Even Villains Fall in Love (2 page)

The front door slammed shut on Evan’s bewildered
expression.

Tabitha swung the door back open. “Sweetie? Get
the lawn service out here, the yard looks like a jungle, and hide
the crayons. The girls found where I was keeping them yesterday. I
don’t want them coloring on the walls again.”

Shut. Open.

“Love ya!”

“Um...” Evan ran to the front lawn and watched
his wife leap into the sky, flying away to save the day like any
good superhero with a deadline. This was not a good thing.

Back inside, Evan scrambled to find jeans in the
mountain of unfolded laundry.

“Daddy?” Delila said through a yawn.

“Yes?”

“I want breakfast.”

“Breakfast?” He stared at his daughter. “Um,
let’s see what Mommy left.”

The other three girls were waiting in the
kitchen.

“I want Mommy!” Delila said.

Blessing sat at the table with an expectant
expression. “Pancakes?”

He peeked into the cupboard. There were boxes of
things neatly stacked with matching lids. That probably meant
something profound in the secret language of women, but he wasn’t
even getting a mixed signal.

“Daddy?” Four judgmental scowls looked up at
him. “Can you cook?”

“For a given definition of cook.” He closed the
cupboard door. “Give Daddy a minute.” Evan ran through the garage
to the door to his basement lab. “Hert!”

His warty toad of a minion climbed up the
stairs, six-knuckled fingers dragging on the floor. “You bellowed,
Master?”

“Do you cook, Hert?”

“I wasn’t programmed to, Master.”

He’d forgotten that. Hert was his original
minion, a summer project cooked up from the DNA of animals he’d
been able to find in his backyard when he was fifteen and had
nothing better to do with his life. Back then, Mom had cooked. In
college he’d had the meal plan. Tabitha did the cooking once they
got married. Back in the bachelor years between college and
marriage... “Girls! Get dressed. Daddy’s going to take you to
McDonalds!”

Angela put her hands on her hips, posing just
like Tabitha. “Fast food is very unhealthy for you. Mommy said
so.”

Evan looked at his warty minion for help.

“Never hurt me,” Hert said, shrugging.

The girls wrinkled their noses in unison, a move
worthy of the synchronized snob team at the country club he didn’t
belong to.

“I don’t want to look like him,” Maria said.

“Daddy survived on fast food before he met
Mommy.” Evan dropped his head. He was arguing in third person with
five-year olds, a sure sign of senility. “This is not part of the
plan,” he muttered to Hert.

Tonight, the Morality Machine was getting a
tweak. It might mean some extra late nights in the lab after
Tabitha fell into a satisfied slumber, but sex would keep her home.
Although spending eight hours a day making love wouldn’t actually
get the kids fed. “Everybody to the car.”

The girls watched him with intent glares.

“There will be toys.”

Chapter Three

Superheroes were new to our world when
I met Tabitha. No amount of theorizing, wild supposition, or
unethical research revealed to science where their powers came
from. Even I couldn’t figure out what twist of genetics or fate
controlled those powers, and believe me, I tried.

My interest in Tabitha may have
started out as one hundred percent lust. I couldn’t forget her
kiss, the taste of her on my lips. Eventually, the lust dissipated
a little and three percent of my fascination was with her power. I
didn’t care about the rest of the superheroes. I just wanted to
know how Tabitha worked.

She can fly. She moves faster than any
human should be able to. And she makes the world glow. Maybe I’m
biased on that last one. When she’s with me, everything seems
brighter.

***

“We can’t do this, Hert,” Evan told the minion
as he tried to pull the lab door closed. Maria pushed her foot
between them as she tried to peek down the stairs.

“I don’t see what else we could do, Master,” his
minion answered.

Two warty arms stretched across the opening to
keep the girls at bay. They were a little taller than his favorite
minion, and didn’t seem too worried about the closet monster who’d
eaten breakfast with them.

“I’m not programmed for nurturing or
care-giving, sir,” Hert reminded him. “It’s not in my DNA. If you
give me a week, I could work out the sequence to clone a nanny
minion.”

“We don’t have a week. Not a week’s notice to
clone a minion, and not a week I can sacrifice in work time. It’s
almost November.”

“We could slow time,” Hert suggested. His foot
bounced up to keep Delila from crawling under his arm.

Blessing tugged on Evan’s pant leg. “Daddy, can
I go downstairs?”

“Now, sweetie, what does Mommy say about going
to the lab?”

Folding her arms, she pouted. “Not unless
Daddy’s with you.”

“Right. Is Daddy in the lab, sweetheart?”

Blessing tilted her head to the side in an exact
imitation of her mother. He needed to win the election, if nothing
else he needed the Secret Service guarding his girls before they
went to school.

“Daddy?” Blessing asked. “Will you go to your
lab? Please?”

Evan groaned in dismay. “That’s cheating!”

“We could put them to work, Master.”

“There are child labor laws,” Evan said. “Even
if I ignored the laws, what could they do?”

“Sort widgets,” Hert said promptly.

His daughters danced around him. “Fine. Girls?
We are going to Daddy’s lab. Only touch something if Daddy says
it’s okay. Understand?”

