Doctor Alchemy shook his head at frustration at the thought of Heroes. They had foiled so many of his plans over the years: His attempt to detonate a bomb in the Earth’s atmosphere that would have scattered mind-control gas around the world. His ploy to take the place of the United States’ President after Doctor Alchemy had drunk a potion that transformed him into the chief executive’s doppelgänger. His plot to establish a base on the Moon from which he would launch massive rocks to pelt the Earth with, an idea Doctor Alchemy had cribbed from Robert Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. His scheme to poison the Chinese president, blame it on Germany, and start World War III, with Doctor Alchemy ready to pick up the pieces once the major countries of the world destroyed each other. His attempt to neutralize the Metahuman gene of every superpowered person on the planet. Except for his own, of course.
Those were but a few of Doctor Alchemy’s schemes and plans Heroes had thwarted. Heroes had even broken up the cult he had started, with himself as god and chief prophet with power of attorney over all the cult members’ assets. Those sacrilegious supers had the nerve to call his Promise of Peace and Prosperity Church a “sham religion,” and had sicced the United States’ Internal Revenue Service on him for tax evasion. Freedom of religion, Doctor Alchemy thought bitterly. What a joke.
“I’ll destroy every last Hero and do-gooding Meta on the face of the Earth if I have to. Erase them from existence,” he vowed. His eyes were wild. “I’ll start with those goddamned toys. Where’s my manservant? Boy! Boy!! There you are. Goddamn it, snap to it when your king calls you. Maybe a kiss from my whip will quicken your step. Go to Neha’s room. Find her Hero dolls. Have them burned. Bury the ashes. No, wait. On second thought, swallow the ashes, defecate them out, and then bury that. Serve those filthy bastards right. I will whip your back to ribbons if I catch you calling the Avatar doll an action figure. And make a note: Remind me to research the effectiveness of a Doctor Alchemy doll as a propaganda tool. Further, should I decide to start production on one, remind me to order some A/B testing on which sells better: One with a kung fu grip, and one without.” Doctor Alchemy hesitated, frowning as he thought. “Blast it! Also remind me to order A/B testing on if the doll will sell better if we call it an action figure.”
The white, almost elderly manservant—Doctor Alchemy’s former boss Oliver Meaney from his old chemical technician job at Burke Pharmaceuticals—wordlessly shuffled out of the throne room toward the palace’s living quarters. Like all Rati’s and Doctor Alchemy’s subjects, the manservant wore tight black pants and an emerald green top with a bright pink sash worn diagonally across his chest. Doctor Alchemy changed the look and color of his subjects’ clothes when he got bored with their old look. The female subjects’ tops were all cut to expose their cleavage. Doctor Alchemy enjoyed looking at them much as a person might enjoy looking at a beautiful flower. He never touched his female subjects inappropriately, however. He had always been and always would be faithful to his golden Rati. All other women, no matter how beautiful, paled in comparison to her.
Doctor Alchemy frowned slightly as he watched his manservant retreat from the throne room. Doctor Alchemy picked up his fallen crown and placed it back on his head at a jaunty angle. He resumed his seat on his diamond throne. He was careful to pick his cape up before he sat. He draped the purple garment regally over an arm of the glittering throne. Doctor Alchemy firmly believed a ruler should look and act like one. One should honor the proprieties.
“Have you noticed our subjects are not as quick to leap to obey our commands as they normally are?” Doctor Alchemy asked his wife. The identically garbed subjects who comprised Doctor Alchemy’s honor guard were arrayed in formation before the twin thrones. They did not move or speak. Subjects were to be seen, not heard, unless Rati or Doctor Alchemy spoke to them first. They were all armed with high-tech projectile weapons. The Gulf Coast Guardians had caught Rati and Doctor Alchemy off guard when the Hero team invaded their previous palace last year. Doctor Alchemy and Rati had barely escaped in time. Since then, Doctor Alchemy made sure his subjects were always armed. He would not be caught napping again.
