Free Almost Infamous: A Supervillain Novel by Matt Carter

precision. Occasionally she’d say something like “Impressive, for its time,” but she mostly left us boys alone.
    “It’s not fair,” I finally said.
    “What? Us being trapped here?” Showstopper asked.
    “No. I’m the most famous villain here. I killed Icicle Man! Why doesn’t everyone want to hang around me?” I complained.
    Odigjod teleported out of the fire, putting a comforting claw on my shoulder. “We want to hanging around you!”
    “Yeah, that helps,” I said, sarcastically. Odigjod let out a low coo before stepping back and again teleporting into the flames.
    “It is not as bad as you think, I think,” Iron Bear said. “You are correct when saying that you are the most famous here. I doubt that anyone else here has made headlines like you, and I think they are jealous.”
    Jealous? That perked me up.
    “Keep going,” I said.
    “Well, look at it from their view. They enter into a competition that means either freedom or prison, and they think they all have a chance, but then they see you. They see Celebrity Supervillain Apex Strike . They see someone they think is going to be on the team for sure, and they are jealous that they do not have that,” he explained.
    I looked to Showstopper. “You think that’s true?”
    He shrugged. “Maybe. Who cares about those assholes anyway? Once we get to competing and you show off what you can really do, they’ll be begging for your friendship just so they can get a few pointers from someone who’s actually been there. Not like some posers who want to make everyone think they have.”
    He didn’t have to point to Artok or Carnivore, but I got the idea.
    “Thanks guys, that really means a lot.”
    Odigjod teleported in front of me. “Even Odigjod?”
    I smiled, ruffling a hand through his fluttery ears. “Yeah, you too, Odigjod.”
    There was a sharp, sarcastic laugh from across the flames. “You really believe all that bullshit?”
    “It’s not bullshit,” Iron Bear said.
    “Yeah, it is. You guys have just piled it so fucking high you can’t see what it is anymore,” Firewall said, using a severed, robotic arm to pull herself across the ground toward us.
    “What’s bullshit?” I asked.
    “The way they jack you off just because you got in a lucky shot at a superhero that had probably never fought a supervillain before,” she said.
    “That wasn’t luck—”
    “Yeah, it was. You were running, he caught you, he almost killed you, you killed him first, and you couldn’t run away fast enough.”
    “You don’t know what it was like. You weren’t there.”
    “No, I wasn’t. But I watched that video a few dozen times, and I know you’re not the hot shit you think you are. None of us are, really. Some of us are petty criminals, sure, and even a few real bad guys, but mostly if you look at our files we’re just a bunch of stupid kids the heroes know they can push around.”
    “You’ve seen our files?” I asked, a bit taken aback.
    She rolled her eyes as if I’d just asked the stupidest question in the world. “I can talk to machines. They do what I want them to. The computers on the boat had really shitty encryption.”
    She looked down and started talking at her chest. “And yes, I know you guys are listening in on this, and if this was a big surprise you would have killed me by now. I know you want me here on the team because I’m that good, so don’t even give me a suspense shock, all right? That’d annoy me and slow down the upgrades on my suit and will mess up your whole ‘show and tell’ day tomorrow because I can put on a really, really good show if you don’t annoy me.”
    It took me a moment to realize that she’d started talking to her Creeper.
    “Hey, we’re bad guys,” Iron Bear said, defensively.
    “No, you’re sweethearts,” Firewall stated.
    “Wanna bet?” he asked, flexing his suit as if it were a second set of muscles.
    She raised an eyebrow. “You’ve broken some legs for a black market mob boss,