Mon 7 Nov 2011

Threats, Posturing, and Other Negotiation Tactics

Posted by Patrick Rennie under The New Adventures of a Deposed Dictator
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Story Recap: Interrupted on his vacation by a man he has killed over half dozen times, Photius has annoyed his enemy into preparing for a fight.

Bad Penny flipped his coin.

The change was not quite instantaneous. Penny’s shape blurred as his superpowers consumed his body. Photius had seen high-speed footage Technefarious had taken of Bad Penny as part of one of their projects right before Penny’s fourth death. It had not been very illuminating. In one frame, he was a regular person. The next began a period of human-shaped copper-colored blur. When the distortion clear, Bad Penny stood the transformed creature that stood before him now.

Creature, Photius chided himself, was overstating the range of the change. Bad Penny was still human-shaped, even if that shape was entirely covered in untarnished copper. It was the lack of regular features on his head that made him look alien. Instead of hair and ears and a face, the superhero’s head was a mess of gouges and scars, some deep enough that they should have caused brain damage when they were inflicted.

“Feel better?” Photius

“Yes,” the metal-clad man answered, pulling himself out of the water.

“Delightful.”

They were attracting a few stares, now, although not much alarm. Superpowers were uncommon enough in their world to still be super, but not so rare that only those that enjoyed slugging each other while wearing costumes were the majority of those with them.

“I’m still not interesting in fighting you,” Photius said.

“You’re under arrest,” Penny announced.

“No, I’m not. I’ve proven over and over again that you can’t take me on your own. If you walk away right now to get help, I’ll kill you before you can reach it. So, no, I am not under arrest.”

Bad Penny loomed over him.

“Oh, sit down,” Photius said. “Here’s what you do: Humor me for a while. Pretend that we reach an agreement. After you walk away, call in someone to nail me.

“Really, that should be obvious. You’d make a terrible supervillain, Penny.”

The superhero considered it, then sat on the edge of the beach chair next to Photius’s.

“So, how have you been? Last time I saw you, you were dead,” Photius said.

“Fine. Heaven is nice, but I wasn’t done here yet.”

“How’d you get back?”

“Freak Weatherballoon accident. My teammate Weatherballoon was flying through a storm, and a bolt hit a penny he was carrying.”

“Seriously?”

“Reincarnated twenty miles up in bad weather.”

Photius winced. “Ouch.”

“Left a dent in the ground.”

“Got your civilian life back together?”

“More or less. I’ve done this a few times, so that helps.”

“Here with a girlfriend?”

“Parents. I wanted to spend some time with them.”

“Good for you.”

Bad Penny leaned in on Photius.

“What?” Photius asked.

“No.”

“No?”

“You will not harm them.”

“Oh. No, of course I won’t. Penny, how often do I target bystanders or civilians? I’m not saying there’s never been collateral damage to one of my hits, but if I wanted to hurt you, I would hurt you.”

Bad Penny leaned back.

“Besides,” Photius said, “I’m on vacation.”

“You’re going to have to vacation somewhere else.”

“So I’m gathering,” Photius said sourly.

There was a commotion down on the beach.

Penny ignored it. He said, “You’re right. I can’t take you. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to pass up a chance to make sure someone else gets a shot a you.”

The screams now originating from the shore were not quite enough to pull the hero and villain away from their conversation.

“I said I wouldn’t kill bystanders. However, I specifically said I would kill you,” Photius said, sitting up.

From the sea, a leviathan threw its head high into the air and roared.

Both Photius and Bad Penny turned to look at the monster.

“Huh,” Photius said.

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Mon 31 Oct 2011

He Keeps It In His Pocket

Posted by Patrick Rennie under The New Adventures of a Deposed Dictator
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Story Recap: Dr. Photius Callaway, the Killing Man, is taking a vacation after being deposed as the leader of the criminal organization Technefarious. His vacation is interrupted when he discovered a superhero is staying at the same hotel.

“Bad Penny. I wondered when you’d turn up,” Photius taunted.

The man standing in the pool frowned at him. “Very original. It’s almost as if that was the first time I’d heard that.”

