Horror, Humor, and Heroes

by Jim Bernheimer

  I try to sound as calm as possible. “Stacy, I can’t do that. Everyone thinks we’re dead. I intend to keep it that way and you need to try to get out from under their influence.”

  “Don’t call me Stacy! I’m Aphrodite!”

  “No. Aphrodite’s a hero, an Olympian. You’re a woman named Stacy with an addiction. Aphrodite would know that these things were made by The Evil Overlord to enslave humanity.”

  “I don’t care about him. I don’t care about you. Just let me go.”

  The argument goes on for awhile, but I get tired of listening and walk away. I’ve met a few addicts in my lifetime. Turning on some music, I head up to the workshop. Eventually, I’ll have to go out again and the Olympians are still out there. My chances will be better if I finally finish the MARK III CAL suit.

  #

  “Tell me about yourself, Cal?”

  Two days have passed. Stacy is trying new tactics with me. Instead of screaming and threats, (which got progressively more graphic) she wants to be my friend. It won’t last, but I’ve got to hope she can kick this thing. She doesn’t know the “lament of the nerd.” Every geek that gets into their late twenties looks back at all the girls/women that crossed their path and sees how the good-looking ones were always trying to get something. How many of them had I helped in study groups? They never overlooked the bad acne and eczema that followed me to UCLA. How many tires did I change and computers did I fix, hoping for a number from a grateful coed? How many boxes and pieces of furniture did I carry because a pretty pair of lips asked me?

  At some point every schmuck like me takes stock of his life and faces the reality that the really good-looking ones and even most of the average ones are just going to try and use them.

  “UCLA, Electrical Engineering major. I played drums in a cover band. I like music. Don’t really care for long walks on the beach. Graduated top of the class and was hired straight out by Promethia.” The voice modulator in the suit disguises my hatred for the name of Ultraweapon’s company.

  “I saw it in your file that you stole a bunch of designs from Lazarus, so you could become a cheap knock-off.”

  Oh, she found a big sore spot with me. “I did not! That was his lawyers and their smear campaign.”

  “That’s not what I read. So, you’re a little worker bee with delusions of adequacy, stealing from a genius like Lazarus Patterson.” She’s shifting tactics again, baiting me and like an idiot I’m falling for it.

  “Genius! Hah! Patterson might have created synth-muscle, but that’s about it. Everything else in his Ultraweapon suit was designed by engineers, just like me, on his R&D staff. I made his original force blasters! Me!”

  “...and you stole the designs and went into a life of crime.”

  “No! I quit Promethia when they refused to put my name on the patents and acknowledge my work. I went to work at Ubertex, but then Promethia’s lawyers showed up with their three-year no compete clause in my employment contract, and Ubertex cut me loose.”

  “Oh, you poor baby.” There’s no sympathy in her voice.

  “Bitch! After that, Promethia spread the word about my ‘poor performance’ and basically black-balled me from pretty much every high tech job on both coasts. I came up with a small power compressor, and when I tried to file patent on it, guess what? Promethia dragged me into court and said it was derivative from items they were working on and the court took my invention and gave it to them.”

  She’s openly laughing now. “You must have been heartbroken!”

  “If you’re trying to get me to come in there, it’s not happening. Just finish your TV dinner and put it on the cart. I’m leaving. Goodnight, Stacy.”

  “You’re pathetic, Stringel. Go ahead and hide down in this hole, you rat. The moment you surface, the bugs will get you. Maybe I’ll let you experience them, and then take your bug away, and watch you suffer.”

  A quick jerk of the head shuts off the external microphones. I ran right into her trap. If she had held off, I’d have probably told her about the humiliating string of jobs in the months afterwards, or Promethia actually coming after me to garnish my wages. I finally did snap and built a crude version of my force blasters and took the name ManaCALes. After knocking over a few jewelry stores, I tried a bank or two in Biloxi. That’s when I got caught by the Bugler.

  A guy with a sonic bugle beat me! The lamest jackass to ever put on a cape kicked my tail. It was a bad omen to start my career as a supervillain. I served twenty-six months of a five-year sentence in prison, but the time in the joint was actually pretty productive. I made contacts among the bad guys that passed through the maximum security prison for “supers.” All that free time not trying to keep some stupid job and paying rent allowed me to design the MARK I suit.

  After being released, I didn’t even bother trying to reenter society. In addition to all of Promethia’s slurring, I now had the label of convicted felon on my resume. That wouldn’t look promising to most potential employers.

  That is, of course, unless those new employers were also convicted felons. Diabolical masterminds just can’t go through the Internet and arm their minions. I entered the highly competitive world of arms manufacturing for enterprising criminals. It’s true that much of my MARK I suit was built off of Ultraweapon’s designs, but I didn’t do the stealing. I bartered them off of one of his enemies and she traded them for four cases of first-generation pulse pistols.

  As I look at the MARK III lying on the bench and begin attaching synth-muscle to the actuators, I recall the good old days. Money was coming in. The MARK I was completed and I even got some revenge on the Bugler. That’s when I started working with Vicky.

