A week in peril, p.1
A Week In Peril, page 1
A WEEK IN PERIL
MASKS AND MISTRESSES
BOOK 1
TEMPLE HART
Copyright © 2024 Temple Hart
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the copyright holder, except where permitted by law. This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.
Cover Art and Illustrations: Manuela Serra
To Hazel, the woman who helped me find myself
CONTENTS
Day 1: Takeover Tuesdays
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Day 2: What-The-Fuck Wednesdays
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Day 3: Thoughtful Thursdays
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Day 4: Formal Fridays
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Day 5: Sloppy Saturdays
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Day 6: Sabotaged Sundays
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Day 7: Make-A-Wish Mondays
Chapter 22
Not ready for the story to end?
About the Author
DAY 1: TAKEOVER TUESDAYS
CHAPTER 1
Tuesdays were always special days for Dr. Patricia Peril (nee Nowak, which just wouldn’t fly in the tense world of supervillain marketing), D.E.S., Ph.D., D.Sc., Ed.D., M.D., D.Mgt., and half a dozen other nefarious doctorates. For the greatest mad scientist/supervillain in the Midwestern United States, Tuesday meant she got her weekly chance at what was known in official channels as an extra-governmental authoritative redistribution. To the braindead layperson, that meant Dr. Peril had the clearance to make a play at taking over her beloved hometown of Evanston, Illinois, and ruling it with an iron fist. Or, in her case, exoskeletal power fist.
Sure, the Midwest wasn’t the most desirable region of villainy, and Evanston was small compared to the nearby glory of the greater Chicago area. But hey, Northwestern was Peril’s Alma Mater, so there was a lot of sentimental value there. There was also one other thing that kept the maniacal technopath’s focus on her current goal…
Diamond, the glittering gladiatrix, the petite powerhouse, the paradoxically most important and most hated person in Peril’s life, was the superheroine protector of Evanston. In Dr. Peril’s opinion, though, the nigh-indestructible woman really should be assigned a bigger city to protect. Maybe even an internship with the Freedom Council or EX-Generation. Then, thanks to the Department of Unnatural Powers’ nemesis equivalency policy, Dr. Peril would get a matching promotion. It was just how the system worked, as much as she hated it.
That was why Dr. Peril was spending this last hour before taking over the city to do the most critical of research on her hated foe from her most private of chambers.
“Newton’s balls,” Peril moaned as she stared down at her tablet, “can you get any more saccharine than this?”
The this in question was her primary research source, the only truly pure source of media in Evanston: The Daily Northwestern. Sure, it was the local college newspaper, but when it came to Evanston, you could do no finer. But more specifically, the very specific this Dr. Peril regarded with a mixture of villainous fury, jealous disgust, and that certain special kind of lust that led to a good hate-fuck was an exclusive interview with a multi-photo spread of her legally registered nemesis.
Not that Peril had any major complaints about the heroine that the Department’s Villain Affairs bosses had matched her with post-graduation. Oh, yes, look at the super strong lady in the skin-tight, diamond-sequined costume that showed delicious amounts of pale skin and tight muscles and…
Peril coughed deliberately and tore her eyes away from the image of the bare midriff with abs that she paradoxically wanted to punch and lick. While she had a foolproof and scientific method to deal with the heat pooling in her belly and the nearly off-the-charts levels of thirst she currently felt, the good Doctor was already dressed in her full costume and battle gear, all purple and silver, her favorite colors. She just focused on the hate part–the interview itself–and not the fuck part–the pictures. It was more efficient than pulling off all that gear just to access her specially designed nano-bullet vibrator.
Not all evil science was focused on death and destruction, after all. A little decadence was icing on the cake, so she made a mental note to adjust her costume in case this particular itch needed to be scratched at an inopportune time again.
“‘I just want to help people and make the world a better place,’” Peril read aloud, doing her very best to twist the soft, sweet tone of Diamond’s voice into a sugary whine. “‘And I like to think I’d do that even if I didn’t have these remarkable gifts.’”
The Good-Bad Doctor scoffed at that as she rolled her eyes. “Please, girl, stop sucking up to these idiots and sycophants. Especially these small-town losers.” She immediately looked up and blew a kiss at her wall of diplomas, specifically her very first one from Northwestern University. “Not you, baby. I’ll always love you.” Peril glanced back down at the article. “If you’d just set your sights higher, we’d both be out of the minors and into the big leagues.”
“Ugh.” This wasn’t helping. She needed raw, pulsing anger, the kind of rage that would make the peons of this city immediately kowtow at her feet, and all she could muster was a muddled frustration and something else. Something almost… familiar. Like there was something else under it all that she should remember…
But one of her most useful unnatural powers was her perfect, photographic memory, so there was nothing she could be forgetting, and that fact made her more frustrated…
“No. Nope, nope, not at all,” Dr. Peril growled as she casually blasted the tablet into a mess of silicon, glass, and plastic with a flick of her power fist.
