Origins of a D-List Supervillain (22 page)

“Won’t help you here,” I said. “Okay, despite my misgivings, I’m arming the weapons system. Just point your hands at the engine block and say, fire force blasters level two burst.”

“Fire force blasters level four burst!”

I jumped aside as twin eighty percent blasts slammed into the front of the rusted bus and sent chunks of metal flying through the air. It wasn’t the debris I worried about, sure enough Vicky’s balance wasn’t good enough to handle the reactionary forces, and she fell over cackling with laughter.

“Did you see that? That was awesome!”

“I should be mad at you,” I said standing over her and looking down.

“But you’re not,” she said and popped open the visor.

I wasn’t. She was like a big kid in the suit, with a maniacal grin on her face. With the nearest neighbors a good distance away, they’d probably think I was just shooting a gun or something. If any bothered to come by, I’d tell them an old gas cylinder still had something in it and exploded. The idiots wouldn’t know the difference.

“Well, you’re getting lots of practice standing up.”

“Killjoy,” she accused. “I’m not this bad in a Pummeler suit. I’m actually pretty decent. We’ve got a few around for base defense, but they’re too limited for anything else.”

“Aw, that’s sweet,” I replied. “You can ride a tricycle, but can’t figure out why you’re having problems operating a motorcycle.”

She flipped over onto her elbows and knees and said, “My, aren’t we full of ourselves today, Mr. Stringel.”

“It’ll work better when I get all the sensors calibrated to you. When I get my new suit built, you’ll be so good that we’ll do a powered armor waltz together.”

“Do you know how to do a waltz, Cal?”

“I can program it.”

“If you’re going that route, I want to do a tango instead.”

“As Mistress Victoria commands.”

“And don’t you forget it. Now, go find me more stuff to blow up!”

She ended up catching the late flight back to Vegas and I added the hours on to my work day that I spent having fun with her.

• • •

Stringel,

Don’t know if you’d heard, but Seawall finally got his dumb ass caught by the Gulf Coasties last week. I’m low on good help and could really use you on this job. Don’t leave me hanging, bro!

Eddie

I looked at the email and wondered if I could slip it in my spam folder and say I never saw it. Unfortunately, I’d heard that the Wireless Wizard ran a tight mail service and would be able to tell Eddie that his email was read.

Eddie,

I’m almost done with my project for that lady I asked you about. If you can push it back a week, I can do it. Otherwise, I’d be taking a chance on pissing off someone higher up on the food chain, if you catch my drift.

Cal

Outside, there was driving rain as a hurricane moved into the area. It had foiled Vicky’s plans to come out and hang with her “boy toy,” as she so aptly referred to me. Powering down my secret base as a precaution, I didn’t much feel like sitting in the dark and assembling another set of pulse cannons. Instead, I was slapping an extra fuel tank onto the armor to extend my range. The oil companies had evacuated the humans manning the rigs out in the path of the storm. That meant it was time for me to go shopping. I figured it was cool because it’s okay to hate Big Oil. There was some nice tech out there and nothing except a few guard bots watching them, if that.

Some politician somewhere said to never let a good crisis go to waste. Being short on liquid assets, I decided to cut out someone else’s markup when buying stolen equipment and just go get the damn things myself.

Powercells and anything that caught my eye were on my shopping list as I started out into the darkness of the predawn hours. Two of Vicky’s loaner bots were lashing down anything that might be a missile hazard to my base. They had their work cut out for them.

I kept just high enough over the waves to not get wet and hopefully not show up on anyone’s radar.

The first rig was secured, nice and tight. I bypassed it for the sake of not robbing the one closest to me. In fact, I was going three or four rigs down the proverbial road.

I’ve been accused of being stupid before, but I’m not that stupid.

The one I picked was a little farther out and I burned some fuel getting there, but it was more modern and, from my perspective, had a better chance of having the nicer goods onboard. The headwinds buffeted my suit and much of my extra fuel was eaten up flying into the strong gusts. The bonus would be a tailwind at my back when I was on the return leg with my ill-gotten booty.

