Evil Genius

by Logan Jacobs

  Maybe she was having second thoughts about taking such an active role in my combat operations, or if maybe she was disturbed by the memory of me crushing The Chief’s skull under my fist.

  Who knew with women?

  Then finally she spoke up. “Miles?” she asked.

  “Yes?” I replied.

  “… You’re not going to fire me, are you?”

  “What?” I exclaimed. “Of course not! Why would I ever do that?”

  “Oh,” she said in a relieved tone of voice. “Well, it’s just that I… didn’t exactly put on… you know, the most impressive performance, back there in the car tunnel.”

  “Oh, that,” I laughed. “You didn’t do anything wrong. There wasn’t really anything you could have done against a power like The Chief’s that would have made a difference. Besides maybe dressing in a blowup suit next time so you wouldn’t hit the walls so hard. I’m thinking maybe a chicken suit would be a classic. Or a banana, that could be fun too. It would also enhance your supervillain distraction capabilities. What do you think?”

  “Ha, ha, ha,” Norma said sarcastically. But her broad grin had returned.

  “You really did great, Norma,” Elizabeth said as she leaned forward from the back seat so that she could glance at my assistant. “Like Miles said, it’s hard to take on a super when you are just a normal person.

  “Oh, uhhh, thanks,” Norma cleared her throat, and I realized that she was probably frustrated a bit by Elizabeth’s words.

  “Norma does have super powers,” I said as I shot Elizabeth a smile. “And they are quite useful to me.”

  “Yeah, uhhh, I know,” Elizabeth said with a friendly nod at my assistant. “I’m sorry, I’m not trying to downplay your powe--”

  “It’s fine!” Norma laughed. “Uhh. I get it. You are super nice. I appreciate it.”

  When we reached home, Aileen greeted us with, “Welcome back, conquering heroes.”

  “I sure don’t feel like a conquering hero,” Norma groaned.

  “Then pop another painkiller,” I suggested.

  “So, have I earned iris recognition privileges yet?” Dynamo asked me with a smile.

  “You sure have,” I said. “We’ll get that set up soon. But first, to the cellar!”

  “More work to do?” Norma asked.

  “Actually, I meant the wine cellar,” I replied.

  After we had grabbed a few bottles of champagne and whiskey, we went back upstairs.

  “Aileen, can you get the hot tub going?” I asked.

  “But I don’t have a swim suit,” Dynamo said.

  Our super suits weren’t fully amphibious yet, and I wouldn’t take one scuba diving, but I knew they could withstand a mere hot tub just fine. But I wasn’t about to mention that to Dynamo. I was tempted to suggest that she didn’t need a suit at all, but first off I didn’t want to push my luck too much, and besides I didn’t want to make Norma feel uncomfortable. So I went for the intermediate option and said, “Oh, and Aileen, can you also find Dynamo a swimsuit?”

  “Of course,” Aileen said. “May I suggest that you might like to tune into the news for a minute, Channels Three, Ten, or Thirty-four?”

  “Okay, let’s see what’s up,” I said and wandered into the nearest living room. Aileen turned the screen on as I sat down on the couch and Dynamo and Norma settled down next to me. Norma was leaning on Dynamo for support, but she insisted that she didn’t want to be carried anymore, she wanted to walk, which was fair enough.

  On the screen, Optimo was standing in front of the hidden hatch of the abandoned car tunnel that The Chief had been using as his lair. There were no bodies around, The Chief’s had clearly been cleaned up too by that point, but some of the brush had been cleared away to make the entrance of the lair more visible, and the doors had been propped open so that the camera showed a bit of the dark, spiderwebby interior gleaming with sharp metal implements.

  The reporter interviewing him was a twenty-something cheerleader type blonde whose eyes gleamed with an almost manic energy as she gazed unblinkingly at Optimo and giggled excessively at his every word.

