The Good Fight 2: Villains Read online

  “I could just chew them into kibble,” said Harlan over the hiss of the suit’s hydraulics. He hadn’t put in the voice modulator yet so he had to shout to be heard. “Guns are full up.”

  “There’s a time and a place for shootin’ cops,” said Bay. “This ain’t it. Go find what you need and then we’ll hunt down the man.”

  “You gonna need someone to peel you out of a squad car?”

  “Maybe. You don’t see me come back around the block in ten, come get me.” Bay hammered down the accelerator and popped the clutch. The truck lurched into motion, swaying as Bay pulled away from the alley onto the street.

  Harlan stood in his suit, patient and monitoring his systems as he counted down the seconds. Five minutes later, Destroyer burst from the alley, running up the road as fast as a car in the evening darkness. He knew people saw him. Some folks were coming home from their Christmas shopping, or from work, and they stared in disbelief at the eight-foot monstrosity that was the Mark II as it charged down the road like some monster from a summer tentpole movie.

  His cameras enhanced building numbers until he spotted the apartment where Bernard Goetz lived. He switched the Mark II into its stealthy mode, making it quiet enough not to wake a sleeping dog. It couldn’t stay stealthy for long because of overheating, but it would be fine for the few minutes Harlan would need in Goetz’s apartment. He stood the suit in a shadow, shutting down all nonessential systems, and slipped out of the canopy. “Door,” he whispered into the mic at his throat.

  The onboard processor identified the target and fired a single round from the starboard cannon. The supersonic steel needle cracked into the doorknob of Goetz’s back door, shattering it into pieces. “Protect,” said Harlan, and he slipped into the building, knowing that Destroyer would keep him safe from prying eyes while he worked.

  There was no sign of Goetz in the tiny apartment. A quick search told Harlan that the man had come back and packed in a rush, leaving dresser drawers gaping open and the closet light still on. Harlan helped himself to some components he figured would be useful in his projects and then turned his consideration to where Goetz might be. The man didn’t have a car, and would most likely be avoiding public transportation. Harlan doubted the man would be much of a car thief. He’d probably rent a car.

  The Mark II had a projection screen that stored computerized maps with details pulled from the phonebook. A little research turned up a likely car rental place. Harlan grinned as he sealed himself back into Destroyer’s living embrace once more. He’d find Goetz soon enough, and the man would pay for his temerity.

  * * *

  The Hertz car rental company closest to Goetz’s apartment was closed by the time Harlan and Bay—who had managed to avoid getting arrested by the cops purporting to watch over Goetz’s place—rolled up to the lot. The gate was padlocked shut and Harlan spotted a couple of rangy dogs wandering through the lot in search of something edible. “Whatchoo wanna do?” asked Bay. “Them dogs look like trouble. What if there’s a guard listening for them to bark?”

  Harlan hopped out of the cab. “They won’t bark with holes through their heads.”

  Bay looked dismayed. “Aw, come on, man. They’s dogs. I can’t watch you kill a dog. I love dogs.”

  “Then don’t watch me.” Harlan rolled up the back door of the truck and climbed back into the Mark II once again. The servos played their sweet music for him as he stepped down from the truck. Bay grimaced and turned away as Harlan locked in on the dogs and fired. The second one might have whimpered a little before the second needle silenced it permanently.

  “Goddamn,” muttered Bay.

  Harlan ignored him and lowered the pincers on the left medial arm to cut the lock. He grasped the gate and pulled it aside, mechanical muscles flexing as the steel bent. “Go into the office. Check records. Even if he paid cash, there has to be some record of him renting.”

  Bay spat onto the ground, his face twisted up as he tried not to look at the dead dogs. “What if he didn’t use his real name? I wouldn’t.”

  “Then I’ll think of something.” Harlan wasn’t given to extraneous motion, especially when cramped inside Destroyer. Where someone else might have paced back and forth outside the rental office, Harlan was content to stand quietly and think about how he would track a rented car that could have been driven in any direction.