Fortunately for me, some yahoo had gone and made a video about his life out on this rig and I happily used it along with a few other sources to create an interactive map.

“Approaching coordinates,” my suit’s GPS announced. I decided I was going to get Vicky to read off the commands so she could replace the voice in the armor.

I came in low and up into the area where the supply ships came in. The helipad was exposed and if there were any cameras active they’d probably be looking there.

With only emergency lighting on, the place looked like a cool spot to film a horror movie.

C’mon Cal, time to get moving,
I thought, and punched up the map I’d created and started toward the parts storage. With this rig only a few years old, some of the equipment might still be in their original packaging.

Of course, looking at an oil rig online and being there were two very separate things. One fun fact I discovered was that there was almost no wasted space, which made it difficult for a schmuck humping around in a powersuit to get down the hallways and through the doors. There was a loud crash behind me, causing an involuntary jump on my part. The cargo net I had attached to my back had caught on a fire extinguisher and ripped it free of the mount on the wall.

Definitely a little on the edge there, Calvin. Should’ve used the storm to do a bank job instead.

Disgusted with my feelings of apprehension, I made my way to the first storage locker and broke the chain and padlock. Inside wasn’t the gold mine I’d hoped for, but a pair of never used B powercells along with some other useful equipment that struck my fancy.

Of course, I already realized my problem; the net was good for carrying the loot across the water, but dragging it from one storage locker to the next wasn’t going to get it done.

By my map, I was closer to the top level exit rather than doubling back to the area where the ships pull in, so I took the items out of my net and made my way topside feeling the ladder shuddering under my suit’s weight.

Another five minutes was wasted squeezing out the doorway and laying out the net on the ground. The only thing that kept my amusement level up was trying to picture how well my girlfriend would fare if she was trying to do the same thing.

The little numbers in the corner of my heads up display, monitoring wind speed and barometric pressure, abruptly changed—for the better. The eye of the storm wasn’t anywhere near here. It was puzzling to say the least and that naturally started my worrying again.

A flash of something darted overhead and my super hindsight powers kicked in and reminded me that Mom used to warn me not to go out and play in storms.

Sucking it up, I decided to try and see what I was dealing with. Edging my way around the place where they mix the mud that gets pumped down to the ocean floor, I got a look at the helipad. It was still well-lit and in the middle of it, with arms thrust outward, was a smallish looking person in blue tights and a cape. I increased magnification, but already had a good idea who I was looking at.

Shit! WhirlWendy!

For a moment, I wondered what she was doing down south when she normally partied with the New York crowd, but it made sense. Even a few years out, folks along the Gulf were still a little snake bitten from Katrina. The supers converged on New Orleans when the levees gave way, but everyone else in these parts pretty much got the short end of the stick and the federal money. I actually felt bad for WhirlWendy. She’d been in Europe trying to promote her movie and people were screaming at her because she wasn’t there when everyone and their brother had downplayed the threat. Her presence in the area was something I should have considered.

People are ingrates,
I thought.
I keep my expectations pretty low and most of the time they don’t even make it up to the bar that I’ve set.

She was jabbering into her communicator, so I tried scanning the frequency, but found it was encrypted. Settling, I turned up auditory sensors to maximum and eavesdropped on her side of the conversation.

The little brunette’s accent was about as New York as one could get and still be understandable. “That’s what I’m saying, Bolt. I’m just pissing in the wind here. The storm’s too big! I can calm down localized parts, but realistically I can only shave off maybe five miles per hour on the whole thing before it makes landfall.”

There was a pause while she listened to what the other person was saying. Whatever it was did not sit well with the young woman I looked at.

“Okay, I get it. Public relations! I’m all for doing my part to maintain our image, but this is ridiculous! I’ll be sure to remind you of this shit the next time you’re moaning about your charity appearances. I’m out here soaked to the bone. If I was actually doing some good it might be worth it!”

