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Villains don’t have to wear capes and masks. Sometimes they wear three-piece suits.
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The night was as dark as a criminal’s heart and as wet as the tears of his victims, but the Star-Spangled Adventurer would not let mere elements bar him from his duty. With deft movements and strength born of years of training and use, the scarlet, navy, and ivory-clad scourge of villainy stoically scaled the sides of the once-regal Gotham Building. A mere twelve stories was still nothing to him, even after thirty years of a dedicated battle against the dire evil that ever sought to bring his beloved city to its knees. There was a hint of stiffness in his limbs that he suspected might some day imperil his life, but that was something to worry about another day.
Such a thought did not daunt him; he fully expected to die in the line of duty. It was the way of heroes, the Adventurer knew.
There was a light in one of the windows on the twelfth floor, a lone glimmer in the gloom of the crime-filled night. The Adventurer was not fooled; he was well aware that light sometimes shone like a halo about the greatest of foul fiends.
He climbed to that one window and peered inside. A lone figure, somewhat heavy and with a tiny bald spot forming in the back of his gray-tressed head, sat at an extravagant oak desk perusing a sheath of aged papers.
The Star-Spangled Adventurer rubbed his chin in deep contemplation as he studied his adversary. There was something about him…
Professor Khaos had a bald spot like that, he finally thought. Shaped like an egg… just like this one is.
There was no reason to delay the inevitable. With catlike silence, the Metropolitan Marauder stealthily slid the window open and crept inside. He straightened and turned his blazing stare on the man seated before him.
“Demerest Cline.”
The papers in the other’s hand went flying with satisfactory velocity. Although he was loathe to admit such things even to himself, the City Centurion enjoyed the effect he had on people like Cline.
Gazing up at six-plus feet of solid muscle clad in the stars and stripes of the American flag, the squat figure barked, “I thought I told them to request that you use the door!”
“I have fought too many foes to simply walk through a doorway, Mr. Cline. If I made myself so public, one of them might try to do me harm. Innocents might be hurt before I was able to deal with the miscreants.”
Demerest Cline was a man of rock-hard features that had begun to soften like wet clay. His nose was a bird’s beak that coincidentally resembled that of the eagle decorating the face mask of the veteran superhero. The mustache below was two almost even slashes of grease. The Adventurer noted that his eyes were beady and close-set. Typical criminal type. “Do you have to talk like that?”
“Like what, Mayor Cline?”
The prime mover of Metra City twinged. In his own rather nasal voice, he responded, “Like a damn special effect! How do you get your voice that deep?”
Striding like a lynx, the Urban Avenger walked around to the front of the mayor’s desk. A name plate reading MAYOR D. CLINE was positioned in the middle so that anyone entering would be certain to see it. The Star-Spangled Adventurer raised an eyebrow of impatience at the squat figure before him. “You wished to speak to me about a matter of import, your honor. Please get to the point; there are misdeeds and dangers threatening the fair city and I must be there to prevent them from occurring.”
“Do you use a script?”
“What is the urgent matter?”
“Um, yes…” Mayor Cline fumbled with the papers that he had been reading before the Adventurer’s typically startling appearance. He shuffled them together, and a look of cool confidence spread across his face. The Adventurer crossed his mighty arms and waited.
“There’s a contract with your name on it.” The drama of the words was somewhat dampened by the nasal tone.
Every muscle taut, the nemesis of crime in any form and any place nodded solemnly. “It’s not the first, Mayor Cline. You’re just two weeks into office, but your predecessor could tell you of seven separate contracts during his four years. The Mafia, the Dartsman, Packwolf… they and others through the years have tried and failed in their at‘ tempts to have me liquidated.” He paused for effect. “Is it that mad’ man, Khaos? The Raven? What about the Family Tree? There are still kin of Doctor Crimson loose. It is truly tragic when such an extended family can turn to—”
“My speechwriter should talk to you.” Cline held up the sheath of papers so that the Superlative Sentinel could peruse them. “And what I mean, Star-Spangled… do you prefer just straight ‘Star’?”
“Adventurer.”
“Well, what I mean… Adventurer… is that this is a contract that you signed.” The crease that passed for the mayor’s mouth arced upward ever so slightly, but the Guardian of Justice and Fair Play for All still noted it with his exceptional vision.
Unfortunately, that same extraordinary vision also revealed to him just what contract the new autarch of Metra City held in his stubby fingers.
“Recognize it?”
“I do.”
“Good!” Demerest Cline now looked more like the man who had been running for office on the Tighten Our Belt campaign. The smile was there. The twinkle in those beady eyes was there. Mayor Cline oozed confidence. Oozing seemed to come naturally to him, from what the Adventurer recalled of the election. “This is why I’ve summoned you here.”
