CHAPTER ONE

Protection Council debrief #018: Recorded 18/12/2167.

So, you want to know where it all started? For me to fill in the missing pieces for you? Screw you!

…..

Fine, I’ll tell you all what I can remember but, well, you know who I am, yeah?

I’m no performing monkey and the second I get bored, I’m outta here. You all know you couldn’t stop me. To be honest, I’m only considering doing this for me. After everything that’s happened, sometimes I’m unsure who, or even what, I even am any more.

Yeah, well. I hope I’m not the only one you’ve got getting this shit down. I guess it would be nice to see how it all unfolded from someone else’s point of view too.

Especially the bits that I missed. I will get to hear theirs too, yeah? Sorry, I should have been clearer, I will be listening to theirs too.

Fine. I suppose it really started when I met…well, I guess you’ll find out soon enough, won’t you?

Start recording, buddy. Oh, you already are? I’d best get started then.

***

I peered around the corner. Good, the night security guard had finally completed his rounds and gone back indoors. No doubt to enjoy the simple pleasures of a flask of coffee and a cookie. I was counting on the fact that security generally got paid peanuts to do a good job. I was pleased to see that my faith in human nature was, once again, handsomely rewarded as it had clearly just been a cursory inspection. I didn’t blame him. I would have done the same in his shoes. Who in their right minds would pay just one person minimum wage to guard devices that were worth billions? To be perfectly frank, if they had employed me to guard them, I would have robbed the place blind the first chance I got. Of course, I have a morality that’s very comfortable in the grey areas.

Besides, that was exactly why I was here.

I gathered my shadow cloak tightly around my body, the ethereal stuff easily hiding my 6-foot-tall, slim frame and pulled the cowl down further. I was confident that only my eyes were visible in the diffuse light of the street lamps. As fortune favours the brave, so proper planning avoids being arrested or worse, so I took a moment to quickly scan the area before stepping out of the shadows. I gazed up at the mammoth building as it towered above the other buildings in the heart of the city, taking in its breath-taking architecture. Wow. I don’t know who designed it, but I suspected they were over compensating for something.

Right. Time to get this show on the road.

I purposefully started towards the rear entrance, pushing with my mind and unconsciously flexing the fingers on my right hand as I got closer. The hand gesture was unnecessary of course but some habits are hard to break. There was an unexpectedly loud screech of metal that made me wince slightly. The locked and shuttered doors protested briefly at being forced open before begrudgingly rolling up and exposing the deeper blackness where a barely visible, lithe figure, was stood waiting.

Huh? I hadn’t arranged to meet anyone and security was still inside the main office so just who the hell was this and what were they doing here?

“Hi! ...” There was a second of startled silence before the voice continued. “… Oh, my god! You’re Prof …” The voice coming from the figure was female and sounded full of enthusiasm and peppiness.

I hated peppiness. People should never be that happy. It’s unnatural.

I stopped her immediately.

“Shhh, keep it down, please. I don’t know what you want, but, take it from me; you don’t want to be here.” I offered her a chance to leave quietly as I didn’t want the security scrambling reinforcements. They would just get in the way and irritate me. I tend to do more damage out of irritation than rage to be perfectly honest.

She stepped forward out of the darkness, waving her hands in a peculiar gesture. Her eyes appeared to shine as she looked at me.

That wasn’t a metaphor. Weird.

“Sorry. I didn’t know it would be you. It just took me by surprise, but the thing is, I know what you’re here for and I’m afraid I can’t allow it.”

“You can’t allow it? You know who I am, yeah? Do you know what I could do to you?” Wow, threatening young women now, way to go dude. Sometimes, I felt like a real heel.

“Oh, yes! I still can’t allow it.” There was an eager smile in her voice as she spoke, but the last thing I needed was a throw-down with someone when I was about to rob somewhere. I sighed in resignation to myself and decided to get it over with quickly.

