CHAPTER TWENTY

THE WORLD’S GREATEST CRIMINAL MIND

“This is a really ridiculous idea,” John said, as he had transformed into an identical copy of my cloak and was presently resting on top of me.

I was flying a Doom Bubble, which was a grossly impractical flying motorcycle with an egg-shell like dome around it. It was one of the P.H.A.N.T.O.M vehicles recovered from the downed hover pyramids and my ride toward their home base.

“Believe me, I’m not happy about it either,” I said, sighing. “I feel like I’m covered in a manta ray.”

“Just be glad you’re wearing your regular cloak underneath it,” John said. “Otherwise this would be weird.”

“That would be where this gets weird?” Mercury’s tiny doll-sized form asked from my pocket. We’d shrunk her down with local magic. The Norsetecs had some weird powers. After shrinking the scientist witch, I was able to tuck her inside my cloak. She wasn’t inside John because that would be even weirder.

Allegedly.

“Listen, it’s a simple enough plan,” I said, preparing to explain my horrifically complicated plan. “Tom Terror knows most of my associates, but he doesn’t know you. So, I’m going to sneak you into their base, and we’ll kill everybody there. What do you think?”

“That’s not a plan,” John said. “That’s an objective.”

“What, you think you could do better?”

“Given the fact I was a highly trained commando? Yes!” John said, somehow speaking despite having no lungs.

“I should point out that I’m a genius,” Mercury said. “The magic in our world is alien geometry, algebra, and sanity-shredding Jungian psychology. Your magic is something any idiot can learn. Case in point.”

I paused. “You know, I’m beginning to wonder if I should have chosen you guys to come with me over Diabloman and Cindy.”

“Yes, why did you?” Mercury squeaked. “Ugh. When did you last wash this cloak? It smells like a cemetery and a locker room in here.”

“That’s John,” I said. “I just took a bath.”

“I will eat you,” John said.

“Listen, I know exactly what I’m doing,” I said, dodging out of the way of an enormous eagle that had never existed in the natural world. The Doom Bubble, I swear, made noises like the Jetsons’ flying car from the old Hanna-Barbera cartoon. I had to wonder who had decided that feature was worth adding and why he’d decided to join an international terrorist organization devoted to white supremacy.

“Is that why you’re going the wrong way?” John asked.

I blinked and paused. “Uh, I’m taking the scenic route.”

“We’re on the side of the Hollow Earth,” Mercury said. “You’ve literally been going in the wrong direction since the beginning.”

“And you’re just telling me now?” I asked, making a tsk-tsk noise. “Clearly, you’ve failed my test to determine whether or not you are worthy allies.”

“Just hit the autopilot and it’ll take you back to the P.H.A.N.T.O.M base,” John said.

“And how would you know that?” I asked.

“I read the instruction manual in the glove compartment,” John replied.

I blinked. “So, my next test is to ask you which button is the—”

John interrupted by shooting a black gooey tentacle out of my cloak and tapping a blue button on the dashboard. The Doom Bubble turned and started past the Inner Sun (from a safe distance). We were rushing toward a valley far above us.

The Hollow Earth looked a lot bigger from the Doom Bubble. It wasn’t just jungles and the Norsetecs. I saw beautiful amphibious civilizations sculpted of coral, a series of Medieval castles straight out of Westeros, and many other long-dead civilizations that had survived down there. I was tempted to take pot shots at the Romans descended from the Lost Legion but figured it wasn’t kosher to blame people for the sins of their father. Either way, this was a magical place in the Hogwarts sense, and I wished I could explore it as a tourist rather than a revolutionary.

“I meant to do that,” I said, sounding insincere even to myself. “Just letting you know you’re still dealing with the World’s Greatest Criminal Mind. I even have it on my playlist.”

I pulled out my cellphone and tapped it. Vincent Price’s rendition of the song from The Great Mouse Detective started playing. It was amazing how many Disney songs suddenly became awesome when you had a pair of young daughters.

“I’d make fun of you, Gary, but I don’t think there’s any point,” Mercury said, popping her head out of my pocket and looking around like a mouse or a purse dog. “Also, I’m the one following you, so clearly I’m the bigger fool here.”

“So sayeth Obi-Wan,” I said, nodding. “Listen, do you want to hear my plan or not?”

“Do you actually have a plan?” John asked. “Or is this one of those things where you claim to have one and that everything is going exactly as you have foreseen.”

