The Henchman's Pension Plan

• Chapter 1 Clocking In One Last Time
• Chapter 2 Life Without Parole, Work Without Pay
• Chapter 3 The Fine Print of Malice
• Chapter 4 Human Resources in the Volcano Lair
• Chapter 5 Severance Package Zero
• Chapter 6 Uniforms and Unpaid Dues
• Chapter 7 Minion No More
• Chapter 8 The Secret Vault of Benefits
• Chapter 9 Depositions in the Dungeon
• Chapter 10 A Goon's Grievance
• Chapter 11 The Guild of Former Underlings
• Chapter 12 Unionize the Lair
• Chapter 13 Coffee Breaks and Laser Grids
• Chapter 14 Red Tape and Death Rays
• Chapter 15 Liquidated Assets
• Chapter 16 Audit of the Doomsday Device
• Chapter 17 Class Action Villainy
• Chapter 18 Bargaining with the Hero League
• Chapter 19 The Nest Egg Heist
• Chapter 20 Stealing Back the Future
• Chapter 21 Pension Plan B
• Chapter 22 Final Arbitration
• Chapter 23 When the Gavel Drops
• Chapter 24 Cashing the Malicious Check
• Chapter 25 Hanging Up the Kevlar
• Chapter 26 Golden Years on Evil Island

[PANEL 1: Wide shot. A rain-slicked, grey morning over the skyline of Metro City. In the foreground, a tall, brutalist skyscraper shaped suspiciously like an inverted obsidian dagger looms over the surrounding office blocks. This is the Apex Tower, local headquarters for Lord Entropy’s global syndicate.]

[PANEL 2: Interior, apartment kitchen. Arthur Pendelton, fifty-eight years old, stands over a squeaking coffee maker. Arthur is broad-shouldered but slightly stooped, with thinning grey hair, a thick mustache, and heavy bags beneath his eyes. He wears a faded bathrobe over a perfectly ironed, pitch-black tactical jumpsuit.]

Arthur buttoned the collar of his Kevlar weave, feeling the familiar, uncomfortable pinch against his larynx. Thirty years of wearing the same standard-issue evil-doer tactical gear had left a permanent red ring around his neck. He poured steaming, cheap diner coffee into a chipped mug that read World’s Okayest Henchman, a gag gift given to him by the night-shift security guys during the 2012 Doomsday Cannon campaign.

"Arthur, did you check the knee pads?"

His wife, Martha, sat at the small kitchen table, flipping through a stack of utility bills and medical invoices. She was wearing her reading glasses, a pen tucked behind her ear.

"They’re fine, Martha," Arthur said, taking a sip of the bitter brew. "Replaced the inserts last Tuesday. The damp down in the sub-basement gets to the joints, but the pad material is solid."

"You shouldn't be squatting down in those subterranean staging bays at your age anyway," she noted, without looking up from an overdue heating bill. "Dr. Vance said your sciatica isn't going to get any better if you keep loading warheads onto transport rails. Did you get the HR form for the dental add-on?"

"I'll swing by human resources today," Arthur sighed, adjusting his utility belt. He snapped on the brass buckle, stamped with Lord Entropy’s signature burning-skull emblem. "If Mr. Malice isn't in a mood. He's been stressed about the orbital laser tests."

"Well, you tell Mr. Malice that three decades of loyalty ought to count for a crown on your lower right molar," Martha said, finally raising her eyes. She gave him a soft, tired smile. "Be careful out there today, Artie. The news said Captain Zenith was spotted over the bay."

"Zenith never comes through the subterranean loading docks," Arthur muttered, kissing her cheek. "Too much grease for his boots. It's always the roof with him."

[PANEL 3: Medium shot. Arthur stands in front of a heavy, steel security door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY – BIOMETRIC SCAN REQUIRED. He holds his plastic ID badge against an optical scanner. The badge displays his photograph—smiling awkwardly twenty-five years ago—and reads: ARTHUR PENDELTON - MINION GRADE IV - SENIOR MAINTENANCE.]

The scanner beeped twice, dropping its harsh green laser down Arthur’s retinas.

"Welcome, Henchman 404," the synthesized voice hummed from a recessed speaker in the reinforced concrete ceiling. "Shift start time: 0600 hours. Current lair alert level: YELLOW-ORANGE. Remember: A loyal underling is a productive underling."

