The Villain Virus

“Of course, Agent Brand. Recording now.”

Brand: Hello, Mr. Stoop. My name is Agent Brand, and this is my associate, Agent Holiday.

Stoop: I knew that! Nothing gets past my incredible brain. My superior intellect already deduced that you would come. Naturally, you want to interrogate me.

Brand: I think most people who have committed a major crime could guess there would be someone wanting to ask them questions.

Stoop: If when you say the word “most,” you mean just me, then I accept your notion! Ask what you want, Agent, but know this—many of my answers may be difficult for you to comprehend. I am, after all, a genius. But I will do my best to keep my answers simple for you and your dullard of a partner.

Holiday: Well, he’s a real charmer.

Brand: Mr. Stoop, who put you up to this crime?

Stoop: Ha! How dare you! The bombing was entirely my idea!

Brand: Mr. Stoop, we’ve gone through your files. Your IQ is just above a house cat’s.

Holiday: You were voted “Most likely to fall down a flight of steps” by your class.

Brand: When you applied for this job, they asked you for a blood test and you asked for time to study. You don’t have the intellect to build the complicated devices you planted under Paris.

Stoop: My brain’s full potential has recently reached great heights. Give me an IQ test, but be prepared—my scores will be so high, your tiny little minds may slip into madness trying to understand.

Brand: I think we’ll pass. Whether or not that’s true about your IQ, one thing hasn’t increased dramatically and that’s your bank account. You don’t have the funds to fly to Paris or to buy and build the bombs. So, using my tiny little mind, I have deduced that you are working for someone, Sherman.

Stoop: Don’t call me that name! I’m Captain Kapow!

Holiday: He sounds like Heathcliff. He had a thing about his name, too.

Brand: You didn’t do this on your own, Captain. Who helped you?

Stoop: Fine, yes, I have a benefactor. But I have no idea who he is. All I know is he’s a genius—not on my level, but certainly bright. If it wasn’t for him, I’d still be wasting my potential guarding that giant head.

Holiday: Did he give you the idea to bomb Paris?

Stoop: Hardly! The Antagonist merely showed me that I was special and helped me fulfill my destiny.

Brand: The Antagonist? Who is the Antagonist?

Stoop: I don’t know. All I know is that he wears a mask. It’s black and has a skull painted on the front.

Holiday: That can’t be …

Brand: What kind of fool do you take us for, Mr. Stoop?

Stoop: I suppose I take you for the regular, everyday kind of fool, Agent, but what I have told you is true.

Agent Brand slams his fist on the table.

Brand: Benjamin, can you project an image of Simon for us? Benjamin displays a photograph of Heathcliff Hodges as his alias, Simon.

Brand: Does the mask look like this?

Stoop: Yes.

Brand: That’s impossible! The person who owns that mask is in this facility right now, and he’s been in our custody for almost three months.

Stoop: What’s that mean to me?

Brand: The owner of that mask is the giant head you were guarding! His name is Heathcliff Hodges!

Flinch lived with his grandmother, Mama Rosa. She was in her late seventies but as spry as a teenage girl. After school every day, he could always find her in the same place: parked in front of the television watching her “stories.” Her favorite was a Spanish soap opera called La Luna Blanca, which in English meant “The White Moon.” It was about a beautiful housecleaner who goes to work for a very wealthy Spanish family who owns a winery. Flinch had tried to watch it once, but his Spanish was not as good as it should have been. Still, you didn’t need to be fluent to know what was going on—especially with Mama Rosa around. Any time someone appeared on screen who the old woman didn’t like, she hissed, pointed, and cursed at them in Spanish. Flinch didn’t know what some of the words meant, and he was pretty sure that was a good thing. Mama Rosa was in the midst of a very intense shouting match with the TV when he got home that day.

“You do know they can’t hear you, Mama,” Flinch said.

Mama Rosa shook her head. “Someone has to talk some sense into these people, especially poor Mrs. Lucina. Her no-good husband is trying to steal her family’s fortune! Ay, Mrs. Lucina! Can’t you see he is bad for you?”

Flinch couldn’t have been more relieved. All the way home from school he worried that Ms. Dove had called his grandmother, but it looked as if the coast was clear. He turned to climb the stairs to his room when suddenly the television clicked off.

“So, I hear you are now a juvenile delinquent.”

Flinch turned back reluctantly. He hated disappointing his grandmother. He knew the hyperactivity was bad enough, so he tried to be a good kid in most other ways. “Before you get upset, I can explain.”

“Julio, today is your first day,” she said. “You have never been in trouble before! Is it those kids you are always hanging around with? Are they a bad influence on you? I don’t want you spending time with them if they are hoodlums.”

“Mama Rosa, my friends aren’t hoodlums. They’re the smartest kids in the school,” Flinch said. “You know Duncan as well as you know me.”

“Yes, the one that eats paste,” she said with a harrumph. “Well, they may not be hoodlums, but they are weird. If it’s not them, then why have you turned to a life of crime?”

“It was just a detention,” he said.

“It’s a detention now, but what about tomorrow? Tomorrow is jail?”

Flinch frowned. Mama Rosa had a flare for the dramatic. No matter how small the mistake, she was in constant fear that Julio was on his way to the slammer.

“A bunch of kids were picking on me—”

“Julio! Julio! Julio! You know better. The bullies pick on the younger kids to get attention. If you react, then they get what they want,” Mama Rosa said.

Julio shrugged. “I would have explained that to them if they hadn’t shoved me in a locker first.”

He felt another flash fever coming on. His anger threatened to boil over. How dare Ms. Dove call his grandmother and label him a bully? He had fought back to defend himself, and now he was the villain? Did everyone expect him to just sit and take it? Did they want him to get pushed around the rest of his life? Well, they could forget it! He was done being picked on!

“Oh, Julio, you look so tired, cariño. You’re flushed. Are you OK?”

“I’m not feeling well,” he said, as his racing heart calmed.

“Well, lie down and I’ll bring you something to eat,” she said, putting her hand on his forehead. “You’re boiling. Go rest now, but remember: You are a good boy, and if you are not a good boy, I will see it. Your grandmother has eyes in the back of her head and in her hands and her back and her feet. I see everything—EVERYTHING! No more trouble at school. Do you understand?”

Flinch nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

He shuffled into his room, closed the door, and fell into bed with his shoes still on his feet. He felt horrible; even closing his eyes hurt. His temperature went from hot sweats to teeth-chattering chills. He’d never felt the flu come on so fast or so intense, and in his feverish haze, he wondered if he had picked up some kind of skeleton germ in the catacomb cemetery that morning. Something had killed all those people! Would he be the next victim?