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

nondescript white van—the kind you see on the highway and don’t give a second thought to. Paying cash for a new one was tempting, but somehow I guessed Barton’s squad was tracking my finances, so I played it safe.
    The getaway driver was a problem, but surprisingly I had trust issues. The answer came in the form of a project I’d been a part of in my second year at UCLA. Our engineering department built a self-driving car. I still had most of the notes. It wasn’t as complex as people made it out to be. The idea wouldn’t take hold in this country anytime soon. People saw it as taking away their personal freedom. It probably just wasn’t marketed correctly. If they sold it as a built-in designated driver, it’d sell like hotcakes, especially around here.
    My driver was a blow up sex doll wearing a blonde wig. I named her Tracy, in honor of the dead woman who made this all possible. Beyond that, I used the GPS unit from my cellphone, a laptop, webcam, and some simple control equipment. It would get around this county and obey almost all traffic laws—I did make an exception so it wouldn’t pull over for the police.
    It seemed prudent. There was also an untested override which I hoped I’d never have to use, where I programmed it to behave like one of those console driver games.
    • • •
    “Hit it, Tracy!” I said, jumping into the back of the van and closing the doors. Job number seven was actually in Alabama. I didn’t want to be exclusive to Mississippi and make the investigators jobs any easier and give them any kind of a pattern to lock in on.
    The route I programmed into Tracy took me out of town headed southeast. I was on my way to Florida and figured they’d be looking for my van going back west. Also, getting a bit bolder, I pulled this one at a different hour, because after the job in Jackson, the news started calling me the two a.m. bandits, still assuming that more than one person was involved.
    So tonight, Tracy and I were the Midnight Cowboys. I even started singing that I Wanna Be a Cowboy song. Sure it wasn’t as good as Biz Markie, but few things were.
    Halfway through the second verse, I saw the flashing blue lights.
    “Shit!” I exclaimed and started pulling on the ski mask back onto my face. I used some stolen plates I’d taken in Jackson. “Tracy, alter our travel path to route three in one minute.”
    At thirty seconds, I opened the back door and shoved my hand out. I dialed the setting to level three and sent a burst into the patrol car’s engine block. Metal crumpled and there was a big dent in his front like he’d just run into a telephone pole.
    The pursuit was neutralized, but my worries had just begun. By the time I reached Florida, the dashboard footage of the incident was picked up by the national news. Exposure was something I’d hoped to avoid and now I was on most of the major channels and the 24 Hour Hero channel.
    A level four pulse had left the stolen plates an unrecognizable mass at the center of a small crater on a country road off the interstate. I pulled out a stencil and spray painted “General Contracting” on it and used a heat gun to dry it and weather the paint in short order. It would protect my secret identity for now, but the cat was out of the bag.
    • • •
    My problems only grew when I got to the Sunshine state. Two of my pawn brokers had been burnt down under “suspicious” circumstances. The only good news was that it wasn’t Joey. I was halfway to my goal of having enough money to make my own suit, but my middle men were becoming scarce. If Barton’s folks caught wind of this, they could easily sick the feds on me. That suit would come in handy when that happened, but I’d need to get the money and drop out of sight.
    With that in mind, I came to the only sensible conclusion; I’d have to pull a bank job.

Chapter Three
    ManaCALes Versus the Biloxi Bugler
     
    In response to my crime spree, I saw an announcement that The Bugler would