Confused, Lester woke up and looked around. He saw a well-lit room. Vials, computers, and screens lined the tables next to the walls. There was also a machine with mechanical arms in the corner. The place was definitely strange. And here he was—unless this was a dream.

  Lester turned his gaze on himself. He was wearing a blue hospital gown. Also, he was on some kind of an operating table, attached directly to it by metal manacles on his wrists and ankles. Something had for sure gone wrong in a really bad way. He might have even died and gone to hell. However, this was definitely not the traditional kinda hell. More of a technological kinda hell.

  "Help!" the word escaped Lester's mouth.

  Lester waited.

  After a while, he yelled, "Can someone please help me?! I'm trapped here!"

  No answer.

  "What the hell is going on!"

  Text appeared in his vision.

  Would you like to see your status screen?

  Lester stared at it for a while. He turned his head and the text turned with him. He said, "Okay."

  The text changed.

  HENCHMAN INTERFACE

  Name: Lester Rigby

  Super Rank: E

  Status: Unbound Henchman

  Attributes:

  Might 4

  Vitality 2

  Reflex 2

  Intellect 1

  Will 1

  Energy 0

  Powers:

  Locked

  Status Effects:

  Extreme Malnutrition

  Extreme Muscle Atrophy

  After a while of processing what he saw, Lester said, "Am I in a video game?"

  There was no answer.

  After he had calmed down a bit, Lester decided that there were only two possibilities. He was either in a video game or he was in the real world. And also in the latter case, he was still seeing stuff that probably wasn't real. Either way, something had messed with his head.

  The text was still there, and Lester looked it over. It looked like he had a lot of Might—at least it was his highest attribute. This probably made him strong. Intellect was at one, which was maybe bad. Though, he didn't feel that much dumb. Maybe a bit confused.

  Lester asked the text, "Mr. Henchman Interface, can you tell me what is going on?"

  No answer.

  "How did I end up like this?"

  No answer.

  Lester thought about it for a while. Last he remembered was the two-headed cat. It must have caught him, and then somehow he ended up here. Though, he'd seen the cat run away, and then he'd cleaned his place, and he'd taken out his phone and called Flynn about that job.

  After a while of trying to remember, Lester thought, Someone must have knocked me out while I was on the phone.

  Having not gotten any further in the question of how he had gotten here, Lester just stared at the text in frustration. He said, "How do I get rid of this thing?"

  A box of text popped on top of the text already there.

  Would you want to close the HENCHMAN INTERFACE?

  "Okay, let's do that."

  Lester saw all the text disappear. That was one problem solved. Now to the next one. He was stuck here, bound by these metal manacles around his wrists and ankles. And they were definitely tough steel. One would not be able to break them unless the one in question had super strength. An idea popped into Lester's head. He actually might have super strength. His stats had said that his Might was four. If it meant something like four times human strength, that might be enough.

  Lester took a deep breath and pulled. He shifted his body and twisted. He wrenched himself up and down then to the left and right. He screamed. He cursed. But in the end, the metal manacles did not budge.

  Lester calmed down, feeling tired from all the effort. This, he thought, definitely felt like reality. If this was a video game, it would have been broken. Imagine a game where you just spent all your time stuck on a table, doing nothing.

  As if to answer his train of thought, text appeared again in his vision.

  Quest options:

  Option 1: Stay here and become a Bound Henchman: 0 points.

  Option 2: Escape and become a Rogue Henchman: 3 points.

  Lester blinked, trying to figure out what this all meant. Of course, he wanted to escape. Who would want to be tied to an operating table. What kind of a choice was that anyway.

  "Option 2," Lester said, "Escape. Definitely escape."

  You have chosen the path of a Rogue Henchman.

  The manacles holding him in place slid open, and his arms and legs were free. Holding onto the table, he managed to get off and stand up. He felt a rush of blood and a dizziness.

