Claire let out a squeal behind me—not scared, delighted. I looked, and she’d gone the other way and was leaning over exaggeratedly to peek through the next door down there. She beckoned urgently. Urgently? Spastically. She really wanted us to come look at this!
Ray and I walked over and joined her in front of that door. “Ooh,” Ray whispered, low and rough with desire. I felt a certain heady ‘wow’ sensation myself.
We were standing in front of Mech’s trophy room. He’d collected quite a few. Weapons and bits of armor lined the walls, tubes full of no doubt dangerous substances sat in racks, and pedestals held particularly fancy items. I spotted a head-sized globe with a thick white shell, whose one hole exposed pink crystal. A Conqueror orb. A Conqueror orb with a big crack in the crystal. A picture, diagrams and instructions scribbled themselves in the back of my head. No, power. I am not going to fix it.
Claire stepped toward the open doorway slowly and reverently, hands held out. Ray grabbed her shoulder.
She looked back at us with a pleading expression. “We have to take a look around!”
I knew that was a bad idea. Ray got a lot more specific. He pointed past the door, up on the walls of the nice marble display room. “Air vents. Have you seen air vents anywhere else in here?”
Come to think of it, I hadn’t. Since we were underground, they had to be here somewhere, but Mech had gone to a lot of trouble to make his air circulation system invisible.
I weighed in on Ray’s side. “Considering the dangerous and valuable stuff in there, it should be the most heavily guarded room in the base.”
Claire pouted more. “Okay, I won’t go in.” She grabbed another rag doll that had wandered downstairs and threw it bodily into the trophy room to express her displeasure. “Can we split the difference? We’ll stay safely out here while Mr. Patches brings us that corset.”
I followed Claire’s pointing hand. Yes, one of the trophies on the wall was a small red corset. Claire grinned again, glowing with mischief. “I don’t know where Mech got that, but I bet we’ll laugh ourselves silly when I find out.” A grin broke out on my face too. She was right. There had to be a hilarious story there.
Mr. Patches—she was naming these things now?—staggered up to the wall in front of the corset. Its crude hands grabbed the handle of the display case. Right in front of our noses, a thick glass door slammed down and locked the doorway. Probably nothing as breakable as glass, but we could still see clearly inside as blue mist crept out of the air vents in the trophy room.
A gas trap didn’t bother the zombie rag doll at all. It tugged harder at the handle of the locked display case. I wasn’t sure how strong the dolls were, but apparently strong enough that the next tug broke the case open. A blue flash came out of a golden mask on one of the pedestals. A pink flash burst out of Vera by my shoulder. As the spots in my eyes cleared, I saw the rag doll lying on the floor of the trophy room, inanimate.
Fighting down goose bumps, I told my partners, “I think Vera just saved us from a booby trap.”
Claire at least looked slightly nervous and chastised. I could hear the faintly squeaky edge as she asked, “How paranoid is Mech, anyway?”
“Not paranoid enough?” Ray returned.
Claire nodded. After all, here we were. “I guess not.”
She let out a sigh, turning away from the sealed trophy room and rocking on her heels as she looked both ways down the hallway. “So, where next?”
“Downstairs. Except we’re not taking the stairs. The next trap might get us. Come on,” I ordered. I guess I sounded curt, but I had an idea and I liked it.
I led us back to the door to the armor assembly workshop. Mech’s suit of armor was pretty big. It wouldn’t take stairs well, or these pretty little doorways either. Oh, it could, but it would be inconvenient, and Mech had already gone to the nines with this place.
I shifted from side to side, peering through the door. There. Right there. I’d gotten lucky on the first try, but it had to have been here somewhere. That metal plate in the corner of the laboratory? The track on the wall and the buttons next to it said ‘elevator’ to me. After all, Mech would want to be able to move his armor easily from his workshop to wherever he stores it and back, right?
I pointed through the window. Ray got it immediately, his grin lighting up and his eyes widening behind his fancy black mask. “Is that a freight elevator?”
