Waiting for a Miracle - Chapter 1

I sat on my black suede sofa, absently rubbing the rough-textured arm as I watched the man seated in front of me struggle with his bonds. He struggled with vain desperation to free himself from the metal cables bound tight around his wrists.

He was completely mindless of my presence, perhaps because I’d told him I was leaving the room, and then made the appropriate sounds to give him said impression. He would not know otherwise for the pillow case over his head, which I bound around his throat to keep him from peeking. I like to tease my victims in this way all the time. It makes them more, shall we say receptive to negotiation?

However, I cut my usual intimidation routine short, reminding myself that I was on a very different kind of quest tonight, one which would alter my destiny forever. Leaning forward, I cleared my throat, smiling when the man froze.

“You are being restrained by braided titanium ropes, so I very much doubt you will ever wiggle out of them,” I said, resisting the urge to heave an evil laugh when my victim whimpered.

I stood up and walked over to the man, who sat on a folding metal chair. The padding was removed to make it more uncomfortable, as I don’t enjoy having company over.

The man whimpered more at my approach, almost hyperventilating as I unlocked the cable around his neck to remove the pillowcase. I slid it off of his head to gaze once again at his rugged, handsome features.

Though they were filled with apprehension, his crystal blue eyes still threatened to consume me. I looked up to his dark blond hair that was beginning to show some signs of graying. My gaze drifted to his strong jaw line firming as he clenched his teeth, and I noted that he didn’t need an airbrush artist to touch up his publicity photos.

I could have tried smiling at the man to calm him, but I was still wearing my mask. Instead I reached out to pat his cheek, sighing when he jerked away from me. Sure, I’d just kidnapped him only two hours ago, so I’m sure he was petrified.

Still, I had hoped that he wasn’t so shallow that we couldn’t move past this little snag in our relationship. I snapped my hand out and peeled the tape off of his face quick, smirking as he grunted and flexed his lips to ease the sting.

“W-who are you?” he stammered fearfully.

Ah, the moment was ripe, I tell you. I could have rocked his world all night long, and my mind was filled with dozens of fantasies with just his one fearful question.

Instead I killed the moment. “My name is Duggan Masters, but most of the people in this city know me as Light Master,” I said, standing over the man as I folded the pillowcase.

I set it on the coffee table beside him, smoothing out a wrinkle on the top before I went to the wastebasket to throw the tape away. Mom would have been so proud.

“Rather,” I corrected myself, “I was the Light Master until last week. I’m trying to retire, you see.”

The man stared at me in confusion before shaking his head. “You’ve made some kind of mistake. I’m not wealthy, so there’s no point in holding me for ransom.”

I walked over to the man and smiled behind my mask, reaching out to pat the side of his face. He didn’t shy away this time, and I felt a surge of electricity at the stubble covering his cheek.

Pushing aside yet another dirty thought, I shook my head. “You are mistaken about my motivation in kidnapping you. I assure you that I don’t need money. I’ve got millions in loot from my last four capers alone. That doesn’t include the cut I get from everyone else’s schemes, so I’m quite comfortable, financially. As the overlord behind every foul plot in this city, I’ve amassed a vast fortune from the huddled masses.”

His expression changed from fear to confusion. “Then why are you holding me hostage?”

I walked to my coffee table again, picking up a book. I showed him the back cover, which had his handsome photo smiling for the camera. “You are Dr. Wallace Cornwall, the author of Our Masks, Ourselves, a self-help and motivation guide for superheroes who have lost hope.” I spoke in an affable tone of voice, pausing before I asked, “This is correct?”

Wallace nodded, looking baffled by my interest in him. “I am indeed, but I don’t see what you could gain by making me your prisoner. I’m not that helpful to heroes.”

“Well, here’s the thing. I kind of need your help,” I said, resisting the urge to pace as I entered monologue mode. “You are the only expert I could consult on a matter like this, and so I took you. You must realize that if you don’t help me, I will kill you.”

Wallace considered this for some time, which I found a bit odd. I mean, his choices were help me or die, so I would have thought he didn’t need so much time to consider my proposal. Still I let him muse on his choices without prodding him because he’d lost most of his fear by that point.

