Rise of a D-List Supervillain

by Jim Bernheimer

  After a pair of falls getting to the next landing, the bear hoists me up while mentioning how now he has to rescue my sorry ass. Now the rescue part is becoming embarrassing.

  On the fourth-floor landing we run across the Unfortunate Souls who must have been here to ambush us. Instead, three of the four have collapsed and are in the midst of their Manglermal transformations, while the fourth is probably dead.

  “That’s going to cut down on the good doctor’s success ratio,” I mutter.

  Pooh Bear grabs a plasma rifle and rips off the trigger guard while his human counterpart stuffs both pistols into his coverall pockets and grabs a rifle for himself.

  One upside to the situation is that we don’t encounter anyone else until we make it to the door to the first level. We pop the door open, prepared for a fight, but instead it looks like one of those scenes out of a virus movie. Soldiers, technicians, and idiot middle managers are all shrieking on the floor as far as my eyes can see. There’s a small part of me that feels an intense wave of guilt thinking about Gina, Dean, and even Bryce, but let’s face it; these people deserve it more than the unsuspecting masses that would have ended up infected with this airborne version of the Manglermal protocol.

  I spot a familiar red trench coat and see the owner on her knees staring at her paws with her one good eye. If I had to guess, Jeannie is now some kind of white tiger or maybe a snow leopard. It’s tough to be sure. Still, considering how she treated me when she thought I was a Mangler, I can appreciate the irony of Blazing She-clops getting a special delivery of karma from the powers above or the venting gas below.

  I guess she can be the One-Eyed She-Cat now, or maybe Blazing Feline?

  “Keep moving toward the exit,” the human José says.

  I can see the ramp leading up to daylight and freedom. Unfortunately, I can also hear the sounds of a battle taking place.

  “Right about now would be a good time to get them on the radio and let them know that we are coming out and not to blow us to pieces.”

  “Shit! I knew I forgot to install something in this armor!” I exclaim.

  “You’re kidding me, right? This is one of your stupid jokes again, isn’t it? Sweet Mother Mary! You really are an idiot sometimes!”

  In fairness, I didn’t have all the time I needed to convert this armor over. Something was bound to get missed! “Look, grab on and I’ll run us out of here. I’ll try and find the first Olympian I lay eyes on and make sure they don’t attack us. Keep your clone down here; he can do some good.”

  I accelerate up the ramp to find more than a few unaffected troops cowering behind barricades and firing their weapons toward the large number of vehicles surrounding the hangar.

  Thinking quickly, I yell, “The gas is spreading up here! Unless you want to be turned into some kind of animal, we have to get out there and surrender! Hold your weapons in the air and follow us. Our only chance is to give them this prisoner!”

  It takes only a few seconds for a couple of them to give in and the rest collapse like a bunch of Domino’s. Self-preservation overrules a paycheck any day.

  True, this is more self-serving on my part than looking out for the bubbas who work here. That’s just me not wanting to be shot, and that is less likely when I’m leading a group of surrendering troops.

  The midday sun leaves no shadows to hide in as my suit makes slow and jerky movements out of the hangar. The Mexican army has formed a semicircle roughly a quarter of a mile away from the hangar while all the supers are getting their freak on. I get a bad Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid flashback and hope this isn’t my Bolivia.

  It takes only a few seconds for me to spot Stacy in her Centurion armor. She’s too far away, but she looks like a sandy, brown turd. I want to laugh when I see that she has a desert camouflage pattern for her color scheme. I realize that she likely had little input into this new look. Still, I will have to tease her about it, and that’s all there is to it.

  She and Ares are tag-teaming against Praetorius and look to be winning. Figures, I finally get to see her in her suit, and I can’t enjoy it.

  Just off to my right, I see an even more beautiful sight—it’s the Megasuit laying a beatdown on a pair of Type-D warbots. Still too dangerous for my current armor. There’s Hestia and a mostly free path! Run! Run like hell!

  The goddess of home and hearth is using her psionic knives to stun various Manglermals. The four animated stone statues she controls are pulling the fallen fighters into a pile.