“E-Claire, if you would?” I asked sweetly. We stepped back. Claire wasn’t content with one doll this time. Oh, the one wandering the hall nearby opened the door and went in first, but after it four more came sliding down the stairs. In a minute they were toddling all over the lab, touching things, pulling on levers and eating leather straps. Nothing happened. Mech hadn’t wanted to fill his workshop with death traps. Surprise, surprise!
We slipped into the workshop, although with a lot of looking over our shoulders. I kept sneaking peeks at Vera. She always saw threats before I did. If she was a good fake of Conqueror technology, stopping the invasion must have been a nightmare.
Ray cupped his chin as he studied the elevator. “Think the controls work?”
“I think we’re not going to take a chance. Holes in the ground always work,” I answered.
Ray’s face lit up again. “Yes, my Mistress.” Grinning toothily, he tapped his palms together and pulled out another power ball, then threw it at the elevator track from close range. Metal clanged, squealed, and cracked. The badly bent elevator platform fell down its hole, then clanged again when it hit the floor below.
Ray held up his gloved hands, grinning so hard his mouth was open as well as his teeth showing. “I love these things.”
Claire giggled, grinning pretty hard herself. “You look like a video game character when you use them.”
“I know!” Ray purred in satisfaction.
As much as a positive review of my inventions felt good, I had work to do. I peered down the hole. Sure enough, one level below us was another large room. I grabbed the nearest rag doll and threw it down the shaft. It hit the floor, got up, and hobbled out of sight. I didn’t see any traps. Good enough!
Should I go first? I wasn’t exactly the sturdiest of us. I could teleport, they couldn’t. Argument tabled, I took a step and blinked down into the control room below.
This was a control room. Computer screens, maps, what were likely the controls for communications and sensors. All of it in the same pretty wood paneling with the thick red carpets of the rest of the base. The frames around the computer screens made them look like old fashioned televisions. The paneling covered the computers and looked more like a writing desk than anything else, including a mouse with its own flat wooden compartment. Microphones had been hidden in copper speaking tubes.
Ray and Claire dropped down next to me. I sighed, long and slow and heavy. “Now I feel pathetic. My laboratory is just a hole in the ground.”
Ray tapped my shoulder with his fist. “Once we get Spider off our backs, we can take a break and get the place fixed up. I think we’ve made our reputation.”
Claire shuddered, wrapping her arms around herself. “Don’t phrase it that way. I don’t want to think about Spider on my back. Anyway, we’re not finished yet. Where’s Mech’s suit?”
“It’s here, and I’m taking you very seriously now.” Mech’s voice. There wasn’t any music playing down here. He sounded polite, but not at all friendly. “My compliments on the jamming field, Bad Penny. I needed Brian Akk’s help to get around it.”
A wooden panel slid open in the wall. Claire’s question was answered. There stood Mech’s armor. Its eyes lit up, and blue sparkled around the metal frame. That was his energy shield. One of the arms lifted. He intended to fight us by remote control. He really was taking us seriously now.
Not seriously enough. He’d stopped to talk. “Jamming field? That was just the override. Vera, jam his signal. Drown it.”
Pink light pulsed, and I grinned wolfishly. It worked. The speakers Mech had u
sed to talk to us blared swing music, then hissed and crackled and popped and went silent. So did his armor. So did his computer, except it spat a few sparks. So did whatever was hidden in the elaborately carved wooden display pedestal. One of the monitors cracked and smoked, and the others just flashed, then went black.
Most importantly, the armor stopped moving. The energy shield did not go out. I may have jammed Mech’s remote control, but it would take a lot more to shut down the armor itself. I thought I had a lot more ready, but… well, here went nothing.
I walked up to the armor, and it felt pretty creepy to be within that copper hulk’s arm’s reach. Charred spots on the ceiling suggested cameras had burned out as well as everything else, but I still hunched over to hide what I did next. The Machine was too identifiable, and I wanted to keep him with me in my civilian identity. Unwrapping him from my bracelet, I pushed him through Mech’s shield and laid him on the armor. Part one of my plan succeeded. He ate the shield, going through it like it wasn’t there.
Time for part two. “Eat up, buddy.”
