David Court
I don’t think I’d ever seen Doc Quantum quite so angry. Even though we were sitting a whole two rows behind him, it was apparent that that puffy wrinkled face of his had grown as red as the cape and mask that he used to wear. The cause of his ire was, as usual, Mechatron’s inability to stop checking his phone every couple of minutes. It didn’t bother me as much these days. Most of us had come to expect the familiar little illuminated oblong appearing at regular intervals on cinema night.
I tried to ignore the imminent argument between the two of them and leaned back in my uncomfortable plastic lawn chair to watch tonight’s showing. The projected black and white Pathé newsreel showed Sovereign (arguably the world’s first superhero) effortlessly wrenching the hatch from a Nazi Tiger tank.
“It won’t do you any good hiding in there, Jerry!” chirped the commentator in an overly excitable plummy accent, “Sovereign has got your boys on the run, Mister Hitler!”
If Sovereign recognised himself up there on the screen, he didn’t let it show. He just sat there on the front row in his wheelchair as he always did, shaking slightly and looking vacant. It was difficult to believe that the Herculean giant on screen and that frail wheelchair bound pensioner were the same person. Seventy years ago, he could leap buildings in a single bound and change the course of mighty rivers. Now he couldn’t remember his own name and had to piss through a catheter.
Quantum had had enough. He was now on his feet and was hobbling over to Mechatron as fast as his walking frame allowed, greeted with a response of booing and cries of “Sit down!” when he stepped between the projector and the screen. Mechatron was so engrossed with his phone that he was oblivious to Quantum’s presence. Before he could react, the angry ex-supervillain had grabbed the phone from him and with judicious use of his laser eye beams had disintegrated it into a molten orange puddle.
Mechatron stared at Quantum in disbelief for a few seconds before slowly standing up. The panels in his armoured suit noisily shifted, twisted and locked into place until he was towering menacingly over the tiny form of his adversary. Quantum’s eyes flared a bloody red as Mechatron drew a huge metal fist back. We were all just about to settle down and watch the live fight in front of us when the image on screen paused and the lights in the room came back on, half blinding us all.
The imposing and substantial figure of Nurse Kirby marched down the side of the room, arms folded, glaring eyes locked like a heat seeking missile onto Quantum and Mechatron. What you need to appreciate about ol’ Mechie is that he was a serious player back in the day—one of the few heroes to ever beat Behemoth the Fearmaster—but his rogues gallery were like pussycats in comparison to “Killer” Kirby.
Kirby ran “The Good Hope home for Retired Superheroes and Villains” with a rod of iron. For those of you not in the know, that’s not even a metaphor. She was in possession of an enchanted Iron Rod that she’d confiscated from the legendary supervillain The Caped Cadaver, a resident here some years back and ironically now an actual cadaver. It was some arcane thingamajig with the ability to neutralise super-powers.
She didn’t even need to use the rod’s abilities these days. Standing at the front of the room and simply brandishing it was enough to make Quantum stand down and Mechatron retract his battle armour. The two of them sheepishly stood there, like naughty schoolchildren caught red-handed. They both awkwardly glanced around the room before slowly sitting back down without a word of protest.
Back two decades ago, many of the heroes and villains in this room combined forces to defeat Galactikaar (“Galactikaar the Iniquitous and Immortal All-knowing Devourer of Worlds” to use his full pompous title). Yet now here we all were, cowering in fear at the sight of a plump fifty-something spinster who smelt of bitterness, frigidity and cat hair.
“That’s it for film night tonight,” she bellowed, met by a chorus of tutting and the odd muttered swear word, “and if you can’t behave yourselves, we might not have another.”
We all knew that was no idle threat. She’d already cancelled our once frequent evenings of dominoes, bar billiards, Poker and Super Mario Kart. Unwilling to argue their case, people were beginning to file out of the room now accompanied by the usual squeaking of wheelchairs and the staccato tapping of walking sticks. Once again, it looked like everybody had forgotten about Sovereign who simply sat in his wheelchair, discarded in the corner like an embarrassing ornament of which nobody wants to claim ownership.
I looked around for a nurse or an orderly, but we were alone other than The Dark Revenger hiding in the shadows of another corner of the room. He was harmless enough; he’d sneak off once the lights were out. I tutted noisily at nobody in particular and, accompanied by that pained grunt you can’t avoid making once you reach a certain age, got to my feet and wandered off towards the aged hero.
