Never Go Half-Supervillain

C.T. Phipps

 

There is only one thing worse than a coked-up wannabe supervillain pointing a gun to the back of your head when you're behind the wheel of a getaway car.

That's a coked-up wannabe supervillain amateur doing it.

“You, human, drive!” The forked-tongue creature hissed, waving the pistol around like a madman. Well, a mad-something. He was mostly human-looking, with a bald head, tattoos, muscular frame, white T-shirt, and army fatigue cargo pants. This one styled himself Thrax and was the contact who'd hired me for this particular job, which appeared to have gone totally to shit.

Looking up, I saw it was about fifteen minutes until sunrise. Police sirens were blaring in the distance. The imaginatively-named Mayhemers had purchased my services to provide them an exit once they finished ripping-off pro-normal ‘legitimate businessman’ Argyle Thompson's personal banks. It wasn't political, it was just convenient because he was one of the richest assholes in Motor Hills. Given there was no sign of any cash, jewelry, bearer bonds, or the other two Mayhemers, I had to assume their plan had gone awry.

Calculating we still had about thirty-seconds before it was the optimal time to pull out, I asked, “I take it your associates won't be joining us?”

“I said, drive!” Thrax hissed, firing his gun into the passenger's side window. The window, whose enhancements against bullets were only functional from the outside inward, shattered. Barbara was going to tan my hide for that.

“Whoa! Relax! First of all, it's not time.” I glared at him through my rear-view mirror. “Second, this is a customized work of art in a 2014 Japanese Supra shell, created by the Mechanic six months ago at an exquisite cost to myself, so now you will have to pay for the repairs in addition to my fee. Third, it's David or Mister Korvac, not human. I am a professional, my friend, and will be treated accordingly.”

“Who the hell do you think you are? The Transporter? Drive!”

I sighed. “I'm just a chimeric like you, pal, trying to make a living. My abilities are just a bit less…obvious.”

Fifteen seconds.

Two Motor Hills police cars pulled around the end of the street with their windows rolled down. Another pair pulled behind me, blocking my exit. They, too, had their windows down. I saw inside and knew they weren't actual policemen. These were Thompson's private security contractors. The guys he paid the actual police to ignore as they made problems disappear. Problems like me and my lizardy buddy here. It certainly explained the things I'd seen in my vision when I'd agreed to take this dumb job. I thought I'd been playing too much Grand Theft Auto.

Five seconds.

Leaning out the passenger sides of all four vehicles, these security dudes brandished Uzis and started firing at my windows. This time, my car's enhancements held and a series of sparks danced across the vehicle's front and back.

“Shit!” Thrax panicked, dropping his gun and covering his ears. I moved my foot from the brake to the gas.

“Now it's time to drive, bitch,” I said, swerving the car to the right. We bounced onto the sidewalk as the security cars behind me were in a poor position to follow. Moving back onto the street, my car handled like a dream, maneuvering around the wall-to-wall traffic and giving me an ample head start.

If I only had to deal with crooked mercenaries I would have been able to get through this without difficulty. Unfortunately, big shots like Argyle Thompson weren't inclined to rely on rent-a-soldiers when protecting their treasures. My vision had indicated I would be dealing with worse here in a few minutes. Unfortunately, it hadn't been exact. That was the problem with my psychic abilities, they were never as precise as I wanted them to be, usually just cluing me in on the immediate future. Maybe it had something to do with split infinitives, or infinities…whatever.

Unlike the majority of the assholes I dealt with in my day-to-day business, I was a native to Motor Hills. I was there before the city had been rebuilt by megacorps like Ross Industries and DNAdvanced Ltd. and a half-dozen other government-funded (hush-hush) corporations that treated (read: experimented on) the ‘medical condition’ I'd manifested in my early teens, that condition being what is called a chimeric.

My father used to talk about Motor Hills being the City of Hard Rock; I'd grown up with it being more like the old B-movie Cybercop’s urban hell dystopia. The only thing we'd lacked was cyborgs and megalomaniac super-corporations. Well, we had the latter now, and, if we didn't have Cybercop, we certainly had superhumans. I just never thought I'd be one of the assholes the cops shot at first and asked questions about later.

The funny part? Chimerics kept coming to the city, despite the fact we had a higher murder rate than Baghdad when I'd served. They believed the song and dance that Motor Hills was a place they could create a new life surrounded by people like them. They usually left off the part about finding a cure these days; that was a jingle most heard, anyway.

If it wasn't the mammoth medical debt, ten-year-exclusive power contracts, or psycho pro-human vigilantes screwing them over, then it was designed drugs, racist cops, and chimeric gangs out to prey on the weak of their kind. If I hadn't been making so much money off the out-of-towners, I would have hung a giant sign made of fire outside the city saying: Keep Away, Fools!

“Are we away?” Thrax asked, looking out the side of the window he'd busted.

“Not by a longshot,” I muttered.

Adjusting my mirror, I saw a trio of black Ferrari 458 Spiders. There were other black cars behind them: four-door sedans and more I couldn't quite make out, all possessed of blacked-out windows; the Ferraris, though, were the only ones that had a chance of catching us. They were extremely modified, souped-up, light-armored chase vehicles created for the Headhunters.

Oh, yes, the Headhunters. A completely illegal, mostly wanted, and completely ignored-by-the-police group of ‘supers’ who killed ‘abusive’ chimerics. The fact they had access to such wonderful toys was not because they were funded by DNAdvanced and other patrons who made sure their ‘Motor Hills Experiment’ didn't get out of control. They weren’t exactly the Night’s King; still, they were pains in the asses of every supervillain and gang around town. Their sudden appearance could only mean they'd started taking bribes from Thompson, too.

Or they'd gotten lucky.

Either way, I was prepared. Kind of.

“Drive faster!” Thrax shouted, staring out the rear-view window.

I bit my tongue, not wanting to distract myself by explaining to an idiot there was a time and a place for speed versus control.

One of the Ferraris caught up as I had to brake to avoid pedestrians. The vehicle slammed into my bumper and started to move to my side, preparing to smash me into one of the crowded city streets. So much for superheroism. They'd end up blaming it on me. After all, looks aside, I was one of the freaks. Biting my lip, I did the modified vehicle one better and knocked it back, sending it bashing into its fellows. The three cars recovered fast, but it was too late.

Three seconds.

This part I'd timed to the moment. Too bad I was a second and a half behind.

Hitting the accelerator, I pulled forward, the three Ferraris were almost aligned, which made it perfect for when the dump truck slammed into the side of the leftmost one, bashed it into the one to its right, and then again. The Ferraris skidded to a complete halt.

“Ten points!” I shouted, shaking my fist in the air.

Thrax just looked back, stunned. “You planned that?”

“Yes I did,” I said, staring forward. “If you'd shelled out an extra grand for this fiasco, I might have even told you ahead of time.”

Reaching down to my dashboard, I put in the Scarface soundtrack, which triggered the ‘magic paint’ I'd received from Graffiti Grace that turned my car from neon green to jet black. The bullet hole in the window would make it a bit too memorable for my tastes but it would, hopefully, confuse the police a little—especially when I rolled the back window down to draw less attention. Slowing down and moving through several side streets, I brought my client to the agreed-upon drop-off.

