Origins of a D-List Supervillain (10 page)

“Where are we headed?” I asked after we’d left the city twenty minutes behind us.

“My new hideout. I’m glad you got out when you did. I’m gonna need your help with it.”

Driving another fifteen minutes, he turned off the county highway and down a winding dirt road leading to an abandoned farm that looked like it had seen better days—probably four or five decades ago.

“It’s definitely out of the way,” I said, trying to come up with something nice to say about it. That was the only thing I could think of that didn’t start with the phrase, “My God! This is a shithole!”

He didn’t notice the look on my face and continued, “Like it? Technically, one of the dancers at the bar owns the land, but it’s what’s under it that really counts!”

“Interesting,” I said, not wanting to commit to a hole in the ground, but compared to what I could see it probably wasn’t any worse.

“Yeah, I still have some digging to do. Amydillo did most of the work, before she up and got herself caught tunneling up inside a bank vault, so it’s not finished yet.”

“When did you meet the ‘Dillo?” I asked. Amydillo was one of Doctor Mangler’s test subjects who survived. She’d actually been an actress on WhirlWendy’s kiddy show and tried to get her own superpowered TV deal. Instead she ended up looking like an armadillo crossed with a pinup—kind of hot and kind of icky all at the same time.

“I called in a few of my markers. Amy owed this guy who owed me. She showed up and started; you shoulda seen her go to town, but she got bored and decided to knock over some banks while she was in town, but on the second one Andydroid came down from Atlanta and got the drop on her.”

“How are they going to hold her in North Dakota?”

“They aren’t. She’s been sent to some island in the Pacific, not Hawaii either. Begins with a G.”

“Guam?”

“Yeah, that’s the one!”

I nodded. “Can’t really dig her way off of that, I guess.”

“Yup,” he agreed. “But she didn’t seem too worried. She said she ends up doing work digging tunnels for the government and they eventually let her go. Word on the street is that Amy dug the Overlord’s Omega Base and he mindwiped her afterwards so she couldn’t give away the location.”

As interesting as Bobby’s time with Amydillo was, I wanted to see what I was up against. “So let’s see what your base looks like.”

I started toward the crumbling farmhouse, but he shook his head and pointed at the old grain silo.

Inside was a hole in the ground with a knotted rope leading down. A pitiful strand of glorified Christmas lights were plugged in to a class A powercell illuminating the way into Hell’s bunghole.

Seriously? I should have just stayed in prison for another year! I’ve just traded one hole in the ground for another and the other one was furnished by Uncle Sam.

Making Bobby show me that the rope was attached to a metal pole driven several feet into the ground, I pushed aside my growing doubts and began my descent. Amy had done some quality work, and the walls of the tunnel were perfectly smooth, but I kept wondering how I could climb out of this place if that rope ever failed. This place was in dire need of an elevator.

After reaching the bottom, I changed my mind. This place was in dire need of everything! Power, water, fresh air, a way to get rid of sewage—Bobby hadn’t put much thought into anything beyond the fact that he wanted an underground base and our deal meant I was going to build it for him in exchange for getting me on the ground floor of the supervillain network.

The central chamber was a large circular area about sixty feet wide and twelve feet high. It had a leather couch and coffee table in the middle in front of a massive television. A gaming console and a large plastic trashcan filled with the debris of a takeout lifestyle completed the room.

“I can’t get a signal down here, but I reckon you know how to do those kinds of things.”

I nodded and said, “We can run an antenna line up the shaft to the silo. Getting free internet out this far might be tricky, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. We might have to sign up for the Wireless Wizard’s underground internet service.”

The answer made Bobby happy, even if it did the opposite to me, and he eagerly dragged me down the hallway to where the bedrooms and the main storage area were located. The one bright spot was that his kitchen and pantry area had enough can goods to feed us for two years and several miles of toilet paper. It looked like he’d stolen the contents of an entire Costco truck, but I didn’t want to ask. On the other hand, the bathrooms were four stolen port-a-potties and I added plumbing to my growing list of problems.

How much is this powersuit worth to me, anyway? Ah, screw it! What else am I going to do?

