Rise of a D-List Supervillain

by Jim Bernheimer

  “You have a terrible potty mouth. The things I put up with.”

  She runs a finger through my hair. “You cut your hair really short. Any particular reason?”

  “Testing out my robohairstylist. It needs more work.”

  A lot more work!

  “Do you have any good news about Larry’s kids?”

  Stacy frowns. “Hermes is still on it. She was out following leads when I checked in. I feel bad for her because Holly told me she’s a bit infatuated with a certain Mysterious Highwayman. I don’t want to be there when she finds out that her Highwayman is really Bobby in disguise.”

  It’s worth a chuckle. The female avatar of Hermes with the hots for Bobby. Actually, anyone with the hots for him is kind of funny. Then again, here I am in love with the most beautiful woman in the world. Stranger things have certainly happened. “Should we tell Bobby about it? Maybe in the future we can double date.”

  With a look of mock terror on her face, she answers, “Oh, hell no!”

  “So are you glad to be back?”

  “No, I’d rather be anywhere else but here right now.” Stacy is turned away from me, so I can’t see her roll her eyes, but I can practically hear them.

  “Sarcastic wench.”

  “But you adore me anyway,” she says.

  “More than adore you,” I answer. It’s probably the afterglow of really good sex, but my decision to ease into a discussion about the future just disappears. “I’d marry you in a heartbeat. With that fake around, it would be interesting.”

  She shifts a little in my arms. “What’re you saying?”

  “I thought it was pretty obvious. I’m saying if we have to end this little ruse of me being dead because of that damn fake, I want to do it right.”

  “What does doing it right mean?”

  She seems to have a lot of questions right now and my concern begins to grow. Still, I’ve come this far, so there’s no turning back. “It means marriage and kids if you’re up for it.”

  Her expression is a mixture of delight and something else that I can’t immediately place.

  “Damn,” Stacy says after what seems like an eternity.

  That isn’t something I want to hear after exposing my emotions like that.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask. “I’m actually good with kids. It’s not your image. I know you too well for it to be that.”

  “Remember my empathic abilities,” she says.

  “Yeah, you can tell what people want if you focus. That should tell you how much I want this.”

  “And you really want more kids,” she states with a certain finality.

  “You don’t want any?”

  “Want? Sure. Am able to? Not right now. Check back in a few hundred years.”

  “Wait! What?”

  “It’s an ugly truth the twelve of us don’t talk about. When the Olympians transferred their power to us, it reset us inside. My body is essentially a toddler inside. Our life expectancy is thousands of years. I won’t really be fertile for maybe six hundred years at the earliest.”

  “Oh.” It’s all I can say at the moment.

  “Now you know why I wanted to tell you in person. This isn’t just a casual kind of chat I wanted to have over the comm channel.”

  “I think I am starting to see why. How deep does the rabbit hole go?”

  “Sweetheart, we have only just started. Buckle up, honey, and say the word when you’ve had enough. Remember all those Greek myths where they did all those horrible things to men and women?”

  “Yeah. Let me guess, the terrible twos?”

  “Close, teenage years and puberty. Plus most of the originals were a bunch of asshats, super-powered asshats, even Aphrodite. She’d mellowed by the time I met her. But if you’re wanting kids, you’ve got the wrong girl.”

  “So you won’t even be able to . . .”

  “No,” her voice drops to a whisper. “One of the things the originals tried to drill into our heads was that everything we hold dear right now, we will outlive, and it will hurt like hell.”

  “Yeah, that would suck.”

  “It gets worse. When I can have kids, if I do it with someone who isn’t an Olympian, I’ll outlive my kids, too. All those Greek demigods? Most, if not all, of them existed. They have longer lifespans than regular humans, but only a few hundred years. The child of two Olympians might make it to five hundred unless the power of the Titans is transferred to them, then they get reset as well. This is what I have been holding back from you all this time.”

