Every Day is Like Doomsday (31 page)

Innya was already there, standing in the center of
the gym with her large, black duffel bag at her feet.“What
took you so long?” she demanded. She didn’t appreciate
waiting, especially in front of an audience.

“I ran into the Dean. He was on his way out. Said
he doesn’t want to be here when the shit hits the fan. He
wishes us luck, though.”

“Well, isn’t that just like a man,”she muttered under
her breath.
“And he reminded me about this.” Elliot dropped
the box and opened it so that she could peer into it and at
once her mood changed from dark and irritated to happily sociopathic. “I had to go to his office to get it.”
“Nice job, Zombie,” Innya muttered appreciatively.
“Come on, let’s get this over with.”
They faced the bleachers, which already held all of
the thirty or so kids currently attending the VA. They had
been talking amongst themselves but when Elliot and
Innya turned to them they stopped and waited to see
what would happen.
“So now what?” Elliot asked, his eyes widening as
he took in the crowd of Villains. He was nervous. She
could hear it in his voice.
“You can fall apart later when no one is watching.
For now just follow my lead, Zombie boy.”
“Now what?” asked Red. He looked as if he were
eager to cause some damage on someone for wasting his
precious time.
“Is this about Mr. Magnificent?” asked Casio from
the front row of the bleachers.
“A little,” said Innya. “Only in that he is not what
you think he is, or rather what we have all been led to
believe he is.”
“You mean he’s not gay?” asked Red and many of
the boys guffawed.
“Not that it matters, but no,” said Elliot, “He is
actually a Villain, just like you… I mean, like us.”
The crowd was silent, which was unexpected. Elliot
looked to Innya as if for corroboration but she simply
said, “It’s your story to tell,” and took a step back.
At those words all attention was on Elliot and
Innya watched him clench his hands into fists as he suppressed the urge to run. He had played the Villain for a
while and many of those assembled had at times wanted
to kill him, wanted to be his best friend and wanted to
screw his brains out. When he told them the truth Innya
figured they were all very likely to revert back to the first
column so she didn’t blame him for being jumpy.
“Last night Innya and I broke into Senator Vane’s
house—“
Cries of, “What were you thinking?” and “You’re
going to get us all exterminated!” were intermingled with
shouts of, “Way to go!” and “Stick it to the man!”
“Shut up and listen,” shouted Innya louder than all
of them and they quieted down.
The mediocre support gave Elliot courage to continue. “Thanks, Innya,” he said.
“No problem, dear,” she answered with a saccharine
smile.
“What we found there is shocking. It also explains
the letters everyone received this morning and Mr. Magnificent’s appearance at the VA.”
“What do the letters have to do with this?” asked
Ventriloquist. The voice came from the top left corner of
the room, where no one was sitting.
“Senator Vane sent those letters.” The murmuring
started but Elliot continued over it, “My father, Senator
Vane, is the brains and the money behind the VA.”
“What? Why would he do that?” asked a kid Elliot
had never paid attention to before.
Innya could sense that Elliot was losing some of them
so she decided to step forward to prevent an outright coup.
“Elliot’s father is the ultimate Super Villain.” Innya felt her
cheeks flush at the mere thought of such power and out
of the corner of her eyes she noticed Elliot glaring at her.
She couldn’t help it; ultimate power was intoxicating to her.
“Elliot’s father masterminded the acceptance of
G.O.D. as the national religion. And he lobbied for the
VA to be in his own backyard not so that he could keep
an eye on us but so that he could train us and watch us
and pluck us out for service when we were ready.”
“Like a farm team?” asked Red.
“Farm team?” asked Innya, looking over at Elliot.
She had never heard the term before.
To her surprise Elliot slipped easily into the conversation. “Yes, like his own private, evil farm team.”
“What about the kids who were shipped to Antarctica?” Brain asked.
Elliot said, “They were given jobs out of the country but still in the Senator’s employ. Everyone who was
expelled works for the Senator.”
“What about if you follow the rules and graduate?”
Innya said, “You get arrested and put away until you
die.”
“That’s bullshit!” said someone loudly and there
were murmurs of assent. Casio’s outrage at the injustice
of it all filled the room with discordant music and Elliot
and Innya both shouted, “Shut up!” The noise died down
to a more manageable level.
“We have to strike now and we have to strike fast,”
said Innya once the noise had settled down.
“What are we supposed to do?” asked one of The
Twins.
“We have to fight him.”
