Day Off — A Mynah Story

This writing forum has prompts, so I wrote this.

Day Off

I hid the leash (the dog’s not allowed), fed the dog and refilled the water dish, shut him in the office with his bed, and then flopped onto my bed — a futon I hadn’t re-set as a couch. I was supposed to be a supervillain, dammit, or at least I was trying to be, but in the last week I’d dealt with an alien invasion, a misplaced attempt to resurrect the dead, and a graduation test for superheroes.

Whatever happened to just stealing things?

There was a knock at the door.

Nope, I thought. Not gonna get it. Gonna lie here in my sweaty running clothes and ignore it.

I knew it wasn’t someone important. Betsy and Shelley had keys and would walk in. The rent wasn’t due for a week, and the landlord communicated with notes under the door. Business used email. So it was someone going through the building selling something or offering salvation, and I wasn’t interested.

I lay there, sweating. My heart rate came back to normal. The dog was silent. (I have trained him not to make sounds when someone comes to the door.) So the apartment appeared empty.

The door creaked open. (There’s a way to open it silently, which my friends and I use. But why not know someone has opened your door?)

I rolled off the bed and landed silently because this had just gotten real. Quick layout of my hideously expensive apartment: Enter through the kitchen/dining room; the bedroom-turned-office is straight ahead and is where the dog eats; the washroom is behind the kitchen (shower, no bath), and the living room which I have as a bedroom fills out the square. There’s a lock on the office door but I hadn’t used it; I was home, right?

In violation of fire codes, there is no fire escape. It’s only the second floor; better than even odds I survive the jump.

For those of you saying, “Use your super powers” I remind you that (a) I don’t use them out of costume and (b) they’re actually Crappy Sonic Powers™. Strictly by powers, I’m not much of a supervillain.

I mean, seriously. Back when I was trying to find a nemesis, the guy I approached thought it was actually a date and then a former co-worker in an android body tried to attack. I’ve had a few successes but a lot of stuff has been side quests just to stay alive.

But hey, at least I don’t work at Faceless Corporation any more. You work with what you got.

There was a sound of disgust that sounded male. At a guess, he’d seen the dishes in the sink. (I’d been busy, okay?)

If he went into the office, he was going to have to deal with the dog. Slobberkin is an eight-month-old St. Bernard puppy and he’s getting kind of large.

With luck, Slobberkin would lick the burglar to death. Of course, then I’d have to figure out a way to dispose of the body.

Best move was to attack him from behind as he went into the office and hope that the two attacks (one licking, one hitting) would give me the edge.

The fight, quote-unquote, was over in three seconds. While Slobberkin was sitting on him, licking, I got the leather leash and tied his hands and feet.

He was a young guy in a polo shirt with a proselytizing look and a briefcase. No gun, no knife, not even a utility tool in his pocket. He had a burner phone and a screwdriver for bumping locks (so he was never going to get into my office if it was locked). I popped the briefcase open and found Shelley’s grandmother’s silver (Shelley lives down the hall) and a couple of other items that looked fence-able and probably came from this building.

He had come to steal from me.

I mean, he didn’t know who I was — that is the whole point behind the secret identity thing — but I found it terribly funny.

And I couldn’t even explain to him why, which made it funnier.

Shelley was working, Betsy was working, so I had to deal with this on my own.

The straight citizen thing to do would have been to call the cops, but I didn’t want them poking around my place. The less they knew about me, the better.

Also, I didn’t want them mentioning Slobberkin.

This guy knew where I lived, so showing up as the Mynah wasn’t going to work — see earlier re: secret identities.

So I lied. It’s getting to be second nature to me now.

“Anyone take vig off you?” I asked him. This was old movie mob talk; goodness knows what real mobsters say. I did know the names of three criminal groups in the city, because that’s the kind of info you have to know if you’re planning to be a thief-slash-supervillain.

“What?”

“Independent?”

“What?”

“Just trying to save you some trouble.” I tried to be nonchalant.

“What?” he asked for the third time. This whole situation seemed to be beyond him. I don’t think he’d ever make it as a supervillain.

While his mouth was open, Slobberkin licked inside it. He’s an affectionate dog. I pulled him back a bit.

“I’m an accountant,” I told the man. Which was true; that was my pre-supervillainy occupation.

“Whoopee,” he said.

“For an organization that feels that robbing from their employees is…disrespectful.” I had his attention, if not his comprehension. I took my phone out of its running sleeve. “Is there any reason I shouldn’t call them and and have someone encourage respect in a direct and forceful way?” Please let there be a reason. I actually had no one to call.

Well, I suppose I could call Faceless Corporation, my former employer, but they didn’t know they’d given me powers, and probably wouldn’t care that this guy had stolen from me.

“You’ve got my loot.”

Well, at least “loot” was current slang. “I mean, are you giving vig to someone for protection? Because calling uses up a certain amount of my capital.”

He looked at me sullenly. It was like he was too stupid to scare.

“Okay.” I hauled him into the kitchen, locked the office door with Slobberkin inside, and checked the knots so he could escape, and I carried his “loot” with me into the bathroom to make my “phone call.” The bathroom, you see, had a door that I could shut and lock.

I made up a long conversation, about fifteen minutes’ worth. Given his smarts, I figured he wouldn’t be able to get into the office and it’s not like I had any weapons in there. Maybe he could try to brain me with the paperweight, but he knew the dog was in there.

There were three possibilities:

1. He escaped and left; that was the outcome I was counting on.
2. Or, he escaped but was lurking by the bathroom door when I exited. (My plan was to leave the bathroom as if that were true, because some men get so angry when beaten by a woman.)
3. He was too stupid to escape. But nobody was so dumb that they’d pick that.

When I left the bathroom, he was still lying there on the kitchen floor.

Aw, hell.

#

I carefully approached him and checked the knots. No, he hadn’t even tried to get out. I re-fastened them securely.

“I was thinking,” he said. “Paying—what did you call it? Vig?—to somebody for protection would help me. I mean, I don’t make a lot—” I stared at him in disbelief.

He took it as doubt. “I mean, I do okay ‘cause more people than you’d think forget to lock their doors, and sometimes I really score, but a neighbourhood like this, I mean, who knew?”

“I plan on moving,” I lied to him. I might have to move if he knew where I lived. “I need a bit more seniority.”

“Lotta crooks in this area,” he said, apparently without irony. “So I’m thinking, I could ask your boss for protection.”

“Now?” I said. “Now that I’ve called him you want to change the terms?”

“Is now not a good time? I mean, it’s a better time than when the guy comes to break my knees.”

I swore internally. I didn’t have anybody coming to break his knees, but it looked like a good option.

I wished Slobberkin had licked him to death. At least I could figure out how to dispose of a dead body.

“I gotta call him,” I said. Already I was talking like I was in Wise Guys or something.

In the bathroom, I was furiously trying to think of big men I could call to come over. It had to be someone in the supers life, because how was I going to explain this to anyone else?

#

“I dunno if he’ll say yes,” I told the burglar. “Here’s the address.” I gave him the address, then made him repeat it, because I had no faith in this guy’s memory. “Tell them Jane sent you.”

I was prepared to tell him it was a sublet if he asked about the different name on the mailbox, but he never asked; he had the curiosity of a park bench. I kept Shelley’s silver out of the briefcase but gave the rest back to him. “You’ll need to be able to prove you have income.”

I was ready for him to attack me when I untied him, but he didn’t. He shook my hand and headed off, sure that he had made the best deal of his life.

#

You remember the guy who thought I was dating him? Not the one with the android body, the other one. We had deleted each other’s address, but—

I knew he had set up a SendMeCash account to become a superhero, because he was worried about said android body co-worker. (Why, I don’t know. It was me the co-worker had come for.)

He goes by Tangent now, and he was a beginner, so an easy target was good. At the least, the guy would get beat up, and possibly he’d be arrested. I mean, he did have stolen property on him.

It was possible Tangent would get my address from him, so I’d have to move anyway.

Maybe I’ll find a place that allows dogs.

Fiction: Deathtrap!

Icons

I thought I had posted this, but no. So here.

Deathtrap!

I ignored the knock at the door, because the guy wasn’t due to come round for rent for two weeks. Since meeting Dracula, I had practiced ignoring things.

Again a knock. Again I ignored it. I had some pretty vital cat videos to watch while my dog, Slobberkin, whined beside the bed.

The door opened and I heard a sound of disgust. I dragged my gaze from my phone and saw Shelley and Betsy there.