What kind of asinine name is Gulf Coast Guardians anyway? Doctor Alchemy thought, annoyed. What is it with Heroes and their childish obsession with alliterative names? Have they no dignity, no self-respect? Do I call myself the Awesome and Astonishing Almighty Alchemist? He paused, cocking an eyebrow. Actually, that’s not half bad.
He shoved the thought aside. He spoke again to his wife. “Perhaps it is time to give our subjects another dose of my obedience potion. I look forward to the day when our right to rule is recognized universally and it is not necessary to constantly make fresh batches of the potion.”
Doctor Alchemy sighed loudly, thinking of that glorious day. He had so much left to do to make it a reality. He said, “‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.’ A good line, that.”
Doctor Alchemy thumped the arm of his throne with sudden fury.
“Too good for an Englishman like Shakespeare to have come up with it on his own,” he snarled. “That thieving plagiarist must have stolen it from an Indian writer. The only thing the British are good at is theft. They’ll steal the fillings out of your mouth if you speak slowly enough. Rapacious Limey bastards.” The people in the room had heard all this before. The British were a particularly sore subject for Doctor Alchemy. He would never forget or forgive how they had colonized and exploited his Indian forebears. He often daydreamed of sinking the British Isles once he assumed his rightful position as world ruler. It was no accident that his chief manservant was a Brit.
Doctor Alchemy’s mind shifted back to Neha’s letter. Its words popped up again in his mind’s eye like lines on a computer screen.
“What in the world did that brat mean when she wrote ‘I am deeply dismayed and disappointed by what you have done to mother’?” Doctor Alchemy asked his wife. “Would she prefer if I had let you stay dead? What kind of daughter would wish that on the woman who suckled her at her breast?” Rati did not answer. It had been a rhetorical question anyway.
“‘Superpowered thug.’” Doctor Alchemy scoffed at Neha’s words. “‘Needlessly killed more people than you probably remember.’ Lies, all lies. I am a conqueror, not a thug. Was Alexander the Great a thug? Was Napoleon? Was Hitler? Was Genghis Khan? Was William the Conqueror?” Doctor Alchemy paused, remembering the latter’s nationality. “Bad example. William was a thug. Disgusting Englishman. I would not be the slightest bit surprised if the reports of his conquests weren’t all lies, anyway. He probably just took the credit for something an Indian did.”
Doctor Alchemy shook his head in dismay at the unfairness of the world.
“And I haven’t needlessly killed anyone. Everyone I have killed needed killing either because I was defending myself, my family, or they were trying to prevent me from imposing peace and order on the world. From ushering in the world’s first true golden age. Contrary to Neha’s lies, I remember every person I’ve killed.” The names scrolled past like a readout in Doctor Alchemy’s mind. Starting with the men he had killed in Roy’s Tavern years ago, he recited them all aloud. The recitation took a couple of minutes to complete.
The room fell silent once Doctor Alchemy finished. The recitation had taken the wind out of the sails of his anger. Sadness replaced it. With Neha gone, Rati was all he had left. It was him and Rati, alone, against the world. The palace was full of their subjects, of course, but they did not matter. Their subjects were little more than cattle, dumb brutes who could not be trusted to rule themselves. Just like the rest of the world.
Look at the mess the world is in due to the cattle being foolish enough to believe they can govern themselves, Doctor Alchemy thought. Why can’t the world understand I am its savior? Why does the world and its so-called Heroes resist submission to my rule? It is further proof of their foolishness, their utter incapacity to take care of themselves.
Doctor Alchemy chewed at a knuckle in frustration.
He started to tear up. Neha was his only daughter. She had so much potential, so much promise. He loved her deeply despite everything he had just said about her.
Neha abandoning him and Rati and rejecting his cause pushed Doctor Alchemy to the edge of despair. If he could not make his own daughter see his glorious vision for the world, how could he ever hope to make the rest of the world see it?
Doctor Alchemy slammed his fist on the armrest of his throne again. He blinked away his tears.
“No! No! I will not let Neha leaving deter or distract me from my mission. Even without her here, Mother, we will save the world by ruling it. Just you and me. As it was meant to be. As it was destined to be.”
