“Hi, I’m Stacy is Cal here?”
The large, thick one must be Hillbilly Bobby. Cal once said this was his hideout before Bobby disappeared. I don’t know the other one, but odds are that he’s Red.
“He’s back there ma’am,” Red answers, sounding kind of goofy in an “aw shucks” way. I get a grin on my face, but there’s a little voice in the back of my head still wondering how he survived a nuclear explosion.
The door opens and I step into what used to be his bedroom. It’s more of a workshop now. It looks like there’s been a bunch of remodeling. “Hi!” I force as much good spirits into my greeting. He’s standing, unharmed, and in good shape. It is more than I could hope for. Behind him is that massive suit that everyone is still talking about.
“Nice to see you again,” he says in guarded tones. “How long have you known?”
“I didn’t for sure. I was just rolling the dice. When my memories came back I finished your book and realized you gave the wrong location for this shit … place.” I’m on unsteady footing here. Before, he wouldn’t mind me calling his base names.
“What can I do for you?”
“You can start by coming over here and giving me a hug. I never thought I’d see you again!”
He complies, but hesitates when I kiss him. I start to wonder if things are screwed thing up beyond repair.
“You’re not that surprised to see me, Aphrodite?”
“When you’re in the business as long as I’ve been, you can never be sure unless you see the body with your own eyes. Please, call me Stacy.”
“Okay, Stacy.” Cal says it so slowly that it doesn’t sound right. He’s almost as nervous as I am. I can feel it rolling all over him. I feel his hurt and know that I was part of the cause. Think, Stacy! Think! Break the ice.
“So, why don’t you tell me about that fancy suit of armor?”
“I’m not sure it would be a good idea.”
“Please Cal, don’t push me away. I just want a chance.” If the real Aphrodite saw me right now, would she strip my powers for sounding so desperate? I’d like to think she’d be proud of me.
My eyes drift over to the workbench and I see a couple of pictures. One is WhirlWendy and the other is a tiny baby.
I was so fixated on the armor and Cal that I didn’t even notice the playpen in the corner with all the toys next to a full drum kit. “Oh lord. I didn’t know you and Wendy had gotten together. I’m sorry. I don’t want to …”
Shit! He’s already moved on.
Cal laughs. “No, we’re not together. She brings Gabby around on weekends and when she needs a sitter. It is nice having a place that no one knows about to keep our daughter safe from anyone who would try to use her to harm us.”
I want to smile, knowing that he’s available and I still have a chance. “Don’t worry, Cal. I won’t tell anyone where this place really is. So what are your plans? Athena and Hera want these new heroes found and recruited. They were even talking about opening slots on the Olympians.”
This time Cal really laughs. “It would almost be worth it to see the look on Crenshaw’s face. No, I’m not sure I was meant to be a hero. I wasn’t very good at it.”
“You’re not going back to the other side, are you?” I saw that suit in action and don’t want to end up fighting it.
“Definitely no. I was a lousy villain,” he says, shaking his head.
“Cal? I’m a little lost. Where are you going with this?”
“Meh, the only time I’m worth a shit is when the world needs saving. You and damn near everyone else said as much at the funeral. Hard to believe I finally got my pardon, isn’t it? Anyway, don’t call me and Larry for a bank robbery; call us when it really means something.”
“Larry?” It takes a second for me to put it together. “That guy on the couch is Imaginary Larry?”
“Not anymore. I call him Extraordinary Larry. He’s wearing the Grey Logger’s old necklace and is only about half as strong as he was when he was living his multiple personality life. The power was too much for his mind and it overwhelmed him. The necklace dampens it down to where he can finally think straight. Still, even at half his potential, he kicks some serious ass! Admittedly, a technohermit like me probably isn’t the best guy to help him reintegrate into society, but we’ve been making steady progress. Last time Wendy was here, she took Larry into Mobile and helped him shop.”
“She’s semi-retired from the Guardians. Is that because, she’s on this team as well?”
“Yeah, she’s the third member of the Reinforcements.”
“Reinforcements? Sounds catchy.” Larry, Wendy, and Cal’s new suit make a formidable team.
