Villains Don't Save Heroes!

by Mia Archer

  “Night Terror,” she growled. “What are you doing here? Why have you taken me captive?”

  I sighed. I should have realized this might happen. One of the side effects of tossing someone into the med bay was temporary amnesia. There’d been at least one awkward time when I’d woken up convinced I was still a grad student working in the Applied Sciences Department where the possibility of a machine uprising was a very real possibility. They had training videos and everything about what to do in case you found yourself in a lab where you thought a computer was starting to gain sapience and a healthy hatred of humanity.

  CORVAC had to spend a few hours reassuring me that I hadn’t been taken captive by computers as part of the rise of the machines and he was actually my partner in crime and not a machine designed to tell me that so he could gain my cooperation and access to my toys.

  And now that unfortunate side effect meant there was a potentially superpowered individual, assuming her recovery had somehow fixed whatever Dr. Lana had done to her, staring at me with pure hatred in her eyes and a case of temporary amnesia that looked like it went back to at least the time when we’d been archenemies.

  Great. Just what I needed. One new archenemy was bad enough without bringing the old one back into the mix.

  Sure enough her first instinct was to fight. I have to admit it was a little comical, even if it was sad at the same time. She threw herself in the air, her fist punching out ahead of her.

  I had no doubt that fist was meant to run straight into either my jaw or my stomach or something that would have felt equally unpleasant getting hit at high speed by a being with super strength, but instead she hovered in the air for a moment, just enough time to give me a surprised wide-eyed look usually reserved for silent coyotes realizing their plans have gone terribly awry, and then gravity reasserted itself as her momentum dissipated and she fell flat on the ground doing one hell of a bellyflop.

  I winced. That didn’t look good. And from the way she moaned it obviously hadn’t felt very good either.

  “Did she hurt anything with that display?” I asked.

  There was a brief delay as the medical computer scanned her. “Negative.”

  I carefully placed the tray down on a table that slid out of the wall. At least some of the automated systems were working here.

  I walked over to Fialux. Knelt down until I was crouched beside her. I tried to put an arm around her.

  I immediately regretted the decision as she thrashed around trying to get away fro me. She flung a hand up and it caught me across the cheek, but it wasn’t nearly as strong as a hit from her should’ve been when she was operating at full power.

  Sure it felt about the same as all the times she’d hit me before, but those times I was wearing my suit which had the kind of reinforcement that prevented her superpowered hits from doing anything that could actually hurt me.

  At least that was the idea. Admittedly most of our fights had gone on long enough that she eventually hit me enough times to chisel away at my power reserves until things really started to hurt and I had to cry uncle if I didn’t want to be turned into paste on the pavement.

  The fact that her hit felt like a normal slap when I wasn’t wearing my suit was telling. Particularly it told me she hadn’t gotten her powers back when she was fixed up. Which wasn’t good, but at the same time I was a little thankful because damn that would’ve hurt if she’d managed to smack me across the head with me out of my suit and her powers intact.

  At full power she would’ve had a very real chance of dislocating my head from the rest of my body with a hit like that, and she probably wouldn’t have even realized what she was doing until it was too late.

  The old Fialux, the Fialux who was looking at me now because of the temporary amnesia, was also used to me relying on all of my tech wizardry to stay alive when she attacked me at full power. I imagine it would’ve been a surprise to her that I’d allow myself to be vulnerable in her presence, and it would’ve been an even more unpleasant surprise when the amnesia faded and she realized what she’d done.

  So yeah. Maybe there was a small silver lining in her powers being nonexistent. It was a very small lining around a very big nasty storm cloud, but it was something.

  I decided to take a couple of steps back. She might not have the kind of power she’d once had, but it still wasn’t fun to get slapped even if it was a more mortal person doing the slapping. I’d let her work out her issues at a safe distance where she couldn’t try to beat the crap out of me.

  She stood. Shook her head a couple of times as though she was trying to clear away some cobwebs. She looked down and took in her body.

  She wore a simple robe the medical computer had tossed her in after it finished rapidly repairing the parts of her that it could. I’d then carried her to this room where I figured she could be comfortable and get some of the rest and relaxation she so desperately needed.

  She’d already been out for the better part of a day, which I figured meant she’d had a hell of a lot taken out of her in that fight. A hell of a lot more than should’ve been taken out of her considering her usual superpowered status.

  Yeah, the more I thought about this the more I realized nothing good was going on here. No, this was going to be very bad when the dust settled. She might be powerless for the rest of her life, or it could just be a temporary thing.

  I didn’t know enough about what had been done to her to even make an educated guess.

  My fruitless attempts to figure out exactly what it was that made the weapons Dr. Lana had so generously provided me, or that I’d stolen depending on your point of view, were proof enough of that. I couldn’t tell what made them work, and I hated that I couldn’t tell what made them work.

  Technology was my thing. It felt like a personal failure that Dr. Lana was able to create something I couldn’t reverse engineer. Especially when she’d shown herself to be so adept at reverse engineering my stuff for her own lame purposes.

