EDIT: Okay, I did a second one. Those commutes are boring.
In The Life
2018, John McMullen
“Supervillain looking for foe, possibly nemesis.” That’s what the ad on Craigslist said. I only saw it because I have “supervillain” in my Google alerts. Lets me know what routes not to take home.
And Craigslist is past its prime. Heck, reddit gets more hero traffic.
I mean, Craigslist.
I thought about it all day. Was it a weird sex thing? Like, you answered it and he or she or it showed up in leather and cracked a whip at you, or immobilized you with a strange chemical and did probably-speakable things to you and with you? (This was back when Craigslist did personal ads.)
That evening, after dinner but before I went out, I made up my mind. I wasn’t dating anyone and I might get a good story out of it.
I used the anonymized account that didn’t have my real name and wrote an answer.
* * *
Oh—didn’t mean to be coy. I have no super powers. I like to think I’m not an average guy, but I’m just a guy.
* * *
Anyway, the advertiser was a she. We exchanged some emails (her email account was “janedoeremi”) and we both seemed to get along. At this point, I was still thinking that maybe this was a sex thing, but I waited for things to move along. If she didn’t like me, hey, all I’d lose was a couple of emails.
I learned that the last applicant was too strong, and the one before that wanted some same sex stuff. This was pretty much standard dating fare, albeit on the kinky side.
After about a week she wanted to meet so we could check each other out, masked but not in costume.
Like that was a thing?
But I guess it was. I mean, it was good because I didn’t have a costume.
Did I know where the Haven Club was? Some fast Googling and I found a single reference to it, and not an ad. It was a private club. The reference I found had the street name but not the address. I knew the area, though.
“MacDonald near Peterson?”
“Right,” she responded.
“Masks available at the door?” I asked.
“What would the point of that be? You are new at this, aren’t you?”
“Totally,” I replied.
“Ten tonight. Still be quiet enough to talk.”
She gave me the address and I scouted it out on the way home that night, just to get a feel for the dress code. I saw maybe half a dozen people going in and out. Clothes ran the gamut between a tux (at five in the afternoon, no less) and college student (clean jeans, no holes). Couple of odd things:
Thing one was no parking lot. You had to go in by the back but though the building had a lane way, it had no parking lot.
Thing two was, damn if they didn’t also wear masks.
* * *
I hear you saying to yourself, Oh, you’re so dumb. Like, clearly they were supers of some kind. Except:
I was still thinking this was some kind of sex thing. People get turned on by clowns, by balloons, by shapes of aluminum containers (look it up), so why not something as innocuous as wearing masks or pretending to be supers?
People pretending to be supers makes a whole lot of sense. You can go your whole life without ever meeting a super. They’re rare, less than a tenth of a per cent of the population. I had never knowingly met a super. And we live in a small city—about a hundred and fifty thousand. So our city had maybe between fifteen and a hundred and fifty. You can’t run a business that caters to fifteen people in town.
Also, Craigslist. I figured supers had their own private network, maybe “Super” for their smartphones or whatever.
Yeah, I was wrong about so much.
* * *
We met outside in that narrow alleyway. It looked a bit more intimidating in the dark. She didn’t: Average height, nice jeans, cute top, flat shoes, entry-level job market vibe, so I was a couple of years older but not much. (Another reason not to suspect supers: she didn’t have that double-D display happening, or she dressed to hide it. More athletic bookkeeper than buxom cheerleader.)
The mask—look, my mask was a dollar-store domino mask. I’d done some work to give myself some peripheral vision, but it was a hurry job. She wore a real mask, the kind that cosplayers obsess over.
“You’re totalfake?” she asked, using my account name.
“Yeah. Call me Trevor.” That wasn’t my real name but it had some consonant sounds in common, so I’d answer.
