Hench for Hire Read online

  Ox was still not back from his recent death and that left Jules, Niles, Bouncy, and Uma settling in around the conference table.

  Niles had changed out of his armor. He was still looking not too happy about things.

  "So, this isn't exactly how any of us expected this day to go," I said.

  "I thought we'd be dealing with retaliation from STRONG. Not having one of them live here rent-free," Jules said.

  "I think I like this version of Mastermind's daughter even less than I liked the other one, and I didn't like the other one very much," Bouncy said.

  I wasn't sure that I saw that much of a difference. Terrible was terrible.

  "Perhaps she'll surprise us," I said.

  "I asked Partygurl to play nice. With enough drugs and booze shoved down her throat maybe Gloom will turn nice," Jules said with a weary sigh.

  "So what are we doing? Do we have a plan yet?" Niles asked.

  "We do," Jules said, and she pulled up a holographic display. You could always rely on Jules to make a slideshow in a hurry. It was almost a super-power in its own right.

  I told her, "This city is going to continue tearing itself apart. While not our primary goal, I want to get as rich off this chaos as possible."

  "I agree. That means weapons, ammunition. It actually fits in pretty well with one of our big goals. To finally take out, and take over, Patriot," Jules said.

  "We've not had a lot of success with that so far. What's going to be different now?" Niles asked.

  That was a fair question.

  "We didn't have an S-Class on our side before. Not truly. Mastermind might have wanted us to succeed, but he wasn't exactly stepping in to help out."

  "And do you really think our new guest, little miss dark and drugged up, is going to be doing much in that department?"

  Again, he had a point.

  "Our plans have multiple prongs and that's just one of them. Before we take on anyone, we have some robberies to pull off," Jules said.

  Bouncy said, "I don't mean to cause any trouble during my first meeting, but what are we going to steal that everybody out there isn't already stealing?"

  "Quite a lot. We have, through our resources, access to three major troves of powerful technology and artifacts. Possibly four. We're going to hit all of them," Jules said, flipping through to the next slide. A sleek-looking tower.

  "Disaster's home base. We've hit it before. We stole Nile's armor from it without Disaster ever knowing we were there. A lot of the tower is—or was—protected by Disaster herself. And she's been abducted along with everyone else. Any other defenses, Uma is particularly well suited to bypass," Jules said.

  "I mean, she did make me. I can talk to her stuff," Uma said, her little teddy-bear form sinking back in a chair. "But if she comes back and finds out, do you really want to piss her off that much?"

  "You can frame someone else for it. Steal anything and everything that might be of use for us in the places the other looters haven't gotten to yet, and give someone else the blame. Glenda can provide you transport," Jules said.

  Uma considered it and then pounded a stuffed fist on the table, "Yeah, just call me Badass Bear. No wait, don't."

  Our team had managed to avoid villain titles so far. I rather appreciated that about us.

  Jules flipped through to the next slide, Mastermind Tower. "I know, this one is already being picked clean by the people that work there. We still have a backdoor into the systems. There may be something left for the taking."

  It was worth a try.

  "No argument, but what's going to keep people from blowing you up, if you get too close?" Niles asked.

  Jules shrugged. "None of this is terribly safe."

  Another slide flicked, this time to another familiar sight. STRONG Tower.

  "Yes, we just robbed it, but the heroes are likely to be working overtime with all the chaos created and they won't be at home. We don't know if anyone even reported what went on with Gloom. She's possibly still recognized as a valued member of STRONG," Jules said.

  Automated security would recognize her, or at least they'd recognize her biometrics. There wasn't much to recognize about her powers at the moment.

  "The best robberies are ones where they let you in the front door. You said you had a fourth target?" I asked.

  Another slide, a building I didn't recognize.

  "No," Bouncy said firmly. "STRONG is one thing, but I'm not going against SMILE. They took me in, gave me a place. You all have done the same and I'm grateful, but I won't be acting against them."

  Perhaps I should lament the lost profits, but loyalty was something I really did place some value on. STRONG had never been Bouncy's team, for all that they might have been on her side. SMILE was different.

  "Then nobody is asking you to. Next," I said.

  Bouncy shot my drone a grateful look.

  Jules looked as if she wanted to say more, but after a moment moved on to the next slide.

  "We need to make contact with Voltara, if she's still out there. With Mastermind out of the picture she's almost certainly the most brilliant mind left on the planet."

  After our recent talk with Amy I wasn't sure that was true. While I didn't believe her claims about brains the size of planets, Amy had engineered and built a solution to countering an S-Class powerset in mere seconds.

  Deanna had said that, in a way, Emmatech were extra-dimensional invaders as well and I was starting to believe it. That wasn't just powerful in the true sense of the word. It was powerful enough that it almost broke the definition of the term "power".

  Voltara was of this world, and of this dimension, and rightly or wrongly I felt we'd be less over our heads in dealing with her. The needs of this world would come first to her. Also worth remembering was that demons loved to make deals—although there was always a catch.

  "Before, Voltara had no interest in talking with us. Now things have changed. We also have access to Mastermind's information. I think we can reach out and that Voltara might listen," Jules said.

