Project Northwoods (17 page)

AESCHYLUS BROWN, ALSO KNOWN AS
Purgatory’s Inventor, sat in his indoor garden listening to the soft instrumental tunes of the radio and the patter of rain against the windows. Eyes closed, only the subtle movement of his long fingers swaying in time to the music betrayed his consciousness. Strands of his long, greying hair clung to his forehead while the majority of it was pulled back in a ponytail. Physically demure, his aged features were patched with white facial hair between the creases of his skin. A white t-shirt, covered with dirt, clung to his body, while his jeans bore the stains of many uses and improper care.

The humming lights overhead were long since reduced to white noise, their own addition to the music nullified by their particular insistence on providing only one note. Above them, the night and gentle rain had stolen the remaining natural light. In the distance, a lonely siren started up, wailed, and faded. Aeschylus merely absorbed the music and the rain, forcefully keeping everything else out of focus. The metal table he sat next to held a stack of letters, held down by an hourglass-shaped paperweight. A second chair waited patiently for a guest.

He was dimly aware of a door creaking open and shut in his house, but more interested in the music. Another squeaky hinge, closer to him, prompted him to lazily open his silver-blue eyes. He cocked an eyebrow toward Ariana as she stood in the doorway looking at him.

“Sweetheart,” he began, his voice slightly gravelly but still kind, “if you’re going to stand there all night, at least shut the door.” He got to his feet and crossed to her. “You’re letting the heat out.”

She smiled slightly and walked forward, pulling the door shut behind her. “Sorry, dad.” Ariana hugged him, tightly. He stood a good six inches taller than her, enabling him to wrap her in his arms.

“Hey, easy,” he said as he ruffled her hair. She released him. “Are you sure you don’t have super-strength?”

Ariana’s smile continued as she put her hands in her back pockets. She averted her eyes. “No, not since last time.”

Aeschylus looked at her. He nodded solemnly and turned to look at his plants. “Now, then,” he said with a smirk. “All this father-daughter bonding has given me a headache,” he said as he touched a nearby leaf and gently pinched it between his thumb and forefinger. “To what do I owe the unexpected visit?”

“Nothing…” Ariana approached and looked at the same plant he had been appraising. “Can’t I just stop by?”

“Of course.” He turned and smiled warmly at her. “But I can see that something is wrong.”

Ariana tried to force a smile, but her lips didn’t cooperate. She felt the sting of tears, and she had to look away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Fatherly intuition.” He patted her shoulder. “And your eyes are red from crying.”

She turned and walked to the table, sniffing back her tears. “I lost my job, daddy.”

Aeschylus’s heart sank at the final word. She seldom called him that, and it always struck the terrible memory… when he had tears in his own eyes, when he had to choke out an explanation of why her mother was never coming home.

He moved to the other chair and reached across the table for her hand. Despite appearances, he was still spry, a by-product of being Bestowed. He should have looked much younger, but depression takes many tolls. “Honey, it’s alright,” he offered.

She yanked her hand away, suddenly realizing how vulnerable she appeared. “How is it alright?” The sudden action and strength in tone made Aeschylus withdraw his hands from the table. She sniffed and stood upright. “I don’t have insurance. And if I don’t have insurance…” she trailed off.

“Then the world will come to a crashing halt.” Her father rose and slowly made his way to her front. “The tides will rise and locusts will eat my tomatoes.” She tried to move away, but he grabbed her shoulders. He tilted his head in an effort to make eye contact. “What’s the worst that can possibly happen?”

“I have no income.” She took a step back, freeing herself from his grip. “I can’t help you this month. How’s that?”

“I survived the Silver Age. I can survive without money,” he declared softly yet defiantly, as though simply saying it made it true.

She shook her head and sniffed, trying to keep the tears at bay. “I still can’t believe they won’t let you collect any benefits.”

“Yes, well, I didn’t become a villain all those years ago because of the fantastic retirement package.” He walked past her and picked up a spray bottle from the floor. “That’s something they provide you whipper-snappers. Us old-timers did it for the glory.” Spraying a nearby plant with water, he waited for a response.

