Evil Genius (Part 12)

Chapter 4

The next day, Ivan gathered all of his henchmen into the press briefing room. Just 100 muscle-bound, thick-necked Neanderthals standing shoulder to shoulder in the tiny space. Very few of them spoke; they were excited and more than a little nervous. A gathering like this could only mean very good or very bad news. Very bad news meant anything up to and including all of their deaths. And with very good news, the only benefit might be relief that it wasn’t very bad news.

The small amount of chatter immediately ceased as Doctor Destructo walked regally into the room and up to the podium. He sensed the undertone of anxiety in the room. As usual, he reveled in it. On most days, he would do all he could to heighten this tension and unease, but today did not call for that. Today called for exactly the opposite.

“My loyal servants and, dare I say, friends – thank you for coming here today.”

Now there was a great deal of confusion in the crowd. They had rarely ever been thanked, and had certainly never been called friends.

“I’ve asked you all here today because while we have achieved everything that we sat out to do lo those many years ago, it is now time to embark upon a new era. With your help, I have proven to the whole world that they are powerless against me and that mine is the only will that matters. And in my hands I have taken this world and all that the pathetic masses of peasants hold dear and broken it as if it was nothing more than a twig. This world now lies in ruin.”

Few in the audience would disagree with that. But what was so puzzling was the fact that the Doctor seemed so please about it. Though they would never have dared to say it out loud, the Doctor had seemed increasingly despondent over the world’s slow decay. It seemed as though his plan, at least in as much as he had ever shared it with them, had been to take his place atop the power food chain and preside over the Earth as it was. But had this been the plan all along? To install himself at the seat of power and then destroy it all? Yes, they seemed to all reach the same conclusion almost at once. That had to have been the plan, because why else would the Doctor stand before them now and seem so pleased about it?

“My friends, now that we have forever proven our strength and conviction so that no one could ever doubt either, now is the time to rebuild this world. To make it greater than it ever was; to prove that my power is only exceeded by my intelligence and leadership.”

Now heads were nodding, and some applause broke out. This was good, very good. Only the most perceptive of the bunch bothered to wonder the obvious question: how? But Ivan was just getting warmed up.

“This will not be accomplished overnight, and it will certainly not be easy. But make no mistake that it will happen. Just as my ascension to this position was inevitable, so too is this. I promise that you will all live(4) to see this world rise and stand tall on the wings of my dreams. I have seen the mountaintop, and I promise you that we will get there. Because when the going gets tough, the tough get going.”

Now the crowd was really going. Soft murmurs of assent had turned into wild cheering, clapping, hooting, and hollering. If he had asked, right now they would have all gladly gouged their own eyes out for him without a second thought. Such is the persuasive combination of hackneyed clichés, groupthink, and single-digit IQs. Now that Ivan had them, it was time to mobilize them.

“Tonight we will celebrate the grand reopening of the Four Seasons hotel. We will get the basement generator fired up there and tonight we will all sleep in luxurious air conditioning and have a great feast. Furthermore, I want you to send the word out that anyone who has experience in hotel service, be it concierge, maid, cook, or waiter is welcome to come as well. In exchange for a day’s work, they and their families can also sleep in the hotel and share the feast. This is only the beginning. This will be our lives from now on – a life of luxury and comfort. Now go; go forth my friends, and let the Destructofication of the world begin!”

A great roar went up from the crowd as they charged out of the room. Within 30 seconds, it was just Ivan and the podium in the room. He gathered his notes, smiled to the empty room, and began to laugh.

He hated to give credit, but some was definitely due here. That Courtland woman, through all her bile and insolence, had hit upon an inescapable truth. To this point in his life and career as a master criminal he had accomplished everything through intimidation. In fact there was no one more fearsome or intimidating than he. He had built everything upon a foundation which assumed that everyone valued a life, whether it was their own or someone else’s. Therefore he could achieve success by taking or threatening to take that life. But, as much as it pained him to admit it, take away that threat and he was a piss poor motivator. He was all stick and no carrot. But it wasn’t until she had spelled it out for him that he had understood it with such clarity.

