A short sci-fi comedy story I wrote for the second issue of the Inky Paws anthology.
This is a very silly super-villain tale with a focus on the non-human traits of its protagonist.
I hope you like weird humour, questionable references, and bad puns!
Inky PawsContent warnings:
“Never mind picking it, just blow the door off!”
Even through the camera, I could see Congleton sigh - he loves doing things the neat, tidy way.
My camera view: a small tiled room containing a short, bulky man, a vault door, and very little else.
Not in view: a small support team to help out later.
Even from half a building away, there was a very audible thump.
Perfect.
I love it when a good heist comes together.
My little space right then was a small thin room on the second floor, arranged to hold a wall full of CCTV monitors.
It was pretty dark; the light switch had been a bit too hard to reach.
There were also a pair of chairs - which I wasn't using - intended for bored, underpaid attendants to sit in.
The attendants weren't there though, and neither was anyone else (we'd made sure of that).
Well, in theory anyway; I was pretty sure something behind me had just made an un-sound.
An un-sound is an empty hole in the landscape of fan whine and mains hum that fills the modern world.
Slowly, slowly, I let one ear swivel backward, and pretended I hadn't *not* heard anything.
“Nice work Mr Congleton,” I told my earpiece, “Everyone check in, confirm code phrases, and tell me about the loot!”
I didn't get to hear the reply because the un-sound turned into the sound of someone moving very carefully.
With luck, the care they were taking meant that they thought I hadn't noticed, and that they wouldn't notice me breathe in deeply and tense my back legs.
Wind whipped past me - my ears pinned back reflexively - as I flung myself upward and backward.
The world spun end over end around me, feeling almost lazy as the adrenaline surge ramped up.
I got a nice view of a large dark shape that passed underneath me and slammed into the monitors that I'd just been watching.
Glad those weren't mine.
If I were in the habit of being tall and walking on two legs I'd have hit the ceiling or still been in the way, but I'm not, so I landed back on all fours behind the intruder with a wall to my left.
...Is someone an intruder if the building is already being broken into?
The dark figure spun, tracking me with impressive speed.
Here, in the sculpted black body-armour, face hidden behind an impressive collection of optics, was the guy who'd ruined my city.
No time for that now though, so I said, “Can't I fight someone else for once?”
Throwing witty lines is a bit of a habit these days, but usually it helps keep people's brains busy and stops them punching me as quickly.
Not this guy.
Thankfully my reactions are pretty good, so I rolled sideways and saved myself a head full of fist.
He must have guessed I might do that because suddenly his other arm was round my neck.
So much for my evil monologue, but I still needed to buy time.
I gave him a good meaty growl hoping it'd make him nervous, but that seemed just to annoy him.
He tried throwing me at the wall.
I avoided finding out if I'd stick because, like most humans, the Vigilante underestimated how much of me is fur and loose skin.
It's a defence evolved to stop (other) predators getting their teeth into your neck, and it turns out it works on arsehole vigilante guys too.
The result was a bizarre compromise, in which I half flopped and half flew my way down the room, sideways, landing awkwardly with two feet under me, one against a wall, and my bum in the corner.
“Shite caber toss,” I panted (it's... a really ingrained habit).
He advanced, an expression of disgust on his face so pure and distilled that it was clearly visible even through his fancy face-gear.
It was kind of unsettling.
I had a bit more breath now, so I said, “Bad joke?”
“Abomination,” he spat, but kept walking.
“You play at being an animal like a child in a cheap costume.
You betray your species.
You are a pitiful waste of humanity.”
It was nicely paced, the end of his little speach reached me just as he did.
That was ok though, that short flight had given me a chance to get a paw to my ear-piece, and I reckoned it was probably fun time now.
“Yeah, well,” I riposted weakly, “the ill-built tower trembles mightily at a butterfly’s passage!”
He had the good grace to look slightly confused, which gave me a moment to throw myself sideways.
My operatives must have recognised the code phrase and figured out that something was up, because a moment later the back wall wasn't.
Good timing too, one of the Vigilante's boots ruffled the fur on my tail as it passed, and left a nice neat hole in the plasterboard behind where I'd just been.
Everyone in the next room was already leaving, mostly hidden by the clouds of dust, exactly as we'd agreed.
I didn't have time to take much in, other than the window designated our escape route, a mess of debris, and the scatter of broken glass by the window.
Walking through broken glass isn't my thing given my lack of footwear, but it wasn't that hard to jump clean over it anyway.
On my way out I took a moment to turn and yell, “Next time, maybe try being *less* human!”
It might not have been the best time for verbal sparring, or the best insult, but some habits die *hard*.
On the other side of the window was a freshly acquired helicopter.
It was tight with all of us jammed into the back compartment, but I still found enough space to lick my grazes as we soared away.
Mission complete.
---
So anyway, I promised there'd be time to talk about the city's least favourite vigilante - and I don't mean me, they *love* me I'm sure - so I guess this is where I turn to camera and say, ‘As you know...’
As you know, Angst Over Lime used to be a perfectly average grimy city with a slightly higher than average crime rate.
Like, 2% above mean.
Now it's a glimmering love-letter to complicated shapes made of glass and concrete that big corporations like living in.
The streets are cleaner than your average dinner plate, and dinner plates round here tend to be picked much cleaner than average now.
This isn't entirely the Vigilante's doing, but it certainly has a lot to do with his friends in their executive sky-scraper offices, and he's something of a linchpin.
The load-bearing arsehole.
He doesn't call himself a hero at least, he calls himself a necessity.
Most people try not to mention him, or if they do they give the nearest rooftop a quick look just to check.
Sure, crime rates are basically zero, but it's funny how unexplained disappearances aren't a statistic the cops track anymore.
Anyhow, that's basically why we're here.
Not ‘here’ as in the scuffle in the secure government storage place - that's just stealing for fun and profit - more ‘here’, as in the secret underground lair, the shadowy machinations, the diabolical plots.
