Rise of the Supervillains

by Jaron Lee Knuth

  “I wanted you here because you don't ask me to be who I'm supposed to be. You only ask... who I am.”

  She walked across the room and sat down next to him. She reached up and touched his cheek, her fingers tracing the scar she had left on him. He looked into her eyes with a desperate longing for companionship, for a friendship he had never known.

  “Then tell me, Maksim Zharkov. Who are you?”

  19

  ANDRE

  He felt his heart beat first. It was a slow surge, like his blood was too thick to pump. When it flushed a pulse through his system, the numbness in his limbs faded into the tips of needles jabbing into his flesh. Finally, his lungs prepared themselves, then sucked in as much air as they could. His chest heaved and his body lurched upward. His eyes broke open, blinded by the light above him. He continued to gasp as his eyes refocused, his body swelling with the sensation of consciousness.

  When Andre gazed back and forth, trying to take in his surroundings, he wasn't quite sure what he was looking at, but the horrifying reality sunk in. Bodies hastily thrown upon each other, piled together in the cargo container of a vehicle. The smell permeated his nostrils, threatening his stomach with its stench. He pushed away, trying to escape the touch of the cold flesh underneath him, but he slammed up against the side of the vehicle's cargo container. He crawled the other way, toward the doors of the container, but found them locked.

  When he turned back around, he looked at the face of the corpse underneath him. The withered visage of Doctor Chem stared back at him with lifeless eyes, its mouth hanging open in a permanent scream. He instinctively shoved himself away from the man he had killed, feeling as though fate had trapped him here, in a coffin meant to punish him.

  The vehicle continued to bounce around, over the uneven ground, jostling the bodies back and forth. As his senses returned to him, Andre allowed hope into his mind. Uneven ground most likely meant he was above ground, outside the prison walls. Which meant it had worked. They thought he was dead.

  He needed to be patient. He closed his eyes and plugged his nose, doing everything he could to pretend he was somewhere else, but fear kept creeping in. He had no plan. The whole thing had been so impulsive, fueled only by the images of Carmen on television and then in his own imagination. But they had been enough. There was no way he was going to sit back and allow her to be forced into some royal marriage while he reaped the benefits of her deal.

  Life in the Pit had turned out to be better than he could have imagined, but it was all thanks to her. He may have found a clever way to use her line of supplies to further his goals within the prison, but it still came down to her. It was her sacrifice that had granted him his power inside the prison.

  As if he didn't feel guilty enough. He had gotten Victor killed. He had no idea what fate met Mickey and Cleo. But to pile on Carmen's twisted marriage to that Zharkov monster was too much for him to handle. He would reach her somehow. That's all he knew.

  It felt like hours sitting in the container of corpses before the vehicle slowed to a stop. Andre excitedly crawled to the doors and pushed his ear to the wall of the vehicle, trying to hear what was happening outside. He heard a driver's door open and close, then a whistling sound move around to the back of the vehicle. When he heard the sound of levers being released on the other side of the door, he readied himself.

  As soon as the double doors split open, he lunged. His body slammed into a large man, tackling him to the sandy ground. The man was yelling in shock as Andre wrestled with him. The two men rolled back and forth, exchanging moments of dominance in the fight. Andre was hindered by the fact that he was used to his super strength, used to pushing and shoving with ease, but he had also been working out every morning since his imprisonment. Eventually he managed to roll behind the man and wrap his arms around his neck.

  “Stop!” he yelled directly into the man's ear from behind. “Stop struggling!”

  The man reached under his large, round belly, fumbling for his belt. Andre continued to tighten his grip on the man's neck, hoping it would either put him to sleep, or apply enough pressure that the man would give up his fight. But the man eventually managed to pull his guard pistol from its holster. Andre let go and gripped the pistol with both hands.

  A new struggle began, with both men kicking their legs and trying to yank the gun from the other. Andre's height gave him the advantage, and he managed to rip the gun from the man's clutches. He rolled to the right and came up with the pistol pointed directly at the man's chest.

