And so ends the grand experiment. Anybody make it to the end with me? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
Regardless of the answer (which I'm going to guess is pretty much nobody except maybe Becky) I'm declaring victory. I had only written 40 pages over the previous 4 and a half years and this process did indeed give me the push I needed to write another 60-plus pages and, most importantly, finish the damn thing. Regardless of whether it's any good or not (and my honest appraisal is that it's both) at least it's finally finished. Ever since I had this idea 5 years ago and had my wife and friends telling me that I definitely needed to write it and not let it be one of those ideas that I just don't do anything with, this whole project has hung over my head like the Sword of Damocles. Every time I was sitting around with free time there was this ever-present voice in the back of my head constantly saying "you know, instead of just sitting here you really should be working on your story." To which I would Homerically respond "Shut up brain or I'll stab you with a q-tip!" But now that little nagging voice has been silenced. Final tally, after I tweaked a bit more and added a title page, is 101 pages in Word. I really have no idea what that translates into as far as an actual published book goes (since those are obviously not 8.5 by 11) but I'd guess about 120-130 pages. Using this definition, at 21,983 words I fit squarely into the "novella" category, so from this point forward we're going to go with that.
In any case, if anybody did in fact make it all the way from beginning to end I would love to hear your thoughts! Not so much in the grammatical areas (i.e. all the typos and punctuation that I no doubt screwed up), but more from an overall story perspective. I'm interested to know which parts dragged and which parts felt rushed, if the overall narrative made sense (in as much as a superhero/supervillain story ever does) and wasn't confusing, where the humor was good and where it fell flat, and finally (and most importantly) if it was entertaining. I welcome any and all criticism because (even though I certainly also welcome praise) that's ultimately what will be most helpful to me going forward. As should be apparent, I am under no illusions that I wrote a masterpiece, so please let 'er rip!
So now of course the operative question is "what now?". And that applies on a couple different levels. What do I do with this completed novella? Christy, of course, thinks I should start submitting it to publishers. God bless her supportive little head, but I am not so deluded to think that it really has much of a chance. Frankly I think I'd be lucky if I could get a publisher to read it all the way through before rejecting it. Really, I try and see the finished product for what it is: a really valuable learning experience and a good first effort. Ultimately, if sometime in the next year or two our finances allow it, I will probably end-up self-publishing a really small run of 10 copies or so (which will cost about $300 if I do a hardcover) just so that I have something to throw up on my bookshelf as a conversation piece.
The next "what now?" pertains to my next big writing endeavor, and frankly right now I have no idea what that will be. I have a couple of different ideas bubbling around inside my head, but nothing that's really formed enough so far to get me excited. I definitely want to start again on something pretty soon. I really felt like I picked up steam as I went along and I'd hate to completely lose that momentum.
And finally, the last "what now?" has to do with this, my beloved blog. Again, I have no idea. I really have only been passively paying attention to politics (in fact I even just let my Economist subscription expire) but I imagine that will start to change in the next 6 months as we really start to ramp up into the 2012 election. Until then, I will probably go back to my semi-regular (but hopefully more regular) updates of randomness and inanity.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Friday, July 15, 2011
Evil Genius (Conclusion)
Part 5: The End
Ivan sat in the conference room and fantasized about killing everyone else in the room in the most grotesque and obscene ways possible. And even though he was out of practice, he could still think of some pretty obscene ways.
He sat at the oak conference table in the penthouse suite of the Four Seasons. He was surrounded by representatives from every corner of the globe. They were here for the same reason that they were always here. They were utterly incapable of solving even the pettiest of disagreements amongst themselves, and so had come to him to have their problems solved for them. It isn’t that he made better decisions than anything they could have come up with themselves - it’s that his was the voice of ultimate authority. There was no higher court or anyone else to appeal to after him; his was the final word. As such every representative could feel free to return to their constituency and tell them, with a clear conscience, that they had done all they could but the decision had been made and that was that.
He used to be The Destructor, now he was The Mediator. From Ivan, the most powerful man who ever lived, to Ivan, great arbiter of the Andean water usage rights. It was enough to make him want to weep.
How many hundreds of times had he thought of just putting an end to everything and going back to the way things used to be? But in the end, what would that accomplishment? A return to the days of cold canned beans, bucket plumbing, and a stench that would bring a tear to a skunk’s eye.
6 months ago, he thought that he had found a way out. The plan had been perfect. He would swallow all the bile welling up inside of him in preparation for an epic acting performance. One that would have made him worthy of his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame if it still existed. He would play the part of the benevolent dictator and tell them that now that he had set the world on its correct course, that as his last act he would give them a choice. He would allow them to choose their own ruler.
And he played his part to perfection. Sure it went against all of his natural impulses to try and act like he was doing anything altruistically, but it was still his decision. Thus, although he’d no longer be the ruler of Earth, he’d still be able to claim victory. But most importantly, it would all be over. No more meetings, no more forms, no more whiny diplomats with their inane, tedious chatter and trivial problems.
As it turned out though, he had played his part far too well. Because what had the bastards gone and done? They had elected him! He wasn’t sure if it had been rigged or done fairly, and frankly he didn’t care. None of his opponents even bothered to contest the results. They all just cheerfully called to concede and congratulate him within hours of the polls closing.
His victory speech was historic in its brevity. He just stood in front of thousands of his supporters and said simply “What the fuck is wrong with you people?” and then walked off the stage shaking his head, rubbing his temples, and cursing loudly.
So now here he was, resigned to this fate. He realized that all eyes were looking at him, waiting for a decision. As he often did, he had either forgotten or never bothered to listen to half of the facts of the case. It didn’t matter. He could have used a dartboard.
“OK, here’s what we’re going to do. Everyone between latitude 0 and 15 will irrigate on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and everyone above latitude 15 will have Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Sundays will alternate according to a calendar that we’ll have drawn up. Now in the event of a leap year that falls on a Sunday. . .”
Ivan suddenly stopped. He was aware of a deep pounding sound. It took him a minute to realize that it wasn’t just his head, though that throbbed as well. It was faint at first, but steadily grew louder. Boom! Then silence. A few seconds later there it was again. Boom! The others were reacting to it as well. Boom! It was getting closer for sure. Crash! And now it was unmistakably the sound of wood bursting, over and over again. And just as this realization took hold, the door to the conference room exploded inward. As Ivan scrambled to his feet and the dust settled, he realized he was staring at a ghost. Captain Invincible looked back at him.
And just as Meg had instructed him, he wasted no time with introductions. There were no grand speeches with denouncements and promises of comeuppance. No - Captain Invincible simply moved like a bullet to cross the distance between them, gently picked the Doctor up, and politely threw him out of the 13th floor window.
Ivan wasn’t afraid, and he didn’t scream. Apart from the couple pieces of jagged glass in his back, there wasn’t really any pain either. The emotion he felt most, as he plunged to his death, was pride. He was proud of the Courtland girl, even if she was a little slow in figuring out what the hell she was supposed to do. And Dr. Richter too. In the end, they hadn’t let him down. Most of all, he felt a deep sense of pride in himself. That he was finally finished with all this tedium and monotony and, perhaps most importantly, he was leaving all of it for that asshole Invincible to deal with. ‘Enjoy your moment now you prick’, he thought, ‘because 6 months from now when you’re sorting through geographic territories for cheese retailers in France you’re going to wish you’d never been brought back.’
And with that most pleasant thought in his head, Doctor Ivan Destructo’s body hit the pavement with a soft plop. And it was left to everyone to forever wonder why it was that in his last second of life, he had such a large grin on his face.
