Martin Greenberg - If I Were an Evil Overlord

He was the Ultimate Overlord. And he, too, had a choice.

He thought he knew his answer, but as the days turned to weeks turned to months turned to years, and he was eventually reduced to killing and eating rats in the darkness, he realized that he had never been an Ultimate Overlord.

He was just a lonely guy with a mouse and a flat screen monitor. He had no life, real or imagined.

He was a loser.

The screen flashed yellow, then green, and the words “level up” appeared in a brilliant flash. Jason fell back in his seat, limp and drained. The controller dropped from his hand to land softly on the carpeted floor. So close. If one of those two things had gotten him, they would have sent him back. There was no way to save your progress in the game, you started each level from the beginning, and you made it through-or you didn’t.

A door opened behind him, but Jason didn’t look up.

“Congratulations.” The voice floated to him from across the room.

“Thanks,” Jason mumbled. He didn’t feel any gratitude, but he also didn’t want to piss them off. He needed to eat, and he needed to sleep. His eyes were all but closed already. He wasn’t even sure he’d make it through the shower before he passed out. If he made them angry, they might make him play again, or raise the level.

“You’ve done well,” the voice continued. “Rest.”

Jason felt the belts around his chest loosen, and he rose shakily. Without looking over his shoulder, he headed for the shower and his own room. He knew there would be food and drink waiting by his bed. He also knew he didn’t want to know the face of the woman behind him. He’d seen it once or twice, but it was fuzzy in his mind, and he intended to keep it that way. She was a wackobird of the first order, but she was in charge, and the last thing Jason wanted was to make it through this ordeal only to find he was in danger for knowing too much.

Behind him, he heard the game cartridge eject and the door close. He breathed deeply again and entered the small bathroom. It didn’t matter who let him out of the chair, or why-only that they did.

Within ten minutes he’d showered, crammed a canned meat sandwich into his mouth, downed two sodas, and dropped across the bed, dead to the world.

General Vale paced the deck of the control room. His gaze swept the walls and stopped at each loosely covered vent. His expression was grim. His elite guard flanked the control room entrance, and a barrier manned by half a dozen others surrounded the control console. Was it enough?

Two levels below, sealed off from all points of entry, the sorceress Makeeda, waited. He knew she wasn’t nervous; she had already seen the outcome. She knew what he could only hope to be true.

Vale turned and stomped back the other way, glancing at first one, and then another of the new monitors they’d added to their defenses. Each of the things Makeeda had foreseen had come true. All of the weaknesses she had pointed out to him were flaws he knew he should have anticipated on his own. It drove him half mad with anger and the desire for action. Where were they? Could she be wrong this time?

He whirled a final time and there they were. One of the new monitors, which showed an area just to the left of the citadel’s main gate, depicted a lone figure stepping furtively from the cover of a stand of trees. The intruder glanced about, gestured to the shadows behind him, and a moment later a group of at least twenty rebels ran across the shadowed space beside the citadel. There were no guards stationed outside the walls. There were never guards. The defenses were impenetrable. At least that is what Vale believed.

The rebels dropped out of sight, but it didn’t matter. He knew where they were headed.

Vale gripped the captain of his guard by the shoulder and shoved him toward the door. “Do it! Now!” he cried.

The man rushed out of the chamber, followed by one other. Vale spun and directed the remaining guards into formation. He took his own place behind the barrier at the main console. If all went well, there would be no need for such precautions, but he was learning that arrogance was the biggest weakness in his defenses, and he didn’t have a death speech planned. He drew a long, wicked blade from the scabbard at his side and smiled.

The shaft was very dark, but Colin didn’t hesitate. He’d been memorizing the layout of the ventilation system for a week. He knew how many feet stretched between one turn and the next, where the exits from the system could be located, and what the quickest route to the control center would be. He wore specially fabricated boots to minimize the sound of his passing through the hollow metal vents and his followers were similarly attired.

The outer access cover had been as easy to remove as their sources claimed it would be. He got it off and got them all out of sight and into the vents in a matter of moments. There was no alarm.

“We’re in!” Felicia whispered in his ear.

He reached out and silenced her with a finger to the lips. He was as excited as she was, but they couldn’t hesitate. Their entire plan depended on being quick and silent.

Felicia nodded and spun. She wedged herself into the vent, pressed her feet into the first ribbed joint, and levered herself upward. Colin followed. A few moments later they were all moving up through the floors of the citadel toward General Vale’s control room.

They were nearly halfway up when the clang of metal on metal rang out from above. Colin hissed for them to hold their positions, and they waited in breathless silence.

The hot oil never burned them. The impact of heavy stones and metal, and the shock of striking the bottom of the shaft, killed them all. Their final screams, sharp barks of pain, fear, and confusion, echoed from the walls of the shaft. The oil coated the mass of broken bone and flesh and blended with their blood. There was another, final clang from above as the grate was closed.

Vale’s men trooped out into the courtyard in front of the citadel. They lined up in ranks around a fenced stone circle. From the trees, rebel scouts watched as, one by one, their fallen comrades were dragged from the entrance to the ventilation system and piled in the center of the circle. When they were all in place, reaching shoulder height, General Vale himself appeared.

The sorceress Makeeda walked at his side in serene silence. She saw the pile of broken bodies, stopped, and smiled. General Vale glanced over his shoulder in annoyance and waited for her to join him at a gap in the stone circle. Eventually she did so, and he turned to the pyre.

“Bring wood,” he said loudly.

Makeeda held up a hand. “There is no need,” she said softly. She held her hands before her, closed her eyes, and her smile broadened. The dead rebels’ clothing, soaked in oil, caught first. Flames rippled along the length of the piled bodies and traced outlines between them, searing flesh and turning their uniforms to ash. The pile glowed red, smoldered and hissed, and then with a great burst of energy, was engulfed in flame.

Every man but one in those ranks flinched; most took an involuntary half step back. Only General Vale stood his ground. He watched as the flames leaped and danced, and breathed deeply as the scent of roasting flesh filled the air. Then he turned slowly and stared off through the trees in the direction from which the rebel attack had begun. He saw no one, but he glared as if nothing could block his sight. Makeeda giggled wildly and danced in circles, wreathed in the smoke of the funeral pyre.

When the last cinder of flesh had dropped to ash, and all that remained were the blackened hilts of swords and daggers and the carcasses of firearms, the general turned back toward the citadel. His men fell into ranks behind him and followed. Makeeda danced at his side, her steps nimble and seductive. She teased him with her long, dark tresses and brushed her lithe form against his back, beneath his swinging arms, even sliding once between his legs. Vale ignored her, and she never slowed his progress, blending her motion to his pace. As the last of the guards disappeared into the citadel, hoofbeats pounded away on the far side of the trees.