Trainee Superhero (Book Two) (9 page)

I hardly ever wore my suit. Occasionally I
would take it out to rob a jewelry store at night or to hassle some
of my competitors by burning down their warehouses, but that was
more for fun rather than any real necessity. I liked the look on my
rivals’ faces when I crashed through their roofs and walked through
their bullets.

It was a good time.

My confidence that I had fooled the world
lasted right up until the moment that
Dark Fire
burnt his
way into my hideout and knocked me out with a Taser. In hindsight,
it was lucky for me that I wasn’t in my suit at the time because
otherwise I think he may have ended up killing me. I woke up on the
Cerberus
with a shock collar around my neck and a furious
Dark Fire
in my face.

He was shorter than I expected; I would have
considered taking him hostage in exchange for my freedom but he
never took his suit off.

He gave me the offer of serving or dying, and
I chose not to die. I won’t bore you with the battles that followed
other than to say that I was an adequate if reluctant soldier and
my peers were an insufferable, arrogant lot with messiah
complexes.

Suffice to say we did not get on. I am
physically small, and the others picked on me until I knocked one
of them out with a slipper containing metal filings. After that we
got along just fine, but I pined for my previous days of freedom.
Life on the boat lacked the independence I had grown used to in my
days as a renegade, and I made many attempts to escape. They all
failed, and I began to despair.

Then the fourth person to steal a superhero
suit struck. He wasn’t as good at covering his tracks as I had
been, but he wasn’t an idiot. He robbed a series of high value
targets, sank a few ships and then disappeared.

Secretly, I hoped he would succeed. I liked
the way he was giving the whole world a super-powered middle
finger. I was envious, even. I imagined myself in his place, flying
unhindered through the skies, raiding banks and cargo ships.

Then he attacked a town and burnt it to the
ground. I don’t know why he did that, but that was the end for him.
Dark Fire
was still official dead in those days, and the
Corps had been holding
Dark Fire
in reserve. The video of a
renegade superhero shooting flames at innocent civilians quickly
changed their minds.
Dark Fire
called me into his office and
had me sit on a chair in front of his desk. It was a big leather
chair with comfortable arm rests.

“You and I are going hunting,” he said to
me.

“Why me?” I asked.

“Set a thief to find a thief.”

He must have been desperate; I didn’t want to
catch a thief, I wanted to be one.

“Sounds good,” I said as sincerely as I could
manage.

Dark Fire
sighed. Metal straps emerged
from the chair and locked down my arms and legs, holding me in
place.

“You must think I’m an idiot,” he said.

The thought had crossed my mind… right up to
the moment the chair took me prisoner. I struggled against the
straps, but I couldn’t escape.
Dark Fire
produced a syringe
of pink fluid and walked over to me. He injected it into my arm and
my whole body went numb for a few seconds.

It was not a good feeling.

“That’s a poison that will kill you in three
days,”
Dark Fire
said casually, “you only get the antidote
if we find our quarry.

I can tell when people were lying, and he
wasn’t.

“Better get on with it,” he suggested.

Where would a supervillain hide? The world is
an enormous place with an infinity of hiding places for those of us
who can fly. My quarry had stealth, and he was smart enough to use
it. A simple search was never going to work if he didn’t want to be
found.

So, what does a supervillain want? Answering
that was easy: power, and superhero suits are power.

I needed to get in contact with him. His suit
had a radio receiver, but that was no good to me. My next step was
to get back into really dark parts of the ‘net where the worst of
the weapons dealers lurk. I still had my old login details, so I
looked like a proper villain again. I even made a few new purchases
while I was on there, just to keep my hand in. Besides, the Super
Corps was paying. I spent the better part of two days there before
I found what I was looking for: someone was buying every piece of
illegal superhero tech they could get their hands on, and they were
paying big money for it.

The kind of big money that is only available
to supervillains, corrupt government officials and other people
with no conscience. Like investment bankers.

I got in contact with the mysterious buyer
and left him a voicemail.

“Listen,” I said, “I’m an escapee like you. I
have a suit with a power source, but it’s broken. I’ll trade it for
two hundred million U.S. dollars.”