“Jane.” She looked me up and down. “I’ll just stick with Jane. Couple of things before we go in—you know, etiquette.” She held up fingers as she went in. “No staring at anyone. Even if you think you know them. No displays. They let them happen on the second floor, but we are not going to the second floor. How much money do you have?” I told her half the amount. She wrinkled her brow. “Okay, you’ve never been in before, right?” I nodded. “I’ll tell’em you just had an origin so you can get in as shocking origin rather than a guest star.”
I nodded. Of course. Private club. Memberships. “You’ve been coming for a while?”
“Couple of months. Since the origin. I still pay on a per-visit basis, though.” She rubbed her fingers together.
I nodded again, to show that I understood what this meant. I didn’t, of course, but she was cute and I was still steered by curiosity, with hormones now added to the mix.
* * *
It was not cheap to get in and it took most of the money I claimed I had. I still would have paid for her and been exposed as a liar but I didn’t get a chance. She paid for herself before arguing on my behalf. The guy in the sales booth gave me a look like he was peering into my soul and then he took my money. “Jane” was already at the door, and I got the message clearly: this wasn’t a date. This was some kind of business opportunity.
So...real supers?
* * *
Very hard not to stare because the place was full of people I half-recognized. Hell, I might have even known one or two because I caught a couple of barely-damped double-takes as people saw us. Or maybe Jane was famous in some circles; I don’t know.
We found a table in the corner, away from the dance floor. The music wasn’t loud here but on the floor it had been nice and deafening. The place had good sound dampeners. I started to wonder if maybe they were Mad Scientist tech.
“Jane” signalled for one of the wait staff to come over. “Beer?” she asked. “Or are you a ginger ale pilot?”
I had been wondering if I’d actually need my wits here. “I can manage one beer,” I said.
“High tolerance?” she asked me as the waiter came over. He wore jeans and a blue polo shirt and of course the omnipresent mask. His was a bird mask.
“Low patience,” I said. “I’ll nurse it.” I ordered a Guinness because there’s not a better beer in the world to nurse. “So,” I said to her. “What now?”
“I’ll go first.” She crouched on the bench. Relaxed but she could jump across to the dance floor if she needed to. As if I needed reminding that I wasn’t in Kansas any more. “The whole nemesis relationship, it’s fragile at the start. You have to be balanced, you have to be opposites but also the same. We don’t want to know about each other, but I know that I’m not on a level to face guys like the Apex or Gladhand or Anodyne. And I don’t have massive world-destroying plans, either. Grab something with my special abilities, put it up for sale, fight a local hero once in a while.”
“Obviously I’m a total newbie at this but I’ve never heard of anyone trying out for a nemesis before. I thought they just...happened. Anodyne fights Belial, Belial fights Anodyne, and it gets personal.”
“You're thinking archfoe. Nemesis takes a lot more managing. See, heroes are territorial, right? If I have a nemesis, other heroes stop me but they don’t work too hard to arrest me. I’m your responsibility.”
I didn’t say anything because our drinks arrived. She was having something with fruit. She took the stick of fruit out and sucked it clean, then pointed it at me.
“And you end up with the wrong nemesis, you don’t have that tension about whether you’ll get away, you just end up in prison or as a grease spot on the pavement.” She leaned forward. “This one guy, he thought he was my boyfriend or something. Thank god Paul didn't actually have powers, he was just pretending.”
“Yeah,” I said.
Something about the way I said it, she went, “You too?” She leaned back and swore. “Man, I can pick’em.”
“Hey, it was Craigslist.”
“Well, forgive me. I haven't contacts to get on the real networks yet. You gotta start somewhere.”
I started to laugh. She stared at me, offended, and then gave a tiny giggle. “Hey,” she said, “this is important!”
“Yeah,” I said, “but it’s also silly as hell.” I stood up. “Sorry to have wasted your time, Jane. Don’t worry, I’ll delete that email.”
“Enh,” she said, “disposable account.”
“Mine too.” I held out my hand. “Good luck.”
She took it. “Thanks.”
And then the violet beam picked me up and threw me into the wall.