Here, where I'm Maria, Queen of the Underworld, The Cat Woman's Cat/Woman, the Horror that Haunts the Pigeons in West Park... Need-er of a Proper Grandiose Title.
Professional snowleopard super-villain-ess!
---
When we got home, I left Congleton to make arrangements for the use of our loot - government secrets, freshly purrrloined.
A goon passed in a rush, stopping for a moment to relay the message that someone was waiting for me downstairs.
They'd have to wait though, because I needed to have a chat with one of the lesser political players in the city first.
*Ex* political players.
I'd made fairly sure she wouldn't be causing us any more trouble with medical premises licensing.
“Ms Gêna, welcome to my humble underground lair!
I hope the trip here wasn't too... uncomfortable.”
She was wearing a rumpled grey suit and looking both shocked and rather tired.
The wide-eyed expression made it particularly difficult to look her in the eye, so I smiled toothily at the wall just behind her right ear instead.
Her earrings were kind of interesting, but they exactly didn't go with the suit.
“From your expression, I'm guessing you weren't expecting a meeting with a snow leopard?”
Had she really not heard of me?
My species is usually the thing people make a fuss about, after all.
“We *are* still rather rare I'm told. Mind your step.” I directed her into the main lift.
She remembered how to talk and said, “I-I assume this makes you the mastermind of this operation?”
“Ah! I'm glad you aren't looking for a puppet master pulling my strings!
People sometimes ask how ‘it’ is trained, which is a little aggravating.”
I reserve it/its for people I know well, for the record.
“Mastermind?” I continued, “Well, perhaps, but I pride myself on the collaborative atmosphere of this organisation.
My team are extremely capable, as your office recently discovered.”
She frowned, but said nothing, so I pushed the button marked ‘floor -14 (throne room)’.
The lurch caught her off guard and she swayed woozily.
“My apologies for the after-effects of the short-term memory disruptor,” I said, “It's regrettable but we can't risk anyone remembering the route here.”
See also: the sort-of-fake chemical plant on the surface, the room full of radio jamming kit, and employing the kind of dedicated information security expert who has cat ears and memorable socks.
“Mm, I'm sure,” Gêna said, “So why is it exactly that you've brought me here?”
“What do I want?
Well, really very little.
Simply an agreement that you and your colleagues will not meddle further in our activities.”
The lift started on it's long descent, light streaming in through it's one wall-filling window as we cleared the sub-basement of the above-surface facility.
Instead of enjoying the view, Gêna turned to me.
“The medical facility I had shut down contained some very sophisticated equipment.
You could have been curing cancer!
But instead, all you seem interested in is— is—”, she snorted derisively, “turning people into animals!”
She took a breath and continued, “Your operation was impressively competent.
Were some of its activities not shockingly illegal in this jurisdiction, it could have been a very profitable asset to the city.”
I snorted.
“First, as I imagine you're well aware, we do a good deal more than that.
Second, profit is irrelevant.
Third, and most importantly, your biggest mistake is assuming that this is a zero-sum game.
We can have both!
An end to cancer, and the freedom to be who we are.”
Gêna looked like she wanted to interrupt, but I kept talking.
“I very much doubt either of us is going to change the other's mind, so let me make this simple.
Filling your office with jelly [EN-US: jello] was not only easy, it was fun.”
Her expression soured even further, which was somehow still possible.
We were passing the bio-lab bubbles, which don't look like all that much, but meant we'd soon be passing some of the good stuff.
She was still looking the wrong way, so I said, “Look out the window.
We are in the heart of *my* evil lair.
I'm the bad guy.
Either you cooperate with my unreasonable demands, or I will arrange for what remains of your department's tattered credibility to go up in flames.
Comically.
Whimsically.
But also, terminally.”
Verbal intimidation is one thing, but I tend to find sheer implied firepower more reliable.
Conveniently, Gêna finally chose to turn and look properly out of the window just as the lighting gantries over the construction hangar came into view.
Welding torches bathed the space below in flickering light, casting warped shadows through the scaffolds.
My guest was silent.
Presumably it was finally getting through to her that we weren't joking.
“What am I looking at?” she said, flatly.
“Mm, now you're asking,” I said, “We're just preparing for a first plugs-in test of our new giant robot.
It's very exciting!
This will be the first real test of our portable reactor prototype.”
It'll be even more ‘exciting’ if it turns out the engineering team forgot to include an emergency breaker again.
A rogue self-powered battle-mech is a great way to make a lot of mess very rapidly.
“W-Where did you get the materials?” Gêna stuttered.
“Remember the convoy of trucks that went missing delivering to a local arms company a while back?”
“Ah, no?” she said, eyebrows knitting.
“Funny that, not many people do.”
I looked up at her, doing my best to smile disconcertingly.
It's pretty easy with feline sized, uh... canines.
That convoy had been just the boost our space programme needed.
“Did you like the bio-labs?” I asked, casually.
Gêna glanced at me, apparently to try and work out if I was joking.
“I don't think I saw them.
What are those for?
Turning the rest of us into—”
She saw my expression, remembered where we were, and abruptly course-corrected herself into silence.
I guess I could have played up the “maybe I should, perhaps you'd learn something” angle, it'd have been good for the whole villain aesthetic, but ugh.
It took me a long time to get into a... configuration... I'm happy with, and I don't want to imagine putting someone else through that.
“I'm very proud of those.
They're our new economic policy,” I said instead.
“I... see.”
She definitely didn't.
Long story short, one of the bank bigwigs recently responded to comments about the ongoing housing crisis.
“Money doesn't grow on trees,” he said, in a public meeting.
And well, yes.
Yes, I dare say it doesn't.
Yet.
Gêna's expression hardened.
“And what if I tell someone about this little tour?
Or are you going to erase my memory again?”
“What would be the point of giving a tour you wouldn't remember?” I replied, “But anyway, I wouldn't advise mentioning it, they'll all want to see!
The lift isn't big enough!”
She was still trying not to annoy me, but some of a glare escaped anyway.
