by Liana Brooks
Tabitha laughed. “No.”
“A little boy?”
“Couldn’t we adopt?”
“We could, but I’d miss the libido boost from the second trimester.”
“Tell you what,” Tabby said, flipping over. “Take your clothes off and I’ll fake it.”
With a grin, he unbuttoned his shirt. “You have to fake it with me?”
“Every day,” she said, putting a dramatic hand to her forehead as she laughed. “It’s an absolute chore trying to fake all those orgasms.”
“I hate to make you work. I’ll let you off tonight.” He dropped his shirt and reached for his pajamas on the nightstand, still folded from the day he’d bought them. Eventually, he’d actually wear them.
Tabitha caught his hand, pulling him down to the bed. “Kiss me.”
Chapter 5
At fifteen, power was my first love. It promised me the world—if I could only break the shackles of a wholesome middle-class upbringing where ambition came second only to defying the home owner’s association in terms of evil.
Ambition was my fatal flaw. Sometimes good ideas got ahead of me. A plan would come together and I would be in the middle of everything before I stopped to ask if this was right or wrong or even possible.
I tinkered with the Agree-With-Me Ray for years. It was a toy, really. Something I pulled out when I needed things to go my way. That changed when I saw the report about the millions of dollars in stolen, embezzled, and otherwise illegally obtained cash floating around, and realized, “It should be mine.”
I turned the Agree-With-Me Ray on high and started making phone calls. A quick, amiable conversation and the thief bundled the stolen money in an envelope, sent it to my house, and forgot any of the above had happened. A perfect plan—until I cold-called a super hero.
For some reason, I never learned to regret that mistake.
***
Manicured fingernails dragged up Evan’s spine. He arched, rubbing against satin sheets, and rolled over to capture his wife. “I thought you were going to work.”
“Nothing is going to happen before eleven,” she promised. A wicked smile curved her lips. “At least, nothing bad.” She darted forward, teasing him with her tongue before retreating. Pale morning light played across her skin, throwing luscious curves into shadow and highlighting her golden tresses.
“Tease.” He pulled her close so he could feel the heat of her body on his. “How do you know nothing will happen?”
“How do you know a piece of coding will work?”
He traced the curves of her body, committing every soft, sensuous turn to memory. “I just do.”
“That’s how I know.” Tabitha’s naked body rubbed him in all the right ways as she arched into his touch. “That’s also how I know what I want right now.”
He nipped her ear. “Right now?”
“Two or three times.”
“Only three?”
“Maybe a few more in the shower if the girls don’t wake up.”
“And one for the road?” he asked hopefully.
“Maybe. If you’re up for a marathon.”
He chuckled and rolled onto his back, pulling her on top of him. “Staying up for you will never be a problem.”
Tabitha flew away at a quarter after ten, leaving Evan feeling limp and hungry for more. Science liked to prove that the average man possessed only limited abilities. That was probably true, but Tabitha had a voracious sexual appetite, and he learned to keep up with her.
He lay on the bed, watching the ceiling fan slowly turn, thinking about his long to-do list. For some reason, images of Tabitha stretched out under him kept invading. He wanted her against a wall tonight while she was wearing that pair of high heels he’d bought her last month. And then they could take a bubble bath. Mmmm, slipping his hand across her body in the water was always fun. A touch of his finger and she’d be begging for more. He could tease her until she was incoherent with need. And then—
“Daddy!” Blessing screamed from the living room.
Evan rolled off the bed and pulled his clothes on. His jeans were easier to put on without Tabitha around. Not to mention the lust killing effect small children had on him. “What is it?” he asked as he tripped over a fluffy unicorn.
“Daddy, I’m bored,” his youngest announced in funeral tones as she sat in the middle of a sea of stuffed animals and building blocks. “Delila locked me out of the toy place.”
“The toy place?” He kicked a path through the disaster and sat on the old blue couch, confused.
“Your toy place.”
Evan looked across the living room to the garage door. “You mean my lab?”
“Yes!”
“The door was locked.” The door was always locked. It kept minions from running across Tabitha’s path. If too many showed up Tabitha might start wondering why he needed all those minions.
“Not for Delila,” Blessing said.
That was not a good thing. He rushed the stairs and found that the door was unlocked. “Delila? Sweetie?”
“Daddy!” She bounced at the bottom of the stairs, squeezing a furry, red minion like a stress ball. “Can we decorate more?”
“Sweetheart, how did you get the door open?”
She shrugged. “It wanted to open. I went click—” She snapped her fingers. “—and it opens.”
“Click?”
“Uh-huh. Watch!” She sauntered over to his locked cabinet of power tools. “Click!”
The door swung open.
“Oh, boy.” Evan stared at the door for a moment, letting all the implications sink in. His eye twitched. “Let’s not tell Mommy about that little trick. Okay? Just in case we need a back-up plan for college funding.” Evan grabbed her hand. “Look at me, sweetie. Do not click locks unless Daddy says so. Do you understand?”
“Okay.”
Evan ran his hand through his hair. “Well, on the bright side, you have a future as a locksmith, or a super villain. I’m not sure Mommy is going to like that.”
