Elizabeth Bevarly - Overnight Male

He blew out an exasperated breath. Where were tomorrow’s despots supposed to come from, if not from today’s universities? Where were the future Slobodan Milosevics and Saddam Husseins? It was criminal how college campuses weren’t producing tyrants anymore. Well, except for the Young Republicans. But even they were more interested these days in making sound business investments than they were in global domination. At this rate, by the time today’s youth grew to maturity, the world wasn’t going to be worth taking over. Which was all the more reason why Adrian had to do it now.

Unfortunately, the timetable wasn’t up to him, since it wasn’t he who knew the secret code that would finally put the world in his grasp. No, that was up to Moe, Larry and Curly over there. The ones currently focused on the bigscreen television, playing a game that seemed to involve a hedgehog who was dressed in large red sneakers and big white gloves, having evidently eschewed any other clothing.

Typical cartoon character, Adrian thought. All accessories. No pants.

“I wanna be Sonic now,” Chuck Miller said suddenly, tossing down the game controls he’d held in both hands and seizing—without asking permission—the controls from his companion to the left.

Neither of his playmates took offense, however, since they were all old pals. In fact, Adrian knew the trio’s friendship went all the way back to their freshman year in college, three whole years ago. Donny Grawemeyer, who was seated on Chuck’s left, only swatted Chuck’s hat and sent it flying, and Hobie Jurgens, on the right, only laughed and called him Buttwad.

It warmed the cockles of Adrian’s heart to see the boys getting along so well. And such charming, articulate creatures they were, too.

The three young men went to great pains to make clear their nonconformity from the campus cattle who did their academic grazing en masse, but each was dressed in some kind of iconic costume of his generation that indicated a desperation on his part to belong some where. Chuck was the typical suburban faux gangsta in his ropey gold chains and oversize pants and T-shirts—today’s color scheme was blue on brown. Donny was the self-proclaimed metalhead, his wavy red hair streaming past his shoulders over a black System of a Down T-shirt—whoever the hell they were—and blue jeans. And Hobie, with his cropped blond locks and baggy Jams and red Billabong T-shirt—whatever the hell that was—was the surfer dude. This despite the fact that the only surf one might find on the Ohio River occurred when a passing coal barge increased its speed to more than one knot.

Adrian supposed that, to the three students, he was something of an icon, too—albeit from their parents’ generation. To them, he was The Suit. A suit who went by the name of Nick Darian, since there was no way on God’s green earth he would ever give any of them his real name.

Now that his work day had ended, however—though his work day these days didn’t much involve any work—he had shed his espresso-colored jacket and tie and unfastened the buttons of his mustard-colored dress shirt at his throat and cuffs, rolling the latter back to his elbows. Adrian clung to his Fortune 500 wardrobe selections, even though his job these days consisted of little more than watching his back and trying to figure out where to strike next with his band of half-assed men. And also making sure that his half-assed men didn’t stray from the path of world domination any further than obtaining the next level in Fire Emblem. Whatever the hell that was.

Adrian identified with none of the boys. He admired none of them. He respected none of them. He liked none of them. He did, in fact, resent all of them, since they were all essential to a plan he couldn’t execute without them. Because they knew things about computers and code and other such things that Adrian simply could not grasp himself. Unfortunately, the little bastards couldn’t focus their brains on anything besides gaming for longer than fifteen minutes at a stretch.

When they did focus, though…Good God, they were magic. There was potential for them as a group that Adrian had barely tapped, and if they would just think about something besides half-naked hedgehogs, it would be they, not he, who ruled the planet.

“Dude, you’re always Sonic,” Donny said now, his carrot-colored hair falling forward as he reached for the controls Chuck had taken from him. “Gimme back the controls.”

But Chuck only nudged with his foot the controls he’d abandoned, scooting them closer to Donny. “You can be Tails,” he said. “Live a little.”

“Tails sucks, man,” Donny said. “He don’t do jack.” But instead of reaching for the controls that Chuck held firm, he leaned over his friend and snatched the controls Hobie held.

“Hey!” Hobie objected eloquently.

“I’m Knuckles now,” Donny announced. He tossed the controls formerly known as Chuck’s to Hobie. “You be Tails.”

“Tails sucks, man,” Hobie said. “He don’t do Jack.”

Adrian closed his eyes in a silent plea for patience. Oh, what he wouldn’t give for a good, solid two-by-four at the moment. How could people who claimed the IQs of NASA engineers have the maturity of eggplants?

“Boys, don’t make me separate you,” he said as he pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “You know how much you hate being put in time-out.”

They, of course, ignored him. Worse than ignored him, actually. They didn’t even hear him. And if there was one thing Adrian hated more than anything in the world, it was going unnoticed.

He opened his mouth to say something that would, he hoped, wrest their attention from the colorful graphics zipping by on the TV screen for even a moment, when the door to the hotel suite beeped at the use of a key card, then opened to reveal the final member of the group. She, too, barely acknowledged Adrian as she strode by him, tossing a halfhearted “Hey, Nick” over her shoulder at him as she approached the boys instead.

Ah, Iris, he thought as he watched her take a seat on the sofa, thrusting one long leg over the arm to swing her foot anxiously above the floor. She was always doing something anxiously. The antithesis to the boys, who could sit idly for hours in front of their games, Iris Daugherty could never be still for more than a few minutes at a time. She was an icon of her generation, too, though she took greater pains to establish her own identity of Goth Girl. She was dressed today as she always was, completely in black, from the cropped T-shirt to the baggy, zipper-ridden cargo pants to the studded belt and high-top sneakers. Her ears were pierced probably a dozen times, as was her eyebrow, her nose and her navel. Scores of black rubber bracelets encircled one wrist, and a black studded wristwatch was wrapped around the other. She carried with her, as she always did, an enormous black bag, chunky with its contents, slung diagonally over her shoulder and torso. As he always did, Adrian wondered what she could possibly have it filled with, as it was indeed always completely stuffed. She dyed her straight, chin-length hair and eyebrows black to match her clothes, even painted her bittendown nails black. Heavy black liner encircled pale blue eyes, and black lipstick stained her mouth.

Whenever Adrian saw her, he couldn’t help wondering what she’d looked like before the transformation. Especially since she was an aging Goth Girl who couldn’t hang on to this persona much longer without looking ridiculous. At twenty-six, she was older than the boys by half a dozen years, having started college a bit later than the others and taking her time to complete her degree. Adrian didn’t know a lot about her, but from what he’d heard and observed of her, he’d formed an impression of a rich kid who was even more bored by life than he was. He’d been around wealth often enough as an adult that he was reasonably adept at recognizing those who were born to it. Perhaps because his own background was so completely opposite to theirs.