Betsy said, “Hey.”

Shelley said to me, “She was concerned, and you left me a key—”

I shrugged.

Shelley said, “I’ll open a window.” On his way to the window, he said, “And bring over a fan.”

Betsy came and sat on my futon. “You didn’t answer my texts.” I shrugged again. “Last time you ate?”

I went for the hat trick and shrugged a third time.

She turned to Shelley. “Any food in the fridge?”

“Nothing useful,” Shelley said.

“I’ll take her out for dinner while this funk clears out.” To me, because I hadn’t moved: “Shower. Dress.”

Shelley said, “I’ll take care of Slobberkin.”

During dinner, Betsy’s Shame-O-Vision triumphed over my baleful gaze. I tried words. I hear they’re harmless. “Money’s tight. I should go back to accountancy.”

Betsy said, “If you don’t want to talk about the real problem yet, Okay. We can do something else.”

“Something else” turned out to be an escape room. “I always wanted to try one,” said Betsy, “And you...well.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

“The way these things work,” Betsy explained, “is that there’s a chain of puzzles. You unlock a box that provides a mirror that lets you see hidden numbers that unlock a second box, which contains the door key.” Betsy loves puzzles.

As last-minute joiners, we were added to a team whose fourth hadn’t shown up. As we introduced ourselves, I sized up the other three players. (Habit.) Two men and a woman, maybe old as twenty-one. Chad, a wad of muscle; Steve, a lithe mesomorph; and Kate who moved like a dancer despite being improbably top-heavy. Betsy gave Kate the hungry eye; I thought Kate might be fine (if you liked that type). What made her unattractive was she had that cop look: she wanted to arrest me right now and worry about cause later.

The three of them moved with an awareness of each other that said “team.” Betsy saw me looking at them and whispered, “Chad wants Steve, Steve wants Kate, and Kate registers on my gaydar.” Kate probably wanted Betsy.

From the way they talked, they were going to win in spite of us.

A video played the premise. Some un-named villain (shown only in silhouette) had placed nullifying lamps in the area that would take away our powers. We were a team of superheroes who had—

Yadda yadda yadda. We were going to be in a room. There was a bomb at the center of the base; we had an hour to get to it, without powers, and disable it.

“The voice. Is that—?” Kate said softly.

“A voice actor,” Chad said.

“He is on parole,” murmured Steve back.

“Why would they imitate him?” Kate asked.

Betsy looked thrilled. I probably looked sullen. The woman from the escape room — Lucy, I think — apologized for the acting in the video, then gave us a timer.

“Intercom?” asked Betsy. To me she said, “To contact the front desk, In case there’s a medical emergency.” She did not add out loud, You’re not exactly well.

“Microphone in the ceiling,” Lucy said. “We’ll hear you. Red buttons are clue help.”

Betsy was satisfied.

“Henchmen” in sweat-stained costumes came and blindfolded us and led us to another room. Somebody wore too much Old Spice.

I was peeking, and memorized the route. New room smelled of ozone and was vaguely military.

Then Lucy said, “Your time starts now," and we heard the door click shut.

Steve and Kate beat us getting blindfolds off, but Chad was just standing there. “I can't see,” he said, and then took off his blindfold.

Steve and Kate looked at each other.

I looked up. The room had that sort-of Cherenkov radiation tint of power sponges. The area kind.

I looked them up once. There are two flavours, touch and area. Touch ones are manacled to you and can handle just about any power but with limited effectiveness. Like, they make Devilboy vulnerable to a nuke but he’s still bulletproof. The area ones are used in prison cells and are tuned specifically to your powerset. Total shutdown on the powers affected, a tiny effect on other powers. Chad wasn’t wearing manacles, so if his powers were gone, then someone had tuned the power sponges for Chad.

Kate got a faraway look. Steve’s power look made him seem constipated. Then they both looked up at the ceiling and nodded.

Interesting, I thought. Three superheroes neutralized, possibly by someone who might be on parole and have a grudge. I hadn’t paid attention to news for days, so I had no idea who might be out.

Real superheroes without civilians nearby would try breaking the power sponges, but Betsy and I counted as civilians.

Oblivious to all of this, Betsy was doing inventory. Good for her. The room was sort of a barracks room, with a bathroom off to the side.

"We've got three locked boxes here: the two footlockers and the gun case on the wall there. All combination locks. Footlockers are four numbers, gun case is five. The door has an electronic combination lock with five numbers."

Kate tossed the three beds and got a magazine, a metal box purporting to be mints, and a journal. Chad caressed one of the footlocker locks as if twenty minutes ago he could have crushed it.

Steve checked the bottoms of the beds. He came up with a series of five numbers, two in blue, three in red.

I did nothing for about a minute, when Betsy’s Shame-O-Vision spurred me into the washroom. Sink, toilet stall (clearly meant for men), shower, and a poster with four steps for hand hygiene.

Normally we wet our hands first, so the steps were misnumbered. I memorized the order presented. The toilet had a tank. Inside it was a key in a sealed bag, but no water: the toilet and shower weren’t functional. (The bottoms of the toilet lid and seat had “Non-working toilet” written on them.)

I unscrewed the shower head because I could and found a wireless camera, about the size of a watch battery. I poked behind it as if I didn’t know what it was and put it in backward so it looked up the pipe instead of the room.

Somebody who wants to hide their own cameras buys in bulk because the field of view is limited, half the room or less. (Also, you buy two styles so maybe they find the one kind and overlook the other.)

I looked for the others and found it by the mirror over the sink. Different style and model number, but all I could make out was an x or cross or chi or something and a plus sign. That one went in my pocket.

I went back and found Betsy, Kate, Chad and Steve with one footlocker already open. It had a men’s grooming kit and Steve was holding another lockbox with a padlock on it.

I tossed him the key. “Try this.”

It fit. The box held an electrical multimeter—volt, ohm, ampere. That kind of thing.

“For defusing—“ Kate started.

“—The bomb,” I finished. Kate glared at me.

“We have to work together,” Betsy reminded us.

I tilted my head back in exasperation and examined the ceiling. I spotted the microphone and two cameras. One camera was like the one in my pocket.

“All right,” I said. If I was right about field of vision, there had to be another camera about... There.

“Betsy, do you have any gum?” She looked exasperated then fished some from her purse. Sugarless. I chewed it for a moment, made a face, said, “Bad flavor,” and stuck it against the wall, covering the camera.

Steve looked at me with disgust and reached for the wad of gum. “Leave it,” said Kate. “We don’t have time.” The way she looked at me told me I’d overplayed it.

“There’s always time to be neat,” he said.

“Priorities,” she said sharply and she shook her head no. He didn’t press it. Then he sized me up again. Chad was busy with the gun locker and the five numbers.

That grooming kit held a toothbrush, mirror, and a weird comb with teeth of different thicknesses. Betsy got an inspired look and grabbed the comb and magazine. When the comb was laid to match the stripes on the UPC code, it blocked out all but four numbers.

Those opened the other footlocker.

Betsy and I had now solved two puzzles and they had solved only one. Not that I was keeping score, but: boo-yah.

Footlocker number two held another locked box, with a pair of sunglasses.

Chad got the gun locker open. That gave us the key to this locked box and a date book.

Kate figured out that if you looked at the datebook with the sunglasses on, you saw instructions to subtract one from each digit of the hygiene poster.

I knew the hygiene numbers, so into the next room. Fifteen minutes down.

Next room was a mess or kitchen. I spotted the three cameras but they were up on the ceilings so I couldn’t do anything about them.

“Man, this is like the Brown Boggler in the 1960s,” I said without thinking.

“That’s a deep cut,” asked Kate. I could see gears moving in her head. The key, the camera, knowing about the Brown Boggler...

“He went to my university. They talk about him,” I said.

“She knows stuff,” said Betsy, who (bless her heart) was defending me.

“Enh,” I said. Betsy looked at me, hurt that I’d contradicted her. “You do as well as I do at trivia night, Bets.”

This was a palpable lie because we’ve never gone to a trivia night. Also I’m trivia, Betsy’s puzzles. Her expression changed like clouds passing before the sun. Sullenly, “Better, sometimes.” She still looked hurt. Secret identities suck sometimes.

#

“Betsy, tell me about rules. What are the rules of an escape room?”