  I guess on some level I already know this, but it is still a shock. I am more than a little confused.

  “I thought what you were holding back had to do with aliens, not the Olympians.”

  “Where do you think the Titans came from?” she asks.

  “I don’t know.” But I suddenly have a bad feeling.

  “The Titans were aliens. More specifically, deposed alien tyrants who had fled to Earth and decided to begin rebuilding here. They intended to make a new army and go back out into space and retake their empire from the Rigellians.”

  I don’t care for the picture Stacy is painting. “Really?”

  “Afraid so,” she continues. “Anyway, their first experiments created the gods of Egypt, super-evolved animals and human hybrids. The Titans perfected the process and began creating enhanced humans—basically, the gods of Babylonian, Sumerian, and eventually Greek. The Greeks were the most powerful, or at least that’s how they told the story, and they didn’t like the idea of being fodder for a war against a bunch of aliens from another solar system, so Zeus led them in rebellion and seized their power. Naturally, they were jealous. Some of their children and grandchildren settled elsewhere and created other pantheons across the world. Sometimes it ended in blood.”

  Her story probably qualifies as the strangest pillow talk ever. History’s dirtiest secrets laid bare. “OK, where do the Rigellians fit into all this?”

  “Ever hear of a little place called Roswell, New Mexico? Just shortly after World War Two?”

  The pit in my stomach gets a bit bigger. “Little gray men?”

  “More like seven-foot-tall, four-armed, yellow and magenta Rigellians on a scouting mission. Now the Olympians, well, they knew most of the Titans’ little tricks, but they didn’t know about the thing they left in orbit, because they were a bunch of fucking ignorant savages who offed some alien scientists and absorbed their psionic energy.”

  “They had Apollo’s Chariot?” This generation of Olympians has used it to go to the moon on several occasions. They make regular supply runs to the three active space stations. I even got to ride on it once on the trip that ended in my faked death.

  Ah, the shit I would get into if I had my own spaceship.

  “And no real inclination to use it. They hadn’t left the island in six hundred years until the satellite in orbit started broadcasting to them and the Rigellians showed up.”

  “Hermes came and got the bodies and the others tried to figure out the thing in the sky. They didn’t have to wait long. The construct entered orbit and disintegrated. It caused the super-powered beings. It was some kind of final solution, to elevate all of humanity for some kind of last stand if the Rigellians showed up to finish their former masters. Of course when the Titans built it, all of humanity consisted of less than a million people, so the effects were diluted.”

  “But what about the rumors of supers that existed before Roswell? A genetic legacy from the original Olympians and their offspring.”

  “That’s the running theory, but you know as well as I do that there were few and far between. There are still at least a couple of Titan things around, some kind of flying probes that ‘upgrade’ specimens and unlock their potential. At least one is still active. Keisha is the only one of us quick enough to have seen it. We’ve been trying to capture it for study, when we’re not trying to save the world. It’s a side project.”

  “Yeah, it gets a little distracting at times. How
many people know about this?”

  “The Rigellians? Some heads of government, a few hush-hush agencies, a handful of heroes besides The Olympians, Gravmatar and whomever he has told, and now you. The drone thing? The Olympians and you, unless someone else on my team has let it slip.”

  I take a moment to ponder if Larry’s extremely powerful brand of telekinesis would be able to snatch that probe out of the sky, no matter how fast it can move.

  “Gravmatar?” I ask about the exiled Rigellian prince.

  “He is exiled, and we had to fight the Rigellians to prevent them from killing him and laying waste to our planet. They let him live because he’s also here to keep an eye on us. There are more Rigellian supers, but the percentage is way lower in their population than in ours. The best theory the people in the know have come up with is that the Four Arms are keeping us secret from the other alien species so they can keep watch us and see if we turn into an asset or a liability.”

  “Well, that doesn’t make me feel terribly safe,” I add.

  “Welcome to my world,” Stacy says after a hollow laugh. “But you wanted to know. I’d love to grow old with you, but that’s not going to happen.”

