by James Maxey
“Really?” asked Chem Queen. “‘Cause sometimes, I wonder about that.”
“You do?” asked Nimble, her painted on eyebrows lifting.
“Maybe,” said Chem Queen, with a sly grin. “But listen to your friend. This isn’t the best place for me to tell my story. It’s a long story.”
“Fine,” said Nimble, though she didn’t sound fine. But she jammed her hands into the tank tread, then expanded her fists, giving me space to pull the pistol free. I spun around and used the butt of the gun to bash the petrified face of the Spelunker, breaking the stone. He gasped, then coughed.
“Jesus,” he said. “I thought I was going to suffocate.”
“Now you know how your victims feel,” said Nimble.
“I’ve never killed anyone! I always punch an air hole once I’m sure they’ve passed out.”
“Really?” I said. “Never? You know I can google that, right?”
“Go ahead,” he said. “I’m a thief, not a murderer.”
“You also kidnap bodybuilders and drug them,” said Nimble.
“I’m not saying I’m a saint. Just saying the people I work for don’t like me killing anyone.”
“I’ve never killed anyone either,” said Chem Queen.
“That has to be bullshit,” said Nimble.
“Again, we’ll google it, but not here, not now,” I said. I looked at the Spelunker, then pointed at the tread. “Can you get this running again?”
“I don’t think there’s any real damage,” he said, turning his head as much as he could to get a better look. “If we’d been running full power, the treads would have chewed up that gun barrel without even slowing down. You got lucky, and jammed it in there while I was between gears.”
“Okay, let me get you out of your little rock straightjacket,” I said, whacking at the stone on his shoulder with the butt of the gun.
“That will take forever,” said Chem Queen. “Let go of me and I’ll dissolve the limestone. It melts like sugar in rain with a little acid, and Ringo’s jumpsuit protects him from the residue.”
“Ringo?” I said.
“My dad was a Beatles fan,” said the Spelunker.
“I don’t think we ever knew your real identity,” I said. “You always seemed to get killed instead of captured, though your body never does get reclaimed.”
“You mean those other guys got killed,” said Ringo.
“Ringo’s not the first Spelunker,” said Chem Queen. “You going to let me get him free or not?”
I looked at Nimble and nodded.
She let go and Chem Queen pulled off her glove. Her hand was coated in a clear goop that she spread over the limestone. The rock melted away with an eggy stench.
We all squeezed into the mole-dozer. It was surprisingly cramped. I wondered how he ever fit four body builders inside. The vehicle stank of sweat, bad breath, and an odd, sweet odor I couldn’t quite place. The motor turned over and the vehicle lurched forward, picking up speed. There were headlights, but the view through the windshield was somewhat monotonous, just an unending gray tunnel as we raced back toward wherever the Spelunker had first dug in at. I tried to asked Chem Queen a question but she shook her head and yelled something back at me that I’m pretty sure was, “I can’t hear you.” I can’t be sure, since it was so loud in the mole-dozer, I couldn’t hear her. Things got even louder when the Spelunker triggered the charges he’d left behind us, collapsing the tunnel to keep anyone from following. I pressed my hands over my ears to muffle the noise. I noticed that Nimble had altered her head to get rid of her ears entirely.
Almost an hour later, the tunnel opened up into a vast cave lit with spotlights. The Shenandoah Valley is full of caverns, so my guess was we’d been traveling west. My phone had zero GPS signal, and, of course, I had no internet. If they were going to try anything, we’d have no way to call for back up.
My ears were still ringing as we stepped out of the mole-dozer. I stretched my shoulders above my head, feeling my vertebrae popping.
Nimble’s voice sounded faint and faraway as she asked, “How the heck do you fit four body builders into that thing?”
“Baby oil,” said Chem Queen. I finally placed that sweet smell I couldn’t figure out earlier. “We steal it straight from the factory. A barrel lasts us about a month.”
“What?” asked Nimble. Then she said, “Sorry. Forgot.” Her ears reappeared with a soft POP!
