by Paris, Sevan
“Computer, activate V-Log.”
The computer clicks and grunts a confirmation in its native Zyborg language.
“Well, today was an utter disappointment.” I straddle the side of the cockpit and jump to the floor. A painful reminder of a recent injury, courtesy of Hunter, shoots through my left leg.
“I was so sure I could take them. So sure I had them right where I bloody well wanted them. I waited—for an hour—waited for Galaxy to finish his part of the story and lead up to mine. I wanted a good segue. I wanted the birdie to have context for what I could—for what I was about to do to her. It’s hard to fear the greatness that is Dr. Villainous if it’s actually Dr. Villainous that has to explain why you should fear him.”
I unzip the upper part of my purple and black costume, letting my gut flop out. “That’s why I prefer to be more theatrical than most Supervillains. Many consider my behavior erratic, but what do they know? Mother Nature, Nightmare, The Circus Six, Major Mayhem—they’ve been defeated just as many times as I have. Sometimes in even more humiliating ways—they just don’t have a reoccurring Saturday Night Live skit dedicated to it.”
A need for the last of my Zyborg painkillers sends me to the med station on the other side of the cave. The meds probably aren’t the safest stuff to use, but they work really well on pain—both the physical and emotional kind.
I rummage through several poorly organized drawers, tossing useless crap to the side. “The scalding I took from that blasted espresso machine a few hours ago hurt worse than any lick I’ve ever taken from Hunter. Or any sonic scream from Liberty. Or any Grav Blast from Galaxy. I have force fields that repel all that stuff. But they’re apparently worth jack-all against the wrath of a broken espresso machine. If the Zyborg attack Earth a fourth time, that’s what we should use against them. Forget the hordes of Supers and technology that defends us. Just line up a bunch of baristas with steaming wands. That would send the aliens back to The Empire with their tails between their legs, I’ll tell you that much.”
“Ah, there you are. Computer, pause recording.” Zyborg painkiller comes preloaded in disposable Y-shaped dispensers. I press the nozzle into the side of my throat, and it sends some alien medicine into my system with a snap-hiss.
My eyes go to the first place they usually go when I’m at the med station: a section I’ve named The V-Wall of Shame. Newspaper clippings from across the globe decorate it. I have several events—the ones that I always found particularly humiliating—in different languages: the time Hunter stopped me from poisoning Prose’s water supply by shooting me in the leg with his grappling hook; the time Liberty stopped me from vaporizing the moon with that sonic scream of his (taking a good chunk of my permanent hearing with it); and the time I’m most ashamed of … when Galaxy stopped me from grabbing that armored car with one of those Grav Blasts. That’s the day he took the VT-Ray from me.
I sensed him use the VT-Ray earlier tonight. That’s why I went to Prose—to get it back and, hopefully, to kill Galaxy in the process. By all rights, I should have.
But instead I’ll just have another clipping.
Major Mayhem keeps clippings of success in his lair: the time he tricked the grief stricken Captain Strong into attacking Cleveland, Ohio; the time he sent Liberty Girl into an alternate dimension; the time he seduced Mother Nature. How tacky. Nobody wants to see that. And to surround yourself with nothing but success stories led you to believe you had nowhere to go, nothing else great to achieve. I found failure to be a great motivator.
Or at least that’s what I’ve always told myself.
But it’s really a lie, isn’t it? Otherwise I wouldn’t have a space marked off on the other side of the cave for the V-Wall of Pride. I have an unopened bottle of champagne that I’ve been saving for the first clipping. But there is nothing there except for a framed BA in Theatre from UTP, an empty space where I used to keep the VT-Ray (the very first piece of alien tech that I ever discovered, sensed … whatever) and the aforementioned champagne.
“Computer, resume V-Log. I discovered four things today. Thing number one: Galaxy’s secret identity. Gabe Garrison. Thing number two: Galaxy is immune to large holes in his head, like the one that I put there that didn’t kill him. Thing number three: He has a girlfriend with powers just like his. Thing number four: I suck.”
