Chapter 5
Speeches. They always felt the need to give speeches.
That was the thought going through the Doctor's mind as he quickly flipped his would-be assassin over his head and sent her crashing to the floor. Before she knew what had gone wrong one forearm had the knife-hand pinned to the ground while the other forearm was on her throat cutting off her air supply. The Doctor surveyed his foe with a mixture of curiosity, annoyance, and disdain.
“Tricky little minx; you’ll be dropping the knife now.” He spat at her. He could see the fiery hatred in her eyes. She clung to the knife and he could feel her pressing harder in vain to try and get at him.
“That was not a request; merely a statement of fact. Whether voluntarily or through unconsciousness, I promise you that the knife will fall from your hand momentarily.”
The hatred was still there, but it was starting to give way to panic as her lungs started to burn and her heart continued to race. Her face was turning a scarlet that deepened with each passing second and she began to shake uncontrollably. Finally, her grip relaxed and the knife fell to the ground.
Ivan continued to look down at her and contemplated whether or not to release his grip or finish the job and eliminate the threat. The part of him that was curious won out, and he released her as he picked the blade up from the ground.
He took a few steps back and surveyed her again as she began coughing and gasping for air. The threat was over; he had won. But along with a sense of triumph and a modicum of relief, he suddenly felt very angry.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” he glared at her. “How long have you been planning this for? How many nights have you sat at home and thought about that one moment when you would have me at your mercy?”
He started pacing back and forth, and the anger was flowing freely.
“I haven’t the slightest idea how the hell you managed to get in here – and believe me that yours will not be the only head to roll for that infraction – but the fact that you did so already made you 95% more effective than any of the other delusional fools who thought they were a match for me.”
Now he knelt down next to her and put his face close to hers.
“And you know what? You almost pulled it off. You happened to pick just exactly the right moment where my thoughts were elsewhere. Ordinarily I’ve got the awareness of a gazelle. I’ve long assumed, rightfully I might add, that at any given time there were at least 100 people actively plotting to kill me. But I’ll admit that you caught me completely off my game tonight. I honestly had no idea you were there. Do you know how I discovered you were there?” He looked expectantly at her. She remained silent.
He suddenly grabbed her by the collar and shouted, “When you opened your mouth and told me!!!” He let go of her shirt and she collapsed in a heap again. He got up and started pacing again.
“God, the stupidity! I mean, what is the point of sneaking up on someone to gain the element of surprise if you’re just going to broadcast your presence the very second you’re in reach. It just defies belief. Do you realize that you chose the exact, precisely worst moment to do that? Honestly, you did, and I’ll prove it to you. Had you waited until after you slit my throat there’s a good chance I would have retained consciousness for a good couple of minutes before bleeding out. Plenty of time for speeches then. But let’s say you were insistent on saying your piece before the cutting. You would have been better off shouting at me from the doorway! At least then you would have had a chance to throw the damn knife at me! But you know what upsets me more than anything else?” he asked rhetorically; “It’s the fact that someone this stupid almost succeeded in killing me!!”
As the Doctor stood ranting, Meg was staggering onto all fours and, for lack of a better plan, was crawling very slowly towards the door. As the Doctor started railing about it “being like Hitler getting assassinated by Elmer Fudd” she had almost managed to reach the door when she ran headlong into two pairs of legs that belonged to two of the Doctor’s henchmen. The Doctor turned and noticed them.
“Ah; at long last my loyal, faithful, completely worthless security detail. Either of you two gentlemen see something in here that seems a bit amiss?”
The henchmen said nothing as they picked Meg up and secured her.
“Any idea how this happened?” he inquired of them. The cold stare and colder smile bore into them. Meg was not the only one in danger now.
The henchman on the right cleared his throat. “Your excellence; we found Frank’s body by the back door. He was stabbed.”
“Ah, so the minx does know how to act after all.” Ivan stood in front of Meg and lifted her chin with his hand so he could look into her eyes. “Bet you didn’t have any speeches for him did you? No? Well, then I guess we’ve learned something today haven’t we?”
He turned to his men and said “Take her out front. Cut her head off and display it along with the rest.”
He turned to head back to his desk when he suddenly became aware of something. His pulse was racing and his temper was flaring. He was angry and triumphant, satisfied and full of disdain. In short, he was feeling more alive right now than he had in months. He turned back to his men as they began to lead Meg to her execution.
“Hold that order, gentlemen. I might have found a better use for this one.”
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Evil Genius (Part 7)
Chapter 4
As much as everyone in the world was inconvenienced by the collapse of civilization and the beginning of the rule of an evil dictator wielding the proverbial iron fist (and sometimes an actual fist), it’s probably true that the one person who’d gotten the worst of it was Megan Courtland. Not only had she suffered what certainly seemed like the apocalypse along with everybody else, she had the added misfortune of being the girlfriend of the man whose death made all of it possible.
Immediately following that fateful day in Decatur, she shared in everyone’s stunned shock. As that gave way to grief, she initially received at least a modicum of emotional support. But once the full scale of The Doctor’s plan began to be revealed, she was pretty much left to cope on her own.
Unable to fully process events as they unfolded, her coping took the form of revenge fantasies. Somehow, someway she would see to it that the Doctor died a horrible and excruciating death at her hands. The most elaborate plan she devised involved thumbtacks, a melon baller, both a Phillips and flat head screwdriver, baby oil, a welding torch, and a car battery. That one disturbed even her, although she still relished the thought of carrying it out. Eventually though, she reluctantly came to the conclusion that she’d settle for simply having the pleasure of staring down at his corpse, no matter how it got accomplished.
And that’s how it came to be that almost exactly a year to the day after Doctor Destructo vaporized the man she loved, Meg Courtland set out from what was left of her apartment complex in Washington D.C. armed with only a butcher knife and her infinite hatred. She walked solemnly but purposefully down Pennsylvania Avenue, past the rubble of the Capitol building, through the field of disembodied heads on spikes in the National Mall, and arrived at the gates to the White House. Expecting to confront an army of guards, she was shocked to discover very little resistance. Apparently most would-be assassins found the collection of heads on the Mall to be rather discouraging. There were certainly still guards, but they formed a very loose ring around the perimeter and didn’t seem particularly organized or interested in performing regular rounds. So Meg found a vacated spot, clumsily scaled the 7-foot wall, and headed towards the window of the Oval Office. If The Doctor wasn’t in the Oval Office, there really was no Plan B. In all likelihood it would have come down to an impulsive decision between smashing through the window anyway and hoping like hell to find the Doctor before anyone else found her first, and retracing her steps to try again another day. But as with everything else this night, fortune seemed to be shining on her. The Doctor was seated behind his desk; he seemed to be lost in thought and looked perhaps even a little troubled.
“Aw; butchering the human race too much work for you?” she icily thought to herself.
As determined as she was to not let this opportunity slip away, she was also determined to give herself the best chance of success as possible. There were two entrances into the Oval Office. At the moment, Ivan was facing away from one of them. If she somehow could gain access to the interior, there was at least a chance that she could sneak up behind him completely undetected. As a journalist, she had been to the White House on a number of occasions and knew the layout decently enough. There was a back entrance which was no more than 30 feet from the door to the Oval Office. She crept silently towards that entrance and flattened herself against the cool exterior of the house next to the door. From her vantage point she could still see into the Oval Office window. If it came down to it and the Doctor made a move to leave the room, she estimated that she could be across the lawn and through the window in under 5 seconds. He would probably see and would no doubt hear her approaching, and in all likelihood there would be little to no chance of success, but having already laid eyes on him the raw hatred seething in her now would never allow her to turn back now. It simply wasn’t an option.
After a few minutes, with the Doctor still seated comfortably the door opened and one of his henchman emerged. Meg waited only long enough to see his head before jamming the knife into the man’s eye with all the force her 5 foot 6, 120-pound frame could muster. The man made only a slight gurgling sound before collapsing in a heap. And with that, she was inside.
Her pulse raced, but everything else seemed to slow down as she moved methodically down the hall and across the room that bordered the Oval Office. She encountered no one else. She paused by the Office door and delicately opened it just a crack. The bastard was still at his desk, still facing the other direction, and still oblivious to the world. She opened the door just enough to barely fit through and then dropped down as low as her leg muscles would allow her. She was 12 feet away now, and closing. She took two steps and then paused. 10 feet now. She edged forward another 3 small steps. 8 feet now and the Doctor still hadn’t turned his head. Another few steps and now she could feel the fire in her quads but she ignored it. 6 feet; now 4 and her muscles were screaming at her. She covered the last few feet in one smooth motion and brought the knife up just under Ivan’s chin.
“This is for Terry, you son of a bitch!”
As much as everyone in the world was inconvenienced by the collapse of civilization and the beginning of the rule of an evil dictator wielding the proverbial iron fist (and sometimes an actual fist), it’s probably true that the one person who’d gotten the worst of it was Megan Courtland. Not only had she suffered what certainly seemed like the apocalypse along with everybody else, she had the added misfortune of being the girlfriend of the man whose death made all of it possible.
Immediately following that fateful day in Decatur, she shared in everyone’s stunned shock. As that gave way to grief, she initially received at least a modicum of emotional support. But once the full scale of The Doctor’s plan began to be revealed, she was pretty much left to cope on her own.
Unable to fully process events as they unfolded, her coping took the form of revenge fantasies. Somehow, someway she would see to it that the Doctor died a horrible and excruciating death at her hands. The most elaborate plan she devised involved thumbtacks, a melon baller, both a Phillips and flat head screwdriver, baby oil, a welding torch, and a car battery. That one disturbed even her, although she still relished the thought of carrying it out. Eventually though, she reluctantly came to the conclusion that she’d settle for simply having the pleasure of staring down at his corpse, no matter how it got accomplished.
And that’s how it came to be that almost exactly a year to the day after Doctor Destructo vaporized the man she loved, Meg Courtland set out from what was left of her apartment complex in Washington D.C. armed with only a butcher knife and her infinite hatred. She walked solemnly but purposefully down Pennsylvania Avenue, past the rubble of the Capitol building, through the field of disembodied heads on spikes in the National Mall, and arrived at the gates to the White House. Expecting to confront an army of guards, she was shocked to discover very little resistance. Apparently most would-be assassins found the collection of heads on the Mall to be rather discouraging. There were certainly still guards, but they formed a very loose ring around the perimeter and didn’t seem particularly organized or interested in performing regular rounds. So Meg found a vacated spot, clumsily scaled the 7-foot wall, and headed towards the window of the Oval Office. If The Doctor wasn’t in the Oval Office, there really was no Plan B. In all likelihood it would have come down to an impulsive decision between smashing through the window anyway and hoping like hell to find the Doctor before anyone else found her first, and retracing her steps to try again another day. But as with everything else this night, fortune seemed to be shining on her. The Doctor was seated behind his desk; he seemed to be lost in thought and looked perhaps even a little troubled.
“Aw; butchering the human race too much work for you?” she icily thought to herself.
As determined as she was to not let this opportunity slip away, she was also determined to give herself the best chance of success as possible. There were two entrances into the Oval Office. At the moment, Ivan was facing away from one of them. If she somehow could gain access to the interior, there was at least a chance that she could sneak up behind him completely undetected. As a journalist, she had been to the White House on a number of occasions and knew the layout decently enough. There was a back entrance which was no more than 30 feet from the door to the Oval Office. She crept silently towards that entrance and flattened herself against the cool exterior of the house next to the door. From her vantage point she could still see into the Oval Office window. If it came down to it and the Doctor made a move to leave the room, she estimated that she could be across the lawn and through the window in under 5 seconds. He would probably see and would no doubt hear her approaching, and in all likelihood there would be little to no chance of success, but having already laid eyes on him the raw hatred seething in her now would never allow her to turn back now. It simply wasn’t an option.
After a few minutes, with the Doctor still seated comfortably the door opened and one of his henchman emerged. Meg waited only long enough to see his head before jamming the knife into the man’s eye with all the force her 5 foot 6, 120-pound frame could muster. The man made only a slight gurgling sound before collapsing in a heap. And with that, she was inside.
Her pulse raced, but everything else seemed to slow down as she moved methodically down the hall and across the room that bordered the Oval Office. She encountered no one else. She paused by the Office door and delicately opened it just a crack. The bastard was still at his desk, still facing the other direction, and still oblivious to the world. She opened the door just enough to barely fit through and then dropped down as low as her leg muscles would allow her. She was 12 feet away now, and closing. She took two steps and then paused. 10 feet now. She edged forward another 3 small steps. 8 feet now and the Doctor still hadn’t turned his head. Another few steps and now she could feel the fire in her quads but she ignored it. 6 feet; now 4 and her muscles were screaming at her. She covered the last few feet in one smooth motion and brought the knife up just under Ivan’s chin.
“This is for Terry, you son of a bitch!”
Friday, May 13, 2011
Evil Genius (Part 6)
Chapter 2
Had the greater U.S. population not been distracted by their fixation on blaming the local authorities, they could have simply stayed home, tuned into C-SPAN (one of the few stations still broadcasting) and gotten all the information that they needed. They would have been watching when, the day after Los Angeles was incinerated, the Doctor arrived in Washington, D.C. They would have seen him walk into the U.S. Capitol building, open up his jacket, and reveal that the large trigger button in the middle of his chest was wired directly to his heart. The second his heart stopped beating, all 98 (really 38) remaining nuclear weapons would be triggered instantly.
He demanded the floor on the Senate. When he met some initial resistance, he calmly pulled out his cell phone, punched in a few numbers, and a few seconds later Syracuse, NY became a crater. That was the last resistance he encountered.
A sea of ghostly pale faces belonging to men and women who just days earlier believed themselves to be among the most powerful people in the world stared silently as he strode down the aisle of the Senate floor and stood behind the podium. He faced his captive audience, turning slowly from side to side, taking it all in. He could not be more pleased with how things had progressed so far. When he was ready, he looked dead into the nearest camera and flashed his blood-curdling smile. Although he couldn’t see it, he could feel the faces of millions of viewers across the world being drained of color as they looked on in horror. Finally, he spoke.
“My soon to be loyal subjects. I’ve come before you today to tell you that it’s over. Everything you have known as true in your pointless and meaningless existence is now irrelevant. That’s the bad news. And for all of you, that’s the only news. The good news is for me and me alone, and it is that mine is the only will that matters. My desires are commandments; my whims your new laws. But I like to keep things simple, so we will start with just one rule: please me or die. We will begin this new era with a simple task. Every elected official in this country is now unemployed. To eliminate any and all reminders of your former regime all national, state, and local assembly houses will be burned to the ground by midnight tonight. But if any town should fail to complete this task, fear not. I will accomplish it myself by relocating one of my remaining nuclear devices to beneath any house still standing. This will also have the unfortunate side effect, from your perspective at least, of rendering the entire city and most of the county it resides in, to radioactive ash. Some of you may not be familiar with the fine art of arson, so I believe a little demonstration is in order. The room I currently stand in will be set ablaze in precisely 30 seconds. I would advise all of my newly unemployed friends before me to vacate the premises immediately if they value their lives. To those of you watching at home, you may enjoy the show until the cameras burn and the video feed cuts out. Rest assured that you will be hearing from me again shortly. I’ve enjoyed our time together today.”
