“That, is the Ice-cycle,” Harold corrected with a look that told me not only was he the one who came up with the idiotic name, but that he was proud of it as well.
“It’s a scooter,” I repeated. “Don’t those things top out at forty miles per hour?”
“Yes, well, you see, you’re not licensed for a motorcycle at the moment, so we thought it best if you start small.”
“I fail to see how this is any better than my car.”
A quick glance around the room showed that I wasn’t the only one who thought the thing was stupid. Jet Set could barely contain his smirk, Dr. Cannibal and Manifestation both gave me a sympathetic smile, and Take looked like she was fantasizing about painting it pink and driving the damned thing around Italy. Only Oddball didn’t seem to have an outward care, but for all I knew, Oddball was off visiting his home planet in his head.
“Well, it’s small, maneuverable, and you can park it virtually anywhere,” Harold explained.
Okay, so he did have a point. I was getting tired of racking up parking tickets, but still, the idea of being caught riding that thing made me shudder.
“How much is it going to set me back?”
“Hardly anything,” Harold assured me. “Six thousand for the basic model, but for a couple bucks more, we can add some features like a basket.”
“Yeah, see, that’s the thing. I don’t have a spare six thousand anything laying around.”
I was well past the point of being embarrassed over my comparative poverty and had moved into righteous indignation.
“I’ll buy it.”
I turned to look at Take—who was still staring at the scooter with stars in her eyes—and raised my eyebrows in question. She had an entire underground lair full of priceless and infinitely more powerful machines. Why she wanted a scooter with a goofy paint job was beyond me.
“Consider it a gift,” she said with a wink. “You just have to let me take it out for a spin.”
Suddenly an old and offensive joke I’d heard back in high school made sense.
Well, sort of…
Fun, it would seem, is a very, very subjective concept.
The Ice-cycle may have been a gift, but I still ended up coughing up a bunch of cash I hadn’t planned to spend. Neither Take nor Harold had taken into consideration that my talent didn’t make me splat-proof, which meant I needed to buy my own protective gear. Though in hindsight, they probably did me a favor since I was able to go pick out a simple and unadorned helmet and jacket, whereas they probably would have insisted on making me match the gaudy paint job.
Of course, what to do with the gear proved to be problematic. I found I could easily hide the scooter in an alley and I was reasonably sure no one would be desperate enough to steal the ridiculous thing. Though truth be told, it wouldn’t have bothered me too much if they did. But I sure as hell wasn’t going to leave my expensive helmet and jacket unattended, which is why I ended up looking like a reject from a biker gang B-movie as I climbed the fire escape to the roof of city hall.
Ridiculous getup aside, I was pretty damned proud of myself for coming up with the plan I would be setting in motion. After last week’s failure, I decided to appeal to Magnificent Man’s patriotic side by putting forth the rumor that I had plans to kidnap the mayor in a bid to take over the city and that I would be setting my trap this weekend.
In hindsight, it sounded really dumb. Well, it had sounded really dumb when I was coming up with it. If I was really planning on kidnapping the mayor, I probably would have gone to her home. Besides, what the hell did I actually stand to accomplish by taking over the city anyway? But the ridiculousness of the fake plans were all part of the real plan. I needed something that sounded completely over the top, but wouldn’t cost me anything in the end.
And if I just so happened to accidentally hack into the court records and delete a few parking tickets while I was here…
“Looking pretty hot, Frosty.”
Dammit.
Wildcard stood in the center of the roof, casually tossing a grenade and catching it like he was playing catch with a football.
“Nice threads. I like.” He walked around, studying me from every angle, as if he hadn’t seen it all and more already. “I even like the helmet. Kinky.”
“Can it,” I snapped. “I don’t have time for banter.”
“Oh, I’ve got more than banter on my mind.”
“I’m serious, buck-o. I’ve got work to do and I’d rather not resort to violence before the main event, so if you would kindly buzz off, I’d appreciate it.”
“Sorry, babe, not happening.”
I took off the helmet and tossed it aside. “You told me you’d stay out of my way,” I reminded him. “You’re currently in my way.”
“Yeah, about that…”
“Oh don’t you even tell me…”
Even with most of his face covered by a mask I could see the sheepish smile that accompanied Wildcard’s shrug.
“Sorry, doll. A job’s a job.”
“Son of a….” I was so angry I let out a blast, icing a ten foot radius in every direction. Wildcard was damned lucky he could jump. “Just… tell me where the Magnificent Coward is hiding out and maybe I’ll let you leave here with your junk intact.”
“You know that ain’t how this works, Frosty.” He gave another shrug. If he was trying to be cute, he failed. “I was hired to stop your nefarious and—if I may be honest here for a moment—ridiculous plan, so the way I see it, we can duke it out here like savages or…” He took a step closer and gave me a suggestive look. “…we can take it behind closed doors, get naked, and duke it out like savages.”
“I’m gonna have to take a raincheck on both counts,” I said, keeping my shoulders squared even if I couldn’t keep the defeat out of my voice.
Any other time, I would have welcomed the distraction. Hell, there were plenty of times in the past where option A led to option B, but I was too angry, embarrassed, and let down to even entertain the thought. Instead, I just collected my helmet and hopped down to the fire escape.
“Aw, come on, babe, don’t let it get to you.”
I should have known Wildcard wasn’t going to let me get away so easily. At least he caught up to me before I made it to where I’d hidden the Ice-cycle. I’d never live it down if he caught an eyeful of that thing.
“This is just the way the old guy operates. It’s nothing personal.”
“Nothing personal?” I spun around so fast I nearly traveled back in time. “Dee, you’re the only ‘Fig who knows how very personal it is.”
“Okay, yeah, for you it’s personal,” he admitted. “But Double M don’t know that.”
“Well yeah… But still,” I let out a strangled sound of frustration. “I’m a Coalition member now. He can’t just hire any old ‘Fig to fight me. That’s not how it works!”
“I’m pretty sure there’s no rule that says the LG can’t hire an independent contractor to deal with the Coalition.”
“Why not? There’s a rule about damned near everything else,” I muttered. Wildcard looked like he was about to say something else, but I gave him a silencing look. There was only so much of his banter I could take at any given time. “I’m going to cut my losses and go have a drink. You’re welcome to come with me,” I offered.
“You talking about that snooty joint with the glass windows down by your place or do you want to head over to the Painted Pony and stumble back to my pad?”
“Actually, I was thinking of someplace a little more centrally located where we won’t stick out dressed like this.”
“If you mean the Ninja, no can do. I’m not allowed in there anymore.”
“What the hell did you have to do to get kicked out of a place where bar fights are business as usual?”
“I took a whiz in the potted plant.”
“The fern in the vestibule?”
“You noticed it too, eh? I thought that thing was a little freaky.”
“It
’s a potted plant in a bar. Kind of hard not to notice.”
“Yeah, well, you would have thought I assaulted a little old lady the way they reacted,” he said with a shudder. “I unzip to take a leak and next thing I know I’m having my manhood threatened with a flamethrower, and I’m out on the street with a lifetime ban from the joint.”
I don’t know what was more ridiculous, his story or the fact that I actually believed he would be so crass as to piss in a decorative plant, no matter how unnerving it might have been.
“Well, I have not been kicked out, so I guess I’m drinking alone.”
Somehow that sounded way cooler and less desperate in my head.
“He’s not at the bar.”
“Who?”
“Oh come on,” he said with a look. “Don’t play dumb, Frosty. I tried to tell you it wasn’t going to be as easy as that.”
“But why not?” I asked, genuinely curious. “All of the other Liberty Gang members already have a nemesis. The way I see it, ignoring me is negligent.”
“The way you see it, sure, but you’re not looking at it from the old guy’s perspective. I told you, babe, you don’t think like a Mal. You pull your punches.”