* * *
For a second I didn’t hear anything. Then I felt the absence of feeling that tells you that you've taken a really solid hit. I heard “No powers! No powers!” and “Who’s he?” and “You know her?” And then a mechanical voice saying, “I have powers now, Kendra. Good powers. We will make a good team.”
I guessed that Jane’s real name was Kendra. A guy helped me up because my springing to my feet was more like my crawling stiffly to my feet. Jane (Kendra? I'm sticking with Jane) was gone and the emergency exit door was shutting.
I couldn't see out of one eye because it turned out I’d cut my forehead hitting the wall and blood was oozing down. “You okay?” I nodded because that's what you say.
He smiled—“Good man”—and pressed something into my hand. I looked down. It was loaf-shaped, maybe the size of my hand. My forehead was suddenly itchy, like the wound was three days old instead of fresh.
“Thanks?” I said to him.
“Keep it,” he said. “I lose'em every other fight so they're practically disposable. Thumb wheel switches modes. He carried her out of that door.” He tilted his head toward the emergency exit.
Clearly he expected that I would burst out that door to rescue her. Was this more of that hero territoriality she had been talking about?
And the damnable thing is, I burst out the door.
* * *
I didn’t intend to rescue her. He had powers, she had powers, I didn’t have powers. I had a mysterious loaf-shaped thing.
Outside I found myself on the other side of the building and they were right there. He was clomping along, with her on his shoulder. I could see her struggling but whatever her powers were, they weren’t loosening his grip.
So I thumbed the wheel of the mysterious loaf and pointed it at him.
Nothing.
Oh, the end turned a pale red, but that’s about it.
So I charged them.
That wasn’t totally suicidal. I’ve studied kung fu since I was twelve and was an offensive tackle in high school. I’ve still got reasonable speed. I didn’t think this was going to go great for me, but she might get free, and she had powers.
He was solid and I didn’t knock him over: He staggered to one side and I accidentally tore off his arm.
Yeah. From the elbow down, it slid right out of his sleeve. It was clearly artificial.
He (it?) was a robot. Not a particularly strong one, if I had ripped off his arm. Maybe Jane had loosened it.
Jane still wasn't loose. I dropped the arm and crouched for a leg sweep. He weighed a ton: my leg stopped like I had tried to sweep a light pole.
That gave him time to hit me with a green ray. It hurt like hell and made my leg tingle. At least it wasn’t a taser.
Hey—maybe the loaf-thing was set to taser. I rolled over and jabbed it at him.
There was a soft sighing sound and he fell apart. Jane tumbled to the ground and in front of us was a brain in a flying jar.
On the plus side, my leg felt fine, like it had never been hurt.
One weird little loaf thing, that’s what that was.
“Paul?” she said.
“Now I have powers, Kendra,” he repeated. “I had them put me in a robotic body with powers.”
These people were nuts.
“Crap,” I said, in different words. Because a guy who used to be an offensive tackle is not nearly enough against a telekinetic brain in a flying jar, even with an loaf-shaped thing that makes robots fall apart and heals people.
“Once you are gone, Kendra and I can be together.” His violet beam missed me and shot into the darkness. I dove behind him.
This was my thinking: The violet beam was something like telekinesis. If he missed me, it’s because he meant to hit something else. So I was putting him between me and whatever he was throwing at me. He smacked himself in the glass (okay, it was probably plastic) with a dumpster and bounced back against the chain link fence. It ripped and squealed and tore off.
“Not if I don't want to be with you,” Jane said. Her hands shimmered like they were under rippling water. She reached up and grabbed the glass. The fluid inside the jar started to boil and kept boiling after she pulled her hands away.
The green ray hit her but she didn’t shake it off like I did. She stood there frozen, as if the pain had robbed her of the ability to move.
I had been sort of hoping that she would deal with the brain in a jar and I could leave. But if I left, he would carry her off.
There was a whole building of supers behind me. Why didn’t any of them come out and give me a damn hand?