She tried to erase her pout. I was, at least, paying attention. “You don’t break stuff, they told us that. You’ll get all the clues you need, like an old-time murder mystery. Some clues are red herrings and something significant might be carried through, like the electrical meter, but usually everything to solve a room is in that room. The deadline is the deadline, because it’s a business and they have to get the next people in.”

However, a supervillain did not have to stick to the rules. He probably would—most supervillains understand that sticking to the unwritten rules is all that keeps them from being turned into bisque.

I didn’t say this aloud.

Of course, I didn’t have to stick to rules either. Former supervillain, right? I didn’t think my Crappy Sonic Powers™ would be useful here, though.

Chad and Steve were going through the cupboards saying what they found. I was curious about what group these three might be from, so I said, “Kate, your fourth, the one who couldn’t make it? Who was that?”

“Why?”

“Just curious.”

She wasn’t going to answer but fortunately Chad answered absently. “Our boss. It was a team-building thing. He got called away.”

“For business,” Steve added.

Steve could have been anyone but you couldn’t hide Chad’s width or Kate’s need for cantilevering Add an older male as their “boss” and you still got no group I could think of. So when masked up, at least one of them looked different.

But: was this a setup to catch some kind of super group? And if so, would Betsy and I be collateral damage?

Who knew?

If I broke the rules of escape rooms, say if I popped a lock, a real escape room company would suck it up. However, a supervillain would try to get the revenge back on track.

So I popped the door lock. (None of the locks were high quality.)

Without proper tools, it took me two minutes to pop the door lock, but we were able to bypass all the puzzle stuff that Betsy likes.

I slipped the lock off and pushed the door open.

Betsy upped her Shame-O-Vision to 11. “That’s cheating.” She looked at everyone else for support, but they just hurried into the third room.

Kate was last, “How?”

I shrugged. “I was a juvenile delinquent.” When Betsy finally came, I caught her elbow. “I didn’t cheat. I just…took advantage of meta-rules.” I didn’t know what to say when I couldn’t say anything. “I’ll tell you afterward.”

Her eyes widened and I leaned in close so the cameras couldn’t see her mouth. She mouthed “Microphone?”

I nodded and then I needed an excuse for leaning over like that so I kissed her.

She kissed back, which I hadn’t expected. I’m not sure I expected anything because I had been working at not-thinking for days.

Eventually we broke apart and looked at the next room.

This room looked like a computer room, with a big cabinet in the middle. The cabinet’s readout showed the remaining time, which was 40:00.

It suddenly jumped to 10:00.

It looked like someone was responding to the way I changed the game.

Supervillain?

#

Chad and Steve anointed me with dirty looks as if I had done it, then turned and looked at Kate for instructions. Kate was busy chewing her lip. Betsy whispered in my ear, “Is it bad?”

I nodded.

The exit door was locked (in violation of fire codes, I might add).

“Inventory first. What do we have to work with?” said Betsy.

“She’s big on inventory. Paramedic,” I told them.

Betsy nodded. “The painting on the wall is unusual. What’s behind it?”

Chad had the decency to blush while he checked the painting; Steve and Becky checked the rest of the “office.” Kate started examining the maybe-a-real-bomb. She kept splaying her fingers wide. That hand gesture—you saw it with telepaths, with telekinetics, some sorcerers, and with technopaths. Most of them I could rule out.

Most people figured that Tech Next was a man from the armor, but it occurred to me at it might be a Junoesque woman.

Tech Next was an armoured technopath withthe group X+ (or Ex-Plus). Other members included an ice guy, who was about Steve’s size, and a bruiser with animal powers, Menagerie. Ex-Plus was a new ethnic rights group that mostly dealt with issues in the transformed community. Second generation; X-First disbanded when a member died in an explosion caused by “natural causes” which we normally spell F-O-E. Tech Next would normally be their bomb person.

Beyond that, I didn’t know much about them.

Not particularly useful information now that I had figured it out; if I couldn’t figure out the supervillain, I couldn’t anticipate what he’d do.

Look, there were puzzles: a drawer had spare keys for the keyboard, there were numbers written on the bottoms of the spools of tape (!) that gave a combination to the safe behind the painting once you sorted the tapes in ascending order by size, yadda yadda. But I don’t have to tell you the puzzles, even though we needed to solve them.

Did I mention? Exponentially harder locks, and me without tools. (What I said was that juvenile delinquency only teaches you so much.) Not that I was keeping score, but Betsy got five, Steve two, Chad three, and Kate two.

We had one minute left when we exposed the bomb’s electronics. Betsy gave me a hug.

Steve said, “The Doctor believes in you. I—we believe in you.” There was a little eye flicker to me like he was going to say something else.

Chad said to Kate, “The Noble Mettle won’t hesitate to kill everyone in this city.”

That was the guy who had killed X-First. Then I knew what was going on.

I stepped forward, said, “You can do it,” to her, and slipped her the wireless camera.

She looked at it and then cut a wire. I don’t remember if it was red or blue.

The countdown stopped, and we had won.

#

I begged off being in the congratulatory photo at the end. Betsy followed my lead.

Kate caught up with us at Betsy’s car. (Betsy is like flyover-country pure; of course she has a car. I take Uber.)

“Can I talk to her?” she asked Betsy.

Betsy said, “Yeah. Hands off, because we’re dating now.”

“You’d be willing—” I asked Betsy.

“Go. Talk.”

At the back of the car, I leaned against the trunk. The car thrummed with music: Betsy trying hard not to listen. It kind of defeated the purpose; we had to speak up to hear. Which was probably Betsy’s intent.

And I was dating her.

Kate paced, circling around. Finally she asked, “Juvenile delinquent?”

“Do I not look delinquent enough to you?”

“How did you know it was a test?”

“Lucky guess.” She could match Betsy for Shame-O-Vision. “Okay. Chad said it was a team-building exercise. The truth is always easier than a lie, so I figured it really was a team exercise. Power sponges tuned to you guys meant it was for you. Civilians were supposed to make you have to work in secret. We got in by accident, but I’ll bet your boss had hired one or two people who were supposed join you.” I sat down on the trunk. “Plus it was supposed to look like a revenge thing, but supervillain was wrong. Quiet isn’t the Noble Mettle brand: his videos are all purity this and his name that. If you want to commit suicide, make one of his videos a drinking game and take a shot when he says his name.”

“Civilians,” Kate said. “You’re not a civilian.”

“I’m…retired.” I hadn’t said that before, but she was in the life. I groped for words. “There are...monsters.”

Kate nodded. “We get called monsters. My people.”

“Not that kind. You can take precautions against lightning strikes or supervillains or vampires, but how do you recognize the people who want to profit from them?”

“Norms are scum and I say that knowing that every one of my people was once a norm.” We were quiet for a moment, listening to the music from the car—some cover of “Don’t Stop Believing.” Steve called over; Kate indicated she was almost done. “The Doctor tells us that all we can do is try, but we have to do that.”

“You think about telling Steve.”

“You are not as people-blind as I thought.”

“Betsy noticed.”

“Of course she did.” Kate took my hand. “Did retiring get rid of the monsters? ‘Cause I’d quit tomorrow if it does. Think about unretiring.” Steve started for us again, so Kate stood.

Kate handed me the camera. “Use that to call me.” The way she said it told me that it wasn’t strictly a camera any more.

“Tell the Doctor—” I started.

She was halfway to Steve. “What?”

“Tell him not to put your logo on things that are supposed to be hidden.”

She laughed. “But you do know our logo!”

In the car, Betsy said, “Vampires? I mean, you didn’t just pick that.”

“Yeah. I’ll tell you in the daylight. Um. We’re dating?”

“I’d like to try. Even with distance and supervillains and all of it.”

”Um. I’m not good at dating.”

“Because you can’t memorize a relationship and have it at your fingertips. It’s not trivia or trivial. It’s more an escape room, with a series of puzzles that lead you farther in to more puzzles.”

“That does not make it sound good.” I managed to grin. “But let’s try.”

Characters for Egg of Monsters

The Egg of Monsters

Icons

Oh, I threw up a story (an apt way of putting it, I suppose), but I didn't put up the character write-ups for Icons.

• Mr. Verity Already written up; follow the link.
• Dr. Tavor
• Nora Stern of the CDC
• Dracula
• Various feral dogs standing in for wolves, where I just used the Wolf characteristics from the Icons Assembled rulebook.
• The Egg of the Moors I handle as a plot device; it has a Supreme (10) Alteration Ray (Dimensional Travel to pocket dimension) and a fussy ritual.

