Marcus smiled but said nothing. The Union members had all expected him to blab about who they really were. They never understood him any better than his parents had. In a gossipy family, he was the one who learned how to keep a secret. His parents had already dealt with one unpleasant revelation from their disappointing son. He couldn’t very well have followed up with yet another, one that would have driven the wedge separating them even deeper. So he didn’t tell his parents until his cover was blown, and at trial, he didn’t give up anyone else’s identity. That knowledge may have been his one last scrap of power, but it had no purpose that he could see, either.
“I hope you don’t expect me to ‘out’ them to you now,” Marcus said to Dr. Wheeling.
She smiled and shook her head. “Interesting choice of phrase though, I must say. At least acknowledge that you are not completely powerless, even in this situation.”
“For all the good it does me,” he muttered.
“That’s your choice, though. Even your other powers, they’re still a part of you. They just don’t have a channel for expression, as it were, in this place.”
“What would be the point in exposing them? It wouldn’t get me out of here, it wouldn’t get me back in the Union, and it wouldn’t change anyone’s opinions about me. The public’s been pretty much against me since—since the accident with The Arrow of Armageddon.”
Dr. Wheeling, who’d been tapping her pen again, stopped and looked over her glasses at him. “You don’t accidentally flay someone, Mr. Harris.”
Despite the ominous and somewhat pretentious name, The Arrow of Armageddon had been nothing more than a twenty-something hipster named Yuri from Russia who was really good at physics and engineering. He built himself a nuclear-powered suit of armor and then proceeded to loot every bank in town. He had no qualms about putting people in harm’s way, like the metro bus full of commuters that he threw in front of himself to deflect Marcus’s barrage of electricity. No one had survived.
Even then, Marcus would have been able to control himself if Yuri hadn’t laughed at him. Called him inept. An amateur.
So Marcus shredded him, pulling in every surrounding watt of power to peel away Yuri’s so-called indestructible armor. And when the once-fearsome Arrow of Armageddon lay defenseless in the middle of the street, Marcus didn’t stop, and every light in the city went dim.
Public opinion started to turn against him after that. Even Alan had begun to look at him differently. After the Union held an inquiry into the incident, they voted to let him remain a member, barely.
Whatever Dr. Wheeling felt about his actions, her expression betrayed no indication of it.
“How do you cope with that?” she asked.
“I don’t,” Marcus said. He didn’t realize that was the case until he said it out loud, but then something else dawned on him. “There’s nothing to cope with. People expected me to feel remorse over it, but honestly, I still think he deserved it.”
“Did he deserve it for causing all those deaths, or did he deserve it for humiliating you?”
Marcus held his tongue despite his rising anger. He had to give himself credit for that; normally he would have let his temper get the better of him.
Maybe he was improving.
Or maybe not.
Each Monday, Marcus received a delivery of magazines and newspapers. Unable to listen to the radio or watch television without being a potential menace to the rest of the inmate population, to say nothing of society at large, print media was his only means of keeping up with what was going on in the world. He took the Sunday New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Guardian from London, along with the New Yorker, the Atlantic, Time, and Wired. Barry always dropped them off while Marcus was asleep, waking to find them in the pass-through drawer.
This time, Marcus awoke to the sound of whistling. It was Barry, who was just closing the door behind him. He was not the whistling type, typically. What put him in such a good mood?
The answer was on the cover of the topmost magazine: People, which Marcus usually had no interest in and did not receive. He picked it up and stared at the glossy color image of Alan and Gerald’s smiling faces—well, they were wearing their masks, but still their grins practically burst off the page. Underneath them were the words “WEDDING BELLS!”
Marcus took the stack and retreated to his bed, where he set aside the others and opened up the issue of People. The wedding would be in the fall, a private ceremony limited to family and close friends so that they could make their vows without having to wear their masks—everyone from the Union, of course, would also be in attendance. The President and First Lady had accepted an invitation as well.
Gerald and Alan had made no secret about the fact that they were dating, but this… it stung more than he wanted to admit. Alan had wanted to keep it a secret when he was dating Marcus–”discreet” was the word he’d used. He didn’t even want to tell the rest of the Union. It would be a distraction, he said.
Clearly, he didn’t mind the distraction now.
“I do not fucking believe this,” he muttered.
“Believe what, Mr. Harris?”
Marcus looked up. He hadn’t heard Dr. Wheeling enter and take a seat. She sat there—same white coat, same clipboard, same felt-tip pen—looking completely innocent.
He flung the magazine to the floor. It skidded across the concrete and lay curled against the clear barrier. He wished he could have thrown it at her.
“Did you do this?”
She leaned forward to scrutinize the magazine cover. “I’ve published several scholarly articles, but a byline in People is not among my credits, Mr.–”
“You know fucking well that’s not what I meant!”
Again, his outburst elicited no more from her than a raised eyebrow.
“Yes, I knew they were getting married. I didn’t think it was prudent to convey that information to you at this time.” She nodded toward the magazine on the floor. “I can see I was right. I certainly didn’t arrange for that to be delivered to you, if that’s what you’re asking. If I were you, I’d turn my suspicions toward someone who isn’t a member of your fan club.”