Finally, he looked back up at me and asked, “What do you need me to do?”

I said, “I guess you may have noticed that Miracle Man hasn’t been seen in over three months.”

“I think I saw something about it on the news, but I work a lot,” Wallace confessed.

“Well, for most everyone else in this city, it’s common knowledge,” I commented with a note of sarcasm. “The city’s greatest hero just vanished, leaving no clue as to his whereabouts.”

“You don’t suppose he’s out stopping an alien invasion again?” Wallace suggested. “Heroes tend to patrol wider and wider areas as their confidence builds.”

“Sure, but that usually takes a week or two, not three months.” I leaned down and unbound Wallace’s wrists. “I’ve been a very bad boy in those three months, pulling off every despicable act in the book, and even reinventing the wheel in some cases. But here in the last couple of weeks, I’ve felt so uninspired.”

Finishing with his wrist restraints, I knelt to unlock the cuffs around his ankles. “Without someone to stop me or even challenge me, I’ve lost my motivation to be a super villain.”

“Oh, then you want me to help you find a reason to go on,” Wallace said, his gorgeous eyes lighting up with recognition.

I shook my head, adding to his confusion. “I was actually hoping you could help me figure out a way to retire. Without Miracle Man around, I’ve begun to hate the monotony of all these endless looting and killing sprees.”

“I don’t understand.” Wallace admitted. “I would have thought having the hero out of the way would make killing and plundering ludicrously easy.”

“Oh it is,” I agreed. I tossed the cuffs on the floor as I straightened up. “But because there’s no challenge to getting away from the police, I don’t put any thought into my plans anymore. Every time, they keep getting lamer and lamer. I’m dreading the day when a victim looks at me and chides, ‘Well, this was a stupid plan.’ So I’ve got two choices: either I can get over Miracle Man and find a new town to take on a new hero; or I can retire. Staying here is pointless when the hero has taken a powder.”

Wallace nodded, looking thoughtful as he continued to rub his wrists. “Okay. If I agree to help you, then will you agree to release me?”

“I will anyway.” I laughed at his puzzled scowl.

No, not an evil laugh; a polite one.

“I know you have other clients to look after, and I will allow you to go back to your family this very night if you agree to help. I know it will take more than one night to find a solution to my dilemma, and I’m not an unreasonable person.”

Wallace looked shocked. “You aren’t worried that I’ll call the police?”

“If you do, I’ll kill them, and then I’ll kill you,” I stated in a menacing voice. “Make no mistake about this, Dr. Cornwall; you don’t want to get on my bad side. However, if you like, I can pay you for this as psychiatric treatments. Working that way, you must respect my confidence, do you not?”

Wallace nodded. “Yes, that is true, but if you are going to have me come to your um, residence for every session, then technically, I am making a house call. That’s going to be charged at twice my going rate.”

I chuckled. “All right, I’ll pay my bill accordingly, and I won’t have to kill you because you can’t blabber anyway.”

The statement relaxed him noticeably, and he scratched his chin before sitting back in the chair. His face darkened in a thoughtful scowl, and his gaze unfocused as he stared at the floor.

He was gorgeous, and I found myself fantasizing of peeling him out of his white dress shirt to massage his bare chest.

Wallace drew from this diversion by clearing his throat. “First, we need to figure out why you became a super villain in the first place, before you became dependant on Miracle Man.”

“Dependant?” I asked a little too sharply. I sighed, nodding as it occurred to me how accurate his statement was. Then I moved to my sofa and flopped back on it.

I sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “I guess I decided to become a villain to please my father. He was a closet villain, mostly prowling around the house for victims. To us, he was the Ass Master.”

“Th-the what?” Wallace sputtered. “Why did you call him that?”

“He called himself that, and we were stuck playing along to keep him happy. Trust me, the Ass Master could get rough if he got angry,” I explained, shifting to a more comfortable position leaning against the arm of my sofa. “The only time he’d ever go out into the real world was on Halloween, when he would pull on his tights and go looking for a man to drag home. That was the only time of the year that Ass Master went public.”

“I’m assuming he was gay,” Wallace said.