Epilogue: The Beginning
The preacher made his to the podium and surveyed the crowd. The church was packed today. As it should be. It was a very special day. He straddled the podium with his arms, looked out at his flock, and began.
“Welcome my friends, and may I say to all of you ‘Happy Birthday’! As all of you know, it was one year ago today that our great leader and savior was struck down. Struck down by the hands of those who are small-minded and weak. Deluded by a misguided feeling of righteousness, every word out of their mouths is blasphemous, every action a sin. They feel no remorse for their actions, so far gone are their minds from the truth.”
He grabbed the mic from its stand and started pacing across the stage, passing by the 15-foot tall statue of Doctor Desctructo at the head of the church.
“But my friends, today is not a day to drown ourselves in sorrow. Today is a day of great joy. Because one year ago today, Ivan the Great died so that we might be born. He gave unto us the life that he had, so that we would know him and have the courage to walk the true path. Because the truth is that he left us because we were not worthy of him. He tried to purge the world of all of its wickedness. All the greed and lust in our hearts. But no matter what he did it wasn’t enough because as fast as he tore it down our impure hearts built it up again. We took it for granted that we could turn to him to solve our problems, now and always.”
Now he paused both his speech and his walk. He stared at the crowd intently.
“Brothers and sisters, we failed him.”
He let this thought sink in and then he resumed his pacing.
“But we must not despair. We were destined to fail him. He knew that we would. But he loves all of us so much that he was willing to die so that we could see it. So that we would know the truth.”
He could hear sobs from the crowd now. He was stifling back tears himself.
“So let us prepare ourselves for him. Let us make ourselves worthy. The enemy has a name, and that name is Captain Invincible. He and all of his followers must see the folly and error of their ways. And if they will not see the truth on their own, we will make them see it. And if we cannot make them see the truth, well” he paused again and shook his head sardonically, “our savior taught us what must be done in the face of unrepentant evil. If we cannot make them see the truth, they will be destroyed!”
He had reached the podium again and he slammed his fists on the hard wooden surface as punctuation before he continued.
“And then my brothers and sisters, and only then, when we have purged heaven and earth of all that is unrighteous, when we have cleansed the world of impurity and prepared our hearts and our souls; my brothers and sisters, that is when He shall return to us. And he will smile upon us, and welcome us unto him. And with Him we will know no more pain, and we will know only joy and peace in his arms until the end of days, Amen!”
The crowd roared back an “Amen” in return, and with great fervor they began chanting “Ivan the Great” and “Ivan the Holy”; the echoes of which could be heard for miles and miles across the night sky.
Ivan sat in the conference room and fantasized about killing everyone else in the room in the most grotesque and obscene ways possible. And even though he was out of practice, he could still think of some pretty obscene ways.
He sat at the oak conference table in the penthouse suite of the Four Seasons. He was surrounded by representatives from every corner of the globe. They were here for the same reason that they were always here. They were utterly incapable of solving even the pettiest of disagreements amongst themselves, and so had come to him to have their problems solved for them. It isn’t that he made better decisions than anything they could have come up with themselves - it’s that his was the voice of ultimate authority. There was no higher court or anyone else to appeal to after him; his was the final word. As such every representative could feel free to return to their constituency and tell them, with a clear conscience, that they had done all they could but the decision had been made and that was that.
He used to be The Destructor, now he was The Mediator. From Ivan, the most powerful man who ever lived, to Ivan, great arbiter of the Andean water usage rights. It was enough to make him want to weep.
How many hundreds of times had he thought of just putting an end to everything and going back to the way things used to be? But in the end, what would that accomplishment? A return to the days of cold canned beans, bucket plumbing, and a stench that would bring a tear to a skunk’s eye.
6 months ago, he thought that he had found a way out. The plan had been perfect. He would swallow all the bile welling up inside of him in preparation for an epic acting performance. One that would have made him worthy of his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame if it still existed. He would play the part of the benevolent dictator and tell them that now that he had set the world on its correct course, that as his last act he would give them a choice. He would allow them to choose their own ruler.
And he played his part to perfection. Sure it went against all of his natural impulses to try and act like he was doing anything altruistically, but it was still his decision. Thus, although he’d no longer be the ruler of Earth, he’d still be able to claim victory. But most importantly, it would all be over. No more meetings, no more forms, no more whiny diplomats with their inane, tedious chatter and trivial problems.
As it turned out though, he had played his part far too well. Because what had the bastards gone and done? They had elected him! He wasn’t sure if it had been rigged or done fairly, and frankly he didn’t care. None of his opponents even bothered to contest the results. They all just cheerfully called to concede and congratulate him within hours of the polls closing.
His victory speech was historic in its brevity. He just stood in front of thousands of his supporters and said simply “What the fuck is wrong with you people?” and then walked off the stage shaking his head, rubbing his temples, and cursing loudly.
So now here he was, resigned to this fate. He realized that all eyes were looking at him, waiting for a decision. As he often did, he had either forgotten or never bothered to listen to half of the facts of the case. It didn’t matter. He could have used a dartboard.
“OK, here’s what we’re going to do. Everyone between latitude 0 and 15 will irrigate on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and everyone above latitude 15 will have Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Sundays will alternate according to a calendar that we’ll have drawn up. Now in the event of a leap year that falls on a Sunday. . .”
Ivan suddenly stopped. He was aware of a deep pounding sound. It took him a minute to realize that it wasn’t just his head, though that throbbed as well. It was faint at first, but steadily grew louder. Boom! Then silence. A few seconds later there it was again. Boom! The others were reacting to it as well. Boom! It was getting closer for sure. Crash! And now it was unmistakably the sound of wood bursting, over and over again. And just as this realization took hold, the door to the conference room exploded inward. As Ivan scrambled to his feet and the dust settled, he realized he was staring at a ghost. Captain Invincible looked back at him.
And just as Meg had instructed him, he wasted no time with introductions. There were no grand speeches with denouncements and promises of comeuppance. No - Captain Invincible simply moved like a bullet to cross the distance between them, gently picked the Doctor up, and politely threw him out of the 13th floor window.
Ivan wasn’t afraid, and he didn’t scream. Apart from the couple pieces of jagged glass in his back, there wasn’t really any pain either. The emotion he felt most, as he plunged to his death, was pride. He was proud of the Courtland girl, even if she was a little slow in figuring out what the hell she was supposed to do. And Dr. Richter too. In the end, they hadn’t let him down. Most of all, he felt a deep sense of pride in himself. That he was finally finished with all this tedium and monotony and, perhaps most importantly, he was leaving all of it for that asshole Invincible to deal with. ‘Enjoy your moment now you prick’, he thought, ‘because 6 months from now when you’re sorting through geographic territories for cheese retailers in France you’re going to wish you’d never been brought back.’
And with that most pleasant thought in his head, Doctor Ivan Destructo’s body hit the pavement with a soft plop. And it was left to everyone to forever wonder why it was that in his last second of life, he had such a large grin on his face.
Epilogue: The Beginning
The preacher made his to the podium and surveyed the crowd. The church was packed today. As it should be. It was a very special day. He straddled the podium with his arms, looked out at his flock, and began.
“Welcome my friends, and may I say to all of you ‘Happy Birthday’! As all of you know, it was one year ago today that our great leader and savior was struck down. Struck down by the hands of those who are small-minded and weak. Deluded by a misguided feeling of righteousness, every word out of their mouths is blasphemous, every action a sin. They feel no remorse for their actions, so far gone are their minds from the truth.”
He grabbed the mic from its stand and started pacing across the stage, passing by the 15-foot tall statue of Doctor Desctructo at the head of the church.