Rati spoke. Doctor Alchemy smiled lovingly when she finished, reached over, and patted her warm hand.
“Don’t fret, my love,” he said. “I realize now that Neha leaving is merely a phase. Nothing more than adolescent rebellion. Teen girls are as temperamental as weathervanes. When she matures more and sees how much better things will be for the world under our leadership, she will relent and return to us. She will again take her rightful place as the heir to our glorious empire.”
The throne room fell silent again. Doctor Alchemy turned his mind’s considerable horsepower to his latest plan for world conquest. The first thing he would have to do, he thought, would be to construct a new lair. Maybe in a volcano. He had always wanted a lair in a volcano. With Neha gone and vowing to stop him, this palace and its location had been compromised. Doctor Alchemy had far too many enemies who would love to know his whereabouts. He was a wanted man in . . . how many countries now? He had lost count.
He stroked his beard thoughtfully. Visions of his future empire danced in his head. His honor guard stared at him blankly, unthinkingly waiting due to the potion in their systems for their lord and master to give them a command.
Rati sat motionlessly and silently on her gold throne. Thanks to Doctor Alchemy’s resurrection potion, her flesh was as warm, voluptuous, and whole as it had ever been. As her husband schemed and planned and plotted, Rati’s eyes stared straight ahead into nothingness. They were vacant, still, and lifeless, just as they had always been ever since she was murdered eight years ago.
CHAPTER 16
Two Years and Several Months Ago
She was dead. Neha, his beautiful and brilliant baby, the only person he loved other than Rati, was dead.
With a hard lump in his throat, Doctor Alchemy sat in his lair and replayed the footage captured from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency’s satellite for the umpteenth time, hoping and praying what it showed was some sort of trick. Some sort of mistake. The footage was months old. Doctor Alchemy had escaped from a Chinese prison for so-called crimes against the state and returned home days before. When he escaped, he had already served six months of a life sentence. Doctor Alchemy would rather have stayed in prison longer—his plot to overthrow the Chinese government had been coming along nicely, and masterminding it from a Chinese prison had been the perfect cover—but when he heard Neha had been killed in the United States months ago, he had broken out of prison the same day he was informed. He had made his way back here to his Pacific Ocean volcanic lair where Rati and their subjects eagerly awaited his return. He had been unwilling to rely on secondhand information—he just had to find out for himself if the horrific news his informers had told him was true.
The spy satellite footage Doctor Alchemy watched was not supposed to exist, of course. By law, the CIA was prohibited from turning its satellites’ attention to domestic soil to spy on American citizens. Then again, someone like Doctor Alchemy was not supposed to be able to hack into the CIA’s satellite feed. Things rarely worked the way the government publicly said they did.
Doctor Alchemy watched the footage closely yet again. He sat in the Monitor Room, nestled deep in his lair. Only his manservant was with him. That man stood in the corner, silent and motionless. He faced the wall and awaited an order, just as he always did when he accompanied his master. A bank of television monitors about seven feet tall was in front of where Doctor Alchemy sat on his throne, a smaller and more comfortable version of the diamond one in the Throne Room. Each monitor had different angles of the satellite footage on it, slowed down so it advanced frame by frame.
The footage showed the Hero Omega bursting out of the roof of Sentinels Mansion in Maryland accompanied by Neha, beaten, bound, gagged, and wearing her Smoke outfit. The two took off flying toward Astor City. Right outside of the city, the shackles around Neha’s arms and legs exploded with terrific force. She was incinerated. Omega was thrown clear of the explosion. He survived the blast, apparently able to erect a force field to protect himself from the massive explosion. After flying around for a while in what seemed to be a search for any trace of Neha, he flew back to Sentinels Mansion.
Doctor Alchemy punched a button. The footage paused. The monitors bathed his tear-streaked face in their still light. It was no trick, he reluctantly concluded. No special effects wizard’s attempt to mislead. No mistake. Doctor Alchemy had longed feared that something bad would happen to Neha if she continued to associate with Heroes and if he was not there to protect her. Now his nightmare had been made all too real.
