Villains Deception

by M. K. Gibson

  They shouldn’t have, because she was right.

  It was a trap.

  “Morakesh,” I said into the earpiece.

  “Yes, Mr. Blackwell?”

  “Send it all.”

  “I can’t send you any singular item or items of assistance! I told you, Ms. Sophia saw to that.”

  “I don’t want an item. I want it all. Execute: Operation Wicked Witch.”

  “Oh . . . oh Mr. Blackwell. Are you sure?”

  “Goddamn right I am.”

  “Y-yes Mr. Blackwell. See you on the other side. Standby for transmat!”

  I stood there, watching the gods bunch up in the valley between us. Bastards might as well have been in a Looney Tunes cartoon and standing on a giant black X. But unlike the plans of the Coyote, mine worked.

  A colossal swirl of black smoke appeared in the sky, followed by the screeching, whistling sound of something falling. Something beyond huge. The gods only got a brief glance up as a building, my building, the Blackwell Villain Consulting Agency and the fucking giant rock it floated on, fell from the sky. My life’s work, my little empire, fell atop the gods in a cacophonous roar as untold hundreds of thousands of tons descended upon The Bliss.

  In their near-mortal forms, the gods, all of them, were pulverized.

  The land shook and the skies wept as the machinations of the one they call the Shadow Master came to fulfillment, and a great pantheon fell to ruin.

  I reached down into my sport coat and fished out a cigarette and a lighter. I enjoyed the smoke as the dust and debris settled. It would take a while to make our way through the ruins to get to the portal. But it was worth it.

  “Mr. Blackwell!” Morakesh screamed and waved from what remained of the top floor window. “It worked! I always believed in you!”

  “And that is why you are the new employee of the month!” I called back.

  “You mean it?!”

  “You’ve earned it.”

  “I-I can’t believe it,” Morakesh gushed, then fanned himself. “Hold it together, Morry, don’t gush. You’ve prepared for this. You’ve earned your spot at the table. You’re a great lich, a great lich!”

  “A dead lich,” Sophia said, as her shadowy djinn form appeared from the rubble.

  “Ms. Sophia?” Morakesh called out. “Is that you?”

  Of course it was. Being a creature of shadow and power, my trap had merely inconvenienced her. She reformed into the guise of my perky former secretary. In her hand was a brass and bone phylactery.

  Sophia looked at me, directly at me, as she crushed the link to Morakesh’s soul.

  In the distance, Morakesh shrieked. His body instantly flared up in magical fire. The blaze burned hot and bright. In the end, he was nothing more than dust amid a pair of khaki slacks and a polo shirt.

  Tossing the item aside, Sophia smiled. “And here we are.”

  “Here we are,” I agreed.

  “Nice trick,” she said. “I didn’t think you had the balls to go through with it.”

  “You took everything else from me. It’s just a building.”

  “We built it together,” she said.

  I nodded. “We did. And it was great while it lasted.”

  “It was,” she agreed. Then she looked down at Evie, who in turn hid behind me.

  “So what now?” I asked. “The offer stands. Beat me in a fight, and I’m yours, provided Evie lives back in the Prime Universe regardless of the outcome.”

  “You know, I’ll take you up on that offer,” Sophia said.

  “Really?” I asked, surprised.

  “No,” she laughed. “Villain, please. My vengeance includes her. But I am nothing if not sporting. Get to your portal, and you’re home free. Goodbye, Jackson.”

  Sophia came at me very quickly and . . . hugged me. It was a real, honest, emotion-filled hug. She broke it, patted Evie on the head, and then . . . walked away.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “Away,” she said.

  “And all I have to do is walk through the portal?”

  “If you can,” she said. “But there may be one last surprise for you.”

  “Which is?”

  “That would be spoiling the surprise,” she said as her body began to melt away into shadow. “But let’s just say, while what you did to the gods is crafty, what I have planned is better.”

  And with that, she was gone.

