The Pen is Mightier

by J. A. Cipriano

  The room beyond was bigger than I’d expected, but that was only because the digging machine appeared to have opened up like one of those mobile homes with the expandable sides.

  It was perhaps a hundred feet in diameter, and as I looked around, it felt eerily empty despite Wayne Danners standing there in the middle of the room with a couple armed soldiers. My girls were just behind him, still bound, but not looking any worse for wear despite having M16s pointed at them. Then again, they were blindfolded, so there was that.

  The sight of them made my heart hammer in my chest, both with relief and panic. This was it. If I fucked it up, we were all going to die. If I didn’t, well, that was the only option, wasn’t it?

  “Glad you could come, Mr. Stevens,” Wayne said, taking a step toward me before thinking better of it and retreating back to where he’d been originally. “Please, come over here.”

  “First, I want you to tell me something,” I asked, and at the sound of my voice, I heard Miss Montgomery try to say something through the ball gag in her mouth. The rest of the girls seemed to respond as well, starting to move, but unable to do much at all.

  “I don’t think you’re in a position to make demands, Mr. Stevens,” Wayne said, crossing his arms as the door behind me slid shut with a hiss, and the soldier who had escorted me here took a step forward until I could practically feel his chest pressing against my back.

  “Oh, come on,” I said, right before the soldier shoved me.

  Or at least, he tried to shove me. As I felt him move, I whirled, slamming my hand into the side of the soldier’s skull. As he dropped unconscious to the ground beside me, I shrugged.

  “It’s the least you could do.” I gave the unconscious soldier a kick. “Unless you want me to kill Mr. ‘I’ve killed six pen-bearers’ or whatever.”

  “You do that, and I’ll kill one of your girls.” He glared at me, and the soldiers behind him tensed. The thing was, I could tell he was afraid. It was in his smell, in his inability to come toward me. In his everything, and something about that pleased me to no end because, at the end of the day, this asshole was just another bully.

  “If you harm one hair on their heads, I will kill everyone in this room, and you know that.” I pulled open my shirt to reveal the dynamite strapped to my chest. “Or die trying, which is the same thing really.”

  “You think you’re clever don’t you,” he said, and when I didn’t reply, he made a flippant wave toward me. “Go on. Ask your questions.”

  “Who triggered the explosions at the carnival?” I nodded to him. “You keep talking about others, but so far, you’re the only one I’ve met.”

  “I don’t know who did it, but it doesn’t matter for you.” He shrugged. “Probably one of the other pen-bearers, and before you ask, there are seven of us total.”

  “And you think one of the others attacked John?” I raised an eyebrow at him. “Why?”

  “Why?” he laughed and wiped his eyes with the back of one hand. “For power, of course. The fewer people with pens, the better, and even if they couldn’t recover the pen, well, John wouldn’t have it.” He looked down at the floor for a second, as if lost in thought. “He was something of a legend in his own right.” Sadness flashed across his face. “He gave me my pen before we had a falling out.”

  “And neither of you are at all arrogant. That’s pretty amazing,” I said, rolling my eyes as I moved toward him. Still, his words bothered me. The two of them had been friends and both had pens? What had caused them to go their second ways? After all, together they should have been unstoppable. “Still, that doesn’t make sense. Why would you two separate?”

  “Enough chatter.” He waved one hand. “Put your pen on the ground right now and kick it over to me.” He nodded to the ground at my feet. “Or they will kill your friends, and we’ll just go from there.” He shrugged. “Be warned though. This entire floor is filled with traps that will activate if you attack, and even if I didn’t have time to use my pen, its innate resilience will make killing me pretty damned difficult.”

  “That’s the second time you’ve said that,” I said, pulling the pen out and holding it in front of me.

  “You haven’t been around long enough, but just by acquiring the pen, you become a bit better than the average person. Stronger, faster, more durable. People like you more. That sort of thing.” He shrugged. “No one really knows how it works, but I’ve always surmised the pen doesn’t like losing its owner, so it endeavors to protect you.”

