The Supervillain High Boxed Set: Books One - Three of the Supervillain High Series

by Gerhard Gehrke

  “When did they get here?” he asked.

  “About an hour ago. They killed a couple of security guards while everyone took shelter here. We tried to warn them off, tried to surrender…” She trailed off as she looked at the three dead men on the ground. “Please tell me you have some good news. There’s nowhere to take everyone, and they’re coming back.”

  Brendan flew his drone around and saw the two warlords walking away from the school, the woman helping the man along. If the warlord was anything like Torben, he wouldn’t be out of the fight.

  “They’re leaving,” he said. “Judging by their attitude, they’re not above doing their own thing. They’re not as organized as an army.”

  “More like a mob let loose on a bunch of civilians.”

  He brought the drone back down. Then he looked at the motorcycle. “Know how to drive that thing?”

  ***

  Helen drove the motorcycle carefully through the shattered streets, winding around large splits in the asphalt and other obstructions. Her bad arm was out of the sling so she could drive. Brendan clung to her back. They paused to debate the best route of approach to the warlord camp at the interchange. Helen suggested taking the back roads and sneaking up as close as possible.

  “Let’s go back the way we left,” Brendan said. “Let them see us coming. After all, we’re obedient pieces of property returning home with some bad news.”

  Helen hesitated. Perhaps her earlier fear had returned, the same fear he now felt but kept tamped down lest it overwhelm him. They had a way out. They didn’t have to go back. The screams of the burning man were etched in his mind.

  “Let me take the bike,” he said. “There’s no point in both of us going in.”

  “You’re killing me, kid. I can do this. I just keep hoping that I’m going to wake up and this whole nightmare will be nothing but a bad memory. So hang on.”

  They picked up speed once they made it to the road out of town. They drove past the scientists’ base where smoke now rose from the middle of the parked vehicles. When Brendan pointed it out, Helen nodded but kept her eyes forward. The overpass and the restaurant signs came into view. Brendan gripped the woman tighter as they hit a rough patch of road. She slowed down. He couldn’t tell if the sniper was still on the overpass, but he imagined the warlord’s powerful rifle was aiming straight at them.

  Nothing to be done about it now. We’re committed.

  Once the intersecting highway was visible, Brendan noticed several new crashed vehicles to both the north and south. A few looked like larger police SUVs. The camp had been busy judging by the amount of material stacked around the underpass. Crates and cans of gasoline were sorted in neat order and were being added to by a larger gang of porters. A few warlord grunts with weapons came out from the cover of parked vehicles. The tattoos on their necks were proudly displayed. One sentry with a leveled shotgun held up a hand for them to stop.

  “We’re claimed,” Brendan said as Helen pulled up in front of the man. Neither bore the warlord markings, but their clothing would conceal the fact. There were many new faces around. Perhaps they would receive minimal scrutiny.

  The sentry walked around them and the bike.

  Brendan kept his eyes forward. On the opposite side of the underpass he could make out what appeared to be a few large green tents, like something the army might use. Many of the supplies had indecipherable yellow abbreviations and numbering and were no doubt ill-gotten military goods left over from their last conquered world.

  The sentry grabbed Brendan’s bag. Brendan fought the urge to take it back or say something as the man sifted through the contents. The man took the drone out.

  “Surveillance equipment for Ivar,” Helen said.

  “Looks like a big toy. Why would he need that?”

  “I didn’t ask.”

  The sentry shoved the drone back in the bag. He then looked at the motorcycle.

  Brendan spoke up. “A lieutenant told us to use his bike and get Ivar his drone as fast as possible.”

  “This is no lieutenant’s bike,” the sentry said. “This is Les’s ride.”

  The bike had a silver string of baubles and charms, one of which looked like a baby’s rattle, attached to the zipper of the saddlebags. The gas tank had a faded but distinctive airbrushing of a pair of women fawning over a flaming sword. Some of the rusted chrome was etched. Each of the bikes must have distinct markings that the gang would know. It was a foolish oversight to believe they could drift into camp without anyone seeing whose bike they rode.

