Hero's Call

Chapter Thirteen

As it turned out, henchmen were not as easy to come by.

In the Golden Age of Heroes and Villains, henchmen were a dime a dozen, sometimes literally depending on what decade they were hired in. There was decent money and steady work in the henchmen business. Of course, there was a high degree of danger and risk of personal harm in the field considering the job. It was nearly impossible for a professional henchman to procure himself health insurance for such reasons. Yet, the position of henchman had great drawing power. Something about the prospect of being a part of an army that took over the world would bring men from all over the world to take up arms against all that is good and pure.

As the world evolved, so did the business of henching. It stopped being about the cause, the total destruction of all established governments and the idea of freedom, and began focusing on the all-powerful dollar sign. Any good hencher worth his salt would come at a pretty penny and quickly rise through the ranks, his pay rate climbing with him. By the time The Dreadnaught Virus was released on the world, henchmen were nothing more than mercenaries, lending their arms to the highest bidder and walking out if they felt they weren't getting paid enough. Their greed slowly dissolved the henching community into a rabble of sellswords and beatniks who'd kill their own grandmothers for a fiver.

After Heroes and Villains disappeared, the demand for henchmen quickly disappeared with them, albeit not completely. While there were no more Villains to wreak havoc on the world, there was still plenty of opportunity for war. And war meant business to the henchers. But one man within the henching community recognized the need for organization. All henchmen could earn a decent living if they banded together and came to an agreement on terms of operation. Some of henching's greatest leaders were brought together for a conference in the summer of 1983. Three days after the conference began, The Alliance of Henchmen, Mercenaries, and Ne'er-do-wells was formed. Only three stabbing incidents occurred.

The AHMN had cornered the market on henching in only a few short months. As a member, any henchman, merc, or NDW was entitled to a standard rate of pay which was non-negotiable, a basic level of health insurance that covered most any medical incident except shingles, and a pretty nice looking patch that was attached to every uniform no matter who the employer. Henchers had unionized and bureaucracy was now their governing body. Generally speaking, the henching community was rather pleased with the outcome once they got used to it.

Czar Destructo found himself in a rather uncomfortable chair in the waiting room of the Manhattan chapter of the AHMN, and he wasn't exactly happy about it. He despised bureaucracy and everything it stood for. Yet, after an hour's searching for a good henchman, he knew he had no choice. His plan could not possibly come to fruition without at least a small contingent of men to do his bidding. He was desperately trying to complete a set of standard forms that was at least as thick as a short novel. Much of the information he simply made up, as he didn't have a legitimate answer. The rest of it, he answered only to a suitable level of comfort. The idea of having information about his base of operation and general master plan just sitting in a file cabinet seemed ridiculous to him. He grudgingly supplied the information required when he read the confidentiality clause on the last page. It put his mind at ease at least somewhat.

When he had finally finished filling out the ridiculous stack of forms, he returned them, along with the clipboard and pen, to the receptionist. She was a young woman, not more than twenty-three. Her chestnut hair was cut incredibly short. Destructo thought it would be more fitting on a man, but couldn't bring himself to think it made her look bad. She was quite a pretty young thing. Her lithe movements as she filed his paperwork made something primal stir inside him. It wasn't a feeling he'd felt in a very, very long time. He was aging rapidly, but that didn't mean he couldn't have a little personal fun before he was too old attract a woman like that.