“But my friends, today is not a day to drown ourselves in sorrow. Today is a day of great joy. Because one year ago today, Ivan the Great died so that we might be born. He gave unto us the life that he had, so that we would know him and have the courage to walk the true path. Because the truth is that he left us because we were not worthy of him. He tried to purge the world of all of its wickedness. All the greed and lust in our hearts. But no matter what he did it wasn’t enough because as fast as he tore it down our impure hearts built it up again. We took it for granted that we could turn to him to solve our problems, now and always.”
Now he paused both his speech and his walk. He stared at the crowd intently.
“Brothers and sisters, we failed him.”
He let this thought sink in and then he resumed his pacing.
“But we must not despair. We were destined to fail him. He knew that we would. But he loves all of us so much that he was willing to die so that we could see it. So that we would know the truth.”
He could hear sobs from the crowd now. He was stifling back tears himself.
“So let us prepare ourselves for him. Let us make ourselves worthy. The enemy has a name, and that name is Captain Invincible. He and all of his followers must see the folly and error of their ways. And if they will not see the truth on their own, we will make them see it. And if we cannot make them see the truth, well” he paused again and shook his head sardonically, “our savior taught us what must be done in the face of unrepentant evil. If we cannot make them see the truth, they will be destroyed!”
He had reached the podium again and he slammed his fists on the hard wooden surface as punctuation before he continued.
“And then my brothers and sisters, and only then, when we have purged heaven and earth of all that is unrighteous, when we have cleansed the world of impurity and prepared our hearts and our souls; my brothers and sisters, that is when He shall return to us. And he will smile upon us, and welcome us unto him. And with Him we will know no more pain, and we will know only joy and peace in his arms until the end of days, Amen!”
The crowd roared back an “Amen” in return, and with great fervor they began chanting “Ivan the Great” and “Ivan the Holy”; the echoes of which could be heard for miles and miles across the night sky.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Evil Genius (Part 15)
Chapter 3
The note arrived just as Meg was finally getting settled.
After stepping out of the Four Seasons, Meg had spent the next couple of hours just wandering around the city. It didn’t take long for her to realize that the suspicions she had had from inside her luxury prison were indeed true. The world seemed to have woken up again. Down each street she passed groups of pedestrians engaged in trivial chatter, bustling shops where customers waited patiently and impatiently for their turn, and the air was filled with the familiar engine revs, honking horns, and exhaust fumes. It was almost enough to make you forget that you were living under the authoritarian rule of the most evil man that ever lived.
Once the general joy and exuberance of being free started to wear off, Meg started to realize that she hadn’t the slightest idea where she should go or what she should do. A funny thing happens when you think each day is going to be your last – your long-term planning tends to suffer. So, short of any better idea, she decided to go home. Or at least the place that had been her home up until her impromptu vacation almost 2 years ago.
She approached the high-rise condo building and went inside. Before the end of everything there had been a 24-hour doorman but now there was no one, so she encountered no resistance when she walked in the front door and went to the elevators. As she emerged from the elevator and walked down the 11th floor hallway, she really didn’t know what to expect. Most likely the door would simply be locked. Would she knock? What if it was open and she walked in only to find the place redecorated and an extremely surprised couple asking her who the hell she was? Meg didn’t have the answers to any of these questions, but that didn’t stop her. She walked straight up to the door and turned the handle. Just like at the Four Seasons, it turned easily in her hands. As she pushed the door inwards she felt that she was prepared for whatever she might see. Only she wasn’t prepared for this.
It was dark and it was dusty, but it was unmistakable. All of her possessions, exactly as she had left them.
With all of today’s good fortune, she started to think that she must be dreaming but no; dreams didn’t have dust. She plopped herself down on the living room couch and was momentarily enveloped by a thick dustcloud. She tried to make sense out of all that had happened to her today, quickly decided with complete certainty that it made absolutely no sense whatsoever and thus determined to waste no more time thinking about it.
She now turned her mind to more practical matters. She had no food in the house – at least nothing edible. Fortunately, she still had valuables in the wall safe behind the picture in the bedroom. Again she registered no surprise when it was still there and the combination hadn’t been changed. Inside was a bag that contained a small collection of diamonds. Terry had liked to impress her by taking lumps of coal and squeezing them into diamonds. It was the superhero version of winning the giant stuffed panda at the Ring Toss.
She pocketed a few of the diamonds, returned the bag to the safe, and headed out again. If the world had really gone back to normal – or at least a new normal – then the row of jewelry shops on Connecticut Ave should be open again. And unless women were suddenly no longer interested in very shiny jewels, she should be able to get a decent price for them. She turned out to be right on both counts, though she just about had a seizure when the jeweler paid her. 50 crisp $100 bills, all with the giant visage of Doctor Destructo smack in the middle of them. But since this didn’t even remotely qualify as the strangest thing that had happened to her today, she simply sighed, shrugged, and pocketed her bounty.
On her way back home she stopped in at the grocery store and bought some fresh fruit, bread, and cleaning supplies. She half-expected the clerk to laugh at her when she tried to pay with her ridiculous currency, but he just took it without looking at her and handed her back her change – bills with smaller denominations but the same obscene image of the Doctor.
As she walked back into her building, she spotted John McDonald coming out of the elevator. John had been the condo association president. He spotted her and jumped back momentarily, then he smiled broadly as he ran forward and hugged her.
“Oh my god, Meg!”
“Hi John, good to see you too.” She had officially lost the capacity to be surprised anymore today.
John pulled back but was still beaming.
“I knew you’d be back. Somehow I just knew. We’ve been renting out the units left and right. Most of the owners being, um, gone. But I saved yours; wasn’t going to let that one go till I absolutely had to.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that.”
“It was the least I could do.” And now he whispered. “I heard how you snuck in and almost killed him. Everyone did. A lot of people didn’t believe it but I knew you and knew that if anyone could do it it’d be you. Then I heard that someone spotted you getting led into the Four Seasons by the Doctor’s goons and I thought to myself ‘I don’t know how she’s still alive but I bet if she ever gets outta there she’s going to wanna come on back home’ and now here you are!”
John continued to smile at her and for the first time since she could remember Meg smiled back.
“I don’t what to say John, it’s . . . I just . . .thank you. Listen, I just got back and need to get settled in . . .”
“Of course, of course. I’ll make sure you’ve got electricity by the end of the night and I’ll get you all set up with all the rest of the essentials – gas, phone, whatnot – by the end of the week. Um, and I’m sure you know that the rules have all changed since, well . . . anyway we can talk about that later.”
They hugged again and then Meg headed towards the elevator. As the doors opened and she headed inside, John called out to her again.
“Meg.” She turned. “Welcome home.”
She got back to her condo and got down to work. Everything that could be cleaned was and what couldn’t be was thrown out and replaced. John was true to his word and within a few days Meg was set up again with all her pre-Apocalyptic luxuries – electricity, gas, phone, and even cable TV. Along with that he also explained that she no longer owned her condo, since Doctor Destructo now owned everything. So she’d be paying rent again. But that didn’t bother her. Eventually more diamonds would have to come out of the bag but no worries, there were still plenty more. And now that television was back on the air she was even thinking that she might be able to resume her career as a journalist.
She woke up one morning with that thought in her mind when she noticed a note had been slid under her door. It said simply “Call Dr. Richter. Ask him about his work.” Printed underneath was a phone number.
She sat down on the couch and regarded the note curiously. The world had just started to make a small amount of sense again and now this. She started contemplating what to do, but knew almost immediately that not calling wasn’t going to be an option. Curiosity doesn’t kill the cat every time, but it does eventually because the cat is always curious. She picked up the phone and dialed. He answered on the third ring.