Life sure is strange. Back in the days that seem like so much ancient history now, Sovereign and I were archenemies. As the super-villain Enigman (a name that seemed much cooler back then) I delighted in creating nefarious schemes and leaving puzzles and riddles for Sovereign to solve. Much later in my life, I was diagnosed with Dependent Personality Disorder, but that was long after I’d retired from the Super Villainy game. Explains a lot, I guess.
Heroes and Villains . . . there was almost mutual respect between us, back then. The good guys would try not to rough us up too much before turning us in, and we villains would always do our best to make our convoluted death traps escapable. We villains didn’t used to kill people. It was mostly just about stealing stuff. Today it’s hard to tell the good guys from the bad. They’re all angst-ridden brooders clad in black or purple with guns and knives. An old-school puzzler like me wouldn’t have a fighting chance these days. How would it be possible to be a decent schemer when everybody and their super-pet has access to a dozen or more search-engines?
Sovereign watched me approach and gave a slight nod, possibly deliberate, possibly one of the spasms he suffered. I smiled back awkwardly, kicked the brake off his chair and had just started to wheel him towards the door when he became all agitated, fists clenched with frantic illegible mumbles.
“Whoa,” I muttered, walking around to the front of the chair and squatting down to look him in the eye, “What’s the problem, Ca . . . big guy?”
Out of force of habit, I’d nearly called him Caped Cretin. Old habits die hard. Sovereign stared at me, those tiny wrinkled eyes welling with tears. His top lip was quivering as he tried and failed to form intelligible words. He was clearly in some distress, but I didn’t know why. I lifted up his shirt and checked the colostomy bag strapped to his abdomen. It was mostly empty, so it wasn’t that.
“Sovereign . . .” I sighed in exasperation and leaned in closer, “You’ll have to tell me what’s wrong.”
His head and neck started to shake. I was about to call for a nurse when I realized what he was trying to do. He was slowly turning his head to face the frozen newsreel image on the screen. I turned the chair to help him so he was looking directly at it. His head moved in a mockery of a nod as he murmured his approval. His right hand slowly lifted from the arm of the chair, shaking violently. An arthritic finger was raised to point.
“Buuuuhhhlt,” he gasped, his voice hoarse and guttural, yet determined. He was definitely trying to tell me something. I looked at the paused image on the cinema screen, a grainy black and white poor quality still of Sovereign in action. It was a classic image of the man, exactly the sort of one that always seemed to end up on all manner of World War 2 propaganda. Sovereign was in amongst the clouds, two Spitfires flanking him. His costume was pristine, his cape flaring out behind him with that huge stylized and distinctive “S,” the sunlight glinting off his magical . . .
“Bhhhllllt!” yelped Sovereign.
. . . his magical belt.
The magical belt of Sovereign, the source of all of his powers. Everybody of a certain age knew his origin off by heart. It had been bequeathed to him by a dying man claiming to be Merlin (yeah, that one) and was capable of granting the wearer heightened strength and reactions, not to mention that whole flying thing. Me? I got my super-intelligence after I touched an alien probe that had crash-landed in the carrot section of my vegetable garden. Turned out that was a common way of getting super-powers. Apparently, there was a lot of random shit falling out of space in the nineteen-forties and fifties.
I’d had my hands on that belt before. Back in the late seventies, if my memory serves. “The Case of the Copycat Conundrum.” Or was it “Caper?” I’m not sure which now. “Conundrum” sounds better. Still, I digress. I’d captured Sovereign and fancied trying the belts powers for myself. Absolutely nothing happened. Another Super Villain explained it to me a few years later. Apparently, one of Merlin’s special rules was that the Magical Belt could only be used by Sovereign, and even then only for good.
Where was Sovereign’s belt now? I knew a lot of our confiscated equipment lay in storage somewhere in one of the rooms of Good Hope Retirement home: Enchanted hammers, magical rings, eldritch staffs possessing arcane powers beyond mortal ken, that type of thing. What if we could get Sovereign’s belt back?
“Is that what you want?” I asked as I leaned in, an eyebrow raised. Sovereign’s eyes met mine and were for an instant illuminated with an inner light I hadn’t seen from him in years. The corners of his lips turned up until he was staring at me with a half-smile, either shaking or nodding, it was frankly hard to tell.
“Well then, my old adversary,” I smiled, back up now and pushing him towards the door, “Let’s get you your magic belt back.”
I was about to push him through the door when I heard a plaintive cough and a hoarse “Excuse me?” from the dark corners of the room. I chuckled to myself and switched the light off. The swoop of a cape and a husky “Thank you” echoed from the darkness. I wheeled Sovereign into the corridor and off in the direction of his room.