  “You know, as a supervillain, you shouldn’t reveal your plan to me. That’s like supervillainy one oh one.”

  “That’s an excellent point.” He nodded. “Now give me the pen.”

  It was weird. He kept asking me to give it to him. There had to be a reason why.

  “Right, sorry,” I said, getting to my knees, and as I was about to put the pen on the ground in front of me, gunshots went off.

  The heads of the two soldiers on either side of Wayne exploded into crimson goo, and their bloody corpses toppled to the floor while Wayne stared at me, mouth agape like a dying fish.

  Marty and Skye appeared out of nowhere. Marty smacked one of those glue-covered rat traps over the man’s face, cutting off his air supply in one movement while clipping the back of his knees. As Wayne crashed forward onto the ground, hands going to the trap, Skye jammed the Taser into his neck. Electricity arced outward, filling the man’s body and causing him to spasm violently before collapsing to the ground.

  “If you are bad, I’ll plug up the air hole,” Marty hissed as he cut an air hole into the trap before he zip-tied Wayne’s hands behind his back. Then he interlocked the man’s fingers and duct-taped them together.

  “Man that took you guys forever,” I said as Marty moved to untie the girls.

  “Well,” Skye said with a laugh as she carefully made her way toward me. Each step careful and calculated. “It was hard to avoid all the traps they’d set, but you bought us enough time to get through them.” She reached me a second later and rubbed my cheek with her hand. Her touch sent a jolt of warmth through me.

  “I’m just glad the weird holographic invisibility thing worked. Guess we can thank the CIA or something for making Predator-style camouflage work.” I nodded to her. “Now can you lead them out of here?”

  “Probably,” she said, looking me over. “How did you know he’d let you get this close though? He should have just shot you.”

  “I have my suspicions, but I’m certain we’ll find out.” I nodded to Marty as he finished untying the last of the girls. “Can you bring him back with us?”

  “Yeah,” he said, nodding to me as he threw the old guy over one shoulder and made his way toward me. “Ready when you are.”

  “Okay,” I said, pausing long enough to reach into the guy’s shirt and take the pen from around his neck. Only the second I removed it, the color seemed to fade from it until it looked like a lifeless black ballpoint. Why?

  “What happened to it?” Marty asked, staring at it wide-eyed. “It’s like it died.”

  “Maybe it did,” I said, and while I wanted to figure it out, I wanted to do that somewhere safer. Like my own lair. I keyed my comms. “Maggie, take out the others.”

  “Roger, Roger,” Maggie said, her voice coming through my earpiece as she maneuvered her mech into the entrance of the digging machine. A moment later, the interior of the room behind me filled with the sound of gunfire and screaming.

  Then it was silent.

  31

  I paced back and forth in front of everyone. Now that I had Wayne’s pen and the bastard was strung up in the other room, I wasn’t particularly worried about him. The people in front of me, though? They worried me a bit more.

  “Okay, so here’s the deal,” I said, stopping and swinging my eyes over them. It was a touch weird because while I knew Skye and Maggie by name, I didn’t know the names of the other four “friends” who had come with them to our penthouse. Still, I knew the others. Marty, Mis
s Montgomery, Gail, Amy, and Lisa.

  I could make them stay, could make them do anything, but I sort of didn’t want to do that. No, what I wanted was for them to stay on their own.

  “The deal?” Marty asked, watching me closely. “Is this where you say something dumb like I have a magic pen, ‘cause we all know that already.”

  “Yeah, that’s been pretty obvious,” Skye added, nodding to me. “It’s okay though, I don’t judge.”

  “Well, you should because you all have to make a choice.” I held up the pen and showed it to them. “I can give you anything, make you anything. Hell, most of you saw what happened back there with that jackass. I did that with this.” I paused, waiting as my words sank in. “Or you can leave.”

  “Are you kidding?” Maggie asked, her Irish accent full tilt as she looked at me. “I can be an unstoppable bad ass who works for a guy with unimaginable power or go back to fucking sweaty old guys? That’s a non-choice.” As she spoke a few of the other girls she’d come with nodded.