It was the back of a used car lot, the majority of vehicles being various high speed Japanese cars my Supra could fit in amongst. The lot belonged to a friend of mine, Alan Jones, a mythological chimeric who resembled a Tolkien dwarf. Jokes aside, he could get it to the Mechanic without problems.

For a cut I didn’t want to give him, of course.

Balls.

Bringing the vehicle to a halt, I prepared for the sudden yet inevitable betrayal. My next steps consisted of turning off the ignition, stepping out of the car, and gazing nonchalantly across the street at the rooftop of an abandoned gas station.

Everything seemed to be set up.

Thrax stepped out of the backseat, having picked up his gun and regained his composure. Watching me pull out a car cover for my Supra, I could see a predatory glint forming in his eyes.

“Job didn’t work out. No cash for us, no cash for you.” Thrax aimed his gun at my chest. It was a Mark VII Desert Eagle, a gun way too nice for a punk like him.

“I knew you were going to say something like that. There’s just no trust in this business.”

“Give back advance,” Thrax said, shaking the gun a bit.

I rolled my eyes. “Yes, because the measly two thousand you paid me didn't go immediately into my bank account. It's not like I have bills to pay, a mortgage, a family…”

Thrax hissed. “Then die, human.”

“You think?” I raised my left hand into the air and made a fist.

Thrax's head exploded.

I sighed, looking down. I wasn't quite movie-style bad-ass level, and I wasn’t a complete sociopath who enjoyed seeing a man's brains leaking out on the ground, since I had a lot of nightmares about the people I'd killed or had killed. But I dealt with it.

I waved to my monster-hunting buddy, Wild Bill, on the roof across the street. He reflected a mirror back at me, a blinding flicker that made me squint. His way of saying: Yer welcome, pard. And ya owe me one.

Which I did. WB wasn’t into dollar bills. The man dealt in favors. Tits-fer-tats, he called them.

Leaning down, I checked Thrax’s pockets and found an envelope containing several hundreds. Looked to be maybe four grand. “Why, you cheap reptilian bastard.”

I then made a phone call. The numbers appeared in my head just by concentrating on the keypad. “Hey, yeah, this Mister Thompson? Argyle Thompson…? Yeah, uh, don't ask how I got this number. I was just curious if you'd be interested in getting your hands on the asshole who tried robbing you today…? Alive, huh? Well, that'll cost extra…well, what’s it worth to you…? Of course I’m for real, I got your number, I know about what happened already…No, sir, I’m not playing you. I’m just a guy who’s trying to make a living, and I despise amateurs like this dickweed bankrobber. It’s honestly better if he were off the stree—”

His answer was terse and pretty much what I expected. Cheap bastards all the way up.

“Five grand? Hmm. Yeah, okay. Transfer the money to the account I text you, and I'll see to it you find the guy in a ditch somewhere.” I paused for his response. It was also what I expected. “And a kind fuck you to you, too.”

Well, at least I'd got something out of this.

Then I turned to the window and grimaced.

Not much, though.

Especially after Mihailo collected his fee.

#

“You should not work for thugs. Then I would not have to kill so many of your employers,” Mihailo said.

The two of us were having lunch in the back of a greasy inner-city diner. Mihailo was chomping on a BBQ sandwich, his third. He was a man with thin dark hair, Serbian features, and a thin frame, which hid the fact he was built like Bruce Lee.

Mihailo looked to be in his early-thirties. That was a lie since I was thirty-two and my father had introduced us when I was ten. I had only a vague idea of his true age; Whatever his powers were, he'd probably outlive me.

“It's the economy,” I said, poking my salad with a fork. “I used to get much better jobs from people who knew what they were doing. The Powers Crash affected everyone. Even the Angels are getting chintzy.”

My father narrowed his eyes. “You should not work for DNAdvanced either.”

“You want to be judgmental, stop being a hitman.”

“Mercenary, not hitman.”

“Whatever.”

Mihailo laughed. “Says the man known as the Freelancer.”

I grimaced. Despite having superpowers and being a criminal, I wasn't one of those theatrical types who considered it an invitation to put on an opera cape like Hero. I was a smuggler who occasionally did a little work.

Unfortunately, that had all changed when I'd been picked up by The Chimeric Agency, the TCA, after transporting Snow Bunny's crew to a job out west to La Futura. National pundit Aisha Cordell had nicknamed me on her show, and I'd been left with the unfortunate situation of being a famous criminal called the Freelancer. Not something you wanted to be…if you wanted to stay out of prison, that is.

“God, don’t remind me,” I muttered. “Now clients seek me out, and both the cops and the DCD watch me like a hawk.”

“Perhaps you should consider retiring. Find a real job.”

I snorted. “Being a psychic means I can outwit the local idiots. I just have to keep up with the bribes.”

“Which requires money. Which you don’t have.”

I grimaced, again. “Okay, you have a point.”

“Have you considered planning jobs, rather than simply helping other criminals with theirs?”

“I don't have a head for that kind of thing.” I also had an arrangement with an agent of the Motor Hills TCA branch to look the other way as long as I was just helping rather than actively participating. I wasn't about to announce I was a snitch to a hitman, though, even if I considered him a friend and off-limits to the people I passed on information for.

All was fair in love and war, after all.

Also crime.

“You could be a big time famous criminal with a fancy car and powers, or an anonymous small-timer no one notices or gives a shit about. You can’t be both.”

“Watch me.”

“Fine.” Mihailo took a huge bite out of his sandwich. “Why do you need so much money, anyway?”

It was the kind of question only a man born in the Soviet Union could ask. “This is America, Dad. You can never have too much sex or too much money.”

“If you ask me, your wife is the reason why you don't have enough of either.”

I glared at him. “Don't bring up my wife.”

“I am simply saying you could have married someone other than a princess.”

“No, I couldn't have.” I took a bite of my cheap-ass salad.

My marriage to Lisa had been chosen purely as a pragmatic measure. When you could read people's minds, you knew exactly what they wanted and what they needed to be happy. I'd chosen her from about a thousand other women because I wanted a relationship purely based on sex, money, and no emotional commitments. I wanted someone who was hot, wouldn't care where the money came from, and wasn't interested in kids. So, of course, I fell in love with her and we were discussing kids. Lisa was still hot, yet even that was starting to matter less and less. I’d even stopped scanning her mind.

“I won't bring it up again.” Mihailo sighed. “I'm going to need four thousand for the job.”

I stared at him. “Four thousand? I'm already making nothing off this because of the repairs.”

“A reasonable price for a man's life,” Mihailo said.

“For ten minutes’ work?” I said, instantly regretting it.

“I meant yours.” Mihailo narrowed his gaze.

I sighed. “Fine.”

“You're always bragging about how much money you make,” Mihailo said, holding out his coffee to be filled by a blue-skinned waitress with a clubbed tail named Grace. “What happened? Don't tell me the Powers Crash either, you don't invest.”

I sighed. “No, but I spend. I made six figures last year, and the year before that, but all of that's gone now. Tied up in the house, the flat screen, the game-systems, gifts for Lisa, the cars—”

“A proper criminal then. What do you give your mistress?”

I stared at him. “I'm not like that.”

