The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination

How do evil geniuses get it all done? They have theories to spin, hypotheses to test, devices to create, and evil to plot, and each of these tasks requires time, effort, and often a large number of unusual materials. There’s so much work behind every nefarious deed, it’s remarkable anything evil ever gets done.

In our next story, one mad scientist’s secret is revealed: a remarkable assistant. Someone has to be in charge of the office, and in this tale, it’s Brenda. She knows just who to call to order the ignition for a doomsday device and she’s got the skills it takes to edit a truly evil ransom note. She’s a truly capable woman, ready for whatever her job demands—and as a mad scientist’s assistant, her job will take some unusual skills.

Brenda had been working for Dr. Methuselah Mason for two years the day he mentioned strapping her to the doomsday device.

“It’s a brilliant idea,” he said. “Captain Justice can never resist the prospect of some helpless civilian. He’ll stop to save you, and by the time he realizes the mechanism is unstoppable…” He sighed. “I’ll be rid of him forever.”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “He always gets there before the timer runs out. I’ll leave some clues for him like usual. You shouldn’t be there long, and you don’t have to really do anything.”

“He said he wanted birch,” came the lumberyard service rep through the speaker. “Birch isn’t mothproof. He never told me the place was at risk from moths.”

“Of course it’s at risk from moths,” snapped Dr. Mason. “It’s an abandoned farmhouse lair.”

“Look, I’d pay you overtime for the doomsday stuff,” Dr. Mason said with a trace of disdain for time-clocking. “I don’t see why we have to have a big I’m-having-feelings meeting about everything I suggest.”

“I’m not giving your boss a pass on something he bought free and clear,” the lumber rep said.

Dr. Mason slammed his hand on the Mute button. “You listen here, you’ll give me that refund or I’ll send some radioactive geese to your house at night, you lying—”

Dr. Mason shook his head. “Unbelievable! It’s just impossible to get good customer service these days. The only reason Captain Justice has ever gotten anything over on me is because he has a better support team. You really need to find out who he’s buying from.”

“Well, I’m blacklisted at all the temp agencies,” he said, “so there’s nothing doing on that front. You’re going to have to be a team player here. We don’t have any other options.”

After the first three months, she had given up mentioning the option “Don’t build a doomsday device.” He was disorganized enough that she’d figured it was a safe bet he’d never finish, anyway. (If she had any co-workers, she’d have just lost out big in the office pool.)

“You’ll have to file preemptive worker’s-comp papers with the insurance company,” she said finally.

He huffed and leaned back against the wall of the farmhouse lair. “I’m so tired of that bureaucracy nonsense. That’s your job. My last assistant wouldn’t shut up about all that stuff, either. I hated it.”

He traced a figure in the air with one hand. “Went to grad school,” he said vaguely, and disappeared into the lab.

Brenda dug around for information about her predecessor, but didn’t find a thing. Either Enid Evans had ditched the Master’s degree and gone off the grid, or this was not the first time Dr. Mason had had a brilliant idea regarding his assistant.

Miss Bryce—I need the number of the Overlook Park office so I can bribe the officials to plant my doomsday device for me, and the address of The Ledger so I can send the ransom note, but something is wrong with my address book. What did you do???

* * *

5:46am

To: Dr. Methuselah Mason, Ph.D. <doctor@mmasonenterprises.net>

From: Brenda Bryce <bbryce@mmasonenterprises.net>

Subject: EMERGENCY NETWORK BREACH

Dr. Mason,

It seems something is wrong with your address book because you erased it trying to password—protect it. I am on my way in to repopulate your address book from my computer. Please do not try to fix it until I get there.

—Brenda

* * *

6:09am

Well, I already overrode your computer’s security so I could get the numbers because you weren’t getting back to me and I need to get this done, but your address book is blank, too. I don’t see how that helps us.

* * *

6:11am

Dr. Mason,

Please do not touch my computer again until I get there. I will get you the information as soon as I can call The Night Cipher for tech support and have him restore our address books.

—Brenda

* * *

6:20am

But that’s going to take forever! Don’t you have a faster method to access this?

* * *

6:27am

Brenda, do you have a faster method? I really need to start bribing ASAP.

* * *

6:35am

Brenda, I think my e-mail’s broken, too—none of my messages are getting through to you. When you get in, please address this.

* * *

“I think this ransom note is missing something,” said Dr. Mason, a few days later. He dropped it casually on her desk and folded his arms. “What do you think?”

Trick question, is what Brenda thought.

It was no secret that Dr. Mason was a big fan of flattery. The Night Cipher kept showing up for tech support even when they didn’t need any, just so he could hang around the lab and kiss ass. (“You’re really at the top of your field,” Brenda heard from him a lot, and sometimes when he was really gunning for a favor, “Man, I would never have thought of this!”) The praise went over swimmingly with Dr. Mason; most praise did.