So now, through necessity, he would reinvent himself. He would introduce the carrot. He started with a new foundation – that what people now valued was a return to the meaningless and vacuous lives they had led before he had come to power. He could give them that, and in the process restore the luxury and meaning to his own life that he had imagined for himself.

That first night at the Four Seasons had gone well. Very well in fact. Morale was higher than it had been in months. The initial response for hotel staff had been lukewarm. After all, who wants to work for an employer who is a slave-driver, considers you easily replaceable, and will never appreciate or value who you are or anything you do. However, this was quickly overcome once everyone remembered that this pretty much described every boss and company they’d ever worked for, so what was the difference? Within a week the hotel was fully staffed.

Following that, Ivan sent out word that anyone who had worked at the electric company was welcome to stay in the Four Seasons as well if they returned to work immediately. The response was so overwhelming that within 2 days he had to provide another generator and open up the Ritz-Carlton as well. Within two weeks power was restored to the entire city.

Now the domino effect started to work in reverse. Within a month, Ivan had fired up the presses at the U.S. mint and the Destructo dollar was born. Ivan set the first prices for all the major goods. This allowed the rural farming communities to start coming in from the city to trade their surplus crops and meat. Very slowly a sense of normalcy started to return to the area.

Next, Ivan tackled the oil pipelines. Since this was an interstate job he used some of the dwindling fuel supply to fly Air Force One into all the major cities between DC and the Gulf. In each one he used the same model as DC – first giving a small group of people a taste of luxury, then slowly broadening it once some trust was obtained, and finally introducing a supply of the new currency and letting the economy take off on its own power. Within 3 months the entire East coast was living in a manner which, to the outside observer, looked almost indistinguishable from the lifestyle they had lived before the collapse.

Once again, the Doctor held a meeting in the Skull Manor press room. But this time, it was a meeting comprised of the most highly skilled and intelligent lieutenants he had acquired over the previous months. He told them that they’d all be boarding private jets in the coming days and weeks. It was time to bring the plan that had revived Destructopolis(5) to the rest of the country and then the world.

Yes, he definitely had to hand it to Meg Courtland. Bribery was definitely the way to get things done.

(4) - He assumed that it went without saying that he didn’t mean this literally.

(5) - Washington D.C.’s new name

Evil Genius (Part 11)

Chapter 3

Meg sat on the cot in the bedroom that was her prison and carefully rewrapped her wrist in the ace bandage. The idiot guards weren’t much for medical care. In fact they weren’t much for anything except following orders, preferably those involving putting their meaty, oversized fists into some poor sap’s nether regions or dragging some even more unfortunate soul by the hair out to the chopping block.

That thought made her pause mid-wrap. Tomorrow that unfortunate soul was going to be her.

She had made peace with that fact, but that didn’t make her indifferent to it. Even if this was hell on Earth and each day was agony, who knew what the alternative was? Then, of course, there was the anxiety involving the actual procedure itself. They say that decapitation is quick and painless. But they were also the same geniuses who at one time had decided that the Earth was flat, that leeches could cure diseases, and that the best thing for those nagging headaches was a simple frontal lobotomy. There was no getting around the fact that quite often, they ended up being completely full of shit.

But best now to put all that out of her head. She had made up her mind and that was the end of it. All she could do now was make herself as comfortable as possible and maybe try to think of one final way to slit Ivan’s wretched throat as she was led to her execution. And with that pleasant thought in her head, she resumed wrapping her aching wrist and finished just as her door opened and The Doctor stepped into the room.

Instantly her pulse quickened and her blood started to boil with revulsion, but she remained silent. She loathed his presence with every fiber of her being. The only thing that helped her maintain even a fraction of her composure was constantly picturing that stupid smug face of his drenched in a pool of his own blood.

But as he approached her, she saw that there was something different about him tonight. The walk, a mixture of pride and cockiness, was the same. The steely gaze was as piercing as ever. Yet, there seemed to be something else just behind it. If she didn’t already know that it wasn’t possible, she’d have sworn that Ivan the Destructor was actually scared.

He stopped a few feet from her and looked down at her.