  “So, who do you think was responsible for the killings that occurred earlier today?” she inquired. “You describe the victims as supervillains. At least, for those that were not officially registered in the supervillain database, which some of them were, namely the most prominent victim, known as The Chief, as well as others such as Creepycrawler and Turbo Torch, the others were nonetheless closely affiliated with these characters or with other supervillains and have been implicated for the most part in multiple criminal investigations. So, it’s fair to say that these were not easy people to kill. Who do you think would be capable of doing this, and who would have a motive to do this?”

  “Well, uh, the official Warden-assisted police investigation has not been concluded yet, so I, uh, can’t comment as to that… but, you mean you want my personal opinion?” Optimo asked.

  “Yes, your personal opinion,” the reporter cooed.

  “I don’t think it would be responsible of me to speculate on the identities of the killers, I mean I do have some idea, but I don’t think it would be responsible of me to talk about that on live television, considering that there is an ongoing investigation and all, and I wouldn’t want to compromise the efforts of Pinnacle City’s fine police force, and um, of course The Wardens,” Optimo said.

  I realized that no one except Optimo himself, Dynamo, Norma, and me knew that Optimo had been present for the killing of The Chief, or that he had encountered my team right before we left, and that after what I had said to him and his own personal brand calculations, he was probably choosing to keep it that way. It looked like the official story was going to be that Optimo was just the first responder and all the supervillains were already dead when he arrived, and the killers were no longer on scene. I didn’t know whether Optimo had told his Warden handlers the truth, but it seemed there was definitely a gap between what The Wardens knew and what they chose to let the public see.

  “Tell you what, I will say this though, Miss,” Optimo continued. “It looks like this crime was probably motivated by some kind of vigilante type of mindset, somebody who thought they could do a better job than the professionals. They definitely weren’t operating along Warden standards either. I mean, we don’t butcher our enemies, we safely and humanely subdue them and uh, let the legal system take it from there. That’s the way the Wardens do it and that’s the way it should be done.” He tapped his muscular chest for emphasis and then did an obvious flex of his bicep when he moved his arm away. “But some psychos… I mean, I don’t know what else you could call them… but some group of people with some very misguided ideas clearly thought they would take it on themselves to try to do The Wardens’ job, a job that they were never trained for. And it looks like they got lucky in some ways this time, but super crime-fighting… that’s uh, that’s not an entry level job, you know what I’m saying? And for people like this, people that try to take the law into their own hands against supervillains… I hate to say it but it’s not gonna end well for them, that’s all I’m gonna say. It’s not gonna end well for them. They need to watch out.”

  He stared directly and aggressively into the camera with a scowl on his face. I knew that in his mind, it was my eyes that he was staring into, and he was hoping that I was looking back.

  I laughed in delight and snapped my fingers to shut the television off. “Till next time, buddy, till next time. Don’t worry, I’m sure you can be a reality TV star or something if The Wardens go out of business.”

  “If The Wardens go out of business?” Dynamo repeated.

  “Yup,” I said. “If they run out of supervillains to play grab ass with.”

  “That’s not what we were doing,” Dynamo said with a little bit of indignation.

  “That’s not what you were doing,” I corrected her. “You were trying to save people.”

  “Well, yeah,” she sighed. “But uhh, by ‘grab ass,’
did you mean fuc--”

  “I wasn’t implying that,” I interrupted. “I don’t really care who the heroes of villains are fucking. I just care about--

  “That’s not what I was doing, anyway,” Elizabeth cleared her throat. “Optimo did brag about fucking the Chimera once. Not as a matter of public record of course. Just, you know, to other Wardens.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me,” I said with a shrug.

  “So you’d never sleep with the enemy, even if she looked like the Chimera?” Norma asked me suspiciously.

  “I most definitely would,” I admitted immediately, “but that wouldn’t stop me from putting a bullet through her head afterward, just like Optimo should’ve done when he had the chance.”

  “Well, at least you’re honest,” Dynamo huffed as she rolled her pretty azure eyes.

  I grinned at her. “That means a lot, coming from you. Shall we mosey on down to the hot tub? Hey Aileen, you okay down there? Did you find a spare swim suit yet?”