  With José holding on, I sprint toward the person considered the least harmless of the Olympians and start dodging her energy knives.

  “Hey! Take it easy. Good guy here with a Gulf Coast Guardian.”

  She pauses enough for José to wave at her.

  “Good to see you, Six-Pack!”

  “You as well!” he answers.

  I stop and let José off me and gesture to the container of Mangler juice. “Unhook that cylinder. Considering how dangerous this shit is, I don’t want it to explode.” Or if it does go off, I wouldn’t want to be around it.

  It takes a minute for José to get it off me as I scan around the battlefield. Andy finished off the other Type D and has moved on to roughly a dozen Type-B rollers.

  They’re a little more my speed.

  Breaking into a run, I head in that direction while firing some plasma balls at the swarm of gyroscopic balls rolling toward him. That should at least clue Andy in that I’m a friendly.

  I hastily apply the brakes when all of Megas’ weapons turn toward me. Boosting the external speaker to maximum, I shout, “It’s me, Andydroid, Special Agent Matt Harrell. For the love of God, don’t shoot!”

  The gauss pistol swivels away from me, and seconds later another one of the Type Ds falls to the ground and does not attempt to rise. I briefly wonder if there’s a service out there for robots who’ve fallen and can’t get up.

  “You do realize that the existence of an omnipotent being cannot be scientifically proven?”

  “I’ve missed you too, buddy! Can you get on the horn and—”

  My sentence is interrupted by an object smashing into me at ridiculous speed. I feel a sharp pain run up my left arm and then start to throb.

  “Hello, Omar! Long time no see!” At least twenty punches strike the armor and I feel the dents start.

  I shout, “I’m not Omar, idiot! Look at my legs. Do Omar’s legs bend like this? I think you broke my damn arm!”

  Hermes stops pummeling me. “Wait! What?”

  I speak really slowly. “I . . . am . . . not . . . Omar! Didn’t Athena brief you? If I was a villain, would I run over to the Megasuit just to say hello? I don’t have a damn death wish.”

  She’s still got a grip on my suit and her fist cocked. A series of conflicting emotions plays out on her face.

  “Please unhand my colleague, Hermes. Otherwise, I will be forced to injure you.” Andy’s voice comes from behind.

  She releases her grip on me. I’d like to think it is due to my expertly crafted argument, but who am I kidding? Mega is my suit, and I got scared when I was staring down its active weapons.

  I take stock of my suit and notice the airtight seal is gone, somewhere between ten and fifteen punches ago.

  Shit! This armor could be covered in Mangler juice! “Andy! Emergency decontamination.”

  “Explain the nature of the contagion.”

  “Their stock of Manglermal formula was released into the base’s ventilation system! Better spray off Hermes as well. I doubt it could affect an Olympian, but it did turn She-Clops.”

  I know it is maybe thirty seconds while the plasma cannons rotate out and are replaced with fire hoses drawing from the lake at the base, but it feels much longer. Is the magic protecting me? Will I change the moment I try to turn back into a human? It might be like José and be some kind of delayed reaction.

  As I fight the growing sense of panic, I use my right arm as a lever and force my suit upright. My other arm is danglin
g, and I deliberately glare at Keisha and channel my emotions into anger. She has the decency to look slightly embarrassed. The jets of water come out with enough force to make me brace the speed suit.

  Dreading each second and waiting for any signs of a Mangler transformation to start, I turn and let Mega wash the back of my suit off. There’s a bit of a flashback to my delousing in prison.

  Quite frankly, I’m so done with today . . . this whole week while you’re bullshittin’. I just want to crawl back through Mega’s portal to our base, get my arm checked out, and take a week-long nap. That’s not too much to ask, is it?

  As Mega turns his water jets on Hermes, there is a sudden rumble that convinces me I’ve jinxed myself—again.

  The ground explodes and a massive form leaps from the hole.

  I hate it when I’m right!

  After the pummeling the VZ suit took from the fastest person alive, it’s a much rougher ride, but I put a little distance between me and the monster.