“No judgements from the mercenary,” Mihailo said, frowning. “But pay the tab, give me the money, and say hello to the Mechanic for me. I'm sure you'll be able to work something out.”

I stared at him, then sighed. It seemed everyone knew about that little tidbit. Lisa had found out only last month, and she hadn’t been taking it well. I’d need to get something really nice for her to make it up.

“Yeah, sure.”

#

Eastside Motor Hills was a collection of strip clubs, liquor stores, pawn shops, drug dens, vacant lots, abandoned strip malls, shuttered business, boarded homes, and porn distributors. Its residents were folks too poor to move out, hoodlums, hookers, homeless, and, of course, chimerics who didn’t fit into normal society. Case in point, a chick with four arms in a faux-leather mini-skirt, torn fishnets, and tiger-striped bikini top stood on the corner. She tossed her cigarette on the sidewalk and gave me an inquiring look through heavy-lidded eyes clumped with a literal handful of mascara.

I shook my head. “No, thanks. Uh, not tonight.” I kept walking, hands in my jacket pockets.

“Suit yourself,” she scoffed as I walked on.

I crossed Warren Harding Avenue, looking up at a billboard advertising some vague product featuring a glamorous pop star. I had to wonder about the beauty standards imposed by norms. I mean, the hooker had extra limbs, sure, but she was still not bad looking, considering the life she led. Probably could make a fortune at sci-fi conventions. I started to wonder what it would feel like with a woman with four hands when my attention was called back by a homeless drunk ahead of me. The tattered mess staggered out of a vacant lot and commenced vomiting on the corner of a building.

Ah, home.

I'd actually grown up in Northtown, an even worse district of the city at one time. It reached its natural conclusion when the populace was forced into Eastside and Southpointe before they bulldozed practically everything to the ground. I was about thirteen then. The spot where I'd grown up was an office building now, specializing in chimeric-based body alteration; one that promised to trim a few hundred pounds off your body in a day in exchange for the cost of three middle-class houses.

The promise of a better tomorrow, according to DNAdvanced.

“Hey, Freelancer!” A greasy-looking, obese white man accosted me from the opposite corner, outside of a strip club. “Why don't you come in and check out the goods! We have a special for local heroes.”

Yeah, just yell my name out on the street, jackass.

I forced down the gut response of ‘Sorry, man. I'm not really in the mood for an STD.’ Given my current circumstances, I decided to try to not piss off any more people today than I already had. I’d taken a big risk taking the Mayhemers to rob Argyle Thompson, as he had plenty of friends around town, especially those who hated chimerics.

I just waved the greasy guy off and kept walking.

“Suit yourself!”

Okay, must be Eastside’s new mantra.

Moments later, I navigated a litter-strewn alley and strode up to the Mechanic’s garage. A beefy, tatted-up pair of gun-toting fellas straddled motorcycles just outside of it.

“Hey, Gary,” I said to one of them. He stood a head taller than me, had a cigarette hanging from beneath his mustache.

He nodded. “What’s up, man?”

“Oh, the usual. Trying to stay out of trouble and doing a shit job of it.”

“I hear ya.”

“How’s Jen and the kids?”

“Doing great. Steph just got accepted into UCLF’s neurosciences graduate program.”

“Wow, man. That’s great. You’re raising some brilliant girls. I can’t believe Steph’s already in college…”

I peered past Gary, saw the battered remains of the Ferraris I'd trashed earlier. They were being worked on by her crew.

“Oh, man,” I said with a sigh.

Gary glanced back over his shoulder, looked back at me. “Yeah. I heard you were involved in that.”

“Lies, Gary. All lies.” I clapped him on the shoulder, then gave a fist bump to Jimmy, the other beefy guard, as I strolled inside past a machine that looked conspicuously like a certain flying rodent's from the 1989 Michael Keaton movie.

The Mechanic produced vehicles for superheroes, supervillains, vigilantes, and enthusiasts for the above. I had no idea why the DCD hadn't come down on her, but I suspected it was for the same reason they hadn't come for me. Either way, she hadn't betrayed me yet.

And I knew why.

“Hey, sexy!” A feminine voice spoke from behind me.

I turned to look at the five-foot-three form of the Mechanic a.k.a Elaine Stephens. We'd grown up together in Northtown and both developed powers around the same time. Elaine kept her red hair in a simple ponytail and was wearing a pair of grease-covered overalls, which were more form-fitting than usual. She was a trifle rugged, short, and buxom; that said, being around her always had a way of making me feel a little uncomfortable, since I’d always thought of her kind of like a kid sister, yet she’d never made it a secret she was attracted to me. I mean, conflicted, right?

“Elaine,” I said, picking up her thoughts. They were the usual mix of mercenary, biological, and psycho-sexual urges. There were a few traces of worry, too, which made me think things were even more troubled than I imagined. “How's business?”

“Booming,” she said, smiling. “Everyone wants wheels with enhancements.”

Elaine's chimeric power was like mine, in that it didn't really make much sense by current understandings of physics. She could create any number of additions to cars which could violate the laws of physics, so she made a shit-ton making fully-functional replicas of iconic models for James Bond and Knight Rider fan boys. As much money as I made from crime, Elaine had the right of things. She’d probably retire with more money than the next six supervillains combined.

I looked over at the Headhunter's vehicles. “Selling to the bad guys, still, I see.”

“I sell to you, don't I?” Elaine hooked her arm inside mine. “Your car is out back. We heard about your little debacle earlier.”

“Debacle? Moi?”

“That’s the downside of a signature car, my friend.”

“Yeah,” I muttered. “Guess I’m not very smart.”

“I can work around that, making it so no one remembers the details.”

“Oh?” I said, knowing I couldn't afford it. “Sounds interesting.”

“You know the Headhunters are looking for you.”

“Yeah. I figured they might be.”

“They’re throwing serious bank to get people to cough up your location. You’re not exactly hard to find with that big mansion under your real name.”

Crap.

“Why tell me this?” I asked, already knowing she thought I'd get out of it. A fact I wasn't so sure of.

“We’re friends. Plus, you have the kind of…potential I’d like to cultivate.”

The two of us came to a smaller storage building behind the workshop with an installed garage door. Opening it, I saw the Supra had already been repaired and equipped with new modifications, which made it look more like the Delorean from Back to the Future than the vehicle I'd used on a hundred runs.

“Oh, sure, this is way less conspicuous.”

“No one will see any of this,” Elaine said. “Of course, you'd never be able to pay this off in a million years.”

“Uh, okay. Then how?”

“It's time you stopped with this penny ante stuff,” Elaine said. “There are big jobs out there just waiting to be done. Snow Bunny loved you, really loved you, and we both know why. There are other people who could use a seasoned planner and operative.”

“You mean go full-supervillain. Wear a costume. Become the Freelancer full time. Ditch the house and wife.” I tried not to hide my terror about the fact she knew I was snitching.

“Would that be so bad?”

There was no answer I could give other than the one she wanted. I took her hand and gave her a soft kiss on the lips. “It's an interesting offer.”

“Why don't you take it for a spin?”

I’m not above admitting I'd used sexual attraction in negotiations before, usually to keep the receptive ones from betraying me to take their part of the score. Less need for Mihailo that way. I felt guilty about it with Elaine, but I needed to get the hell out of Motor Hills. The car was a necessity now.