And with that he walked slowly down from the podium and back up the aisle. Everyone in the room was frozen. Was he really about to burn down the Capitol building? When he reached the door he paused and uttered just two syllables. He didn’t even turn around when he said them.
“Tick. Tock.”
And then he was gone.
The Senators just continued to stare at one another, but seconds later all the doors to the Senate floor flew open and a swarm of Molotov cocktails and makeshift explosive devices exploded into the chamber. This was enough to shake everyone from their daze and disbelief. Screams echoed through the room as smoke began to darken the air and everyone made a mad dash for the exits. Those who made it out alive did so just in time to turn around, look up, and see the dome of the Capitol collapse in on itself.
The delusions were now all over and the blame game was at an end. Suddenly, there was tremendous clarity on exactly who was to blame, who was in charge, and just how much trouble everybody was in.
Chapter 3
The next day the Doctor and a team of his closest henchmen paid a visit to the White House to relieve the President personally but at this point it really was just a formality. The President had fled in Air Force One during the night as thousands of amateur arsonists across the country sought to fulfill the Doctor’s orders. The Doctor found the house largely deserted, but that was just fine with him. He’d find and kill the President later of course, for denying him the pleasure of seeing him officially cede all power over to him in person. He’d also been hoping for some high quality groveling, and maybe even some tears. But still, the goal for the day had been to capture and move into the White House and it had been accomplished so all was still going to plan. The fact that it had been done with minimal bloodshed (they’d found a few pesky Secret Service agents still milling about and taken care of them) was regrettable but not catastrophic. He needed to keep reminding himself that there would still be plenty more time for massacres in the days ahead. One cannot commit genocide every day. One needs to rest up from time to time.
He threw open the doors to the Oval Office and couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of satisfaction. He walked easily behind the desk and sat in the plush leather reclining chair.
“Now,” he thought, “we can really begin.”
And begin he did. Since that day he had been more or less the undisputed ruler of the planet. Once he had officially gained access to the US military and, along with it, its nuclear arsenal, he was able to practice his own special brand of Destructo diplomacy(3). It’s amazing how smooth negotiations can go when you don’t have to worry about pesky things like “good faith” and you have the threat of nuclear annihilation to dangle over the opposition’s head like a guillotine. His terms were simple: do whatever I ask, whenever I ask and live, maybe. Oh sure, there were the few odd countries who decided that The Doctor was bluffing and refused. He quickly proved them wrong. In the end, it took less than a year for him to be recognized, unequivocally and without exception, as the sole ruler of the world.
The Doctor looked back on those early days fondly. For the first few months he filled his days simply wandering around and making people bow to him. Oh sure he had to decapitate the odd prideful individual who refused but that wasn’t viewed as much of a chore. Hell, that was half the fun! One of his first orders of business was some major renovations to the White House. The front lawn had been transformed into a giant man-made lagoon that was filled with blood. Rumors, which he not only didn’t dispel but actively encouraged, were that he had filled the lagoon by slaughtering people. In fact, the “volunteers” who gave their blood were actually treated quite well. It wasn’t a question of proper treatment, it was simply a question of mathematics. Killing a person and draining them yields you 10 pints one time. But keep them alive and relatively healthy and you can get a pint per week out of them for as long as you need it. He affectionately (in as much as he was capable of such an emotion) referred to them as “my blood cows.” Once completed he surrounded the lagoon with tiki torches because, well, nothing complements a blood-filled lagoon quite like tiki torches.
But the piece de resistance, the thing that really tied the rehab together thematically, was the entrance. Gone were the stately columns of the foyer. In their place was a 50-foot façade of a giant skull, with flames in the eye sockets and the entrance through the mouth.
Most nights those early days, he fell asleep laughing. A cold and mechanical laugh that sent chills down the spines of anyone within earshot. For a long time, he was content. Completely and utterly content.
And then, very slowly, something started to change. So slowly in fact, that he was able to deny its existence for quite some time. But eventually he had to face it head on. Here was the thing he hadn’t been prepared for. It came to him in an odd way. He suddenly had a very vivid image of the last scene of the film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Mr. Wonka tells Charlie “Don’t forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything that he always wanted.” Charlie asks “what happened?” and Wonka’s reply is “He lived happily ever after.”
Only now The Doctor knew the real answer to that, and he was filled with bile at the thought. So much so that he wished Gene Wilder hadn’t been killed in the LA nuclear blast so he could hunt him down and kill him again.
What happens to the man who suddenly gets everything he ever wanted?
He ends up being bored out of his fucking mind.
Ironically, at just the moment that this thought finally crystallized in his head, Doctor Destructo stopped being bored. Because at just that moment he suddenly found a very sharp knife pressed against his throat.
(3) - Patent Pending
Had the greater U.S. population not been distracted by their fixation on blaming the local authorities, they could have simply stayed home, tuned into C-SPAN (one of the few stations still broadcasting) and gotten all the information that they needed. They would have been watching when, the day after Los Angeles was incinerated, the Doctor arrived in Washington, D.C. They would have seen him walk into the U.S. Capitol building, open up his jacket, and reveal that the large trigger button in the middle of his chest was wired directly to his heart. The second his heart stopped beating, all 98 (really 38) remaining nuclear weapons would be triggered instantly.
He demanded the floor on the Senate. When he met some initial resistance, he calmly pulled out his cell phone, punched in a few numbers, and a few seconds later Syracuse, NY became a crater. That was the last resistance he encountered.
A sea of ghostly pale faces belonging to men and women who just days earlier believed themselves to be among the most powerful people in the world stared silently as he strode down the aisle of the Senate floor and stood behind the podium. He faced his captive audience, turning slowly from side to side, taking it all in. He could not be more pleased with how things had progressed so far. When he was ready, he looked dead into the nearest camera and flashed his blood-curdling smile. Although he couldn’t see it, he could feel the faces of millions of viewers across the world being drained of color as they looked on in horror. Finally, he spoke.
“My soon to be loyal subjects. I’ve come before you today to tell you that it’s over. Everything you have known as true in your pointless and meaningless existence is now irrelevant. That’s the bad news. And for all of you, that’s the only news. The good news is for me and me alone, and it is that mine is the only will that matters. My desires are commandments; my whims your new laws. But I like to keep things simple, so we will start with just one rule: please me or die. We will begin this new era with a simple task. Every elected official in this country is now unemployed. To eliminate any and all reminders of your former regime all national, state, and local assembly houses will be burned to the ground by midnight tonight. But if any town should fail to complete this task, fear not. I will accomplish it myself by relocating one of my remaining nuclear devices to beneath any house still standing. This will also have the unfortunate side effect, from your perspective at least, of rendering the entire city and most of the county it resides in, to radioactive ash. Some of you may not be familiar with the fine art of arson, so I believe a little demonstration is in order. The room I currently stand in will be set ablaze in precisely 30 seconds. I would advise all of my newly unemployed friends before me to vacate the premises immediately if they value their lives. To those of you watching at home, you may enjoy the show until the cameras burn and the video feed cuts out. Rest assured that you will be hearing from me again shortly. I’ve enjoyed our time together today.”
And with that he walked slowly down from the podium and back up the aisle. Everyone in the room was frozen. Was he really about to burn down the Capitol building? When he reached the door he paused and uttered just two syllables. He didn’t even turn around when he said them.
“Tick. Tock.”
And then he was gone.
The Senators just continued to stare at one another, but seconds later all the doors to the Senate floor flew open and a swarm of Molotov cocktails and makeshift explosive devices exploded into the chamber. This was enough to shake everyone from their daze and disbelief. Screams echoed through the room as smoke began to darken the air and everyone made a mad dash for the exits. Those who made it out alive did so just in time to turn around, look up, and see the dome of the Capitol collapse in on itself.
The delusions were now all over and the blame game was at an end. Suddenly, there was tremendous clarity on exactly who was to blame, who was in charge, and just how much trouble everybody was in.
Chapter 3
The next day the Doctor and a team of his closest henchmen paid a visit to the White House to relieve the President personally but at this point it really was just a formality. The President had fled in Air Force One during the night as thousands of amateur arsonists across the country sought to fulfill the Doctor’s orders. The Doctor found the house largely deserted, but that was just fine with him. He’d find and kill the President later of course, for denying him the pleasure of seeing him officially cede all power over to him in person. He’d also been hoping for some high quality groveling, and maybe even some tears. But still, the goal for the day had been to capture and move into the White House and it had been accomplished so all was still going to plan. The fact that it had been done with minimal bloodshed (they’d found a few pesky Secret Service agents still milling about and taken care of them) was regrettable but not catastrophic. He needed to keep reminding himself that there would still be plenty more time for massacres in the days ahead. One cannot commit genocide every day. One needs to rest up from time to time.
He threw open the doors to the Oval Office and couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of satisfaction. He walked easily behind the desk and sat in the plush leather reclining chair.
“Now,” he thought, “we can really begin.”
And begin he did. Since that day he had been more or less the undisputed ruler of the planet. Once he had officially gained access to the US military and, along with it, its nuclear arsenal, he was able to practice his own special brand of Destructo diplomacy(3). It’s amazing how smooth negotiations can go when you don’t have to worry about pesky things like “good faith” and you have the threat of nuclear annihilation to dangle over the opposition’s head like a guillotine. His terms were simple: do whatever I ask, whenever I ask and live, maybe. Oh sure, there were the few odd countries who decided that The Doctor was bluffing and refused. He quickly proved them wrong. In the end, it took less than a year for him to be recognized, unequivocally and without exception, as the sole ruler of the world.
The Doctor looked back on those early days fondly. For the first few months he filled his days simply wandering around and making people bow to him. Oh sure he had to decapitate the odd prideful individual who refused but that wasn’t viewed as much of a chore. Hell, that was half the fun! One of his first orders of business was some major renovations to the White House. The front lawn had been transformed into a giant man-made lagoon that was filled with blood. Rumors, which he not only didn’t dispel but actively encouraged, were that he had filled the lagoon by slaughtering people. In fact, the “volunteers” who gave their blood were actually treated quite well. It wasn’t a question of proper treatment, it was simply a question of mathematics. Killing a person and draining them yields you 10 pints one time. But keep them alive and relatively healthy and you can get a pint per week out of them for as long as you need it. He affectionately (in as much as he was capable of such an emotion) referred to them as “my blood cows.” Once completed he surrounded the lagoon with tiki torches because, well, nothing complements a blood-filled lagoon quite like tiki torches.
But the piece de resistance, the thing that really tied the rehab together thematically, was the entrance. Gone were the stately columns of the foyer. In their place was a 50-foot façade of a giant skull, with flames in the eye sockets and the entrance through the mouth.
Most nights those early days, he fell asleep laughing. A cold and mechanical laugh that sent chills down the spines of anyone within earshot. For a long time, he was content. Completely and utterly content.
And then, very slowly, something started to change. So slowly in fact, that he was able to deny its existence for quite some time. But eventually he had to face it head on. Here was the thing he hadn’t been prepared for. It came to him in an odd way. He suddenly had a very vivid image of the last scene of the film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Mr. Wonka tells Charlie “Don’t forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything that he always wanted.” Charlie asks “what happened?” and Wonka’s reply is “He lived happily ever after.”
Only now The Doctor knew the real answer to that, and he was filled with bile at the thought. So much so that he wished Gene Wilder hadn’t been killed in the LA nuclear blast so he could hunt him down and kill him again.
What happens to the man who suddenly gets everything he ever wanted?
He ends up being bored out of his fucking mind.
Ironically, at just the moment that this thought finally crystallized in his head, Doctor Destructo stopped being bored. Because at just that moment he suddenly found a very sharp knife pressed against his throat.
(3) - Patent Pending
Friday, May 06, 2011
Evil Genius (Part 5)
Author's note: This section, and subsequent sections, contain a couple footnotes. Superscripts and footnotes are not something the blogosphere handles well (or at least I don't know how to use them) so where applicable you'll just see a regular number in parentheses and then the note will be at the end of the post. Just didn't want to confuse anyone. On with the show!
Part 2: The Aftermath
Chapter 1
Ivan was not prepared for this, and the shock of that alone was almost enough to knock him over. He was never unprepared. Never. If there was one thing he had been known for since his youth it was his deliberate, meticulous, almost obsessive-compulsive attention-to-detail planning (some would argue that there was no ‘almost’ about it). The very idea that there was a contingency that he hadn’t planned for kept him awake night after night. He simply couldn’t sleep until he had convinced the rest of his mind that he truly had every angle covered. But now as he leaned back in his reclining leather office chair that sat behind the blood-splattered desk of the White House’s oval office, he reflected back on the events of the previous 6 months and wondered how he had possibly failed to account for this.
After vanquishing Captain Invincible(1) everything had pretty much fallen into place just as he had planned. He quickly revealed to the world, via an internet video that was quickly picked up by the major networks, that his nuclear surprise in the U.S. heartland was by no means a solitary phenomenon. He divulged that he had over 100 other nuclear weapons at his disposal, all strategically hidden beneath major population centers throughout the world. In truth he had only about 40, and about half of those were not exactly positioned amidst large urban throngs (unless one considers Fruitland, Idaho to be a burgeoning metropolis). Nevertheless, no one was in a position to dispute his claim and, following a brief demonstration, an accurate inventory became the furthest thing from people’s minds. He had always had a particular disdain for L.A. and the greater Southern California area. Not necessarily for the shallowness and greed that it represented; he was actually a big fan of that aspect. It’s just that he’d always hated the motivations of a group of people who, it seemed, wished to spend as much of their time as humanly possible standing around getting cooked by the sun. He decided that it was really just a tremendous service to increase their ultraviolet radiation exposure by a few thousand orders of magnitude. Sure, they might all be cadavers and piles of ash, but man did they have a nice healthy tan!
After incinerating the city, he quickly discovered that although the capital of the U.S. might be listed as Washington D.C., almost everything that mattered to most of the general population occurred on studio lots and in recording studios in the City of Angels. Even after the death of Captain Invincible, there were a lot of people that found it surprisingly easy to ignore him. They considered his presence a problem for the politicians or possibly the army, if it came to that. The most important thing was that it certainly wasn’t their concern. After all, they had families to feed, bills to pay, and sports to watch. They couldn’t be expected to drop everything and worry about the health of the country and the world every time a super villain got his hands on a few dozen nuclear warheads. When every news show in the country was broadcasting his video, a lot of people simply changed the channel or headed out to the movies. But once that mushroom cloud ballooned over LA, everything changed. Once people realized that the one movie they had waited for all summer was now in fact never going to be released, all future episodes of Lost were just that, and that Us Weekly had just lost its entire subject matter, everyone found it suddenly very hard to be distracted.
So naturally they did the thing that, as Americans, came most naturally to them. They started blaming people. Namely, anyone and everyone that would listen, or at least pretend to. With tremendous efficiency the blame recipient would then waste no time in calmly explaining that they had in fact done all that they could and it was in reality someone else’s fault because either a) it really didn’t fall under their jurisdiction or b) someone else had not provided the support that was desperately needed at the critical hour. This process was repeated ad nauseam until it reached a high enough level where the individual being blamed was sufficiently insulated from public outcry that they could safely proclaim that it wasn’t at all their fault, and anyone who thought it was could go straight to hell. At which point the proceedings would begin again with another low-level blame target, and round and round it went in that phenomenon of modern civilization whereby a problem gets tremendous exposure followed by seemingly endless debate and in the end absolutely nothing is accomplished.