  The thing almost defies description and is somewhere around twenty feet tall. It ’s furry in some places, scaled in others, and stands on eight thick legs. It has just as many arms, one human-ish and the rest a hodgepodge from the animal kingdom. The creature has a thick neck supporting four heads looking in all directions. The only one I can recognize is Igor Mangler’s completely unchanged face, complete with a maniacal grin.

  “Chimera!” It bellows from all four mouths.

  Stacy delivers the first blow with the force blaster mounted on her suit. A tentacle lashes out, nowhere near the Centurion suit, but my girlfriend is knocked out of the sky.

  Does that mean the fish head is 2KBitchslap? That means White Rhino must be there too. Not sure who the fourth one is.

  A dozen or so Mexican soldiers and their armored personnel carrier turn their weapons on it, but they might as well be shooting spitballs. The Abomination calling itself Chimera partially disappears for a brief second only to rematerialize in the middle of the troops. Dr. Mangler’s cheeks puff like a chipmunk before he releases a stream of liquid, as an arm that looks like it belongs on a praying mantis and a tentacle begin ripping the APC apart. The soldiers struck by the liquid immediately fall to the ground and began screaming. For a moment I fear he has venom sacs, but then I realize it’s even worse; he is spitting Mangler juice.

  Oh shit, this is not good! My little balls of plasma will probably only give this thing a skin rash.

  A red blast of telekinetic energy interrupts my visit to my old stomping grounds of inadequacy, and I see Big Red has stepped in to try and wrangle the monster that I had a small hand in creating.

  For a second it looks like Larry Hitt has Chimera in check, but then the creature does that disappearing act again and reappears about a hundred feet from where it was previously. I see a line of tilled Earth, and it takes me a few seconds to make the connection. The fourth person in that monster mashup must be Earthworm! The guy is another minor talent who could sort of teleport short distances through and along uninterrupted ground. To make matters worse, Chimera bitch-slaps Larry, who wasn’t expecting any kind of attack from the creature.

  I won’t fault Larry for getting caught unprepared. He’s still a rookie when it comes to being a renegade hero, and other than San Francisco, this is the biggest battle he’s ever fought in. Before, when he was less than sane, he was just a tightly wound ball of rage. Now, Larry thinks before he acts—sometimes a little too much, and it gets him into trouble.

  I accelerate in an attempt to get to Larry before that creature can attack him again.

  Any worries that Chimera will pop on over and finish my buddy off are put to rest when the fish head and the insect head both pivot in my direction.

  Four garbled voices shout in unison, “You! I’ll kill you!”

  Oh, that’s not good, I think and peel away at a forty-five degree angle. Suit, don’t fail me now!

  VZ’s leg actuators kick into high gear as I try to see how fast I can go from zero to sixty. As the built-in speedometer approaches eighty-eight miles per hour, I am sorely tempted to make a Back to the Future, joke but something beats me to the punch, sending me sprawling.

  Chimera just bitch-slapped me!

  My suit takes a tumble, but the gyros help me recover, and I stagger back to my feet, trying to make my escape from the monster who is teleporting closer and closer to me. Every hit sends a fresh stab of pain into my broken arm

  Screw this! There’s no way in hell I’ll out run this thing. It’s just going to toss me around like a rag doll, and I don’t know how much more of a beating the suit can take. Why the hell didn’t I put a jet pack on this thing?

  With that in mind, I swerve and change directions. My new plan is to lead it back to where everyone who has guns can shoot the damn thing or at least slow it down to where I can get out of its line of sight. My legs churn away, spitting dirt in my wake, and I throw as much plasma behind me as the one usable arm I have can jettison. It’s little more than a fireworks show, but I’m not about to give up now.

  I try switching back and forth, but it’s no use. The next bitch-slap at least send me closer to the people who can fight Mangler and company.

  Megasuit moves to cover me. Plasma cannon fire forces the abomination to do the teleport thing again.

  “Use the railgun!” I shout. “Finish him!”

  “You know very well why I will not do that,” Andy says.

  Ironic, isn’t it. The most lethal weapon on the planet is in the hands of an android programmed not to kill. Does anyone besides me see a problem with that? Yeah, I thought so.

