Origins of a D-List Supervillain (32 page)

Scanning the screen at one of the message boards, I saw a rumor that Patterson was trying to track down the Overlord’s latest secret base.

Jerry, you better watch out,
I thought.
Old Lazarus is trying to press his advantage before your next world domination scheme is ready.
In the old days, I would’ve been angrier, but I’d accepted my life as a D-List Supervillain. Hell, I’d probably write a memoir, if I thought it would sell.

Not seeing Andydroid or any of the Gulf Coasters in my travel plans, I closed out and went to make myself resemble a close approximation of a living being. It was hard not to reflect on the wasted potential of my life. My twenties could be summed up with: went to college, went to work for an asshole, decided to be a supervillain, went to prison. When I got out, I tried to be a better supervillain. Unfortunately, that didn’t go over so well.

Now, approaching my thirty fourth birthday and celebrating almost a full decade of mediocrity, I was pretty sure that if I did write that book, it wouldn’t be anything that I’d want to read.

• • •

The sale and delivery went off without a hitch, which was unusual. I was already on my way back from Montgomery. My limited warranty covered mechanical defects from operation only, not including damage caused by combat or use of this device during the commission of a crime.

It’s all in the fine print, trust me. Then again, if there was a catastrophic system failure, I probably wouldn’t have anything to worry about, but repeat business would suffer.

Making my way back, I caught some of the chatter from the news channels that something strange was going on, on the west coast. The first reports were something about zombies, but that shit hadn’t happened since fifteen years ago in Haiti. Besides, something like this was more likely to happen in New Orleans instead of Oregon. Also, I seriously doubted that someone could pull that off under Grand Vizier and Mystigal’s noses. For that reason alone, I discounted it and kept on flying.

Two hours later, I’d stopped discounting it and was staring at the television screen and trying to figure out what the hell was going on. This zombie plague, or whatever the hell it might be, was spreading, and a state of emergency was already declared for everything west of the Mississippi, along with Western Canada and Northern Mexico.

Just to be safe, I sealed up the armor, and hooked up the re-breather unit. I lined all the spare air bottles up along the wall. Running the numbers with the food paste, the water, and everything else, I could operate sealed for several months without having to worry about necessities.

It made me glad I listened to Vicky and took a shower this morning.

• • •

By six p.m. I’d seen the bugs for the first time. They’d gotten into a news station in Duluth while it was on the air and I’d watched the anchor and the attractive eye candy next to him try to brush them away before suddenly stopping and going all glassy eyed. The little critters were small; only about as big as a grasshopper.

“All of you will join with the hive mind,” the two said at the same time. “There is nothing to fear.”

Watching them stand up and walk away, didn’t really make me feel reassured.

Yeah, the armor stays on.

I sat there watching the country go silent one state at a time. St. Louis had tried widespread insect fogging and supposedly the Olympians went there to assist the Silicon Sisterhood in stopping this, but I wasn’t sure. Three hours later, the Olympians were broadcasting from their headquarters in the suburbs of DC that they had a solution, but would need all available heroes and villains to try and implement it.

I seriously considered it, but passed on that kind offer. If they were desperate enough to need a cellar dweller such as myself, they were in deeper trouble than the Buffalo Bills in a Superbowl appearance.

The message boards lit up for a few minutes after that announcement, with everyone trying to decide if they could get some money, pardons, or a chance to sleep with an Olympian for their participation, but shortly afterwards, there was a message from the Wireless Wizard that he was taking VillainNet offline because all the traffic on the internet was disappearing and he was running out of places to hide our collective bandwidth.

Deciding to be proactive for a change, I went ahead and went offline; amused by the panic spreading through my fellow supervillains.

Wow, end of the world and everyone is trying to figure out their angle, but take away their internet and that’s cause for panic. What a bunch of idiots!
As much as I loathed all the fake sincerity of all the heroes basking in the adoration of the public in general, my fellow supervillains annoyed me just as much in different ways.