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  After a while when the world became steady again, Lester turned his gaze toward himself, noticing his arms and legs inside the hospital gown. They were thin. Like really thin. Like a kid could put their fingers around them. Almost no muscle. Like he should maybe not be able to move around. But somehow he was moving. But still, this must have been the muscle atrophy that was mentioned by the Henchman Interface.

  He touched his face. There was a beard there. A long one. This was not part of his superhero look. A clean shaved face was. Maybe he had been in some kind of a beard-growing experiment.

  Lester thought about it for a while. The other option clearly was that he'd been here for a while. Weeks, maybe a month, as he felt the hairs on his face.

  After a while, Lester's gaze turned to the door. He walked there and turned the handle. It clicked open. On the other side, he saw a plain and well-lit corridor. There was no one there. Which was good. He wasn't in any condition to fight his way out.

  Barefoot and dressed only in the blue hospital gown, Lester exited the room and started walking, trying to be as unsuspicious as he could. There were a lot of corridors. There were also doors in those corridors, like Operating Room 2, or Biohazard Lab 67, or X-ray 1, or Animal Containment. Also, he was most likely underground since there were no windows as far as he'd seen.

  After walking, turning several corners, and choosing between different directions in multiple junctions, Lester came across a sign that read, Elevator. There was also an arrow there pointing the way. Seeing this, Lester got his hopes up. This might actually be easy. He hadn't needed to fight anyone or anything so far. He'd not even seen anyone. If this was a video game, it was definitely a way too easy one. Taking this and other things into consideration, it had become more and more likely that he was in fact in the real world, and he'd just seen some text pop up—maybe some high-tech augmentation. All in all, things seemed to start to make at least some sense.

  As he went around a corner, Lester saw a robot. It was big, weighing over a ton. A hunk of steel two meters tall and as wide, resting on two caterpillar tracks. It had a head with glowing red eyes, and two arms with miniguns attached. The guns were now pointed at him.

  "Halt, intruder! Identify yourself," the thing said with a mechanical voice.

  Lester turned around and ran, only two thoughts in his mind, Big robot. Run.

  After he'd gone through a couple of intersections and when he didn't hear anything following, Lester stopped, sat down on the floor, leaned against the corridor wall, and went through what had just happened. There was a big killing machine, and it was in front of the elevator. This was bad. Really bad. There was no way he could fight that thing. Those guns would definitely tear him to pieces, and he didn't have anything to even scratch that monster.

  In desperation, Lester thought of returning to the lab. Maybe he could just strap himself back onto the table and wait. He would become a Bound Henchman, whatever it meant. That might not be that bad of an opinion.

  Lester's thoughts were interrupted when his gaze hit the name of the room in front of him. It read, Changing Room.

  "Hmm," Lester said, got up, and tried the door handle. It clicked open and he looked inside. It was dark, but he found the light switch. It was a simple locker room, there were two rows of lockers and an entrance to showers at the back.

  He went in, looking around. Some of the lockers were open and one of them had clothes inside. He took them out, examining them. There was a name tag, which read, Igor Johnson. This Igor guy seemed to be a couple of sizes bigger than him. But still much better than going around in this hospital gown.

  Lester changed to Igor's trousers and shirt, having to tie the belt into a knot because it didn't have enough holes. There were shoes, but they were far too big for him, so he continued barefoot. He left the name tag in the locker.

  After this, Lester went to look at himself in the mirror. He was indeed skinny, like in a really unhealthy way. Almost in a corpse kind of way. His normally pale skin was even paler. His hair, which had been brown, had partially fallen out and had now some white strands. He had the beard, which was maybe three or four centimeters. No one would respect a superhero who looked like this.

  Lester continued looking around, opening all the lockers that weren't locked and checking them thoroughly.

  Suddenly, the door to the room opened, and a guy walked in. He was a middle-aged balding man wearing black overalls with a logo on the chest. The logo was an exploding brain with the text, Nasty's Business.

