by Logan Jacobs
“I kicked his ass,” Norma said happily.
“It’s true, she did,” Dynamo said. “He was decidedly below average in the martial arts department. Also the intelligence department. Also the moral character department.”
“I took the scrawny one and she took the big one,” Norma explained.
“Well, I’m glad to hear you two had fun together this afternoon,” I said.
“It was a lot of fun!” Norma confirmed.
“It was highly productive,” Dynamo agreed. I got the feeling she was tempted to remind Norma that the purpose of beating people up was to stop them from harming other people, not just to enjoy oneself, but she apparently decided not to ruin my assistant’s giddy mood.
Then Norma noticed all the guns lying on the kitchen table. “Er, are we bringing those to the opera?”
“No,” I said. “They screen everyone with a metal detector at the entrance nowadays. And I don’t think you could conceal an assault rifle under an evening gown. Well, not the kind of evening gowns I like to see on women, anyway. But I do have some pens to put in your clutches that will inject a hefty dose of tranquilizer if you stab someone with them.”
“Just like James Bond!” Norma squealed.
“Please,” I replied, “James Bond is make believe.” I hadn’t grown up wanting to be James Bond or a superhero like a lot of other little kids. I’d been the nerd who wanted to grow up to be the supplier of unbelievably cool tech to those guys. But now, it was looking like maybe it was possible to play both roles.
“Well, we better go get ready,” Dynamo told her, and they scurried off upstairs. Meanwhile I changed into the suit that Aileen had ironed for me and ran a bit of gel through my hair. Then I sat back down in the kitchen and fiddled with the design for Aileen’s artificial fingerprints.
When the girls came back down the stairs and reentered the kitchen, my reaction was to give them both a slow clap.
Dynamo of course looked stunning. She was draped in a gown that was like the dark green of seaweed glimmering underwater and had a delicate chainmail texture. It dipped low in the front and had a thigh slit up to there on her flank, but the simplicity of the cut and the expensive appearance of the fabric kept the overall effect from being vulgar. It wasn’t skintight, just wonderfully clingy through the torso and down to the thickest point of her thighs, and from there it fell straight to the ground. She looked like some kind of mermaid in it. From the power that rippled through her frame it was easy to imagine how she’d be more than capable of dragging some poor sailor down to a watery grave, and it was also painfully obvious from looking at her why almost every passing man would be dumb enough to give her that chance. Her shoes were black stilettos that I’d seen before. I knew that they were specifically designed to be possible to run in, easy to remove, and for the heels to act as blades. She said they were one of the best pieces of gear The Wardens had ever issued her.
And Norma, except for the unsightly black eye of which she was so proud, had never looked more beautiful. Her silk sheath dress had a sort of fifties silhouette that was very classically feminine and complemented her medium-sized figure well, and its coral color made her complexion look like peaches and cream. Her hair was curled into ringlets, and she was wearing sapphire jewelry that made her look like modern day royalty. Her strappy nude heels, however, added a dose of sex appeal to the otherwise quite ladylike outfit.
“Bravo,” I said. “With you two on my arms, I’ll be the envy of every other man at the opera.”
“And we’ll be the envy of the girls,” Elizabeth replied as she looked my suit up and down appreciatively.
“Your car is here,” Aileen informed us. “Good luck.”
I buzzed the gates open so that the car I had ordered could roll down the tree-lined driveway to the door. Then the girls collected their handbags, and we went outside to catch our ride to the opera.
“The opera house is supposed to be quite beautiful,” Norma said. Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes sparkled. I loved the way her girlish enthusiasm applied equally to clothes and makeup, sugary snack foods, and committing acts of brutal violence. “It’s one of the top ten attractions in Grayville that we haven’t hit yet.”
