by Ben Bequer
For now.
The island is still up there, held aloft by Nostromo’s persisting power. They blamed me for it, but no technology exists to return it back to the surface of the Earth and for now our planet has a small planetoid, a second vestigial moon below the atmosphere.
Many heroes died that day, and not just from the battles against us. Atmosphero discovered the destroyed chasm beneath the island and led a contingent of flying heroes through the gap, but the Telluric energy killed most of them. Well, most except Atmosphero himself. The bastard managed to survive and even wrote a best-selling book about the whole ordeal. They won’t let me read it but I bet it’s a grand tale.
Apostle lost his life, as did Nostromo and Retcon.
I’m not sure what happened to Mr. Haha. After the destruction of his physical form, he burrowed himself into my wrist, and I can’t say that I would have beaten Zundergrub, or destroyed the Telluric device without his help. He went silent after The Nuke went off, perhaps destroyed once and for all by the massive EMP burst. I’ve still got a bunch of jagged metal ringing my wrist, encrusted deep in the flesh, and on long nights when I think of the old crew or of Shard World, or that final fight, my wrist will tingle and itch.
Maybe he’s still out there, but Cool Hand Luke we lost for certain.
Of Cool I’m often asked how I could associate with such a person, and during the trial they made a big deal of him and Influx, as negative character witnesses. They were known villains and notorious sociopaths, Cool in particular. They read a litany of accusations against both of them that were quite damning, and the prosecution team did a great job of conflating their past deeds with mine. I make no excuses for Cool, but, sociopath or not, he saved my life more times than I can count and stood beside me when no one else would. He died in my arms and I have nothing ill to say about him.
Zundergrub ... well, that’s a different story, and what bothered me the most about the trial ... the accusation that I had collaborated with him and killed Influx and Cool Hand for leadership of the group. That wasn’t a good day. I had to be physically gagged and restrained. Though I didn’t help my cause any, I doubt anything would have averted the inevitable.
Sandy turned on me, as I knew he would. They were coming after him pretty hard and he had kids so he did what he had to do. I don’t blame him. Through Sandy, they traced every red cent, every account he had help me put together, and now it’s all gone, even the Retcon money. He led the police to my secret sanctum and there they found my lab and all my toys -- all they needed to tie me directly to Blackjack. In fact, they don’t use my real name in the papers, nor did they call me by anything other than Blackjack during the trial. As a nefarious villain, it’s easier to hate me. When you hear my entire story and understand what happened as a whole, things become more complicated, less ready for mass consumption.
My attorneys were big name guys, though I could never afford them. I suspect Delphi, Serpentis and Razor were responsible for hiring and paying them, though I never saw them to thank them and the attorneys would claim privilege. They did what they could but without Apogee’s testimony, the contest was over before it began.
Apogee lived, of course, saved by Mirage’s healing powers. Madelyne knew what had happened better than anyone and was the one person left who could speak on my behalf but they didn’t let her. Despite the efforts of my attorneys and my protestations in open court (and another couple of days spent bound and gagged), she was never allowed to appear at trial. I never saw her again after the battle at Hashima Island, but it was relief enough to know she made it and remains safe for now.
The problem is Zundergrub, whose remains were never found. I think he survived, and if Zundergrub is still out there, he’s licking his wounds and biding his time. And when he’s ready, he’ll try to kill her again.
I’ve come to know evil, and it’s all around us. It’s within me, deep in my heart, and it’s also lurking in the hearts of those who would seek to protect us. There’s a little Blackjack in all of us, a cocky scoundrel waiting to steal the dame and ride off into the sunset. But Zundergrub is true evil, world-ending evil, and as long he lives, he threatens us all. He will hunt her for sheer pleasure, which I cannot let happen. I need to get out of here and end his menace once and for all.
I owe it to her. I told Apogee I loved her when the world was going to end, when I had nothing left. She clung to me, and I to her, and for once in my life, I had found a reason for being.
I might never have known what I wanted out of life. But now, more than anything else, I want to see her again.