  Lester felt his adrenal kick in. He would have to take this guy out quickly before he was able to call backup.

  Then the man said, "Are you an escaping experiment?"

  That made Lester halt his attack. He said, "So, what if I was?"

  "I'm not going to stop you."

  "But you're a henchman."

  "I'm just the janitor," the guy said, "I'm not the one expected to stop escaping experiments."

  "Okay." Lester looked the man up and down. The guy certainly wasn't armed as far as he could see. Also, he didn't have the vibe of an evil henchman despite the logo on his overalls.

  Lester decided to talk, "So, what is this place exactly?"

  "You've probably heard of Dr. Nastybrain, right?"

  "Yeah."

  "This is his secret underground lab," the janitor said.

  Lester thought about it. This definitely was a supervillain lair, and somehow Dr. Nastybrain's name rang a bell. There was definitely something, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

  An image flashed before Lester's eyes. A brain inside a big skull, a syringe being jabbed into his neck, the words, "We will do great art together."

  "You okay?" the janitor asked.

  Lester held his head as the world came back to him. He said, "Yeah, just something wrong with my head."

  As they stood there in silence, Lester checked the guy's name tag. It read, Herbert Notty. This Herbert guy felt like an okay dude. Maybe there was no reason to fight him.

  Lester said, "So you work for Nasty?"

  "Yeah, for a couple of years now."

  "Does he pay well?"

  "Nah."

  "Why do you work for him then?" Lester said.

  Herbert sighed. "In my youth, I did some stuff, and I ended up getting registered as a henchman. So, it's quite hard for me to get a job that's totally legal. That's why I'm here."

  "Bad luck man."

  Herbert let out a small laugh. "I was actually an F-ranked superhero before, but then I was caught transporting some illegal stuff for a supervillain and everything changed."

  Lester nodded, hoping the same fate wouldn't befall him. It would definitely be a killing blow for his superhero career.

  After a moment of silence, Lester asked, "So, where's everyone else?"

  "It happened a month ago," Herbert said, "Dr. Nastybrain had a big battle with the Protectosmarts, and he lost. And now the doctor is locked up in the asylum and it'll probably be a couple of months until he'll be released."

  "So, you're alone here?"

  "Only me and the guard upstairs. It's like a skeleton crew, running this facility until the doctor returns."

  Lester nodded. "I was just wondering. If it's okay for you that is. If you might give me some hints on how to escape this place."

  "Yeah, I could give you some pointers."

  "I was thinking about that maybe the ventilation shaft, wherever that is."

  Herbert shook his head. "That thing does take you to the surface, but it's a hundred-meter climb, and there are some lasers there. Sometimes we find burned-up animal parts at the bottom. There was even this time we found a catgirl there. She'd been cut into like five pieces." Herbert seemed to think for a moment. "The only way to get out is through the elevator or the stairway next to it."

  "But what about the robot there?"

  "Yeah, that thing. It doesn't have any ammo in its weapons. We usually disarm the thing when the doctor gets caught. It cuts down on accidents."

  "So, I can just run through, and take the elevator?" Lester said.

  "Yeah, or the stairs. Both are unlocked."

  "Thanks, man," Lester said as he headed toward the door. But he stopped, thinking about Herbert's situation. Without the janitor's help, he probably would be stuck here and would likely get experimented on again. Even if the guy had ended up working as a henchman, he was still a real hero.

  "I really appreciate this." Lester offered his hand. "You saved my life."

  Herbert took Lester's hand and they shook. Then the janitor said, "Don't mention it, and I mean it."

  Lester nodded and headed out back into the corridors.

  After a while of searching, Lester found again the path to the elevator. He glanced around the corner. There the big robot stood, waiting in the middle of the large hall. Behind it, there was the elevator. If Herbert had been right, the robot's miniguns were empty. And he was quite certain the janitor was not lying. The guy was definitely a good person.

  Lester took a deep breath and felt his heart rate accelerate. This was it then.