  “What have you done to me?” Fialux asked. “Did you do experiments on me? How did you take away my powers? How did you…”

  She seemed to waver. I was so surprised that it took me a moment to realize exactly what was going on here. To realize she was on the verge of swooning. That she might actually fall and run the risk of hurting herself in her new very vulnerable state.

  Her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she pitched forward like a ragdoll. I swore under my breath and dove to catch her.

  24

  Motive

  Admittedly my reflexes weren’t all they could be. They weren’t nearly as good as they were when I was in my suit and I had hundreds of sensors and algorithms working to make me better, faster, stronger, but I was good enough to catch her before she hit the floor.

  Not that there was much to worry about even if she did hit the floor considering everything in this room was designed to retract and get out of the way. That was the point of having a recovery room like this, but I was so worried at seeing her swoon that I sort of forgot all the safeguards.

  Including a temporary antigravity field that sprang to life if it looked like anyone was about to hurt herself by, say, taking a nasty fall, but instinct had taken over and we landed on one of those cushions of antigravity as we both headed for the floor.

  Boy was I glad I’d overengineered just about every part of this lab with just about every sort of safety system I could invent.

  Safety systems that worked for me and my friends, that is. Anyone who was stupid enough to try and invade my sanctum sanctorum without the proper authorization would quickly find that I’d also loaded the place down with just about every neat way to kill a person I’d come up with, and believe you me my ability to invent neat new ways to kill people had definitely outstripped my ability to invent neat new safety systems to keep myself alive as I terrorized the city with all those neat new ways I’d come up with to kill people.

  Even if I did try to avoid collateral civilian damage wheneve
r possible. Maybe Fialux was right. Maybe I was nothing but a big heroic softy.

  Yeah, right.

  Fialux stared at me, her eyes wide.

  “What happened to me?”

  “I’m going to tell you, but you need to promise me you’re going to calm the fuck down. All this excitement isn’t good for your recovery.”

  “Why should I calm the fuck down?” she asked, her voice turning into a screech. “I’m in the middle of your lair and it looks like you’re doing your best to keep me captive while I don’t have any of my powers! Is that the sort of situation that’s supposed to keep me calm?”

  I was starting to seriously regret not bringing my suit into this equation. I really could’ve used some of the hearing filters I’d installed in the suit right about now, because her voice was reaching decibel levels that were impressively painful by mortal standards even if they didn’t begin to come close to what she could achieve when she’d had all her neat abilities.

  I’d figured the suit wasn’t necessary because, after all, this was my girlfriend we were talking about. Only now it would appear that the med bay side effects had completely erased her recent memory in addition to fixing her up.

  Sure that memory loss was usually temporary, but talk about one hell of a temporary problem. A temporary problem I totally should’ve seen coming, I might add.

  Or maybe this was another devious part of Dr. Lana’s plan. Maybe she wanted to rob Fialux of her memories. Maybe this was just another “fuck you” she was sending my way.

  If that was the case then she was way more devious than I’d ever given her credit for. Then again, Dr. Lana being way more devious than I gave her credit for was sort of becoming a running thing in my life these days.

  Fialux did a weird thing. She sort of lifted herself up on her shoulder, then frowned. Her eyes narrowed. She looked down at the floor and then up to me. She did the shoulder thing again. Like she was trying to do some sort of bodyweight exercise or something.

  I should know, because I’d tried a couple of those exercises myself over the years. Though I’d quickly discovered that there was really nothing better for building up the old body than pumping some iron.

  I was a disciple of Arnold even if he probably wouldn’t approve of my politics which mostly involved saving the world by taking it over as its benevolent dictator.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Usually this launches me into the air,” she said. “What’s going on here? More of your tricks?”

  I took a deep breath. Sighed. It looked like she was trying to get away from me with her powers of flight, but it also looked like she wasn’t exactly trying to hurt me for the moment. I figured that was about as good as I could hope for.

  “You lost your powers,” I said. “Remember? We were just talking about that?”

  “I knew it! So you admit it!” she said, her eyes going wide. “What did you do to me? Why would you do this?”

  I took another deep breath. This wasn’t going to be pleasant. I wondered how long it would take for her memories to come back. I desperately needed her memories to come back so I didn’t have to deal with this bullshit any longer.

  It was giving me one hell of a headache.

  I’d gotten this whole thing down to a science for myself. CORVAC usually had a series of videos queued up and ready to show me exactly what had been going on in my life leading up to the memory loss. It was usually enough to jog my memory.

  I could only hope telling her everything that had led to this moment would be enough to jog those memories even without the multimedia accompaniment that CORVAC usually prepared for me. I was an idiot for not thinking about the whole amnesia thing when I loaded her into the medbay, but then again I had been a little busy when I was tossing her into the thing.

  And I was terrified that it wouldn’t be enough even if I had thought to queue up a quick and dirty version of “This Is Your Life” for her. Damn it. Why did that stupid Dr. Lana have to do this to us?