People first began to blame the Soviet Union for not taking better care of their weapons arsenal. After all, most of the world’s nuclear weapons that were presently unaccounted for originated with them. This had shades of actual logic, and in fact it was right here at the start that the general population was closest to blaming the right people, at least in terms of actual responsibility. However, given that the Soviet Union had been disbanded for the better part of 20 years, this left everyone a little less than satisfied. Given the choice, people find it far more preferable to yell at someone that at least has the capability of yelling back. This is not at all out of a sense of nobility that it is not right to attack those that cannot defend themselves, but instead probably arises from a rudimentary understanding that those no longer in existence cannot be sued, voted out of office, or lynched. It would be a bit like the citizens of Atlanta still screaming at General Sherman for burning their town to the ground during the Civil War. Given that many citizens of Atlanta still actually do scream at General Sherman to not burn their town to the ground, it would probably be in the best interest of the greater Georgian population to reread this paragraph.
After the Soviet Union scapegoat turned into a dead end, the next target became the Decatur power plant that Dr. Destructo had infiltrated and where Captain Invincible had met his doom(2). First the head of security was paraded out to answer questions of how the Doctor had managed to infiltrate what undoubtedly should have been top notch security. The head of security responded that he was merely an administrator at the plant and that the job of plant security had actually been fully transferred to municipal law enforcement several years ago. Then the local Chief of police came out to say that due to budget cuts they had been unable to upgrade security equipment since approximately 1986 and had even had to let their best trained and consequently highest paid guards go in favor of mainly 18-year-old high school dropouts that had somehow managed to pass a GED equivalency exam.
Next the mayor came out to answer questions about why the budget had been cut so severely, and he responded that it had been on referendums that the citizens of Decatur themselves had proposed and voted for. Since most of the residents of Decatur had been incinerated, this was not at all a popular response. The fact that it was the truth did not dissuade those offering a dissenting opinion. Many accused the mayor of dancing on the graves of those dearly departed and of being a corrupt good-old boy (he was 27), who had no education (he had a B.S. in Psychology from Southern Illinois and a Law Degree from Northwestern), and anyway he was the one responsible for what referendums ended up on the ballot (he wasn’t). However, sensing a dead end here (at least until the next election), the metaphorical angry mob of less-than-ethical journalists and blame-mongerers went off to find a way to tie the state legislature and, hopefully, the governor into the disaster.
At the same time that this was going on in Decatur, all across the country people wanted to know what their local government was going to do to make sure that this catastrophe didn’t happen there. How good was the security? What progress had been made on finding out if there was a nuclear warhead under their town? Was marshall law being declared? Did all citizens have the right to arm themselves? When was Bravo going to be back on the air? This line of questions followed the Decatur blame model as well, until finally communities in every state across the country were ready to bring their grievances to their state capitals and Washington D.C.
But by that time, there was no state or national Representatives to hear them. Dr. Destructo had disbanded them.
(1) - When you have been the cause of death of a super-hero, and especially one you consider to be your arch-enemy, the appropriate terminology is always “vanquish”. Only if one wishes to trivialize his importance is it acceptable to use “dispatch”. This is not advised, however, if his death has been achieved only after multiple attempts, as it has the undesired effect of making you appear weak.
(2) - In this context, “met his doom” is also acceptable
Part 2: The Aftermath
Chapter 1
Ivan was not prepared for this, and the shock of that alone was almost enough to knock him over. He was never unprepared. Never. If there was one thing he had been known for since his youth it was his deliberate, meticulous, almost obsessive-compulsive attention-to-detail planning (some would argue that there was no ‘almost’ about it). The very idea that there was a contingency that he hadn’t planned for kept him awake night after night. He simply couldn’t sleep until he had convinced the rest of his mind that he truly had every angle covered. But now as he leaned back in his reclining leather office chair that sat behind the blood-splattered desk of the White House’s oval office, he reflected back on the events of the previous 6 months and wondered how he had possibly failed to account for this.
After vanquishing Captain Invincible(1) everything had pretty much fallen into place just as he had planned. He quickly revealed to the world, via an internet video that was quickly picked up by the major networks, that his nuclear surprise in the U.S. heartland was by no means a solitary phenomenon. He divulged that he had over 100 other nuclear weapons at his disposal, all strategically hidden beneath major population centers throughout the world. In truth he had only about 40, and about half of those were not exactly positioned amidst large urban throngs (unless one considers Fruitland, Idaho to be a burgeoning metropolis). Nevertheless, no one was in a position to dispute his claim and, following a brief demonstration, an accurate inventory became the furthest thing from people’s minds. He had always had a particular disdain for L.A. and the greater Southern California area. Not necessarily for the shallowness and greed that it represented; he was actually a big fan of that aspect. It’s just that he’d always hated the motivations of a group of people who, it seemed, wished to spend as much of their time as humanly possible standing around getting cooked by the sun. He decided that it was really just a tremendous service to increase their ultraviolet radiation exposure by a few thousand orders of magnitude. Sure, they might all be cadavers and piles of ash, but man did they have a nice healthy tan!
After incinerating the city, he quickly discovered that although the capital of the U.S. might be listed as Washington D.C., almost everything that mattered to most of the general population occurred on studio lots and in recording studios in the City of Angels. Even after the death of Captain Invincible, there were a lot of people that found it surprisingly easy to ignore him. They considered his presence a problem for the politicians or possibly the army, if it came to that. The most important thing was that it certainly wasn’t their concern. After all, they had families to feed, bills to pay, and sports to watch. They couldn’t be expected to drop everything and worry about the health of the country and the world every time a super villain got his hands on a few dozen nuclear warheads. When every news show in the country was broadcasting his video, a lot of people simply changed the channel or headed out to the movies. But once that mushroom cloud ballooned over LA, everything changed. Once people realized that the one movie they had waited for all summer was now in fact never going to be released, all future episodes of Lost were just that, and that Us Weekly had just lost its entire subject matter, everyone found it suddenly very hard to be distracted.
So naturally they did the thing that, as Americans, came most naturally to them. They started blaming people. Namely, anyone and everyone that would listen, or at least pretend to. With tremendous efficiency the blame recipient would then waste no time in calmly explaining that they had in fact done all that they could and it was in reality someone else’s fault because either a) it really didn’t fall under their jurisdiction or b) someone else had not provided the support that was desperately needed at the critical hour. This process was repeated ad nauseam until it reached a high enough level where the individual being blamed was sufficiently insulated from public outcry that they could safely proclaim that it wasn’t at all their fault, and anyone who thought it was could go straight to hell. At which point the proceedings would begin again with another low-level blame target, and round and round it went in that phenomenon of modern civilization whereby a problem gets tremendous exposure followed by seemingly endless debate and in the end absolutely nothing is accomplished.
People first began to blame the Soviet Union for not taking better care of their weapons arsenal. After all, most of the world’s nuclear weapons that were presently unaccounted for originated with them. This had shades of actual logic, and in fact it was right here at the start that the general population was closest to blaming the right people, at least in terms of actual responsibility. However, given that the Soviet Union had been disbanded for the better part of 20 years, this left everyone a little less than satisfied. Given the choice, people find it far more preferable to yell at someone that at least has the capability of yelling back. This is not at all out of a sense of nobility that it is not right to attack those that cannot defend themselves, but instead probably arises from a rudimentary understanding that those no longer in existence cannot be sued, voted out of office, or lynched. It would be a bit like the citizens of Atlanta still screaming at General Sherman for burning their town to the ground during the Civil War. Given that many citizens of Atlanta still actually do scream at General Sherman to not burn their town to the ground, it would probably be in the best interest of the greater Georgian population to reread this paragraph.
After the Soviet Union scapegoat turned into a dead end, the next target became the Decatur power plant that Dr. Destructo had infiltrated and where Captain Invincible had met his doom(2). First the head of security was paraded out to answer questions of how the Doctor had managed to infiltrate what undoubtedly should have been top notch security. The head of security responded that he was merely an administrator at the plant and that the job of plant security had actually been fully transferred to municipal law enforcement several years ago. Then the local Chief of police came out to say that due to budget cuts they had been unable to upgrade security equipment since approximately 1986 and had even had to let their best trained and consequently highest paid guards go in favor of mainly 18-year-old high school dropouts that had somehow managed to pass a GED equivalency exam.
Next the mayor came out to answer questions about why the budget had been cut so severely, and he responded that it had been on referendums that the citizens of Decatur themselves had proposed and voted for. Since most of the residents of Decatur had been incinerated, this was not at all a popular response. The fact that it was the truth did not dissuade those offering a dissenting opinion. Many accused the mayor of dancing on the graves of those dearly departed and of being a corrupt good-old boy (he was 27), who had no education (he had a B.S. in Psychology from Southern Illinois and a Law Degree from Northwestern), and anyway he was the one responsible for what referendums ended up on the ballot (he wasn’t). However, sensing a dead end here (at least until the next election), the metaphorical angry mob of less-than-ethical journalists and blame-mongerers went off to find a way to tie the state legislature and, hopefully, the governor into the disaster.
At the same time that this was going on in Decatur, all across the country people wanted to know what their local government was going to do to make sure that this catastrophe didn’t happen there. How good was the security? What progress had been made on finding out if there was a nuclear warhead under their town? Was marshall law being declared? Did all citizens have the right to arm themselves? When was Bravo going to be back on the air? This line of questions followed the Decatur blame model as well, until finally communities in every state across the country were ready to bring their grievances to their state capitals and Washington D.C.
But by that time, there was no state or national Representatives to hear them. Dr. Destructo had disbanded them.
(1) - When you have been the cause of death of a super-hero, and especially one you consider to be your arch-enemy, the appropriate terminology is always “vanquish”. Only if one wishes to trivialize his importance is it acceptable to use “dispatch”. This is not advised, however, if his death has been achieved only after multiple attempts, as it has the undesired effect of making you appear weak.
(2) - In this context, “met his doom” is also acceptable
Friday, April 29, 2011
Evil Genius (Part 4)
Chapter 5
Megan and Terry lay next to each other in a post-coital embrace, passing a cigarette between them. He knew that she was going to attempt to pry information out of him now, but he was fine with that. It just came with the territory when you were involved with a journalist. The amusing part of it was that she always approached him after sex, figuring that he was most vulnerable and thus susceptible to reveal more intimate details then. The reality was that he would decide far in advance what he would and would not share with her, but he always held out because he knew she’d end up sleeping with him. It was a nice little dynamic they had worked out.
She rolled over onto one side and looked up at him. Here it comes, he thought. He was right.
“So what’s going on with you? What is it the Doctor is planning this time?” She asked, attempting innocence. She was very convincing and if he had not already been prepared for it, he probably would have been fooled.
“Not sure.” He replied. And that was actually the truth. “That’s what’s got me worried. He’s usually so straightforward with his intentions and demands. But not this time. He is being very cryptic.”
“What do you mean?” She asked, with genuine curiosity now.
“Well, neither I or anyone else has heard anything from him in over 2 years, and all of a sudden from out of nowhere I get a message from him yesterday saying that I have to meet him at some nuclear power plant in the middle of rural Illinois and that if I don’t he will remove the control rods and cause a meltdown in the reactor.”
“Oh my god! Do you think he can really do it?” She was getting a little worried now. She always got worried when he told her about the evil schemes of these lunatics.
“Well, all we’ve been able to confirm so far is that he has indeed taken control of the plant and has punched holes in the containment building. We have to assume that either he or more likely someone he has hired knows how to trigger a meltdown.” He got up and started gathering up his clothes. It was time to get ready.
“What kind of casualties are we looking at if he succeeds?” She asked. Casualties. She was back in journalism mode. He was surprised she hadn’t referred to it as “collateral damage”.
“Well, that’s pretty tricky, actually. People hear the word 'nuclear' and they instantly think 'nuclear bomb'. But a power plant’s not like that. There’s not going to be a huge explosion that’s gonna vaporize people like at Hiroshima. But what will happen if he goes through with it is the creation of a huge cloud of radiation that will escape into the atmosphere. How much damage that does will depend a lot on which way the wind is blowing and how long it drifts before it hits a major population center. If we’re lucky, there will only be a couple hundred deaths. If he’s lucky, it could be a couple hundred thousand or more.”
“My God! So what are you gonna do?”
“What else can I do? I’m not gonna just let him kill all those people. I can’t take the risk that the winds will favor us.”
“But what if it’s a trap?” She was pleading with him now. The journalist was gone again and was being replaced by a semi-hysterical woman that didn’t want her man going headlong into danger.
“Oh, I’m sure it IS a trap, but I don’t have a choice. I’ve got to find out what he’s up to, and this is the only way.”
She was silent. She just sat there looking at him with a slight frown. He supposed it was a kind of pout, but if it was designed to make him reconsider it wasn’t working. She was very important to him, that was true, but this was something far more important. She just lay there in silence as he finished dressing. Then, he sat down and looked back at her, trying to look gentle and stern at the same time.
“Alright Meg, I gotta go.” He said, preparing to battle against her last minute pleadings, but none came.
“I know” is all she said.
He walked over and kissed her, lightly at first and then with a deepness that surprised them both. He had left her on dangerous and important missions before, but somehow this just felt different. That uneasy feeling came back to him again. At last he pulled away from her and brushed his hand lightly against the side of her face as he walked away. As he reached the bedroom door, she called after him.
“Terry” He turned to face her. “Come back to me quickly, OK?”
“Of course, babe” He said, as easily as he could manage. “There's nothing to worry about.”
But nothing could be further from the truth.
Chapter 6
A crimson and blue halo surrounded the nuclear plant in Decatur, IL. Every available police car within 100 miles had turned up to create a perimeter. And since just about every citizen within 100 miles had turned up as well, they were pretty much all available. The fact that a large civilian crowd had decided to crowd around a nuclear power plant that was under the control of a madman might seem unusual. But the people knew they weren’t in any real danger. They knew that Captain Invincible was en route and would have the situation resolved in no time. Their faith was such that their number one fear was failing to get a glimpse of their hero as he majestically arrived on the scene. Total annihilation via gamma rays was a distant second. Public speaking was third.
A great cheer went up as a small bright comet became visible in the eastern sky. No had ever asked the Captain if the light he emitted during flight was a natural by-product of whatever miraculous process gave him his gift or if he just did it for effect. In truth it was a little of both. The friction caused by his body skipping across the atmosphere like a stone created a natural incandescence, but he had the power to either maximize or minimize its effects. Tonight, as with most nights, he chose to maximize it. But unlike most nights, tonight he did it to portray the kind of confidence that he did not feel.
From about 30 miles out he had spotted what appeared to be the biggest hub of police cars and landed there. He was greeted immediately by a heavyset middle-aged officer in blue.
“Captain! Thank god you’re here! We’ve got a madman . . .”
The Captain raised his right hand to interrupt the officer.
“Yes officer, I was briefed on the situation in New York. Anything changed in the last 20 minutes?”
