Confessions of a D-List Supervillain

by Bernheimer, Jim; Hsieh, Fiona

  “Do you need me to help you out of the armor?”

  “Maybe. Give me a few minutes to see what I get running. Are you calling for backup? If the forty year old high school senior wakes up, I’m going to have to sit this round out.”

  “I’ve already done it, Mechanical. Apollo is bringing his chariot.”

  “See if he’ll bring some powercells and my spare jetpack.”

  “No problem,” she replies.

  “By the way, whatever happened to getting help from the person in the chair?”

  Whatever I just said, it seems to have struck a nerve. Wendy looks angry enough to kill … well probably not that. She is a hero after all, but she does look pissed off enough to really hurt somebody or give them a talking to.

  “The ass hat in the chair was MindOver,” she answers. Wow, she actually said a bad word. She must be ticked off.

  I’d search my database for info on whoever this guy is, but there’s a small problem of all my systems being down. “Okay,” I admit. “What does that mean?”

  “He told me he was too busy and we needed to handle it on our own.”

  “Remind me to kick his ass, sometime. Any idea why he would leave us high and dry like that?”

  Wendy looks like she’s searching for the right words. Finally she says, “He’s an empath, who used to stalk me a few years back and kept using his powers on me, despite the fact he was in his late twenties and I was sixteen. My parents figured out what he was doing and got him booted out of the East Coast Guardians and sent to the Northern Frontier Guardians in Montreal. They must be scraping the bottom of the dumpster if they’re letting him get in the chair.”

  I’ve got movement in my right hand. That’s a good sign. Hopefully, I can walk this suit out of here under its own power. Dignity counts for something. Still, I’m interested in Wendy’s story. The superhero “community” goes to great lengths to keep little stories like this from getting out despite the efforts of the tabloids and the paparazzi. Back in my gun running days … ahem, armament innovation days, I’d catch a snippet or two that did get out – a little gossip amongst supervillains. It was always just enough to make me wonder what was really going on. Now, I realize that behind the rose garden is a big old pile of fertilizer stinking up the place.

  “So I take it you’re not his favorite person,” I say.

  “I used to be until the restraining order,” she answers and points to her necklace. “My father had Promethia make some psionic dampers for me to wear to block his powers.”

  Arching an eyebrow, I say, “Really. Any chance I could get my hand on one of those? I’m looking for ways to protect me from Mindwipers when I’m not in my armor and wouldn’t mind picking up some extra protection against telepaths and empaths.”

  She considers my request. “Normally, I wouldn’t. No offense, but I don’t know you from dirt. But after what Ultraweapon did to Aphrodite, I can’t really feel any pity for him or his company. He’s almost as big a creep as Michael Mather.”

  “MindOver Mather?” That’s stupid, really stupid.

  She nods and continues, “Supposedly, he’s descended from the guy that did the Salem Witch Trials.”

  “And everyone keeps telling me my name is hokey.”

  The little brunette laughs and some of her New York accent slips through. “Hello? This is WhirlWendy you’re talking to here. The name sounded good when I was like twelve. We were looking to change it right before the whole bug thing happened, but the focus groups weren’t big on either of our two options.”

  “Focus groups? You’ve got to be shitting me! I’m beginning to think I should stick to being a villain.”

  “Fraid so,” she says probably noticing the scowl on my face. “If you’re going to stick around on this side, you’ll probably want to get an image consultant as well as an agent.”

  I scowl some more.

  “Look at it this way, Mechanical. The money from the appearances and the licensing will help make repairing your suit easier.”

  The squirt has a point. I can’t exactly start knocking over jewelry stores when my spare parts supply runs out.

  “Thanks,” I say, trying to sound grateful. “I’ll keep it in mind for later and hit you up for the details then.”

  “Okay, I’ll introduce you to my mom sometime. She handles all the details. I just show up where she tells me and sign what she says needs signing.”