The Machine did. Slowly for the first few seconds, scraping at the armor. Every shaving of metal reemerged as more complicated jaws, and The Machine drilled through the armor faster. Soon, he gulped, growing bigger, putting out more legs, turning copper-colored as the metal he stole became a beetle’s shell around his back. He devoured the whole chest plate, and when he bit into the back of the armor he hit something critical. The lights in the eyes, all the little indicator LEDs went out.
I let him eat. Looking back over my shoulder, I asked, “E-Claire, can you get Mech’s files off his computer?”
She gave me the ‘I can’t believe you asked that’ look. “The password protected one you just shorted out?”
Aw, man. Just while we were kicking butt. “I thought you were the hacker!”
She held up her hands helplessly. “No! I – okay, I looked up a few hints, but there’s no way I’m good enough to beat his security.”
My brow furrowed. I stared at her. I leaned forward to stare at her harder. Even with her super power behind it, that adorable scowl didn’t look convincing at all. In fact… “You’re too smug. Okay, what’s the secret?”
Claire gave up the act and giggled. Reaching around behind her, she pressed the not quite hidden power button on Mech’s computer. It beeped twice, an LED flickered, and that was it.
Claire tapped the desktop over the light. “Be a sweetheart and open this up for me, Reviled?”
Ray understood her already. It took him a few seconds to get a grip, then wood splintered, and he ripped open the desktop and popped open the thin metal casing of Mech’s computer.
“We’ll take the whole hard drive and let Spider worry about it,” Claire explained to me. Next to her Ray yanked the drive free, trailing cords and screws. But hey, the drive was intact!
On crablike metal legs, The Machine crawled out of the alcove Mech’s armor had been in. Past tense. Not a shaving had been left behind, and The Machine was now a little bigger than me.
Another victory for the ultimate recycling invention!
We had this. Almost. Trying to hold down the thrill of victory until we’d earned it, I told Ray and Claire, “Now we destroy Mech’s backup armor and get out of here.”
Ray pointed at the opposite wall. “I suspect the armor is in there.” He was right. There were seams there, weren’t there? Just like the ones in the wall panel hiding his regular armor.
Ray proved his point by walking over, punching a hole through the wood, and pulling it back off the wall. The panel fell onto the floor, exposing another set of armor. This one was a lot less sleek, less modular. It might have been Mech’s prototype for all I knew, kept as a memento and a backup.
I felt kind of bad he was going to lose his momento. For about a second.
Vera could melt this one, but I wanted all her power devoted to jamming Mech. The Machine could eat this suit, too, but anxiety did nag at me. I knew it was stupid, but I’d taken too much of a risk of exposing The Machine as it was.
Besides, this suit was much less sophisticated than the other, and much less indestructible. “Break it, Reviled.”
The blaster gloves recharged pretty fast. I couldn’t help but feel proud about that as Ray pulled another purple and pink ball out of them as big as the one that had demolished Mech’s airlock hatch. He slammed it into Mech’s backup armor from point blank range, with about the same effect. The suit’s arms and legs broke off, and the torso bent into an ugly bowl. Tesla’s Desperately Needed Fabric Softener, those gloves hit hard.
“That looks beyond repair to me. Back the way we came, fast!” I barked.
We ran back the way we came. I teleported up through the hole in the ceiling into the workshop. Vera flew after me, Ray jumped up, and Claire grappled. The Machine caught up seconds later, climbing the shaft on spidery legs. I clung to one side of it and Claire to the other as it scrambled up the destroyed staircase. Ray just ran up like it was nothing, of course. Aside from being stripped of fabric and crawling with zombie rag dolls looking for more, the living room hadn’t changed. Claire grabbed a doll on the way out. Good girl. We needed to keep a breeding stock. The Machine had trouble getting through the bent hatchway, but managed.
We crowded into the elevator, and Ray pushed the up button.
Nothing.
Had Vera burned it out? Did Mech lock it down? It didn’t matter. I pointed at the emergency ceiling hatch. Even Mech’s private elevator had one. “We climb.”
Ray palmed a merely ping pong ball sized energy globe, and shot the hatch open. I teleported, Ray and Claire jumped and pulled themselves up onto the roof. Then The Machine tore the roof open entirely and climbed up onto the wall of the elevator shaft, with Vera floating behind.
