by Logan Jacobs
Once I was there, I went over to the legless dummy on a stick in the corner.
“Hiya, Chief,” I said and patted a training dummy on the head with my gloved hand. He vibrated slightly, but that was all. “How’s it going?”
I shoved him lightly in the chest and said, “What you did at the Gala was not cool.” He just kept scowling at me and wobbled a bit more but that was all.
“If you got a problem with the C.D.S., then take it up with me personally!” I told him and delivered a right cross straight to the nose. At the moment of impact, I felt the glove sort of tighten and firm about my fist, and a gentle sensation almost like static electricity coursed through my knuckles. I hadn’t packed any more than my usual respectable but not spectacular amount of force into this punch, but when the glove struck the dummy’s broad, square, unfriendly face, his rubberized head exploded like a grenade of sand and stuffing.
“Well, fuck me,” I chuckled as I removed the tingling glove and flexed my fingers. My knuckles were totally unharmed, not as if I’d just punched a nearly three hundred pound dummy with enough force to annihilate it.
After that I put the glove back on, made my rounds through the gym, and figured out what was on the inside of my speed bags and heavy bags too. The glove worked spectacularly, and soon everything that could be punched in my gym was a half-empty bag of sizzling canvas.
“Aileen, make sure you’re cataloguing this and put replacements on order please,” I said.
“Will do,” came the reply through the speakers. “Very impressive, Creator.”
“Ha!” I laughed. “It’s not exactly all me. I wish I could punch like this.”
“… Biology has its limits,” replied my AI assistant. “Technology has none.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “I’ll give you some pretty impressive punching abilities too whenever I finally get around to completing your body.”
“I look forward to it,” Aileen replied, “as well as other things I can do with my body.”
“Oh, Aileen,” I chuckled. “You naughty girl.”
“You made me, Miles,” she purred. “I only wish to serve you in as many ways as possible.”
“That you will.” I took the gloves off and made my way back over to The Cellar to rejoin Norma. “Aileen, can you do something else for me?” I asked. “That female superhero who was at the Gala. The one in red who is apparently named Dynamo, can you look up her real identity and get me her contact info?”
“Do you really have time for chasing tail right now, Miles?” Norma sighed from her seat. “Shouldn’t we be focusing on the task at hand?”
“That is an incredibly sexist assumption,” I informed her. “I want to get in contact with this girl to recruit her as a potentially powerful ally in our battle against the forces of evil.”
“Oh,” Norma said, and looked mollified. “Okay, well, sorry then.”
“...And then I will sleep with her,” I couldn’t resist adding, and Norma just crossed her arms in response.
Aileen projected a ten digit number on the screen nearest me. “Here’s Dynamo’s private cell phone number. Her legal name is Elizabeth Avenati. Would you like me to dial the number in your phone?”
“Yes please,” I said, and held the phone up to my ear as the numbers tapped themselves out on the keypad.
It rang several times. At first I thought she wasn’t going to pick up. After all, it was almost midnight by then, and it probably would have been more polite for me to wait until the next day. But I had a feeling that after the events of the gala, she had probably had to brief her Warden superiors, and then after that, she had probably started planning out next steps to deal with the mastermind behind the attack, just like me. Superheroes didn’t just go to bed after something like that happened. It wasn’t their style.
Then, right when I was about to hang up, a wary female voice asked, “… Hello?”
“Hi,” I said. “I wanted to tell you that your performance tonight at the Aberdeen Country Club was spectacular. And I wanted to ask what your plan is now in regard to confronting The Chief.”
“Who is this?” she asked. “How did you get my number?”
“This is Miles Nelson,” I answered, and ignored the second question.
“Oh,” she sighed. “I thought I recognized your voice.”
“I’ve been told it’s quite soothing,” I chuckled.
“But we’ve never talked,” she continued, “And I’ve never given you my number. Whatever. It’s a post-privacy world. You’re making sure of that.”
“Don’t look at me, look at your fans,” I said. “They’re the ones who expect you to livestream yourself putting on and taking off your suit and commuting to crime scenes, and to take selfies in the middle of fights to prove that you’re not using a stunt double. They’re the ones who want to know how you drink your coffee. What brand of toothpaste you use. How many lovers you’ve had. What your relationship with your mother was like growing up.”
“Yeah,” she signed again, “dealing with all that bullshit is kind of part of the job. The Wardens tried to prepare me for that when I signed with them, but it’s kind of overwhelming sometimes. I could do my job so much better if people just paid less attention to me.”
Normally, I would have gone for a flirtatious response somewhere along the lines of, “Well, it’s hard to blame them. Any healthy human male would have a damn hard time taking his eyes off you and your skin-tight red bodysuit and matching thigh-high boots.” But I got the distinct sense that this particular girl was fed up with that kind of flattery. So instead I said, “Well, it looked to me like you did a pretty great job ignoring the cameras and staying focused on what matters-- kicking supervillain ass and protecting the helpless-- at the Gala tonight. You didn’t let your ego put everyone in more danger unlike some superheroes I could name. That’s why I noticed you. That’s why I’m calling you up now and not Optimo or any of the others.”
