Free The Machinist Part One: Malevolence by Alexander Maisey

stuffed the cable under his new chest armor, and clicked it into another data node on his chest.  A new icon appeared in his head’s-up display, a little star.  He focused it in the air above him, and blinked.
    Everything tasted purple for a second, and his vision returned: He was now hovering above the spot he’d stood before.  It worked.
    McHenry checked the countdown clock on the room’s self-destruct protocol.  He had less than a minute left.  He hovered over to the weapons on display one last time, and shook his head.  There was nothing there that appealed to him, but he snatched up a plasma pistol anyway and checked its charge.  It beeped cheerfully.  He tucked it into the belt and prayed it didn’t have a hair trigger.
    There was a row of mannequins wearing the costumes of Titans who had fallen in the line of duty over the decades.  McHenry snatched the black cowl off of one of them and pulled it over his head.  It left only his eyes visible.
    He made his way out of the room, sealing the door behind him with a few seconds to spare.  The ground shook again as the room burst into flames behind the impenetrable doors.
    McHenry took stock of his situation.  The detonation would cover the evidence of his theft, and with any luck the Titans and Baron Brass would believe McHenry had perished in the conflagration anyway.  He didn’t particularly care what the heroes did as long as they thought he was dead and gone.  If he got out of this mess in one piece, he already had a new identity waiting for him to step into and lay low for a while.
    But Baron Brass, the so-called Master ?  That was a different story.
    The old man had used and manipulated McHenry after subverting his work—and then he insulted him and tried to kill him.  That would not stand.
    All the Machinist had ever strived for was to be recognized by the world for his technical genius —and that fossil had had the gall to try and take over the world using McHenry’s creations, then sweep him under the rug?  No.
    “No.”  McHenry said aloud, his voice muffled a little under the new mask.  “That bastard is going to pay.”
    Using a combination of the short range teleportation effect and his new anti-gravity boots, the freshly geared-up villain made his way through the corridors and elevator shafts of the heroes’ ruined headquarters.  When McHenry emerged ten minutes later--from behind a hidden door in the base of one of the stone lions at the Public Library--he sighed with relief.
    He knew that w henever anyone in the villain world had big news, they unquestionably set up shop in Times Square.  He only needed to head north about seven blocks.
    The hunt was on.
    ***
    As prematurely-freed convicts appeared throughout the city and Manhattan’s native super villain population pushed northwest through lines of overwhelmed cops and vigilantes, the mastermind himself finally made his appearance.
    Underneath the big screen in Times Square, the largest purple teleportation gate appeared.  Flanked by a vanguard of Network soldiers armed with weapons ranging from mundane automatic weapons to exotic plasma rifles, Baron Brass strode with pride and purpose into the City That Never Sleeps.  He raised his arms in victory as bullets fired from the guns of frantic police officers bounced off of his armor.  His soldiers swarmed around him and liquefied their master’s attempted assailants in a hail of energy bolts and gunfire.
    A half-dozen floating metallic orbs the size of melons came through the teleportation gate and swirled around him before the gate sputtered out of existence.  As he stomped over the hood of an abandoned minivan, the metal of the vehicle strained under the weight of his brass armor.  Standing atop the derelict vehicle, he turned to face the nearest of the floating balls.  Its lens-eye drifted in and out of focus for a moment before settling on an aperture size.
    Above and behind the conquering mastermind, the image of a