Dammit. He was right, in a way. Not about me not being a proper Malevolent because he was very wrong about that, but no, I was not about to set up a major catastrophe for a number of reasons. Not only because I didn’t see putting half the city’s population in harm’s way as being necessary to being an antagonist, but I was just as reluctant to do something that would find me slapped with a giant and unpayable bill from the city.
“You know, that’s still negligence on his part,” I noted, realizing my mind had begun to drift into psycho territory. “What if I was to do something truly awful, like send a bus full of senior citizens sliding across the highway to their doom, but Magnificent Man wasn’t there to stop me? Or worse, he was there, but he couldn’t save them? He would be just as at fault as I would be and we’d both end up in jail.”
“Now you’re not even making any sense.”
“Don’t you have anywhere else you need to be?” I asked with annoyance. Truth be told, I was getting tired of standing around and the helmet was getting heavy, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to go find the Ice-cycle while Wildcard was still hanging around.
“Nope.” He flashed a smile meant to further annoy me. “Tonight was the easy money.”
“I’d make you eat your words, but we both know you’d enjoy that too much,” I snapped.
“Well, if you’re offering…” He took a step closer, completely misinterpreting my frustration as banter. I suppose I was half to blame for that.
“I’m not,” I clarified and took a step back. “I’m sorry, Dee, I’m bad company tonight. I’m just going to go home and sulk.”
I stood waiting for him to leave, but the dumbass just stood there, as if he was waiting for something.
“Well, go on then,” I said, shooing him away.
“Can’t a guy be chivalrous and at least walk a gal to her vehicle?”
“I can take care of myself, you know.” I held up one icy fingertip.
“Uh huh. Look, Frosty, we might as well discuss the sparkly blue elephant in the room.”
“The what?” Surely he didn’t just say what I thought he did and if so, it had to be a coincidence. Wildcard took advantage of my stunned silence and gave me a quick, playful kiss before backing away with his signature smirk firmly in place.
“The scooter, babe. I’ve already seen it. I just enjoy watching you squirm.”
Chapter 16
The only thing a weekend of sulking, drinking, and sulking some more did was make me miserable on Monday. I spent the day sleepwalking through my job, blindly fixing stupid user errors while my abused body raged against me. I didn’t even bother to leave for lunch. Eating was the last thing on my mind, so I spent my lunch hour slumped over my desk, alternating between chastising myself for wasting the weekend and counting down the hours until I could go home and continue to wallow in my booze-soaked self-pity.
But as the afternoon dragged on, I decided that going home and polishing off a bottle of wine all by myself wasn’t going to make me feel any better. I needed company. Not just any company. I needed a friend I could be open with. Someone who understood the ups and downs that come with having a talent.
Someone who owed me for making me go shoe shopping.
“Wow, so this place actually exists.” Gina Vasquez surveyed the room with wide eyes. “I think this means I lost a bet. Man, how retro is this?”
Getting her to don the AcroBot costume and meet me downtown on a weekday took some doing. Not that I could blame Gina for being skeptical. Not only was the bar’s existence shrouded in mystery, but some of our colleagues were notorious for their not-so-harmless pranks and practical jokes.
“Isn’t it? The first time I came here I would have sworn I accidentally discovered time travel if it wasn’t for the drink prices,” I said as I led the way to the bar, where instead of Ace Guy, Witchy Woman stood sentinel, eyeing a group of septuagenarians who looked to be in a heated exchange over a game of pool. She’d been a pretty formidable villain back in the satanic panic days of the eighties, but her career took a dive not long after. Likely because the whole witches are evil bit didn’t sit well with the local pagan community.
I wouldn’t have been surprised to find that all of Maxima City’s heroes and villains of days gone by were present. It seemed the happy hour crowd was made up almost exclusively of old timers. Some I recognized, but there were quite a few who were popular well before I was born, including a whole group of poker playing old guys in what looked to be the wool costumes that hadn’t been in vogue since the 1940s. How they didn’t pass out in this heat was beyond me.
