“I’m not sure it will be that easy,” Cloak said. “The door of being a superhero or villain is not one easily closed.”
“No shit,” I said. “Remember, Shoot-Em-Up murdered my brother after he retired.”
“How could I forget,” Cloak said, perhaps a bit more sarcastically than he’d intended. “What would you like to do with the rest of your life?”
I thought about my answer. “Honestly, I don’t really care as long as it’s near my loved ones. If I’ve got Mandy, Cindy, Kerri, Gizmo, you, and Diabloman, then I’ll be fine.”
“Diabloman may not be with you soon,” Cloak said. “I might not either.”
I blinked. “What? That’s bullshit. We’re together until I die, then stuck together in the Reaper’s Cloak. You said that yourself.”
“That was before I knew you were . . . OK, is it BFFs? I don’t know if that’s right. BFFs with Death.”
“Don’t ever try to use internet slang again. Ever,” I said. “What? You think Death’s going to free you after this?”
“The thought had occurred to me, yes,” Cloak said. “I can feel her anger diminishing at me. For decades, it was white hot, but the more I help you, it lessens. The possibility of me moving on is real. If not now, then someday.”
“Do you want to die?” I asked, hurt by his words. “There’s so much else to see in the world, though! I mean, we haven’t watched Stranger Things yet!”
“I’d like to see my wife and daughter again. My brother as well.”
“Ah,” I said. “That.”
“I admit, though, I would be leaving a son behind.”
“You realize we met when I was thirty, right?”
“Don’t ruin this, Gary.”
“Too late,” I said, taking a moment to breathe. “I’m not good at letting go, Cloak.”
“You don’t have to, yet.”
I didn’t have anything to say to that. So, instead, I switched the subject. “I’d think I’d like to move to Atlas City. Near Gabrielle. A city that’s clean, prosperous, and nice without the jackboots.”
“Good choice,” Cloak said.
That was when I heard “The Imperial March” coming from one of the extra-dimensional spaces in my cloak (which I used as pocket substitutes). Reaching in, I pulled out a cell phone, which was notable since I hadn’t put it in there.
Answering it, I said, “Hello?”
“Oh, my dear brother,” Other Gary said. “You’ve done fucked it up now and your family is going to pay the price.”
Chapter Eighteen
WHERE OTHER GARY CROSSES THE MORAL EVENT HORIZON
I clutched the phone tightly, my body shaking with the implications of what he was saying. He was going after my daughter because of my actions. I wanted to reach in the phone and murder him at once. Instead, I managed to keep the barest veneer of calm before saying, “Is this how you want to be remembered? Going after a man’s family? I thought you were supposed to be the good guy.”
Gary’s tone turned patronizing. “It turns out being the good guy requires you to make hard decisions. The greater good demands whatever evil is necessary to achieve it. Villains like you are free to do whatever they want, but for me, I must do whatever it requires to achieve victory.”
“That is some utterly insane shit.”
“But effective,” Other Gary said. “Good—”
“Let me turn myself in,” I said. “I’m yours. Just don’t hurt the people there.”
“For God sakes, have some dignity,” Other Gary said. “Must you have such an obvious weakness?”
There was desperation in my voice. “Maybe having people to love motivates me more than it does you.”
Other Gary’s voice dripped with contempt. “I gave you a chance to leave the battlefield. To live your insipid life of robbing the rich and giving to yourself. You just couldn’t take it, though, could you? Did you not think I’d have informers in Club Inferno? People who would sell you for their own loved ones or a bit of money in their pocket? That’s what supervillains do, Gary. They betray each other. Just like you’ve betrayed me.”
I didn’t even stop to comment on the insanity that he thought I could betray him when we’d never been anything but enemies. “I have a daughter now. Her name is Leia, but her mother calls her Gizmo. She could be your daughter. We’re flesh and blood in a kind of perverse fashion. If you attack our base, then you’re putting her at risk. She’s just four years old.”
Other Gary paused. “You should have thought of that. Hopefully, you’ll be more careful with your next child.”