“Hello”
“Hello, is this Dr. Richter?”
He hesitated for a second. “Yes”
“Dr. Richter, my name is Meg Courtland and this is probably going to sound crazy but I . . .”
“You got a note that told you to call me.”
“Yes; is it from you?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Then how did you know?”
“I received one as well. It said ‘You will be contacted by Meg Courtland. Tell her about your work.’ I thought that maybe it was from you but I could already hear in your voice that you were as surprised as me. So what did your note say?”
“The same thing essentially. That I was to call you and ask you about your work. So what can you tell me?”
She heard Dr. Richter exhale audibly.
“I’m really not sure. At the present time I’m not doing anything that most people would consider to be cutting edge or even very interesting. Certainly nothing that warrants these kind of cryptic messages.”
Meg bit on her thumbnail and thought for a minute. This didn’t seem to add up. She sighed.
“Well, we certainly can’t rule out the possibility that somebody’s just decided to screw with us. But maybe you should tell me more about your current work anyway and we’ll just see where it takes us.”
“Mostly I’m doing basic genetic research, which might sound high-tech and glamorous but in reality it’s a lot of repetition and crunching numbers. Mainly we’re trying to work out genetic markers that will tell us which people are at greater risk for certain illnesses so we can give them an early warning sign.”
Meg started to pace.
“Well, I’m a journalist. Or at least I was one before . . .before. Maybe somebody wants me to publicize your work more. Are you close to any breakthroughs?”
Dr. Richter laughed.
“If I am that’s news to me. I can’t imagine the headline ‘14th chromose linked to additional 2% risk of irritable bowel syndrome’ moving too many papers off shelves. In all honesty, I can’t say that I’ve been a part of anything very interesting in the last 10 years. Not since my time with the Captain, God rest his soul.”
Meg froze and her heart suddenly shot down into the pit of her stomach.
“What?!?!”
Dr. Richter could tell he’d hit on something.
“Captain Invincible. He volunteered to do some tests for us about 10 years ago.”
“What do you mean? Tell me everything” Her voice took on a little bit of a desperate tone and her hand started shaking involuntarily.
Dr. Richter could sense it and he started to get a little excited too.
“Oh . . .well, I, uh, didn’t think that you meant that. I mean it was reported on very heavily at the time. At least in the scientific journals. But I suppose it never got as much mainstream coverage as we thought it deserved, probably because everything that we found just led us to have more questions. In any case, obviously everyone always wondered what it was that gave him all those incredible powers. Well, it turns out that no one wondered more than the Captain himself. I was doing research for John Hopkins Medical School when he contacted us one day. Would we be interested in running some tests on him to see if we could formulate any theories on why he was the way he was? I don’t think I need to tell you how quick we jumped to say yes to that question. The man – if you can call him that – was a scientific marvel. The ultimate research specimen.”
Meg cringed to hear Terry dehumanized in this way but decided not to speak up.
“So the whole staff pretty much instantly dropped everything else they were doing to concentrate on him full-time. We ran him through every test and medical examination we could think of. He gave us so much data that my grandchildren will still be sorting through it.”
Meg sat down on the couch and frowned slightly.
“You said that the whole staff was involved in examining him?”
“That’s right. About 50 of us.”
“Were you in charge of the whole project.”
“Oh no! That’s for the bureaucrats – the ones who have put in their time in the lab and don’t feel like getting their hands dirty anymore. No, I was only a few years out of school then so I was down on the front lines.”
“Well the note wanted me to contact you specifically. Who knows, maybe you’re the only one that whoever wrote it knew how to get a hold of. On the other hand, maybe it has to do with your specific role in the experiments on Ter . . . er Captain Invincible. What exactly did you do with him?”
“Oh that.” And now Dr. Richter’s voice swelled up a bit and Meg could hear the pride in it. “At that time my principle concentration was on the mind and memory. We had an ambitious goal – to completely map out the mind and record all the memories of one person. We knew that the technology was there but there had always been one thing that stood in our way – funding. No one wants to pay money to completely record the entire life of your average Joe Sixpack, but this was our perfect chance. Everyone would be interested in having a record of the most powerful man in the world for all eternity.”
“So what happened?”
“What happened was that we succeeded! I’ve still got the complete mind and memories of Captain Invincible captured on 192 DVDs at my research facility in Baltimore.”
Meg’s jaw almost hit the floor.
“My god! How is it that no one ever heard of this?”
“Well, it was classified for a while. For obvious reasons the government decided it wasn’t a great idea for everyone to know that the most intimate secrets and inner workings of our savior and protector were available for anyone to peruse. Then there was the problem that apart from scientific curiosity, there wasn’t a whole lot we could do with it for a while.”
“What do you mean ‘for a while’?”
“Well, the mind is certainly the most important thing but without the body it’s not all that useful. Sure we could have tried to hook it into some computer program and develop an advanced AI, but that’s not really my field. So we were a bit stuck. That is, until we heard about Dolly.”
Meg tried to remember where she had heard that name before. Then it hit her.
“The cloned sheep?”
“Exactly.”
“What does that have to do with it?”
“Once we knew for sure that it was possible to clone based purely on a DNA sample, that opened up a world of possibilities for us. We could now reproduce the body that we didn’t have before. Now the data that made up our mind had a destination! All that remained was to figure out a way to implant the data into it.”
“So what happened? Did you do it?” Meg was almost getting delirious. Was there a possibility that there was another Captain Invincible out there somewhere? Another Terry?
“Unfortunately not.” Meg’s heart sank. “For one thing we never solved the problem of transferring the data onto a real mind. But that’s a problem that could have been overcome. No, the real problem was both a practical and ethical one: getting Captain Invincible’s DNA. Sure we could have invited him over and scoured the floors for a few hair follicles after he left, but that wouldn’t have been right. So we told him about our research and asked him and he said no. Can’t say that I blame him. Not sure I’d want another one of me walking around somewhere either while I was still around.”
“So wait a minute, are you telling me that it’s still possible? That if you somehow had his permission that you could still do it?”
Dr. Richter waivered.
“In theory yes, but practically speaking it’s just not possible. It’s not a problem that he died; the problem is how he died. He was vaporized in a nuclear blast. Any DNA that survived would have been scattered over a 200-mile radius.”
Meg shot up off the couch, her eyes wide.
“But if you had an intact sample; something that was pure and undoubtedly his . . .”
“If I had that and a few million dollars to get my lab up and running again, I could make you another Captain Invincible in less than 6 months.”
“I can do that.”
“What? How?”
But Meg had already hung up the phone. She raced into her bedroom and to the wall safe. She knew just what she was after. She reached in and grabbed the jewelry bag. Who knew that something much more valuable than diamonds was inside? Certainly even a superhero, in the act of crushing a lump of coal into a diamond, would shed a few skin flakes, right? Meg removed the bag gingerly and walked over to the table. She dug out a magnifying glass and began her search. Somewhere in this bag she would find a piece of Terry to bring to Dr. Richter. It was hard to imagine that something so tiny could have the power to change the world forever.
The next day she called Dr. Richter to tell him she thought that she had what he needed. He told her that he woke up this morning and discovered another envelope slipped under his door. In it was a check for $5 million.
The note arrived just as Meg was finally getting settled.