Doctor Tavor, or Dr. Acula

Doctor Wilhelm Tavor is a parahuman with vampire-like powers, and who suffers from occasional breaks in reality where he believes that he is actually Dracula, Lord of the vampires.

PRW	CRD	STR	INT	AWR	WIL	Stamina
5	5	7	5	5	7	10
Specialties		Medicine, Mental Resistance, Athletics Master (+3)
Powers		Good Energy Drain (5) Extra:: Life Drain Extra: Ability Resistance Amazing Life Support (8) Mind Control Extra: Burst (Limit: Animals only) Limit: Hypnosis (Humans only) Extra: Regeneration Limit: Source (Energy Drain) Poor Gliding (2) Average Super--senses (3) (Darksight, +1 vision, +1 hearing)
Qualities:		Thinks he's Dracula in the wrong body Accepts vampiric weaknesses Can't recover Stamina except through Energy Drain

 

Nora Stern, CDC

Nora was a field operative for the CDC, investigating outbreaks of vampires, werewolves, and zombies.

Unfortunately, during a recent case, she was bitten by Dracula and became his thrall. She managed to hide it, and acted as though the subsequent banishment of Dracula meant that she was cured.

She began plotting to reverse the banishment and bring back her lord and master. It was a long and bloody campaign in which she was almost entirely successful, except for the part where Mynah showed up.

PRW	CRD	STR	INT	AWR	WIL	Stamina
3	4	3	4	4	4	7
Specialties		Driving, Investigation, Martial Arts Expert (+2), Medicine, Occult
Equipment		Taser, hand crossbow, phone, pistol
Qualities		Dracula's thrall (wounds on neck never heal) Field operative Sly and devious

 

Dracula

Don't get excited: this is the Super Villain Handbook version of Dracula cut down to represent extreme hunger and fatigue.

CDC (Supernatural Threats)

If you've done the math, you might realize that vampires are extremely contagious. Worst case, they double in numbers every mumble-mumble days. Even if it takes three bites and vampires only feed every week, that's doubling every month. It's the population of the earth in about three years.

Obviously, we're not hip-deep in undead, and part of that reason is the CDC. (And part of it is that these threats are not 100% contagious, though they're still bad.)

A small group in the CDC works with its counterparts in other nations to prevent certain kinds of contagions—vampires and werewolves primarily—and some memetic infections. They don't deal with cryptids or extraterrestrials; they wouldn't handle the invasion of the body snatchers...but they'd know who to call.

Second leftover: the Egg of Monsters

I wrote this for an anthology but I couldn't get it long enough for the anthology. It's kind of a specialized topic (superheroes and vampires) so I dunno what to do with it. So here.

The Egg of Monsters

I was dodging to the next row of graves in the cemetery—you know, to avoid being killed—when the growling stopped me.

It was unusual: Our city isn’t exactly in a wolf zone. I squinted in the darkness for the source of the sound.

A poodle. Not a frou-frou show dog but a bedraggled feral beast as tall as my ribs. It was flanked by a hound-y looking mutt and a burr-knotted spaniel.

Feral dogs were additional lethality and not the monsters I was running from. Still, I took a step backward.

There was a chorus of growls behind me.

Surrounded.

What do we pay dog catchers for?

# # #

Rent and dog food are ridiculously recurrent expenses, and I needed money. I also needed money for Slobberkin's shots, which I was sure were going to hurt me more than they hurt him. So I found a job to do.

This job required me to meet someone who was going to probe my mind and figure out if I could be trusted to do the job.

I know, secret ID and all of that. But (a) it's the supervillain equivalent of “I know a guy,” and (b) I hoped being trusted would translate into future work, and (c) I needed the cash. My last job had netted me a friend but those don’t have a cash value.

This guy—call him Mr. Verity because that was his trade name—looked like TV idea of a lawyer: handsome, shaved head, mocha skin, nice tie. He told me he was a truth-teller, not a full-blown telepath. “Folks wouldn't trust me if I were a telepath. Too many secrets.” He had a practised smile that didn't reach his eyes. He had a form for me (I signed as “The Mynah,” duh).

“May I hold your hand?” My look said everything. “I have to touch you to know if you are telling the truth.”

A control lie (“I love clothes shopping”) and then he asked me questions. Yes, I was the Mynah; no, I didn’t work for a government agency; I intended to turn the item over instead of extorting money; I had no interest in controlling the world. Yadda yadda yadda.

The job: theft. A one-percenter stored the results of his improbable hobby in a ridiculously well-secured storage facility. Another one-percenter wanted one of those items but it was, by definition, unique. (His hobby was acquiring nique items.) I was to steal it.

“It” was the Egg of the Moors, the Egg of Demons, the Mother of Troubles, Pandora's Egg, et boring cetera. More bronze than gold, about the size of a goose egg, lots of mystical writing, a crystal lens at each end. There was lore about it as there is about all things with squiggly writing and uncertain provenance. In a few days, it was going to travel on permanent loan to the Vatican.

The tight timeline caused me concern, but the previous contractor had suffered an accident of the incarceration kind. The groundwork had been laid, however, so the night after I met Mr. Verity, I was hiding in the aforementioned storage facility. Don't knock invisibility—even my crappy kind.

I did not wait for the Egg to be moved. I wanted the Egg measured and photographed and verified and if possible in the case, but I didn't want to be so late someone else would have already taken it.

Sound thinking, and I was just waiting for certain guards to go off shift.

Discovery One: God had rolled on the Wandering Monster Table.

# # #

A pale impulsive wacko with no regard for schedules, bullets, or tasers walks into the room and picks up the carrying case.

I should have written the job off, quit, found something else. I didn't. I can sweet-talk my landlord, but not my dog.

Before I can act, a man and a woman charge in. Identical black suits say ”Agency dress code,” but the woman holds a one-hand crossbow, the man a fancy gun. No agency I know.

“Freeze!”

“Doctor Tavor, stop and put down the case!”

The impulsive wacko—apparently “Tavor” and I bet a doctor of the "mad" type—pauses to monologue. “Respect, fool! You address Dracula, Lord of the Vampires!”

This outlandish claim makes me stifle a giggle despite the situation. He's wearing jeans and a plaid shirt with pearl buttons. Can any non-nudist be less Dracula?

The female agent fires her crossbow; un-Dracula catches the bolt and tosses it aside. The male agent fires the gun. It's a squirt gun. The wacko dodges all but a drop on his free hand. The drop sizzles and smokes like acid.

Wacko snarls, crosses the distance in two gargantuan steps and breaks the man’s neck. She has reloaded but he catches the next crossbow bolt, grabs her. He buries his mouth in her neck and then throws her away.

He leaves with the Relic and the case.

Do I follow him or help her?

# # #

Still no guards. Clearly been dealt with. I un-hid and checked the agents.

He was dead; she was not. She had a ragged bite mark on her neck—not a neat pair of holes, but two ragged semicircles that oozed blood in a half-dozen places.

She opened her eyes and tried to slug me, but her punch was weak as a puppy’s head butt.

“Easy,” I said. “I’m Mynah.”

“Never heard of you.” She forced herself to a sitting position and checked her partner. I saw her sag. “Shit. Log: Lindsay—Agent Walden is dead by Dr. Tavor. Looking for help because I’m compromised.”

She shuddered and pulled herself together, then looked at my costume and me. “Super? I need your help. Here’s the situation: That guy thinks he’s a vampire. Green-class super.” Colours of the rainbow: red was highest, violet was lowest.

“But the weaknesses, too. I guess the squirt gun was holy water?”

She nodded. “Somewhere Tavor got the idea that he’s Dracula in an underpowered form, and the Relic will juice him up.” She pulled a first aid kit from her purse, fumbled out the antibiotic spray for me. “My neck?”

I spritzed her. “But?”

“The Relic is the prison for the real Dracula. Like, the I-vant-to-suck-your-blood Dracula.” She felt the edge of the wound, ignored the first aid kit bandages, and started wrapping cotton gauze around her throat.

“How do you know?”

“I saw him go in. Lindsay did it. Drac bit me, there’s a whole thing you’re not cleared to hear, end result is I can’t touch the Relic. Lindsay was supposed to but…well. Poor Lindsay.”

I didn’t say anything.

She looks at me with mildly unfocused eyes. “Can you imagine if Dracula gets out?” And she shivers.

“I don't fight vampires. I steal things.”

