Текст книги "The Villain Virus"

Автор книги: Michael Buckley

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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 11 страниц)

Heathcliff’s head was kept in a large two-story holding cell that was encircled by a catwalk on the second floor that was used by the doctors and scientists for observation. It was a bustling room filled with busy people who checked Heathcliff’s heart rate, breathing, and sedative levels around the clock. Armed guards were on alert twenty-four hours a day.

But it was not enough. Not for Agent Brand. If Heathcliff woke up, a bunch of guards were not going to be able to stop him—not much of anything would stop him. So, Alexander often found himself wandering away from his desk to check in on Heathcliff and make sure that the end of the world was not accidentally in progress, as he was now.

He did not enjoy being a babysitter for a monster. When General Savage asked him to run NERDS, he thought he’d be commanding a team of superspies to defend the world. He had no idea that the biggest threat the world had ever seen, a mind that could reshape reality as it wished, would be sleeping in his basement.

Ms. Holiday came through a door at the far end of the catwalk and approached him. He knew she had been busy all day, sorting through books in the school’s neglected library. She was a secret agent, but she was also a librarian, and, just like Brand, she had to keep up her cover. Brand had received a few e-mails from her with the subject line “The Library That Time Forgot” and photo attachments of books like Will Man Ever Walk on the Moon? and Rotary Phones: The World of Modern Communication. He enjoyed her sense of humor, and how she approached things with a smile. Her good attitude was rubbing off on him. He was starting to relax around her and at work. She said she was smoothing out his rough edges.

“How is Paris?” he asked.

“Angry,” she replied. “Every last person. Savage is arranging to have all the damage repaired, and luckily there were no serious injuries. Did you read the report?”

“Yes. Flinch wasn’t ready,” Brand said.

“Probably because we don’t give him any responsibility,” she said. “To be honest, I think he did pretty well, considering he’s never been on point. I’d hate for anyone to read what happened on my first mission.”

“I think fighting three mafia enforcers on an alligator farm was pretty brave,” he said.

She frowned. “You read my file.”

“Are you OK? You look tired.”

“I had a little cold, but I’m getting over it,” she said. “How is Sleeping Beauty?”

Brand nodded. “The same—for now. What are we going to do when he wakes up? The sedatives won’t keep him down forever. Eventually, his body will adapt, and nothing we can do will keep him unconscious.”

For a long time Ms. Holiday didn’t reply. It was obvious she didn’t have an answer. “I worked with him for a while,” she said finally, “and he wasn’t always out of control.”

“I remember,” Brand said.

“I’m talking about before you arrived. Yes, he was cranky and arrogant, but he could be kind of sweet, too. He was very close with his parents,” Ms. Holiday said. “His mother described him as a very loving and sensitive boy.”

“He changed,” Brand said.

“True, but—”

“You see something else?”

“You’ll think I’m silly.”

“I never do,” he replied.

Ms. Holiday smiled. “Well, he snores.”

“Huh?”

“Heathcliff snores—a lot. It sounds like a hundred cows with sleep apnea. The staff has taken to wearing special headsets to protect their hearing.”

“So?” Brand wasn’t sure what she was saying.

“It means he hasn’t changed so much. It means despite it all, he’s still human. He still does something embarrassing. And if he snores just like everyone else, well, maybe there’s a soft spot in his heart just like in everyone else’s, too,” Ms. Holiday said.

It was a crazy theory, but Brand wanted it to be true.

“So … Captain Kapow is ready for questioning,” she said.

Brand nodded. “Good. I’d like to take my mind off of one maniac and put it on another. Lead the way.”

He followed Holiday through the doorway and down several halls until they came to the door marked Interrogation Room. Above the door was a flashing red lightbulb, which meant the room was occupied.

“Is he restrained?” Brand asked.

“Yes, finally. I’m not sure he’s ready to talk, though. He’s been rambling most of the day. I think he’s sick. He’s feverish and disoriented. I’ve had one of the scientists take a look at him, but she hasn’t given me a report yet.”

“Pufferfish can help. She’s allergic to sick people,” Brand said. “And she’s allergic to hundreds of different bacteria and viruses, so she might be able to narrow it down. See if you can get her here.”

“The kids are already home for the day,” Ms. Holiday said.

“The first day is over already?” Brand asked.

“Yes, but not without problems. It’s the principal.”