After stepping out of the Four Seasons, Meg had spent the next couple of hours just wandering around the city. It didn’t take long for her to realize that the suspicions she had had from inside her luxury prison were indeed true. The world seemed to have woken up again. Down each street she passed groups of pedestrians engaged in trivial chatter, bustling shops where customers waited patiently and impatiently for their turn, and the air was filled with the familiar engine revs, honking horns, and exhaust fumes. It was almost enough to make you forget that you were living under the authoritarian rule of the most evil man that ever lived.
Once the general joy and exuberance of being free started to wear off, Meg started to realize that she hadn’t the slightest idea where she should go or what she should do. A funny thing happens when you think each day is going to be your last – your long-term planning tends to suffer. So, short of any better idea, she decided to go home. Or at least the place that had been her home up until her impromptu vacation almost 2 years ago.
She approached the high-rise condo building and went inside. Before the end of everything there had been a 24-hour doorman but now there was no one, so she encountered no resistance when she walked in the front door and went to the elevators. As she emerged from the elevator and walked down the 11th floor hallway, she really didn’t know what to expect. Most likely the door would simply be locked. Would she knock? What if it was open and she walked in only to find the place redecorated and an extremely surprised couple asking her who the hell she was? Meg didn’t have the answers to any of these questions, but that didn’t stop her. She walked straight up to the door and turned the handle. Just like at the Four Seasons, it turned easily in her hands. As she pushed the door inwards she felt that she was prepared for whatever she might see. Only she wasn’t prepared for this.
It was dark and it was dusty, but it was unmistakable. All of her possessions, exactly as she had left them.
With all of today’s good fortune, she started to think that she must be dreaming but no; dreams didn’t have dust. She plopped herself down on the living room couch and was momentarily enveloped by a thick dustcloud. She tried to make sense out of all that had happened to her today, quickly decided with complete certainty that it made absolutely no sense whatsoever and thus determined to waste no more time thinking about it.
She now turned her mind to more practical matters. She had no food in the house – at least nothing edible. Fortunately, she still had valuables in the wall safe behind the picture in the bedroom. Again she registered no surprise when it was still there and the combination hadn’t been changed. Inside was a bag that contained a small collection of diamonds. Terry had liked to impress her by taking lumps of coal and squeezing them into diamonds. It was the superhero version of winning the giant stuffed panda at the Ring Toss.
She pocketed a few of the diamonds, returned the bag to the safe, and headed out again. If the world had really gone back to normal – or at least a new normal – then the row of jewelry shops on Connecticut Ave should be open again. And unless women were suddenly no longer interested in very shiny jewels, she should be able to get a decent price for them. She turned out to be right on both counts, though she just about had a seizure when the jeweler paid her. 50 crisp $100 bills, all with the giant visage of Doctor Destructo smack in the middle of them. But since this didn’t even remotely qualify as the strangest thing that had happened to her today, she simply sighed, shrugged, and pocketed her bounty.
On her way back home she stopped in at the grocery store and bought some fresh fruit, bread, and cleaning supplies. She half-expected the clerk to laugh at her when she tried to pay with her ridiculous currency, but he just took it without looking at her and handed her back her change – bills with smaller denominations but the same obscene image of the Doctor.
As she walked back into her building, she spotted John McDonald coming out of the elevator. John had been the condo association president. He spotted her and jumped back momentarily, then he smiled broadly as he ran forward and hugged her.
“Oh my god, Meg!”
“Hi John, good to see you too.” She had officially lost the capacity to be surprised anymore today.
John pulled back but was still beaming.
“I knew you’d be back. Somehow I just knew. We’ve been renting out the units left and right. Most of the owners being, um, gone. But I saved yours; wasn’t going to let that one go till I absolutely had to.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that.”
“It was the least I could do.” And now he whispered. “I heard how you snuck in and almost killed him. Everyone did. A lot of people didn’t believe it but I knew you and knew that if anyone could do it it’d be you. Then I heard that someone spotted you getting led into the Four Seasons by the Doctor’s goons and I thought to myself ‘I don’t know how she’s still alive but I bet if she ever gets outta there she’s going to wanna come on back home’ and now here you are!”
John continued to smile at her and for the first time since she could remember Meg smiled back.
“I don’t what to say John, it’s . . . I just . . .thank you. Listen, I just got back and need to get settled in . . .”
“Of course, of course. I’ll make sure you’ve got electricity by the end of the night and I’ll get you all set up with all the rest of the essentials – gas, phone, whatnot – by the end of the week. Um, and I’m sure you know that the rules have all changed since, well . . . anyway we can talk about that later.”
They hugged again and then Meg headed towards the elevator. As the doors opened and she headed inside, John called out to her again.
“Meg.” She turned. “Welcome home.”
She got back to her condo and got down to work. Everything that could be cleaned was and what couldn’t be was thrown out and replaced. John was true to his word and within a few days Meg was set up again with all her pre-Apocalyptic luxuries – electricity, gas, phone, and even cable TV. Along with that he also explained that she no longer owned her condo, since Doctor Destructo now owned everything. So she’d be paying rent again. But that didn’t bother her. Eventually more diamonds would have to come out of the bag but no worries, there were still plenty more. And now that television was back on the air she was even thinking that she might be able to resume her career as a journalist.
She woke up one morning with that thought in her mind when she noticed a note had been slid under her door. It said simply “Call Dr. Richter. Ask him about his work.” Printed underneath was a phone number.
She sat down on the couch and regarded the note curiously. The world had just started to make a small amount of sense again and now this. She started contemplating what to do, but knew almost immediately that not calling wasn’t going to be an option. Curiosity doesn’t kill the cat every time, but it does eventually because the cat is always curious. She picked up the phone and dialed. He answered on the third ring.
“Hello”
“Hello, is this Dr. Richter?”
He hesitated for a second. “Yes”
“Dr. Richter, my name is Meg Courtland and this is probably going to sound crazy but I . . .”
“You got a note that told you to call me.”
“Yes; is it from you?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Then how did you know?”
“I received one as well. It said ‘You will be contacted by Meg Courtland. Tell her about your work.’ I thought that maybe it was from you but I could already hear in your voice that you were as surprised as me. So what did your note say?”
“The same thing essentially. That I was to call you and ask you about your work. So what can you tell me?”
She heard Dr. Richter exhale audibly.
“I’m really not sure. At the present time I’m not doing anything that most people would consider to be cutting edge or even very interesting. Certainly nothing that warrants these kind of cryptic messages.”
Meg bit on her thumbnail and thought for a minute. This didn’t seem to add up. She sighed.
“Well, we certainly can’t rule out the possibility that somebody’s just decided to screw with us. But maybe you should tell me more about your current work anyway and we’ll just see where it takes us.”
“Mostly I’m doing basic genetic research, which might sound high-tech and glamorous but in reality it’s a lot of repetition and crunching numbers. Mainly we’re trying to work out genetic markers that will tell us which people are at greater risk for certain illnesses so we can give them an early warning sign.”
Meg started to pace.
“Well, I’m a journalist. Or at least I was one before . . .before. Maybe somebody wants me to publicize your work more. Are you close to any breakthroughs?”
Dr. Richter laughed.
“If I am that’s news to me. I can’t imagine the headline ‘14th chromose linked to additional 2% risk of irritable bowel syndrome’ moving too many papers off shelves. In all honesty, I can’t say that I’ve been a part of anything very interesting in the last 10 years. Not since my time with the Captain, God rest his soul.”
Meg froze and her heart suddenly shot down into the pit of her stomach.
“What?!?!”
Dr. Richter could tell he’d hit on something.
“Captain Invincible. He volunteered to do some tests for us about 10 years ago.”
“What do you mean? Tell me everything” Her voice took on a little bit of a desperate tone and her hand started shaking involuntarily.
