“Synthmuscle, and you stole it from Lazarus Patterson? I could kiss you right now.”
She scrunched her nose and said, “No, thanks, I’ll pass. A quick peck for you is a tedious experience for me. Now if you were a really hot chick, I’d consider it. Speaking of which, if I move now, I’ll be on the beaches of Florida in forty-five minutes, where I can round up tonight’s entertainment. See you around, Snailman.”
I understood. We both dug hot chicks. Unlike me, she could actually get them, even if it required kidnapping. The best I could manage was a date from the occasional skank at Floozies. Technically, I was living with one, which meant I paid half her rent in exchange for Sparkle collecting my mail and helping me fool Leonard, which really wasn’t that hard. Sparkle, real name Leslie, and I had slept with each other twice. The first was a drunken mistake and the second was done sober to make certain it was a bad idea.
New Coke and the Hindenburg were better ideas than that train wreck.
Walking to my cluttered workshop area, I looked at the five tables and the mess on them vanished, in my mind. On each, I could see a major section of my soon-to-be-built masterwork. It would be a combination of black and gunmetal gray. The arms would end in my force blasters. I had a workable design for an armored jetpack, which would be housed on the unit’s back. Synthmuscle, the only thing that prick Patterson ever came up with on his own, would fill the chassis and allow me to lift up to three tons when standing on the ground. The jetpack’s thrust would limit me to about a half a ton extra in flight. Sure, it wasn’t quite in Bobby’s league, but I could fly circles around him and zap him with my blasters without him ever laying a mitt on me.
It’s all coming together! I thought, while wringing my hands and sparing a glance at the printed sheets duct taped to the cave wall. I’d printed out Ultraweapon’s schematics and upgraded them with my own ideas. It wouldn’t be anywhere nearly as elegant and streamlined as the one I saw him in, posing for pictures with the Olympians on the cover of an old issue of Superhero Weekly. The title, Olympians and Ultraweapon Thwart Rigellian Menace, mocked me.
If Patterson was any closer to Aphrodite, she’d be inside the suit with him!
It didn’t matter. I’d have my revenge on him, F. Randall Barton, his entire corporation!
• • •
“So, Calvin,” Leonard said, tossing a little stress ball back and forth in his hands. “You want to go to Miami for the week and need a travel pass? Tell me why I should allow this?”
There are few things more humiliating than dealing with your parole officer. Leonard, here, had delusions of grandeur and liked the power and control that came with his position—a real legend in his own mind.
“I’m due for a vacation, Leonard. Some sun and sand would do me good.”
“Is this a solo vacation, or is Ms. Leslie accompanying you?” he asked, perhaps a little too interested in my fake girlfriend. I stashed that tidbit of info away as something that might be useful down the line.
Leonard Dozier was a tall and lean kind of guy, wearing an off-the-shelf suit that he should really take to the tailor and a pair of tinted, prescription glasses. I was of the opinion he was trying too hard to look official and reeked of middle management. Maybe he just reeked; I couldn’t be sure.
“No,” I lied. “She’s got something planned with one of her friends—chick stuff.”
He nodded sagely and said, “Yes, it’s best to give a woman space every now and then, if you want it to last. So, how’s my cousin doing?”
“We hang out at work, bowl every once in a while and go fishing,” I said. He was sniffing around to see if he could catch us in a lie.
“Catch anything decent lately?”
“Nothing but a cold,” I said joking. “Have to keep an eye on Bobby when we’re at the lanes, more than three beers and he’s liable to chuck his bowling ball so hard it strips the finish off the wood.”
“You know,” he said, pivoting in his chair and looking both wistful and every bit as jealous of his relative’s super strength as I often was. “I almost skipped school and went with him to that pond. It could have been me in that water with him and my little sis when that bolt of lightning came out of nowhere on a clear day and zapped ‘em both.”
“Is that how it happened?” I’d never bothered asking Bobby how he’d gotten his powers and had thought he’d had them from birth.
