Almost Infamous: A Supervillain Novel by Matt Carter Page B

to girls, and occasionally sacrificing my dignity would help.
    So, they weren’t any help. I’d have to improvise.
    I’d have to watch, and wait, and plan, and find my moment.
    That moment came about an hour later.
    It arrived not long after the morning announcement. Blackjack said that our first test would be that afternoon, and they would deliver some more comfortable clothing than our “pitiful attempts at costumes.” We each got a foot locker at the base of our beds stocked with t-shirts, athletic shorts, clean socks and underwear, running shoes, and toiletries (never had I thought I’d be so glad to see a bar of soap). Everything gray and navy blue, hardly stylish, but heaven compared to saltwater-soaked leather.
    With some time to kill, I decided to take in the sights of our little shanty town.
    There weren’t many.
    A lot of people scoured the town ruins, bored, occasionally finding the odd bits of treasure or one of the many skeletons of Professor Death’s minions. Carnivore and his friends found an old death ray in the ruins of a daycare center and spent some time trying to get it working, but were only successful in blowing up a tree and fighting and exchanging various ethnic/sexual slurs with each other. They ended up tossing the ray aside and wandering off.
    Since I couldn’t get it to work either, I found Firewall and gave the gun to her. It didn’t completely smooth over my question from that morning, but it did get a rare smile and a “Thanks” from her.
    After wandering around the town, I finally found Showstopper, Ghost Girl, and a couple other villains at the edge of the forest, chucking rocks and pieces of rubble at a tree.
    “Another one of those killer trees getting close?” I asked.
    “Nah, just mangoes this time,” Ghost Girl said, chucking another stone and missing a mango.
    “Little help?” Showstopper asked.
    Normally, this would have been when I’d have made some excuse and not helped out, mostly because I didn’t want to fail and have them laugh at me. That would have been the case if I didn’t see her sidling on over to our group, curiously looking up at the tree.
    Suddenly, my newly gained confidence (thank you, Icicle Man) returned. I’m Apex Strike, the greatest supervillain in the world. I can do anything if I put my mind to it. With a grin, I raised both of my hands, focusing on the hanging fruit. I watched as a heavy limb, covered with ripe, juicy mangoes began to shudder. I had it. I looked back to the others. I looked to Nevermore. I pulled.
    I remember a loud snapping sound and some screams.
    I remember the world violently tilting on its end before going black.
    I vaguely remember hearing the words “Holy shit!,” “Impaled,” and “Should we call Spasm?”
    Most of all, I just remember wondering if Nevermore would like to fill her hair with scrambled eggs before or after I gave her a mango.
    Serious head injuries can make you wonder things like that.

    “Tell me if this hurts.” I recognized his voice. It was the Irish guy who told us all to shut up last night.
    “Huh?” I muttered, slowly regaining consciousness.
    The searing pain of a lit cigarette being pressed to the inside of my wrist sped that process up considerably.
    “FUCK!” I screamed, eyes bolting open to see a grimy, stubbly, dark-skinned young man with wire-rimmed glasses and a faded green army jacket sitting in a chair by my cot. I waved a hand at him, flinging him across the room and into the wall.
    He laughed, putting the cigarette back between his lips. “I’ll take it from your response that your answer would be yes?”
    “Why did you do that?”
    He got up, shrugging and sitting back in his chair. “Why not?”
    “Because… fuck! You burned me with a cigarette!”
    “That I did. I can also fix that,” he said, pointing at me. I felt a sudden wave of euphoria, and all at once didn’t even notice or care what he’d done.
    “This island’s living up to its name quite well.