Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain (54 page)

I felt kind of bad he was going to lose his momento. For about a second.

Vera could melt this one, but I wanted all her power devoted to jamming Mech. The Machine could eat this suit, too, but anxiety did nag at me. I knew it was stupid, but I’d taken too much of a risk of exposing The Machine as it was.

Besides, this suit was much less sophisticated than the other, and much less indestructible. “Break it, Reviled.”

The blaster gloves recharged pretty fast. I couldn’t help but feel proud about that as Ray pulled another purple and pink ball out of them as big as the one that had demolished Mech’s airlock hatch. He slammed it into Mech’s backup armor from point blank range, with about the same effect. The suit’s arms and legs broke off, and the torso bent into an ugly bowl. Tesla’s Desperately Needed Fabric Softener, those gloves hit hard.

“That looks beyond repair to me. Back the way we came, fast!” I barked.

We ran back the way we came. I teleported up through the hole in the ceiling into the workshop. Vera flew after me, Ray jumped up, and Claire grappled. The Machine caught up seconds later, climbing the shaft on spidery legs. I clung to one side of it and Claire to the other as it scrambled up the destroyed staircase. Ray just ran up like it was nothing, of course. Aside from being stripped of fabric and crawling with zombie rag dolls looking for more, the living room hadn’t changed. Claire grabbed a doll on the way out. Good girl. We needed to keep a breeding stock. The Machine had trouble getting through the bent hatchway, but managed.

We crowded into the elevator, and Ray pushed the up button.

Nothing.

Had Vera burned it out? Did Mech lock it down? It didn’t matter. I pointed at the emergency ceiling hatch. Even Mech’s private elevator had one. “We climb.”

Ray palmed a merely ping pong ball sized energy globe, and shot the hatch open. I teleported, Ray and Claire jumped and pulled themselves up onto the roof. Then The Machine tore the roof open entirely and climbed up onto the wall of the elevator shaft, with Vera floating behind.

Well, that made things easy. I sat primly on The Machine, arms folded, and we ascended. Claire’s grappling hook got her to the top first, but I got to watch Ray jumping from support beam to support beam like a monkey. By the time I reached the top they had the elevator door open.

It looked like zombie rag dolls had a range limit. Most had slumped over, and only a few still chewed on upholstered chairs. As I watched, Claire’s presence revived the rest. They lurched to their feet and scattered, quite a few into the stairwell.

Not a bad idea, that, but first to hide some evidence. We’d escaped Mech’s lab, and things were less desperate. “Vera, stop all jamming.” Nothing visible or audible changed. Maybe she already had.

I bent over The Machine. “And you, separate all that metal you collected and send it back to the lab by itself. I want the original back.” Quiet, metallic noises clattered inside, and then the copper beetle shell opened, and the real Machine crawled out. I snapped him onto my wrist. The bug-legged, copper mini-Machine ran off… and out a window with a crash of glass. Eh, it would get back to base or it wouldn’t.

Ray had already run over to the stairwell door and held it open for us. Claire curtseyed, and as I passed him onto the cement staircase he asked, “Down?”

“Up,” I corrected.

The building only went up another three floors. I ran all the way, and only had to hold onto my knees and take a few deep breaths as Ray knocked the locked roof access door open.

We crowded out into the sunshine. The beautiful sunshine, blue sky, and not-all-that-distant sirens. Walking across the crunchy gravel roof surface, I peeked over the edge. Lots of police and spectators. I didn’t see any superheroes, but they were there. We’d be gone before they figured out we left by the roof.

We did it. “We did it!” I shouted, turned around and threw my arms around Claire and Ray’s necks. They hugged me back. We’d cracked Mech’s lair like a rusty safe!

I heard a helicopter’s thumping rotors. Time to escape before a fight happened. I pointed over the edge of the building. Really, downtown was all big buildings. The next rooftop was a story down, but not that far away. “We hop a few buildings, find a fire escape to climb down, split up and go home separately. No, better yet, to Chinatown. Spider can have her hard drive, and we’ll be done with this.”

It hit me again. We did it. HA! “Ha ha ha ha!” I laughed, giddiness welling up inside me. I felt like I’d float away!

Then the helicopter hovered up over the edge of the rooftop facing the street. Well, we were going the other way. Except that to my considerable surprise, a woman slid down from the helicopter on a cord. She was dressed way too well to be a superheroine, and she held up a small camera on her shoulder as she rushed up to us.

Above the droning rotors, she asked, “The Inscrutable Machine! Did you become the youngest ever supervillain team to make a statement?”

I stared, but she still couldn’t crack my glee. She couldn’t see the smirk behind my visor, but I smirked anyway. “A statement? Yes, I’m making a statement. Reviled, throw her off the roof.”

For a second, she thought I was kidding. That gave Ray plenty of time to grab her in both hands and lift her off her feet. She shrieked, her body going stiff with fear, and Ray threw her like a spear straight into the open doorway of the helicopter she’d jumped out of.

I choked back my laughter desperately so I could tell Ray, “Your aim’s improving. I was going to let the superheroes downstairs catch her. Now let’s get out of here.”

