Blackjack Villain (29 page)

“What?”

She shook her head, baffled. “You paid.”

“Of course I did,” I said, holding up the receipt and the bag filled with stuff.

“I thought you were going to rob the place!”

“Why would I do that? I have money here.”

I guess she couldn’t believe that I would bother to pay a $35.52 bill. In her mind we were all criminals, all a bunch of evil scumbag killers.

“Come on,” I said grabbing her arm and dragging her down the street. “Want to commit a crime? Here we go.”

We walked until I found a car to my liking, a recent model large-sized SUV.

The screen on my computer watch was cracked, so it took me twice as long as it should have to research what I needed to bypass the alarm of that particular model. The owner had an alarm warning sticker, and that made it all that much easier since I could narrow down the model of the system. I went online with my damaged watch computer, found the frequency range then wrote a program to modulate at high speed across the bandwidth that the alarm system was designated to receive. Once I engaged the program, the locks snapped open.

“Get in,” I told her, thankful of her silence during the whole process. I opened the door for her and she slid inside, shaking her head in disbelief.

I ran around and jumped in the driver’s seat, and started on the harder part, a new program that ran through a whole new set of frequencies. I picked this particular model because I knew that it had one of those keyless entries and ignitions. Entry was made possible by depressing a button on the car key, which sent a transmission to the car, telling it to open the door. Starting on the car was more complicated. The key emitted a different frequency at much lower range that told the car that the person inside did indeed have the key. You had to have the key within a few feet of the steering column sensor for the car to recognize the key’s frequency and enable the ignition. In fact, there was nowhere to stick the key into, a button to turn the car on.

The trick to it was to find the right transmission and find a way to keep it going. I found some sound advice in an online forum from a guy called “st33lzwh33lz” that saved me the trouble of going frequency by frequency, one at a time, and having to turn the ignition to each. St33lzwh33lz thought of the simplest thing: transmit every frequency at once, permanently.

I wrote that program in about three minutes, turning my watch into a makeshift key transmitter, and we were off down the street.

“AC cold enough for you?” I asked her, smug as hell.

“You just tacked on another ten years.”

I leaned back and cruised along, burning a few hours while headed out of town, until the malls opened.

* * *

I convinced her to wear a tourist t-shirt for our trip through the mall. It was an outlet mall in New Jersey, on the outskirts of New York. Liberty Village Premium Outlets was actually quaint, mostly wood, open air affair with long manicured lawns and a large pond in the middle. It was like some seaside Jersey village, painted in pastels and whites. I would have liked to look around more, if not for the fact that I was a wanted criminal with a captive heroine in tow.

It was about opening time, and most folks were eager to get their shopping started. I had been up since the day before, but I wasn’t tired. It was typical of me when I was on a mission or had a project. Coffee and doughnuts would keep me going all night and day. Apogee, though, was starting to feel it and even dozed off as I drove to the mall.

“Ok, now you can’t complain,” I said, motioning to all the stores and moving to the map of the place.

“Ann Taylor will do,” she said, fighting back a yawn.

I found it on the map and headed off, striding fast in our direction. Even in this early hour, the mall was full of shoppers and employees, and every security guard was a potential radio call away from turning us in.

We reached the store she liked and I opened the door for her.

“I’ll head over to the Jockey store next door and get some more things,” I said as I let the door close and walked away.

Apogee used her speed powers and caught up to me.

“What?”

She shook her head. “I’ll go with you.”

“It’ll take longer. Come on, we don’t have time,” I said, whining more than I liked. “If we split up, we can get more done faster.”

“I have to go with you,” she demanded.

“Fine!” I yelled, angry at myself for forgetting Zundergrub’s mind job and stormed off towards the Jockey Store.

We walked inside and went towards the women’s section.

“I was going to get you some unmentionables,” I said, still annoyed.

She laughed. “No one calls them that anymore.”

“If I wanted a fucking lesson on the history of clothing terminology-”

“It’s called lingerie, you ignorant Neanderthal,” she said playfully and walked past me, looking at the store’s wares. I followed her for almost five minutes as she perused every bra, scrutinized every bottom, and finally lost my patience.

“We don’t have all day here,” I blurted and grabbed some sports bras and a few matching bottoms and went to the cashier to pay. She followed, displeased.

“I like to take my time when I’m shopping.”

“Then remind me to never go shopping with you again,” I said, almost throwing money at the woman who worked there not waiting for the change. “Come on!”

I held the door open for her, but she paused.

“Fuck, move it!” I said.

Apogee crossed her arms, in what I was starting to recognize as her most used stance, at least with me.

I was losing my mind. The whole world was after us, and she wanted to take her time shopping. I wanted to get back in the car, get away from the major cities until I could contact the guys. Every effort to talk to them through our communications system proved fruitless and in the meantime, an alphabet soup of agencies was coordinating across the whole Eastern seaboard to catch me.

She was right though. I was unhinged, rattled, and it was going to lead to more trouble unless I calmed down and had my wits about me.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s my first manhunt. I’m not handling it well.”

“No, you’re not.” Apogee walked over to me and ripped the bag out of my hands as she stepped outside.

“I hate this color,” she said, peeking inside.

“It’s white, it goes with everything. I figured-”

Apogee paused, rumpling the bag as she dug through the garments I had purchased. She looked at one of the bras, almost ripping it out of the bag, and held it by the tag.

