Villains Don't Save Heroes! Read online

  Whatever. As long as it worked I’d take it.

  “Y’know you might’ve defeated me a hell of a lot sooner if you’d used this sexy femme fatale routine to distract me instead of fighting me over and over again,” Fialux said.

  “Shut up,” I muttered, turning away so the guy wouldn’t see any odd mouth movements.

  4

  Going Down

  The guy tried to surreptitiously glance in my direction. I knew what he was up to. Typical man.

  Whatever. I leaned forward just a little to keep his attention.

  “I don’t like this guy,” Selena said.

  Of course she wouldn’t like the way he was looking at me. This new jealousy from her was interesting, to say the least, but it didn’t stop me from using what nature gave me to distract him.

  I figured it’d be better if he remembered my cleavage and not my face. Though I suppose it was an exercise in futility considering there were no doubt plenty of cameras around here recording me.

  Well, recording the false face the holoprojector was showing them, but you could never be too careful.

  “Seriously. He reminds me of some of the creeps who chased me away from a Smash tournament I tried to enter my freshman year,” she continued, obviously enjoying the fact that she could prattle on all she wanted and I couldn’t say a damn thing.

  I kept quiet. Again, I figured I couldn’t be too careful. Though if the rest of their security was as bad as this then it was entirely possible I was doing a bit of overkill. Maybe this was going to be more of a cakewalk than I'd anticipated.

  "I'm kind of surprised to see a girl like you on campus," the guy said.

  “Oh dear Lord. Could you be any more stereotypical than that? Is that seriously the best this guy can come up with?” Selena asked.

  I suppressed a smile at what Selena was whispering in my ear as well as the reflexive eye roll that threatened as he said that. She was right. That line was so old and cheesy I was surprised it wasn’t covered in mold.

  Okay then. Maybe this wasn’t exactly going to be a cakewalk. It’s just that the difficulties were going to be entirely different from what I’d anticipated.

  “Maybe that is one of the guys from that Smash tournament. Honestly. If a pretty girl shows up to your nerd thing and wants to have fun you do not impress her by telling her girls don’t play video games and chasing her off with your nastiness and BO,” Selena said, obviously working through some issues as she looked at the video feed of this dude.

  I gave him a once over. I'm sure the little nerdling was trying his best to flirt, but the problem with talking to any guy in the Applied Sciences field was their idea of flirting was usually so socially awkward and inept as to have no relation with actual flirting as it was done out in the real world and not within the safe confines of the lab environment in this building.

  "Is that really the best line you can open with?" I asked.

  “I think that is the best line he can come up with,” Selena said. “Look at how surprised he is you didn’t immediately drop your pants for him.”

  I could have kicked myself. I didn't want to antagonize this guy, after all. He was the one who was nice enough to get me around security, after all.

  I also didn’t want to give Selena more fuel. Either for her ranting or for her jealousy.

  It's not like I wanted to be nice to him out of any misguided sense of gratitude or anything like that. No, it was more that I wanted to make sure I had him around and he was in a good mood and feeling nice and horny towards yours truly in case I needed to get around any more security.

  "Well you don't have to be a jerk about it," he said, a hint of testiness coming to his voice.

  “You totally have to be a jerk with these guys,” Selena whispered. “I had a guy like him follow me around for a whole semester my sophomore year because he thought the professor assigning us together for one project meant we were going to get married and live happily ever after or something.”

  This time I did roll my eyes. I wasn’t sure if the eye roll was for the dude or for Selena.

  "I'm just saying that might not be the best line to lead with," I said. "I'm obviously a girl who's in the Applied Sciences building so I have an interest in this stuff, and your opening is an implied putdown saying I’m not capable of the thing I’m obviously very interested in?"

  "How the hell was that an implied putdown?" he asked.

  "You just told me you thought it was weird that I was here in this building," I said. "The implication being that it's weird to see a woman in here. If Dr. Lana heard you talking like that…"

  His eyes widened and for a brief moment he looked terrified. Petrified.

  “Oh yeah. There’s a guy who’s heard of that crazy lady,” Selena buzzed in my ear. “I’d recognize that terrified look anywhere.”

  I resisted the urge to tell her to shut up. I wasn’t going to lose control and do something stupid like give away that I had the most powerful heroine in the world listening in on this conversation.

  That had been an interesting reaction. I guess Dr. Lana still had that kind of terrifying hold on the people in her department.

  Then he seemed to realize that I'd only invoked her by name. It’s not like she was going to appear around the corner or out of the shadows or anything to jump on him and yell at him for besmirching women in STEM fields.

  Though I had a feeling she probably had even more of a reputation as a ball buster now than she did back when I was in the department. And honestly a bogeywoman who jumped out of the shadows to terrify men who put down women in STEM might be a positive development in the long run.

  I'm not even calling her a ball buster in the negative sense that most guys mean when they're talking about a ball busting woman. There were literally documented cases of that crazy woman kicking guys in the nuts when she thought they were being insulting towards women in the sciences.