“So... what if you do?” I said, “‘There's this super-villain's lair... somewhere... and it's got a giant robot in it and it's run by a cat’?
How do you think that'll go?
I mean, they know we're around, but equally this is coming from the department whose ‘incompetence’ recently got pictures of their jelly-filled office in the headlines.
Who did they pin the blame on, by the way?”
I knew exactly who they'd pinned the blame on.
She stared out of the window, icily.
Gêna had a point actually, and it's part of why she was there.
The one thing we don't carefully contain on-site are outlandish stories.
Rumours can do wonders for the reputation, and reputation is very important in my... line of work.
“So, next time you receive a licensing request for a particular site?”
“I'll see that it's approved,” Gêna said sullenly.
“Excellent!
I'm glad we're on the same page."
The lift arrived, and I pawed the big double doors to the throne room open with a flourish, mentally thanking the designer for including a motor-assist, for the hundredth time.
I gave Gêna a moment to take in the steel throne, spot lit atop its dais, reaching for the gothic arches above and flanked by a pair of goons behind.
She looked at me with one eyebrow raised, “a ‘collaborative atmosphere’?”
“This is the ‘striking fear into the hearts of our foes’ department,” I said.
---
Having disposed— found temporary quarters for Ms Gêna, I wound up in the kitchen.
Your usual office fare, it was just about big enough to hold some chairs, a table, ritual implements of hot beverage summoning, and a microwave with splatters no one felt like identifying.
It had been a long day, and for all I've changed over the years - and biological incompatibility - my caffeine addiction seems to have somehow survived.
I was only just warming up to my bowl of tea-approximation when one of the throne goons appeared, and reminded me we had another guest who I'd honestly kind of forgotten about.
“It's the annoying one,” she said.
That time again, huh?
“Right, thanks Alissa.
Usual routine I guess.”
We'd tried the old-school villain aesthetic.
Me sat on a cushion on someone's lap, then them sat on the throne and scratching between my ears.
The overall effect was more comical than sinister, and none of us was best pleased about the breach of personal space.
In the end, I just sit on the throne and the two throne goons do their best not to laugh if I flub a line.
The doors opened.
“Ah, James. I've been expecting you.
Nice fronds by the way.”
James straightened their suit primly, they looked every inch the dapper spy.
“Oh, ‘expecting’ were you?
That'd be why I've been hanging about down here for the last half hour.
And look what the cat dragged in and all.”
“Well, that's how I was sure you'd be here, so I could expect you.
And nobody dragged me anywhere, I brought myself.”
James raised an eyebrow disparagingly, “yes, exactly, what the cat dragged in.”
“Having established that you were, indeed, expected, why exactly are you here, my leafy special agent?”
The special agent smoothed their fronds appreciatively.
“Oh, you know, have to keep an eye on the ne'er-do-well movers and shakers of the international stage.
That stage has had plenty enough moving and shaking lately, poor thing must be right dizzy.”
I snorted.
“Flattering as the implication is, I know full well I'm not important enough to warrant being personally surveilled.
Especially not every Thursday.
Whoever's Majesty's offices out of coffee again?”
Mx Frond wilted a little.
“They keep cutting funding for office supplies.”
They sighed with a melodramatic flourish, adding, “and everywhere else I go, I say ‘I work for the secret service’, y'know, and they say, ‘Who? Oh, didn't they pack that in years ago?’”
I did my best to look sympathetic, but honestly I have no idea why James keeps working for a country most people forget exists.
Why it still has a secret service in any capacity is beyond me.
“Well, I'm sure one of your gadgets can tell you where the instant is,” I said, trying not to sound too unkind.
“Just try not to run into any supplies of experimental plant transformation serum this time.”
I'd set that incident up deliberately, but I think they know that I know that it wasn't exactly a trap.
I mostly just expected them to ignore the stuff, or quietly steal it, not take one look at the fuming beaker, shrug, and down the whole thing.
It seemed to have worked out for them.
They'd lightened up a lot since, and many of their more irritating features seemed to have faded along with the hyper-masculine façade.
We couldn't exactly be friends, given current circumstances, but I must admit they had become something of a fixture.
World's sappiest spy perked up at the mention of tech, “Hm, that reminds me.
What make you of them earrings that boring bureaucrat of yours was wearing?”
It took me a moment to remember.
“What? Uh, they were okay, I guess?”
They looked a little frustrated at my apparent cluelessness.
“Those are cutting edge!
Serious kit, veeery fancy!
Who did you annoy?”
Uh-oh, I thought.
Out loud, I said, “What... kind of serious kit, exactly?”
Their eyes glittered in the way only an excited nerd's eyes can glitter.
“Latest passive tracking beacon technology!
Epsilon-band long-wave retro-reflector nano-array!
Great at extended long-range positioning, baseband boost to compensate for heavy signal distortion!”
The techno babble continued, but I let it wash over me while I thought the problem over.
Eventually I had to interrupt their gushing monologue, “Sorry James, I gotta speak to someone.”
“Yeah, me!” they shouted after me as I leapt off the throne.
I savoured the single fluid motion and then found my way to an intercom panel.
It took a minute to key in the infosec office number with one claw, but at least we'd chosen a call button design large enough that I could just slap that with a paw.
The speaker crunched into life, filling my ears with a sound like an angry cat practising judo on a fire extinguisher.
“Hi, Eileen?”
The yowling and banging paused for a moment, “Bit busy right now!”
“I guessed,” I said, “but we might have a problem.”
“Problem. Problem! Ahaha, you're telling me!”
There was some more banging and the sound of Eileen cackling.
I gave her a moment before prodding, “How so?”
“One minute it's all hunky dory, next minute this whole thing is on fire!”
There was another strangled cat noise.
“Oops, sorry.
I haven't had this much fun in weeks!”
She has a strange taste in fun, as is often the case with computer security people.
“What is, Eileen?”
“Fun, or on fire?
Well, I mean everything is both now, but I think it started with some of the fancier jamming kit.
Something completely hosed it, so I'd guess someone really wanted to get a signal out.
