Martin regretted everything. He regretted nailing Alexa to the floor. He regretted not defending his pen from her grabby hands. He was struggling between regretting not listening to Alexa about the skinwalker in the bank vault and not heading straight to his dad when he had the chance. There were a lot of regrets to be had as spider after spider emerged from the mouth of the gym teacher.
Having been emptied of his spider-children, Mr. Canard made a noise akin to that of several rubber balloons rubbing against each other. The noise formed into words that didn’t quite sound like they were produced by a human mouth. It was as if some incomprehensibly alien being was trying to replicate separate letters from a very crappy vinyl recording using a hundred mouths to speak at once. Martin realised that the sound wasn’t coming from Mr. Canard alone. It was coming from the hijacked gym teacher and also emanating from the numerous hand-spiders on the floor.
“A L O v E L Y n E w h O s t C o M e S S t R a I g H t t O U s!” Mr. Canard and the spiders hissed out in unison.
“What?” Martin uttered.
"This is a robbery! Everybody on the floor, now!!!" Alexa screamed from beneath the blanket.
A deafening siren resounded within the bank, blast shields rolling down, blocking out all of the windows, doors, and teller booths. Bright lights flashed in the ceiling, blinding Martin. The spiders and Mr. Canard froze, confused by the sudden light and noise of shields slamming into the ground.
A voice spoke from the speakers as the siren quieted down. “This is the automated, Superstate banking security system. These shields have been designed with supers in mind. Any attempt to escape will be met with increasing force. Surrender now.”
The blinding lights dimmed and the wall and ceiling panels of the bank’s interior lit up with psychedelic, swirling patterns. Thumping tones poured from the speakers. Martin stared at the swirling colorful walls, feeling a sudden loss of will and emergence of inexplicable… deep serenity.
“Remain calm. Everything is fine. Put down your weapons. Do not resist.” The speakers spoke.
Martin lowered his nail gun. The friendly voice was right. There was no need to fight anyone. No need to resist. Just mere moments ago he was terrified out of his wits by Mr. Canard’s spider-filled innards, but now Martin felt nothing but inner peace. Some deep, buried part of his mind screamed at him that this overwhelming calmness was a lie, a trick of some sort, but the swirling colorful patterns and the repeating thumps drowned it out. Martin started to sway along with the beat of the music, watching the spiders and Mr. Canard join in. He felt a deep bond of serenity with the dancing skinwalkers, even their spidery appearance no longer terrified him.
He wasn’t sure how long he'd been entranced by the fractal beauty of the wall patterns, swaying back and forth. Time lost all meaning; only the dance of serenity mattered now.
“Nice to know that the hypno-pacifier works on skinwalkers.” Alexa muttered from underneath the blanket. Martin distantly wondered how she could still speak. Perhaps the thick blanket acted as a barrier against the sea of calmness projected by the hypnotising screens.
Alexa’s bracelet beeped. She started to whisper out countdown numbers, shuffling underneath the blanket.
Martin watched as many grenade bottles flew out from beneath the blanket cloak, leaving a trail of sparks. The bottles rolled beneath Mr. Canard’s feet, heading for the vault. Somehow in that instance, Martin broke out of the calm reverie with a single action. He calmly hugged Alexa with all of his being.
The bottles detonated with brilliant flashes, turning the vault into a self-contained furnace. The wall of fire devoured the alien bone-sphere and Mr. Canard, heading towards the two kids, vaporising everything in its path.
The world darkened.
“Well?” Alexa asked, turning on her headlamp and shining it right into Martin’s face as if she was interrogating him.
“You were right. He was in the vault.” Martin exhaled, feeling deprived of inner peace and trying to cover his eyes from the bright light.
“I’m almost always right, you know. Except when I’m not.” She smiled, standing up. The blanket-piercing nails easily emerged from the rotting, scorched floor. “Thanks for ruining my fashionable blanket-cape, by the way,” she glanced at Martin.
“I’m sorry,” Martin sighed. He was feeling bad for Mr. Canard. “How did you know about the automated security system?”
“Do you have amnesia or something? Because you keep forgetting that I’m a supervillain. Such info is important to know when you’re planning to rob banks,” she drawled. “While you learned useless bee facts at school, I’ve been studying the town’s defences and weaknesses. See, you have to blink at exactly the right frequency to defeat the hypno-pacifier. Also, having a thick blanket helps.”
“Wait. You got this blanket just so you could rob a bank?”
“Gota think twenty steps ahead of the curve if you want to survive, M.”
“Right. Uhmmm... Did we make this future happen?”
“Hmmm?”
“This bank building looks like it was burned down ages ago and the shields are down.” Martin pointed out. “We brought skinwalkers into the past. Mr. Canard was infected with them. They can puppeteer supers, like some sort of an infection.”
“I suppose we might have accelerated the process a little and helped obliterate this financial institution. Congratulations, you’ve helped contribute to the future!”
“I didn’t want to make it worse, darn it!”
