Evil Genius 2: Becoming the Apex Supervillain Read online

  By this time his neck was constricted enough that his vocal cords seemed to be disabled, either that or he simply chose not to answer the question. Once Cockroach was within reach, I braced my foot against his shoulder and tightened the rope even further until it constricted his neck to such a narrow girth that it would have snapped or he would have suffered a brain aneurysm or something, if he had had normal anatomy. Instead he just scowled at me without his face even turning red or his eyes bulging and continued attempting to form a retort.

  But when his neck was no thicker than a toilet paper roll, I picked up the cleaver again and sliced through it. And this time, since the width of the cleaver was broader than the diameter of his neck, there was a moment when not a single fiber connected his head to his shoulders, the metal separated the two parts entirely so there was no chance for them to reseal themselves.

  In that moment I popped his severed head into the plastic bag where the blood immediately filled up like a marinade pouch, and duct taped it securely. I half expected Cockroach’s headless body to remain animated and try to keep fighting me to get the head back, but it just laid there like a normal corpse. I was kind of tempted to bring it back to The Cellar or send it to the researchers at my biotech lab to see if any of its remarkable resilient qualities could be reproduced through tech, but I figured that carrying a corpse through the streets of Pinnacle City while the stump of its neck dripped blood might attract undue attention, even in the middle of the night.

  So I just popped the neatly bagged head into the briefcase and told Aileen, “Direct me to the lake by the least trafficked route from here.”

  My watch lit up with a map which I followed through a few dumpster-lined alleyways until I came to a dock. I walked out to the end and used a switchblade to cut a hole in my briefcase so that it would fill up and sink, not to mention so that the water and tiny aquatic organisms including bacteria would occupy the interior and degrade the contents past the point of forensic usefulness. Then I hurled the briefcase out into the lake as far as I could and watched it strike the surface with a splash and send out concentric ripples before slowly slipping under.

  “Take me home, Aileen,” I said.

  “I’ll update your map, Miles. Great job. You’ve saved many lives today.”

  “Thanks,” I said as I glanced at my watch, and then I sprinted back in the direction of my home.

  It took me fifteen minutes to run home. Once I got there, I scanned my iris at the door so as not to get aggressively dismembered by my own security system, went inside, and headed to the nearest bathroom for a shower.

  As I toweled off I asked Aileen, “I don’t need to tell you to wipe all the security footage that I appear in, do I?”

  “Already done,” she replied. “And I have anonymously alerted the authorities that food at the deli has been tampered with by the Cockroach. How does it feel to be victorious?”

  “Sure beats a sleeping pill,” I said with a shrug. “Come pick up my suit and clean it, will you?”

  “Of course,” my tireless AI assistant assured me.

  “One more thing,” I said. “I was thinking, when I brought that butcher knife with me… you know how Direwolf has those retractable claws that shoot out of his fists? Well, I’d like to do some kind of modification like that with my suit, so that it will have at least one built-in blade. Add that to my to-do list.”

  “After perfecting me,” Aileen said.

  “Well, you’re a never-ending project,” I chuckled. “Incorporating a retractable blade or a set of blades shouldn’t take too long. Well, on both suits. I imagine Dynamo will want one too when she finds out.”

  “Memo recorded,” Aileen said dutifully.

  “Also, add a helmet for the suits to the list,” I chimed in.

  “As you wish,” my cybernetic assistant responded. “I can compile a list of helmets from your various projects to select from to use as a base for a defensive helmet--”

  “None of those are going to work,” I interrupted.

  “Explain,” she replied.

  “Those designs are all military, so they can take some small arms fire-- actually I think Model X45 is NIJ Level III, so it can take a .308, but if someone as strong as Optimo punches me in the head, no current helmet in the world could defend me. It’s barely even possible to design a helmet that can deflect a direct gun shot, let alone withstand the strength of these supers.”

  “But you wanted me to add one to your list?” she questioned.

