Almost Infamous: A Supervillain Novel (5 page)

Helios: “If Only I’d Gotten There Sooner”

El Capitán: “I Will Pray for His Loved Ones”

Protectors Spokesman: “This Death in Our Family Will Be Avenged”

One week after the autopsy proved that he had, indeed, been turned inside out, every channel showed the live broadcast of his funeral. Though a native Korean, his career with the Protectors granted him an honored burial at Arlington National Cemetery. Tens of thousands of people lined the streets of Washington, DC, to watch his funeral procession. There were speeches from both the President of the United States and El Capitán. They spoke of the tragic loss of life and how this reminds us of the need for constant vigilance in the face of villainy.

The most famous image of this aftermath was of a small boy, dressed in an Icicle Man costume, standing on the sidewalk along the funeral procession with a single tear rolling down his cheek as he held a sign, saying “I’LL MISS YOU!”

The picture later went on to win a Pulitzer.

I’d hoped that, given all of this mourning, people would be more focused on the hero than the villain, but for every two headlines about the sad death of Icicle Man, there was one that went like this:

“Apex Strike: The New Mask of Evil”

“Is This the Return of the Supervillains?”

“Who is Apex Strike?”

Several online communities sprung up trying to crowdsource Apex Strike’s identity from every picture and video clip that had been taken from the fight. One user determined that Apex Strike couldn’t be human based on the funny way he walked, leading to a brief period of violence against local Atlanteans, scalefaces, and gene-jobs.

Multiple conspiracy theories came out that Icicle Man’s death must have been an inside job from the heroes to legitimize their liberal, anti-freedom-based agenda.

Fangirls started crawling out of the woodwork, making social media pages dedicated to how cute Apex Strike must be beneath that mask and how they wanted to have his babies. Not just sleep with him, but actually give birth to his children. I didn’t mind the first part, but the second…

For reasons good, bad, and otherwise, everyone just wanted to know who Apex Strike was.

That was the question everyone at school spent all their waking hours speculating on. Who could it be? Why would they do such a terrible thing? Where would they strike next?

In reverse order, my answers to those questions were: I don’t know, I don’t know, and I don’t know, but it sure as hell isn’t me. I might have said that last part one too many times, but the way people laughed afterwards gave me the feeling that they just thought it was my sick sense of humor. After all, there was no way
I
could be Apex Strike. According to the news he was a dangerous criminal mastermind who would have gotten away with an expertly planned armored car robbery if it hadn’t been interrupted by the Protectors. His ability to stay concealed even with all the surveillance technology the heroes and government had to offer had to be a sign of skill and practice of years at being on the run.

Apex Strike was clearly a master villain.

I was just Aidan Salt.

Of course, I wasn’t half-assing my innocence either. I put my nose to the grindstone and studied hard at school, earning more A’s than I had since freshman year. I joined my family at a few of our church’s candlelight vigils in Icicle Man’s honor. I even started spending time on weekends working with local charities. Mom, Dad, and even Andy all thought I’d lost my mind. All I had to say was that Icicle Man’s sacrifice had inspired me to improve my life.

I was a
good
boy, after all. There was no way I had anything to do with the death of Icicle Man. And there was no way that I could be Apex Strike.

None whatsoever.

After a while, I thought I just might get away with it as life slowly went back to normal.

I started sleeping again, no longer jumping or screaming at the slightest sound. After a few weeks I’d dropped out of the Top 10 trending topics and the news started spending less time talking about Icicle Man’s death and more time on its favorite topics: war and superhero gossip.

In retrospect, my devastating failure at the Sunnyside Liquor Store didn’t seem
that
bad. After all, I’d gotten away with some cash, and even proved myself against a superhero. He really didn’t stand a chance. And I was famous—just a step or two away from being rich and feared. Maybe if I could retrace my steps, find that yard where I’d buried the costume, I could possibly even resurrect Apex Strike (
maybe even hit up a few of those fangirls…
).

After all, if I’d gotten away with it once…

I was thinking something much like this while walking home one day in late March when a man in a black trench coat and sunglasses dropped out of the sky in front of me.

“Aidan Salt,” he said, reaching into his coat.

“Ididn’tdoit!” I shrieked back, turning on my heels and running. I looked back long enough to see him tapping his earpiece and speaking rapidly.

Two more men in identical suits appeared in front of me, one dropping out of the sky like the first, the second materializing out of the ground.

The last thing I remember before everything went black was holding my hands up and screaming, “Wait!”

I didn’t wake up dead. That was a good start.

I did, however, wake up tied to a chair in a dark room with a bright light shining in my face. I seemed to only be wearing my underwear and a thin metal collar wrapped around my forehead.

I quickly realized waking up dead might have been a better option.

I tried to focus, but couldn’t. My power had been disabled.

From somewhere beyond the light, someone threw a bucket of icy cold water in my face.

“I was already awake!” I shrieked.

“We know,” a firm, amused voice said from somewhere else in the room. “That was for Icicle Man. And don’t bother trying to use your power. The halo you’re wearing lets us control your powers whenever we want.”

I nearly screamed. Everyone knew the horror stories about what had happened to supervillains who’d been forced to wear halos for too long.

I babbled freely, “I didn’t do anything, I swear! I don’t know what you’re talking about! Don’t hurt me! I’m sorry!”

Tears were streaming down my face, when I heard someone in the dark chuckle.

“We’re not here to hurt you… yet,” the voice said.

“YET? Then… why…?”