“One crisis at a time,” Brand said with a groan.

Ms. Holiday opened the door to the interrogation room. Captain Kapow sat inside. His wrists and feet were strapped to a chair, and the chair was bolted to the floor. As soon as Brand stepped close to him, he found out why. The man growled and tried to lunge at him. Luckily, the restraints kept the Captain under control.

“Has he said anything?” Brand asked.

A small round panel opened in the wall and Benjamin zipped into the room. The orb flittered about and finally hovered in front of the agent’s face. “Plenty, but not a lot that you would describe as rational. What he has said isn’t as interesting as who he is. The Captain’s real name is Sherman Stoop. He’s been working as part of our organization for three years.”

“He works for us?” Brand cried.

Ms. Holiday handed him a stack of papers. “Here’s his file.”

Brand flipped through Stoop’s records. He could hardly believe what he was reading.

“What happened to this man?” he asked, not expecting an answer. “Record this interview, Benjamin.”

“Of course, Agent Brand. Recording now.”

Brand: Hello, Mr. Stoop. My name is Agent Brand, and this is my associate, Agent Holiday.

Stoop: I knew that! Nothing gets past my incredible brain. My superior intellect already deduced that you would come. Naturally, you want to interrogate me.

Brand: I think most people who have committed a major crime could guess there would be someone wanting to ask them questions.

Stoop: If when you say the word “most,” you mean just me, then I accept your notion! Ask what you want, Agent, but know this—many of my answers may be difficult for you to comprehend. I am, after all, a genius. But I will do my best to keep my answers simple for you and your dullard of a partner.

Holiday: Well, he’s a real charmer.

Brand: Mr. Stoop, who put you up to this crime?

Stoop: Ha! How dare you! The bombing was entirely my idea!

Brand: Mr. Stoop, we’ve gone through your files. Your IQ is just above a house cat’s.

Holiday: You were voted “Most likely to fall down a flight of steps” by your class.

Brand: When you applied for this job, they asked you for a blood test and you asked for time to study. You don’t have the intellect to build the complicated devices you planted under Paris.

Stoop: My brain’s full potential has recently reached great heights. Give me an IQ test, but be prepared—my scores will be so high, your tiny little minds may slip into madness trying to understand.

Brand: I think we’ll pass. Whether or not that’s true about your IQ, one thing hasn’t increased dramatically and that’s your bank account. You don’t have the funds to fly to Paris or to buy and build the bombs. So, using my tiny little mind, I have deduced that you are working for someone, Sherman.

Stoop: Don’t call me that name! I’m Captain Kapow!

Holiday: He sounds like Heathcliff. He had a thing about his name, too.

Brand: You didn’t do this on your own, Captain. Who helped you?

Stoop: Fine, yes, I have a benefactor. But I have no idea who he is. All I know is he’s a genius—not on my level, but certainly bright. If it wasn’t for him, I’d still be wasting my potential guarding that giant head.

Holiday: Did he give you the idea to bomb Paris?

Stoop: Hardly! The Antagonist merely showed me that I was special and helped me fulfill my destiny.

Brand: The Antagonist? Who is the Antagonist?

Stoop: I don’t know. All I know is that he wears a mask. It’s black and has a skull painted on the front.

Holiday: That can’t be …

Brand: What kind of fool do you take us for, Mr. Stoop?

Stoop: I suppose I take you for the regular, everyday kind of fool, Agent, but what I have told you is true.

Agent Brand slams his fist on the table.

Brand: Benjamin, can you project an image of Simon for us? Benjamin displays a photograph of Heathcliff Hodges as his alias, Simon.

Brand: Does the mask look like this?

Stoop: Yes.

Brand: That’s impossible! The person who owns that mask is in this facility right now, and he’s been in our custody for almost three months.

Stoop: What’s that mean to me?

Brand: The owner of that mask is the giant head you were guarding! His name is Heathcliff Hodges!

