by C. T. Phipps
“The Archvillains Wing?” I wasn’t sure I’d heard that right.
“General Venom, Mister Chaos, Professor Skeleton, the Red King, Soviet Ape, Tom Terror,” Guinevere said. “The big world-destroying evils.”
While flattering, this unnerved me.” I was being lumped with them. “Could you do me a favor and make sure my wife visits me in a place other than the ones surrounded by the world’s worst psychopaths?”
A few of them weren’t too bad but most were less ‘rob banks’ and more ‘conquer the world.’ Never mind the hypocrisy of my earlier vow to do so.
“Visits? What an interesting idea. We’ll have to implement it.”
“We have to get out of here.”
“No kidding! I always thought visiting the moon would be cool. This, this is horrible.”
“No, that’s not what I mean.”
“They’re so... friendly while they’re tramping over my rights,” I thought at Cloak, “I bet they drink nothing but milk while they debate how to reform people via brain surgery. Doc Savage used to do that in the old pulp magazines. It freaked me out when I read about it.”
“Master, if you don’t use your powers for a week or more the dead will start to rise en masse. We’ve already got enough of a problem with those missing six cloaks. Master Warren went to elaborate lengths to get them from the Brotherhood of Infamy. Who knows who has them now?”
“Oh right.” I remembered Cloak’s warning. “Speaking of zombies—”
“We weren’t.”
The two of us arrived at a massive vault door marked, “A-Wing.”
The door was made of reinforced steel and looked like it was capable of resisting a nuclear blast while a pair of guards in futuristic armor stood watch. They had laser guns in place of regular firearms, possibly because we were in space.
Clearing my throat, I said, “Gwen, if I don’t use my powers on a regular basis the dead will rise to devour the living. There’s also a bunch of cloaks the Nightwalker owned which need to be found, too. If not, it’ll be like me not using my powers times seven. So, it would be a very good idea to release me. That way, I can go take care of it. It’s for the greater good.”
“Smooth.”
“Thank you.”
“I was being sarcastic.”
Guinevere looked at me with pity in her eyes. “That’s a nice story, Merciless, but you already tried persuading me to release you.”
“No, wait, I—” I started to argue before the big vault door opened and the guards grabbed me by the arms, dragging me away. Seconds later, I was behind a translucent steel cell door.
“This could be a problem.” I looked at my cell. It was a fair reproduction of my living room (which was just creepy). “I’m not sure which disturbs me more, the lengths they went to make me comfortable or the surveillance they had to put me under in order to do it.”
“They never would have done this before my death. I always believed superheroes should avoid getting involved in the legal process. It effectively restores feudalism.”
“Yeah. An inquisition run by the Brady Bunch with eyebeams. I need to get back to Falconcrest City. This isn’t my genre. It’s why too science-fiction meets four-color comic book. I’m more of a gritty urban supernatural detective guy.”
“Bizarre as it may sound, I concur.”
“Once I get back, I will never ever kill a superhero again. I’ll restrict myself to bloodless crimes, unless I’m fighting communists, Nazis, rapists, or people who rub me the wrong way.”
“Have you learned nothing from this experience?”
“I learned not to get caught.”
“Ahem,” I heard a voice coming from across the hall. “Hello, neighbor.”
Looking up, I saw a middle-aged man in the cell next door. He was bald, had a goatee, and was wearing tinted goggles from the 1940s. Completing the look was his outfit, which looked like a militarized version of a white laboratory coat. He couldn’t have been more villainous-looking if he tried.
Then I recognized him. My breath caught in my throat as I realized I was standing five feet away from Tom Terror, World’s Greatest Criminal Mind.
“Wow,” I said, staring. “Sir... “
I felt a mixture of admiration and fear. On one hand, you had to give kudos to the man who fought Ultragod on a regular basis with no powers—for eighty years. He looked good for his age, too. On the other, he was also the guy who blew up the Afghanistan-Pakistan border for shits and giggles.
