First draft, first draft, first draft.
(Okay, and a fraction.)
A Lair Is A Eulogy
About sixty percent of supervillain friendships fail, by which I mean that one “friend” eventually tries to kill the other. So you’d figure, why even try?
But you might as well ask, “Why get married?” which has only slightly better odds and folks do that all the time.
So when the Silk Fury approached me with a business idea, how could I say no? Because the Silk Fury.
And maybe we’d get to be friends.
(Also, she’s like ninety. Good chance she’d die before trying to kill me.)
She lived in a gated community. The guard gave me a once-over — I was dressed in a Silk Fury costume from the subpar biopic — and gave me directions to a tidy house with a tarnished door knocker. (So many hands, I guess.)
She answered the door herself and led me to the back patio. She was spare and bird-like, and she still moved pretty well.
“Nice outfit,” she said. She moved her hand, indicating I should twirl to show it off.
I twirled. “Sorry it’s the movie version.”
“They had to put all kinds of cutouts so the stunt woman could move? And then they had to do weird angles to hide them.”
“Modern fabrics make it a little less restrictive.” I sat down. “I figured the Mynah costume would attract attention.”
She shrugged. “Long as you’re not a bill collector, they wouldn’t care. Sweet tea?” I nodded. “So you know the film, you must know Professor Plunder.”
I was a fan. “Inventor and thief. Pulled off some big jobs, including the case of the lost Atlantean gold. Nobody knew who he was or ever found out.”
“And they’re never gonna. He had family. You know my relationship with him?”
I was proud to show off. “Your first love. You might have started as his sidekick, but you don’t know, because Anodyne erased your criminal memories at Plunder’s request. Eventually you got a pardon after saving the world.”
“What you don’t know is that I wrote him love letters. With his real name.”
“How do you remember? Anodyne was supposed to erase—”
“That was a story, kid. Anodyne suppressed memories but he couldn’t erase them. Some came back.”
“Cool.” I remembered why I was there. “How does that translate into work for me?”
“Ah.” She held up a papery index finger. “What do you know about delvers?”
“People who find former supervillain bases and explore them. Like people who explore former missile bases. It’s usually illegal because the bases tend to be on someone else’s property. Delvers usually sell the artifacts, if there are any.”
She kept smiling at me.
“Someone found Professor Plunder’s base?”
She smiled. “I follow the delver boards.”
I said something equivalent to “shut the front door,” and “Then they know who he is. Was.”
She shook her head. “Nope. But: his lair moves and they know how to get to it tomorrow.”
“And?”
“I remember how to get to it today.”
#
The Art Deco robots trying to kill me have acoustic shielding, so my Crappy Sonic Powers™ are not, you know, damaging.
Professor Plunder built well. The robots’ force blasts don’t penetrate their armor so I couldn’t stand between them and dodge while they took each other out. The force blasts are sonic and don’t affect the walls or instrumentation, either. But punches are punches, and the robots keep punching like the mindless automatons they are.
The gift is that they use sonar to “see.”
I can mimic sonar well enough that it is less “trying to kill me” and more a demolition derby. I perch on the entry ladder and let them not see walls or each other until almost the end.
The last robot is standing in the room, unable to move and facing away from me. How much easier could it be?
I drop down behind him. This headquarters is a converted WWII submarine, so it really only has two directions: fore and aft. I'm mentally flipping a coin to decide, another robot comes in.
Instant worries—but no. It starts collecting pieces of downed robots. Automated cleanup. No waiting to see if the last robot standing will blast it.
I have things to do.
The doors are submarine hatches: big surprise. Everything is small and cramped. Hatches was probably why the robots have legs, though; wheeled robots would be trapped in a single area of the headquarters.
Behind the proto-Roomba robot is the machine shop. The cleanup robot starts hauling pieces in. The machine shop holds robot husks already with a third robot—the repair robot—working away. It’s fast. I’ll probably have to face two or three robots on the way out.
Memo: Don’t take anything bulky.