I looked around the cavern. It reminded me of a pirate’s lair, since it was stuffed full of loot, statues, paintings, and large safes, the doors resting beside them, the hinges melted to slag by Chem Queen’s acidic touch. The air was chilly and damp, and the only background noise was the occasional soft plink of water dropping into an unseen pool.
“You guys are more successful than I thought,” said Nimble.
“Unlike the last few Spelunkers, I’m not dumb enough to try for Fort Knox,” said Ringo.
“So you’re not the original Spelunker?” I asked.
“Nah,” he said. “I’ve always been into geology, though. I used to specialize in smuggling black market gems until I wound up in prison. I met this guy there who said he could get me work on the outside. Said the Prime Mover was looking for help.”
“The Prime Mover?” asked Nimble. “He hired you?”
Ringo shrugged. “For all I really know, I might work for Santa Clause. Ever since I broke out of prison, I get my instructions in letters. I never see who’s giving them to me.”
“Where do the postmarks originate?” I asked.
He shook his head. “They don’t come in the mail. I just find them. The first one was on the pillow next to me when I woke up. I found another taped to a six pack in my fridge. The craziest time was when I got out of the shower and found my job instructions written on the bathroom mirror with lipstick. Whoever I’m working for makes sure I know they can get close to me at any time without me even seeing them.”
“How do they collect their cut of your jobs?”
“That’s just it,” he said. “They don’t. I get to keep whatever I get away with.”
“And your orders explicitly say not to kill people?”
“Yeah, but they don’t really need to,” he said. “Look, just because I have no real respect for the concept of private property doesn’t mean I’m cool with murder.”
“I, on the other hand, think about murdering people all the time,” said Chem Queen. “There’s a lot of people in this world who piss me off. I got a long list of people I’d love to melt.”
“A literal list,” said the Spelunker. “Sixteen pages long, typed.”
“Which is why I keep wondering if maybe I’d been brainwashed.”
“How so?” asked Nimble.
“‘Cause any time I’m about to kill someone, it’s like a knife goes right through my brain. Even thinking about really hurting someone gives me headaches.”
“You did try to hit us with poison gas,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, but it was only knockout gas. I mean, I know how to make some really nasty nerve agents. I practice moving the molecules around when I’m bored. But when the shit hits the fan and I’m ready to kill a few cops ‘cause I’m sick of getting shot at, I always freeze up.”
“You know, maybe it’s not brainwashing,” said Nimble. “Maybe you’re just not evil.”
“Naw,” she said. “I’d burn the world down if I could. I kill people all the time in my dreams and wake up laughing.”
“She’s telling the truth,” said Ringo. “Sleeping next to her is even scarier than getting those notes.”
“Then why the hell are you her boyfriend?” I asked.
“Cherry’s refreshingly open with her craziness,” he said. “My last three girlfriends were also psychotic, but they didn’t really own up to it. Cherry knows who she is.”
“Honesty in a relationship is everything,” said Chem Queen.
I ground my teeth listening to this. Harry hadn’t been honest and open with me i
n months. He’d freely shared his emotions when we first started going out, back when he was still Sock Monkey. But he’d shut himself off when he became Big Ape. The changes his body went through made him short-tempered, and the only way he finally managed his anger was to start making jokes out of everything. It was impossible to have a serious conversation with him now. The thought that two loser supervillains had a better love life than I did wasn’t helping my self-esteem.
“I’m happy things are so swell for you,” said Nimble, sounding a little bitter, probably thinking about her own relationship worries. “But what if you don’t know who you really are?”
“Are you talking about the Butterfly House?” asked Chem Queen.
“You know about the Butterfly House?” I asked.
“Doesn’t everybody? I read Cut Up Girl’s book,” said Chem Queen. “And you’re that weird girl nobody ever heard of that was at her press conference. Loud Linda or something like that.”
“Actually, my official code name with the Legion was Loudspeaker, but everyone calls me Screaming Jenny.”