  “My apologies,” Brendan said. “He didn’t explain his rank, and we didn’t question it. We’re kind of new to the organization.”

  The sentry huffed. It wasn’t clear if it was a cough or a laugh. He then nodded them along.

  Helen slowly motored the bike forward and they rode through the camp towards the underpass.

  “‘New to the organization?’” Helen asked. “Are we joining the Rotary Club?”

  “Park here,” Brendan said. This was as far as they had gone the previous night before the guard had stopped Donnie from seeing his boss. Anak, wasn’t it? Was he the top dog of the local gang or of the whole show?

  Other bikes and a few vehicles were parked in a wide dirt patch. Porters and other slaves of the warlords walked past them carrying supplies to and fro. The tire fire still burned, spewing its black smoke high into the air.

  “When Les makes it back, we’ll be in trouble,” Helen said.

  “Yeah. I can go on ahead alone. If you find a place to hide near the bike, you can keep an eye out for him and his girlfriend.”

  She took a moment to look around at the camp’s activity. “There’s a lot more of them. And I’ll attract more attention standing around doing nothing.”

  Brendan handed the motorcycle’s saddlebags to Helen. He took a second set of bags from another bike.

  “Now we’re not empty-handed.”

  He transferred his drone and the glove with its parts to the saddlebags. They walked through the underpass together.

  No one paid them any mind.

  Parked or abandoned vehicles filled the sides of the road under the freeway. Several sleeping bags were rolled out on the dirt shoulders, with packs of camping supplies haphazardly dropped nearby. Camp had been set up quickly. A few of the porters tended to small camp stoves with pots of food simmering on them. Tattooing supplies had been unpacked from a few large toolboxes with plastic trays, and several collapsible chairs and blankets were thrown down around them. Had Charlotte already been marked as Mimi’s property?

  Brendan tried not to stare at a man who was getting his first warlord tattoo applied to his neck by a porter. Helen nudged Brendan forward. They emerged out on the other side of the underpass.

  In front of one of the green tents Ivar, Rolf, and Freyda sat reclined in a circle on collapsible chairs, smoking and drinking. Each had a young porter nearby acting as a body servant. The scrawny children had partially shaved heads, several piercings, and multiple tattoos. Rifles and other weapons were everywhere. A small generator sputtered nearby, its black wires running into the tents.

  “Keep walking,” Helen whispered.

  The flow of workers moved past the tents over to a gas station with a car wash. Several warlords stood around at the car wash exit. Two men were on the roof of the building actively watching the sky. Some sort of long machine gun had been set up on a tripod, and metal ammo boxes were stacked in a row next to it. On the grounds around the car wash and gas station, some porters stacked goods while others carried or loaded wheelbarrows.

  Helen nudged him along towards the gas pumps, where they paused. Everyone was too busy to pay them any mind. Most of the warlords and porters looked jittery. Brendan tried to find a pattern in the activity. Then he saw it. Porters went into the car wash exit empty handed. Others emerged from the other end with carts and wheelbarrows loaded down with more equipment.

  “Look,” Brendan said, pointing.

&
nbsp; “I see it,” Helen said. “I don’t believe it, but I see it. All these supplies come from their world. There’s no visible indication that they’re breaking every natural law in doing so. The amount of energy just to keep a gate like that open doesn’t make sense. It shouldn’t be possible.”

  “It seems that once a gate opens, it stays open. That’s why we need to find Charlotte. She’s the one who might know what it takes to close it.”

  None of the tents had any markings and they all looked identical. Brendan put the saddlebags down beside a trash can and grabbed a crate.

  “Your stuff safe here?” she asked.

  “Safe enough. I need to check the tents. Charlotte’s in one of them. It might be best if you keep an eye out.”

  “For anything suspicious? This is crazy. It’s too much. We can still get out of here.”

  “If you have to leave, you should go now while you can.”

  Helen shook her head. “I’m not leaving.”

  “Then wait here.”