  Contrary to Stacy’s assertions, I’m not a “nose picking, never going to get laid” virgin. Vicky was a buyer for The Evil Overlord, procuring weaponry from independent contractors such as myself. She liked my work and she actually liked me. I became a preferred supplier to the Overlord’s armory and even started building the MARK II suit I’m wearing right now.

  With the left leg actuator finished, I take a break and bring up my favorite first-person-shooter on the main screen, after checking to make sure the bitch downstairs is still confined. I miss Vicky. After committing my first robbery in the MARK II, I called her. She was going to fly out for a celebration and take my presentation for building moderately low-cost powersuits to the Overlord himself. I would have had a backlog of work that would make me filthy stinking rich and Vicky was going to resign after she got the deal approved. It was the perfect plan. There was just one small problem standing in the way of that happily ever after.

  Vicky was in the Overlord’s Omega Base when he triggered the self-destruct, trying to destroy the Olympians. They all escaped, naturally. She didn’t.

  The new buyer was this sleazy suit named Paul. Paul also liked my work. He liked it so much that he had some of the Overlord’s in-house guys take the pulse cannons apart and reverse engineer the design to manufacture them without any markup.

  That’s the Darwinistic nature of being in the villain food chain. There really wasn’t much I could do about it either. Even the bad guys were finding ways to screw me. That forced me to resume the other side of the business, while trying to land the next big contract. I went back to being a goon for hire.

  General Devious recruited me into her Heroes Outmatched by Rampaging Destructive Executioner Squads. Yeah, I was a member of that idiotic HORDES group. The idea of over a hundred villains trying to work together didn’t pan out as well as everyone thought.

  Against all four Guardians groups, the Olympians, and countless other solo heroes, things went from bad to worse. It’s the only time I ever actually fought against Ultraweapon. There’s not even really a long story to what happened. That fight consisted of less than a minute of getting my ass thoroughly kicked. It took three months to get the suit right after retreating as fast as I could – at less than half-speed.

  Whoever upgraded those force blasters on his suit did a
helluva job. I started on the MARK III that night and worked feverishly for two weeks, and then quit on it. I woke up and smelled the coffee. The bitter truth was I didn’t have the brainpower or the budget to compete with Promethia’s Research and Development department. There was no way I would ever be able to beat Ultraweapon.

  So, I went into semi-retirement and pulled the occasional job just to fill the coffers. I did custom orders for the lower-level criminals and tried my best to stay away from the larger criminal organizations and more importantly the upper echelon of heroes. Chickenshit? Yes, but it kept me out of prison while I struggled to make a living.

  Chapter 2

  Songs That Get Stuck in Your Head

  As the first week with my prisoner comes to a close, I’m seriously contemplating fulfilling her request, stunning and dumping her somewhere, like she wants. Becoming a true hermit is sounding more appealing by the hour.

  I trigger the external sound feed and hear her screaming, “Will you shut that damn song off!”

  “Oh, did I leave that song looping for the last six hours? I’m sorry.”

  “At least play something that isn’t shit!”

  “Biz would be offended. I love this song. In fact, guess what’s on tap for the next six hours?”

  Biz Markie’s Just A Friend, it's a guilty pleasure song if ever there was one. I'm not bragging, but I do a mean karaoke version of it. Surprisingly, Stacy stopped her usual death threats and went into great detail about how much she hated this particular song.

  Naturally, I've been, giving her “Da Biz” ever since. Part of me is trying to get her to focus on something other than trying to get another bug attached to her neck. Then there’s the other part, the one that’s had to put up with her crap and is getting sick and tired of it. Okay, I’m a spiteful little man. I accept that I have issues. That’s not the point. Ms. Mitchell is damn lucky that I don’t have homicidal tendencies.

  “Are you going to use the knockout gas again tonight?” she hisses as the song starts up again. Was that a plea?

  Maybe I’ll switch it out with the live version I’ve got around here somewhere. Either way, I’m lying. I’m actually drugging her food and waiting a bit before releasing some compressed air. What bad guy has tanks of chloroform hanging around at their “backup” base? Even if I had that kind of money, I’m nowhere near that anal. I’m beginning to wish I was.

  “Look, I gotta sleep too, princess. There’s that old cliché about the bad guy falling asleep and the hero escaping. Happens way too often in my line of work, so forgive me for taking a few precautions, m’kay?”

  “I’ll bet! You’re probably in here indulging in some sick fantasy time, you prick! I know your type. I saw them enough even before I got my powers.”

  “Newsflash, you were hot, but now you’re not even lukewarm. Go and look at yourself in the mirror. You haven’t showered in three days, you’ve only changed your clothes once, and the toothbrush is still in its plastic case. There was a time when I thought you were the hottest thing on the planet. Right now the only thing you could attract is some flies! Have some damn pride, woman! I’m hoping you hit rock bottom before you start growing fungus.”