Or in!”
Something sizzled.
“Anyway, it was like nothing I've even seen before, it was so cool!”
Anything it thinks is cool spells trouble, and that was all the confirmation I needed.
I said what I always say when I'm not enjoying guessing right.
“Aw crap.”
Someone knew where we were.
---
As it was there wasn't really much we could do.
Just wait, and see if someone arrived to cause trouble.
A few days passed without anything happening, and I started to wonder if anything would.
New tech often means military, and this would hardly be the first time we'd been let off by government people being inconceivably useless.
The day of our first outdoor test of the robot - now dubbed Locomotive Hazard - arrived, so we went ahead with our plan.
Things started well.
We got the shipping containers into position just off North Street mini-roundabout without any unwanted attention, and the crew started unpacking the machine.
`10:02 AM, Thursday 2nd of February`
It's never good when there start being dates and times.
If it's any consolation, we didn't wreck any planes, so this isn't an air-accident report.
The road through North Junction was quiet.
That meant plenty of space for people to run screaming from the oncoming behemoth, with minimal chance of actually killing anyone we didn't mean to.
Or of anyone getting close enough to accidentally find a way to break our new toy before we'd even got going.
I'll never forget the day we lost an entire doomsday zeppelin to some kid with a toy gun.
A whole detention facility un-doomed, thanks to two foam darts and a dodgy engine cowelling.
As Hazard got ready to heavy metal, I was finding my way into a mostly unoccupied building nearby.
I like being on site for these, they make me excited like a cat with several problems but also an excavator full of dynamite, and I like being useful too.
I had a few tools strapped into my work jacket, plus a lightweight bi-pod with binoculars on top.
There was a toilet three floors up, so I scrabbled the lock closed, pulled the blind with my teeth, and setup my binoculars.
The eyepieces were just starting to make my whiskers really itch when there was a crash of shattering wood, and a confused honk from a car horn.
Between the slats of the blind, I could see Hazard haul itself up onto it's six legs and smash its way through the remains of the construction barriers.
On time, and on budget.
That's something only fiendish villainy can achieve in an engineering project.
Two cars screeched to a halt, did hasty multi-point turns over the roundabout, and roared away.
The few pedestrians gave various goggling stares and screams before vanishing down the street.
Perfect.
`11:48 AM`
By the time the first news crew arrived, things were really warming up.
A fuel tanker had come round the corner too fast, and hadn't been able to stop quickly enough.
The driver must have got an amazing front-row seat for a huge metal claw smashing into the tarmac right in front of them, before they bailed out of the cab and ran for it.
The Hazard team are a well oiled crew now, having no less than four super-weapon maiden carnages under their belt.
They know an opportunity when it parks in front of their giant robot.
Minutes later Hazard was doing tricks, juggling the whole truck in in its front legs.
I wondered idly who'd come up with that, but then Eileen's beaming face appeared in my mind's eye, grin sparkling with fangs and destructive glee, and I stopped wondering.
People like that are worth their weight in something extremely valuable, Technetium-99, say.
`11:54 AM`
I was on the move, I had a job to do here too.
The news crew were just getting their camera rigged up.
It looked like they'd probably get good viewing numbers, given that Locomotive Hazard had been doing its best to cause flying debris and lakes of liquid flame for the last five minutes.
`11:55:40 AM`
The times getting more accurate isn't good either.
I skidded round the corner of my building.
Someone in a brightly coloured dress was yelling into a camera, struggling to be heard over the crunching thunder of robo-playtime.
Four legs and a tail are great for fast corners, and I dodged and weaved my way behind the news van without anyone noticing.
From there I had a clear line to their antenna.
Hauling the jammer out of my jacket was frustrating, but once it was out the big rubber handle made setting it up easy enough.
Its little preview screen showed the video I was replacing the live news with.
`11:56:20 AM`
On my screen, a tiny goon told the watching audience that this was a dress rehearsal, and that the real thing would happen tomorrow at 3 PM at the Centenary Plaza office building.
Pretty much the whole thing had gone out by the time someone at the TV studio found an off switch.
Something about the sounds from behind the news van had changed though.
`11:58:33 AM`
I risked sticking my head round one of the tires, and saw the camera operator pointing excitedly.
Hazard was backing away from something in the road.
It took a minute to pack the jammer away, and then I rocketed back toward my bathroom window.
`12:01:03 PM`
Through the binoculars, I could see a black clad figure stood in front of Hazard, face covered by augmented vision gear.
That seemed a bit much, like someone wearing sunglasses indoors, at night.
The Vigilante was fiddling with something, so presumably he had a plan that didn't involve staying there and becoming Pancake Man.
A huge metal leg came whistling down and there was a mighty crunch.
I had a moment of fleeting hope, but then the little figure rolled out from behind Hazard's leg.
There was a bright flash, and the huge machine reared back.
That hadn't been the crack of a conventional weapon, so he must have something interesting.
It's tempting to say that I had a trick up my sleeve too, but the only clothes I wear are gear like the jacket which doesn't have sleeves.
I make jokes, but I'm no one's funny cartoon animal.
`12:01:58 PM`
Locomotive Hazard dodged the next round and started backing up the road.
The Vigilante followed, something at the end of one arm glowing a sickly blue.
He dumped the next two rounds of whatever exotic energy weapon into the side of the killer robot, putting up a gout of sparks and molten steel.
A parked trailer nearby held a small boat, which Hazard grabbed and started wielding like a huge fibreglass club.
Unfortunately, even with mechanical speed and precision, it turns out it's quite hard to hit a human-sized target with a boat.
There was another flicker of energy discharge, and the machine staggered backward again.
It looked rather like the Vigilante was winning.
`12:02:18 PM`
...bait and switch, that's exactly how it was meant to look!
Watching carefully, I just about saw the shimmer around Hazard as the ace in my metaphorical jacket kicked in.
Time to cheat a wee bit.
The next volley of the Vigilante's gun was met by a much larger light-show coming the other way.