  His motionless silence probably saved Bay’s life, for a security guard with a pistol came around the side of the building and hollered at Bay to freeze. Bay raised his hands and the guard grinned. “Boy, you in the wrong place at the wrong time. I can shoot you right now and the law’s on my side.”

  Harlan turned on his exterior speakers. “Not if I shoot you first.” He pulled the trigger on an Eggbreaker and watched dispassionately as the guard fell, twitching out his final throes on the cement. “Bay, hurry up.”

  Bay hurried inside the office, saying “Good shot, man,” over his shoulder.

  Harlan knew there was no way he could track a rental car short of putting a beacon on it, and if he could put a beacon or some other kind of marker in it, he wouldn’t need to. There needed to be some kind of audio and video surveillance system, covering everywhere that he could access. He used cameras in his own security. Perhaps he might use some of his ill-gotten gains to develop surveillance devices that governments and private companies might be attracted to, devices which he could access at any time. With that kind of unfettered data within his reach, he would be able to find anyone or anything he needed to help with his projects. He could already see how computers could assist in such a task, and ideas were already firing off fast and furious in his mind as Bay came back out of the office again. “I got it,” he said, waving a piece of paper. “Blue ‘81 Dodge, rented by a Bernard Hugo. Paid in cash. That’s gotta be him, right?”

  “Yes,” said Harlan. “We’re not going to find him ourselves. He’s been gone for hours. He could be anywhere by now.” He marched the Mark II back to the truck.

  “So what we gonna do?”

  “Get the word out on the street. Description of the car and of Goetz. Tell them I will personally pay a reward for good information.”

  “And what are you gonna do?”

  Harlan raised the canopy and smiled down from the darkness in the back of the truck. “I’m going to make Destroyer fly.”

  * * *

  Harlan retreated to his lab in a fever of creation and fabrication. While the word spread up and down the East Coast about the search for Bernard Goetz and his rented car, Harlan cut sheet metal, bent piping, mixed fuel, and wired igniters. Bay brought him food and drink regularly, and hours later, when it had gone cold and flies were crawling over it, threw it away. By the third consecutive day, Harlan’s skin was covered with grease and metal dust, solder residue, welding burns, and he was hallucinating images of his dead mother. Dehydration sores covered his mouth and he stank of days-old sweat and burned materials. When Bay found him screaming in frothy-mouthed laughter while staring at nothing in particular, he busted Harlan across the jaw.

  When Harlan awoke, a day and a half later, he was hungry and thirsty for the first time in days, and somehow during his brief coma, he’d solved a fuel-mix ratio problem that had confounded him for some time. Bay looked at him with apprehension as he set a tray of silky grits and crispy bacon on Harlan’s lap. “Hey, man, you all right?”

  Harlan wiggled his jaw. It was definitely sore. He couldn’t quite remember what had happened while he was in his fugue state of creation. Whatever it was, though, Bay had looked after him, like he always did, and Harlan respected that if nothing else. “Yes, I think so.” He took a piece of bacon and dipped it into the grits. It was rare for him to have an appetite and he figured he’d make the most of it. “Any word on our missing quarry?”

  “Not yet, but we got eyes all over the region. He sticks his head up anywhere, somebody’s gonna spot it.” Bay snagged a piece of bacon for himself. “How ‘bout you?”

  Harlan o
pened the paper carton of milk that sat on the corner of the tray and drained it. “I need six hours and sixty gallons of kerosene, and then we’re ready to be airborne.” He burped and Bay grinned.

  “I’ll go find your kerosene. Get that sumbitch up in the air.”

  Harlan smiled. “Oh yes.”

  * * *

  The boot jets worked, of course. Harlan’s inventions always did. He just had the juju for technology. All the same, though, he was already considering improvements during his maiden voyage into the skies. He’d designed the jets after he had the opportunity to dig through the guts of the robotic superhero Steel Soldier during his first outing as Destroyer. He could already tell he needed better and more control surfaces for stabilization, better vibration and cavitation control, better armament, and of course, better soundproofing, as his ears were ringing within seconds.