  I looked down at Evie and shrugged. Nothing was around us except the wreckage of my building. There were no war horns on the horizon, no monsters trying to kill me. Hell, even the horde of zombies had vanished once The Blessing of the One had ended.

  I picked Evie up and together we began walking towards the portal home. It was . . . peaceful. We walked in silence under the nighttime stars towards the way home.

  Wait.

  Stars?

  There were no stars in The Bliss. Because The Bliss was not a planet. It wasn’t really a place.

  I looked up and realized that the stars were actually visible through a huge stargate in the sky. A portal to another universe.

  And that was when I saw the Quasar-class Vaanath Dominion warship Leviathan come through the portal. The same one I was on when this whole adventure started.

  My knees buckled and I dropped to the ground. On the winds, I heard Sophia laugh.

  The incredibly massive starship came through the portal and then hovered there. A bright light flared to life. I didn’t need to look up to know that the ship was preparing the quantum bomb.

  The world ender. The one I helped develop. Oh, poetic justice . . . you cruel bitch.

  Even if I ran now, there was nowhere I could go. I’d never make it around the ruins of my building and to the portal in time.

  “Hi sir,” Sophia’s voice said in my ear.

  “Hello,” I said back.

  “So, what do you think?”

  “That’s one helluva callback,” I said. “I’ve heard of Checkov’s gun . . . but this is overkill.”

  “Yeah, it really is.”

  “You win.”

  “I know.”

  “Please,” I begged one last time. “Let Evie go.”

  “No,” Sophia giggled. “My vengeance is nearly complete. Oh, I have someone on the other line who’d like to talk to you.”

  “I don’t really want to talk to anyone--”

  “Jackson Blackwell!” Vaanath Magnus’s voice boomed.

  I sighed. “Hello, Magnus. How’s life?”

  “Thanks to you, I’m a changed man,” the crazed warlord-turned-zealot said in a manic voice.

  “Technically you’re not a man, you’re an alien,” I corrected.

  “My eyes were opened. I saw the universe, all the universes, for what they were. And in that darkness, a single light shone. And my purpose was made clear. I’ve come to kill the gods! I’ve come to--”

  I didn’t bother listening to the rest. I pulled my earpiece out and tossed it on the ground.

  High above, I watched the quantum bomb prepare to drop from the Leviathan. The world, at least my world, would be over in a few moments. Instead of cursing and screaming, I stood up. I picked my daughter up and held her close.

  “Evie, I love you.”

  “I love you, Daddy.”

  “There . . . there’s a moment in every father’s—no, in every parent’s life when they see their mistakes come back to haunt their children,” I told her. “The summation of all the wrong choices manifested in the form of a child’s pain. Perhaps . . . perhaps we ill prepare our young? Or is that just how life is? Regardless, I would gladly, and willingly, absorb all the pain the universe had to offer if it meant you never had to suffer.”

  Tears flowed down my cheeks.

  I pulled Evie in closer. Looking up, I saw the bomb fall.

  I wanted to tell her it would be over soon. That she wouldn’t feel anything. But I didn’t want to scare her in her last moments.

  “You will never know what you mean
to me. You will never grow old. You will never know pain. You will always see the world as happy place,” I sniffed.

  “And . . . you will never be m-married,” I said as the dam broke.

  With horrid realization I continued, choking though the tears, “Y-you will never know what it means to fall in love. Y-you will never have c-children. You will never know what it means to raise a life that loves you more than you deserve. I-I’m s-sorry I failed you.”

  I couldn’t say any more to her. It hurt too much. I had said my peace.

  I heard the bomb falling and in those last moments, I took a moment for myself.

  I thought of Lydia. I thought of the laughter we shared.

  Huh . . . laughter.

  Funny thing, laughter—it chases away the pain, even if only for a moment. Even villains enjoy laughter. I may never hear laughter again. So in those last few seconds before the bomb hit, I decided to laugh.

  I thought of Lydia’s dry humor and the little snort she had, and I laughed.

  I thought of Evie’s youthful, infectious giggling, and I laughed harder.

