Origins of a D-List Supervillain (5 page)

I needed my own threat index. The Gulf Coast Guardians technically had responsibility for this region. They usually stayed in the area between New Orleans and the major cities of Texas. I didn’t think I’d have to worry about them for a while. Andydroid was based out of Atlanta and the northern parts of Florida. This was something of a “dead zone” for super powered folks. In fact, the only potential problem I might face would be The Biloxi Bugler.

If Ultraweapon could only beat Imaginary Larry once in a blue moon, the Bugler stood about as much of a chance against Ultraweapon. He had a sonic bugle and a death wish. Best I could tell, he didn’t even wear a bulletproof vest! If I was in this to build some kind of reputation, I think I would have picked someplace better, but until I had my own suit, fighting superheroes wasn’t something on my agenda.

Still, I needed my own self-assessment after pulling my first job. The police suspected the perpetrators used explosives and linked it to possible gang activity. For the moment, I was in the clear, and I used that time to improve my chances of success.

Things would be much simpler if I had a getaway driver I could count on. Almost half my time was spent getting back into my car. The car was the other problem—it wasn’t really suited for a crime spree. I needed something a little bigger and more useful. Like any venture that wants to be successful, I’d have to reinvest a portion of my profits back into my enterprise.

The gold rings I could just melt down. Those places that buy gold with few questions were a blessing. I could mint my own coins, or just give it to them as a bar. The biggest issue with the gold was ensuring that I didn’t mix the metal qualities.

The jewelry I’d have to accumulate until there was enough to take to Miami or go straight to Joey’s New York connection.

• • •

I traded in the Hyundai right after my first “payday.”  Replacing it was a used nondescript white van—the kind you see on the highway and don’t give a second thought to. Paying cash for a new one was tempting, but somehow I guessed Barton’s squad was tracking my finances, so I played it safe.

The getaway driver was a problem, but surprisingly I had trust issues. The answer came in the form of a project I’d been a part of in my second year at UCLA. Our engineering department built a self-driving car. I still had most of the notes. It wasn’t as complex as people made it out to be. The idea wouldn’t take hold in this country anytime soon. People saw it as taking away their personal freedom. It probably just wasn’t marketed correctly. If they sold it as a built-in designated driver, it’d sell like hotcakes, especially around here.

My driver was a blow up sex doll wearing a blonde wig. I named her Tracy, in honor of the dead woman who made this all possible. Beyond that, I used the GPS unit from my cellphone, a laptop, webcam, and some simple control equipment. It would get around this county and obey almost all traffic laws—I did make an exception so it wouldn’t pull over for the police.

It seemed prudent. There was also an untested override which I hoped I’d never have to use, where I programmed it to behave like one of those console driver games.

• • •

“Hit it, Tracy!” I said, jumping into the back of the van and closing the doors. Job number seven was actually in Alabama. I didn’t want to be exclusive to Mississippi and make the investigators jobs any easier and give them any kind of a pattern to lock in on.

The route I programmed into Tracy took me out of town headed southeast. I was on my way to Florida and figured they’d be looking for my van going back west. Also, getting a bit bolder, I pulled this one at a different hour, because after the job in Jackson, the news started calling me the two a.m. bandits, still assuming that more than one person was involved.

So tonight, Tracy and I were the Midnight Cowboys. I even started singing that
I Wanna Be a Cowboy
song. Sure it wasn’t as good as Biz Markie, but few things were.

Halfway through the second verse, I saw the flashing blue lights.

“Shit!” I exclaimed and started pulling on the ski mask back onto my face. I used some stolen plates I’d taken in Jackson. “Tracy, alter our travel path to route three in one minute.”

At thirty seconds, I opened the back door and shoved my hand out. I dialed the setting to level three and sent a burst into the patrol car’s engine block. Metal crumpled and there was a big dent in his front like he’d just run into a telephone pole.

The pursuit was neutralized, but my worries had just begun. By the time I reached Florida, the dashboard footage of the incident was picked up by the national news. Exposure was something I’d hoped to avoid and now I was on most of the major channels and the 24 Hour Hero channel.

