If I Were an Evil Overlord

TO SIT IN DARKNESS HERE, HATCHING VAIN EMPIRES by Steven A. Roman

I poisoned my niece today.

Just turned six, and still wondering why her mother-my younger sister, Sienna-never comes to see her anymore. Desperately seeking assurance from me that it’s not because Mommy stopped loving her; that it wasn’t something she did wrong that made Mommy go away.

It’s heartrending to watch a child try to come to terms with something they may never understand, try to find the logic in an illogical situation. They’ll work on the problem, attempt to examine it from every angle, rack their brains trying to recall the precise moment, the one event, when everything in their young life started to come apart. And finally, when no answer presents itself, they reach the only conclusion their young minds can comprehend: Something bad happened, and it was all their fault.

What, exactly, that “bad thing” might be they can’t put into words because, really, they don’t know themselves. But experience has taught them that adults can be rude and angry and abusive; that adults don’t always have a logical reason to be mad at someone; that adults can often take out their frustrations on their children. And if an adult, especially a parent, stops talking to you, stops coming to see you, then you must have done something so unbelievably terrible that they never want to see you again.

But now she won’t have to trouble herself with such thoughts. Gillian is, as the old saying goes, in a far better place than this… although considering the state of the world today, that really isn’t saying much. Heaven, hell, purgatory, the void-any place would be better than here. All I sought to do was end her suffering (well, hers and mine). And if I were the type who believed in God, I might be able to console myself with the image of a mother and her daughter reunited for eternity in the afterlife.

No, her mother hadn’t stopped loving her; of that I have no doubts. And I had no trouble in telling her she wasn’t the one responsible for Mommy’s absence because she had done nothing to anger my sister. What proved difficult for me was in trying to explain the real reason for the disturbing lack of motherly attention. Gillian was meant to visit me for a weekend; after a year, I’d run out of excuses for why Sienna had never come back to pick up her daughter.

Yes, I suppose I could have just told her the truth, but I never did. I never could. Perhaps it was out of some ridiculous notion that I was protecting her in some way-from what, exactly, I haven’t a clue. Or maybe it was sheer cowardice that stilled my tongue-fear of how negatively she might have reacted were I to tell her everything. (Although why I should have been bothered by the thought of a child directing her hatred at me, when I’d spent a lifetime accumulating enemies who wanted me dead, still escapes me. No doubt it had something to do with our familial connection.) The bottom line was that I’d never been able to work up the nerve to tell her what really happened: that her kindly uncle Josiah was the one who made Sienna go away… along with the rest of the earth’s population.

I mean, how do you explain to a child that you murdered an entire world, even if it was by accident?

There was still a hint of December in the April winds that afternoon when everything went so horribly wrong: the sort of temperate breeze that made it too chilly for T-shirts, yet too warm for winter coats. That didn’t keep the multitudes indoors for long, however-with the first sign in weeks that winter had finally started to relax its five-month grip on the city, the lunchtime streets of Amicus were fairly overflowing with humanity. Secretaries and bike messengers, businessmen in shirtsleeves and mothers with their infants, the first ice cream truck of the year parked at the curb in front of the park-was there any better proof that spring was fast approaching? And the beautiful young women passing by in short skirts and tight jeans, their blouses filled to bursting… my God, they were everywhere, it seemed. Like sleek-limbed gazelles prancing across the veldt, eyed hungrily by the young cubs sprawled on the grass.

Truly, it was the sort of day when, as a far better poet than I once put it, “a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of love.” But all I could think of was, It’s almost a pity they’re all going to die…

Now, when I rose from bed the day before, formulating a plan that might result in the deaths of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of innocent men, women, and children wasn’t the first thing that entered my mind-such fanciful notions never were. In fact, I rarely started my mornings contemplating murder on such a grand scale. It wasn’t something you could just rush into; rather, it was a mindset you gradually eased into during the course of the day. Burned toast, having to shower with cold water because the heater was on the fritz, reviewing profit-and-loss financial statements based on the last failed attempt to subjugate humanity-of such minor annoyances were plans for widespread anarchy born. It really wasn’t until early afternoon that I’d built up a good head of steam to begin my plotting, and then only after I’d checked the papers and cable news channels to see what mayhem had been wrought in the world while I was getting a good night’s sleep. I hated devising a truly masterful scheme only to discover that some third-rate dictator from a postage-stamp-size European country no one had ever heard of had the very same idea… especially when he was able to carry it out for a third of the cost I’d budgeted for mine.