“If I may debase myself to common correctional facility vernacular, may I inquire as to why you have found yourself in the deplorable state of incarceration in which you’ve found yourself?” Tom Terror asked.
“He said...”
“I understood what he said, Cloak.” I rolled my eyes. “I’m here for killing the Extreme.”
It was half-true, anyway. I never would have been arrested if not for them.
“Ah.” Tom Terror smiled a mouth full of shark-like teeth. “A more troublesome gang of ruffians and thugs has never existed in the so-called superhero world. Your Darwinian elimination of them from the gene pool has gone a long way to correcting the imbalance of power and violence which exists between our captors and myself.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said, good job.”
“Thanks. I guess.”
Tom adjusted his purple tie, dropping his disturbing smile. “Tell me, fellow victim of the exploitative superhero penal system, do you have any abilities above and beyond those of normal men?”
“Yes. However, they’re being blocked by magic.”
“Ah, so your powers rely on strange dimensional energy invoked by either incantations or application of will,” Tom said, smiling. He certainly liked to hear himself talk.
“Yeah, my cloak is magic.”
“Your lack of supernatural abilities can be rectified.” Tom tapped the translucent steel of his cell door with his cane. “If, I were to, say, offer you a chance to do such a thing, would you be willing to assist me in a large-scale relocation of the prison’s population?”
“Tom—” I started to say.
“Thomas or Professor, please,” the mad scientist interrupted. “Though please do not call me Professor. I know it’s accurate but I had to execute a dozen newspaper reporters before they stopped printing my name that way. I still haven’t gotten them to stop shortening my name to Tom. Do they call him Tom Jefferson? Do they call him Tom Payne? I think not.”
Wow, I was dealing with a real nutcase for formality.
“You know, you can say breakout if you want. It’s not going to lower your IQ if you do. Also, there’s nothing wrong with Tom or Professor Terror.” I looked at him incredulously, putting my hands behind my back. “Mark Twain saw nothing wrong with the former and Professor Terror has a nice old school villainy feel.”
“Don’t lecture me on old school villainy, boy. I invented most of the tropes that come with it.” Tom clasped his hands together, grinning. “As for the rest, well, the debasing of the English language is something I’ve made it a point to correct. When I take over the world, every child will be forced to speak properly. Television, of course, will be outlawed. Except for the educational channels, of course.”
“I’ll be sure to get all my favorite shows downloaded by then.”
“I am asking if you want to assist in my breakout. I know most of the archvillains here, but I’m not familiar with you,” Tom Terror said.
“Have you performed any other feats of criminal activity of which I might have heard?”
“I’m the architect of countless evils across the centuries, of which you know nothing because I’m that good at covering my tracks.” I crossed my fingers behind my back.
“Uh-huh.” Tom’s voice dripped with disdain.
“Yes,” I said. “You know the Black Death? That was me. Genghis Khan? Me again.”
“I see” Tom said. “This is your first time in prison, isn’t it?”
“Am I that obvio
us?”
“Yes. I believe you about the Extreme, however. My offer stands. I need someone who can be trusted to serve as my right hand.”
I looked around, spotting Soviet Ape throwing darts at the Prismatic Commando’s picture while Mister Chaos had decorated his room with headless dolls. “Wow, did you come to the wrong place.”
“Tell me about it. Now are you in or not?”
“I’m listening.”
“Do you know anything about parallel worlds?”
“Just what I learned from Doctor Who and Star Trek,” I replied, not sure what he was suggesting. “Infinite realities, blah-blah, quantum physics, yakity-smackity.”
“That’s close enough for our purposes,” Tom said. Something about his voice made me feel sick to my stomach, as if I was listening to audible evil. “I’ve discovered a parallel reality where superheroes never existed. Most of the pop culture is still the same, though, for reasons I cannot yet fathom.”
“Huh,” I said, suddenly interested. “If there were no superheroes then who killed Hitler?”