I was tempted to tell her that she looked like one of the top ten attractions in Grayville that I hadn’t hit yet, but I didn’t want to toy with my assistant’s emotions too much. I needed her focused on the mission tonight and to be ready to tackle Mayhem with as much energy and enthusiasm as she apparently had the thug who had given her the black eye. I could see that she had pancaked foundation over it, and also artfully arranged her curls to halfway conceal that eye. That was probably enough to keep anyone from being alarmed if they just walked past her, but you still couldn’t miss it if you looked her in the face.
“And The Demon’s Delight is a classic, the subject of extensive literary analysis,” Dynamo added. “And it’s supposed to be very technically challenging for the leads. It features five dramatic coloratura sopranos, which is quite remarkable.”
“Look here,” I said sternly to them both, “do you two think we’re going to the opera to have fun, or to get a job done?”
Norma’s eyes widened and she opened her mouth, probably to apologize.
“Trick question,” I said with a laugh. “Why the hell would we even fight supervillains in the first place, if it weren’t so much fucking fun?”
“To make the world a better place,” Dynamo said primly.
“There are lots of ways to do that,” I pointed out. “I mean we could be cleaning up litter from beaches. Or volunteering at a soup kitchen. Or assassinating shitty popular musicians. But we’re not, are we? No, we are killing assholes who actually deserve it.”
I was kind of goading her on purpose, because it was a little too easy to get a rise out of Dynamo when it came to ideological discussions. But to her credit, she didn’t get offended this time.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “Assassinating musicians would just make them more famous and get their songs played on the radio more often.”
“Ohh, clever,” I snickered, and my beautiful lover gave me a quick wink.
“How do you know things about the opera?” Norma asked Elizabeth. “Did you used to sing, or something?”
“Wikipedia,” Dynamo answered. “And no. I was born with an extraordinary inability to hit a single note correctly.”
“I’m glad to learn you have a weakness,” I said.
She smirked at me and said, “Well, you make two.”
Norma made a gagging sound. But it was a good-natured gagging sound.
When we got to the opera house, it was full of people swanning around in their evening finest, smiling from ear to ear, clutching their partners, and posing for photos in front of the opera house sign or a Demon’s Delight poster or a potted plant. The interior of the house was dripping with chandeliers. There was soft, tinkling music being played throughout the building outside the theater itself.
Most of the other opera guests were middle-aged or elderly, but some of the women were young and pretty. Elizabeth, of course, outshone them all. The light reflected off her glossy raven mane and her pale chiseled features, and she looked like the tragic heroine of the kind of epic drama that would be sung of for centuries. From the neck down though she looked more like an impossibly Photoshopped fitness ad dressed like a modern day starlet.
We had some extra time, so we meandered around and sipped some champagne while we pretended to belong to the leisure class. Financially speaking, I did, but my lifestyle was usually anything but leisurely.
Then before I parted from the girls to go to my separate box, I asked, “You have the earpieces, the speakers, the pens?”
Dynamo held up her wrist to show me the bracelet I’d provided her with an unobtrusive microspeaker built in on the backside of a gem. Norma had a matching one. The earpieces were concealed by their hair, but I assumed that they were wearing them. That way we would be able to communica
te much more seamlessly than by calling or texting.
“I still think we should all just watch together,” Norma said, and I thought it was cute that she would miss me even for just a few hours.
“Mayhem is expecting me, and he knows who I am and what I look like,” I reminded her. “He did enough research on me and my work to know about the nanobots, and he sent me that email about tonight directly. But he doesn’t necessarily know about you two. If possible, I’d like to keep it that way. And if he invited me here to target me, then I don’t want you two to be in the same box with me.”
“Three against one is better odds than one against one,” Norma argued.
I didn’t point out the fact that Mayhem probably wasn’t working alone, considering that at the very least, he’d clearly had help taking out all the security guards on the train that was carrying my nanobots. I just held out the pair of tickets with their box number on them, and she sighed and took them.
“We’ll just observe for the first act,” I said. “Then during intermission if nothing has happened yet we can go snoop around. Mayhem or whoever he sent must be here somewhere.”