The supervillain rolled his eyes. “Well, I’m sorry if I’ve started to repeat myself. There’s only so much new material for clever banter that I’m willing to work on for a person I’ve already killed five or six times. Eventually, I would think you’d stay dead.

“How did you come back this time?”

Penny ignored the question and leaned forward, one hand gripping the edge of the pool. “What are you doing here, Photius?”

“I’m here on vacation, just like you are, I assume. Although, I suppose it’s possible that you have a new power source the requires swimming trunks and hotel pools.”
“No,” he said, taking his other hand out of the water. “It’s the same as it’s always been.” At that distance, Photius could only see that there was a small copper coin between thumb and finger, but he knew the coin would be gouged on both faces.

“Well, since we’re both on vacation, I think it would be reasonable for me not to kill you and for you not to try to arrest me,” Photius said.

Penny stared at him.

Photius sighed and set his glass down on the ground. “If it helps I’ll promise not to commit atrocities against the civilians. Or I’ll threaten to do it. Whichever helps you forgot that you saw me.”

That shifted Penny’s expression into a glare.

The supervillain shrugged, picked his glass back up, picked the plant matter out of it, and took a drink. “Make a decision, man. I have some goofing off to get back to.”

Bad Penny flipped his coin.

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Mon 24 Oct 2011

Sitting by the Pool, Admiring the View

Posted by Patrick Rennie under The New Adventures of a Deposed Dictator
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Dr. Photius Callaway, last of the Killing Men, lounged by the hotel pool, enjoying the sun. It had just been one week since he had been deposed from his leadership of the notorious supervillain organization Technefarious, and he was determined to enjoy his imposed vacation from his chosen vocation. From the pool, he could see dazzling blue water of the Atlantic Ocean in its Caribbean colors and his fellow tourists frolicking in its waters.Photius doubted any of them were wanted by the authorities, locally or internationally, unlike himself. Instead of selecting a destination that catered to those that worked in his field, he had chosen this spot to get away from his fellow supervillains for a while. There was some personal risk for him in this. He had never bothered with a mask to hide his identity during his career, and while he lacked the grotesque physique some with superpowers had, his linebacker bulk was not exactly ubiquitous, either. He was sipping a fruity drink with enough decoration in that it could easily double as a flower arrangement, but if he had to be honest with himself, it really was not much of a disguise.

Still, no one had accosted him for anything more vigorous than a tip for service, so he hoped for a few more days of quiet while he tried to decide upon a new course. The past few months had been bad. At the end of his tenure as the leader of Technefarious, the staff had shrunk to one third of its peak size. One by one, his lieutenants had ended up in jail, dead, or in jail and then dead. Of the rank and file henchmen, most of them had been captured by the Establishment, the superhero collective that kept the Earth from plunging into global disaster on a daily basis. Freeing them had been his next priority, but before he could arrange it, his authority had been usurped by those unhappy with his leadership.

As a falling out among supervillains, this one was notable for the lack of violence that ensued. Dr. Crankpot and D.O.C.T.O.R had spearheaded the coup. The former was original founder of Technefarious back in the 1960’s, returned from the dead in mysterious circumstances. The latter was Crankpot’s greatest creation: an artificial intelligence that originally ran on vacuum tubes. Neither had been pleased with Photius’s denial of their leadership claim after their reemergence, and they has seized the decline of Technefarious’s fortunes to oust Photius.

Letting his eyes linger on a particularly nice bikini-clad bottom that was sauntering past, Photius reminded himself that the change in his circumstances was not all bad. Technically, he had never wanted to be in charge of Technefarious in the first place. Photius’s immediate predecessor, Dr. Processor, had not been a particularly good leader. Photius had found himself as the ringleader of those within Technefarious that wanted Processor removed from his position. Afterwards, his fellow conspirators stuck him with job of running the whole operation.

Photius had been good at it. Recruitment went up, fatalities went down. Technefarious had not fulfilled its ultimate goal of ruling the world, but with over five decades of failing at that, it was hardly the average henchman’s benchmark for success.