“I knit, but that’s not the talent we need right now. Tavor, he can’t infect others. Dracula gets out and suddenly we have vampires. An epidemic. Pandemic.” She shook her head. "I should have taken the transfer to meme division, but those guys are just too weird."

“What are you? FBI? Vatican?”

She showed me an ID. It said Nora Stern, CDC. For all I knew, the CDC logo was legit. “We deal with magical outbreaks as well as scientific ones.”

“Call your backup.”

“We’re understaffed. You're my backup.” She finished tying off the bandage and cut the excess cloth.

“What’s in it for me?”

“You get to keep stealing safely at night.” She grinned in a pale gallows humor way. “Plus maybe a bite. You like sushi?”

I rolled my eyes and then realized she couldn’t see it under the mask. “Fine, I’ll help.”

She said to the air, “Log: Deputizing the Mynah..

She stopped to murmur rites over poor Agent Walden. She made sure that ambulances were on the way but didn't give him another look.

So Discovery Two: people are not the only kind of monsters.

I # # #

In the car, she unlocked her phone and handed it to me. “He can fly, but not fast. Relic case has a tracker. Give me directions.” She looked at me. “Unless you fly?”

“Violet class super. Non-flying.”

She scowled.

I figured out the display, made the map disappear, put it back. Figured out that the length of the arrow was his speed—a steady fifty klicks. “Where’d he come from?”

“Dracula? Transylvania.”

I know who Dracula is. “Tavor.”

“Usual. Type 2b: Unauthorized experimentation, lab accident. We thought the pseudo-Dracula persona was submerged but someone triggered the psychotic break. Lindsay and I were in the area but not close enough.”

“Tavor just knew it was in this storehouse and not in the displays in the houses in Martha's Vineyard and California?”

“Good question.” She repeated the question for her invisible logging app.

Agent Stern drove like a mad person, so I couldn’t Google (which isn’t the search engine I use, but you knew that, right?). Anyway, I was not at my best strapped inside a hurtling car. There were weird detours and a lot of one-way streets. I was busy holding on.

But I wanted to know things like was Dr. Tavor publicly known? What did the logo for the CDC really look like? Had anyone ever decommissioned the chapel that Dr. Tavor was obviously heading for?

The north side of the city has this huge old necropolis ringed by big apartment buildings. In the middle is this chapel. The necropolis is essentially full (only rich people get buried there now) but the chapel is still there. If I were going to enact the ritual to bring back the lord of the vampires, I'd need formerly-consecrated ground. The chapel was once Catholic but now so non-denominational that Satanists had used it.

I think that would count as formerly-consecrated ground.

I told Stern this.

“Long winding road to get in, though, right?” I agreed. “We get in there, we’re trapped if he’s really going somewhere else. We have to play catch-up.”

“We have to play catch-up anyway. This way we at least have a chance.”

She shook her head. “I’m driving.”

I couldn’t see him ahead of us—it was a crescent moon—but the tracking signal showed him in the necropolis.

We got out halfway up that long and winding road. We stopped the car by a wheelbarrow, got out, and she shot me with a taser.

# # #

I don’t know if you’ve ever been struck by a taser. It hurts for twice forever, and during the part where your whole body is essentially useless? That’s the part where they put zip-ties on your ankles and wrists and dump you like potatoes in the wheelbarrow for the rest of the journey.

Look, she’d been bitten by Dracula. She was the “someone” who had triggered Dr. Tavor’s psychotic break and told him where to go; she was nearby but too late, she didn't pick up the holy squirt gun. However, I figured she’d let me walk to the chapel on my own two feet and I’d have a chance to improvise.

The taser was a surprise.

After she had dumped me into the wheelbarrow, she said conversationally, “The master will be hungry when he is free. If he drains me, I cannot be his bride.”

By the time she got to the chapel I could move again but I was incredibly tired and felt like I had had a cramp over my entire body. And there was Dr. Tavor with a couple of folded sheets of paper.

Well, crap. The ritual, I presumed. Probably printed out from the Internet. Because that’s where I had found it. In fact, I had a folded copy in my pocket. Stern had never looked. I don’t think she was a great agent.

I’m sent to steal a magic item? Of course I research it first, after that little contre-temps with the Albright Amulet. The name “the Egg of Demons” was a hint.

He said, “I am not hungry.”

“For when you come into your full power. Master.”

He shrugged it off but said, “Thoughtful.”

In my research there were two rituals. The magic circle on the ground indicated that they were going to do the releasing ritual; you didn’t need a circle for the capturing ritual.

He directed her on last-minute things while I lay there, apparently helpless.

Remember those powers that Stern didn’t check on? I have three crappy™ super powers: I can mimic sounds, make some people sick, and go invisible-sorta. (I make an ultrasonic noise that people don’t want to look at.)

You might think those were excellent ritual-spoiling powers, and yeah, I could. Once. Then they’d kill me and do the ritual again.

That is, if they could find me.

Snapping pull-ties is painful but easy if you have something like the handle of a wheelbarrow to fit between your bound limbs. Twist and snap.

So deep breath. Hooked my wrists over one handle and twisted, then got my ankles in position.

I started the invisibility sound.

Tavor was clutching his ears. “What is that noise?” he snarled.

“What noise?” asked Stern. She scanned the three hundred degrees of the necropolis I was not in.

I twisted and got my legs free, but twisting tumbled me over and broke the sound. I started it again, but too late.

“The girl!” Tavor said. I shut up and moved quickly. I doubted he could see in the dark and I know she couldn't. I hurdled a headstone and broke left, then ducked low.

“I’ll get her.”

“No—Dracula has need of you. The children of the night shall deal with her.“

# # #

It's not like I was leaving. The car was way down the lane and I had been hired to steal the Relic. I mean, it was right there. If I left, who knew where it would be tomorrow?

That was when I met the dogs.

# # #

The headstones are in rows about two meters apart. Quick dodge to the right, between stones because I feel awful from the tasing…Four more dogs are there and the rest of the pack is chasing and howling. One jumps up for my left arm; I jerk my arm away but it spoils my jump. I crash into a headstone and dogs are all over me.

They are just holding me with their mouths. They don’t all have soft mouths, either, so I know they can rip out chunks of flesh if they want.

Stern gags me and hauls me to my feet, then walks me back to the ritual site at the head of my canine posse.

“Make sure the gag is tight. I do not need interruptions,” Tavor says.

Stern nods.

The table is a cheap fold-out kind from a hardware store.Three shapes are powdered on the ground: The magic circle, complete with sigils; a square, with the table and the Relic clamped near an unlit candle, and a triangle, where Stern dumps me. She doesn’t tie me, because there are the dogs: some inside the triangle, some outside, but none actually on the lines.

Tavor strips off his plaid shirt to show a pale skinny chest and takes a place in the center of the circle. Stern starts chanting, Arabic or Farsi or something. It probably matches the transliteration in my pocket. Between verses or something, she hits a little gong.

I reach up for the gag and without pausing Stern points a gun at me. Of course she has a pistol to go with the crossbow and taser. I pull my hands down without lowering my gag. Instead, I look at where the circle is relative to me and the dogs.

Tavor starts to chant, too. Things are building to a head. She lights the candle.

So I grab a dog and dive for the edge of the circle.

# # #

I figured, if you need a magic circle, the circle part is necessary, like a wheel or a gear; it can’t be a non-circle. When someone dives for the edge and uses a dog (for example) to brush a hole in the circle, it’s not a circle any more, it’s an arc. Between the dogs rushing in to bite me and the one I’d used to wipe with, it was a non-magic arc with some scribbles around it. Shouldn’t work, right?

It did, though; magic is apparently not an exact science. Stern completed the ritual anyway; maybe she couldn’t stop. She lit the candle so the light shone from the big end to the little end of the egg.

And Dracula appeared in the arc, in the pale flesh.

Beside Tavor.

I didn’t see what Dracula was wearing because I was already busy with dogs. Probably something disappointing like a sweat suit.

Life hack: If you time it right, you can do cartwheels all along the diameter of a magic circle, bounce over the brawling vampires in the middle while knocking your gag free, then hit everybody with the illness sound.

Plus side: my crappy™ illness power works much better on dogs than people, so only two of the pack were left standing.

Minus side: the power is crappy™, so it doesn’t work on any kind of brawling vampires. They were also left standing, as well as the two dogs and the angry Stern.

# # #

Angry? Stern is positively apoplectic. She fires off three shots that hit nothing.