  The guard stopped and raised his hands in the air shouting, “Don't shoot! Don't shoot!”

  Andre scrambled to his feet and looked around, trying to take in his new surroundings. The sky was covered in a black cloud, blotting out the sun, and the expanse of land around him was nothing but flat, blowing sand. He didn't need to ask. He knew exactly where he was. The Wasteland. The aftermath of the United States, the earth that was burned away from the exploding supervillain known as Plasmax.

  “Where were you taking us?” Andre asked, then, noticing his super power still hadn't returned, he looked over his shoulder, back toward the way they were coming from. “How far from the Pit are we?”

  The guard shook his head, still keeping his hands in the air. “I... I don't know. Twenty, thirty miles? We're at the graveyard.”

  Andre peered past the man and the vehicle they were traveling in and saw a large drop off, like the edge of a cliff. Andre motioned with his gun for the man to walk toward the edge, and Andre followed him. When they reached it, Andre peered over the side and saw a deep crevasse. Far off in the distance, he could see it split off into multiple, smaller canyons. But directly below them was a disgusting scene. Piles of corpses and bones, scattered like garbage across the rocks.

  “This is what you do with the bodies?”

  The man was frozen, afraid to answer.

  A shudder ran down Andre's body. If he had stayed in the comatose state for any longer, he would be at the bottom of the canyon. Would he have survived the fall? Would Doctor Chem's plan have worked, or would he have died upon impact?

  Andre couldn't help himself. He slammed the handle of the pistol into the man's forehead, dropping him to his knees. Blood trickled into the man's eye, but he made no move to wipe it away, keeping his hands in the air and letting out a small whimper.

  “This is your job?” Andre asked with a vile, accusatory tone. “You make your living tossing dead bodies over a cliff?”

  The man shook his head. “No one wants to do this job, man! They force us to take turns.” The guard blinked away the dripping blood and looked up at Andre. “How are you alive?”

  Andre shoved the barrel of the gun against the man's cheek and with a smile he growled, “I'm a goddamn supervillain.”

  The man didn't respond like Andre had hoped. Perhaps because he worked in a place full of supervillains, the term didn't hold as much weight.

  “But we're still within the perimeter of Negaton. You can't have your powers yet. How did you-”

  “Enough questions!” Andre yelled, then glanced back at the vehicle full of corpses. “How far will this thing take me? Does it have enough fuel to reach the American Republic?”

  The man shrugged and pointed at the fuel tanks strapped to the side of the vehicle. “Sure. They load us down with enough gasoline to get you there and back. But you can't drive it. It only responds to my fingerprints.”

  Andre looked back and forth, between the man, the vehicle, and the horizon so far off in the distance. He grabbed the man by the collar and lifted him to his feet.

  “I guess you're my chauffeur for the day.”

  “What?” the man blurted out as Andre shoved him toward the vehicle. “I can't drive you across the desert.”

  “Why not?”

  The man's words stumbled for a second as he tried and failed to come up with a suitable answer. “I can't... I just... There's no way we'll make it.”

  “Let's hope you're wrong,” Andre
said, opening the driver's side door and shoving him in.

  “No! Wait!” the man yelled as Andre circled around to the passenger door and climbed in. “The murder-bots that roam the Wasteland. They're the last line of defense against breakouts. You'll never get through them.”

  Andre pointed the gun at the man's forehead and said, “Drive.”

  The man gripped the wheel and a green light blinked on in the center. The engine rumbled to life and the man stepped on the gas pedal. The vehicle rolled across the desert, running adjacent to the canyon, heading south. Headlights were necessary as they continued on, cutting through the darkness and blowing sand. It was a strange, eerie sensation, pushing through the nothingness. They kept moving forward, for hours, without talking.

