Origins of a D-List Supervillain (29 page)

Something caught the warhead and the weapon exploded. I felt sorry for the people who might be in the offices just below us, but considering the wash of the detonation tossed me off course and took a ten percent chunk of my shields with it, I was more concerned about myself, thank you very much.

Regaining control, I flew toward the warehouse and decided that the sled with the tracking gear was my priority target.

Flying into the open skylight, I rocketed to the far end and landed on the rafters to wait for my quarry to arrive. From there, I sent the activation code to my understudy. Tweedledum waited in the center of the warehouse, poised for a fake last stand. He had some decorative plastic injection mold armor over top of his frame that made him look decidedly like the Mark II armor. His “force blasters” were just plasma pistols modified to look like my weapons. They might even be more effective against the shielding the hunters were using.

I cut my systems and only had to wait about thirty seconds as my stand in moved toward the entrance. The missile sled arrived first with the microwave ones right behind. Patterson’s people obviously had more practice on the sleds than the superheroes, or the Gulf Coasters stopped to help people like the good little protectors of society they are.

Dum fired away, to little effect. He did score a couple of hits.
They probably think I have some kind of double barreled action going on in my gauntlets.

The robot was holding up pretty well against the microwave attack. His internals were less susceptible to cooking than mine. Even so, I guess I should have used something more sturdy than plastic.

“Missile launches detected,” Vicky’s voice said once more.

Dum didn’t try to dodge. Instead he stopped firing and turned his head toward me and I felt a momentary pang of regret for putting him there.

When that half of the warehouse went kablooey, I felt a little sad, but relieved at the fact that I was still alive and able to feel that way about an oddly defective robot.

It’s almost tempting to just fake my death and slip away. Patterson would think his anti-armor weapons were da bomb.

“Maybe some other day,” I growled and kicked on my systems. On my comms, I heard the ASH team calling up the van so they could confirm the kill over an open channel. Discus was ripping the man a new ass for using that kind of weaponry over a populated area. Strangely enough, I agreed with him.

I went out through the broken ceiling and used the smoke cloud to cover my approach. Thermal imaging was a bit of a wash, but I could make out roughly where they were.

Like an avenging angel, well I guess I can’t really say that term would apply; I broke through the wall of smoke and found myself staring into the disbelieving eyes of the guy who’d fired three missiles at me today. He was hovering and that was the last mistake he’d ever make. I rammed him. Sure, the shielding helped and did a number on mine too, but the impact separated him from the sled and he did the three story two and a half twist into the pavement. I gave him points for sticking the landing, because he didn’t make a big splash.

The others were screaming over the open channel. “He’s still alive! Negative impact! Hunter One is down!”

The two remaining sleds tried to reposition. I hit one with a level five and his shielding collapsed. His sled went down, with him fighting for control. I circled around and engaged the remaining ASH, who had turned to flee back toward where the Guardians were.

I clipped him and forced him to land on a building near where the first missile had nearly gotten me.

As he ran for the door leading back into the building, I landed between him and it.

“Don’t do it, Stringel!” A bolt of electrical energy smacked against my shields and Discus leapt off his sled, executing a nice little combat roll. He came up between me and the ASH agent, already creating a pair of protective energy discs.

Nice move! Almost makes me wish I’d taken up gymnastics,
I thought before saying, “Are you regretting taking Patterson’s help yet, Graham? This isn’t going to look good on the six o’clock news.”

“You bear as much responsibility for what just happened as they do,” he replied and threw his discs. I dodged one, but his aim was too good for me to stop both.

“Yeah, but I’m the villain. You need to ask yourself who they are,” I shot back, both with my answer and a level three at the ASH running toward the fire escape. Predictably, Discus jumped in front and ate my blast with a freshly created set of discs. It still had to hurt. As cool as Graham’s power was, it meant getting hit way too often. I’d still take his abilities if I had the chance. Combined with my armor and my shields, I would be unbreakable.

Continuing, I said, “I’ve seen all I needed to see here. Patterson’s weapons aren’t much better than anything else out there. Send them back with their tails between their legs and I won’t...”

From out of nowhere, She-Dozer landed on top of me and hit me...hard. It was so hard, it knocked me off the side of the building. I’d gotten cocky and arrogant. Bad things usually happen at those times in my life and this was no exception.

Activate flight system!
I directed the suit over the warbling of the master alarm.
Silence master alarm.

Checking my almost depleted shields, I flew back over top of the building. Discus was climbing back on his sled and Sheila dropped into a fighting stance, daring me to come at her.

I started to and stopped myself. My internal monologue sounded a lot like Vicky.
What the hell are you thinking, Cal? The suit is already dinged up.

“We’re done here for today, Guardians,” I announced. “Next time you won’t be nearly as lucky.”

I flew away, knowing that I’d already done too much damage to the armor for one day and that I should’ve gotten more than I did from that bank. I’d also lost Tweedledum, which meant a little more work around the junkyard for me until I could steal a replacement. Patterson’s suit hunting weapons couldn’t really be turned back against him—at least by me. I didn’t have a team and a mobile launching platform to go after Ultraweapon. The microwaves were a neat trick, but I could solve that by installing a variable frequency output module on my shield generators, so I could shift it against attacks calibrated for my shields. My guess is Patterson’s suit already had those.

The only good to come out of all this was my ruse would make Joe, and his boss, believe those weapons were less effective than they actually were. The deaths and property damage would be blamed on me, but Promethia would take a hit in the public eye and I couldn’t picture the Gulf Coasters being so willing to let Lazarus send another team of hired thugs down here.

• • •

Arriving back at my base, I sent Paul West a quick note asking if he’d been able to pull his head far enough out of his ass to catch my performance today. I added that if his people wanted my footage of Patterson’s weaponry from the battle to make me a decent offer.