  “Truthfully, working for you seems a bit more fun.” Skye smirked, glancing at her friends. “And honestly, I think you can use someone like me.” She held up out her hand. “I’d be happy to join up with you.”

  “Good.” I took her hand and shook it, and as I did, she leaned in close to me, so her breath was hot on my ear.

  “Now use your pen to give me knowledge on all the AI systems in the world so I can beef up your security.” She pulled back a touch. “Because what you’ve designed with your knowledge is laughable.”

  “Right, okay,” I said making the note. She blinked a couple times before grabbing two of the other girls. “Them too.”

  As I finished, the three of them disappeared toward the mainframe room, leaving me standing there looking at the others.

  “I already said I’d stay,” Maggie added with a shrug. “But honestly, I’m not really good at anything but riding dick.” She gave me a sly smile. “And I somehow doubt you’ve got much of a need for that.”

  “What do you want to do?” I asked, looking her up and down. I’d be lying if I didn’t envision her naked, which was kind of easy because I’d actually seen her naked before. Even still, I felt different about her now that I’d seen her be a total badass.

  “I’d always wanted to be a doctor.” She looked at her feet.

  “Oh, that’s good.” I nodded. “Anyone else wanna do medicine?”

  One of the other girls, a shorter ebony skinned lady with long black hair stepped forward. “I would, if you’d have me.” She paused and looked back at her friends. “Honestly, I think I can speak for all of us when I say, we’ll all stay if you’ll have us.”

  “Well, why don’t you and Maggie head to the medical bay,” I replied, making a note to give them new medical abilities. “See what it needs or whatever.” As they assented, I turned my eyes to the last of the girls who had come to our room. “What about you?”

  “Yeah,” the Asian one I didn’t know the name of said. “I want to work for you too.” She threw a punch at the air. “I like kicking ass, not getting my ass kicked.” She smiled. “I want to be a mad scientist.” Her cheeks flushed. “You know how in the movies the crazy bad guy has the evil scientist.” She touched her chest with her thumb. “I wanna be that guy.”

  “Done.” I made a note, giving her the equivalent of a doctorate in physics, robotics, biology, chemistry, and everything else I could think of. “Go design something cool.”

  She blinked a couple times, like her brain was adjusting to the new influx of knowledge before nodding to me.

  “Thank you.” She took a step toward me and grabbed my dick, which seemed a bit blatant. “I’ll pay you back later.” Then she walked past me, heading toward my hastily created laboratory.

  That left just my friends. Marty stood next to Lisa while Miss Montgomery and Amy had moved closer to each other. Gail stood off to the side, watching me carefully.

  “What about you guys?” I tried to smile. “It’s one thing for a bunch of hookers to join up with me to be badass ninjas, but you guys don’t have to do that. I can set you up or whatever.”

  “I want to stay,” Miss Montgomery said, looking at me. “And what’s more, I wanna fuck up that douchebag who took us.” She glanced back at Amy who looked at her feet. “Make me head torturer, and I’ll stay.”

  “Um… okay.” I took a deep breath and wrote it down. As it took affect, she smiled at me.

  “Excellent.” She rubbed her hands together. “Man is he gonna pay.” She glanced back at Amy, and when my old boss nodded, she turned back to me. “I’m gonna go bother Wayne a bit, if you don’t mind?”

  “Have fun,” I said, trying to ignore the wicked gleam in her eye as she moved past me toward where the former pen-bearer was held. As her footsteps echoed on the metal, Amy met my eyes.

  “I’ll stay too. I won’t feel safe otherwise.” She hugged herself. “I don’t know what I want to do yet, though, if that’s okay.” She took a tiny step toward me. “I just want to be around you, be close. So whatever I need to do for that…”

  “Amy, you don’t have to do anything special.” I smiled at her. “You’re welcome to stay. I said that to start. You can all stay.”

  “I’ll stay if Marty stays,” Lisa added, drawing my gaze to her, and I saw she was holding his hand. “I don’t know if it was the pen or not, but he saved me.”

