Saving the world for $12.50 an hour

Editorial nore: OK, here's the deal. I wrote this and Liz helped as a sounding board,co-conspirator and made suggestions, so I gave her a co-writer credit. This is a novella I'm publishing one chapter at a time for the next 16 weeks. It's all done, so there will be no delays. Enjoy.


Saving the world for $12.50 an hour

By Kevin Lindsey and Elizabeth Nguyen


Prologue
The beast is at the door, and we’ve left it unlocked.

The world slouches towards its end and everyone sits on their couches and watches it happen. Daily the good die. The politician who cares about his constituents is made to look like a thief. The cop who won’t take a bribe winds up dead. Or maybe it’s just the honest worker who wants to do a good job getting fired by that new prick of a boss. No one asks why this keeps happening. No one sees that the righteous are replaced with the wicked.

And, just who are these pricks that are taking over our world? Aliens sent to take over the world? Hardly. Demons ushering in the Apocalypse? Seems a little religious, doesn’t it? Maybe, there’s just more assholes out there. Possibly.

All of those answers are wrong. There is only one prick taking over the world: Rob Slash. That damn ninja clone wizard is seeding himself throughout the world and soon we won’t be able to stop him. Even now his soul clones are taking up residence in the righteous. Every one of them was once a good person. Their souls are gone, but their bodies are still there in key positions. Their original souls have been burnt away and replaced by Slash.

We need to ask ourselves one question: Will truth and justice prevail?

-- From the asylum wall of the doctor.

Chapter 1

Frank comes to with the smell of old beer and stale peanuts full in his nose. Nothing new. He turns his head and glances up and finds himself looking up a woman’s skirt. There’s a word printed on her underwear. “Thursday” he mumbles. “Isn’t it Monday?”

The woman with the long purple and black ponytails looks down at him with a skeptical look. It’s Lady Truth. “Yeah, it’s Monday. How hard did Deus hit you?”

“Never mind,” Frank mumbles.

It all floods back to Frank. He’s called Dr. Justice, now. It used to be Capt. Justice, but that was a long time ago. A fatter, better time. Now, he calls himself the doctor. And he’s lying on the floor of the Legion of Heroes.

It’s one of those skanky superhero bars. You know. Some retired superhero or wannabe spends his retirement money opening up a little dive so he can stay close to the action. No one goes in there except superheroes or one of their dirty toadies looking to suck up to the big damn heroes. That’s the Legion of Heroes. Yeah, the name’s corny. Superheroes like it that way.

It was that dick Deus who put Dr. Justice on the floor. What, you’ve never heard Deus called a dick before? Well, despite being big, muscular, always right (he thinks he is), invulnerable (mostly) and able to fly, he’s a dick. At least, that’s what Dr. Justice thought.

“You going get up, or are you just going to stare at my snatch all day?” Lady Truth says with a sigh. “And, hey you big jerk, why’d you hit him? You’re only 10,000 times stronger,” she says to the glowing muscle man in the corner being held back by the Minotaur, a squat heavily muscled superhero with a bull’s head.

Justice dry heaves once, adjusts his cheap goggles and staggers up. “What the hell, Deus.”

“Get that worthless has-been out of here before I paste the walls with him,” Deus says glowing brighter. “He doesn’t belong here. He never did.”

Dr. Justice lunges forward his cellular iron fist at the end of his right robotic arm flying towards Deus’ head. The connection barely makes a sound, but Deus’ head snaps back and a small cut is opened on his right cheek.

Before Deus’ head can snap back, Lightning, Krank and Speed have zipped between the two, creating a wall of jittery flesh between the two heroes. The three spandex-wearing kinetically enhanced heroes wave blurry fingers at the doctor.

“Now, not Kosher, now, bad form old bean,” the three say simultaneously.

Behind the blurry, skinny figures Deus bellows, “Get him out. Get him out. And his skank of a partner, too.”

Lady Truth whips her right arm around levels it at Deus’ head and fires off a blast from her laser arm cannon. But he is ready and pumped, dodging the laser with ease.The light beam blasts a perfect, circular hole in the bar.

Everything turns into a blur for the doctor and Lady T as the kinetic heroes grab them and carry them out the back door. When the whirlwind of movement subsides the two are flat on their backs. Above them they can see the starry sky and surrounding them is the smell of rotting chicken wings wafting out of the garbage cans and the acid smell of old puke. Yup, it’s the alley.

Lightning pulses from side-to-side next to them holding a piece of paper. Dr. Justice grabs it after a couple of tries. It’s a bill for the bar Lady Truth just blew up. $5,200.78.

“You’re not welcome back until you pay that off,” Lightning says. “Such a shame. You used to be such a good hero. Ever since you went crazy it’s been one problem after another.”

Then he shimmers away in a wave of speed, leaving behind a faint breeze.

Sitting up, Dr. Justice looks at the bill in his and sighs, “Ah, shit. How am I going to pay for this? I’ve got $200 in the checking account, and I live in a mental institution. Hell, I’m stealing the orderlies’ scrubs for my action suit.”

Lady Truth bounces to her feet and looks down at the doctor. It’s nice to be short, young and in shape, the doctor thinks.

“Don’t worry, we’ll find a way to pay for it,” she says with a grim smile.

She always smiles. Good or bad, she smiles, thinks Dr. Justice.

Dr. Justice drags his aging bulk off the ground, crumpling the bill and stuffing it in his pocket as he struggles up. His long, curly dark blond hair whips back as he steadies himself.

“Yeah, sure. Look at us,” he says, looking mostly at his middle-aged gut. “I’ve got $200 and by the looks of that outfit you shop at Goodwill. Seriously, what do you do for money? I’m not even sure where you live. You look like you’re Asian, but I’m not even sure about that. Shouldn’t I know more about my partner?”

She just smiles at him, tossing her purple and black hair back, dark eyes laughing.

“Don’t worry Doc. I think I have an idea.”

Eh, why did I have to pick a perky partner, the doctor thinks.