Flinch lived with his grandmother, Mama Rosa. She was in her late seventies but as spry as a teenage girl. After school every day, he could always find her in the same place: parked in front of the television watching her “stories.” Her favorite was a Spanish soap opera called La Luna Blanca, which in English meant “The White Moon.” It was about a beautiful housecleaner who goes to work for a very wealthy Spanish family who owns a winery. Flinch had tried to watch it once, but his Spanish was not as good as it should have been. Still, you didn’t need to be fluent to know what was going on—especially with Mama Rosa around. Any time someone appeared on screen who the old woman didn’t like, she hissed, pointed, and cursed at them in Spanish. Flinch didn’t know what some of the words meant, and he was pretty sure that was a good thing. Mama Rosa was in the midst of a very intense shouting match with the TV when he got home that day.

“You do know they can’t hear you, Mama,” Flinch said.

Mama Rosa shook her head. “Someone has to talk some sense into these people, especially poor Mrs. Lucina. Her no-good husband is trying to steal her family’s fortune! Ay, Mrs. Lucina! Can’t you see he is bad for you?”

Flinch couldn’t have been more relieved. All the way home from school he worried that Ms. Dove had called his grandmother, but it looked as if the coast was clear. He turned to climb the stairs to his room when suddenly the television clicked off.

“So, I hear you are now a juvenile delinquent.”

Flinch turned back reluctantly. He hated disappointing his grandmother. He knew the hyperactivity was bad enough, so he tried to be a good kid in most other ways. “Before you get upset, I can explain.”

“Julio, today is your first day,” she said. “You have never been in trouble before! Is it those kids you are always hanging around with? Are they a bad influence on you? I don’t want you spending time with them if they are hoodlums.”

“Mama Rosa, my friends aren’t hoodlums. They’re the smartest kids in the school,” Flinch said. “You know Duncan as well as you know me.”

“Yes, the one that eats paste,” she said with a harrumph. “Well, they may not be hoodlums, but they are weird. If it’s not them, then why have you turned to a life of crime?”

“It was just a detention,” he said.

“It’s a detention now, but what about tomorrow? Tomorrow is jail?”

Flinch frowned. Mama Rosa had a flare for the dramatic. No matter how small the mistake, she was in constant fear that Julio was on his way to the slammer.

“A bunch of kids were picking on me—”

“Julio! Julio! Julio! You know better. The bullies pick on the younger kids to get attention. If you react, then they get what they want,” Mama Rosa said.

Julio shrugged. “I would have explained that to them if they hadn’t shoved me in a locker first.”

He felt another flash fever coming on. His anger threatened to boil over. How dare Ms. Dove call his grandmother and label him a bully? He had fought back to defend himself, and now he was the villain? Did everyone expect him to just sit and take it? Did they want him to get pushed around the rest of his life? Well, they could forget it! He was done being picked on!

“Oh, Julio, you look so tired, cariño. You’re flushed. Are you OK?”

“I’m not feeling well,” he said, as his racing heart calmed.

“Well, lie down and I’ll bring you something to eat,” she said, putting her hand on his forehead. “You’re boiling. Go rest now, but remember: You are a good boy, and if you are not a good boy, I will see it. Your grandmother has eyes in the back of her head and in her hands and her back and her feet. I see everything—EVERYTHING! No more trouble at school. Do you understand?”

Flinch nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

He shuffled into his room, closed the door, and fell into bed with his shoes still on his feet. He felt horrible; even closing his eyes hurt. His temperature went from hot sweats to teeth-chattering chills. He’d never felt the flu come on so fast or so intense, and in his feverish haze, he wondered if he had picked up some kind of skeleton germ in the catacomb cemetery that morning. Something had killed all those people! Would he be the next victim?

He forced himself to think of other things. Chocolate-covered Easter eggs, marshmallow Peeps, Kool-Aid, maple syrup. That calmed him, and soon he fell asleep.

Unfortunately, in his dreams his happy thoughts were replaced with more frightening visions. Everyone was laughing at him. Everyone was conspiring against him. Even his friends and teammates were working on ways to keep him from achieving his full potential. In one particularly nasty nightmare, his teammates chained him to a wall in a prison cell and stood over him. He begged them to let him out, but they wouldn’t. Instead, they turned their backs and walked away. Suddenly, he heard the striking of a match and a tiny orange flame danced in the dark. In its faint light he saw a boy wearing a mask with a skull painted on it.

“Heathcliff!”

“No,” the figure whispered, then took the mask off. Flinch cried out. He was looking at an exact copy of himself.

“We are great, and they know we should be in charge,” his twin said. Then he blew out his match. Only the skull on his mask still shone in the dark.

