The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination

CATEGORY: Vectors and Properties in Nemesis Relationships

RULE 1113.2: Everybody Needs Help with Their Evil Monologue

SOURCE: Angie, career counselor

VIA: Heather Lindsley

Entering the workforce is hard enough, but landing—and keeping—your dream job can sometimes feel impossible. This is the reason why career counseling and vocational psychology is a growth industry, even in a recession. Sometimes people just need a little help launching their careers.

In our next piece, one enterprising career counselor has identified a niche market: counseling would-be supervillains. After all, in a field that lacks clear entry-level requirements, it’s hard to know just how to get started. There are no degree programs that can give someone the skills needed to thrive as bad guy. There are few, if any, mentorships to apply for. And as for fellowships and residencies, well, that’s a laugh! You’re on your own when you start out as a supervillain.

But with a career counselor like Angie, you’re better off than the average ne’er-do-well. She’s got just the right advice, whether her client needs help designing the perfect costume, crafting the successful evil plot, or writing a really clever monologue. In fact, some people might think she’s a little too good at her job.…

Carl has a pair of purple knee-length boots in one hand and a black PVC codpiece in the other. “Sorry, Angie, I’m running late,” he says. “I just need to get changed.”

“No, no—it’s not the same without the costume. I’ll be quick, I promise.”

Carl is a regular client, and one of my first, so I cut him some slack. I should have been able to help him years ago, but I keep coming because he seems to get closer every week. Or maybe that’s just what I tell myself. Living in Megapolis is damn expensive, and a little steady income doesn’t hurt.

I take a seat on Carl’s couch, clearing away a stack of Commander Justice comics first. He says he’ll be quick, but I’ve seen him struggle in and out of those boots too many times to believe him.

The comic on the top of the stack catches my eye. Is this the end for Commander Justice? I wish, but of course it isn’t. I flip through the first few pages before tossing the candy-colored propaganda aside.

“You really shouldn’t read this crap,” I tell Carl when he finally comes back into the room. “It can’t be doing anything for your confidence.”

“Exactly. You can be sporting, or you destroy your archnemesis and rule this city with an iron fist. What’s it gonna be?”

Carl takes a deep breath, checks to make sure his Master Catastrophe logo is centered on his chest, and booms out, “I WILL BRING THIS CITY TO ITS KNEES!”

At the end of the session Carl is sweaty and a little wild eyed. If I had the time I’d run him through one more focus exercise, but his hour’s up.

“Good job with your confidence levels, Carl—lots of improvement. But you need to work on your concentration. You’ve got to be confident and focused when you take on Commander Justice.”

“Thanks, Angie. But you know, I really think I could do it if you were with me. We’d make a great team…”

“But it could be! We could be partners. Master Catastrophe and Mayhem Girl!”

“So how do you feel? What are you going to do when you see Commander Justice?”

“That’s right. Even if he asks you a question. Especially if he asks you a question. Confidence, and no distractions. Ready, aim, fire—that’s all.”

Every week after Carl’s session I go straight back to my place and do the accounts. Villainy coaching and superhero surrogacy provide a steady revenue stream, but it’s not enough to get out of this tiny basement apartment. It kills me that what I’m paying in Megapolis would buy a massive lair in the sticks, but until you’re a big name you’ve got to be in the big city if you want to be taken seriously in this game.

I fire up the pirated copy of BadBooks I got from the Green Shade, and I’m not surprised that the latest figures show yet another week of high turnover and slim margins. My operating costs are ridiculous—insurance alone ate up half my income last month. There’s just enough left over for a few more square inches of stabilized technetium plating for my Angel of Death costume, though I should be saving up for another shipment of weapons-grade plutonium.

At this rate it will take years to execute my business plan. I must admit I was hoping for more from the villains in this town. Some spark of genius. Some inspiration.

A quick e-mail check shows mostly the usual: a report from one of my insurance agents in Fiji, heated but familiar debates in various online villainy group digests, spam for penis-enlargement pills. There’s also a message from a potential new client who calls himself Burn Rate. I don’t recognize the handle, so I’ll have to do some research before I get back to him. Probably a newbie with a flashy fire-themed costume and a half-finished death ray.