It made me feel… inadequate.

But whenever I slipped into such periods of ennui, Elsinore, my beloved paramour and second-in-command, was there to bolster my spirits. “Of course he was able to do it on the cheap, my love,” she would tell me, “and that is why his plan was doomed to fail from the start. Remember: ‘You have to spend money to make money.’ And if he wasn’t willing to invest in top-of-the-line battle armor for his legions, or purchase a real thermonuclear device instead of just an empty casing for show, then how could he possibly have expected to control a major city?”

As the Righteous Brothers-the musical group, not that trio of do-gooding idiots with the fake Spanish accents-once put it, she was my hope, my inspiration. Elsinore had seen me through the good times and the bad, the highs and the lows, the victories and the lengthy prison sentences. And not once had she ever complained-not during that (I now admit) crazed period when I insisted she wear pink thigh-high boots, hot pants, and sheer blouses, and not that time I ordered her to shoot my former second-in-command for betraying me to the authorities. No greater love had a woman ever shown for a man then when she executed her own father while he begged for mercy.

Dear, sweet, raven-haired Elsinore. I miss her so, these days-the touch of her skin, the sweet taste of her lips. How I wish it hadn’t been necessary to strangle her as she drifted off to sleep, but after a year in this underground hell, what little stale, recycled oxygen remains is a precious commodity. And yet, I’ll always have that last night of passion to remind me of the love we shared. That, and the terrified look in her dimming eyes as she desperately clawed at her pillows, only to realize I’d already removed the gun she kept under them. Sometimes, late at night, I can still feel her lying beside me in bed, her warm body quivering against mine as the garotte tightened around her slender throat; can still hear the almost sensuous whisper of her death rattle as she struggled to draw that one final breath past the cord that had closed off her windpipe.

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.

So I had the means to deliver my message of retribution to the world. Now all that was needed was a way to ensure it would be heard… and understood. But I’d already settled on a solution to that minor intellectual challenge an hour before I convened with my lieutenants.

A decade ago, a series of experiments I was conducting with wormhole technology resulted in the weakening of the vibratory barriers that separate this world from its counterpart in a neighboring dimension: a parallel Earth. It exists temporally out of sync with mine, just seconds apart-a hairs-breadth in distance on a cosmic scale. As the years passed and I was able to stabilize the wormhole to permit travel through the barriers, I learned there were other Earths, in other dimensions-an almost infinite number of them, in fact. And on none of the parallel worlds to which I made excursions did I find a single superpowered man or woman. To say I was shocked would be accurate; to say I was delighted by this revelation would be an understatement. That’s not to say there are no dimensions brimming over with costumed lunatics; I’m almost certain there must be, somewhere. It’s just that I saw no evidence of spandex-wearing simpletons on the Earths I visited.

On one such alternate-not the one inhabited by the tentacled monstrosities that devoured my synthadroid stand-in, thankfully-I learned of a powerful explosive invented by my counterpart, an acclaimed scientist praised for his humanitarian work and idolized by the world at large.

I killed him, naturally. Put a large caliber bullet through that much-loved brain of his, and stabbed him in both eyes.

As I may have mentioned before, feelings of inadequacy tend to bother me a great deal.