I let the last word hang in the air for just a moment.
“These blasted powers of mine … at least before I discovered them—before the first Zyborg invasion twenty years ago—I could blame other people for not being able to do anything with my degree, my life, myself. But the Superpower to locate Zyborg tech? A power that no other Super had? A power that would have proven worthless had it not been for the Zyborg’s existence? Or their invasions? That implied my life had purpose, meaning. That I was important in the grand scheme of things. But now … I realize the truth with a depressing, ill-timed clarity.”
“I. Suck.”
“At everything.”
“Guess I should tip my hat to the Superpowers for teaching me that, huh? Wouldn’t have wanted to go through life thinking lack of opportunity or some such had prevented me from achieving my full potential, would I? That would have been downright awful, wouldn’t it?”
I plop down in my comfy chair that I ripped out of a smashed Zyborg star fighter years ago. “Pause recording,” I slur through the effects of the painkiller. “View screen on.” The view screen flickers to life and goes right to Fox News. For some reason I haven’t been able to put my finger on yet, that’s the only television channel the Zyborg tech will pick up in high def. I shake my head and change the channel to Prose’s iWitness news. The image flashes to Lisa Lancaster in front of Rock Creek Bookstore.
Man, she is a pretty blonde thing—I’d like to be under her for an hour or two.
“… And although the city of Prose is no stranger to the failed attempts of Dr. Villainous, it is a stranger to his causing such an unprecedented amount of property damage.”
That’s a lie. That armored car job alone caused a five-car pile up and ruined the entire lobby of SunJoy Bank.
“Lisa,” the wanker back at the news station asks from behind his desk, “have the local authorities been able to shed any light on what happened?”
“Well, Mitch, we still don’t have the complete story, but what we do know is this: Galaxy—one of Prose’s newest Supers—was seen fighting Dr. Villainous in what’s left of Rock Creek Bookstore behind me. Two people were trapped inside the bookstore during the fray. The authorities still haven’t released their identities or the reason for the altercation.
“Lisa, it’s my understanding that Liberty and most of the other HEROES are in the Middle East on a peacekeeping mission. Shouldn’t HEROES be more concerned about keeping the streets of Prose safe instead of securing the reelection of the President?”
“It may have been a concern, Mitch, if it weren’t for the high number of reserve members that HEROES keeps in Prose for just that reason. Unfortunately, the one thing Dr. Villainous has always proven good at—running and hiding—has prevented the reserve members from finding him. They may have to wait until he strikes—or should I say fails—again. In the meantime, authorities have been cautioning citizens to—”
I yell and hurl my chair at the view screen, smashing it into sparks and a thousand pieces of broken glass.
My hand clutching the nearest console barely keeps the room from spinning. Probably shouldn’t have done that. That was my last big view screen. Everything else is just a hand held, which means I’ll miss How I Met Your Mother tonight. But I couldn’t help it.
Fails—again.
They think they understand me—what really makes me a loser. But they don’t. Nobody does. It’s not the losing, it’s not the humiliation, it’s not the Will Ferrell skits—it’s the relief I felt when Galaxy’s girlfriend defeated me.
Why did I feel relief?
I rub my head and wish I didn’t take so much of the painkiller. Afraid it could be leading
to an even creepier sense of clarity that I don’t have time for—that I don’t want to take time for. One soul crushing epiphany is more than enough. Two is two too much.
I’ll need the Zyborg skin healer thingy to fix my face before it starts hurting again. But I need to wait until the buzzing subsides, or I may heal one of my eyes shut again.
An excited beep from a console catches my inebriated attention. Somebody or something is coming this way.
A long meander to the monitor tells me Captain Strong is flying in at Mach Two. Lots of people—that don’t know what I know—may think something weird is going on. That Captain Strong has somehow escaped The Bend. That he is about to wreck the same style of havoc that led to his incarceration years ago. But I know better. I know that HEROES subtracts a little time from his sentence every time he lets that misty little bitch take control of his level eight body.
