The Good Fight 2: Villains Read online

  “You don’t care?”

  “About those who would as soon see me dead? Not a whit. In honesty, Richard, I grew beyond that level of emotion decades ago. There are very few humans left for whom I would grieve, even for a second.”

  Richard nodded. He looked at his hands, holding them up and flexing the fingers. “They feel tingly,” he said. Pain laid a hand on the elderly man’s forehead.

  “It’s almost that time,” he said. “My spell, as I call it, eases your pain so your transition is calm, but it cannot remove all the effects on your body. That tingling is telling you that your body is failing.”

  Richard chuckled. “Figures I’d go out like this,” he said. “Rotting in a bed. So many of my friends didn’t.”

  Pain shrugged. “I can take you away should you prefer.”

  “One place is good as another. Wish I had a drink, though.”

  A moment later, a bottle of Scotch was sitting on top of the rolling half-table beside the bed. Pain opened it and poured a generous measure into two matching glasses.

  “From my personal stock. If you would deign to drink with me?” he invited. Richard smiled broadly and the bed made a humming sound as he angled the head of it upward. He touched glasses with the most dangerous man he had ever met or ever would. The drink was cool and fiery at the same time, and brought back a flood of memories, times when he had shared a drink with the men most important to him throughout his life. He set the empty glass down and looked at Professor Pain.

  “I never did thank you,” he said.

  “You never need to.”

  Richard’s eyes began to drift closed. Professor Pain raised his hands to the ceiling and the room was bathed in an unearthly radiance. For Richard it was an illusory mix of everything wonderful that he had ever known, and tears slipped from the corners of eyes that were slowly glazing over.

  Professor Pain leaned close to the elderly man. He sang the opening lines of The Marines’ Hymn as he watched the life drift from Richard’s body, adding his own voice to the visions that soothed the departure of the veteran. A moment later, Pain stood and straightened his cape where it lay on his shoulder. He held the glass up once more.

  “Thank you for hearing my story, Richard,” he said. “May you walk tall in Heaven, or Valhalla, or Elysium, or wherever you find yourself.”

  “If I hadn’t seen what I just did, you’d be on your way to join him,” announced a bass voice from the doorway. Pain didn’t even turn.

  “You are no threat to me, Hammer,” he said. “Although I will say thank you for not intruding on what you witnessed. Had you interfered, your atoms would be scattering still.”

  “You’ve got your bluff in with everybody, don’t you?” Hammer asked. “I ain’t scared, though. I went toe to toe with —”

  “You are a petulant child,” Pain said. “You mean as much to me as the amoebae in the dirt in which you walk. Your Emergence has left you strong and vital, and these are great things for you. Know this, though: I can sunder worlds, watch entire civilizations dissolve into dust and blood, see nations shattered into civil war, and I will still be more than them all. My power eclipses that of the gods, and to me you exist only at my whim.”

  “That’s pretty,” Hammer said, a smirk visible under the half-mask he wore. “I’ll be looking for you soon enough. Today, you get a pass.”

  “Oh, a pass!” Pain said, clapping his hands in mock glee. “Pray tell, a pass from what?”

  “Today you get to go free, on account of what you did for that man there,” Hammer said, gesturing to Richard. “I caught the last of what happened. I don’t know why you did it, and honestly I don’t care. The point is, you did. So today, you get a pass.”

  “This is a good thing,” Pain said. “Sadly, you are between me and the door.”

  The flash of light was enough to blind the police sniper and his spotter that had taken up position. Like Hammer, they had been amazed at the care with which the booster treated the dying man in his bed, even muttering back and forth to one another about what was occurring. Unlike Hammer, they had both no clue as to the reasons the booster acted as he did or the booster’s actual identity. Now they fell back from their scopes, cursing and grasping at their eyes in agony. Had they been able to see, they would have noted that Hammer was no longer between the target and the door. In fact, he did not seem to be anywhere at all any more.