They continued, “We have a question for you,
Apex Strike
.”

“I’m sorry…” I muttered.

“Apex Strike… do you love America?” the voice asked.

There were a thousand questions I’d expected to be asked before this one, but at least it was one I could fake a quick answer to easily. “Yes! Yes, of course I do! My parents put a flag out every President’s Day, and one day I want to visit all fifty-eight states!”

“Excellent…” the voice said. “And what of her allies?”

“They’re awesome!” I said, even though I had no strong feelings toward the Brits or the Soviets or any of the others.

“And Earth?”

“Love it,” I said. I was willing to agree with whatever they asked me if it kept me alive.

“Very good. You see, Apex Strike, America, her allies, and Earth itself have enemies. To maintain the
freedom
we enjoy, we need superheroes. They maintain the peace and order that allows us to sleep at night. You do like a good night’s sleep, don’t you?”

“Yes!” I exclaimed.

“Good, I’m glad we agree, because not everybody does. They believe that, because there are no more supervillains, because the non-human empires of Earth and beyond are not currently hostile, that we do not need as many superheroes. Already many corporations and governments are considering cutting back on superhero funding. Do you understand how bad that would be?”

“Yes!” I exclaimed, completely answering on autopilot.

“It would be anarchy! People would run lawless through the streets, committing crimes at will! Governments would fall! We would suffer attacks from Lemuria, Atlantis, the less-civilized Sasquatch tribes, maybe even the Grays! The world needs its superheroes!”

The voice fell silent for a moment, and then sighed. “But to have superheroes, we need supervillains. Supervillains keep heroes relevant and funded. That’s where you come in.”

I was still on autopilot. “Yes! I’ll do it! I’ll do whatever you want!”

“You know, we were hoping you would say something like that. I think he’s ready for us to shed some light on this situation, don’t you?”

The spotlight that had been blinding me was shut off, and replaced by dull, harsh fluorescents that lit this otherwise stark, concrete interrogation room.

Standing before me were at least a dozen heroes. Some I knew, while others I didn’t: Everywhere Man, Helios, Crystal Skull, husband and wife team Morningstar and Silver Shrike, Armada, Captain Cola, and even Extreme Man, who I thought had retired in the 90s.

A muscular man, the left half of his body human, the right half a Gray alien, walked toward me, smiling.

It was Fifty-Fifty, who I went as for Halloween when I was a child.

“Welcome to ‘Project Kayfabe,’ kid,” Fifty-Fifty said. “So guys, think he’s ready for Death Island?”

He raised a control device towards me, his finger hovering over a button in the center.

Fearfully, I asked, “What isl—”

#Supervillainy101: Blackjack

If you choose to believe her story, even knowing her history of lies and cons, Jill “Blackjack” Winchester was cursed by a voodoo witch doctor on her plantation in Georgia in the 1760s so that she could never touch anyone without them feeling her pain. From that day forward, the last person she touched would feel all the pain, suffer every injury, and even age every day that she was meant to age, effectively making her into an immortal voodoo doll.

Realizing this power’s potential (and always having an attitude problem), she started posing as a man, “Jack,” and purveyed this curse into a career as an outlaw and mercenary, traveling the world, fighting in wars, and running gangs from the Wild West to Prohibition-era Chicago. Her Old West bravado and style made her a notable and colorful figure in the rising superhuman underworld of the early twentieth century. She was fearless, dangerous, and widely regarded as the first true supervillain of the Golden Age of Superheroes.

When the War on Villainy was announced and the superheroes organized, Blackjack knew that her time was short if she decided to stay a villain. A survivor till the end, she broke into the first ever meeting of the Protectors and offered them all of her criminal contacts in exchange for freedom and a spot on the team.

Naturally, they took her up on this offer, and she enjoys to this day an enduring career as one of America’s favorite antiheroes.

#LessonLearned:
Superheroes can be surprisingly reasonable if you learn to play ball.

4

PROJECT KAYFABE

I was getting tired of having my brain turned off and on by the time they finally put me on the boat, but it happened half a dozen times between my interrogation and then.

Three times it was to ask me some follow-up questions about myself; about how my power manifested and how strong I was.

Twice I was woken up by technicians who were working to calibrate my halo. Given their terrified cursing, I think these were accidents.

The last time before the boat I was woken by Armada, decked out in all of his body armor and weapons and reeking of vodka.

“Look scared,” he ordered in his Russian accent.

This wasn’t hard.

“Thanks,” he said, posing himself next to me to take a selfie. Picture taken, he ruffled his fingers through my hair.

“Tell anyone I did that, little boy, and I’ll shove a fucking flamethrower up your ass and pull the trigger,” he said before shutting down my brain.

The next time I came to, I was on my back, staring at a gray, blank ceiling. My head was pounding as the world was slowly rocking back and forth. The sound of water lapping at one of the walls told me that I was on a boat, which had to be better than being in the Tower… or dead.

I sat up, the world righting itself more than my empty and angry stomach wanted to. I could see that I was in a small room with a thick metal door, a toilet, a sink, and my cot. A single flickering bulb in the ceiling bathed the room in a faint yellow light.

I had been in public school classrooms that were more comfortable than this.

The rocking. The pounding in my head. That sour ball forming in my empty stomach.

Something was about to give.

I ran for the toilet, sank to my hands and knees, and vomited, painfully.

I quickly realized three things after doing this:

1. The heroes had found my Apex Strike costume and helmet.

2. I was now wearing my Apex Strike costume and helmet.