“Suicide, oddly enough. I confess it’s a much less satisfying ending than Ultragod dragging him and Stalin before the World Court. I say that as Ultragod’s worst enemy.”
“What is it with you and Ultragod, anyway?” I said, trying to distract Tom while I thought about what to do. I didn’t like the idea of helping the world’s most dangerous man escape. Tom had broken out of prison at least a hundred times in the past, though. If I didn’t help him, he’d eventually do it on his own. Still, this was a lot more evil than I was prepared to be.
“It was the Thirties. I was a white mad scientist. He was a black superhero. It seemed natural we’d fight. I saw the light around the Fifties or so. I no longer hate him for his race. Now I hate him because he’s standing in the way of my dominating the planet.”
“I’m glad you’ve embraced equal-opportunity evil. So what’s this parallel universe got to do with us?”
Tom’s smile broadened to the point it covered half of his face. “The guards don’t search for parallel dimensions.”
He proceeded to pull a hole out of his pocket. Yes, the kind of portable-hole that Wile-E-Coyote would move around in the Looney Toons shorts. Placing it against the wall, Tom reached in and pulled out a flask containing a golden liquid.
“Okay. I’m not a skeptic or anything but that’s insane.”
“Any science sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic,” Tom Terror said. “Arthur C. Clark got that quote from me but never gave me credit. I may have to travel back in time to kill him…again.”
“This conversation is both frightening and fascinating all at once. It’s like listening to Professor Moriarty talk to Bugs Bunny.”
“Thank you,” I said to my costume, while looking at Tom Terror. “So what’s the potion do?”
“It is my latest variant on my Elixir-X formula!” Tom said with all the relish you’d expect of a villain from the Golden Age of Superheroism. “Once I imbibe this potion, it will bestow Ultragod’s powers upon me for twenty-four hours!”
“Classic supervillain plotline.”
“I know, because I invented it. This version won’t make my hair fall out and require me to get eye replacements like the last few dozen did either.”
“The perils of self-experimentation,” I replied, leaning up against my transparent cell wall. “What about the guards? Aren’t you worried about them hearing your dastardly scheme?”
“I have bent all of the guards in the prison through an ancient brainwashing technique,” Tom said, chuckling.
“Mind-Control Waves?”
“Cash.”
“Damn,” I said, both impressed and disappointed. “I wish I had a pen and paper to write all this down.”
Tom Terror downed his elixir in one gulp, throwing the flask to one side. Seconds later, he was levitating a foot off the ground with miniature lightning bolts crackling up and down his body. It reminded me of the Quickening from the Highlander movies. A moment later, a glowing white aura surrounded Tom Terror.
Pointing at his cell door, Tom conjured a glowing chainsaw energy construct and cut through it like it was cardboard.
“You realize Tom Terror will kill many heroes if he escapes. That doesn’t include innumerable innocent victims if he makes it to Earth.”
“Why do you care?” I said, feeling more than a little guilt about all this. “You’re a servant of the Grim Reaper.”
“I…it’s complicated.”
“Well, so is my life. If I don’t bust out of this joint, I’ll never see Mandy again,” I said. “Besides, I’m lacking in the superpowers department while he’s gained all of Ultragod’s abilities. Give me one good reason why I should care about this.”
I talked a good game but I shared Cloak’s worries. I wanted to escape this place and see Mandy again but I didn’t want hundreds of innocents on my conscience either. I wasn’t a sociopath, it seemed, just gleefully immoral. Still, I wasn’t budging on this plan until Cloak gave me some answers.
“I was once a hero,” Cloak said. “My foremost duty is to make sure the Reaper’s Cloak is used to prevent the rising of the Restless Dead. Everything else, including your supervillainy, is secondary.”
“I’m not you.”
“I know. But you need to know why I care. I’m Lancel Warren. The Nightwalker.”
Chapter Seventeen
The Great Supervillain Riot
“Yeah, I figured that out awhile back.”
“Wait, what?”
“Yeah, you’re haunting your own Cloak. I get it.”