Dr. Richter could sense it and he started to get a little excited too.
“Oh . . .well, I, uh, didn’t think that you meant that. I mean it was reported on very heavily at the time. At least in the scientific journals. But I suppose it never got as much mainstream coverage as we thought it deserved, probably because everything that we found just led us to have more questions. In any case, obviously everyone always wondered what it was that gave him all those incredible powers. Well, it turns out that no one wondered more than the Captain himself. I was doing research for John Hopkins Medical School when he contacted us one day. Would we be interested in running some tests on him to see if we could formulate any theories on why he was the way he was? I don’t think I need to tell you how quick we jumped to say yes to that question. The man – if you can call him that – was a scientific marvel. The ultimate research specimen.”
Meg cringed to hear Terry dehumanized in this way but decided not to speak up.
“So the whole staff pretty much instantly dropped everything else they were doing to concentrate on him full-time. We ran him through every test and medical examination we could think of. He gave us so much data that my grandchildren will still be sorting through it.”
Meg sat down on the couch and frowned slightly.
“You said that the whole staff was involved in examining him?”
“That’s right. About 50 of us.”
“Were you in charge of the whole project.”
“Oh no! That’s for the bureaucrats – the ones who have put in their time in the lab and don’t feel like getting their hands dirty anymore. No, I was only a few years out of school then so I was down on the front lines.”
“Well the note wanted me to contact you specifically. Who knows, maybe you’re the only one that whoever wrote it knew how to get a hold of. On the other hand, maybe it has to do with your specific role in the experiments on Ter . . . er Captain Invincible. What exactly did you do with him?”
“Oh that.” And now Dr. Richter’s voice swelled up a bit and Meg could hear the pride in it. “At that time my principle concentration was on the mind and memory. We had an ambitious goal – to completely map out the mind and record all the memories of one person. We knew that the technology was there but there had always been one thing that stood in our way – funding. No one wants to pay money to completely record the entire life of your average Joe Sixpack, but this was our perfect chance. Everyone would be interested in having a record of the most powerful man in the world for all eternity.”
“So what happened?”
“What happened was that we succeeded! I’ve still got the complete mind and memories of Captain Invincible captured on 192 DVDs at my research facility in Baltimore.”
Meg’s jaw almost hit the floor.
“My god! How is it that no one ever heard of this?”
“Well, it was classified for a while. For obvious reasons the government decided it wasn’t a great idea for everyone to know that the most intimate secrets and inner workings of our savior and protector were available for anyone to peruse. Then there was the problem that apart from scientific curiosity, there wasn’t a whole lot we could do with it for a while.”
“What do you mean ‘for a while’?”
“Well, the mind is certainly the most important thing but without the body it’s not all that useful. Sure we could have tried to hook it into some computer program and develop an advanced AI, but that’s not really my field. So we were a bit stuck. That is, until we heard about Dolly.”
Meg tried to remember where she had heard that name before. Then it hit her.
“The cloned sheep?”
“Exactly.”
“What does that have to do with it?”
“Once we knew for sure that it was possible to clone based purely on a DNA sample, that opened up a world of possibilities for us. We could now reproduce the body that we didn’t have before. Now the data that made up our mind had a destination! All that remained was to figure out a way to implant the data into it.”
“So what happened? Did you do it?” Meg was almost getting delirious. Was there a possibility that there was another Captain Invincible out there somewhere? Another Terry?
“Unfortunately not.” Meg’s heart sank. “For one thing we never solved the problem of transferring the data onto a real mind. But that’s a problem that could have been overcome. No, the real problem was both a practical and ethical one: getting Captain Invincible’s DNA. Sure we could have invited him over and scoured the floors for a few hair follicles after he left, but that wouldn’t have been right. So we told him about our research and asked him and he said no. Can’t say that I blame him. Not sure I’d want another one of me walking around somewhere either while I was still around.”
“So wait a minute, are you telling me that it’s still possible? That if you somehow had his permission that you could still do it?”
Dr. Richter waivered.
“In theory yes, but practically speaking it’s just not possible. It’s not a problem that he died; the problem is how he died. He was vaporized in a nuclear blast. Any DNA that survived would have been scattered over a 200-mile radius.”
Meg shot up off the couch, her eyes wide.
“But if you had an intact sample; something that was pure and undoubtedly his . . .”
“If I had that and a few million dollars to get my lab up and running again, I could make you another Captain Invincible in less than 6 months.”
“I can do that.”
“What? How?”
But Meg had already hung up the phone. She raced into her bedroom and to the wall safe. She knew just what she was after. She reached in and grabbed the jewelry bag. Who knew that something much more valuable than diamonds was inside? Certainly even a superhero, in the act of crushing a lump of coal into a diamond, would shed a few skin flakes, right? Meg removed the bag gingerly and walked over to the table. She dug out a magnifying glass and began her search. Somewhere in this bag she would find a piece of Terry to bring to Dr. Richter. It was hard to imagine that something so tiny could have the power to change the world forever.
The next day she called Dr. Richter to tell him she thought that she had what he needed. He told her that he woke up this morning and discovered another envelope slipped under his door. In it was a check for $5 million.
Thursday, July 07, 2011
Evil Genius (Part 14)
Chapter 2
If Ivan was forced to sign one more form or hold one more meeting today, he was convinced that the fury which was welling up within him was such that his head would explode. He did not mean this metaphorically either. He truly believed that with just one more slight nudge over the edge there would be one final primal scream and then the walls in the Oval office would suddenly be covered in his blood and gray matter. But what bothered him most about that thought was that it was actually accompanied by a sense of relief.
Almost as if on cue, the door opened and his chief assistant Walters walked in. Sure enough, he was carrying another one of those god-damned, motherfucking, triplicated spawns of Satan in his hands.
“Sir, we need authorization for the new highway bypass through Cleveland. And we’ve been in contact with Rio and they need permission to expand the oil pipeline another couple of miles . . .”
Walters stopped short because he noticed a look that could cut diamonds coming from the face of the Doctor. Ivan had been somewhat tamed but he would never be fully domesticated. The Mall no longer held thousands of disembodied heads but he was still very capable of making a man disappear without a trace. Walters decided to retreat from the precipice.
“…but of course that can wait till tomorrow. Just wanted to give you a heads up, your Excellency.”
Ivan knew he was being patronized, but at least that meant his temper was still something to be feared. He might only be a neutered shell of his former self, but he still had teeth. He sighed and relented, something that was becoming more and more of a habit lately.
“No, give them to me. I’ll take care of them.” He read through the forms, signed them, and Walters was on his way.
He had to appreciate the irony. He was the undisputed ruler of the Earth. As such, no major decision was made without his consent. But because of that, he spent almost all of his waking hours being bombarded with what amounted to low-level bureaucratic decisions to the point where he felt like little more than a secretary. Why the hell did he care that a new nuclear plant needed to be commissioned in Moscow, or that the fisheries were being overfished in Nova Scotia, or that a crippling bacon shortage had broken out in Nashville(6)? But ceding power was not in his nature, so he insisted on remaining at the center of it all.
His bribery plan had been brilliant. In fact it had succeeded beyond his or anyone else’s wildest dreams. It turned out that utterly destroying the world’s technology and economy was just what everyone needed. People had a new appreciation for the simple things like electricity, hot water, Perfect Brownie pans, and electric nose hair trimmers.
During the downward spiral, all manner of feisty individuals had seen fit to challenge the Doctor. Whether they fancied themselves new super-heroes, ideological or theological soldiers, or just plain anarchists the Doctor had taken on all comers and emerged victorious. The result was that the greater population of Earth was now more passive than at any other point in human history, and were only too happy to be led back into the light of outlet malls and all-u-can eat sushi bars.