Pink.
She’s coming after me, then.
Guess she’s been tracking me by the V-Planes emissions somehow. Probably not that hard for her—it’s Zy-tech. It would have been swell if I’d thought of that. Maybe I could have found a way to avoid it. But maybe I didn’t want to … just like I didn’t really want to win the fight at the bookstore. Maybe I just want all of this to be over. No more humiliation, no more pain, no more … me.
But … there is still … it. That one piece—that one big piece—of Zy-tech I haven’t unleashed on anyone yet. I mean, I sent it out on a test run a couple of months ago, and it did okay … it might do okay against Captain Strong too. And my force field will keep Pink from taking over my body.
But is it worth it? I’m kind of ready to just give it up. It’s like the one remaining piece of control that I have over my life.
On the other hand, what’s the worst that could happen? She’ll beat me up? Been there. Done that. Maybe this time, I can get her to kill me. That’d be nice, wouldn’t it? At least I wouldn’t have to worry about putting anything else on my wall. And death by Superhero would make a better headline than death by slashed wrists.
That cinches it. We’re doing it, then. We’re going to fight. If I win, she’ll go back home crying to HEROES tower. If she wins, I’ll be dead. Either way, I win. I pull the tarp off the last, big piece of Zy-tech and prepare it (and by that, I mean look for the bleeding on switch).
Wonder if the buzzing in my head is giving me more clarity or less? Doesn’t matter—this is happening. I just hope she finishes me before the meds wear off. I’d hate to change my mind in the middle of dying. And then there is the whole pain thing too. Like to avoid that if I could.
I find the on switch and the thing hums to life.
Pink—using the body of Captain Strong—tears through the roof of the cave. Boulders crash and crumble around me.
It’s the last thing I hear.
Chapter One
"Okay-Mexican-Style-Cappuccino-two-shots-of-espresso. Anything-else?" the cleavage-y blonde behind the counter asks. Her nametag reads "Grace" but her quick movements and speed of light discourse imply anything but.
"No, that'll do." I take my drink and ease onto a barstool next to the window of The Café Show and feel miserable about being me.
Have you ever been really good at something and not allow yourself to do it? And I'm not talking about something small, like making cappuccinos (but that's a real talent too, especially when you add the milk leaf, which Grace is either incapable or unwilling to do). No, I'm talking about something hugely, mind boggingly big. Creating Star Wars Episode IV big.
I'm talking about saving people.
Thankless, idiot people that don't have the sense to move out of a town where you're just as likely to run into a Super as you are to catch the flu (that's no joke—I looked it up: 1 out of 10).
I go through the trouble of mentioning all of this so that you know I'm good at what I do ... did do. I started out rocky, sure—but I got better. I became a Superhero because I thought it would be fun, that I would look cool. Something changed though—people were about to get dead like, and I saved them. Then I saved some more and then some more. Just being able to do it wasn't what made me good at it—it was the fact that I could do it without hesitation. I mean, don't get me wrong—I felt fear. Truck loads of deer-in-the-headlight fear (hey, that rhymes ... ) I never had a problem putting somebody else's life before mine though. I did, however, have trouble convincing M it was what should be done.
Which brings me to the crux of my epically epic dilemma.
I don't do hero anymore because this thing—this sociopathic, selfish, pompous alien thing that I call M—living inside my head giving me all my powers, has become more than I can handle. For eight months, I’ve been putting up with his crap ... his refusal to help the helpless, his insistence to threaten people that I love ... and his using—his downright manipulation—of those that may love me.
Reagan.
I haven't been able to say her name for a month. Just thinking about her makes me curl my lip in disgust, not just at M, but at myself. I could blame M for everything that happened since ... for Reagan dropping out of college, leaving Prose, and—for all I know—the freaking country. But I couldn't put it all on him. It was my fault too.