  For a moment, I consider saying how I couldn’t trust anyone – not even Mom and Dad – with my money, but I know that’s one of the differences between me and all these “goody two shoes” that I’m surrounded by. It is interesting to get some insight from somebody who isn’t an Olympian.

  One leg is working now along with one arm. I can at least crawl now. Wendy is quiet for a few minutes while I keep fiddling with my onboard systems. The area is blissfully free of rubberneckers, since Larry had driven most off earlier and then my partner there busted out a tornado. I’m sure eventually some will show up.

  “Hey,” Wendy says. “There’s a good chance that I might be taking over the Gulf Coast Guardians when they reform. Athena said you’ve been assigned to the pool of new Guardians candidates and that you used to operate out of that area. You interested?”

  “I guess so. What do you guys do? Have a draft or something?” I wonder if there’s a signing bonus.

  “The four team leaders are supposed to be meeting next week to fill the gaps. Except for She-Dozer and José Six-Pack the roster is gutted and I’d be starting over from scratch.”

  Wow! That is stripped bare. “José is the groundskeeper! I mean his power is just making five clones of himself. They’re gonna let him go on missions? Why do you even want that job?”

  She shrugs and spreads her hands. “I’m never going to be a leader up in New York. I keep losing the vote for deputy, too. They still see me as a kid. It’s time for a change of scenery.”

  “So if that’s the case, why are they letting you take over one of the Guardian franchises?”

  “Money. I’ve got more than enough to bankroll my own team. I almost quit the East Coast team after the last deputy vote, but I stayed after they promised I could transfer if a leadership position opened up in one of the other teams. When no one else looked eager to take the GulfCoast job, I said I’d take it. Bolt Action tried to block me and keep me in New York, but I reminded him about that little promise of his. This is their way of letting me go off and still keeping me in the organization. The team has image consultants too and it would’ve looked bad with one of their most popular heroes leaving.”

  “Louisiana is going to mangle that accent of yours,” I say getting the suit up to one knee. Hurray for progress. “You sure you want me?”

  “Well, you did pretty good today and Aphrodite speaks highly of you. Your recent combat footage isn’t shabby either. The East Coast isn’t interested and the West Coast …”

  I finish for her, “Is a bunch of Ultraweapon ass kissers.”

  “… not exactly the way I was going to put it, but sure why not. So, you’ve got New Orleans or Montreal to choose from. How do you feel about the Frozen North?”

  “Who else are you trying to get?” José is a scrub and Sheila Dozier is okay for a strong girl, but she can’t fly and isn’t that much stronger than the suit I’m wearing. Anytime I fought the GCGs, I just stayed in the air and used my force blasters. The most She-Dozer could do is toss stuff at me, but her being a hero, she was reluctant to damage people’s personal property. If I’m going to be part of a team, I don’t want to be the only one besides Wendy that can handle an emergency.

  “Chain Charmer is available, but I heard the Northerners are after him. I think I have the inside track though. Andydroid is tied up for the next two months with the Olympians until they get their new switchboard computer, but he said he might be forming a duo with someone else, so I’m not sure. There’s a few of Doc Mangler’s experiments and a couple from your side of town out there looking for a fres
h start under the second chance program.”

  “Andy is waiting on me,” I say. “If you take me on, I can talk him into coming when he’s finished being the MountOlympus phone sex operator. I’ve heard Chain Charmer is pretty good. Did he and the Grey Logger break up?” They kept trying to go by a different team name, but “Link and Logs” stuck and eventually the same sex partners accepted it.

  “Grey Logger went down fighting the bugs. He was one of the first to die. The information was in the computers at MountOlympus. Now that he’s been wiped, Chain Charmer is still trying to come to grips with it. He’s leaving Seattle.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” I say and gesture to Imaginary Larry. “Too bad you can’t recruit a powerhouse like him.” I get the armor to a standing position and make my first wobbly step – so far so good. The power meter shows nine percent. If Larry does wake up in a fighting mood, I might be able to give him a couple of shots with my force blaster and then spit on him. That’s about it. A couple of determined Eagle scouts armed with can openers could take me in my current condition.