Elizabeth nodded. Then she turned around as she looped her arm through Norma’s, and sauntered away. I allowed myself to indulge in a few moments of watching her ass as the delicate fabric slid over it. Then I turned and headed for my own nearby box. Theirs wasn’t right next to mine, but it was only two boxes down.
Since I had the box all to myself I leaned back in one chair, kicked my feet up in another, pulled out a hip flask and between sips said into my microphone disguised as a cufflink, “In position.”
“Us too,” a tiny version of Norma’s voice piped up in my ear.
Soon after that, the curtains opened, and the show began.
The first scene featured what seemed to be a milkmaid and four baritone cows singing of the happiness of their simple rural life together. It was all in Italian so I had to either read the translation in the performance brochure, or take my context cues from the costumes and the set pieces.
I was already bored.
“Shouldn’t they be played by women since they’re cows?” Norma’s voice asked in my ear. “I mean otherwise she wouldn’t be milking their udders… she’d be… well… ”
“This is the artistic pinnacle of civilization, Norma, have some respect,” I said into my cufflink as I suppressed a laugh.
“Women can’t be baritones,” Dynamo pointed out.
“But they can definitely be cows,” I said.
Meanwhile on stage the busty middle-aged milkmaid wove a flower crown and placed it onto the horned headpiece of her favorite cow.
“Do you think Mayhem will infiltrate the performance disguised as a cow?” Norma asked.
“No, it would make more sense for him to hide among the audience,” I said as I pulled out a pair of binoculars and started scanning the audience row by row. I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for since if Mayhem were here, he probably wouldn’t look like himself, since an electric blue-haired goth would have stuck out like a sore thumb, and he was still supposed to be in prison. But I studied anyone who looked remotely odd or suspicious. Mostly I had to conclude that the few scowling, anxious, or uncomfortable looking ones that I spotted weren’t criminals plotting their next move. They were just people arguing with their spouses or who had been dragged to the opera against their will by their spouses.
“Isn’t he still in jail anyway?” asked Dynamo. “So he’d have to send representatives, he couldn’t be here himself.”
“That is incorrect,” came the sexiest voice I’d ever heard in my earpiece.
“Aileen, you have an update for us?” I asked. I could already guess what it would be.
“Yes,” she replied. “Breaking news. Mayhem is no longer in prison.”
“I’m not surprised,” I sighed.
“He broke out?” Elizabeth gasped.
“Well, his guards released him, actually,” Aileen said.
“But I thought he was being held without bail pending trial,” Elizabeth groaned.
“His guards were not authorized to release him,” Aileen said. “But they did it anyway, and not only that, but they accompanied him off the premises acting as his bodyguards and killing other guards who attempted to interfere with their departure. Their current whereabouts are unknown, as are Mayhem’s. There is a substantial reward being offered for information that leads to the capture of Mayhem or any of the guards who aided his escape.”
“The control chips,” I said grimly. “He implanted more of them in the prison guards somehow.”
“Yes, that is the dominant theory,” Aileen said.
“But don’t they search prisoners when they process them in?” Dynamo demanded. “They must have been incompetent to have missed the nanobots and the microchips.”
“I shudder to think where my poor nanobots must have been hidden,” I agreed.
Then the opera grabbed my attention again as the milkmaid let out a building-rattling, window-shattering shriek of agony that rose to the rafters and hovered there for an impressively extended period of time as she raised her hands and cast her face to the heavens.
The cow wearing the flower crown, I saw, was now lying crumpled on the stage in a puddle of red dye. The three surviving cows circled around him with joined hands and as the milkmaid gradually ran out of breath, they started up a chorus of hysterical grief.
A red-clad figure with horns and a forked tail brandishing the cutout of a knife capered balletically through the cardboard trees at the edge of their meadow, evidently unseen by any of the bovine victim’s friends.
“What if that’s Mayhem?” Norma suggested.
