Almost Infamous: A Supervillain Novel (6 page)

3. The visor for my Apex Strike helmet was closed.

“Fuck.”

I ripped the helmet off and dropped it into the toilet, retching at the stench that filled the air and covered much of my face. I turned both sink handles on full blast. There was a hiss of air and the heavy thudding of something vibrating in the wall before thick, brown water burst from the pipe with an explosive bang. I yelped, falling back onto my cot and banging my head against the wall and suddenly wishing I hadn’t taken off my puke-filled helmet, as the wall had no give against my skull.

“This sucks,” I muttered, wiping my face on the back of my jacket’s sleeve.

There was a thudding sound from the head of my cot, followed by a puff of black smoke and the smell of brimstone.

A small man was standing on the end of my bed. Only he wasn’t a man… not quite. Barely three feet tall, he had the upper body of a man and even wore a small white collared shirt with an even smaller black tie that made him look like an engineer for NASA back during the Silver Age. Assuming of course that Silver Age NASA engineers had triangular heads with seven beady black eyes around the rim, quill-like hair, a toothy mouth surrounded by tentacles, and four wafer-thin ears that fluttered next to his face like moth’s wings. And, of course, assuming that they had a bulbous black lower body beneath their shirt the size of a basketball with seven spider-like legs sticking out from the sides.

He cocked his head, looking at me curiously, before raising a clawed, four-fingered hand and waving it at me.

“Hello! Odigjod likes how you smell!” it said cheerfully.

I screamed, trying to climb up the wall it some attempt to get away from this… thing.

I then felt someone pound from the other side of the wall. “FUCKING SHUT UP, TESTA DI CAZZO!”

The little monster on my bed waved his hands at me. “Apologies! Apologies! No need for fearing! Just a fan of the villain Apex Strike wanting to hello before competition beginning!”

I backed into a corner and asked, shakily, “What the hell are you?”

“Ah, my topside manners are needing working. Apologies, apologies,” he said, taking a dramatic bow. “I am Odigjod, son of Bamtalegrissnkareayganitikanikan and Bob the Dietician. Odigjod is imp, up topside from Third Circle of Hell on work exchange program to try to be supervillain like you! Odigjod’s big fan of your work! Can Odigjod have autograph?”

Still shaken, and the fact that I’d never signed an autograph before, I shakily agreed. “Umm, sure.”

He snapped three of his fingers and made an autograph book and pen appear in midair. I took both and signed my name, and hoping I didn’t misspell his (I did, writing it like he’d pronounced it: “Odd-dig-jodd.”).

“Thank you, Mr. Strike, I look forward to competition with you,” he said politely.

There was that word again.

“What competition?”

Before he could answer, two of his ears perked up vertically, cocked toward the door.

“Coming for us now. Everything beginning! Have to go back to room! Thanks!” Odigjod said, disappearing with another puff of brimstone and smoke.

The door swung open with a heavy metallic squeal. A large man in a black, SWAT-like outfit with body armor and a gas mask waved an automatic rifle at me.

“Out now! Costume on!” he commanded.

I looked at my helmet, sitting in a couple inches of rusty toilet water and vomit.

“Do I have to?” I asked.

He flipped a switch on the side of the rifle. The red pinpoint of a laser sight appeared on my chest.

“Got it,” I said, running to the toilet and pulling my helmet out, shaking it free as best I could and slamming it down on my head.

I didn’t think it was possible for the helmet to smell worse.

I was wrong.

The guard led me down a long hallway past many similar rooms with locked and guarded doors. I don’t imagine I looked terribly intimidating in my mud-caked outfit, tattered cape, and stinking helmet, but they didn’t let their guard down around me. It was up a long, creaking flight of stairs before I was out in the sunlight and on the deck of a large freighter in the middle of the ocean. There were more guards along the railing, some armed, some not (supers). About a hundred yards away from the boat was a foreboding island teeming with dense, thick jungle (including many twisted trees that didn’t look like they belonged in nature) and a mountain that I could have sworn had half a face carved in it.

The guard dragged me to the middle of the deck and quickly disappeared into the darkness below.