Notably absent, however, was Magnificent Man.
Not that I actually thought he’d just be hanging out at the bar on a Monday night. Okay, so I might have been hoping to catch him off guard, but that wasn’t my only reason for coming out. It was only the reason I chose the Ninja.
“Am I even allowed in here?” Gina asked, darting her eyes around to covertly gawk at the more famous patrons. “I feel so… outclassed.”
“They haven’t kicked me out yet,” I said with a shrug.
“Yeah, but you’re a big deal now.”
“Am I?” I picked up the glass that was set in front of me and dropped the temperature, frowning as a huge chunk of ice formed. I’d noticed last time that my drink seemed watered down, but this was criminal.
“Ah,” Gina said with a knowing smile. “So that’s it, hmm? We’re day drinking because you’re feeling sorry for yourself?”
“Nope, this is happy hour drinking,” I corrected. “Totally socially acceptable and not as hypocritical a phenomena as day drinking.”
“Okay, so we’re happy hour drinking because you’re feeling sorry for yourself?”
“I just wanted to have a drink with someone I could talk shop with.”
“That’s pretty much the same thing,” she pointed out, but she was smiling as she did. “I’m guessing this weekend didn’t go as planned either?”
“The asshole contracted out to Wildcard.”
“Your boyfriend?”
“Ex… um… Whatever,” I corrected. Or tried to. Trying to explain my relationship with Dee was pointless. “Regardless, it’s not right.”
I flagged down Witchy Woman and ordered another drink. A proper drink, I noted, pointing to the iceberg in my glass.
“Sorry,” she said, setting a new glass on the bar and making a show of opening a new bottle of vodka. “Must have gotten the bottle I keep for the ‘Figs.”
It was a pretty obvious lie, but I didn’t call her on it. Partially because she lined up an extra shot glass next to my make-up drink and partially because I didn’t want the cigarette that was dangling precariously from her lips to drop into said drink.
“Dang! I thought I was the only one with a mechanical live
r,” Gina quipped as I tipped back the glass and downed the double shot in one swallow.
“Hey, don’t give me shit about drinking,” I warned as soon as the burn in my throat subsided. “My secret side talent is the ability to function with a hangover.”
“That’s not a talent, that’s just being a twenty-something.”
“Fair enough,” I shrugged, taking a more socially acceptable sip off my vodka tonic, adding in a sheepish tone, “I’m frustrated, that’s all.” I wasn’t drunk enough to pick fights yet, so I had no excuse for snapping at the only real ally I still had. “Sorry, ‘Bot.”
“No worries. At least if you bite my head off, I can reattach it pretty easily.”
“That is actually the grossest thing I’ve heard all day.” Despite the morbid truth to her statement, it gave me a chuckle. “Thanks, seriously I needed that. Who would have thought that being a supervillain could be so stifling?”
“Look on the bright side, ‘Byte. I think you’re the first, if not only Coalition member to face off against every single Liberty Gang member.”
“Every member except one,” I noted. She had a point and under any other circumstances, that little fact would have had me strutting around like I was queen of the universe. But until I had my revenge, all other victories were hollow.
“Hey, I thought we were past that.”
“I’m trying,” I said with a shrug. It really wasn’t as easy as that, but she had a point. I’d done enough sulking. Besides, I hadn’t even spent a minute thinking about what my next move was going to be and the next Coalition meeting was a day away. “So what about you?” I asked, changing the subject. “Did Take officially promote you?”
“Yeah, I’m officially filling your old boots,” she said with a grin. “But man, you weren’t kidding about that pay raise. Talk about stingy!”
I was really glad I’d asked ‘Bot to hang out. It was great catching up on the gossip I was missing out on now that I wasn’t a member of the team. By the time we left, I still didn’t have a clue what I was going to do about Magnificent Man, but I was able to at least temporarily push my worries aside and actually have fun. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d done that.
A Shot at the Big Time Page 13