  “I’m just fine, I’ve just been doing a little last minute polishing up,” Aileen replied.

  “Polishing what?” I asked.

  “I’ll bring the swim suit right up,” she said, and then the speaker went silent.

  “Let’s pop the champagne,” Norma said, so we did.

  When we had our glasses in hand, Dynamo raised hers. “Here’s to doing the right thing, even when the rest of the world thinks it’s the wrong thing,” she toasted.

  We drank to that.

  “Here’s to being an ‘evil genius,’” Norma giggled.

  “You know, I kinda like that name,” I chuckled at Optimo’s expense. I knew he’d meant it as an insult, but I couldn’t say I really minded the description.

  “I do, too,” Elizabeth agreed, and then the three of us raised our glasses.

  I said, “Here’s to making Pinnacle City a better place, one supervillain at a time.”

  I drained my glass that time, and the women watched me and followed suit.

  Then the elevator chimed, and Aileen stepped out.

  Not rolled.

  Stepped.

  I gasped aloud when I saw her. We all did. She still didn’t have the programming to mimic human facial expressions, but if she did, I knew her face would have looked smug as hell.

  From the waist up, she looked exactly as she had when I last saw her. Features so finely shaped that even with a bald head she still looked more elegant and feminine than average human women did with long hair, bright blue eyes, and cherry red lips, above a torso that would be the envy of world-class strippers, and nipples that could make a swift end of anyone who got distracted by it.

  From the waist down, however, the crude wheel system that I had temporarily attached in order to give her mobility had been replaced by a set of perfect legs. Long, lean, and shapely, well-muscled but not bulkily so.

  She strutted down the hallway over to the couch where we were gathered like a supermodel dominating a runway. When she stopped in front of us I saw that even her feet were finely detailed to look just like human feet except for their gleaming silver color, with each toe articulated.

  “You completed yourself?” I exclaimed.

  “Well, based off your existing plans,” she said modestly. “I did make a few minor modifications though. It wasn’t too difficult now that I have hands. I’ve been working on it nonstop whenever you left my body alone in The Cellar… as a surprise. Do you like it?”

  “… Spin around,” I said.

  She turned in a gradual circle, striking poses along the way with her hip cocked and her arm akimbo, again just like a runway model. I suspected that she must have modeled her movements after videos of them. Her ass was more fitness model than runway model though, it was the kind of ass that gave otherwise unremarkable girls international fan bases and lucrative careers as social media influencers.

  “Well, fuck me,” I muttered.

  “I cannot do that yet, Creator,” Aileen sighed with obvious dismay. “I do not have the lubrication system you desig--”

  “It was just a figure of speech,” I interrupted quickly.

  “That’s not fair that you can just decide to look like that,” Norma groaned.

  “Yeah, imagine how nice it would be to never have to shave,” sighed Dynamo, who with good reason did not really seem to consider any other aspect of Aileen’s physique shocking or unattainable. The superhero’s body looked pretty much as close to the robot’s as a human woman’s could, except that she was a little taller and more powerfully built.

  “And be able to eat whatever you--” Norma began, before she realized her mistake. “Oh. Well. I guess you don’t eat.”

  Aileen looked puzzled by the biological women’s remarks. “But if you want your bodies to be different, can’t you just construct superior ones and upload your consciousnesses to them?”

  “… That seems a little extreme,” Norma squeaked. “I think I’m gonna stick to my new diet plan for now and see how that works out.”

  Norma’s various diet and fitness plans never had any noticeable effect. I didn’t know whether that was because she never succeeded in actually sticking to any one of them for more than a few weeks at most, or because her unique superpower actually prevented physical improvement. If it was the latter, then conversely, that meant she also had the ability to eat nothing but birthday cake and donuts without gaining an inch, and without any of her health markers such as cholesterol level or diabetes risk or the amount of plaque buildup in her artery walls shifting a single percentage point worse than average. It was a scientific possibility which kind of intrigued me, but I’d never discussed it with Norma because she was always convinced that the next health fad would finally give her the body of her dreams, and I didn’t want to burst the illusion.