  He wished he felt as brave as he sounded. He walked towards the side of the closest tent. With the crate in hand, he made a show of being just another worn-out worker toiling for his superpowered biker gang overlords. But no other porters worked near the tents. A few motorcycles were parked along the side, including the fanciest, which the leader Anak and Mimi had ridden. On closer inspection, even these had pits in the chrome and signs of wear. And no wonder. The warlords’ previous world was a torn-up wasteland, and if these bikes had been in service there then they had seen some hard action with few bike-detailing businesses around to take the rust off.

  Brendan strained to hear anything coming from the tent. From the car wash, a piercing beeping of backing-up machinery drowned out all other sounds. A powered pallet jack emerged from the car wash exit, pushed along by a porter. One of the warlords pointed in Brendan’s direction, and the porter headed towards the tents with his load. The warlord stared straight at Brendan for a moment before returning his attention to his comrades.

  He had been standing too long in one place.

  Adjusting the crate in his arm, he entered the first tent. It was dark inside. A makeshift table, nothing more than two sheets of plywood on sawhorses, took up the center of the tent. A shirtless man wearing large earphones sat at a small desk. On the desk was a military-looking radio wired to an antenna that went up through the top of the tent. The man was listening intently and taking notes on a clipboard. Cots had been set up in the far corner, but no one was on them. A collection of small pipes and lighters and little bags of what looked like clumps of sugar sat on a turned-over crate in the middle of the cots.

  The man on the radio looked over at Brendan.

  Brendan was about to say something when the radio operator returned his attention to his task and started scribbling. Paper maps had been spread out on the table between several notebooks covered with messy scrawl. A box of candy had spilled onto the map, and a beer bottle set on one map corner bled out condensation. Brendan put his load down and pulled a cooler out from under the table. He opened it. It held ice and beer.

  He picked up the cooler and exited. With purpose he ignored the warlord lieutenants and entered the next tent over. None of the warlords looked up as he passed.

  Brendan paused once inside to let his eyes adjust. The air felt stuffy. An odd smell hit him, as if a bottle of cologne had been broken. He also smelled spilled beer, an aroma that reminded him of urine.

  Mimi sat next to a cot where Charlotte lay and appeared to be sleeping. The nurse’s long hair was down. She wore a white tank top that revealed numerous tattoos, including several that were the marks of the warlords.

  She looked up at him. What had once been a gentle face now appeared hard, with the eyes of someone accustomed to violence. There was no recognition.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I have a cooler for you,” Brendan said lamely.

  She was up in an instant, moving quickly towards him. He began to back towards the entrance and dropped the cooler. It crashed to the ground. Bottles and ice spilled everywhere. She caught his arm. The vice grip was something from a machine. She hauled him close.

  “Why are you here?”

  Brendan was at a loss for words. Was this the nurse who had helped them defeat the headmaster? Or was it another double?

  “I brought beer.”

  “Insolence!” She twisted his arm and squeezed. He dropped to his knees as the pressure increased and white-hot pain radiated downward.

  He gasped and cried out. “Because I know you. You work at our school as a nurse. You help people.”

  “What school?”

  “The academy in the closest town. Dutchman Springs. You’re a healer there, at least on my world you are. You helped me and Charlotte defeat her father just weeks ago.”

  The pressure on his hand relented ever so slightly, but she still held him at an uncomfortable angle.

  “And now that you’re here and have your audience, what do you have to say to me?”

  “I had to see if it was true that you were working with the warlords now. There are many dead from the earthquake and many more hurt.”

  Something in her eyes registered. Her face softened, but the moment vanished all too soon. She dropped him on the spilled ice and beer. “You met my double. We’ve encountered this before in prior worlds. The woman you know—this nurse—are you fond of her?”

  “We’re not super close, but she’s helped me and my friends out of a bind. She was like a surrogate mother to one of them.” He tried not to look at Charlotte. He wasn’t sure what information would help or hurt at that moment.

  “When we last saw you, I thought Donnie claimed you. You’re still unmarked.”