  “Okay, so you lost your powers, but I promise it wasn’t me,” I said.

  “Which is exactly what I’d expect from you, Night Terror!”

  Her voice rose at the end and I figured that meant she was gearing up for one hell of a haymaker. It was something I’d learned the hard way fighting her and trying to figure out exactly what it was that made her tick so I could figure out a way to stop her.

  Back when I was still concerned with taking over the world by getting rid of Fialux. I wouldn’t dream of doing something like that now, of course. Though she didn’t know that, and what she didn’t know could hurt me.

  Sure enough she brought her fist back and launched it towards me. And for a wonder I reached out and caught it before she could do too much damage.

  Instead of being knocked back into a building like I usually did, even with all of my technology designed to compensate for a super hit, her fist stayed in place.

  She looked at that fist in surprise. Then looked back to me. I smiled. She kept forgetting she was mortal now. Not that I could blame her. I imagined it was a hell of an adjustment for her.

  “Look. At some point you’re going to have to get used to the idea of not having your powers. I figure the sooner you get used to that idea the sooner I can tell you what the hell is going on here and the sooner we can get on with trying to get your powers back.”

  She looked genuinely surprised. Which made sense. After all, she was operating on the memories of Fialux from a couple of weeks back. For now.

  I suppose I should be worried that the damage was extensive enough that her memory loss went back that far. But then again I guess every time I’d hopped into a med bay I’d had the luxury of getting into a fight where I was cushioned by all the safety systems that I so loved baking into my technology.

  She’d been taking a beating and I hadn’t even realized it was happening. It was only natural that the confusion would be a little more pronounced.

  “But… Why would you try to help me get my powers back? If I don’t have my powers then you can take over the world!”

  I growled. I don’t know what possessed me to do it, but I needed to show her I was on her side. So far on her side that there was no going back. That I’d never do anything to hurt her.

  Plus I figured I needed to do a hell of a lot of jogging for her memory since the synapses in her brain seemed hellbent on staying inside and avoiding the jogging track for the time being.

  So I leaned forward. Pressed my lips against hers. And I had the pleasure of watching her eyes go wide in surprise.

  A good sort of surprise, I already knew how attracted she was to me this time around after all, but she was still surprised.

  When I pulled away she was breathing heavily. She looked like she’d enjoyed the hell out of that kiss, though.

  I couldn’t help but smile at that reaction. It was nice to know she was just as attracted to me when she was suffering from severe memory loss as she’d been when we were officially dating. I suppose it just went to show that love could be blind.

  Even when you were suffering from temporary amnesia brought on by a piece of wonky technology.

  “Did you like that kiss?” I asked.

  “Why would you… I don’t…”

  Right. So I’d short-circuited her mind. Again. Without the help of any med bay technology this time. Time to get her back on track though.

  “Cut the bullshit. Did you like it? Yes or no?”

  “Well… Yes?”

  I grinned. Leaned in and kissed her again. This time she was just as surprised, but she also looked a little disappointed when I pulled back without extending the kiss.

  “That’s exactly why I’m helping you,” I said. “Believe it or not, as crazy as it sounds you’re the most important thing in my life, and I want to see you well again. You’re also suffering from a bit of temporary amnesia, and I figure this is going to help. I hope.”

  So I kissed her again. What can I say? Even if it did
n’t help with the amnesia it was a hell of a lot of fun.

  25

  Cry It Out

  Fialux touched a hand to her head. Squeezed her eyes shut.

  “Temporary amnesia? But…”

  I held a hand up, and for a wonder she actually shut up. That trick never worked when I tried it with her before she suffered from this temporary amnesia. It was almost enough to make me regret the fact that she was going to be getting her memories back at some point, but what could you do?

  “It would be very helpful if you would just be quiet while I explained the situation to you,” I said.

  She hit me with something that might’ve been a smile, or maybe I was annoying her. Or maybe she was still so damned confused about everything that she wasn’t sure what to do or say and decided to play it safe with the super villain who’d obviously gone a little crazy.

  At least I’m sure it looked like I’d gone a little crazy from her perspective. From her point of view it looked like we were archenemies and suddenly she found herself waking up in my lab and I was planting kisses on her. Kisses she really liked, but I’m sure it was still a lot to process.

  “Fine,” she said. “But if I decide I don’t like your explanation…”

  “Trust me. Everything’s going to make sense if you just let me explain myself,” I said. “And besides, without your powers you’re sort of at my mercy.”

  I could tell from the look she gave me that wasn’t the right thing to say. Oh well. It’s not like it would be the first time I’d put my foot thoroughly in my mouth. Oops.

  Either way it was time to talk this out. There were so many problems in this world that could be solved if people just sat down and had a conversation with each other. It was something that always drove me crazy in books, movies, and television. There were so many plot contrivances that could be solved if the two main characters just sat down and had a heart-to-heart.