Red snorted. “So a bunch of kids who don’t have
full control of their powers yet are supposed to fight the
biggest Super Villain alive? The man who has cared for us
and paid our tuition and trained us and has access to hundreds of other Villains, unlimited funds, and the federal
government behind him? The man who could probably
take us out with a nuke and get away with it. That’s who
we’re supposed to go fight?”
“Precisely.”
“Why would you want to fight against your own
father, dude?” asked another kid. “If he’s the man you say
he is all of that could be yours someday. I’m sure he could
use a superpower like yours.”
Elliot took a deep breath and released it slowly.
Innya sensed his hesitation and before she could stop
herself she reached out and squeezed Elliot’s hand. His
palm was sweaty but she didn’t pull away and the contact
seemed to give him the courage to continue. “I’m a fraud.
I have no powers. The truth is that the Dean asked Innya
to look out for me in the beginning because he knew that
I got stuck here on accident, that I wasn’t a Villain. But
when I stayed in the news and my dad realized that I was
dragging down his good name he asked Innya to kill me.”
Innya chimed in. “I didn’t know who had asked
me to kill Elliot at first and then once I figured it out I
couldn’t do it even if I sometimes wanted to because there
was something more nefarious at work and I needed to
figure it out first.”
“We broke into his home office, saw what he had
been up to…”
“…Mr. Magnificent caught us…”
“…Which brings us to why he was here this morning.”
Innya grinned. She loved this part of the story. “We
discovered that Mr. Magnificent was a Villain, one of the
first to come through this program when the program
itself was in its infancy. And because he was hopeless
Senator Vane had him brainwashed, stuck a new personality in him and made him into a superhero. But every
one of his victories over evil is fraudulent because Senator
Vane tipped him off whenever he found out something
was going to happen.”
“When Mr. Magnificent found us we showed him
the evidence and it made him go a little loopy. We all got
drunk and ended up back here.”
“If he’s such a Villain then why did he leave?” asked
Crusher.
“He went to make sure that the police investigating
the break-in caught the wrong scent,” Innya said.
“What makes you think he’s not going to run back
to Senator Vane and implicate the two of you?” asked
Red. Then he added, as if would come as a surprise to
anyone, “That’s what I’d do.”
“Implicate? My, my, that’s a big word for you to use.
Very good,” said Innya.
“We need them on our side,” said Elliot, “Don’t be
a bitch now.”
“I am who I am. Anyway, Mr. Magnificent is on
our side.”
“How do you know?”
“I can be very persuasive. How else do you think I
get what I want? He’ll help us but I don’t know if he’ll
come back here for the battle tonight at midnight.”
“So here’s the deal,” said Elliot, ready to lay it all on
the line. “We want you to stand beside us and fight Senator Vane and everything he can throw at us.”
“Why should we?”
Innya’s skin tingled with excitement. This was her
favorite moment in movies: when the chips were down
and the outcome looked bleak. It was the
Braveheart
moment and she seized it with relish. “Do you want
to spend your life under the thumb of a man who will
kill you any time he pleases?” She paused for effect and
was not disappointed when several of the Villains in the
stands shook their heads. “Do you want to be a lackey?
Stick with him and that’s all you’ll ever be. But you can be
more. Stand up for yourself. Stand up now and you may
run your own empire someday.”
She stopped talking and took a deep breath, satisfied with her appeal.
“But don’t kill my dad,” said Elliot and the good
vibes stopped right there.
“What?”asked Innya and the others chimed in.This
was not how she had imagined things going and resisted
the urge to deck him for daring to deplete her stock of
warm fuzziness.
“I don’t want anyone to kill my dad.”
“Why not?” asked Innya. “He wanted you dead?”
“But he’s a Villain. I’m not. I can’t sanction my dad’s
murder.”
“Are you buying into the theology of G.O.D. now?
Don’t you realize that your dad made it all up, like Scientology?”
“I can’t do it.We should fight him, take him down and
turn him over to the police. Or to the federal government.
Then we expose everything and he gets sent to prison.”
“Where he uses his connections to break out and
come back for revenge,” said a student. “No thanks. If I’m
on your side then we have to kill him.”
“No one is killing my dad.”
There was silence. Even Innya was startled by how
adamant Elliot was about the whole murder thing. Really,
she thought? Then again, what did I expect of a Norm
and his pedestrian Norm attachments? Lucky for all of
them she knew that the way to win Elliot’s complacency
was through kindness.