  “We were busy. I took him to the school, where we thought he might find some items of interest.”

  She studied him for a moment. “I’m not the woman you think I am.”

  A man sat up on a cot in the far corner of the tent. Brendan hadn’t noticed him. “Mimi? Who’re you talking to?”

  “Just a porter that got into the wrong tent,” Mimi said. When the man got up he almost fell. He grabbed a nearby table and stabilized himself before walking forward. It was the warlord leader Anak. Without his jacket he looked as skinny as Brendan. His hair hung limply around his face, and he was squinting. He picked up a pair of glasses from a table and put them on.

  “You need to get more rest,” Dreyfus said. “You’re worn out.”

  “I know. I’ll be fine.” He picked up a bottle of beer from the ground. Using the side of the table, he popped it open and drank. Mimi filled a pipe with a few white opaque nuggets and brought it to Anak. He sighed when he looked at the pipe but accepted it. From a pocket he pulled out a lighter and took a hit. A chemical smell like burning plastic rose with the exhaled smoke.

  “So you’re one of the locals,” Anak said.

  “Donnie claimed me.”

  Anak nodded. “Ah, Donnie. He has his uses. What about you?”

  “Me, sir?”

  “Don’t ‘sir’ me. I’m not your daddy or your teacher, and I’m certainly not a cop.” He chuckled. “So what can you do besides cultivate pimples and grow hair on your palms? You’re one of the rich kids at the academy?”

  “I go there, but on a scholarship. I’m not rich.”

  “No one is anymore,” Anak said. “Not after our arrival. Except us, maybe. How do you feel about that?”

  “About your arrival or no one being rich?”

  Anak looked back at Mimi. “This kid for real? He’s actually capable of forming a sentence with more than one idea.”

  Brendan didn’t consider his sentence as particularly noteworthy. Then he noticed the man’s eyes were glassy.

  Brendan said, “If you’re asking how I feel about the earthquakes and your gang appearing, I’m scared. I’m worried about my mom in New York and the rest of my family. I’m worried about my friends. But I understand I can’t do anything about it, so I th
ought it would be best to work for the winning team.”

  “That’s what we are, aren’t we? The winning team?”

  Brendan knew he should keep quiet. Keep your head low, say only what you need to say to not get murdered. But he spoke. “You caused the earthquakes somehow, didn’t you? The world almost came apart, and then you showed up. Your army appears ready to fight.”

  “That’s what we might call sensitive information. By the time people put that together it’s too late for them. As busy as the military here is with everything, they probably haven’t even realized who or what we are. It’s a seeing-is-believing kind of deal, isn’t it?”

  “How is it that you’re all so strong?”

  “Good genes. Good breeding.”

  Brendan nodded slowly, doing his best impression of a dullard who accepted what he was told.

  “Kid, you need to relax. Take one of those beers and sit.”

  Brendan did as he was told. They sat opposite each other near the tent entrance.

  Anak put his hands over his eyes for a moment and rubbed his forehead. “This world gives me a headache. Drink up.” He gestured with his pipe. “This is for the grown-ups.” He took another hit.

  Brendan took a sip of the beer. He hated the stuff but it was wet and it felt good going down his throat. Mimi brought over a plate of wrapped sandwiches that still had their mini-mart stickers and bar codes on them. The leaders of the invasion and lords of the previous wasted world had been feasting on gas station food.

  “Tell me what you know,” Anak said.

  What does he want to hear? “The school and much of the town of Dutchman Springs is in ruins. I hear the hospital is overflowing. There’s a lot of hurt kids that are now in the gym without enough—”

  Anak put a hand up for Brendan to stop. “A tale of woe, surely. But I’ve heard it before. What makes you interesting?”

  “My dad robs banks.” It just came out. Brendan didn’t know what else to say.

  Anak nodded, pointing at Brendan. “Now Mimi, that’s something we don’t hear from many of these kids. A good story. You for real? Is your dad really a criminal, or are you just spinning a yarn?”