I allowed M to do all of these horrible things. My actions, no matter how many they may have saved, have continuously placed people I care about in harm's way. I may be a hero (have been), I may be a good person—but no person, I don't care how good they are, can put the lives of strangers over their family, over those that they love and that love them ... holy crap ...
Reagan MacPherson might love me.
That's what she said right before leaving. Right before she said she hated herself around me. Right after M boned her over—not because she deserved it or it was completely random, but because of me. Because of Reagan's relationship to me.
I didn't move off that park bench until the next morning, when the sun slowly crept up from the other side of the Tennessee River. When I found myself no longer in shock and, instead, irreversibly pissed off at the life form irreversibly bonded to me.
Don't get me wrong, I was already upset. But this took it to a whole new level. It made me realize that the same thing that gave me the "Super" part of Superhero prevented me from doing the "hero" part. It would be selfish to save people if, as a result, I placed those I loved in harm's way. Every time I saved a stranger from your typical villain of the week, M would just threaten another person close to me if I allowed them to get closer in any way. What I could do was the very thing that I knew would piss him off.
I ignored him.
He shouted at me for three weeks straight. The first week, I dealt by using Mom's Imitrex, the second week Bo's Jack Daniel’s, and the third week became a combination of the two. This week he finally shut up. I haven't heard a pompous peep out of him for four days.
I know M hasn't left because I'm not dead. Like it or not, I'm bonded to him until the day I die. Leaving me would kill him and me. Him because there is nothing to hold his essence together and me because somehow my nervous system depends on his presence at this point, a side effect of the bonding. There are two others that he’s bonded with: Reagan and a dachshund. Reagan refused him, and he refused the dachshund.
The rest of the time (well, ninety-nine percent of the time) if M tries to bond with something else, something about their body rejects him. He has no idea what makes someone compatible. Unless he’s lying about that fact, which is a very real possibility. But, based off what I saw when he bonded with Liberty to get rid of that Deathbot nanite thing, it looks like even his word can be taken at face value sometimes. Which is ironic, considering M has no face.
Liberty ...
The World's Greatest Hero that threatened to kill me and Mom if I didn't register. It's been a month since his deadline and so far nothing. Either Liberty’s connections weren't as big as he made them out to be or he's decided I wasn't worth the time. Frankly, I believed the former to be more likely than the latter. That dud
e was really pissed last time I saw him ... which was the time that I saved his life.
Sigh—my life was a mess. A depressing mess that saw no hope of getting better.
Ever.
I spin my mug for the whatever'th time. Grace made an alright cappuccino—but I can make a better one. Rock Creek Books is still shut down from the carnage that was Dr. Villainous and M, but the owner, Jessica Gem, is still paying us until the place reopens. Her other two employees and I thanked her, but she just shrugged and responded, "The insurance is paying for it." She's a real gem, that Jessica Gem.
I'm the only one in The Café Show, except for Grace. I'm just about to take a sip of the first regular cappuccino that I've had in eight months (caffeinated coffee made me too jittery since the whole bonding thing, but since M has finally shut up, I think I can handle it). The foam touches my lips …
An explosion outside nearly shakes me off the barstool facing the window—unoccupied stools clatter to the tile floor; the ringing of spoons, metal napkin dispensers and dishes quickly joins them.
The coffee shop sits on the South side of the river, right next to the left side of the Michael Booth walking bridge with the Hunter Museum on the right. The museum has two buildings, an older brick one with columns in the front, built about a hundred years ago, and a contrasting grey one with sharp angles and long curves, built two years ago. Many citizens of Prose argued the contrast between the two buildings was a huge eye sore. I imagine those same citizens would be pleased to know a Mac Truck sized chunk of the newer building has just exploded.
A robot hovers above the flaming portion of the building. He has a red V shaped torso, blue arms ending with long angled points for shoulder blades, and black legs mostly covered by flaring blasts from the boot jets. Two glowing yellow eyes offset an otherwise flat grey face. It holds its fists at its sides, all menacing like. A large beam fires out of an opening in its chest and another explosion follows the first.
Hero time. A hero will be here any minute.