Evil Genius (Part 6)

Chapter 2

Had the greater U.S. population not been distracted by their fixation on blaming the local authorities, they could have simply stayed home, tuned into C-SPAN (one of the few stations still broadcasting) and gotten all the information that they needed. They would have been watching when, the day after Los Angeles was incinerated, the Doctor arrived in Washington, D.C. They would have seen him walk into the U.S. Capitol building, open up his jacket, and reveal that the large trigger button in the middle of his chest was wired directly to his heart. The second his heart stopped beating, all 98 (really 38) remaining nuclear weapons would be triggered instantly.

He demanded the floor on the Senate. When he met some initial resistance, he calmly pulled out his cell phone, punched in a few numbers, and a few seconds later Syracuse, NY became a crater. That was the last resistance he encountered.

A sea of ghostly pale faces belonging to men and women who just days earlier believed themselves to be among the most powerful people in the world stared silently as he strode down the aisle of the Senate floor and stood behind the podium. He faced his captive audience, turning slowly from side to side, taking it all in. He could not be more pleased with how things had progressed so far. When he was ready, he looked dead into the nearest camera and flashed his blood-curdling smile. Although he couldn’t see it, he could feel the faces of millions of viewers across the world being drained of color as they looked on in horror. Finally, he spoke.

“My soon to be loyal subjects. I’ve come before you today to tell you that it’s over. Everything you have known as true in your pointless and meaningless existence is now irrelevant. That’s the bad news. And for all of you, that’s the only news. The good news is for me and me alone, and it is that mine is the only will that matters. My desires are commandments; my whims your new laws. But I like to keep things simple, so we will start with just one rule: please me or die. We will begin this new era with a simple task. Every elected official in this country is now unemployed. To eliminate any and all reminders of your former regime all national, state, and local assembly houses will be burned to the ground by midnight tonight. But if any town should fail to complete this task, fear not. I will accomplish it myself by relocating one of my remaining nuclear devices to beneath any house still standing. This will also have the unfortunate side effect, from your perspective at least, of rendering the entire city and most of the county it resides in, to radioactive ash. Some of you may not be familiar with the fine art of arson, so I believe a little demonstration is in order. The room I currently stand in will be set ablaze in precisely 30 seconds. I would advise all of my newly unemployed friends before me to vacate the premises immediately if they value their lives. To those of you watching at home, you may enjoy the show until the cameras burn and the video feed cuts out. Rest assured that you will be hearing from me again shortly. I’ve enjoyed our time together today.”

And with that he walked slowly down from the podium and back up the aisle. Everyone in the room was frozen. Was he really about to burn down the Capitol building? When he reached the door he paused and uttered just two syllables. He didn’t even turn around when he said them.

“Tick. Tock.”

And then he was gone.

The Senators just continued to stare at one another, but seconds later all the doors to the Senate floor flew open and a swarm of Molotov cocktails and makeshift explosive devices exploded into the chamber. This was enough to shake everyone from their daze and disbelief. Screams echoed through the room as smoke began to darken the air and everyone made a mad dash for the exits. Those who made it out alive did so just in time to turn around, look up, and see the dome of the Capitol collapse in on itself.

The delusions were now all over and the blame game was at an end. Suddenly, there was tremendous clarity on exactly who was to blame, who was in charge, and just how much trouble everybody was in.

Chapter 3

The next day the Doctor and a team of his closest henchmen paid a visit to the White House to relieve the President personally but at this point it really was just a formality. The President had fled in Air Force One during the night as thousands of amateur arsonists across the country sought to fulfill the Doctor’s orders. The Doctor found the house largely deserted, but that was just fine with him. He’d find and kill the President later of course, for denying him the pleasure of seeing him officially cede all power over to him in person. He’d also been hoping for some high quality groveling, and maybe even some tears. But still, the goal for the day had been to capture and move into the White House and it had been accomplished so all was still going to plan. The fact that it had been done with minimal bloodshed (they’d found a few pesky Secret Service agents still milling about and taken care of them) was regrettable but not catastrophic. He needed to keep reminding himself that there would still be plenty more time for massacres in the days ahead. One cannot commit genocide every day. One needs to rest up from time to time.

He threw open the doors to the Oval Office and couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of satisfaction. He walked easily behind the desk and sat in the plush leather reclining chair.

“Now,” he thought, “we can really begin.”

And begin he did. Since that day he had been more or less the undisputed ruler of the planet. Once he had officially gained access to the US military and, along with it, its nuclear arsenal, he was able to practice his own special brand of Destructo diplomacy(3). It’s amazing how smooth negotiations can go when you don’t have to worry about pesky things like “good faith” and you have the threat of nuclear annihilation to dangle over the opposition’s head like a guillotine. His terms were simple: do whatever I ask, whenever I ask and live, maybe. Oh sure, there were the few odd countries who decided that The Doctor was bluffing and refused. He quickly proved them wrong. In the end, it took less than a year for him to be recognized, unequivocally and without exception, as the sole ruler of the world.

The Doctor looked back on those early days fondly. For the first few months he filled his days simply wandering around and making people bow to him. Oh sure he had to decapitate the odd prideful individual who refused but that wasn’t viewed as much of a chore. Hell, that was half the fun! One of his first orders of business was some major renovations to the White House. The front lawn had been transformed into a giant man-made lagoon that was filled with blood. Rumors, which he not only didn’t dispel but actively encouraged, were that he had filled the lagoon by slaughtering people. In fact, the “volunteers” who gave their blood were actually treated quite well. It wasn’t a question of proper treatment, it was simply a question of mathematics. Killing a person and draining them yields you 10 pints one time. But keep them alive and relatively healthy and you can get a pint per week out of them for as long as you need it. He affectionately (in as much as he was capable of such an emotion) referred to them as “my blood cows.” Once completed he surrounded the lagoon with tiki torches because, well, nothing complements a blood-filled lagoon quite like tiki torches.

But the piece de resistance, the thing that really tied the rehab together thematically, was the entrance. Gone were the stately columns of the foyer. In their place was a 50-foot façade of a giant skull, with flames in the eye sockets and the entrance through the mouth.

Most nights those early days, he fell asleep laughing. A cold and mechanical laugh that sent chills down the spines of anyone within earshot. For a long time, he was content. Completely and utterly content.

And then, very slowly, something started to change. So slowly in fact, that he was able to deny its existence for quite some time. But eventually he had to face it head on. Here was the thing he hadn’t been prepared for. It came to him in an odd way. He suddenly had a very vivid image of the last scene of the film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Mr. Wonka tells Charlie “Don’t forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything that he always wanted.” Charlie asks “what happened?” and Wonka’s reply is “He lived happily ever after.”

Only now The Doctor knew the real answer to that, and he was filled with bile at the thought. So much so that he wished Gene Wilder hadn’t been killed in the LA nuclear blast so he could hunt him down and kill him again.

What happens to the man who suddenly gets everything he ever wanted?

He ends up being bored out of his fucking mind.

Ironically, at just the moment that this thought finally crystallized in his head, Doctor Destructo stopped being bored. Because at just that moment he suddenly found a very sharp knife pressed against his throat.



(3) - Patent Pending