She was gone forever. After Doctor Alchemy blew the footage up and digitally enhanced it, it showed no trace of Neha remaining after the explosion. Doctor Alchemy would not be able to give her the same life-restoring potion that had resurrected his beloved Rati. There was simply nothing left of Neha to give the potion to.
Doctor Alchemy had eyes and ears everywhere, particularly in the Metahuman world. Through them, he had followed Neha’s adventures since she had run away from home years ago: the petty larceny she had resorted to when the funds she had stolen from him had run low; the period during which she was homeless; her entering and then graduating from Hero Academy first in her class; her Apprenticeship with that meddling fool Amazing Man alongside of Kinetic and Myth; and her taking a job as head of security for Willow Wilde, the inane reality television star. While Doctor Alchemy did not agree with Neha’s life choices—her decision to enter Hero Academy had made him sick to his stomach, just as her graduating from it first in her class had filled him with a perverse pride—all her bad choices would simply have been water under the bridge if Neha had come to her senses and resumed her rightful place at his and Rati’s side.
Now that would never happen. The reconciliation between him and Neha he long anticipated would one day occur now never would.
How would he tell Rati? She would be devastated. Their only child, their love made flesh, gone. And why? For what? A stupid spat between idiotic Heroes?
The sorrow smoldering in him ignited, turning into white hot anger. He clutched the side of his throne so tightly that the metal and wood under its comfortable leather exterior cracked and splintered with loud screeches and pops. The soft leather had been fashioned from the skin of some of his enemies.
I’ll kill them all! he silently vowed ferociously, not trusting himself to speak. Everyone responsible for Neha’s murder will die a horrible death.
He punched buttons on a panel on his throne. News articles about Omega’s confrontations with the Sentinels sprang onto some of the screens. More punching. A few minutes later, supposedly confidential reports from the Heroes’ Guild’s internal investigation into those confrontations sprang onto the other screens, including witness statements from everyone involved.
Doctor Alchemy let the information wash over him as it sped by on the monitors faster than a normal human would be able to follow. Fortunately, Doctor Alchemy was no normal human. With his enhanced intelligence, he could absorb and synthesize information far faster and more efficiently than human cattle could.
In minutes, he had absorbed all available information about Omega’s conflict with the Sentinels that had culminated in Neha’s death. Doctor Alchemy seethed with newfound anger. Neha had not been the primary target of the bomb that killed her. The explosive had been incorporated int
o the metal that bound Neha to kill both her and Omega, formerly Kinetic, after he supposedly turned over the so-called Omega weapon to the Sentinels. Both he and Neha knew too much about the Sentinels’ crimes and had to be eliminated, according to the full confession Seer had later made.
Doctor Alchemy now had his list of people who were involved in Neha’s murder and who therefore had to die: Mechano, Seer, Millennium, Omega, Myth, and Truman Lord.
Doctor Alchemy immediately crossed Mechano off his hit list. One good thing about Omega’s run-in with the Sentinels is that he destroyed Mechano, Doctor Alchemy thought. Though I would have preferred to do it myself. On the bright side, with Mechano gone, the Heroes’ Guild’s computer firewalls are out-of-date and laughable inadequate. Arrogant fools.
Seer Doctor Alchemy had dealt with before during past confrontations with the Sentinels. Those myopic meddling Metas! The self-described “Earth’s greatest Heroes” had thwarted several of his brilliant schemes over the years. The day he captured Wildside of the Sentinels and then skinned him alive was one of Doctor Alchemy’s fondest memories. Doctor Alchemy stroked the soft side of his throne, almost aroused at the thought. Wildside’s skin was one of the hides that composed the throne’s supple leather. When he broke into MetaHold and killed Seer, he thought, perhaps he would also skin her and use her pelt to reupholster a piece of furniture. The footstool of his sitting room, perhaps.
Then again, maybe not, he chided himself. Seer’s skin was albino white, tinged with blue. Her skin’s color would clash with the rest of his and Rati’s furnishings. Tacky.
Rogues: The Omega Superhero Book Four (Omega Superhero Series 4) Page 16