  A few minutes later, in about the time it would take to casually stroll up to the roof from the eleventh floor, the access door to the helipad opened and Professor Pain strode out. He ignored the commands from the SWAT officers who had deployed on the roof after rappelling from a helicopter. Their raised weapons seemed to be no threat, and he looked to the sky. For effect, he winked at the troops before rocketing into the air and vanishing into the clouds.

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  Who Deserves to Die? / Politics as Usual

  By Landon Porter

  For over thirty years, the Psionics Training and Application Academy has given the American people the peace of mind that psionics, humans born with the ability to manifest strange biology or incredible powers, could be trained to control their powers and use them for the public good.

  But in 2074, cracks have appeared in this fiction and a small band of psionics who know the truth have come together to oppose the Academy and the sinister organization behind it: Project Tome. As part of the ongoing battle, they expand their fight against injustice to include protecting the public from the likes of organized crime, psychotic sorceresses, and rogue psionics.

  No longer the victims of circumstance and betrayal, they have taken their names from the true origins of their powers: the results of worldwide human experimentation during and following World War II. They are united. They are family. They are: The Descendants.

  Find The Descendants online at: http://www.descendantsserial.com

  Follow Landon Porter on Twitter: @ParadoxOmni

  * * *

  The Spectrum

  The intrigue of villains is in their variety. From the pitiless, globe-spanning threat to the cackling madman with a switchblade and half a plan, they span an near-infinite range of ability, motivation and sympathy. They dwell in our every fear and insecurity whether we worry about seeing them at our front door or peering back at use from the mirror.

  Even at their most mundane, we can see the vast gulfs that may exist in those who use their extraordinary power, opportunity or resources for ill rather than good.

  You are invited to compare and contrast two very different moments in time from the Universe of The Descendants where villainous deeds are afoot both overt and subtle.

  * * *

  Who Deserves to Die?

  Charlie didn’t think of himself as a bad guy. All the advice he ever received growing up boiled down to two things: family was the most important thing to any man and to do the work you were good at.

  It wasn’t his fault that he had two little boys and a teenaged girl at home. They needed things; not just food and clothes, but four walls and a roof and lights so they could study and not end up like their old man, or worse, their mother. Not that he was bitter that Elaine left him for someone with more money and abandoned the kids to him. Not very at least.

  And it wasn’t his fault that his own old man was in a home. That had been his brothers’ decisions and once again, guess who it fell to to make sure a man that never even tried to be there for him was comfortable and taken care of in his last years. Not that Charlie would ever abandon him; family was the most important thing, even if his brothers didn’t agree. He just wished his money would go to making his father better instead of keeping him alive. The wonders of modern medicine didn’t matter much when the doctors couldn’t agree on what was wrong.

  So he needed money. A lot of money.

  He knew people who got their room and board by making themselves into walking advertisements and permanent test beds for new products; both the kind that could leave a bad taste i
n your mouth, and the kind that could leave you with ‘mild’ side effects like constant itching and fluid in the lungs.

  An honest living, even if it meant working for the kind of folks that would do that to people, but it paid just about enough for a single person to live on. It wasn’t the kind of work a family man with mounting medical bills could live on.

  So it wasn’t his fault that he stole. After all, he was good at it. Some might say he was born to steal. At eighteen, he discovered he had could clench his hand just right and have a strobing sphere of light form there. It made him tired and hungry when he did it, but staring at it made other people confused and dizzy and when he pressed it to something electronic, it went crazy. Alarms scrambled, lights flickered, and most importantly, electronic locks disengaged.

  That and a fence with a generous streak kept his family fed and his old man breathing.

  In theory, that power was better than printing money, but Charlie was cautious. He took a few things here and there, enough for a week or two, maybe more if the rent was due, and never hit the same place twice. It kept him under the radar.

