I'm Not A Hero! Read online

  I pressed the tong into the cat’s ears.

  “Come on you fucker,” I growled, sticking my tongue out as I concentrated. It didn’t help that the cat had taken the yowling and clawing and turned it up to eleven as soon as the parasite inside realized what I was doing.

  I felt something squelch inside. The cat let out a shriek of pain as I clamped down on something that wasn’t a part of any normal cat’s anatomy. That yowl of pain was the creature controlling the cat and not the cat itself.

  Despite how annoyed I was with the fluffy little fucker clawing at me I was well aware that it couldn’t help what it was doing. I didn’t want to hurt it if I could avoid it.

  The thing was kind of cute when it wasn’t trying to claw my eyes out, after all.

  “There we are,” I said.

  “I do not understand why you have to use those primitive implements when we could use the teleporter,” CORVAC said.

  “He tasks me,” I said in a singsong Spanish voice that sounded nothing like someone raised on the Indian subcontinent. “He tasks me and I shall have him!”

  “I do not have any idea what you are saying mistress,” CORVAC said.

  “Come on,” I said. “Wrath of Khan? Right. There are no computers taking over the world in that one so of course you wouldn’t watch it.”

  CORVAC let out the digital equivalent of a sniff. “I assume you are talking about Star Trek. I do not care for that show considering the number of times Shatner has destroyed perfectly reasonable computers trying to take over the galaxy.”

  “Whatever,” I said. “The point is we have the fucker. And this way I know I’m getting the whole thing. A teleporter might leave a segment behind to grow back inside the poor kitty.”

  With a flourish I pulled out the fucker orchestrating this entire fiasco. A wriggling little worm that looked pathetic once it was exposed to the harsh sunlight.

  “Hard to believe you little fuckers are trying to take over my planet,” I muttered as I plopped it into a glass jar and screwed the lid on tight.

  There were holes punched in the top so the thing could breathe, of course. I might be a villain, but I wasn’t heartless.

  4

  Heroic

  The reaction from the kitty cat in my hands was immediate. It went from a hissing, spitting mess to purring in my arms and actually snuggling up against me.

  Well then. I can’t say that I was overly fond of the autonomous biological rodent removal units aside from their usefulness in removing rodents that went far beyond the efficiency of any robot I could create, but it was nice not having the thing trying its best to claw my eyes out.

  Not that I had any intention of letting the little ball of fluffy terror get close to my eyes.

  The change in the people all around us was immediate as well. The moment I pulled the thing out of the kitty’s ear everyone started looking around like they were wondering what the hell was going on.

  I dropped the glass jar and it dematerialized before it could hit the pavement. The last thing I wanted was this crowd getting a look at the worm. Even as the jar dematerialized the people surrounding me started raising their phones and taking pictures and videos because of course that’s what people did as soon as they saw something interesting.

  “Stupid idiots never bothering to experience the world,” I muttered. “Always trying to get pictures and videos because that’s so much better than the real thing.”

  “I am sorry mistress, but what are you on about?” CORVAC asked.

  “Nothing important,” I muttered. “Just frustrated with kids these days.”

  The little girl had also finally snapped out of whatever spell the worm had put on her. I felt a tug and looked down to see her staring up at me with eyes as wide as saucers.

  Well not really, but you get what I’m going for. The point is she was looking up at me and the cuteness factor was dialed up to eleven.

  “You saved my kitty!” she said.

  I smiled despite myself. Hey, I might’ve been a villain hellbent on taking over the world, and maybe my heart was a little blacker than usual these days because I’d suffered a forced intergalactic breakup at the hands of a nemesis who was now too dead to tell me how to reverse that break up, but my heart wasn’t completely made of stone.

  “The way he was going after me you should think about renaming him Mr. Claws,” I said.

  I scratched the cat behind the ears. It seemed to enjoy that. Then I handed the flea trap over to the little girl who hugged it tight.

  “Thank you Ms. Terror!” she squealed.

  Well now. There was something that sounded weird coming from the mouth of a little child. From the way the people around us chuckled they thought it was just as weird.

  I looked at the little girl. At the cute fluffy cat in her hands. Then out to all the cameras recording this moment. This very heroic moment.

  I squeezed my eyes shut.

  “Damn it,” I muttered.

  “What appears to be the problem mistress?” CORVAC asked.

  “Nothing,” I whispered. “We’ll discuss it when I get back to the lab.”

  I looked down at the girl and smiled. Hey, I might be frustrated at what this looked like, but I wasn’t going to take it out on her. She was just a kid.

  “You take good care of that kitty, you hear?” I asked. “And make sure to keep him away from any trees!”

  Everyone around chuckled again. Damn it. I was not trying to sound personable. I was trying to give the little rugrat a bit of good advice so the next time she opened the door to her damn house she didn’t accidentally let her flea trap out where it could be taken over by an alien intelligence.

  “Thank you again Ms. Terror!”

  “You’re welcome kid,” I said.

  I floated up and then darted off.