* * *
“You’re going to do what?!” shouted Captain Prism, spitting out a mouthful of bourbon in astonishment.
“You heard me,” I whispered as I wiped the flecks of alcoholic spittle from my hand of cards. “And keep your voice down. Other than our endangered cinema night, this is the only social thing I’ve got left. And if Killer Kirby finds out about this and shuts it down, I’m going to tell Magmavox who it was that betrayed the Quorum of Ne’er-do-wells back in nineteen seventy-five.”
Bayou Beast leaned back in his chair with a smug grin without saying a word. Even when he held up the cards, it didn’t hide the smirk on his moss-encrusted features. He was either particularly pleased by the terrified expression on Prism that one single sentence had triggered, or he had an exceptionally good hand of cards to play.
“You . . . you wouldn’t dare,” sputtered Prism. “You know that I didn’t have any choice. The Heroic Legion had me by the balls! That senile pile of rocks will pulverize me! It was either that or . . .”
“Just keep quiet and play the game, Prism.”
As I said earlier, Kirby had looked for any excuse to ban most of our social activities. However, we’d struck a deal with the groundskeeper of the home. In exchange for Bayou Beast using his powers over vegetation (literal green fingers) to ensure that he had a prizewinning pumpkin for this summer’s upcoming fête, he’d given us a key for one of the disused outbuildings. Kirby rarely came out to this part of the grounds, so we were free to play our games of poker. The only annoying part of that deal was that Bayou Beast was such a damn good poker player. It’s easy to have a poker face when you don’t really have what can be described as a face, if you catch my drift.
Prism looked to his hand of cards and then back to me.
“It’s just that you guys used to be enemies, you know?” he whispered. “I couldn’t see myself being on speaking terms with any of my rogues’ gallery.”
“Come on, Prism. That was years ago. The only thing we have to fight in this place is stopping ourselves dying of boredom. And to be fair, most of your rogues’ gallery were mutants. Mutants and that kid who was bit by a radioactive insect. We all know how that turned out. Super-powers one day, leukemia and gut cancer the next. All your enemies are either dead or dying in the hospice next door.”
“Harsh but fair, Enigman, harsh but fair.” Prism sighed and threw his cards on the table. “I got nothing, guys. I’m out.”
“Well, I’m still in.” I grinned as I placed the last of my savings onto the table, two packets of cigarettes and a blister pack of Viagra. Hey, don’t judge me. The mind is willing, but the flesh is weak, okay? “What you got, Bayou Beast?”
The hand holding his cards turned around one hundred and eighty degrees, one of the advantages of being entirely composed of vegetative matter. It revealed the dreaded sight of four of a kind.
I pointed an angry finger at Prism before he could smirk at my misfortune, as B.B. made that weird hollow noise he sometimes did that was probably him laughing. This was bad news. No smokes until next Thursday and I’d have to cancel my Wednesday night date with Femme Fatality. The whole evening would be a bit of a let-down for her, if you catch my drift.
“Anyway,” I declared, both literally and metaphorically putting my cards on the table. “Back to Sovereign. I need your help, gentlemen.”
* * *
The promise of several crates of cigarettes was enough to secure the assistance of Captain Prism, with two four-liter bottles of liquid plant food sufficient for Bayou Beast. I’d have to use my genius intellect to work out how I’d get hold of any of this stuff, but first things first.
A little about my own super-powers would be appropriate here, I feel. My father and grandfather before me had been accountants, and up until that fateful afternoon when a chunk of extra-terrestrial machinery destroyed a perfectly good selection of carrots, it looked like that was the career for me as well. However, when I touched that tin-can sized heap of circuits and diodes and the secrets of the cosmos revealed themselves to me, the world of bean-counting seemed mundane.
It might sound petty, but I only chose the path of a super-villain in order to annoy my overly conservative parents. In addition, I preferred the costumes. It was the 1950s, where it was an unwritten rule that heroes could only dress in bright primary colors, and I’d always found black, burgundy and dark purple more attractive.
The cosmic detritus had granted me an eidetic memory, advanced pattern interpretation, and consequently the ability to predict potential futures. Years of hard liquor and being hit on the head slightly too hard one too many times by super heroes had rid me of most of my powers, but there was something still left in my tank. I was definitely smarter than the average bear, as Yogi might say.
From my memory of my movements around the retirement home, I had an approximate idea where the confiscated equipment would be. It was down to one of three basement rooms. The floor was, of course, out of bounds to all residents. The only way to get there was by the lift and Kirby carried the only key. Getting the key off her would be no small feat. That blasted enchanted Iron Rod of hers did more than just extinguish powers, it could detect their use as well. That’s how she arrived so quickly when anybody tried to use them.