“No sir. He holed himself up in there yesterday, demanded to see you, and hasn’t said a word since.”
“Any casualties?”
“Unknown. We’ve reviewed the exterior surveillance cameras and the only thing we know is that no one’s come in or out of the facility since he entered it sometime after 11 yesterday.”
“Do we have any surveillance inside?”
“Negative. One of the first things he did was disable all the cameras. That’s actually how we first found out something was wrong.” The officer paused briefly and looked off towards the plant, and then back at the Captain. “What do you suppose he’s up to?”
The Captain thought for a moment, then slowly shook his head.
“Not sure. But you can bet I’m going to find out.”
And with that he started walking slowly but purposefully towards the plant entrance. The officer pleaded after him.
“Wait! Captain! What if it’s a trap?” But the Captain just kept moving.
The wail of the sirens was replaced by the hum of the power plant as the Captain drew nearer to the entrance. The rounded dome of the containment building, which had seemed so insignificantly small from 1000 feet up, now rose up and seemed to double in size with every few steps. He hesitated for just a moment as he reached the doors ,placed his steel fists on the handle, and took a deep breath. A sudden fury erupted inside of him and with a mighty swing of his arm he sent the two metal entry doors flying into the interior of the plant. He stepped inside.
“Doctor!” He boomed. “I am here!”
“That’s absolutely perfect.” A voice over the intercom replied. “Because I’m not.”
And with that a small atomic bomb planted in the bowels of the nuclear plant erupted. Captain Invincible, the police at the plant, the adoring crowd, and everyone and everything within a radius of 30 miles was vaporized instantaneously.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: So, what happened to Captain Invincible?
A: He’s dead.
Q: Dead dead?
A: Yes
Q: Really?
A: Yes
Q: OK, but it’s one of those things where he’s in some kind of cryogenic freeze while his body regenerates itself, right?
A: No, it’s one of those not breathing, no longer living, completely vaporized kind of things.
Q: Come on!
A: That’s not a question.
Q: I don’t believe it.
A: Fine. He still is.
Q: Ok, so he’s dead. But it’s a death where he needs the kiss of his true love to resurrect him, or something like that right?
A: Are you high? He’s been vaporized! There’s not even anything left to kiss.
Q: OK, so let me get this straight. He’s really dead-dead and is in no way, shape, or form in any kind of healing process and can’t be resurrected in any way?
A: Right
Q: So how does he come back?
A: I hate you.
Megan and Terry lay next to each other in a post-coital embrace, passing a cigarette between them. He knew that she was going to attempt to pry information out of him now, but he was fine with that. It just came with the territory when you were involved with a journalist. The amusing part of it was that she always approached him after sex, figuring that he was most vulnerable and thus susceptible to reveal more intimate details then. The reality was that he would decide far in advance what he would and would not share with her, but he always held out because he knew she’d end up sleeping with him. It was a nice little dynamic they had worked out.
She rolled over onto one side and looked up at him. Here it comes, he thought. He was right.
“So what’s going on with you? What is it the Doctor is planning this time?” She asked, attempting innocence. She was very convincing and if he had not already been prepared for it, he probably would have been fooled.
“Not sure.” He replied. And that was actually the truth. “That’s what’s got me worried. He’s usually so straightforward with his intentions and demands. But not this time. He is being very cryptic.”
“What do you mean?” She asked, with genuine curiosity now.
“Well, neither I or anyone else has heard anything from him in over 2 years, and all of a sudden from out of nowhere I get a message from him yesterday saying that I have to meet him at some nuclear power plant in the middle of rural Illinois and that if I don’t he will remove the control rods and cause a meltdown in the reactor.”
“Oh my god! Do you think he can really do it?” She was getting a little worried now. She always got worried when he told her about the evil schemes of these lunatics.
“Well, all we’ve been able to confirm so far is that he has indeed taken control of the plant and has punched holes in the containment building. We have to assume that either he or more likely someone he has hired knows how to trigger a meltdown.” He got up and started gathering up his clothes. It was time to get ready.
“What kind of casualties are we looking at if he succeeds?” She asked. Casualties. She was back in journalism mode. He was surprised she hadn’t referred to it as “collateral damage”.
“Well, that’s pretty tricky, actually. People hear the word 'nuclear' and they instantly think 'nuclear bomb'. But a power plant’s not like that. There’s not going to be a huge explosion that’s gonna vaporize people like at Hiroshima. But what will happen if he goes through with it is the creation of a huge cloud of radiation that will escape into the atmosphere. How much damage that does will depend a lot on which way the wind is blowing and how long it drifts before it hits a major population center. If we’re lucky, there will only be a couple hundred deaths. If he’s lucky, it could be a couple hundred thousand or more.”
“My God! So what are you gonna do?”
“What else can I do? I’m not gonna just let him kill all those people. I can’t take the risk that the winds will favor us.”
“But what if it’s a trap?” She was pleading with him now. The journalist was gone again and was being replaced by a semi-hysterical woman that didn’t want her man going headlong into danger.
“Oh, I’m sure it IS a trap, but I don’t have a choice. I’ve got to find out what he’s up to, and this is the only way.”
She was silent. She just sat there looking at him with a slight frown. He supposed it was a kind of pout, but if it was designed to make him reconsider it wasn’t working. She was very important to him, that was true, but this was something far more important. She just lay there in silence as he finished dressing. Then, he sat down and looked back at her, trying to look gentle and stern at the same time.
“Alright Meg, I gotta go.” He said, preparing to battle against her last minute pleadings, but none came.
“I know” is all she said.
He walked over and kissed her, lightly at first and then with a deepness that surprised them both. He had left her on dangerous and important missions before, but somehow this just felt different. That uneasy feeling came back to him again. At last he pulled away from her and brushed his hand lightly against the side of her face as he walked away. As he reached the bedroom door, she called after him.
“Terry” He turned to face her. “Come back to me quickly, OK?”
“Of course, babe” He said, as easily as he could manage. “There's nothing to worry about.”
But nothing could be further from the truth.
Chapter 6
A crimson and blue halo surrounded the nuclear plant in Decatur, IL. Every available police car within 100 miles had turned up to create a perimeter. And since just about every citizen within 100 miles had turned up as well, they were pretty much all available. The fact that a large civilian crowd had decided to crowd around a nuclear power plant that was under the control of a madman might seem unusual. But the people knew they weren’t in any real danger. They knew that Captain Invincible was en route and would have the situation resolved in no time. Their faith was such that their number one fear was failing to get a glimpse of their hero as he majestically arrived on the scene. Total annihilation via gamma rays was a distant second. Public speaking was third.
A great cheer went up as a small bright comet became visible in the eastern sky. No had ever asked the Captain if the light he emitted during flight was a natural by-product of whatever miraculous process gave him his gift or if he just did it for effect. In truth it was a little of both. The friction caused by his body skipping across the atmosphere like a stone created a natural incandescence, but he had the power to either maximize or minimize its effects. Tonight, as with most nights, he chose to maximize it. But unlike most nights, tonight he did it to portray the kind of confidence that he did not feel.
From about 30 miles out he had spotted what appeared to be the biggest hub of police cars and landed there. He was greeted immediately by a heavyset middle-aged officer in blue.
“Captain! Thank god you’re here! We’ve got a madman . . .”
The Captain raised his right hand to interrupt the officer.
“Yes officer, I was briefed on the situation in New York. Anything changed in the last 20 minutes?”
“No sir. He holed himself up in there yesterday, demanded to see you, and hasn’t said a word since.”
“Any casualties?”
“Unknown. We’ve reviewed the exterior surveillance cameras and the only thing we know is that no one’s come in or out of the facility since he entered it sometime after 11 yesterday.”
“Do we have any surveillance inside?”
“Negative. One of the first things he did was disable all the cameras. That’s actually how we first found out something was wrong.” The officer paused briefly and looked off towards the plant, and then back at the Captain. “What do you suppose he’s up to?”
The Captain thought for a moment, then slowly shook his head.
“Not sure. But you can bet I’m going to find out.”
And with that he started walking slowly but purposefully towards the plant entrance. The officer pleaded after him.
“Wait! Captain! What if it’s a trap?” But the Captain just kept moving.
The wail of the sirens was replaced by the hum of the power plant as the Captain drew nearer to the entrance. The rounded dome of the containment building, which had seemed so insignificantly small from 1000 feet up, now rose up and seemed to double in size with every few steps. He hesitated for just a moment as he reached the doors ,placed his steel fists on the handle, and took a deep breath. A sudden fury erupted inside of him and with a mighty swing of his arm he sent the two metal entry doors flying into the interior of the plant. He stepped inside.
“Doctor!” He boomed. “I am here!”
“That’s absolutely perfect.” A voice over the intercom replied. “Because I’m not.”
And with that a small atomic bomb planted in the bowels of the nuclear plant erupted. Captain Invincible, the police at the plant, the adoring crowd, and everyone and everything within a radius of 30 miles was vaporized instantaneously.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: So, what happened to Captain Invincible?
A: He’s dead.
Q: Dead dead?
A: Yes
Q: Really?
A: Yes
Q: OK, but it’s one of those things where he’s in some kind of cryogenic freeze while his body regenerates itself, right?
A: No, it’s one of those not breathing, no longer living, completely vaporized kind of things.
Q: Come on!
A: That’s not a question.
Q: I don’t believe it.
A: Fine. He still is.
Q: Ok, so he’s dead. But it’s a death where he needs the kiss of his true love to resurrect him, or something like that right?
A: Are you high? He’s been vaporized! There’s not even anything left to kiss.
Q: OK, so let me get this straight. He’s really dead-dead and is in no way, shape, or form in any kind of healing process and can’t be resurrected in any way?
A: Right
Q: So how does he come back?
A: I hate you.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Evil Genius (Part 3)
Chapter 2
Doctor Ivan Destructo was known in various circles as The Destructor, Ivan the Wicked, or often simply as The Doctor. For a brief time he himself had lobbied for the name Ivan the Terrible, only to be informed that he had been preempted by some 450 years by a Russian czar. What exactly he was a doctor of no one knew for sure. If anyone ever did know they had long ago been disposed of, and any that thought about him long enough to wonder about it knew better than to ask him. You didn’t ask The Doctor questions, he asked you. And when he did you had essentially two choices: 1) supply him with the answer he was looking for, or 2) attempt to fake an epileptic seizure. Option 2 was seldom very effective. There were whispers (and they were only very, very quiet and careful whispers) that he in fact was not a doctor at all, and had just taken the title himself, like a rapper. In actuality, technically he was in fact a real doctor. He had actually achieved his doctorate through a series of correspondence classes from a not-very-well respected community college. In botany. That he could scarcely identify a rose when he saw one should give some idea as to the credibility of the degree-granting institution.
To anyone who didn’t know him, and that was becoming an increasingly rare phenomenon lately, he would not have appeared to be anything out of the ordinary. To the untrained eye, he would appear to be nothing more than a bald man in his late 50s or early 60s with thick black-rimmed glasses which, one could imagine, were used chiefly to decipher today’s Wall Street Journal or perhaps the current issue of Reader’s Digest. And when it was his goal to not be noticed that is exactly how he behaved; watching at a distance while appearing to be buried in a newspaper or a novel. But when he wanted to shrug off the image of normalcy; when he wanted to let the unfortunate individual before him know that he was to be taken seriously, he need only perform the simplest of actions. He would smile. And if you were standing before him when he did, you felt physically transformed. A second before you might have thought you were speaking with a feeble, middle-aged man on the brink of senility, but all delusions of that simply melted away in an instant. It wasn’t that he did anything particularly unusual when he smiled, it was all in the quiet but absolute confidence that was portrayed.
And perhaps the most frightening aspect of this confidence was how justified it was. When The Doctor decided that he required something, he did whatever was necessary to obtain it. He didn’t waste his time or energy getting angry or planning elaborate vendettas – such petty emotions were beneath him. Obstacles were to be overcome, not stressed over. The words cold and calculating were never more apt, even if they inevitably fell short of truly encapsulating the true essence of the man.
He also had little interest in celebrating his victories, namely because he didn’t see them that way. Each was merely a stepping stone; one small part of the master plan. From his earliest days knocking over liquor stores and gas stations, to the multi-million dollar operations he now routinely pulled off (effortlessly, it seemed), it had all been building to something. Everyone around him seemed to sense this too, even if they could only guess what the end-game was. It simply wasn’t possible to operate with this much efficiency and calm amidst the chaotic and turbulent criminal world unless you knew exactly what you were doing, and exactly how to do it. It’s what made him perhaps the most intriguing criminal mastermind in the world, and certainly is what made him the most feared.
Chapter 3
Terry Graham, aka Captain Invincible, looked out the window nervously and brought the cigarette to his mouth, inhaling sharply. He needed to quit, he told himself for perhaps the thousandth time. Not for his health; his superhuman body was impervious to the harmful affects of tobacco. It was just that it was such a bad example to set for the kids. That’s what his friends kept telling him, anyway.
“Superheroes don’t smoke, Terry. It’s just not natural.”
That always gave him a chuckle. He was a man blessed with the strength of at least a hundred men. Hell, maybe even a thousand; his limits hadn’t ever been sufficiently tested. He also possessed lightning quick reflexes, x-ray vision, was impervious to fire, and on the rare occasion when he had been unable to dodge a bullet intended for him, they had stung with all the force of a small piece of hail before bouncing harmlessly to the ground. Yet despite all this, it was his smoking that was “not natural”. He had been intending to quit for years now, but had basically settled into the routine of only smoking in private, when the faces of the oh-so-impressionable young children were nowhere to be found. He tended to smoke more when he was nervous. And he was VERY nervous tonight.
“What’s wrong, darling?” Megan cooed to him as she put her arms around his shoulders.
“Nothing, Meg, just work stuff.” He lied, unsuccessfully attempting to derail the line of inquiry.
“It’s that business with the Doctor, isn’t it?” She continued, as she laid her head against his back. He could feel her blonde hair against his neck, and could smell her perfume. God, she smelled good today, and it was very distracting. He pulled away and turned to face her.
“Yes it is, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.” He said, trying at the same time to convince both himself and her and failing at both.
“Of course you can handle it, dear. You can handle anything.” She tried to reassure him as she moved in closer again.
“I know that. It’s just that it’s different this time. He’s different, somehow. This plan of his is not like anything else he’s tried before, and it scares me. I don’t like surprises.”
“Well, talk to me then. We can work it out together.” She was in his arms now, with her head against his chest. He could see where this was going. Not that he was terribly upset that it was going there. He kissed her lightly on the forehead.
“OK. But not now. Later.” She looked up at him, and he kissed her passionately. Slowly, they made there way over to the bed without breaking, and made love for hours.
Chapter 4 (A Brief Aside)
This is probably a good time to mention the inherent difficulties involved with the sex lives of superheroes, particularly those, like Terry, who have been blessed with superhuman strength. With men in general, maintaining control during sex is always a dicey proposition, but with superheroes it is absolutely essential if massive injuries are to be avoided. As a point in fact, during Terry’s first sexual encounter he had momentarily got lost in the emotion of the moment, thrusted just a tad too hard, and consequently shattered the pelvis of his unfortunate partner in three places. The proceedings had ended rather abruptly then and not only was he not afforded the opportunity to redeem himself, he barely missed getting hit by a rather scathing assault lawsuit. Since that day he had always taken the utmost care to place the well being of his partner ahead of his own pleasure, with the end result being that although he still enjoyed the sexual act very much, he would have to admit that he had never really been completely fulfilled in his entire life.