“It’s not just because I’m the new girl, and you think I’m more accessible?” she asked flatly. “More impressionable, easier to manipulate?”
“No,” I countered. “I don’t have any nefarious intentions towards you.”
“The media says you always have something nefarious planned,” she laughed lightly, and I decided I liked the sound of her pleasure.
“You can’t believe everything you read in the media,” I said.
“I don’t,” she said. “I’ve stopped reading any stories printed about me that I wasn’t directly interviewed for. Actually, those are sometimes worst of all, because they twist my words, take them out of context, and yet they can call their statements authentic and verified. Sometimes I feel like they all want to make me out to be something I’m not, and that what I actually am just isn’t exciting enough for them... I don’t know why I’m telling you all this, Billionaire Playboy Miles Nelson. I guess it’s just late, and I’m tired and pissed off.”
“Pissed off about what?” I asked.
She sighed for a third time. I took her evident discontent with her professional circumstances as a positive sign that maybe she’d be amenable to the idea of working with me, Norma, and Aileen instead. Together, we had the potential to get shit done a lot more efficiently than the Wardens did with all their stupid strategies and ridiculous policies that rendered even the most earth-shattering powers practically useless.
“After what he did tonight, I want to pursue The Chief,” she said, “but my managers told me they’re taking me off the case. The Chief wasn’t even considered a very significant supervillain before this, but this attack really upgraded his priority level, so they’re giving this one to Optimo instead. They don’t trust me to handle it. They said I don’t have enough experience yet.”
“What case are they assigning you instead?” I asked. “Some other supervillain?”
“No,” she said. “For the next month they have me booked for a bunch of press conferences and charity events… and photoshoots… and I think a city
parade where they want me to ride on a fucking float. Next to Killer Kitten, of course. But it’s okay for her cause she loves that shit. She’s great at it, and I think it’s her favorite part of being a Warden.”
“What’s your favorite part of the job?” I asked her.
“Saving lives,” she answered immediately. “That’s why I joined up. To fight evil and protect the city I love. To use the powers I was given to help people who don’t have those same abilities to defend themselves.”
“That’s admirable,” I said. It was. The Wardens produced plenty of propaganda expressing similar sentiments, but somehow coming from Dynamo’s mouth, they didn’t just sound like platitudes. They sounded like earnest convictions. I was skilled at reading people, even people with deceptive tendencies, and my impression of this rookie Warden was that she was a noble-minded and pure-hearted individual. Exactly the stereotype of what a superhero was supposed to be, and what so few of Pinnacle City’s narcissistic showboaters truly seemed to be.
“Whatever,” she replied. “Look, Mr. Billionaire. It’s getting late. I actually did want to talk to you at the gala about your new system, but I--”
“I apologize, it was rude of me to call at this hour,” I said quickly before she could hang up. “Let me make it up to you. I’ll take you out to dinner at Buonarotti’s. How does tomorrow evening sound?”
Her only response was an incredulous laugh.
“What?” I asked.
“A romantic, candlelit dinner at the finest Italian dining establishment in the city with the Billionaire Playboy Miles Nelson?” she scoffed. “I know how you operate, but I’m not your next conquest, so you can get that thought out of your head.”
“That wasn’t my intention,” I said, which was true. Mostly. It wasn’t my primary intention. I wanted her on my team for professional reasons. I really couldn’t say that she would fit in with the rest of us, ideologically, that is. But she would provide a nicely complementary perspective and some much needed muscle.
“Then what is your intention?” she muttered.
“If it would make you feel more comfortable, we could get lunch instead. Fast food, at a shopping mall food court. Oh, I know of a Mexican franchise that recently had a nationwide recall on their refried beans after hundreds of customers started soiling their-- ”
“Coffee,” she interrupted. “Coffee tomorrow afternoon. Four P.M. at Madame Lucille’s on Howard Street.”
“Deal,” I said. “Have a good night.” Then I hung up before she could reply or change her mind.
“D-did she just… turn you down for a date?” Norma was staring at me wide-eyed without even attempting to conceal the fact that she had been intently listening in on my half of the conversation the whole time.
“For fuck’s sake, not every meeting I have with a woman is a date,” I said. “I haven’t even got a good look at this girl yet. All I’ve really seen of her is her combat abilities. Maybe she and I will be mutually uninterested in anything other than a strictly professional relationship. Who knows?”
“Riiight,” Norma said as she rolled her eyes. “Aileen, care to run the statistical probability on that one?”
“Aileen has important work to do right now,” I said sternly before my AI assistant could respond. Of course, we all knew that complying with Norma’s request wouldn’t have occupied more than a crumb of Aileen’s processing power, but Norma didn’t press the issue any further.
“So, what now?” my assistant asked.
“Now I’m going to bed,” I said. “If you need to sleep, you should, but if you want to keep working, that’s fine.”
“I guess I could drive home and--”
“Don’t be silly,” I scoffed as I waved my hand over my shoulder in her direction. “The mansion has plenty of guest rooms, and I know you carry an overnight pack in your car just in case I want you to spend the night.”
