Martin Greenberg - If I Were an Evil Overlord

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Once I was satisfied that my latest idea hadn’t been duplicated, I sat down with my trusted advisers to discuss how best to implement it. Krayle normally handled the tactical aspects of the operation, hiring any dimwitted, strapped-for-cash “muscle” needed to replace those lost in the last debacle, then working with me on agent positioning, contingency plans, and escape routes-one never knew when a hasty retreat might have been required. In this case, however, I was working with a much smaller canvas: the operation only required a single synthadroid placed in the heart of the city. Smythe was in charge of intelligence gathering, using my global network of undercover agents, computer hackers, and surveillance satellites to provide me with all I needed to know about the chosen target area: traffic flow, law enforcement presence, average number of city dwellers on the streets at a certain hour, etc. Alessi ran accounting, making sure we never went over budget, even when it came to some of the more… esoteric items I often required. (You couldn’t just go down to Costco and pick up a cold fusion reactor, after all.) I must say, he was quite pleased with this small-scale project-at least at the start. And Gillian…

Gillian was no different from other children her age. Happy and playful, inquisitive and devilishly clever, sweet as a gumdrop yet incredibly advanced for a child still finding enjoyment in endless repeat viewings of Snow White and Shrek on DVD (I still have trouble getting that damn Monkees song out of my head at times). No doubt that heightened intellect came from the genetic material on my side of the family-that boorish lout Sienna married could barely hold a conversation. If my sister hadn’t been so mawkishly devoted to Bernie, I’d have annulled the marriage years ago-with the aid of a gun. My sister deserved better than a trash collector.

Gillian was my fail-safe, my logic being that if a child could pick out the faults in my plan, then so could any of my enemies (even the dullards who failed their advanced algebra classes back in high school). On more than one occasion had Gillian spared me the indignity of a failed operation by assessing the initial plan and reaching the conclusion it was a load of “poopie.”

Poopie.

From the mouths of babes, indeed.

What I came to call the “April Retribution”-although, in hindsight, “Judgment Day” might have been a far better sobriquet-passed the Gillian Test with flying colors. She even giggled when the three-dimensional computer simulation depicted just how widespread the devastation would be… although I equated that more to her enjoyment of video games and their colorful graphics than out of any sociopathic desire for bloodshed. Still, my spirits were buoyed by her enthusiastic reaction. Now I was certain it would prove to the citizens of Amicus that Professor Josiah Plum was a man to fear-and assure a highly intelligent little girl that not all of “Uncle Josie’s” plans were steaming piles of excrement. That the old boy still had it.

In retrospect, of course, I shouldn’t have been so focused on further inflating my already sizable ego. Years of experience should have taught me that, but no upstanding member in the brotherhood of villainy had ever gotten anywhere by listening to the voice of reason. And I was as guilty as the next in allowing my actions to be directed less by common sense and more by sheer arrogance. And arrogance could sometimes be such a costly-and unnecessary-distraction in my profession.

Former profession, that is.

Ah. My title. Not quite the sort of name you were expecting from a criminal mastermind of my caliber, I imagine. Professor Plum-sounds as though I’ve escaped from a game of Clue (and yes, I’ve heard that more times than I care to remember). Why didn’t I go by a flashier name, like “General Malpractice” or “The Biochemist,” is that it? Well, to quote the Bard, “What’s in a name?” In my… former profession, noms de guerre and gaudy costumes were a dime a dozen, and Professor Plum had better things to do with his time than dig behind sofa cushions looking for spare change. And honestly, no one wearing enormous metal shoulder pads, waving around a gun the size of a missile launcher, and calling themselves “The War Machine” ever struck fear in the hearts of the average citizen. As those of my generation well knew, it was the deeds that made a villain, not a ridiculous code name-a fact that was unfortunately lost on our younger, fashion-challenged brothers and sisters. More importantly, it was the amount of creativity one exhibited in carrying out a criminal act that often determined the level of respect one received from one’s peers. Blow up a tank or police car? Extremely commonplace, and the sort of distasteful, over-the-top showmanship most self-respecting intellectuals abandoned immediately after their first public appearance. Level a building? Dramatic, to be sure, yet lacking any real style. But cut off the satellite feed to a Super Bowl or the Academy Awards, and the world erupted in chaos. There were few as creative as I in those days, and the majority of the recidivistic community greatly respected my ingenuity. As for those members who refused to acknowledge my artistic superiority… well, they weren’t around long enough to make the same mistake twice.

But I digress.

Krayle, Alessi, Smythe, and Elsinore all agreed with Gillian’s approval of the plan, and “April Retribution” was placed on the fast track for implementation. I’d been out of the public eye for eighteen months-having faked my own death for what must have been the twenty-fifth time-and was eager to show the world not only that I’d returned from the grave (again), but that I was ready to pick up where I’d left off. Looking back, I realize I should have done a bit more planning before greenlighting the project. The exuberance of resurrection, I suppose.

Still, it wasn’t as though I lacked the necessary materials to carry out the operation. I have a veritable army of synthadroids-synthetic androids, to the laity-stored on the bottommost level of this underground lair, so activating one was a simple as pressing a button. Most of my artificial henchmen lack features, because more than a decade ago I discovered that the sight of faceless warriors precision marching down a street will do more to incite panic among civilians than roving bands of thugs wearing helmets fitted with Plexiglas visors. A hundred or so of my mechanized legion, however, were constructed with features that matched my own: stunt doubles, as it were, who stood in for me when it became apparent that faking my own death was the only option left available if I wanted to ensure my escape from a particularly sticky situation. A suicidal leap from a cooling tower into the heart of a nuclear reactor; vaporized in the explosion that ripped apart my base in Antigua; chewed up by tentacled, interdimensional creatures from a parallel universe-synthadroids provided me with countless ways to cheat death and avoid capture. And not only were they relatively inexpensive to manufacture (one of the many advantages of outsourcing jobs to southeast Asia), but they were biodegradable as well. Ten minutes after their “deaths,” the androids would either dissolve or turn to dust, leaving behind no trace of evidence that might have proven to my enemies that I still lived… although I’m fairly certain they knew, anyway. As the saying used to go in my line of work, “Just because you saw them die doesn’t mean they’re really dead.”

I did manage to keep them guessing more times than not, however, and that was due to the lifelike actions of my stand-ins: they mimicked my physical characteristics so well that even Elsinore could be fooled into thinking she was talking to me and not a mechanical fabrication. Yet in a way she was talking to me, through the aid of one of my more inspired creations: the Psychelmet ™. By putting on this device (which, I’m sad to say, looked not unlike an overturned colander with wires and jumper cables attached to it), I could transfer-or upload, to use the more accurate terminology-my consciousness into the synthadroid’s computerized brain, and direct its actions from a distance of up to five miles. Usually, that meant I was nowhere in the immediate vicinity of whatever final confrontation was about to take place with my opponent, but through my body double I could still experience the pleasure of beating some costumed cretin to a bloody pulp without actually having to be there. And when the odds eventually turned in my enemy’s favor, as so often they did… well, all I needed to do was withdraw my consciousness from the android at the last possible second, and let the hero (or heroine) dispose of my now-lifeless doppelganger in some typically dramatic fashion-unwittingly, of course.