And the problems were just as bad when he attempted a “solo flight”. During his early teen years, when he was just discovering the joy of artificial stimulation, one night he had gotten a hold of some particularly explicit material and had decided he was going to just let himself go and see what happened. The result of his orgasm can only be likened to a torpedo that caused such structural damage to his parents’ house that it eventually had to be condemned. As a result of both of those experiments gone awry, Terry had long ago accepted the fact that lack of sexual fulfillment was just going to have to be one of the few downsides to being a superhuman.
Just something to think about.
Doctor Ivan Destructo was known in various circles as The Destructor, Ivan the Wicked, or often simply as The Doctor. For a brief time he himself had lobbied for the name Ivan the Terrible, only to be informed that he had been preempted by some 450 years by a Russian czar. What exactly he was a doctor of no one knew for sure. If anyone ever did know they had long ago been disposed of, and any that thought about him long enough to wonder about it knew better than to ask him. You didn’t ask The Doctor questions, he asked you. And when he did you had essentially two choices: 1) supply him with the answer he was looking for, or 2) attempt to fake an epileptic seizure. Option 2 was seldom very effective. There were whispers (and they were only very, very quiet and careful whispers) that he in fact was not a doctor at all, and had just taken the title himself, like a rapper. In actuality, technically he was in fact a real doctor. He had actually achieved his doctorate through a series of correspondence classes from a not-very-well respected community college. In botany. That he could scarcely identify a rose when he saw one should give some idea as to the credibility of the degree-granting institution.
To anyone who didn’t know him, and that was becoming an increasingly rare phenomenon lately, he would not have appeared to be anything out of the ordinary. To the untrained eye, he would appear to be nothing more than a bald man in his late 50s or early 60s with thick black-rimmed glasses which, one could imagine, were used chiefly to decipher today’s Wall Street Journal or perhaps the current issue of Reader’s Digest. And when it was his goal to not be noticed that is exactly how he behaved; watching at a distance while appearing to be buried in a newspaper or a novel. But when he wanted to shrug off the image of normalcy; when he wanted to let the unfortunate individual before him know that he was to be taken seriously, he need only perform the simplest of actions. He would smile. And if you were standing before him when he did, you felt physically transformed. A second before you might have thought you were speaking with a feeble, middle-aged man on the brink of senility, but all delusions of that simply melted away in an instant. It wasn’t that he did anything particularly unusual when he smiled, it was all in the quiet but absolute confidence that was portrayed.
And perhaps the most frightening aspect of this confidence was how justified it was. When The Doctor decided that he required something, he did whatever was necessary to obtain it. He didn’t waste his time or energy getting angry or planning elaborate vendettas – such petty emotions were beneath him. Obstacles were to be overcome, not stressed over. The words cold and calculating were never more apt, even if they inevitably fell short of truly encapsulating the true essence of the man.
He also had little interest in celebrating his victories, namely because he didn’t see them that way. Each was merely a stepping stone; one small part of the master plan. From his earliest days knocking over liquor stores and gas stations, to the multi-million dollar operations he now routinely pulled off (effortlessly, it seemed), it had all been building to something. Everyone around him seemed to sense this too, even if they could only guess what the end-game was. It simply wasn’t possible to operate with this much efficiency and calm amidst the chaotic and turbulent criminal world unless you knew exactly what you were doing, and exactly how to do it. It’s what made him perhaps the most intriguing criminal mastermind in the world, and certainly is what made him the most feared.
Chapter 3
Terry Graham, aka Captain Invincible, looked out the window nervously and brought the cigarette to his mouth, inhaling sharply. He needed to quit, he told himself for perhaps the thousandth time. Not for his health; his superhuman body was impervious to the harmful affects of tobacco. It was just that it was such a bad example to set for the kids. That’s what his friends kept telling him, anyway.
“Superheroes don’t smoke, Terry. It’s just not natural.”
That always gave him a chuckle. He was a man blessed with the strength of at least a hundred men. Hell, maybe even a thousand; his limits hadn’t ever been sufficiently tested. He also possessed lightning quick reflexes, x-ray vision, was impervious to fire, and on the rare occasion when he had been unable to dodge a bullet intended for him, they had stung with all the force of a small piece of hail before bouncing harmlessly to the ground. Yet despite all this, it was his smoking that was “not natural”. He had been intending to quit for years now, but had basically settled into the routine of only smoking in private, when the faces of the oh-so-impressionable young children were nowhere to be found. He tended to smoke more when he was nervous. And he was VERY nervous tonight.
“What’s wrong, darling?” Megan cooed to him as she put her arms around his shoulders.
“Nothing, Meg, just work stuff.” He lied, unsuccessfully attempting to derail the line of inquiry.
“It’s that business with the Doctor, isn’t it?” She continued, as she laid her head against his back. He could feel her blonde hair against his neck, and could smell her perfume. God, she smelled good today, and it was very distracting. He pulled away and turned to face her.
“Yes it is, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.” He said, trying at the same time to convince both himself and her and failing at both.
“Of course you can handle it, dear. You can handle anything.” She tried to reassure him as she moved in closer again.
“I know that. It’s just that it’s different this time. He’s different, somehow. This plan of his is not like anything else he’s tried before, and it scares me. I don’t like surprises.”
“Well, talk to me then. We can work it out together.” She was in his arms now, with her head against his chest. He could see where this was going. Not that he was terribly upset that it was going there. He kissed her lightly on the forehead.
“OK. But not now. Later.” She looked up at him, and he kissed her passionately. Slowly, they made there way over to the bed without breaking, and made love for hours.
Chapter 4 (A Brief Aside)
This is probably a good time to mention the inherent difficulties involved with the sex lives of superheroes, particularly those, like Terry, who have been blessed with superhuman strength. With men in general, maintaining control during sex is always a dicey proposition, but with superheroes it is absolutely essential if massive injuries are to be avoided. As a point in fact, during Terry’s first sexual encounter he had momentarily got lost in the emotion of the moment, thrusted just a tad too hard, and consequently shattered the pelvis of his unfortunate partner in three places. The proceedings had ended rather abruptly then and not only was he not afforded the opportunity to redeem himself, he barely missed getting hit by a rather scathing assault lawsuit. Since that day he had always taken the utmost care to place the well being of his partner ahead of his own pleasure, with the end result being that although he still enjoyed the sexual act very much, he would have to admit that he had never really been completely fulfilled in his entire life.
And the problems were just as bad when he attempted a “solo flight”. During his early teen years, when he was just discovering the joy of artificial stimulation, one night he had gotten a hold of some particularly explicit material and had decided he was going to just let himself go and see what happened. The result of his orgasm can only be likened to a torpedo that caused such structural damage to his parents’ house that it eventually had to be condemned. As a result of both of those experiments gone awry, Terry had long ago accepted the fact that lack of sexual fulfillment was just going to have to be one of the few downsides to being a superhuman.
Just something to think about.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Evil Genius (Part 2)
Chapter 1
It was just after 9 A.M. on a sunny May morning when a large white van pulled up outside the First National Bank of Chicago. In a flash, five armed men in ski masks leapt out the back and inside the lobby. One of them raised his semi-automatic into the air and fired a burst at the ceiling.
“Everybody get down!” He shouted. This command was unnecessary, as it turned out, since everyone had done precisely that as soon as the shots were fired.
“Nobody does anything stupid and nobody gets hurt.” He continued, well aware of how clichéd his speech was. Some things become clichés for a reason. He waved his gun in a menacing fashion and motioned to the tellers behind the counter.
“All of you; out in front with the rest. Anybody who trips the silent alarm gets a bullet between the eyes.”
The terrified employees filed out with their hands in the air. The rest of the armed men went around the lobby to disable any cameras that were visible. They were aware that undoubtedly there would be hidden cameras as well, but it still seemed prudent to at least destroy whatever was in sight. Plus, wrecking things was fun.
Once the employees and customers were secured on the ground, the men nodded to each other. One man began emptying out the cash drawers at each teller station while two others continued to patrol the lobby; their guns trained on the hostages, ready to unload at the first sign of movement. The remaining two headed off downstairs, where the vault was located. As they descended and began to sift through the various tools and explosives they were carrying in tote bags, they looked up and noticed with equal parts confusion and excitement that the vault door was already open. They paused briefly to process this unforeseen turn of events, but only long enough to notice the 3 by 3 by 3 cubed palette of $100 bills that was visible at the vault’s rear. With the giddy excitement of a child on Christmas morning, the 2 criminals rushed headlong into the vault. They barely had time to appreciate the perfume of the thousands of crisp bills in front of them when the vault door suddenly slammed shut behind them.
Upstairs, the 3 criminals heard the crash of the vault, but mistook it for the sound of the door being blown open. It wasn’t until after they had finished collecting the contents of the cash drawers that they realized the 2 men in the vault hadn’t checked in.
“Echo one, come in” the man said into his walkie-talkie. He paused and listened. One second. Three seconds. Five seconds. Static was the only response.
“Echo one, what’s your status. Come back.”
Nothing.
“Shit”
He motioned towards another of the men.
“Bravo, get down there and find out what the problem is.”
The other man nodded and headed towards the downstairs steps and disappeared from view.
With all the teller stations bare, the two men had no choice but to wait to hear back from their recently departed cohort. And, as is wont to happen when two men who are in the middle of committing a class B felony have a few moments to themselves for quiet contemplation, they started to get nervous. Very nervous.
The two men walked towards each other and met in the center of the lobby to conference.
“Shit man, I don’t like this. We’ve already been here too long.”
“Relax; we’re still on schedule. Everything’s going to be fine.” The other man replied. Even as he spoke, he was acutely aware that he was trying to reassure himself at least as much as the other man.
“Get Bravo on the line. See what the hold up . . .” He broke off suddenly. A noise in the distance. An unmistakable and terrifyingly shrill noise. The one noise above all others they preyed they wouldn’t have to hear today. Sirens.
“Oh fuck! Go see how close they are!”
The men split up, with one heading towards the front window and the other heading towards the stairs. When he reached the top of the stairs, he screamed down: “
Echo one, Bravo we’ve been made. We’ve got to move now!”
The sirens were getting louder now. The man whirled around. “Charlie, how much time have we…”
But the other man wasn’t there anymore.
“What the hell. Charlie where the hell are you?” No response. “Charlie, if you fuckin’ bailed on me I swear I will rip your goddamn nuts off!”
Getting desperate now, he screamed into the walkie-talkie.
“Echo one, Bravo, Charlie somebody talk to me goddamn it!”
Static again.
Where the fuck could they all be? This momentary curiosity was replaced almost at once by the stark realization that wherever they were, it meant that he was now all alone. The thought hit him like ice-cold water at the base of his neck. He was standing in the middle of a bank lobby with a handful of stolen money as the cops were closing in. And he was all alone.
Suddenly, he heard a voice. A deep, booming voice that didn’t so much speak as much as emanate from the air all around him.
“Feeling a little lonely?”
The man whirled around, trying to track the source, but it was useless. The speaker, whoever he was, seemed to be everywhere all at once.
“Don’t worry; you’ll be making lots of new friends where you’re going.”
The man’s breathing quickened and he started shaking.
“Wh-wh-what the h-h-ell is going on here?” Trying to sound tough and failing miserably. “Show yourself, c-coward.”
“Alright, if you insist” the voice cheerfully replied. In front of the man a chiseled vision of steel and grey descended slowly from the ceiling. The man knew him. Everyone knew him. Captain Invincible.
“We gonna do this the easy way or the hard way?”
The man responded by opening fire from his semi-automatic. But even before he could press his finger to the trigger, the man in front of him seemed to lose physical form and become a blur of blue. Only when the clip was empty did his shape return. Not so much as a scratch was on him as he walked up to the now hysterical man.
“Ah; the easy way”
Outside, the police arrived on the scene just in time to see a man in a ski mask suddenly explode through the glass window and land on his back in the middle of the street. As the dust settled, Captain Invincible could be seen emerging through the now-shattered glass. He headed straight towards the Chief.
“Sorry about that. Meant to whip him through the revolving doors. Looks like my aim’s a little off. As usual, I’ll transfer you funds to pay for the damages. You’ll find 2 others unconscious just outside the vault and 2 more inside it.”
The Chief couldn’t help but smile. “Man, Invincible we’ve got to get you a cell phone. One of the tellers tripped the alarm but we wouldn’t have bothered if we’d have known you were already on the scene.”
“Yeah, well I enjoy the incapacitation but I prefer pickup to delivery so it’s good you’re here.”
The chief smiled again, but Captain Invincible noted a hint of fear behind the smile.
“Something wrong Chief?”
The smile melted away from the chief’s face and he inhaled deeply and nodded.
“I think you’d better come back to the station with me so I can explain. It’s the Doctor, and it’s not good.”
It was just after 9 A.M. on a sunny May morning when a large white van pulled up outside the First National Bank of Chicago. In a flash, five armed men in ski masks leapt out the back and inside the lobby. One of them raised his semi-automatic into the air and fired a burst at the ceiling.
“Everybody get down!” He shouted. This command was unnecessary, as it turned out, since everyone had done precisely that as soon as the shots were fired.
“Nobody does anything stupid and nobody gets hurt.” He continued, well aware of how clichéd his speech was. Some things become clichés for a reason. He waved his gun in a menacing fashion and motioned to the tellers behind the counter.
“All of you; out in front with the rest. Anybody who trips the silent alarm gets a bullet between the eyes.”
The terrified employees filed out with their hands in the air. The rest of the armed men went around the lobby to disable any cameras that were visible. They were aware that undoubtedly there would be hidden cameras as well, but it still seemed prudent to at least destroy whatever was in sight. Plus, wrecking things was fun.
Once the employees and customers were secured on the ground, the men nodded to each other. One man began emptying out the cash drawers at each teller station while two others continued to patrol the lobby; their guns trained on the hostages, ready to unload at the first sign of movement. The remaining two headed off downstairs, where the vault was located. As they descended and began to sift through the various tools and explosives they were carrying in tote bags, they looked up and noticed with equal parts confusion and excitement that the vault door was already open. They paused briefly to process this unforeseen turn of events, but only long enough to notice the 3 by 3 by 3 cubed palette of $100 bills that was visible at the vault’s rear. With the giddy excitement of a child on Christmas morning, the 2 criminals rushed headlong into the vault. They barely had time to appreciate the perfume of the thousands of crisp bills in front of them when the vault door suddenly slammed shut behind them.
Upstairs, the 3 criminals heard the crash of the vault, but mistook it for the sound of the door being blown open. It wasn’t until after they had finished collecting the contents of the cash drawers that they realized the 2 men in the vault hadn’t checked in.
“Echo one, come in” the man said into his walkie-talkie. He paused and listened. One second. Three seconds. Five seconds. Static was the only response.
“Echo one, what’s your status. Come back.”
