Emergence (6 page)

Oh, Jesus Christ
. Did everyone want to be a comic book character in this town? The answer was ‘probably,’ which was seriously depressing. I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him.

“Absolutely!” I said. “I know just the people for it. Can you help me get in touch with these guys?”

I slid over a note containing a list of names. They were almost all chimerics. Low-to-mid-level powered ones.

Many career criminals.

Mihailo looked at the paper. “They get names and costumes, too. The ones who don’t have them already.”

I stared at him. “Of course.”

“We will call ourselves…” Mihailo clasped his hands together and looked me dead in the eyes. “…the Masters of Disaster.”

I almost bashed my head against the table. Instead, I put my hand over my chest. “I am honored to be your leader.”

If this didn't work, I was never going to live this down.

#

The Masters of Disaster were, indeed, masters of
being
a disaster. There was no absence of talented, intelligent, and professional powered-criminals in Motor Hills. These were not that crew. These were a collection of the most eccentric, brutal, flamboyant, and let’s be honest, crazy players in the local underworld.

I'd managed to find roughly a quarter of them and another quarter Mihailo had recruited. The rest were drop-ins. These sorts of things had a way of spiraling with people wanting to bring on their buddies, girlfriends, guys they owed, or their own people. As such, the gymnasium of the First Presbyterian Church Youth Center was full with a collection of complete nut bars.

In addition to the ones I'd invited, there was the Human BBQ, looking like he just escaped a burn ward and inspiring little confidence in his ability to keep himself under control. Mink and Fox were a pair of cat-themed ex-strippers and PETA's worst nightmare, yet damn easy on the eyes. There was Metalhead, a rocker whose monster voice caused people to start head-banging. I even saw the Inside-Out-Man, who had no real powers to speak of, but he was about the smartest criminal present; just, you know, not someone you wanted to touch. Oh, and there were six animated cartoons. I had no idea where the hell they came from.

The entire thing had become a supervillain mixer. The PD had arrived twice about noise complaints, only for the Persuasive Man to tell them to take a hike. I was immune to his powers, it turned out, which was a good thing since otherwise I was fairly sure this would have become his group rather than mine.

A few of them complained about the lack of an open bar. The last thing I needed was a bunch of drunk, half-insane supervillains (as if there was such a thing as a sane one) making this more complicated than it already was.

Around 8:15 in the evening, I tried to get the party under control. It had ended up requiring Mihailo, no, sorry,
Captain Bullet
,
to blow a whistle to get everyone to settle into their metal fold-out chairs.

Mihailo was wearing a blue bodysuit with two rifle ammo belts around his chest like Rambo, a gold belt-buckle with a B on it, and a long red cape. Somehow, he'd acquired a pair of enhanced holsters which could contain a dozen different types of gun regardless of size. This included his sniper rifle.

The craziest thing?
He wasn't the strangest dressed one here.

Mink and Fox promptly rolled out the chalkboard which contained a very rough outline of my plan. The two girls got catcalls from the audience, even though roughly a third of the audience was women. I couldn’t blame them since, against my morals or not, the supervillain look just
worked
for some people.

“Thank you, ladies,” I said, walking over and picking up a pointer from the end. “Let's get this done, guys. Reverend Daniels was gracious enough to lend us the rec center, and we've all got places to go and people to kill, so…”

The last part was a joke, but no one took it that way, just nodding.

“As most of you know, I participated—”

“Put on your costume!” said a sixteen-year-old black girl in the background. Her name was Nancy Stonewood and she was my neighbor's kid but, for the purposes of tonight, she was Penmanship.

I stared at her, then realized everyone else wanted me to as well.

“Fine,” I muttered.

Going over to a nearby folding chair, I pulled on a graffiti-stained jean jacket to go with my tie-dyed shirt and ripped jeans. I put a scarf around my lower face, paint-stained sunglasses on the bridge of my nose, and topped the outfit off with a Motor Hills Freebirds ball cap. “There. Happy?”

“That's awfully cheap,” Penmanship said, disappointed.

“It's not cheap, it's
minimalist
. There's a difference. Also, special thanks to Graffiti Girl for altering this to do the same thing that the Mechanic's unnoticeable car can do.” I could have saved myself two-hundred-thousand-dollars of debt, as well as a half-hour of sweaty backseat sex, and gotten her to spray over it with a new coat. This is why you should always compare prices before making a big purchase.