He then hung up.
I melted the phone, letting the plastic and circuitry scald my hand. Strangely, I didn’t feel any heat or burns before shaking it away. “Am I this sort of monster, Cloak? Was he inside me all along?”
“Every man has a monster inside him,” Cloak said. “But the depths to which your doppelgänger has descended can be achieved only by someone who believes they are doing the right thing.”
It was an indictment of humanity’s capacity for good, but probably accurate. That was when I noticed Mandy standing beside me.
“What the hell?” I said, practically jumping out of my skin.
“Vampire,” Mandy explained. “We’re really, really quiet. I can also shadow step.”
“What, like in Dishonored? Since when?”
“You’re the black-cloaked assassin who made a pact with an enigmatic god,” Mandy said, ignoring my question. “We need to get to the Crystal Palace now.”
“Yes,” I said. “Other Gary is going to hurt Gizmo.”
Mandy gave a half-smile. “Gary, I love you so very much. I wish I could have given you what you wanted with her. Someday, I’ll say why I couldn’t.”
“Now’s not the—” I started to say.
Mandy proceeded to kiss me on the lips and we were swallowed by shadows. Seconds later, the shadows parted and the two of us were in the middle of the security room of the Crystal Palace.
“What the hell,” I said, shaking my head. “How?”
Mandy shrugged. “Vampires get stronger when they age. I’m two hundred years old and can do lots of stuff I couldn’t do before.”
“Oh,” I said.
That was when I heard a bunch of energy blast noises that no longer reminded me of beloved science fiction movies but President Omega’s Darklight troopers. I immediately rushed out into the hallway, only for Mandy to pull me back as a bunch of energy blasts shot past me.
“Think, Gary!” Mandy chided.
“Our family’s out there!” I snapped.
Mandy blinked once. “Yes, I suppose it is.”
Two Darklight troopers rushed to the door of the security room and I saw their armor was once more a piercing shade of black. It was also covered in glowing green mystical runes, which I recognized protected against fire, ice, and insubstantiality effects. Other Gary had armed his troops against me, specifically.
Mandy solved that problem. As she cast out her hands, terrible shadowy tendrils shot forth and ripped through the troopers’ armor like clay, bisecting and decapitating both. She took a moment to stare at the blood splattered on the wall before shaking her head. “You should take some of their weapons.”
I reached over and placed my hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“For?” Mandy asked.
“Forcing you to become a killer,” I said, guilty. “I know you wanted to be a hero.”
Mandy gave a half-smile. “Being a hero is about doing things to help others. Killing is just the high cost of it in war.”
“Still, I can’t imagine what it’s like to have fought so long.”
Mandy looked at me with eyes that had turned red. “You will.”
I didn’t have time to think more on that before grabbing the energy rifle off the ground. Running out into the hall, I started firing randomly in the air and managed to catch one of the Darklight troopers coming around the corner off guard before another one started firing
at me from behind, nearly killing me. Mandy, meanwhile blasted him, then two more, combining to reinforce the one I shot with pinpoint accuracy.
“You’ve never actually held a gun before in your life, have you?” Mandy asked.
“I’ve held the ones I shoot hellfire from!” I snapped.
Mandy closed her eyes. “Just a word of advice: Stop trying to hold the rifle sideways. They put the sights on the top for a reason.”
“Oh,” I said, adjusting my grip. “Smart.”
Travelling through the Crystal Palace was grim, as I found the place was riddled with destroyed servant robots, copies of Gizmo’s Murderbot, and several people I didn’t recognize but were clearly residents of the place. It seemed there had been more people inside the location than I’d thought, and they were all being killed indiscriminately. Most of them hadn’t been armed either. It made me terrified for all the other residents, and I couldn’t help but imagine Gizmo, Cindy, or Diabloman being slaughtered like animals.
Mandy killed five or six Darklight troopers for every soldier I killed—not that I was keeping score, but it seemed there were more coming every day. I also badly burned my arm when I took cover behind a position like it was Call of Duty only to discover that my position wasn’t energy-proof.