He tried again, and again Hazard's damping field ate the bolts with a fierce hissing snap.
This could go horribly wrong, the shield system was wildly experimental, and who knew what kind of energy blaster that arsehole had dragged along with him.
`12:02:43 PM`
The big damn hero looked surprised for a moment, but recovered quickly and brought his arm up again.
He didn't get the chance.
A moment's delay was all it took for Hazard to line up and ram one of its legs half a metre through the spot the Vigilante had just stood, and into the road beneath.
`12:03:23 PM`
Locomotive Hazard extracted it's leg carefully, then pretended it was an industrial shredding machine until it had chewed up what was left of the road.
Most of this had been watched by the news crew's camera, so if nothing else it was making exciting TV.
The presenter was just starting to breathlessly announce the triumph of evil over good, when there a sudden surge of light.
I rejigged my binoculars frantically.
There, on top of the machine was a slightly dust-spattered figure in body armour.
How on Earth had he survived that?
Triumphantly, he lowered his glowing weapon toward where the robot's reactor core was hidden, and the light rose to a blinding glare.
Then there was a muted bang, a shower of icy blue lightning, and the little figure was sent cartwheeling off into the rubble below.
A hidden gun turret snapped back into Hazard's armour with an emphatic click.
The news reporter turned back to the camera, and continued where they'd left off.
`12:05:24 PM`
I trained my binoculars on the spread-eagled figure of the Vigilante.
Having a look at that weapon could give us an advantage in future, and I didn't want anyone nabbing it.
I was just in time to see him crawl away into an alley.
“How tough *is* this fucker?” I asked the dusty sink to me.
`12:10:14 PM`
We were beginning to wrap up.
Hazard had had a pretty good test run, we'd got our message out, and we'd pretty well beaten the biggest thorn in our side.
Hopefully he'd stay away from now on.
People were forewarned that we'd be hitting a big office building tomorrow, and I knew that combined with some behind-the-scenes work, everyone below upper-management would be staying well away.
I was packing my binoculars away when I heard something.
A distant whump, like a lot of air getting out of the way in a hurry.
Given that, by human standards, I have absurdly good hearing, it's pretty likely no one else noticed it.
There was just long enough to look out the window and then—
`12:10:16.10 PM`
—there was a high-pitch whistle somewhere over head and—
`12:10:16.22 PM`
—something blurred out of the sky and Hazard's retreating form vanished into a sudden cloud of smoke.
The shield squealed and buckled.
Its field imploded and let out a very cinematic expanding ring of blue and violet light.
Lights up and down the street suddenly went dark.
`12:10:16.53 PM`
The subsequent overload cascade was the last straw.
We'd designed the reactor for truly outrageous amounts of punishment, given what this robot was built for, but apparently not enough.
Hazard's battered power system finally decided enough was enough, and exploded.
The floor jumped and I found myself half way to upside-down, wedged behind a badly cracked toilet.
When I managed to haul myself up to the window again, I found a scene from a disaster film.
A lot of the next block had been levelled, and there was a colossal crater where Hazard had been standing.
It felt like it was extremely time to go.
---
Back home, I lay at my desk, and thought about what I'd seen.
We design these sorts of escapades to be spectacular, and if at all possible, extremely expensive for someone we don't like.
What we specifically try to avoid, though, is collateral damage to the people who live nearby.
It's all about reputation.
Hilariously implausible villainy gets people's attention.
Destruction aimed at the corporates and their lackeys gets people's respect.
Blowing up granny gets us thrown back to square one.
Thank goodness we'd had the foresight not to build our reactors on any conventional kind of fission principle.
I'd never imagined that it could end up in a situation where it would fail like that, and neither had the team who'd designed it.
And what had the situation been anyway?
Whump, whistle, kaboom?
But Mr Arsehole had been out of the picture.
There was no one around who could pull something like that off, or at least, no one with motivation.
Then it clicked.
He was a sore loser.
A sore looser, with connections to big corporations, who have a reputation for owning things they shouldn't.
Wow.
One of them must have some kind of hidden gauss cannon or something, and he'd called in a favour.
I wondered how accurate something like that would be.
Fairly, I supposed, past experience said maybe down to tens of metres or so.
He'd asked them to shoot at a built-up area with a heavy weapon, with no guarantee it wouldn't miss?
Weren't *we* supposed to be the bad guys?
---
We pulled together Locomotive Hazard's spare parts so we had something for our appointment the next day.
It wasn't great - they were meant to be spare parts, not a whole spare robot - but having said we'd be there, I wasn't going to be the Leopard Who Cried Wolf.
We were pretty sure it was a foregone conclusion, given how things had gone the day before.
With no other choice, we half-heartedly titled our jerry-rigged knockoff ‘Heavy Messing’ and got on with it.
There wasn't much reason for me to be there, so I just watched the whole thing on TV.
Without the high tech bits to build another shield, we were left with a big empty space.
Given that we weren't likely to be getting this one back, we decided to fill the space with presents.
A present; it turned out to be bigger then anticipated.
As predicted, the Vigilante showed up minutes after we did.
Heavy Messing had just finished a lap of the office's foyer, having already smashed its way through the empty reception.
Without the shield, the fight was short and tedious.
Whoever was in control of Messing got a couple of impressively nimble shots in with its legs, but apparently that black suit was covering some kind of exoskeleton.
Every time one of the colossal legs smashed into him, the Vigilante just went rigid and slid sideways a way.
After a couple of goes he started getting wise to the routine, and after that it was like they were trying to kick a fly.
He was always somewhere else by the time the big metal foot arrived.
Then he got his energy blaster thing out, and covered the floor with robot bits.
Minutes after it had started, the fight was done.
There was a resounding explosion as the present went off and removed most of the lower floors of the building.
It turned out that Mr Arsehole was also basically explosion proof, which was immensely disappointing.
He arrived for an interview with the news reporter some minutes later.
“This was an act carried out by a few dangerous terrorists who care for nothing but destruction,” he said.