  “Well, ‘barely even possible’ is the kinda shit I live for,” I snickered. “I was thinking of a hard plate design that roots into the shoulder part of the armor. Issues will be reduced visibility, and it probably still won’t withstand a punch from Optimo, but I’d like to spend some time working on it in the future. It just hasn’t been a priority because it’s going to take me three times longer to do the initial design of the helmet than it did for the suit.”

  “Even if it will not protect you from a super hero punch, you could design the helmet to have other benifits.”

  “Sure,” I agreed. “I’ll want air filtration, night vision, and a HUD with targeting reticles linked to my weapons along with the ability for you to draw travel directions for me as well as to provide me with any other pertinent information.”

  “Anything else?” She purred.

  “It has to look cool,” I chuckled and walked to the elevator.

  I made my way back to the master bedroom that I shared with Dynamo, snuck in, and slid under the covers next to her beautiful sleeping body. As soon as my head sank onto the pillow I was out like a light.

  Then I dreamed of walking down long hallways that gleamed dark brown because every inch of their walls and floors swarmed with millions of scuttling cockroaches, but it wasn’t a disturbing dream at all. The cockroaches didn’t crawl on me or bury me. I just casually walked through their midst to get to wherever it was I was going in the dream, and with every single decisive step I took, all the little shells crunched underfoot like popcorn. It was oddly satisfying, and eventually they seemed to realize I didn’t care about destroying them, and their endless masses parted before me.

  As they should.

  Chapter One

  “So?” Aileen asked as she perched on a table and awaited the results of the edits to her code.

  “You are normally more patient,” I chuckled as my fingers danced over the switches of my keyboard.

  “I wish my code to match the perfection of the body you already gave me,” she said as she gestured at her form.

  “It will be,” I said as I let my hands relax so I could lean back in my chair and study her for the millionth time.

  Her face was perfect, almost too symmetrical, with huge bright blue eyes, a straight nose, and lush cherry red lipstick-colored lips. She also had a slightly exaggerated version of the ideal human female physical proportions. The perfect legs, the narrow waist with taut six pack stomach that led to flared hips at the better-than-perfect 0.6 hip/waist ratio that drove men insane with a desire to inseminate. The perky C cup breasts, and the husky, seductive voice that she could project not only from her mouth but from any speaker system that she was linked into.

  “You are staring,” she said as she fluttered her eyelids at me.

  “Do you mind?” I asked as I focused on her nipples. They were tiny gun barrels and could fire small caliber armor-piercing rounds with great accuracy.

  That part was just for shits and giggles.

  “No,” she purred. “Just think about what I’ll look like with skin.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking about right now,” I chuckled.

  Alieen was probably the masterpiece of my entire inventing career to date, but she still remained very much a work in progress. Currently, I was attempting to program her to respond with situationally appropriate human facial expressions, instead of always maintaining the exact same mildly creepy serene smile no matter what.

  “You are going to make me blush
,” she replied as she raised her chrome hand to touch her lips.

  “Actually,” I answered as I turned my attention back to my keyboard and typed in the last few commands. “That’s one of the future upgrades after I get this next patch working. It’s installed now, so smile for me, Aileen.”

  Her faint smile broadened into a dazzling grin that exposed her unnaturally perfect white teeth. However, it didn’t cause her eyes to squint like a genuine smile would. But in the context of an emotionless robot, was there really such a thing as a genuine smile? Well, anyway, I wanted one that looked just like the real thing. I’d have to expand the code for her smile later. Maybe I could even add dimples, but that would probably have to wait until I created skin for her.

  “Frown,” I instructed her.

  The frown looked a lot better. More authentic. Not a cartoonish pout, just a tightening of the lips and narrowed eyes. I could imagine that once she had skin, the forehead would furrow a little between the brows, too.

  “Great,” I said. “Now, be scared.”