Just as I thought my suffering was nearing an end, he led me down a set of steps to the lower level, where I found more storage area and a large circle made out of barbed wire.

“Are you looking to bring some livestock down here?” I asked, almost afraid of the answer.

“No,” he replied. “I figure if I ever catch me a hero, I’d toss ‘em in there.”

Personally, I wasn’t certain whether I should be laughing or crying at that moment, so I did neither.

“Unless, it’s a pretty lame one, I’d recommend that we build some actual cells.”

“Okay,” Bobby said. “So where do you want to start?”

Sizing up Bobby, I could tell he could handle all the brawn and heavy lifting, but his fine motor skills were likely to cause more problems than they solved. I was going to need some serious help and I didn’t have Kenneth’s powers to simply grow some assistants.

“Bobby,” I said. “I’m going to need you to steal me a couple of robots.”

• • •

“So, how do I use this contraption, again?” The man in the large black outfit said as we skulked around a half-occupied industrial park. My partner in crime looked like the Michelin tire mascot had decided to take up being a ninja.

I, however, was the epitome of stealth and the personification of danger.

I was also prone to exaggerating wildly.

“It’s just like a cattle prod,” I answered Bobby, who eyed the long metal rod in his hands. “You jam it into one of those robots and it’ll drop like a sack of rice. You’ll have to wait ten seconds before it has enough juice to knock the second one out.”

Bobby nodded and cast a glance at the darkened warehouse with the pair of mechanical watchman ambling around the exterior. “You sure we shouldn’t try and steal whatever’s inside? If’n they’re paying to have robots, the stuff inside must be worth something.”

“Oh, I’m sure all that machinery in there is worth a small fortune, but we’d need three semis to haul it out of here, and finding a buyer to sell it to would be a nightmare. They’re some natural gas equipment supplier who has too much money, and doesn’t want to be bothered to hire real people. I say we go create a few new jobs and help out the economy. Just try not to bust them up too badly.”

By “we,” I meant Bobby. The big lug would barely be bothered by those taser pistols they carried. I was actually looking forward to getting my hands on them. The two weapons would be a good start to my collection of miscellaneous items. I might even be able to incorporate them into my suit and reserve the force blasters for when I needed to maximize my damage potential.

The nice part of being on Bobby’s payroll was that there were at least a dozen witnesses who would vouch for our presence at Floozies. In fact, I was supposedly in the private room right now getting a lap dance from some woman named Jade, Amethyst, or Sapphire. I don’t know, some jewel-related stage name, and Bobby was shooting pool with the owner.

Considering my last partner was an inflatable sex doll, I thought I was moving up in the world.

From my time at Promethia, I knew quite a bit about these vintage type A robots. The humanoid frame was in service all across the globe in various uses, ranging from legal to other endeavors that were more of a questionable nature. Patterson would always blow a few of them away whenever he added a new toy to the suit. The Type A’s were good for sentry duty or attacking something en masse. Beyond that, they weren’t much more sophisticated than any other industrial robot. Even so, there was code all over the internet on how to program one to do various tasks and all it took was a little modification on my part to have a pair of construction workers.

It was one of those cases where I’d have to do the tedious work to prevent me from having to do the hard work. My life was built around that philosophy. Depending on the amount of synthmuscle they had, this brand of robot could carry about a quarter of a ton. Bobby, on the other hand, maxed out at around six tons, but I didn’t think I could program him to install a lighting fixture, on my best day.

“They both meet at that point,” I said pointing to an area near the parking lot. “We can slip down to that dumpster and use it for cover and I’ll toss a couple of flares to attract their attention. That’s when you get ‘em with the prod. Don’t forget to give it time to recharge.”

“What’s that thing for?” He asked about the box of cobbled together electronics I had in my duffel.

“Static generator. It’ll jam their wireless transmissions and prevent them from calling the cops.”

“That’s what I like about you, Cal. You might not be worth a bent penny in a scrap, but when it comes to planning, you got your shit together.”

“Thanks.” I think.

We moved up to the dumpster while the two rounded the opposite ends of the building, I lit the pair of roadside flares duct taped together, and heaved them onto the sidewalk.