Author’s Notes
Before I get all hot and heavy thanking the Academy and my mom, I need to mention and thank my staunchest ally and supporter in the writing of this book; my friend Josh. Whatever this book might be, it’s doubtful that it would have happened without all his help. Most writers work in a bubble, begging their loved ones and friends to give their manuscripts a looksee, but in Josh I had an advisor that bordered on co-writer. He not only read every draft, but he also commented in writing and then hand edited where he saw it necessary. For many months Josh was an active sounding board to my every whimsical idea, helping tone down the Mad Hatter in my head to make sense of things. He helped me write my way out of every dead end; in some cases rewriting it himself to show me that there was still hope to my mangled language. I’ve never seen or heard of someone selflessly giving so much of themselves to help another’s project, though I think, as I go on here, his reasons will become more obvious.
The genesis of this project comes from the inspiration of Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman’s Dragonlance Chronicles. While reading those fantastic, seminal books, I found out that they had basically taken the characters and plot from their weekly Dungeons and Dragons game and with a little artistic flair, turned it all into a series of novels. I’ve done the same here, though with a fraction of the storytelling skill as those two legends displayed in that series and since.
Another source of inspiration was Austin Grossman’s wonderful book “Soon I will be Invincible” whose amazing story and success paved the way for what I’ve attempted here. His book was the first work of fiction I had ever seen that embraced the superhuman genre while at the same time creating self-contained a non-DC/Marvel world. I know there are other fantastic books in this mini-genre, such as Ex-Heroes, Nobody Gets the Girl and Playing for Keeps. In any case, Grossman was my first, and it led me to believe that something like this even had a chance.
As far as other sources of inspiration for this book, they are as varied as Jules Verne, Stan Lee, id Software, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Alan Moore, Edgar Rice Burroughs and every Disney movie ever made, with a dash of Buck Rogers, Robin Hood, Rocky Balboa and Han Solo thrown in to symbolize my reluctant anti-hero, Blackjack. I drew from all these sources, a lifetime of reading science, science fiction and comic books to create something that encompassed everything I have ever been interested in. As a reader you may be bothered by some of the pseudo-scientific dissertations sprinkled throughout the book and for that I have only my upbringing to blame. A father’s love of science and aeronautics has become the child’s passion and lifelong dedication. I also thank Wikipedia and the web in general for helping me appear knowledgeable.
Editorially, I also want to thank Jason and Len for their invaluable help putting it all together, and for their constructive comments. More importantly for listening to me when I was driving everyone else insane. And talking about driving someone insane, I owe great thanks to my wife Julie. I couldn’t have done this without her no-nonsense advice and the endless hours she listened to me drone on about every single detail. I’m still trying to deserve her.
Finally, I want to thank Victor, my brother in arms and in every other way. I was lucky to know him for as long as I did, and I know he’s saving our group a table in the sky. It wasn’t soon after he passed that I decided to put this down, and I think that’s what roused Josh’s interest as well, an effort to give homage to ou
r fallen brother.
Vic was Cool Hand Luke, and yes, he had no idea that the name came from a famous book and Paul Newman movie. I’ve taken broad liberties with his baby and had more fun with Cool than I had with any other character in the book. If I do have to apologize for anything is for how vulgar he turned out, something that Vic probably wouldn’t have approved of. But once I was under Cool’s spell there was little I could do.
Zundergrub was a gift and run much as he reads by my totally non-creepy friend Sebastian. The endgame twist was his surprise idea that we just rolled with, and it made all the difference. The same was the case with the doctor’s sudden concern with the alien tribes. Seb really brought his A-game, and I doubt I would have written this if not for how Zundergrub turned out.
If Mr. Haha seems a bit nebulous, then it’s because I still don’t understand him myself. This is actually a light take on what he really was, but it’s a book about Blackjack so I couldn’t spend the time necessary to do him justice. Haha’s avatar changed once we hit Shard World, and I regret that I wasn’t able to do Rockhard McSpikey. My friend Rash was in rare form.