Now relieved of the burden of leadership, Photius felt disinclined to start a new crew. He had enough money that he could live a life a quiet debauchery if he wanted, although with just a few days of vacation under his belt, he knew that it was not a full-time career for him. There was not even anybody he wanted dead. Sure, he had enemies, but nobody he felt the need to hunt down.

The supervillain sipped his drink. If nothing else, he could do some freelance work for his girlfriend while he decided what he wanted to do with his life. Green Needle had offered him a full-time position with the Chlorophyll Cabal, but Photius knew eco-terrorism was not the niche he wanted to fill. However, she was his girl and killing people she wanted killed would pass the time.

Thinking a quick dip in the pool might distract his mind from his problem, Photius glanced over at the water. As he did, his eyes met those of a man who had just popped up to the surface of the water.

With a twinge of annoyance, Photius realized he recognized the man. The villain hid his face behind the foliage in his drink, took another sip, and held the glass awkwardly close afterwards. His obfuscation delayed the inevitable for only a few moments.

“I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to take the flowers and crap out of those before you drink them.”

Photius sighed and lowered the drink. “And then what would I have to hide behind?”

The man in the pool tensed, eyes glued to Photius.

The supervillain smiled back. “Hello, Bad Penny. I wondered when you’d turn up again.”

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Mon 17 Oct 2011

End of an Era

Posted by Patrick Rennie under From the Desk of the Dictator
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From the Desk of the Deposed:

Welcome back from your weekend, everyone.

This will be my last post as the leader of Technefarious. After the pounding we took from the Younglights last week, Dr. Crankpot and D.O.C.T.O.R. unified in their opposition to me. They arrived at an agreement to split the rule of our criminal enterprise between them and rallied much of the remnants of our much-battered personnel to their proposal.

Naturally, I offered to relieve them from the burden of their lives for their presumption.

Before our conversation could to escalate to the point of deploying killing implements, the Elite Triad intervened. While they had some reservations about the change, they were backing the coup de tat by our former leaders. When I asked the Elite what would happen if I pursued my preferred resolution, they informed me that would have to view that as dissolution of our friendship.

That stopped me. I guess I’ve just lost too many friends over the past few months to lose one more over a stupid argument.

Crankpot and D.O.C.T.O.R. were magnanimous in the victory and offered me a position in their new Technefarious. I declined. I took over Technefarious because we had a leader I couldn’t stand. I haven’t exactly warmed to our newly renewed leaders since they’ve rejoined us, either. If I’m not in charge, I’m going to have to go.

I’ll miss you all. Bleach actually offered to come with me, but then I told I wasn’t planning on paying him, so you’ll get to hang on to him for a while longer.

That’s it, I think. I just wanted to leave a record of what happened, and let everyone know there was nothing too hard about the feelings involved. Really, none at all by supervillain standards.

Remember to take care of each other. The world is already yours – it just doesn’t realize it yet.

Your Former Leader,

Dr. Photius Callaway
The Killing Man

Author’s Note: This is not the end of Photius’s adventures posted on Mondays. This is just a good point to switch formats. Over the past year, I’ve stretched the memo format as far as I want to and occasionally beyond. These posts were only supposed to be around 500 words, but it seemed like everyone second or third one ended up over 1000 as I tried to tell enough of the story to keep things moving along. I’m itchy to work with the other tools in my storytelling kit, but I’m not done Photius. So, his story continues. It will just be told a little differently from now on. I’ll see you next Monday.

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Mon 10 Oct 2011

Things Go Boom

Posted by Patrick Rennie under From the Desk of the Dictator
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From the Desk of the Dictator:

Well, it’s Monday, again. Yay.

We’re going to have to build a new Base Omega. Base Omega would be our backup base of last resort. Unfortunately, we’re standing in our current Base Omega right now, since the rest of our bases were blown up. Not our best week.

For those keeping score, we fought State, Overclocked, Hope Titanson, Silver Spear, Goldfish, Living Goo, and Hammerstone. Those would be a handful of the many members of the Younglights, the superteam Record Holder belonged to. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume their attack was in retaliation for my murder of him a while back. No one every said that a supervillain’s life is an easy one.