On the other hand, the Night Cipher was trying to get upgraded to full member of the Dark Consortium and needed another signature on his application. Brenda was in no such predicament.

“First, it’s too long,” she said. “The Ledger’s not going to publish a ten-page ransom note.”

“But I have grievances!”

Brenda flipped to the last page. “Also, it’s awful. ‘Unless my demands are met, we’ll see where your precious Captain Justice’s loyalties are at’?”

She reached for a red pen. “The conclusion needs to keep the focus on your goals and off Captain Justice,” she said, making notes in the margin. “Also, you can’t end sentences with prepositions.”

Dr. Mason’s face drained of color. Then he went beet-red from collar to hairline, and he shouted loudly enough that her pencil cup rattled, “You presume to tell me my words are inadequate?”

She blinked. “I’m sorry. I thought you wanted this published.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Have you filed that insurance paperwork about the doomsday device yet?”

“You don’t get to blow me up because I correct your grammar,” she said. “This is what you hired me to do.”

“I didn’t hire you to nitpick every little thing,” he muttered, and snatched it back. “We’ll see what the Ledger has to say.”

* * *

The ten-page ransom note came back with a form rejection.

Someone had scrawled at the bottom, “Please be aware of grammar and length requirements for all Letters to the Editor submitted to the Ledger.”

Brenda waited until late Friday and left it on Dr. Mason’s desk after he was gone. Saturday he would be torn away from his dastardly doomsday experiment in order to observe Captain Justice in action; Lord Destiny III was planning an impenetrable death trap for Captain Justice and the Lawful Lass, and that would take up at least half the day.

If she was lucky, she would get all the way to Sunday without hearing from him about needing to make edits.

She was going to enjoy every minute.

* * *

When the phone call came in (Saturday, just before dusk), she had already rewritten the ransom note.

Not that she told him. If he knew she worked weekends, she’d spend the rest of her days in that farmhouse lair.

* * *

Her draft made it into the Ledger.

She knocked on the lab door to give him the good news. He was in his usual position in the far corner, making tiny adjustments to the vaguely arachnid doomsday device, which hulked fifteen feet high on knife-sharp metal legs. Brenda still didn’t understand why you’d have to strap a person to it to make it seem dangerous.

When she held up the letter, he gasped, shoved his goggles back on his head, and scrambled down to see it for himself.

(Brenda’s last job had been at an accounting office. You had to give some credit to a guy who was so excited about what he did.)

“‘We will obey your demands and publish this ransom note on the front page in tomorrow’s edition,’” he read with glee. He handed back the letter. “Miss Bryce, I must admit I’m impressed.”

She knew better than to let an opportunity pass her by. “So, no doomsday machine?”

He frowned. “Yes. I suppose it’s not ideal to risk a valued employee on a possibly risky endeavor. If you really don’t want to—”

“Great,” she said, and closed the door before he could change his mind.

At home, she quietly checked some job sites. There had to be admin positions that weren’t quite this involving.

* * *

The day the doomsday ransom note ran, Captain Justice held a press conference on the Town Hall steps to warn Dr. Mason and the Dark Consortium against any more civil unrest.

He was in full costume and his ceremonial-occasions-only Winged Justice helmet, but Brenda was so used to it by now that she hardly noticed the difference between him and the uniform suits of the City Hall reps.

“I am not alone,” Captain Justice said, looking directly at the camera and resting a fist on the podium. “The people are with me, the Amazing League is with me, and, as always, justice is with me!”

The crowd went wild.

Dr. Mason wrinkled his nose.

“He’s just so … blond,” he said.

Unexpectedly, Brenda sort of knew what he meant.

* * *

With the doomsday gauntlet officially thrown, Dr. Mason started living in the lab. Brenda eventually caved and did the same. (He offered her the bedroom infested with moths. She slept on the living-room couch.)

Sometimes, listening to his commentary on the inevitability of general municipal lesson-learning, Brenda couldn’t help but feel that Enid should have left a coded warning Post-it or something two years ago.

She knocked on the door. “I have a question about the ignition switch you wanted me to order.”

“Not now,” he said. Behind the glasses, his eyes gleamed.

“It’s time-sensitive.”

“Maybe to you. You should work on budgeting your time, Miss Bryce. Oh, can I get pizza from the thin-crust place for lunch? No garlic in the sauce, though.” He narrowed his eyes at the beaker in his hand. “I hate garlic.”

“Pizza sauce is already made when you order,” she said. “Remember you had me call the restaurant and complain for you last time?”

After a moment, the memory registered, and Mason made fists on his desk and hissed. “Those garlic-lovers! Well, find me a place that doesn’t use garlic.”