It was easy to see that Wendy LaGuardia was a headstrong teenager. Whatever her mentor, Bolt Action, was saying to her must have really been ticking her off. The pressure was falling again and the wind gust were picking up. It made me wonder if she was strong enough to slow down this juggernaut by a fraction, what would happen if she threw her power behind the hurricane.

Probably a good thing she wasn’t a villain,
I thought.
Still, she’s probably better adjusted to her powers than someone like Maxine.

“Besides, I know you’re just sending me down here to keep me and Mike apart! I don’t care about the age differences, I like him, and I won’t let you come between us.”

“What?” she demanded, responding to something Bolt Action said. “You don’t think I can tell whether it’s real or not! Why don’t you pucker up and kiss my ass!”

My little bit of voyeurism had crossed the line into being awkward now. On the other hand, it was nice to see an unedited moment of how the other side lives and find out that it wasn’t all sunshine and daisies.
Who would’ve thought?

“Yes, sir, Mister team leader, sir!” She was yelling now, I no longer had to boost my reception to hear her. “Your orders are loud and clear and, for the record, bite me! Wendy, out!”

WhirlWendy ranked amongst the top tier of superheroes. She packed a mean punch. When it came to raw destructive ability, it was best to avoid anyone who could bring an F5 tornado to the party. The people on Patterson’s threat index team often speculated who would win if Wendy and Imaginary Larry threw down without restraint. The only thing they could agree on was that the real loser would be whatever city they were fighting in.

I’d seen enough of her tantrum and backed away. Maybe she heard me, had some really great intuition, or had just been at the super game too long, but her head whipped around.

“Is someone there?” she yelled and peered into the darkness while I stood stock still. There were no lights around me.

Pausing, she scanned the area before muttering, “Of course there’s no one else around. Only idiots would be out here right now!”

She’s probably right about that!

Seconds later, winds swept her skyward and the Tiny Tornado went off in search of something useful to do. She probably would have enjoyed the distraction of fighting someone like me at the time, but I wasn’t looking to get my ass kicked six ways from Sunday and having the other villains mock me for getting whipped by a teenaged girl.

I went back to gathering my loot and was grateful that she hadn’t spotted me. I’d been planning on making at least three runs today while the storm was coming ashore. Some might say that I was being chickenshit, but I decided not to press my luck more than I’d already done today.

• • •

E.M. Pulsive regarded me while I held the plasma breeching charge to the vault. I had just finished relating the encounter with WhirlWendy as I cut through the locking mechanism on the vault.

“If it was me, Stringel, I’d have sizzled her, dropped her bitch ass into the water, and fed the fishes.”

“Dude? We weren’t fighting. I don’t have an ax to grind with the girl.” Robbing banks with Eddie was surprisingly easy. He could block the activation of the alarm. We might as well have been the cleaning crew.

No wonder he thinks robbing a single bank is just too easy. Guess that’s why Seawall was always happy to ride his coattails.

“Dude yourself!” Eddie spat. “You wanna come up to the big leagues; you’re going to have to get some blood on your hands. You’d have mad cred on the streets if you waxed that little guidette.”

“She’s like America’s sweetheart, Eddie. Suppose I did kill her, and then was stupid enough to brag about it. Everybody and their brother would be after me, or don’t you remember what happened to the Photon Crew when they killed Thunder Claws?”

“The Photons were chumps,” Eddie said, as if it explained everything.

“Yeah, they were,” I agreed. “If they weren’t dead, how would I do in a fight against them?”

God! I hate being a realist.

“You’re probably right, Stringel,” Eddie conceded as the cutter finished.

Setting the device down, I pulled the vault open as Eddie prepared to fry anything inside. The lights inside in the vault had been on an internal circuit and Eddie couldn’t get in via his normal methods.

Inside was nothing to be worried about.

“Yeah, I popped this one vault in St. Louis and the damn Cybernetic Sisterhood was waiting, armed with high tech super soakers. That’s how I ended up in the joint last time. I hate those robot bitches! One of these days I’m going to find that Albright guy and give him the electric chair treatment.”