“I’ve come tonight because, even though it goes against every impulse in my body, I’m willing to be merciful and grant you another opportunity to recant your previous refusal and carry on with our prior arrangement.”

Meg leaned back and rested on her good hand and looked up at him somewhat inquisitively. Definitely something different about him.

“Is that so?”

“Yes”

Meg laughed out loud, surprising both of them.

“This really bothers you doesn’t it? You destroyed the most powerful man on the planet and brought the world to its knees, but you just can’t stand the idea that someone actually said ‘no’ to you and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Meg was sure that this outburst was going to get her slapped, if not executed right here on the spot. Or at the very least that he was going to cut her off abruptly or walk out of the room. Instead he just stood their silently with a puzzled look on his face. So she continued, gathering steam as she went.

“God, you’re like a toddler being told to put the candy down. This is your version of a temper tantrum isn’t it? You just haven’t the first idea what makes people tick. I’m not talking about heroes like Terry, or ego-maniacs like Presidents and CEOs. I mean regular ordinary people that get up every morning and go to work not because they want to or because they think it’ll bring them riches or glamour but because there are people that love them and depend on them and that’s what they have to do to make sure that those people don’t starve and have someplace warm and dry to sleep. It’s called altruism you sad, miserable excuse for a man. But you wouldn’t know the meaning of the word if someone painted it on the side of a 100-foot cruise missile and shoved it up your ass. Oh no; if you can’t blow-up, maim, poison, rape, pillage, or stab it you’re just completely clueless. Other than actually doing one of those the only other arrow in your quiver is threatening to do one of those. Well, I’ve got news for you jackass. Threats only work on people who have something to lose, and you’ve already taken everything from me. My friends, family, career, Terry - they’re all gone thanks to you. The last thing you can take from me is my life, and I’ll gladly give it to you rather than have to endure that pompous smug look on your face for one more day! So that’s it Doctor, this is one round you don’t win because your arsenal is empty.”

She hadn’t so much said the words as chewed on them and spat them out. By the time she was finished she was out of breath and trembling, but she felt incredible. Whatever happened to her now, she would know that she had looked pure evil in the face, laughed at it, and told it how small it really was. There was some small morsel of triumph in that.

Now Ivan, still silent, slowly turned and walked over to the chair on the far side of the room and sat down. He leaned his head against the wall and fixed his gaze on her. No - not on her, Meg decided – through her. There was a vacant and distant look in his eyes, like he was somewhere else, and suddenly Meg was reminded of the night she had snuck up behind him in the Oval office and almost slit his throat. Now, with a tilt of his head and a slight adjustment to his gaze, he was back and looking at her.

“What about bribery?” He asked, simply.

Meg almost laughed again.

“Bribery?!?! Are you joking, or just terminally stupid? Have you not listened to a word I’ve said? You have taken everything that I care about in this world from me, and there’s nothing you can do to change that. What is it that you think you could possibly offer me that I would care about, short of your own head on a stick on the Mall?”

But instead of taking it in the mocking and insulting manner in which she had meant it, he seemed to have found her remark rather amusing. He smiled that famous icy half-sneer and slowly shook his head.

“Nothing, I suppose. To you, I can’t offer anything at all.”

And with that he stood up and made his way to the door and opened it. Without turning, he said, “Thank you Ms. Cortland, you’ve earned the right to keep your head for at least another night.”

As the door closed and bolted behind him, a feeling of dread washed over her. She had no idea how it had happened, but somehow in all that had just transpired she felt that she had someohow managed to help out Dr. Destructo. She immediately ran into the bathroom and threw up.

Evil Genius (Part 10)

Chapter 2

As his henchmen carried Meg across the lawn back to the White House, newly christened Skull Manor in the last month, Ivan followed slowly behind. He was starting to get depressed again and, frankly, almost everyone in the world would agree with him that there was a lot to be depressed about.