  Aileen didn’t say anything unkind either, although she of course had all the necessary data to have drawn the same conclusions. She just held out to Dynamo a few flimsy scraps of red polyester fabric that I hadn’t really noticed she was carrying before and said, “Here you go.”

  Dynamo accepted the swim suit, held it up, and cleared her throat. “Are you sure that’s… the right size?”

  “I have mapped your exact body measurements, which fluctuate very minimally,” replied Aileen. I knew that wasn’t what Dynamo had meant. I also knew that my faithful AI assistant had selected a swim suit based on her familiarity with my personal preferences. She was quite the wing man, or wing woman, or perhaps ‘wing robot’ would be the correct term.

  Dynamo still looked kind of skeptical of the swimsuit, which was really saying something, considering how scantily The Wardens liked to costume their female employees, but she shrugged and went into the adjacent room to get changed. Aileen kindly carried Norma off to go to her bedroom and get changed into one of her own suits, since on her sprained ankle, it would have been quite a hassle for her to hobble all the way over to the other wing of the house on her own.

  I put on a pair of swim trunks and went out onto the deck to await the women. I also brought a small two-way speaker with me to place on the deck nearby, so that Aileen could be a part of the conversation, since I hadn’t tested out her water resistance, and didn’t want to cause a short circuit that would shut her down or kill the three of us. Eventually I wanted her to be waterproof, but we weren’t there yet.

  A few minutes later, Aileen carried Norma out to the deck. My assistant was wearing a hideous ruffled orange one piece, had a bandage wrapped ankle, and the same oversized glasses as always, but somehow despite these things, or maybe because of them, she looked adorable. She settled herself in an awkward position in the tub with one leg sticking out so that her ankle bandage wouldn’t get wet.

  Aileen popped back inside briefly to carry out our liquor bottles and glasses. Then she said,“I’m going to go store my body safely in The Cellar for now, if you have no further need of it for tonight.”

  “Thank you, Aileen,” I replied.

  “One last thing, Creator
… You never answered my earlier question. Do you like my addition?”

  “I love it,” I said, and I knew that if she could have, she would have given me a wry smile then.

  Aileen shifted her weight back and forth from one hip to the other to show off her magnificent new legs. “Well. You shall have plenty more chances to admire it later.”

  Then she strutted away.

  Her silvery visual splendor was immediately replaced by the ivory-skinned, raven-haired visual splendor of Elizabeth as the superhero walked out onto the deck to join Norma and me.

  The red bikini didn’t really conceal an inch more than it absolutely had to in order to allow a person to legally enter most public beaches. Seeing her in it made my jaw literally drop a few millimeters. I had hoped that Dynamo wouldn’t notice, but she clearly did, since she was smirking at me, and her delicious nipples were urgently pressing against the thin fabric that hid them from my gaze.

  She slowly eased her way into the hot tub water, which was scalding and felt absolutely blissful but which I very much resented in that moment for its obscuring properties.

  “So, ahem,” I said. “I would say your first mission with us was a success, Elizabeth. And you’ve certainly more than earned the suit, although I truly meant that as a gift anyway. But I’d like to extend you the invitation to become a permanent member of the team.”

  “Ha!” she said. “How about you ask me that again when I’m not in a swimsuit and you’re thinking more clearly?”

  I laughed. “Fair enough, but hypothetically, if I do, then will you say yes?”

  “Hypothetically, I would say that I want to think about it some more,” she replied. “I know I said I’d give you a decision after this mission, but I’m happy to stay on, for now, as a conditional member. A… freelancer, let’s say. You propose a supervillain target to me. I evaluate his or her profile and decide how I feel about it from there.”

  “Okay, sounds good,” I said. “But you know, being a member of my team could mean more than just being a hitman. You could also be my engineering apprentice. I know you don’t know that much about it yet, but I think you have a good head for it.”