  “Did Patterson know about you?”

  She gives a major sigh. “Really? That’s what you are thinking about right now!”

  I shrug and run my free hand through her hair. “I’m a small, petty man.”

  “If he did, it didn’t come from me. He and I never became serious enough to have this discussion,” she states and looks at me. The guarded half-smile she is wearing opens back up to the real thing. “Take some time to think over the future of our relationship, knowing what I can and cannot give you, Cal. If you still want to put a ring on this finger sometime in the future, I won’t say no.”

  Sensing the tone is too serious, I go for my sarcastic wit. “So in a few thousand years, you’ll look back at me like the crush you had in kindergarten?”

  “More like that guy I fell for at summer camp in third grade,” she says. “I’ll tell all the other Olympians that you’re from Canada and don’t really come around anymore. You know something? Why do Canadian guys and gals always get such a bad rap for being the long-distance relationship fakes? That just doesn’t make sense. Who do the Canadians use? Do other countries use Canadians for scapegoats as well? That just doesn’t sit well with me.”

  Stacy goes off on these odd rants every now and again. Obviously, I’m attracted to her wit as well. It’s a total turn-on, and I kiss her.

  “You still OK with all this, Cal?”

  “It’s just another obstacle. When all this calms down, I guess I’ll need to start looking into ways of extending my rather questionable existence. Maybe I can actually program my brainwave patterns into something like Andy’s body, or magic might have an answer. Heck, if all these legends are true about gods and whatnot, maybe the fountain of youth really exists. If one of your buddies decides they have had enough of the whole Olympian lifestyle, I could take over.”

  “The older Olympians died within a couple of weeks after transferring their powers. I don’t see it happening. The only time it happened with us was on our second mission when our first Hephaestus died and his brother received the transferred powers.”

  “But not even with Holly. She really likes me.”

  “She liked that you were dead. She is fairly certain the imposter is you.”

  “Some goddess of wisdom there for you.”

  “Seriously though, Cal, wisdom? Not really a defining trait for you.”

  “I guess you’re right. So which one would I be a good fit for? Super speed? Master inventor?”

  Shaking her blonde mane, she chuckles and says, “Definitely not Hermes. Well, you’re a bit of a homebody, so I’m actually leaning toward Hestia over Hephaestus.”

  “Hearth and home for the win, baby! If you guys can have a female Hermes, you could definitely have a male Hestia.”

  “You’re not completely sane, Cal.”

  “Finally noticed that, huh? I guess I should let you slide because you’re really just some jumped-up super baby. I guess I really am good with kids. Want me to change your diaper or do you need a spanking?”

  “Ha. Very funny. Does that make you a cradle robber?” She reaches around to my backside and gives me a stiff swat on the rump. It kind of hurts given how strong she is.

  It isn’t really that funny, but irony makes for a good defense mechanism and gives me the time I need to process all of these revelations. The idea of the Rigellians out there watching us and trying to decide if we might be useful allies or need to be put down before we become a threat doesn’t excite me any more than my girlfriend being a couple of centuries short of super-puberty.

  Shit! I remember when the biggest problem I had to deal with was planning a bank job or Patterson’s lawyers making my life miserable. When did it become so complicated?

  Chapter Five

  When a Big Reveal Flops

  For all the nasty things I’ve done in my life, I actually sleep fairly well. In that respect, and pretty much everywhere else, I am probably far luckier than I deserve to be.

  This morning I am regretting the topics Stacy and I covered last night. There were some harsh and bitter truths that I have been ignoring, even if on some level I actually knew that my godly girlfriend would still be kickin’ it long after my bones had crumbled to dust.

  Mortality looms like an ugly cloud around my bed this morning. Of course all the talk about Olympians, Titans, and all those unmentionables’ secrets probably aren’t helping my not-so sunny disposition.

  “Are you OK, honey?” Stacy asks.

