EL GRINGO CANTINA
Broadstrike raced over the moonlit clouds at a leisurely speed of MACH 2. In his early 30’s, the thickly-muscled super villain wore a black-and-red costume. Styled out of impervimesh, the black-and-red outfit clung to him as his second skin. His matching boots and cape both had a snarling skull emblem on them. While he also wore a red mask, it only covered the upper part of his handsome, malevolent face. His dark-blue hair, styled in a military buzz cut, wasn’t covered at all.
Intense, blue eyes glared past the light cloud cover and down toward the rapidly-approaching coastline of Belize. A GPS tracking device in his right glove beeped. Broadstrike abruptly came to a hovering stop. His enhanced vision easily spotted a cluster of lights and a swath of open beach below. He grinned and streaked downward.
Mr. Impossible was hiding out here, in a bar called the El Gringo Cantina. He couldn’t wait to find out if his months of searching would finally turn up his archnemesis – the only man alive who had ever beaten Broadstrike in one-on-one combat. After the eighteen-hour slugfest, Mr. Impossible had personally delivered him to the Shell – a high-security prison for superhuman criminals. It took four-and-three-quarter years to escape and, upon escaping, Broadstrike was informed that Mr. Impossible had “hung up his cape.”
Plunging toward the earth, Broadstrike wondered why the world’s greatest super hero had mysteriously vanished. Some say that he found true love and chose her over crime fighting. Others claimed that he was dead and no one wanted to admit it. He even heard a rumor that Mr. Impossible had decided to switch sides and become a criminal. Whatever the reason, Mr. Impossible’s departure had been quite a blow to the good guys.
Pillar City, the glass-and-steel metropolis that Mr. Impossible had once called home, used to be the safest city in America. Now, it was ranked as the most dangerous place on Earth. The city was so bad that even some of the lesser villains were afraid to live there. Broadstrike even heard an outrageous rumor that the Pentagon was thinking about nerve gassing the whole city, as a matter of national security.
But none of that mattered to him.
Broadstrike landed on the beach with enough force to make a five-foot deep crater and a thunderous boom. Sand flew in all directions. The locals ran away as Broadstrike turned around and his ire-filled eyes narrowed upon a glowing neon sign for El Gringo Cantina. Fists clenched, he clawed his way out of the crater and headed toward the cantina with vengeance in his blood. He would call out Mr. Impossible and then break the hero’s bones – one for each month he had spent locked away in the Shell. Broadstrike passed through the cantina’s saloon-style double doors and let them swing behind him.
He counted ten frightened Belizean locals and three elderly white tourists sitting throughout the bar. A middle-aged white man (the barkeep) stood behind a large oak bar. A soccer game was on a corner-mounted TV, just over the bartender’s right shoulder. Unlike the other patrons, the bartender regarded Broadstrike like he was just another tourist as he poured a mug of beer and took a sip. Broadstrike walked over to the bar and intently studied the gray-eyed, forty-something bartender. He stood about 5’7”, weighed 180 pounds and had shoulder-length, salt-and-pepper hair. His face was handsome, clean-shaven and … familiar.
“Heya Broadstrike,” the bartender said with a friendly nod. “What are you drinking?”
Caught by surprise, Broadstrike slinked over and sat on a stool; while the bar patrons ran for the door.
“Nothing for me, thanks.”
The bartender shrugged, gave Broadstrike a slight toast, and then turned his back to him. The super villain looked around the empty cantina as the bartender eyed the soccer game.
“How do you know me?” Broadstrike asked.
“I kicked your ass about what … five years ago?” The bartender asked as he scrubbed a freshly washed mug.
Broadstrike’s face twisted with shock and then recognition as he jumped to his feet. He laughed at Mr. Impossible’s present incarnation. Five years ago, Mr. Impossible was 6’7” and built like a pagan god of strength. He could fly at MACH 9, lift 60-ton tanks with ease, and survived a point-blank nuke blast once. Now, he was a scrawny little bartender!
After the first twenty seconds of non-stop laughter, Mr. Impossible gave him a half-glance.
“What’s so funny?”
“You’re a wuss now!” Broadstrike laughed on, tears forming in his eyes. “I came all this way to break you in half and you’re an Average Joe?!”
“Well,” Mr. Impossible shrugged, “that’s life. Two years back, I started losing my powers. Couldn’t fly as fast. My kinetic force beams didn’t zap as hard. I even started to shrink. I decided to call it quits before some lucky purse snatcher ended me.”
Teary-eyed, Broadstrike finished laughing and caught his breath. The escaped villain paused to wipe his eyes as he sat down again. Mr. Impossible glanced back at the TV.
“How’d you lose your powers?”
“I dunno,” Mr. Impossible turned back toward Broadstrike as a commercial came on. “I tried to undo it but couldn’t.”
“You could’ve hidden yourself better.”
“Not really,” Mr. Impossible leaned against the bar and set his mug down. “I get to watch scantily-clad women come and go, run a nice little bar, and even work on my surfing. There’s no better place to hide than here.”
“How come no one’s snuffed you by now?”
“You think you’re the first bad guy to find me?” Mr. Impossible chuckled. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
“How many?”
“You’re actually the …” Mr. Impossible paused and glanced up at the ceiling as he counted in his head, “ninth super villain to track me down. They all wanted me dead – just like you.”
“What happened to the other eight?”
Mr. Impossible gave his former adversary a scary smile.
“Sharks gotta eat, too.”
Broadstrike regarded his former enemy with obvious skepticism.
“You took out eight super villains … without your powers? How?”
“Try me and find out,” the ex-hero replied.
“You couldn’t survive a quarter-strength punch from me, Mr. Impossible,” Broadstrike growled. “Don’t push your luck.”
“Huey.”
“Huh?”
“Huey. Huey Slyne. That’s my new name now.”
“Why are you still alive? I know it’s not luck.”
“You’re right,” Huey Slyne nodded. “The answer’s pretty simple: think of the bad guys I’ve locked away. Some were brutes like you. Others were mad scientist types who couldn’t bench-press 100 pounds … but were way smarter than me. Whenever I took down an evil genius, I kept any schematics I could find. Sometimes, I even kept a device or two. I figured I might need them some day – especially anything capable of knocking me around in my prime.”
The bartender allowed himself a brief moment of self-pity.
“Sure enough, that day has come and gone.”
Broadstrike couldn’t believe his ears. This was the same guy who had saved the world countless times and defeated adversaries too numerous to mention. He found it all so suddenly depressing.
“So what are you going to do now? Grow old and bang anything in a thong?”
“Basically.”
“What about Pillar City? You’re just going to sit back and let the place rot away?”
“Yeah,” Huey replied. “Let the other super heroes fight the forces of evil.”
“I passed through there a few weeks back,” Broadstrike