by Skyler Grant
It wasn’t the only trap. Further in the building behind a set of double doors the henchmen would patrol. There were also carefully placed steam jets, some of which could be electrified.
I couldn’t do much to hide my server room. I at least had a ‘hazardous chemicals’ sticker slapped on the door that I hoped would dissuade anyone that was lucky enough to make it that far.
Niles meanwhile got to work on the rest of the motorcycles, along with some of the excess hardware from the server room, making two final inventions.
The first was a drone. It couldn't fly, only a wheeled platform with a camera, networking equipment, a manipulator arm and a shotgun.
That gave me some mobility provided I could keep a network signal.
The second invention was what we needed to breach the other levels. A drill that should penetrate between floors so long as they weren’t armored.
Niles really was a technical genius. All of this equipment only took him a day and he even had four hours to get some sleep.
“This should work, but I don’t know if we’re ready to go down there. Your drone isn’t going to fight anything and our henchmen aren’t exactly ready for a major clash,” Niles said.
“We need funds and we’ve used up the resources we have. Do you have a better idea?” I asked.
“We’ve got a villain’s license, we have some men. We could hit someone else. There are other ruins here, other buildings. We could try to scavenge more supplies,” Niles said.
“We send our henchmen out there, they aren’t here. At least on the floor below they're still nearby if something happens. There is also the fact that anything easily looted and worth much was taken long ago by the gangs.”
I’d had a chance to look around when Niles was out earlier and been able to get more of the story of this district.
Most of the population that lived here had mutated, taking on animal traits, and those had become hereditary. They had sorted themselves into gangs, mostly according to type. Several blocks might belong to avians, another felines. Locally it was hogs, obviously, which was why I feared they’d return eventually.
Even if we’d beaten them twice, this was their turf. Once they got reinforcements they’d return to make sure we were driven out.
“Well, working in our favor is that I think the first levels we could breach will be the least dangerous. They’d be less secure, being the first dug out and created. Vattier filled the early floors with their minor clients and the later, deeper floors are the truly dangerous. That's why Patriot is so far down,” Niles said.
It was as good a theory as any.
“Then we’ll clear them out and see what is there. Our henchmen have insurance. Are we liable for the costs if they die?” I ask.
“At our current size of operation, no. That's part of the reason villainy licenses are tough to come by. It's in everyone's interest to keep a ready supply of henchmen, so your first few have their resurrection contracts covered,” Niles said.
“Does that apply to you?”
“Not a member of the Henchmen Guild,” Niles said, shaking up his head. “I’ve got a bracelet, but it's out of power. Until the way down is clear I am not going into any holes.”
“I don’t suppose this Emmatech technology works on artificial intelligences?” I asked.
“No mechanical or electronic life, only biologicals. I’m not sure why, given they have some of the most cutting-edge technology out there. You should be able to make your own backups though, at least once we get you some more hardware.”
At least my drone wasn’t me. Even if it got destroyed, my servers would be fine. I just had to make sure they stayed safe.
7
The autogrinder chewed through the floor, rock and debris flying. It took some time to breach the next level, longer than I’d have expected from a standard building. It seemed there was a thick layer of stone between each. The builders of this place really had wanted to keep each floor well insulated from the next.
Still, we eventually broke through and I sent my drone down. It was actually lit, which surprised me considering the poor state of the equipment on the ground floor. The light was weird though, shades of brilliant pink and neon green. Either that or I had a distortion in my cameras.
“Is the equipment in better shape there?” I asked.
Niles studied the output on his notebook and shrugged. “Each floor would have had an independent power supply and data network. That's the whole point of being private and discrete. They haven’t been picked over by a generation of scavengers.”
Perhaps not, instead simply trapped underground without an exit. There were skeletons, some human, and others showing distortions of the skulls that suggested an animal transformation.
“You sure about that?” I asked.
“I’m sure. They didn’t need contact with the outside world to be affected by the mutagenic field. Mother packed a hell of a punch.”
The supervillainess who had caused all the trouble here, Niles had mentioned her before.
“I take it she isn’t around anymore?” I asked.
“I really hope not. It's hard to tell. When villains get strong enough, even without resurrection tech they usually find a way to return. That power doesn’t just go away,” Niles said.
Yet another reason I had to get stronger, then.
My drone hadn’t come under immediate attack, so I sent three henchmen down to back it up.
“Whoa,” one said as soon as they were down.
“Issues?” I asked.
“The air got all ... wobbly ... As soon as I got down here it just started spinning.”
My drone lacked anything like sensors. There could be all kind of hazardous chemicals in that air, or a shortage of oxygen.
“Understood. Keep going,” I said.
Each of the henchmen had a camera.
The remains of the clothing on the skeletons looked brightly colored, and in some cases there wasn’t much of it. The walls were painted with patterns that were very nearly fractals.