“Nothing can be gained by their actions, which have caused billions in property damage.”
I love the way he clearly didn't care if anyone was hurt.
“We know their location.
They will be brought to justice.”
Justice... A court date, a jury of my peers?
Yeah, I doubted it.
At least I knew who'd tracked Gêna now.
And anyway, I had a hidden ace up my s— in my jacket.
I poked Eileen's number into an intercom panel.
“Hmm?” she said, as the line connected.
“Hi Eileen, I assume you've heard the news by now.
Can Project Mu hit a small slow-moving target if we know roughly where it'll be before hand?”
There were a few seconds of rapid typing.
“Mmmm,” she said a little uncertainly, “yeah? Yeah. Probably.”
I took a moment to force some gravitas into my voice, “Activate... Project Mu.”
“O-ho-ho!” said Eileen, and ended the call.
Project Mu was part of our space program, and also a side gig selling motivational posters to local architects.
What the architects didn't know, was that the flashy graphic art they were buying was actually just a carrier for a stream of subliminal messages.
‘Raise this elevation.’
‘Make that bit curvier.’
‘More glass! Endless walls of glass!’
That kind of thing.
My favourite was a cartoon of a wooden horse on holiday with a funny caption underneath.
The space part was a constellation of orbiting satellites.
Someone else's satellites, naturally, thanks to our local hacker.
With the architect's help, tens of glossy, curvy, fashionable offices would be sat beneath, their sweeping glass surfaces quietly reflecting the sunshine.
Up to the satellites.
On a whim, or a command from a masked source, they could bounce and focus the light back down anywhere within a hundred miles.
We were pretty sure it would be the world's first doomsday laser powered entirely by renewable solar energy.
Not that anyone would care when they being melted by a beam of fire that had just appeared out of the sky.
Basically, I wasn't the only one who'd *really* wanted an orbital death laser.
It was just that we thought someone might notice if we chucked one up there ourselves.
Back on the screen, the reporter was in the middle of handing back to the news desk when the Vigilante cut them off.
“One last thing,” he said, “a message to the terrorists.”
Wasn't ‘I know where you live’ enough?
“We know about the architects.
And we made sure they knew exactly who they were buying from.”
He unclipped his lapel mic, handed it to someone off camera, and walked away.
Well, there went my ace.
Uh... never mind, I guess?
---
The air in the little underground kitchen was tense, and there wasn't much of it left with so many of us crammed in there.
I pulled my front half up onto the table and waved everyone into silence.
“Ok, listen up people!
This is it, things are serious now.
The Vigilante will be here soon, and it looks like the corporates are bussing in some help.”
Looking around the room at the drawn faces didn't make me feel any better, but it seems to be what people do in films.
“We're tinkerers, hackers, weavers of mischief.
Against all the odds, we've pulled through obstacle after obstacle.
We will never be silenced while there is work to do!
We aren't soldiers, and we don't have weapons to fight.
But,” there was absolute silence around me, “sorry, no rousing speech, we're toast.”
Several people suddenly looked very disappointed.
A canid-looking person in the back said what I guess a lot of people were thinking, “But aren't we the evil horde or whatever? Can't we just doomsday weapon 'em or sommet?”
The room at large mumbled a general ‘what they said’, and I had to raise my voice to be heard.
“That was the general idea, yes, but Project Mu is compromised.
We've just lost our only viable combat robots.
I'm really sorry, we just don't have anything good left right now.
We have to evacuate while we still can.”
I had to swallow to clear my throat.
“I'll stay here and keep them busy.
It's probably me they'll really want, anyway.”
Alissa's voice cut through the noise, “no can do boss.”
Congleton shouldered his way out beside her and nodded grimly.
“The whole heroic sacrifice thing is a cop-out, and you know it.”
A few other voices added their own assent.
What do you even say to that?
“Uh, what do you have in mind?” was the best I could think of.
The conversation spent quite a while going in circles from there, but we did ultimately agree on a plan.
---
Most of us ended up allocated to covering groups as they evacuated.
Someone still had to cause some kind of hold up to buy time, and that wasn't a job I was ok leaving to anyone else.
After some arguing, it was agreed that I'd go with Alissa, Congleton, and whatever help the engineers could cook up at short notice.
We scrounged up what we could in the way of weapons and PPE - sorry, elbow pads and hard hats just aren't ‘armour’ - and set about barricading the underground entrance to the lair.
Part way through panting and sweating a steel blast shield into position, some of the engineering crew appeared, laden with kit.
We didn't have time to be back seat mad-scientists, so we went on with our hauling.
When they left we were not a little unnerved by the two huge monolithic cylinders they'd assembled some way beyond our barricade.
On investigation, I found that each had a metal shell, and was actually a main body sat atop a separate pedestal.
Alissa appeared next to me, but the thing still dwarfed even her imposing six feet two.
We walked round to the front of one of the mighty pillars, and found a gun barrel just below a single glaring red eye.
Alissa gave the thing a kick.
It made a dull thud, but didn't budge, or even so much as wobble.
I gave her a look, “You sure you want to do that? Those guns look... kinda hefty.”
“It's just a hunk of metal,” she said, shrugging, and walked away.
With a startling lack of sound, the whole pillar spun slowly, it's glowing eye following her malevolently.
“Sorry,” I whispered to it, and the next time I looked it was back to staring out into the empty tunnel.
We went back to huddling behind our barricade.
From outside, we could hear increasingly alarming noises.
I shuffled my equipment to a more comfortable position, and the magazine fell to the floor with a heavy thunk.
Alissa looked at me sideways, “You sure that thing is worth the time of day?”
“Mmph-mm-m-rgh!” I said through a mouthful of explosives, doing my best to shove the ammunition back in.
There was a loud explosion from outside, and the floor shook.
Alissa and Congleton looked around nervously as the corridor filled with dust.
A second later, there was a much louder explosion from somewhere nearby.
That was followed by the sound of falling metal, and a shaft of sunlight lanced through the wall and ceiling twenty metres ahead of us.