Someone who knew about Professor Plunder would be fascinated, but I know him only as an adjunct to Silk Fury’s story. So I slip past the robot and into the next room, then shut the bulkhead door behind me. Galley, but neat and clean. No dust…because Professor Plunder invented the Roomba in 1960, duh. Next is a tiny dining room (mess area?) and then two doors. Well, one door and one curtain.
Behind the curtain is his office. I give it a quick exam: blond wooden desk with stationery (personalized, no less); two sets of calling cards (with “Professor Plunder” on one, “Scott Prendergast” on the other.) I pocket them. A quick skim of the files in the drawers shows only gadget designs signed “Plunder.” Interesting as a collector’s item but probably obsolete.
I grab his pen set and a black prism-shaped paperweight with PLUNDER on it; I love pens, and it works as a set with the paperweight. Heavy: duh, a paperweight.
Cut me some slack. My first time going through a dead guy's things.
His bedroom across the hall. It is sparse: bed, night table, lamp, two wardrobes. Pictures of dogs playing poker on the walls…probably not ironic.
I look at one, a dog as a judge. Not a print.
I note it and move on; I want the love letters first.
The clothes in the first wardrobe are nothing special: vintage and vaguely man-smelling.
The second one is…
It is a shrine.
#
The deal was I stole things with Plunder's real name for her and kept anything else I could find. Stolen gold, if I found it. Weapons would be obsolete but might fetch on the collector market.
She knew that the lair stayed in one place for only a few hours at a time. Delvers were probably going to be here tomorrow. With that kind of time pressure, I barely had time to change uniforms and grab gear, let alone research. (I was not going as Silk Fury: besides the awkwardness of the outfit, it had no pockets, or the hidden things I had secreted in my costume).
I say this to point out that she hadn't left me much time. I had a flashlight, a bag for stuff, my phone, and the stuff I normally kept hidden in my costume. We made arrangements for her to pick me up. I wanted to make that meeting. I didn’t want to have to evade the delvers or their on-ground support people, if any.
I was sorry that Silk Fury and I hadn’t got a chance to talk, really.
It was a short acquaintance, and I was hoping that the betrayal part, if it happened, would be far in the future.
That deadline, though… If she had remembered, why wait until the delvers knew and there was time pressure?
Maybe it was all an unhappy coincidence.
Or maybe she was planning to betray me.
Supervillains. You gotta think of stuff like that.
#
Photos of the Silk Fury adorn the inside of the wardrobe doors; an old costume of hers hang there; and a ledge holds letters.
Most are written is cross-hand style: The first sender writes in the normal way and the recipient replies on the same page but at a right angle, so one letter has both exchanges. A couple of letters, the ones I want in, have no replies. She sent them to him and he never answered.
Well, not really: One has a salutation but nothing else. The other has the start of a reply but nothing past the first paragraph. I check the dates: Both close together in 1961.
The third is her good-bye note. It lists the memories that Anodyne should remove.
I stuff them in my carrying bag. I take the costume too. Because the Silk Fury.
The hideout senses I've moved something and a proto-Roomba scuttles out—
There is a loud bang somewhere else, my flashlight goes out, and there is shouting. Then shooting.
Delvers? The bang is typical of an EMP grenade; most equipment here was vacuum tubes and off, so safe, but my light is fried. I check my phone. Also fried.
Some day I gotta learn to use my powers for sonar, but in the meantime: help them? Or not?
I have the letters and I haven't yet seen a pile of Atlantean gold. I stick my head into the dark corridor and listen…
…and someone runs into me, slamming my head against the metal door frame.
She hits me but she says “Ow!”
“In here,” I say, and pull her in to the room before I shut the door.
She turns on her glaringly-bright flashlight —shielded, I guess. “That thing — Lars —” Then she shrieks again and multiple gunshots deafen me. I think she empties the pistol because I see her pulling the trigger to no effect.
“Stop! It’s like a Flintstones Roomba.” Maybe I shout because I'm deaf.