A fair price, I thought, for a broken suit. A
price he could afford, if he had half a brain.

I received a reply in under ten minutes, and
we were on. I set up a meeting at midnight in a desert far away
from any people. I didn’t really care about the people, of course,
but it was easier than arguing with
Dark Fire
. The idea was
to let the supervillain steal the fake suit that we had packed full
of tracers and other nasty surprises.

Or that was the plan I suggested to
Dark
Fire
. My actual plan involved stealing the supervillain’s suit
and then making my own escape. I had it all planned out, and I was
sure that this time I was going to succeed. Then
Dark Fire
called me into his office two hours before the exchange.

“Ready, boss? We are going to nail this guy!”
I said excitedly, “Let's go get suited up!”

Dark Fire
was already in his suit, of
course; he never changed out of it. My role in the plan was to
track the villain back to his lair and ambush him. I was looking
forward to it, but not for the reasons he might have expected.

“You still think I’m an idiot,” said
Dark
Fire
, and then he tasered me again.

I woke up in
Dark Fire
’s office ten
hours later. I wasn’t dead, so I suppose he must have given me the
antidote to his poison.

“Ouch,” I said reproachfully.

“You deserved it,” he said flatly, “Your plan
worked out fine, by the way. We got him.”

I thought about acting naïve about why he
tasered me, but I couldn’t be bothered. It was something of a
compliment that he trusted me so little and thought me capable of
so much.

“What happened to the guy?” I asked,
expecting that
Dark Fire
had acquired him for the
Cerberus
team.

“He was found guilty of treason and shot. We
couldn’t have a man like that running around the world.”

I was mildly offended by that statement; I am
a lot more dangerous than that idiot was ever going to be. On the
other hand, I still preferred life on the
Cerberus
to being
dead. The food was better, for one thing.

“Why didn’t you bring him here?” I asked,
“You accepted me.”

“You are both sharks, it’s true, but you are
my
shark. You have your uses, but I’ll be keeping you on a
tight leash. Try to escape again and you will be joining him. Now
get out.”

Chef made my favorite soup that night, and I
had three bowls with extra croutons. That helped settle the
seething anger in my soul as I thought of a new way to escape. I
had no doubt that
Dark Fire
was watching me, and I knew that
he wouldn’t hesitate to take me out if I set a foot wrong. I
decided to stay, at least for now. There are still ways for me to
amuse myself here, and life isn’t all bad.

And it’s better to be a
Pet Shark
than
a dead one.

Next time
in ‘Trainee Superhero’…

New suits and new partners arrive just in
time as things go from bad to worse in the saucer wars. Monsters
appear, cities are destroyed and Chef finally makes lasagna!

If you are enjoying this series, please tell
your friends about it or tell the whole world by leaving a review…
it would really make my day! You can also email me at c.h.aalberry
(at) gmail.com and let me know what you think of my work. If you
send me the name and a short back story for an original superhero
serving with the
Cerberus Brawlers
, I’ll try to include it
in the next part I write.

About the
Author

If C.H. Aalberry could choose a superhero
power, it would be teleporting. If he had to identify a power he
already has, it would be the amazing ability to lose his wallet. He
has also written a few books you might like:

‘
The Origami Dragon And Other Tales
’,
a collection of thirteen sci-fi and fantasy short stories.

‘
200 Shorter Stories
’ a collection of
punchy (very) short stories in every genre.

‘
Zo And The Impossible Gardens
’ for
younger readers and lovers of sci-fi mysteries.

‘
Wish: An Epic Adventure of Magic and
Mayhem!
’ for younger readers and lovers of Fantasy

Lesson Six: Life As A Superhero Is Epic… But
Temporary

Lesson Seven: Take It
Personally

Lesson Eight: Anonymous Heroes Are
Disposable Heroes

Lesson Nine: Fight Together Or Die
Together

Lesson Ten: Go Hard Or Go Home (In A
Casket)

Backstory One

Next Time On
‘
Trainee Superhero
’

About The Author