Our reconstruction of events is pretty patchy. We lost too many people and too much property to do a proper after-action report. We know State and Hope caused most of our problems. His moniker is the Quantum Android. She’s a goddess/reality TV star. Instead of a wacky television show, his reality distorting powers and her ability to make miracles created a storm of power that enclosed our headquarters and fritzed out much of our equipment.

Overclocked was responsible for the destruction of our soul catchers. With security distracted by the reality storm, it wasn’t hard for the robot to rip through our facility at superspeed, knocking out sensitive equipment as he went. The soul catchers were the very first thing he hit, but I don’t think they were trying to ensure our people would stay dead if killed. That’s not really been the level of violence the Younglights practice. I think it was aimed at me. If they were running an operation to avenge Record Holder, then it would make sense to cut off all avenues for my escape. The stories about our soul catchers have been making the rounds, but I think that the Younglights didn’t realize that not only was I not connected to the soul catchers, I can never use them myself. I guess the history behind my powers isn’t as widely known as I thought.

While that damned robot trashed our stuff, Silver Spear, Goldfish, Living Goo, and Hammerstone chewed their way through the base, neutralizing our staff as they went. I finally concluded that the heroes had pulled us far enough off balance that the loss of the base was inevitable, and I called for an evacuation.

That would have worked fine, except Hope and State’s reality storm didn’t like our teleportation signals. The first wave to teleport out didn’t die, thankfully. Instead, the storm anticipated their arrival point and blew up that location. That’s how we lost our first backup base. It was a pretty big boom. Our teleportation system detected the newly created obstruction at the location and immediately routed them to the next emergency point. That’s how we lost our second backup base. The Teleportation system switched to the next and the next and the next, and then we were all out bases.

That’s excepting Base Omega. For paranoia’s sake, you cannot teleport to it. Turns out that is a handy feature for just this kind of screw up.

With our evacuation options reduced to escape by vehicles, it was clear that someone was going to have to stall the Younglights while everyone else scattered. So, I gathered up Bleach and the Elite Triad and headed out to do just that. To my surprise, Dr. Crankpot joined us. As old as he is, I wasn’t really expecting to want to mix it up with people four or five generations younger than himself. While we attended to that, I assigned D.O.C.T.O.R. to coordinate the evacuation. With everything else screwed up, his big AI brain was in the best position to maximize Technefarious’s flight.

The Younglights are good fighters. I have to give them that. None of the killing scenarios for them that I envisioned during our brawl were easy to implement. I’d get the upper hand over one of them, and one of the others would intervene. The flipside was that they couldn’t take us, either. The Elite’s capability in the fight wasn’t a surprise to me, but Dr. Crankpot’s was. The dude can scrap. Sure, he couldn’t match the Younglights in speed or power, but he had an endless stream of knick-knacks and gadgets to screw with them.

All of that was just a cover for Bleach. Hope and State’s reality storm was keeping our vehicles penned into our base, so they needed to be taken out. With their teammates occupied by us, Bleach could get close enough to them to drain their powers down enough to break to the storm.

The end of the storm meant our people could escape. It also meant that our equipment could hook back into our satellite network. D.O.C.T.O.R. analyzed the restored data stream and informed me that the reality storm had not gone unnoticed by the larger superhero community. The Establishment was dispatching the Executives to deal with the matter.

Their arrival would likely not go well for us, so we beat down the Younglights enough that we could disengage and ran. D.O.C.T.O.R. had held a drill sled for us. As we plunged into the Earth, he informed us that the Establishment had arrived. From there, it was every vehicle crew for themselves.

Only one-third of Technefarious arrived at Base Omega. I’m sure some of the missing are just lying low, and that others have decided this would be a good time to desert our organization. Worse, some died in the attack. There’s simply no way to prevent it in an assault that thorough, no matter how good the superheroes are at their job. The remainder (probably the majority) of the missing are probably sitting in jail cell or in a hospital, waiting for the local authorities to attend to them. Now we need to figure out how to rebuild and how to recover our people.