A level four pulse had left the stolen plates an unrecognizable mass at the center of a small crater on a country road off the interstate. I pulled out a stencil and spray painted “General Contracting” on it and used a heat gun to dry it and weather the paint in short order. It would protect my secret identity for now, but the cat was out of the bag.

• • •

My problems only grew when I got to the Sunshine state. Two of my pawn brokers had been burnt down under “suspicious” circumstances. The only good news was that it wasn’t Joey. I was halfway to my goal of having enough money to make my own suit, but my middle men were becoming scarce. If Barton’s folks caught wind of this, they could easily sick the feds on me. That suit would come in handy when that happened, but I’d need to get the money and drop out of sight.

With that in mind, I came to the only sensible conclusion; I’d have to pull a bank job.

Chapter Three

ManaCALes Versus the Biloxi Bugler

In response to my crime spree, I saw an announcement that The Bugler would be expanding his patrol radius. That gave me an idea. If he was going to be away from Biloxi, that’s where I would be. I found a bank with no jewelry stores nearby. The whole broad daylight thing still didn’t appeal to me. My plan was contingent on my force blasters being able to penetrate the vault.

Unfortunately, it wouldn’t leave much charge for anything else. I’d picked up a couple of A cells, but they’d be useless in the van until I got back to them. For this job, I picked a Friday night with a big cross city high school football game. That would keep most of the police busy elsewhere.

To further complicate things, Tracy drove me by a substation and I sent a class four pulse into one of the big transformers to kill the power for a couple of blocks. That would stretch the city’s emergency services pretty thin.

By my reckoning, it might not be the perfect plan, but it was pretty damned close.

The reinforced wall leading to the vault put up more of a fight than I counted on. By the time I was inside and into the metal locker where they kept the cash drawers, there was only enough juice for two full power pulses.

Hoping that wouldn’t matter, I stared at the green pastures of Nirvana, and started filling the pair of duffel bags with both fists while wishing that I had made a quick disconnect for the blasters to keep them from getting in the way. Sure, I could be a bit anal retentive at times, with all my planning and such, but I was glad I’d practiced with cut up stacks of newspaper standing in for the greenbacks. All those lockboxes surrounding me looked inviting, like Christmas presents waiting to be opened, but I resisted. The stuff in the boxes belonged to people. This pile of cash belonged to a faceless corporation, insured by the same government that took my invention and gave it to Promethia.

Remorse wasn’t in my vocabulary at that particular moment.

I lingered, probably longer than I should have, wanting to make certain that I had enough money to finish making my powersuit. A shadow blocked the light from Tracy in the van and I spun around.

“Surrender evildoer!” A voice boomed, drawling hideously. The bugle was in his hand at the ready.

It probably highlighted the difference between me and this idiot. I would have shot first and then said something stupid. His proclamation gave me enough time to dial the controller setting down two and send a pulse at him. His bloated ass went right back out the hole he came in. I didn’t want to ponder how he’d managed to find me, but I knew it was time to go. I looped my right arm through the bags and ran out the gap in the wall with my left arm thrust out like some absurd parody of the Heisman trophy.

The Bugler had hit the front of the van and was slumped on the ground. He staggered to his feet. “A lucky blow villain, but justice plays with an upbeat tempo!”

That was so mind-numbingly stupid that I couldn’t let it pass without comment. “Are you brain damaged?”

The next thing I knew I was flat on my back with cash falling all over the place. My ears were ringing. Hardened acoustic energy really hurt!

“Son of a bitch!” I bellowed and shot both blasters at him. The fat pig in a blue and silver unitard moved quicker than I anticipated, and my bolts of energy sailed right by him.

Sometime in the microseconds after that, it occurred to me that my van was behind him. One went into the engine block and the other took out Tracy.

“I just destroyed my damned getaway vehicle! It’s not supposed to be like this.”

In my slack-jawed stupidity, I was blindsided by another funnel of sonic waves that knocked me into the broken wall. My entire head was ringing and there was blood in my mouth. I tried to use my one working hand to turn the controller up, fully intending to kill the Bugler. After three attempts, I finally got my hand in the right spot only to find that the bits of the broken dial came away in my twitching fingers.