But then the red-clad figure burst out into song with a few verses gloating over his evil deed before he slunk offstage.
“I’ll be damned if Mayhem’s got pipes like that,” I replied.
The milkmaid fell to her knees and cradled her dead cow’s head in her lap as she sang a song of mourning in a voice that sounded halfway like sobbing. The other cows paced listlessly across the stage wondering aloud whether they were doomed to meet a similar fate.
I guess they weren’t wrong to worry. Over the course of the next few songs, one of the surviving cows was eaten by a wolf with a magnificent bass voice. Then another fell off a cliff. Finally the last one was struck by lightning. In every single one of these incidents, the devilish figure reappeared in the background to boast of his handiwork to the audience, although he was evidently invisible to the increasingly distraught milkmaid.
I wondered if Mayhem was similarly invisible in plain sight to me. But I had peered at every one of the hundreds of audience members through my binoculars by then, and I didn’t see a single plausible candidate for the supervillain. But then again underneath the extreme makeup and clothing, and apart from the crazy staring out of his eyes, he was really quite average-looking and probably easy to miss.
After the last cow died, the orchestra continued to play more thunder, and the lights continued to flash lightning across the stage, while the milkmaid stomped to the center of the stage. Then she planted herself with her feet astride and while her voice shed its tremulous quality and gained more and more power, she ripped off her pastel bodice, puffy sleeves, and ruffled skirt to reveal a cleavage-baring black number that I supposed signified a turn to the dark side. She dipped her fingers into the blood of the nearest dead cow and smeared it across her face like war paint. Then she exited left while singing furiously at the top of her lungs and pumping her fist in the air.
With that, the curtain fell to signal intermission.
“Don’t come to my box,” I said into my cufflink. “We’ll meet up in the lobby where there’s more of a crowd, and it won’t be as easy to keep a close eye on us.”
“By the coffee stand,” Norma suggested.
“So, what do you think?” I asked them once we met back up amid a press of glittering bodies, our conversation hidden by the chattering din.
“I think she’s an amazing actress, and the lightning cow was the best one,” Norma said enthusiastically.
“No, I meant, what do you think our next move should be to try to find Mayhem?” I clarified.
“Now is our chance,” Dynamo agreed. “Nothing happened during the first act, so he must be using this intermission as his time to prepare some kind of nasty surprise.”
“That’s what I think too,” I said. “I didn’t see him anywhere in the audience, and I was scanning with my binoculars the whole time. I think we need to get backstage and look around.”
Norma’s eyes focused on something over my shoulder, and she tensed up with a grimace. For a second I thought that Mayhem might be coming up behind me. Then I turned and found myself face to face with a grinning Dan Slade.
“Miles!” he exclaimed as he clapped me on the back. “Ah, and your lovely lady friends. Fancy meeting you all here! How about that! What the hell, I didn’t know you were a fan of the opera?”
“Oh, very much so,” I lied in a deadpan tone. “Wouldn’t miss this for the world. I mean, it’s, ah, the only production I know of with five dramatic coloratura sopranos.”
“Ah, okay.” He squinted at me in puzzlement, and then shrugged. “Well um, where you all sitting?”
“What about you, do you attend a lot of opera performances?” I asked him instead of answering. Not only did I not want Dan Slade to invite himself over to join one of our boxes, I really did want to know. Dan Slade didn’t strike me as an opera aficionado any more so than I struck him that way. Did that mean that Mayhem had invited the Shadow Knight just as he had invited me, and that we were here for the same reason? Also weird was the fact that Dan Slade seemed to be unaccompanied, and he was rarely seen in public without some kind of starlet on his arm. “… Alone?”
“Well, no, but a friend recommended The Demon’s Delight to me, said I couldn’t miss it,” he replied. If he really had received an email from Mayhem similar to the one I received, then I had to admit that was a clever way of replying. It was basically the truth with enough details left out to seem normal and innocuous. “And my date for tonight cancelled last minute, she came down with the flu.”