Of course, if I can’t hear her, she probably can’t hear me. Unless she has ear protection. I pluck the hot pistol from her, manage to eject the clip, and give it back.
Her mouth moves. She probably has ear protection. I just touch my ear and stand motionless in the big wide silence with my back to the door.
She goes over to the bed and touches it reverently. Her search of the bedside misses some things I had found, which makes me feel better. She gives the remains of the proto-Roomba a wide berth.
And then she finds the shrine. And stares at it.
I can hear a little by then, and she is probably louder than she intended. “So that’s why he never married.”
I clear my throat. “You knew him?”
She starts. I guess she can hear a bit, too. “Of him. One of my grampa’s younger brothers.” She looks back at the shrine, then at me. “I’ve seen you on the internet. The Mynah?”
I nod. “You are?”
“Elizabeth Prendergast. Mom’s sick so I need to find the gold. Lars volunteered— Lars…” She starts to cry. Not big heaving cries or anything, just tears leaking without stopping.
Prendergast: what an interesting name. I hand her a 1960-vintage kerchief from the dressing table. “Lars your boyfriend?”
“A friend. He wanted more but…” The tears make me uneasy.
Which could be the point. Maybe she ias lying; it’s not like we carry ID around. Maybe she is a supervillain…
“The robots weren’t that tough,” I say.
“For you, maybe, but for us? It was big and mean and bulletproof and slicey.”
“I didn’t fight a slicey one.” I guess I did’t get them all—
“I’m not lying! There was another one repairing it but it was in good enough shape to…” And the tears get bigger.
“Okay, Elizabeth Prendergast.” I hope her full name will help. “There’s got to be a second exit.”
“Betsy. Call me Betsy.”
I almost respond with my real name and then catch myself. I know nothing about her. “Betsy. Imagine you’re in bed, suddenly you’ve got Captain Wonder coming in, what do you do?” She stares at me. “If the gold was physical, he'd want some of it as he left. It’s along his escape route.”
“Oh.” She points. “Then head away from the official entrance.”
“There’s no second door or a hidden passage, so the hall.”
It is dark in the hallway, but she has a flashlight. I take it. Our hands touch. Apparently I never touch anybody and my hormones are waiting for any excuse. Jesus, I clearly am lonely. As I put the loop around my wrist, I murmur, “You threw an EMP grenade?”
Because changing the topic is safer.
“Lars said it’s standard practice to throw one in.” I can practically hear the tears hitting her jacket, now that my hearing is back.
“You knocked out my flashlight.”
“I thought you’d have special stuff.”
“Off the shelf is harder to track,” I say, which is a pretty good reason for newly minted.
“I meant like sonar and…stuff.”
“Eventually,” I say. “It’s not like powers come with a manual.” We just enter a living room. “Or even an IKEA instruction sheet.”
She snorts, which makes me immoderately proud.
I glance the light around the room. Sofa, chairs, big framed photos taken by somebody without a lot of talent. They are all of things he was on record as having stolen. Six painted torpedo tubes, several of them altered to be cupboards of some kind. Actually, Austin Powers would love this place. Shag carpet, lamp, cigar store Indian—what?
Nope: my second look confirms it is a big slicey robot. I push Betsy to one side and dive over the sofa. Light splashes all over and it looks like there is a spiral staircase heading down.
I don’t much like spiral staircases.
“You go down, I’ll deal with this!”
“But—”
I point to myself. “Super,” then her. “Not super.”
Big talk. I have no idea how I am going to deal with it.
The other robots “saw” by sonar; neutralize the clicks and blind them. I try the opposite tack and flood the area with sonar clicks so the robot doesn’t know where the walls are.
It stops and moves forward at one quarter speed. Then when nothing stops it, half speed and speeding up.
I hope it will hit a wall but no. It charges to my last known location.
(I am elsewhere by then, thank you.)
This hints of learning.
I drop the illusion to breathe.
I hear Betsy’s footsteps on the stairs, and the robot detours that way. I flash the light at its back and say, “Hey!”