“Golden Victory said you were crazy,” said Ringo.
“I probably am,” I admitted. “And getting brainwashed by the Legion didn’t help.”
“So you remember the Butterfly House?” Chem Queen asked.
“Parts of it,” I said. “It’s like remembering a dream inside a dream. My memories were overwritten again by a mind-controlling villain named the Victorian. When his hold on me vanished, I had overlapping memories. I had my true history, my fake good guy origin history, and a vexing Victorian veneer over both memories.”
“I’ve never met anyone crazier than me,” said Chem Queen.
“It’s not a competition,” said Nimble.
“You know, when I read Valentine’s book, I kind of felt like it was true, and wondered if I might have been there. But her book said that the Butterfly House turned people into heroes,” said Chem Queen. “I’m no hero.”
“Maybe not everyone is cut out to be a hero,” I said. “Maybe they have to crank out a few villains too. But they neuter them to keep them mostly harmless. I mean, you aren’t the only masked villain who is strangely reluctant to kill people.”
“See, that’s the kind of stuff that makes me feel all murdery,” said Chem Queen. “I don’t mind that the government turned me into a bad guy. The thought of being a brainwashed goody-two-shoes makes me wanna spit. But the idea that they turned me into a lame punching bag for so-called heroes burns me up.”
“Hmm,” said Ringo. “I sometimes wonder if whoever hires me uses me for a distraction. I mean, I’m always getting sent to rob vaults in cities where costumed crime fighters operate, and I keep having narrow escapes. Since my mystery employer never asks for a share of the loot, I’ve thought that maybe he’s using me to keep the heroes busy while he undertakes some bigger crime. Of course, nothing ever turns up in the papers. But maybe that’s because it’s more fun for reporters to cover a story about a villain escaping in a mole-machine than whatever it is my benefactor is up to.”
“That’s an interesting theory,” said Nimble. “The only thing working against it is a complete lack of any actual evidence.”
“Why are you so skeptical?” I asked. “You’re the one who came to me looking for the truth.”
“And I feel further from it than ever,” said Nimble. “I mean, maybe I’m just paranoid. I’m worried that I don’t remember the Butterfly House. How twisted do I have to be to worry that not remembering something is evidence that it happened? I might just be spinning a few coincidences into a grand conspiracy. When your first supervillain is the Prime Mover, it’s easy to find conspiracies in everything.”
“What about Chem Queen’s mental blocks?” I asked.
“So she feels sick at the thought of killing people. That’s not evidence something’s wrong with her. It might be the only sane thing about her!”
“And the biggest argument against me ever being in this Butterfly House is that, you know, I remember stuff,” said Chem Queen. “My family, the schools I went to, the accident that turned me into a walking catalyst and made me want revenge on pretty much all of corporate America. Maybe the headaches are just coincidence.”
“Are you an orphan?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “How’d you guess?”
“Because everyone who graduates the Butterfly House thinks they’re an orphan,” I said. “Let’s cut to the chase. I know you were at the Butterfly House. We weren’t close, but I met you a couple of times in group therapy. Most of the time you were kept isolated, though, because you were even more dangerous than me, and I was a lunatic who liked to set people on fire.”
“So why didn’t they make you a villain?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
“But I was there?”
I nodded.
“Did I… did I have a different name?”
“I don’t know if was your real name, or just a cruel nickname. But all the other kids called you Blister Betty.”
She nodded. “Betty’s my mother’s name. Assuming I can trust that memory. Anytime I hear the name, though, it makes me feel funny. It’s like the name makes me aware of a hole in my life. I thought it was just because I missed my mother. But what if it’s my real name? How the hell am I supposed to find out? Can we get in touch with this telepath you mentioned?”
“The Victorian’s imprisoned in Malebolge, drugged out of his mind, and far too dangerous off his meds.”
“Have you ever met anyone else who regained their memories?” asked Chem Queen.
“Actually, yes. A guy named Gator.”