  Which was a case of an admirable sentiment that I could get behind that was vented on the world in a totally inappropriate manner. And that was saying something coming from me since my favorite way of venting my frustrations on the world usually involved bits of high-technology super science that could be used to vaporize entire city blocks if used improperly.

  Or even when I was using them properly, for that matter.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to come down there and do something about this guy?” Selena asked. “I don’t like him talking to you like that. I could totally launch that elevator into the stratosphere or something and teach him a lesson.”

  “That sounded almost villainous,” I said, careful to turn away from my companion so as to avoid suspicion.

  “Yeah, well he’s just making me angry,” she said.

  I grinned. I couldn’t help it. Sure she’d been rubbing off on me and I did the occasional heroic deed these days. Under duress, thank you very much, but I still did them. Yet she was showing an angry semi-homicidal streak that could be dangerous in someone as powerful as she was.

  I guess I was rubbing off on her too. And I’m not just talking about what we did in the bubble bath after having a few drinks. Where “a few drinks” was defined as a couple glasses of wine for me and downing a few kegs for her since it took a hell of a lot of booze to get her to buzzed, let alone drunk, considering her impressive metabolism.

  “What are you smiling at?” the guy asked.

  “Not you,” I replied.

  He’d started to move in a little closer. Maybe he thought that smile was an invitation? Ugh. Guys in the Applied Sciences building were the worst. They thought a woman talking to them meant said woman was interested in having their babies, and they weren’t fans of modern conveniences like deodorant if the smell that seemed to hang in some of the research labs like a physical barrier was anything to go on.

  “Look. I was just trying to say it's rare to see a girl as hot as you around here," he said. "Usually they’re…"

  "I'm so sorry the women in this department don'
t meet the exacting standards you so obviously deserve buddy," I snapped back at him. "You know you're no prize yourself."

  “Preach it sister,” Selena said.

  Harsh, but true. He wasn't much of a catch. Obviously he was the kind of guy who spent more time in the lab and down at the campus buffet than he did working out.

  That was one of the many things I liked to think separated me from some of the less successful villains in this city. From some of the less successful students in the Applied Sciences department, for that matter. I’d read Arnold's books early on, and I fully agreed with the man that you needed to exercise the body as well as the mind.

  Hey, what can I say? If you were going into a career field where you could count on your work uniform involving more than a little skin tight futuristic material then it was a good idea to keep yourself in damn good shape.

  This guy looked like the only time he'd taken a page from Arnold was when he told the buffet line he'd be back.

  "You bitches are all the same," he said. "I act nice and you walk all over me. Is it really too much to ask that you be nice to a guy?"

  “Oh no he didn’t,” Selena said. I thought I could hear rustling. As though she was getting up and maybe getting ready to cause some trouble from the other end of the line.

  Damn it. Not good. I needed to stop her, but I needed to say something to this prick too.

  Both of my eyebrows shot up. "Seriously? You think I owe you a roll in the hay or something just because you were nice enough to open an elevator?"

  "Well you certainly owe me more than the bitchiness you’re showing," he snapped.

  I stopped and thought about that for a moment. Sure his ideas were reprehensible and he wasn't going to get very far with the opposite sex if he went around thinking he was owed something just because he was nice, which seemed to be a problem afflicting a lot of young men with too little game and too much access to toxic Internet communities where they could swap pointers with other equally oblivious assholes who had no game, but I could apologize for the first part at least.

  Maybe that would get him to calm down and distract Selena from coming out here and doing something we’d both regret by the end of the day.

  "You know what. You're right. I could have been a little nicer. I'm just on edge," I said.

  “What. The fuck,” Selena said.

  "Why are you on edge? You're just a freshman!"

  "If only you knew…"

  “Are you seriously going to let this guy push you around like this?” Selena asked.

  “Would you please be quiet and let me do this my way?” I asked, irritation boiling over.

  And I knew right away I’d made a mistake. I looked up. Into the eyes of a guy who was suddenly looking very suspicious. As though he was starting to suspect something was up.

  “Um. Who were you talking to just then?” he asked.

  Fuck.

  5

  Suspicion

  I thought fast. I was good at thinking fast. Being able to think fast in a pinch was one of the skills that had helped me rise to the very top of the hero/villain ecosystem in a city where it was very difficult to get to the top.

  “Um. I was just saying you need to be quiet so I can apologize. My way. Yeah. That’s totally it,” I said.

  I glanced around the elevator. The whole thing was humming and it felt like we were moving down, but at a very slow pace. A lot slower than I would have expected.

  It was moving a hell of a lot slower than the elevators had run back when I was a grad student here, though a lot had changed since then.

  "So what what's taking so long?" I asked, hoping to change the subject.

  The guy still glared at me, suspicion obvious on his face, but he walked over and hit a panel. Another control scheme that looked like something straight out of Star Trek The Next Generation popped up, but surprisingly the guy was able to navigate the menus easily enough.