“I’m going to be a super hero,” Delila said. “Just like Mommy, ‘cept my suit’s gonna be purple.”
He frowned. Keeping the villain aspect of his life secret from his family made sense, but there were moments he felt he ought to spend a little more time corrupting the children. Doctor Charm, father of four super heroes? He’d be the laughingstock of the super villain underground.
“Daddy?” Delila patted his arm. “Can we have pancakes?”
“Sure.” Even super villains could make pancakes. If a former mafia don could get his own cooking show, Evan could make pancakes. They came from a mix. Just add water—like sea monkeys. Although the last batch of sea monkeys he’d made hadn’t turned out well. Pancakes were easier, he assumed. Less prone to eating red sports cars, for one thing.
He chased the girls upstairs and shouted over his shoulder for the minions to start putting combination locks on everything.
Two hours later, he had everything under control to the point where he could go back to the lab.
“Master?” Hert said, a clipboard clutched in his claws.
“Yes? If this is another request for a Caribbean cruise, the answer is still no. If you get one, Tabby will want one. If Tabby goes, I need to, and then the girls will want to come. I’ll never hear the end of it.”
“The neighbors took their dog on a cruise,” Hert pointed out, sounding a touch offended. “But that wasn’t why I needed your attention. I have the latest popularity polls, Master.”
“Excellent! Is everyone still failing?” he asked eagerly. “Anyone with over 50 percent of the vote might give me problems. I need my win to look plausible to our international neighbors; a popular candidate would ruin that illusion.”
“A failing you’ve mentioned several times, Master,” Hert said as the lab door squeaked open.
“Yes.” Evan perused the Gallup Polls. “Good. This is good. I think we’re still on track.” He glanced up as Delila and Blessing approa
ched the Morality Machine. “Girls! Stay away from that! Hert, go look after the sprouts, please. I need to get the machine calibrated. Are we getting any results from this morning’s test run?”
“Nothing positive, Master,” he said as a second minion ran up with the purchasing results. They were less than promising. Ideally the Election Ray would focus the victim’s thought on one particular object. His tests had sent them after dolls, or shoes, or newspapers. On Election Day, he would persuade the voters to focus on his name so they would write it on the ballot, because no matter what people said, crime never paid as well as politics.
“Master?” The blue minion who’d brought the results quavered at his feet. “I have some correlating data that you may find intriguing.”
Evan gestured for it to continue. “By all means, intrigue me.”
“The results of the ray are more pronounced when they side with an observable trend.”
“So it’s working better when people are already thinking positive thoughts about the subject?”
“Yes, Master.”
“Good to know, but not helpful.”
“You could make a large donation to a charity on TV the night before election,” the minion suggested. “Or perhaps save a bus full of children.”
“I don’t make public appearances. Too many people want me for questioning. And buses never are in danger when you need them to be.”
“We could arrange for the danger, Master. Such a small matter...”
Evan glared at it. “None of that! I’m charming. I persuade people to give me what I want. I insinuate myself into their lives. I don’t threaten them. Threatening is for thugs.”
“Yes, Master.” It slumped its shoulders and slouched away.
“We’ll find another way,” Evan said. “All I need is for them to have one thought: Evan Smith for president. Once we can transmit that message, the rest is taken care of.”
Hert pursed his pale lips. “We could change the output from persuasion to pure suggestion. It wouldn’t be as subtle, but we could loop the message.”
“Distance hypnosis?” Evan drummed his fingers on the worktable. “I’d need to switch the tertiary capacitor to handle the energy load, but it could be done.” He nodded. “Let’s break down the machine and see if the magnet can handle the phase change.”
Chapter Six
Tabitha bewitched me. I dreamt of her, pursued her in a way I’d never chased after a woman before. Usually, women came to me. Even villains have standards, and no one can boast about forcing a woman. Brute strength doesn’t have the delicious flavor of well-performed seduction.
The Morality Machine didn’t compel, it just lowered her inhibitions. A super hero in bed with the villain? I can think of few things more taboo. Under the influence of the Morality Machine, Tabitha was perfectly herself—utterly confident, always in control—but living with the constant suggestion that she wanted me in every way possible.
***
Evan bent back over the Election Ray. “Hert! I need a hand over here!”
“At once, Master.” Hert hurried over.
“Help me get the logistics box out. I must have something moving on the wrong frequency. It’s days like this I wish we lived near a college. What I wouldn’t give to have a live test subject from the correct demographic nearby.”
“Do you wish me to unlock the Wi-Fi again, Master? I’m sure some geek will wander by to borrow it.”
“Tempting—”
Glass shattered on the far side of the room.
Evan moved before he’d even processed what happened. “Girls?” He grabbed Delila’s hand, looking for blood. “Are you okay? What did you do?”
Tears trembled in Blessing’s eyes. “I wanted to see Mommy!” Blessing cried. “I smashed Mommy!” She clung to Evan’s leg, sobbing at his kneecaps.
Evan pulled Delila and Blessing close, away from the busy minions sweeping up glass, as he tried to process what happened. The Morality Machine was broken. Pieces of the miracle that made sure Tabitha loved him were scattered at his feet. Conductive fluid, red as blood, seeped from a slashed tube.