My late dimensional brother christened his explosive “hellfire” because of the intense heat and flames produced when the mixture was detonated-in poetic terms, it provided a brief glimpse into what “hell on Earth” might be like on a small scale. Or so he believed. As it turned out, he’d never actually put his wondrous discovery to use, although he had submitted a patent for “ Plum ’s Controlled” something (it looked like “Detonation”-his handwriting was atrocious) “Compound.” According to his notes, he wasn’t certain of what might happen if the mixture were set off or even whether the explosion could really be controlled, but had no intention of finding out. Like Alfred Nobel, who was condemned for his invention, dynamite (and who then used the vast fortune he amassed from sales of the explosive to establish the prizes he named after himself, so the world might think better of him-the fool), Other-Plum was concerned more with his legacy than with demonstrating to his scientific peers that his was the greatest intellect.

And you wonder why I killed him.

Unlike my altiverse twin, I wasn’t the sort who trifled in making busywork for myself that no one would ever see. And if he was too timid to make use of Plum ’s Explosive Compound, I wasn’t. Based on his notes-some words of which I had to guess at, that bad handwriting of his again-and my computer simulations, it appeared that a two-pound charge of this “hellfire” was sufficient for the task I’d set.

The charge was shaped and fitted into the chest of the Plum synthadroid. All that remained was for me to make my dramatic reappearance.

I chose a bench at the southeast corner of Cor-man Park as the location from which to stage my comeback, situated as it was at a large intersection close to the financial district. The spot was also directly across the street from the criminal courts building, home to the multitude of prosecutors and judges I had come to know-and despise-so well over the decades.

An unmarked white van, driven by one of my underlings, delivered the android to the target. Then I slipped on the Psychelmet^™, slipped into the robot’s mind, and stepped out to greet my adoring public.

The panic that ensued was glorious and, unfortunately, as short-lived as it had ever been. Because within two minutes of my appearance, the Devil chose to confront me, as he had so many times in the past.

DeviHawk, I mean, not Lucifer… although an appearance by the Prince of Lies would have been a welcomed change after enduring so many encounters with the heroically-garbed pissant who play-acted at being him.

I never understood the Hawk-his motives, that is. Why a grown man would choose to dress in gaudy red spandex and black leather, glue a tiny pair of horns to his temples, and parade around in public beating up people could probably be better explained by a mental health care professional. I’d always been too preoccupied with killing him to give it any real consideration.

He swooped down from the noonday sky on red glider wings that were attached to his gauntlets, and landed a few feet away. Keeping his distance, naturally.

“Hey, Prof,” he said casually, knowing full well how much I hated being called that. “Finally decided it was time to crawl out from under your rock?”

I eyed him closely. “You don’t seem surprised by my return, Hawk.”

He shrugged. “Nah. I figured you were still out there, somewhere, waiting for the right moment before you dragged your sorry ass out of whatever hidey-hole you’d slithered into.” I could tell he was lying, though-I always could. He’d literally jumped for joy when he thought I’d fallen into that reactor core. Seeing me again (even if it wasn’t the real me) was troubling him deeply; it was obvious by the way he kept nervously shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

I directed the android’s servomotors to twist the corners of its mouth into an approximation of a smile. “Yes, well, now that I’ve ‘slithered’ back out, I have just one question for you.”

He tensed, no doubt expecting me to attack. “And what’s that?”

“Are you familiar with the Book of Revelations?” I asked.

DevilHawk started, then shook his head in disbelief. “Huh. Never figured you as the type to get religion, Prof.” He flashed that insufferably condescending grin of his. “You gonna start quoting Scripture now?”

“Just a verse or two,” I replied. I cleared my mechanical throat. “ ‘And when he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see. And I looked, and behold a pale horse; and his name that sat on him was Death. And Hell followed with him.’ ”

As planned, that was the moment when my-or, rather, the synthadroid’s-chest began beeping. Counting down.

The Hawk’s eyes widened. His jaw slackened. It was such a delicious moment when he finally realized that he’d been conversing with a machine. That he’d been denied another opportunity to pound my head down around my ankles. And that my stand-in was about to explode.

I immediately pulled out of the computer brain and returned to my body. I’d had the last word; now I could observe what came next from the safety of my lair. Overnight, Smythe had dispatched a squad of technicians to install hidden cameras throughout the area, so I could enjoy the festivities. All I had to do now was sit back and watch.