I was actually relieved that it was bugs, as long as my suit was intact, I was bug-proof. I flipped around and began looking for channels that were still broadcasting.

It took three days before BBC Australia went offline, but that was the last English speaking station that I could find.

• • •

“...broadcasting in the clear on this frequency. Is anyone else out there?”

I’d broken out a beat up shortwave radio and was surprised to find someone still uninfected after almost two weeks.

Against my better judgment, or perhaps because I was starved for any kind of human contact, I flipped the transmit knob. “I copy. Over.”

“We’re running a sanctuary out of Louisiana. Are there more survivors with you? Over.”

“I’d prefer not to say until I know who I’m dealing with. Over,” I answered.

“Hold on for a minute and I’ll get our leader. Over”

The line went to static for a minute before another voice spoke, “This is Swamp Lord, broadcasting in the clear to the person identifying themselves as a survivor. Over”

“Swamp Lord!” I said. “Small world! It’s Stringel. Over.”

“Unfortunately, it’s getting smaller every day, Mechani-CAL. What’s your situation? Over.”

“Been sealed up tight for two weeks. Went out a couple of times, but only had to deal with some mindless cops and National Guard. They were searching through the area a couple of days ago, but I haven’t seen them since. No one else is with me. How have you been holding up?”

There was a pause before I realized I hadn’t said, “Over” and breached short wave etiquette.

“Those bugs don’t do so well out here in the bogs. We got a lot of hungry critters who think they’re tasty. Whenever I find them, I just suffocate them. I heard there’re some pockets in the Everglades too and up in the Great White North where things are too cold. Over.”

Swamp Lord’s gaseous form would keep him safe, but his powers started fading when he wasn’t in the wetlands and that left him kind of limited.

“That’s more than I’ve heard. How many people have you got? Over.”

“Three hundred and sixty two at last count,” he replied. “We’re starting to run low on supplies and could use you and your suit. Are you willing to do me a solid? Over.”

My first thought was to ask what was in it for me, but I thought it over. What else was I going to do here? I’d watched more movies and listened to enough music to drive me to boredom. I could use some company.

“All right, I’ll do it,” I said. “But only because you and I go back. What are you short on? Over.”

“Shit, Cal. You name it! Medicine and food are the priorities. New Orleans is a ghost town. The bugs pulled everyone out of there, but there’re still a bunch of the critters waiting around the city and we can’t go in. But you can. We’re about thirty minutes north of there. You should be able to get everything and anything you need there. Over.”

“Can do,” I answered. “I’ll be in the Big Easy tomorrow morning and will contact you then. Over.”

“Can your suit transmit on this frequency? Over.”

“I can modify it. Over.”

“Good deal, Stringel. You’re a real world saver. Over and out.”

Hardly,
I thought and turned the radio off. It would take me a little while to button everything up here; who knew when I would return.

• • •

After a few hours of sleep I flew up to the hill where I’d spread Vicky and Joseph’s ashes.

“Sorry I haven’t been up here, lately,” I said, addressing them both. “Your employer’s latest plan seemed to have gone tits up and things aren’t looking good. Too bad neither of you were here to talk him out of it. I’m going to try and give Swamp Lord some help and see if I can do something useful with myself. I don’t know if I’ll be back, so this is goodbye for now. I guess I can’t keep complaining about how my life sucks anymore, since I’m still free. I reckon if you were here, Vicky, that you’d  be proud that I was going to do something, but yell at me for doing it
pro bono
. Joseph, you’d probably point out that it took the end of the world for me to get off my worthless ass and do something. Naturally, you’d both be right.”

“Take care of each other and I’ll see you when I can.”

• • •

There’s a certain level of nervousness when pulling a solo job. I’m always looking over my shoulder and worried about what might go wrong. Looting a pharmacy in the empty city of New Orleans just didn’t seem like a challenge. Recalling all the pictures from Katrina, it was way different now. The cars abandoned in the streets, not even wrecked, made me feel like any minute a director would come out and yell, “Cut!”