“Is there some question as to its contents, Mr. Cline?” the People’s Protector asked as politely as his naturally intimidating voice would allow him. “Mayor Goodman and I thought it the best way to—”
The new mayor had the audacity to interrupt the Guardian of Freedom. He waved aside the good words of the Adventurer. “No, not in the least. I understand perfectly well what this contract says. In point of fact, by summoning you here, I hope to prove I respect it to the letter.”
Somewhere Professor Khaos was no doubt plotting his next plot to seize control of Metra City. Somewhere the insidious Cricket was casing his next theft. Somewhere over the city, the skies were not blue, even barring the fact that it was night…
Yet at that moment nothing would have made the Patriot of Justice move from that spot. He arched the eyebrow further and reinvigorated his stonelike stance.
Cline was undaunted by his renewed magnificence. When he saw that the hero would remain silent and steadfast throughout, the mayor simply folded over the top three sheets and held out the contract. After several intense seconds in which there was no move by the Adventurer to read the page, Demerest Cline surrendered the contract to his desk, leaving it so that his guest could study it whenever he chose.
“I’m exercising Section 15, Paragraph (c).” The stubby fingers formed a steeple. “You are being traded.”
He had faced the hooved doom of the Four Horsemen, the wicked, beguiling advances of Bellamadonna, and the fanaticism of the free press, but those four words spoken by the man who should have been the bulwark of the Star-Spangled Adventurer’s backing ripped deeper into the soul of the City Centurion than even the claws of red-capped Sanda.
“Traded? What mockery is this?”
“Section 15, Paragraph (c).” The magistrate purloined a massive magnifying glass from his desk and reached it out to the superhero. “It’s in rather… small… print. You might have missed it the last time you read this. Clearly states that the mayor, whoever he is, has the right as long as it is for the good of the city. It is.”
“Traded?” the Adventurer repeated. He was suddenly regretting his decision of neutrality in politics through nonvoting.
Cline put down the unused magnifying glass and reached for another sheath of papers. His beady eyes surveyed the front. “Yes, for a hero named the Dasher and… and ‘a promising sidekick to be named later.” “
It was fortunate that the American eagle mask obscured much of the hero’s stern but resolute visage. “I’m being traded for a superhero named the Dasher?”
“And a promising young sidekick to be named later, let’s not forget that.” The mayor looked up. “You used to have a sidekick; what happened to him?”
Although still mightily disturbed by the wicked turn of events, the Star-Spangled Adventurer yet found the wherewithal to say, “Which one?”
“You’ve had more than one? I thought Flag Boy was your only sidekick.”
“There were seven Flag Boys. Flag Boy One died saving two children from a burning building.” The Urban Avenger paused in silence in honor of the memory of the daring young lad who had joined him on his crusade against the menaces of crime. “Numbers Two and Five retired for personal reasons.” Those personal reasons had had to do with, respectively, getting a young woman in trouble and… here the Adventurer got just a bit uneasy… getting a young man in trouble. It had taken quite some doing to get those incidents covered up, but the sanctity of the Adventurer name had been at stake. “Number Three fell prey to the hazards of the city.” Did they no longer teach children to look both ways while crossing the street? He had thought that a sidekick would at least know that rule. Hadn’t even been a crime in progress; the idiot had just been jaywalking. At least he had not been in costume.
“And the others?” Mayor Cline was morbidly fascinated.
“While attempting to hunt down the Yellow Menace, Four plunged to his death.” Actually, Flag Boy Four had insisted that his powers included the ability to fly, and no coaxing by the City Centurion had been able to convince him otherwise. The Adventurer had never discovered just what it was his sidekick had been high on when he had leapt from the one-hundred-story Rician Building. At least there had not been enough,left after he struck the pavement to identify him as Flag Boy. “Number Six quit and now lives in a remote village somewhere in Europe” Six had always been a strange one. “Number Seven . . .”
“Yes?”
“We never did find out what happened to him.”
Cline cleared his thick, short throat. “You don’t seem to hold onto sidekicks for very long.”
“Number One was my choice. A good, brave lad with a sterling heart and courage unbelievable. The other six were political appointees.” As for holding on, Number Five had wanted to do a little too much of that with his superhero. The Metropolitan Marauder often wondered where they had found those six.
“Yes… well, I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Now that I have answered your question, you will answer mine, De-merest Cline.” Toned muscles rippled for heroic effect. “Why have you invoked that all’but’forgotten clause? Why do you seek to trade me for this… this Blitzen?”