The idea hits too close to home, and I decide to use last month’s surplus on boring old plutonium. Weapons first, costume second, though it pains me that in its incomplete state my Angel of Death outfit looks like it belongs in one of those four-color hero propaganda mags. It’ll stay in the closet until the protective plating covers all my vital organs.

I put on a pot of coffee and move from my cramped, messy desk to my cramped, messy lab. I’ve been tinkering with disintegration, preferably something that leaves an on-theme sandy or dusty residue, but at my current rate of progress my own villainous schemes look more like a hobby than a profession.

New client today, though The Puzzler isn’t new to the game—he’s been ineffectually pestering Civetman for years.

The session isn’t going well. We’re still standing in the foyer of The Puzzler’s penthouse apartment.

“Yes. No. I mean, I was thinking you’d be more of a stand-in. Like an actor. Civetman is taller, and he has these huge muscles, and—”

“But if it’s not a convincing scenario, how will I know it’s completely out of my system?”

“Okay.” I hitch my bag up higher on my shoulder. “I can do captured girlfriend. Will that work for you?”

Asshole tax. “Ten grand extra for captured girlfriend, or I walk away with your deposit. Or you can dial down your Civetman obsession and let me do my job.”

“I’m not paying extra, but since you’re already here how about you use the time you were supposed to be listening to my monologue doing something useful. You could clean my bathroom.”

I take the detonator out of my pocket. He looks surprised. What kind of idiot is surprised to see a detonator in this situation? “Or I could blow up your bathroom and every other room in your alternate secret lair in Fiji. You just finished a big remodel, right? Laser targeting systems, Viking range in the kitchen, malachite bathtub with gold taps?” Seriously, gold taps. Tacky as hell.

He’d sue me. Some supervillain. “‘Clause 27.1.5: The Supplier retains the right to destroy as needed in either self-defense or in execution of the services noted herein any property of the Client’s owned for the purposes of committing villainy, super- or otherwise.’”

I leave ten grand further ahead and thinking I should have made it twenty. The Puzzler’s monologue was predictable, his plan for global domination was doomed to failure, and his weapons were the kind of junk you can get from the back room of an Army Surplus store if you know who to ask.

It’s some consolation to know I won’t have to worry about his repeat business, and at least I have some punching to look forward to this afternoon.

I’m on my way to Master Adisa’s studio and about a hundred yards from the subway when a massive steel tentacle bursts the pavement in front of me. Another tentacle wraps itself around my waist and lifts me thirty feet into the air. A dozen squad cars come tearing around the corner. A guy with a bullhorn says, “Let the hostage go, Squidinator!”

I don’t have time for this—I have a private lesson today and I’m sure as hell not letting some big dumb stunt blow my chance to learn the Pincer of Death.

I’ve still got my shoulder bag, so I squirm around in the grip of the tentacle to reach inside. The squirming probably looks good for the crowd. I hope a publicity-minded villain like the Squidinator appreciates it.

“Hey!” I shout, thrusting my business card toward the skinny guy in the giant mecha harness. “Do you mind?”

“Oh, shit. I’m really sorry. I didn’t realize. My friend DoomDaddy saw you last month. He said you were great, really helped him cut back on his monologuing.”

“Here’s a thought—I can manage a little hysterical screaming, but I’ve got an appointment in twenty minutes so I’m gonna need you to drop me off at Concord and 87th.”

“Concord and 87th?” He frowns. “That’s, like, all the way across town…”

“Thanks. I’m just imagining what’ll happen if I’m late for my appointment.”

“Ah, yes, the Method,” he says, missing the point. Scratch a supervillain and half the time there’s a failed actor underneath.

Since he seems so pleased with the performance I consider asking him to throw in one of the bags of cash he’s obviously pulled out of the smashed-up bank around the corner, but the dye packs have already gone off, bloodlike red dripping from a couple of tentacles. It’s a nice effect. Sure it makes the bank robbery pointless from an income perspective, but the Squidinator will score some priceless publicity.

I let loose another round of dramatic screams while the Squidinator hitches up his tentacles and lumbers uptown.