The Hawk leapt forward, grabbed hold of the android’s shirt, and tore it open. No doubt he expected to find a timer under there, one that would give him some idea of how much time remained before the blast. Time enough, I suppose, for him to find a way to defuse the bomb.

There was no timer, however; I’d stopped using those years ago. Perhaps if DevilHawk had paid for a subscription to Scientific American instead of Maxim, he would have been able to keep up with the recent changes in mad scientist technology, instead of focusing all his attention on the cup size of the latest cosmetically-sculpted supermodel. I, on the other hand, learned of and quickly invested in some of the more popular trends in terrorist equipment, such as biological weapons, laser-guided missiles… and voice-activated switches. In this case, quoting from Revelations was the trigger; the bomb was set to detonate five seconds later. Long enough for me to savor the horrified look in the costumed hero’s eyes as he saw the end coming.

The explosion was… spectacular. Like Vesuvius unleashing its molten fury or the gates of hell being thrown wide open. Every one of my hidden cameras were vaporized in a split-second; a minute later, my lair was struck by an intense shockwave-even three miles down-that knocked out the generators and plunged us into darkness. By the time we were able to get some of the systems back online and the monitors restored, I was left with only the views provided by my spy satellites to see what was taking place in Amicus.

And what a sight it was. The flames roared high above the spot where the city should have been, extending upward into the atmosphere as though the devil himself was reaching up with a giant hand to pluck the stars from the sky. And when I focused the cameras on the ground, I saw no evidence that Amicus still existed-every building, every tree, every person had been consumed.

“Oh, my God…” I heard Elsinore whisper behind me. I, on the other hand, was at a loss for words.

It was a much larger explosion than I’d expected. And it didn’t stop.

Suddenly, the sky itself was aflame, and the fire began spreading, moving outward from Amicus in all directions. And as the conflagration began its apocalyptic race around the planet, I recalled a declassified U.S. government document I’d once come across in my studies: a report filed by Arthur Compton, one of the scientists working on the Manhattan Project in the early days of atomic bomb research. In it, he mentioned that a fellow scientist, Edward Teller, had expressed some concerns about the first test explosion-that the possibility existed they might wind up igniting the atmosphere through the fusion reaction of nitrogen nuclei. He was proved wrong, of course. Atomic bombs were incapable of setting fire to the atmosphere.

Hellfire, however, could. And did.

And as the world burned, I came to understand just why Other-Plum had steered away from testing his compound. He knew-feared-this might happen.

I came to another chilling realization at that moment, for my subconscious had never stopped trying to decipher the crudely scrawled word I’d seen on my twin’s patent application for Plum ’s Controlled Compound. It had finally worked through the puzzle; now I had my answer.

It wasn’t “Detonation.” It was “Deflagration”-the continuous process by which combustion spreads via thermal conductivity, as when something hot, like an uncontrollable flame, heats and then ignites something cold.

Like the atmosphere.

That was a little over a year ago. The flame front circled the globe in a matter of hours, burning brightly until the lack of oxygen finally extinguished it. By then, every human and animal, bird and insect, flower and tree had either died from asphyxiation or been incinerated-save for those men and women (and one child) who were gathered in this underground facility. And even that situation would change, over time.

The first three months were especially trying. As the realization that they would never see their loved ones again, never be able to set foot on the surface for the rest of their lives, finally sank in among my followers, problems arose. Some committed suicide; others slowly went mad. The majority, however, decided to turn their anger on me. Elsinore did her best to keep the rabble in line; eviscerating the most vocal among them seemed the best deterrent, though they never stayed quiet for long. By the time things finally settled down, I was reduced to thirty underlings from a staff of more than one hundred.

Well, it certainly helped to make the emergency rations last longer. But it did nothing really to resolve a far greater crisis: what to do for breathable air when the oxygen supply ran out seven months later.