  “Creator, you know that I am incapable of experiencing human emotions,” Aileen murmured. Every single thing that she said, whether she was giving me a report on the weather or alerting me to a plumbing malfunction, sounded like bedroom talk in that voice of hers. “I have objectives, but not desires, and so if an event occurs to threaten one of my objectives, my only internal response is to recalculate--”

  “Make the expression that a scared human would make,” I interrupted. One of Aileen’s few flaws was her extreme literal mindedness. I was constantly trying to enhance her ability to interpret the nuances of human speech and expression, but she was constantly discovering a new way to be robotically oblivious to the intended meaning.

  Aileen’s scared face was passable, but it looked a little like the poster for one of those alien invasion B horror movies. But that might have been partially just because of her too perfect face.

  “Hmm,” I said. “Okay, let’s try some hypothetical scenarios. What expression would you make if I surprised you with a bouquet?”

  Aileen’s expression adjusted to one of mild confusion.

  “What is it about flowers that confuses you?” I groaned.

  “Flowers are traditionally presented to a woman by a man as a gesture of courtship signifying romantic interest, apology, or appreciation,” Aileen stated. “They are generally intended to initiate or reinforce a relationship between the two, elicit goodwill on the part of the recipient, and foster a more favorable attitude towards the giver. But my prime objective is to serve you, protect you, and enhance your life by any means possible. I am already in love with you in all literal meanings of the word. Being presented with the decomposing severed reproductive organs of a plant would not influence this relationship in any way.”

  “Point taken,” I said. “But what if, hypothetically, I just gave you a bouquet as a means of saying, you know, ‘Great job?’”

  “I am entirely capable of monitoring my own efficacy,” Aileen replied. “Besides, if you subjectively evaluated my performance as subpar, you would either fundamentally alter me or deactivate and replace me. Since you have not considered initiating either course of action, I can infer with a high degree of certainty that my performance pleases you.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. “Let’s try another one. So, if I said it’s time for us to go hunt down and destroy another supervillain?”

  Aileen’s beautiful feminine features lit up with a sort of fiendish bloodthirsty glee.

  “Damn, I like that,” I said. “But I thought you said you don’t feel any kind of emotions?”

  “I am mirroring your emotional response to the prospect of engaging enemies,” Aileen replied.

  “Damn, that’s really what I look like?” I asked.

  Before my AI companion could respond, the elevator dinged, and my human assistant Norma entered The Cellar.

  Norma was only in her mid-twenties, but she already kind of looked like a librarian or a kindergarten teacher or something. Brunette, with a medium-sized figure, and awkward, a frumpy dresser with a pronounced streak of dorkiness, yet somehow endearing despite all that. Behind her straggly hair and oversized spectacles, her features were pleasant but forgettable. She looked like the epitome of average, and that was what she literally was. Her power was listed in Pinnacle City’s super database as “omni-average.” Which meant that she wasn’t exceptionally talented at anything. It also meant that she was moderately proficient at pretty much every single skill that a human could have, from cooking, to martial arts, to computer programming. This meant there was no task I could ask her to do that she wouldn’t be able to at least somewhat handle.

  She was the perfect assistant because I knew I’d always get the exact same level of performance out of her, and she could literally do anything.

  “Good morning, Miles,” Norma greeted me shyly. She was always a bit bashful around me, but then again, I was one of the most successful and handsome business men in the world. It was a normal reaction even beautiful women had when they met me.

  “Good morning, Norma,” I said. “Are you ready to save the world today?”

  “Uhhh, sure,” she answered as she glanced to Aileen. “What are you two up to?”

  “I’m teaching Aileen how to look more human,” I replied.

  “And that is going to save the world?” Norma asked as she bit her lip with confusion.

  “Well, it will save my world,” I said. “That’s what is important at the moment.”

  Norma rolled her eyes and pointed at her chest. “I look human.” She pointed at the metallic silver premium grade male fantasy reclining on the table beside me. “She does not. At all. Not even remotely.”