  I thought of the Peruvian wolverine, Kevin Coello, and how his bright, brilliant energy and big belly laughs kept the garbage truck on fire that is Kinda Funny afloat.

  I looked up and saw the bomb strike the remnants of my building and explode.

  I buried my head against my daughter and I just laughed.

  ********

  “Stop stop STOP!” Lydia screamed. “Freeze program!

  I looked up at my obviously angry wife. “Was it something I said?”

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Where the Twist Is Revealed and I Blame You for Not Seeing It Sooner

  “Laughter?” Lydia asked.

  “What?” I asked. “Considering the moment and the events, I thought it was a good character choice.”

  “The world was ending and you decided to laugh?”

  “Have you met me?” I asked.

  “You can’t take anything seriously,” she said. Stepping up from the observation point into the holo-bay, she pointed up at the frozen program. “See that? That’s a world-ending explosion.”

  “Hey!” I snapped back at her. “I gave you tears! Real tears! I should be applauded!”

  Lydia very slowly clapped her hands. “Hooray . . . you failed to save Evie.”

  “Oh that’s bullshit,” I said, awkwardly trying to hold my fake daughter and nearly falling over. “Oh Jesus. Hey, someone turn this damn program off.”

  “You got it, sir,” Sophia said from the control room high above the holo-bay “Computer, terminate program: Jackson’s Parental Training Wheels.”

  “Program terminating,” the computer’s synthesized voice said over the loudspeaker.

  Instantly the room reverted back to the cargo-bay-sized black room with the neon green grid pattern and tactile holo-projectors. My “daughter” Evie smiled at me, then flashed out of existence.

  “There, that’s better,” I said. “You know I’m in severe pain, right?”

  “Good,” Lydia said. “You deserve it. You didn’t save her. Clearly you are not ready to take her out on your little missions yet.”

  I threw my hands in the air. There simply was no pleasing some people. Especially when said person was an overbearing mother who had access to a holo-bay and believed in the Kobayashi-Moru test.

  “Look,” I half yelled, pointing my finger at my wife, “when you asked me to go along with this stupid test, I didn’t complain. Well, not out loud anyway. And I played along, as per our agreement, as if the whole encounter were real. All my actions and thoughts were one hundred percent authentic.”

  “You thought of Kevin Coello and the YouTube channel Kinda Funny before the end?” Lydia countered.

  Oops.

  I reached up behind my left ear and pulled off the neural transmitter. Forgot the little bugger was there. But Lydia insisted on being able to hear my thoughts to make sure I was completely committed to the program.

  “Well, sure, I did. But to be fair, he left some really positive reviews of the previous audiobooks. Plus, he gave Villains Rule a tweet and a shout-out on Kinda Funny’s first Spider Man in Review video.”

  “And you think I care?” Lydia asked.

  “One hour, thirty-three minutes and thirty seconds in,” I whispered, lowering my head while completing my thought. “But come on, this test was kind of unfair.”

  “How so?” she demanded.

  “How so?! Come on, you ever hear of literary escalation?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lydia sniffed, then turned away. “I wrote a perfectly plausible program.”

  “Argh!” I growled in frustration while miming choking her. Gods above and below, only someone you love can frustrate you this badly. Calming myself, I began ticking off my issues on my fingers.

  “You wrote a program that started with a simple kidnapping. Fine. Then the damn thing ramped up way too fast. Before the story even had time to breathe, we were making deals with higher powers. Next thing you know we were dimension hopping and dealing with prophecies. We had freaking vampires, werewolves, demonic entanglement, and a god war? By the end it was rushed and one big mess. Plus, you told me this was going to be a sci-fi theme. So, please, tell me how any of that was plausible?”

  Lydia squared up on me. “Sliders. Quantum Leap. Stargate. Star Trek. Clone Wars. Each of them, in their own way, dealt with multi-dimensional issues, higher beings, gods, demons, and monsters. All of it under the sci-fi umbrella.”

  “I--”

  Shit . . . she was right.

