Almost Infamous: A Supervillain Novel (12 page)

“It’s called positive reinforcement!” he called out, laughing.

Positive reinforcement? Who the hell was he kidding? He was a maniac. Besides, I didn’t see what he had to be so positive about. Back home in Uruguay he’d been a rising soccer star, and might have actually made something of himself if his father hadn’t found out he was gay and forced him onto the streets, committing petty, superhuman crimes to survive. His life had sucked up to that, but now here he was, bright and chipper.

If I didn’t like hanging out with him so much, I might have hated him.

“I can guarantee you that once we make the Chin, we’ll have a view of sunrise like nowhere else on the island!” Felix proclaimed.

“And how’s that an incentive?” I asked between breaths.

“Where’s your appreciation of the beauty of nature?” he asked, steering clear of a humming hornet’s nest the size of a watermelon that bulged dangerously from a nearby tree.

“At home. On the Internet. Safely away from the beauty of nature,” I said.

He looked to the others for support. “Can someone back me up here? Gentlemen? Ladies? Imps?” Not even Odigjod chimed in. Just shy of a month topside had him about as sick of nature as the rest of us. Neither Firewall, balanced on the pair of robot legs she’d modified for her personal use, nor Ghost Girl looked ready to support him either.

Firewall laughed viciously. “No ladies here, I’m afraid. We are
supervillainesses
! Right, Ghost Girl?”

Ghost Girl adjusted her mask as if trying to hide. “Leave me out of this?”

Firewall scoffed, “We are not mere ladies bound by society’s rules of propriety and dignity! We have no time for nature! We are ‘self-empowered’ and ‘actualized by our beauty and femininity and independent, inner-strength to be powerful, easily underestimated foes.’ At least if you believe any of that bullshit the heroes are heaping on us.”

“They actually said that?” Showstopper asked.

“With less sarcasm and anger, but yes, those words were there,” Ghost Girl replied.

“We didn’t get that speech,” I chimed in.

“No, you got cocks,” Firewall said. “What kind of line are they giving you in your confidence classes?”

“Mostly how we’re tough badasses who are so powerful that we don’t have to take shit from anyone,” Showstopper said.

Firewall snorted. “Fucking figures…”

I was lost, but no way in hell was I going to say that out loud. That was just opening the door for one of Firewall’s indignant speeches that I’m sure she was absolutely correct on but I just didn’t want to listen to, at least not at this hour.

Odigjod, on the other hand, hadn’t figured out my strategy just yet. “What is figuring?”

“Objectification. That’s the name of the game for us, isn’t it?” Firewall said. “They try and give us the big
fucking
speeches about how our powers are everything and our other differences are meaningless, but they’re just full of shit. All you guys have to focus on is being tough. We have to focus on being tough, seductive, desirable, mysterious, confident, and about a thousand other things. Every one of us has to be the girl that every boy wants to take to bed but doesn’t want mom to meet. All our bodies have to be shaped exactly right, which is
not
the same as actually being in good, strong shape, and then we have to do everything you do in high heels and just enough light, easily torn fabric to leave something to the imagination while still showing as much vulnerable skin as possible. You…
you
can be fat…”

“Hey!” Showstopper said, feigning anger.

“… or fuck ugly…” she said, pointing at Odigjod, quickly adding, “No offense.”

“Back home, Odigjod’s quite handsome, but I’m understanding your topside point.”

“… or, well, whatever word sums up best whatever you are,” she said, pointing at me.

“I’m complicated,” I said smoothly, recalling every lesson they’d taught us in acting class.

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes I am!”

Firewall looked to Ghost Girl for backup, who chimed in, “He’s more complicated than you think, not as complicated as he thinks.”

“Thanks?” I said, glad for the support, if not entirely sure what she meant. Nobody could read people like Ghost Girl, and I hadn’t seen her wrong yet.

Firewall sighed. “I’m just… so tired of all the bullshit that’s going on around here. They’ve got our lives in their hands. The least they could do is show us some honesty.”

“Honesty? Like what?” Showstopper asked.

“Like telling me that if I didn’t have this mech suit, and they weren’t trending right now, that I wouldn’t rank pretty enough for freedom no matter how powerful or skilled I am. It’s not
fucking
fair!”

