Yesterday's Heroes (Consortium of Chaos Book 1) (28 page)

“Left it miles away and walked
through the woods so I didn’t set off the alarms.”  He walked over to one of
the darkened areas of the cave and the lights clicked on revealing the Badger-mobile. 
“We’re going to take my
new
car.”

“WOW!  Oh man!  That’s so cool!” 
She paused.  “Hey, why is that yours and not mine?  I was here first.  I would
have killed him half an hour ago, but you distracted him and he didn’t get
close enough.”

Wyatt rolled his eyes.  “Tow-may-toe,
tow-Mah-toe.  In any event…”  He pulled a legal document from his coat pocket
and handed it to her.  “…it’s
OURS.
”

She scanned the paper.  “Holy crap! 
We actually beat him in court?  That thing’s ours now?”

Wyatt nodded and pulled the keys
from a hook on the cave wall.  “Nice of him not to show up for the trial,
wasn’t it?  I
told
you he wouldn’t.  Judge in Taxidermist’s case awarded
us…pretty much everything Randy owned.  Librarian was VERY persuasive in court.” 
He opened the canopy of the sleek brown rocket car and climbed inside.  “The
only problem is that now I actually have to be seen
driving
this thing. 
Think OverDriver can at LEAST pry the damn little ears off of the frame?  This
thing is the stupidest
possible
car there could ever be.”

She gasped.  “No!  The whole point
of the Badgermobile is that it looks like a Badger!”  She jumped into it and
looked around the interior.  The interior of the BADGERMOBILE.  Wow.  “Hey,
think you can hit the Badger siren on the way home?”

She beamed.  What a great night.

The
gods were once disputing whether it was possible for a living being to change
its nature.  Zeus said "Yes," but Aphrodite said "No."  So,
to try the question, Zeus turned a cat into a maiden, and gave her to a young
man for a wife.  The wedding was duly performed and the young couple sat down
to the wedding-feast. "See," said Zeus ", how becomingly she
behaves.  Who could tell that yesterday she was but a Cat?  Surely her nature
is changed?" "Wait a minute.” replied Aphrodite, and let loose a
mouse into the room.  No sooner did the bride see it than she jumped up from
her seat and tried to pounce upon it.  “Ah, you see the moral here," said Aphrodite,
“Nature will out."

The ride back to the Volcano Crater
Lair had been in almost total silence.  Harlot wasn’t entirely sure
why
. 
Wyatt didn’t SEEM especially broken up about killing Badger, but it still
seemed like he had something on his mind.

That had been the day before and
since that time, she hadn’t seen him at all.  Naturally, this was NOT something
she was willing to let stand without comment, and so she had spent the better
part of an hour hunting the man down.  To her surprise though, he wasn’t
hiding.  In fact, he was in plain sight, sitting in the conference room with
everyone else, watching the view screen intently.  She cleared her throat.  “Wyatt? 
Can I talk to you for…”

The people around the table gave
her a chorus of angry “shushes.”  She brought her arm up to shield herself from
the sudden barrage of balled up copies of the agenda and various snack foods.

Holly spun around in her chair to
glare at her, her usually overtly friendly face contorted in anger.  “
Silent
NIGHT!
  DO NOT talk over this, Harl!  This is IMPORTANT life and death stu…” 
She trailed off, and her eyes filled with nervous apprehension as they returned
to the screen.  “Oh God…here we go…”

The man on the screen looked down
at the document in front of him, his face incredibly serious.  “…I can report…” 
He swallowed, his body tensed as he undoubtedly prepared to deliver news of
some national tragedy.  “…
you are NOT the father!”

The group around the conference
table ERUPTED in groans, angry shouts and loud booing.  More copies of the
agenda and handfuls of pretzels were thrown. 

The Commodore sprang to his feet
and pointed at the shrieking woman on the screen.  “
Callet!
  Then this charlatan
has
conclusively
cheated on Chris and conceived some concealed chap’s
child!”

Cynic was wearing a shirt which
read: “
Proud Member of The Badger Fan Club.
”  He did a fist pump in the
air and put his head back in throes of happy laughter.  “YES!  I called it! 
Yeah! 
Now what!?!  Now what!?!
  What’d I say, huh?  What’d I fucking
say, you fuckholes?  I said;
she’s a whore; ‘Chantilly-Lace’ isn’t his baby!
 
HA!
”  He clapped his hands together in delight.  “Ya each owe me THREE
bucks!  And I WON’T accept no I.O.U.’s or personal checks, ya lying deadbeats. 
Come on, come on, stop complaining and pay up people!”

Poacher tossed several bills at
Cynic and then stared at the screen for a long moment, his brow furrowing.  “…Wait…she
kind of looks like this one chick I used to nail…what’d Maury say her name was
again?”