Truth be told, in a lot of ways things were better than they had ever been. With the religious zealots gone, half of the reason for major conflicts no longer existed. And the fact that there were no more territorial borders to fight over - now that everything was under the rule of Doctor Destructo - pretty much eliminated the reason for the other 50% of major conflicts. Sure there was still petty crime to be dealt with, but since the Doctor was also the ultimate head of the judicial system, very few people were willing to act up enough to land on his radar.
And so Ivan sat, day after day, signing forms authorizing new construction projects, building renovations, wildlife refuges, hunting licenses, eel hatcheries, moose crossings – the list went on and on. When he finally got a request to approve construction for the Norman Rockwell Commemorative Dinner Plate Museum, he was convinced that they were making this shit up. He flew out to the proposed dig site just so he could catch the lying bastards trying to take advantage of him. But it turns out that the people of Dayton, Ohio just really, really like Norman Rockwell and his related fine china. He approved it with the sole intent of blowing it up on the day of its grand opening.
A few minutes passed and Walters was in the office again, this time with a stack of forms.
“Sir, would you like to be briefed on these now or shall I save them for tomorrow?”
Ivan had had enough. Not just for today, not for tomorrow; he had had enough period.
“You know what Walters? You handle them. I’m going for a walk”
And with that the Doctor was out of the office, out the back door of Skull Manor, and across the back lawn.
(6) - Actually, when this one had occurred he had instantly given it top priority.
If Ivan was forced to sign one more form or hold one more meeting today, he was convinced that the fury which was welling up within him was such that his head would explode. He did not mean this metaphorically either. He truly believed that with just one more slight nudge over the edge there would be one final primal scream and then the walls in the Oval office would suddenly be covered in his blood and gray matter. But what bothered him most about that thought was that it was actually accompanied by a sense of relief.
Almost as if on cue, the door opened and his chief assistant Walters walked in. Sure enough, he was carrying another one of those god-damned, motherfucking, triplicated spawns of Satan in his hands.
“Sir, we need authorization for the new highway bypass through Cleveland. And we’ve been in contact with Rio and they need permission to expand the oil pipeline another couple of miles . . .”
Walters stopped short because he noticed a look that could cut diamonds coming from the face of the Doctor. Ivan had been somewhat tamed but he would never be fully domesticated. The Mall no longer held thousands of disembodied heads but he was still very capable of making a man disappear without a trace. Walters decided to retreat from the precipice.
“…but of course that can wait till tomorrow. Just wanted to give you a heads up, your Excellency.”
Ivan knew he was being patronized, but at least that meant his temper was still something to be feared. He might only be a neutered shell of his former self, but he still had teeth. He sighed and relented, something that was becoming more and more of a habit lately.
“No, give them to me. I’ll take care of them.” He read through the forms, signed them, and Walters was on his way.
He had to appreciate the irony. He was the undisputed ruler of the Earth. As such, no major decision was made without his consent. But because of that, he spent almost all of his waking hours being bombarded with what amounted to low-level bureaucratic decisions to the point where he felt like little more than a secretary. Why the hell did he care that a new nuclear plant needed to be commissioned in Moscow, or that the fisheries were being overfished in Nova Scotia, or that a crippling bacon shortage had broken out in Nashville(6)? But ceding power was not in his nature, so he insisted on remaining at the center of it all.
His bribery plan had been brilliant. In fact it had succeeded beyond his or anyone else’s wildest dreams. It turned out that utterly destroying the world’s technology and economy was just what everyone needed. People had a new appreciation for the simple things like electricity, hot water, Perfect Brownie pans, and electric nose hair trimmers.
During the downward spiral, all manner of feisty individuals had seen fit to challenge the Doctor. Whether they fancied themselves new super-heroes, ideological or theological soldiers, or just plain anarchists the Doctor had taken on all comers and emerged victorious. The result was that the greater population of Earth was now more passive than at any other point in human history, and were only too happy to be led back into the light of outlet malls and all-u-can eat sushi bars.
Truth be told, in a lot of ways things were better than they had ever been. With the religious zealots gone, half of the reason for major conflicts no longer existed. And the fact that there were no more territorial borders to fight over - now that everything was under the rule of Doctor Destructo - pretty much eliminated the reason for the other 50% of major conflicts. Sure there was still petty crime to be dealt with, but since the Doctor was also the ultimate head of the judicial system, very few people were willing to act up enough to land on his radar.
And so Ivan sat, day after day, signing forms authorizing new construction projects, building renovations, wildlife refuges, hunting licenses, eel hatcheries, moose crossings – the list went on and on. When he finally got a request to approve construction for the Norman Rockwell Commemorative Dinner Plate Museum, he was convinced that they were making this shit up. He flew out to the proposed dig site just so he could catch the lying bastards trying to take advantage of him. But it turns out that the people of Dayton, Ohio just really, really like Norman Rockwell and his related fine china. He approved it with the sole intent of blowing it up on the day of its grand opening.
A few minutes passed and Walters was in the office again, this time with a stack of forms.
“Sir, would you like to be briefed on these now or shall I save them for tomorrow?”
Ivan had had enough. Not just for today, not for tomorrow; he had had enough period.
“You know what Walters? You handle them. I’m going for a walk”
And with that the Doctor was out of the office, out the back door of Skull Manor, and across the back lawn.
(6) - Actually, when this one had occurred he had instantly given it top priority.
Saturday, July 02, 2011
Evil Genius (Part 13)
Update: It's 9:41 P.M. and less than 2 minutes ago I just finished the book/novel/novella/story/whatever the hell it is. The important thing is that it's done (or at least the first draft of it is). Yay me! Probably about another 4 or 5 parts to post. I might put them up quicker than once a week now that I don't need the time to write it any more. We'll see. Alright, back to our regularly scheduled program.
Part 4: One year later
Chapter 1
Meg still did not understand why she was still alive, but she had long stopped wondering about it.
After the visit from the Doctor on what was to be her last night amongst the living, she had been moved over to the Four Seasons along with everyone else. The Doctor had not visited her again, and no one else bothered to enlighten her as to why she had been granted this stay of execution. She was escorted to her room and the door was locked behind her.
And there she sat, day after day, week after week. Each day she had 3 meals delivered to her room, and once per week she was handcuffed to the bed while a maid changed all her sheets. All in all, except for the mind-numbing boredom, it wasn’t a bad existence. Especially taking into account that she was supposed to be dead.
From the view out her window, she could see the city starting to come back to life. Where in the beginning only roving bands of gangs and looters could be heard milling the streets, slowly but surely the idle chatter of pedestrians began to replace it. Soon after, traffic resumed with all its telltale sounds and smells. Then one day Meg looked out and realized that Pennsylvania Ave. looked and sounded pretty much as she had remembered it 2 years ago.
She still hadn’t seen or heard from the Doctor, nor was she getting any information from her guards. Confused at what was responsible for this turnaround and frustrated at the complete absence of information, she finally decided to take matters into her own hands. She set her mind to escaping.
She estimated that she was on the 5th or 6th floor, not an automatically lethal distance but certainly far enough to not want to chance it. She began by calculating the length of rope she could make by employing the various towels and linens in the room and found they only afforded her about 25 feet. That still left her with 25 to 35 feet to drop – still too far. She leaned out the window and calculated how thick the ledge was (9 inches) and how far it was to the corner of the building (about 13 feet). She thought that if she could maybe get to the corner, which involved transversing a stone gargoyle directly in her path, she could possibly shimmy up the corner piping up to the next floor. At that point she’d either hope for an open window on the next floor or, in the worst case scenario, continue floor by floor till she got to the roof. At that point she was fairly confident that she could find a staircase, stealthily make her way down to the ground floor, find a back door – either through the kitchen or garage – and gain her freedom.