“Listen, that’s a supervillain staple,” I said, offended. “It makes you look like an omniscient badass always one step ahead versus a guy who is constantly screwing up. You just claim all of your horrible defeats and losses are part of some grander stratagem.”

“And that works?” Mercury asked, unimpressed.

“Yes, Barbie, it does. Because there’s one constant across the multiverse and that’s the fact that most criminals are deeply stupid.”

“You realize what that means about you,” John said, clearly starting to be more amused by my ridiculousness than offended.

“I am not a majority,” I said, simply. “I am unique. I am a devious, diabolical, debonair desperado that will dare to defy the dark and—”

My cellphone rang.

“Oh, crap, it’s Gabrielle,” I said, immediately throwing my cellphone out the side of the Doom Bubble.

John caught it with a tentacle and pulled it back into the Doom Bubble. “You shouldn’t ignore your girlfriend.”

“Fiancée, again,” I corrected. “For the second time, I mean. Mind you, I’m pretty sure she’s rethinking accepting that offer.”

“Why? What did you do?” Mercury asked, climbing out of my pocket and sitting beside me. I regretted making the Barbie joke too early since she really did look like a doll. Well, an action figure.

“I kind of blasted her with the Spear of Odin,” I said, listening to the ringing.

“Yeah, that will do it,” John said.

“I left her a note,” I said, taking a deep breath and hitting the receive button. “I’m sure she’ll—”

“WHAT THE FUCK, GARY!?” Gabrielle asked on the other side.

“Or not,” I said. “He has Lisa. I couldn’t allow him to see you coming.”

“How about you tell me this instead of SHOOTING ME IN THE FACE!?” Gabrielle asked.

“Err—”

“In the face!” Gabrielle repeated. “Oh, and maybe you remember that I lead a superhero team called the Shadow Seven. You know, a team of superhero infiltrators with experience in breaking into highly secure military facilities like P.H.A.N.T.O.M runs.”

“There is that,” I said, increasingly aware of how bad an idea this was.

“Maybe it would be a good idea to have someone with superspeed or invulnerability to call in when Tom Terror inevitably betrays you? Because nothing says trustworthy like Nazi scientist!” Gabrielle continued to lay into me.

“Technically, he’s not a Nazi anymore,” Mercury said.

“There’s no such thing as an ex-Nazi,” I replied. “It’s why I got in trouble when I time traveled to NASA during the Sixties in order to meet Miss Luna and the Space Cadets.”

“What happened there?” Mercury asked.

“I kicked Wernher von Braun in the junk,” I said, sheepishly. The one thing that rivaled my hatred of Nazis was my love of space travel. The former won out.

“Do not ignore me, Gary!” Gabrielle shouted.

I spoke into the phone. “Bzzzt….bszzztt. Oh no, the static interference from solar flares is…bzzzzt…breaking up!”

“You’re just making static noises in the phone!” Gabrielle said.

“I just…bzzzt…love you!” Then I froze over the phone before tossing it out of the Doom Bubble again and blowing it up with a blast of flame before John could catch it.

“We could have used that phone to contact the others and coordinate our attacks,” John said, dryly. “You know, instead of wasting a valuable resource because you can’t talk to your girlfriend.”

“Fiancée,” I corrected. “I prefer to think of her as that if I’m horribly killed trying to liberate Poland.”

Mercury felt her head as if having a tiny headache. “Poland?”

“Yes, I’m naming all territory occupied by P.H.A.N.T.O.M as part of that country. Mostly because I’m going to need a new country to live in since I’ve been kicked out of the United States. I have relatives there and they make awesome video games.”

“I’d say that’s in exceptionally bad taste, but we’ve crossed that line long ago,” John said.

“Well then let’s sit here in complete silence,” I said, stoically. “Because I just realized my music collection was on that phone and some would be really awesome right now. Some Blind Guardian, maybe some Sabaton—”

That was when alarms went off inside the Doom Bubble and I saw a rocket heading our way. I immediately turned insubstantial and Mercury fell through the bottom of the machine with me. I hadn’t been touching her when I turned, and it made me think my powers had grown. Mind you, the fact I was falling from an exploding vehicle should have worried me more. Especially since we weren’t falling to the ground. No, we were falling toward the Inner Sun.

“Oh, shit!” I said, grabbing Mercury in midair.

“Hey, watch where you put your fingers!” Mercury shouted.