“Dasher. That’s Dasher as in he’s quick. Very much so. He does the mile in two.”
“I can do the mile in two minutes. For a hero, that’s nothing extraordinary.”
The mayor smiled, revealing predatory teeth that reminded the Adventurer of the smile of Mister Mouse. Now there had been a novel villain… “I mean two seconds.”
There was no reply from the Stalwart Sentinel concerning this revelation.
“He can patrol the entire city in less than an hour. He can catch a bullet in his hand. He can run across water.”
The Star-Spangled Adventurer waited to be told that the Dasher could also part the sea, but Cline had evidently come to the end of his short but impressive list. Yet… “If he is so great a champion, and I do not doubt his heroic qualities, then why does his fair city desire to trade him for me? Why do you wish him when they do not?”
“Well, the council of New Biddle has always admired your career, and they—”
“New Biddle?”
“—quite frankly think that your presence will encourage trust in the city fathers. Trust, of course, means growth, with new people moving—”
“Where in the grand country of the United States of America, a land that I love, is New Biddle?” The Stalwart Sentinel’s voice was low and controlled, but it still cut through the new autarch’s rhetoric the way the lasers of Lightbeam had cut through National Guard tanks and, three times, Star Cars.
Even faced by such an onslaught, Demerest Cline persevered where the Shapeshifter had been driven to frightened silence. His smile remained fixed on his plumpish face. “Montana or Idaho, but it’s beautiful country, I understand. See, the council feels that a hero of your reputation is needed to prove that New Biddle is a safe place for both family and business. They feel that only you, Adventurer, can turn their home around.”
Mightily swelled the Grim Guardian’s chest despite the knowledge that he might soon be in Montana or Idaho. “Despite the Dasher, this New Biddle suffers crime rampant? Hmmmm. It has grown quiet of late. Most of the greatest rogues have either fled the city, are incarcerated, or have quit the business. Professor Khaos has not been seen in months. Baron Black is dead. Skorch is cooling his heels in maximum security. The Mocker has actually reformed and now teaches pet grooming. As for the latest wave of so-called villains and miscreants, there’s not a decent archfiend in the whole bunch. Perhaps… perhaps it is time for new challenges. A new beat.”
Cline clapped his meaty, ringed hands. “That’s the spirit! I have the proper documents right here so if you’ll—”
Unfolding his muscular arms, the City Centurion leaned on the edge of the desk, ignoring how the papers beneath his gloved knuckles crumpled like the heads of the robots of Mikros Saaf, would-be dictator. “First I would know a little more about New Biddle’s desperate situation. How dreadful is their crime wave? Who are their supervillains? They must be terrible indeed if this Sprinter is unable to deal with them in some satisfactory manner.”
“Ummm… I don’t have that sort of information. You’ll have to get it from the town council after the trade is finalized.”
Raising one hammerlike hand, the Adventurer pointed at a sheet all but completely hidden by the towers of paper that decorated Demerest Cline’s pretentious desk. “The very document lies there. I can see just a glimpse of its heading, but my alert and able mind has deciphered the topic with but the two letters visible.”
“It’s really not a good list…”
The Adventurer had already seized the tantalizing document in a grip that even the Black Squid would have found enviable. He brought it close and scanned quickly. Scant seconds passed before a darkness spread across his chiseled, masked countenance. “What madness this? Sheepman? The Potato King? The Bicycle Brothers? Fred— Fred Twizle?” He looked as askance as the blazing eagle mask would allow. “Fred Twizle? This is a rogues gallery? This is a crime wave? This collection of minor’league miscreants, who collectively have committed six crimes in five years, has thrown the citizens of New Biddle into despair?”
“Not exactly despair—”
A human juggernaut, the Watchman of the Weak suddenly leaned across the mayor’s desk, almost coming nose to nose with the man behind it. Demerest Cline nearly fell backwards, but he managed to right himself just in time. “What is the truth here, your honor? This is all piddling shit! It’s my age, isn’t it? This is the same thing that happened to Captain Collider in Texas! Shipped off to the miners in the Appalachians where there’s not a decent supercriminal to be had! He was forced to open a tourist attraction just to earn his keep!”
Slowly, as if readying himself to pounce, the new mayor tilted his chair forward again. His stubby fingers re-formed a steeple—probably as close as he ever got to the good church, the Adventurer noted. “Many children are fond of Captain Collider’s Supercollider Roller Coaster.”
“You want me to be a tourist attraction!”
“Actually, New Biddle does. The Dasher, homegrown though he is, is never going to be a big attraction. Not enough activity going on to further his reputation. When I sent out feelers for interest in you, they made the best offer… the only offer.”