Moments later, another larger cargo door opened on the opposite side of the deck, and out stomped a vaguely human-shaped robot with a hunched back and glowing green eyes (
or was it a mech suit like ATHENA?
). It looked cobbled together, as very few of its heavy metal parts had matching paint jobs, with some of them dented and rusted. It came to a stop next to me, close enough for me to see that one of its right thighs had a few names painted on it and crossed out, the most recent one reading
FIREWALL
.

Never having seen a robot (or mech suit) before, I couldn’t help but touch it.

“Touch me again and I will fucking destroy you,” a distorted female voice with a vaguely British accent said from within.

“Sorry,” I muttered, stepping away.

Another door opened, and out stepped a young dark-skinned man in a faded green army jacket and ski mask.

“Bloody hell, I gotta share?” he said with an Irish accent, shaking his head.

More supervillains, great.

They came out from the hold one at a time. Some of them had costumes, both homemade and professional looking. Others wore street clothes or prison issue jumpsuits. Not all of them were human; aside from Odigjod, who came up on deck bouncing and gushing over villains that he must have recognized, I noticed three scalefaces, a Sasquatch, a Cyclops, and one guy who appeared to be made of lava. There was another who was made of large, jagged crystals, and an Atlantean showing off their trademark pride. There were some gene-jobs, too, asymmetrical and misshapen from going to one of those illegal clinics to change their DNA to become super, or having it forced on them by some mad scientist. One of the bigger ones looked like he’d taken a hyena-shark-lizard cocktail and appeared so vicious that he had to be escorted by two guards with noose poles around his neck. He snapped and yipped for effect, but didn’t try to seriously attack them.

Most of these “villains” appeared to be young, in their late teens or early twenties. While the guys ran the gamut from ugly as sin to movie-star good looks, the girls were universally gorgeous. Beautiful faces, firm, toned bodies with tight asses and high, firm, big breasts…
well, whatever was happening here couldn’t be
that
bad
, I realized.

Many of the other villains looked at me, but didn’t try to initiate a conversation. Some smiled and nodded (not as many girls as I’d have liked), while others looked disgusted by my presence.

Everyone had heard of me, yet I hadn’t heard of any of them. It was a pretty cool feeling, one I definitely was not used to.

After the last villain had been led onto the deck (a girl in a tight white bodysuit and black hooded cloak, her face covered with a porcelain doll mask), there had to be at least ninety of us there, standing around confused, watching the guards, wondering if we were all brought here to die or if we’d have to fight our way out. Since the fight option seemed more likely, I scanned the deck, trying to find anything to hide behi—

“Welcome to Death Island!”

The voice was proud and powerful and very Southern. We all looked to the raised section of the deck to our right.

She stood there looking like she’d just jumped out of one of her posters; long black coat stretching almost to the floor, faded cowboy hat obscuring the top half of her face, showing only a square, tanned chin that had seen a few too many fights, two faded auburn braids tied loosely at the back of her neck, and a half burnt-down cigar sticking out of the corner of her yellow smile. Seeing she had our attention, she jumped the twenty feet down to the main deck in front of us, brushing off her coat.

The fluttering breeze revealed a pair of pearl-handled revolvers holstered at her waist.

Blackjack.

She was shorter than I’d expected.

Seriously, she had to be like four-and-a-half feet tall, tops.

Though looking like a middle-aged soccer mom who’d spent a bit too much time in the sun, her frame was powerful and quick, like a coiled snake.

“This island used to be home to Professor Death, one of the greatest supervillains of his day, just like all y’all. And just like all y’all, we heroes took him down,” Blackjack said, pacing the deck in front of us, her spurs jangling as she went.

“Now, I know some of you may take umbrage at the term ‘supervillain.’ You may not be like the rest of the sonsabitches on this boat who strapped on some spandex, gave ’emselves a new name, and decided to mo-lest po-lite society. You may not have come out of a superprison. You may just be some hard-luck kid who just happened to break the law while coincidentally having a superpower. Well, despite your o-ppression complex, I got a harsh reality for you: to the rest of the world, you
are
supervillains. You deserve to be removed from po-lite society with extreme prejudice so people can go about their everyday lives.”