“Sure,” I said, pressing her against the side.

She smiled, opened the door, and pulled me in.

#

In the movies, 007 sleeps with countless women, and the men in the audience are supposed to feel envy. In truth, when you use sex as a weapon you end up feeling kind of like an asshole.

Or maybe it was just me.

Still. I had the car. That’s what mattered.

Driving to the suburbs, I contemplated my next move. The future was curiously opaque, as if there was a signal missing from my psychic satellite network. This wasn't the first time this had happened. It usually meant the involvement of something powerful.

I needed to get Lisa and get out of town. It was going to be a pain in the ass leaving everything behind, but I'd made preparations. Every criminal should keep an awareness that nothing lasts forever. I should have been more careful, sure. I'd wanted a taste of the sweet life. The kind my father had never been able to experience. The kind my sister had died trying to achieve. Guess it ran in the family.

The Supra, which I was already starting to think of as the Misery Machine, worked like a charm. No one seemed to notice it, not even to the point of trying to avoid it. It also handled a dozen times better than before, easily sliding with my slightest movement. There was a whole assortment of weird gadgets, too; things the Mechanic shouldn't have had time to install. It made me wonder if she'd just bought an exact copy of my car and modified that instead.

Which was a little creepy, the fact that it was a plausible thought.

Trashy houses and graffiti-dressed buildings gave way to pretty two- and three-story housing belonging to yuppies and those who turned a blind eye to the city’s crushing poverty. I lived in what architectural snobs called a McMansion; one of the many mass-marketed oversized houses the nouveau riche purchased in great quantities when they thought their cash flow could never be threatened. In other words, a house made for a person like me.

It had an expansive garage, thirty-five rooms, and cost an arm, a leg, an eye, and a butt cheek in payments every month. Yet, it was still a bit cramped for my wife. At least, that was what she was hinting lately. A pair of Mercedes-Benz sat in the driveway, a crimson one my wife had bought me for our anniversary, and a hot pink one I'd bought her for the same. I couldn't afford either of them, but that hardly mattered. I also spied a nondescript black van across the street in front of the neighbor’s house.

A mammoth headache overcame me. I saw a vision of black-suited men and women wearing sunglasses getting out of the van and heading to my front door. They were armed and forced their way in when Lisa answered. While the whole ‘Men in Black’ look was something the government disdained these days, it was a look TCA enjoyed exploiting to the extreme.

I was seeing the past.

Shit.

Taking a deep breath, I reached into my jacket and checked for my pistol. This was going to get ugly. I didn't know why The Chimeric Agency had decided to go against our agreement now; although, to be blunt, I was surprised they’d waited this long. Government agents—even quasi ones like the IRS and TCA—were, at the end of the day, just legalized crooks, and I wasn't about to let them take everything I'd built over the years. I headed around the side of my house and entered through a certain back window that I always left unlocked for just this sort of thing.

I slipped quietly in, crept down a heavily-carpeted hallway, and spied four agents past the massive marble kitchen island, standing in one of our dining rooms.

I was getting some heavy interference, though. A tingle. I couldn't help but think there was a fifth nearby. Blockers were a rare kind of chimeric. TCA snatched them up like hundred dollar bills on a sidewalk. I needed to get Lisa, get my ‘bug-out bag’ in the basement, and get the hell out of here.

If I needed to kill someone, well, that would suck. I'd killed a lot of people, and I regretted each one. Blame the war.

That was when I felt Lisa behind me.

And the sound of a gun clicking.

Huh.

Didn't see that coming.

#

A minute later, I was sitting on my ten-thousand-dollar couch with three agents beside me and a fourth in front of me, a tall black man with a trimmed beard and balding head, who vaguely reminded me of a dark-skinned Uncle Phil. I knew him by reputation rather than sight, having heard John ‘Juggernuke’ Holmes described by local chimerics.

Juggernuke was reputed to be invulnerable and could generate explosions. He didn't use his powers to become a superhero; instead, he was more famous for recruiting chimerics into TCA's service by any means necessary. Quite a few claimed they'd been blackmailed into committing felonies, though you could never trust that sort of gossip since, well, they were crooks.

My wife, who'd turned me in, had been led off by a female agent. Lisa spent the entire time asking about where her deal was. It occurred to me that marrying her because she didn't care about anything but money, and didn't mind who or what it came from, might have disadvantages I hadn't foreseen.

Juggernuke put his hands on his knees and smiled. “David Michael Korvac, alias Freelancer, biracial, no living relatives, charged several times with varying criminal activities, yet never convicted. Army Sergeant who served two terms during the Iraq War, medical discharge after friendly fire incident. Possesses mild precognitive and emotion-sensing abilities, but none so much as to warrant recruitment. I think we both know that you deliberately flubbed the test there.”

“I’m not so sure. Lately, events are seriously calling into question my ability to see the future,” I said, staring at him and getting nothing. His presence was generating the interference, though I didn't know how disrupting psychic abilities related to being an exploding brick wall.

Some chimerics just had no theme.

I saw the fist of the burly agent coming. I didn't dodge it. It would only make things worse. I just let him hit me.

Ouch.

“You had a deal with Agent Wilson,” Juggernuke said. “We found the cash records and the information you gave him. I take it you scanned him to find out he was dirty?”

“Yeah,” I said, knowing it was best to agree with him. I didn't need psychic abilities for that. “With bribes, it's largely a matter of phraseology. He was willing to look the other way for information and cash. I could have bought him completely without the info. It was cheaper this way.”

“No honor among thieves, eh?”

“Whoever said that wasn't a thief. Besides, all the thieves I know are assholes, myself included.” It was a philosophy which had kept me alive when everyone else had been willing to betray me at the drop of a hat. My father had believed in the honor of his fellow crooks, and it had resulted in him getting gunned down by the Mojave City mob.

“How would you like to keep all of your money and stay out of prison?”

I stared at him. “Is this one of those offers I can't refuse?”

“More like Darth Vader and Lando Calrissian.” Juggernuke smiled. “Guess which one of us is Lando.”

“I'm listening,” I said, looking over at the kitchen. “Can we expedite my divorce, too? I'm suddenly overcome with a feeling of regret regarding my association with Mrs. Korvac.”

“She's going into Witness Protection, so certainly.”

“She doesn't know anything.”

Juggernuke smiled.

“Except against me,” I said, rubbing my temples. “Fuck.”

“Just a little insurance. You didn't go full-supervillain, Freelancer. You never go half-supervillain. You need the hideouts, the henchmen, and the constant breaking out. You try to live the white-picket fence and marriage, you get busted.”

I accepted the fact that I was about to be punched. “Well, thank you, Robert Downey Junior, for that wonderful fucking piece of—”

Punched in the face. Yep. As I foresaw.

“Calm your jets there, Clint. Don't hurt him too much,” Juggernuke said to the burly jackass with playground bully issues. “We'd like you to kill someone for us, Freelancer. What do you say?”

I felt sick. “This deal is getting worse all the time.”

Clint made a fist and raised it a few inches.

Juggernuke lifted his hand and stopped him. “Argyle Thompson.”

“The plot thickens.” I ran my tongue around the inside of my cheek, which felt like hamburger. “I thought he was one of you.”

