Almost Infamous: A Supervillain Novel (17 page)

She slowed her stroll just enough to let me catch up. We walked among the leftover facades from the day’s test, most of them torn down or damaged, but a few intact, making the place look all the more like a ghost town under the light of a full moon.

“What are you doing here?”

Her eyes glowed gold in the dark. “This place is ridiculously haunted, but it has its charms.”

That didn’t answer my question. Seeing this, she added, “I haven’t had a home, or a family, for a while, and even though this place is hell on my power, I’ve started to get attached to it, and to all of you. After tomorrow, that all goes away.”

“It doesn’t have to,” I said. “You could still make the team. We all could!”

“As ever, your optimism is refreshing,” she said, looking at me long and hard. Her eyes had stopped glowing, her face completely disappearing behind that porcelain doll mask.

Finally, she said, “So, do you want to fuck?”

If I had a drink in my mouth, I would have spit it out. “What?”

“I asked if you wanted to fuck.”

“Yes! Why? Here?” I don’t know which word I blurted out louder, but they all sounded deafening.

She sighed. “It was never this difficult back home…”

“But—”

“To answer your first question: There’s a good chance one of us, or even both of us, will be in the Tower tomorrow. I haven’t had sex in three years, and you’re a virgin. I want to get laid at least once before a lifetime of imprisonment, and you don’t want to go a virgin, do you?”

“I find absolutely no problems with that logic.”

“And, for the second question…”

She took me by the hand, pulling me through the doorway of one of the facades that was still mostly standing. There were cheap plywood walls around us, and most of a roof, though it had enough holes to let the moonlight in. My heart was beating so heavily it made my ears ring. Was this really happening?

She pulled her cloak off and spread it out on the ground, running a hand through her pixie-cut hair. “You know, Aidan, this would be easier if you started to undress.”

Yeah, this was happening.

She made getting undressed look good, turning away from me to unzip her formfitting bodysuit, slowly stripping it off to reveal her body, removing her sports bra, and sliding her panties to the ground.

I had to give myself points for not falling over once in my melee to tear off my clothes. With the pants not giving way, I wound up focusing on the crotch of them and sending them rocketing off my legs in an explosion of leather strips and torn boxers.

In retrospect, I was really lucky not to have blown my balls off.

I turned back to see her. She still faced away from me.

“Are you ready?” she said, her voice wavering only slightly.

“YES! I mean… yeah, I’m ready.”

Slowly, she turned to face me. Save her mask, she was completely naked. Her breasts sagged more and had a slightly different shape from all the girls I’d seen online, and she wasn’t as diligent at trimming the hair above her pussy either, but she was naked and willing to have sex with me. At this point I could look past a lot of things. I was just hoping she wouldn’t laugh at the size of my dick; I knew I didn’t stack up to the guys online, but I hoped it wasn’t enough to send her running.

She didn’t. She just approached me slowly. If it weren’t for the mask, and her face, I guess we’d have kissed. Knowing this wasn’t possible, I just pointed at her boobs. I’d wanted to do this since I first noticed boobs.

“Can I?”

“Sure,” she said, cooing briefly when I first grabbed them. “That’s good. No, not that, no, not that hard… no, they’re attached, okay, better, yeah, like that… wait, no, not like—yeah, your mouth is nice on—no, too much teeth, I can feel that and—that’s better, that’s good, keep doing that…”

That got a moan. Unless she was faking on me, I must have been doing something right. Enough right that she took me in her hand and started stroking.

“Lie down,” she said.

I did as she said, and for a moment that felt like a month, I started to wonder just what this meant.

Were we still friends? Was this supposed to be something more? Was
she
thinking this was something more? Was
I
supposed to? What the hell was going on?

The questions stopped when she straddled my hips, grabbed me and lined me up with her.

“You can still back out if you want to,” she said.

I wanted to say I didn’t, but only wound up shaking my head.

She rocked her hips.

I was inside her.

“Congratulations,” she said.

“Thanks,” I whimpered, still trying to get that ringing out of my ears so I could fully absorb just what was happening.