  Still, flying was amazing, and Harlan figured once he perfected the technology, he might never walk anywhere ever again. He buzzed the George Washington Bridge once, amusing himself by targeting the cars crawling over it, and thought seriously about pulling a helicopter out of the sky, but he knew that despite the power of his jets, he wasn’t faster than a police radio, and as an early-morning unidentified flying object, it would be better initially for him to be more discreet.

  There would be time enough in the future for further destruction.

  The same afternoon after Harlan’s test flight, Bay informed him that they got a hit on Goetz. “He’s in Jersey,” said Bay. “A brother seen his car and followed him. He gone from one motel to another.”

  “He’s hiding,” said Harlan.

  “Looks like it,” said Bay. “Brother’s waitin’ by a pay phone for orders. You want him to take out Goetz?”

  “No, I want to talk to him,” said Harlan. He looked around. “There’s no phone in here, is there?”

  “Naw, but that deli has a pay phone.”

  Harlan set down his welding gun and pulled his goggles off. “Got any dimes?”

  “Yeah, man, but you need to wipe off your face. You look like you done fell into a trash heap. Kind of smell like it, too.”

  Harlan sniffed at himself, but all he caught was welding smoke and rocket fuel, neither of which he found unpleasant. “I’m all right. Let’s go make that call.”

  A few minutes later, Bay stood by the corner of the deli, his collar turned up against the cold, getting the motel address from the guy who’d found Goetz. Harlan paced back and forth. He had no patience for the telephone and left that unpleasant task to Bay. At last, Bay hung up and checked the coin slot just in case the quarter hadn’t yet dropped. “Got it,” he said with a triumphant grin. “You want to take the truck?”

  “You can,” said Harlan. “I’ve got a faster way to get there.”

  * * *

  The Mark II dropped out of the sky like a missile coming down. Harlan was half-frozen from the cockpit leak, had a developing migraine from the combination of noise and fumes, and was happier than he could ever remember being. He felt powerful, like a force of nature. Massive shock absorbers in the suit’s legs softened the landing, even though Harlan’s teeth clacked together so hard he thought he might have bitten off the tip of his tongue.

  His sensors had spotted Goetz’s car turning out of the lot of a seedy motel and Harlan wasn’t going to lose him again. He grabbed hold of the car’s bumper with the Mark II’s primary arms and lifted it right off the ground. The memory of the look of sheer terror on Goetz’s face as he looked behind him would keep Harlan warm for many cold nights in the future. The car’s engine howled as the rear wheels spun in midair to no avail. “Goetz,” said Harlan through the external speakers. “Don’t move.”

  Goetz tumbled out of the door, slipped on the ice, and wound up face down in gray Jersey snow. Harlan threw the car aside and smiled as it crashed into a parked truck and caught flame. Destruction was singing that familiar old refrain, a song Harlan knew by heart. He lunged down with a pincer claw and grabbed Goetz by the shoulder, hauling the frightened man to his feet.

  “I’m sorry! I didn’t do anything! I’m sorry! P-please . . .”

  Listening to Goetz grovel and blubber was sorely tempting Harlan to say to hell with the components and pinch the man’s head from his shoulders. Instead, he lifted Goetz off the ground altogether. “Shut up,” said Harlan. “You’re Bernard Goetz. You shot my employees, and you inconvenienced me.”

  “I . . . I . . .”

  “I’m going to give you the chance to make it up to me.” Harlan pulled Goetz in close to the Mark II’s head unit. “I’m going to give you five thousand dollars, and you’re going to give me the following items from your inventory.” Harlan ran down a list of high-tech electrical components using the newest microprocessors that Harlan had yet to take the time to understand.

  “How . . . How do you know about th-that?” Goetz stammered like a pathetic cartoon character.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Harlan smiled beneath the layers of metal and plastic separating him from his prey. He didn’t enjoy dealing with people for the most part, which was why he had Bay. Scaring them, though, that felt powerful. The truth was he’d seen some of Goetz’s work elsewhere and was able to derive some of the man’s other developments using his sense of technology. “You can agree to the deal and walk away, or you can refuse, and then I keep my five thousand and take your components . . . and your head.”

  Goetz took the money, and Harlan got what he came for.