It’s only when I’m back home that I discover just how much publicity the Squidinator’s stunt got him after he dropped me off.

Arachnoboy finally turned up, late to the scene as usual. I’m pretty sure what happened was an accident, given the expression on the Squidinator’s face afterward. In the news footage it looks like his tentacles were just flailing wildly when one of them clipped a bit of Arachnoboy’s web and slung him headfirst into a building. Not much control, but a hell of a lot of velocity.

The tabloid headlines were right—there was only one way to describe it. Arachnoboy got squashed.

The Squidinator went into hiding. I don’t know whether he was relieved or disappointed when he got pushed out of the news cycle only a day later by the explosion in front of Order Corps HQ. He might have held his own if there were no casualties, but the explosion took out the Blue Streak and both Marvel Twins.

A masked duo calling themselves Mistress Mine and the Malignant Mole released a video claiming credit. I didn’t recognize the Malignant Mole, but I knew Mistress Mine when she called herself the Scarlet Woman. We only had a few sessions together, mostly working on her discomfort with direct confrontation. When she stopped booking appointments and dropped off the scene I thought she decided I wasn’t helping and gave up supervillainy. I’m glad to see she’s still in the game. I wouldn’t have gone with the duo approach, but I wish her luck.

Two major heroes and a couple of sidekicks killed over the same weekend doesn’t look good. The surviving members of the Order Corps held a press conference on Sunday night, and for a change they didn’t seem smug and righteous while they told us all how safe they were making our fair city. They just looked really, really pissed off.

In spite of the drama over the weekend I head over to Carl’s for our usual session. I’m feeling more optimistic that I can help him defeat Commander Justice, though I hope he can lie low for a while without losing the inspiration.

Lying low doesn’t seem to be an option: Commander Justice is waiting on the landing in front of Carl’s third-floor walk-up. Waiting for me, apparently.

“Well, yes—I’m his massage therapist.” I wonder what, if anything, Carl ever said about me during one of his rambling monologues. All I can wish is that I’d been better at my job.

“I’ll bet.” He hasn’t budged. Up close I can see lines around his eyes that they never draw in the comic. He’s been in the game for as long as I can remember.

“Look,” I say, trying for flirty, “you’re not going to be unchivalrous and make me admit I’m not that kind of massage therapist, are you?”

His smile is grim. “I know your therapy has nothing to do with massage, Angel. How are you doing, by the way? That must have been an awfully traumatic experience, being held hostage by the Squidinator.”

Of course. All that footage, every shot, every bit of cell-phone video getting even more scrutiny with Arachnoboy’s death. I should have been lying low myself.

“I’m sure. I hope it didn’t throw off your lesson. I hear Master Adisa isn’t very forgiving of distracted students, no matter how good the excuse.”

He takes a step closer, backing me up against the rickety banister. “The superhero community has suffered some serious losses. It’s completely unprecedented, and frankly some of us are considering a more … proactive approach to fighting crime.”

I’m just about to try darting away when Carl steps out of his apartment. He’s wearing his costume without the boots, and his Master Catastrophe logo is crooked. He’s not carrying his death ray. He has his father’s old .45 service pistol.

His voice isn’t much above a whisper when he says, standing there in his grubby white athletic socks, “I will bring this city to its knees.”

“Oh, please,” Commander Justice says as he steps away from me and heads toward Carl. “A gun? Don’t you want to wave that piece-of-shit death ray at me first? Don’t you want to monologue?”

Commander Justice doesn’t have superspeed, and he isn’t bulletproof. In the end the corpse with the large and messy hole in his head was just a guy who spent a lot of time at the gym and had some good gadgets, a trust fund, and the unholy confidence to enforce his vision of morality while wearing his underwear on the outside.

“I did it,” Carl says in shock. A fleeting look of triumph follows. “I finally did it.” He stares at his permanently defeated nemesis. “What do I do now?” He sits down on the floor.

I sit down next to him and put my arm around his shoulders. “Hey,” I say. “You know who’s a total asshole? Civetman.”

I go back home, taking a different route. I bolt the door. I do the accounts, but not financial ones.

Half the Order Corps is gone. If even a few of my clients take the initiative, it could tip this city’s balance in favor of supervillainy for good.

I consider joining the fray myself, but my doomsday device is nowhere near ready and my half-finished costume makes me look like the worst kind of badly drawn T&A cliché. It’s just not time for the world to meet the Angel of Death.

It won’t be long before another member of the Order Corps follows Commander Justice’s lead, so I’m about to hastily pack a bag when I notice I’ve got new voice mail.

Look, the message says, I know you usually work with established villains, but I’ve had a breakthrough in the lab … I mean, something really big, and I want to launch it next week, but I can feel the urge to monologue, I mean, I know it’s going to be irresistible, and I don’t want to muff this. I just … I think talking to someone would help. There’s a cough and a pause. Anyway, I did a test run the other day. It hasn’t made the news, of course it wouldn’t, what with the Squidinator and what happened at Order Corps HQ. But you can find it on YouTube, just search for Burn Rate.

I call him and set an appointment for this evening. Maybe the kid has talent. It’s a long shot, but my only other option is early retirement.

Burn Rate’s lair is in a discreet brownstone in a quiet neighborhood. I didn’t have time for the usual insurance, but I watched his YouTube videos and did some basic research. Burn Rate turned up about six months ago, apparently funding his villainy with cash his civilian persona made selling a lucrative startup. Since then he’s pulled off a couple of impressive heists. He showed style, and his weapons looked good: elegant, efficient. He has promise.

“Struggle all you like, Human Tornado! You’ll never escape my Electrostatic Cage!”

Not another Electrostatic Cage. Even superheroes carry enough loose change in their rubber-soled boots to discharge the damn things.

“Ah ha ha ha!” Burn Rate says before he breaks character and whispers to me, “It’s not really electrostatic … I just want to see the look on his face when it vaporizes the quarter he tries to flip through it.”

“Yeah.” He grins and gets back into character. “Nice try, Human Tornado, but you’ll never save this city from my Demoleculator!”

Whoa, whoa, whoa—this is new. “You’ve got a Demoleculator? A working Demoleculator?”

“Yep, that’s why I need your help. How do you not monologue about the world’s first fully functional Demoleculator?”

“But no one’s ever been able to stabilize the parakinetic matrix long enough to produce a reliable quantic field.”

“Now, see, that’s the cool part. The fullerenic properties reinforce the icosohedral substrate, creating a completely stable crystalline structure.”

“I know, huh?” Is he actually blushing? “Ask me about my orbiting death ray.”

“With targeting precision at about plus or minus three feet, but I’m working on that. I was tempted to do a demo during my last heist, but I thought it might be overkill.”

“Yeah, you want to save a device like that for serious world domination action.”

“Exactly. Look, I know you’re only getting paid to hear the monologue, but are you interested in taking a look? I’ve got a pretty nice lab in the basement. I don’t mean to show off, but you really seem to know your death rays, and it’s just so damn cool.”

His grin is as infectious as a well-designed bioweapon. “I’d love to,” I say.

His lab isn’t pretty nice—it’s stunning. And it isn’t so much in the basement as part of an underground lair so vast you’d need a map to navigate: this way to the lab, this way to the firing range, this way to the master control room, this way to more storage than most Megapolites could even imagine.

We talk shop while he gives me the tour. His enthusiasm is boundless—he’s obviously in it for the science.

“Take the orbiting death ray,” he says. “Next to the challenges of maintaining the power supply, you’d think ultraprecise targeting from a geosynchronous orbit would be a snap. And to be fair the current margin for error isn’t that bad, but it does limit it to villainous applications.”

“Well, there’d be a certain amount of rebranding involved.” He looks a little sheepish. “Anyway, do you want to give it a try?”

He shows me the controls. I’ve never seen such a clean interface. In only a moment I’ve got it locked on The Puzzler’s 1937 Bugatti.

“He painted question marks all over it. I’m putting it out of its misery.”

“Fair enough,” he says, and the car disappears in a cloud of parking garage debris.

“I always find it a bit distant. Now the handheld version of the Demoleculator, that’s a much more immediate experience.”