Juggernuke laughed. “Wow, you’re stupider than I gave you credit for. Son, we like to keep the extremists on both sides at bay. That’s all. It keeps things…tidier.”

“And you need me to take out the one billionaire in the city who isn't friends with DNAdvanced?” I suspected this was just two corporations’ puppets fighting it out. “All because he funds the Headhunters and some lobbyists?”

“You really are stupid. Or maybe Clint’s rattled your skull too hard. Aside from the fact those lobbyists make my life a living hell, we're after bigger game than the so-called Headhunters. Mister Argyle Thompson is the Night's King.”

No-fucking-way.

My jaw dropped in genuine admiration. “The eccentric tech billionaire is a nationally-famous, non-powered vigilante? Are you kidding me?”

“Is Argyle the guy in the suit? No. That is a group of cops, mercs, and Special Forces ops, all on Thompson’s payroll and all armed with devices purchased from the Mechanic and Doctor Inventor among a few others. Argyle calls the shots via a closed circuit feed and coordinates them via radio. It allows him to live his flying rat fantasy while being a Steve Jobs-looking guy in his fifties.”

I stared at him. “Seriously, you're kidding me though, right?”

The agent pulled his fist back again.

I held my hands up in surrender and backed down. “Okay, I believe you! Jesus, Clint, you have issues, man. I swear.”

“The fact is, you taking down Argyle is going to make things easy for us,” Juggernuke said, nonplussed.

“How's that?” I paused, then held up my hand. “Wait, let me guess. Not only does all of the funding disappear for the guys who support the superhuman laws that impede you guys from operating…but the Night's King disappears, too. One of the nation's biggest non-TCA sponsored heroes.”

Juggernuke nodded. “Now you're getting it.”

This was pretty damned cold-blooded, even for these guys. “I'm not sure how I'm supposed to walk away from this after killing a world-famous superhero, let alone keep all of my assets.”

“Not that you need to know, but I’ll tell you for your own peace of mind…We're going to blame Blowback and his snipers. We'll protect you.”

Somehow, I doubted that. That was when I felt a stinging in my neck. Another agent had used some kind of staple gun/injector.

“We'll be tracking you, either way.”

I stared at him. “Seriously, man?”

Juggernaut chuckled and, in his best James Earl Jones voice, said, “Perhaps you think you are being treated unfairly?” He looked at Clint. They both laughed.

Good god, the authorities shouldn't be allowed to make pop culture references. What dicks.

#

“Why are you wearing a wet towel on your head?” Mihailo asked as the two of us sat in a greasy bar called the Red Devil. We were the only customers present, and the place smelled like a men's restroom.

We weren't likely to be bothered, though.

“It's to muffle the signal.” I took a long drag on a cigarette laced with Dust. I'd given up the stuff after my first year away from the Army, yet desperate times called for desperate measures.

Or, at least, to get a little wasted.

“That's from the Arnold movie, yes?” Mihailo said, smiling. “Get your ass to Mars. Hehe.”

“Yeah,” I said, stamping out my cigarette in a nearby ashtray. In truth, the towel was a genuine ward against the tracker inside me, since the Prop Man had provided it for me. He could do anything, as long as it followed the rules of movie logic. I had a less-conspicuous replacement lined up from Graffiti Girl. I only needed a stopgap until then. “In any case, Mihailo, I'd like to make you an offer I hope will be appealing.”

I gave myself 60-40 odds he’d listen rather than shoot me. Not the best odds, certainly, but I'd worked with worse. I explained the situation, leaving out the part where I was an informant.

Still, he said: “I should shoot you. You are endangering us both by coming to visit me.”

I made finger-guns at his chest. “Not if you want to take down the Night's King. Remember, you spent three years in Federal before that evidence disappeared because of him. I seem to recall I had a hand in that.”

I'd been encouraged by a vision to do that. That, and I liked the guy. It was time to cash out that favor.

Mihailo stared. “I have been paying that back in easy money for many years now and don't owe you—”

“I want to screw the TCA and Thompson.”

That was exactly the right thing to say. I knew, because I was adjusting my statements to what he wanted to hear. The real benefit of telepathy.

Mihailo leaned back and crossed his arms. “Talk.”

“Now that we know Thompson is the Night's King, a lot of the weird shit he's been up to the past decade makes sense. He's a billionaire. Keeps a lot of his money in cash and disposable income in banks spread across the city rather than in, say, Switzerland. He's probably financing a dozen other vigilantes and off-the-books crap.”

“Not to mention anti-chimeric hate groups,” Mihailo said. “The man is scum.”

That was rich coming from him, or me for that matter, but I let it slide because I wasn't stupid. Well, that stupid. Clearly, today had proved one thing, and that was I wasn't as smart as I thought I was. “The thing is, that means a lot of assets just ready to be plundered by someone with the brains and insider knowledge of what makes the man tick. Which is to say, the asshat thinks he's Michael Keaton.”

“You tried that today to an epic failure.”

“Because I wasn't planning it, man. And I didn't know how his mind worked. I assumed the money was the point rather than the showmanship. It's why he sent his fake cop mercs and the Headhunters rather than, you know, calling the DCD down on me or some shit. It's not because the money is dirty. He wanted his people to show me up. So, I'm going to give him a target he can't resist.”

Mihailo smirked. “You've finally decided to go full-supervillain?”

“Let's just say I’m aware at how limited my options have become. So, it's time to kick over the game board.”

“And this will end Argyle Thompson? Permanent?”

I smiled. “Even better.”

Mihailo crossed his arms. “All right, I'm with you so far. However, before we continue, I want to establish something.”

“Yes?”

“I want a costume. And a cool name. Nothing that involves my ethnicity either. I don’t want to be the Satanic Serb or East European Evil.”

Oh, Jesus Christ. Did everyone want to be a comic book character in this town? The answer was ‘probably,’ which was seriously depressing. I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him.

“Absolutely!” I said. “I know just the people for it. Can you help me get in touch with these guys?”

I slid over a note containing a list of names. They were almost all chimerics. Low-to-mid-level powered ones.

Many career criminals.

Mihailo looked at the paper. “They get names and costumes, too. The ones who don’t have them already.”

I stared at him. “Of course.”

“We will call ourselves…” Mihailo clasped his hands together and looked me dead in the eyes. “…the Masters of Disaster.”

I almost bashed my head against the table. Instead, I put my hand over my chest. “I am honored to be your leader.”

If this didn't work, I was never going to live this down.

#

The Masters of Disaster were, indeed, masters of being a disaster. There was no absence of talented, intelligent, and professional powered-criminals in Motor Hills. These were not that crew. These were a collection of the most eccentric, brutal, flamboyant, and let’s be honest, crazy players in the local underworld.

I'd managed to find roughly a quarter of them and another quarter Mihailo had recruited. The rest were drop-ins. These sorts of things had a way of spiraling with people wanting to bring on their buddies, girlfriends, guys they owed, or their own people. As such, the gymnasium of the First Presbyterian Church Youth Center was full with a collection of complete nut bars.