“...your name?” A muffled voice said. My lolling head located the source. The Bugler towered over me. It was hard to think straight. Part of me knew I had a concussion, but that part wasn’t really talking to the part of me that was in control of my body.

“Huh?” My reply was very articulate.

“What’s your name?”

The question caught me off guard, and I wasn’t certain what to say. “ManaCALes.”

“Manacles?” He repeated, while pulling my force blasters off and slapping a pair of handcuffs in their place. I put up a token resistance.

There were dozens of reasons for me to be pissed off, but for some reason it was the way he said my name that got to me. “No, you moron! ManaCALes!”

“That’s what I said, Manacles.”

When I protested again, he wondered whether he’d hit me too hard. I just wanted to go to sleep. I’d been beaten by a guy with a sonic bugle.

“I’ll get you for this,” I mumbled. It seemed like the appropriate thing to say.

“Of course, you will,” he replied and yanking the cuffs to ensure they were tight. “That’s what all you supervillains say. C’mon, let’s get you to the ambulance where the nice policemen are waiting.”

A supervillain?
I thought.
I guess I am. I’m a supervillain!

I just wasn’t a very good one.

• • •

Five years. I probably would have gotten more, but the judge was a real bleeding heart who bought some of my lawyer’s arguments for leniency. I was a first time offender and all my crimes were committed in a way that I never hurt anyone except that one cop in Alabama. Even my not-so epic battle with The Biloxi Bugler hadn’t hurt the loser superhero. The prosecutor wanted to add a count of assault against me for his benefit, but that sanctimonious do-gooder declined.

It was a relief to not face additional time, but it was also embarrassing. I’d gotten a concussion and a dislocated shoulder.

I also didn’t try pleading “not guilty,” that threw the prosecutors and they didn’t have time to properly prepare the case. Plus, they could only pin the bank robbery and the one jewelry heist on me.

Even so, I was going to the SuperMax—the prison for supervillains, where the cells were buried several hundred feet below the North Dakota landscape. To the inmates, it was known as The Pit. The nearest city was fifty miles away, and a pair of satellites sat in geosynchronous orbit watching every square inch of the compound; in both visual spectrum and several of the ones not visible to the naked eye.

There had only ever been one successful mass breakout, and it had been led by the most unlikely of sources: that semi-catatonic Imaginary Larry. After three days, he decided that he didn’t want to be there anymore and ripped a way out of that place with his mind. Over two hundred prisoners followed him to freedom. Many were recaptured, but almost as many weren’t.

Instead of taking Larry back there, they made a special mental facility for him in western North Carolina. Supposedly, he is living his high school days over and over again. If there were years I had to keep repeating, it would probably be them.

There’d been a number of individual breakouts, but those were attributed to the powers possessed by those people and a lapse in procedures. I had no powers and no hope of getting myself out of this place anytime soon.

Riding along in what amounted to an armored bus, I had my own US Marshal sitting next to me. Two rows up was another prisoner, who looked like he was five or six years younger than me.
He must be more important, because there were three officers surrounding him
. The man was joking with his guards about coming home again.

Without my force blasters, I was just a guy in chains and didn’t really pose much of a threat.

“Who is that?” I asked the man sitting beside me.

“E.M. Pulsive,” the Marshal answered. “Ultraweapon brought him down in Las Vegas.”

“Oh, so that’s what he looks like.” I recognized the name from the ATAI. He could turn his whole body into electricity. It was a real superpower.

“Have you all figured out how to contain him yet?” Pulsive had some kind of thick collar on that looked similar to the neck braces they put people with spinal injuries in. “I heard he snuck out in someone’s cellphone once.”

“It’s above my pay grade,” the suit next to me said. “Even if I did know, I wouldn’t be telling you.”

I shrugged, and tried to think of a way I would contain a guy like E. M. Pulsive. Keeping him grounded had already been tried in several variations. From the insulation on the brace, my guess was they were going for a way to quickly short him out when he changed.