OK, LET’S GET BACK TO YOUR PHYSICAL FITNESS TEST. THE FIRST ROUND WAS PRETTY IMPRESSIVE—FOR A BABY! NOW THINGS ARE GOING TO GET A LITTLE TOUGHER.

LIE ON THE FLOOR FACEDOWN, PLACE A BOOK ON YOUR LOWER BACK, AND GIVE ME TWENTY PUSH-UPS.

HEY, NO WHINING! THE PUSH-UP IS SORT OF THE INTERNATIONAL EXERCISE FOR TOUGH GUYS. SOLDIERS WHO SCREW UP ARE CONSTANTLY BEING TOLD TO DROP AND GIVE THE SERGEANT TWENTY PUSH-UPS. IT’S TRUE. IT HAPPENS IN ALMOST ANY MOVIE ABOUT A SOLDIER—SO THERE!

BUT THERE ARE A FEW THINGS THAT WILL MAKE THIS EASIER.

FIRST, STRETCH YOUR PECTORAL MUSCLES, BICEPS, AND SHOULDERS. SECOND, SEPARATE YOUR HANDS SO THAT THEY ARE EQUALLY DISTANT FROM THE CENTER OF YOUR CHEST. (TOO CLOSE TOGETHER WILL WORK THE TRICEPS, THE SMALLER MUSCLES, WHICH WILL MAKE THE PUSH-UPS HARDER. TOO FAR AWAY AND YOU WILL STRAIN YOUR SHOULDERS.) LAST, THERE’S A WAY TO DO IT IF YOU ARE A BIG CRYBABY: PUT YOUR KNEES ON THE GROUND.

WHEN YOU’RE DONE, WIPE YOUR SWEATY FOREHEAD ON THE SENSOR BELOW.

The Antagonist had a secret lair called the Fortress of Antagonism. He had a jet called the Antagojet. He had a motorcycle called the Antagochopper. He had a boat called the Antagoboat. He had a bicycle he called a bicycle (there wasn’t anything particularly evil about it, except for the jangly bell, so he didn’t think it warranted its own name). He had an army of goons and minions, a handful of henchmen, and even an evil assistant named Miss Information, all of whom he called the Antagonauts. An outsider might have looked at him and said, “Wow, that madman has everything!”

But the Antagonist wasn’t happy. Not happy at all! What was causing him so much grief? It seemed that every time he turned around he had to kill yet another one of his employees.

Every day, one of the hundreds of people who worked for him decided that they were smarter than he was and should be running his evil empire. They tried to kidnap him. They tried to lock him up in dungeons. They tried to toss acid into his face. It was getting annoying.

At first he had blamed it on professional jealousy. But fending off fifteen murder attempts in a single week indicated more than just envy. Something was wrong. Unfortunately, the Antagonist could not quite put his hook on what it was.

The attackers seemed to be ordinary goons and henchmen, equally eager to push a hero into a volcano or go for coffee. But then all of a sudden they were wearing costumes, planning the destruction of the planet, and building doomsday devices. Just that morning, he had discovered Betty from accounting wearing a ridiculous costume and calling herself the Terrible Tornado. She wore a machine strapped to her back that could create cyclones. To prevent the lair from spinning into destruction, the Antagonist was forced to lure Betty into the bottomless pit on level four. (It wasn’t really a bottomless pit. The bottom was on level three, but no one had to know.) Betty had used her coffee breaks to build the machine, which was clearly against the rules in the employee handbook, and now the Antagonist was suspicious that the two personal days she had taken the week before were not for emergency cat delousing as she claimed.

But what was really frustrating about the entire situation was that Betty’s actions seemed to inspire the others to try to destroy him, too. That morning, he had stumbled upon three henchmen, wielding swords made of electricity, hiding in his private bathroom. Then, two more assassins dropped from the ceiling and another popped up from under his desk, all armed with poisonous blow-dart guns. He broke each of their necks and then picked up his phone.

“Maintenance, this is your lord and master,” he said. “I have some dead assassins in my office. Could you come up here and get rid of them? What? Yes, more dead assassins.”