Still, I was ready and willing to go through an entire army, injured or not, if it meant protecting—
“There’s one!” I heard Cindy shout before firing her energy rifle at me.
“Shit!” I said, ducking before another blast shot over my head. “What the hell?!”
“Gary? Is that you, Gary?” Cindy said, popping her head from around a corner. “Tell me something only you would know!”
“I am going to fucking kill you if you ever do that again!” I snapped.
“Oh, it’s you,” Cindy said. “I would have also accepted that we have different opinions on Rogue One. It’s the best Star Wars since Empire.”
“Not the time,” I said, entirely serious. Especially because Rogue One was dark, depressing, and didn’t have nearly enough Darth Vader. The droid was cool, though.
I walked over and hugged her. “Is Gizmo all right?”
Cindy nodded, shooting over my shoulder at a Darklight trooper coming around the hall while Mandy moved to cover the entrance. “She’s in the room with me.”
“What?” I asked, unable to hearing a thing over the ringing in my ears.
Cindy snorted, then dragged me by my arm toward the room she had been hiding in. There, I saw Gizmo sitting in a corner holding a handheld computer that she was using to control murderbots throughout the building.
I grabbed it from her. “God almighty, Cindy, you’re letting her kill people!?”
“No!” Cindy said, crossing her arms before looking down at Gizmo. “Wait, are you killing people?”
“No,” Gizmo said. “They’re set to non-lethal mode. I will do anything to protect my aunt and Mister Inventor, though.”
I stared at her, then handed her back her computer.
Cindy looked ashamed. “I’m a horrible mother.”
I agreed, but wasn’t inclined to add to her guilt. “Cindy, Mandy can get you to safety. Take our daughter and get away from all this.”
“Gary—”
I grabbed her by the shoulders. “All of this. I don’t care where, but you must go someplace safe. Stay out of the way of supervillains and superheroes. Don’t let anything happen to her.”
“But—”
“Promise me,” I said, holding her tight. “If I ever meant something to you. If we were ever friends. If Gizmo means as much to you as she does to me.”
Cindy lowered her gaze. Each of my words seemed to hit her like a blow to the stomach.
“I do,” Gizmo said, interrupting her. “She just . . . doesn’t know how to relate.”
“Gary, you’re the only person who ever mattered. I only wish you felt the same way,” Cindy said, looking away. “But you’re right. I never should have brought her to this place. I wanted to avenge you more than I wanted to preserve what part of you remained. I’ll take her from this place, far away.”
I closed my eyes, realizing just how bad that might be. “Just keep her out of trouble.”
“Can you keep out of trouble?” Cindy asked. “What’s going to happen if you kill the First Citizen?”
“I don’t know,” I said. I took a deep breath. “Do you know if they have the others?”
“They reached Diabloman’s room,” Cindy said, looking disgusted with herself. “I had to get Gizmo to safety, but . . . they carried him away in some kind of container. I don’t know whether he’s dead or alive at this point. Kerri and Mister Inventor tried to get to the burrowers, but I can’t raise them on our communicator.”
She lifted her cellphone.
“Wow, you get reception down here? What’s your plan?” I asked.
Cindy punched me in the arm.
“I joke when I’m upset,” I said. “Which may explain why I’m constantly doing it. Mandy?”
Mandy appeared behind me, shifting from shadow to shadow. “I’m here.”
“Can you take her someplace safe?” I asked. “Please.”
Mandy nodded and reached over to grab Cindy’s arm. “I’ll take you to Supervillain Disneyland.”
“Wait, what?” Cindy said, disappearing as the two vanished into the shadows.
I looked over at Gizmo. She was putting away her personal computer into a backpack with Hello Kitty on it.
“I’m a real screw-up as a dad. They’re here because of me.”
Gizmo looked up at me. “I’m a Super, Jewish, and probably queer given my analysis of our genetics. There’s a good chance someone is going to try to kill me at some point in my life. My mom thinks she’d be dead without you, and I know I wouldn’t exist without you for basic biology reasons. You shouldn’t blame yourself. You make the world a better place.”