“This is serious.”

He didn’t turn to her, but merely changed which plant he was working on. “I am serious. I knew full well what it meant to be a villain. It’s not the same as it is today.” He turned to her now, smiling.

“But what if you get sick?” She approached him. “Or… I don’t know…”

“A building falls on me?”

“Dad…” she said, bordering on annoyance.

“My problems would be over, Ari.”

She put her hands over her ears unhappily. “Can we not talk about death, please?”

He nodded and went back to his plants. “In other news, I’m considering coming out of retirement.”

“What?” she asked incredulously. “Since when?”

Aeschylus stopped and gazed upwards, squinting his eyes in thought. “Thirty seconds ago.” He resumed spraying water.

Ariana shook her head. “Dad, you aren’t Purgatory’s Inventor anymore.”

“So you keep saying, but I’ve been meaning to show these upstart villains how it’s done.”

“That isn’t funny, you know.”

“Relax, dearest,” Aeschylus soothed. He smiled again and put his hand on her cheek.

“Sorry,” she said as she grabbed his hand. “I’m just not in a joking mood.”

“Are you ever?” She smiled sincerely for the first time since she got there. “A smile? A real one? I’m blessed.”

Ariana rolled her eyes. She flicked at his dangling whip of hair. “Dad, you’ve got to get a haircut.”

“You don’t think it makes me look hip?” He grinned, posing for her.

“No. You look like a lazy hippie.”

Aeschylus nodded and squinted. “Would an earring help?”

She laughed and pointed at his face. “You are not getting an earring.”

“All the cool kids are doing it!” he offered in his defense.

Still grinning, she turned back to the house. “I’ll make some coffee.” She opened the door.

“My doctor doesn’t want me to have any caffeine, dear.” Ariana tossed him a nakedly hostile look. He made a face. “What, did you think I was serious?”

She smiled too sweetly and reached into the kitchen. She grabbed two cups and walked back into the garden, toward a wall-mounted hose. “Black okay?”

“There’s another way?”

She grunted in annoyance. “You’d be surprised.” Carefully, she balanced the mugs by their handles in one hand while filling them up with the hose. “People are crazy.” Once full, the clear liquid clouded and became jet-black. Satisfied, she took a mug in each hand and crossed to her father, who had seated himself at the far chair. “Take my idiot roommate–”

He cut her off immediately. “Alright. I like Tim.”

She rolled her eyes as she sat down. “Ha ha, very funny,” she muttered in a way which did not lend much credulity to her words. Ariana passed her father a mug of coffee. “My other one.” She put her own mug on the table and folded her arms. “The dipshit…”

“Language.”

She smirked, irritated. “Sorry.” Ariana took a deep breath and continued, “The mentally deficient miscreant screws up everything. He comes to my work today and…” She trailed off. “Well, you know what happens when I lose my temper.”

Aeschylus had been sipping his coffee and was only able to nod until he set his mug down. “Yes, I do.” He gestured to his garden. “Do I need to remind you of how many plants you’ve killed?”

She shook her head. “This isn’t the first time he’s done sh… stuff like this, either. He just doesn’t understand what it’s like to have a real job at all.” Reaching across the table to point at her father for emphasis, she continued, “Any time he can’t just mooch off of Tim or me, he starts selling crap on the internet.”

Her father’s face grew serious for a moment. “Nothing of yours, I hope.”

Another head shake. “No. But where he gets the stuff, I have no clue. He won’t tell anyone and we’re never allowed to see it.” Ariana looked away. “The guy is always sulking, or buried in work, or whining about how SVAC never approves his proposals, or acting like a punk, or just being a complete waste of chromosomes.” She puffed aggravatedly. “And with his incompetence with women, it’s hard to believe his sperm convinced an egg to let him in.”

Aeschylus nodded to himself as he sipped from the coffee again. “And what does Timothy think about this?”