He licked his lips. Words escaped him. Not sure what else to do, he picked the two girls up. They were real, solid, something that would ground him in the here and now. No matter what else happened, Tabitha would never leave the girls. But still, he’d never turned off the machine. Even with the girls, he’d considered it too risky. There were too many variables for him to accurately calculate the possible results.
Theoretically, Tabitha wouldn’t change much. She’d be frostier. Inhibited perhaps, inattentive, less forgiving and more likely to question what he did in the lab. Super heroes were defenders of the right; they adhered to a strict moral code. One that didn’t involve villains.
She thought Evan was reformed though. That might buy him some time. As long as she didn’t find out what he was doing in the lab, she might not notice he’d lied to her about his day job. Oh, sure, the sex might taper off for a few nights, but nothing too drastic. All he needed to do was fix the machine. This was a minor setback, a few hours of work. Nothing he couldn’t fix.
Taking a calming breath, Evan walked in a circle around the broken Morality Machine. He couldn’t even tell what had happened. For destruction this catastrophic, it didn’t compute. There were safeguards, redundant features. He’d had the minions try to destroy the machine before he originally turned it on. The thing was built like a tank.
“Sweetheart, what did you do?” he finally asked. Scaring little girls was what super villains did, not the loving husbands of super heroes.
“Blessing tried to pick it up,” Delila supplied. “But it got stuck.”
He looked at the little girl in his arms. She was tall for her age, but not tall enough to reach the crystal focus that floated in a magnetic field six feet off the ground. “How did you try to pick it up, sweetie?”
“I thinked about it, Daddy. Like when I want water. I think about it, and it comes to me.”
“Uh-huh.” Evan set Blessing on the ground. “Can you think something else over here? A pencil maybe? Or a cup?”
Blessing nodded with a stoic look on her face. She scrunched her eyes shut and Hert’s clipboard floated toward them, hovering to a halt inches from his nose.
“I see.” He rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Telekinesis. That’s going to make life fun. Later, Daddy will show you how to pick up all your toys by thinking.” As soon as the election was over he was going to dedicate himself to finding out the genetic mechanism for super powers. What he wouldn’t do for telekinesis!
“That’s not fun!” she protested, and the clipboard clattered to the floor.
He smiled. “Cleaning never is, but it still needs to be done. Now, Delila, how did the crystal get stuck, and what did you do?”
“I clicked it, Daddy.”
“Clicked it?” Evan frowned at her. “I thought we agreed you weren’t going to click anything anymore. Clicking is bad.”
“But Blessing wanted to see Mommy!”
“Then you should have asked Daddy. I have other pictures of Mommy.” He took a moment to center himself and refocus. The idea that the Morality Machine might break had never invaded even his worst nightmares.
“Daddy?” Delila asked, tugging at his sleeve. “Are we in trouble?”
He studied his broken machine. There were probably worse things that could happen, like an asteroid the size of Mars crashing into the Pacific Ocean, but on a scale of one to ten this was a thousand. “Just a little bit.”
The anguished wails of the unjustly accused began again. Delila sobbed, clinging to his knee like a limpet. Blessing’s lip trembled.
“Everyone upstairs!” Evan ordered. “Hert, salvage what you can, then send a cooking minion upstairs.”
“Do you still want me to lure in a test subject, Master?”
“No, that’s on hold for now.”
“But, sir! Your deadline!”
“A few hours won’t hurt any
thing,” Evan said, as much to himself as to his minion. He needed to fix his Morality Machine, but first he needed to figure out exactly what the girls could do. Plans boiled in the back of his mind. It was like opening the cupboard and finding a gold mine. Super powers might turn out to be the magic wand that could fix everything.
Of course, the ethics involved with using children as evil minions was sketchy at best. It probably went against child labor laws. But that was neither here nor there. All he had to do was wait for them to hit their teens and order them to not rob the bank. Kah-ching!
Upstairs, Evan lined the girls up on the couch and paced. “All right, ladies, it has come to my attention that you’ve been keeping secrets from Daddy. Now, as a super villain—former super villain—I can understand your need for secrecy. In some cases, I will applaud it. For example, I will never need to know what partially digested food looks like, so kindly don’t regurgitate on me.
“However, I do need to know if you are developing any skills that might make your kindergarten teacher scream next fall. This is very important. Delila can click things open. Blessing has telekinesis.” He raised an eyebrow at the other two. “Any more surprises for Daddy?”
Maria looked at the ceiling, then the floor.
“Maria? What do you want to tell Daddy?”
“Sometimes, I make stars.”
“Stars?”
She cupped her two little hands and light pooled into her palms. As she pulled her hands apart a trail of sparkling stars the size of quarters strung out in front of her.
“May I see?” He held out a hand, but waited for her to nod. Evan reached gingerly for a star. It burned hot even a hand’s width away. “Do they burn things?”
“Only if I forget them, Daddy.”
Oh, goody. His daughter was a firebug. “That’s going to make camping trips exciting. Don’t play with stars in the house. Angela?”
“Angela knows what we’re thinking,” Delila offered.
