Almost Infamous: A Supervillain Novel (25 page)

She chuckled, but the laugh sounded forced and bitter, as if she was imagining being in one herself. “The smiley masks, well, back when we used to have heroes workin’ this place, it used to get depressin’ seein’ all those faces behind the glass. Minuteman, I forget which of him exactly said it, but he put out the idea to put masks on ’em to make this place cheerier.”

“He was wrong,” I said.

Blackjack shrugged. “To each their own. Just know that, once you’re put in one of these tubes, you’re in here until we say you can leave, and that’s probably never gonna happen. Especially if you got a gift like our friend here that can be put to the betterment of po-lite society.”

“What does that mean?” Nevermore asked.

Blackjack pointed at the black hoses attached to the man’s spine. “It means that this villain’s body produces an enzyme that can aid rich bitches in losing a few pounds, or a unique kind of magnetic field that’ll allow our listeners out there to better hear the phone calls of dissidents.
Anything
they can use. Just be glad you didn’t have anything they wanted. Otherwise you wouldn’tve been given this chance.”

“What chance is that?” I spat out. “The chance to be lectured by a has-been superhero and—”

She hit the button on her Creeper controller, and again I was on the floor. The pain was more severe this time, burning and dancing beneath my chest.

Death. Death. Just get this fucking thing out of me!

Blackjack turned it off, her voice solemn when she continued. “No. I’m offering you a chance not to end up like these pitiful fucks.”

The tubes rumbled, moving down the hall like clothes on a dry cleaner’s rack. Even though I was on the ground, I could see the tubes that rotated into place beside us as clear as day.

Carnivore. Circus. Other drummers.

Showstopper.
Ghost Girl.

I cried out, some impotent, sad, angry, animal sound. I wanted to focus on Blackjack. I wanted to rip her limb from limb. I wanted to destroy this whole place. But I couldn’t do that. If I tried, if I even seriously
thought
about doing it, they’d put me in here (or use my Creeper to prevent me from ever doing anything else). All I could do was be angry.

“Look, I’m sorry I had to burst y’all’s bubble, but I wanted you to know the stakes. You fuck up again, and you’re all in here. So, for now, we’re gonna make some changes. We’re givin’ you some time off to rehabilitate. You can still leave the island, but you can’t have nothing in your body harder than smokes, pot, or a glass or two of alcohol. You feel your Creeper movin’, and you’ll know when you’ve had enough. There’s gonna be no more parties. No more spendin’ time with the heroes until you kids learn to take better care of yourselves. Do you understand?”

One by one, the others reluctantly agreed with Blackjack. Of course, I had to be last. I had to be the one left steaming in anger and fear. I had to choose between the lifestyle I’d fought so hard for and survival. I had to make a choice that really wasn’t much of a choice at all.

“Yes,” I finally said. “I understand.”

#Supervillainy101: The Battle of Skull Landing

The history books paint World War II as a slam-dunk victory for America and her allies (but mostly America) due to the involvement of El Capitán and the Protectors, but in reality it was anything but. Though won in a few short years, Germany and her allies in Italy, Japan, Lemuria, and the Rebellious Imperial Possessions (Canada, India, and Egypt, among others) had amassed an impressive army of supers and mad scientists to their cause. The fights were fierce, literally changing the face of the earth, and it would have remained a bloody, years-long stalemate unless one side found some advantage to put them over the top.

Thankfully, America found that advantage first.

The Golem of Prague had been used by Jewish resistance fighters in Czechoslovakia. Twelve feet tall (and nearly as wide) and made of near-indestructible stone, it was incalculably strong and completely loyal to whoever had control over it. Taking it off the resistance fighters’ hands, the Protectors put it to good use breaking battle lines and destroying anyone who would dare defy them.

The Golem’s most dramatic use is generally regarded as the Battle of Skull Landing. A group of German scientists had set up a lab for experimental weapons, as well as unethical human genetic tampering and research into creating the
Übermensch
on a small island in the Mediterranean nicknamed “Skull Island,” probably because it was such a cheery place. The island was heavily fortified and had some of the strongest supers the Germans could have collected, including two artificially created Titans. Not wanting to risk any of the Protectors on taking the island, they simply air-dropped the Golem in and told it to wipe the island clean of any traces of life.

Three days later, the job was done. The Golem, covered in blood but otherwise none the worse for wear, had killed every living thing on the island. Not even plants and nesting seabirds survived its wrath.

America put the science and research obtained from the station to good use in pumping up the economy postwar, and the Golem has been one of the Protectors’ greatest heroes since.

#LessonLearned:
Superheroes can be real assholes sometimes.

16

COLD VELOCIRAPTOR

I wish I knew who first came up with the term “cold turkey” so I could find them and shove some focus up their ass. I know, they’ve probably been dead for something like a hundred years, but if it takes years of research and finding a time machine to do so, I think I might.

Either way, they didn’t know what they were talking about. Turkeys are fat, waddling birds that taste good on sourdough with mayonnaise and don’t have much resembling a brain. I’ve heard some say they got a temper, and that they’re not
that
stupid, but in my limited experience with them, they always struck me as oversized chickens.

Withdrawal isn’t docile. It wouldn’t taste good on sourdough with mayonnaise. It’s ill-tempered and it claws at you, agonizing and constant like the worst sick and hunger you’ve ever felt.

Cold velociraptor always struck me as a more accurate name.

When Blackjack first dropped us back at the mansion, we made our way to the healing pods, seeing if they could clear our systems.

They couldn’t.