My drone wasn’t finding much of interest. A hallway led into a series of small rooms, each of which was equipped with a couch and table.
The henchmen were having more success. One had entered into a massive chamber that had an elevated platform at one end. It was covered with flowers, vines clung to the walls, and the air was filled with hazy pink pollen.
“Mom?” one of the henchmen asked thin air.
“Die dragon!” said another, swinging her club against an empty stretch of wall.
“That's sound equipment on the stage. I think this entire floor must have been a nightclub of some kind,” Niles said.
Another henchman had shed all of his clothing and was running up and down the hall, screaming and pounding his chest.
“Do human parties usually go like this?” I asked.
“Not any I get invited to—if I ever got invited. I mean, of course I get invited. I’m cool, you know that right?”
“Yes, yes. You're hanging out in an abandoned section of a city, alone, with your only friend being the computer you awakened into sentience. I’m sure you are very popular. Focus,” I said.
Niles frowned.“That Emmatech software had a bit of an effect on you, didn’t it? You’ve got a real self-aware and grumpy thing going on.”
“We desperately need to turn a profit, and instead of valuable resources to equip our henchmen with we seem to have made them even more useless than they started out.”
The dragon-slayer seemed to have defeated the wall and settled down for a nap.
“It isn’t usual, I mean, I don’t think so,” Niles said awkwardly, and cleared his throat. “Even if it's so, any gas down there should have long since dissipated. I’m guessing it's the plants.”
I wasn’t sure why I was asking questions when I might be able to provide answers. I had to get used to my newfound abilities. I redirected my drone to the hall with the stage and focused a camera on the plants.
Rave Blooms
Botanical
Estimated Value: $1,700 per plant
Description: Rave Blooms are the result of flowers that grew from the corpses of drug-filled party goers after the release of Mother’s final curse. They fill the air with a highly psychoactive pollen that can create intense hallucinations, paranoia, and euphoria.
“It is the plants. I just scanned them. They fed off dead party-goers,” I said.
“That makes sense. We’ll probably find a lot of that sort of thing. What was already there sort of shifted into a new paradigm,” Niles said.
“They’ve got some value, but not as much as I was hoping for.”
Niles admitted, “I don’t even know where we’d sell them.”
“To those friends who invite you to parties constantly, no doubt. It doesn’t matter. It's the pollen causing the effect. Do you think you can build some gas masks?”
“With what I have on hand? No.”
That wasn’t the best of news.
If the henchmen died we’d eventually get them back, although I wasn’t eager to wait and deprive ourselves of the defense they offered. I spent the next few hours using my drone for dragging and herding them back to the hole in the floor where Niles and my remaining henchman, with their heads wrapped in layers of damp cloth, rigged a simple pulley to lift them free.
The lower level had audio equipment and strobe lights that we might eventually be able to re-purpose. Otherwise it was something of a wash.
This day's work had been a lot of effort, and while we could liquidate all we’d found and turn a profit, it wasn’t going to get us to our goal amount in time.
8
“Just a quick trip,” said Henchman Dave.
“No, and quit asking,” I said.
The Henchmen Guild was strangely big on their members not having names. I found that horribly inefficient and so had taken to labeling them Abby, Burt, Chester, and Dave. I liked an alphabetical filing system.
Dave was the one henchman that hadn’t gone down through the floor with the others and so wasn’t sleeping off a drug-induced haze. He was feeling left out.
“Can we get the teleporter working at least?” I asked Niles.
“I can buy a gas mask and get down there. I should just need to re-index the database there. I can rig up a proper interface for you at the same time. Our end up here is the problem,” Niles said.
Right. With the data corruption we had a lot of potential teleporters with unknown endpoints on this side.
“Can I help with that?” I asked.
“No offense—you’re not exactly a supercomputer. You’re running on some old hardware, for all that it did get a kick. This is going to require some high-powered and advanced computing to spend up the process.”
“How much?” I asked.
I figured that expertise was for sale, everything was.
“I can probably get it done for fifty thousand. There are hacker collectives that would be happy to help for the right payday.”
Fifty thousand was more than we had unless we completely liquidated the assets of the floor below, and that likely still wasn't going to be enough.
“This isn’t going to work,” I said.
“I know,” Niles said, leaning his back against the wall and letting out a low breath. “I hoped we’d hit something valuable. We can try for the next floor down, but that is going to take some time. I wish we’d found something more useful.”
Dave said, “That place is amazing. I mean all retro and with the cool drug cloud.”
“Isn’t there some kind of rule that henchmen don’t speak?” Niles asked him with a sharp look.
Dave slumped.
I said, “No, let him. Maybe he’s the only one of us seeing it clearly. We’re disappointed in what we found, but he’s delighted. What we have is an asset. We’re just not valuing it correctly.”
“So henchmen want to party in it? Henchmen don’t have any money,” Niles said.
Dave shrugged, “Right there, boss.”