Once he had made it clear to everyone that he really, truly didn’t assign even one ounce of value to their lives, most people decided that it was in their best interest to stay as much out of his way as possible. In practical terms this meant emptying out of the cities, since those were the most likely targets the next time someone evoked his wrath, and heading to the vast expanses of rural land in between. Here small bands of people would gather together and, assuming they didn’t kill each other on sight (which happened fairly frequently), form small farming villages and communes. This meant, of course, that within the span of about 2 weeks, 90% of the world’s workforce simply stopped showing up at work. The domino effect to the global economy was swift and absolute. First, money became useless and the barter system was reinstated. Then, with no one but computerized algorithms and the occasional devoted bureaucrat left to run them, all the public utilities started to fail. Cell service went almost immediately, then natural gas followed. Power went out after about 90 days, and finally running water ran no more.

The radio and television airwaves had stayed somewhat active at first, thanks to media moguls with industrial-sized generators and egos as well as battery-operated receivers. But as each day started to more and more resemble the last, with less and less new news trickling in, most people decided that there wasn’t much worth listening to anymore and that there were better uses that their limited supply of batteries could be put to. Young women in particular seemed extremely concerned with protecting the battery reserves. Eventually, the only ones left broadcasting were the same deep-woods hermits who had been on the air predicting the apocalypse for years, but all most of them were doing was gloating and saying “see, they told me I was crazy but look who’s laughing now”. But even though almost all of them said some version of this (even the ones who weren’t actually on the air and had just been talking into pine cones and using tin foil antennas), none of them actually laughed when they said it. The irony was lost on them.

For a while, too, the highways were full of traffic as some folk streamed into cities from the countryside to do some looting while most streamed out to literally search for greener pastures. But with no new oil and gas being delivered and a finite supply in each area, soon most cars became nothing more than road ornaments littering the interstates, or else they were converted into non-mobile homes in a newly-formed shanty-town.

In short, in the span of 6 months the world was sent back to approximately mid-18th century living. The most technically advanced group in the world was now the Amish. Unlike the renegade broadcasters though, this irony was not lost on them. As a group, though, they were probably the least surprised about the recent events. As far as they were concerned, the world had just gone on a 300-year rumspringa and was now finally getting back to where it was supposed to be.

This wasn’t what the Doctor had planned. He had always aspired to be something like an Ayatollah, but ruling the world instead of just one country. And in even the most backwards third-world country, the dictator managed to live in lavish luxury even as his people starved. But this was not the case with him. Sure he had the most powerful generators to provide him with electricity, and more gas to power them than anyone else on Earth. But even his supplies were not infinite, and before too long he’d be on candles and heating oil like the masses already were. And sure he never had to lift a finger to get anything he wanted; the problem was that there simply wasn’t a whole lot of luxury to have. There was very little fresh anything to be had anymore, and more and more he found his dinner consisting of various canned goods. Between their expiration date and his sanity, he really couldn’t guess which would give first. But of all that he had to endure, it was the collapse of indoor plumbing that bothered him the most. The truth is, no matter how powerful one becomes, one does not feel powerful when one is pooping in a bucket.

He had tried to fix these things of course. But, as it turns out, some orders are easier to follow than others. Ordering someone to do a menial task like throwing another log or musician on the fire was a hell of a lot easier than ordering them to “sort out the whole power and plumbing thing.” It wasn’t a question of will. His men would gladly crawl through broken glass on their hands and knees just for the privilege of being the one to take the bullet for him. But, as it happens, the people most suited to that purpose aren’t particularly adept at highly-skilled technical work, nor are they well-suited to seek out the individuals who are.

And so, with little choice in the matter Doctor Destructo, great ruler of the broken machine known as Earth, persevered. His almost-nightly exercise with the Courtland girl had been the highlight of his day the last few months. It’s true that she was hopelessly outmatched and would never succeed, but the weapons he gave her were real enough. And she had come so close to besting him once, wasn’t it at least technically possible that it could happen again? That’s what he told himself anyway, and that thought alone was enough to give him at least some minor thrill of victory each night that he foiled her. Some small daily affirmation that whatever this world had become, he was still the ruler of it.

And now that bitch wanted to take that away from him. He would kill her, of course, because failing to back-up a threat was the beginning of the end for any figure of authority. But her death would give him no pleasure. Just one more head on the Mall.

