By M. A. E.
“Could I fly up and cut through the bars?” Deidre hovers a few feet away from me.
I shake my head. “I rigged an invisible forcefield below the cage.”
“What if we disarm it?”
“There’s a cooldown timer.” I sigh. “And the bars are titanium.”
“I could use my lasers,” Raymond suggests.
“The cage will self-destruct if it detects heat over 120 degrees.”
“You monster.”
“I know,” I lament.
Carl glares down at me. “When this is over, I say we put Decimator in this thing.”
My face reddens, but his resentment is justified. He’s suspended thirty feet in the air, trapped in a birdcage-like contraption I designed according to Vil’s bidding. The cage dangles from a crane through an opening in the roof. A disconnected bomb rests on my workspace.
“Shut up, Carl! She’s trying to help!” Despite calling me a monster moments before, Raymond pats me on the back.
“Pretty ironic that you reached the pinnacle of your evil engineering genius right before you switched to our side.” Deidre chuckles.
I’m still holding the pardon they’d handed me seconds before Carl strode across the tripwire and activated the trap.
I glance away.
“Hey,” Deidre begins gently. I look up, and a smile softens her features. “We’ll figure this out—we always do. And this time, we have you to help us. Success is guaranteed!”
Her unabashedly cheerful demeanor once grated on my nerves. Now, I understand how she always rallied the team in their darkest moments.
Whenever it looked like my mentor Vil’s immoral machinations would finally succeed, this hero squad stepped—and flew—in to cut red wires and melt vital cogs. Last time they battled Vil, they arrested their nemesis before she could slip away. Vil’s plea deal demanded that she release the mind control on her henchmen—including me.
“So, the original plan was to trap Carl when he arrived to diffuse that bomb, then fight us off—probably with Vil monologuing—as the timer counted down, right?” Raymond’s laser-red eyes sweep over the abandoned warehouse.
“Essentially, yes.” I rub my temples to ease my migraine—a lingering side effect of the mind control.
Vil was the mastermind, but every wire, gear, and cog in this place is my handiwork. Most of the cobbled-together machines littering this warehouse don’t work, but that didn’t matter with a scheme designed to end in ash.
“If only you guys had found my lair… er, lab, a few hours later. I’d have disassembled every component of Vil’s scheme by then. This is really bad because…”
“Sure, sure, blame the victim.” Carl crosses his arms and huffs, swaying the cage.
“You did trip the wire, O Excellent Bomb Expert.” Raymond smirks.
“Yeah, and why was there a wire for me to trip?” He stomps his foot, and the cage rattles.
I check my wristwatch as they continue to argue. Sweat drips down my neck.
“Um, hero-guys!” I interrupt. “We should hurry.”
They go silent. Even Carl stops yelling from above.
“Why?” Raymond’s laser eyes bore into me, figuratively speaking, though I’m afraid they’ll literally put holes in me when I answer.
“There’s…” I wince. “A second bomb.”
“There’s what?”
I cover my ears against Carl’s cries of outrage. “Please, please don’t yell.” My head throbs.
“Can’t you just disarm it like the first one?” Deidre frowns.
“The bomb I disconnected earlier was just the bait in Vil’s plan—the other is underground. The cage is connected to it like a failsafe—we can’t open it and disarm the bomb in time. However, Deidre can bypass the forcefield by flying around and above it.” I turn to her. “Don’t set the cage down until you’re outside the thirty-yard forcefield radius and the blast zone.” I point through the cracked warehouse windows to a hillside in the distance. “Over there.”
“Done.” Deidre, swift as a bird and strong as an ox, loops around the warehouse in a wide arc and lifts the cage off the crane hook.
“You know I hate heights! Careful!” Carl squawks.
Raymond takes off in a hard run after the pair. I follow close behind to the safe zone.
“I win.” Raymond grins down at me as I struggle with the final steps up the hill.
“We were racing?” I collapse next to the birdcage, panting.
BOOM! The warehouse bursts into red-orange flames. The rising ash cloud is relatively small. Most of the damage is underground, where I rigged the TNT, and between my eyes, where my headache is a thousand times worse. I watch the falling debris. That bomb was my most fool-proof creation. It actually worked. I’m a genius… and an idiot.
Within minutes of being pardoned, I’d nearly killed a team of superheroes, withheld information, and utilized illegal explosives to raze a building without a permit. My second chance is blown. Literally.
All eyes swing to me.
“I—I’m sorry. It couldn’t be deactivated—not even by me.”
“We could have tried,” Diedre cuts in. “Maybe if—”
“It would’ve been futile. There wasn’t time to attempt the impossible and save Carl.”
We stand in silence. The wind shifts, turning the air bitter and smokey.
“We’ll… have to work on the whole ‘team communication’ thing.” Raymond gives me a friendly punch on the arm.
Team? I stare at them in disbelief.
“Why do you think we sought you out? Every team needs a brilliant inventor.” Deidre smiles at my confusion.
“It’ll be nice having another weapons specialist around. But Decimator needs a new nickname. A superhero name.” Carl pokes his face out a gap in the bars and smiles slightly—the first time he’s looked at me without glaring.
“I—I’d like that.” I choke out the words and fight back tears.
Raymond tilts his head. His red eyes glow brighter. “Ooh, I have a suggestion! How about—”
Carl waves a hand to cut him off. “We’ll decide that after you guys figure out how to get me out of here.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
snappy dialog… clever cast of characters…
Thanks! I’m very attached to my characters :)
A lot of fun to read and a satisfying explosion at the end!
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it!
This was a very fun story!
Fantastic premise and engaging execution. Loved it :D
What a fun adventure!