“You know about the overni--”
“I’ll see you in the morning!” I called out to both women, and then the elevator to The Cellar closed behind me, and I rode it up to the mansion level. A few minutes later I’d finished my bedtime routine and fell asleep quite easily.
I always did.
The next morning when I got up, I set an alarm on my watch for three o’clock so that I would have time to get ready to meet Dynamo for coffee. Then I settled in to work on my suit pretty much nonstop until then.
Around noon, Aileen said, “Creator, I have a ninety six point seven visual match for The Virus, entering The Pig Puddle now.”
“Oh?” I asked as I looked over. Every screen in The Cellar was projecting a pixelated bird's-eye view of a tall gaunt man in a pinstriped suit with a fedora on that blocked my view of his face. He was accompanied by another figure in a black suit with some kind of pale trim. The camera wasn’t showing many details of the black-suited figure either, but it was clearly a male in costume, the kind of costume that only superheroes or supervillains or men trying to attract the attention of other men would be caught dead wearing. They both entered The Pig Puddle and disappeared from view, since it apparently did not have any security cameras inside that the C.D.S. had been able to obtain access to.
“You can tell just from that?” I asked Aileen.
“From this,” she replied. She rewound the video and froze it on a frame where the guy in the pinstriped suit had happened to glance upward and zoomed in on his face. I still couldn’t see him all that well really, but I could tell that he was kind of sickly looking and had a face that only a mother could love.
“Okay, well, I trust your judgment,” I said. “Keep an eye on him. That’s your priority right now. Keep me updated on his movements. We need to establish his daily patterns.”
“Roger that,” Aileen replied.
The Virus didn’t leave The Pig Puddle until I had to leave for my coffee date with Dynamo, but I knew Aileen was on the job.
The coffee shop that the new Warden had chosen was a bit out of the way, fairly empty, clean-looking and well-furnished, but not trendy enough to be filled with crowds of chattering teenage girls on their phones. Just a few couples on dates, a few thirty somethings squinting at their laptops, and an old man in a tweed blazer reading a newspaper and staring soulfully out the window. Perfect.
I looked around to choose a table and then felt a gust of wind and heard the door squeak as it opened. I turned to see a woman walk in that I knew instantly must be Dynamo, even though I’d never seen her up close, and she wasn’t wearing anything resembling a superhero costume at the moment. Her figure was concealed in a gray sweatshirt-looking jacket with a high collar and loose brown cargo pants with white tennis shoes. Her face was concealed partially by the collar of her jacket and partially by a baseball cap and large sunglasses. Her glossy black mane was minimized in a ponytail, and it fell down her back in a messy wave of obsidian.
Her beauty was obvious, despite all those efforts to hide her face and body.
She didn’t even glance around, she just headed straight toward me, which told me that she’d already scoped out the occupants of the coffee shop through the windows prior to entering and identified me.
“Hi,” I said as I stuck out my hand. I didn’t state my name or hers, because I knew neither of us wanted the attention that would come if anyone overheard. There was still the chance of being recognized, of course, but there was no reason to increase that risk. “Nice to meet you properly. I’m Miles.”
“Likewise, Elizabeth,” she replied as she took my hand and gave it a firm shake. Then she finally glanced around, tipped her chin toward a table in the corner with a full view of both the front and back doors, and strode over to it while I followed after her.
We seated ourselves at the table, and after glancing around again, Dynamo removed her oversized sunglasses. I had to restrain myself from gasping at my first clear view of her face.
Her eyes were blue, long-lashed, and dramatized by the strong arches of her dark brows. She had a delicately pointed nose th
at was spotted with a few cute freckles, a full mouth with juicy lips, high rounded cheekbones, and an unusually angular jaw for a woman that gave her feminine features a subtle air of masculine strength.
She smirked slightly when she seemed to detect the awe in my expression. “So, Mr. Billionaire, what do you want?”
Well. That was kind of a loaded question at that moment. A completely honest answer would probably have earned me a slap across the face, and considering that I was pretty sure one of this girl’s powers was super strength, a slap from her would probably rearrange my features into a less preferable design. So instead I said, “... The same thing you want.”
She raised an eyebrow. “And what, exactly, do you assume that I want?”
“To save lives,” I quoted her from our phone call the previous night. “To fight evil and protect the city you love. To use the powers you were given to help people who don’t have those same abilities to defend themselves.”
“You remembered,” she said. Her tone warmed up a bit. It wasn’t that she’d seemed hostile toward me before, just extremely wary.
“Of course I remembered,” I said. “Those words resonated deeply with me, because, like I said, I want the same things you do, Elizabeth.”
She looked a little taken aback by the familiar use of her first name and opened her pillowy lips to correct me, but then she seemed to remember that we were in public and that it was better for the people surrounding us to just hear the unremarkable name “Elizabeth” rather than her superhero name. She nodded once, either to acknowledge my statement or to concede the usage of the nickname.
“Money and a bit of creativity can go a long ways towards achieving those goals,” I continued, “but… there are certain other desirable skill sets in this line of work that I just don’t have. Sometimes fighting fire with fire is the most efficient solution. And that’s where you come in.”