Origins of a D-List Supervillain Read Online Free PDF Page A

unload the goods. That path would add lengthy delays to my plans, but Dad always used to say that “slow and steady wins the race.”
    At that moment, all I had was time.
    • • •
    Second thoughts? Yeah, I started having them as soon as the force blasters were finished. Up until then, I was just planning crimes. The day I test fired my blasters was when shit got real. The first place I decided to knock over was a chain jewelry store, figuring they would be insured. I toyed with the idea of robbing the pawn shops, but, considering I might need them to fence my goods, that seemed problematic. Also, I could easily be distracted by all the other shiny objects inside a place like that.
    From the amount of sweating I was doing, I worried that the police would be able to track the water trail back to my trailer. Somehow, I doubted a double wide could ever be considered a criminal lair. It was around two in the morning, when the cops would be camped out by the bars and looking for easy ways to make their ticket quotas. Dialing the belt controller up to level three, I blew open the back door and scrambled through the opening. A second burst from my left hand took out their server closet. Unless they sent their security feed offsite, I’d just rendered their cameras useless and destroyed the recorded data.
    Most crooks down this way wouldn’t even consider that, I thought, mentally patting myself on the back. I blew the power panel for good measure, but the alarm had already been triggered. It was more for the sake of not listening to it while I broke into the drawers below the display cases and poured rings, necklaces, and earrings into a pillowcase.
    Yes, I was using a pillowcase. Don’t judge me. Given my costume, I looked like a trick or treater, so it seemed to work. “Function over form” was what I always said.
    At the two minute mark, I lumbered back out to the red Hyundai and tossed the pillowcase onto the floor of the passenger seat and then dropped the backpack assembly on the seat above my haul. It was a little uncomfortable with the cables running to the wrist mounted force blasters and the wires going to the belt controller assembly, but I pulled away before the fourth minute had elapsed. My route took me away from the direction the police cars would be coming. It was a twenty minute drive back to Argos.
    Several times one of Barton’s legal thugs implied to the judge that my acts were criminal in nature. At least now, I’d given them cause to say that.
    “I need a criminal name,” I said aloud, basking in the joy of my first heist. “Blasterman? Ultrathief? Nah, that one would be a dead giveaway. The blocky powercell, almost makes me look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, maybe I should use Quasimodo.”
    Since I didn’t have the synthetic muscle to make a pair of gauntlets, my force blasters were mounted on my wrist instead. The way the cables ran off of it made them seem like those shackles they make prisoners wear.
    “Powershackle? Closer. What about Manacles? I like it. Almost sounds like my name. I’ve got it! ManaCALes!”
    It didn’t seem like a stupid name to me.
    • • •
    One of the things I always found amusing about my time working with Patterson and his supersuit was that after he fought in a battle, especially the times he’d gotten beaten, the entire project would gather in an auditorium and watch every piece of footage of the battle—like we were a damned football team watching game film.
    It was fun watching everyone trying to deflect the blame.
    “If the offensive systems performed better, the shields wouldn’t have taken such a beating.” I patently ignored the comment from Owen, because he was full of shit and offensive systems wasn’t the reason Lazarus was resting in a hyperbaric chamber at that moment.
    “Don’t look at maneuverability! Ever since the latest upgrades were installed, the suit is quicker. Maybe internal structure could work another shield emitter into the