The heavy steel door slid open with a hydraulic hiss, revealing the cavernous, fluorescent-lit corridor of Lord Entropy’s primary underground lair. It looked less like a supervillain’s den of doom and more like a massive, high-security fulfillment warehouse, if fulfillment warehouses featured giant glass vats of bubbling crimson acid and walls reinforced with tungsten-carbide plating.

Arthur walked down the echoing hallway, nodding to younger henchmen as they hurried past. They were clad in the streamlined, lightweight tactical suits of the newer generation—synthetic material, sleek visors, built-in heads-up displays. Arthur preferred his old Class-3 Kevlar canvas. Sure, it weighed forty pounds and smelled vaguely of ozone and damp storage, but it could actually deflect a glancing strike from a low-tier superhero’s sidearm. These new kids in their spandex-polyester blends were going to get themselves torn apart the moment a vigilante decided to swing through a skylight.

[PANEL 4: Close up on a digital time clock mounted to a steel pillar next to an array of rack-mounted shock-batons. Arthur swiped a worn punch card into the mechanical slot. CLACK-CHUNK. The stamp read: 05:58 AM.]

"Morning, Artie," said Gary, a stocky man in his early fifties who was busy adjusting the sight on an incinerator rifle. Gary had lost his left pinky finger back during the Great Megalopolis Raid of '04 when a high-voltage conduit ruptured. "You catch the memo from payroll last night?"

"No," Arthur said, hanging his lunchbox—a tin pail painted matte black to comply with uniform codes—on his assigned hook. "What memo?"

"They're restructuring the hazard pay again," Gary grumbled, spitting into a trash can. "Claims that 'exposure to localized gravity anomalies' no longer qualifies for Tier-2 hazard multipliers. They're calling it an 'environmental feature' of working in proximity to the Singularity Core."

"They can't do that," Arthur said calmly, pulling a pair of heavy leather work gloves over his scarred knuckles. "Section 4, Paragraph 12 of the Syndicate Employment Agreement clearly states that any workplace phenomenon capable of spraining a man's ankle via localized gravitational distortion commands a minimum seven percent shift differential."

"Tell that to the guys in Accounting," Gary sneered. "Ever since Lord Entropy hired those hotshot MBAs from Gotham Business School, every fringe benefit we fought for during the '98 Strike has been getting nibbled away. Next thing you know, they'll charge us for the oxygen in the emergency escape pods."

"Not while I'm shop steward for Sub-Level 3," Arthur said, though there was little conviction left in his voice.

The truth was, the job had changed. When Arthur had first signed on with Lord Entropy back in the late eighties, villainy was a simpler trade. You built a giant ray, you held a major city hostage for ten million dollars, you got into a fistfight with a guy in a cape, and if you lost, you served six months in a minimum-security county facility while the boss paid your retainer. The health insurance was comprehensive, the retirement match was five percent, and there was a genuine sense of camaraderie among the crew.

Now, everything was corporate. Everything was optimized. Lord Entropy didn't even address the minions in person anymore; he broadcasted holographic memos from his floating skull-throne on the top floor, usually demanding higher quarterly productivity for the upcoming Doomsday Phase.

[PANEL 5: Wide angle. A massive subterranean staging bay. In the center sits the Dominion-Class Orbital Cannon, a monstrous cylinder of steel and glowing blue energy conduits. Scaffolding surrounds it. Dozens of henchmen in dark grey coveralls crawl over the structure like ants on a ribcage.]

Arthur climbed the steel gantry toward Sector B, carrying a heavy wrench and a diagnostic slate. His knee gave a dull, throbbing twinge with every third step. Today’s assignment was routine maintenance on the coolant lines for the primary death ray. It was dirty, loud, unglamorous work, but it was three months away from his thirty-year mark.

Thirty years. That was the magic number.

Under the original Master Syndicate Benefit Charter of 1994, thirty years of continuous service entitled a minion of Grade IV or higher to a full, unadjusted pension: sixty-five percent of his highest three years' earnings, fully indexed to inflation, plus comprehensive lifetime health coverage through the Evil Underwriters Mutual Trust.

Arthur had it all mapped out. A small cottage up state, far away from the flight paths of costumed vigilantes. A small boat. Maybe he’d take up woodworking. He had a stack of lumber stored in his garage back home, waiting for the day he didn't have to put on a mask and pretend to care about global conquest.

[PANEL 6: Medium shot. Arthur leaning over a glowing blue conduit, tightening a massive hex nut with his wrench. Sparks fly from a nearby junction box.]

"Arthur!"

Arthur looked down from the gantry platform. Standing thirty feet below was Vance, the night-shift floor supervisor. Vance was thirty-two, wore a tactical vest three sizes too small to show off his biceps, and had never actually seen hand-to-hand combat with a superhero in his life.