She started rocking her hips. I didn’t know if I was supposed to move or stay still. I was feeling good, mostly, but I wasn’t used to my dick being stuck at this angle and it kind of hurt. Feeling more and more awkward as I just lay there, I grabbed onto her hips and tried arching into her fast and hard like I’d seen online.

This didn’t do either of us any good.

She pinned me down, slowing my thrusting. “You’ve got a lot to learn. Just take it easy. This is supposed to be fun.”

“I’m having fun!” I said, falling back into her cloak as, too soon, I erupted inside of her.

My world went black as it felt like I was completely drained.

So that was sex. Cool.

I thought I was finished, but I wasn’t. She rolled off of me, telling me to help her out so she could finish. Her fingers occupied her pussy pretty effectively, but I played with her boobs some more, stroking, pinching, and sucking until she came too.

Panting, she looked up at me. “Never leave a girl unsatisfied; you’ll look like an asshole. Leave one with superpowers unsatisfied, you’re liable to wind up dead.”

“Good safety tip,” was all I could think to say.

Rolling off the stained and dirty cloak, she started to gather up her clothes. “Come on. We should get dressed before people start to miss us.”

“So, we’re finished?” I asked. I thought there were supposed to be a lot more positions involved.

“
You
are,” she said, pulling her panties back on.

“I guess…” I said, looking around. “Thanks.”

“Don’t get all mushy, at least emotionally, Aidan. It was just sex.”

“So… we’re still friends, right?”

“If you want to be,” she shrugged. I couldn’t tell, but I think this time she was the one hiding something in her voice.

“I do,” I said. “Think we can try that again sometime?”

“Maybe,” she said, laughing softly. “Let’s see how tomorrow goes.”

“Sure,” I said. “Say, have you seen my pants?”

She laughed more loudly. “You blew them off in a fit of passion. Which I guess I should take as a compliment.”

She might have taken it as a compliment. I took it as a guy with a shrinking, sticky penis having to walk pantsless—and underwearless—across a dark stretch of Death Island into a camp of supervillains. Only one word seemed adequate to sum up that problem.

“Fuck.”

#Supervillainy101: El Capitán & Edward Edge

They say that if you’re a norm, you dream of being a super, and if you’re a super, you dream of being a Titan, and if you’re a Titan, you dream of being El Capitán.

The world’s seventeenth confirmed Titan, El Capitán is considered America’s, and often the world’s, greatest hero. While many of the Titans have used their near-limitless strength, invulnerability, and myriad other powers to create an elite and aloof clique of supers, El Capitán has always fought for the little guy. Growing up poor in Baja California (before it was added as our fifty-eighth state, mostly at his request), he knew hardship that most heroes never would and vowed to fight injustice however he could. Upon discovering his status as a Titan, he donned his trademark red, green, and gold luchador outfit and immigrated north, joining the United States in World War II and almost single-handedly repelling a joint Canadian-Lemurian invasion from the north. His constant charity work and efforts during the War on Villainy are seen as a beacon of American virtue.

And he probably wouldn’t have made it that far if he didn’t have his archnemesis.

Millionaire industrialist and inventor Edward Edge, founder of Edge Industries and all its subsidiaries (there’s at least a 70 percent chance they made the e-reader you’re reading this on), was one of the greatest voices in the anti-super movement of the late 30s and early 40s. Seeing them as a menace to American life, he led a public campaign to discredit them, and a private campaign to have them killed, mostly to keep his vast and secretive criminal empire profitable. El Capitán was his number one target, and though the two fought many times over the decades, neither could truly win. Nothing Edge tried could kill El Capitán (though he came close on a few occasions), and he was so good at covering his tracks that El Capitán could never get enough evidence to imprison him. On his deathbed, Edge summoned the media and El Capitán to make a full confession, stating that he wouldn’t have been as great a villain if it weren’t for the hero.

The last thing he heard before dying was El Capitán admitting the same.

Of course, being one of the world’s greatest supervillains, Edge wouldn’t let El Capitán get the last word. Moments after he died, a pacemaker installed in Edge’s heart sent a signal to a bomb planted in the newspaper office where El Capitán’s girlfriend worked, killing everyone inside.