In the end, she abandoned that plan for a slightly simpler one. She walked to the door of her room and turned the handle. It turned effortlessly and the door opened with no resistance. She slowly peeked her head out of the door just in case a guard was stationed nearby, but somehow she knew there wouldn’t be. Sure enough, the hallway was empty. She shook her head slowly and softly asked herself, “who’s a stupid girl now?”.
When she was a child, the Courtland family had a dog named Cupcake. A little black labradoodle. Rather than ruin the detailed landscaping that they meticulously tended with a mesh or picket fence, Meg’s dad opted for the invisible electric fence instead. One of those where the dog wore a special collar and if they wandered too far from the house they’d get a little shock. After a couple of weeks and more than a few gentle jolts, Cupcake learned with great precision exactly where she could and could not tread. A couple years passed, and one day Meg took off the collar to give Cupcake a bath. Only she forgot to put it back on again. When she finally realized this a couple of days later, the entire family was astonished to see that Cupcake was still respecting the boundaries of the fence, even though there was now absolutely nothing containing her. She had simply learned that those were the limits of her territory and saw no further reason to test it. So from that day forward they simply left the collar off. Meg found all of this so humorous that she delighted in telling all her friends and neighbors about what a sweet, dumb dog they had. Cupcake would hear Meg talking about her and come running over with her tail wagging all the way. And Meg would playfully grab her snout and put her face next to hers while cooing in a high-pitched babytalk, “Who’s a stupid girl? You are; yes you are! You’re our stupid little girl!”
There was no doubt who the stupid girl was now. Cupcake’s revenge.
It could have all been an accident, but Meg didn’t think so. She had the feeling that she’d simply been trivialized, and that although the idea of the Doctor actually pardoning someone was completely unthinkable, this was his way of doing it without doing it. The equivalent of the teacher “accidentally” leaving the world map up on the board during the geography test. She still had no idea what she’d done to help him and the thought of it still haunted her, but this was one gift she was not going to refuse.
Having decided this with certainty within a few seconds of appearing in the hallway, she saw no reason not to test it. Instead of the back stairs, she walked confidently towards the elevator and pressed the down arrow. After a few seconds she heard the familiar ding, saw the button light blip off and the doors slowly opened. It was empty, and Meg couldn’t decide if she felt relief or disappointment. She pressed the button and 10 seconds later was standing in the lobby. Here about a dozen people, a mix of employees and customers, were milling about. If any were members of Destructo’s personal security detail, they showed no outward sign of it. None gave her a second glance as she covered the 30 feet from the elevator bank to the front door. With a push and a whoosh she was through the revolving door and out onto the street. And just like that, for the first time in more than 18 months Meg Courtland was free.
Part 4: One year later
Chapter 1
Meg still did not understand why she was still alive, but she had long stopped wondering about it.
After the visit from the Doctor on what was to be her last night amongst the living, she had been moved over to the Four Seasons along with everyone else. The Doctor had not visited her again, and no one else bothered to enlighten her as to why she had been granted this stay of execution. She was escorted to her room and the door was locked behind her.
And there she sat, day after day, week after week. Each day she had 3 meals delivered to her room, and once per week she was handcuffed to the bed while a maid changed all her sheets. All in all, except for the mind-numbing boredom, it wasn’t a bad existence. Especially taking into account that she was supposed to be dead.
From the view out her window, she could see the city starting to come back to life. Where in the beginning only roving bands of gangs and looters could be heard milling the streets, slowly but surely the idle chatter of pedestrians began to replace it. Soon after, traffic resumed with all its telltale sounds and smells. Then one day Meg looked out and realized that Pennsylvania Ave. looked and sounded pretty much as she had remembered it 2 years ago.
She still hadn’t seen or heard from the Doctor, nor was she getting any information from her guards. Confused at what was responsible for this turnaround and frustrated at the complete absence of information, she finally decided to take matters into her own hands. She set her mind to escaping.
She estimated that she was on the 5th or 6th floor, not an automatically lethal distance but certainly far enough to not want to chance it. She began by calculating the length of rope she could make by employing the various towels and linens in the room and found they only afforded her about 25 feet. That still left her with 25 to 35 feet to drop – still too far. She leaned out the window and calculated how thick the ledge was (9 inches) and how far it was to the corner of the building (about 13 feet). She thought that if she could maybe get to the corner, which involved transversing a stone gargoyle directly in her path, she could possibly shimmy up the corner piping up to the next floor. At that point she’d either hope for an open window on the next floor or, in the worst case scenario, continue floor by floor till she got to the roof. At that point she was fairly confident that she could find a staircase, stealthily make her way down to the ground floor, find a back door – either through the kitchen or garage – and gain her freedom.
In the end, she abandoned that plan for a slightly simpler one. She walked to the door of her room and turned the handle. It turned effortlessly and the door opened with no resistance. She slowly peeked her head out of the door just in case a guard was stationed nearby, but somehow she knew there wouldn’t be. Sure enough, the hallway was empty. She shook her head slowly and softly asked herself, “who’s a stupid girl now?”.
When she was a child, the Courtland family had a dog named Cupcake. A little black labradoodle. Rather than ruin the detailed landscaping that they meticulously tended with a mesh or picket fence, Meg’s dad opted for the invisible electric fence instead. One of those where the dog wore a special collar and if they wandered too far from the house they’d get a little shock. After a couple of weeks and more than a few gentle jolts, Cupcake learned with great precision exactly where she could and could not tread. A couple years passed, and one day Meg took off the collar to give Cupcake a bath. Only she forgot to put it back on again. When she finally realized this a couple of days later, the entire family was astonished to see that Cupcake was still respecting the boundaries of the fence, even though there was now absolutely nothing containing her. She had simply learned that those were the limits of her territory and saw no further reason to test it. So from that day forward they simply left the collar off. Meg found all of this so humorous that she delighted in telling all her friends and neighbors about what a sweet, dumb dog they had. Cupcake would hear Meg talking about her and come running over with her tail wagging all the way. And Meg would playfully grab her snout and put her face next to hers while cooing in a high-pitched babytalk, “Who’s a stupid girl? You are; yes you are! You’re our stupid little girl!”
There was no doubt who the stupid girl was now. Cupcake’s revenge.
It could have all been an accident, but Meg didn’t think so. She had the feeling that she’d simply been trivialized, and that although the idea of the Doctor actually pardoning someone was completely unthinkable, this was his way of doing it without doing it. The equivalent of the teacher “accidentally” leaving the world map up on the board during the geography test. She still had no idea what she’d done to help him and the thought of it still haunted her, but this was one gift she was not going to refuse.
Having decided this with certainty within a few seconds of appearing in the hallway, she saw no reason not to test it. Instead of the back stairs, she walked confidently towards the elevator and pressed the down arrow. After a few seconds she heard the familiar ding, saw the button light blip off and the doors slowly opened. It was empty, and Meg couldn’t decide if she felt relief or disappointment. She pressed the button and 10 seconds later was standing in the lobby. Here about a dozen people, a mix of employees and customers, were milling about. If any were members of Destructo’s personal security detail, they showed no outward sign of it. None gave her a second glance as she covered the 30 feet from the elevator bank to the front door. With a push and a whoosh she was through the revolving door and out onto the street. And just like that, for the first time in more than 18 months Meg Courtland was free.
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