The building was home to more than two dozen ex-superheroes and villains, all with a variety of control over their dwindling powers, but there were only a limited number I could actually trust. Kirby and her team were always overly keen to reward tell-tales. Revealing our plan to her would earn some double-crossing hero or villain extra television privileges, or a double helping of that foul pink mass that they dared to call dessert with their meal. Meager rewards certainly, but valuable when you have nothing else to look forward to other than a slow descent into senility or a quietly ignored death.
I didn’t even know what would happen if we managed to give Sovereign his magic belt back. Would he be restored to his former glories? Would it even work at all? Regardless, it was something that had to be done. I had my own reasons.
There was one more person we needed for our little team, and I was presently standing at his door. I’d worked with this guy in the past and once you got used to his unusual and sometimes unnerving methods, he could be trusted. I took a deep breath and knocked.
* * *
“Professor Catnap?” spluttered Prism, spitting out most of the booze he’d just swigged from his hip flask. I really did need to remember not to tell him bad news when he’d had a mouthful of drink. “That guy’s a dick. And I don’t even think he’s a real professor.”
“He’s as much a real professor as you’re a real captain, Prism, and he still owes me for setting him up with DomiMatrix last month. Anyway, here he comes.”
Bayou Beast, Prism and I were standing in the dim lighting of the dilapidated gazebo in the patch of sand and dirt that the staff laughably referred to as a garden. The aging and emaciated Professor Catnap sneaked towards us through the dusk in a comical crouch, eyes darting left and right. He remained in that position even as he stood by us. We all stared down at him, baffled and amused.
“Stand up, man,” I said. “By trying not to arouse suspicion, you’ve ended up looking even more suspicious.”
He stood up and patted himself down, a hangdog expression on his face.
“Now, we’re all sure what we need to do?” I asked. My motley crew all nodded half-heartedly, a reaction that didn’t inspire me with the utmost of confidence.
“Right.” I slapped my fist into my palm as it seemed like an appropriately confident thing to do. “Let’s do this.”
* * *
Prism and I waited by the lift door for our companions to complete their tasks. Professor Catnap, like all of my team, had an inherent power that didn’t require any fancy gizmos or magical paraphernalia. He’d been a villain back in the day and was a skilled mesmerizer. I looked at my watch. By now he should have broken into Kirby’s room and would be keeping her asleep by speaking to her in those soft hypnotic tones. Here’s hoping she didn’t go to sleep holding the rod itself. He had to remain at her side to keep her in a state of slumber, so the job of Bayou Beast was to sneak in, find, and grab the key for the lift.
Prism and I paced up and down nervously. Bayou Beast should have had the key by now. There was a faint tap-tap-tap from a nearby window and a thin tendril-like branch slithered its way into view, a mundane looking silver key hanging upon its thorny tip. Prism opened the window and removed the key before handing it to me.
We both sighed with relief before pressing the button to call the lift. It pinged noisily as it arrived on our floor, the doors sliding open as the light from it flooded the corridor. I placed the key into the lock on the lift panel and turned it, praying to any deity that might be listening that this was the right one.
I took a deep breath and pressed “B” for Basement. With a shudder and a low rumble, the lift descended to the forbidden floor.
We stepped out, only a door locked with a digital keypad keeping us from our goal.
“This is where you come in, Prism.” I gestured towards it. He nodded, knowing exactly what he needed to do. Prism could control and manipulate light, and in turn could alter his own visual frequency. With a quick shift to infrared, he would see the tell-tale trace of fingerprints and . . .
“The buttons are one, six, eight and nine.”
A four-digit keypad. Four different numbers, which meant only twenty-four potential combinations. My fingers moved like a blur over the keypad as I started entering each possibility. I’d reached about two thirds of the way through my mental list when I was treated to a chirpy bleep, a green light and the satisfying click of a lock being released. We were in.
The single light bulb in the ceiling plink-plink-plinked into life, revealing a series of metal shelves containing more superhero and supervillain accouterments than I’d seen outside of a busy cosplay convention. Magic hammers, indestructible shields, all manner of magical and technological chunks of armor, lariats, rings, longbows, freeze-rays, heat-rays, shrink-rays, crossbows, shiny helmets and at the very end of one of the highest shelves, a distinctive belt.
The shrill sound of an alarm cut through the silence. Either we’d missed something or Professor Catnap’s powers had failed us.