“How do you know my size?”

I smiled.

* * *

The whole thing took too long. I hurried her, prodded her, threatened to chuck her into the goddamned lake, but she strolled the isles like a princess, looking at everything, rubbing it in my face with a haughty expression on her face. I gritted my teeth, afraid that fidgeting would draw attention to my appearance. Three stores later she seemed satisfied with her wardrobe.

She got some practical clothes for being on the run, a pair of black runner’s tights, sneakers and a purple runner’s hoodie. Apogee looked ready for a marathon, and I like a homeless person with a clean t-shirt. But at least she was satisfied, and quiet, until we got back to the car.

I wanted to steal another, and started casing the parking lot for something big.

“What are you doing?”

“I want to switch cars,” I told her.

She laughed, “They have cameras, you’re better off with the one you already have.”

I glanced around and she was right. They had a serious security presence, including a fleet of white SUVs riding around the parking lot.

We walked back to our stolen car and drove off.

“What are you upset about?”

Apogee had pulled her hair back into a tail and washed her face in the mall bathroom, and she looked fantastic, at the cost of spending over two hours shopping when we should have been running.

“I’m not upset,” I said, lying.

“Look at your knuckles. You need to calm down.”

“Or else what?” I snapped. “Huh? Don’t think I don’t see you delaying, parading in front of every security camera so they can see you and track us.”

“What?”

“Don’t pretend you’re not. I know when your people show up; you’ll fucking jump me.”

“Blackjack, baby. We only met,” she said.

“Just shut up, ok? You got your fucking clothes so you can look good when the cameras show up.”

“Remember the tunnel? Didn’t we make a deal?”

“Fuck that! I know what you’re doing.”

Apogee shook her head and was silent for a few minutes, looking out the window on the passenger’s side.

“Something happened to me,” she started, almost to herself. “I don’t know what it is, but I can’t attack you. I can’t hurt you. Hell, I want to help you and it makes no sense to me.”

All I wanted to do, there and then, was find Zundergrub and break his fucking neck for saddling me with her. Apogee was probably the most well-known super in the world, universally loved. She was as big as they came, as big as Superdynamic, Epic or other major guys like Lord Mighty and Primal. Apogee was also known for her foundations’ efforts to highlight embattled regions affected by rural poverty, to protect natural resources and wildlife conservation.

Basically, everyone knew who she was, and that she was missing, and she couldn’t be more than a few feet from me. Not the ideal situation for escaping the amount of heat I had on me.

“Why are you doing this?” she said.

“Driving west, or do you mean the jobs we’re doing?

“Both.”

I shrugged, “I did the jobs for money and we’re headed west because I don’t know what else to do.”

She stared at me with a bewildered expression, “All those people you killed, and you did it for money?”

“It was the one guy, Apogee. And like I told you-“

“What about Germany? Their government is up in arms about a bunch of their soldiers getting killed.”

“They were trying to kill me.”

“Sure,” she said sarcastically. “What about the oil rig workers?”

“No, it was some commando dudes with machine guns and this plasma cannon that ripped my guts out. They started shooting up the place.”

“Okay, I can understand that-“

“They killed our pilot, and he wasn’t even armed.”

“Fine, but that still doesn’t explain the 287 oil rig workers that they found torn to pieces.”

I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. In our whole time on the rig, I only caught a glimpse of one or two, running away. I’d figure they would have the sense to either hide out, or evacuate the rig.

“I know you have no reason to believe me,” I said. “But I only saw a couple of guys running around and they were alive.”

“You’re trying to say you don’t know anything about it?”

“That’s exactly-“

“Because that’s real hard to believe,” she said, jumping all over my efforts to explain.

“-what I’m…I don’t care if you don’t believe me…” I paused then realized what must have happened. “We were separated from Zundergrub,” I said and she slowly raised her head as if understanding. “Yeah, he showed up late and he had blood all over him. That cold-blooded motherfucker.”

Apogee nodded, as it was all becoming clearer.

“He’s all anti-government, and anti-environmental polluters,” I went on. “The only guy that listens to him at all is Mr. Haha, but I’ve overheard him…and he said something, when we were at the bottom of the rig about getting revenge ‘on the despoilers’ or something like that.”

“He butchered them all,” Apogee said. “And he’s your partner.”

“There’s something you need to understand,” I shot back instantly. “I’m nothing to that guy.”

“Typical,” she said.

“I didn’t do it, Apogee.”

“No, I’m saying it’s typical that villain groups always end in drama.”

“Says the person that put two of her former teammates in jail,” I said, laughing and I instantly regretted it. Apogee’s jaw line clenched tight, and her eyes bored into me with sudden rage, but sometimes I’m too stupid to leave well enough alone. “I wonder what Steeltoe and Matchstick would say on the subject of intergroup drama.”

“That was totally different!” she snapped.

“Oh, really?”

“Just shut the fuck up. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Maybe,” I said, regretting I had brought it up in the first place. I’ve always had the bad habit of knowing the exact thing to say to make people both hate me and at the same time do everything in their power to try to kill me.

She was quiet for almost a minute, stewing while she stared at the road ahead. It didn’t take much longer for her to come back to the subject, but I was wondering why she cared what I thought.

Apogee sighed and shifted, then cast a sideward glance at me before climbing over to the backseat. As she brought her right leg over, she caught me on the side of the head with a solid shot.