The crunch of boots echoed back and forth from the concrete walls.
A squad of five people in obviously very expensive armour clambered in through the hole.
There was a moment's silence, a sharp click from a trigger or a safety catch, and then utter chaos as the space filled with incoming fire.
Our gun turrets returned the barrage in kind, their bullets passing a colourful fan of laser fire coming the other way.
Energy pulses zinged off of the casings of both turrets, spraying nearby walls with burnt gouges.
A corporate soldier fell in the hail of flying metal.
Another of the lackeys who'd been lagging behind appeared, hefting a different type of weapon.
There was terrific flash as they fired - some sort of anti-vehicle device I guessed - and one of the turrets dissolved into glowing shrapnel.
I missed what happened next because I was ducking.
When I could see again another soldier was on the floor.
Our remaining foes focused their assault on the one turret still standing, as Alissa and Congleton brought their own weapons into position.
The roaring barrage continued in both directions for a moment, and then there was a sharp crack, and the second pillar stilled.
“It's down to us,” Congleton shouted over the ongoing din.
The corporates moved up slowly, blanketing our improvised barricade with laser fire.
Our hiding spot slowly filled with the clicks and plinks of hot metal.
I hauled my weapon up to a slot in the barricade by its rubber handle, but a plate to my right suddenly glowed with heat and my grip faltered.
The bi-pod fell sideways.
Alissa steadied her far more practical rail-rifle, targeting screen glowing faintly as she lined up.
Her finger flexed and there was a sound like a power station blowing a fuse.
The air tasted of metal.
Looking carefully through my slot I could see another techno-lackey who wouldn't be getting up again.
People generally don't when they have holes big enough to see through.
On my other side, the many barrels of Congleton's antique gatling gun were slung awkwardly over the top of our metal shield.
This made aiming without getting hit himself basically impossible, but he didn't seem particularly concerned.
The barrels spun into a blur, he pulled the trigger, and a stream of ordinance plinked and sang in all directions.
One of the corporates got unlucky, and momentarily caught Congleton's bullet hose across their chest.
They looked down, surprised, and the three of us watched as bullet after bullet thunked to a stop against the fancy armour, before tumbling uselessly to the floor.
The solder looked back to us and hefted their gun in Congleton's direction.
I went back to trying to right my own clumsy setup.
Alissa's screen was busy again, but it looked like she was having trouble getting a clean shot past fallen debris.
She shifted her weight to the side and strained to get the gun into a viable position, but an incoming beam sliced through a gap in her cover and threw her against the side wall.
If I went to help my bi-pod would fall over again, and there wasn't much help I could give anyway.
Congleton also saw what had happened, and with a grunt and an almost super-human heave he dragged his ancient weapon to chest height.
He dived heavily across the width of the barricade, loosing an almost solid curtain of lead as he went.
A flash of miniature lightning flickered around one of the corporates' waists, and something in their armour let out a sad little trail of smoke.
They looked surprised for a moment, and then Congleton's army of vengeful bees slammed them against a fallen slab of concrete, and proceeded to make what I will simply describe as ‘a mess’.
It seemed likely the failing gadgetry might have been some sort of power-pack.
There was a series of furious clicking noises from off to my side, and the firehose spluttered to a halt.
Congleton had finally run out of bullets.
He threw down the empty gun, and crouched next to Alissa who was looking dangerously pale.
She was huddled against the concrete, expression a silent snarl of pain, clutching her side.
I waved frantically to both of them, and shouted to Congleton to take Alissa and get help.
He nodded, and I saw him start to half drag, half carry her back through the door behind us.
Through my crack in the barricade, I could see one remaining corporate advancing slowly.
Just me and you, matey.
Crouched in safety looking through a crack wasn't an ideal position to aim a rocket launcher from.
Laser pulses were still crackling past the barricade at an alarming rate, so sticking anything over the parapet to get a better shot didn't seem like a good idea.
It'd be really useful if I had Alissa's indirect aiming screen right now, but of course I'd picked the biggest, least practical weapon I could.
I heaved the thing into line with the slot in the barricade, got one paw round the tube to sort-of aim, glanced behind me to check for space, and then jammed my other front leg against the trigger lever.
The magazine emptied, auto-load mechanism whining frantically, until all four micro-rockets had been fed into the weapon.
It might have been satisfying to see my opponents' startled reaction to the onslaught, or it might have been horrifying.
Either way, I was too busy hiding from the ensuing deluge of splintered concrete.
My ears rang all the more from the rapid series of blasts and everything shook violently.
I lay on the cool floor, feeling breaths come in and go out until I could think again.
Hopefully missing wouldn't have mattered too much.
Something thunked to the ground in front of me, spun for a few seconds, and toppled to the floor.
Eventually my dazed brain caught up, and assembled the shapes into the idea of a helmet, with hi-tech integrated goggles.
I pulled myself up the barricade to see what I'd done.
All that was left in the shattered remains of the lair's entrance was a single solitary boot.
It was smoking gently.
Was that it?
Was there just the Vigilante left now?
Unfortunately, blowing things up in underground tunnels is a bad idea, and the door back into the lair was now blocked by a chunk of concrete larger than I was.
I made for the hole the corporates had come in through instead, deciding someone ought to find their boss and file a complaint.
Shame my rocket launcher was empty, it would have been perfect.
On my way out, I had jump over the body of the unfortunate whose armour had given out and let Congleton's antique eat them.
They had apparently been scrabbling at the case of the power-pack - or whatever it was - in their last moments.
A cover was open, and something was clutched in their glove.
I nosed the fist open, carefully.
Inside was a mangled piece of paper, probably cheap office paper by the look of it.
On it was written, in ornate handwriting, ‘thought you might need a hand with these daft buggers, this was the best I could do.’
It was signed ‘J F’ in the same over-wrought handwriting.
So that's where they'd got to.
Maybe we really were friends after all.
---
Outside, everything was quiet.
And also mostly flat, which is not the best look for a chemical processing plant.