  He dropped Goetz, who stumbled and fell as he tried to run away. Harlan looked down at the components in Destroyer’s medial claw. They were so small, and yet they would unlock the secrets to his targeting systems and make him powerful enough to take on a fighter jet, or a military helicopter, or a Just Cause asshole. And yet, now that he had them in his possession, he could see how they worked. He could extrapolate new, better designs from them. It wouldn’t be hard.

  It wouldn’t be hard at all.

  He chinned on his external speakers again. “Goetz,” he hissed.

  Goetz shrieked, like a scared little girl. Harlan wanted to laugh at him, but kept himself sounding scary and mean.

  “Here I’ve been thinking these would be difficult designs. Something I’d need someone who had your specialized knowledge to acquire, design, and repair. But you know what? They’re not, and I don’t need you.”

  Goetz let out one final terrified scream, urine staining the front of his trousers just before a dozen finely-machined steel needles turned his chest cavity into ground meat, making it look like someone had splattered an industrial-sized can of chili across the snow.

  “Guess you’ll miss your trial date.” Harlan had found his components, salvaged his wasted time, and wrought destruction.

  It had been a good day.

  Harlan fired up his boot jets. The Mark II shot into the darkening sky like a missile. Harlan swung around in a semicircle, orienting himself toward Manhattan. “New York, what a town,” he whispered to himself with glee. “Destroyer is back.”

  Back to Table of Contents

  Lemonade

  By Hydrargentium

  Hydrargentium is a construct of the Internet, a homogeny of blood and bytes, bits and breath. He writes stories, and songs, and poetry, and sometimes thinks he's funny or clever. Occasionally, he's right.

  Previously, Hydrargentium's stories have appeared in A Thousand Faces and The Whetstone Report.

  His currently active work is 100 Words A Day. (http://hg100words.wordpress.com/)

  Or read more of his writing on his blog. (http://hydrargentium.blogspot.ca/)

  So, what the *&^% is a Hydrargentium anyway? Look it up, silly.

  * * *

  This isn’t how I wanted it to end. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. No point crying about it, though. My Aunt Jane always told me about making lemonade, and since all my plans turned sour, I had no choice but to follow her advice.

  Kingfisher is dead. Halcyon is comatose. I certainly
never planned for that. Life with super powers is bound to be hazardous, but I never thought it would be this bad. Does that make me stupid? No, stupid would be wasting too much time worrying about it.

  The job was supposed to be foolproof. Too bad it wasn’t hero-proof as well. Walk into a bank in trench coats. Could’ve gone in normal clothes, but we wanted to show off our supersuits later to intimidate the police, and make a name for ourselves. Halcyon uses his powers to knock everyone out. I suppose he could have done the whole thing himself, but he wasn’t much of an idea guy, and preferred to work with partners.

  Now that’s stupid. No more partners for me. Halcyon, though, needed partners. He would’ve had a hard time getting away on his own. With Kingfisher and me both being flyers, we were the get away vehicle. Plus, he would’ve needed a way into the vault.

  Kingfisher had the power to get into the vault. The energy beams he’d shoot from his eyes could cut through the eight inches of steel on the vault door without too much problem. The guy’s a dummy though. He was going to cut a big hole through it, a circle wide enough to walk through. That would’ve taken minutes. He’d already started, a short scar of red hot metal sliced across the top half. I took one look at the vault and snorted.

  I put my hand in front of his eyes to block the beams. They might have been able to cut through steel, but steel’s nothing compared to my body. After a moment, he blinked, and the beams fluttered once and then stopped.

  “What’s your problem? We’re on a tight schedule here!” He was a pretty uptight guy.

  “Yeah, so why are you wasting our time?” I pointed at the still-glowing mark on the vault, poked it with a finger. The metal was squishy, like putty, and held the shape of my fingertip. “This’ll take you forever.”

  Kingfisher snarled. “Have you got a better suggestion? The good stuff’s behind that door.”

  I shrugged, waving vaguely around the door frame. “Cut off the hinges. Zip your little eye beams along the crack on the other side, cut through the dead bolt. Thirty seconds, even if you blink.”