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.