“Yes, Daddy!” they chorused before rushing Hert
like the offensive line at the Pro-Bowl and charging down the
stairs.

“Hert?”

“Sir?”

“Keep them away from the machines.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And the knives,” Evan said as he hurried down
the stairs.

“Yes, sir.”

“And the blow torches.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And the screw drivers.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And the electrical outlets.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And the drafting pencils.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And the lasers.”

“The lasers are out in the desert for Minion
Field Day, sir.”

“Hert,” Evan said as the girls ran into his lab
and stopped next to the Agree-With-Me Ray with appreciative “oo’s”
and “ah’s.”

“Sir?”

He looked at a lifetime of notations on a
collection of whiteboards, lines of meticulously maintained tools
for his engineering projects, and glowing vats waiting for his next
minion. “Keep the girls away from everything.”

“Yes, sir.”

Evan took a deep breath of the cold laboratory
air and all his neurons began firing. Here, surrounded by diagrams
and machines, he wasn’t the geek caught flat-footed who didn’t know
the answer or how to make pancakes. In the lab, he reigned supreme,
ready to mete out swift judgment and tackle everything.

On the far side of the room, nearest to the
subterranean exit, sat his new machine: the Election Ray. The
Agree-With-Me Ray’s older, better-looking brother, the Election Ray
didn’t need close proximity to work, it just need waves of some
form. Airwaves, electric waves, radio waves, and cell phone waves
all worked to project a single message throbbing into the
unsuspecting minds of humanity.

Early results were promising. For the first
test, he’d sent a message encouraging everyone to buy purple Banala
Babes Dolls. Stores had sold out, but only of red and blue. People
had bought the dolls in pairs and hadn’t touched the purple.
Fine-tuning was in progress.

The rebuilt Agree-With-Me Ray sat in another
corner under bulletproof glass. He had fond memories of that
machine, but the original was too bulky for use as anything but a
museum piece. A smaller version shaped like an obsidian statue of
the Greek goddess Nike sat beside the first, also under glass.
Three industrious minions were working on the latest version as per
the specs he’d drawn up the day before—all the power of the
original Agree-With-Me Ray streamlined to fit into a stylish
wristwatch.

“Daddy?” Delila ran to him. “What’s a widget and
when can I sort one?”

“Hert!”

“Master?”

“Give them something to sort.”

“Yes, Master.” Hert obediently found a jar of
mixed screws and nuts, dumped it on the concrete floor, and sat
with the girls to help them sort the contents.

Evan watched for a moment before heading to his
favorite invention: the Morality Machine with its ability to adjust
one fine-tuned aspect of the personality. After all, he didn’t want
Tabitha as a slobbering monster with no morals. As a villain, she’d
be downright scary.

Love was a complicated thing, a complex process
in a constant state of flux. Most people didn’t understand how to
perfect the three-part harmony of lust, attachment, and commitment
that produced true love. He was ahead of the game there, lust had
fueled Tabitha’s first kiss. Even now, the memory was enough to
make him harden with need. Any villain of moderate intelligence
could whip up a basic love potion to produce lust—a combination of
adrenaline, dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin. But, like any
bad cocktail of drugs, there was a time limit on chemical mixes.
The body eventually adjusted and then love faded.

Third-stage love involved free will and
commitment. He couldn’t take away Tabitha’s free will without
risking her mind entirely. Driving down the street, she might need
to swerve suddenly to avoid a deer or oncoming car. Without free
will, she wouldn’t be able to protect herself.

So he’d focused the machine on the second stage
of love, attachment. Mad lust kept the bedroom games fun, but
attachment made sure she only wanted to play with him. His machine
focused magnetic waves on the glands that controlled production of
vasopressin and oxytocin. A second magnet sent a pulse wave that
triggered memories of their time together. It was as good as
staring into her eyes for hours at a time. Tabitha lived in the
soft glow of fond affection, always thinking of him.

If it weren’t for the Morality Machine, the
first kiss would have been their last. Tabitha would have found
some other man, someone she didn’t instantly write off as beneath
her. She would have found love the old-fashioned way, and he would
have died of a broken heart. The core of the Morality Machine
winked at him under the spotlight. Such an elegant machine. The
black matrix around the crystal looked like a spider web lain out
by MC Escher. The crystal heart shone translucent blue and showed
the perfect moment: Tabitha kissing him.

The image wasn’t part of the machine, more a
screen for what the machine did. Tweaking it would be hard. With
the proper fix, he could boost her sex drive, tinkering with the
first stages of lust. If he did that the crystal image would
probably change to one of their more erotic forays into emotional
expression, and that would leave Tabitha panting with need every
hour of the day. Who was he kidding? He wouldn’t let her out of the
bedroom like that! Super powers be hanged, he’d find a pair of
cuffs and... Evan took a deep breath. Later.

Election Ray first. Sex later.

If he turned it up right now she’d come home,
and he needed to get some work done.

“Daddy?”

Evan jumped out of Angela’s way. “Yes? Why
aren’t you sorting widgets?”

“Is that Mommy?” She pointed at the crystal.

“Yes, it is. