Ex Supervillain

by Shouse, Brenden

  “Was ah, Alexander involved in any of those. . .?” Her smile froze and Brutus stiffened.

  “Okay then.” I clapped my hands together, “Does anyone else want coffee besides Alice?” They nodded and I grabbed coffee for the three of us. The door creaked and Jonathan and Alexander walked back in. I groaned.

  “Do you two want coffee too?” I asked. Alexander stuck out his lip and shrugged. I muttered under my breath and grabbed more coffee. My arms ached to move, to do something. Planning was always my least favorite part of every operation.

  Alice explained the plan with, thankfully, few interruptions. We had a Pre-cog, a meat shield, a lucky charm, a portal creator, and a force guy. Alexander could create pressure and kinetic energy. It would be nice to not have to smash steel doors the old-fashioned way.

  “Still,” Brutus said rubbing his stubble, “Iron Heights isn’t going to be a cakewalk.”

  Brittany cocked her head and tried to look confused. “Who still does cakewalks?”

  Jonathan cleared his throat, “A lot of people.”

  Brittany frowned, “Oh.”

  “I also love cakewalks,” I emphatically shook my head and finger at Brittany. Cakewalks are a lot of fun and also, a way to get an insane amount of sweets. “I once won fifteen cakes in back in high school.”

  Alice rolled her eyes. “You cheated.”

  “Prove it.” Alice rolled her eyes at me again. I rolled mine right back. I smiled, “Is everyone aware of their part?” I got a collection of nods and shoulder shrugs. I felt my happiness dying.

  12

  Chapter 12

  The mini hummer tank that Alice had rented thunked every couple seconds.

  “This road sucks,” I muttered.

  Alice looked at me out of the corner of her eyes, “Fewer cameras here.” Someone muttered back in the heart of the tank masquerading as a hummer.

  “Is everyone behaving back there?” I rolled my eyes, feeling like I was dealing with children.

  Brittany grinned, “Are we there yet?”

  Alice smiled, “Don’t make me stop this car.”

  “This is a tank,” Brittany huffed. My head almost hit the dash. I looked over at Alice.

  “Imagine how much more fun this would be in a hybrid.”

  Jonathan crossed his arms, “What’s wrong with hybrids?” My head hit the dash again as Alice slammed on the breaks yet again. I glared at her.

  She shrugged, “Wear a helmet next time.”

  Someone snickered in the back. I turned around. All of them were smiling and they kept putting on their tactical gear while ignoring me. I hmphed, it was very dignified and not at all like a pouty toddler.

  Brittany cleared her throat, “The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round-”

  Alexander, Brutus, and Jonathan all started singing. I rolled my eyes and looked over at Alice. She joined in.

  “Payback is coming,” I muttered.

  Alice winked at me, “I’m so scared.” She cleared her throat and started shouting the lyrics. The crew laughed and all started shouting them as loud as they could. They finished the last line before restarting. Apparently, they have added some new ones since I went to kindergarten.

  I turned back towards the road. The unsteady ride wasn’t all to be blamed on Alice’s driving. This road hadn’t been repaved since someone had tried to build an airport here. The one in the city was better. Why anyone would want to build an airport outside of the city was beyond me.

  The prison loomed. My chest tightened. There was no way I was going to make out of here unscathed. Emotional wounds would heal, but I was going to get caught. I smiled at Alice and she grinned back at me, still humming the words of the song that the crew had been singing. She knew it too. This time there wouldn’t be any getting out of it. I shook my head. I was going to get my daughter back. Nothing was going to stop me.

  I rolled my eyes, “How many verses are there?”

  Brittany giggled, “I lost count.” I groaned and everyone stopped singing and laughed. Humor was good, it distracted from the stress we all would be under in another five minutes.

  Jonathan jiggled his chains, “Don’t I look intimidating?”

  “So scary,” Brittany snorted.

  I could see the emotion drain from her face as we got closer. She leaned over onto Anthony’s shoulder. The tank slowed. I looked up. We entered the gate’s shadow and rolled further towards the guards. I forced my face still. I’d done this half a dozen times, my heart didn’t seem to remember that. A guard wearing a jacket pulled his hood up as he walked over towards us. I frowned. I didn’t envy him. Being outside and on guard duty in the cold was bad. We were here to make his day even worse. The guard tapped on the glass. Alice lowered the window and handed him our papers, forged, of course.

  “Jonathan huh?” The guard nodded up and down at Alice, “And did you bring him in yourself?”

  Alice cocked her head at him, “Of course not.”

  The guard shrugged, “Was hoping maybe you knew the Death Squad.” My heart stopped doing belly flops and started trying to come up my throat. If they were here, we wouldn’t make it out of this building.

  Alice frowned, “He’s still alive.”

  The guard shrugged, “How do you stop him from, you know?” He muttered something unprofessional and handed Alice her papers back. The guard waved us through. I was worried about his job and even more concerned that I cared at all. Time for existential questions later.

  We rumbled inside. The gate lifted up. It seemed archaic to have a medieval gate. But, something in the iron made it very difficult for Enhanced to break it. Not impossible, it was like breaking through a retaining wall with a tire iron, possible, but very time consuming and not that efficient. My eyes flicked back to Alexander. He shifted in his seat.

  “I don’t need you to break through that steel. Moving us around quickly is Brittany’s job.”

  She looked up at Alexander, “Aww, yeah.” She shook her finger guns at him while making gun noises. Alexander smiled and skinned her head.

  “Hey, ow,” she leaned up and away from him.

  The tank rumbled further into the prison. We were in a high-security area now. Guards patrolled all along the top of the walls. There were checkpoints every two hundred and fifty feet or so made out of corrugated steel. I cracked my neck, the prison had been built to accommodate the superhuman, but you couldn’t really plan for someone who could portal their way out of there almost instantaneously. There were fields that you could use, but they were very, very inefficient. Something to stop Enhanced abilities would only be possible inside the prison.

  A guard raised his hand and waved. A door squeaked open and Alice drove our supertanker, tank, bus thing, inside. Guards started taking up positions, circling around the vehicle. Alice looked at me out of the corner of her eyes.

  “Markus, I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

  I frowned, “Hey, that’s my line.” The guards raised their guns and pointed at our tank. I felt a sneer plop onto my face. No one points a gun at me and gets to live a whole lot longer. I wasn’t about to change that now. There were an awful lot of muggers who’d learned the error of their ways.

  “Hey, guys,” Jonathan’s voice squeaked, “they won’t shoot while surrounding the vehicle, right?”

  I shook my head, “They only have us in a half circle.” The blast doors squeaked back up.

  “Aaaand we’re probably not going to be able to force our way through the door,” Alice muttered under her breath. Jonathan gulped and rubbed his forehead on the back of his sleeve. Brittany and Alexander took turns topping each other with progressively more creative curses. I took a minute to appreciate some of them before turning back to the situation at hand.

  I felt my blood boil, someone had to be selling us out. Whoever they were they heard and would be smart enough to tell that I’d figured it out. Crap on a stick, I didn’t have time to rescue a self-righteous thug, prot
ect Alice from a traitor, and try to get away. My headache arrived on cue. If anyone says that their attitude can’t possibly get any worse, then they clearly have never had a migraine.

  Alexander cleared his throat and I cocked an eyebrow at him, “Hulk Smash?”

  I nodded, a smile growing from ear to ear, “Yeah, Hulk Smash.” Alexander tightened the three-point seatbelts and looked out one of the windows. Goosebumps broke out all over my skin and the air seemed to get a couple dozen degrees cooler. It smelled cold and a thin layer of frost coated everything. I shook my head and opened the door. The air out here was still normal.

  Everyone piled out while I stretched, casually, in front of the cameras, maybe on purpose. The wannabe ambush lay scattered all over the area. The closest one was still twenty feet away from me. They all looked like they’d been tossed by a wave of concussive force, like a grenade. I whistled softly. Kinetics were always handy to keep around. Alexander smirked and my face seemed to convey as much respect as I felt.

  “Come on,” Alice said as she loaded her shotgun, “where’s the snarky comment?”

  I put my hand on Anthony’s forehead and wheezed. “From now on you shall be known as Darth Hulk.” Everyone chuckled and checked their weapons again. It was a good thing to be a little OCD about. People that trusted that everything would work out tended to blow themselves and everyone else up because they were careless.

  I checked my shotgun for what seemed like the fifteenth time and loaded a shell into the chamber. This was an old gun, it fired buckshot shells. Since I was the meat shield, I didn’t really need a gun. Sometimes they came in handy if you can’t pick a lock, or someone was blocking a hallway.

  An alarm sounded. I looked up. Time was short. Before long, they’d be coming in here with their own Enhanced, and then we’d be on a much more even playing field.

  “Let’s move it, people!” I yelled. I sprinted to the front of the line and slammed shoulder first into a door. Something in my shoulder gave way, but the door opened a little. The hole was big enough for all of us to get through. I rolled my shoulder and popped it back into place. I tried and failed to suppress a shudder. My nerves never deadened. No matter how many times I got shot, it would always hurt the same. I was better at dealing with it, sure, but time catches up with most of us. Once I’d been around for a couple of centuries, I’d start feeling the pain of old age, and it would hurt a lot.

  I took off down the hallway and held the gun out in front of me. Punches didn’t hurt anywhere near as bad through tactical gear, and I might be the meat shield, but hey, I like getting tenderized as much as the next guy.

  “Clear!” I ran a little further; no one was down this hallway. The only sounds were the alarm going off all around us and the footfalls of the crew as they followed. I checked my wrist and pointed. The GPS watches had been a good idea. I spun around the corner and flew back into the wall. My head cracked against the concrete. I snarled and raised my shotgun to my shoulder.

  A guard in crimson tactical gear raised his gun and fired slightly faster. I jumped to the side, more like sliding to the side. The blast ripped through my shoulder pads. The guard’s head snapped back as a splatter of blood flew everywhere. He dropped to the ground on his back.

  Alice flew over to me and started prodding my shoulder. I couldn’t help but scream this time. But it sounded very manly, of course. She grimaced. It looks like only a couple pieces are in there. I nodded.

  “I’m going to need to get the pieces out of your shoulder.”

  I shook my head, “Not right now.”

  Alice bit her lip, “Markus, you’ll bleed out.”

  I reached for my first aid kit and pulled it around to my chest as I slid down to the concrete floor. I pulled out a coagulant and some morphine from the kit. I hissed and handed it to Alice. I banged my head against the wall. I wanted to punch something, to hit someone. We were just starting, and I already was getting screwed up. I gritted my teeth and tried to steady my breathing.

  Alice poured the stuff into my shoulder, and it felt like the right side of my body caught on fire. I howled. The stuff was designed for people with healing abilities as it would dissolve under certain circumstances. Something was biologically different about how we healed versus ordinary people. My world went white with pain.

  Alice stood over me. My throat was raw. I looked over at my shoulder. The fabric was torn up, but the skin on my shoulder was smooth and clear except for the blood specks that dotted it. I coughed. This way was a lot less pleasant than how Prudence did it. Alice gave me her hand and pulled me up to my feet.

  Brutus smiled, “You ready, boss?”

  I nodded, “Yes, I’m ready.” I took off down the hallway again with the others following me.

  “How long was I down, Alice?” I asked. The silence stretched until it was almost uncomfortable.

  “Only a couple of minutes,” I heard her voice from behind me. I frowned; my throat was pretty raw. It must have been longer than that.

  “Alice, be honest. How long was I down?” I pressed again. Alice’s footfalls picked up. She ran next to me. She shouldn’t be putting herself in extra danger. I was the meat shield, after all. I could get patched up from most things in under ten minutes. She’d take a whole lot longer.

  She glared at me, “I have never lied to you. Only a couple of minutes like I just said.”

  “Get behind me, it’s not safe.” I didn’t want any more surprises. If surprises meant I got to have more of that stuff put in my arm, then I’d like to preemptively pass all of the surprises for the rest of my life.