“Now we wait for them to come to us,” I said. Type A’s had crude infrared sensors and the flares should attract their attention long enough for Bobby to get the drop on them. There was a slight flutter of nerves in the pit of my stomach at returning to my criminal career by stealing a pair of robots—grand theft mechanical, if you will. I was violating the parole that I hadn’t really earned.

I spotted the first one rounding the corner of the near side of the warehouse and steadied myself. Back in prison, I’d plotted out how to be a better criminal, and it was time to see if my studies had made me a better (or is it worse) villain. The robot moved quickly, but I noted a slight gimp in his gait and the engineer in me frowned. It was a sign that they weren’t being maintained properly. Nevertheless, I activated my homemade—technically cave made—jammer, and signaled my partner.

Having never seen Bobby in action, I’d expected a lumbering brute, but he was surprisingly agile for such a big man. The robot pivoted and raised the arm carrying the taser pistol and fired at the supervillain.

“Like a bee sting!” Bobby said gleefully and brought the rod down like some maniacal Stone Age hunter taking on his dinner. There was a brief, but brilliant, flash and I smiled, seeing my handiwork in action. The moment was made more delightful by the fact I was not the one risking my comparatively fragile neck.

As I expected, the robot slumped over and toppled to the ground. The humanoid appearing robot weighed in the neighborhood of four hundred pounds, which is why most owners wouldn’t consider them a target for a robbery.

The other robot clambered over, firing taser shells from its weapon. There was a blue light flashing inside a clear panel in the robot’s chest. Bobby jumped and covered the thirty feet in a single bound and I knew he’d forgotten my warning. The cattle prod hadn’t charged and clanged ineffectively off the metal armor with only a crackle.

“Bobby, wait!”

My useless warning was ignored as Bobby’s fist separated the robot’s head from the body. That meant I was going to fix the robot before I could get any use out of it.

“Oh, sorry ‘bout that,” he said looking at the mess he made.

Yelling at him would have been like yelling at a puppy—if that puppy was extremely dangerous and could squish my head like a grape—so I did what any sensible person would do in that situation. I pasted a smile on my face and told him not to worry.

• • •

Tweedledee and Tweedledum weren’t much to look. Dee had the noticeable limp and Dum’s head injury sometimes caused the robot to do the oddest things. After programming it to run some pipes for plumbing, I caught it scratching its ass and taking breaks every twenty minutes, and no, I’m not kidding.

Maybe my programming was a little too “true to life.”  Regardless, Bobby’s secret lair was beginning to take shape, or at least possess the basic services like lighting and ventilation. We still needed a water source that wouldn’t flood the base and a more capable power plant than just four Type A powercells daisy-chained together. I used to look down on the Civil Engineering majors at college, but here I was, managing an underground construction project on a scale that would make most of them jealous; aided by a pair of buggy, repurposed guard bots, and Bobby’s superhuman strength. Saying that it was a labor of love wasn’t quite true, for me it was more like a creepy obsession with completing this job. It didn’t help that Bobby was reluctant to start acquiring the things I needed to build my set of armor until he got what he deemed to be a “respectable hideout with all the fixin’s”

At the moment, the best super powered criminal I could manage would be something along the lines of the two-gun taser bandit and his odd robots. That seemed like a step backward from my time as ManaCALes.

Bobby would leave town for a job at least once a month and I’d always be concerned. I was still entirely dependent on him. Other than the occasional “shift” I worked at Floozies and my parole meetings with Leonard, my life pretty much revolved around furnishing that damned hole in the ground. My host’s assessment of his cousin proved to be spot on. Leonard was about as dim as the lighting in the cave when I first arrived, but other than the night we stole the robots, I’d been too damned busy to actually plot any crimes.

Three cheers for being on the straight and narrow. Hip-hip, whatever!

I was ruminating over these thoughts and only half watching a porno on the big screen, in what I now termed as Central Command, when the motion detectors I’d set up in the silo went off. With Bobby not due back for two days, I became immediately concerned. One hand reached for the taser pistol and the other grabbed a controller box which I could use to set Tweedledee and Tweedledum into guard mode. Before I could even lift the pistol from the table there was a rush of wind and a woman standing right in front of me.