  I didn't see anything to be lost from trying. Well, I saw quite a lot that could be lost, but we were already nearing a worst-case scenario. It changed the risk factors of all kinds of dubious behaviors.

  "So we get her on board. That's good. She's a scientist, and we have some readings from what that crystal did that make zero sense to me," Niles said.

  Jules said, "We do all of this, and we have a lot more resources to throw against Patriot. Maybe enough to finally take it over. If we can breach its defenses, remember it is an artificial intelligence. Uma should be able to take it over."

  That was what Uma was designed to do, and I couldn't try it myself. I'd relocated my processes to the quantum sphere, a computer brought by a time traveler to our era. The technology it was built with seemed to counter Uma's, and it wasn't too friendly to Emmatech software either. That suggested that I, in turn, couldn't play nice with Patriot's systems.

  "There's a lot more "if's" than I'm comfortable with, but I guess it's sort of a plan. I like stealing things at least. I can do things with ... things," Niles said.

  "We're particularly after anything that can grant powers. Even low-level powers. Half our henchmen have already left. They think this is their time to seize power. That seems to be happening to everyone. I'm hopeful we can keep the rest of ours on hand," Jules said. "I'm looking at incentives."

  I liked the idea, and I thought she was thinking too small.

  "Better equipment. Some sort of power advancement plan. If the existing organization is falling apart we'll replace it," I said. "We can attract others who have nowhere to go."

  Jules looked pained for a moment, massaging at her eyes. "I can only do so many plans at once. I'll get it drawn up. Anything else, boss?"

  "Focus on that first. To rob anything, we need people. I want notifications that we're hiring going out within a few hours. Include Gloom's name if you have to," I said. "Tell everyone she's Mastermind's long-lost daughter returned an
d she's on our side."

  15

  Jules had done a great job. Gloom now had her own social media page, a site on Villainet, and a PR team. We weren't even paying for the work yet. Just the fact that the city still had an S-Class villain was a comfort to some of the city's bureaucrats, who were quick to join up and pledge their services.

  We also had recruitment fliers for new henchmen as well as an advancement scheme. I didn't pretend to understand the intricacies of the whole thing, but basically after time in service, deaths, or kills, all weighted differently, henchmen could move up in the hierarchy into better weapons and armor. Even eventually getting some version of powers.

  If they did, they were obligated to a term of service with us, after which they could either go independent or maintain their position. From what I could tell, the muscle market had never seen anything quite like it. Largely henchmen were there to be cannon fodder or to sweep up the floors. Offering them a real, achievable route to becoming supers themselves was something new.

  In the first few hours we had more applicants than we knew what to do with and it at least fixed our immediate labor shortage. We hired as many as we could reasonably afford and put together our strike teams.

  Jules was going to lead the strike on the Mastermind headquarters. Despite the destruction of the control room, the rest of Mastermind Tower was still hovering above the city. Nothing had happened to take out the engines, and at least looters on the ground were being kept away. People already in the tower were another matter.

  None of the airships that Glenda could provide were ideal for a job like this, but we didn't need them. Mastermind Tower had teleports everywhere and we had access to their system. Jules' team's priority was going to be a loading dock hidden behind one of the hover thrusters.

  Most of those in the tower were Mastermind employees who would be going after the big items. The main data archives, the gathered artifacts, or whatever Mastermind had stashed away in his private quarters. The loading dock had nothing but the day-to-day supplies. Of course, those stores were often powered artifacts in their own right, even if low-level ones. There was value and utility in those supplies, if they were untouched.

  Thanks to Partygurl's endless provisions of alcohol, Gloom was proving a mean drunk, which wasn't surprising given "mean" seemed her only setting. Still, she thought that robbing STRONG Tower sounded fun, so she was all for sobering up and leading another team. We'd reclaimed the STRONG airship from where they'd abandoned it when she turned everything strong and she'd be taking it back along with Niles and a team of Henchmen.

  Gloom hadn't exactly been the most trusted member of STRONG. She didn't, for example, have access to dangerous artifacts storage. Still, she did have passes into the private quarters.

  Heroes were trusting of each other, and once inside, there wouldn't be a lot of locked doors. Artifacts and personal mementos from some of the strongest heroes on the planet were well worth having. Gloom was going to rob the place blind, if they didn't shoot her the first time they scanned her powers.

  That just left Disaster. Uma would be leading that team, of course. Nobody knew those systems or that tower better than Uma. Their target was Disaster's research wing. Disaster had wanted that dimensional crystal to increase her own power. Just knowing about the crystal was something nobody else had going for them. We wanted to know everything Disaster knew, and if nothing else lab equipment and research was all valuable. Disaster probably had some of the best defensive technology around for towers or any kind of structures. She'd have to, in order to keep from destroying her own home.

  As for me, while the others went robbing I was going to play diplomat. We knew where Voltara was supposed to be. Even though our transmissions were getting nothing back, I was going to take an aquatic drone and go visit.

  The next day saw me carrying myself. One hover drone carrying the aquatic model, which only had short distance flying capability, out to the shoreline before dropping it off.