She affected her sweetest smile, looked deep into
his eyes and said, “You’re upset. Why don’t you step outside? The rest of us will come up with a plan and then you
can look it over.”
“And it won’t involve killing my dad?” Elliot’s eyes
glazed over but she could feel him fighting her influence,
damn him.
“Go cool off and get some fresh air and come back
in a minute.” Innya then claimed his mouth in a deep kiss
that had the rest of the students hooting and cheering. By
the time she pulled away Elliot was putty in her hands.
“Okay,” he said with a dreamy smile on his lips. He
shuffled outside, closing the door behind him.
Innya turned to her captive audience and put her
hands on her hips.
“So, we’re totally going to kill the Senator, right?”
asked Red.
“Oh yeah. He’s toast.”
“Good.”
“All right, now let’s get started,” Innya said and they
began to formulate a plan of attack.

Midnight.
The students had gathered in the Use What You
Have Available classroom, as directed.They were bundled
up to stave off the chill the emanated from the holes in
the ceiling and the surrounding snowdrifts as they waited
silently for the Senator to arrive.
Elliot gripped Innya’s hand firmly in his and was
grateful she didn’t pull away because he needed to feel
like at least someone was on his side. He was about to
face his father, the man who thought he was dead, the
man who had tried to have him killed, for the first time
as a man. Elliot was torn between wanting to knock his
dad out with a surprise right hook and begging for his
attention and acceptance. It was the lot of the abandoned
child, he supposed, and he wondered if he’d ever reach a
point in his life where he wouldn’t crave those things.
Elliot was practicing a welcome speech in his head
when the doors swung quietly open and Senator Vane
walked in, debonair as ever in a smart gray suit, a thick,
black wool trench coat and a navy scarf. He didn’t look
like a man who was prepared to fight for his life, but like
a man who expected to talk his way out of any situation.
He radiated power and affluence and Elliot felt Innya
stiffen beside him and start to squirm like she did when
she wanted to jump his bones.
“That’s so gross. He’s my dad,” whispered Elliot
and Innya stopped squirming but her hand remained hot
within his.
“Good evening,” said Senator Vane. His voice
echoed in the cold air. The students just stared at him and
said nothing. Beyond him Craig slipped into the room
and Elliot bristled.
“You might be wondering why you are assembled
here.” Still nothing, but Senator Vane continued unconcerned. “I am the mastermind behind this school. I have
brought you together to be trained and I am now calling
you all into active duty.
“Mr. Magnificent has disappeared and no one
knows where he is. We assume he has been compromised
by our enemies and he could be dead.”
Innya chuckled and Elliot nudged her in the ribs.
“Someone has stolen vital information concerning
this school and the villains connected to it. Plans have
been in place for a long time and now we will take over
the world before they release the stolen information to
the press. I promise you, if any of this information gets
out because we refuse to act then we will all be destroyed.
It is your duty to help me.”
“So what’s your plan?” asked someone. Elliot didn’t
recognize the voice but he was curious as to the answer.
But his father wasn’t the one who answered.
“We have people stationed around the world,
poised to overthrow governments and military regimes.
One word from the Senator and the world will be ours.”
This came from Greg, one of the Villains who had started
Elliot’s backslide into this insanity. Greg walked in, cocky
as a rock star but dressed in an impeccably tailored suit.
He had a smoking hot brunette wearing the tiniest red
dress Elliot had ever seen. At first Elliot thought she had
to be freezing and wondered if beauty was worth getting frostbite. But then he saw the steam rising from her
exposed skin. So she was a Villain, too.
Behind the pretty couple followed a band of Villains, all of them dressed to the nines as if they were going
to a high-priced political fundraiser instead of a crappy
gym full of garbage and fledgling Villains. Elliot recognized Greg’s big, dumb counterpart, Billy, among the
group. He’d never seen any of the other Villains before
but he knew they were deadly. His dad was certainly aiming to impress and had brought the big guns. We’ll just
have to be deadlier, thought Elliot.
Innya squeezed Elliot’s hand and didn’t let up. She
was as eager to get this started. So was he, but for different reasons.
Some of the students were awed by the affluence and
self-confidence projected by these Villains, others by the
hotness of the girl on Greg’s arm. Red stood up and said,
“You get me a girl like that and I’ll do whatever you ask.”
“You can have any girl you desire when my plans
come to fruition,” promised the Senator.
Red stood up and tossed Innya a smug smile, then
said, “Count me in.”