I pulled out a lux grenade from an inner pocket, primed it and tossed it over to her. She caught it reflexively and stared at it curiously for a moment. It silently pulsed with an intense light that briefly illuminated the whole area. She dropped it in surprise, but it was already too late. The light was designed to temporarily blind opponents. My eyes, of course, were firmly closed when it went off, even so, I still had slight afterimages playing on my retinas when I reopened them. I had to blink rapidly to disperse them. I strode over to her, confident in the knowledge that she would now be at my mercy. I raised my hand to grasp her shoulder. I was forced to rapidly move back to avoid the sudden kick that came flying towards my chest. She wasn’t blinded. What the fu …?

Oh. She must be Enhanced.

Shit.

I managed to dodge the first flurry of punches and, purely by chance, managed to duck her fists as they powered towards my head. I could clearly hear the high-pitched whistle as they cut through the air at an almost supersonic speed.

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Damn, she nearly had me then. I feinted with a right cross and quickly followed up with an uppercut with my left that caught her square on the jaw.

Ouch!

It felt like hitting a brick wall and I’m pretty sure my hand was broken. Waves of pain rippled up my arm from the rapidly swelling limb. Great, just what I needed. Alright, that pissed me off.

Why do these new heroes always try to bring me down? Just because I happen to be what most would consider being a well-known bad guy? They seem to think that it would be some kind of shortcut to success and get their names known quicker. Of course, what usually happens is that I kick their asses and send them home crying for their mommy…if I’m feeling generous.

Now, I’m not.

I fell back a few steps, looked at her in sneering contempt and snapped my fingers. Can you imagine my surprise when she completely failed to instantly set on fire, run around in agony and die horribly?

I was so shocked when nothing happened to her that I froze in place for a moment. I was utterly unable to defend myself if she chose that moment to attack me again.

Luckily, she smiled sweetly at me instead. “Not having performance issues, are you? Apparently, there’s help available for that now.”

OK. That was just rude and vaguely annoyed me. I raised my right eyebrow slightly in irritation. I had spent quite some time modelling it on that elfin actor in the old TV show with the spaceship and the aliens and always took the opportunity to use it if I could.

“… I’m sure your partners would know!” Alright, not the wittiest comeback but I’d never had my powers fail before and I was still feeling a bit shocked.

She laughed at me mockingly, eyes sparkling with mirth at my discomfort and walked slowly towards me where I was gently cradling my hand after unsuccessfully trying to, er, remove her from the situation.

“Come in quietly and I’ll try to make sure you don’t get any more of an arse kicking than you already deserve.”

I snorted in derision at the offer. I was one of the most ruthless bastards on the planet. I wasn’t going anywhere quietly, especially not with some wannabe superhero. No matter how beautiful her blue, almond shaped eyes were. Not to mention how long and thick her lustrous dark hair was as it cascaded across her graceful, rounded shoulders, plunging down her back towards her perfectly formed…I shook my head suddenly, annoyed with myself at that train of thought. I absently noted that she seemed vaguely familiar but couldn’t quite place her. I’m sure I would have remembered someone that looked like she did.

Taking a deep breath, I put the pain from my injured hand to the back of my mind. I straightened, raised my good hand, struck a dramatic pose and pointed my index finger at her like the barrel of a gun.

“You will suffer for this … erm …” I faltered for a moment as I realised I didn’t have a clue who she was. “What was your name again?”

She stopped advancing towards me and hesitated before blushing. “Ah, yes. My name is … well, to be honest, I haven’t really decided yet, but I was thinking of Athena.”

I couldn’t help but gaze in grudging admiration at her beauty for a moment. “Nah, you should totally go with Aphrodite if you’re keen on the Greek Gods.” I leered at her for a moment, then realised I must look like a douchebag, so I stopped.

“Really?” She leaned in towards me earnestly, “I didn’t think anyone would take me seriously with that name, to be honest.”

