Evil Genius (Part 7)

Chapter 4

As much as everyone in the world was inconvenienced by the collapse of civilization and the beginning of the rule of an evil dictator wielding the proverbial iron fist (and sometimes an actual fist), it’s probably true that the one person who’d gotten the worst of it was Megan Courtland. Not only had she suffered what certainly seemed like the apocalypse along with everybody else, she had the added misfortune of being the girlfriend of the man whose death made all of it possible.

Immediately following that fateful day in Decatur, she shared in everyone’s stunned shock. As that gave way to grief, she initially received at least a modicum of emotional support. But once the full scale of The Doctor’s plan began to be revealed, she was pretty much left to cope on her own.

Unable to fully process events as they unfolded, her coping took the form of revenge fantasies. Somehow, someway she would see to it that the Doctor died a horrible and excruciating death at her hands. The most elaborate plan she devised involved thumbtacks, a melon baller, both a Phillips and flat head screwdriver, baby oil, a welding torch, and a car battery. That one disturbed even her, although she still relished the thought of carrying it out. Eventually though, she reluctantly came to the conclusion that she’d settle for simply having the pleasure of staring down at his corpse, no matter how it got accomplished.

And that’s how it came to be that almost exactly a year to the day after Doctor Destructo vaporized the man she loved, Meg Courtland set out from what was left of her apartment complex in Washington D.C. armed with only a butcher knife and her infinite hatred. She walked solemnly but purposefully down Pennsylvania Avenue, past the rubble of the Capitol building, through the field of disembodied heads on spikes in the National Mall, and arrived at the gates to the White House. Expecting to confront an army of guards, she was shocked to discover very little resistance. Apparently most would-be assassins found the collection of heads on the Mall to be rather discouraging. There were certainly still guards, but they formed a very loose ring around the perimeter and didn’t seem particularly organized or interested in performing regular rounds. So Meg found a vacated spot, clumsily scaled the 7-foot wall, and headed towards the window of the Oval Office. If The Doctor wasn’t in the Oval Office, there really was no Plan B. In all likelihood it would have come down to an impulsive decision between smashing through the window anyway and hoping like hell to find the Doctor before anyone else found her first, and retracing her steps to try again another day. But as with everything else this night, fortune seemed to be shining on her. The Doctor was seated behind his desk; he seemed to be lost in thought and looked perhaps even a little troubled.

“Aw; butchering the human race too much work for you?” she icily thought to herself.

As determined as she was to not let this opportunity slip away, she was also determined to give herself the best chance of success as possible. There were two entrances into the Oval Office. At the moment, Ivan was facing away from one of them. If she somehow could gain access to the interior, there was at least a chance that she could sneak up behind him completely undetected. As a journalist, she had been to the White House on a number of occasions and knew the layout decently enough. There was a back entrance which was no more than 30 feet from the door to the Oval Office. She crept silently towards that entrance and flattened herself against the cool exterior of the house next to the door. From her vantage point she could still see into the Oval Office window. If it came down to it and the Doctor made a move to leave the room, she estimated that she could be across the lawn and through the window in under 5 seconds. He would probably see and would no doubt hear her approaching, and in all likelihood there would be little to no chance of success, but having already laid eyes on him the raw hatred seething in her now would never allow her to turn back now. It simply wasn’t an option.

After a few minutes, with the Doctor still seated comfortably the door opened and one of his henchman emerged. Meg waited only long enough to see his head before jamming the knife into the man’s eye with all the force her 5 foot 6, 120-pound frame could muster. The man made only a slight gurgling sound before collapsing in a heap. And with that, she was inside.

Her pulse raced, but everything else seemed to slow down as she moved methodically down the hall and across the room that bordered the Oval Office. She encountered no one else. She paused by the Office door and delicately opened it just a crack. The bastard was still at his desk, still facing the other direction, and still oblivious to the world. She opened the door just enough to barely fit through and then dropped down as low as her leg muscles would allow her. She was 12 feet away now, and closing. She took two steps and then paused. 10 feet now. She edged forward another 3 small steps. 8 feet now and the Doctor still hadn’t turned his head. Another few steps and now she could feel the fire in her quads but she ignored it. 6 feet; now 4 and her muscles were screaming at her. She covered the last few feet in one smooth motion and brought the knife up just under Ivan’s chin.

“This is for Terry, you son of a bitch!”