The dogs head for Dracula but then both Tavor and Dracula murmur “Attack!” in strained voices. The competing orders make the dogs stand stiff and still.

I go “invisible” and head straight for Stern.

She misses me another six times and she does not run out of bullets.

I think that is not a regulation weapon.

I hit her in the nose. My self-defense instructor had said that might be lethal. I do it wrong; it makes Stern fight fiercer.

Stern is much better at this than I am: she’s taking me apart while holding the Egg. One of her strikes numbs my left arm. I can only keep making the noise for one more shot—I have to breathe!—so I punch at her throat.

She blocks me.

I gasp for air and she can see me.

Stern grins, like someone who has the Raid in hand and has spotted that pesky cockroach.

And then she stops. Over my own pounding heartbeat, I hear faintly, “Come to me.” There’s no mojo in it for me, but Stern, she leaves and stumbles toward…Dracula.

I remember her saying that Dracula would be hungry.

I can’t let her go to him. It’s not decent, let alone that he can beat Tavor while starving so Lord knows what he can do at full strength. I mean, the Egg might not be able to capture him.

Shit. She’s holding the Egg.

My only advantage was that she wasn’t actually trying to fight me, just get to Dracula..

I trip her, and she doesn’t drop it. Dracula is crawling toward us. Dracula is nearly on us. I steal it from her hand. Maybe if I’m fast enough—

I need the candle. I sprint back to the table, and the candle is knocked over, unlit.

Dracula is drinking. I can hear it, big gulps and sucking sounds.

I am so sorry.

Where is the lighter? Where? I can’t see in the dark, and he’ll be done soon—

There. There.

All I can hear is that sound. I did not want that sound. I flipped the Egg of the Demons over so the small end was between the candle and Dracula.

He finishes. He looks at me all red and replete and full. Stern lays there like a rag used to check the car’s oil.

I start speaking even though the words didn’t come with a pronunciation guide.

He looks at me.

His eyes should be awful…but they’re sexy. I want him to bite me. I want him to bite me and Mr. Verity—

I remember the words I was going to say.

I mumble the words.

Dracula dwindles and disappears. The Relic—the Egg—gets as heavy as sin.

# # #

This thing was clearly a threat that belonged at the Vatican or CDC or someplace protected. I had to avoid skin contact with Mr. Verity, hand it over to fulfill the contract, get paid, and then steal it back.

I was afraid to sleep. Those sounds...

At home I planted a second tracking device on the case and then put on headphones and blasted music into my ears.

The next day, I went to the drop-off. I put down the case, took a step back, and waited for Mr. Verity.

“Any problems?”

I told him everything, even though I knew better. I told him about the CDC and Nora Stern's betrayal and Dr. Tavor crying after he snapped out of it. I told him about Dracula and the sounds. I told him about my second tracking device. And then I didn't move. It was like I was frozen in place.

“You can't lie to me, or act against me,” he said. “Precautions...we've never worked together before, and I see I was right to plant the controls.” He picked up the case. “Perhaps I'll tell my employer that you couldn't manage the job. A resale might net me more. I have some acquaintances who might like to weaponize Dracula.”

Is that why I was able to finish the ritual? Because otherwise would have hurt Mr. Verity? In that case...

“You intend to free Dracula?”

“No, of course not.” I felt my body set, like concrete. “But I don't care if the buyer does.” He hefted the carrying case. “Of all people, I’m safe,” he said. “He has to touch me to hurt me.”

If I pointed out the things that Dracula could do — hypnosis, weather control, acting through mentally controlled puppets — he would spend time trying to find ways around it, and maybe get hurt. And he had ensured that I had to keep him safe.

So I sang at him. I sang the song that makes people ill, and in my desperation, I put extra oomph into it.

He suddenly looked queasy. “Stop it,” he said.

I might have faltered. He took advantage of the moment to lunge for me. I guess his powers really did require skin contact. I easily sidestepped him.

Then I kicked him in the head.

Not the throat: I couldn't do permanent damage to him. But I could render him unable to hurt himself. At least, that's what I told myself.

As mothers and dog owners everywhere know, it hurt me more than it hurt him.

At the end of it, though, he was unconscious and I was still standing.

I grabbed the case and collected the reward for returning it to the insurance company.

They kept an eye on me while I handed it back to the original owner for shipping, and I watched it off.

I had to.

I was protecting Mr. Verity.

Mr. Verity

Icons

For your vigilante-style adventures awash in the mire of the streets...

When a mob boss needs to hire a supervillain, he wants to know if the guy's gonna do the job and hand over the item or try to keep it. Or worse, if the guy's actually a superhero in disguise. That's when he hires Mr. Verity.

Mr. Verity can tell if someone's lying just by being in skin-to-skin contact.

But Mr. Verity doesn't admit to *all* he can do. He doesn't, for example, talk about the "keep Mr. Verity safe" mental blocks he lays down. He doesn't even admit that he can do that. "Oh, no, just a fancy lie detector, that's me."

And he knows things. Comes of poking in minds as he does. And sooner or later, he's going to orchestrate an action that involves the heroes...

MR. VERITY

Birthright

PRW	CRD	STR	INT	AWR	WIL	Stamina
3	4	3	4	4	7	10
Specialties		Business, Law, Power (Mind control)
Powers		Detect (truthfulness) Great (6) Limit: Close (must be in skin contact) Extra: Telepathy Extra: Mind Control (both share the limit) Mental Resistance Average (3)
Qualities:		It's just business Close to the vest A pre-emptive nudge is okay

Robot(s) for "Lair is a Eulogy"

Icons

Story

Robot

Prowess	Good (5)	Intellect	Average (3)
Coordination	Great (6)	Awareness	Weak (2)
Strength	Great (6)	Willpower	–
Stamina	12
Specialties	Weapons (blaster) (+1)
Powers	It has sonar (Poor (1) Super Senses ) to see in the dark and Fair (4) Damage Resistance. It can hit, and has an Average (3) Blaster built into its chest.
Qualities	Robot Programmed responses

Slicer-Dicer Robot

Created by the Repair robot after the original security robots were destroyed out of available parts.

Prowess	Good (5)	Intellect	Fair (3)
Coordination	Great (6)	Awareness	Weak (2)
Strength	Great (6)	Willpower	–
Stamina	12
Specialties	Weapons (Edged) (+1)
Powers	It has sonar (Poor (1) Super Senses ) to see in the dark and Fair (4) Damage Resistance. It replaces the Blaster with two big swords built into its arms (Good (5) Slashing, Extra: Effect Good (5) Slashing) and Good (5) Fast Attack; it tries to combine attacks for a Great effect.
Qualities	Robot Big Jury-rigged

A Lair Is A Eulogy (Mynah Story)

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:

1. Survive!
2. Find Betsy.
3. 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.

Robot write-up

Daughter of Silence (Craigslist story)

I had hoped to have this done by Hallowe'en, but deaths and funerals and surgery prevented that.

As usual, it's a first draft. I might change it later and (I hope) make it better.

It's kind of an experiment, because superheroes are all about competence and horror is all about tension: will this work? Will it not?

The Daughter of Deep Silence

I’m listening to a serial killer, which is not a scenario that usually goes to a good place. Currently he’s just a voice on the intercom but the fact that I’m talking with him means that things have gone wrong.

Like usual.

#

Flashback, yesterday. I’m in my bathroom popping a pimple. This pimple is right inside my knee and it hurts every step I take. I have no health insurance but it’s not a big or deep pimple.

Glamorous life of a supervillain. (Also, it’s satisfying to pop pimples. Do not judge me.)

Anyway, I’m twisted up with a leg on the sink trying to get a good pinching grip and I look up at the mirror on the medicine cabinet.

I am looking at a fleshless skull.

I shriek once because I do not expect this. The skull opens its mouth and in that instant the horrifying image becomes a science experiment.

I open my mouth, it opens its mouth. I close, it closes. I turn my head, it turns. I count teeth on the lower jaw, trying to see of the wisdom teeth are still there, when I notice it doesn’t have my filling.

Then the filling appears.

The conclusion is clear: Someone is messing with my mind. In real-time.

So I finish with the pimple (at least I hope I do; when someone is messing with your mind, anything is possible) and then look up at the mirror again.

A shrouded woman in Victorian funeral clothes is looking at my skull in the mirror. She has empty sockets instead of eyes and is crying blood. Total unreasoning fear floods me and I am stuck there with one leg up on the sink.