I’m not witty when faced with fighting a killer robot on my own in the dark. Sue me.
Its back has the same emblem I saw on the fronts of the robots. It has front & back emblems. And Betsy said the smaller robot had been repairing this one. So this robot is built from pieces of the old ones.
So maybe destroy it often enough and there are no usable parts left?
“Destroy.” Like that’s so easy.
Right now it is heading to the stairs. Where Betsy is.
I say “Hold my beer” to the fighting idea and tackle it low, around the knees. It falls on its knees and chest.
Oh, it can still attack me. It rotates arms and torso like a machine, not a human. I get full slice-and-dice action.
I dodge the first strike while disentangling my legs from its legs. I am very proud that I dodged the second in rolling away.
Then my side starts to burn, and I saw the gore burlesque that didn't quite show me the naughty bits: a long line of skin is starting to pink up, welling blood.
I do the only sensible thing: I dive for the stairwell.
The stairwell was full of Betsy. We tumble down against the railing and halfway to the floor below.
I am totally not thinking about what part of her I am taking my hand from. Instead I am looking around.
This spiral staircase ends in a frickin’ door.
Spiral staircases are evil. That’s just a fact.
I hear the robot moving and I send a lot of sonar clicks up the stairs. Maybe that will be like a covered-over stairwell.
Maybe.
Betsy tries the door. It is, of course, locked.
I can’t even try to talk to Betsy because I am busy making sonar noises.
She says, “Lure it down here, around the stairs. We’ll sprint back up.”
I like the theory. Slow robot must be slow going up the stairs, right?
I nod, realize she can't see me so I stop clicking long enough to say, “Agreed.”
We position ourselves.
It comes down. Betsy sprints up.
The frickin’ robot moves around and blocks my path. Too cramped for it to slash, so it thrusts. It was cramped enough here that it couldn’t slash, only thrust.
At least Betsy is safe. I think as I'm dodging. >If I could lock it inside that room—
Hypothetically, then I break the lock and it's trapped.
Hypothetically. Somehow. Maybe.
It's all I have.
I stand in front of the door and cancel out the robot’s sonar.
It charges forward, thinking the way is clear.
And I think, I'm in the way! I can't get out of the way!
You notice that I am not a bisque shared between a robot and a metal door.
Because the door splinters.
W. T. F?
Some of the doors are hollow-core interior doors painted to look like metal. Why?
Back on track: killer robot in front of me.
I am faster to get up, faster to get to the stairs, faster to go up them. My flashlight is bobbing all the way up.
In the living room, no Betsy. Could be worse: could be a big pool of blood. (I'm a supervillain: I gotta think these things.)
I keep moving fast to the entry foyer. No robots there, just poor Lars’ corpse. No paralyzed robot, but it's theoretically downstairs.
I rap on the door before I shut it: metal. So I latch myself in with the dead man.
Mystery: Where was Betsy?
Did she leave (smart!) or did her need for the gold and sentiment for Lars keep her there?
Is there anywhere to be that's not here?
In the design, it was just one level with some engineering access to underneath. This hideout doesn't follow the original design: the room at the bottom of the stairs is DIY.
But I can't go that way. So she has to be the other way.
Something clangs against the door. Slice-bot. Fortunately swords-for-hands aren't good at rotating door hatches. Still, might be automatic. Things are desperate.
I make a face and then frisk Lars’ body for weapons and equipment. I ignored personal stuff.
His phone was crushed but I found a tablet in a waterproof case. Nothing else.
Second clang at the door.
Mystery: Where is Lars' gun? Betsy has a gun. Same gun? Some weird double-cross by Betsy? Or his gun is with proto-Roomba in the repair shop, and soon I have to face Pistol-bot?
Heavy sigh.
Nice to do:
- Solve mysteries.
- Disable all robots at oncel
- Get more from this venture than a pen set and a vintage costume.
- Walk casually out.
Must do:
- Survive!
- Find Betsy.
- Escape.