Nothing.
“Shit”
He motioned towards another of the men.
“Bravo, get down there and find out what the problem is.”
The other man nodded and headed towards the downstairs steps and disappeared from view.
With all the teller stations bare, the two men had no choice but to wait to hear back from their recently departed cohort. And, as is wont to happen when two men who are in the middle of committing a class B felony have a few moments to themselves for quiet contemplation, they started to get nervous. Very nervous.
The two men walked towards each other and met in the center of the lobby to conference.
“Shit man, I don’t like this. We’ve already been here too long.”
“Relax; we’re still on schedule. Everything’s going to be fine.” The other man replied. Even as he spoke, he was acutely aware that he was trying to reassure himself at least as much as the other man.
“Get Bravo on the line. See what the hold up . . .” He broke off suddenly. A noise in the distance. An unmistakable and terrifyingly shrill noise. The one noise above all others they preyed they wouldn’t have to hear today. Sirens.
“Oh fuck! Go see how close they are!”
The men split up, with one heading towards the front window and the other heading towards the stairs. When he reached the top of the stairs, he screamed down: “
Echo one, Bravo we’ve been made. We’ve got to move now!”
The sirens were getting louder now. The man whirled around. “Charlie, how much time have we…”
But the other man wasn’t there anymore.
“What the hell. Charlie where the hell are you?” No response. “Charlie, if you fuckin’ bailed on me I swear I will rip your goddamn nuts off!”
Getting desperate now, he screamed into the walkie-talkie.
“Echo one, Bravo, Charlie somebody talk to me goddamn it!”
Static again.
Where the fuck could they all be? This momentary curiosity was replaced almost at once by the stark realization that wherever they were, it meant that he was now all alone. The thought hit him like ice-cold water at the base of his neck. He was standing in the middle of a bank lobby with a handful of stolen money as the cops were closing in. And he was all alone.
Suddenly, he heard a voice. A deep, booming voice that didn’t so much speak as much as emanate from the air all around him.
“Feeling a little lonely?”
The man whirled around, trying to track the source, but it was useless. The speaker, whoever he was, seemed to be everywhere all at once.
“Don’t worry; you’ll be making lots of new friends where you’re going.”
The man’s breathing quickened and he started shaking.
“Wh-wh-what the h-h-ell is going on here?” Trying to sound tough and failing miserably. “Show yourself, c-coward.”
“Alright, if you insist” the voice cheerfully replied. In front of the man a chiseled vision of steel and grey descended slowly from the ceiling. The man knew him. Everyone knew him. Captain Invincible.
“We gonna do this the easy way or the hard way?”
The man responded by opening fire from his semi-automatic. But even before he could press his finger to the trigger, the man in front of him seemed to lose physical form and become a blur of blue. Only when the clip was empty did his shape return. Not so much as a scratch was on him as he walked up to the now hysterical man.
“Ah; the easy way”
Outside, the police arrived on the scene just in time to see a man in a ski mask suddenly explode through the glass window and land on his back in the middle of the street. As the dust settled, Captain Invincible could be seen emerging through the now-shattered glass. He headed straight towards the Chief.
“Sorry about that. Meant to whip him through the revolving doors. Looks like my aim’s a little off. As usual, I’ll transfer you funds to pay for the damages. You’ll find 2 others unconscious just outside the vault and 2 more inside it.”
The Chief couldn’t help but smile. “Man, Invincible we’ve got to get you a cell phone. One of the tellers tripped the alarm but we wouldn’t have bothered if we’d have known you were already on the scene.”
“Yeah, well I enjoy the incapacitation but I prefer pickup to delivery so it’s good you’re here.”
The chief smiled again, but Captain Invincible noted a hint of fear behind the smile.
“Something wrong Chief?”
The smile melted away from the chief’s face and he inhaled deeply and nodded.
“I think you’d better come back to the station with me so I can explain. It’s the Doctor, and it’s not good.”
Friday, April 08, 2011
Evil Genius (Part 1)
OK, so here we go. I won't usually post introductions, but wanted to this first time because the Prologue is a bit on the darker side. Just keep in mind that it's going to be a comedy (albeit a dark comedy) so please view the violence to follow in the comic book style that is is intended.
Prologue
Two Years Ago
“Repent! Repent sinners for the end of the world is near!”
The preacher stood in the middle of the park with one hand on the bullhorn and the other on his Bible. He turned slowly from side to side to engage the people as they walked towards and then away from him. A few paused to listen and every once in a while one stayed to argue, but most just ignored him and walked on by.
“The day of reckoning is at hand, children of God. Do not be lost when the time comes. Jesus loves you, but if you turn your back on him today, he will not recognize you when you stand before him in judgement.”
It had been a pretty slow day, thought the preacher. He wasn’t sure that thus far he had saved anyone. This only spurred him on harder, though. He decided that what was needed was the power of God’s words, rather than his own. He began to quote scripture.
“And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night”
Yes this was better, thought the preacher. He always felt the power flowing through him when he recited the Book of Revelations.
“And I stood upon the sand, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred and sixty-six.”
Now the preacher could see that he had caught someone’s attention. A man of average build in perhaps his mid to late 50s had paused directly in front of him and was listening intently. This was good; men of his age frequently began to confront their own mortality for the first time. They were ripe for salvation. This really gave the preacher momentum.
“And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.”
Now more than a few people had paused, though whether it was the power of the word or the theatrics of the performance that held their attention is anyone’s guess. And still the middle-aged man stood directly in front of him, his eyes locked intently on the preacher and a small smile beginning to appear on his lips. ‘This man is ready to be saved, and with my help God will save him this day’, the preacher thought as he returned the man’s smile. But he was not ready to abandon the rest of his audience, now that he finally had one.
Now he put down the bullhorn and amped up the performance, shouting as loud as he could and thumping the bible for emphasis.
“And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. And every deed of every man was recorded in the books, and each was judged according to their work. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And any who’s name was not found in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire for all eternity.”
The preacher paused reverently to allow the words to sink in a moment. Then he looked up at his audience, which numbered only a dozen at the most. In his mind, though, he was speaking to thousands, and they were hanging on his every word. Just as he was about to speak again, the man in front of him put his arm on his shoulder.
“And is your name written in the Book of Life?” he asked.
The preacher beamed as he answered. “God has saved me from death. I am one with Jesus and we shall live forever.”
The man nodded and then turned to face the rest of the crowd.
“This man speaks the truth. The day of reckoning is close at hand. And all of you will be judged!” The man said. The preacher continued to beam; he had reached this man, and he had been saved. Praise Jesus! All at once the man turned back to look at the preacher and suddenly the preacher felt as though his whole body had been submerged in ice water. The man was smiling broadly, but there was no joy in that smile. The man turned again to face the crowd.
“But retribution does not come from God. Oh no, my friends. It comes from me!”
A deep silence now descended on the crowd. Even those that had heard nothing of the preacher’s sermon could sense that something wasn’t quite right, and paused to find out what it was. The preacher was shaking now; he had been unprepared for this sudden outburst of blasphemy. He was searching for the words to use to decry him, when the man turned to face him again. The preacher now understood why the smile had froze him. It wasn’t a lack of joy. It was pure evil.
“And you, sir, are not in my book.”
And with that the spell was broken. One woman’s piercing scream gave rise to fifty more, as people began to slowly back away from the grizzly scene before losing all composure and just running and scattering in all directions. And in the middle of the mayhem that he had created, the man stood silently with his eyes closed and breathed deeply. With his arms extended and his palms and face pointing skyward, he basked in the terror that he had created. Every scream was music to his ears, and his every thought centered on how, very soon now, he would be the cause of hundreds of millions of screams just like this. When at last he heard the first of the sirens approaching, he sighed and pulled himself out of his daydream. He had nothing to fear from the police, and indeed the incident with the preacher had only whetted his appetite for blood. He could stay and make a bloody mockery out of the local law enforcement. But there was so much work to be done, and that would only be a distraction. Soon enough, he told himself. The time for blood will come soon enough.
And with that most pleasant thought in his head, Dr. Ivan Destructo smiled and slowly began to walk away. This was shaping up to be a very good day.
Prologue
Two Years Ago
“Repent! Repent sinners for the end of the world is near!”
The preacher stood in the middle of the park with one hand on the bullhorn and the other on his Bible. He turned slowly from side to side to engage the people as they walked towards and then away from him. A few paused to listen and every once in a while one stayed to argue, but most just ignored him and walked on by.
“The day of reckoning is at hand, children of God. Do not be lost when the time comes. Jesus loves you, but if you turn your back on him today, he will not recognize you when you stand before him in judgement.”
It had been a pretty slow day, thought the preacher. He wasn’t sure that thus far he had saved anyone. This only spurred him on harder, though. He decided that what was needed was the power of God’s words, rather than his own. He began to quote scripture.
“And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night”
Yes this was better, thought the preacher. He always felt the power flowing through him when he recited the Book of Revelations.
“And I stood upon the sand, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred and sixty-six.”
Now the preacher could see that he had caught someone’s attention. A man of average build in perhaps his mid to late 50s had paused directly in front of him and was listening intently. This was good; men of his age frequently began to confront their own mortality for the first time. They were ripe for salvation. This really gave the preacher momentum.
“And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.”
Now more than a few people had paused, though whether it was the power of the word or the theatrics of the performance that held their attention is anyone’s guess. And still the middle-aged man stood directly in front of him, his eyes locked intently on the preacher and a small smile beginning to appear on his lips. ‘This man is ready to be saved, and with my help God will save him this day’, the preacher thought as he returned the man’s smile. But he was not ready to abandon the rest of his audience, now that he finally had one.
“And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army. And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. And they were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.”
Now he put down the bullhorn and amped up the performance, shouting as loud as he could and thumping the bible for emphasis.
“And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. And every deed of every man was recorded in the books, and each was judged according to their work. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And any who’s name was not found in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire for all eternity.”
The preacher paused reverently to allow the words to sink in a moment. Then he looked up at his audience, which numbered only a dozen at the most. In his mind, though, he was speaking to thousands, and they were hanging on his every word. Just as he was about to speak again, the man in front of him put his arm on his shoulder.
“And is your name written in the Book of Life?” he asked.
The preacher beamed as he answered. “God has saved me from death. I am one with Jesus and we shall live forever.”
The man nodded and then turned to face the rest of the crowd.
“This man speaks the truth. The day of reckoning is close at hand. And all of you will be judged!” The man said. The preacher continued to beam; he had reached this man, and he had been saved. Praise Jesus! All at once the man turned back to look at the preacher and suddenly the preacher felt as though his whole body had been submerged in ice water. The man was smiling broadly, but there was no joy in that smile. The man turned again to face the crowd.
“But retribution does not come from God. Oh no, my friends. It comes from me!”
A deep silence now descended on the crowd. Even those that had heard nothing of the preacher’s sermon could sense that something wasn’t quite right, and paused to find out what it was. The preacher was shaking now; he had been unprepared for this sudden outburst of blasphemy. He was searching for the words to use to decry him, when the man turned to face him again. The preacher now understood why the smile had froze him. It wasn’t a lack of joy. It was pure evil.
“And you, sir, are not in my book.”
The blade came out quickly. Impossibly quick, for a man that age. The preacher could not even identify it as a knife before it disappeared into one side of his neck and reappeared on the other.
Now the silence was deafening. People stood in shock, searching their minds for another explanation of what they had just witnessed. Some thinking that it was an elaborate magic stunt; others thinking they were in the midst of some terrible nightmare and that they would wake momentarily. All eyes were fixated on the preacher, who stood with the same look of shock on his face. He took one small step forward and as he did so his head came loose from his body and fell to the ground.
Now the silence was deafening. People stood in shock, searching their minds for another explanation of what they had just witnessed. Some thinking that it was an elaborate magic stunt; others thinking they were in the midst of some terrible nightmare and that they would wake momentarily. All eyes were fixated on the preacher, who stood with the same look of shock on his face. He took one small step forward and as he did so his head came loose from his body and fell to the ground.
And with that the spell was broken. One woman’s piercing scream gave rise to fifty more, as people began to slowly back away from the grizzly scene before losing all composure and just running and scattering in all directions. And in the middle of the mayhem that he had created, the man stood silently with his eyes closed and breathed deeply. With his arms extended and his palms and face pointing skyward, he basked in the terror that he had created. Every scream was music to his ears, and his every thought centered on how, very soon now, he would be the cause of hundreds of millions of screams just like this. When at last he heard the first of the sirens approaching, he sighed and pulled himself out of his daydream. He had nothing to fear from the police, and indeed the incident with the preacher had only whetted his appetite for blood. He could stay and make a bloody mockery out of the local law enforcement. But there was so much work to be done, and that would only be a distraction. Soon enough, he told himself. The time for blood will come soon enough.
And with that most pleasant thought in his head, Dr. Ivan Destructo smiled and slowly began to walk away. This was shaping up to be a very good day.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Crossroads
OK, well I think it's high time that I stopped pretending that I haven't let this blog fall into a condition that resembles your average 1977 Ford Pinto.
A big part of it is that I became accustomed to blogging during work, and now a good part of my workday is now filled with, shockingly enough, work. The other problem is that I have become much more apolitical over the last year. That is partially due to the fact that it's just hard to get excited when the party in power either does nothing or waters down the few good ideas they do have till they're effectively nothing while you disagree with pretty much everything that the other party wants to do. And after working and spending time with Christy and Anabelle, in the few hours of truly free time I do have generally the last thing I feel like doing is getting myself riled up about something I have very very little control over. I still try to keep myself informed, but I just don't have the motivation that I did. I prefer the escapism of sports, movies, books, and video games.
All of which has left me pondering the question "if I'm not going to write opinion pieces, what am I going to write about?" My wife's blog does a fantastic job of capturing our family life, and I don't really see a lot of value in writing about every trivial non-event that happens to me in an average week (one of the main reasons I'm still not on Facebook). I contemplated just throwing in the towel and calling it a day and letting the fat lady sing and all sorts of other cliches too. I may very well end up doing that, but I decided I'd try something else first.
One of the main reasons I started this back in 2006 was that writing was always something I enjoyed, but it saddened me that I just hadn't done a whole lot of it since high school. I look back and I'm a bit amazed at myself that I wrote 3 screenplays before I was 19. None of them were what I'd call good but still, that's 3 more than most people and 3 more than I've done since. In fact, I've started on about half a dozen screenplays or books since then only to put them aside and never pick them up again. I had thought that by starting to write again here that it would give me some momentum in that arena as well. In fact it has had the opposite effect; for the most part I've gotten my writing "fix" here and haven't felt compelled to do anymore outside of this.
So now I've decided that it's time to align the projects. The closest I've come to completing one of my major undertakings was a story I came up with about 4 years ago that was somewhat inspired by watching Superman 2. I have written about 40 pages of it and actually had a pretty good outline of where I wanted to go with it. Then about a year ago I had a soul-crushing experience where I was lying in bed one night watching TV and saw a trailer for Megamind. My story is a bit different but the set-up is the same - it's about what would happen if the supervillain actually beat the hero and took over the world. On the one hand I was disheartened because one of my main motivations for writing it was that it had never really been done and now it has. On the other hand it was at least a little gratifying to see some other people thought that an idea I had come up with was a good idea too.