We got out of there.

hat same old man stood in the same place at the same roadblocks at the entrance to Chinatown when I got there. Did he ever sleep? If he wasn’t human, that would explain his exaggeratedly fake Chinese impression.

He didn’t turn it on me this time. He ignored me entirely as I walked past the barriers, down the street toward the big central building. At the first corner Ray walked out of the side street, then Claire zipped up on her skates behind me.

Chinatown was quiet in the middle of the day on weekends. More than quiet, but not quite deserted. There were plenty of houses as well as shops, but no civilians on the streets. I didn’t see anyone at all until we got close to the stall that sold that smoking liquor. A kid still ran the stand, with one customer who could not more obviously have been a supervillain. Even without the armor she was nearly Bull’s height and solidly muscular, although not hard edged cut. Her armor matched her look, with gaps at the midriff and elbows and knees, but not a lot of skin showing between plates of two inch thick and non-provocative metal. I was sure I’d seen her picture in a newspaper or in one of Mom’s files somewhere, but I couldn’t place her name.

She knew us. She lowered the mug she’d been gulping down and yelled something at us. I didn’t even recognize the language. It sounded like a friendly, exuberant greeting, right up until she threw her mug at my head.

She threw it hard, fast, and way too accurately. I got to watch it coming straight for my face, but I’d already lifted my foot. A little push, and I blinked several feet safely to the side.

I’d have been safe anyway. Ray stepped in the way and caught the mug in an open hand.

The Amazonian villainess laughed a booming, raucous laugh, clapped, and yelled at us in her unidentified language again.

Claire hitched up her rag doll and gave the woman a skeptical, sidelong stare. “I’m pretty sure that was ‘You kids are all right.’“

Ray let out one low chuckle. “I’m pretty sure she’s drunk. Whatever’s in that drink must hit like Bull’s fist.”

The big woman picked up another mug off the stand and waved it at us, grinning hugely. She did everything hugely. She didn’t have any choice. Ray held up his hands and shook his head. She shrugged, refilled the mug, and drank it herself as we walked past.

The street remained quiet until we got into the central mall. Last night’s crowds had thinned out to half a dozen occupied stalls and the same number of villains looking them over. Three of those stalls had what looked like regular Chinese imports like they sold during the week. I saw jars and canisters of more types of tea than I’d known existed. The food table was still open, and, after invading Mech’s lab, I desperately needed to eat. They had all kinds of different stuff, but I didn’t recognize any of it. I’d try something new later. I grabbed another bun because I already knew I liked it. Ray and Claire did the same.

Of course, the best laid plans of mice and men go aft agley. I bit through the soft rice breading of this one into the center, and it wasn’t sweet and sour pork at all. Jelly that tasted like beans? I didn’t know what it was, but it was sweet and went with the bun well, so I had no complaints.

Only one of the technology stands remained open. Of all villains, Lab Rat sat at it. He even had a customer. I slipped my goggles out of my pouch and hung them around my neck as I wandered over, trailing my minions.

The customer was more interesting than the wares, although since Lab Rat’s wares included a jar of cockroaches and a full body suit of iridescent hexagonal scales that said something. Not a man, but an android. Hardly convincing. It looked like a department-store mannequin, down to the ill-fitting suit.

Claire grabbed my elbow, pulling me up short. “Uh, that’s—”

She was too late. Lab Rat saw me at the same moment and began hopping up and down, shouting, “Bad Penny! Yes! Tasty, tasty chance! You come see!” Then he began to whistle, a piercing sound that echoed up and down the mall.

Well, that dispensed with any chance of remaining incognito. With the mannequin watching us, I walked up to Lab Rat’s table.

The mannequin greeted us with a nod of his head and a voice that would have been pleasant except for the metallic edge. “The Inscrutable Machine.”

Claire took the lead, switching her rag doll to her left arm so that she could use her right hand to gesture back and forth. “Bad Penny, Reviled, this is the Butchered Man. You would know him as the ‘half’ of the Council of Seven and a Half.”

Huh. Well, if he still had a beef, he’d be in trouble trying to take it out on us alone. His permanent plastic smile didn’t say much about his feelings toward us, but his voice sounded friendly as he explained, “My associates prefer to think of themselves as businessmen who have interests in our community. I handle purchases and direct negotiations personally.”

I furrowed my brow. “What does Lab Rat sell, anyway?” I saw goggles, and the scaled skin, and a lot of little electronic boxes with dials and readouts, but that didn’t tell me anything. It told my super power plenty, but the diagrams rolling through my imagination remained inscrutable.

The Butchered Man had exactly the charm of a robot salesman, just a little too friendly. “His best work is in stealth technology and echolocation, or other sensor systems designed for enclosed places.”

“Like sewers, yes,” Lab Rat filled in, his head bobbing eagerly. Was that a hint of sly amusement in his tone? Maybe the joke was on us after all.

The Butchered Man picked up a box, watching the readout blur as he rubbed a thumb over a nondescript rubber cone on the tabletop. “The technology is not only advanced and reliable, it can be deviously clever. After your recent raid on one of our warehouses, the Council has become more receptive to my arguments that conventional security is not enough.”