A few others followed suit, some of whom Elliot
knew by sight but not name and some of the newer,
younger kids. They were still about a dozen strong after
the shift took place.
“You fucking turncoats!” shouted Innya because she
couldn’t stop herself. All eyes turned in their direction and
Elliot couldn’t hide any longer. He met his father’s stare
with one of his own and was sadly disappointed when
recognition did not light up his father’s face at all. How
was it, he wondered, that Mr. Magnificent could see him
for who he really was but his own father couldn’t?
“Oh yeah,” said Red, “That is your son. He’s not
dead. He’s the Zombie.”
Senator Vane blinked, narrowed his eyes and stared
hard at Elliot. Elliot did not smile or offer encouragement. He didn’t say a word.
“Could it be? My son, a true Villain?”
Elliot was touched by the excitement in his voice
and opened his mouth to speak but Innya spoke first. “He
has nothing to say to you. He knows that you tried to
have him killed.”
“Only for him to return. You see, I had a feeling
that he was destined for something great. And now look
at him, all grown up and a Super Villain to boot. And
with the most amazing power… Your mother will be
delighted.”
Wait, thought Elliot, what? “You mean ‘would have
been’ delighted.’”
Senator Vane stopped and cocked his head to one
side, his familiar, condescending smile lifting one corner
of his mouth. “You have no idea. There’s so much we can
show you.”
“It’s not a power for you to use, dad,” said Elliot,
cutting him off. His mouth went dry and he felt a hollowness spreading throughout his chest as he came to the
painful realization that his father was only happy to see
him because he thought Elliot was a Villain. Otherwise
his dad wouldn’t have wasted a thought on him, and to
bring up his mom now when he almost never spoke about
her was just too much.
“But of course it is. I made this happen. I can take
you under my wing and we can work side by side, as family ought to do.”
Elliot felt tears sting his eyes but Innya mumbled,
“Be strong. He’s full of
dunette
.”
“But he’s my dad,” Elliot said, “And he wants to
spend time with me.”
“Only because he thinks you’re a Villain.”
“So what? Let him think that.”
“Let him think that so he can wonder why you
don’t get up again when he gets you killed? No way.”
Innya turned to the Senator and shouted, “Elliot is
not a Villain. I never killed him.This is all fake and we are
not going to be your lackeys.”
“What do you mean?” asked the Senator. Though
he seemed confused his minions knew what she meant
and they staked out places in the room so that they could
defend themselves from the inevitable attack.
“We mean that we are not going to help you,” said
Elliot, swallowing his tears and finding his voice once
more. “Not only that but we are the ones who broke into
your house. We stole the files and they will be sent to
the FBI and every major media outlet should anything
happen to either of us. So give up. Turn yourself in or we
release the info to the press.”
“Oh,” said Senator Vane, startled that this hadn’t
gone as he had expected. He quickly shook off the surprise
and scowled at the room, “That’s not going to happen.”
Then the war started.
Innya and Elliot ducked behind a pile of junk just
as a fireball streaked across the room in their direction
and exploded right where they had been standing. They
heard their Villains scream and scatter and Elliot hoped
they’d gotten out of the way.
“Why’d you have to tell him that I wasn’t really a
Villain?” Elliot asked in a shrill voice as fear took hold
and paralyzed his vocal chords.
“It was the right thing to do. Your father would get
you killed if he really thought that you were the Zombie.”
“And you don’t want me to die?”Elliot asked, hopeful.
Innya met his gaze steadily. “You are not as objectionable as the others.”
“That means a lot, coming from you. Okay, let’s
do this.”
“Yippie-ki-yay, mother fucker.”
“Yippie-ki-yay.”
Innya went to what looked like just another pile
of junk and threw back a black tarp and unveiled a pile
of weapons, some of which he recognized from the box
the Dean gave him and some of which he had never seen
before. As soon as she uncovered them some of their
comrades came and picked them up.
As they sifted through the pile Innya said,“Whoever
doesn’t have powers to help them in hand to hand combat
should take a little insurance against those who do.”
“This all wasn’t in that box. Where’d you get all of
this?” Elliot asked.
“I asked the techies to bring in whatever they could
to use in tonight’s fight. They were excited to get to test
them out in a real life battle.”
“Good idea,” said Elliot, impressed. Innya hadn’t
seemed to care much about strategy in classes but apparently she excelled at it.
“I know. Here, take this one,” she said and handed
Elliot something silver that looked like a cross between a
shotgun and a light saber.