“Barry?” When she didn’t answer, he clenched his fists and growled in frustration. “I want to murder that fat old bastard. I swear I’ll–”
He stopped, the absurdity of his situation leaving him suddenly drained of hope. He couldn’t even make a dent in someone as old and out of shape as Barry. The fact that the warden didn’t bother to put a stronger guard on his detail, even after what Marcus had done—it was insulting. Overcome with impotent rage, he banged his fists against his desk, yelling incoherently.
“Mr. Harris, you really should–”
“I should what? What the hell do you want from me, Doctor?”
“For starters, I want you to keep your voice down. It’s still quite early.”
“Afraid someone will overhear?”
“No, Mr. Harris, I just don’t enjoy being yelled at before breakfast.”
“Really? I thought the idea was to get the patient to open up. For a psychologist, you’ve certainly done a lot of the talking up to now.”
“I follow an eclectic modality,” she said.
“Oh, is that what you call it?”
She gestured at the magazine on the floor. “So is that why you tried to kill Billy?”
Marcus threw up his hands. “No. Why does no one ever believe me when I tell them that?”
“Perhaps because of your temper,” she said drily.
“Well, regardless of that and whatever the prosecutor said at the trial, it wasn’t premeditated. I didn’t know I was going to try to kill him until I knocked him down.”
“With a million volts of electricity,” Dr. Wheeling pointed out.
Marcus sighed. “Yes, th
at.”
The police had contacted the Union when an anonymous caller threatened to blow up a Coastal Power and Light substation. Marcus hadn’t known Billy would get to the scene first. As the prosecutor indicated, though, it wasn’t a stretch to assume the fastest man on the planet would beat Marcus there. Marcus also didn’t realize trying to fry Billy wouldn’t do a thing. All it did was make him talk really fast for a few days.
If he could, Marcus would have taken it all back, every misstep, every lapse of judgment, even his relationship with Alan. But they couldn’t find any trace of a bomb or bomber, and then Billy, the little man-stealing upstart, started telling him what to do. Marcus let him have it.
Unfortunately, as Marcus drew all the energy he could from the city power grid to wipe Billy off the face of the earth, he also shorted out the cooling system in CP&L’s nuclear reactor on the far south side of town. If it hadn’t been for the rest of the Union, half the city would have been destroyed, and the other half would glow in the dark.
“So, you didn’t lure him there just to try to kill him?” Dr. Wheeling asked.
“No! Have you been listening?”
“I have, but if you could set aside your anger, you might start asking yourself some more challenging questions. If there was no bomb, then it must have been a hoax, yes? So the next question is, who made the call? You did say Billy got there before you, correct?”
Marcus was silent for a moment. “You don’t think… seriously? I can’t imagine that naïve little pipsqueak would be that devious.”
“You’d be surprised what people might do.”
“But he’d already won Altitude. I was out of the picture. Why would he need to frame me?”
“To make sure you didn’t re-enter the picture?”
Marcus looked at her, dumbfounded. All this time, he thought it had been his anger that had gotten the better of him, and to learn now that it had been Billy… he wanted to rage at the injustice, but he didn’t have the energy.
“I don’t believe it. I’ll kill him.” Even he wasn’t convinced by his own words.
Dr. Wheeling shook her head. “Incarceration has given you a lot of time to think, Mr. Harris. But as far as I can tell, you haven’t put that time to good use.”
Marcus rested his head in his hands. “Well, I’ll have a lot more time to improve on that, won’t I?”
“While it is true you’re here under a life sentence, parole is still a possibility within twenty-five years, dependent on good behavior. So far, your behavior hasn’t been what anyone would call ‘good.’” She smiled. “Certainly, the warden would not.”
“In twenty-five years, I’ll be sixty-six,” he said. “What kind of a future is that to look forward to?”
“A dim one, I suppose,” she said, her tone conveying no sense of encouragement. She walked up to the glass, her voice low. “Maybe it’s up to you to seek out an opportunity to make a better future for yourself.”
“And just how am I supposed to do that from in here?” he asked.
“I’m acquainted with some people who might be able to help in that regard.” Dr. Wheeling went back to the chair and picked up her clipboard. “My job, after all, is to help my clients address the issues preventing them from having a full, well-adjusted life.”
“So I’m your client now?”
“Technically, the Board of Prisons is my client. But I’m not here to diagnose them, am I?”
Marcus went back to his bed and lay down. “Well, I hope you charge on a sliding scale, because I have no way to pay you at the moment.”
She smiled. To Marcus, it looked almost predatory. “I’m sure we can work something out.”
After breakfast, Barry came in with the dampening harness. Marcus looked for any trace of expression in Barry’s face that might betray his guilt. When he saw nothing, he pointed at the magazine and asked, “Did you put that in there?”
Barry actually smiled. “What, you didn’t like it?”
Marcus narrowed his eyes. “Clearly, my reading standards are a bit higher than yours.”
Barry tossed him the harness. “Just put the damn thing on, already.”