  As they continued through the desert, they both noticed the flocks of metal robots zipping through the air. They were all small drones, each one equipped with rotary cannons, flame throwers, spinning blades, and multiple other implements of death. The red light scanners bathed the desert in preprogrammed patterns. When the lights fell across the vehicle, Andre jerked, readying himself for a fight he wasn't sure he could win, but the flock continued on.

  “Why aren't they attacking?”

  The guard was silent, nervously looking out the side window, but Andre shoved the barrel of the gun into his chest and repeated, “Why aren't they attacking?”

  “This is a verified vehicle of the Pit. They aren't going to attack guards.”

  “You lied to me.”

  The guard whimpered a bit, but said nothing more as they continued to drive. It was only a few more miles when Andre saw a line of blinking lights running the length of the desert. Each one jutted out of the ground at least twenty feet in the air, and each one was placed a hundred feet apart.

  “What are those?” Andre asked as the vehicle rumbled between two of the posts.

  As soon as they were on the other side, Andre felt a strange sensation. His breathing became deeper. His vision sharpened. His sense of smell picked up the smell of onions on the man's breath. He clenched his fist and felt strength again. Power.

  “We crossed the perimeter,” the guard said, noticing Andre's reaction. “Your powers are returning.”

  Andre smiled. It was amazing how much he had missed the sensation. It was like he had finally come out of months of sickness. He felt like himself again.

  “So, who are you?” the guard asked.

  Andre stared out the window, hoping the horizon would show something that looked like civilization soon.

  “What I mean is: What was your supervillain name... before you were captured?”

  Andre didn't respond. His mind was preoccupied by where he was going, what he was doing next. He needed a plan. He needed a strategy. He couldn't drive into Patriot City with a prison guard as his hostage in a vehicle full of corpses. He had to be smart.

  “Fine,” the guard said after the long silence. “Can you at least tell me what your powers are?”

  There was something that stuck out to Andre about the stories he heard in the Pit. A repeating pattern among most of the supervillains who shared their stories of capture. Every one described the moment where they lost themselves in overconfidence. They were so sure they had won, they took the time to gloat. They described their grand plan to the hero under their boot, wanting someone to be witness to their tale of glory. And that's when things always went wrong. They revealed too much. They exposed some flaw. Their words got them into trouble.

  So Andre remained silent.

  If the guard knew nothing, he would have no advantage. If the guard thought Andre could have any power, could be any supervillain, then he couldn't formulate a plan to escape. He would continue to drive in fear of Andre, and that's exactly what Andre needed him to do.

  It was the middle of the night when Andre saw the wrecked remnants of a paved road. The vehicle bounced around on the cracked street until it became smoother and smoother. Soon, street signs appeared, but they were for pre-war cities. Exit signs for Monterey and Saltillo flew past them, cities that were left in ruins by the war, and then the explosion of Plasmax. Cities that were no longer inhabitable. But then one sign hung above an overpass, its green color bright and new, proudly displaying the words: Patriot City - 122 km.

  “Pull over,” Andre said, pushing the pistol into the man's rib cage.

  “Here?”

  “Do it. Now.”

  He could sense the man's nervousness as he wheeled the vehicle alongside the road. When he placed it in park, and took his hands off the wheel, the vehicle's engine came to a stop.

  “Get out.”

  The man shot him a quick glance and said, “What? Why? What are we doing?”

  “I said get out!”

  The man opened his door and shuffled out onto the street. They were still far from civilization. Andre knew there might be a few small dwellings between where they were and the edge of the city, but he didn't have to worry about traffic this close to the Wasteland.

  He shoved the man toward the back of the vehicle and said, “Get undressed.”

  The man gave him a weird look and mumbled, “Wh-what are you going to do to me?”

  “I need your clothes. You think I'm going to walk into the city wearing my prisoner uniform?”