The epitaph on Edward Edge’s memorial simply read, “I won.”

#LessonLearned:
Nothing brings greatness like a good archnemesis.

10

ARCHNEMESIS DAY

The world looks a whole lot different after you’ve gotten laid. It’s like there’s a switch that goes off that just gives you hope that things just aren’t as bad as they previously seemed… or maybe that all comes from knowing you’re not going to die a virgin.

I didn’t know where Ghost Girl’s head was, since we didn’t have a lot of time to talk before we had to sleep. I did know that I was still riding pretty high when Blackjack’s voice came over the loudspeakers at four in the morning, telling us all to wake up and get dressed.

Get dressed at four? Sure, why the hell not?

I wasn’t a virgin anymore. I was a
man
. I could do anything.

Whatever we were doing, it wasn’t too formal; they’d delivered street clothes on top of our foot lockers. I recognized the t-shirt, jeans, shoes, and socks as my own.

We got dressed in silence, the others nervous and excited and fearful, and maybe I had some of that too, but it wasn’t what I was focusing on. For the first time since I’d gotten here, I had complete confidence.

That lasted until I heard the announcement.

“Apex Strike, report to the mess hall ASAP!” Blackjack barked over the loudspeaker.

I walked through the men’s barrack, getting some best wishes, some glares, and a very hungover growl from Carnivore as I walked to my final test. My shakes returned more the closer I got to the mess hall.

Are they going to send you to the Tower? Is that why they gave you street clothes? No, that doesn’t make any sense. Maybe they’re letting you go? Wait, why the hell would they do that? Now you’re really thinking crazy.

I finally stopped my hands from shaking when I opened the mess hall door.

Blackjack sat on one of the hall’s long tables, an open Tri-Hole floating a foot off the ground next to her. Instead of her usual cigar, this morning she was chewing on a Hot Pocket.

“Mornin’, Apex Strike,” she said conversationally, wiping melted cheese from her chin with the back of her hand, then wiping it on the table.

“Good morning, ma’am,” I said, walking to meet her only when she waved a hand.

“Don’t gimme any of that ma’am shit today, boy. There’s a fifty-fifty chance we’re gonna be coworkers at the end of the day. Why not just try calling me Blackjack?”

“Okay… Blackjack,” I said, trying not to sound too terribly awkward about it.

“You know what? You kinda remind me of me before I got cursed,” she said, smiling wryly.

“Thanks?”

“No. Not really. Before I was as immortal as a Titan, I was a pretty girl who was more concerned with what my daddy thought and impressing some high-society gents and stayin’ pretty and clean and rich and safe. For a while after my curse, I thought things could stay the same, but they couldn’t. Nothing ever stays the same when this life chooses you, no matter how much you try,” she said, her voice sounding tired. She pulled a flask from her jacket and took a hit, then tipped it to me.

“It’s not even, like, five in the morning,” I said.

“Trust me, today, you’re gonna need it.”

Fair enough. I took a quick hit of her flask. It tasted of burning and Hot Pockets. I coughed, spitting half of it out, which got her to crack a smile.

“That’ll put hair on your balls,” she said, taking another long swig and pocketing it. “On the other side of that Tri-Hole is your final test. This one’s not like any other you’ve done before. Just gonna be one-on-one, you and a hero, trying to see if you’ve got what it takes to be archnemeses. You’ll spend the day together and if they think you hit it off enough, you’re on the team. Think of it like a first date, except if you fail here you don’t go home with blue balls and a black eye, but rather a one-way ticket to the Tower for eternity.”

Miles and miles of smiles…

That wasn’t really comforting, though, come to think of it, I was pretty sure she didn’t mean it to be.

“I’ve never been on a first date before,” I said.

“It shows,” Blackjack said. “Just don’t be a pussy. And don’t fuck up.”

“Thanks,” I said. I gulped, flexing my hands and trying not to let the nervous energy take over.

“Look, kid. You did this to yourself, but life’s still given you a raw deal. It’s shitty, but try and make the most of it. If this is the start of a new life, remember what this last day of being you is like. If it’s your last day of freedom, just enjoy it for all it’s worth, you hear me?”