  “I fail to see what the problem is with returning that little girl’s cat,” CORVAC said once I was safely in the air and away from the crowd.

  “Oh yeah?” I asked. “Why don’t you pull up the Starlight City News Network and tell me what you see there.”

  Sure enough there was that pretty anchorwoman, anchorgirl is more like it, talking into the camera. The crawl at the bottom identified her as Nancy Norris.

  She seemed to always be there. I’d had her in one of my classes, and even though I hadn’t spoken with her since I had a feeling that some of the survival strategies I’d taught the journalists taking my course were the reason why she was still alive and moving rapidly up the ranks where so many other cub reporters had died unfortunate and untimely deaths.

  “And in lighter news,” she said. “We’re getting in video from social media that none other than Night Terror has been caught in action out there in the city, but this time around she isn’t robbing a bank or trying to take over the city.”

  The screen switched to a frustrating vertical phone video someone had obviously just taken because it was recapping my conversation with the little girl. The person who took it also apparently didn’t know they were supposed to be filming in horizontal because SCNN had to do that annoying thing where they put blurred bars that duplicated the sides of a vertical video so it would fill their horizontal HD broadcast.

  “So this is what journalism has come to?” I asked. “They’re playing videos they cribbed off of the Internet? That’s it?”

  “It would appear that CockMaster69 was the first person to upload a clear video,” CORVAC said. “Although even I know it is unfortunate they chose to broadcast that name over the air.”

  “They’re broadcasting it via terrestrial cable connections,” I said. “That’s how they can get away with posting stuff the government doesn’t care for when it goes out over the airwaves.”

  Which was becoming a distinction without a difference these days, but whatever. It was amusing to see the off color name up there being broadcast around the world.

  The video ended and it switched back to Nancy Norris.

  “And there you have it!
Night Terror isn’t quite as terrifying as we were all led to believe! Good on you!”

  She winked at the screen and I got the feeling she knew I was watching. I had to keep that in mind.

  A situation where a news program knew they had the ear of a powerful person could be dangerous. They could start doing things like telling me what I wanted to hear rather than what I needed to know. It was the seductive danger of cable news where, in the end, they were ultimately chasing a buck rather than trying to uphold anything approaching journalistic integrity.

  “I do not see what the problem is mistress,” CORVAC said.

  “Yeah, well maybe you don’t, but I have a problem with it,” I said. “The last thing I need is for this city to start thinking of me as a hero. I’m a villain, damn it. I don’t care what Fialux said.”

  Again that sent a pang of pain running through me. It was pain that didn’t seem to be getting any better, though of course it’d been awhile since she disappeared through that portal.

  “Of course you are, mistress,” CORVAC said. “A villain who is currently trying to thwart an alien plot to take over the world. Quite villainous indeed.”

  “Damn it CORVAC,” I growled. “I am not a hero!”

  “Of course you are not, mistress,” CORVAC said. “That is what I was just trying to tell you.”

  I let out a growl as I looked at the terrain passing by down below. I flew over the river, people down below were pointing up at me, and then I was in downtown Starlight City with all its massive skyscrapers and the glorious cover that provided me.

  I landed on top of one of the buildings and looked around. There were no obvious drones around here, so I figured it was safe enough. I ducked into the shadows by a stairway that gave access to the transmitter on top of this building.

  “All right,” I said. “Time for me to get the hell back to the lab and see what we can get out of that slimy disgusting little worm.”

  “I do not think name calling is necessary,” CORVAC said. “The creature truly is a magnificent piece of evolutionary design, and the way it can take control of terrestrial creatures is…”

  “Gonna stop you right there CORVAC,” I said. “I meant the thing was literally slimy when I pulled it out of the cat’s ear which I find disgusting. It’s also little and a worm.”

  “Ah,” CORVAC said. “I suppose I took you too figuratively in this case. Either way, I look forward to seeing you in the lab.”

  The world flashed white around me as I was scrambled into the constituent parts of my body and transmitted at close to the speed of light across the city to my lab.

  5

  Illegal Alien

  “Okay CORVAC,” I said. “Do we have our guest ready to go?”

  “Indeed we do, mistress,” he said. “And I do not think this one is particularly happy at being taken captive.”

  “They never are,” I said. “Do we have Fat Louie here too?”

  “He is, mistress,” CORVAC said.

  I looked over to the bed I’d provided for the fat old grey cat, but of course he wasn’t in the thing. Instead he’d sprawled out on one of my work benches which involved tossing a couple of very expensive tools to the side so his fat ass would be comfortable.

  Typical cat.

  “Hello there Louie,” I said.

  I reached to pick him up at the cat did nothing to help me or hinder me. Some cats got pissed off that you were daring to lay hands on them. Some became your best friend. Some managed to fall into a state that was at both times liquid and solid.

  Not Louie. No, he preferred to do his best impression of what I imagined some of the weights Arnold was lifting back at the height of his career must’ve felt like. Louie was the kind of dead weight that made me glad I had strength augments on my suit so I could pick his fat ass up.