“Yeah. Call us when you need us, but make sure it’s damn important. Don’t waste our time on the everyday garbage.”
“Back to the armor…” I say.
“You’re not going to let it go are you?”
“I’m dying here, Cal. I may not be in your league when it comes to tinkering, but that thing can’t possibly work the way it does! Spill!”
“I cheated,” he says like it explains everything.
“Cheated? You can’t cheat? There’s only so much room in that armor - in that hand cannon - it … they can’t do what they were doing. How can you cheat?”
“Remember that thing with Tyrannosorcerer Rex?”
“That lizard guy who wanted to take over the world? I read the report, but it wasn’t that complete. Didn’t he turn your armor and Andydroid to stone? Explain it to me.”
“He had these portal things. The translation is close to Mirrors of Movement. I shoved a small GPS through one of the shards and found his main base about thirty miles away. He had a few more of these mirror things there too.”
Cal carefully picks up two identical shaped crystals and places them on the bench next to each other. He runs a wire into one and it pops out the other one. “This is how I cheat. There is no ammunition in that suit. I only have enough powercells installed to make it walk for about ten minutes. What is in the suit are dozens of portals inside protective casings running the power from this base into the armor. The prison cells downstairs have been converted into ammo magazines and my main weaponry. C’mon, I’ll show you.”
He’s on a roll. I’ve got him talking about his armor. I couldn’t stop him if I strip and say, “Take Me.” Well, maybe I could, but I’ll hold onto that thought for later.
I follow him down to where he held me prisoner for those awful two weeks. A voice interrupts my journey. “It’s nice to see you again, Aphrodite.”
Spinning, I see Andydroid’s face. It’s attached to an old Type A robot body, but it is him. “Andydroid! It’s good to see you.”
“It is good to be seen,” the robot says. “Although you have encountered the replacement my creator manufactured using an old backup of my knowledgebase. Perhaps one day I will meet my new brother.”
“How did you get turned back?”
“After translating a number of books, Cal was able to reverse the magic that petrified me on this portion on my body and is supposed to be getting me a new body. It should be noted that he is behind schedule, again.”
My head spins. Cal? Reversing magic?
“I’m working on it, Type Andy. We’ll get you set up right. I’m still holding out hope that we can get one of those Type E Behemoth frames. With the portals, we could power that thing up right and arm you to the teeth!” Cal exclaims.
“Magic?” I ask.
“It’s a new hobby. I’m studying sixty-five million year old serpent sorcery. Before I gave Larry the necklace, I was using it because the magic in it lets me translate whatever I hear or read. When I cleaned out Rex’s hidden base, I found all these spell books written in serpent runes. Imagine my surprise when I found out my translation skills worked on them too. Here watch this.”
He concentrates and a bottle of water floats off the counter and into my hands. He looks visibly shaken by the effort. “That’s impressive.”
/> “Yeah, I’m a long ways from using it for real and most of the spells won’t work because I’m warm blooded, but I picked up a couple of things along the way. After a few months, I didn’t need the necklace anymore, so I went and got Larry. He’s such a newbie, but I’m training him up right.”
Cal is so casual about everything. I roll my eyes at the thought of him mentoring someone with Larry’s level of power and say, “I can only imagine. So you just decided to start learning lizard magic on a whim? That’s pretty crazy, even for you, Cal. Okay, what exactly is this?”
The gun emplacement takes up most of the space that used to be the cell block. It looks like it should be mounted on a tank or something.
“This is my railgun. It’s only ten megajoules. The navy has a bigger one, but that’s enough to get my slugs moving so fast they’ll rip through shielding and armor like butter. It’s my biggest stick, but not my only stick.”
“You built … a railgun?”
He nods and says, “Just a small one. Andy helped after I freed him. With the portal magic, it fires here in the base, but the shell comes out of the tip of my handheld which is really the end of the barrel. Neat huh? Next to it is my fifty caliber shells, my pulse cannons, and my forty mike mikes. Patterson wasn’t fighting me; he was fighting my whole base. He didn’t stand a chance.”
“This is nothing short of amazing, Cal. You combined magic and science to make a suit of armor.”
“Thanks,” he says sheepishly and points to a chair. “I don’t even need to be in the suit. I usually run the armor remotely from here. Were you trying to probe me at the battle?”