Thankfully, most of the surviving noncombatants were technicians, not soldiers, which meant we could focus on carrying out my solution to the predicament: abandon the lair and travel to another Earth via the dimensional portal. Unfortunately, a number of the gate’s power cells had been damaged by the explosion’s shockwave, and repairing the system would require cannibalizing other equipment that had been damaged just as badly. It would also take more time to accomplish the work than we had available air in the oxygen reserves… unless the ranks were thinned even further.

I put that consideration on hold until the repairs were well underway. What little chance we had of departing the necropolis this Earth had become served as a great motivator for my staff, and I was not about to deny them that hope, especially when it meant the difference between escape and another potential uprising. Still, I knew cuts would be necessary at some point, given the dwindling amount of supplies on hand-there was no getting away from it. Yet I couldn’t just start… firing the techs. I needed their expertise. That left upper management, and I knew I would have to personally oversee those terminations.

Alessi was the first to be “let go.” In this brave, dead world I’d created, accountants were superfluous when budgetary concerns had to be cast aside in favor of basic survival needs. I’m sure he would have approved of my cost-saving decision-if I hadn’t slit his throat first. Krayle and Smythe followed him two months later. With no martial campaigns to map out, or intelligence to gather, I thought it best to downsize those departments on a permanent basis.

I have no doubt Elsinore could see her demise coming, might even have considered some ways in which to prevent it. And yet, her love for me was so great, so utterly blinding, that she could never bring herself to raise a hand against me, and apparently believed that I felt the same toward her.

Pitiful, really. You’d think a woman ordered to slay her own father would know better than to trust her life to the same man who’d given her that order… but no. At least she died knowing that her noble sacrifice would allow me to go on living a few days longer.

By the time the air grew heavy with the stench of the decaying bodies scattered throughout the facility, the repairs had been completed and the gateway reactivated. In six hours, it would be at full power, and then this blackened husk of a world would be just a distant memory. So with everything up and running, and my technicians’ services no longer required, I now had an opportunity to make the final staff cuts. But I didn’t bother with guns or explosives to do the job.

Instead, I held a birthday party.

Gillian, my now emotionally traumatized niece, had actually turned six a month earlier, but with my top priority being the restoration of the portal, her special day hadn’t been properly celebrated. I promised to make it up to her then, and Josiah Plum always kept his word… in some form or another.

I found a stale angel food cake and a can of chocolate frosting in the back of my private pantry, then made a stop at my laboratory, where I added an extra ingredient to the frosting: a hint of one of my faster-acting poisons. Just to give it a little kick. Then it was off to the party in the main control room, where I found the remaining staffers had hung a large handmade banner that read HAPPY BIRTHDAY GILLIAN.

Charming.

The party was an overwhelming success, and the cake quickly devoured by one and all-except for me. I complained of a minor toothache. No sweets for me, thank you, so Gillian happily gorged herself on my slice, in addition to her own.

It didn’t take long for the poison to run its course. Gillian, having consumed the greatest amount, slipped away quickly… although I hadn’t expected her passing to be quite as disturbingly violent as it turned out. No doubt an allergic reaction to the drug. It was something to keep in mind for future reference…

The others died among a chorus of screams, whimpers, and vituperative utterances-directed at me, of course. Eventually, though, the bothersome noises trailed away, and the only sounds that could be heard in the control room were my labored breathing… and the hum of the dimensional portal.

And now I stand at the gateway, ready to cross over to a new world. There is nothing left here for me to come back to, so I’ve programmed the facility’s generators to overload minutes after my departure. One final, explosive gift for the dead planet I once called home. Yet I feel no sense of melancholy, no desire to choke back any tears, for a new home awaits on the far side of the portal, and I am eager to place my mark upon it.

The mark of its conqueror.

And should the inhabitants-whether costumed or not-foolishly decide to oppose me, then perhaps I will introduce them to the amazing, literally earth-shattering qualities of a special formula I like to call Professor Josiah Plum’s Controlled Detonation Compound (Patent Pending).

I’ll get it right next time.

In the end, I always do.