The Death of Doc Scourge
The media found it a great irony that after forty years of super villainy, Doc Scourge had been diagnosed with recurrent cancer of the bladder. TYRANT OF TERROR HAS TERMINAL, they reported. THE DYING DREAD DICTATOR. DOC SCOURGE DOOMED. Scourge himself had the warden bring all the newspapers they could when it went public. Thumbing through the pages, he didn’t find a single kind word in any of the twenty languages he understood. An old man was dying, and the world was rejoicing.
Doc Scourge was General Justice’s first nemesis, the oldest and the best. Whilst others sought to inconvenience Justice, their motivation ranging from revenge for previously thwarted schemes or plights against the ideals that he represented, it was Doc Scourge who caused the nation to hold their breath. The fights would always come to close calls, with General Justice held inches from a laser-beam which burned with the power of the sun, or trapped in a crater filled with an ore that weakened his powers. But Justice would always prevail, Doc Scourge’s plans to destroy the world would be foiled, and the world would be saved.
General Justice arrived at the holding facility. The Heavy-Armour Security Personnel showed him inside, mechanical exoskeleton hissing and thudding with each step. Justice was sealed into the tiny scanning room, white and clinical with sensor-orbs in each corner, top and bottom, which flickered blue lights over him. Then the door opposite opened, and Justice went through. With a practiced movement he swirled his red-and-white cape across the back of the chair as he sat, folded his arms, and peered through the bulletproof glass.
The guards wheeled Doc Scourge out. Justice had broken his spine when they fought atop Mount Rushmore, but Scourge had returned with a hover-chair of his own design which contained an intricate AI that would identify threats, upon which it would deploy one of the many in-built defence mechanisms. Justice must’ve destroyed six of them in his time. Yet seeing Scourge confined to a traditional wheelchair was an uncomfortable image. The black-and-green suit had gone, replaced with the soft pastel colours of a medical gown. The welding goggles were missing, and though Justice had shattered those opaque-black lenses countless times, it was the first time he’d noticed the brown of Scourges eyes, deep-set and tired in a skull covered with withering flesh. Once he was level, Scourge looked up. The very act of lifting his head seemed too much for his spine to take.
‘John,’ said Doc Scourge.
‘Eric,’ said General Justice. Both nodded.
‘You’ll want my testimony,’ said Scourge. ‘I’m glad they sent you. They spoke of sending the Shadow-Stepper. Shadow-Stepper, for god’s sake. I only met him twice, and only once did we come to blows.’
‘Don’t small-talk, Eric,’ said Justice. ‘Testify.’
A guard slipped a sheet of paper under Scourge’s nose, but he waved it away. ‘I, being of sound mind and body,’ he snapped that, but kept reciting tiredly without looking at the paper, ‘hereby declare that this last testimony of Eric Rofsky, alter-ego Doc Scourge, and do willingly present my case to General Justice, who will hear my plea and determine on behalf of the Court whether my crimes are beyond redemption.
‘I don’t intend to plea,’ Scourge said once he was finished.
‘I know. But that doesn’t stop me wanting answers.’
Scourge looked into Justice’s stern eyes and let out a hollow laugh, which deteriorated quickly into a coughing fit. ‘Forty years. Here I am, internal organs failing, and all you’ve got to show for it is a shock of white in your hair.’
'We’ve both aged,’ said Justice.
‘And does your species age twice as long as ours naturally, or is that due to Earth’s environment?’
Justice was not fazed. ‘Why did you do it?’
‘The crimes? Which one? Take your pick, General.’
‘The repertoire, Scourge. Your history of villainy.’
‘Well, John—’
‘General Justice—’
‘John Webber, and damn you if you think there’s a soul in this prison who doesn’t know by now!’
Justice watched for a moment. He had intended to say something. Perhaps he stared too intently, or the outburst had taken a lot out of Scourge, but the old man wilted.
‘You never knew the truth,’ said Scourge. ‘Not the whole truth. The early heists in the Seventies, the bank-jobs and nuclear plant-raids, that was small-time, John. That was petty crime. I was about as big as Double-Dealer or The Serpent Sorceress in those days. You know, Alice is in here? She’s looking good, she runs the rehabilitation classes. Never would have thought she tried to make New York into a desert, looking at her. Just looks like a sweet old gal with a crocodile face.’
