Hench
an excerpt

Chapter One

The Citadel of Evil, the one on Fourth and Maple, was ticking down toward self-destruction.

Up on the fifteenth floor, a closed-circuit television on one wall showed Doctor Maniac on the roof, locked in combat with The Watchman, while Maniac's robot soldiers were on the ground, being demolished by the city's best riot squad. Beside the TV, a digital clock ticked down in huge red numbers: 14:48. 14:47. 14:46. Ten minutes slow. A personal touch. Between the scattered papers and overturned desks, the smoking computers and screaming alarms, one man in a disheveled business suit was shoving data dots into his pockets and setting a blowtorch to everything else.

That was me.

Thank God for gas masks, I was thinking, as another heap of plastic melted down into noxious smoke. I didn't pay much attention to the TV. The good doctor--who signed my checks, no matter how distractedly--was no match for the city's top vigilante, and besides, I could watch it that night on the news. I glanced at the screen in time to see Dr. M take a backhand to the jaw. I winced on his behalf. That's what you get for insisting on fighting one-on-one, Doc.

It wouldn't be long now, not with the Watchman mopping the roof with my boss and the robots below all but crying for their mechanical mothers. I gave the place one good look around and shrugged out of the flame-thrower. 12:42. 12:41. Evidence destroyed, minions evacuated, data protected, and all that lovely money safe in forty increasingly-illegal places. Nice job, Hench.

That, of course, is when something huge and black burst through the window.

"Gaaah!" I covered my head with both arms. The guy went straight for me, which is something you have to respect given how tall I am, and before I had time to swear he had me on the ground and was digging his knees into my gut.

It wasn't the Watchman. This guy was smaller, a sinewy bantamweight, and from the exposed skin at his wrists, decidedly whiter than the one on the roof beating up the Doctor. He tore aside my gas mask, and I gasped at the rush of foul air. He cocked his head at me. His black ski mask bulged around the eyes, like he was wearing it over a pair of goggles. Then he grabbed the gold earring in my left ear and tore it free.

I have been shot, stabbed, demolecularized on the cellular level, genetically experimented upon, and surgically fitted with gills. I have never experienced that kind of pain. I screamed like a girl. Through my watering eyes I saw the guy raise a hand to my face. He had a ringcam on his middle finger. A tiny "click" sounded in my poor, agonized, mutilated ear. This time I did manage to get a curse out. He hit me, which I expected, and then twisted around to take a long look at the digital clock on the wall. He let me up. As I was curling into a fetal position I could just see him dart for the window and hurl himself into open air.

"Show off," I croaked. I rolled to my hands and knees. I couldn't see the countdown through my tears, but I knew it was ticking down. Get out. Get out. I crawled across the floor; shards of glass, hunks of steaming plastic, burnt paper, and jagged bits of metal went out of their way to get under my hands and into my kneecaps. I dragged myself to the corner by the file cabinets, groping around the debris. Come on, come on...aha. My hand closed around a metal strap. I dashed the water from my eyes and the world came back into focus. Get a grip. I looked at the clock. 10:45. Nice.

Fifteen seconds to drag on the fireproof jumpsuit. Ten to shrug into the harness. Ten to get to the window, three to open it, one to light up the rockets. Blue fire streamed out behind me, annihilating two computer chairs and a Ziggy mug. I clutched the controls of my jetpack and leapt from the fifteenth floor.

The Citadel of Evil imploded.

The rush of air tugged me around--I juiced the jetpack and leaned away from the demolition. Poofs of smoke and dust billowed up and then reversed themselves, sucked back into the vacuum. I didn't look back. I veered toward the Hub and flew as far away from the Watchman, his new sidekick, the cops, the robot army, and the demolished building as I could get.

Besides. Once you've seen your office implode a few times, you have a pretty good idea what it looks like.