Short Little Stories

He slunk into the abandoned warehouse, smelling of rotting vegetables and overturned dirt. He wore a dirty old trench-coat that ill-fit his malformed frame. His skin was red, and almost scaly. With a sniffle, he turned his eyes towards the supervillians that waited within.

“This is our new recruit?” scoffed the Dark Deviant, gesturing with his delicate fingers at the newcomer. “Where did you find him, G? Rooting through garbage? Sleeping in the street? What power does he have, the ability to revolt those who would stand in our way?”

Genome sighed. As the leader of the Band of Malcontents, it was his responsible to find new ‘associates’ to fill in for fallen members. He’d made some bad calls before – lord knows the Banana Baker had been a disaster! But he also knew that the best villians worked alone, and sometimes a league had to make due with… lesser allies.

“Enough, Mark!” he growled, “He comes highly recommended, as a spy and an assassin. We’ll see how he does on our next caper – and that is my decision to make, not yours!” The lights on his power suit sparked with energy for a moment, before he willed them quiet again.

The third member of their league spoke up – Lady Steel, a warrior of martial prowess and lost morals. “I could care less about how he smells, as long as he does what we need him to do.” She turned her chilling gaze upon the newcomer. “What did you say his name was?” Her voice was as hard and cold as she was. “The Worm? Hardly a name to strike terror into our foes.”

The Worm lifted his head for a moment, then turned his gaze aside before meeting hers. He scratched for a moment at his neck, as though irritated, and then said in a strangely smooth voice, “Er, yesss… well, it has served me well enough, it has. But please, my name is Jack Drake, no need to be formal. My powers… well, I can, ah, burrow through earth rather well. And, uh, I can secrete a nasty substance that can cause, er, irritation and rashes in those that touch it. Sometimes an allergic reaction, even.”

The Dark Deviant shook his head. “Fascinating.”

Genome flashed him a hard look, then turned back to their new recruit. “As you might have guessed, Jack, this isn’t our normal headquarters. You’ll get to see that after we see how you perform on tommorow’s mission.”

Pressing a button on his power suit, a holographic image appeared in the air, of the 4th National Bank located not 9 blocks away from where they were lurking. “Here are the details of the plan, and how you fit in…”

—–

Later that evening, Jack Drake walked away from the warehouse, a smile growing larger on his face the further he got. It wasn’t until he was quite a distance before he took out a surprisingly clean phone, and made a call.

The voice on the other end was sterile and professional. “Well? Any luck?”

He laughed, nastily, and his eyes flared red for a moment. “But of course. They’ll be dead by tommorow night.”

“You’ll have access to their files and equipment?”

“Yes. I’ll try to keep their personal gear as intact as possible as well, though of course,” another nasty laugh, “Sometimes the situation doesn’t allow for it.”

“Very well. Contact us when the job is done, and you’ll have your payment – and worth every penny, if you are as good as they say, Wyrm.”

Wyrm grinned to himself, and scratched again at the skin peeling off his neck in the moonlight. “Alwayss glad to be of ssservice, milord.”

The cell-phone clicked shut, and the street lights dimmed, and the assassin walked through the darkness of the city, chuckling all the while.