“No, he was bisexual,” I said with a small shake of my head. “He enjoyed playing with us boys, but he was still into mom for about nine inches if I remember correctly.” I patted my butt cheek for emphasis.

Wallace nodded. “He molested you?”

“No, molesting would have been if he fondled my johnson. Dad had an affair with me and my older brother until I was thirteen, when I started high school.”

“I don’t understand,” Wallace confessed. “What happened then that ended the affair?”

“I pushed him in front of a bus,” I answered blithely and chuckled. “You could say Ass Master had his ass handed to him by a greyhound.” I got up, walking across the room to a small buffet table that had a coffee pot on an electric warmer, along with some cups and a plate of donuts.

Filling a cup for myself, I gestured to the table. “Would you care for some coffee? Or perhaps some juice and a donut?”

Wallace waved his hand, his face full of fascination. “Maybe later. Did you hate your father for the things he did to you?”

“Oh, no,” I declined quickly. “I didn’t hate him, but he was too demanding as a lover, what with all of the chains, riding crops, and him requesting to be pinched or bit here and there...mostly there.”

I returned to the couch and sat down more carefully to avoid spilling my coffee. Lifting my mask up to the tip of my nose, I sipped from the cup.

Shrugging, I said, “I killed him so I could get some sleep at night. My grades improved, so I think killing him was the best decision I could have made.”

Wallace asked, “But when did you decide to become a super villain yourself?”

I smiled, pleased that he was interested in me so quickly. Looking up at the ceiling, I considered his question for several minutes. “I guess I was a senior in high school when I got serious about the idea of being a professional criminal. I’d considered it for a long time, as I felt Dad would be proud of me for being something he could only dream of. But it was during my senior year that I committed myself fully to my cause. Suddenly, it seemed to the few friends I had that I got interested in science while all the other guys took an interest in tagging cheerleaders.”

Wallace asked, “You weren’t interested in sex?”

“I was, but I knew it was a long shot that I would ever get to make out with the captain of the football team behind the bleachers. That knowledge helped me ignore my libido in favor of academic pursuits, and that in turn trained my mind for greater things.”

I paused to take another sip from my coffee. “As I said earlier, I took an interest in science, or more specifically in physics. I was looking for a way to convert matter into energy—”

“A feat which is supposedly impossible, if I know my science correctly,” Wallace cut in, surprising me with his boldness.

I shrugged. “Theoretically, yes it was. Note that I said was. I figured that if I was going to break the law, I might start with the ones that God himself was enforcing. What I discovered was that while a proton cannot be directly accelerated to twice the speed of light, they can be spun on their own natural axis until they reach a certain speed and burst. The energy from that is quite intense, and can cause a chain reaction. If you accelerated one proton in this sofa for instance, the rest of the protons would then absorb so much heat and energy that they would bump into each other and explode. In effect, I could make anything into a bomb.”

I sighed and shook my head, feeling embarrassed. “My first crimes were so trivial. I blew up bank vaults, or I blew up people. That was the extent of my criminal repertoire until about a week after I’d graduated from high school. I’d set up a device to blow a hole in the side of a bank vault, and I was just about to arm it when he showed up.”

After a few seconds of silence, Wallace prodded me from my memory. “You mean Miracle Man, right?”

“Hmm?” I asked, wiping drool from the side of my mouth. “Oh, oh yes. Of course it was him. There are no other heroes in this city as far as I’m concerned.”

“So this was a good memory for you?” Wallace asked.

“Picture me back then if you will, doctor. I was a scrawny boy, all of seventeen years old and completely full of my own importance. I found a shadow on the wall beside me and turned around, and here’s this heavenly looking man dressed in tights that showed off the kind of muscles I wished I had. He made me glad that I hadn’t decided to wear tights, because I would have looked like a little girl compared to him. My baggy clothes made me feel a bit better, but I’m just standing there, dumfounded by this muscle-bound, blond-haired hunk who is hovering inches off the ground. Those cannons that he likes to call arms were crossed so that his biceps bulged, and I looked from them to the two little M’s on his chest, each one centered over a gorgeous pectoral muscle.