“Yeah, but I had a ball game that day and there was a scout there. Still, I got to play two years of Double A before I trashed my ankle sliding into third.”
Oh, so, he’s a frustrated former baseball player and a guy who missed out on getting superpowers. His alter ego must either be Captain Regret or The Blown Opportunist!
Knowing the second one could have equally applied to me; I shrugged and said, “I dunno, Leonard, I ran into lots of guys who got jacked over by their powers. For every person getting super strength, speed, and what not, there’re guys like Gunk or Mud Dauber. Trust me; I had to do their laundry and I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.”
Actually, I’d get a kick out of seeing F. Randall Barton and Lazarus checking out Gunk’s “tighty whities” with his latest Streak of the Week. His mouth and nose weren’t the only orifices that shit came out of!
Truth be told, I usually just tossed them in the incinerate pile along with Mud Daubers clothes. It was much easier that way.
“How did that audition go for that one band you told me about?”
“They got another guy,” I answered. “My travel restrictions made them a bit wary. I’ve been checking out the local scene to see if anyone’s looking for drummers. I might be able to pick up a few gigs along the way, to keep me from losing my edge, but if I do get one, I would be in here all the time asking for travel passes, like I am now.”
I really liked drumming, and had a kit at my apartment with Sparkle and another down in Bobby’s hideout. It was a good way to blow off some steam, but I was beginning to believe that I’d never get very far pursuing that direction. It was either that or the fact that I was getting close to building my very own set of powered armor and my former college roommate had scored me some high grade material for the shell of my suit.
“Well, you haven’t been giving me any problems,” he said, making a show of taking his pen out of the holder and closely inspecting my form. “Everything looks to be in order, so I’m going to approve your trip to Miami. I hope you have a good time.”
Me too, I thought and waited patiently for my parole officer to sign the document.
• • •
“Dunno if this was included in our arrangement,” Bobby said, wiping the sweat from his brow. He wasn’t a very good blacksmith. That much was certain, but my old college roomie had come up with some very fine metals, courtesy of a turf war between an Eastern European gang financed by a Russian construction corporation and a Latino gang backed by South American interests—that was as good a description for them as any.
Lacking the equipment to properly forge the metal into the shape I needed it to be, I had to rely on my new roomie’s power to beat the material into submission. Our two worker robots ambled around the open space. Dee was welding the steel plating onto the prison cells while Dum held it in place. There was no way I would trust Dum with anything combustible—not after the last time. In fact, until there is a prisoner, Tweedledum would be spending his downtime in one of those cells.
“Just think of how profitable your jobs will be when I get this suit finished,” I said, trying to spin this into a positive.
Bobby wasn’t necessarily buying what I was selling. He watched as I spoke into the microphone in front of me, recording commands and then verifying that the commands called up the correct subroutine on my laptop and there was a whirring noise on the bench where the half-finished arm assembly, mounted in a pair of vices, began charging the one finished force blaster. From the waist down I was covered in synthmuscle and servos and I did my best side kick and felt the artificial sinew resp
ond and amplify my kick. Still, the kick was a little too high and I could feel my leg muscles protesting both the angle and the force used. I’d pay for not properly stretching.
“So, you’re just going to tell the suit what to do?” he asked as I gingerly lowered the leg.
“That’s the fact, Jack!” I quipped in reply, and tried to ignore the pain in my thigh. “Voice control, it’s the only way to go. Patterson keeps sinking money into some kind of neural interface, but I doubt he’ll ever get it off the ground or make it small enough to fit inside his armor.”
As much as I didn’t want to admit my personal shortcomings, it looked like the suit would be limited by the jackass inside of it. I’d have to adjust the programming to not exceed my own capabilities. No wonder Patterson was always with his physical trainer—aside from the fact that he was also diddling her, but nobody was supposed to know that. Even though everyone did.
“Seems complicated,” he said and took a swig of his beer. I pondered whether alcohol and metalworking were a good combination.