Today, I’d killed several people. The first two had been mostly by accident, but the third one was intentional. I thought it would be some major revelation, that I’d come out the other side a different person. Instead, I seemed to be pretty much the same apathetic asshole that I’d been this morning.

Truth be told, I was more upset about losing Tweedledum and it made me wonder if I was a guy in a powersuit, or a set of powered armor that had to spend most of his time in a human suit.

Had I checked out on the human race?

Vicky probably could have helped me through it. All those jokes about a rolodex of hitmen made me wonder how many times she’d put it to use. But she wasn’t there to help me reflect, so I just went on about my business and wondered if I was on the verge of becoming a homicidal lunatic like Eddie.

Two hours after I sent the message, I saw a new one in my inbox. It wasn’t from Paul though. It was from Major Disaster, the spokesman for General Devious. It appeared that I was back on the hiring radar faster than I’d imagined.

Mechanical,

Congratulations on your fight with the Gulf Coast Guardians and the Promethia team augmenting them. As you may know, I am the aide de camp of General Devious. The General has decided that it is time to take the fight en masse to the superheroes once and for all. HORDES, or, Heroes Overmatched by Rampaging Destructive Executioner Squads, is intended to be an army of supervillains and you are being offered a place in it. Based on your capabilities and the mutual dislike of Lazarus Patterson you and the General share, she wants you to be part of the team that attacks the West Coast Guardians.

I overlooked the slight on my name and continued reading with interest. The message went on to list the fee I would be paid. It was decent, but I was already sold on the idea. With a team at my side, maybe I could bring down the mighty Ultraweapon once and for all!

Chapter Fifteen

HORDES Spelled Backwards is FAIL

It took two months for Devious to actually assemble her army. When most people think about villains, they believe we’re more organized and always have our next plan ready. They actually believe that the reason we are more successful is that we don’t have all the red tape following us around.

That’s a load of crap if ever there was one. Yeah, there’s less bureaucracy, and God help me if I ever have to deal with what heroes have to deal with, but our side of the fence has problems of our own!

Compared to the others, my apathy was pretty minor stuff. All seven of the deadly sins were pretty much on display here in a convention center in the middle of Iowa.

Yup, Shriners, Avon, and this week a supervillain army, all use our facilities. They should use our event in their marketing.

Since the rooms didn’t have chairs that would accommodate the armor’s frame, I remained standing near the back, with my faceplate open. Scanning the crowd, I tried to identify as many as I could, while at the center of the stage, General Devious had floated in the latest version of her throne, now with hovering capabilities, and addressed the audience.

Looks like Eddie is out of prison again,
I noted while returning to our conventions “opening speaker.”

She was in her mid-fifties, still attractive in a MILF-like way, clearly enjoyed cosmetic surgery or used her telekinetic powers to give herself the right amount of lift here and there. Her uniform was crisp, blonde hair perfectly in place, and so professional looking that I could see her running Fortune 500 companies or even whole countries. The General clearly had the charisma. In contrast, I thought of Maxine Velocity—the wild child who had something different about her costume or hair style every time she arrived at my workshop.

“The heroes look at most of you as a regional threat. Perhaps that does not bother you, but it should. I am proposing that we take this to the next level. It’s time for us to set aside our differences for the common cause of defeating the heroes and driving those government bootlickers into the ground! Alone, most of you struggle against the superteams, but look around; we have all the numbers we need right here. We know where their headquarters are located. They’re sitting there, openly defying us, and saying that we could never possibly organize an attack. Once we have eliminated the heroes, torn down their icons, and sent the common people scurrying into their homes like fearful church mice, then we can begin whittling away at the politicians. The world is right there, waiting for us to become its master.”

From the reactions around me, the crowd was lapping it up. I’d like to say that I remained totally suspicious and did not for one instant imagine myself in an estate surrounded by beautiful women because we were the ones in charge.

Still, something didn’t seem quite right. My neural interface picked up on my concern and brought the shields up on low. Surprisingly, the enticing mental distraction abated right before I got to the lovely journalists in little black dresses wanting to jello wrestle to see who gets to interview me. Too bad I didn’t hold off on it for a few minutes.

Ah, the old subliminal sales pitch. Well played, General. Think I’ll just keep my defenses active until she’s done.

Without her added mental push, the speech was just your typical graduating class style inspirational variety, albeit with psychopathic undertones. The idea sounded promising.

“We will deploy skirmishers to engage the hero teams and keep them occupied and unable to assist each other. While that happens, the bulk of our army will descend on one major team at a time and obliterate them. Those in the skirmishing teams will be fighting heroes from different areas of this country who are less familiar with your powers; to give you an advantage.”

She yielded the stage to Apostle, who was serving as Master of Ceremonies and hovered back to where the Overlord stood in his armor. While the man at the microphone went over today’s agenda, I watched her in quiet conversation with the other heavyweight on stage.

When I saw that her lips were still moving, I checked and sure enough Overlord had his shields up. I lowered mine, but kept alert for any signs that she was still working the crowd.

No trust issues there, eh, Cal?

Frowning, I went back to her base plan and realized that her line of thinking was a two-way street. We would also be less familiar with the heroes we’d be fighting. I spent several minutes on how I could match up, if I was suddenly up against the East Coast Guardians, tossed together with an assorted group of villains trying to take on people who actively train together.

For someone coming down to fight the Gulf Coasters, would they be anal enough to memorize which nodules on the belt Discus wears charge his force discs with which energy or element?

Even someone like Eddie might be shocked, well, bad pun there, if Graham snuck up on him with the equivalent of a water balloon. They could really use something like Patterson’s Threat Index team for this. Wonder if I should suggest it?