Blackjack Villain (11 page)

His black eyes were upon me, visible to me even though he was swathed in an unnatural shadow that obeyed his commands. He had a neatly trimmed full beard almost completely shot through with gray, with the strange effect of his moustache being darker. He wore a filthy lab coat, closer to a shade of charcoal than to white with a dingy black oil stain around the lower hem. On his chest pocket his name was embroidered, “Dr. Zundergrub.”

Zundergrub did something because his eyes flashed ever so slightly and before I knew it, I was moving towards him not fully in control of my faculties. His eyes and mine were interlocked and I could see nothing else, as if we were looking at each other through a tunnel. Slowly I became aware of other things surrounding us. Dark imps, alive and demi-human, dancing at the edge of my vision. Apparently, he stood and side-stepped me as I came almost to the place where he had been sitting.

“I see you,” Zundergrub said with a leathery voice, thickly accented with Indian or Pakistani. “I know who you are.”

Others came into the room behind us, interrupting whatever Dr. Zundergrub was doing to me and I felt him release his hold. Gripped by dizziness, I leaned on the table the Doctor had been sitting on, my weight almost collapsing the legs. I looked over at him, but he was past me, and I swear I saw a hint of a smile on his face.

I guess one of the side effects of being “big time” was working with total psychos.

“Good, everyone is here,” said a woman entering the room, leading the entourage of people that joined us.

I instantly recognized her as the sexy blonde I had seen leaving the court room.

She was almost six feet tall and sultry, with poise and confidence born from knowing every eye in the room was always upon her. Her hair was medium length platinum blonde, layered and wavy with alluring blue/gray eyes that seemed to glow. She had a cotton white vest, much like a big game hunter with tiny canvas shorts and high brown leather boots, with an impressive broadsword sheathed low on her left thigh. She had a model’s body, with long legs that seemed to go on forever and despite being quite thin, there was a lithe spring in her step. Her face had an intense demeanor, and a confidence that denoted her power, and raw sexual appeal. Her jawline was long and pronounced with a long, elegant nose and seductively wide and full lips.

Behind her followed a small cadre of men in lab coats, much like Dr. Zundergrub’s but clean and new. It took me a second to realize they were all robots, not much different in design from the majordomo but in different clothing. I guess I was affected by both the after effects of the doctor’s spell, and the beauty of the woman who led them who gave me a slight nod of recognition.

“Outta sight,” Cool Hand said, eyeing the woman like a hound after the fox.

“Maybe you didn’t know it, but you’re hot” he started coming into her path and interrupting her before she could start. “And I’ve got a few days to kill so maybe-”

“Please take a seat,” she told him with a voice so commanding he shrunk from her like a child. She waited until he took a seat on one of the Ikea chairs before she continued.

“I’m sorry that Dr. Retcon himself won’t be able to meet with us, but he has asked me to lead us through the introductions, and afterwards, I will brief you on our first mission.”

“I will start with myself. I am Influx, formerly known as Moonglow.” She smiled as most of us seemed to recognize her. In fact, she was known world-wide, as a former heroine turned villain. Now faced with her, it surprised me that I hadn’t put it together before, even from the brief glance in court.

Influx paused and eyed us all closely, before sweeping her right arm towards Zundergrub, “This is Doctor Nariman Zundergrub, of Darjeeling, India. He is a master of quantum constructs and a powerful telepath, so I would ask you all to be on your best behavior.”

She smiled; expecting laughter, but none came and continued.

“This fellow is Nuclear Ketchup-”

“It’s Cool Hand Luke,” he interrupted.

“I’m sorry?”

“I changed it. No more Ketchup. It’s Cool Hand Luke now. Got to keep moving, keep people wondering what’s up.”

“Very well,” she said, her frustration bubbling up. “This gentleman can control temporal energies, allowing him to travel at incredible velocities, through the use of ‘time bubbles’. He can also use them on his enemies to-”

“Yeah,” Cool Hand interrupted, standing up and gesticulating wildly. “That’s just the half of it. The dopest thing is-”

“You might want to let me run my own damned meeting,” Influx snapped back.