In addition to the ones I'd invited, there was the Human BBQ, looking like he just escaped a burn ward and inspiring little confidence in his ability to keep himself under control. Mink and Fox were a pair of cat-themed ex-strippers and PETA's worst nightmare, yet damn easy on the eyes. There was Metalhead, a rocker whose monster voice caused people to start head-banging. I even saw the Inside-Out-Man, who had no real powers to speak of, but he was about the smartest criminal present; just, you know, not someone you wanted to touch. Oh, and there were six animated cartoons. I had no idea where the hell they came from.

The entire thing had become a supervillain mixer. The PD had arrived twice about noise complaints, only for the Persuasive Man to tell them to take a hike. I was immune to his powers, it turned out, which was a good thing since otherwise I was fairly sure this would have become his group rather than mine.

A few of them complained about the lack of an open bar. The last thing I needed was a bunch of drunk, half-insane supervillains (as if there was such a thing as a sane one) making this more complicated than it already was.

Around 8:15 in the evening, I tried to get the party under control. It had ended up requiring Mihailo, no, sorry, Captain Bullet, to blow a whistle to get everyone to settle into their metal fold-out chairs.

Mihailo was wearing a blue bodysuit with two rifle ammo belts around his chest like Rambo, a gold belt-buckle with a B on it, and a long red cape. Somehow, he'd acquired a pair of enhanced holsters which could contain a dozen different types of gun regardless of size. This included his sniper rifle.

The craziest thing? He wasn't the strangest dressed one here.

Mink and Fox promptly rolled out the chalkboard which contained a very rough outline of my plan. The two girls got catcalls from the audience, even though roughly a third of the audience was women. I couldn’t blame them since, against my morals or not, the supervillain look just worked for some people.

“Thank you, ladies,” I said, walking over and picking up a pointer from the end. “Let's get this done, guys. Reverend Daniels was gracious enough to lend us the rec center, and we've all got places to go and people to kill, so…”

The last part was a joke, but no one took it that way, just nodding.

“As most of you know, I participated—”

“Put on your costume!” said a sixteen-year-old black girl in the background. Her name was Nancy Stonewood and she was my neighbor's kid but, for the purposes of tonight, she was Penmanship.

I stared at her, then realized everyone else wanted me to as well.

“Fine,” I muttered.

Going over to a nearby folding chair, I pulled on a graffiti-stained jean jacket to go with my tie-dyed shirt and ripped jeans. I put a scarf around my lower face, paint-stained sunglasses on the bridge of my nose, and topped the outfit off with a Motor Hills Freebirds ball cap. “There. Happy?”

“That's awfully cheap,” Penmanship said, disappointed.

“It's not cheap, it's minimalist. There's a difference. Also, special thanks to Graffiti Girl for altering this to do the same thing that the Mechanic's unnoticeable car can do.” I could have saved myself two-hundred-thousand-dollars of debt, as well as a half-hour of sweaty backseat sex, and gotten her to spray over it with a new coat. This is why you should always compare prices before making a big purchase.

“How come we can notice you if it makes you unnoticeable?” the Inside-Out-Man interrupted.

“Because I want you to,” I said, suppressing a growl. “Now, do you want to make money or not?”

There was grumbling.

Captain Bullet pulled out an M16 from his holsters and waved it around. “Listen to Lord Freelancer!”

“Lord Free—?” I shook my head and waved my objections away. “As most of you know, I participated in a robbery attempt against software billionaire Argyle Thompson yesterday.”

“Which you fucked up royally,” the Mechanic said, wearing a pair of Daisy Dukes and a tied-together shirt. She had a scar across her belly button from where she’d been shot at age fourteen during one of the many-many drug shoot-outs in our neighborhood. After our rut less than 24 hours ago, or perhaps because of it, and given I’d just separated from my wife, I now found her even more attractive. Or maybe it was just my wounded pride.

“In fact,” I continued, “I was gathering Intelligence on the security response times, equipment, and material gain. It was a dry run for what could very well be the most lucrative heist of anyone here's career.”

“Not for the Mayhemers, it wasn't,” another asshat in the audience said. This one looked like a werewolf. Hell, he might have been a werewolf.

I pointed at them. “They knew the risks, and they weren't up to the task. If you want to know about the risks, I'll happily spell them out. Considerable. The reward? Ten million dollars.” I paused for dramatic effect. “Each.”

Everyone was now paying attention.

I was, of course, lying out of my ass.

There was an estimation of some thirty million dollars in the bank we were going to rob earlier today, of which I would have gotten a cut of, and a dozen such places spread out over the city. The chances of getting all of that was slim-to-nonexistent, assuming they all contained disposable wealth in the same amount.

Not that they knew that.

I pointed at the chalkboard. “The problem with this situation is Argyle Thompson's personal army of mercenaries disguised as police, which they ignore for substantial payoffs, the Headhunters, the Night's King, the DCD, and Motor Hills police. All of which we can make sure are occupied. Captain Bullet, what is the guiding force behind superheroism today?”

“Desire to do good?” Captain Bullet said.

I glared at him. “Stick to the script.”

“Attention!” Captain Bullet corrected.

“Yes!” I said, slapping my pointer into my hand. “Superheroes want attention. We, the supervillains, know better.” I lied again. “However, by creating a suitable distraction, we can simultaneously hit every one of Argyle Thompson's money-laundering facilities,” I, again, lied about what these facilities were for, “to take them for all they’re worth. You have been chosen, each of you, for your unique capacities which will be instrumental in emptying these vaults.”

That was another lie. They'd been selected because they would make an enormous stink.

“So what will create a big enough stink to do that?” Penmanship said, following the cues I'd given her.

I smiled. “Glad you asked.”

#

A flaming goat-headed alien appeared in the air above Motor Hills Stadium. The warlord stood tall in the midst of a bunch of similar animal-meets-demon-themed figures in Kirby-esque armor.

“I, LORD DESTRUCTUS, EMPEROR OF THE DREADTHOID, CLAIM THIS STADIUM AND ITS OCCUPANTS AS MY SLAVES!” The goat-headed alien made a sweeping gesture. “I CHALLENGE ALL OF EARTH'S HEROES TO A CONTEST OF ARMS FOR THE FATE OF THESE MORTALS! IF THEY REFUSE TO FACE MY CHAMPIONS IN SINGLE COMBAT, I WILL DETONATE MY NEGA-BOMB, DESTROYING YOUR ENTIRE UNIVERSE!”

I watched the event on my tphone as the security elevator to Argyle Thompson's office carried me, Penmanship, and Mister Persuasion up. All three of us were in costume. Mister Persuasion’s powers and Graffiti Girl's additions to our outfits meant nobody noticed as we walked right in. Besides, every police car, reporter, and helicopter in the city was now headed to the stadium toward our little distraction.

“So, how did you arrange that, anyway?” Mister Persuasion asked. He was a short, well-dressed black man with a bow-tie, shaved head, and thick black-framed glasses. I don't quite recall why I'd agreed to let him come on my part of the mission, but because he'd explained I was immune to his powers, I didn't mind. I, obviously, had a good reason for it.

“Fake Geek Girl turned out to be responsible for those cartoons at the meeting,” I said, smiling at the craziness. “I had my own plan for something like this. When I saw her, I improvised. Lord Destructus is from an indie comic one of my high school buddies made up. He actually got out two issues.”