Options for hiding were fairly limited, so I made for the nearest piece of wall that was still at all wall-shaped.
Unfortunately, someone else had had the same idea.
Behind the wall, I found the Vigilante, and another five corporate super-soldiers.
“Uh, hi?” I hazarded, and frantically looked for something to dive under.
The Vigilante said nothing.
The corporates formed up behind him, weapons readied, as the Vigilante's arm cannon started to whine threateningly.
“Maria... Smith.
You stand accused of conspiracy to steal state secrets, breach of the peace, grand arson, littering, and theft of one of Her Majesty's swans.”
I was glad they remembered that one, very tasty, holiday in London.
He continued, “Under the dangerous animals act, you are hearby sentenced to summary execution.”
He raised his arm.
I was out of options.
Outnumbered.
Very very outgunned.
Trying to maul the smug bastard was tempting, but I was pretty sure I'd be shot to ribbons before I could cover the gap.
I stared out across the city's jagged skyline, and did my best to enjoy the late afternoon sunshine.
There was a glorious blue sky, which might have been nice in other circumstances.
In the distance, expensive office buildings glittered in the light, and behind them I could just make out the squat shape of the medical building and storage facility.
Something high in the sky twinkled.
I wondered if it had been worth it.
What if I'd just gone all in on the evil thing, blown stuff up with abandon, ignored who ended up being collateral damage?
What if I'd just settled for... whatever it is other people do?
Stayed as was, done my best to hide everything behind a mask of tedious normality, turned a blind eye to the things going wrong in the world.
Ah, fuck it.
No, I'd do it again, even if I had a choice.
“So dies the inhuman monster, and another obstacle to true progress,” the Vigilante intoned under his breath.
The electric whine rose in pitch.
I dug my claws into the dust and shut my eyes.
There was a flash so bright it dazzled, even with my eyes tight shut.
A wave of intense heat hit me and I smelled burning fur.
The sound was so loud I couldn't hear it.
Well, it *had* been a good run.
---
Was that it then?
I opened my eyes.
Death was turning out to be somewhat anti-climactic.
I'd been ready to cease to exist.
Or wind up in the middle of a vast black desert beneath a starry sky.
There *was* a huge bubbling pit of glowing liquid, a good deal of heat, and some bits of the floor that shone a deep red.
But it was all just parked in the wreck of a devastated industrial building, and smelled of hot concrete.
Budget cutbacks must have hit the seventh circle hard.
How disappointing.
Something clanged open behind me, and I jumped, half a meter vertically.
A head appeared through the metal hatch.
The demon from the depths flashed me a toothy grin and said, “did you enjoy the show, then?”
I dug around in my head for words.
“W— H— What?” I said.
“The show!
The big blammo!
Mew! The big mew!”
“Meow?” I ventured.
The demon's ears flattened in disappointment.
“You missed it?
How on Earth could you possibly miss it!”
Some part of me caught up with reality.
“Uh, Eileen, are we dead?
Why are you making cat noises at me?”
She tilted her head at me.
“Project Mu!
It worked!
It didn't even miss!”
I glanced back at the pool of molten concrete, and my brain fit the pieces back together.
“Wow.” I said, flatly, “You melted the Vigilante and his lackeys.”
After some thought I added, “Nice timing.”
Eventually I remembered something else, “You were supposed to evacuate.”
“Oh? Was I?” said Eileen distantly, “Didn't hear the alarm.”
I gave her my best incredulous look, “How?”
She shrugged. “Dunno.
Music was pretty loud?
Have you listened to Black Dre—”
I saw a tangent coming, and cut in, “Can I come inside? I'm shaking all over.”
She waved me down into the bunker.
---
Later, when the sun had set, we found some candles and set them out as a circle in the ruins of the lair.
The surface buildings were flattened, and there was a massive hole which cut right down through the core of the underground section.
Everything was open to the elements, and anyone who happened to want to could come and look, so it wasn't much use as a secret underground lair anymore.
Eileen and I had found Alissa and Congleton with what had been our on-site medical team.
Alissa was looking rough, but seemed quite healthy for someone who'd recently been shot.
A few people, Congleton included, liked the idea of a candle-lit vigil for the passing of the era, and agreed to join Eileen and I on the surface.
It wasn't much, but it felt fitting.
Say goodbye to things now passed, but also welcome a new future.
“To deny the end is to deny all beginnings,” someone once said.
No doubt the corporations would herald their terrific victory.
Terrorists vanquished, secret underground lair destroyed, threat neutralised.
What they'd leave out, deliberately or not, was that the important part had survived.
Nearly everyone had made it out, albeit with assorted cuts, bruises, and so on.
It wasn't the building, the tools, or the fancy technology that really mattered.
It was the people.
And they were still here, and still had a will to make the world a better place.
As the moon rose, I decided I needed to stretch my legs.
I danced myself dizzy through the ash, spinning around the circle until I fell over.
Nearby, the lights of Eileen's bunker glowed faintly, and I could hear her keyboard clattering distantly.
Probably she was already scripting a better future, mumbling some of the words aloud as she went.
I sauntered over and stuck my head down the hatch.
“So what did happen with Project Mu?
Everyone thought it was done for.”
I lowered myself into the bunker carefully while Eileen spun her chair round.
Her tail flicked distractedly.
“Oh that.
Actually, I just picked up a weird email about it.
It was sent to the address for the shell company we were using to sell posters and stuff, but addressed to you by name.
It didn't say much, just ‘thanks for the posters, we think they're pretty cool’ and an attachment that looks like part of the plan for an office building.
Part of it's circled in red, with a correction.
Then it's just signed with a whole list of names, like they'd gone round a few offices getting signatures from random people at their desks.”
Chewing my tail thoughtfully just filled my mouth with the taste of concrete, so it wasn't as reassuring as usual.
“Wewwuwd,” I said, indistinctly, spat my tail out, and tried again.
“Weird.
Thoughts?”
Eileen shrugged, “I guess they like what we do.”
[end of file]