  Looking at the older man in the burnt letterman’s jacket, I see his hand twitch. “Um, Wendy. Sleeping beauty just got his kiss. What do you want to do?”

  She grimaces and pulls off her mask. “Alright Mechanical, I’ve spent a third of my life in teenaged sitcoms and dramas. Just follow my lead.”

  • • •

  “So let me get this straight,” Stacy says, looking at the mangled mess that is my armor spread out on two workbenches. She’s changed out of that heavenly strapless number she’d been wearing when my sorry ass arrived into some jeans and an oversized tee shirt. Good God! She could make a burlap sack look appealing. “You show up three hours late for our date and you’re idea of spending time with me is for us to work on your armor? That’s not exactly sweeping me off my feet. You could’ve at least bought flowers.”

  Thankfully, her tone is teasing. Andy told me that she was one of the people ripping MindOver a new one for letting just two supers take on Imaginary Larry. Maybe his new name should be BendOver.

  “Hey,” I answer eloquently. “I had a lot on my hands tonight. I was never good at basketball and there I was as the new basketball coach for Larry’s high school against their arch rivals for the State Championship. It was so intense.”

  We’re in one of the underground warehouses below the Olympians base. It’s like one big techno junk pile. The Olympians employ a cleanup team that follows behind them and removes all the debris from their battlefields. Whatever can be reused or recycled or is just too damn dangerous is sorted out. The rest ends up here. Yet another thing that I’ll have to get used to – picking up after myself. Villains don’t generally worry if they leave depleted uranium shell casings all over the place, or cadmium residue, and so on. Most of it is too battered to be of any use, but I’m down here scavenging synth-muscle and anything else that might come in handy. I like this place. It’s quiet and reminds me of my old junkyard hideout.

  “I’ll bet,” she laughs and hooks up an arm to a diagnostic computer and then makes a face saying, “Eew. This needs a full rewire. So what role did Wendy play? Cheerleader?”

  I poke my head out from inside the chest piece. “No, she was my trouble making younger sister, who just transferred to the school. I told Larry to keep his eyes off of her and on the game. She said it was like every cheesy after school special she’d ever been in rolled up into one big ball.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, I got the lights on in the arena and we sat there with a bunch of Larry’s fake people and I coached the game of my life. You should have heard my halftime speech. I’d have recorded it, but my audio mikes are shot.”

  “I suppose Larry’s team won.”

  “Time was running out and we were down by two with just fifteen tics on the clock left. Our best shooter had turned his ankle, so I told Larry it was all on his shoulders. Fortunately, Apollo was waiting outside and I had Larry shoot the three pointer to win it, because winners don’t play for no stinking overtime!”

  My date is amused. “Of course they don’t. So what happened next? He made the shot?”

  “From almost half court. It was nothing but net! I’m pretty sure he was fouled too, but the idiot refs weren’t calling anything all night. Anyway, I shook his hand and Wendy gave him a peck on the cheek as all his telekinetic constructs carried him on their shoulders around the arena.” I pause and point to my heart. “It got me … right there.”

  “I’d call bullshit, but it sounds like you managed to have a good time.”

  “Except for all the damage to my armor. Still, I might just have to go back to his facility … err high school for football season.”

  Stacy chuckles and says, “I do love a happy ending. Wendy probably didn’t like it. I heard the last two seasons of her show she was trying to get out of her contract without doing anything serious to mess up her squeaky clean image that she fools everyone with.”

  Wendy has a wild side? “What? No sex tape? Nothing says, ‘Get me out of a contract,’ like a good video romp plastered all over the internet.”

  Stacy rolls her eyes. “Why are guys so obsessed with sex tapes? You won’t ever catch me in one. It’s all just so … what’s with that look on your face, Cal?”

  “Um,” I stall for time and try to think of the best way to break this to my amnesia burdened girlfriend. “You might want to rethink that statement.”