My usual anxiety started trailing off and in its place were the beginnings of boredom.

That, in itself, should have told me that things were going to go horribly wrong.

I’d brought a pair of slings from my base attached to thick polymer bags. They’d hold five hundred pounds each without tearing and I was filling to capacity with canned goods. A glance over at the discolored, formerly edible goods in the non-working refrigerators warned me against opening those doors. True, I wouldn’t be able to smell it inside my suit and hell, it might even smell better than the less than fresh odor I was putting off, but it didn’t seem like a good idea.

If I ever got to that third version of the suit, I’d have to try and figure out how to fit a shower inside.

On my internal sound system I was rocking to the one and only Biz Markie when the bright flash outside illuminated the front of the store.

“Energy signature detected,” the robotic voice in the suit warned me.

Power to shields and weapon systems,
I thought and felt the suit respond to my mental commands. Cautiously, I worked my way up the seasonal isle and wondered who might be out there.

Maybe Swamp Lord got hold of some other supers. Good! They can help carry some of this shit.

That was the glass half full reasoning that I held onto as I headed to the front door. Outside I saw Apollo’s Chariot, several hoversleds, and at least six of the Olympians. The glass went from half full to all the way to the top in a split second.
Hurray! The heroes are here. It’s about time they showed up to start cleaning up this mess.

Aphrodite, in all her glorious beauty and looking better than that pinup over my workbench, had her fingers touched to her forehead and must be psychically scanning while Athena stood guard next to her. Her probes wouldn’t get through my shields, so I activated my chest mounted spotlight.

“Hey, guys,” I started and was unsure of what to say to them. “Fancy meeting you...”

As the Love Goddess’ head snapped up and I found myself drawn into her deep eyes, an energy spear smashed into the front of the store and sent glass everywhere. That knocked me out of my momentary fantasy all right.

“Capture him for the hive,” Athena ordered and that mental glass I was thinking about earlier; don’t ask what it was full of.

Shit! Shit! Shit! Fire force blasters! Maximum discharge.

My twin bolts of energy hit Ares head-on and did absolutely squat. Hermes had already circled around me and smashed my back with her rod with enough force to knock me into one of the bags I’d been preparing. Grabbing two ten pound bags of flour, I crushed them together as she drew close again. The cloud of flour would hopefully blind the speedster and give me a little cover. Something detonated on my shielding, an energy spear I guessed, or it could have been an arrow from Artemis. Either way, my shields didn’t like it any more than I did.

Options! I need an option!

Hermes was a blur brushing her eyes clear and dispersing the cloud of flour like a dust devil. I was beating a hasty retreat toward the back of the store, firing wildly with my blasters as soon as they cycled through and trying to figure out if I should go straight through the roof or into the alley. Hermes would be on me like nobody’s business if I didn’t get off the ground, but up there Apollo’s Chariot could easily outfly me. Getting away from it would be impossible!

Ares just grabbed the aisles and started pushing. He was going to bury me in a pile and trap me.

My only shot at getting out of here would be to damage the Chariot and fly to the water. I tried to remember if I’d seen Poseidon in the group, but realized that I hadn’t stopped to take notes.

Activate flight system. Fire force blasters!
I blew a hole through the roof and went out of it before the wall of debris Ares was pushing reached me.

There was only one thing in my possession that had any hope of damaging the Chariot.

Activate Self Destruct with twenty second delay.

I dodged one of Aphrodite’s psychic bolts, along with an energy spear, but the archer hit me again.
Does that damn woman ever miss?

Apollo’s pillar of flame barred my way and the alarms in the suit warned me not to go any closer.

Detach self-destruct assembly
.

I reached behind me and felt the weight of the class C powercell primed to explode and hoped it would be enough. I’d never played much baseball or football, so what I ended up doing was some half-assed combination of a fastball and a forward pass, but it looked like it would be close enough...until Hermes streaked in from nowhere and deflected it.

No!