Marcus started to latch the harness in front, but the plate wouldn’t go in the buckle. He tried again, and his thumb ran along the edge of the buckle opening, feeling something stuck in there. It was a piece of paper, tiny, folded several times. When he pried it out, there was writing on it.
He looked up. Barry, true to form, remained over by the doorway, as far as possible from Marcus, and wasn’t looking at him. Marcus unfolded the paper and read it.
“My associates will collect you after you make your exit. I’ll collect my fee later. Meanwhile, you have a wedding to attend this fall. Be powerful, Marcus.—EW”
Eventually, Barry turned to look at him. “Hurry up already, will ya?”
“Sorry,” Marcus grumbled, though he wasn’t sorry at all. He tucked the note in his pocket and buckled the harness.
Power surged through him.
It was so unexpected, Marcus jumped a little, as if shocked—which was impossible, at least literally. When he touched the straps of the harness, though, he could sense the threads of metal in them, strands that hadn’t been there before.
“Hey,” Barry said, actually looking a little concerned, “you OK?”
Marcus smiled and said, “Never felt better.”
He pointed a finger and blasted Barry through the cinderblock wall.
The sirens were already blaring when Marcus stepped over Barry’s lifeless body. “Sorry, Barry,” he said. The man’s sightless eyes stared up at him. Marcus really was sorry, a little.
But not much.
He had no escape plan beyond getting out of the cell. He knew breaking out of the prison would now be elementary. Even if they cut power to the entire complex, he had enough of a charge that he could pull more power from the very air. Once he got beyond the prison walls, if Dr. Wheeling was to be believed, there were people waiting. He wasn’t sure he wanted to go with them. He did know that if he saw Dr. Wheeling again, he’d pay her generously for her assistance.
She wouldn’t like it.
In the corridor outside his cell, he could hear the hum of current all around him, even with the sirens wailing. That was the thing he missed, the steady background noise of the world, its latent power, power that he knew how to tap. He felt it bending toward him. It wanted him to use it. It wanted to be part of him.
At the end of the corridor, the armored door swung open and three guards entered, guns drawn.
Marcus grinned and let the arcs of electricity curl around his fingers.
“Hello, boys.”
Your Changing Body: A Guidebook for Boy Super Villains—Introduction by Mr. Positive
Matt Fagan
Matt Fagan is a writer and artist raised in the wilds of Oregon, where he climbed trees and sometimes wore pants. His stories have appeared in McSweeney’s, Little Engines, and Thought Magazine. He wrote and drew the Love Omnibus, a collection of comics about a gay couple living in Chicago, and the underground sensation Domestic Partner of Frankenstein. He is also the artist on an ongoing comic series called Monster Dudes. Fagan currently resides in Chicago, where he owns and operates Brainstorm Comics, and lives with his “special friend”. He has a dog named The Doctor.
When I was thirteen years old, I spent an afternoon in the restroom of a public library that changed my life forever. What I learned that day set me on a path of self-discovery leading inevitably to this place. Writing the introduction to this book. What you hold in your hands right now is a source of great pride for me, and composing its introduction is, in a very real sense, my destiny. It is also one of the final actions that I am likely to undertake of my own free will.
Commissioning this collection of testimonials, advice a
nd scientific analyses was a decision prompted by the decline of my criminal career, but the book has its roots in my childhood, long before I adopted the name Mr. Positive. Long before I became, as they say, “evil”. While there is still time, I would like to contribute what little I can by telling my story. How I came to be this man, and why I believe this book is so important.
Things could have gone so much worse for me if I hadn’t grown up in the country. In the chapters that follow, many of today’s premier super villains share their most intimate stories, including how they first discovered their own powers; early exposure in urban environments is an emerging theme. At the age of nine, Skullkick was observed punching his furniture into atoms… by a woman in a neighboring Atlanta apartment building. He spent the rest of his childhood in hospitals, military schools and finally prison, all before he ever wore the mask. My family’s little house was situated in the woods on the Oregon coast, safely away from prying eyes. When I wasn’t in school, I was playing in the forest, climbing trees and exploring, and matching wits with my imaginary enemies. I enjoyed turning the woods into a tropical jungle, where I might search for a valuable stone or priceless jeweled artifact, with my archrival just one step behind.
And that’s just where I was, the first time it happened. Deep in the woods on another bright, overcast morning, standing on a log over the shallow creek that ran maybe a quarter mile behind our house. At the top of the embankment on the other side was a cave. In reality, its clay walls extended no more than eight or nine feet into the hillside, but for me it had served as an entrance to Aztec temples, military prisons, the kingdom of the Mole People, and an inter-dimensional gateway to an alien world. I was eleven years old and anything was possible.
On that historic day, I had fought my way past cannibals and dinosaurs and a man-eating plant to get there: the Lost Caverns of Froon, legendary resting place of the Siamese mummy! As I crossed the familiar log—this time around, a rickety rope bridge—I decided that I would arrive just in time to discover that my nemesis, Professor Francois Buchard of the Royal Institute, had beaten me to the punch. I pictured him emerging from the cave and into the light, a smirk on his smug continental face when he saw me coming, too late once again. I felt a pang of anger at his imaginary arrogance.
The Lavender Menace Page 20