Fourteen phone calls later, she knocked on the lab door and stuck her head in.

“I found a place willing to make a special order. Some garlic-free pizza is coming.”

Dr. Mason looked up and considered this. “Is it thin-crust? It had better be thin-crust.”

There was a little silence.

Then Brenda said, “I’ve reconsidered the doomsday device.”

* * *

It turned out that the doomsday device was a lot taller than it seemed in the workshop, and that she was strapped awfully close to the ticking timer.

The good news was that Dr. Mason had tied her up on the scenic side, so at least she could look out over the city. It was the closest thing to a night out she’d had in a long time. There wasn’t much to do after work in farmhouse-lair country.

She waited one hour, five minutes, and thirty-two seconds (according to the ticker) before Captain Justice showed.

He soared out of the sky and landed beside her with a wide-legged impact that, if the device had been motion-triggered, would have gone pretty badly. His armor, close-up, squeaked.

“Don’t worry,” he called, climbing across the metal legs. “This night, Captain Justice will hear your case!”

Brenda had to admit, he did seem really blond.

When he reached her, he yanked the Blade of Truth out of his belt and started slicing.

“Poor, innocent citizen. How did Dr. Mason ever steal you away to this awful fate?”

“I’m his assistant,” she said.

Captain Justice’s hands froze on the ropes, and he leaned back and gave her the stink eye for so long that she began to worry about the timer.

“It’s overtime,” she defended half-heartedly.

Captain Justice shook his head and started slicing through the ropes with the Blade of Truth again.

“You know,” he said, “Enid was once where you are now, but she really grabbed the bull by the horns and pulled herself up by the bootstraps when it mattered.”

“That’s a mixed metaphor,” Brenda said. “And does that mean Enid’s the Lawful Lass?”

“Of course not,” said Captain Justice. “Enid’s my assistant! But that’s purely administrative. The League has a rule never to recruit active members from the ranks of the enemy, unless they have superpowers.” He frowned. “Does she have superpowers?”

Brenda would have shrugged if she wasn’t tied up. “I wouldn’t know.”

“Well, if she does, I’m not supposed to leave her alone with information about the other members of the Amazing League.” Captain Justice paused. “My God, she’s there right now. What if she has superpowers? How could she have kept them from me all this time?”

Brenda suspected it wouldn’t take much.

“Are you a good boss?” she asked.

He looked aghast. “Of course! I and my fellow crime-fighters in the League enact justice in all its forms, including workers’ rights!”

“Really? Because it’s eleven at night on a Saturday, and Enid’s still at the office.”

Captain Justice thought about that. Then he sliced off the last of the knots with significantly less gusto than he’d used on the first.

“Well,” he said, “I guess you’re free. You should go. I must disable this device at all costs, before the city falls to pieces under Methuselah Mason’s stone-fisted despotism!”

“Don’t worry,” Brenda said, hopping to the ground between two of the spider legs.

“Don’t worry? Listen here, you may think nothing of working for the maddest mind this city has seen in a hundred years, but some of us—”

“The ignition doesn’t work.”

He stopped. “What?”

“He was busy with the airborne chaos serum and wouldn’t review the electronics order,” she said. “I ordered the wrong switch. The ignition won’t connect.”

He frowned. “On purpose?”

“Well, not as far as he knows. Those things all look alike.” She smiled. “Not like he could test it beforehand, right? This way everybody’s safe.”

His frown deepened. “You’re not a very good assistant, are you?”

Brenda stared.

* * *

When she showed up at the farmhouse lair the next morning, Dr. Mason was so surprised that he took off his goggles and blinked several times.

“I thought for sure you’d take a job with Captain Justice,” he said finally. “I mean, after what happened with Enid…”

Brenda shrugged and sat behind her desk. “I feel my place is here,” she said.

He thought that over, then nodded.

“Good thing, too,” he said. “We have work to do. Captain Jerkpants beat the living daylights out of that doomsday machine.”

“Sorry,” said Brenda, pulling out a notebook.

“It just means we’ll have to try harder on the next one,” Dr. Mason said. “We’ll start with some sturdier supplies, for one thing. That exoskeletal support structure could barely hold you.”

He turned and slapped his goggles back on.

“So. Miss Bryce, take a note.”

Genevieve Valentine’s first novel, Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti, was published by Prime Books in 2011 and won the Crawford Award for best fantasy debut and was a finalist for the Nebula Award. Her short fiction has appeared in the anthology Running with the Pack and in the magazines Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, Futurismic, Clarkesworld, Journal of Mythic Arts, Fantasy Magazine, Escape Pod, and more. Her work can also be found in John Joseph Adams’s anthologies Under the Moons of Mars: New Adventures on Barsoom, Armored, Federations, The Way of the Wizard, and The Living Dead 2. In 2010, she was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award.