“But is that an actual thing? A ‘nega-bomb’?” Penmanship said, looking over my shoulder.

I chuckled. “Dude, that’s just a bunch of randomly blinking lights on some welded together metal. I might be a complete bastard, but even I draw the line at killing innocent civilians.” Which was ironic because, when you thought about it, the vast majority of supervillains were kind of terrorists.

“So your plan is to distract all of the heroes and cops in the city with the event in the stadium, and then rob the personal banks of Argyle Thompson—”

“As a distraction for this, yeah,” I said, putting away my tphone. “Wheels within wheels, boxes within boxes.”

“A double distraction isn’t exactly Machiavelli, dude,” Penmanship said.

“Hush, you,” I said. “You will soon see the utter genius of my plan.”

The elevator pinged and we arrived at the top floor of the Thompson Building, revealing a cathedral-like office filled with ridiculous modern art with stainless steel walls, polished obsidian floors, and a statue of a faceless caped figure in the center of the room.

It was the kind of office that screamed: I love fighting crime at night!

A holographic display desk was at the other end of the place, its drawers protected by extremely complicated thumbprint and retinal scan locks. A vault built into the side of the wall, if I was following Thompson's comic book logic, probably contained an extra Nightsuit, plus his equipment for linking up with his agents.

“So, what's our plan? Steal the Nightsuit and blackmail him with proof of his identity? Hack into his records? Blow the top floor up?” Mister Persuasion asked, looking around the place in awe.

“Nope,” I said, going to the side of the desk while retrieving a screwdriver from my jacket pocket. I jabbed it into the side of the drawer's complicated electronics and pried the top drawer open. Inside, contrasting against all of the high tech machinery, was a personal checkbook. I took it along with several samples of mail.

I handed these to Penmanship.

“Steal his checks?” Mister Persuasion asked.

“Yep,” I said, giving a thumbs up. “Time to go!”

Penmanship looked disappointed. “Seriously?”

“There's a few other elements to my plan,” I said, smiling. “But this is your part, yes.”

“Seems a little understated,” Mister Persuasion muttered, walking beside Penmanship and me as we headed back to the elevator.

“Eh, I’ll leave a calling card,” I said, pulling out a grenade from my jacket and tossing it at the desk before the elevator doors closed on us.

#

Less than an hour later Lord Destructus and his gang had been pounded into submission by the Motor Hill Brawlers and the Night's King. Just as I thought, the Masters of Disaster had made a right mess of things, tearing up the banks they were supposed to rob, until the other Night's Kings had shown up with the surviving Headhunters, as well as an army of mercs and DCD officers.

If nothing else, I'd blown a major hole in the idea that the Night's King was ‘one great man of history’ and revealed to the world he was a franchise. Things had gotten a good deal messier than I'd imagined, with several people on both sides killed but, hey, omelet and eggs.

They were all assholes anyway.

I’d actually given explicit instructions to one of the six groups I’d sent out. Not coincidentally, it was the group led by Captain Bullet and packed with the ‘villains’ I liked. CB had texted me, letting me know they’d gotten away with thirteen million. While not the ten million each I’d promised, I suspected they would get over it.

Besides, I wasn’t going to be in Motor Hills much longer.

Mister Persuasion was in the passenger’s seat of my Supra, and Penmanship sat in the back. I was watching the updates from my crew, the news, and the security cameras I'd placed at my house as well as various hide-outs. We were parked in a McDonald’s parking lot, engine running, with a clear path to my next destination, as well as minimal traffic.

We had less than five minutes until things went to hell.

4:45 if I had to estimate.

“How long until the checks clear?” Mister Persuasion asked. I was already picking up on the downsides of his abilities—the more he talked, the more I could see through his abilities. I was already starting to question why I was giving him a third of the ten million I was siphoning from Argyle's accounts.

“Patience,” I said, looking at my tphone's display. “We've got them made and sent off. The trick, though, isn't to get the money transferred from his account. It’s to get him not to cancel the payments.”

“How are you—” Mister Persuasion was interrupted by my phone ringing.

Right on time.

I picked up my phone and spoke cheerfully, “Hey, Juggy! What’s happening?”

The response was less than cordial.

“Oh, this is totally part of the plan!” I said, smiling. “You didn't know that?”

The language then got colorful.

“You can't track me can you? Magical interference? Oh wait, sorry, that was me. You're breaking up.” I made static noises. “Woo, gotta hang up. Sorry!”

I hung up.

One minute left.

“Who was that?” Mister Persuasion said, putting a little more force into his words than was necessary.

I managed to resist this time. “Oh, nobody important. At least not for much longer. Forty-five seconds.”

“What?” Mister Persuasion asked, looking more than a little confused.

I didn’t blame him since I’d gone out of my way to confuse him. This next part of my plan had been detailed down to the second and, if I screwed this up…well, the future didn’t look so hot. The best-case scenario was I spent the rest of my life behind bars. The worst? Well, I wouldn’t be around to hate the worst-case scenario.

“Everyone should buckle their safety belts now.” I shifted the car into drive and pulled out of the parking lot.

“Huh?” Mister Persuasion said, rocking in his chair.

Penmanship, thankfully, did so immediately.

Ten seconds.

I decided to throw them a bone. “I, kinda-sorta, let Argyle know where we were located, and then dropped the whole cloaking field thing around us.” I hit the gas and put the pedal to the metal. “Trust me, though, it’s all part of the plan.”

Well, most of it. I was having to improvise a lot here.

Penmanship looked out the back window. “Incoming!”

I looked in my rear-view and saw a modified Capehunter military helicopter, the kind used by the Department of Chimeric Defense to hunt down flying bricks. It came sailing over the edge of McDonald’s, armed to the teeth with illegal hardware. The vibrant black chrome color and lack of an insignia told me this was the Nightchopper, the signature transport of the Night's King when he wasn't tooling around the city in an armored sports car. It was a vehicle wanted in the deaths of over thirteen criminals (not to mention three bystanders, blamed on retaliatory fire, of course).

Argyle was inside, even if he wasn't flying it. I could feel it.

The roads were almost empty, which was a good thing because I had to swerve to avoid the blowback from a rocket before accelerating to avoid the chain-gun fire he was unloading. Despite how many enhancements my car had, military grade weapons would tear this thing to pieces.

“Why the hell did you do this?” Mister Persuasion shouted as he bounced across the car, struggling to get at his belt.

“I have my reasons,” I shouted back. “Admittedly, bad ones!”

“STOP THIS CAR IMMEDIATELY!” The compulsion behind Persuasion’s words was almost irresistible.

Almost.

I hit, instead, a button on my dashboard, which caused the passenger side door to open and send the supervillain flying out. At the rate we were moving and the angle he hit, he probably wasn't going to die. He wouldn’t be leaving the hospital anytime soon, though. The door automatically shut as I narrowly avoided another vehicle.

“Your percentage just went up,” I said to Penmanship, keeping my eyes focused on the road.

“You can see the future, right?” Penmanship shouted, holding on for dear life in the back. “You know this is going to turn out all right?”

I skidded down onto another road and started driving in the wrong lane, dodging oncoming traffic as the Misery Machine headed into a tunnel. “Yeah, mostly.”

“Mostly?”

“Like ninety-percent! Usually!”