Tyrant looked at them in disgust as
they continued to argue over the results of the talk show paternity test.  “I
cannot
believe
that I still find myself in your company.  I am truly
embarrassed
to be in the presence of ones so
astonishingly
dimwitted as yourselves. 
You’re CHILDREN.  Merely foolish children focusing on some ridiculous television
program and allowing it to control you, while having NO independent conscious
thoughts of your own.”  He angrily gestured towards the screen.  “
ANYONE
could see that this LaCheryl creature was a deceiver, and a
PERFECT
example of why this world will be better off once I have
DESTROYED
it.  If
you would believe her, you are all quite simply too
stupid
to be allowed
to live.  Killing you will be an act of mercy.”  His eyes scanned the room, his
lip curling back in contempt.  “
Trusting fools.
”

Wyatt laughed.  “Man, even Maury
was surprised over that one!  HA!”

Tyrant glared down at his prisoner
as she tingled something.  “No, I will
NOT
lend you three dollars!”

Wyatt looked back over his
shoulder, and gestured for Harlot to come further into the room.  “Come on! 
Come on!  You’re missing it!  Today’s a day of
shocking paternity results!”

She squinted at him in confusion. 
Apparently he was really into talk shows now…and his co-workers.  Strange…  “Can
I talk to you for a minute?”

He got up and walked over to her.  “What’s
up?”

She looked down at the floor.  “I
just wanted to make sure that you were okay…about what happened last night and
that you knew how much I appreciated what…”

He waived a hand.  “Oh!  No problem
at all.  Always figured I’d have to kill that bastard at some point, good to
finally have it out of the way.  I tell you he beat the shit out of his own fan
club president once?  I don’t know what happened exactly, because I couldn’t
get the girl to talk about it, but whatever he did it was BAD.”  He took his
eyes off of her, and they slid back to the screen.  He yelled across the room. 
“Cynic; double or nothing on the next one!  I got a good feeling about Aymbyr
there!  I think she’s telling the truth!  That baby looks JUST
like
him!  Look at the photo!”

Harlot rolled her eyes.  “I know it
must have been hard anyway, despite your…”

He shook his head.  “Nope.  I’m
fine.”  He looked down at her, his face growing concerned.  “You okay?”

She nodded.  “Yes.  I’m fine.  I
just want to make sure that…”

Behind them the television signal
got interrupted and replaced with a Channel 6 Action News logo.  The newscaster
appeared on screen.  “Good afternoon, I’m Connie Storms.  We interrupt this broadcast
to…”  More loud booing and death threats were screamed at the television.  “….great
tragedy had occurred, and we are sad to report the death of The Honey Badger.” 
She paused.  “Again.”  The shot changed to a series of publicity images of
Badger throughout the years.  “Freedom Squad spokesman Kent Richards had this
to say.”

The screen was filled with a
handsome man wearing a gray suit with a black armband.  His face was contorted
with obviously fake grief.  “We here in the Freedom Squad family were shocked
and saddened by the loss of our brother, The Honey Badger.  We can report that
we believe him to actually BE dead this time…and yes, we know we’ve said that
before, but this time we’re serious…but our grief is tempered by the outpouring
of sympathy we have received from the people of this city.  And we report…”  He
looked down at the ground pretending that he was too emotional to go on.  “…We
can report that while he may have fallen….he went out like a hero, defending
the city from its enemies.”  He gestured behind him to a man in cuffs.  “And we
are happy to say that we apprehended the cowardly
assassin
which the
Consortium of Chaos sent to strike down one of our great protectors; Soda
Jerk!”

The room BLEW-UP with angry
screams. 

Holly pointed at the screen.  “
HE
IS NOT AFFILIATED WITH US!
  NO WAY would we let that little poser join up!”

The camera swung back to Kent
Richards.  “We can assure the people that they are perfectly safe and that we
will hold this villain until such time as we can identify his evil
co-conspirators.”  He listened to a question shouted at him and then shook his
head.  “OF COURSE we have evidence of his involvement.  We have a list here
containing the names of more than
fifty
different persons who we can
prove
are in some way involved in this conspiracy.”  He paused to listen to another
question.  “You don’t
need
to see it, this is sensitive material.  Just
trust us that it’s a
rock solid
case.”

Cynic raised his hand.  “All in
favor of killing this guy right now?  Because I vote: yes.  He’s pissing all
over us! 
WE
killed Badger, not
that
little asshole!”

Hands shot up immediately in
affirmation of the plan.

Wyatt frowned.  “
No one is
killing anybody! 
We’re NOT murders!  We will…”  He paused, thinking that
over.  “…Wait…You mean Kent there?  That’s who you guys want to kill?”  He
laughed.  “Sure, you can go ahead and kill
THAT
guy.  Dude owns a string
of brothels overseas that cater to pedophiles.”  He nodded.  “Kill away,
folks.”