Somewhere in the room, a typewriter rattles into action. It was by the ladder to the conning tower. I approach it as if it's a cobra, or typewriter-bot.
Not a typewriter; a teletype. I know it from stories. Flashlight beam on paper:
We are at an impasse.
I say aloud, “Do I have to type? Or can you hear me?”
I hear.
What new wizardry is this?
Brain in a jar? In line with the tech but even brains need to be fed and this has been here 40 years.
Robotic intelligence? Not Plunder’s style to develop AI: evolutionary, not revolutionary. (Look up “Dragonjaw” to see AI by Dr. Myrmidon in 1955.)
Trick? (Supervillains. You gotta think of stuff like that.)
Or maybe ADT for supervillain lairs. You pay a fee, they watch your place. (Siri, reminder for five years from now: if remote security for lairs isn’t a thing, start it.)
Except there’s that rumour about Plunder’s gold. Can’t keep that secret forty years. Once ersatz-ADT knows he is dead, they strip the place clean.
Okay. So AI is most likely of an unlikely lot.
“What can I call you?”
Frank
Not what I expect.
Well, why not a trans AI? I mean, why not regard “Killatron” as the dead name?
“I don’t really see this as an impasse, Frank. I can go up that ladder and exit any time I want.”
And leave your friend?
Betsy is still here? “I only just met her.”
No one and then two groups at once? I do not believe.
“The place has been found. You’re going to have more tomorrow, all looking for Professor Plunder’s gold.”
It is almost gone.
“What?”
My care is expensive.
“Nutrient bath and stuff? I can’t even figure out how it gets delivered to a secret location.” A desperate gamble here: “I knew a guy that became a brain in a jar.”
I wish I were a brain in a jar.
“I can put you in touch. What are you?”
Professor Plunder is my brother Scott.
Sometimes you just have to believe people, and believe in people. Maybe this is a traitorous AI and she is a supervillain, but maybe not.
“Where's the other one? She's your relative. Stop the robot outside.”
She is hiding.
“I’ll find her! Just…stop the robots.”
Done.
I hesitate a long time before I open that hatch because, you know, sixty per cent of super-villains turn on each other. I do it anyway and run to the living room.
“Betsy?” I call. “Betsy!”
One of the rounded tubes against the wall swung open. “Mynah?”
“I need your help.”
“I’m not super.” Bitter.
“But you are a Prendergast.” I give her a hand getting out. “So is the lair.”
#
“Here you go,” I told the Silk Fury when I handed over the letters.
“That’s it?”
“There’s no gold,” I told her. We were having tea on her back deck. “Frank Prendergast was paralyzed from the neck down in a car accident in 1962. His brother Scott paid for his care and later gave him a remote control gadget to run the lair.” (Poor Lars died because the nurse had trouble finding and bringing it—Frank hadn’t used it for decades.)
“He was always sending money for Frank.”
I nodded. Nice to have confirmation. “When Scott was declared dead, Frank inherited everything, including the value of the gold. Gold was still $35 an ounce; it wasn’t worth what it is now. Most of that got spent: institutions are expensive.” I didn’t tell her that there were two physical bars stashed in the torpedo tube that Betsy had hidden in. Frank gave Betsy both of them: at a guess, about a hundred thousand dollars worth.
I handed her some pictures from the shrine. “Given their history, I think you can sell these for about a hundred thousand.” I looked around. “Keep this place going for a little while.”
She looked at me and then laughed. “So you know I was playing you.”
“For the gold? Yeah. The deadline was the big clue.”
“How do I know you’re not playing me?”
“You don’t, I guess. But I’m guessing there are enough clues in the letters to point you to a hidden stash or two. Worthless to me, because I don’t have the context.”
She laughed some more. “Well, I’ll see if the Delvers have found them yet. If I need someone to go in, can I hire you?”
“Sure. But straight cash. All I got out of this one is a pen set.”
Not quite: I got to keep the pen set, the paperweight, and the contents of the shrine. (Collectables are worth a lot if you know where to sell them, and I'm a fan.)
Plus I made friends.
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