  It was his buddy Martin that insisted on the jewelry store though. Charlie wouldn’t have picked it; too much security to put on the fritz and the jewels would be too hot for his regular fence to move. Martin had balked, promising that it would be an easy payday. He knew a guy that could move the rocks and so what if Charlie couldn’t take out the alarm. He could just strobe the cops and make a get away.

  To hear him tell it, Martin thought Charlie was something unstoppable. At least by normal cops. And that’s all they had to worry about in Hartford. Powered vigilantes—heroes—were confined to the big cities where the big crime happened, he assured, New York, Mayfield, LA, Atlanta, Chicago; but not Hartford, Connecticut. It would be a waste of their talents, since Charlie was as ‘super’ as the local criminals got.

  Which was why they were in the jewelry store now.

  Charlie cringed as Martin simply smashed the front of a case with a crowbar before scooping the contents into a paper bag.

  “I thought the plan was me doing the safe.” He whispered sharply.

  “Then do the safe. I’ve got the cases covered.” Martin didn’t bother whispering. Why should he? They were invincible.

  “This is stupid. You’re gonna get us both thrown in the klink, man.” Nevertheless, he headed around the counter, looking for the safe. He didn’t give up on grousing though. “Maybe that’s cool with you, thinkin’ it’ll give you cred or something. But I’ve got my kids to think about. I can’t get picked up.” A thought made him freeze even as he spied the safe. “And I wouldn’t go to no regular jail either. They’d send me to the Island, man.”

  Martin scoffed. “Whatever. Don’t you listen to the news? A bunch of dudes broke out of that place like a week ago. With your powers? You’d be out in an hour.”

  Charlie knelt and summoned a strobe-sphere to defeat the safe. “You are the dumbest bastard I’ve ever met, Martin. I’m not working with you ever again. There’s something wrong with you, I’m serious.” The safe clicked open, but that was drowned out by a terrible screeching from the front of the store. “What the hell is that?”

  “Shit, I got no idea, but you gotta see this.” Martin was looking up front and wielding his crowbar like a club.

  Turning to look through the smashed case, Charlie wished he wasn’t seeing what he was seeing: something was pulling at the metal shutter that covered the store’s front windows and door, tearing them apart. It only took a few seconds before something hit one of the windows, shattering them inward with enough force that Martin had to dodge flying glass.

  “Martin . . .” Charlie said, voice suddenly hoarse. “Martin. Move.”

  But Martin was transfixed, both by panic and curiosity, as a third man stepped in through the ruined facade of the building.

  He was dressed much like they were; all black clothes, snug fitting, and a black ski mask. He had a set of tinted ski goggles on over that though, and something that married a leather jacket and a poncho. It was a most unsettling garment, as if had no defined cut, looking as if something large had vomited a blob of leather onto his shoulders and chest. More worryingly, it rippled even though there was no wind.

  Being more bravado than brains, Martin missed this and brandished his three feet of iron. “Who the hell are you?”

  The stranger was striding forward, but nothing telegraphed the blow. Something like a long, undulating flipper snapped out of the poncho-thing and cuffed Martin across the face. Only it didn’t sound like leather when it hit him, it sounded like hard plastic breaking a man’s jaw.

  Martin turned a quarter circle in place and dropped to the ground moaning in agony.

  “Someone who is tired of seeing people like you victimize my community.” The newcomer was obviously trying to make his voice sound rough and gravely. It wasn’t necessary, he was scary enough without it. Another shape extruded from the poncho and wrapped around Martin’s neck, lifting him effortlessly.

  The pressure on his jaw made Martin scream in spite of his rapidly swelling mouth. That wouldn’t last, the tentacle was cutting off his air.

  Charlie stood up, careful to keep the counter and the register atop it between him and the other man. “Whoa. You got us, man. We give up.” He cast a worried glance toward Martin who was frantically trying to get some oxygen into his lungs. “Let my friend go.”

