Free Almost Infamous: A Supervillain Novel by Matt Carter Page A

but you’ve smuggled goods to dissidents and refugees—for free—under your boss’s nose if you thought you could get away with it.”
    She turned to Showstopper. “You’ve used your hive mind powers to create flash mob musical numbers in an effort to pick up women and jumpstart your career as a performance artist, and the heroes branded you a villain just to shut you up.”
    “That works?” I asked.
    He chuckled. “The girls and getting arrested part, yeah. The art… not so much, no.”
    She turned to Odigjod. “And you… actually, they don’t have a file on you.”
    Odigjod nodded. “Hell magic. We cannot show up in an formal file, it just does not working.”
    “File or no, though, it doesn’t take a genius to see you’re a sweetheart,” she said.
    He bowed. “Guilty.”
    “See?” she said, moving her hand as though showing off a host of prizes. “Sweethearts.”
    “So what you’re saying is, you don’t think we can cut it as supervillains?” I asked.
    “Supervillains like Bad Bug and Otis Shylock? Fuck no. But the supervillains they’re going to want on this team to push around? Yeah, I’d say you guys are perfect.”
    Both Iron Bear and I stood up to object.
    But before an altercation could arise, a crashing at the edge of the forest stopped everyone in their tracks.
    “It sounds huge!” I exclaimed, running to the other side of the fire with Firewall.
    “I’ve heard bigger!” Iron Bear laughed, unwrapping several shards of metal from his armor and hovering them like spears at the ready.
    No monster came out of the trees, at least not any that were native to the island. It was only the giant boy made of crystals. He cradled another villain in his arms, setting them down by the fire. Though they ran off, the crystal boy stood looking at us for a moment while breathing heavily. Finally, he smiled crookedly.
    “ Hola! ” he said, conversationally, collapsing on the ground. The crystals began to retreat into his body, shrinking him down to a slender, handsome boy maybe slightly taller than me in a tattered soccer jersey and shorts with about a week’s worth of black stubble.
    “Are you all right, friend?” Iron Bear asked.
    “Fine, I’m fine,” the boy said. “Just exhausted. Spent all day searching the waters for those in need of help. I found some, but not a lot wanted help. Can you believe some actually took shots at me?”
    I don’t know why he sounded so sad. He shouldn’t have been surprised.
    “Have you eaten? Had water?” Iron Bear asked.
    The downed boy shook his head. He looked on the verge of death.
    “Apex Strike and I will get you some food and water.”
    “We will?” I asked, surprised that he recommended me for this expedition.
    “Yes. And you two will watch him. Make sure he does not lose consciousness,” motioning to Odigjod and Showstopper.
    “With pleasure,” Showstopper said, pulling Odigjod over to sit by the boy. “Now, have you heard the one about the bloke who tried smuggling cane toads up his bum?”
    Though I would have been more comfortable sitting by our bonfire, I walked with Iron Bear, ignoring Firewall’s echoing call of, “Sweethearts!”
    “Why did he do it? Why are we doing this?”
    “Doing what?”
    “Helping them , helping him ? Isn’t this a competition? Doesn’t it help us to go every man for himself?”
    “In something like this, no. We will be a team, remember? We are to depend on one another someday. I think you can only benefit from playing nice,” he proposed.
    On paper, what he said made sense. In reality, it sounded hard as hell. People never liked me. They’d never really disliked me, either, and usually just walked around me. Playing nice would take the effort of pretending to be interested in them.
    I shook my head. “This sucks.”
    Iron Bear laughed, playfully punching my shoulder. “Nobody ever called being a supervillain easy. Come on, you get the water, I’ll get the food.”
    We went our separate ways,