This is a setback, but the world will be ours. Have a good week, everyone.

Your Leader,

Dr. Photius Callaway
The Killing Man

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Mon 3 Oct 2011

Putting the Pieces Back Together

Posted by Patrick Rennie under From the Desk of the Dictator
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From the Desk of the Dictator:

Welcome back from your weekend, everyone.

I know the last week was a long one, but I want to thank everyone for all the hard work they did. The loss of so many of our people set all us back on our heels, but it was nice that we could all pull together to finish the memorial garden for Frigid and Extraction Team C. I was particularly touched by the turnout for the dedication ceremony. Again, thank you all.

If you haven’t seen Dr. Crankpot or D.O.C.T.O.R. since then, it is because I put them under restrictions since memorial service. Dr. Crankpot’s speech that the operation that killed our friends would have gone differently if he had been in charge was in poor taste, I thought. Doubly so considering what was the acceptable casualty rate when he founded Technefarious decades ago. Still, I felt killing him would be excessive, so instead I locked him in his suite for a few days.

D.O.C.T.O.R.’s behavior was a bit more sinister. The subliminal messages criticizing me that he piped through sound system during the dedication ceremony did not go unnoticed. I realize he is as eager as Crankpot to be put back in charge, but there’s a time and place to try to undermine me. I restricted his voice circuits to work only through the speakers in the men’s bathroom off the main lobby as his punishment.

I know “Being a Supervillain Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry” makes a great bumpersticker, but it’s no way to actually run an organization.

I’ll release them both back into general circulation later this week.

There are no immediate plans to plunge into another world-conquering project. We paid a high price for the Metalhead’s treasure horde, so we’re going to sit down and catalogue everything we acquired first. There were plenty of gold and jewels, of course, but there was also cash from fifty different countries, government bonds, and even some stocks. Our cybernetic dragon really was a creature of today. It’s going to take our financial department a while to sort it all out and laundry it.

The occult department has plenty of new magical artifacts to keep them busy. The Bucket was not the only one Metalhead was sitting on. While their working on those, the assault teams and the computer department are going over his base and securing all his traps. I don’t intend to lose anyone else to that place by accident. All of that ties up enough of our resources that there is no sense in trying to start something else right now.

Have a good week, everyone. Remember, the world is already ours – it just doesn’t realize it yet.

Your Leader,

Dr. Photius Callaway
The Killing Man

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Mon 26 Sep 2011

Here There Be Dragons

Posted by Patrick Rennie under From the Desk of the Dictator
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From the Desk of the Dictator:

Welcome back from your weekend, everyone.

With previous Technefarious leaders Dr. Crankpot and D.O.C.T.O.R. hanging around the home base again, it feels like old times. Unfortunately, those old times seemed to have extended into our operations. The list of dead from Project Bucket Run is longer than I want to include here. A permanent memorial I commissioned for them will be placed in the courtyard once it is complete.

Project Bucket Run was supposed to be a simple assault, steal, and retreat operation. Ruffle some feathers, do some property damage, take what we came for, and get out. Instead, after three days, only three of us survived.

We were just trying to steal the Bucket of Pure Water, a magical object that would be useful for some of our other projects. We had received a tip that it was among the horde of the dragon Metalhead. Our intelligence indicated that he was not a natural dragon, but one cursed into the shape of dragon by his excessive greed. Driven by their favorite vice, greed dragons are not noted for their excessive intelligence. Unlike the natural fire-breathers, their monomania can be used to trick or distract them during negotiations and battle. They don’t have much use for sacrificial virgins, but gold is something they really like.

We missed the fact that Metalhead wasn’t a normal victim of such a curse. He used to be a petty criminal. After an accident, most of his body was replaced by cybernetic parts, including three-fourths of his brain. It wasn’t our handiwork; we aren’t the only practitioners of superscience in the world. With his enhancements, his inorganic brain left Metalhead capable of plotting even after his dragon-cursed organic brain was crippled with greed.