Influx was my creation and a way to draw a comparison with Apogee, as someone accepting of the Charlie Sheen-esque car crash that Blackjack was becoming, willing to take that Thelma and Louise plunge into the abyss with him. I intended that to last longer, to do the love triangle thing, but I didn’t intend to do what I did until she lay in a pool of her own blood. Maybe it’s less dramatic this way, less teenage angst-filled, but I think what I needed to do with Blackjack, required a bit of intimacy.
Apogee was not a player-controlled character in our game, a throwaway hero of secondary importance. In fact, the romance I toyed with was actually Blackjack with Dr. Walsh, but something happened after the New York fight that changed everything and I wrote it without much thinking about it; Zundergrub orders Apogee to “save” Blackjack. I ran into a wall after that scene, as I wrote most of it in chronological order, but then I got the idea of the escape interlude. Blackjack didn’t have to be there when the others encountered the alien on Callisto, so I just ran with it, and it turned into what Josh calls the “Rom-com Sequence”, as in romantic comedy. I guess now we have to cast Ryan Reynolds and Jennifer Anniston if this thing ever goes Hollywood. But seriously, it turned the whole dynamic on its side, and the book changed dramatically after that. For the better, I think.
Dale “Blackjack” McKeown was Josh, but as I wrote him he began to evolve away from what he had originally done. In fact, that for a while there, he wasn’t the ‘villain’ from the title at all. Thank Len and my wife for putting me back on track. I know the story is a simple redemption tale, but I wanted to explore the idea of a person being lost and rudderless, rather than an actual bad guy, and that mistake took me away from what Blackjack really was. The wind in my sails was again Josh, who helped me steer towards the real core. The same choices that Blackjack makes in this book are the ones I presented the above players, and all but Sebastian/Zundergrub responded as I had expected. As I had hoped. Again, without Zundergrub’s betrayal, I don’t think this story is all that worth telling.
In the end, Blackjack showed his true colors and saved the world. As a reward, the powers that be gave him an all-expense paid, lifetime stint in Utopia prison in the North Atlantic.
But I think Blackjack’s tale is only getting started.
Cast of Characters
The Villains
The Impossibles
Blackjack - Though he parades as an archer with a quiver of trick arrows, Blackjack is unknowingly one of the strongest supers on Earth.
Influx - Powerful in her own right, Influx’ abilities are amplified by her use of “Baal’s Tooth”, a sword of incredible unholy power that allows Influx to absorb just about any force, and heal from almost any wound.
Cool Hand Luke - Also known as Madcat, Redline and most recently as Nuclear Ketchup possesses temporal powers that allow him to compress or expand time around himself and others by utilizing time bubbles.
Dr. Zundergrub - Not only is he a master mentalist and psychic, but he also can summon a host of elemental beings from a shadow world only he has access to. These creatures ranged from a horde of mini implings to colossal demons the size of a city block.
Mr. Haha 2000 - Mr. Haha is the present avatar of a sentient A.I. which resides, in large part, within an online collective of hacked computers. Haha’s physical construct is as tough as they come, trained in 1,000 forms of combat, and wielding a flawless blade reputed to have belonged to the legendary duelist Myamoto Musashi (though it is in dire need of a polish).
Baron Blitzkrieg’s Dogs of War
Baron Blitzkrieg - His name alone is sparks enough fear to send the people flocking into the hills. A throwback to the golden age of heroes, the Baron is still around, his armor gleaming in the sun, and since the last incarceration of Dr. Retcon, he is the world’s most dangerous villain.
Psionicler - What remains of Psionicler’s physical form is now but a mangled collection of organs and flesh, replaced instead with machine and nanobots that give him incredible intellect, and the “Quotient Factor”, which allows him to see three seconds into the future.
Mr. Servo - Is he Psionicler’s creation, or is he now the master? Mr. Servo never speaks, never attempts to communicate in any fashion, but the robotic construct is deadly and psychotic.