  I could have pointed out that Aileen’s proportions weren’t really too far off from those of my human, or rather superhuman, lover Dynamo’s, but I had a feeling that Norma didn’t want me to explain exactly what I found attractive in women, so I just changed the subject. “What do you have for me, Norma?”

  My assistant was carrying a tablet, and she had been grimacing at it when she walked in, so I figured she had some kind of question for me to do with one of my corporations that she helped manage for me.

  In response to my question Norma looked back down at the tablet and grimaced again. “You remember how the Asklepios Network placed that order for the biodegradable nanobots…?”

  “Yes,” I said. “What’s wrong? Didn’t the payment already process? I thought we got those shipped out on Tuesday.”

  “Yes,” Norma confirmed unhappily. “But, um, we have a problem. They never arrived. The train got attacked.”

  “The train got attacked?” I repeated. “What do you mean? By who?”

  “Unknown at this point,” Norma replied. “But the attack occurred near Grayville as the train passed through there, and um… the car containing the nanobots was the one that was targeted. It got disconnected from the front part of the train and a lot of the following cars got derailed but their contents weren’t touched. It was just the nanobots that were raided by someone who must have known they were there.”

  “No one saw the perpetrators?” I asked.

  “No,” Norma said. “Apparently the train security detail got blinded by some kind of neon green tear gas. Some of them also got bludgeoned from behind. But there wasn’t a single witness who could describe the attackers. Except there was one detail that a few of them noted independently. Right before it happened, they heard high-pitched giggling.”

  I sighed. “Well, where are the nanobots now?”

  Norma came over to show me the eight digit grid coordinates from the tracking device that we had installed in the crate. “I looked it up, and it seems to be an abandoned warehouse several miles outside the city limits of Grayville.”

  “Fuck me,” I muttered. “Aileen, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “Supervillain, operating out of Grayville,” Aileen replied. There was a gleam of excitement in her
bright blue eyes. Her facial expressions still didn’t quite read as natural human responses, but she was clearly starting to pick up a few cues.

  “Norma, have you alerted the proper authorities yet?” I inquired.

  “Er, no,” Norma stammered as she flushed with nervousness. “Sorry, I was planning to, I just thought I should tell you first--”

  “Good,” I interrupted. “I’d like you to book one of our jets to Grayville in two hours. After that, arrange for a suitable rental property for us there for the next week or so. And then pack up whatever essentials you think you and I will be needing for our stay. Toiletries. Evening wear, swimwear, and weaponry. You know, the basics.”

  “So you think that a supervillain stole the nanobots, and we’re going to handle this situation by ourselves?” Norma squeaked.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I replied. “Aileen will be there of course, and I’m sure Dynamo will agree to come along as well. I’m going to text her right now.”

  Norma blinked her round brown eyes behind her glasses and bobbed her head up and down. “Okay, I’ll get right on it.” Then she scurried back to the elevator to ride up into the main part of my house.

  I chuckled and remarked to Aileen, “I don’t know why she’d expect anything different after the way we handled The Virus and The Chief as a team. Actually, I really thought she was getting a taste for supervillain blood.”

  “It’s been a quiet couple of weeks, and she’s settled back into her normal persona a bit,” Aileen replied. “But don’t worry, her darker side will wake back up as soon as she sees some more action.”

  “Darker side?” I muttered to myself, and I realized that, if Norma’s superpower was to be the average human, why did she take so much joy in killing?

  “Perhaps you’re right about Norma,” I said as I leaned back in my chair once more and studied Aileen’s face, “but the real question is, will Elizabeth?”

  “I’m sure she will,” Aileen answered quickly.

  My superhero girlfriend was a recent semi-convert to my way of doing things. Some had described my methodology of dealing with supervillains as vigilante justice. Others as amateur meddling. Others as homicide. All I knew was that I had the money, the equipment, and what I didn’t have I could invent, and the motivation to tangle with supervillains.