“What is it?” asked Elliot. He took it from her and
then almost dropped it. It was surprisingly heavy.
“Not sure. Why don’t you go point it at someone
and see what happens.”
“I don’t want to kill anyone.”
“G.O.D., Pollyanna. You’re no fun.” She snatched
the gun away from him and handed him another, smaller
piece that fit right in his palm. “Maybe this one won’t kill
people.”
“Hey, it’s the Nightmare Gun!” Innya wrinkled her
nose and Elliot added,“I know,I know.The name’s ridiculous
but it temporarily disorients the victim by shocking their
brain into their greatest fear in nightmare form and trapping
them there temporarily. Wears off in about an hour.”
“That sounds stupid,” said Innya.
“It’s the only weapon we have that I can almost
guarantee will not kill anyone so I’ll take it.”
“Good luck with that,”said Innya.They both paused
then, knowing that they had to separate to fight, both of
them unsure what to say. On a whim Elliot kissed her
and she kissed him back, her fingers squeezing his upper
arms. He tried not to think of it as a goodbye kiss even
though that’s what it felt like. He wondered what it felt
like to her.
When they parted they looked at each other in grim
silence for a moment before Innya gave a terse nod and
moved away through a corridor of trash. Elliot went the
opposite direction; the warehouse wall was to his right
and the sounds of battle on his left, just on the other side
of the wall of junk.
As he prepared to enter the fray a body flew through
the junk and slammed against the warehouse wall. The
person landed in a heap. It was the chick who had been
hanging on Billy. She was only an arm’s length away. As
she slowly stood on uncertain legs Elliot raised the gun,
took a deep breath and fired at her head. She went down
again but this time she stayed down. Nothing on her face
gave away whatever was going on in her head but Elliot
still felt guilty. He knelt down to check her pulse and
make sure she was still alive, which she was, then dragged
her body into the shadows and left it there. Even though
the air was freezing her skin felt hot enough to burn and
he had to pull the sleeves of his coat over his hands in
order to hold onto her for more than a second.
Full of confidence from his first ‘kill’ he strode into
the main part of the room, where two thugs jumped him
and knocked him down. When his knuckles struck the
concrete he dropped the nightmare gun and it clattered
away from him. As he caught his breath one of the men
lifted his very large fist to punch Elliot in the face and
suddenly, above the din of the surrounding battle, Elliot
heard, “Hey boys, wanna play?”
Elliot and his attackers looked over to see Innya,once
again using some of her best assets to distract her opponents. She had her shirt up and her pale, beautiful breasts
practically glowed in the wintery moonlight. Elliot stared,
mesmerized, and didn’t even realize when the big Villain
had crawled off of him until Innya shouted, “Elliot!”
He snapped to attention, grappled for the nightmare gun and pointed and fired it at the bigger, slower
Villain before he was out of range. He went down but
the other one turned, Innya’s boob-magic undone, and
charged Elliot. Elliot fired the gun as the man plowed
into him, knocking the wind from him yet again. Elliot
summoned all of his strength to push the comatose Villain off of him. He was still alive.
Sore and not as confident, he looked over to where
Innya had been standing but she was already sprinting
up the spiral staircase to the catwalk, where Greg had
cornered Batboy and was prying his batty toes off of the
railing one by one. All around him, and now above him,
his peers were fighting a battle that seemed to come out
of a comic book. The Twins were tag-teaming Dopple,
who was having a hard time keeping track of them as
they moved around him in colored blurs.
Above him Innya tossed Greg unceremoniously
over the railing and helped Batboy back onto the walkway. On another part of the catwalk that hugged the
wall Casio braced herself on the railing, closed her eyes
and spread her arms wide. Almost as soon as she did a
calming melody floated down around them, flowing
soothingly beneath the grunts and crashes and blasts of
the melee. The junk was singing to them, lulling them
into complacency. Several Villains dropped their weapons
and some fell to their knees as Casio wove her aural spell
over the room.
The battle was over as quickly as it had begun and
Elliot felt the smile spreading lazily across his face at the ease
of it all.Then someone lobbed a massive tractor tire at Casio.
As soon as she was struck the music stopped and the Villains picked up their weapons and resumed their fighting.
As Elliot turned, hoping to find his father, he
walked right into Red’s fist. Granted, Red’s fist had been
zooming toward his face but Elliot still walked right into
it. For the second time in five minutes Elliot hit the floor.