  What I’m getting at is the only time I ever saw this cat doing anything that came close to exercise was when I opened up a can of tuna, and even then it was more of a lazy stroll into the breakfast nook than it was anything urgent.

  It was simply what passed for urgent with him compared to his natural lazy state.

  Louie opened one eye in a move that was always frightfully reminiscent of a childhood scarring scene from an old animated movie called The Secret of Nimh where a giant cat pulled the same move, with the big difference being I was in no mortal danger from this fatass.

  My lower back might be in danger, sure, but I wasn’t.

  “We’ve got some work for you Louie,” I said.

  The cat purred in response. I figured that was about as good as I could hope for so I sat him back down on my work bench. That seemed to be his favorite spot and I made a point of putting at least a few expensive items up there for him to knock off since he seemed to only go for the good stuff when he was making his bed.

  Hey, I figured considering the good work he was doing for me on the regular the least I owed him was a little pleasure in his lazy life.

  “Do we have the jar?” I asked.

  “As always, mistress,” CORVAC said.

  The jar with the wriggling alien that looked like something you’d find in a bait shop materialized in front of me. The thing was still wriggling around and it didn’t look happy.

  I snorted.

  “What is so amusing mistress?” CORVAC asked.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Please mistress,” he said. “You know that I will only learn the intricacies of human humor and when to laugh at your jokes if you explain them to me.”

  I ignored the implied dig that my jokes were something he needed to learn to laugh at. He did that on purpose.

  “I was looking at this alien parasite and thinking it wasn’t the last long tubular thing that was pissed off when it got removed from a pussy,” I said.

  There was a pause. A pause meant CORVAC was mulling something over deep in his circuits. I figured this time around that meant he was trying to decide whether or not he should laugh at my joke.

  “That was not very humorous, even by the standards of what you consider humor mistress,” he finally said.

  “Tough audience,” I growled. “But your point is taken.”

  I looked down at the worm. It seemed to have finally realized that it wasn’t alone in the room. At least it’d realized there was more than Fat Louie in the room.

  “Let’s get this over with,” I said.

  I opened the jar and grabbed a set of tweezers off of the work bench. That was the nice thing about these parasites. They weren’t all that mobile unless they were inside a cat, and even then they were inside a house cat which meant they were easy enough to defeat.

  The biggest issue was defeating them without looking like I was beating the shit out of a cute kitty. That tended to upset passerby even if one of these fuckers wasn’t using that mind control thing that I hadn’t noticed until this last fight.

  “There we go,” I murmured as I lowered it towards Fat Louie’s ears. “Nice warm place for you to go and enjoy yourself. Nothing to worry about in there. No secret plots that Night Terror has come up with to control you.”

  The thing reached Louie’s ear and it was off to the races. It slithered in and a moment later both of Louie’s eyes opened and looked around the room as though seeing it for the first time.

  Seeing it with the eyes of an intelligent creature that cared about more than when it got its next tuna snack and where it would take its next nap, that is.

  Possessed Louie got up for a moment, but then his legs collapsed. Not that the cat was actually collapsing or that he was ever in any danger. It was one of his signature belly flops, but with the worm trying to take control it turned into a collapse.

  “Wh…”

  The mouth worked a couple of times. Possessed Louie made a couple of hacking noises. Usually that was the sort of sound that made my spine tingle since it meant trying to get a stain out of the carpet, but this time around I merely smiled.

  The asshole alien invader was trying to get its
bearings inside Fat Louie’s nerve endings and figure out how to make his cat brain work to the alien’s liking.

  “Take your time,” I said. “I’ve got plenty of it.”

  I didn’t have plenty of time. Time was the last thing I had plenty of. It’s just that I couldn’t act like I was in a hurry.

  Start letting on that you’re in a hurry and suddenly your enemies start to try and make life more difficult for you by dragging out their interrogation since that’s the only thing they can do in protest.

  Finally the hacking and wheezing stopped. There was no hairball in evidence either. I figured that meant we were good to go.

  “Welcome back to the world,” I said. “Now it’s time for you to tell me a few things about what’s going on here.”

  Louie turned to me and while I can’t exactly say that the look he hit me with was filled with any more contempt than any other look I’d ever gotten from a cat, it certainly looked like he was trying his best to let me know what he thought of his current situation.

  “What have you done to me?” he asked.

  Of course it didn’t sound exactly like that. There was some more coughing and wheezing as the alien worm that’d taken over Fat Louie’s higher functions got used to the new body.

  “I introduced you to Louie,” I said. “Try to attack me. Go ahead. I’ll even give you a freebie.”

  I hit a button on my wrist computer and my suit was replaced with shorts and a T-shirt. There was nothing between me and the cat’s claws. Nothing to protect me if it went crazy.

  Possessed Louie’s eyes went wide. His body jerked a couple of times as the alien tried to make something happen. The more he tried the more frustrated he got. Finally the cat’s massive body fell back against the table sending a Sonic Spanner tumbling off the side.

  Damn it. Those things were expensive. I could hear the Interocitor Modulator snapping inside the thing as it hit the floor.

  “You done now?” I asked.