In any case, I've decided that I want to finish this story if for no other reason than to just complete a writing project for the first time in 12 years. And even though the set-up is largely the same I think it's sufficiently different from Megamind that it can stand on its own. So here's what I'm going to do; starting next week I'm going to use this blog to publish weekly installments so that hopefully within 6 months I'll have the whole thing finished and out there. I'm hopeful that having some kind of weekly "deadline" will give me the motivation I need to finally finish this.
I'm hopeful that some of you will still continue to follow me in my repurposed blog, as above all I want to improve my writing and it would be invaluable for me to hear about what you like and don't so I can help figure out what's working, what isn't, and what I need to work on. But I certainly understand if reading amateur short fiction is not something you have much interest in, and let's face it I'm doing this mainly for me anyway.
So that's where we are. Wish me luck and I'll post the first installment sometime next week.
A big part of it is that I became accustomed to blogging during work, and now a good part of my workday is now filled with, shockingly enough, work. The other problem is that I have become much more apolitical over the last year. That is partially due to the fact that it's just hard to get excited when the party in power either does nothing or waters down the few good ideas they do have till they're effectively nothing while you disagree with pretty much everything that the other party wants to do. And after working and spending time with Christy and Anabelle, in the few hours of truly free time I do have generally the last thing I feel like doing is getting myself riled up about something I have very very little control over. I still try to keep myself informed, but I just don't have the motivation that I did. I prefer the escapism of sports, movies, books, and video games.
All of which has left me pondering the question "if I'm not going to write opinion pieces, what am I going to write about?" My wife's blog does a fantastic job of capturing our family life, and I don't really see a lot of value in writing about every trivial non-event that happens to me in an average week (one of the main reasons I'm still not on Facebook). I contemplated just throwing in the towel and calling it a day and letting the fat lady sing and all sorts of other cliches too. I may very well end up doing that, but I decided I'd try something else first.
One of the main reasons I started this back in 2006 was that writing was always something I enjoyed, but it saddened me that I just hadn't done a whole lot of it since high school. I look back and I'm a bit amazed at myself that I wrote 3 screenplays before I was 19. None of them were what I'd call good but still, that's 3 more than most people and 3 more than I've done since. In fact, I've started on about half a dozen screenplays or books since then only to put them aside and never pick them up again. I had thought that by starting to write again here that it would give me some momentum in that arena as well. In fact it has had the opposite effect; for the most part I've gotten my writing "fix" here and haven't felt compelled to do anymore outside of this.
So now I've decided that it's time to align the projects. The closest I've come to completing one of my major undertakings was a story I came up with about 4 years ago that was somewhat inspired by watching Superman 2. I have written about 40 pages of it and actually had a pretty good outline of where I wanted to go with it. Then about a year ago I had a soul-crushing experience where I was lying in bed one night watching TV and saw a trailer for Megamind. My story is a bit different but the set-up is the same - it's about what would happen if the supervillain actually beat the hero and took over the world. On the one hand I was disheartened because one of my main motivations for writing it was that it had never really been done and now it has. On the other hand it was at least a little gratifying to see some other people thought that an idea I had come up with was a good idea too.
In any case, I've decided that I want to finish this story if for no other reason than to just complete a writing project for the first time in 12 years. And even though the set-up is largely the same I think it's sufficiently different from Megamind that it can stand on its own. So here's what I'm going to do; starting next week I'm going to use this blog to publish weekly installments so that hopefully within 6 months I'll have the whole thing finished and out there. I'm hopeful that having some kind of weekly "deadline" will give me the motivation I need to finally finish this.
I'm hopeful that some of you will still continue to follow me in my repurposed blog, as above all I want to improve my writing and it would be invaluable for me to hear about what you like and don't so I can help figure out what's working, what isn't, and what I need to work on. But I certainly understand if reading amateur short fiction is not something you have much interest in, and let's face it I'm doing this mainly for me anyway.
So that's where we are. Wish me luck and I'll post the first installment sometime next week.
Tuesday, March 08, 2011
Tis The Season
For sure the most depressing thing about the holiday season ending every year is the fact that, if you live in Chicago, you can look forward to at least two more months of frigid weather and grey days. But for me and my peers there is another beast waiting to pounce just after the New Year: tax season. Fortunately, I don't have one of those jobs where you basically live at the office from Jan to April. I do, however, get to be the guy that is in charge providing all our internal documentation to those individuals who do live at the office for those 4 months. In addition, since I've become a CPA I have become the one-stop shop for tax advice and/or preparation for many of my friends and family. I'm happy to help out and even happier when I get some paying work thrown in, but it does make for a pretty hectic couple of months. This year, in addition to our own personal taxes (which were more complicated than usual due to us having rental income and expenses for the first time) I also got to do personal taxes for two uncles, my uncle's business, my friend's partnership, and another friend's corporation. Today at lunch I mailed the last envelopes off to the IRS so as of now I can officially stop thinking about the IRS. That is, of course, until one of you pop up in the comments with "I have a question about my taxes . . ."
So even though it's not exactly current anymore I do feel compelled to make a comment or two about the Oscars. As promised by me last year, I watched exactly 4.7 seconds of the Oscars (the time it took for me to get up off my couch and walk to the PS3 to put Mass Effect 2 in). As I played my PS3 I had the laptop open and automatically refreshing the winner lists; I'd periodically announce the winners to Christy. Now that's the way to watch the Oscars. Judging by some of the stories I saw the next day, I missed even less than usual. The very idea of trying to make the Oscars "hip" is pretty comical. It's like going off camping in the middle of the woods and then complaining that there isn't a good day spa in the area. Certain things just don't go together.
As for the winners themselves, overall I think the decisions were decent. My biggest gripe is probably in the Best Supporting Actress category. I was pretty astonished when I first heard that Melissa Leo was nominated. I didn't have anything against her performance; there just wasn't anything there that stood out to me. Hailee Steinfeld, on the other hand, definitely stood out to me (even though I still contend that her role was a leading and not supporting one). The Academy tends to penalize you for being young though, so it didn't surprise me that she didn't win.
Next week brings my favorite sports event of the year - the first 2 rounds of the NCAA tournament! The whole tournament is great, but it's the first weekend that's really something special. 48 games in 4 days and for the first time every single one will be televised this year. Could there be a better reason to sit on the couch and not move for 96 hours?
So even though it's not exactly current anymore I do feel compelled to make a comment or two about the Oscars. As promised by me last year, I watched exactly 4.7 seconds of the Oscars (the time it took for me to get up off my couch and walk to the PS3 to put Mass Effect 2 in). As I played my PS3 I had the laptop open and automatically refreshing the winner lists; I'd periodically announce the winners to Christy. Now that's the way to watch the Oscars. Judging by some of the stories I saw the next day, I missed even less than usual. The very idea of trying to make the Oscars "hip" is pretty comical. It's like going off camping in the middle of the woods and then complaining that there isn't a good day spa in the area. Certain things just don't go together.
As for the winners themselves, overall I think the decisions were decent. My biggest gripe is probably in the Best Supporting Actress category. I was pretty astonished when I first heard that Melissa Leo was nominated. I didn't have anything against her performance; there just wasn't anything there that stood out to me. Hailee Steinfeld, on the other hand, definitely stood out to me (even though I still contend that her role was a leading and not supporting one). The Academy tends to penalize you for being young though, so it didn't surprise me that she didn't win.
Next week brings my favorite sports event of the year - the first 2 rounds of the NCAA tournament! The whole tournament is great, but it's the first weekend that's really something special. 48 games in 4 days and for the first time every single one will be televised this year. Could there be a better reason to sit on the couch and not move for 96 hours?
Saturday, February 05, 2011
#s 1-5
5. Winter’s Bone - This is why, despite all my complaining about the pageantry and self-importance of the Oscars, I’m still glad that they exist. Here’s a little known film that I had heard of but probably wouldn’t have gotten around to seeing if it hadn’t been for this. It’s a fact that year in and year out it’s easier to get nominated in the Best Actress category than the Best Actor, there’s just a dearth of good female leading roles that there’s a lot less competition. Well here’s one of the few very good ones, and Jennifer Lawrence nails it playing a 17-year-old that’s forced to deal with things no 17-year-old should have to. An excellent portrayal of poor, rural
4. True Grit – For better or worse I’ve never seen the original and thus can’t do a comparison. Here’s another really good female role that’s once again nailed by a young actress – Hailee Steinfeld. She gets a Supporting instead of Leading Actress nomination because, um, well I guess the studio decided she had a better chance of winning that. I don’t really understand how the individual with the most screen time in the movie is somehow a supporting role but there you have it. The comment I made earlier about Pixar could be said about Jeff Bridges as well. He always brings it and, Tron Legacy notwithstanding, as a rule he’s simply not in bad films. Like The Fighter, original concept is not this film’s strong point (it’s your pretty basic Western revenge tale) but is proof again that if you take a cliché and inhabit it with a good script and strong performances you can still end up with a memorable tale.
3. Inception – Let’s get this out of the way. Any film with a blatantly open ending is guaranteed to piss some people off. And the criticisms about the film making less than perfect sense and being overly complicated are fair. But I also think they miss the point. The way this film is meant to be seen is with a dream mindset, by which I mean that basically you’re Ellen Page’s character and it’s your dream. When you dream, each dream has its own logic and you don’t question it at the time. It’s only later when you think back and say “wait, that didn’t make any sense.” So it is here. This is a film to be experienced, not analyzed to death for every logical thread. No, that doesn’t mean that I give carte blanc to every film to make no sense because they can just say “it makes its own kind of sense.” This is a special case because of its subject matter, but to elaborate further would get into spoiler territory, and I don’t want to go there. Of all the films on this list, this is the one I had the most fun with and is probably the one that will have the most repeat viewings (well, technically it will probably be Toy Story 3 but they won’t all be voluntary). The last third of the film may be a bridge too far so to speak and is what keeps it from taking the number 1 spot. Finally, a quick word about the ending. Often, an open-ended conclusion is viewed as laziness on the part of the author. And speaking as an author of a screenplay who did choose to end it openly precisely because I couldn’t think of a good way to end it, I can say that it’s sometimes justified. But that is not the case here. This film ends in the best possible way. To end it any other way would have directly contradicted one of the main themes of the film.
- The King’s Speech – This is the kind of movie people “expect” to see nominated for Best Picture. A period piece about the British royalty with lots of costumes and accents. But anyone who just dismisses it as that is missing out. This is a very accessible movie and one that anyone with even a passing fear of public speaking can relate to. Yes it’s true that the monarchy doesn’t have any actual power and didn’t then, but I wouldn’t suggest that it means what the king does or says doesn’t matter. The British monarchy is the one part of their government that remains constant. Prime ministers come and go as different parties come to and then leave power. That stability makes it a powerful symbol of the
- The Social Network - Another one that I’ve talked about previously on here so I’ll keep this one brief. Ebert often says how good a film is doesn’t depend on what it’s about but how it’s about it. That’s certainly applicable here. I could really care less about Facebook, so please believe me when I say that whatever your opinion of it is will have no bearing on whether or not you like this film. What this movie is really about is what happens when some very smart but inexperienced people have a good idea and try to turn it into the next BIG idea. And from that springboard an extraordinarily engaging story unfolds. Jesse Eisenberg does just a phenomenal job walking a real tightrope of a character. You’ve got a guy that’s brilliant but extraordinarily arrogant and the trick is to take both of these naturally alienating qualities and still create a character that the audience likes. And the way that Fincher chooses to tell this tale is pitch perfect. It’s one thing to read about how these giant companies start up with an idea and a few friends and end up with multi-million dollar lawsuits between them, but it’s another to actually see it unfold step by step. This is simply a captivating film with some great performances (yes, even including Justin Timberlake) and perfect direction.
Ranking the Best Picture Nominees
As promised (or at least, as hoped for) here’s my order and review of the 10 films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. Keep in mind that I’m not agreeing that these are the top 10 films of the year; there’s too many that I missed for me to feel like I can make a solid list at this point. As a general point, all 10 are certainly good films and there’s none that I can categorically say have no business being nominated. However, in my opinion, this list has 3 tiers. #s 9 and 10 are clearly the weakest, #s 8 – 4 are a step ahead but are all very close in quality, and #s 1-3 are clearly in a separate class. As long as it’s one of those 3 that win the Best Picture I won’t be disappointed no matter which one it is. So without further ado, here we go with films 6-10, with 1-5 to follow in the next couple days. Don’t worry, the reviews have already been written, so I promise there won’t be a month-long wait for them.
- 127 Hours – Guranteed to be the best film you’ll ever see about a guy who cuts his own arm off. All credit to James Franco, who gives a great performance, and to Danny Boyle, who does a terrific job of directing what had to be considered an unfilmable project. But at the end of the day, it’s a 10-minute intro, a 10-minute wrap-up, and an hour of watching a guy slowly die and hallucinate while he’s standing in one spot. Considering that, they did as good a job as can be done with that story, but there’s just a limit to how good that kind of story can be.
- The Kids Are Alright – This was the last one of the 10 I saw, and the one I was looking forward to the least. This film can best be summed up as 105 minutes of awkward conversations. Those who enjoy psychoanalyzing every scene and bit of speech will love this film. Every line of dialog or look from one character to the other is loaded with text and subtext and it just gets exhausting after a while. In a drama, you usually try to alternate between building up and releasing tension (so you can build it up again) but here they don’t do a very good of releasing. Good performances all around, interesting subject matter, and it’s certainly never boring, but it’s also a film I never see myself watching again.
8. Black Swan – I already posted most of my thoughts in the comment section, and I don’t want to repeat myself too much. This is a very good film that I just didn’t like very much. Just as it’s hard for a lot of people to understand how I can be so into the Cubs/Bears/Illini, it’s hard for me to understand how someone could be so obsessed with ballet. The result is that I found it very difficult to connect with Natalie Portman’s character. So let me just state explicitly (to save others the trouble) that I willingly admit that’s a flaw with me and not with the film. Again, great performances; Portman is well deserving of a nomination. It’s incredible that she basically started from scratch and learned everything in 8 months. But Vincent Cassell gives a really fine performance as well. Aronofsky’s direction, as usual, is excellent as well. Somehow, though, everything together just didn’t quite work for me.
7. The Fighter – This one surprised me a bit. All I knew going in was that it was a “boxing movie” and really how excited can you be about one of those? And really that’s basically all it is, but it’s just done very very well. Christian Bale gives a phenomenal performance and despite the fact that it is an acclaimed performance I still think it’s underrated. Playing a crack addict can be challenging. Playing a boxer can be challenging. Playing a character that’s both simultaneously and pulling it off is a real accomplishment, and Bale does it perfectly. I’d recommend anyone who watches this movie to look up Dicky Ecklund on You Tube and see just how good of a job Bale did at nailing his moves and mannerisms. The actual boxing in this movie is some of the best I’ve ever seen; it really looks like you might be watching Saturday Night Boxing on HBO. None of the Raging Bull dinosaur noises and slo-mo and none of the “what’s blocking?” you see in the Rocky films. And Wahlberg looks like he belongs in the ring and does his best work in the fights, so credit to him as well, even though outside of the ring most of the time he’s just kind of there. But I’ll also be honest; put Amy Adams in as little clothing as she’s wearing in this film and you’ve already got me.