“Ridiculous! I have many good years left in me. I am Metra City’s son. I am the guardian of young and old, rich or poor. No one who knows of this grand metropolis does not know that I protect it and protect it well from the dire elements of evil! Metra City and I are one!” He was pleased by the short speech. It was almost as good as the one that he had used on Professor Khaos the last time he had dragged the misguided genius off to the cold, gray walls of prison. Of course, that speech he had practiced for days before the latest epic battle with his archfoe. One had to get them just right; it looked silly to become flustered and tongue-tied during the struggle for decency.
“But you are getting older,” the mayor needlessly pointed out. Settling into his elegant suede chair, Cline added, “As it is, we still have to cover half of your expenses for the first three years as part of the bargain. Your reputation for… new Star Cars every couple months, for instance… was a sore negotiation point.”
The Crusading Cavalier straightened, openly indignant at the latest words to come oozing out of the new mayor’s mouth. “My rewards have always covered those expenses. They have covered all of my expenses.”
“Which is robbing Peter to pay Star-Spangled.” The mayor reached into the coat pocket of his tailored suit and removed a lengthy, imported cigar. Lighting his elegant cigar with the azure flame of a golden lighter, Cline puffed a bit of smoke, paying no heed to the look of disgust radiating from the Adventurer. “Idiotic provision in your contract, giving you say over those rewards; if I’d been mayor then, it would have been stricken out. You must understand that when the city offers all those rewards leading to the capture of a criminal, the council doesn’t want all of those rewards to be claimed. We just can’t afford it.”
“All my rewards, minus expenses, go to charity.”
“Yes, and you have a lot of expenses. The Star Car must get destroyed about once every two months. Good thing you collect a lot of rewards for all those supervillains you capture. Never mind that they keep escaping and you capture them all over again. Professor Khaos alone has cost the city just over a million in the past four years, even barring how much the publicity of your constant duels brings in the tourists. Some of the money does go to charity, but too much is wasted like that. Don’t you think about the strain you put on the coffers of not only Metra but the entire state? The country? Think of all those worthy government programs that are struggling to survive because there isn’t enough to go around.”
The Adventurer fought the good fight, but could not think of any such programs, except maybe the one that kept road crews happily employed repairing the expressways into eternity. Of course, they had unions.
“That’s minor, however, to another provision in your contract. Just what was Goodman thinking?” The mayor looked at his notes. “Aaah. Section 4: Merchandising.”
The Adventurer heroically straightened yet more. “You said merchandising?”
“Merchandising. Probably one of the sorest points. This contract is a shambles. The city loses out terribly here.”
“Sales of my paraphernalia were at their highest last year. The Adventurer T-shirts alone grossed nearly a third again what they did the year before.”
Now it was Demerest Cline who cocked an eyebrow. “You do keep track of things, after all.”
“My name and likeness are on those items. I want those T-shirts to be worn with pride and those mugs, earrings, and action figures to ever be utilized with the knowledge that the Star-Spangled Adventurer is always watching over the satisfaction of the purchaser.”
“Yes, well, while sales are up, the city is currently getting only an eighty-twenty split on all of this merchandising… and the quality standards you demand on the items eats into the net profit from which that meager twenty percent derives. Now with a fifty-fifty split, Metra would benefit much more, but even that hardly makes—”
“I would never accept such a change!”
“You don’t have to. New Biddle is so anxious for your company that they’ve agreed to the old split. Meanwhile, Metra City will go halves with its new hero, the daring Dasher. We’ll also settle this reward thing in a more amicable manner.”
“So it is not merely my age, but also a ruse to take more from the poor souls of Metra in the name of austerity!” The Star-Spangled Adventurer chuckled in amused triumph. “I doubt any hero would be so craven as to accept such terms. You’ll not be rid of me so soon. Once the Dancer sees these terms, he will never sign, mark my words!”
Demerest Cline rose to his full… five foot eight. He looked the Patriot of Freedom for young and old, rich and poor, in the face and said, “He has and he did.”
“What?”
“The Dasher has signed the agreement. He was quite happy with it. Understand, he will not be as big a draw for the tourists, at least not for a few years. Despite that, the city needs to bring in a certain minimum to keep afloat. When things get better, the Dasher can renegotiate if he wants. By the way, he starts next Monday. Your last day is Friday.” From his suit, the mayor magically produced another stack of papers. He held them out toward the disbelieving Defender of Decency. “His contract is available to you if you desire to see it. In the meantime…” Cline dropped the new stack atop the old papers. “… sign the last page.”
The Adventurer folded his arms, albeit not with as much confidence as before. “I will not.”
“Then you will be in breach of contract, and I can simply dismiss you.”
Professor Khaos had failed to defeat him after two hundred and eighty-six battles. The Packwolf had all but given up after ninety-two. The Star-Spangled Adventurer could list the number of defeats each of his foes had suffered, even down to the lone battle he had won over his very first villain, the Awful Auk, yet none of them mattered now. Now, he had tasted the bitter ash of defeat. The sour milk of retreat. The moldy bread of ruination. The leftover treacle of—
“There is one thing that might make this more palatable to you, Spangled.”
“Adventurer…” he muttered in a voice not heard in years by any outsider. His eyes were still locked on the infernal documents.
“One of the police department’s moles overheard a bit of conversation. Seems Fred Twizle and a certain figure well known to you had a conversation. There’s rumors of that same figure flying out for a special meeting.”
“And so?” He really, really did not care. Maybe this would be a good time to start his memoirs. The notes he had on his life already filled thirteen volumes. He would need two or three years just to shuffle the notes into shape.
“And so that other figure was none other than a certain Professor Khaos.”
A familiar trickle of electricity coursed through the tensing body of the masked champion. Renewed purpose peeked its way into his life once more. “What would the archfiends of two cities, two cities not coincidentally tied together, speak of?”
Demerest Cline shook his head. Almost there seemed to be some fear in his eyes, fear for both his beloved city and the Star-Spangled Adventurer’s new home. “I wouldn’t know, but it may be why the town council was so eager to purchase your contract. They may have heard something before this. Our sources did mention he might be moving all of his henchmen there.”
The Adventurer pondered the question ferociously. Despite all those defeats, Khaos was still his most deadly foe. “That has an almost permanent ring to it. The purloining professor might be relocating his operations. Khaos has gone into seclusion before, and the more secluded he becomes, the more diabolical his plans. Now he travels to New Biddle in Montana or Idaho or…” Keen eyes widened in abject horror at the possibilities. “By Grant’s Tomb! This could be catastrophic!”
“If you sign this right now, I can get you transportation to New Biddle within the hour,” Cline offered, looking earnest.
Almost the Adventurer reached for the contract. Yet, he was still not ready to trust. “If this is a trick, Demerest Cline, I will—”
Mayor Cline looked aghast. He shook his head. “If you like, I’ll even add a rider in the contract, in my own handwriting and initialized, stating that if you find me to have been false in this I will give the Dasher the same merchandising split you had with fair Metra.”
“It would almost be worth it if Khaos did not show.”
“He will, Star. I’m certain of it. Fred Twizle may be plotting to attack you while you’re still becoming accustomed to New Biddle. Khaos would certainly be willing to give whatever aid he could in that respect. Think of it, Adventurer. The combined menace of the Professor and the sinister Twizle!”
The hero’s mission became clear. Once again, there was a twinkle in his penetrating eyes. He nodded toward the new contract. “Add the rider. I must be on my way before dawn. I will beat Khaos to New Biddle and thus be able to prepare myself at least a little for what may be the greatest trial of my formidable career!”
In the end, it took only forty-four minutes before the private jet carried off the Star-Spangled Adventurer to his confrontation with the insidious genius known as Professor Khaos and the madman’s latest ally of evil… Fred Twizle.
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Mayor Demerest Cline did not allow himself a glass of his fine, imported Scotch until the superhero’s plane was more than fifteen minutes on its way. The dealing with the Adventurer could have gone very sour, and he knew it. That would have fouled everything up.
Carrying the glass to his desk, he prepared himself for the inevitable.
“I am here, Demerest Cline.”
God! Why do they all have to talk like that? Taking a sip, he glanced to his side, where a figure clad in the garb of a Victorian gentleman stood. The man was about sixty, slim but in excellent health. In truth, he looked in better shape than the mayor, who was only in his forties. A Vandyke beard and a monocle enhanced the regal features of the black-haired figure. The gray-steel eyes hinted at a remarkable intelligence. In one hand, he held a cane with a silver wolfs head.
“Professor Khaos.”
The master of evil removed his hat, revealing thinning hair, and smiled. “We must talk, Demerest Cline, of future plots.”
Settling into his chair, Cline took another sip. “So we should. We should also talk of New Biddle.”
The smile faltered. “New Biddle?”
“My counterpart there has supplied me with the telephone number of a man you need to talk to before you leave. Fred Twizle is his name. I’ve attached the number to the top page.” As he spoke, the mayor opened a side drawer and brought forth a multipage document. He tossed the document toward the archvillain, looking him in the eye as he did. “You’ve been good for the tourist business, Khaos, but I’m sorry to say that you’ve been traded…”