Secrets of a D-List Supervillain (8 page)

“Right. Are they playing someone at home this weekend and is that someone ranked?”

“Florida State and they’re number three.”

“What’s the spread?”

“Eleven,” the man sounded even more irritated. Must be upset that his team isn’t getting any respect.
I don’t get any respect either, so suck it!

“Well, that’s a possibility. As much money as there is in a bank, there’s way more money tied up in the bookies and making certain they don’t cover the spread. You may want to step up security around the visiting team’s hotel. If that isn’t the target, I’d look for them to use the game for cover to pull whatever job they are trying to do.”

It’s what I’d do in their place. Snatch someone important to the FSU game plan, like, their Offensive Coordinator, but not so important that they’d cancel the game. Kind of a dick move, but they are villains and that’s how they roll.

“Reasonable theories,” a second voice on the call said, this one female. I decided I liked that one. “I’ll have our racketeering unit check out the major books in Vegas to see if there is a surge in bets going to Baylor, and monitor it.”

Must be a fed, I decided, and liked her a little less on principle.

“Next,” I continued, deciding that I’m on a roll. “How did you become aware of these two? Did they let themselves be seen or did you get a tip?”

“Why’s that important?” the man asked.

“Simple. If they let themselves be seen, they want the attention and there might be more running around and this might be bigger. If you got a tip, then you got lucky.”

“It was a tip from a reliable informant.”

“Fair enough,” I said. The Menace wasn’t sane enough to orchestrate a bake sale, but She-clops—I wouldn’t trust Jeannie further than I could throw her unaugmented. She might be smart enough to leak her presence to stir up some trouble.

• • •

Even when I was at UCLA, I didn’t care for college sports. Yes, we had a great sports program there. My scholarship there didn’t rely on whether I could throw a baseball or run a deep in route. For me, game days were a nice day to get around the campus without the constant mass of people. My roommate, the unfortunately named Joey Hazelwood, was really into everything Bruins-related. His side of the dorm sometimes made me a little nauseous. Heck, I even pretended to be really into Nebraska for a little while in freshman year, just to annoy him.
Go, Cornhuskers! Yeah, whatever.

With that in mind, I found it odd to be parked on the roof area of Floyd Casey stadium, above the boxes, watching the Baylor Bears doing their best not to get blown out by the team from Florida State. Since the fact that I was still breathing was a testament to the life of an underdog, I was kind of pulling for the home team, aside from the fact it was fourteen to three with the final seconds winding down in the first half.

“Charmer, you think you can get a couple of hotdogs and a drink sent up? The view up here is lousy.” I inquired into the communicator built into my ManaCALes helmet.

“You know what your problem is, Stringel?” My partner was in the oversized FSU windbreaker, trying to blend in with their visitor’s training staff and keep his chains concealed. “You never think before you open that stupid mouth of yours. Always with the smartass remarks. Never knowing when to just be quiet!”

“Well, since you’re in such a pleasant mood, I was wondering if you would let me borrow the spare necklace for an extended period of time.”

There was a long pause before he replied, “Why? You already know what it does for you.”

“Yeah, but I was thinking I could use it to translate all that lizard scratch and see if there’s anything that will save Andydroid from spending the rest of his days as a statue. The Grand Vizier thought a translation would be helpful.”

Technically he never used those words, but I wasn’t above name dropping to help my cause.

“I don’t know,” he said. “She-Dozer has requested that I let others try it on so that we can recruit the person it grants the most useful power to.”

The whistle blew as Baylor’s long field goal attempt dropped short of the goalpost and rolled through the end zone. I waited until the whistles and announcements subsided before speaking again.

“I’m just asking for a loaner, Jin. If you’re uncomfortable with Sheila’s idea, tell her you’re letting me borrow it while you think it over. I’m just trying to help Andy.”

“I will consider your request,” he spoke, after another few seconds of silence.

“Thanks,” I said, and pondered whether or not to try my luck with another hot dog request when the vacated Florida State bench erupted in some kind of fire and began to burn. “Charmer! The bench is on fire!”

It looked like a metal bench, maybe aluminum and my mind started generating a list of things hot enough to burn metal.

Jin’s reply was drowned out by the screams of people below, but I could see his chains shred the windbreaker he wore seconds ago and he moved like a giant daddy long legs toward the burning metal. Players from both teams began sprinting for the tunnel, followed by the frantic disarray of the marching band that had been trying to take the field, along with the cheerleaders, and any other unfortunate soul down there.

Switching over to the circuit law enforcement was using, I said, “Whatever is going on, She-clops and the Menace are making their move. I’m going airborne.”

Activating the hoversled, I eased it off the top of the stands and got over the field while the announcer called for everyone to remain calm. Charmer’s longest chains, the forty footers, wrapped around the burning bench that was already beginning to sag to the ground and melt, and flipped it over.

I jumped back onto our “Guardians Only” channel. “What’s the word?”

“Some kind of enhanced thermite. I’m going to put it all in one pile to contain it all and not let it spread.”

Surveying the scene below, I concluded, “Hurry up. I’ve got a hunch that they’re nowhere near this stadium.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because, if they were looking for hostages, injuries, or anything else they’d have done it while the players were sitting there. Instead they wait for halftime and cause havoc without the injuries. It’s a diversion. The real stuff is going down somewhere else. Neither of them flies and there’s no way in hell they’d get themselves caught up in this mess. Come on, we have to go!”

“I will contain the situation first and then follow,” he said.

“It’s a crowd control issue, leave it to the stadium security,” I protested.

“People come first,” he said in an adamant tone.

I began accelerating on the sled and muttered, “Jin, do me a favor. If I ever start acting like you, shoot me.”