Nodding, I say, “Yes, but I thought it was blocked by the shielding.”
“Probably. But even if you’d gotten by it, I was here … a few thousand miles away. I’ve been here since building the suit that was nuked in Los Angeles.”
“Really? The whole time?”
“Yeah, the Gulf Coasters kept wondering why I never got out of my new suit. They thought I’d gone off the deep end.”
“Wow,” that’s about all I can come up with.
“Yeah. Anyway, I was here the whole time, hanging out with Bobby, after I figured out I could use the pieces of Lizard Boy’s broken portal. Everything was running through all those shards. Hell, Patterson was trying to kill me! I wasn’t just going to stand there and let him do it. It amazes me that people think I’m that stupid.”
Finally, an explanation that made some sense! “What did you say to him before you killed him? I was only close enough to sense his fear.”
“I told him that I delivered on my promise. He never saw me coming for him until it was too late.” Cal stops and looks pensive before continuing, “You’re not here to give me a hard time about whacking his worthless ass are you?”
“No,” I say. “Lazarus made his own bed.”
“Thanks, Stacy. The last thing I wanted to do today was get into an argument. Anyway, I’d have never been able to build a suit that could match up to his with all his money and engineers, so I had to go outside of the box and mix magic into it. I still need a name though. The press keeps calling it Firepower and Arsenal, but I’m thinking old school.”
He gets that grin on his face like a cat ready to pounce. “What?” I ask.
“Well, I hear the name Ultraweapon is vacant. I beat the guy and I think that entitles me to a few things. That makes me the reigning champ until someone can take that name away from me and the Megasuit!”
“He’s probably rolling in his grave right now. It’s brilliant! You’re brilliant.” I grab him.
“Ow! Easy there goddess. You’ve got a firm grip.” He pauses and then continues, “Where does this leave us?”
We’re so close. It only takes a quick stretch for me to kiss him. This time he returns it with more eagerness. “I’m me again. I’m not that bitchy type A superheroine who isn’t sure what she wants. Plus, there’s a nasty rumor about me that I fall hard for guys with hot suits of armor and there’s nothing on the planet that can touch yours. Maybe I can even convince you to upgrade mine.”
I can sense his excitement overcoming his anxiety. “Oh, an armor groupie,” he teases. “I’m not sure this is going to work and as far as an upgrade goes, can you afford my rate?”
We kiss until it is a struggle to control our emotions. This is what’s been missing, the feelings he creates with all the strange ideas, utter nonsense, and flashes of brilliance that come from nowhere. “I can be quite persuasive and I brought a down payment. Can we go somewhere and negotiate? It might take awhile.”
“I think we can do that,” he says already panting a little. I might have been hugging him a bit too tightly.
“Good, I can’t wait to get started. I’ve missed you, Cal.”
“I’ve missed you more, Stacy. Thanks for coming back for me.”
His heartfelt words give me pause. “Thanks for waiting. We’ve got some lost time to make up for. What do you want to do first?”
“Can I play Biz?” He asks and then winks. Thank God he’s not serious!
“How about something other than that,” I answer and then whisper my naughty little counter offer into his ear.
“Okay,” he agrees. “For that he’d understand. I’ve got the ice cream and the chocolate syrup, but I don’t have a localized gravity inhibitor.”
I give him a mischievous smile and say, “But I bet you’ve got a bootleg set of plans in your database. C’mon, we can build one together and then I’ll show you why I’m the love goddess.”
About the Author
Jim Bernheimer is the author of two other novels and a short story collection. He lives in Chesapeake, Virginia with his wife and two daughters while trying desperately to write down all the strange ideas in his mind.
Other Books by the Author
Horror, Humor, and Heroes Volume I
Horror, Humor, and Heroes Volume II
Dead Eye: Pennies for the Ferryman
Spirals of Destiny Book One: Rider
Dead Eye 2: The Skinwalker Conspiracies (Coming Summer 2011)
Spirals of Destiny Book Two: Sorceress (Coming Winter 2011)
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Epilogue the First
Epilogue the Second
Confessions of a D-List Supervillain Page 19