“How come we can notice you if it makes you unnoticeable?” the Inside-Out-Man interrupted.

“
Because I want you to
,” I said, suppressing a growl. “Now, do you want to make money or not?”

There was grumbling.

Captain Bullet pulled out an M16 from his holsters and waved it around. “Listen to Lord Freelancer!”

“Lord Free—?” I shook my head and waved my objections away. “As most of you know, I participated in a robbery attempt against software billionaire Argyle Thompson yesterday.”

“Which you fucked up royally,” the Mechanic said, wearing a pair of Daisy Dukes and a tied-together shirt. She had a scar across her belly button from where she’d been shot at age fourteen during one of the many-many drug shoot-outs in our neighborhood. After our rut less than 24 hours ago, or perhaps because of it, and given I’d just separated from my wife, I now found her even more attractive. Or maybe it was just my wounded pride.

“In fact,” I continued, “I was gathering Intelligence on the security response times, equipment, and material gain. It was a dry run for what could very well be the most lucrative heist of anyone here's career.”

“Not for the Mayhemers, it wasn't,” another asshat in the audience said. This one looked like a werewolf. Hell, he might have been a werewolf.

I pointed at them. “They knew the risks, and they weren't up to the task. If you want to know about the risks, I'll happily spell them out. Considerable. The reward? Ten million dollars.” I paused for dramatic effect. “Each.”

Everyone was now paying attention.

I was, of course, lying out of my ass.

There was an estimation of some thirty million dollars in the bank we were going to rob earlier today, of which I would have gotten a cut of, and a dozen such places spread out over the city. The chances of getting all of that was slim-to-nonexistent, assuming they all contained disposable wealth in the same amount.

Not that they knew that.

I pointed at the chalkboard. “The problem with this situation is Argyle Thompson's personal army of mercenaries disguised as police, which they ignore for substantial payoffs, the Headhunters, the Night's King, the DCD, and Motor Hills police. All of which we can make sure are occupied. Captain Bullet, what is the guiding force behind superheroism today?”

“Desire to do good?” Captain Bullet said.

I glared at him. “Stick to the script.”

“Attention!” Captain Bullet corrected.

“Yes!” I said, slapping my pointer into my hand. “Superheroes want attention. We, the supervillains, know better.” I lied again. “However, by creating a suitable distraction, we can simultaneously hit every one of Argyle Thompson's money-laundering facilities,” I, again, lied about what these facilities were for, “to take them for all they’re worth. You have been chosen, each of you, for your unique capacities which will be instrumental in emptying these vaults.”

That was another lie. They'd been selected because they would make an enormous stink.

“So what will create a big enough stink to do that?” Penmanship said, following the cues I'd given her.

I smiled. “Glad you asked.”

#

A flaming goat-headed alien appeared in the air above Motor Hills Stadium. The warlord stood tall in the midst of a bunch of similar animal-meets-demon-themed figures in Kirby-esque armor.

“I, LORD DESTRUCTUS, EMPEROR OF THE DREADTHOID, CLAIM THIS STADIUM AND ITS OCCUPANTS AS MY SLAVES!” The goat-headed alien made a sweeping gesture. “I CHALLENGE ALL OF EARTH'S HEROES TO A CONTEST OF ARMS FOR THE FATE OF THESE MORTALS! IF THEY REFUSE TO FACE MY CHAMPIONS IN SINGLE COMBAT, I WILL DETONATE MY NEGA-BOMB, DESTROYING YOUR ENTIRE UNIVERSE!”

I watched the event on my
tphone
as the security elevator to Argyle Thompson's office carried me, Penmanship, and Mister Persuasion up. All three of us were in costume. Mister Persuasion’s powers and Graffiti Girl's additions to our outfits meant nobody noticed as we walked right in. Besides, every police car, reporter, and helicopter in the city was now headed to the stadium toward our little distraction.

“So, how did you arrange that, anyway?” Mister Persuasion asked. He was a short, well-dressed black man with a bow-tie, shaved head, and thick black-framed glasses. I don't quite recall why I'd agreed to let him come on my part of the mission, but because he'd explained I was immune to his powers, I didn't mind. I, obviously, had a good reason for it.