“Gah. No. It’s. Um. S’fine.” I muttered as I desperately tried to keep my eyes on her face. Her costume was very distracting. Despite the pain from my hand, I was having some difficulty concentrating.

I got hold of myself with a superhuman effort of will. I cleared my throat, “It’s not like my name hasn’t attracted its share of jokes.”

She nodded in silent understanding before asking, “Well, I didn’t like to pry, but, since we’re talking, why did you choose that name?”

I squirmed a little in embarrassment. “To be honest, it was a mistake; I was fighting MegaJustice on the moon and he called it me by accident. The news crews were filming and it just kind of stuck.” I could feel my face going red and fervently hoped she couldn’t see it beneath the cowl.

“Surely you could’ve changed it though? I mean, I’m not being funny or anything but ‘Professor Supervillain’ is a bit on the nose, isn’t it?”

I was immediately outraged. That name may not have been what I would have chosen, but it was now feared and respected throughout the galaxy, if not the universe. Mom’s used it to make their children go to bed. Fathers used it to make their children eat their greens. In fact, thinking about it, parents used my name to get their kids to do quite a lot of things they didn’t want to. Yeah, not really the legacy I wanted to leave if I was being totally honest.

I couldn’t help but feel like the fight and the conversation had gotten away from me a little. “Moving on, what do you want to be called then? Athena, is it?”

She straightened in pride, “Yes. No! Actually, now you’ve said that I think I prefer Artemis … yes, definitely! Artemis, The Huntress, that’s me.”

I felt myself cringe as I could virtually hear the capitals. She was taking it all so seriously. I distantly wondered if she was aware that Artemis was also the goddess of virgins. Oh, well. If that was the way she wanted it, then I could play along. I supposed I didn’t really want to hurt her, she seemed nice enough. I did need to put her down quickly though so I could get on with liberating the tech I had come for.

“Artemis, The, um, Huntress? You sure about that, are you?”

She nodded confidently at me.

“You are? OK. No, um, no problem, just making sure. Um, you do know that she’s also … no, no, never mind, you’re sure.”

I pulled myself up as tall as possible. I was aware that I looked forbidding in my shadow outfit and dramatically announced, “Artemis! Leave, now! If you don’t, I’ll be forced to make you.” I tried to put as much force into the proclamation as I could but it still felt a little weak. I was definitely off my game today, and it didn’t help that my hand was really hurting.

She just smiled.

Right, that was it. After all the help with the name and everything, I was not going to stand here being disrespected by some … some … young, attractive, sexy woman in a, well, quite frankly, indecent costume. Why I could see practically everything! The black leather I could understand. Good protective material after all, but why the stockings? Why the corset? Her breasts were straining at the material so much that it seemed they were practically trying to escape for God’s sake! She chose Artemis as her superhero name? Now, that was irony if ever I saw it.

Nah, that was a sexist generalisation based merely on her clothing. I might be an evil, ruthless supervillain but I wasn’t a caveman. I was enlightened enough to realise that just because someone dressed in a way that some may consider being a little bit, um, slutty, didn’t really mean they were. It was probably just a fashion choice or perhaps she simply enjoyed the way it made her feel.

I was distracted from this chain of thought by the beautiful superheroine suddenly flinging herself on me and forcing me to the ground. I let out a brief, shrill scream of pain as my probably broken hand slammed onto the pavement before I was suddenly distracted by a kiss full on the lips from Artemis.

“Huh? What?” This example of slightly muffled, witty repartee, again, was not really up to my usual standard but I think I could be forgiven under the circumstances.

“Oh, I can’t resist you any longer, you’re always been my favourite bad guy...and you know what they say about bad boys and forbidden fruit!” She was breathing heavily and tearing frantically at my fortuitously invulnerable cloak.

Or perhaps she really was just a bit more fun-loving than I usually encountered, nothing wrong with that either, I suppose.

This was what I would call an unexpected development.