Apotheosis - Formerly the world’s foremost mindbender, Apotheosis lost in battle to Baron Blitzkrieg and is now his servant and protector.
Deadeye Genesis – An ambulating experiment on stem cell technology gone wrong, the coagulate known as Deadeye Genesis is physically kept together by a suit of armor, but it’s tenuous hold on sanity no one can control.
Beta Blast
UVee – As part of Beta Blast, UVee wears the same orange and black color scheme of the others, but his powerful energy emissions surround him with an anima banner of glowing red light that sets him apart from everyone.
Nexus – With access to the power of a star, Nexus would be the most powerful super on Earth if not for the fact that he isn’t immune to his own power output.
Shockblast – Kind of a one trick-pony, Shockblast wields the Manicle Claw, which enhances his own strength, and allows him to fire energy projectiles. Without the claw, he is just a regular man.
Project Alpha – While UVee might lead the team in combat, Project Alpha is clearly the brains of Beta Blast. In fact, only his nervous system remains, within a floating armored construct.
V4NGU4RD – Project Alpha’s magnum opus, his ultimate creation, and one of the most dangerous villains known on Earth. Afraid of his own creation, Project Alpha controls the robot directly, making others believe that it has a sentient A.I., and at the same time exerting a measure of control over the group.
Solo Villains
Gentleman Shivvers - a retired old-timer, once a respected second-story man and filcher, renowned for his finesse with a dagger and his shadow-melding skills.
Black Razor – Also known as Razor and Razorman, he is as deadly as he is whimsical. While thankfully retired, Razor is remembered for his epic defeats at the hands of Lord Mighty during the late 70s and 80s and for his “Fuck This Shit” manifesto he wrote in one of his many prison stints.
Delphi – Little is known about this enigmatic villain, save that his crimes usually target corporate secrets, and that the intent of his schemes is merely hush money from companies eager to forget the whole affair.
Serpentis – The true shadow and silent as her namesake, Serpentis has never been caught.
Death Blossom – With the uncanny ability to explode any or all of herself, while still retaining consciousness, she is a hard villain to catch, and near impossible to beat. Combine the fact that she is schizophrenic and murderous, makes you wish you’d stayed in bed.
Kamikazee – His given hero name is an affront to him, despite it being an accurate description of how he fights. He prefers to be called Eiyuu (hero in
Japanese), and with how hotheaded he is, it’s best to oblige him.
Seppuku – His strange powers revolve around being able to withstand any wound (especially his trademark self-induced slit across the abdomen) and his ability to control his damaged intestines to envelop and overpower his enemies.
Crashdown – While he may have seemed unfortunately named, Crashdown never did master his propulsion powers, leading to many a headache and much property damage.
Batlash – Chicago’s dark villain, he roams the rooftops and back alleys, looking for heroes to dispose of. Maybe that’s why there’s so few heroes in Illinois.
Golgothra – The product of a North Korean scientific experiment gone wrong, the Golgothra is a semi-sentient colossus that lives in the Sea of Japan, preying on shipping, and occasionally rampaging the mainland and Japan.
The Heroes
Rising Force
Captain Miraculous – There’s no hero as brave or tough as Captain Miraculous, and in the days following the death of Valiant, he has taken up the mantle as “Earth’s Protector.” The Captain’s powers are diverse, but his real advantage lies in his strength of will, and unmitigated desire to do right.
Bad Karma – Capt. Miraculous wife and partner, she can create shields of impenetrable energy and has formidable healing skills. In addition, she can warp possibilities, causing havoc amongst her enemies.
Silverspar – An unstoppable juggernaut of armor and weapons, Silverspar is a remotely-controlled heroic automaton.
Pulsewave – With devastating impact powers and flight, Pulsewave has long served as a hero, bouncing from group to group, including The Revolution, The Arcade, and The Player’s Club.
Plasma – The original “blob”, Plasma can distend his cellular structure to unreal proportions, becoming a roaming mass of genetic material similar to a thirty foot tall amoeba.