I asked, “So who does and would like the space? We’re not going to become nightclub owners—we don’t have the skill. Someone, though, was once willing to pay for an exclusive club. Would they still be?”
“Look at what happened to those we sent in. Even a few minutes exposure had them passed out on the floor. That isn’t a party, it's a tranquilizer,” Niles said.
He had a point. Getting any product right meant finding the right level of effectiveness and while we had a great party space in theory, the super-drugs were just too effective. Or were they?
“They're super-powered drugs. What about those with super-powered physiologies?” I asked.
Niles frowned. “It depends. Powers tend to offer some innate physical durability more than standard flesh, but this is probably beyond that. Still, superior constitution is a thing.”
“If it is, then drugs or alcohol that can even impact their systems might be hard to find. Someone like that might love to have what we have down there.”
“So you what? Want to rent out the club for the super-durable to get high?” Niles asked.
Did I? That sounded like too much work and it meant a lot of people coming in and out to use the passage, or the teleporter, eventually.
“This building was once devoted to real estate. Why don’t we go back to it?” I said.
“You want to sell the floors?” Niles asked.
“Rent it to someone who will run the club, do all the hard work. The most dangerous thing about being a supervillain is the predations of others. Think of the appeal of that lair to a villain of the right sort. Besides being great for parties the very air is toxic to invaders.”
“I can see that,” Niles said, setting his notebook down and starting to pace. “They’ll have to be immune or resistant obviously.”
“Is there any sort of database where we can look up suitable candidates?”
Niles grimaced. “There is, but there's no way we’d have access to it. Mastermind keeps records and he isn’t going to show them to us. We can put out an ad on Villainet though.”
That we did, it only took us a few minutes to get the wording right.
Lair for Rent
Secure access lair for rent in upcoming neighborhood. A.I. security. The ideal renter is resistant to superpowered drugs and loves to party. $25,000 monthly plus security deposit.
I thought our pool of potential clients would be pretty limited, but we started getting responses almost at once. Most were terribly unsuitable, and expecting humans to understand either pricing or restrictions seemed like too much. Still, we soon had an assortment coming to look the place over.
Rockinrooster was a rooster hybrid with powerful sonic abilities. His physiology wasn’t resistant enough though and within ten minutes of looking at the place he was down for the count. Iron Liver was a master of the drunken fist style of martial arts and resistant to almost all toxins. Unfortunately he also turned out to be dirt poor when it came time to ask for money.
It was Partygurl who wound up taking the place. Rich parents, a college student by day, and supervillainess by night. She was both super-strong and super-resilient and just the kind of tenant that we were looking for.
In exchange for the next month's rent being free she gave us several invitations for her first big party and agreed to help out on base defense. The invitations were Niles' idea. He seemed to think maybe the hacker collective he knew didn’t get invited to many parties either.
Barter, I loved it. Any CAPITALISM is good CAPITALISM.
9
It had taken three days to find a tenant. Meanwhile Niles continued to work on defenses and systems. It seemed he hadn’t had much of a home before, so we soon had a room set up for him on the first level behind the defensive line.
With his help we managed to restore a data connection to the second floor and we installed monitoring software. Since part of our pitch was me providing defense, that meant security. Partygurl didn’t seem to
mind—security trumped privacy concerns for most villains, at least at the lower end of the scale.
Still, it was a lot of time, relatively speaking. Soon the timer was sitting at twenty-six days until the supervillain registration payment was due or our lives got a lot harder. After spending on some necessary hardware we were down to only $7,435 even after Partygurl’s first month's rent and deposit.
Having a tenant also meant some problems I hadn’t anticipated.
“Wake up,” I announced in Niles’ room, causing him to flail wildly in bed.
“The hogs back?” Niles asked after he stopped panicking.
“Something else,” I said.
There were several craft landing outside the building. They didn’t look much, almost like motorcycles with large turbines on the sides that gave them flight.
I sent the feed through to Niles who blinked.
“Know anything about them yet?” Niles asked.
I was working on it. My value-vision wasn’t an infallible identification guide.
Hover Bike
Estimated Value: $7,000
Description: Standard Issue hover-bike frequently in use by civilians or low-grade heroic and villain organizations. Flight range roughly 400 kilometers without upgrades. Unarmed and unarmored.
Interesting, and not useful. If these were enemies and we took them out, at least their transport should be easy to sell.
As soon as I could I focused a camera on one of the riders.
Camilla Sands
Vigilante
Cross Campus Crusaders
Unpowered
Background: Camilla is the daughter of Senator Samantha Sands of New Londonarium and the leader of the Cross Campus Crusaders, a vigilante squad focused on discouraging up and coming villains from the life. They make extensive use of specially crafted crossbows rigged with various effects to dampen powers and allow the abduction and extraction of villains.
They sure weren’t here for me or Niles, which meant they had to be here for Partygurl.