  Faster than Charlie could follow, another tentacle formed out of the material on the man’s chest and slammed into the resister, sending it hard into Charlie’s center. He hit the wall and dropped to his hands and knees, coughing. There was stabbing pain in his chest. Probably a rib.

  “No,” was the answer. The tentacle wrapped Charlie’s chest, squeezing just enough to make the pain over his ribs ignite in white fire. “He’s going to be an example and you’re going to tell all the folks like you exactly what happens now if I catch them.”

  Example? Charlie had seen enough movies to know what that meant. “Wha..” It hurt to draw the breath to talk. He used only the words necessary. “No jail?”

  The man holding him laughed bitterly. And when he did, three orange eyes, half-lidded and looking disturbingly like those of a young kitten’s, opened on his shoulder, followed by a toothy maw beneath them. An echo of his laugh issued from it.

  “So you can break out? I don’t think so. I’ve seen what comes from putting your filth in jail. My brother died in the breakout on Braddock Island. So did a lot of his friends; people I knew.”

  “Just . . . thief.” Charlie croaked. The pain was making him light-headed. He couldn’t hear Martin gasping anymore. Panic took him and he clenched his hand, calling a strobe into it.

  It only made his captor laugh more and tap the goggles. “I’ve done my homework on you. Everyone that kept their wits about them were wearing polarized glasses.” The tentacle squeezed harder and if Charlie’s rib hadn’t been broken before, it was now; and it had company.

  “But thank you for proving my point. None of you need to keep living. You’ll keep getting out and keep escalating until more people die. More people I care about.” He scowled at himself. “I can’t believe I was going to let you live as a messenger.”

  News of his pending execution gave Charlie an extra boost in his struggles. He forced air into his lungs and croaked. “My kids . . .”

  “Will be better off without a criminal for a father. I only hope they didn’t inherit your powers.” The tentacle lifted Charlie off his feet and whipped around, dragging the helpless man through two previously unbroken cases, leaving him bleeding heavily in the second.

  The vigilante watched as the other man’s lifeless body was dropped to the floor and the tentacle holding him retracting. “Very good, Lishuura. I’m so glad I found you; I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t. Someone needs to do this, and the ‘heroes’ are just another part of the problem.” He turned and left the way he came in.

  The thing
wrapped around him purred and the orange eyes closed contentedly.

  Still lying in the shattered case, feeling his body grow old and heavy, Charlie listened to him go. It hadn’t been his fault it ended like this. But suddenly, fault didn’t matter. His last thoughts were of his family. He hoped that somehow, they would be okay. Somehow, he didn’t think they would be.

  * * *

  The Descendants Presents: Politics As Usual

  [This story takes place prior to Descendants #67]

  A red SUV rattled up the hill, following the gravel drive that disappeared into a grassy patch in front of the house.

  It was a magnificent house: a three story mansion in the modern style, but with carefully chosen siding to make it look like it came from a much earlier era. A screened-in front porch took up most of the front and was itself fronted by an immaculate flowerbed planted with marigolds.

  The house on the hill was in stark contrast with the actual farmland down below where there were several acres under white domed moisture hoods, making the surrounding land look like it was covered with a giant’s shaving cream. The coasts might have been spared flooding in the close call the world had with the effects of climate change, but Iowa farms now needed the help of technology meant to help grow crops in Sub-Saharan Africa.

  As the vehicle ran out of road, the screen door to the porch swung open and a man in his late fifties came out, followed by a long legged German Shepherd.

  Congressman William Sinclair wore a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up above the elbow and jeans, both of which were more expensive than they had any right to be—the standard uniform of rural politicians at home. He put his hand on the dog’s head and it sat beside him as both waited a respectable distance from the car.

  After a minute or two, the door opened and a woman stepped out. Her blonde hair was pulled back and braided severely. She wore a full suit with a feminine cut, thick, black boots, and leather gloves. Her eyes were hidden behind dark glasses.