Well, that made things easy. I sat primly on The Machine, arms folded, and we ascended. Claire’s grappling hook got her to the top first, but I got to watch Ray jumping from support beam to support beam like a monkey. By the time I reached the top they had the elevator door open.
It looked like zombie rag dolls had a range limit. Most had slumped over, and only a few still chewed on upholstered chairs. As I watched, Claire’s presence revived the rest. They lurched to their feet and scattered, quite a few into the stairwell.
Not a bad idea, that, but first to hide some evidence. We’d escaped Mech’s lab, and things were less desperate. “Vera, stop all jamming.” Nothing visible or audible changed. Maybe she already had.
I bent over The Machine. “And you, separate all that metal you collected and send it back to the lab by itself. I want the original back.” Quiet, metallic noises clattered inside, and then the copper beetle shell opened, and the real Machine crawled out. I snapped him onto my wrist. The bug-legged, copper mini-Machine ran off… and out a window with a crash of glass. Eh, it would get back to base or it wouldn’t.
Ray had already run over to the stairwell door and held it open for us. Claire curtseyed, and as I passed him onto the cement staircase he asked, “Down?”
“Up,” I corrected.
The building only went up another three floors. I ran all the way, and only had to hold onto my knees and take a few deep breaths as Ray knocked the locked roof access door open.
We crowded out into the sunshine. The beautiful sunshine, blue sky, and not-all-that-distant sirens. Walking across the crunchy gravel roof surface, I peeked over the edge. Lots of police and spectators. I didn’t see any superheroes, but they were there. We’d be gone before they figured out we left by the roof.
We did it. “We did it!” I shouted, turned around and threw my arms around Claire and Ray’s necks. They hugged me back. We’d cracked Mech’s lair like a rusty safe!
I heard a helicopter’s thumping rotors. Time to escape before a fight happened. I pointed over the edge of the building. Really, downtown was all big buildings. The next rooftop was a story down, but not that far away. “We hop a few buildings, find a fire escape to climb down, split up a
nd go home separately. No, better yet, to Chinatown. Spider can have her hard drive, and we’ll be done with this.”
It hit me again. We did it. HA! “Ha ha ha ha!” I laughed, giddiness welling up inside me. I felt like I’d float away!
Then the helicopter hovered up over the edge of the rooftop facing the street. Well, we were going the other way. Except that to my considerable surprise, a woman slid down from the helicopter on a cord. She was dressed way too well to be a superheroine, and she held up a small camera on her shoulder as she rushed up to us.
Above the droning rotors, she asked, “The Inscrutable Machine! Did you become the youngest ever supervillain team to make a statement?”
I stared, but she still couldn’t crack my glee. She couldn’t see the smirk behind my visor, but I smirked anyway. “A statement? Yes, I’m making a statement. Reviled, throw her off the roof.”
For a second, she thought I was kidding. That gave Ray plenty of time to grab her in both hands and lift her off her feet. She shrieked, her body going stiff with fear, and Ray threw her like a spear straight into the open doorway of the helicopter she’d jumped out of.
I choked back my laughter desperately so I could tell Ray, “Your aim’s improving. I was going to let the superheroes downstairs catch her. Now let’s get out of here.”
We got out of there.
hat same old man stood in the same place at the same roadblocks at the entrance to Chinatown when I got there. Did he ever sleep? If he wasn’t human, that would explain his exaggeratedly fake Chinese impression.
He didn’t turn it on me this time. He ignored me entirely as I walked past the barriers, down the street toward the big central building. At the first corner Ray walked out of the side street, then Claire zipped up on her skates behind me.
Chinatown was quiet in the middle of the day on weekends. More than quiet, but not quite deserted. There were plenty of houses as well as shops, but no civilians on the streets. I didn’t see anyone at all until we got close to the stall that sold that smoking liquor. A kid still ran the stand, with one customer who could not more obviously have been a supervillain. Even without the armor she was nearly Bull’s height and solidly muscular, although not hard edged cut. Her armor matched her look, with gaps at the midriff and elbows and knees, but not a lot of skin showing between plates of two inch thick and non-provocative metal. I was sure I’d seen her picture in a newspaper or in one of Mom’s files somewhere, but I couldn’t place her name.
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