  Maybe those things actually were fully functional. And I guess it made sense. Security through obfuscation wasn't exactly the best way to do security, but I wouldn't put it past Dr. Lana to put in a UI that only the geekiest of the geeky would understand.

  Which pretty much meant anybody who was interested in working in the Applied Sciences Department.

  "They always move this slow," he said. "At least since I started here two years ago. It's for the biometric screening. They put those in to keep people who aren’t supposed to be here from getting in.”

  He turned and hit me with a smile that was downright nasty. Oh yeah. He suspected something. He was looking at me like he couldn’t wait for me to get my comeuppance. And all for the sin of not wanting to hop on his fun stick because he had no game with the ladies to begin with.

  The jerk. My hand flexed where I could activate the pattern buffer hidden in my belt to bring out all my toys, but I didn’t want to vaporize him just yet. Not when he only suspected something was up.

  “What are you doing there?” I asked.

  “He’s trying to rat you out to Dr. Lana,” Selena said, echoing a thought that was running through my own head on repeat, incidentally. “I don’t normally say this, but you need to take care of this guy before he gets you in trouble.”

  She paused for a moment. I could hear the wheels turning in her head.

  “Or you could always let me come out there and take care of things,” she said. “I know she got the drop on me once, but it couldn’t happen again now that we know what to look for.”

  “No!” I said, again a little too loud.

  The guy turned and looked at me again. A sharp piercing look. A suspicious look. But he didn’t say anything. No, he pulled up a schematic that showed the basement levels of the Applied Sciences Department.

  Which was interesting, to be sure. Though what I found most interesting about the schematic was what it didn't show. There were numerous elevator shafts and hallways that disappeared into nothing.

  "And what do those halls and shafts that fade away to nothing mean?"

  He shrugged. "Here there be dragons. Nobody knows what goes on behind those doors and nobody tries to find out if they know what's good for them. Just like no one would ever dream of trying to sneak in here when they weren’t authorized.”

  Okay. Now I was more annoyed than pissed off. This guy might be an intel gatherer’s dream, a never ending font of information, but he was such a prick about it.

  “Oh yeah? So what’s the punishment for anyone who’s caught helping someone trying to break into the building?”

  I tried to make my eyes wide. Tried to act like I was still the innocent little freshman who had no idea how things actually worked in the big bad Applied Sciences Department.

  The message got through to him loud and clear, though. If it turns out I wasn’t who I said I was, if he’d just let me into a restricted area because he hoped it would get his dick wet at some hypothetical nonexistent point in the future, then he was an accessory.

  Something told me Dr. Lana wasn’t going to be all that understanding of someone acting as an accessory.

  “Look. Who the fuck are you?” he asked. “I knew this was too good. I knew you were too hot to be in here. Asking about what goes on in restricted areas…”

  That panicked look was back on his face. The same one that hit when he was talking about Dr. Lana. His eyes moved around as though he was searching for an escape. Then it moved to the panel behind him.

  “Fuck this,” he said. “I’m not going down because you tricked me.”

  “Oh yeah,” I said. “I totally tricked you into breaking department policy and letting me in here. It was me and my feminine wiles and it had nothing to do with you letting your dick do all your thinking.”

  Hey, it looked like things were going south fast. I figured if he was going to get pissy and turn me in then the least I could do is let him know exactly what I thought of him before the shit hit the fan.

  “That’s it,” Selena said. “I’ve seen enough of this crap
. I’m going out there and I’m going to save your sexy ass.”

  “Wait, don’t!” I said.

  I looked back to the guy. Clearly we were past the point where I had any sort of deniability. I didn’t think he’d believe me even if I came up with a hell of a yarn.

  “Fuck,” he breathed. “I am so fucked.”

  His hand descended on the panel one final time, and this time the control panel he was manipulated started pulsing red while all around us the lights dimmed and an annoying whining siren started rising and falling in the background.

  “Red alert?” I asked. “Seriously? That’s the emergency notification?”

  “You need to shut up and wait for them to come and take care of you. If you go quietly it might not be that bad for you,” the guy said.

  The red flashes sputtered on the screen, and I thought I saw something that should’ve been impossible. A flash of green on the monitor. Seen just out of the corner of my eye, but when I turned it was gone.

  Damn it. Why did I have to give in and let CORVAC use the whole moving cylon lighting motif with a green light instead of red? That damned computer was way too fond of “monochrome green” that was the dominant digital color in the ‘80s.

  I was in a state where every time I saw a moving green LED I was getting a touch of the PTSD wondering if it was my former computer coming back from the digital grave to exact revenge on me for sending that electromagnetic pulse down into his massive central processing unit.

  I figured it could’ve been worse. I could’ve gone down there with an axe. It might’ve taken longer, but it would’ve been supremely satisfying.

  Also? The moment after I saw that green flash all the red went away. It was like it never existed. The computer looked the same as it always had.

  “Natalie,” Selena said. “I don’t like this at all. I don’t think you…”

  Whatever she said was cut off in the hiss of static. Shit. Maybe the red alert had cut off, but if it was also cutting off my communications then it could mean serious trouble.