Scourge’s tone had softened, and his eyes glimmered with defeat. His heartbeat had settled, and a quick scan of his brain’s electrical activity showed that he was considering truths, not inventing falsehoods. So Justice let him continue.
‘The big turn-around was when I teamed up with Earthquake and Mindmeld, back in, what was it, ‘72?’
‘The Atlantis siege?’
‘No, no. Nothing frontal like that. Mindmeld – I mean Michael, Michael Molyneux, rest his soul. Michael and I, we met up at the San Fran do that New Years. Psion-kid had died, and he was pretty out of sorts.’
‘I didn’t realise the Psion-Kid had died,’ Justice said, blinking. ‘I thought he just quit.’
‘Hit by a bus. Shame. Good kid, promising future. He was Michael’s nephew, so you can understand how broken-up he was. He just couldn’t cope alone. Earthquake had just escaped, so I gave him a call, and so we ended up using his underground lair whilst we sorted Michael’s head out. Eventually Michael was well enough to call his sister. Patricia.’ Scourge sighed the name a little, and the slight increase of pulse rate told Justice enough.
‘Patricia and I hit it off,’ the old man continued. ‘About the time you were sent to that Mirror World, we had a son. Keith, we called him. We didn’t want Michael to find out. But have you ever tried hiding a secret from someone who can read minds? It didn’t help that Earthquake got himself detained again in Tokyo. First casualty of the eighties that really hit home for me. This was when the world was changing. Government operatives meant that villains couldn’t be villains anymore, not like we were used to. You must have felt it too, when C.A.U.S.E. came about.’
Justice nodded. ‘I’ll never forget being branded a traitor for refusing to join C.A.U.S.E.’
Scourge laughed. ‘The Great American Traitor, I remember that.’
‘That was when it stopped being petty crime,’ said Justice. ‘The technological advances and heightened security meant greater risks for all of us. But you, Scourge, you tried to destroy the world. That’s a meritless goal which less-talented men have been put into Perma-Psych for.’
‘But I did it too well, and came too close,’ Scourge grinned. In that grin, his face looked young again. It was easy to imagine the hair back on his head, the unwrinkled skin, the goggles, and the world in jeopardy once again. Scourge read it in Justice’s face and leaned forwards in his chair. ‘Psychopathic tendencies coupled with a deep-rooted nihilism and the intelligence to bring about Armageddon. I’m too smart for Perma-Psyche, John. I’m the only man that’s made you sweat.’
‘Once more I need to drag this conversation back from its tangent, Scourge. Your motivation. I will not accept any further deviation.’
‘Deviation,’ Scourge snapped. ‘Deviation for what? So I can refuse, state that I’ll not fill in your boxes, make it difficult for you to choose between putting me down like a dog or letting me piss myself dead in a padded room? I’m giving you your answer, John. I’m giving you everything.’
General Justice made a gesture, and Doc Scourge continued.
‘My boy, my Keith. Michael kicked us all out onto the streets, sealed off Earthquake’s lair and skulked off into his own dimension. I had some savings, and Atlantis had not been without its spoils. It didn’t take much to have a former base restored and re-staffed. The St. Helens base, that is. It was me that set that up to be the Council of Grand Felons, did you know that?’
‘I didn’t.’
‘It kept us in pocket whilst Keith grew up, and kept us in contact with old colleagues. Keith learned to speak, and inevitably began to ask questions, dream, have wishes. “I want to fly,” he told me. So after a meeting, I would ask Force-fiend to come upstairs and take Keith flying. “I want to see the stars,” he said. So Force-fiend and Atomiser would do it, together. They ended up married, Joe and Sally. Did you know that?’
‘I’m failing to see the relevance here, Scourge.’
‘It was all for him, John. All of it. Hiring out my chambers to be a board-room for a coalition of evil doesn’t bring enough money in to power the base and start a family. So I began inventing again. Just little gadgets; utility belts, tracking devices for foes, Power-suits for the minions, that sort of thing. Then I was asked onto missions, just for back up. Control the robot flunkies, prep some explosives. Gradually I fell back into it all, taking part in the planning, getting into scraps. I didn’t orchestrate anything, though. Not then.
‘But Keith was growing. Patricia left me when I began to be absorbed in the work. A messy break-up. I wouldn’t let her take Keith, and there was little she could do about it. His curiosity ebbed into demands, just as any super villain’s son would. “Can we have a robot”? he would ask. I’d had dozens of robot servitors in my time, and it was a simple enough matter to re-service one. “Can we have a jet-bike?” Again, I had the parts. Soon he had everything a boy in his station would want. But it was empty, Justice. Nothing could fill his mother’s absence, not all the technology in the world.
