fahrenheit. But, you need to evacuate.”
“Fuck,” I muttered. “Does this have something to do with that guy in the kiddie pool downstairs? I thought he was dead.”
“Yes, he is dead, but when he fried that control box earlier, it sparked a reaction that--” Aileen began.
“Okay, doesn’t really matter how,” I said. “Hey you. Virus. How many guys does The Chief keep in the lair?”
“It varies,” he gasped. “No permanent residents. It’s on a rotational basis. Probably unless there’s a major operation going on, about a dozen at a time. But they’re not all supers. Some of them are just human servants. You know, they take out the trash and stuff--”
“My model of the building suggests that under current conditions, approximately ninety seconds remain until we will be unable to exit,” Aileen said. “Although if the conflagration veers northwest and reaches--”
“Okay, we’re moving,” I said. “Norma, go.”
“You have to get me out of here,” The Virus gasped. “I told you everything. I mean, I answered all your questions, but I ca
n tell you so much more.”
“Maybe so, but I don’t think the cost benefit analysis checks out,” I said. “If this place is about to go up in a fiery explosion, then the cops are going to come, so we can’t hang around for long. And if I brought you back to my place within access of all my systems and equipment and then you somehow got the blindfold off and got control of me or Norma? That could be catastrophic. And I don’t have some kind of creepy cabin in the woods set up to host prisoners, that’s not really my style. So I’m just going to play it safe and leave all of my mess in one place.”
“Thirty sec--” Aileen began.
“Run!” I shouted as I grabbed Norma’s arm and sprinted for the door. Aileen rolled after us on her wheels.
All three of us made it outside and kept running to put as much distance as possible between ourselves and the warehouse while I counted down the rest of the allotted half minute in my mind.
Like clockwork, as soon as I hit the zero, a dull whoomp went up, accompanied by the sounds of clattering metal and shattering glass, and I felt a sensation of such extraordinary heat that for a second I thought we had all just gotten swallowed by the blast.
But then the wind dispersed the heat a little, and I shielded my eyes and turned around to see the wreckage of the entire warehouse engulfed in flames.
“Yikes, that was a close one,” Norma remarked. “Sorry about almost shooting you, Miles.”
“Sorry about almost sawing your head off,” I replied. “I’ve heard of some pretty nasty superpowers, but I think the ones that mess with people’s heads like that are the worst. The physical stuff is easier to counter with tech.”
“What have you done?” asked an unfamiliar voice.
I turned to see a drop-dead gorgeous woman standing there, and my brain did a few somersaults before I realized it was Dynamo.
She was clad in the same skintight red bodysuit that I had seen her in the other night. The suit displayed every astonishing curve of her full bust, narrow waist, perfectly proportioned hips, and impressive derriere. The suit only had small straps covering her shoulders so I could see the rippling musculature of her arms easily. At the bottom, the bodysuit rose from her crotch and clung high on her hips, so the creamy skin of her lean thighs were exposed seductively for a few inches before the tops of her high red boots took over. These boots clung to her perfectly shaped legs as tightly as her bodysuit, and they ended in four-inch high heels that looked to be made of metal. The suit was simple in its design and lipstick-red color, but it pretty much checked every fetish box that I didn’t know I had.
She was staring past me at the burning building with an air of suspicion and judgment being barely held in check.
“Dynamo!” I exclaimed. “How kind of you to show up. You are a bit late though, and I’m afraid you’ve missed the party.”
“I shouldn’t be here at all,” she muttered under her breath as her piercing turquoise eyes fixed on me.
“But you were curious,” I said. “Dare I say ‘intrigued?’”
“Were there any people in there?” she demanded as she pointed at the building.
“Nope,” I answered. “… Just three supervillains.”
“You-- you killed them?” Her eyes widened.
“They came looking for trouble,” I answered. “I defended my property.”
Dynamo looked over at the flaming wreckage of the warehouse again, and her eyes narrowed. “Yeah, I can tell that your property was real important to you.”
“Anyway, thank you again for coming,” I said and gestured at my assistants. “This is Norma, and this is Aileen.”
“Hi,” squeaked Norma. She looked even more bashful than usual, and I guessed that Dynamo probably made her feel inadequate by comparison, which was the way she probably made most women feel, even ones who had much more self-confidence than Norma.
“Hello,” Aileen said. Dynamo raised an eyebrow when she heard Aileen’s seductive, perfectly human-sounding voice. I guess maybe she’d been expecting some kind of early generation beep boop beep.
“You can’t just kill people,” Dynamo hissed as she turned her angry teal eyes on me. “You especially can’t lure them somewhere on purpose and then kill them. That’s premeditated murder.”
“The Chief and his associates are wanted by Pinnacle City for the premeditated murder of dozens at the Gala this past weekend,” I said. “The longer they were at large, the more deaths they would have continued to cause.”