“Usually?”

“Always in motion is the future!”

“Are you using Yoda-speak?!”

The tunnel was long and dark but provided us a brief respite from the Nightchopper, even if I had to dodge car after car. One swerve took a valuable couple of seconds off my efforts and potentially screwed us all. I squeezed the car between two oncoming semis pulled out the other side of the tunnel to see the Nightchopper settling down in front of the tunnel with guns coming to bear. This was the moment I'd foreseen.

But I was about three seconds behind.

“I really, really hope I'm as good a lay as I think I am,” I said, pressing the triggers on the bottom of the steering wheel.

A pair of remote controlled machine guns rose from the hood and fired enhanced bullets which tore through the front of the Nightchopper's windshield, sending it spinning to the ground. In my vision, I cleared underneath it. Here? I slammed the Supra into it, despite banging on the brakes with all due haste.

An airbag managed to catch my face.

A minute later, I said, “Ow.”

Sirens were in the distance.

“Are you okay?” I asked Penmanship.

“I hate you,” she replied, letting me know she was all right.

“Five million dollars…that’s your percentage.”

“I hate you a little less.”

Stepping out of the car, I saw the front of it was completely totaled. About a million dollars’ worth of work was out the window. That didn't matter now.

The Nightchopper was equally wrecked, its two pilots dead, but I could feel the still-very-much-alive persona of Argyle Thompson inside. I closed my eyes and calculated I had about two minutes until the police arrived. By that time, with my and Penmanship’s graffiti-granted cloaking abilities, I could hijack a car and be gone.

I just needed to have a word with Mister Thompson first.

Walking up to the side of the helicopter, I pulled it open and saw the bearded, tweed-wearing billionaire struggling in his seat restraints. They’d been damaged by the crash, and he’d need the Jaws of Life to get him out. The bigoted inventor of the tphone, and numerous overpriced computers, wasn’t looking too hot.

“Hey there, Argyle,” I said, waving at him.

“I’m not going to beg, criminal scum,” the man snapped. “Gene-joke mother—”

I interrupted him by poking him in the stomach (where I noticed he was bleeding rather profusely). “Listen up. You’re going to find you’ve written numerous checks to several worthy causes in the next few days. You’re going to ignore those and make an additional pair of payments in the next few days thereafter.”

Argyle snarled. “Why the fuck should I do that? You’ve killed good men today!”

“Because you keep a hundred million dollars in free-floating cash siphoned from your company to play copyright-unfriendly vigilante. Because you paid me to have someone killed yesterday. Because you’ve killed numerous criminals with your goons before. Because you don’t hesitate to start shooting on streets filled with innocent bystanders. Because you’re a bad person, Argyle. And because you want to know who in the TCA wanted me to kill you.”

Argyle’s eyes widened, then narrowed. He believed me.

I smiled. “Now, would you like to hire my services to make sure this individual has a very rotten day?”

#

I groaned in pleasure. “Ah, yeah. Right there. That’s good.”

I was lying on my stomach, wearing just a towel over my bruised ass, very much enjoying a deep tissue massage from one of the lovelies provided by our host and benefactor, ‘Mr. Rich Oilman.’

I rolled my head to the side, wincing at the stiffness in my neck.

Some off-the-books surgeon with a deep Soviet accent, an associate of Mihailo’s, had removed the TCA-implanted chip.

”Zis vill be pinless, okie-doke?”

Riiight.

I glanced at my laptop’s live feed outside of Juggernuke's Washington, D.C., home. I'd paid to have his gated community's nanny-state cameras hacked.

Meanhile, Miha—er, Captain Bullet, sat on the leather couch, channel surfing an impressive 80-inch 4k UHD widescreen. He was in full costume, still, with a big yellow ribbon mask around his head like a Ninja Turtle. I was getting a little worried about him, given I wasn't sure he'd taken his costume off in the past two days. Still, both of us were enjoying some badly needed time off before we started thinking of our next heist.

“Is it time yet?” Captain Bullet asked.

“Not quite,” I said, watching. “Still a couple of minutes.”

“And you're sure this is going to work?”

“Nothing is certain in life, which is why it's interesting.” I reached over to take a drink of my margarita as the masseuse packed her lotions and oils. “Thank you, my dear. That was awesome.”

“If there is nothing else, Mister…Oilman?”

“Oh, heh. No. Thank you.”

“Tomorrow? 10 a.m.?”

“Better make it 11…I plan to sleep in.”

“Of course.”

As she excused herself from the suite, I sat on the couch in just a towel, with my laptop in one hand and margarita in the other.

Captain Bullet looked over at me. “I'm sorry you had to abandon everything back home,” he said, surprising me. “Especially your pretty wife, eh?”

“I understand she’s refusing witness protection and, additionally, intends to sue the government.”

“Probably already has a book deal lined up. I was the Freelancer's Sex Slave.” Captain Bullet laughed at his own joke.

“Right.”

I had to admit I was missing my wife. Lisa may have been a sociopathic bleach-blonde debutante who only cared about the money I'd brought in, but that was why I'd fallen in love with her. There were plenty of women whose values were similar, yet none would ever be able to replace her.

Maybe I should look to date a lawyer next.

Or an aspiring politician.

Ooh, a Wall Street executive.

Eh, who was I kidding? I'll likely be dating supervillains from now on.

“You know, Argyle will come after you once he sorts everything out,” Mihailo said. “I think maybe you should have killed him.”

I smiled. “No, this is much better.”

It was time. My laptop feed showed Juggernuke driving up to his house in his second car. I set the empty margarita glass on the side table, grabbed the burner phone laying there, and dialed.

I watched him pick up.

“Hey, Juggers.”

“You little shit. We're going to find you. You should have taken our deal.”

“Oh, like you weren't going to toss me behind bars as soon as you were done with me. I understand it's a media circus around Motor Hills these days. The Night's King getting credit for defeating interdimensional invaders and all that, even if they are all cartoons.”

“I'm hanging up now.”

“Before you do, you might want to check your trunk.”

The expression on his face was hilarious. Going over to his other vehicle, Juggernuke opened the trunk before reeling back in disgust. The tattooed body of the late Thrax, minus most of his bald head, was probably pretty ripe by now. That was something I'd arranged to dispose of myself. In the distance, sirens were heard, as I may have dropped a tip about it.

Juggernuke glared at his phone before saying. “Do you really think this is going to hurt me? I'm the fucking authorities! This is nothing, you little shit!”

“Probably,” I said. “But given Thompson knows you're responsible for trying to kill him, he knows exactly who to send his friends in Congress after in the resulting investigation. Given I've told all of the various supervillains in Motor Hills his secret identity, and that you're responsible for any problems they ran into during our heist, I think you're both going to have your hands full dealing with the resulting fallout, probably for the rest of your lives. Certainly, I doubt either of you will be able to operate freely anymore given the increased scrutiny. You can't go half-superhero.”

“Who the hell do you think you are?!”

“I'm Keyser Soze, Lex Luthor, and King Kong. I’m the Freelancer.” I hung up on him and tossed the phone to Captain Bullet. He caught it. “Throw that out the window for me, would you? I think we should rob some casinos today. What do you say?”

Bullet grinned.

It was time to go all in.