He used that awareness to build himself one of the deadliest lairs I have ever been in, and my supervillain moniker is the Killing Man. Our initial penetration of his perimeter went smoothly. About halfway to his treasure trove, everything shifted. The after-action report from Extraction Teams A and B suggests that the lair itself teleported to another location. On the inside, our team suffered a sense of disorientation and then were attacked. Of course, between Frigid, Bleach, Elite Beta, Elite Gamma, the heavily armed Extraction Team C, and myself, we destroyed the laser turrets, giant robots, and miniature helicopters that jumped us. From there, we had just enough time to patch ourselves up and determine that our communicators weren’t working before we got attacked again. This time, our attackers were lava-spitting stone centipedes, gremlin cannons, and flying swords. Immediately after we finished with those came the poison ghosts, flaming zombies, and mobile ballista.

For seventy-two hours we fought. When we ran, acid pits, storms of explosive arrows, and crushing walls sprung up around us. When we stood our ground, wave after wave monsters and robots wielding every type of weapon and enchantment came at us.

Remember a couple of months ago how easily I penetrated the SuperMaxed prison they were keeping Bleach in? Well, those weaknesses existed because of the necessities of moving things in and out of the prison. Sustained by his curse, Metalhead could cover those gaps and create a setup to hammer any intruder into paste. Interlocking fields of magic and technology stopped our unblockable communication systems and cut us of from the Soul Catchers back at our home base. We didn’t realize the latter. The full cost of the mess we were in did not catch up to us until after we had finally conquered the facility.

I want to pause here to offer a special remembrance for Frigid. We lost her on the second day. Half of the Extraction Team were dead by that point, and Elite Beta had been reduced to his memory drive. The walls of the hanger we were crossing had turned into one giant heating element, dumping a punishing amount of radiation into us. Frigid’s endothermic powers blunted its effects but took far too much of her concentration. When the energy eagles dove into the room, she wasn’t able to avoid their claws. Injured, she reached out with her powers to a dangerous degree, drawing the radiation and the eagles to her like moths to a bug zapper. My powers tipped me off to what the end result of that would be. She wouldn’t let me stop her, and her command, Bleach suckered me with his powers and dragged me from the hanger. When we had reached a safer location he restored me, but it was too late to save her. In expressing my displeasure with the sequence of events, I may have gestured at Bleach too intently with a sharp implement, causing him to dash off into the next trap. We saved him, but I’ll admit that my reaction to Frigid’s death made that more complicated than it needed to be.

By the time we finally confronted Metalhead, only Bleach, one member of Extraction Team C (Rick), and myself remained. Compared to the effort it took to reach him, it wasn’t much of a fight. I had Bleach and Rick stash themselves safely and called upon our sadistic host myself. It wasn’t the first time I’ve gone dragon slaying.

The Bucket and the rest of Metalhead’s treasure are ours. So is his lair. If you ask me, though, we paid too high a price for a mere dragon’s horde.

At times like this, I like to remember that our real goal will put us in a position where we can keep this kind of thing from happening. Our fallen will not have died in vain.

Your Leader,

Dr. Photius Callaway
The Killing Man

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Mon 19 Sep 2011

Missing, Presumed Alive

Posted by Patrick Rennie under From the Desk of the Dictator
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From the Minds of the Three:

Quick note: No memo today. Project Bucket Run has run into unanticipated issues. Dr. Callaway, Frigid, Bleach, Elite Beta, Elite Gamma, and Extraction Team C have been incommunicado since fifteen minutes after they arrived on site. Extraction Teams A and B report that the location the original team was engaging no longer exists. It has been replaced with a natural-appearing, undeveloped chunk of land. While all attempts made over the past three days to contact them have failed, none of their souls have arrived in our Soul Catchers. We are currently operating on the assumption that they are lost but recoverable.

Ignore directives from Dr. Crankpot or D.O.C.T.O.R. Despite their historical importance, neither is currently in Technefarious’s chain of command. We are not willing to void the orders that Dr. Callaway left putting the Elite Triad in charge of the home base while Project Bucket Run was in motion. If necessary, we will vigorously enforce our authority on the bodies of our illustrious forebearers.

Alpha (with Beta and Gamma’s backups)
The Elite Triad

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