6. Toy Story 3 – A bit ironic that what is arguably the weakest entry in the series is the only one to be nominated for Best Picture – pretty obviously a beneficiary of the expansion from 5 to 10 films. The public has gotten so used to Pixar constantly turning out one great film after another that it’s easy to overlook how big of an accomplishment that is. And this series stands out as a shining exception to the “sequels suck” rule. When you take the series as a whole you see a lot of common themes which are explored really well. Where most animated series are happy to take advantage of the fact that you can make time stand still, the beauty of Toy Story lies in its acknowledgement of the passage of time and the changes it creates. I know that I haven’t said much about this particular film, and I don’t think I need to. It’s another Toy Story that’s as good as the other two.
Tuesday, February 01, 2011
Preparing for the Massive Raging Insane Storm of Mega Super Death
That's what I've taken to calling the impending blizzard (which should be arriving in the next couple hours). Trademark pending. I think that the media has just lost their creativity in naming these things. I mean if you really want to strike the fear of god into someone, you've really got to step it up a notch.
I'm ordering my "I Survived the Massive Raging Insance Storm of Mega Super Death" t-shirts now. Naturally I put it on my credit card. I figure if I do survive I'll have a nice little memento and if I don't then I won't have to worry about paying for them. Pretty clever, huh?
In all honesty, I'm not terribly concerned. I'll most likely work from home tomorrow but that's more because I have the option to and not because I expect to have to. The only thing I'm worried about is losing power, particularly because we've got an electric stove. It'll be a lot of PB&J if it does happen, though if I really get desperate I can go out to the garage and fire up the gas grill. Really happy that we invested in our snow blower; should really get tested tonight.
In other news (but potentially related if we get snowed in for a few days), Christy and I are attempting to watch all of the Best Picture nominees before the Oscars. I know that a lot of them aren't available for rent yet but that's not much of an obstacle in this day and age. In any case, right now I'm ahead of her (I've seen 6 and she's only seen 2). So far, of the 6 I've seen (The Social Network, The King's Speech, True Grit, Winter's Bone, Toy Story 3, and Inception) I think that The Social Network is the best. And this is coming from someone who has doggedly refused to join the Facebook revolution. On the other hand, I am a big fan of both Jesse Eisenberg and David Fincher. Next would probably be a tie between Inception and The King's Speech. All of them were good though. Next up will probably be Black Swan; I have the distinct feeling that will be a movie I'm either going to completely love or absolutely despise. If I'm successful in getting through all 10 of them, I'll try to post a review of each.
I'm ordering my "I Survived the Massive Raging Insance Storm of Mega Super Death" t-shirts now. Naturally I put it on my credit card. I figure if I do survive I'll have a nice little memento and if I don't then I won't have to worry about paying for them. Pretty clever, huh?
In all honesty, I'm not terribly concerned. I'll most likely work from home tomorrow but that's more because I have the option to and not because I expect to have to. The only thing I'm worried about is losing power, particularly because we've got an electric stove. It'll be a lot of PB&J if it does happen, though if I really get desperate I can go out to the garage and fire up the gas grill. Really happy that we invested in our snow blower; should really get tested tonight.
In other news (but potentially related if we get snowed in for a few days), Christy and I are attempting to watch all of the Best Picture nominees before the Oscars. I know that a lot of them aren't available for rent yet but that's not much of an obstacle in this day and age. In any case, right now I'm ahead of her (I've seen 6 and she's only seen 2). So far, of the 6 I've seen (The Social Network, The King's Speech, True Grit, Winter's Bone, Toy Story 3, and Inception) I think that The Social Network is the best. And this is coming from someone who has doggedly refused to join the Facebook revolution. On the other hand, I am a big fan of both Jesse Eisenberg and David Fincher. Next would probably be a tie between Inception and The King's Speech. All of them were good though. Next up will probably be Black Swan; I have the distinct feeling that will be a movie I'm either going to completely love or absolutely despise. If I'm successful in getting through all 10 of them, I'll try to post a review of each.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Anybody Else Feel Binary Today?
I felt like a computer writing out the date today: 01/11/11. Only day that will ever be more one-y will be in 10 months on 11/11/11. Yes, that's just more of the kind of hard-hitting analysis you've come to expect from this blog.
On a more serious note, I do feel compelled to say a few words about the events of this past weekend. If anyone saw The Daily Show last night, Jon Stewart was pitch-perfect. There is waaaaay too much obsession right now about whether or not the combatative political climate is the cause of this. I agree with Stewart when he says that you can't blame that anymore than you can blame Marilyn Manson for Columbine. Even worse is this petty bickering over what category this guy belongs in - crazy right-winger or crazy left-winger - because the operative word is not left or right but crazy.
When something this stupid and senseless happens, it's only natural for people to seek to explain it. That is our nature as problem-solving animals, and it's the defining characteristic that has helped us become the dominant species on this planet. But unfortunately too often in non-scientific matters (and sometimes even in those too) we attempt to ascribe our vision of the world to events rather than letting the events speak for themselves. If you believe in god, it's easy for you to see evidence of his work everywhere. If you're an atheist, it's just as easy to see evidence that there couldn't possibly be a god. In other words, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
That's perfectly understandable, but just as regrettable. What's important here is that we all agree that this lunatic did something that we as a society cannot and will not tolerate and tragically took the lives of 6 innocent people. That should be the focus here; all the rest needs to be pushed into the background.
I've previously written on here that I do not support the death penalty. I still believe that, but I will admit that it's awfully hard to defend that position in this particular case.
I'm working on another post now that unfortunately will also be pretty weighty and melancholy. Sorry for that. Like The Daily Show promised, don't worry, I'll be back to my stupidity and inanity very soon.
On a more serious note, I do feel compelled to say a few words about the events of this past weekend. If anyone saw The Daily Show last night, Jon Stewart was pitch-perfect. There is waaaaay too much obsession right now about whether or not the combatative political climate is the cause of this. I agree with Stewart when he says that you can't blame that anymore than you can blame Marilyn Manson for Columbine. Even worse is this petty bickering over what category this guy belongs in - crazy right-winger or crazy left-winger - because the operative word is not left or right but crazy.
When something this stupid and senseless happens, it's only natural for people to seek to explain it. That is our nature as problem-solving animals, and it's the defining characteristic that has helped us become the dominant species on this planet. But unfortunately too often in non-scientific matters (and sometimes even in those too) we attempt to ascribe our vision of the world to events rather than letting the events speak for themselves. If you believe in god, it's easy for you to see evidence of his work everywhere. If you're an atheist, it's just as easy to see evidence that there couldn't possibly be a god. In other words, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
That's perfectly understandable, but just as regrettable. What's important here is that we all agree that this lunatic did something that we as a society cannot and will not tolerate and tragically took the lives of 6 innocent people. That should be the focus here; all the rest needs to be pushed into the background.
I've previously written on here that I do not support the death penalty. I still believe that, but I will admit that it's awfully hard to defend that position in this particular case.
I'm working on another post now that unfortunately will also be pretty weighty and melancholy. Sorry for that. Like The Daily Show promised, don't worry, I'll be back to my stupidity and inanity very soon.
Friday, December 17, 2010
They Should've Done a Remake
Due to my boss and, well, about half the office being on vacation today I was able to get out at lunch and see Tron: Legacy in 3D at the IMAX at Navy Pier. My overall impression is that it was decent but not spectacular and I walked away feeling a bit underwhelmed by the whole experience. It was great to see the world of Tron fully realized now that they have the technology to do it but the story and the characters just don't measure up to the original. That left me to have to face the somewhat awkward conclusion (since I've gone on so many tirades) that they should have just remade the original Tron.
To be sure, second only to Avatar it's the both the best use of 3D and the best example of a fully rendered digital world ever created for "live action". I say live action in quotes because the line between it and animated films blurs more and more each day. But the problem is that I've grown pretty tired of the "special-effects extravaganza". To quote Idiocracy: "And there was a time in this country, a long time ago, when reading wasn't just for fags and neither was writing. People wrote books and movies, movies that had stories so you cared whose ass it was and why it was farting, and I believe that time can come again!" That sums it up pretty good. Action sequences can still be thrilling but only if you have some characters that you actually care about and whom you actually believe might be harmed. And that's just largely lacking here. I would agree that Flynn wasn't the most fully-formed character to begin with in the original film, but I would argue that's a good reason why you could have really used this movie to flesh him out. You had a character that was instantly recognizable to your fan base and yet was still largely a blank slate. What more could you ask for? But what we get instead, and I wish I were kidding here, is Kevin Flynn infused with the Dude. And I promise you that whatever you just imagined when you read that is infinitely more exciting than what shows up on screen. I'd say that the other big problem with the movie is the new character Quorra (played by Olivia Wilde). Acting-wise she does just fine and clearly she's largely there for eye-candy purposes (and in that she succeeds). But the subplot revolving around her is just not nearly interesting enough to justify the attention it takes away from the main story between Flynn and his son.
If you read Ebert's review, he closes by pretty much telling you straight out that you should see it stoned (at least as much as he can say it while still being printed in a major newspaper). I think I'd have to agree with him.
To be sure, second only to Avatar it's the both the best use of 3D and the best example of a fully rendered digital world ever created for "live action". I say live action in quotes because the line between it and animated films blurs more and more each day. But the problem is that I've grown pretty tired of the "special-effects extravaganza". To quote Idiocracy: "And there was a time in this country, a long time ago, when reading wasn't just for fags and neither was writing. People wrote books and movies, movies that had stories so you cared whose ass it was and why it was farting, and I believe that time can come again!" That sums it up pretty good. Action sequences can still be thrilling but only if you have some characters that you actually care about and whom you actually believe might be harmed. And that's just largely lacking here. I would agree that Flynn wasn't the most fully-formed character to begin with in the original film, but I would argue that's a good reason why you could have really used this movie to flesh him out. You had a character that was instantly recognizable to your fan base and yet was still largely a blank slate. What more could you ask for? But what we get instead, and I wish I were kidding here, is Kevin Flynn infused with the Dude. And I promise you that whatever you just imagined when you read that is infinitely more exciting than what shows up on screen. I'd say that the other big problem with the movie is the new character Quorra (played by Olivia Wilde). Acting-wise she does just fine and clearly she's largely there for eye-candy purposes (and in that she succeeds). But the subplot revolving around her is just not nearly interesting enough to justify the attention it takes away from the main story between Flynn and his son.
If you read Ebert's review, he closes by pretty much telling you straight out that you should see it stoned (at least as much as he can say it while still being printed in a major newspaper). I think I'd have to agree with him.
Wednesday, December 08, 2010
Bipartisanship: Let's Just Replace The Last Letter with a T
Thankfully, I now get to go back to one of my favorite pasttimes: bitching about politics!
This latest tax deal proves once again that the only thing worse than the two parties not working together is when they do. Allow me to set up the impasse. The Democrats (and Obama, at least until recently) were committed to letting the Bush-era tax cuts expire for all those making $250,000 per year or more and extending them for everyone else, while the Republicans wanted them extended for everyone across the board. In other words, in the name of getting the deficit under control, the Democrats' solution was additional taxation and the Republicans' solution was to cut spending. That seems about right. So what compromise did they reach (they being Obama and the GOP)? Extend all the tax cuts and in return extend unemployment benefits and lower the social security payroll tax for next year. In other words, reduce taxes and increase spending.
If you're hearing a dull thud right now, that's the sound of me banging my head against the desk (or, if you're reading this after business hours, my palm slapping my forehead). What's perhaps even more dumbfounding than this is the fact that it's Congressional Democrats who are set to rebel at this. Aren't Republicans and those associated with the Tea Party supposed to be the ones all about fiscal responsibility? This is just a horribly irresponsible deal and the kind of thing Republicans always campaign against.
I'm sorry, but this is our government at its worst. This was financial shenanigans when Reagan did it in the 80s, it was shenanigans when Bush did it in the 00s, and it's shenanigans now. I've often been accused of being a fence-straddler when I say that I want a balanced budget and I don't really care if it comes via increased taxation or cutting spending. But this is why I say that! I can't afford to be picky with my ideology; I just want someone who can do math! You don't want to raise taxes? Fine, then you need to cut spending. Don't want to cut spending? Fine, then you have to raise taxes. It isn't quite, but it's damn close to a zero sum game. The cut to Social Security payroll tax is just the coup de grace. Hey look! We've got a program that's on pace to go bankrupt in 25 years. Let's cut the amount of money we pay into it! (THUD) (THUD) (THUD)
If you supported the Replublicans or the Tea Party last month, you should be furious right now. This is exactly the type of short-sightedness that let the deficit get to this point. But the truth is that the real agenda of the Republicans is simply low taxes at any cost, with lip service paid to the idea of a balanced budget via vague promises of budget cuts that never materialize. To be sure, the Democrats are no better but at least they haven't campaigned on it incessantly for the last 30 years.
This latest tax deal proves once again that the only thing worse than the two parties not working together is when they do. Allow me to set up the impasse. The Democrats (and Obama, at least until recently) were committed to letting the Bush-era tax cuts expire for all those making $250,000 per year or more and extending them for everyone else, while the Republicans wanted them extended for everyone across the board. In other words, in the name of getting the deficit under control, the Democrats' solution was additional taxation and the Republicans' solution was to cut spending. That seems about right. So what compromise did they reach (they being Obama and the GOP)? Extend all the tax cuts and in return extend unemployment benefits and lower the social security payroll tax for next year. In other words, reduce taxes and increase spending.
If you're hearing a dull thud right now, that's the sound of me banging my head against the desk (or, if you're reading this after business hours, my palm slapping my forehead). What's perhaps even more dumbfounding than this is the fact that it's Congressional Democrats who are set to rebel at this. Aren't Republicans and those associated with the Tea Party supposed to be the ones all about fiscal responsibility? This is just a horribly irresponsible deal and the kind of thing Republicans always campaign against.
I'm sorry, but this is our government at its worst. This was financial shenanigans when Reagan did it in the 80s, it was shenanigans when Bush did it in the 00s, and it's shenanigans now. I've often been accused of being a fence-straddler when I say that I want a balanced budget and I don't really care if it comes via increased taxation or cutting spending. But this is why I say that! I can't afford to be picky with my ideology; I just want someone who can do math! You don't want to raise taxes? Fine, then you need to cut spending. Don't want to cut spending? Fine, then you have to raise taxes. It isn't quite, but it's damn close to a zero sum game. The cut to Social Security payroll tax is just the coup de grace. Hey look! We've got a program that's on pace to go bankrupt in 25 years. Let's cut the amount of money we pay into it! (THUD) (THUD) (THUD)
If you supported the Replublicans or the Tea Party last month, you should be furious right now. This is exactly the type of short-sightedness that let the deficit get to this point. But the truth is that the real agenda of the Republicans is simply low taxes at any cost, with lip service paid to the idea of a balanced budget via vague promises of budget cuts that never materialize. To be sure, the Democrats are no better but at least they haven't campaigned on it incessantly for the last 30 years.
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