“Fake Geek Girl turned out to be responsible for those cartoons at the meeting,” I said, smiling at the craziness. “I had my own plan for something like this. When I saw her, I improvised. Lord Destructus is from an indie comic one of my high school buddies made up. He actually got out two issues.”

“But is that an actual thing? A ‘nega-bomb’?” Penmanship said, looking over my shoulder.

I chuckled. “Dude, that’s just a bunch of randomly blinking lights on some welded together metal. I might be a complete bastard, but even I draw the line at killing innocent civilians.” Which was ironic because, when you thought about it, the vast majority of supervillains were kind of terrorists.

“So your plan is to distract all of the heroes and cops in the city with the event in the stadium, and then rob the personal banks of Argyle Thompson—”

“As a distraction for this, yeah,” I said, putting away my tphone. “Wheels within wheels, boxes within boxes.”

“A double distraction isn’t exactly Machiavelli, dude,” Penmanship said.

“Hush, you,” I said. “You will soon see the utter genius of my plan.”

The elevator pinged and we arrived at the top floor of the Thompson Building, revealing a cathedral-like office filled with ridiculous modern art with stainless steel walls, polished obsidian floors, and a statue of a faceless caped figure in the center of the room.

It was the kind of office that screamed:
I love fighting crime at night!

A holographic display desk was at the other end of the place, its drawers protected by extremely complicated thumbprint and retinal scan locks. A vault built into the side of the wall, if I was following Thompson's comic book logic, probably contained an extra Nightsuit, plus his equipment for linking up with his agents.

“So, what's our plan? Steal the Nightsuit and blackmail him with proof of his identity? Hack into his records? Blow the top floor up?” Mister Persuasion asked, looking around the place in awe.

“Nope,” I said, going to the side of the desk while retrieving a screwdriver from my jacket pocket. I jabbed it into the side of the drawer's complicated electronics and pried the top drawer open. Inside, contrasting against all of the high tech machinery, was a personal checkbook. I took it along with several samples of mail.

I handed these to Penmanship.

“Steal his checks?” Mister Persuasion asked.

“Yep,” I said, giving a thumbs up. “Time to go!”

Penmanship looked disappointed. “Seriously?”

“There's a few other elements to my plan,” I said, smiling. “But this is your part, yes.”

“Seems a little understated,” Mister Persuasion muttered, walking beside Penmanship and me as we headed back to the elevator.

“Eh, I’ll leave a calling card,” I said, pulling out a grenade from my jacket and tossing it at the desk before the elevator doors closed on us.

#

Less than an hour later Lord Destructus and his gang had been pounded into submission by the Motor Hill Brawlers and the Night's King. Just as I thought, the Masters of Disaster had made a right mess of things, tearing up the banks they were supposed to rob, until the other Night's Kings had shown up with the surviving Headhunters, as well as an army of mercs and DCD officers.

If nothing else, I'd blown a major hole in the idea that the Night's King was ‘one great man of history’ and revealed to the world he was a franchise. Things had gotten a good deal messier than I'd imagined, with several people on both sides killed but, hey, omelet and eggs.

They were all assholes anyway.

I’d actually given explicit instructions to one of the six groups I’d sent out. Not coincidentally, it was the group led by Captain Bullet and packed with the ‘
villains
’ I liked. CB had texted me, letting me know they’d gotten away with thirteen million. While not the ten million each I’d promised, I suspected they would get over it.

Besides, I wasn’t going to be in Motor Hills much longer.

Mister Persuasion was in the passenger’s seat of my Supra, and Penmanship sat in the back. I was watching the updates from my crew, the news, and the security cameras I'd placed at my house as well as various hide-outs. We were parked in a McDonald’s parking lot, engine running, with a clear path to my next destination, as well as minimal traffic.

We had less than five minutes until things went to hell.

4:45 if I had to estimate.

“How long until the checks clear?” Mister Persuasion asked. I was already picking up on the downsides of his abilities—the more he talked, the more I could see through his abilities. I was already starting to question why I was giving him a third of the ten million I was siphoning from Argyle's accounts.