“I looked up at his smiling face, and I thought, Duggan, this is your nemesis. So I ran my hand through my hair, trying to look cool. I smiled at Miracle Man, and I said ‘isn’t it a bit chilly for tights?’” I quoted myself and laughed warmly, taking a drink from my cup. “So he smiled even wider, and I thought my chest was going to burst. He told me ‘You’re an amazing scientist Duggan—’”

“He knew your name?” Wallace interrupted me again, this time giving me an apologetic look.

“Yes, but back then I didn’t operate under any fancy titles. You know, the funny thing is that after I took the name Light Master, he never used my real name again. It was courtesies like that which made me enjoy our moments together.”

My voice had become softer and less formal as my mind wandered through my fondest memory. “He complimented me for a brilliant method of committing my crimes, and then he said he was sorry to see such a brilliant mind go to waste in prison.”

“And then he arrested you?” Wallace asked, glancing at the coffee pot.

I smiled, waving for him to get up. “Help yourself.” I told him cordially, watching him get up to pour himself a cup of coffee. “He did, and I used a chair in the courtroom as a bomb to escape my arraignment hearing.”

I emptied my mug, setting it down on the coffee table in front of me. “Every plan after that involved finding a way to catch Miracle Man in one of my explosions. He always escaped to capture me, and I always escaped being imprisoned. That kind of repetitive scheming got old for me fast, since it was eating into my loot pile. I knew I had to make up a successful plan to kill Miracle Man or I’d be the poorest villain in town in a few short months.

“I had to come up with a better plan than the old ‘blow stuff up’ routine, so I went into hiding and built a secret lab. There, I worked on a nanite based costume that would allow me to be completely intangible. The nanites glow when they’re active, so I took the name Light Master. I then went on an intense training regimen to build up my muscles. I’ll admit that I don’t have the bulk of Miracle Man, but I think I’ve built myself up quite nicely.”

Wallace looked at me before nodding his approval. “Sure, you look well built.”

“Thank you.” I leaned back on the sofa. “So I had this suit that allowed me to fly just like Miracle Man, and I had the added advantage that he couldn’t touch me. I could escape him simply by phasing through the ground, or into a building wall without returning to continue the fight. But I had a different plan. All I had to do to kill Miracle Man was phase my hand into his chest and make it solid again. The nanites would push his atoms around my hand, making a really big hole, and this city would be out one super hero in about five seconds.”

“How did it fail?”

“Who says it did?” I asked, laughing at Wallace’s confused expression. “I hunted him down, I challenged him, and after I dodged his first punch, I slid my hand into his chest just as easy as I thought it would be. But, for as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t go solid. When I did, it was just my chin so that his second punch would connect, and then I ‘fell’ and phased into the sidewalk. I don’t think he ever saw how close he was to dying, literally by my hand.”

Wallace nodded slowly. “Did you feel like you didn’t want it to end so soon?”

“I didn’t want it to end at all,” I confessed. “His powers had forced me to grow from the mere villain that I was into a true threat to all of humanity. Without Miracle Man around, I was certain I would have to move.”

“Why would you think that?” Wallace asked, taking his coffee and a donut back to his chair.

“I would still need a hero to keep me from killing everyone.”

“Isn’t that the point of being a super villain?” Wallace spoke around a mouthful of donut before he swallowed and shook his head. “I don’t think I’m clear on that point. I thought you would have moved on to a plan to blow up the world by now.”

“We evil geniuses don’t really want to blow up the whole planet, doctor,” I said and smirked. “We have to live here too, and there’s no one to celebrate your success with if you kill everybody. Does that make sense?”

“I suppose so,” Wallace agreed.

“I left him alone and escaped, feeling satisfied to call my escape a victory. I had never escaped capture before, and so the ball was in Miracle Man’s court to find a way to stop me. The next week, I held the city for ransom, lining the sewers with enough bombs to kill everyone. And believe me doctor, I do mean everyone.”

“Yes, I saw that on the national news,” Wallace said. “You challenged Miracle Man to find all of the bombs, and he did well in advance of your time limit.”

“Precisely, and no one ever considered that the real point of that crime was to terrorize the general population, not to kill Miracle Man. My first major plot succeeded brilliantly, and the old crime overlord gave me his title and stepped down. That was the highlight of my career, and it began with a plan intended not to kill Miracle Man.”