  “Well, I’m definitely staying, but I’m not doing anything other than soaking in a spa for a while.” He met my eyes. “Whip up one of those?”

  “Yeah, I’ll put it just past the croc pool.” I smirked.

  “Sure it is.” He rolled his eyes and took Lisa by the hand. “Care to join me. I have it on good authority, it’s stocked with champagne and caviar.”

  Before she could reply, he pulled her off toward the croc pool, while I added his spa with his stupid champagne and caviar.

  “Guess that leaves me,” Gail said when they were gone, leaving us all alone in the room. “I have two questions.”

  “Okay?” I said, confused, and when I tried to move toward her, she took a step back.

  “Did you use the pen to fuck me?” She crossed her arms over her chest.

  “No.” I shook my head. “I used it to give myself an awesome body and a huge dick though. I did return it to a more manageable size though. Also, the half-court shot.”

  “Good. If you’d used that to… I wouldn’t forgive you,” she said, letting out a sigh of relief. “And I’m glad to hear your dicks is more manageable now. I probably wouldn’t have fucked you again. I’m still sore from that.”

  “So you’re staying?” I asked, and she paused for a second.

  “Are you responsible for my grandfather’s chemo working?” As she said it, I realized I’d forgotten about that entirely. I’d used the pen to make sure his treatment was effective.

  “I did write a line to make it effective, but that stuff is complicated.” I shrugged. “Let’s go with maybe?”

  I would have said more, but she chose that moment to cut off my words with her mouth.

  32

  “A throne, really?” Wayne Danners said from his position chained in front of my, well, throne. I’d strung him up, so his hands were stretched over his head with chains that ran through a loop welded to the ceiling and his tiptoes barely touched the ground. I’d then chained his ankles to a loop in the ground and superglued his hands flat against each other before binding them once again in duct tape so even if he managed to somehow Houdini himself out of the handcuffs and zip ties and got ahold of his pen, he wouldn’t be able to write.

  “Yes.” I smiled at him before nodding to the corner. Without a word, Miss Montgomery walked over to him and pushed her Glock into the side of his temple. “I found I quite like my throne.”

  It was an awesome throne too. Made of gold and gemstones, it properly conveyed how much more awesome than him I was because it had been forged to look like a giant fucking dragon. Or a motorcycle, de
pending on my mood. Okay, so I had multiple thrones, but right now, I was using the dragon throne, and I towered over his puny form, as fire leapt from my “steed’s” massive jaws.

  “You would,” he spat before turning his eyes to Miss Montgomery. “You best back off before you do something you regret.”

  “I think I’ll do the talking here.” My throne moved, dipping toward him until its jaws were only a few inches from his face. “Why were you insistent I give you the pen? It doesn’t make any sense. You seem like someone who could have killed me, and I somehow doubt it was because you didn’t have the stomach for it.” I held up his pen. “And why did this one change when I took it off you?”

  “What makes you think I’ll tell you?” Wayne said, trying to cover his fear with bravado even though he didn’t really do a good job of it because he was a fucking schmuck. It was plain as day he was scared, which was a bit interesting considering he’d basically been a god for the last century or so.

  I twirled his pen between my fingers as I stared down at him, letting him squirm. “You know, my girls wanted to kill you. To feed you to the crocs.” I smiled. “I do have them, you know.”

  “No lions?” he asked, arching an eyebrow. “Or tigers? You should get a tiger.” He nodded. “Something about being a supervillain requires a giant cat.”

  “I’m not a supervillain,” I said, snorting at him because I definitely wasn’t the bad guy here. No. He had attacked me for no reason. That put me in the right no matter how you sliced it. “I’m just a normal guy trying to get answers.” I pointed the pen at him. “You’re the villain.”

  “Man, if your delusions were Thanksgiving dinner, I’d be stuffed.” Wayne looked at the ground as I glared at him.

  “Anyway,” I said, waving my hand to dismiss his supervillain comment. After all, if I were a supervillain, I’d have thrown him in a giant meat grinder or something. Maybe turned him into chili and fed him to his parents. You know, something more… South Park.