Blackjack Villain (20 page)

“In a rare Oval office press conference, President Matthew Huntington introduced a newly formed super group, dubbed “Superb Seven” whose sole task will be to find and bring to justice the band of super villains that are thought responsible for the assault on the U.S. Bank Tower in Los Angeles two days ago, and the murder of our revered hero, Pulsewave.”

“Holy shit,” Cool Hand said. “She’s really dead?”

“I think he’s already affirmed that.”

“Guys, let me hear!” I roared motioning to the bank of televisions.

“It is with the upmost sense of duty and with the most serious and sober determination,” Pres. Huntington began, flanked by an acclaimed array of caped and spandex-wearing supers, “that I’ve asked some the finest superheroes to band together with the sole and express purpose of finding this new villainous group, and putting an end to their nefarious ways.”

“R-O-F-L at ‘nefarious’,” Cool Hand said.

“Among the distinguished supers,” continued the reporter, “are legendary heroes Epic and Superdynamic. Joining them are former members of The Revolution, Apogee and Mirage, as well as newcomers Gamma Demon and FTL. Rounding out The Superb Seven is Atmosphero, former member of Rising Force, who was at the U.S. Bank Tower fight.

“Needless to say,” Epic said, the camera in a tight close-up, “we’re bringing some heavy hitters to the table.”

“That dude Epic is an asshole,” Cool hand shot in. “I know him from back in New York.”

“Me and Epic alone could drop those punks ourselves,” Superdynamic added. “But we’re gonna pile it on, as payback for Pulsewave.”

As the report wore on, I noticed Haha cycling through his new weapons and Cool Hand was, for once, quiet.

“Indeed, by sheer firepower, it seems like going duck hunting with a howitzer,” the reporter continued. “But according to William Braxton, Director of the National Super Administration, ‘We want to play it safe with this bunch. If they managed to take down a full super group, they’re a force to be reckoned with.’”

“A force of nature, baby,” Cool Hand said softly, repeating his old line, but lacking the conviction he’d had back in Retcon’s study.

The report went on showing images of the Super Seven came on the screen, one at a time.

“They had better be up for the challenge, as Braxton purports, for it’s rumored that each of these superheroes that now comprise The Superb Seven will receive a weekly salary of one million dollars, and a completion bonus of over ten million dollars. What does that mean to John Q. Taxpayer? The Seven had best be “superb” for what their services are costing us. This is Adam Richter, for CBC news.”

“This is more than I agreed to,” Dr. Zundergrub said from the door. “Doctor Retcon will have to kindly accept my resignation.”

“Yeah, fuck this.” Cool Hand’s bravado went only so far as his company’s, it seemed. “Those guys will wipe the floor with us.”

“At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid,” Haha said, still in Nietzsche mode.

“Can you stop it with that shit?” Cool Hand flared. “What does that even mean, anyway?”

“It means, my dear Cool Hand that I intend to fight to the bitter end. This is merely a new challenge.”

“Are you nuts? Influx is dead! Blackjack is all fucked up! I’M fucked up! This isn’t a challenge, this is fucking retarded. I’m not in this for the cause, bro. I was in it for the green, ok? No amount of coin is worth going up against those assholes. And by the way, that dude you killed at the Bank Tower, Pulsewave?” Cool pointed at me. “He was one of The Revolution, with Apogee and Mirage. Don’t think they won’t come looking for blood. This is crazy, man. Dr. Retcon can fight his own fights for the bits of dusty shit he wants.”

“This is hardly a ‘bit of shit’,” Haha interjected, pulling out the Tesla book from the folds of his kimono. It was dry and unharmed.

“What do I care what it is? It could be the fucking first bible Jesus had, when he was a kid, autographed and everything. If I’m dead, I can’t spend the bank I’m supposed to make.”

“Oh, I doubt they would kill you.” Haha put away the book. “Blackjack perhaps. Myself, they would take apart, equivalent to destruction I suppose, but the surprise would be on them.”