  I know enough not to try and argue with an impasse. Fat lot of good it will do me.

  “I’m just trying to wrap my mind around it. There was a time when the most difficult thing I had to face was trying to plan a bank job. Now, I am a father, and I just got a primer on all the dirty secrets no one should have to know. I guess I should put on my big boy pants today.”

  She pulls me into a hug and says, “I have been stringing you along for too long. I didn’t want to leave anything out there and have any more secrets between the two of us. You’d be surprised how much keeping this from you has been tearing me up inside.”

  “Does that mean all the guys on your team can’t get it up? Or are they just shooting blanks?” Yeah, I went there.

  The former is funny and might be useful down the road, but the latter is just kind of sad. I could probably start calling them the Infertiles instead of the Olympians.

  “Blanks,” Stacy answers. “All of us have done some checking with some of the most world-renowned fertility specialists, but even fancy genetic engineering can’t get around our physiology. It hit Robin the hardest because she was engaged and looking forward to building a life with her fiancé after she graduated college, but our little adventure to the hidden island of the Olympians flushed all her dreams down the crapper.”

  “Damn! Hera is one of the few on your team that I respect. At some point, would you be up for adopting some kids? I know all you really cool celebrity types dig that kind of thing. It might be good for your image unless the public finds out who the adoptive father is. Then you’re pretty much screwed.”

  Touching her chin, she thinks it over for a minute before saying, “I won’t rule it out, but just like Wendy found out, any new additions to a family of a superhero become a vulnerability that the villains can come after. Give me some time to really consider it before I give you an answer, if that’s OK?”

  “Take all the time you need. I just wanted to throw it out there as a possibility. I’m not ready to outfit the Megasuit with a cane or a walker just yet, so I think you’ve got some time. How about we take the rest of this discussion into the shower and I will be your personal shampooer for the morning.”

  “I believe that is a deal I can readily accept. Race you to the shower!”

  It’s just my luck that she is asking at the same time she i
s already out of bed and on the move—damn cheating wench!

  • • •

  Stacy’s suit is called The Centurion and it is based off my old Mark II armor. I have nothing to do with the stupid Roman motif for an avatar of a Greek goddess. I will seriously bite any fingers that are pointed my way. Her marketing people have to take the blame for that stupid shit.

  “I keep thinking I should start calling you Venus since you want to be Roman now.”

  “Funny, Cal. I lobbied for naming it Spartan, but the handlers thought that sounded too warlike. Centurion makes people think sentry and safety.”

  Digging around in her suit’s innards, I grumble. “Things like that are important in your world. I get it, but really we’re mixing pantheons here; that’s offensive to anyone who likes history. Hoplite. You could have called it a Hoplite!”

  Stacy chuckles. “Whatever! Most people would think it is some kind of bunny suit. You’re just being a history snob. Get over it! All I am saying is that the name was focus-group tested and the people like it. You’re just gonna have to suck it up, Buttercup!”

  I pause and pull my head out of the armor’s chest. “You’re just waiting for me to make some innuendo out of your last sentence, aren’t you? Well, I’m not going to fall for it. I’m a much more mature Cal Stringel.”

  “Keep telling yourself that,” she deadpans. “You’re not fooling anyone.”

  “I’ve got your Hoplite right here,” I say and toss a crude gesture her way.

  “You’re much more mature Cal lasted all of five seconds. I think that’s a new record for you.”

  “You bring out the kid in me considering you should be running around in semi-immortal pull-ups right now.”

  She is enjoying our back-and-forth as much as I am. “I will have you know that I’m getting an honorary degree from Embry Riddle next month and I’m going to show up in armor so all those aerospace engineers can drool over it, so let’s see something special!”

  “I think UCLA rescinded my actual degrees when I went to prison. Maybe the imposter will get them to reinstate what I’ve earned. I heard they want the fake to appear on campus since he’s running his scam out of Hollywood right now.”