"Yeah, Vance?" Arthur called down, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his glove.

"The Boss wants the coolant pressure boosted to one hundred and twenty percent!" Vance shouted over the hum of the power generators. "We're running a full systems demonstration for the Syndicate Board at noon!"

Arthur paused, resting his wrench against the pipe. "Coolant lines are rated for one-hundred-ten, max, Vance. The seals on the secondary bypass are original fittings. They'll blow past one-fifteen."

"It's an order straight from the top!" Vance snapped, tapping his wrist-comm. "The Boss wants to impress the investors from the Zurich Syndicate. Boost the pressure, Pendelton. Don't make me write you up for insubordination again. You know how that looks on your annual review."

Arthur swallowed his frustration. A formal reprimand could freeze his pay grade, which would lower his final average salary calculation for the pension.

"Understood," Arthur said tightly. "Boosting pressure to one-twenty. But I'm logging the safety risk in the shift manual."

"Log whatever you want, old man, just turn the valve," Vance said, turning on his heel and marching toward the command lift.

Arthur watched him leave, shaking his head. He pulled the manual pressure crank toward him, grasping the rusted iron wheel with both hands. He set his feet, leaned his weight into it, and slowly began to turn it clockwise. The iron groaned in protest. Inside the glass conduits running along the bay ceiling, the glowing coolant liquid began to churn violently, turning from a calm violet to a stressed, boiling magenta.

[PANEL 7: Close up on a pressure gauge. The needle ticks out of the green zone, sweeps past the yellow caution arc, and pins itself deep into the red region marked DANGER - SEAL FAILURE IMMINENT.]

Arthur leaned over the edge of the railing to check the seal gaskets on the primary manifold. Sure enough, a faint, high-pitched whistling noise echoed from the pipe joint five yards down the line. Micro-fractures were spreading across the rubberized seal like spiderwebs.

"Stupid," Arthur muttered under his breath, reaching into his tool pouch for a temporary heat-clamp. "Absolute amateur hour."

Suddenly, the red emergency strobe lights mounted every twenty feet along the cavern walls began to flash in unison. A deafening klaxon roared through the subterranean bay—three long blasts, followed by a warbling siren.

WHAOOO-WHAOOO-WHAOOO.

The synthesized automated voice cut through the alarm tones, flat and emotionless: "ALERT. SECURITY BREACH LEVEL ONE. CODE RED. PRIMARY DEFENSE PERIMETER COMPROMISED ON ROOFTOP LEVEL. ALL TACTICAL PERSONNEL TO STAGING AREA ALPHA."

Arthur froze, holding the heat-clamp in mid-air. He looked at his watch.

08:14 AM.

"Unbelievable," Arthur groaned, leaning his forehead against the cool steel of the structural beam. "He always comes during shift change. Every single time."

Below him, the staging bay dissolved into predictable, unionized chaos. Younger henchmen were running around in circles trying to locate their issued sidearms, supervisors were screaming conflicting orders into their radio headsets, and the heavy automated turret platforms were rising from the floorboards with loud, mechanical grinding sounds.

Gary ran under Arthur’s gantry, clutching his incinerator rifle. "Artie! It's the Sentinel League! They breached the upper sky-hangar! Captain Zenith and the Star-Vixen are down in the main lobby!"

"Is it a full strike or just a reconnaissance?" Arthur shouted down.

"Full strike!" Gary yelled back, his eyes wide behind his goggles. "Zenith threw the front security desk through the elevator shaft! They're coming down the service stairs!"

Arthur looked down at his wrench, then at the glowing, over-pressurized coolant line humming dangerously beside him, then at the access ladder leading down to the bay floor.

He was eighty-seven days away from retirement. Eighty-seven days. All he had to do was not get killed, not get arrested, and not break any major syndicate policies before November.

"Right," Arthur said to himself, slowly strapping his wrench back onto his tool belt and grabbing his standard-issue stun-baton from its harness. "Just another Tuesday."

He descended the ladder, stepping onto the concrete floor just as the double-reinforced blast doors at the far end of the bay were blown inward by a brilliant, blinding flash of golden energy. The heavy steel doors, built to withstand a tactical missile strike, flew off their hinges and tumbled across the concrete like discarded tin cans, crushing a display case full of evil promotional banners.

Through the lingering smoke and ozone mist, a towering figure stepped into the bay. His blue cape billowed around him despite the complete lack of wind underground. His chest bore a glowing golden sun medallion that cast harsh light across the subterranean gloom.