“That’s why I’m going to practice until wearing this suit is like second nature. Fire force blaster!”
Nothing happened. I paused and glared at the arm assembly and then at the laptop screen, as if a dirty look from me would correct the problem. In the background I heard Bobby stifle a guffaw.
Sighing loudly, I corrected myself and said, “Fire left force blaster.”
The embedded weapon responded and a burst of concussive energy splashed against the opposite wall. The discharge left a watermelon sized divot in the stone comprising our cave’s lower level.
“Guess you do need to practice,” my compadre observed.
“I forgot that I changed the command this morning,” I said trying to explain away my stupidity. “I’m going to have to take the suit outside to do anything more than test fire the jet pack.”
A loud chirp acknowledged my words and the jet pack rumbled to life. Panicked, I jumped out of the way screaming, “Cancel last command! Cancel last command!”
Unfortunately, my servo assisted leap carried me into the wall where I collapsed in a painful mess that made the earlier pain in my leg a forgotten memory.
The worst part of all that was it took Bobby five solid minutes to stop laughing at me. It was going to be one of those days.
• • •
“Are you sleeping at the apartment tonight?” the barely dressed bottle blonde asked me.
“Hot date?” I asked from the DJ stand as the music blared. In the middle of her routine, Afrodite, a tall, well-built black woman, tossed a discarded knock-off of the Olympian’s costume on the stage. The woman was a traveling headliner who worked the clubs all over the southeast and was responsible for the large crowd here tonight. Without the contributions of Bobbie and me, this rat hole could never afford top tier talent like her. Even to my jaded eyes, the woman had some serious skills.
“Actually, yes,” Leslie answered. “What happened to your wrist?”
I looked at the cast on my hand and replied, “Masturbation injury. I have to switch to my off hand now.”
She laughed and I was thankful for the loud music. Leslie’s laugh was so annoying that I’d considered weaponizing it for the armor. The Bugler had nothing on her audible jackhammer! The actual truth behind my injury was that two days ago, a faulty relay had shut down my jetpack after thirty minutes of flight, and I took a four story fall in my first day of flying practice, but she didn’t need to know that.
Until I could make two more shield emitters and repair the one I’d fried during my soft landing, I wouldn’t be flying higher than twenty feet off the ground. A badly sprained wrist and the bruises on my right leg were painful, but I’d gotten off easy compared to what could have happened. I used to think Joe Ducie was lucky to be the only other guy allowed to pilot the Ultraweapon armor, but now I realized that my former supervisor was really Lazarus Patterson’s well-compensated crash test dummy.
My injuries were a painful reminder that I needed to pay more attention to quality control or start building my mechanized assault wheelchair.
Actually, that has possibilities; I thought and returned my attention to my fake girlfriend. “I can make myself scarce. Though, I guess I should be mad that you’re cheating on me. Should I be jealous? It’s not Leonard is it? I think he’s got a thing for you.”
“Oh, please!” Sparkle said and rolled her eyes at me, before regarding the gyrating Nubian amazon onstage. “Maybe I should do a superhero routine? If I got a brunette wig with pigtails maybe I could be WhirlingWendy or WendyWantsToWhirl.”
Groaning, I shrugged and said, “You could probably make it work. Give ‘em the old naughty super schoolgirl routine. Maybe you could have them set up a couple of heavy duty fans to fake her powers. It probably wouldn’t be too hard. Of course, every mark would be asking you for a blow job after that.”
Scrunching her nose, she nodded and said, “Like they don’t anyway. Even so, it might be worth looking into, anyway. You could probably do that thing with the fans, right?”
I nodded, realizing I’d walked into that one, and she said, “Cal, you’re the best!”
We both knew that wasn’t true, but she was in the business of selling fantasies and falsehoods to men, so I let it slide. As she left, I noticed a few of the locals were causing a disturbance because of all the extra people in here tonight. Afrodite had a biker gang that followed her around and our regular crowd wasn’t really appreciating all the extra bodies nearly as much as the cash registers were, and it appeared that things would get ugly at some point.