  “Kill you!” Someone obviously doesn’t have the same problem my friend does.

  Andy fires again, forcing my would-be murderer to dodge. “You have a singular ability to make people want to kill you.”

  “Less clever observations and more weapons fire. If you won’t kill it, could you at least severely injure it?”

  “That also would not be permissible.”

  I take a moment to compose my reply—mostly because I am being bitch-slapped again. “Then get Wendy or Larry! Get it off the ground! It won’t be able to teleport.”

  Over VZ’s limited interface protesting this continued treatment, I try to rise, or at least cower behind the Megasuit. The alarm is more of an angry chirp than the warbling klaxon I always use in my suits for a master alarm. I actually like it better. Maybe it’s time for a change.

  Great! I probably have a concussion, if I’m wasting time thinking about crap like that.

  The tentacle snaps back and I take another hit. At least I’m already on the ground and don’t have far to fall. The suit cuts off in mid chirp. I’m strong enough to move in it by myself, but I’m obviously not going to get far.

  “Andy,” I shout. It comes out slurred. “Get me out of here!”

  Megasuit hoists me like a sack of potatoes, and I hear the roar of the thrusters since my head is dangling over his shoulders. It’s oddly soothing, even though we both take several more slaps. Mega absorbs most of the sting, but I get my bell rung two or maybe three times.

  I’ve had a rough few days. The rest of them can clean up without me. Yeah, a nice long nap would be good right about . . .

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Unsightly Aftermath

  The first thing I hear is the slightly monotonous drone of medical equipment as my consciousness finishes a cold boot. I still feel a little fuzzy. If I really were like Andy, I’d consider running a defrag or some kind of kernel checker on my mind.

  Since I can’t, I go over what I can remember, getting tentacle-slapped around in the middle of Northern Mexico like one of those perps on a bad cop show. Definitely not going into my victory scrapbook.

  I force one of my eyes open. There’s a tabby cat’s face staring at me. I jump in surprise, but don’t get too far because I seem to be restrained.

  Seconds pass as I stave off the shock and momentary panic. I’m not in a hospital, but in James and Flora’s f
irst floor master bedroom at the fake bed and breakfast above the Alabama base. It doubles as our clinic. Down in the base, we have a gurney and some decent first aid supplies, but not enough room for anything much more than that. I must have already been there, done that, gotten the T-shirt, and been moved to our more comfortable accommodations.

  Flora, an expression of Andy trying to get in touch with his female self, has decorated the room. She has an eye for abstract art, vases, those little angel figurines, and a holographic cat. Wendy didn’t want Flora to get a real one. Andy rebelled and built Flora a virtual pet.

  It’s night out, but that doesn’t really tell me much. It’s a good guess that I am never going out in the field again, and I mean ever. Seriously, I might never leave the base again.

  The door is thrown open and instead of the cosmetically enhanced Type-A robots, I’m treated to Bobby Walton. Instead of a stethoscope and a medical chart, he has a beer and a bag of chips.

  And they say medical care is on the decline!

  “Hey there, Lizardboy! ’Bout damn time you finally wake up. Brings back memories of how badly you used to get your ass kicked all the time! Whatsamatter? Did you run into the Biloxi Bugler again and get another whuppin?”

  Bobby lacks a bedside manner or any manners in general. I may have to revisit my statements from a few seconds ago.

  I let the Bugler comment slide. I have considerably more respect for Bo Carr than I did back in the day. Bobby is just yanking my chain. It’s his way of showing he cares.

  I think I need better friends.

  “How long was I out?” I groan, noticing that I’m still in my hybrid form. My lisping voice is further butchered by a dry, rasping cough.

  “Been about ten hours, give or take. You were pretty jacked up.”

  The arm I had been worried that Hermes broke is in a cast and I have a leg elevated in traction. Ugly bruises cover it, but I can’t feel it. My reversed knee joint has a circular pain suppressor wrapped around it. It’s like a white noise generator for pain. Promethia bought out the company that planned on making these as inexpensive as possible and decided to pad their bottom line instead.