“We’re about to be incinerated! The gravity here does not make any sense!” I snapped.

“It actually makes perfect sense if you—” Mercury said as we came closer and closer to the blinding orange inferno beneath us.

I was prepared to die before I remembered, oh, right, I could levitate and immediately drew a serious boost of energy from the Inner Sun and zipped down to the valley above my head. I had to readjust my perception of gravity but soon found myself on two feet again.

I also found myself in Mordor.

It was easy to figure out this was the Blood of Loge since it was a massive land of ash, lava streams, and spikey black outcroppings of rock. The place looked like a little slice of hell on Earth and was decorated in Tom Terror’s style.

There were numerous scattered fortresses visible as well as a number of prison camps spread throughout the region. The Blood of Loge was built around a central volcano that had a sinister-but-ridiculous-looking giant metal skull with bone-shaped pipes pouring out black smoke into the air. It was something straight out of a cartoon and would have been hilarious if not for the fact I saw a parade of beaten, battered, and abused slaves being led by Exterminator-robots into the first floor of Tom Terror’s base. People who were going to be experimented on as part of his insane human trafficking plan.

Checking my surroundings, I saw several white hills that it took me a second to realize were piles of bones. There were thousands of corpses that had been left to rot out in the open, their skin bleached white by the eternal sun. Demonic rat-bat scavengers feasted on them before my eyes. At one point, I saw a bunch of corpses being pushed up against that wall of death by bulldozers. I couldn’t tell if they were victims of Tom Terror’s experiments, former heroes, or just the dead from his war against the rest of the Hollow Earth.

“It’s a rare occasion that I encounter something simultaneously so ridiculous and horrifying,” I said.

“Seems pretty normal to me,” Mercury said. “Also, if I’m not supposed to be hidden, then why am I tiny?”

“Oh, right,” I said, putting her in my pocket. “Better?”

“No, not in the slightest,” Mercury said.

“Listen, my plan is brilliant,” I said, lying through my teeth. “You just don’t know the details because I’ve psychically purged myself of the real plan and hypnotized myself into believing the real plan is the stupid one that I told you earlier.”

“I literally don’t know if you’re being serious or not,” John said.

“Shut up, people aren’t supposed to know you can talk,” I said, pausing. “Actually, my having a talking cloak is something I’m famous for. Never mind. In fact, do you want a job?”

“No!” John said. “Gods and Old Ones, I may return to my world to get back to people properly terrified of monsters.”

I was about to agree that was a good idea when a beautiful woman with blonde hair tied in dual pigtails and a form-fitting blue jumpsuit used a jetpack to fly over to my side and pull out a clipboard. I blinked. She was identical to Cindy except for hair color.

“What the hell?” I asked.

The Not-Cindy pulled out a clipboard. “Hiya! I’m Tina Terror, Assistant to Professor Terror! I’m here for your orientation into your defeat, capture, and brainwashing.”

“What now?”

“Defeat, capture, and brainwashing,” Tina said. “You are Merciless: The Supervillain without MercyTM, correct?”

“Uh, yes,” I said, confused. “Why do you look like Cindy?”

“Because I am a Cindy-model bioroid! Cindy Wachkowski is widely believed to be the best henchwoman who ever lived and I’m the prototype for an entire line of executive supervillain assistants based on her. When you need a perky female minion, shop P.H.A.N.T.O.M’s quality selection of merchandise.”

I stared at her, outweirded by someone else for possibly the first time in my life. “I fully believe Cindy will be less upset by the fact she’s been copied by P.H.A.N.T.O.M than the fact she’s not getting paid for the use of her likeness.”

She leaned in and gave an exaggerated wink. “We’re fully equipped, you know. Feel free to make use of our services before your horrific death of personality.”

“I think I saw this bit in Austin Powers,” Mercury said.

“It bothers me that movie survived the apocalypse,” I said. “Listen, Lisa, the only fascist I have ever been attracted to was Alison Doody’s character in The Last Crusade. That caused me a lot of confusion and forced me to do a lot of soul-searching before I remembered there are a lot more fish in the sea. I am immune to your robotic charms.”

“Mmm hmm,” Tina said, writing on her clipboard. “Do you have anything to declare before your capture?”

“Uh, I’m not going to be captured?” I asked.

“Tinaisabombsayswhat?” Tina said.

“What?” I replied.

That was when Tina exploded, releasing a torrent of anti-magical energy that caused me to scream and fall to the ground thrashing.