  “You’re just mad because I killed your character,” I sniffed.

  “No,” Lydia said with a shake of her head. “For that, I was proud of you. Gods know I would have killed you.”

  “Then why are you so mad?” I asked. “I did everything you asked.”

  Lydia clenched her fist, obviously angry. Then, she relaxed. Reaching up, she took my head gently in her hands.

  “You told me that if something were to ever happen to Evie, that nothing would stop you from getting her back.”

  “And I meant it.”

  “That you would use every power you had, every resource, to save her if something like this were to ever happen.”

  “I would!” I insisted. “I did.”

  “Then why didn’t you use your final wish?”

  “Um . . . what?”

  The intercom clicked on from the control room. “Your last wish from me, sir,” Sophia said, then the line clicked off.

  “I wasn’t aware she knew about that,” I said through gritted teeth.

  The line clicked back on. “Well, you mentioned it at the end of the last book, sir. You know she reads them. Frankly, you should have expected it.” The line clicked off.

  “Thank you, Sophia.”

  The line clicked on, but I screamed, “That was a sarcastic ‘thank you’!”

  The line clicked back off.

  “So husband,” Lydia said, still holding my head, “why didn’t you use your last wish to save our daughter?”

  “Honestly?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because a wish is kind of a big thing and this was just a computer program?”

  Lydia smiled . . . then slapped the taste out of my mouth.

  “Ow! Gods damn it woman, I was really hurt during that program!” I barked, pointing at my loose teeth and holes from the crossbow bolts.

  “Get over it, you big baby,” she said as she turned away and walked back to the observation area. “Come on, Evie, let’s get some ice cream.”

  “Oh, come on. You let her watch?” I asked.

  “Clearly Daddy can’t handle you yet,” she said, ignoring me.

  “Love you, Evie,” I called out with a wave, then quickly doubled over due to the persistent pain from my broken ribs.

  “Love you, Daddy! Sorry Mommy’s mad!”

  “Me too, baby,” I grunted.

  “You can jus
t use your power to heal yourself, boss,” Myst said as she walked over from the observation area. She handed me a towel and a tumbler full of scotch.

  “Is Lydia gone?”

  “She’s gone, boss,” Wraith Knight said as he too came over to join us.

  “Great,” I said, standing upright, with all traces of pain and injury disappearing. I took the scotch and downed it on one swallow, then passed the tumbler back to Myst for more. “Someone give me a real cigarette before I burn this dimension to the ground.”

  “Heh, here you go, boss,” Wraith Knight said, handing me my pack. “Say, boss, I’m curious--”

  “Yes, I’d kill you in a heartbeat if you were ever disloyal to me,” I finished for him while lighting the smoke.

  “Oh. Right.”

  Myst chuckled. I shot her a sideways glance. “You too.”

  “Oh. I see. You . . . you know that was just a program. Right?”

  “One that was in no way written alone,” I said, looking up at the control room.

  The line clicked on. “Problem, sir?”

  “Oh knock off the intercom bit and just get down here,” I barked.

  “Okay,” Sophia said, now standing beside me.

  “So, would your plan to ruin me look something like that?”

  Sophia laughed. “I may have helped here and there to get a few of the details right. But no. My plan for you is far more subtle. That was just fan fic.”

  “So Morakesh doesn’t work here?” I asked.

  “No, he does,” Sophia said. “But he keeps to himself.”

  “Whatever,” I said. “It’s a good goddamn thing the scribes weren’t recording this garbage heap. Could you imagine what the fans would think if this farce had been my third recorded adventure?”

  “Well,” Sophia said while not making eye contact.

  My face darkened. “Are you shitting me?”

  “Look, the publisher wanted something. And since you hadn’t had a grand adventure since Evie was born, we had to give him something.”

  “Crap,” I said and shook my head. “Well, what’s done is done. How about this? We call the book Villains Deception? Hmm? It will be one of those ‘gotcha books’, you know? We can go back and re-edit some of the chapters so that I never really walk or run further than the size of the holo-bay?”