“Yeah, sure,” he cringed. “I’m good.”

Influx turned her attention towards me.

“Blackjack, an archer without peer, and near-Ph. D. level engineering skills. Also possesses Class-A physical skills.”

Class-A physical skills? I couldn’t believe what she was saying; placing me so high on the scale that normally went from A to E for most supers. There was a higher category, Class-X, but that was seldom used, save for the Original Seven. In any case, before I could give it any further thought, she turned her attention to the final member of our motley crew.

“Mr. Haha 2000,” she said, motioning to the mannequin with the toy rabbit head. It stood quite fluidly and bowed to us before standing straight, almost seven feet-tall with its ridiculous rabbit ears. “A sentient AI, residing within this form, Mr. Haha 2000 will be our access to all forms of information through his permanent connection to the internet. He is also near indestructible, and a master of all forms of combat.”

“A pleasure, my friends,” Mr. Haha said with a voice that was part machine, part radio talk show host. “Later on we’ll have to discuss your signature of waivers of consent for my persistent upload stream-”

Influx interrupted, “which is temporarily offline pending our missions, and final permission from Dr. Retcon.”

“What stream you talking about?” Cool Hand asked.

“Why my blog of course, with access to Facebook, Myspace, and most other social networking sites around the globe. Allow me to show you.” Mr. Haha pointed at a television and the old CRT set turned on. At first it was merely snow, but the robot turned his fingers, as if tuning the television and the set finally became clearer, displaying a web page with a rolling blog on one side and a video display on the top right corner. The video was presently a first person angle from Mr. Haha himself and one by one we appeared on the screen as he turned his big rabbit head to view us one by one.

“At present, I am offline though everything is being recorded for later distribution, of course with Dr. Retcon’s tacit permission. And normally, I have multiple hover probe cameras for maximum coverage, edited in real time, but at present the probes are stored away.”

“You’re telling me the stuffed doll is recording everything we do and say?” Cool Hand shot in. “Fuck this, I don’t need evidence for the cops, I got enough problems.”

Influx stepped forward. “We will only record for our own purposes during our first mission. And Mr. Haha does not have approval for any online uploads until further notice.”

“Indeed,” Haha added. “No reason to worry, my friend. We are all on the same team.” He drew his katana, a rusted, old piece of junk. “By the blade of Miyamoto Musashi, I swear my allegiance to this new company.”

Haha swept his sword with the skill of a thousand programmed sword masters, and placed the point of the blade aimed at the middle of the group.

Influx, liking Mr. Haha’s ceremonial pomp, drew her blade and crossed it with the robots. I drew my most potent arrow, The Nuke, and gently placed it atop her blade. Cool Hand hesitated for a moment then pulled out a stainless steel softball bat from a shoulder harness and did as we did. It was so dinged and dented the label was but a distant memory.

Finally, after a long delay, Zundergrub moved forward and in one hand held a small animated imp of oil/shadow. He grabbed the tiny anthropomorphic imp by its legs, and stretched its neck until we heard a pop and the monster was dead. But still he molded its malleable form into a rough club, and he too joined our group, his mace atop our weapons.

And like that, I was in a super group.

* * *

An elevator took us to a helipad on the roof of Dr. Retcon’s lair that housed the strangest looking helicopter I have ever seen. The big, slick beast had four rotors in outward opposing sponsons, two each in forward and aft ailerons and a trio of thruster engines to the rear, which were more suited for an F-22 at Mach speed than for a helicopter. It also had a side gate open, like a Vietnam-era Huey, where the co-pilot waited for us.

Cool Hand was the first one aboard, chatting away with the co-pilot, who probably couldn’t hear a thing he was saying with the noise of the rotors. He handed Cool a wireless headset. Zundergrub needed help up the ramp from the co-pilot and took a seat, followed by the walking rabbit, Mr. Haha. I hopped aboard and last was Influx, who looked back to the stairwell up to the helipad where a lone figure stood.