And, frankly, one more head was not what that Mall needed. What had seemed like such a poetic and symbolic gesture at the time had backfired immensely. When he had first conceived of this grand vision of the heads of one thousand decapitated adversaries on spikes sprawling as far as the eye could see, he had failed to account for his other senses. Specifically, what the heads of a thousand decapitated adversaries might smell like after 3 months of sitting in the hot summer sun. But the Mall wasn’t even the worst of it. Do you know what happens to a lagoon of blood once it’s been allowed to congeal? Ivan did; and as a result all the lagoon-facing windows had been shut and sealed permanently.

As he neared his private entrance to Skull Manor, he was filled with immense fury at what she was doing to him. But more than that, he felt terrified. Because for probably the first time in his life, he really and truly had no idea what the hell he was supposed to do now.

Evil Genius (Part 9)

Part 3: 6 Months Later

Chapter 1

Ivan stood frozen in the center of his courtyard, straining to hear. There was nothing to be heard save a few crickets to his left. He glanced in their direction and soon they too were silent. Suddenly he heard a very small rustle in the brush to his right. As faint as it was, it was all he needed. In a flash he dove towards the bushes just as Meg exploded out of them, dagger at the ready. She raised the knife back quickly to get a little weight behind it, but before she had even started her forward thrust he was on her. One arm shot straight at her neck while the other secured her wrist. He twisted her wrist hard and she cried out. As determined as she was to hold on to the knife, her muscles just would not obey her and it fell to the ground with a soft plop, at which point the Doctor threw her to the ground away from it. He bent down and picked up the knife. Meg started to scramble to her feet, but as she leaned on her twisted wrist she cried out again and decided to just stay on the ground. There was no point in getting up.

“How many is that now Ms. Courtland?”, Ivan asked rhetorically; “I believe we’re up to 92 failed assassination attempts up to and including that last little exercise.”

Meg just continued laying there. The searing hatred was still there, but it was no longer capable of fueling her.

“The mistake you keep making is being passive. You’re waiting for me to come to you. The problem is that my senses are far sharper than yours could ever hope to be, so by simply waiting you’re giving me an unbelievable advantage. If you recall, in your first attempt, the one you were almost successful with until you gave yourself away, you weren’t passive at all. You were aggressive. You didn’t wait for anything to happen. You made it happen.”

Meg just continued to lie on the ground, looking up at the night sky impassively. It was a nice night. The sky was clear and the stars were bright. The stars had been very bright these last few months since the power had gone out in most of the major cities. No more light pollution for the heavens to compete with. And thinking of the sky as the heavens was never more appropriate, since it very clearly was now hell on Earth. She tried as much as she could to tune out the words of The Doctor. He was pacing back and forth a few feet from her as he continued.

“In short, you were the predator and you turned me into your prey. That’s the right way to do it. Now you’ve just transformed yourself into the helpless teenager hiding in the closet with a butcher knife waiting for the axe-wielding maniac to find her. That never works for them, and it won’t work for you. So, for tomorrow night’s attempt…”

“No.” Meg cut him off. She was still staring up at the sky as she said it. She stated it simply and in a matter of fact way.

“What do you mean, no?”

“Just what I said. I’m done with this.”

The Doctor had stopped pacing now. He was genuinely surprised.

“Do I need to remind you of the alternative to your participation?”

“My head as an ornament on the Mall. I don’t care. It’s obvious you don’t believe I can succeed or you’d never keep giving me these chances. And you know what? I think you’re right. And the fact that you’re getting some enjoyment out of this, and that I’m a part of it, is just too much for me to take. So I’m done. Do whatever the hell you want with me; that’s what you do with everyone anyway.”

Ivan looked her over carefully, attempting to discern if this was some kind of bluff and decided that it wasn’t. He grabbed a small flashlight on his belt and used it to signal the guards nearby. Instantly he heard the faint scurrying sound of boots trampling over grass and dirt and a moment later they were before him.

“I’m finished with Ms. Courtland for the evening. Wrap up her wrist and lock her in her room. She has a lot of thinking to do this evening.”

Meg remained silent and motionless as the guards picked her up by her arms and legs. She didn’t even cry out under the strain on her twisted wrist, though the pain was sharp enough to bring tears to her eyes.