Ariana threw her hands up in the air in exasperation. “Nothing. He just lets the guy continue being useless.” She rubbed her forehead, apparently fighting off a headache. “I can’t be too hard on Tim. They’ve been friends since middle school.” She rested her elbows on her knees and cradled her head in her hands. “Which leaves
me
being the bad guy because I expect… you know… rent.”

He gazed into his coffee mug, musing. “Why the bond? What makes the bro-mance so important?” Ariana laughed at the word and looked at him. “Every once in a while I read a magazine.”

“Bro-mance is the word for it, I guess.” She leaned back and blew air out of her mouth. “I don’t know. I think that Tim is Arthur’s only real friend. His dad kicked him out of the house and his sister…” She rolled her eyes and growled in annoyance. “… The little slut barely talks to him. Which is just pathetic, considering how much he talks about her.”

“Slut?”

She threw her hand up as though to deflect the question. “Don’t ask.”

Her father chuckled as he took a gentle sip of his coffee. “If you’ll forgive the interjection, I thoroughly enjoy the irony of Dark Saint’s children being such ne’er-do-wells.” Ariana inhaled deeply as she arched her eyebrows. Aeschylus unconsciously rubbed his shoulder before committing to continuing the conversation. “Well, it seems to me that if you love Tim, you may just have to deal with Arthur.” It was his turn to roll his eyes. “Everyone brings baggage with them.”

She looked at him and smiled sweetly. “Even mom?”

Aeschylus chuckled. “You never met her brother.”

Ariana looked a bit shocked. “She had a brother? I mean, I have an uncle?”

He scrunched his face up, then seemed to relax. His eyes trailed to the floor. “Not anymore.”

Ariana sneered bitterly. “Sounds about right.”

“In any case,” started Aeschylus, desperate to change the subject, “I think what bothers you the most is the fact that Tim won’t see your side of the situation.”

She nodded. “In a nutshell. No matter how much I complain, I always get the same argument: ‘Just wait. One day, Arthur Lovelass will be the hottest villain around’.” The last chunk was said with a touch of mockery and masculinity, her irritated rendition of Timothy’s speech. With a derisive laugh, she leaned over the table. “I mean, he went to the Committee with a death ray, of all things.”

Her father bared his teeth and gave a knowing chuckle. “So that
was
him.”

Ariana’s eyes snapped toward him. “What?”

“I had an Arthur contact me through the P. I. Fan Club asking for help with his upcoming proposal.” He pointed to the stack of letters on the table. Ariana shoved her mug aside and took the letters from beneath the paperweight. “I didn’t think much of it other than it was a change of pace from all those young heroes asking what it was like to work with Arbiter against Iron Curtain.”

She was only partially paying attention as she sifted through the mail. “Why was his different?”

Aeschylus himself was gazing off into the distance as he took another sip of coffee. “Something about how he was building his own weapon and he wondered if I still had the schematics on the one I used to hold Albany hostage in 82.” Ariana had found the letter and stood up to look at it. Her mouth moved as her eyes flitted across the page. “It was nice not having to end a letter reminding someone how Arbiter thanked me for my assistance by killing your mother,” he added bitterly. A moment was lost to thought before he continued, “Arthur’s schematics were airtight already. I just offered a few pointers and left it at that.” He snapped back to reality at the sound of Ariana crushing the letter in her hand. “Is everything alright?”

“Just peachy,” she growled between clenched teeth.

“I’m sure he didn’t mean any harm by it, dear,” her father attempted to soothe.

“It’s fine,” Ariana snapped in a way that indicated it was anything but.

Aeschylus felt the hair on his arms tingle. He got to his feet and crossed in front of her. “Calm down, dearest. I just watered the plants.”

Talia sat in the Peppered Toad, a neutral bar fifteen blocks from her apartment. It was dark, loud, and full of people who apparently didn’t care that there was an ordinance against smoking indoors. More importantly, it was full of people who believed they knew her but couldn’t quite place how. As such, she sat alone, nursing a vodka on ice and resting her cigarette between her middle and index finger, reading a science fiction book.