“The vigilante down in Texas?”
“You’ve heard of him?”
“Yeah. A person with my chemistry talents can make a buck or two as a consultant for the illicit drug industry. Gator’s murdered a few of my associates. He’s got a body count in the hundreds, but for some reason people still think he’s a fucking hero. How did he get his memories back?”
“Massive doses of LSD,” I said.
“Lysergic acid diethylamide?” said Chem Queen. “I got everything I need here to whip up a batch.”
“I’m not going to take it,” said Nimble.
“Who said anything about you taking it?” asked Chem Queen. “I’ve never tried it myself, but it’s on my bucket list.”
“You think this is a good idea?” asked Ringo.
Chem Queen grinned. “Baby, you can’t go two hours without snorting coke so don’t give me any lectures.”
“Yeah, but coke helps me focus. LSD might, you know…”
“Make me crazy?” she asked. “Honey, I rob banks with my boyfriend, live in a cave, and do involuntary cosplay with body builders. How much crazier do you think I can possibly get?”
Chapter Fifteen
The Word of God
Harry’s Story
That’s bullshit,” I said, as the Prime Mover sat smiling placidly in the chair where we’d tied him up. For a villain who believes himself to be God, he’s surprisingly unassuming. He looks a little like Edward Norton, but balding, and with thinner lips. You wouldn’t even give him a second look if you passed him on the street, unless he was smiling. There’s something about the Prime Mover's smile that just screams out serial killer. He’s also a mob boss, a tech genius, and a master necromancer. Even for a supervillain, it’s an impressive portfolio. Oh yeah, and he thinks he’s God, and that it’s his job to end the world. Who he used to be before showing up about twenty years back claiming to be the Lord Almighty is a mystery to everyone, even Retaliator.
“What evidence do you have for your claims?” Blue Bee asked, directing her question to the Prime Mover.
“What evidence do you require beyond the word of God?” said the Prime Mover. “I’m telling the truth. Golden Victory is the alien war criminal they want. He’s Glorgon the Conqueror.”
“Since I’m an atheist, I’ll take it you have no evidence at all,” said the Blue B
ee.
“This is the downside of granting you free will. Some of you lack the wisdom to believe the truth even when it’s self-evident,” said the Prime Mover, in a calm, steady tone. His calm words came against a back drop of a ghostly wind howling through the shattered window of the penthouse. “The information I’ve given you can save the moon, if you have the courage to act upon it. Golden Victory is the alien war criminal they seek. Golden Victory is Glorgon the Conqueror.”
“I sometimes wonder what it would be like to fight a supervillain who’s sane,” said Smash Lass, sounding weary.
“If you’re sane and want to take over the world you don’t put on a cape and build a robot army,” said Blue Bee. “You run for office.”
“Leave the room,” said Retaliator.
“No,” said Blue Bee.
Retaliator glared at her with a gaze that would have made me leave the room if I’d been its target. Blue Bee met his eyes without flinching. “You’re not going to torture him to verify his information.”
“I don’t mind if he does,” said Prime Mover. “I’ll enjoy it all the more when I finally see in his eyes that he believes me.”
“It’s not a question of whether or not I believe you,” said Retaliator. “I want to know why you’re telling us this at all. You, of all people, wouldn’t be trying to prevent an extinction level event like the theft of the moon. You obviously knew when this would happen, since the Fourth Horseman was already in motion when the moon vanished. It can’t be a coincidence.”
“I’m not claiming it was a coincidence,” said the Prime Mover. “There are wheels within wheels. The day and hour of the destruction of this world is fixed. I alone know it. I alone know the levers that must be pushed, the gears that must turn, to bring about the great day of my wrath, when mankind must face my judgment. I shall end the world with a new beginning. The world will not be destroyed by a missing moon, but will vanish beneath the green blanket of a new Eden, as the world starts fresh. You will give the aliens what they want. They will leave, the moon will remain, and the end of the world will happen when it must.”