Read Origins of a D-List Supervillain Online
Authors: Jim Bernheimer
Origins of a D-List Supervillain
Origins of a D-List Supervillain
by
Jim Bernheimer
Copyright © 2014 by Jim Bernheimer and EJB Networking, Inc
Cover design by Raffaele Marinetti.
Visit his online gallery at http://www.raffaelemarinetti.it/
Book design by Jim Bernheimer.
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Visit the author’s website at www.JimBernheimer.com
First Printing: June 2014
Print ISBN: 1500107727
Print ISBN-13: 978-1500107727
Dedication and Acknowledgements
For this novel, I have to start with the fans. If you hadn’t bought
Confessions of a D-List Supervillain,
there would be no prequel. Thank you for all your support.
As always, I want to thank Kim, Laura, and Marissa. You are the reason I keep at this.
I would like to thank the efforts of the following people with this particular book: David Bagini and Graham Adzima for being my primary test readers, Todd Osborne for
almost
reading the whole thing, Raffaele Marinetti for the killer artwork, Jeffrey Kafer for what I’m sure will be an awesome audiobook, and David Wood for the assist on the cover with the lettering and so forth. Janet at Dragonfly Editing gets special thanks for making my keystrokes slightly more readable.
I also want to thank “the real” Joe Ducie for being awesome and providing the bucket list for Joseph.
O
BJECT
L
ESSONS IN THE
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IRROR ARE
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LOSER THAN
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HEY
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PPEAR
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ANA
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AME
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ANA
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ERSUS THE
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ILOXI
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RAPPY
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SCAPE
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LANS
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OR THE
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IN
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F
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ETTER
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UNS AND
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IGH
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ERFORMANCE
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IBRATORS
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Y
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OUTH
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ENDS TO
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ET
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E IN
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ROUBLE
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HE
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HO
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ANSAS
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ITY
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APER
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TOPS ON THE
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AL
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TRINGEL
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EVENGE
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OUR
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F
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NFAMILIAR
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ACE
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MBUSHES
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ROMISE OF A
B
ETTER
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AIN IN
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ACKWARDS IS
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AYBE THE
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DEA
Chapter One
Object Lessons in the Mirror are Closer than They Appear
Honestly, I don’t think anyone starts out wanting to be a supervillain. Well, villain might be a little too strong of a word. To be certain, I was a criminal, but a villain, I don’t know about that. Let’s just go with a super powered criminal for now and see how things develop. My only goals involved the two P’s—paycheck and payback.
I’d taken precautions. I’m no fool. I knew which jewelry stores had security cameras and which didn’t. Even the ones that had them weren’t much of an issue because they were pointed at the display floor and at the front window. I wouldn’t be coming in that way. No, not me. I had my own version of a key. I’d even invented it for someone else. His company wouldn’t put my name on the patent and that kind of started this whole mess.
The harness was a little on the bulky side. Promethia’s industrial powercells weren’t exactly light. That’s why most things using them would also be using Promethia’s synthetic muscle. In industry, that’s known as a win-win situation.
I didn’t quite have the coin for that, yet. Even if I did, I would try and steal it anyway, calling it compensation for ex-employee harassment and stealing my other invention—a power compressor. Fortunately, I had a spare prototype hidden away when their goons showed up and took my computers and the other prototype with their warrants and court actions.
They’d get theirs eventually. I’d be the one to ensure they did it.
Without my power compressor, I’d have had to carry two more powercells to make my force blasters do anything more than make a pretty light show. At fifty pounds a pop, that would have cut my mobility down to nothing. Good thing I’m an engineer, and a pretty effing brilliant one, at that. Even so, fifty for one cell and ten for each manacle left me toting around seventy extra pounds.