I can’t help checking over my shoulder. Nope. Nothing there.

I nod to the figure in the mirror. Professional courtesy. “Red Mary,” I say, as politely as I can without any spit in my mouth.

And she is gone.

#

I was so freaked that I grabbed my dog, Slobberkin, and left, slowing down only to put on pants and shoes. I have practiced getting out fast and I set records that day. I was a block away before I could even think. All jittery from adrenaline, I jogged Slobberkin to the nearest dog park, which made him happy, and I spent a little bit of time not-thinking on purpose.

After I let Slobberkin loose to run like a maniac, I walked slowly, trying to marshal what I knew of Red Mary.

Look, a lot of people see superfolk as evidence of magic without rules. But if there are no rules, how can you plan anything? How can you exploit the rules? So I chose to believe that she was some kind of mutant or dimensional extrusion. Even if she was magical, the magic must have rules, somehow.

Her mission was vengeance: she was no hero. She preyed on those who prey on women. A typical vengeance saw the man (usually a man) flayed, killed, and his corpse reanimated to deal with his enablers. She wasn’t effective in a systemic way: men still abused women. But if you were the man she targeted, well, you weren’t doing it again.

Back in high school, girls said you could invoke her with blood and an invocation, but you couldn’t put her down or control her. We learned the invocation but I don’t know that she ever showed up.

She had been doing this for…a decade? A century? A millennium?

Nobody knew.

My fear slowly went away and was replaced by anger and indignation. I hadn’t hurt any women. I hadn’t tried to summon her. I had been minding my own business.

I sat on the bench and did some searching with my phone. When you put “Protection from Red Mary” into a search engine, you don’t get directed to nice places.

Funny, that.

I thought the gist of it was going to be “So long, you’re done” but unpleasant people had ideas. There were some things I just wasn’t going to do (the thigh bones of a virgin?) and some I didn’t have access to (like the remains of a Catholic Saint) but that left something to try.

That night I put Slobberkin in his crate (I’m crate-training him) and surrounded the crate and the bed with a thick ring of kosher salt.

It took twelve boxes.

It also didn’t work.

#

Air thick and sooty with something industrial. Leaving a child—a little girl, the only source of joy. The girl had a doll as long as my hand, and she showed it to…me? Her mother. The viewpoint. Like going to see Shakespeare, I missed most of what was being said but I got the feeling.

Adjust the dress and out into a smoky awful world. Cobblestone streets, brick houses jammed together and interspersed with wooden shacks like rotten teeth in a hillbilly’s mouth. Fog or smog or industrial fumes. Standing on a corner near a…theatre of some kind?

Victorian London.

The one that sucked, without Oscar Wilde-like parties and witticisms.

A man—no, the man—approached. When he had her alone, he said that she was special. Gorgeous, he said. He wanted her. He wanted…he wanted her blood? A vampire? No, a doctor or something. Had a syringe. He wanted to inject her with something.

I—she—refused.

He offered meus—her—money. No. Rinse, lather, repeat. Eventually it became obvious to us, her, that she wasn’t getting out without saying yes.

He was nice about it, at first; then insistent. She was beautiful, he said; he couldn’t bear to be without her, he said. He didn’t want to lose her again.

I didn’t feel that she knew him. The “again” was just nonsense. I wanted to scream, to tell her that he was obviously a psycho, but I was just a passenger in this dream.

Injection. Burning sensation, a hot itch that spread from the site. He counted five minutes. She was restless, but the payment had included the time.

“Now,” he said sweatily, “now you are immortal. I’ll show you.”

He had a knife.

They say you die if you die in your dreams.

They’re wrong.

#

I jerked awake, like when you have a leg spasm. I wasn’t in my bed any more—I was in front of my computer in my underwear.

The web browser was open to a picture of a man in front of a wall of dolls, which was creepy enough. In the guy’s arms was was the doll, the kid’s doll, because it was the one hundredth Victorian doll this guy had gathered.

One guess who it was.

The caption read, “If you keep looking, you’ll find it. John Q. Alias holds up a rare Victorian doll.”

But it was dated three years ago.

Why me? Why now? She wasn’t there to ask.

If any of it was true: she was in my head. She could be messing with me. For all I knew, my life-long fondness for Super Crisp cereal actually started last night.

I had an hour until it would be safe to take Slobberkin to the park. I switched to the anonymous account and started researching this guy.

The picture was in soft focus, probably to make that damn wall of dolls less creepy. He looked like he was in his fifties, about ten years older than the dream.

His name was as contrived as H. H. Holmes’: Todd Brandon. Widowed (of course). Inherited wealth from his “father.”

There are clues to being long-lived; three people have been revealed since 1980. Still, having money is its own superpower and nobody really looks. But: mysterious inheritance, check; long-held property, check; reclusive or multiple residences, check; collector of antiquities of some sort, check. Contrived or symbolic name, like A. Lucard or Jack L. N. Hyde, optional.

Apparently immortality comes with a love of wordplay and callbacks.

Brandon’s local house, the one with the doll collection, was in the Maryhill district. Maryhill was where the rich folk lived but the city crept up on it. I knew the area because there were a couple of houses there on my to-burgle list.

It was dawn. I stretched, brushed my teeth and dressed, and took my dog out to Maryhill to look at the house and area.

#

Supervillainy isn’t all superpowers and big fights. To case the house itself, I got a briefcase with glossy stock info, had Shelley put business makeup on me and dressed in a power suit. Drove up in a posh (stolen) car and rang the doorbell. Mr. Brandon wasn’t in, said the lady, but he was expected. I wasn’t on the list, but I could wait in the office?

I left the briefcase there and asked to use the powder room. No escort, so I made sure I wasn’t being watched and headed for the second floor.

The bastard had rooms of dolls. Each doll room I saw had a pattern inlaid in the floor that looked, in a word, mystical. Clever: couldn’t be erased that way. And every second I was there increased chance of discovery.

Finding the doll would have been great. Being caught by staff wouldn’t have been terrible: I’d have been reprimanded and thrown out, but at least I would have cased the place.

Being knocked unconscious and tied up was not on my list.

If you live, you learn.

#

“I don’t suppose you’re a virgin, hmm?” was the phrase that woke me up. He had a mushy British accent and some kind of speech defect. “Not in these days, more’s the pity.”

White tile and overhead lamps made the room look like a surgery from the turn of the century. What I saw next was the neatly labeled jars of chemicals and organs. I was fastened to a big padded chair, like a dentist’s chair. He had his back to me as he fussed over a tray of syringes and ugly stainless-steel instruments.

He turned around…and the flesh above his mask was yellow, cracked, and peeling. Along with the light on his head, he had some contraption to drip fluid on his eye because there was no eyelid there.

“It’s been a long game, with Mary.” He chuckled. “She wants that doll. She sends someone, I catch them. Letting her select the victims turns out to be much more…effective. The whores she picks are so rarely missed.”

I found my voice. “You’re working together?”

He shook his head. “She’d kill me, if she could. Not that it would get her the doll; every room is warded.” He tapped the syringe once to get the air bubbles out. “Now, there might be…well, a lot of pain, but when I’m done, part of you will live on. And it’s to let me continue to do my scientific work, which is the most noble purpose someone like you could have.”

I nodded and swallowed the fear in my voice. He mustn’t hear the fear.

“Doctor!” I called in the lady’s voice from behind him. “Sorry to interrupt you. At the door. A policeman says he must talk to you.”

“I can’t be disturbed. Not until I’m done.”

“He insists.”

The Doctor slipped on heavy wraparound sunglasses and adjusted his wig.

No sooner was his back to me than I was tugging at the restraints. They were metal and I couldn’t get free. Maybe someone with more time could, but I only had a minute, maybe three. He shut the door behind him. I heard the bolt slide shut. Distantly I heard him on stairs, but the door muffled everything.

Sometimes metal has a resonant frequency, like the Tacoma Narrows disaster. I sang at the restraints. I started with a low note, increased pitch until I found the right frequency. The restraints started to throb against my wrists and ankles, through the padding. I added to volume just like pushing a kid on a swing to make her go higher. Ten seconds. Twenty. A minute. More.

My wrists and ankles started to go numb from the vibration.

I heard the bolt slide again.

Harder, harder—

The restraints exploded. I fumbled on the table for a scalpel, lurched forward on numb feet.

He came in, locked the door behind him…

…and I stabbed him in the throat. He crumpled.