“I have no interest in jail,” Zundergrub said definitively. “If they intend to arrest me, they will find me unwilling to cooperate.”

“Blackjack and the good Doctor, then,” Haha amended.

“Fine! You guys be all cool and shit. I’m done with this game.”

“You can’t drop out, Cool.” I figured I’d chime in at this point. The medbot was spraying some sort of solution on my midsection that looked like dark gray concrete that despite drying fast was quite malleable, allowing me freedom of movement. It felt soothing and the pain was soon gone, so I did nothing to stop it.

“Oh, fuck yes. I can.”

“You can’t betray Dr. Retcon, Cool. You’re not going to get away from him.”

“Bullshit,” Cool said.

Zundergrub seemed to agree, nodding severely.

“I can be gone with the wind, man. Dude won’t know where to look for me.”

“Maybe for a while, sure you could disappear. But Retcon’s the guy that moved the moon out of orbit in the 60s, almost destroyed the earth half a dozen more times. He near took over the world in the 90s with that space station laser thing.”

“Yeah, the guy fails a lot.”

“He’s the guy that killed Valiant.”

I paused a second, to let it sink in.

“For fifty years Retcon’s been the world’s foremost Super villain. Maybe not now, maybe not next year, but soon, he’d come looking for you. And he’d find you.”

Cool said nothing, processing the reality of his situation.

* * *

That night I slept and missed much of the reporting on the new super team. I also missed the rocket takeoff, which Cool Hand later described over and over as, “awesome.” When I awoke, the rocket was silent, the lights were dimmed. Everything was still.

My stomach felt like someone had put a flexible slab of concrete on it, but I could move without much pain, and it felt much better. Every breath was labored as I walked through the rocket’s underbelly, seeing its interior fully for the first time. Unlike Retcon’s lair, the rocket had a single design, like something out of the 60s British Thunderbirds series. It was all red and white with silver trim, and a lot of glass, including a two story single piece of plate-glass that acted as a viewport outside. I stood on the second floor balcony of the observation lounge looking back at the planet Earth, as we orbited high above. We were so high in orbit that the planet didn’t even fill the viewport.

I roamed a bit, seeing the passenger cabins (Dr. Zundergrub’s locked, Cool Hand’s wide open) then taking the stairs down to the lounge and a computer lab. Mr. Haha was plugged into the computer suite, which was more Forbidden Planet than IBM. The floor was an open grid, giving me a good view of the engines below, which were almost as tall as the whole rocket. I tried to keep from staring down to avoid the feeling of vertigo.

Haha turned his rabbit head and watched me come in and sit at the console.

“You look ready for battle,” he said.

I smiled, fighting back the nausea at the twenty story drop below me.

“I don’t have a suit. Don’t have any of my special arrows. I feel like if I sneeze my intestines will fly out. Don’t know how useful I’d be in a fight.”

“Get better fast, then.”

“Right, the Super Seven.”

“Superb, you mean.”

“Yeah, whatever. Anything new on that?”

The screen in front of me flashed a combination of images, in fast staccato-style, divided into fourths; with so much in each quadrant I couldn’t even keep track of the images.

“Slow it down.”

The images became more leisurely and I saw Apogee and Mirage standing side by side at the White House press conference from the day before. They were the former partners of Pulsewave, and likely to come after me first in a fight.

“How can I get specific information on the members?”

I could almost swear the rabbit head smiled. “You ask.”

“Ok. Let me see the files on Apogee and Mirage.”

The screen wasn’t that big, but Mr. Haha did his best, putting them both at once.

Mirage was quite powerful with his name-sake ability to project illusions of terrain, and to create quantum constructs of partial mass. Otherwise, though, he was your typical steroid/spandex monkey, with more muscles than brains. He would use his abilities to put us all ill at ease while his partners moved in to finish us off.

And to that end, Apogee was a speedster with Class-A physical abilities. She could also generate plasma explosions, specifically using it when hitting people, at the exact moment of impact, to accentuate her blows. Apogee had dropped the duo of Steeltoe and Matchstick, former Revolution teammates gone villain, all by herself. She had gone toe to toe with Brickhouse in what must have been a catfight for the ages. They all were now serving 25 years in Utopia prison, as were dozens of high-profile, powerful super villains who had crossed her path.