“I’m a supervillain, Gizmo. I make the world the opposite of a better place. You’re too young to understand otherwise.”
Gizmo smiled. It was adorable. “You are really bad at being a supervillain.”
I really was. “I’ll find you. I promise.”
“Don’t die,” Gizmo said.
Mandy appeared seconds later and scooped up Gizmo. “Hope you don’t mind being with someone you can’t read the mind of.”
“Why wouldn’t I be able to read your mind,” Gizmo said, blinking.
“Vampire.”
“Life does not work like Dungeons and Dragons,” Gizmo said.
Mandy looked sad. “How disappointing.”
My wife then vanished. A great weight lifted off my shoulders. While I might die down here, at least the three people I cared about most would be safe. I was still terrified of Kerri dying or being buried alive like Captain Kirk in the Wrath of Khan or the Bride in Kill Bill, but I had hope now.
“There’s a Darklight trooper sneaking up behind you,” Cloak said.
I shot over my shoulder and he gave a Wilhelm scream as he fell.
“How did you know?” I asked.
“I don’t have any eyes,” Cloak said.
“That just raises more questions!” I channeled my inner Futurama.
I heard rumblings around the Crystal Palace and saw out a transparent steel window that one of the wings had just been blown up. Other Gary was the kind of bastard who blew up or destroyed whatever he couldn’t control. As weird as this underground base was, it was beautiful, and its destruction was a loss to the world.
“What’s the plan?” Cloak said. “Assuming, for some ludicrous reason, you have one.”
“Kill everyone,” I said, channeling an eighties action hero.
“That’s a stupid plan. May I suggest another?”
“No,” I said. “Nothing you could possibly say could convince me there’s a better way to take these bastards out.”
“Put on one of the dead troopers’ armor and replace the part that was shot.”
“Oh, righ
t. That could work.”
It took only a minute to get myself kitted up as one of the Darklight troopers and tune into their feed. They were evacuating the facility but had prisoners. I trotted down to the entranceway, hoping I could catch up before they evacuated. I didn’t have a plan when I arrived, but I’d do anything to save my sister.
In the end, none of that proved necessary.
When I arrived at the lounge where the Darklight troopers were preparing to depart, the place looked like an abattoir. Kerri was leaning down and holding Mister Inventor, who was unconscious and missing an arm, the injury having been crudely treated by field medicine. The rest of the First Citizen’s forces had been torn apart and scattered across the place as if by an army of angry ghosts.
Army of angry ghosts.
Oh.
“Hi, Kerri,” I said, removing my helmet. “I’m here to rescue you.”
Kerri looked up. “Aren’t you a little—”
“Really?” I said. “You’re going to make a Star Wars reference?”
Kerri said, “What? I was going to ask aren’t you a bit late?”
I laughed.
That was when more bombs went off and the Crystal Palace collapsed around us.
Chapter Nineteen
A QUIET MOMENT BEFORE WE GO TO WAR
Well, thankfully, we all didn’t die when the Crystal Palace exploded. I’d killed enough of the Darklight troopers with Mandy to make sure it mostly just detonated around us. There was a lot of falling glass and our ears hurt, but none of us were injured.
Anticlimactic, I know.
Mandy appeared moments later and got the rest of us away, getting us to Club Inferno and removing us from Other Gary’s reach. I’d give a more detailed explanation, but the next few hours were a blur. Even as a seasoned supervillain, the amount of violence and crazy I’d experienced left me in shock. Thankfully, Mandy was smart enough to keep me out of sight of the other supervillains in the Black Witch’s office until my wits returned to me.
The room was a black shag carpeted room with a glass desk, three swivel chairs, a couch, a partially holographic computer, and posters of goth bands I didn’t recognize. I think my first coherent thoughts were the realization that, as a father, I should probably pick a Hanukah movie other than Die Hard.
The Supervillainy Saga (Book 4): The Science of Supervillainy Page 16