“I don’t see how you can make the end of the world worse. Don’t look so concerned. Seriously, what’s another burned down building?” Alexa shrugged, prancing merrily into the ruins of the open vault. Martin watched as she started to smash various deposit boxes open, shoving well-preserved valuables into her bag. “Well don’t just stand there! Get your butt over here and help me loot the place. I’ll open the boxes, you go through them.”
Martin went over to the deposit boxes, helping Alexa rifle through them. The cash had all turned to dust, but gemstones and gold remained behind. Contrary to everything he believed in, he - a hero - was indeed robbing a bank. It was a surreal experience, to say the least.
A part of the bank floor had rotted away - there was a dark gaping hole visible in the floor. Alexa pointed at the hole. “If you hear my wrist beep, drop whatever you’re doing and follow me into this hole. It likely heads to the sewers. Wouldn't want to appear back here in the moment of the explosion.”
Martin nodded. "How did you know that Mr. Canard would come here?" He asked, shoving jewelry into her bag.
"The bank papers."
"Seems a little far-fetched."
"Alright, I knew it… because this sorta stuff happened to me before. Once a skinwalker gets into someone, they use the body's energy to make more and they prefer the nearest safe spots like this bank to grow their nests. Maybe they’re attracted to all the metal, who knows."
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“Um. How did he get into the vault?”
“He probably came into the bank, climbed up a wall, and stayed very still until the employees locked down the building. People rarely look up. You’d be surprised how inattentive office workers are. I’ve broken into plenty of buildings myself this way.”
She emptied the tools from her backpack, attaching them all to her belts to make room for valuables.
"You've seen the skinwalkers get into someone, before?" Martin asked.
"Yeah." Alexa sighed. "Poor Tommy.”
"Sorry to ask, but you brought… other kids here?"
"Do I look like an idiot? How would teenagers help me with anything out here?"
"I'm a…"
"You are my ever-so-clueless M." Alexa interrupted. "And you were being an annoying nemesis. I only brought you here as a moral lesson, damn it! I wanted to show you that the world isn't as black and white as you think! That some people don’t choose to do what you label as evil but are instead thrust into such roles due to events around them."
“There’s always a better choice! The Superstate exists thanks to hero collaboration. Combined powers, teams of heroes can do so much more!” Martin said. “If it wasn’t kids then…?”
“Since we might be here a while and this is the only place in town covered with super-designed blast shields I think that I got the time to tell you about my former minions. Do you want to know how I robbed Fort Knox?”
“Fort Knox?” Martin gaped at her.
“Yeah.”
“Okay,” Martin nodded and as the two of them continued to slowly empty out the safeboxes into her backpack, Alexa began her tale.
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I was nearly thirteen then. I’d managed to steal a lot of gold and gemstones from broken storefronts. I’d even thought that I was ready for minions, ready to take on the world of tomorrow with my own team. After much searching on the darknet, I found a reasonably priced, talented team of low-end supers - mercenaries willing to work for cash as villain minions. They weren’t the best and only had about 9 positive reviews on the online listing but it was a team I could afford to hire. I paid them in stolen jewelry, via a darknet villain broker firm - that’s how these things are done. - The more you know.
I even had the perfect plan - I was going to raid the ruins of Fort Knox so that I could return to the present with tons of gold and hire even more mercenary minions. Enough of them to bring down all of the skinwalkers in the future. I was young and foolish then and the villainous mercenary team saw right through me when they arrived in Saint Mary on their personal hovercraft.
“Little girl? Our leader is going to be a kid?” Thomas the tank said, looking at me like I was but an ant. He was a huge man, wearing about 20 machine guns on his back.
“My daddums is the one in charge, obviously. He’s funded this operation and is relaying commands via a microchip in my head, like a proper villain. He wouldn't want to go into the danger zone himself.” I lied. “The place where we are going has loads of lovely, giant monsters that will eat your face if you blink at them wrong. I might look young, but dad trusts me to manage this mission. Therefore I am in charge, so please pay me proper respects as my minions.”
“Tommy lay off the girl.” Miri, the healer responded. “She’s listed as the team leader therefore we must obey her. My apologies for Thomas, he can be quite brutish at times.”
“No biggie.” I said, smiling. “Now, Mr. Klondike - I understand you have the ability to freeze anything small in time, arresting all power within an object for a few days, as listed on your resume?”
“That is indeed the case.” Klondike answered. He was a frail-looking, ratty, skinny, balding man.
“Good. You’re the primary reason I’ve chosen this team. Once we are flashed to the parallel world, you must freeze my bracelet in time, so it can’t randomly transport us back until we secure the gold.”
Klondike nodded. I had obscured the fact that this was the future from the broker and this team, as it wasn’t smart to share that sorta info with people I didn’t trust yet.
“Undoubtedly you’ve already read my short brief of the mission - ” I began.
Everyone except for Thomas had nodded. He clearly found himself above reading briefs. Or maybe he couldn't read due to his superpower. Whatever.
“We are going to a parallel dimension, labelled as world 2424. Our mission is to liberate as much gold as possible from parallel Fort Knox. The only thing you have to fear there are giant monsters - there are no armies or heroes protecting the gold, as all humans appear to have perished in some unknown disaster.”