Well that was a helluva conversation killer. Firewall tried to look away from all our lights. I don’t know if she was shaking because she was on the verge of tears of anger or sadness. Odigjod sidled up to her cautiously, placing a claw on one of her mechanical legs.

“Odigjod thinks you’re pretty,” he said carefully. She turned to us, smiling slightly, rubbing a hand through the mess of slimy quills that Odigjod called hair.

Looking more energetic than he normally did at this hour, Showstopper clapped his hands together. “We can’t be that far off from the Chin now, what would you all say if I proposed a race?”

“I’d say you’re insane,” Firewall quickly responded.

“Insane, or brilliant? You’re all emotionally compromised; I might just stand a chance this time!” Showstopper proclaimed.

“No, she was right about you being insane! We haven’t cleared everything out of this part of the island yet!” Felix protested.

“You say it’s not safe, I say I’ll meet you at the Chin!” Showstopper shouted, crashing off into the darkness. I’m sure he planned this out as soon as the conversation started turning south. He always had this kind of rodeo clown spirit to him, keeping morale up and trying to deflect any darkness no matter the cost. I’d always thought it was an attitude that was going to get him killed, but since it had served him well so far, maybe he had the right idea.

Felix and Firewall chased after him. Odigjod looked up to me.

“Odigjod shall protecting them,” he said with a bow. Before I could say that I would have also liked his protection, Odigjod teleported out of sight.

“At least we can protect each other,” Ghost Girl said, amused.

Ghost Girl. Of course I had to get stuck with her.

Of our group, she was the one I had figured out the least. The rest of us, we all had our roles: Felix was the good-looking athlete, Showstopper was the joker, Odigjod was the eager-to-please little brother, Firewall was the smart spitfire.

I was the leader, obviously.

All roles you could easily see on a team of supervillains. Ghost Girl, though, she was different. She was nice enough—and could even be funny sometimes—though she tried not to show it. She wasn’t bad-looking from the neck down, though God help you if you tried telling her that. Her powers were vague yet impressive, making her probably the third most powerful member of our group, I think, but that way she always looked at you like she could look right through you, combined with her reserved demeanor, made her hard to get to know.

“Reading my mind again, Ghost Girl?” I asked.

“For the last time,
Aidan
, I read auras, not minds… and it’s Emma. They’ve dehumanized us enough, can’t we at least keep our real names?”

“But we’re supposed to use the codenames.”

Even behind her mask, I could see her roll her eyes. “Did you get here by doing what you were supposed to?”

“Yes,” I said. I followed all the rules the heroes had given us, and aside from occasional run-ins with Carnivore and his gang and the fact that Nevermore still wouldn’t do more than flirt mercilessly with me, I thought I’d been doing pretty well. Blackjack and my other teachers were as hard on me as anyone else, and when it came to the judges I was pretty sure I had both Black Blur and Shooting Star on my side. Even the Voice of the People had managed an odd compliment or two.

She shook her head. “Have it your way then,
Apex Strike
.”

She said the name almost disgustedly. A flash from one of my classes hit me.
Your codename is who you are. Don’t ever let anyone diminish it.

“Hey, I like being Apex Strike a helluva lot more than I ever liked being Aidan Salt,” I defended. “Apex Strike is strong. Apex Strike has potential. Hell, Apex Strike’s got some people who might even actually
like
him.”

“You mean
friends
?” she interjected.

“I don’t know if I’d go that far, but the basic principle’s there! Apex Strike could be somebody! Aidan Salt was as good as he was ever going to get.”

“You don’t know that,” she said.

“So you’re saying your life would have been better if you never put on that mask?”

“My life? Maybe, but goddammit I made a whole lot of other people’s lives better because of it! And even when I put on the mask, I never forget who I am. My name is Emma Hendriks. Ghost Girl… she’s a media creation.”

“But if you never take off the mask, don’t you kinda become it?”

Defiantly, she pulled off her mask. I recoiled.

Seeing my reaction, she put it right back on. “That’s why I never take off my mask in public. I hate that look of fear, or worse, that look people have of
should-I-or-shouldn’t-I-pity-her
. It’s exhausting.”

“I’m sorry. I get it, I mean, I imagine it would be tiring, with a face like that.”