If I was being completely honest, I might even go so far as to say that the locals didn’t exactly appreciate the skin color of the entertainer’s groupies. They also knew that this was Bobby’s turf and were probably instigating something just so they could see the big lug crack some out-of-towners’ skulls. It was probably just as entertaining as what that extremely limber woman was doing at the time.
I caught one of the other employee’s attention and gave her a hand signal that indicated trouble. She excused herself from the gent she was chatting up and bounced her curves over to the bar. I saw her lean over and whisper into Bobby’s ear. The strongman grinned and smacked his beer mug down on the countertop. Standing, he unfurled his limbs like a cat getting ready to go on the prowl and turned. A couple of the other bouncers flanked him as he waded into the area where the pushing and shouts threatened to overcome the music.
Bobby pushed his way into the center and snatched up two of the bikers like they were rag dolls.
“Knock this shit off!” he roared. I killed the music, since only a few were still paying attention to Afrodite.
One of the idiots he was holding busted his beer bottle across Bobby’s scalp. The big man shook his head for a moment and gave his attacker a dirty look. “Seriously? I’d throw your ass through that window right now, but that would be a waste of some perfectly good glass.”
“Put them down!” one of the others shouted. He was clearly their leader and looked pretty formidable for a normal human. The man was somewhere around six feet four, with a shaved head. He wore expensive clothes instead of the biker jackets and jeans the rest had. I’d originally pegged him as Afrodite’s manager or bodyguard.
“And if I don’t feel like it?” Bobby said with a sneer.
“Well, I suppose then I’ll have to kick your bumpkin ass all over this place.”
“If you think you can, you’re welcome to try,” Bobby said and tossed the pair in his hands away. “I’ll even give you the first punch.”
Bobby hammed it up as all the locals shouted obscenities. The man made a show of taking off his sport coat. “No need to get your blood all over my nice threads.”
“Keep on dreaming,” Bobby said and spread his arms wide open. “Show me whatcha got, little man.”
Bobby’s opponent looked like he knew how to throw a punch. Like all the regulars, I expected Bobby to absorb the blow and laugh while
the other man howled in pain. Hitting Hillbilly Bobby was like punching a concrete wall.
Instead, it was Bobby who let out a woof and crumpled forward. The black man wasted no time and tossed my friend out the very window Bobby had threatened the others with.
Who the hell is that? I thought.
Bobby had landed on someone’s truck and left a broken windshield and a large dent in the hood. He rolled off and stood on his feet looking pissed.
“Didn’t figure you for a super,” Bobby said and spit on the ground. “Step on out here and let me have my turn!”
“If you insist, Hillbilly Bumpkin! The Wall can take more than you got.”
The Wall? The Wall? Who the f...aw crap Seawall!
I tried to push my way through the crowd heading out the side door and warn Bobby. Seawall wasn’t as strong as my buddy, but he was damned near invulnerable. Bobby could drop a truck on D’wan Walter and it wouldn’t so much as wipe the smile from Seawall’s face.
By the time I got out there Bobby was already taking his free swing. I literally felt the impact as the force was reflected away from Seawall. The people who were unfortunate enough to be close to the duo were thrown backward, howling in pain, as I noticed that none of the biker gang had been part of the crowd.
Sure enough Seawall just stood there and smiled at Bobby. “Any time you’re ready.”
Bobby threw two quick jabs and a haymaker that would’ve dented a tractor trailer, but Seawall just stood there laughing as people scrambled away and car windshields cracked. From what little I knew from Patterson’s threat index team, Seawall had been a worker on an oil rig in the Gulf and not a very popular one at that. When a hurricane blew into the area and everyone else evacuated, he’d been “overlooked” by the rest of his crew and left behind to fend for himself. Something squirrely happened during that storm and the Coast Guard found D’wan clinging to the wreckage three days later. He was naked, but untouched, and invulnerable.
Origins of a D-List Supervillain Page 9