  It was a long way down before my sensors started to pick up anything. When I did, it was far larger than I expected. To call Voltara's underwater base a submarine was an understatement. The thing was circular, entirely made out of a material I didn't recognize—and the size of a small city. Still, if I hadn't been close enough for my visual sensors, I wouldn't have detected anything. Whatever was moving it through the water was completely silent, and I wasn't picking up any heat or electrical signatures. It was a miracle of stealth technology designed for an ocean environment.

  Then again, Mastermind had found it somehow, and now here I was just off from its hull. We'd sent out those communications before to no avail. Now I tried again at short range.

  I used Mastermind's identification codes. I thought it made me somewhat less likely to be shot out of the water. There was silence in response to my hails for several minutes, and then I got a single blip in response, a simple data packet with docking instructions.

  My drone entered through an airlock, surfaced and the small hover engines kicked in.

  Guards in familiar armored suits silently played escort duties.

  The walls of this vessel were fractal. There was a real spartan sort of love of science here. I once again marveled why anyone would devote their life to enlightenment, when they could focus on something more important instead—like profit.

  The room I was finally led to was obviously some sort of personal office. The walls were filled with old nautical charts and diagrams of whales.

  Voltara didn't look like a scientist, she looked like a pirate. Gold jewelry and a white fluffy shirt and breeches, and a jagged scar across her face that had to be there by choice. When I arrived she was seated behind a desk.

  She looked up. "My forces encountered you once. You're one of Mastermind's, I'm told. He should know I like my privacy. Why are you here?"

  "Don't you know? You have to be doing some monitoring of the outside world, given your research," I said.

  Voltara narrowed her eyes. "You're a strange mix of things, aren't you? I can barely get a handle on your software. Part extra-dimensional alien and part local alien ... Delo'nar? All backed by some sort of quantum framework that doesn't really match either. You're a mutt, machine."

  I was, and I didn't like her saying it—or knowing about it. I was used to being the one doing the scanning. Voltara shouldn't even be able to look at my code, much less know so much about what made up my component parts.

  "And you aren't answering my question. You have to know what is going on out there, so why aren't you doing anything about it?" I asked.

  "Because the last thing I want is to be the only S-Class left standing. If I wanted prolonged battles with the heroes, I'd be living that life. I want to be left alone and I've put considerable resources into making sure that I am, even from extra-dimensional invaders."

  "Privacy that only lasts until people know you survived. I'm looking to rescue Mastermind and the others. That works for your privacy, not against it," I said.

  Voltara flashed an easy grin. "You're right. I don't want to be the last standing, but I kind of am by default, which is pretty impressive. That said, I'm not interested in going out there and drawing attention to myself. Tell me what you need and I'll see if I care."

  "We're working with Mastermind's daughter, who seems to have inherited his legacy. She's called Gloom now, and it's made her rather an out-of-control evil. Whatever you do, she should help to keep the attention away from you."

  Voltara laughed. "Idiot. Not now, I mean him back then. Mastermind cracked a seal on something he never should have and became its agent in the world. And yeah, it binds to the blood. If he's out of commission, even if not dead, it would have passed on. You should know that if you get Mastermind back, there's no guarantee it will return to him."

  I had to give Voltara this—she seemed to know a lot about everything.

  "We can only hope, or if hope isn't enough, devise a solution. It seems to have made Gloom a good bit more unstable
than her father," I said.

  "It is the intelligence. A lot of Mastermind's original powerset was focused on boosting his mind, and it is a very stable sort of intelligence. Even when an inherently unstable power source affected him, it only fueled whatever necessary to enable him to best deal with it," Voltara said.

  While this was all fascinating, I was getting distracted and needed to focus on why I was here. I couldn't be sure how long I'd hold her attention.

  "We need your research acumen. We have to understand who these invaders are, and how to fight them. And figure out where they took Mastermind. We also would appreciate your help in any final battle, of course."

  "Yes to the first, and a firm no on the second," Voltara said, settling back in her chair. "Like I said, if these things don't see me now, I'm not eager to bring myself to their attention. However, dimensional science is ... intriguing. Dangerous, but intriguing. I can often be convinced to do stupid things out of curiosity, and I'll provide some research assistance only while I remain curious."

  Voltara was proving to not be what I'd expected. Most villain scientists were, well, mad. Most powered scientists were, really. Despite what Voltara was saying, I'd seen nothing to indicate having intelligence offered any immunity against the madness that power usually brought with it. If anything, it just gave it new directions to go.

  "How are you staying hidden?" I asked.

  "I don't know. This facility is meant to mask against those heroes and even villains looking for me, but I don't have any sort of specialized dimensional shielding. Even so, it must still be enough," Voltara said, as she rose to her feet. "I know you'd like some of that stealth technology. It is also not on the table."

  This meeting was rapidly heading towards an end.

  "What is your story? You seem a lot more sane than I was expecting."

  "I'm not," Voltara said, with an easy smile. "I'm just very comfortable in my madness. I've isolated myself from everyone and everything for a reason. It helps that I'm old. My first ability, one that came well before any of the others, was immortality. I've lived over a thousand years at this point."