She looked at me for a long moment before shaking her head. “God, I must be high.”

“What?”

“It’s nothing, but… you know, you’re an expert at saying the worst thing at the worst time.”

I couldn’t see it, but her voice told me that she was smiling behind that mask.

“Thanks?”

“Not really. No,” she said, continuing to the Chin.

“So you made people’s lives better?” I asked, trying to restart the conversation.

“I dabbled in vigilantism. I did the things the redcapes were afraid to do.”

I nodded, impressed. “You beat up bad guys?”

“And ‘good’ guys, when they deserved it.”

“Is that why they sent you here?”

“It was either here or the Tower. I hate evil. I love freedom more.”

“Did you ever kill anyone?”

“Maybe,” she said, her words cautious, trying to change the subject. “Or maybe I’m considering it for the first time now.”

I laughed. She didn’t laugh back. “You’re joking, right?”

Ghost Girl was able to pick up their trail pretty easily with her power. Since auras existed in the past, present, and near-future, her power allowed her to see the remnants of anything that would leave a strong psychic impact (like someone dying) or what a person’s actions would be within a few seconds.

Our flashlights wouldn’t be necessary much longer, as the sky was beginning to turn orange. If we didn’t want Felix to be telling us “I told you so,” we’d have to pick up the pace.

“Not all of us are handling the stress of this place the same way,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Helen is crusading. Felix is working out. Nick is trying to focus on raising everyone else’s spirits. You distract yourself with idle pursuits like looking cool and sabotaging your efforts at bedding girls so you can give yourself something to focus on other than the nightmares.”

Whoa, that wasn’t cool.
“Hey, I don’t sabotage my own efforts!”

“Yes, you do.”

“Really?”

“My answer hasn’t changed from two seconds ago.”

“Shit.”

“That’s an apt response to that.”

“How do I stop doing that?”

She shrugged. “Stop obsessing over making it onto the team and just accept the inevitability that whatever happens, happens.”

“Even if it means miles and miles of smiles?” I asked. She didn’t have an answer for that. I didn’t expect her to.

I couldn’t stop obsessing. None of us could. It was off to the Tower if we lost that focus. But no way in hell was I going to stop hoping for the chance to hook up with Nevermore. She was too hot.

“I thought so,” Ghost Girl said, nodding knowingly.

“You’re sure you can’t read minds?”

“Very,” she said, pushing a carnivorous vine out of the way.

The trees were beginning to clear out. I hoped we would get there soon.

“You won’t tell anyone about the dreams, will you?” I asked.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

As I looked ahead, a puff of dark smoke appeared in the distance, shading the almost orange sky. Odigjod.

“Almost there! Almost there! Beautiful view! Felix was right!” Odigjod exclaimed, clapping and pointing ahead. At this hour his enthusiasm was hardly contagious, but it was impossible to hate him. He scuttled ahead, and we quickened to follow. Soon the trees ended, and there was nothing but Death Mountain above us. We followed the trail through the foothills to an old maintenance path dotted with burned-out and bullet-riddled vehicles.

And then we made it to the Chin. It was one of the only parts of Professor Death that had been carved in full into the side of the mountain. The Chin had to be bigger than my high school, and time and elements hadn’t been entirely kind to it, but we’d finally made it.

Felix unshouldered his duffel bag and pulled out its contents: six cans of energy drink from the mess hall and a Polaroid camera, with timer, that Firewall had snuck in with her armor.

The drinks were passed around, and at Felix’s suggestion we raised them all in a toast.

“To the future!” he said.

At Firewall’s suggestion, we climbed on top of the Chin and set up the camera to take a half-dozen pictures of us as the sun rose. They were cool souvenirs. Whether we’d be allowed to keep them was up for grabs, but for now it felt good to have a memory of my… come to think of it, the word friends didn’t sound all that far off after all.

And, much as I hated to say it, Felix was right: we did have a helluva view of the new day from here.

#Supervillainy101: The Radiation Queens

Heroes and villains have always had something of a gentleman’s agreement in terms of not repeating codenames. To put it plainly, it hurts brand recognition and makes it harder for people to tell you apart. The only acceptable time you can take someone else’s codename is when they die. Who gets that name, on the other hand, has led to its share of problems.