Cynic nodded at Wyatt.  “You know,
I’m really starting to like you.”  He glanced around the table.  “Brainstorming
time people; when should we do it?  I’m thinking we can have a team ready by
tonight.”

Vaudeville laughed and took off his
sunglasses.  “Why wait?”  He glanced at Holly.  “Ms. Claus?  If you would be so
kind?”

Holly stared at him for a moment
and then reached into her toy sack and pulled out a red Christmas tree
ornament.  She tossed it to Cory who caught it in one hand.  He smiled, his
static filled eye suddenly displaying a picture and rapidly switching channel
after channel until it reached Channel 6.  A tiny image of the Kent Richards
broadcast was displayed inside his eye.  Cory’s evil smile widened.  “Time to
pull the plug on his show.”  He pulled the hook from the ornament, drew his arm
back and tossed the decoration at the screen.  The red orb flew towards the TV…distorted
for a second…and then flew right through the screen, and appeared again at the
press conference downtown.  Kent had just enough time to blink in confusion as
the object materialized out of nowhere, before it detonated, causing him to
disappear in a shower of red and green glitter.  The camera man swept the
camera back and forth several times trying to locate the man who was just suddenly
not there anymore.

Everyone around the conference
table started laughing hysterically and cheering.  Vaudeville strolled
triumphantly around the table getting high fives from everyone, and then
pointed at Holly like their success was all her doing.

Harlot frowned.

Teamwork?  Really?  In all the
years she had worked here, she had NEVER seen them work together like that.  It
was…odd.  She smiled.  It must be Wyatt’s influence.  He had a way of cutting
through the nonsense around here and making them all focus on what needed to be
done.  The man was a born leader.  A true hero.

Wyatt nodded in satisfaction.  “Nice
work.”  His brow furrowed in thought and he glanced at Holly.  “Just what was
that thing anyway?”

She shrugged.  “Beats me.”

“You mean you built a device and you
have
no idea
what it does?”

“Jeez, man.  It’s perfectly OBVIOUS
what it does!  It does that…that…that
glitter
thing.  I don’t need to
know
precisely
how it works or where it sent him…”  She paused.  “…
IF
it sends him anywhere…he MIGHT just disintegrate, I’ve never really figured
that part out…”  She waved a hand disinterestedly.  “In either case, he’s not
here anymore, so what does it matter?”

Wyatt shook his head sadly.  “Just…just
PLEASE be careful using things if you don’t know what they do, okay?”

“
Yes, mom
.”  Half the room
chorused.

Harlot ignored them, still in total
shock that they had been able to work together on something so effortlessly. 

He smiled down at her.  “You okay?”

She nodded.  “Just...just really
happy you’re here.”

Poacher pointed at OverDriver and
Piltdown.  “Hey!  You two!  See if you can’t get on a computer or something and
shut down the news station’s interruption.  I don’t give a shit about this, I
want to get back to Maury and they have NO BUSINESS forcing me to watch this
garbage!  I don’t
watch
the news;
I CAUSE IT!”

**********

An hour later, Fabricator was spin
kicking yet another one of Poacher’s robotic Hyenas.  The robot snapped at his
face before being kicked away again and disappearing.  Poacher’s giant face
filled the sky, his mouth simply going up and down without forming words.  A
second later, his oddly high-pitched voice filled the air as if from nowhere.  “Foolish
Freedom Team!  Welcome to DIE!”

There was a blare of loud
electronic guitars from the heavens, and lightning flashed from somewhere.  A
rock wall fell away, and giraffes with flamethrowers attached to their heads
burst into the room, firing deadly arcs of fire at Fabricator.  He looked over
at his companion, the giraffes pausing in midstride until he was done speaking. 
“Fellow Freedom Man!  We’ll must go and save city!  We have too!”

Dauntless continued walking into a
low concrete barrier and then spun in a circle and collided with it again.  “Yes! 
FOR AUTONOMY!”

Poacher dropped from the sky and
landed in a crouch on the stone floor in front of Fabricator.  “I am Ivory
Hunter you are nothing!”

Fabricator was absolutely still for
a moment as Poacher jumped up and down, and then pulled out a spear from…somewhere. 
Fabricator stood stiffly and began awkwardly punching him.  Dauntless continued
walking into the low wall, then tried jumping over it.  He failed.  The robot
hyenas began to attack his trapped form.

Fabricator punched Poacher several
more times, and then the sky started flashing blue and white.  Fabricator grew
huge, the cave he was standing in rapidly faded away to become a multicolored
star pattern. 
“FREEDOM POWER ACTIVATE!”

A beam of lighting shot out of his
outstretched hand and struck Poacher…
Ivory Hunter
…in the chest, causing
him to wink in and out of existence several times and then disappear.  Dauntless
fell to the ground and similarly began to appear and disappear as the hyenas
finished him off.