  Stacy starts screaming and goes quickly from raging to damn near incoherent. I go back to calibrating the new headgear on the Mark III armor. I’ve hit a minor snag in all of this. I’m running out of synth-muscle. Of course, there was plenty back at my main base. Or at least there used to be. All that’s left now is a big, smoking crater.

  I walk over to a storage closet with a feeling of nostalgia. Inside is the old Mark I. It looks so flimsy and primitive now. That beat-up old black suit doesn’t have enough of Promethia’s chief invention in it either, but the suit I’m wearing does.

  What if Stacy escapes and I’m in the Mark I? It’s going to take a good three days to strip all the components out of the II and work it into the new one. Even in her condition, could I take her in the old Mark I?

  Hanging next to the suit is an item that evokes a scoffing laugh from me. It’s quite possibly my most ridiculous invention ever. The previous owner of this hideout was a client of mine – Hillbilly Bobby, a country bumpkin with more strength than common sense. He paid me to make him several power clubs – force field generators strapped to two-by-fours. I’ll admit, they weren’t exactly my crowning achievements, but I was pretty short on cash at the time, like always.

  Not surprisingly, Bobby ended up in prison. I think it was The Bugler or Andydroid who brought him in. I shake my head and pull out the old Mark I. I’ll spend the rest of the day trying to tune it up and switch into it tonight.

  #

  “Wake up, princess. Don’t go back to sleep on me. What would you like for breakfast this morning? I have waffles and . . . waffles – your choice.”

  Stacy is sprawled face-down on the floor next to her cot. She was her usual ranting lunatic self five minutes ago. I struggle with the interface mounted on the outside of the door. This old suit doesn’t quite match up with the controls. It’s just another insult added to injury. I’m also roughly fifteen pounds heavier than when I last wore the Mark I. It’s just like pulling out a pair of pants that hasn’t been worn in years and expecting it to fit. I feel like a cybernetic sausage.

  “C’mon, get up. Let’s see that beautiful face.”

  After issuing the command three times, I send the breakfast cart in through the access hatch. She’s still not responding. This is what I was afraid of. Do I go in there and see if she’s okay, or do I just stay and watch for awhile to see if she’s playing possum?

  Climbing back up the staircase, I get to the main console and bring up the surveillance camera. I skim through the last few minutes. She was awake, screaming and pacing. Stacy starts shaking and then stumbles. She looks like she’s having some kind of a seizure. Charge force blasters. Crap, I forgot. This suit doesn’t have the advanced cerebral interface. I whisper, “Charge force blasters.”

  I’m running this time; once again it takes me a few tries to interface with the cellblock controller to get the main door open. I finally get in there and approach her. The smell of vomit and urine forces me to activate my filters and I roll her over.

  Unless she can fake blue lips, she’s in real trouble. Even in my other base, I didn’t really have a clinic. I do have a first aid station out in the hallway. That’s about it.

  The next few minutes pass in a blur. I manage to get her swollen tongue out of her mouth and “bag” her to get her breathing. The needle on the adrenaline shot breaks on her thick skin and I resort to doing chest compressions with my powersuit to get her heart beating. It takes a few minutes before I can detect a steady pulse. I strap her to a gurney. Stacy might not be able to get out of the restraints in her condition, but I’ve got to be sure. I rig up a crude monitor and head out of the cell, gathering her soiled sheets.

  “If this is what freeing everyone else is going to be like, I shouldn’t even bother.” She doesn’t answer.

  Thirty minutes later, the monitors alert me. Stacy’s coming around. I stop what I’m doing and head back down into the cellblock.

  Through the cameras, I watch her struggle against the bindings. She collapses after two minutes. Opening the door, I step in hesitantly with my blasters charged and my shield strength at this suit’s peak. A pair of pitiful psi-bolts hit me. They barely register on my defenses.

  “Calm down.”

  “What happened?” she asks blearily.

  “You had a seizure. I think you’re okay, now.”

  Her response is a raspy cough, “I’m not okay. I’m never going to be okay, again. Either let me go or go ahead and let me die.”

  I ignore her and grab a sports bottle. “You don’t mean that. Here, drink some water.”

  She resists feebly, but I get the straw into her mouth. “I mean it. Give me back to the bugs or just kill me.”

  “You were given powers by a bunch of ancient gods. Do you think they want you to give up? Didn’t you sw
ear some kind of oath to them?”

  “They don’t matter anymore. Nothing does.”

  My career as a motivational speaker isn’t going anywhere. It’s a safe bet that she’s either at rock bottom or she’s hit and started digging. “C’mon Stacy, work with me here. It’s already been a week. Whatever these things make, it’s got to be almost out of your system. Just give me another week. If you still want to leave then, I’ll stun you and dump you somewhere.”

  When did I develop a blind spot for damsels in distress? Damn it!

  “Do you promise?”

  “Sure. I’ll even promise to stop playing that song. Just make it another seven days and if you want to leave, I’ll let you.”