Ten Sigmas & Other Unlikelihoods by Paul Melko Read Free Book Online

alligators to fight crime? You at least don’t throw dirty syringes or iron lungs at people. I thought we could team up again, you know.”
    “Listen, Steve. I really don’t feel like fighting crime today. It’s not a plot of Boxer or Sigma Freud. I’m just . . . tired.”
    Steve the Intern seemed ready to argue, then he said, “Yeah, yeah, I understand. I feel that way sometimes too.” He pulled his cape back on, and adjusted the drape of it in the glass window of the abandoned operating theatre. “Have you talked to someone about it? You know, maybe someone at the Institute could help you . . . whatever.”
    “I don’t need anyone at the Institute to help me out, Steve.”
    “Well, you get some vitamin C, and you’ll feel better. And stop by the Guild some night, okay? Have a few beers and some laughs with the heroes.”
    “Maybe,” Curt said, but he didn’t really want to face any other super heroes.
    “See ya.”
    Doctor Mighty rolled over, grabbed one of the KryptoLites, and popped it open in a spray of foam. Vitamin C was not called for in this case. He needed some vitamin beer.
    *
    Doctor Mighty took to wandering the halls of the abandoned hospital, putting on dark phantom airs, and pulling rebar steel from the concrete walls and bending it into pretzels. He sent back the supervillain challenges he received through the Guild. He didn’t bother programming the crime computer, but loaded an illegal copy of Tetris on it instead. Instead of patrolling the streets, he patrolled the hospital, bending steel in his bare and heavily calloused hands.
    Curt found he could bend five bars at a time. Six was impossible, but five he could do every time. Loop, loop, twist, and he had a twenty pound pretzel.
    Super-strength really was his only power, and he began to wonder if he could enhance it if he worked out. Maybe he could better himself as a superhero. It wasn’t that he wanted to be a multi-power. He just wanted a change.
    He started bending bars in the morning, five sets of eight pretzels, another three sets after lunch, and then five sets before dinner. He lifted the x-ray machine in a bench press. He drank a protein drink after every workout. It was good to have a routine. Doctor Mighty considered going after some more villains.
    Then he realized after a month that he could still only bend five bars. His power was static, as is, unalterable. He was Doctor Mighty and no more.
    He stopped working out, and just read comic books, played Tetris, and ordered pizza for every meal.
    *
    Doctor Mighty would have remained forever in the abandoned hospital if Auntie Arctic hadn’t escaped from the Institute and managed to freeze his favorite pizza place. No one else would deliver to his lair.
    He found her at the new Giant Eagle in Dublin, sitting in the refrigeration unit in the back room on a pallet of frozen strawberries, tossing bags of french-cut green beans into a box with amazing precision.
    “Oh, hi,” she said. “I was waiting for you to show up.”
    Doctor Mighty looked around for the henchmen, but the frozen food locker was empty except for the two of them. Auntie Arctic kicked the strawberries with the back of her booted heel in an arrhythmic patter.
    “Where are your henchmen?” Curt checked the ceiling and glanced behind a stack of chicken breasts.
    “I traded Centigrade to the Copyright Infringer for a death ray. F and C retired, said the business wasn’t for them anymore. Moved to Arizona for the weather.”
    “Yeah, hot, but no humidity.”
    “Whatever.”
    Doctor Mighty stowed the hair drier in his belt and sat on a pallet next to Ms. Arctic. She was looking sad, the icicles on her elbows dripping a bit, the frost on her cheeks a little more blue than usual.
    “You seem down,” he said.
    “You don’t seem yourself either,” she said.
    “No, I . . .”
    “Yeah, I know.”
    Curt found himself tapping his foot in time with Auntie Arctic’s. He stopped his foot, worked up his courage, and