Captain Zenith had arrived. And as usual, he looked completely insufferable.

Arthur took a deep breath, adjusted his neck collar one last time, and stepped into line beside his fellow underlings. It was time to clock in.

[PANEL 1: Full splash page. Captain Zenith stands triumphantly atop a heap of smoking, crushed steel scaffolding in the subterranean staging bay. Golden rays of energy crackle around his fists. In the background, Lord Entropy’s sleek escape pod is suspended mid-air, caught in a glowing, force-field lasso. Henchmen lie scattered across the concrete floor in dramatic, deliberate poses of defeat.]

Arthur knew the dive technique better than anyone on the floor. The key to taking a dive from a Class-S superhero was velocity and theatricality. You didn't wait for the energy blast to actually make contact; if Captain Zenith’s golden light hit you squarely, you were looking at third-degree plasma burns and six weeks in a hyperbaric chamber. Instead, the moment you saw the gold light charging in his knuckles, you threw yourself backward into the nearest stack of empty cardboard shipping crates or soft insulation foam, threw your shock-baton into the air with a loud groaning shout, and stayed down until the police sirens started echoing through the ventilation shafts.

"Oh, the agony!" Gary groaned from three yards away, lying face down on a pile of padded packing blankets. He rustled slightly, peeking out from under his visor. "Hey, Artie, did that look realistic?"

"A bit heavy on the groaning, Gary," Arthur whispered back, his cheek pressed flat against the cool concrete floor. "Keep your hands flat. If the hero sees you clutching your shoulder, he thinks you're reaching for a backup sidearm and he’ll freeze-breath your boots."

Above them, Lord Entropy was screaming obscenities through the loudspeaker system of his luxury pod. His voice, usually modulated to sound like a chorus of booming abyssal demons, sounded shrill and tinny through the small emergency speaker. "Unforgivable! You sniveling do-gooder! My orbital laser was four minutes from initialization! The Syndicate will tear Metro City stone from stone for this!"

"Save it for the magistrate, Entropy," Captain Zenith boomed, his voice vibrating through the soles of Arthur’s boots. The hero yanked the golden energy lasso, dragging the five-ton escape pod down to the pavement with a bone-jarring crash. "Your reign of terror ends today. Permanently."

[PANEL 2: Wide shot, dramatic angle. Federal Marshals, flanked by members of the Hero League Legal Division wearing dark blue suits, file into the wrecked lair. They carry glowing red stasis cuffs and magnetic seals, placing them directly onto the control panels of the Dominion Cannon.]

Arthur watched through squinted eyes as two Federal Marshals stepped up to the battered escape pod. They popped the hatch with an acoustic cutting torch and hauled Lord Entropy into the bright fluorescent light. Without his dark matter amplification armor, the dread warlord of the Apex Syndicate was just a bald, pale fifty-six-year-old man named Montgomery Vance-Cross with bad posture and severe sun sensitivity.

They slapped power-dampening cuffs around his wrists. A legal investigator from the Metro City Prosecutor’s Office stepped forward, unrolling a glowing digital scroll.

"Montgomery Vance-Cross," the investigator read flatly, his voice echoing over the ruined bay. "By order of the International Superhuman High Court, under the provisions of the Global Anti-Villainy Accord of 1998, you are hereby placed under immediate arrest. You are charged with three hundred and fourteen counts of conspiracy to cause planetary disruption, illegal deployment of orbital weaponry, grand theft of enriched plutonium, and forty-two violations of municipal noise ordinances."

"I demand my advocate!" Entropy spat, though his voice lacked its usual resonance without his vocal synth active. "I have sovereign immunity on Evil Island! I am a recognized head of state!"

"Your diplomatic passport was revoked three hours ago by the UN Security Council, Montgomery," the investigator replied, snapping the scroll shut. "And as for your legal representation... Mr. Malice was taken into custody at his penthouse in Zurich twenty minutes ago. The party's over."

[PANEL 3: Split screen. Left side: A television news broadcast featuring a talking head in front of a court building. Text on screen reads: ENTROPY SENTENCED: LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE. Right side: The interior of a stark, grey waiting room at the Apex Tower Human Resources department. A long line of tired henchmen in street clothes stretches out the door.]