Wallace chuckled, waving his hand at me in a dismissive way, as though his thoughts weren’t important to me. “I’m sorry, go on.”

“No, do please share,” I insisted. “You find this humorous for what reason?”

“You aren’t obsessed with your hero,” Wallace said, dipping his donut into his coffee. “You’re in love with him.”

I nodded, letting go of a sad sigh. “It was a one-sided romance, but it was enough to keep me happy.”

“But now he’s gone.”

Wallace’s sympathetic tone didn’t feel insincere or placating, and I think that’s why I was so comfortable opening up to him right away. Or maybe I was just desperate to get some of this stuff out of my system.

I said, “To be honest, doctor, I don’t want to move on and find another hero. There’s too much chance that I’ll be dismissed as a crackpot, or I might get ambushed by a jealous super villain.”

Wallace shook his head, a gesture of disbelief. “You think there are other super villains like you, people who have grown attached to their heroes?”

“Oh, I could even introduce you to one,” I said with a smirk. “Hey, come to think of it, do you mind if I have a friend sit in on our next session?”

 “Why not? Wallace shrugged. “It’s your quarter,” he said and laughed.

I wondered what it would be like to have his tongue in my mouth. But this fantasy was not conducive to a therapeutic environment, so I pushed it away.

I asked, “Then you really will help me?”

“You won’t tie me up anymore, will you?” Wallace clarified.

“No, but I will have to use the pillow case, to keep this location a secret.”

“Um, Duggan, your ‘secret lab’ is the abandoned warehouse behind the old county courthouse, which I can see out the window behind you,” Wallace said patiently. “Let’s be honest here. I can’t tell anyone about these sessions if you’re a client, and you’ll find me much more willing to help if you didn’t begin every session by pulling a bag over my head.”

“Fair enough,” I agreed with a sigh. “But you really are taking all the fun out of this.”

Wallace laughed politely, leaning over to set his empty cup on the floor. As he sat up, I noticed him shaking his head again with an odd look on his face.

I asked, “What is it?”

“Just a stray thought, really, Wallace said. When I nodded for him to go on, he did. “All these years, I could have advertised my services to super villains. Instead I’ve collected chump change from the few heroes willing to come forward with their sad ego problems.” Wallace laughed, smiling at me in a way that made my heart thump. “Listening to you has been far more entertaining than listening to Lightning Lad whine over his issues of penis envy.”

“Didn’t you just violate his trust by revealing that to me?” I noted dryly.

“No,” Wallace remarked in a casual way. “Everybody knows that Lightning Lad is a little dick.”

“Don’t you mean has?” I resisted the urge to laugh when Wallace shook his head, a huge grin parting his lips. “Well, I promise not to agonize over the length of my garden hose if you promise not to laugh at my friend tomorrow.”

“Why would I laugh at them?” Wallace asked.

“Just about everybody does. As for why, you’ll find out tomorrow,” I promised and stood up, pulling my mask back down. “I can either take you home in my car, or I can fly you there in a few minutes. It’s your call.”

“Flying,” Wallace answered without hesitation. “In all the years I’ve worked with heroes, they’ve never once offered to take me flying with them.”

“And you didn’t ask them?”

“It wouldn’t be professional,” Wallace replied.

“Ah, you wimped out then,” I corrected him.

“No, I’m a psychiatrist. We have an ethical—yeah, okay, I wimped out,” Wallace conceded with another good-natured laugh. “I just couldn’t think of a way to ask any of these muscle bound guys to give me a ride without sounding gay.”

“Sounds like you might have deeper issues than that,” I teased. “So Wallace, shall I give you a ride home?”

Wallace laughed and nodded. “If you please.”

I almost asked if we could make a pit stop in my bedroom, but nerd that I was, my confidence dried up.

As we walked to the front door, I had a random thought and asked, “Did double M ever come to you for help?”

“No,” Wallace replied. “Based on your description, he seems almost perfect.” A moment later he shielded his eyes with his hand when I activated my suit.

“Sunglasses,” he remarked in an offhand way. “Next time, I’m going to have to bring sunglasses.”