The man was in his mid-sixties, and wore an immaculate dark blue pinstripe, cross-over suit with a white rose on his lapel. He stood next to Dr. Walsh, looking straight at us while the chopper slowly lifted off.

Influx waved at him and he seemed to nod, but I couldn’t be certain because the helicopter tore off into the night.

* * *

I’ll admit I wasn’t prepared for how fast the craft traveled as it zipped through the city of Los Angeles, or how thrilled I was at the mission. My immediate concern was low-flying aircraft, for they were quite numerous even at night, over a city as busy as Los Angeles.

I noticed Influx was staring at me like a prize boxer stares down a chump. But then her face broke, and she let down her guard, flashing me a smile.

“This thing stealth?” I asked.

“Are you nervous?”

I shrugged. “Sure.”

She smiled back. “Good. You’d have to be crazy otherwise.” Influx looked over at Zundergrub, who was actually asleep. “This candy bar is chock full of nuts.”

“Talking about crazy,” I said, “at least I’m not the only freak wearing a costume.”

Influx chuckled and looked out the open door.

“So,” I started. “Was that Dr. Retcon?”

“Yes.”

“And that woman, the one from the briefing-”

“That’s his daughter. She’s flesh and blood, unlike all his robotic creations.”

“I thought he was in jail.”

She smiled, “He is.”

“That makes a lot of sense,” I said.

“How much do you know about him? About how his power works?”

“He’s smart, like off the charts smart. Class-Zero strong, fast and tough like Valiant was, but he doesn’t like to use his physical abilities.”

“He doesn’t really have to,” she admitted. “But do you know about his other powers?”

“No.”

“Retcon is a man unstuck in time,” Influx said, watching me for my reaction. “Whatever it is that gave him and the others their powers, caused a rift of space and time within his body. Retcon of the present, Retcon of this very instant is in the Utopia jail. But Retcon can access his forms of the past. The guy is everywhere.”

I took that all in, suddenly overwhelmed at the possibility. “Then why does he even need us?”

“Like you said, he doesn’t like to get his hands dirty. And besides, if they thought he was up to something don’t you think they would all gang up on him? With us, who’d give a damn?”

It made sense. We could operate relatively under radar and be much more effective than he would, and not have to fight off every super in the book.

“So are you management, or one of the help?” I wondered aloud.

Influx flashed her trademark crooked smile. “I’m just a schlub like you, Blackie,” she toyed.

“I don’t know if I like that nickname.”

“Then how about BJ?”

I cringed.

“Guess not. You’re not leaving me much to work with. I give everyone I work with a nickname.”

“What’s Haha’s?”

“Old Rabbit Head,” she joked. Her laughter was like soap flowing down a baby’s bottom, silky smooth and womanly.

“That’s not bad.”

“Cool Hand is Runny Red Sauce and Zundergrub is Oil Stain.”

We both laughed.

“You’re slacking then.”

“What?” she said and punched me in the shoulder, a lot harder than I expected.

“Blackie?”

“Hey, I’m working on it,” she managed, and I could feel her gaze on me as we flew over the city.

The chopper neared the US Bank Tower, Los Angeles’ tallest building, lit in purple and gold to celebrate yet another Lakers’ victory. The pilot flew high but slowly dropped to the street level as he circled the building. Our target was on the top floor but our entry was from the bottom level. Influx wanted to make a statement, going in through their toughest defenses.

“Here’s where the fun begins,” I said as we made our final bank before beginning our hovering descent, and I felt it, I was honestly excited, looking forward to my first mission as Blackjack.

“I know you can handle the front lines,” she told me, “but I’d like you to leave that to me and Rabbit Head until you get a handle on things. Red Sauce is a lot better than he looks, and he’ll stay busy in their rear ranks.”