Three weeks later, the verdict was finalized. The trial had been the fastest in the history of the International Superhuman High Court. Lord Entropy had attempted to represent himself, utilizing an ancient legal defense involving feudal land grants and orbital squatters' rights. The tribunal was unimpressed. The sentence dropped like an anvil: life without parole, to be served in the Sub-Oceanic Tartarus Trench Facility, eleven thousand meters below the surface of the South Pacific. No bail, no work release, no communication with the outside world beyond a single monitored postcard per decade.

Arthur sat in the uncomfortable plastic chair of the fourth-floor HR waiting room, staring at his shoes. He had swapped his Class-3 Kevlar jumpsuit for a grey tweed jacket and slacks, though he still had his leather work boots on. Beside him, Gary was endlessly clicking a ballpoint pen.

"They can't just freeze everything," Gary muttered, his thumb popping the pen top click-clack, click-clack. "I've got two kids in college, Artie. I was depending on that quarter-end bonus for the Singularity Core deployment."

"They didn't just freeze the bonuses, Gary," Arthur said quietly, adjusting his glasses. "They froze the operational accounts. The whole syndicate is under a Federal Receivership Order."

"What does that mean for payroll?"

"It means," Arthur said, pointing a thumb toward the inner office door, "we're about to find out."

[PANEL 4: Medium shot. Interior of the HR office. A stressed young woman in a sharp blazer sits behind a desk covered in yellow folders, sticky notes, and three lukewarm cups of takeout coffee. A cardboard box labeled PERSONAL EFFECTS rests on the floor beside her.]

The door opened, and Miss Henderson, the interim Director of Human Capital Management—and the only HR staffer who hadn't fled the state during the hero raid—motioned Arthur inside. She looked like she hadn't slept since the indictment was unsealed.

"Mr. Pendelton," she said, leaning back in her mesh swivel chair and rubbing her temples. "Sit down, please."

Arthur sat, placing his hands flat on his knees. "Morning, Miss Henderson. I brought my original employment ledger from 1994. The one signed by the original syndicate board before the corporate merger."

Miss Henderson winced, sliding a sheet of paper across the desk toward him. "Arthur... I'm going to be straight with you because you’re one of the few seniors who didn't try to torch the server room during the evacuation."

Arthur took the paper. At the top, stamped in bright purple ink, were the words: UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT – ASSET SEIZURE & FREEZE ORDER.

"The Department of Justice, in coordination with the Hero League oversight committee, has injunctioned all primary, secondary, and offshore liquid assets tied to Montgomery Vance-Cross and his subsidiary entities," she explained, picking up a yellow highlighter and tapping it against her desk. "That includes Apex Syndicate LLC, DoomTech Systems, and the Underling Mutual Benefit Trust."

"The Trust?" Arthur’s voice cracked slightly, the composure he had maintained for three weeks dropping like a lead weight. "Miss Henderson, the Underling Mutual Benefit Trust is a legally separate entity. It’s funded by worker contributions and fixed corporate matches. It’s not Lord Entropy’s personal money. It’s the pension pool."

"On paper, yes," Miss Henderson said carefully. "In reality... it turns out Vance-Cross was using the pension pool as collateral for the dark-matter reactor lease payments to the Martian Syndicate. When the federal authorities seized his holdings, the lease went into default. The court treated the entire Trust as an operational asset of the criminal enterprise."

[PANEL 5: Close up on Arthur’s hand gripping the edge of the desk. The laminate wood cracks under his fingers.]

"I have eighty-seven days," Arthur said, his voice dangerously low. "Eighty-seven days until my thirty-year mark. Three decades of standing in dark corridors, getting thrown into crates by guys in capes, breathing in arc-welding fumes and hydrazine exhaust. I have paid my dues, Miss Henderson. I have forty-four distinct points of entry on my medical file from superhero engagements."

"I know, Arthur," she said softly. "I’ve seen your file. You’ve got a flawless attendance record. You were Minion of the Quarter twice during the 2008 Doomsday Grid campaign."

"Then where is my money?"

"It’s frozen," she said. "Not erased. Frozen. There is a technical difference."

"A technical difference doesn't pay my property taxes," Arthur spat. "What am I supposed to do? Go work for the Dread Emperor? Start over as a Grade I initiate at my age? I can't load plasma cores anymore, my lower back is shot!"

Miss Henderson leaned forward, checking the door to ensure it was closed. She lowered her voice to a whisper. "Look, Pendelton. Here’s the reality of the situation. Under the provisions of the receivership, Apex Tower and all subterranean facilities are legally categorized as 'Active Crime Scenes Under Liquidation Maintenance'. The court appointed a Receiver—a bureaucrat from the Treasury Department named Mr. Sterling."