I looked at the short blonde man wearing glasses and the silver-haired old man with a very long gun.
“Zeke, I understand that your power allows you to hold about eleven tons of stuff in a pocket dimension, minus the hovercraft? We’ll have a need for your hovercraft there as a lot of the roads in world 2424 are impassable. Ike - there will be a lot of monsters trying to murder us. Keep them off us with that big gun, okay? If they get too close for comfort - Thomas, you deal with them. Everybody got it? Good. We’ll fly as close to fort Knox as possible before the bracelet activates.”
The minion team made various noises of confirmation and we all boarded the hovercraft, heading towards Kentucky. First five hours of our journey passed by quickly and when my bracelet beeped I told the mercenaries to vanish the hovercraft away and hang onto me. We flashed onto the dark ruins of a superhighway.
“Welcome to world 2424.” I said. “Try to avoid the wildlife. They bite. Get that hovercraft back out. We’re going to need it to move fast.”
The ruins of Louisville welcomed us with distant, empty windows of skyscraper ruins, tallest buildings tipped onto each other. I told Zeke to avoid the city as that’s where the monsters usually congregated, although they could roam anywhere. The skinwalkers were attracted by the light and noise of the hovercraft. They came for us in droves, screeching horrendously, but we were able to dodge them due to Ike’s marvelous sniping skills.
Thankfully, Louisville lacked gargantuan things that were also quick and soon enough we were at the gates of Fort Knox. I was going to order Thomas to detonate the doors into the facility with plastic explosives, but there was no need for such - the doors were conveniently left wide open. This should have been a warning - but I was greedy, the gold was within my reach and so I ordered everyone to disembark and descend into the facility.
Deep within the bowels of the fort, we found our mountain of gold, all 150 million ounces of it or two hundred trillion dollars if I could exchange it all for money without crashing the gold price. It was untouched, just sitting there, waiting for us as the automated defence systems were long dead and in ruin. Alas, I was limited only to 10 tons, but I could come back here again and again with my team, I figured.
Zeke touched my head and my body froze in time, unable to move, unable to know what was going on.
When I unfroze, everyone except for Thomas was gone. A long, black, oily, endlessly long centipede was slowly entering into his right eye as he wept. He was laying in a giant puddle of blood, all of his bones broken and twisted, open lacerations bleeding all over. He was still alive thanks to his power, albeit too broken to flee. He looked at me with his one functional eye.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He wept. “We wanted the gold. We didn't tell you that Zeke could store much more...”
He heaved a great sigh, shuddering from the horrid pain of his injuries.
“The monsters, they came from all around as we were busy obsessing over the gold. There were too many for us to handle. They shredded... took my friends. This thing, burrowing inside me now. I can hear its thoughts. It wants to use my power to grow more of its kind, here in the safety of this bunker. Please kill me. Please, little girl. I don’t want to turn into one of them!”
Thomas desperately looked at a c4 bomb with his remaining eye. I grabbed it off the floor, setting the timer to detonate in five minutes. I did not have the time to take any of the gold. Now that I was no longer a statue frozen in time, the skinwalkers of all shapes and sizes came for me - hundreds of them. They poured from the white meshwork bone spheres located between the piles of gold like ants from a hive. My jump shoes saved me long enough to make it out of the doorway of the fort and into the hovercraft. Thousands of them poured from the maw of the fort, a black wave of monstrosities all out to get me. I drove the hovercraft out of the broken, long rusted perimeter fence and then a colossal limb came from the sky, smashing me and the machine in a single swat. I flashed into the present and went to a security guard, telling them that I got lost while looking for a bathroom.
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“Damn” Martin looked at Alexa.
“Yeah.” She said with a small sniff. “Never trust hired minions. Daddums is right. Never trust anyone.”
“You can trust me,” Martin offered a hand.
“You literally nailed me to the floor, like an hour ago.”
“I just wanted to help you,” he muttered, rubbing his head. “It won’t happen again.”
“Well, at least you have that going for you. You betrayed me because you’re nice, a hero at heart.” She tried to lift the bag with a groan. “I think that’s about as much gold that I can lift safely. This backpack better not rip.”
She dragged and shoved the backpack into the dark hole, hearing it roll and clang against broken concrete until it reached a wall. The bank-robbing villain winked at Martin, jumping down into the hole. Martin descended after her, sliding down a pile of rubble that she lit with her headlamp. Inside the sewer, Alexa tried to lift the bag and failed.
“Let me carry it.” Martin offered.
“Yeah, I don’t think so.”
“Come on,” Martin whined. “Let me make it up to you.”
“Fine,” Alexa picked up the backpack with a groan and shoved it at him. “Here you go. Drop it if you hear monsters coming and run. Minion life is more precious than a bunch of gold.”
Martin nodded, putting the backpack on. Gold was a lot heavier than he thought, adding to the heavy feeling of betraying both Alexa and his conscience as a hero. Even if the owners of this stuff were long dead, he felt greatly ashamed taking their things.