‘Which is when he asked. I’ll always remember. It was after you and the Watchers of America defeated Mindmeld. He didn’t come to aid in the Martian take-over; that was just an unhappy coincidence. He came to see me, and try to take Keith back to his mother. So I helped you thwart him.’
Justice frowned. ‘You were the Masked Madman?’
‘Many people have been the Masked Madman, John. Villains that want the same goal as the heroes, usually. The thing you heroes never seem to get is that we have our lives as well. Michael’s return put Keith back in mind of his mother. I had only just got home and dusted myself off when he asked me –’
Justice wasn’t sure if the disease made Scourge cough, or the tears.
‘“Father, how much do you love me?”,’ Scourge uttered after a moment spent trembling. ‘More than the world, I replied. “Would you move it for me?” he said. “Would you move the world for me?”
‘Keith was smart. His father’s brain. But I’ll never know what put that idea in his head. That is your confession, John. That was my motivation.’
Justice squinted. ‘You mean to tell me that it was your son’s fault – ’
‘Not his fault. Damn you, alien, haven’t you studied us enough to work these things out? I would do anything for my son. So when he asked me to move the Earth an inch closer to the sun, I obliged. All the stolen warheads and otherworldly portals and tampering with the moon. What man would ever destroy the world when he could rule his son’s heart?’
‘You expect me to believe that the seventy-six world felonies you’ve conducted in the last sixteen years have all been for that?’
Scourge smiled crookedly. ‘Better “heroes” have done worse for less. Wheel me to your psychics if you want. They’ll tear the exact same story from my mind.’
Justice stood, told the warden that they were done and made to leave.
‘Congratulations, Justice. I’ll be dead by January, the villain to whom you owe your name; old, sickly, dilapidated. An old man dies cancer, and you’ve won the day at last. And now you know it was never about you.’
Shadow-Stepper spoke at Scourge’s funeral. General Justice was there, in costume rather than as his alter-ego, but he declined the opportunity to speak. He spent his time looking at the people who attended. Some villains were there under heavy guard. The Serpent Sorceress was there. Earthquake, still at large, was not. And no matter how many unmasked faces he peered at, no matter how carefully he examined them, none of them were Mindmeld. Some flowers were left. Regardless of the guns and the villains, the ceremony was quiet and respectful and small.
After the funeral, a mecha-butler came to him.
‘General Justice?’ it buzzed. He nodded, and the robot handed over a piece of paper.
All it said was: ‘Made you sweat, one last time.’
And Justice burst into laughter.
Kieth Rofsky squinted away from the sun as he emerged from the Metroplex Offices, quickly donning his shades and fishing out the keys for the sleek Camero he was heading to. Before he pressed the button, a firm hand grabbed his shoulder.
Startled, he reeled, and found himself facing a spectacled man in an equally respectable suit to his.
‘Mister Rofsky?’ said the stranger, releasing him.
‘Who wants to know?’ asked Rofsky.
‘My name is John Webber. Does that mean anything to you?’
Rofsky shrugged and shook his head, looking more affronted at being accosted than showing any recognition.
John Webber nodded, then pointed at the sky.
‘Do you see that, Mister Rofsky?’
‘No,’ said Rofsky. ‘Look, I don’t have time for this – ’
‘I’m an associate of your father’s, Mister Rofsky.’
Rofsky hesitated, but maintained the defensive.
‘I have nothing to do with my father’s line of work, if that’s what you’re here for.’
‘You misunderstand me,’ said John. ‘This planet, this miracle planet, made of residue minerals that were flung out of a cosmological explosion some fifteen billion years ago, is constantly spinning through space around the gravitational orbit of that star, your sun. During a year, the distance away from the sun changes from between ninety-million and ninety-five-million miles. There are precise figures, Mister Rofsky, but I shan’t bore you with them.’
‘I fail to see the point,’ snapped Rofsky.
‘It means that no-one would notice if the world was an inch closer to the sun, Mister Rofsky. The temperature would not rise. Passage of time wouldn’t change. It would be inconsequential to anyone who wasn’t you.’
Keith Rofsky had stopped, hand on the door of his car.
‘Your father loved you,’ said General Justice. Then he walked away.