“That’s why we lock people like them up,” Dynamo said. She jerked a finger at the small embroidered Warden badge on her chest. The badge wasn’t really the most eye-catching feature of her chest, though. “And by ‘we,’ I mean The Wardens! People who are authorized to do this job! People who have the skill sets and the training to deal with supervillains!”
“Hey now, I might just be an amateur, but I think my team and I did just fine,” I said. “Supervillains, zero. Normal fucking humans, three.”
“What am I, chopped liver?” Aileen demanded.
“Normal fucking humans plus a robot,” I quickly amended.
“You’re supposed to call in things like this,” Dynamo insisted. “So that the professionals can take them out safely, and no one winds up dead!”
“By ‘no one,’ do you mean no superheroes, and no supervillains?” I asked. “Because from my point of view, it seems like hundreds of ordinary humans end up dead every time there’s a major battle between supers.”
“Well, what are you even building the C.D.S. for, if you don’t believe in the value of law enforcement?” Dynamo asked. “Are you going to respond to crime alerts yourself?”
“That wasn’t my original plan,” I said with a shrug. “But now, who the fuck knows? I’m getting really fed up with the way The Wardens keep handling crime.”
“Okay, well, good luck with that, Mr. Billionaire,” Dynamo scoffed as she crossed her arms.
“Your well wishes are appreciated, but your tangible help would be significantly more appreciated,” I replied.
“I was being sarcastic, Mr. Billionaire,” she grumbled. “I am not going to help you.”
“But yet you showed up when I invited, and you are still standing here,” I said as I gestured to her magnificent body. “If you don’t want to help me, then you can leave, or you can arrest me, Miss Hero.”
“Maybe I should take you in,” Dynamo said as she uncrossed her arms.
Our eyes met again, and I held her gaze for a few moments. I hoped her super strength super power didn’t give her super-hearing, since my heart was racing.
“You won’t take me in because you know I’m right,” I finally said.
“I thought you didn’t want to work with Wardens like me,” she growled. “I thought you could save the world all by yourself. With no superpowers. Now you are asking for my help?”
“It’s not that I have a problem with all superheroes. Just some of them. Your team has a rule against killing supervillains. That’s the biggest problem--”
“All superhero teams have a rule against killing,” she interrupted. “This isn’t unique to The Wardens. It is part of the registration process, so if you have a problem with that rule, then you have a problem with all superheroes.”
“I don’t want any damn sequels,” I explained. “I just want innocent people to stop becoming collateral damage.”
“Superheroes aren’t supposed to act as judge, jury, and executioner, and neither are you,” Dynamo said. “Everyone is supposed to get a fair trial. A jury by peers. Even supervillains.”
“But doesn’t it ever frustrate you when supervillains like The Virus, like The Chief, that you or your coworkers went to epic lengths to capture, get handed down lenient sentences of a few years for mass murder, and then somehow they get time deducted for good behavior, and only end up serving a few months before they’re back on the streets again?” I asked. “That is, unless they go to the trouble of breaking themselves out of prison, or they call up some baddie bud
dies for a rescue mission? Do you really consider that justice? And yet the Warden organization doesn’t talk about that. They just pat themselves on the back for the number of high-profile captures. I think the criminal justice system needs some reform.”
“The system does have its flaws,” Dynamo sighed. “There are good reasons for its existence, but I can’t deny--”
“You two are just talking in circles,” Norma interrupted unexpectedly. “Dynamo, why don’t you just come back home with us and see for yourself the projects we have in development? Miles can tell you more about his methodology, and you can advise us on the kind of guidelines you think we should set to make this whole campaign… morally acceptable to you.”
“Why would I go home with some random stranger who just did that?” Dynamo demanded as she pointed at the burning warehouse again.
“I didn’t do that to you,” I pointed out. “And, what do you, a superhero, possibly have to fear from me, a normal guy? Unless, that is, you’re afraid of my handsome face or that my case for a revolution in crime fighting methodology is going to be convincing.”
“There’s a police unit en route, ETA five minutes,” Aileen announced.
“How does she know that?” Dynamo asked.
I coughed. It wasn’t exactly legal for my AI assistant to intercept police communications. “It’s a matter of probability based on past reporting times for similar incidents, and our location relative to the nearest station. Anyway. Want a ride?”
“It’s against Warden policy for me to ride in the vehicle of anyone that I suspect of being involved in a criminal act,” Dynamo said.
“So, do you want a ride?” I repeated.
I saw the conflicted expression on her face so I held my tongue and waited for a few moments.
“I have my own car,” she finally said with a sigh. “I’ll just follow you.”
“You’re making a good decision.” I hadn’t been sure if I could convince her to come home with us. I guess it had probably been for the best that she hadn’t actually witnessed the cold blooded destruction of the three supervillains, and especially the way The Virus had died, even though she was vaguely aware that it had occurred.