  “Darth Hulk, take the rear,” I ordered. I heard Alexander drop back. I kicked myself for not telling him to earlier. I was acting like a rookie. If I kept making mistakes like this, I wasn’t going to be alive long enough to get Tanya. We took a right and ran down towards the entrance to the cellblock. The blueprints said it was key carded, but there were guards there with keycards. I smiled. Like taking candy from babies. Brutus came up even with me. I cocked an eyebrow at him.

  He rolled his shoulder, “I’m not letting you slow us down again, old man.”

  I huffed, “Watch who you’re calling old.”

  He grinned, “Sure thing, gramps.” Alice snorted. I looked over my shoulder at her and stuck my tongue out. Growing old didn’t mean I had to grow up.

  The guards at the end of the hall stood up from behind a desk and reached for their holsters, I smiled. Showtime. I leaped forward and fired. The two guards flinched and ducked behind their desks. At this distance, the fire from the shotgun wouldn’t be very effective at this range. It would scare the living crap out of the guards, though, and that was what I needed. I fired again. It seemed like an eternity, but as long as I kept it up, the guards wouldn’t have a lot of time to focus on shooting back.

  I leaped over the desk while swinging down by the cop on the right side. I clubbed him in the face, and he dropped. Before the first guard’s face hit the ground, I’d already snapped the butt off the gun back and clocked the second guy. He dropped too. Getting knocked unconscious was serious. You had no idea of knowing just how serious it was going to be without medical attention. It was still far better than being dead.

  I pulled the keychain off of the guard’s belt and pulled out his keycard to the door behind me. I stuck it on the lock, and the door hissed open. Brutus rolled through the doorway, ducking left while I took a right. Gunfire sounded to my left. I shot the guard in front of me in the knee.

  Sliding up to him, I clocked him in the ears. He dropped as his eardrums burst. I picked up my gun and dashed down the hallway. New alarms blared, and guards started pouring out of every entryway other than the one we’d come in through. Gray uniforms filled the hallway in front of me. I slid to a stop and felt my heart pound. No, no, I couldn’t afford this right now.

  The guys flew back at once, “Strike one!”

  I spun around. Alexander whooped and high-fived Brittany while Jonathan rolled his eyes. I turned b
ack around and ran further down. Cell numbers flew by. Eight thirty-seven, eight thirty-eight, eight thirty-nine. I stopped and tried the keycard. A horn blared, and the terminal flashed red.

  Jonathan’s eyes flicked to either side of us, “They know where we’re at now.”

  “No,” Alice said, “not all of them.”

  “Alexander?”

  “I got it,” Alexander grabbed the lock in his hand and looked me in the eye, “and it’s Darth Hulk.” The door flew inward.

  Brittany threw her hands up, “Woo-hoo, strike two!”

  The cell was made of iron bars except for the concrete floor. A burly tattooed prisoner stood just inside the door with his arms crossed. Hot-Leather sat in the back of the room in a prison uniform. It looked a whole lot better than the unitard had on him. He had one black eye, and he sat with his arms drawn in like he was trying to make himself small. I felt a pain in my chest. He deserved what he was getting, but I still felt uncomfortable.

  “Keep walking, grandpa.”

  I turned to face the burly thug, “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me, beat it.”

  I tapped my forefinger against my chin, “Let me think about that. . . um, how about no?”

  “You deaf, old man?” He sneered. Alexander rolled his shoulder blades and took a step towards the thug.

  “Easy, I got this,” I whispered. Alexander looked back at me and frowned before stepping back. I cracked my knuckles and looked up at the mountain of fake muscle in front of me.

  He sneered, “Did you forget your hearing aids or something, grandpa?”

  “How many times did you bounce after falling off of the stupid bus?” I smiled sweetly. The thug shook and pulled back his meaty arm. I beat him to it by kicking him in the sweet spot. The thug dropped, and I slammed his head into the iron wall as he fell.

  I dusted off my fingers and spun towards Hot-Leather, “Now that that’s settled.”

  “Wait,” his eyes widened, and he slid further back on the bed, “You, you put me in here.”