“Somebody has called the lift, Enigman!” cried a panicky Prism. I reached up for the belt and approached Sovereign. His eyes opened wider with every step I made towards him as he recognized the familiar source of his wonderful powers.
“It’s bound to be Kirby!” Prism peered around the wall down the corridor.
“We haven’t got much time,” I said. “Help me get Sovereign to his feet.”
Prism looked confused for a moment, making as though to run towards me before turning to look back to the corridor again. I gestured angrily at him to help me. With a flustered and resigned expression, he joined me alongside Sovereign.
Prism lifted the aged hero by his shoulders. Sovereign had the closest thing to a smile I’d seen on that mostly vacant face for a long time. I smiled back and went to clip the belt onto him, but as soon as it got near him, it yanked itself out of my grasp and fastened itself with a noisy click. That’s magic for you. I was just about to make some incredibly witty and sarcastic remark about the unpredictable nature of the arcane arts to Prism when we were both sent sprawling across the floor by some invisible force pushing us away from Sovereign.
We stared at his frail form hanging in mid-air, surrounded by a brilliant radiant aura. It shone so bright that we had to shield our eyes. There was an explosion of light visible through the gaps between my fingers accompanied by the crack of thunder, and then silence.
Sovereign was still hovering a few feet above the ground and smiling down at us. His face and muscular body had been rejuvenated. Whatever magic the belt contained had restored Sovereign to the hero I knew from fifty years ago, costume and all.
Captain Prism’s eyes darted between Sovereign and me. Even back in the day he could never keep his calm in front of a hero. He grabbed the closest thing to hand, which turned out to be Particle Man’s shrinking watch, and activated it. He’d be forced to return to normal size when the battery ran but hopefully he’d be long gone by then.
Sovereign’s bright cape hung from his powerful shoulders, the bold primary colors of his costume and insignia shining brighter than they ever had. “We meet again, Enigman,” he said with a crooked smile, an eyebrow raised.
“Sovereign, my old nemesis.” My voice faltered as I found myself unable to contain the emotion I felt at speaking with him again. Sovereign was probably the longest acquaintance I’d ever had. It was like renewing an old friendship.
“I’d hoped that the magic on the belt would do something.” I smiled. “But I had no idea that . . .”
“Merlin knew exactly what he was doing. We can catch up another time. You need to go.”
“Go?” I asked. “I’m not sure that I . . .”
Sovereign smiled at me and placed a strong hand on my shoulder. “Oh, Enigman, for a . . . what was it you called yourself back in the day? For a being in possession of a sixth level intelligence, you can be rather slow on the uptake sometimes.”
That smile accompanied by a spark in those perfect baby-blue eyes told me everything I needed to know. I grabbed a handful of items from the nearest shelf to me and made to run for the door, but before I even took three steps he grabbed me. I shut my eyes as I hurtled through lift-shafts and corridors, only daring to open them again when I felt the cool breeze of the outside world on my face.
Sovereign gently put me down on a hill overlooking the home. The sun was emerging, a brilliant bright orange light piercing the dawn, when he reached out his hand. I took it in my own and slowly shook it.
“Thank you, my friend.” He took a few steps backwards and saluted me before slowly turning around and to face the sun. “One more thing.” He looked over his shoulder at me. “Stay out of trouble.”
He winked at me and leaped into the air, his cape billowing behind him as he ascended towards the clouds. The crack of a sonic boom rippled across the heavens and he was gone.
* * *
There’s a tendency for your modern super-villain to have their base somewhere foreboding. Sewers and caves are popular choices. Me? I’m old-school. I still think that there’s a lot of charm and potential from having a base in a hollowed-out volcano and per acre they’re damn good value for money. I’m nothing if not frugal.
I’ve reverse-engineered the technology from the gadgets I stole from the home. Now my robots are more than capable of looking after themselves in a fight, armed with stun beams, taser nets, hypno-rays, and knockout mists. Non-lethal, but pretty damn useful. As I stare down at the gathered formations of them in the main hangar, I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the glass. I look good. The costume still fits, barring a bit of chafing around the groin and thighs. The dyed hair takes at least a decade off me. Turns out it’s not the old age that finishes you off, it’s the fact that your life loses all purpose. A good friend once told me that it’s not how old you are, it’s how you are old.
I look at my stolen Albarossa crystal and grin in anticipation. I’m very proud of some of the clues I’ve left and hope that he’ll struggle with at least one or two of them. But I know he’ll figure them out eventually. Oh, I’m relying on it.
It’s always nice to have old friends come round.