  The guard unbuttoned his shirt and took off his pants, and Andre slipped out of his thin, orange uniform. The guard's clothes were too big for him, but he tightened the belt as much as he could. He dug his fingers under the patch on the sleeve that had the logo for the guard unit sewed into it. With a small tug, it ripped free, leaving the shirt unmarked. He tossed the patch onto the ground and then looked up at the guard standing alongside the road in his underwear, shivering.

  They both knew what was going to happen, and they were both denying it. Andre had never killed anyone before Doctor Chem, and for the most part, that had been an accident. But he learned a lot of things from the supervillains in the Pit, and while he gleaned some information about how to succeed, he paid more attention to why they had failed.

  He had heard villain after villain describe their most regrettable weakness: they hadn't been ruthless enough. Time after time he heard them say that if they could do it all over again, they'd never let trivial things like morality get in their way. If they had only been more selfish and realized that no one's life was more important than their own, then they would have succeeded. Whether it was the woman they let live at the bank robbery, who was later able to ID them to the Alliance, or the superhero they turned their back on, thinking he was down for the count, who ended up beating them to a pulp before arresting them. It was always the one you thought wasn't worth the effort, wasn't worth the guilt of “killing an innocent.” Andre had to remember, no one was innocent. Not in his world. He needed to get his mind out of the normality of day-to-day life, and place it firmly in survival mode. If this guard told anyone what happened, if he told anyone that Andre was still alive, there would be a manhunt, and his life would become even more complicated than it already was.

  He had no choice.

  He pressed the gun against the guard's forehead.

  The guard closed his eyes, tears streaming down his cheeks as he begged, “Please. Please don't do this. I have a wife. She's pregnant. We're going to have a daughter. I can't leave them. I can't. You don't have to do this. I won't say anything. I won't-”

  “Shut up!” Andre yelled, trying to push past the man's blubbering.

  He thought of Carmen, which made him pause. She wouldn't want him to do this. She would try to talk him out of it with speeches about morality and kindness. Then he thought of Mickey. How lost that boy would be without them. He thought of the monumental task ahead of him, and how he couldn't let something so small get in his way. He thought of his life as a supervillain, and the blood that would need to be spilled in order to succeed.

  The guard cried out, “Why are you doing this?”

  “I already told you,” Andre said as he pulled back the
pistol's hammer with his thumb. “I'm a goddamn supervillain.”

  The bullet exploded out the back of the man's head, spraying blood and brains across the pavement. Andre shoved the pistol into the back of his belt and picked up the man's body at the waist, making sure not to get any of the blood on his clothes. He tossed the body into the back of the cargo container with a gentle heave, his super-strength doing the lifting for him. Then he grabbed a couple of the fuel tanks strapped to the side of the vehicle and dumped the gasoline across the pile of bodies in the back. It was only minutes later that he was walking down the road, a flaming container full of corpses behind him, and Patriot City ahead.

  20

  HECTOR

  “That solidifies it,” Esmeralda said as she muted the television airing the state news. “There's no hope for a peace deal now.”

  “I still don't understand how they managed to kill her,” Miguel said, rubbing his chin. “The force field they have around the Neo-Nippon islands is impenetrable. How did they get a suicide bomber inside?”

  Esmeralda shrugged her shoulders and said, “If the Zharkovs had been behind it, they would have told us exactly what happened.”

  “It must have been a fringe element,” Hector agreed. “You should get your network on it. Find out what you can.”

  Esmeralda pushed a button on her MajesTech mobile phone. “Already done, dear.”

  There was a knock on the door, which made Hector jump. He reached for the pistol he had shoved under the pillow on the couch, but Esmeralda held out her hand as if to silently calm him. When she answered the door, it was another servant pushing another cart of even more food and gifts. Esmeralda thanked the girl, who refused any compensation for her time, and closed the door behind her as she left.

  The hotel suite was extravagant, even for the Majestys. The Zharkovs were showing off, from the food they were offered to the gifts of jewelry and watches, all of it to show how abundant goods were in the Fatherlands.