She smiled, broadly, tipping up her hat slightly to reveal the palest eyes I’d ever seen. “But I got news for you. Like the recruitin’ speech each of you got said, Earth’s in need of some villains to keep po-lite society po-lite. That’s why some of us in the Protectors have decided to put Project Kayfabe together. Its goal is puttin’ together a team of supervillains.”

Well there’s one puzzle piece in place, but why so many?

“We want the best, the brightest, and the
worst
out and about, giving us superheroes a hard time. You will commit crimes. You will fight us. Sometimes you’ll win, sometimes you’ll lose. Mostly you’ll lose, because you losin’ makes people know that the heroes are out there to protect them. Do this for us, and you will live the kind of life you’ve always dreamed of. Fame, fortune, freedom, women, men…
respect
, they’ll all be yours.”

As afraid and uncomfortable as I was, what she promised sounded awesome, more than I would have expected when I first went to hold up Sunnyside Liquor Store.

“But this ain’t gonna be a walk in the park. The team we’re puttin’ together’s only got space for seven of y’all, and as you can see, there’s a damn sight more’n seven of you.”

I flashed back to being the last one picked for kickball, and for being the first one hurt on purpose so I could get kicked out of the game. Seeing that happen here, where I’d be just as likely to be set on fire or turned inside out…

“So, we’re gonna test you. We’re gonna tear you apart and put you back together. If you pass muster, you move on to the next round of suffering. If you don’t… well, this ain’t some self-esteem course where everybody gets a trophy and moves on because you’re all so darn special. As of today, none of you legally exist. All of your records? Gone. The memories of those who knew, loved, or even vaguely recognized you? Erased. From now on, you are your codename and no more. If you don’t have one, one will be provided for you. You belong to us, and if we don’t want to play with you anymore, we’ll send you on a one-way trip to the Tower with its
miles and miles of smiles
…”

I shuddered. Everyone shuddered. Everyone in their right mind who’d heard about the Tower and its smiles should shudder.

I don’t know if it was this, or the erasure of our lives that hit people the hardest. Erasure mostly, I’m sure. It didn’t hit me as hard as I thought it might. My parents liked Andy better anyway, and I knew Vic would find someone new to play video games with.

Being erased gave me a clean slate.

Cool.

“The only real rule you’re gonna live under is this: play nice. This ain’t some ‘Most Dangerous Game’ competition where we just want you killing each other off until only seven of you are left. We want an honest assessment. You kill someone here and you will be punished. You fight us too much, or you try to escape, and…”

She flicked her wrist, and a small controller popped out of her sleeve and into her hand. She pointed it at the lava man and pressed a button. He screamed in pain, grabbing his chest and trying to tear it open. He soon stopped screaming, pitching forward and falling to the ground, his flesh melting away on the floor and leaving a crispy skeleton in its place. There were some shocked gasps, even a few screams (mine among them, though the helmet thankfully muted much of it), though most barely reacted.

“And we activate your Creeper.” She looked down at the steaming mess. “Creepers let us keep track of you and make sure you’re playin’ nice. I know there’s some pretty big brains in the crowd here who might think you can cut it outta your chest and beat the system. Go ahead and try. These things are set to go off if you even
think
about tampering with them. I also know there are some tough guys and gals among you who think this is bullshit. You think you’re hot shit and can fight your way out of here, and to that I say… be my guest. We won’t touch your Creepers, make it a fair fight. Those of you who want fame, fortune, and glory, those who want to live…”

She waved her hand dramatically to the island. “The island awaits. Now there’s barracks for y’all ’bout a mile or two inland. We didn’t clear out the island much, so you’re gonna want to watch for—”

I was off and running before she could finish the sentence. I jumped over the railing, catching my foot on the lip and sending myself cartwheeling through the air. It would have been bad enough if this was a five-foot fall. But the twenty feet it actually was
really
sucked.

I hit the water hard, thrashing and coughing when it filled my helmet. I ditched one boot and started pulling off my jacket. There were more splashes around me as others jumped in. My lungs burned as I took a panicked breath and sucked in water. I coughed. I thrashed some more. Things started going dim.
Dammit, not again. Maybe if I just focus—