These guys were heavy hitters for sure. I could expect Apogee in my face the instant a fight started and I had no arrows to replenish my empty quiver.

Despite the threat, I found myself beguiled by her. She was a sight, with a body like a statue, tall and voluptuous, with light brown hair parted to the middle and layered to her strong shoulders and a face like an angel. Apogee was like a legendary screen siren, a stunning green-eyed goddess, and she knew how to carry herself.

I looked over at Haha, who was staring at me, or so I thought, and realized I was leaning forward to get a good look at her on the small screen.

“Apogee wants to kill you,” Haha said, more aware than I realized.

“It’d be easy for her.” I turned off the monitor and leaned back.

“You’re stronger than her. Less experienced, though, and she’s much faster.” He thought for a bit. “Yes, it will be easy for her.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, to which he joined.

“As Cool would say,” He added, “OWN YOUR ASS.”

There was a lot of machinery on this floor, scattered equipment of all sorts, with more blinking lights than a horde of scientists would know to decipher. It wasn’t my lab, with all my gear, and my near obsessive-compulsive organization, but I needed arrows, even weak ones from salvaged gear, if I intended to survive the Superb Seven.

“Think I can scrounge some materials from the junk lying around?”

“If you mean from my parts, I have a Cool Hand quote for that as well.”

“No,” I said exasperated. “Not the ambulating junk, the boxes of useless shit lying around.”

“As I’m not the owner, I’d say be my guest.”

That was all the permission I needed.

* * *

I got to business immediately turning an empty table I found into a rudimentary field lab. I only had my multi-tool at first, but soon I discovered an overheating generator within an old computer console that reminded me of ENIAC. With some small modifications to the resistance, I could probably increase the output and use it as a heater. It would melt it out in a few hours, but it would give me time to construct a suitable replacement.

What I did first was make a few tools, including a carbon-seared heat lance to cut the raw pieces I needed, and a tubular centrifuge to spin out the arrow shafts. I was using bulky materials, raw metals from the chassis and support beams of the computer boxes themselves, and cutting them down for the parts I needed.

Haha continued scanning television signals, occasionally looking over at me.

I wouldn’t be able to get fancy, so I decided to go for raw power over subtlety. I didn’t know where I was going to get Semtex or C-4, but I planned for it, making a dozen explosive arrows. The payload would have to wait, but I made proper delivery arrows, with impact and timer detonators. If I had a chemistry lab, I could make my derivation of C-4, which was almost twice as effective at the same weight, but I couldn’t expect to stop by L.A. any time soon. Hopefully, Cool Hand would know someone to get what I needed.

I found a strong electromagnet and decided to spend some time trying to find some Ianthanoid elements to try to make a super strong magnet arrow. I searched the whole lab and found a safe that I ripped open and inside, there was the mother lode. Dozens of vials of materials, most of them useless to my experiment, but enough manganese, vanadium, nickel and cobalt, that with some of the iron I had lying around, I could contemplate making a magnet of unearthly strength. It would require an onboard coolant on the arrow, which with the materials I had was more than a challenge, but once I got my mind on something, I was like a bull.

The idea was to create a molecular magnet, albeit one that would only exist for a fraction of a second. But it would be a devastating weapon against FTL, the only member of Superb Seven who wore a suit of armor. If I could figure out a few dozen potential problems with the magnet arrow, and I could hit him with it, it would turn his suit into a super-magnet with amazing attractive forces, maybe even a gravity well. Superdynamic wore a metal helmet and I think his skin-tight suit was at least partially metallic. Gamma Demon got his powers from those gamma-ray drenched bracelets he wore, which were probably a metal of some sort. In that split second, the attracting forces would be so great that the three of them would be neutralized. The varying formulae for magnetic attraction were going through my head as I put it all together when Mr. Haha interrupted me.