Pulling up the map of the city with the locations of every bank and credit union in Waco with the current traffic patterns shown, I narrowed it to three suspect sites and informed the locals and the feds. They replied that they were directing a helicopter to one of the locations.

“I’ll take the one that’s near the on ramp to the interstate. Be careful on the approach. She-clops can shoot you out of the sky,” I stated. It’s the one I would pick in the situation. I wanted to kick myself as soon as I said it. I could’ve just as easily picked the other and let the cops show up where the robbery was in progress. No! I had no intention of turning into a clone of Jin. In this case, being right was more important. There was that TV head doctor who always asks people if they want to be right or happy, well I’m happiest when people realize I’m right!

Traveling as the crow flies; I cut across the city with ease. I also took my own advice and dropped to the rooftop levels. There was less of a chance of me ending up as a splatter on the pavement. Without my armor, I felt practically naked up here.

Approaching the credit union, I saw a non-descript black van backed up to the rear entrance and it brought back memories of the “good old days.” I banked away and set down on a nearby warehouse while calling it in. Toggling the vision enhancement built into my helmet, I took a gander to see if I was dealing with a Saturday cleaning crew or Jeannie and Dave.

“Unless cleaning crews carry shotguns, I think I’ve found the spot,” I said and chuckled. “Then again, this is Texas!”

Blazing She-clops must’ve hired some local muscle to help with the heist. There were five altogether. Thermals told me one was in the driver’s seat and that he was the getaway driver. Two were loading and the other two carried what looked like your typical off-the-shelf Remington pump action shotguns. Provided I didn’t try to go toe to toe with them, my heavier shield should be able to take it. For a change, I felt I had the edge.

That should’ve been all there was to it. Instead, I cringed as I heard the sirens rolling up the street; I knew that it was going to be a long afternoon.

Ah yes, the stealth approach,
I thought.

Climbing back onto my sled, I flew the opposite direction from the one that the six squad cars and SWAT van were coming from and hoped their noise would help cover my landing on the credit union’s roof. With any luck, the hired muscle would be so distracted by their immediate problems that they wouldn’t notice that I’m right above them with the high ground.

Using the crude voice commands built into the helmet, I dialed up a level three pulse from my force blasters and fired at the right front side of the van. The tire exploded, and I probably bent the axle. The van wasn’t going anywhere in the near future. Instinctively, I ducked as one of the men swung the business end of the shotgun in my direction and fired. Yeah, my vest would’ve protected me, even if it had gotten through my force field, but I possess an aversion to being shot at. Reaching into my belt, I fumbled with a tear gas grenade and lobbed it down into the mix. My helmet worked like a filter, and I could still see these yahoos with my thermal scan.

Switching over to taser pulses to save energy, I popped over the low wall and snapped off a couple of shots. One hit, but the other missed, badly. Six SWAT team members take advantage of the men reeling from the tear gas and charged in to overwhelm them. I was just about to do a mini-victory celebration dance when someone roared and the van was pushed aside like it was a Radio Flyer wagon.

Dave Evans, The Passive-Aggressive Menace waded into the fray, tossing friend and foe aside. He stood about six foot six inches tall and had short curly black hair. Clearly the aggressive side was in charge. Gunfire simply bounced off his skin and there was a crazed look beyond anything I’d ever seen on his face. Sure, I’d seen him lose it, but on some level he still knew that he was in prison and held back.

We weren’t in prison at the moment, and he didn’t seem interested in going back. He hadn’t seen me at the moment, and the chickenshit part of me wanted to keep it that way, but I decided to suck it up and pretend to be the hero no one actually thought I was.

“Level four,” I said, and pushed my right hand at him. The burst of energy slammed into Aggressive and knocked him sideways. It was a good sucker punch and he definitely felt it, but it wasn’t going to be nearly that easy.

Cutting over to my private circuit with Jin, I said, “Move your ass, Charmer! The people you claim to care about are getting their asses handed to them!”

“I’m on the way!” His response wasn’t nearly as good as, “Turn around, I’m here already.” However, it was a damn sight better than, “I haven’t left the stadium yet.”

I’ll take what I could get.

Though it had been tempting to dial it up to level five and hit him with a full alpha strike, I knew two things: my luck isn’t all that great and he has a partner. My limited charging capacity meant that if I wanted a decent rate of fire, and to actually have enough juice to last more than a minute, I had to cycle one blaster at a time and I couldn’t go higher than a four without the risk of losing my force field.

Dave didn’t seem to recognize me, but it wasn’t like we were buddies or anything. The only thing that mattered to him was that he hurt me.

His weapon of choice, the getaway van!
Holy shit! Holy shit!

Since prayer wasn’t going to help me, I dived to the left and released my chambered force blast at the mangled wreck, with the screaming driver still stuck inside. My bolt created enough of a nudge that I didn’t get the opportunity to see whether my single shield generator was actually Ford Tough.

The van impacted on the roof behind me only a few feet from my hoversled and that caused me to breathe a sigh of relief. I’d have flown back commercial rather than ride behind Jin all the way back! Seconds later, the vehicle dropped into the building.

That’s going to make a mess! I thought and wondered if there was a chance She-clops was now pinned underneath it.

There was a chime inside the helmet that let me know the recharge cycle on my right blaster had finished and I was armed again.

“Come down here and let me kill you!” Dave yelled and ripped through the steel weighted net one of the SWAT members had tried to subdue him with.

“Can’t we just talk this one out, Dave! It’ll be just like old times.”
He’s bound to revert to Passive any time now, just keep him talking.

“Who? Oh, that’s you, Stringel! Where’s your fancy suit? I was hoping to rip you out of it through your arm socket.