That would have been too easy.

They could heal broken bones, torn flesh, and most diseases, but they couldn’t rid our bodies of the drugs we flooded our systems with any better than they could have gotten rid of scars or tattoos. In a mad, desperate bid to find the easy way out, I spent close to a day calling Helios to see if maybe he could get me into some kind of rehab program that’d fix me up quick.

The only problem was, he didn’t answer. I knew he saw my calls and texts, I knew he read them and heard my voicemails, but I got nothing back. The one time I did get through (maybe he picked up by accident), the call was disconnected almost immediately. I raged and cried and wiped out an entire hallway of the mansion when I lost control of my powers. I bounced so many times between wanting to kill him and wondering what I did to make him hate me that the two extremes began to merge and I started wondering if he would hate me if I killed him (
Ghost Girl could tell you
).

It was on the second day when the withdrawal symptoms really started to kick in. That’s when things got real bad.

I hadn’t slept. I was awake and in the black all at once, and I was scared. I could hear screams and moans coming from down the hall. I was sweating and cold and throwing up when I didn’t have anything to throw up but bile with bits of blood in it. My powers were on the fritz, sometimes burying themselves deep, hiding when I needed them, other times exploding out unexpectedly and violently, taking most of my room with them. When I could think rationally, I thought of how I could make this better. I thought of asking Odigjod to take us off the island, of finding one of the dealers, of getting my hands on a little bit of Montage, just enough to take the edge off without setting off my Creeper.

This seemed like the greatest idea in the world. Agonizingly, I got to my feet and padded my way down the hall to Odigjod’s room. I knocked on his door. Nothing. Harder. Still nothing. I started pounding on it, screaming his name.

“Aidan. We need to talk,” Trojan Fox said.

“I’m busy.”

“We all are,” she said. “Everybody’s downstairs.”

“What time is it?”

“I don’t know, but everyone’s in the rec room and there’s some serious shit we need to clear up here.”

So that was where Odigjod was. Fine. I followed her. I’d even listen to her, some, but first chance I got, I was going to talk some sense into Odigjod.

The others were all stretched out on couches, all in pajamas, all looking as strung out and fried as I felt. Trojan Fox didn’t look much better. Her eyes were bloodshot, her hair frizzed out, and her hands shaking heavily as she tried desperately to light a cigarette.

She waited for me to collapse on a couch before saying, “We’re on our own. The heroes don’t give two fucks about helping us. The only people who can, are us.”

“But they’re our friends!” I protested.

“No, they’re our captors!” she proclaimed back, stretching out her arms. “You hear that, you fucks? We all know what you are, and we won’t take it!”

“Are you done poking the sleeping dragon?” Geode asked.

“Oh they’re not sleeping. They’re just biding their time. It won’t suit them to deal with us off camera like this. No, they’re going to wait for something nice and public before they do anything to us. But until then, we have to get our acts together.”

“But I liked my act where it was before!” I complained.

“Yeah, and look where it got you. Look where it got all of us! This isn’t living! This is sedation!”

“So if we are sedated, what do you propose we do about it?” Nevermore asked, twirling a finger through her hair and coming away with a clump of it in her hand.

“We go cold turkey.”
There’s that phrase again.

She continued, “We keep an eye on each other. We make sure we get better! If the five of us work together, I know we can survive this. So… are you all with me, or what?”

This wasn’t what we wanted. This wasn’t what we fought for. She had to know that. We wouldn’t give in so easi—

Wait, why did Odigjod stand to join her? And Geode? No, that wasn’t right, especially not Nevermore joining them, even if she did so very begrudgingly. She was the biggest party girl of us all, she would
never
join in on something this crazy!

She gave in to peer pressure.

Thunderhead was right, that is some really insidious shit.

No, this wasn’t right at all. Trojan Fox didn’t lead the team.
I
led the team. I was Apex Strike! I was the greatest supervillain in the world. I knew what I had to do. I was going to outspeech her. I was going to convince the others that we could fight for our right to have fun and party. I would tell them how we had to appeal to the heroes, or maybe find some way of resisting them that wouldn’t tick them off.

I would be eloquent.

I would make them see the truth.

I stood up. I cleared my throat. I tried to say the words. When I couldn’t, I leapt at Trojan Fox with fists balled, shrieking about how none of this was fair and trying not to let the others wrestle me to the floor too quickly.

The next days and weeks followed a very similar pattern. I’d spend most of the day in bed, crying and cursing and occasionally screaming, drinking water whenever it was given to me, eating whatever food was brought my way. Some days the others would begin to rage like I did, putting me in the position of helping hold them down no matter how much I might have agreed with the way they felt. Trojan Fox was easy enough to deal with once we hid her legs, but Odigjod and Nevermore were really tough when they started to lose their shit. Between the two of their powers running amok and my seriously altered perceptions, the mansion looked like a goth nightmare for a few days.

I was pretty sure I was getting better.

I had to be, since I was feeling worse.

After a while, things started feeling more normal. Pain became more sharp. I started remembering life outside of the mansion, even going so far as wanting my mom and Helios to come and make this all better. After the first week, I stopped throwing up as much and was even able to keep some food down. I made trips to the kitchen in the middle of the night, grabbing cereal or some fruit, whatever my body felt like it could handle. I didn’t mess the bed anymore, and might have even started to get some real sleep, not in the black. Which was nice.

It was during one of these moments of blissful, real sleep that reality decided I’d had enough of a vacation from it and called me back.

With a cavalry charge.

An honest-to-God, trumpeting cavalry charge.