  She gets an incredulous look on her face. “Seriously? You’re not pulling my leg? No, really? How the hell did you ever talk me into something like that?”

  “Actually, it was your idea,” I answer looking for somewhere I might hide. This wasn’t exactly first date material. My plan was to let her remember it on her own or tell her sometime, anytime as opposed to right now. “In fairness, you were … uh … well you were worried about the bugs getting you again and it was the night before we were attacking this base. You might have been feeling a little impulsive and reckless.”

  She crosses her arms and is clearly not amused. “Where is it?”

  “At my base. In a safe, on an encrypted USB drive and not connected in any way to the internet. I don’t even keep a copy on my suit.”

  I wouldn’t put it past Ultraweapon or someone on his payroll to try breaking into my suit’s computer. I’d like to think I could catch someone doing that, but I’m just one really smart guy. There’s only so much I can do. That said it feels like the temperature just dropped about twenty degrees in here.

  “Just see that it stays there,” she says. Her expression becomes unreadable and I feel a twinge of guilt. I have to cut her some slack. We’ve only kissed a couple of times since she lost her memory. I’m honestly beginning to wonder if she’s just marking time with me while she tries to figure out what she saw in me in the first place. Hopefully, she starts recovering those memories soon.

  “Well, this is awkward,” I admit after a pause. “How about we change the subject? Wendy wants me to join the Gulf Coast Guardians when they reform. She said you had a hand in her offer. Thanks.”

  She relaxes a bit and smiles. “Don’t mention it. Holly put in a good word for you also.”

  “I’d thank her too, but I think her motivations are less about me being on a team and more about me being over a thousand miles away.”

  “Be nice,” she cautions.

  “That was me being nice to her,” I respond.

  “So, are you going to take it?” Stacy asks.

  I set the chest plate down on the bench and nod. “I’d hoped to be closer to you and maybe get a shot on the East Coast team, but it sounds like New Orleans or Montreal are my only two options and since it’s about the same distance from either of those two places to you, I’d rather be warm – thank you very much. Until then, I guess I need to get my suit fixed, so I can get back out in the field on riot and food convoy escort duty. It’d be easier if I had minions.”

  “Minions?”

  “Well yeah,
” I answer. “Nobody messes with Hades and those shadow monsters he makes. Imaginary Larry had an entire high school worth of lackeys.”

  “Too bad all those Type A robots we had in Missouri were destroyed.”

  “Yeah, they’re in a scrap yard somewhere. Then again Type A robots are honestly more trouble than they’re worth, unless you’re using them to guard something. Anything else and I’d be spending all my time fixing them on top of fixing my suit. Now if I had a Type B or two that might work. They’re tougher, easier to maintain, and mount a better array of weapons.”

  She points over my shoulder. “There’s bound to be something you can use in those piles. You want me to look around back there?”

  “Actually with your strength, I know you can wind synth-muscle bundles tighter than I ever could. If you want to do that, I’ll poke around and see if there’s anything other than a bunch of broken stuff.”

  Stacy agrees and I head into the junk pile, armed with a flashlight. Part of me is eager to find something cool, but a larger part is worried that we are already drifting apart, and I’m not sure I can fix that. At my base, she developed so much confidence in her abilities and herself. Now, she’s taken a few steps backward and seems hesitant. Being unsure of herself, it doesn’t take a genius to see that she’s just keeping me around until she decides whether I’m worth her time.

  Relationships aren’t really my strong suit. Like that’s a big surprise to anyone. When it comes down to it, I’m not even sure that I like Calvin Matthew Stringel that much, but I’m playing the hand I’ve been dealt, and I’ll go as far as it will take me.

  From the sounds of things, I’ll be on a team full of superheroes soon. I’m already cringing at the thought. How’s a selfish, out for himself, bastard like me going to rub shoulders with a bunch of do-gooders without going insane?

  Those are today’s million dollar questions and, like always, I’m a bit short on cash.

  Chapter Seven