“Excuse me?” Tom Terror said, across the room. “What are you doing?”
“Sorry, I’m talking to my other personality.”
“Ah. Carry on.”
Given he had Ultra-powers now, I was surprised Tom Terror wasn’t able to hear Cloak’s voice.
“Tom Terror always overestimates his creations. I doubt his powers are nearly as refined as Ultragod’s.” Cloak made a snorting noise in my head. “You should also be grateful I’m desperate to keep zombies from overrunning my city. Do you think it’s been easy watching you waste my powers like you do?”
“I’ve not been wasting my powers.”
“And the stupid names you give everything! It’s never been called the Night Tower or the Night Car. I didn’t have Night in front of everything. You sounded ridiculous calling it a Night Computer. I tried to be subtle about telling you not to call it that but you seem oblivious to causal suggestions.”
“Sunlight called it the Night Computer.”
“Sunlight has a lot of problems. I tried to get him therapy for them but the Seventies were a strange time. He spent a lot of time with Hunter S. Thompson and was a bad influence on him.”
“Wait, he was a bad influence on Hunter S. Thompson?” I asked, not sure if that was possible.
“You can see why I stopped working with my brother’s descendants,” Cloak replied. “They were great gadgetry crime fighters but a little on the strange side.”
Tom’s cell door flopped off as a pair of prison guards charged at Tom Terror, firing their laser guns. The blasts bounced against Tom’s energy shield before he cut their heads off with his glowing chainsaw.
It was a bloody, gory mess.
“That was unnecessary,” I said, looking at the corpses.
“Necessary? No. Fun? Yes.” Tom looked at the carnage with a sadistic glee. “Haven’t you ever killed someone for the joy of it?”
I hadn’t, but he was testing me. “Yes, but that’s me.”
Tom dissipated the chainsaw and stretched out his hands, shooting bolts of lightning throughout the Archvillains’ Wing. It was like being caught in the middle of an electrical storm. Seconds later, all of the cell doors opened up and alarms started blaring throughout the prison level.
“On a scale of one to ten, just how much of a psycho is Tom?” I asked Cloak.
“Less than Mister Chaos, who is still t
he most prolific serial killer in American history, but more than anyone else I’ve ever fought,” Cloak said, sounding more like a superhero every second. “Having second thoughts about your supervillain career?”
“Not a bit.”
For once, I wasn’t sure if I was telling the truth or not. Teaming up with Tom Terror was a far cry from anything my brother had ever done. But, really, wasn’t that the point?
“You must do what you feel is right, of course.”
“Shut up, Obi-Wan.”
Tom Terror floated up a foot above the ground and addressed the gathering crowd of supervillains were forming around us. “Members of the Fraternal Order of Supervillains, colleagues, and fellow architects of global chaos…we are free!”
A cheer went up throughout the prison level.
“The Society of Superheroes thought they could keep us prisoner on this barren rock but they were wrong!” Tom Terror shouted, stretching out his arms as he levitated upward.
“The neo-bourgeoisie capitalist pigs!” Soviet Ape said in Russian, shaking a furry fist.
Thinking at the Cloak, I asked, “Wait, how do I understand Russian?”
“I’m translating.”
“Should I call you Lancel, Cloak, or what?” I asked, unsure what to say or do. Despite everything, I still trusted Cloak and wanted his advice. After all, he wanted out of this place as much as I did.
“Cloak is fine,” Cloak said. “My old life ceased to matter when I died. Though, I confess, I’m not looking forward to spending eternity with you when you die.”
“We’ll have to work on fixing that,” I muttered aloud.
Tom continued his speech, not noticing my mumbling. “They are trapped on this planetoid with us! Never has there been a better time to strike down our foes, freeing us from their interference to pursue our superior Nietzschean morality!”
“You know Nietzsche doesn’t work that way, right? I knew Fred. He was a pleasant man who would have been horrified at what the Nazis did with his philosophy.”
“Shhh. Some of these guys might be able to hear you.”