"A Receiver," Arthur repeated.

"Right. Sterling’s job is to secure the property, inventory the superweapons, sell off the scrap metal, and clear the liabilities before the city demolishes the building," she continued, pointing at Arthur’s paper. "Now, here’s the fine print. Under Chapter 11 Subchapter V of the Supervillain Bankruptcy Accord, if an employee voluntarily resigns or abandons their post during a court-ordered receivership, they forfeit all accrued statutory claims against the liquidated estate."

Arthur blinked, trying to parse the legal jargon through thirty years of practical goon logic. "Say that again?"

"If you quit now, you get zero," Miss Henderson said flatly. "You walk away with nothing, and your pension claim is voided for breach of contract. But if you remain on the active payroll through the duration of the liquidation process, your claim remains active as a Secured Class-1 Labor Obligation."

"Active payroll?" Arthur scoffed. "You just said the accounts are frozen! How are you paying us?"

"We aren't," Miss Henderson said, offering a sad, helpless shrug. "Wages are currently deferred indefinitely pending the asset auctions. You work without pay, Arthur. You keep showing up, you maintain the perimeter, you make sure the Doomsday Device doesn't leak radiation into the subway lines, and you clock in every morning at six o'clock."

"Work without pay..." Arthur muttered, staring at the purple stamp on the court document. "...to protect a pension that might not even exist."

"It’s the only legal avenue left," she said. "If you abandon the lair, Sterling marks you down as a deserter, and the Hero League seizes your accrued benefit pool to pay for the skylight repairs."

[PANEL 6: Wide shot. Arthur standing outside the front glass doors of Apex Tower. Rain pours down from a dark, iron-grey sky. Federal Marshals are putting up yellow crime-scene tape across the main lobby entrance, while a flatbed truck carries away a giant, polished bronze statue of Lord Entropy crushing a globe.]

Arthur pulled his collar up against the rain, watching the bronze head of his former employer disappear around the corner of 4th Avenue.

Thirty years. He had spent thirty years believing that as long as you followed the union handbook, logged your maintenance hours, and didn't cross the boss, the system would take care of you at the end. You took your lumps from Captain Zenith, you spent your weekends scrubbing plasma burns off the hangar deck, and in return, you got a modest house, a small boat, and a check in the mail every month until you died.

Now, his boss was sitting at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean in a titanium cell, his union steward was dodging federal indictments in a country without extradition, and Arthur was standing in the freezing rain with zero dollars in his bank account and an order to keep coming to work tomorrow morning.

He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his worn plastic ID badge. The optical code was scratched, the photo was thirty pounds younger, but the title was still clear: ARTHUR PENDELTON - MINION GRADE IV.

"Work without pay," Arthur said to the empty, rain-slicked street. He slipped the badge back into his pocket, his jaw setting into a hard, rigid line. "Fine. But I'm taking my coffee breaks. Every single minute of them."

[PANEL 7: Interior, Arthur’s living room. Evening. A small, dimly lit room with worn floral wallpaper. Martha sits at the kitchen table with a calculator and a spreadsheet. Arthur stands near the window, looking out at the rain.]

"How bad is it, Artie?" Martha asked quietly, without pressing the add button on the calculator.

"It’s deferred," Arthur said, turning away from the window. "No paychecks for the foreseeable future. The feds took the operating funds."

Martha lowered her head, resting her forehead against her hands. "The mortgage is due on the fifteenth, Arthur. And Dr. Vance sent the bill for your physical therapy from the autumn campaign. Insurance declined the claim because the injury occurred during an 'unlawful assembly'."

"I'm not quitting, Martha," Arthur said, walking over to the table and laying a heavy, scarred hand over hers. "If I quit, they wipe the thirty years clean. They win. The government gets the lair, the court gets the scrap metal, and we get the street."

"So what do you do?" she looked up, her eyes bright with unshed tears. "You go to work every morning for a company that doesn't exist, for a boss who’s in prison for the rest of his life?"

"I go to work," Arthur said, his voice flat, steady, and iron-hard. "I clock in at 05:58 AM. I hold the line until the liquidation is finished. And when that court sits down to divide up Lord Entropy's empire, I am going to be standing at the front of the line with my punch card in my hand."

He reached over and picked up his worn leather work gloves from the counter, pulling them tight over his knuckles.

"They think goons are expendable, Martha," Arthur said quietly. "They think because we wear the masks, we don't count the math. But I’ve been keeping score for thirty years. And somebody is going to pay out my plan."