He hung up the phone and returned to the executive bathroom, stepping over the bodies to get to the sink. He slipped off his skull mask and splashed cold water on his face. Then he looked at himself in the mirror. At first, he wasn’t sure he recognized the man staring back at him. He had a big, jutting jaw, a nose that had been on the receiving end of a few too many punches, and a brow that threatened to swallow his eyes. It wasn’t the face of a man with a superior intellect. Uncomfortable, he nearly put the mask back on, but then he stopped himself. His face might not look supersmart, but there was something else—it was fierce. It was a face good at frightening people into paying their debts.

And then he began to remember who he was. He was a goon—a professional manhandler. He was the star of his field, the most respected mauler in the industry. Not too long ago he was on the cover of Leg-breaker magazine as the year’s Sexiest Goon Alive. How could he have forgotten? How could his snow-white hair, acquired after being struck by a massive shock of electricity, slip his mind? Did he truly forget the milky-white left eye that sent trembles of fear into his victims? His mind was so full of anger and revenge that he was losing himself.

Why had he turned his back on all the knuckle breaking and intimidation to go into management? He had never wanted to be the boss—most of the criminal masterminds he had worked for were complete knuckleheads, too caught up in their own insanity to see the big picture. None of them truly had a chance to take over the world, but they provided the goon with steady work, which was all he had really wanted.

But then something changed. The day he got that terrible flu—that’s when everything went weird. That day, he felt smart. Really smart! And all he could see was weakness and ignorance in others. He was sure they were trying to keep him down—making him feel like a fool—laughing at him behind his back. And then the mask came to him in his dreams, the same mask the kid who kept trying to take over the world used to wear. The mask comforted him. If he wore the mask, gave into it, then he would have everything he ever wanted and the world would shudder for standing in his way. It was ghastly and horrible, but it was also threatening and manipulative. It was a sign of intellect used to frighten the simple.

There was a knock at the office door, so the Antagonist slipped his mask back on, left the bathroom, and crossed the office to open it. Before he turned the knob, he pressed his ear to the door and listened.

“Who is it?” he asked.

“It’s Miss Information.”

“Are you here to kill me?”

“Not today.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

“I’ll be honest. I fully intend to kill you and take control of the organization, but only when you are at the height of your power. At the moment, this evil empire of yours is heavy on evil, but coming up short in the empire department. Although it does have the necessary bones to grow into something that will control the world. On that day I will strike at you with the speed and viciousness of a king cobra, but until then I’ll bide my time.”

The Antagonist considered this proclamation. Everyone else who worked for him smiled to his face as they tried to slide a knife in his back. Miss Information was someone whose directness he could respect, even if he couldn’t tell whether her smile was wicked or sincere. He unlocked the door and found her on the other side—unarmed.

“Just so you know, one day I will push you into a pit filled with mutated spiders that will lay their eggs under your skin,” the Antagonist told her.

“And someday I will subject you to a horrible medical procedure that will make you my mindless cyborg,” she said. “You look tense. I mean … I bet you look tense under your mask. Sit down.”

He sat in his desk chair and she stood behind him, rubbing his shoulders and releasing the stress that had been building for days.

“You really need to take better care of yourself, boss,” she said. “Stress is not good for your heart. It raises your blood pressure, affects your sleep, and makes you prone to heart disease. I can’t have you die before I get a chance to kill you myself. If you want a book on how to calm down, I can recommend one.”

“Who are you?” he said, turning in his chair to face her.

The woman shook her head. “That would be telling, and besides, we have a bigger problem on our hands. It’s a henchman.”

The Antagonist gestured to all the bodies in his office. “It appears we have a situation with a lot of the henchmen.”

“Yes, they do seem eager to kill you, but this one is a bit different. His name is Dirk Trappings,” Miss Information said.

“Dirk Trappings? Which one is he?”

“We met him at the supermarket. He’s the one who locked his manager in the freezer and then forcefully conquered the cereal aisle.”

“Oh, yes. There were corn flakes everywhere. What has he done?”

“Well, he’s built a doomsday machine and he’s taken it to New York City,” she said.

The Antagonist was enraged. “IS EVERYONE IN THIS ORGANIZATION BUILDING A DOOMSDAY MACHINE?”

Miss Information shrugged.

“Are you building one, too?”

“Just a little one,” she replied sheepishly.

“What does Trappings’s machine do? I hope he’s not a repeat of that idiot Captain Kapow.”

“All we really know is that he’s now calling himself Mr. Miniature.”

The Antagonist sighed. “It’s official. I’m surrounded by crazy people.”