Stabbing him was the only way I could buy time. I wasn’t a fighter, and I knew that killing him wasn’t permanent.

He was still moving so I pulled the scalpel out and drove it in again, then slashed across the back of one knee. If a pimple there made me walk funny, cutting his tendons had to do more.

Scalpels are not made for cutting through cloth; under the pants I left a red line but didn’t cut tendons. I sank the scalpel into what I could reach, his belly, and twisted. It had to hurt. He stopped moving. He might have been faking it, or dead but getting better.

All I wanted to do was get out, with the doll if I could. Three steps got me to the door.

In clear violation of fire codes, the door had a combination lock. It didn’t move when I tried it. Locked.

Hinges on the inside, so I could remove the hinges. Would it be faster?

No: the pins were held in with some kind of welded flange.

I quickly glanced over to the air vents. Not big enough for a person.

Like he expected people to try to escape.

I had waited almost too long: Before I tried unlocking the door I ran over to a shelf and grabbed a bottle labeled Muriatic Acid in neat handwriting, dumped it onto the Doctor’s head. He had to stay dead while I worked on the door. The sound was awful and the smell was worse—and the Doctor’s scream bubbled on until he died again.

Memo: In future, try to carry gear even in a disguise.

I huffed on the buttons. Some must have been used more than others and they might be detectable. Breath condensed differently on 1 and 8 than the rest of them.

The Jack the Ripper murders were in 1888. I tried that, because see comment about immortals and wordplay.

The door pulled open…and behind me I saw the Doctor was no longer on the floor.

I didn’t know where or how he was hiding, so I left and made sure the door locked. Then I broke the lock, but that ruined the scalpel.

#

I was in a hallway. Through doorways I saw windows and night time beyond. Floodlights illuminated the middles of trees. The building had four storeys, and I was near the top. The doll was on the second floor; I could even use a window from there, but at four floors, chances of survival from the fall are fifty-fifty.

He said from the room beside me, “I’ve dealt with murderous sluts before, of course.”

How did he get there—? Ah. He was talking to every room on the intercom.

Sounded like a lot of his mouth had grown back. (Too bad.)

“I have people guarding the doll and the exits.”

I’m sure “people” was defined loosely.

“Unfortunately, forcing that kind of…regrowth…makes my need for you more urgent, so you are not be allowed to leave alive.” There was the tuneless hum. I’d heard it before, in the dream. “I’m coming for you, you wicked little tramp.”

Moving fast down the hallway, glancing in rooms. Please let one be an old timey drawing room with weapons. Please, please, please.

Nope.

I was out of hall. There was a bedroom left and probably a stairwell right, and a view of the lit driveway in front of me.

Options: Stay on this floor and have him catch up again. All I had to do was lose that fight once. Go down the stairs to the second floor (doll) or ground floor (exits). Open a window and leap for the trees.

I heard a shuffling noise behind me. I looked up: lights were going out along the length of the hall and there was a dark figure heading for me.

I ducked into the bedroom and realized that I should have ducked into the stairwell but he said he had people waiting on the ground and second floors. There I might have had a chance; here I could only pillow-fight him to death.

I wasn’t going to turn on the light, but I could hear his ragged breathing.

He was waiting there, with a knife.

The only thing he might not expect was an attack. I dove for his legs, because they were away from the knife.

He didn’t fall but at least he missed.

I rammed into him at frenzied speed and he didn’t fall.

My arm ached from the impact. I rolled to one side and grabbed a chair leg. It didn’t move either, so I pulled myself away from him as he lunged.

I pulled myself up and heaved on the chair—

It was bolted to the floor.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, right?

He lunged again but I kept the chair between us. The room was dappled from the outside lights but I could see a blackness behind him, between the bookcases. I ran for it.

Yeah, if there’d been something there I would have gotten a broken nose or worse but it was a door, and I shut him out.

As the door—wall?—shut silently, soft lights came on, near the floor, like theatre lighting. Enough to get around.

A secret passage. Very Scooby-Doo.

He could get anywhere in the house. And the lights automatically turned off when you opened the door, to keep victims unaware.

This was his murder castle.

He’d be back in the passage as soon as he got to another secret door. As I reached the railing for a circular stairwell, the stairs the lights went out again.

I started running down the stairwell. The metal stairs were carpeted for silence but I realized he could feel my movements down the stairs. He’d know when I left.

Dammit.

I descended to the bottom of the stairwell. Maybe the people on the ground floor wouldn’t expect me to come up.

The lights went out when I opened the door, and I couldn’t see a damned thing.

The basement was a terrible idea.

I slipped off my business blazer and used it to prop open the secret door. Let him stay in the dark.

(Maybe he’d trip and break his neck. That might slow him down.)

I groped for the door, slipped out. Found a light switch.

No, he wasn’t waiting for me. Instead there was a wine cooler of sorts. The whole wall was a refrigeration unit full of…bottles, face and label out. They were medicine bottles, like cough syrup bottles. The ones near the bottom had hand-written labels but farther up they were laser printed. Most of them seemed empty, but the top few were turbid.

There was something…cloudy…moving in them.

The floor was wooden, with more of those probably-mystic sigils.

“Ah, you’ve found my wine cellar.” A phlegmy chuckle. “My vault of ages, as it were.”

He was behind me. Dr. McStabby.

“I have a gun. Please don’t be foolish. I have three bottles of life left so while my need is urgent, it is not that urgent.”

“Stolen life?”

I could hear the shrug. “Eternal life. What one loses, another gains. Before my methods were crude but now I can extract life essence—vril or whatever you want to call it—and store it. Mass production is the next step. Men will pay handsomely.”

“I thought you were in this for science?”

“Factories made Britain great.” He waved me away from the wall of bottles. “Obviously you are some kind of mutant, to affect the chair as you did. That makes the estimate rough but you might have a good fifty years left.” He edged past me, covering me, and opened the door. “Together these have only twenty-seven years left. I use it at my accelerated rate and they made poor life choices.” He grabbed a bottle.

“You have pushed my abilities to the limit, you little tart,” he hissed. “I’ll need everything here and more to recover fully, and you’re going to give me the ‘more.’”

I screamed, but not in the terrified way. I screamed in the sonic-powers-breaking-every-bottle kind of way. Dr. McStabby screamed too and fired, but the shattering glass, including the bottle in his hand spoiled the shot.

I switched to the other sound, the one that sometimes makes people sick…

It had no effect on him.

He fired again. His hand was shaking but I had no idea how many shots he had left and when he would stop missing.

I thrust the neck of a bottle into his chest. (I was aiming for his throat.) I kept shoving and I pushed him back onto the pegs of the rack.

Couldn’t lock him in; I had shattered the door—

He roared and hit me, hard.

He was a lot stronger than I was. I slid across the broken glass to the open door. Sparks flew as I knocked it off its hinges.

If I was going to die, I was going to take him down too. I grabbed the wires that ran to the thermostat and jabbed them in him.

He actually paused. And laughed as he backhanded me across the floor.

“There’s a transformer, silly girl,” he said. “It’s a few volts, nothing more. Now I’m going to make this painful.”

I jammed the broken glass into the crevices in the floor, as if I were trying to pull myself up, and pulled. He was going to hit me again.

He did. Fire in one of my kidneys.

“Let’s let your life force out.” I could feel it.

I tugged at the flooring inlay again.

He knelt over the wound, inhaling my life. My life force.

I tossed aside the piece of flooring. Mystic sigil un-mysticised.

I said the words I had learned in high school: “Red Mary, defender of women, destroyer of men, I call you.”

I blacked out.

#

A gift: The wound was gone. I collected the doll and my personal belongings, cleaned off my fingerprints. In the kitchen I lit a candle and put it on top of the refrigerator.

I opened all the gas vents before left for home, closing the door carefully behind me.

They ruled the fire to be an accident.

The doll disappeared from my apartment that night.
And I haven't heard of Red Mary since.

Characters

Red Mary

Red Mary is here.

Dr. Jack

Prowess	4	Intellect	5
Coordination	4	Awareness	5
Strength	7	Willpower	<
Stamina	12
Specialties	Weapons (Blades) (+2) Medicine Expert (+2) Stealth (+1) Occult (+1)
Powers	Immortality 4 Regeneration 7 Resistance (Mental) 4 Slashing 3
Knacks	Relentless (+2 on Stunning rolls & vs. Stunning)
Qualities	Ready to retire Torture is necessary and fun, too Immortality serum must be renewed