That was when Avery, her robotic butler and multi-armed henchman, burst in as if on cue. Which was because she’d programmed him to respond to any unexplained energy weapons fire in the hideout.
“Madame Doctor Mistress, what is your current source of distress?” the barrel-chested humanoid asked, with every ounce of programmed cool suaveness she had planted in him. With how hot Peril ran, she needed someone around that wouldn’t fly off the handle as often as she did to balance things out. “Or are we experimenting with the nano-vibrator again?”
“I’d tell you to fuck off, but you don’t have genitals,” Peril grumbled before running her gauntleted fingers through her electric purple hair. She’d spent two hours in the salon last night just to look her best when she conquered this puny town. “Sorry, Avery. I probably should have done another test run with the bullet this morning, but I shouldn’t take that out on you.”
“Your Scientific Highness is too kind.” Avery folded his lower two arms, which were spindly and fast to aid with lab work, behind his back. He crossed his other two, far more massive arms, over his golden chassis. “May I suggest you will feel significantly better once your glorious plan to conquer Evanston is underway? Tuesdays are usually such a pickup for you, after all.”
“Think my new plan to make Diamond grovel at my feet will prevail this time?” Dr. Peril was an arrogant megalomaniac, at least that’s what she said on her Department of Unnatural Powers villain profile, but even the most self-aggrandizing bitch could feel down after one hundred and twelve failed weekly attempts at this. “I mean, I’d really like to force her to lick the bottom of my boots. It’d perk up the month a lot.”
“Indubitably,” Avery assured her, but then again, he was programmed to provide endless support for Peril’s cause. The last thing she needed was a back-talking robot, after all. “However, as I finished loading the Peril Palace for launch, I might ask if it is truly wise to not install safety railings or other measures in the event of a… minor hiccup in flight stability? And what about the… increased levels of armaments over your usual specifications?”
“Pfft, safety railings are for law-abiding cowards who grovel before the concept of,” Peril added a nasal whine to her voice, “safe practices.” She snorted as she stood up, adjusting the grav-harness around her waist. “Besides, I have this bad girl to keep me rooted to the deck and to slow my fall if I do somehow go off the edge. And you are an artificial intelligence running out of a data center cloud node nestled in various secure systems. If you go splat, I’ll just put you in a new body.” She raised a finger. “As for the weapons, Boss Kerensky approved the specs for the Peril Palace herself.”
“Of course,” the golden bot said as he turned towards the door out of Peril’s bedroom and back to the lair proper. “I should know never to doubt your blazing, overpowering genius that illuminates the darkness of ignorance.”
“Damn right,” she said. “So, if we’re almost ready, can we get this party started? I think staying cooped up in here is not doing me any good.” Which Avery had implied, but she wasn’t going to let him take credit for any original thinking around here. That set a bad precedent, or it may even start the robot apocalypse.
&nbs
Maybe I should remove the neural pathways allowing for sarcasm, the good Doctor thought to herself as she moved to follow Avery out. But then he’d be boring. I need a calm and controlled henchman, not a stick in the mud.
As they talked more about the battle preparations, they walked out of the bedroom’s overindulged opulence and excessive amounts of purple into the much more pragmatic, messy, and dangerous main lair: an industrial building built in the booming ‘50s that was all brick, steel, and concrete. While small for a proper villain lair, Dr. Peril would hopefully be cleared for an upgrade, just as soon as she and Diamond moved on to a bigger city. At least her boss had cleared the construction of the backup lair and something a bit… special for her eventual victory over her nemesis.
Still, it had everything Peril needed, including the offices she and Avery had refurbished into a proper little apartment for her needs. Seemingly innocuous from the outside, the workshop of the lair bristled with all manner of bleeding-edge but incredibly untested technology. An untrained, unpowered civilian who stumbled in here would undoubtedly die from any of a baker’s dozen industrial accidents.
Exactly as she liked it.
But what brought a real, evil, malicious, scandalous, up-to-no-good smile to her lips was the delight of a doomsday weapon dominating the center of the lair. At first blush, you would mistake it for your run-of-the-mill military-grade flying platform bristling with armaments, but if you were a real connoisseur of instruments of death and destruction, you’d see past that. You’d take in the custom-made Tesla cannons replacing the dull, boring lasers, you’d appreciate the lumpy-nosed multi-warhead missiles that could level multiple city blocks a piece, you’d notice that instead of crude hover fans, this bad boy used Peril’s patent-pending anti-grav tech.
The Peril Palace had it all and more: zombie gas sprayers to deaden the will of the masses, a full multimedia transmission system to spread the WORD OF PERIL to all of Evanston, and an array of robotic tentacles spaced everywhere. With variable tips and smart-metal shifting textures, those bad boys were perfect for business and pleasure, patent also pending. And best of all, it was all shining purple and silver, and she herself, through the proxy of Avery, had painted her custom cyber-skull logo on the grav-plate on the bottom.