“Well, it’s just a prototype. Terrible battery life. Every shot means overnight on the charger.” He looks shy again. “Look, I know I’m being a terrible show-off, but I just spend so much time working on this stuff by myself…”

We go to the firing range. There’s a wooden bowl of fruit on a pedestal about fifty yards away. When Burn Rate stands behind me, unnecessarily helping me aim the Demoleculator, a pleasant sensation runs up and down my spine.

I walk over to the pile of dirty-looking sand that used to be the bowl, the fruit, and the pedestal.

“The handheld version leaves more residue,” he says apologetically. “It just doesn’t have enough power to properly vaporize.”

I let the grains run through my fingers. “It’s perfect,” I say. I look up and see a strange smile on his face, probably a reflection of my own.

“So it’s not particularly villainous,” he says, “but do you want to check out the wine cellar?”

“This is extraordinary.” The complexity in the first sip of Château Pétrus is unlike anything I’ve ever tasted.

“It is nice, isn’t it?” He looks a little surprised by the taste himself. “I have to admit I bought most of the cellar at an estate sale, so I can’t take credit for its quality. I am learning, though. Mastering oenology was one of my New Year’s resolutions.”

“You do realize compulsive truth-telling is a very unhealthy quality in a supervillain, right?”

“We never got through your monologue. I think we should give it another try.”

He checks his watch and looks both embarrassed and hopeful when he says, “Can we do it in the morning?”

I swirl my wine in its crystal glass, inhaling the scent of a vintage older than either of us. My research says he’s about my age, but he looks so young I can’t help smiling at him.

A bottle of wine later he says, “Have you ever thought about working with someone? Not just on the monologuing, I mean.”

I look at his handsome face and think about his beautiful lab, his elegant weapons, his vast storage space. I’m so lost in visions of the future I’m not really listening to him anymore, but I think he’s saying, “All this could be yours.”

That wasn’t the case at first. In the chaos of the early days, supervillains all over the city stopped talking and started shooting. A few turned on other heroes, or each other. A lot of them, like Carl, retired once they took out the archnemesis they’d built their lives around. Carl did go after Civetman, but he said it just wasn’t the same. He has a nice garden allotment near his apartment now. He seems happy.

Most of the surviving villains knew about my insurance policies. I’ve heard their monologues. I’ve seen their weapons. I know their weaknesses.

I emerged from the mayhem with my finger on the trigger of Burn Rate’s orbiting death ray and a business plan that was just waiting for the right arsenal.

I like to think I’ve been a benign global overlord, for the most part. Yes, some people complain about my banning cell phones on public transportation, or more specifically the fact that phones explode if they try to talk into them on a bus or a train. Or in a restaurant, or at the movies, or in any of a dozen other public places. But I think most of the population appreciates the peace and quiet.

I try to stay away from too much social engineering, though, and concentrate instead on more profitable ventures. My home dry-cleaning cabinet, licensed to Whirlpool, has been quite a little moneymaker. And of course it’s terrible for the planet, so it’s in keeping with my villainous brand. Image is so important in this business.

The giant statue of me with my boot on the actual White House might be a bit much, but I stand by adding my head to Mount Rushmore—it’s about time there was a woman’s face in that granite boys’ club.

After a challenging year things are ticking over nicely now. I’m still running the whole show from Burn Rate’s lair. It has everything I ever wished for while I was trapped in my crappy basement apartment.

I did make one change—I installed my dream desk in the master control room. It’s huge, and glossy black. Retractable compartments across its glorious broad surface let me indulge my love of paper and my love of order at the same time.

The only item I never clear off my desk at the end of the day is a dull metal cylinder about the size of a beer can. It holds Burn Rate’s grainy remains. The recharged Demoleculator worked beautifully.

I keep it there to remind me of the first rule of this business, the one the poor kid forgot: evil geniuses work alone.

Heather Lindsley’s work has appeared several times in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, as well in the magazines Asimov’s Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, Escape Pod, and Greatest Uncommon Denominator. Her fiction has also appeared in John Joseph Adams’s dystopian anthology Brave New Worlds, in Year’s Best SF 12, edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, and in Talking Back, edited by L. Timmel Duchamp. She is a graduate of the Clarion West Writers Workshop and currently lives in London.