All super villains, I guess.
Okay then. If I couldn’t get him away from her, could I get her away from him?
I dove under him and grabbed the edge of that chain-link fence and then burst up like doing burpees for coach way back when. I jumped backwards and managed to scoop the edge over Paul.
Paul. Man, these people needed superhero names.
The chain link fence curled over him as he flew forward toward us. He was strong enough to rip more of the fence from posts. The fence threatened to wrap him up.
I shoved the loaf into my pocket and grabbed Jane by the waist. I ran for the front of the building. I had no idea where I would hide her—inside? No, then we’d just have a huge supers battle. Sewer grate? That would work in movies but not here.
My car.
If I could reach it without Paul-in-a-jar getting free, I could hide her there. Heck, if I were lucky I could get into the car and drive—
Nope. I wasn’t lucky. I didn’t even get to my car before Paul burst onto the street trailing fence and a post with a dirty blob of concrete.
There was no witty banter. The car nearest to me (not mine) was hit by the violet beam and flew at us. I had Jane in my arms; the best I could do was drop down and hope she wasn’t hurt. The car landed upside down and bumped me as it bounced along the pavement.
A car weighs a lot more than a football player. I was lucky not to be dead.
“Distract him,” I heard. Jane. “Can’t move yet.”
Distract him? What did she think I’d been trying to do? Win?
We were sheltered by the car. I had a second but oh, I ached. Then I remembered: The loaf-shaped thing had helped the last time he hurt me. I pulled it out of my pocket and looked at it.
Huh. The thumb wheel wasn’t labelled but I could see now that it had three settings besides off. I had only used two of them.
I set it to the third one and aimed.
A ball of glowing Star Trek style plasma engulfed Paul…and did nothing.
Well, that was pointless. I moved it back to the first setting, the one where it healed me and dragged myself up to a crouch. I felt better but not great. Either it needed more time or it was running out of power.
“I hate jocks,” said Paul as the green beam stabbed at me but missed. He nearly hit me with the trailing chain link.
“Distract him,” I muttered. I grabbed the fence to pull on him a bit. The fence shifted a bit and I figured it was going to slide off and hit us. Then it caught, and Paul responded by going straight up, and then I was in the air.
I didn’t have time to swear: I was looking for the other end of the fence and found it. Took me two grabs, but I got it so that Paul was now netted in the fence and I was safe from the fence falling off him.
Which is good, because we were ten or fifteen storeys up in the air by then. I couldn’t tell exactly.
Some of you smartasses are wondering why I didn’t climb up the chain link fence and stab him with the loaf. Two reasons: first, do you realize how ridiculous the sentence “stab him with the loaf” is? And second, I was hanging on for my life.
I had used up my quota of movement for the duration.
Paul hadn’t. I was in his blind spot or something so he couldn’t hit me with a beam, violet or green, so he started weaving back and forth as he traveled, trying to shake me loose. I held on tighter, swaying like a kid on a rickety swing.
So he dropped down to mash me against the buildings.
As soon as he got low enough, I dropped off onto the roof of one building and rolled until I hit the guard rail.
Without my weight, Paul suddenly shot up and to the side; he hit the side of the building on the other side with a sound I could hear. Maybe that was enough, or maybe systems were damaged, but he flew off.
I took off the mask and pounded on the roof door until someone heard me, and then I walked for an hour back to my car. It was there and unharmed, which is good, because I hadn’t paid for acts-of-supers coverage on my insurance. Didn’t think I needed it, right?
I put the mask back on and went in, hoping to find Jane or the guy who loaned me the loaf. No luck, but a guy bought me a drink and told me that now I was “in the life.” I smiled politely and refused the drink.
When I got home, there was a message from Jane. Well, Kendra, but I knew her as Jane.
“Guess you have an archfoe now. He'll be back.”
And that’s why I have this SendMeCash page. Because superhero training?
It’s not cheap.
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