Dr. Peril clenched her fists. As the cyber-gauntlets whirred and flexed with mechanical might, she reached out with her mind. Her technopathic tendrils linked up with the Palace’s control systems, and with a single thought, the entire structure, every weapon, every propulsion system, every electronically controlled bit and bob, became an extension of her will, a second body flooded with unstoppable power. The muddled feelings towards Diamond and the icky tickle of self-doubt over years of setbacks all washed away under a tidal wave of excitement and exhilaration.
“Come on, Avery!” she practically shouted as she leapt aboard. “First, Evanston, then the greater Chicago area, then the Midwest, then the United States…” She had to take a breath mid-boast. “And then… finally… THE WORLD!”
CHAPTER 2
“You’re joking, right, Agent Johnson?” the superheroine Diamond asked.
She really tried her best to couch the question in the most polite of terms because she was addressing her Department of Unnatural Powers handler, but still, the proposal had to be a joke. However, Agent Johnson, a bright-eyed woman who had to be five years Diamond’s junior, only smiled wider and pointed more enthusiastically at the art of the costume mock-up in front of her.
“Now, Di,” Johnson said, starting her pitch again while also using the nickname Diamond hated the most, “this is a totally reasonable progression of your brand and image.” The agent deftly flipped over the tracing paper prints over the image, each one showing off a previous costume. The shining pearly white smile never left her lips. “See?”
Slowly, methodically, and utterly unnecessarily, Agent Johnson showed off each artist’s rendition. Diamond smiled a bit at the first one, the full bodysuit, still with the signature diamond-shaped sequins that remained constant. She’d worn that during her rookie years, just out of college. The next was a tastefully tailored one-piece, from the top of her neck down to shorts, complimented by thigh-high boots and opera-length gloves. Sure, it showed off some skin, but there wasn’t anything wrong with that, per se. The third, the same uniform she currently wore, cut it down to the equivalent of a sparkly sports bra, booty shorts, ankle boots, and cuffed gloves.
It was almost to the point of embarrassment. Not that Diamond was ashamed of her body, not with how hard she worked to keep it in this sort of tip-top shape. And that was honestly entirely for the aesthetic. Her super-strength and invulnerability had nothing to do with how much she worked out, after all. But still, she wanted to set an example for young people to aspire to, and some of that came in how you dressed, how you carried yourself…
Or maybe she was just far too shy, and the thought of suiting up every day almost made her freeze from an embarrassment that she just shouldn’t feel.
“Now, as I’m sure you saw from the numbers I gave you,” Agent Johnson prattled on, “your ratings have gone up with each costume update we’ve done, especially with most men and, uh, people with a sexual orientation towards women.” That made the superheroine squirm a bit in her chair, which Johnson failed to notice or acknowledge. You’d think a government agent could actually say the word ‘lesbian’ or ‘queer’ or the like. “Which is why, if you’re going to have any chance to snag this internship with the Chicago branch of the Freedom Council, you need to get with the program and update to this…”
That’s when the agent flipped back to the original picture she had assaulted Diamond’s eyes with when she first stepped into the office. It was essentially a bikini with just enough fabric to be decent, with straps that she was pretty sure wouldn’t hold up in any kind of real action, even with her fairly small breasts. And the bottom was barely more than a thong, leaving little to the imagination. The ankle boots shortened to glorified beach slippers, and the gloves became those odd ones that didn’t even fully come to the wrists and felt awkward as heck to wear.
Just trying to imagine how she would feel wearing that outfit made her normally invincible stomach start to churn as blood rushed to her cheeks.
“No.” Diamond shook her head vehemently as she tried to retain some small measure of composure. “Definitely not.”
“But the internship—?” Johnson countered.
“First, I don’t care about the Justice Council or any other super-team.” Normally, the reserved heroine wouldn’t have said that aloud to her handler, but she felt her back was against the wall. And she didn’t stop there. The words just poured out like a waterfall. “Second, I don’t care about some bigger assignment or bigger city or whatever. I’m happy keeping my hometown safe, and I’m happy taking Hero Affairs emergency calls anywhere else I’m needed. And third, I really don’t care about my ratings! Especially if it’s just about drooling over my body and not all the good work I do!” When she finished, she hadn’t even realized she’d gotten so worked up that she’d twisted the metal armrests of her chair under her anxious grip.
Agent Johnson could only blink slowly for a few moments before carefully, putting down the costume sketches. In that merciful silence, Diamond sheepishly pried her gloved fingers out of the twisted metal and crossed her arms over her bare midriff, half-hugging herself.
“I’m, uh, sorry, Agent Johnson,” the heroine said softly, lowering her head to let her strawberry blonde hair curtain her face. It was a little barrier that let her quiet her embarrassment. “Just, uh, I’d like things to stay as they are right now.” She thought to add a little something, hoping it’d soothe her handler’s apparent shock. “Besides, I still haven’t captured Dr. Peril yet, and she’s my nemesis and… uh, yeah.”
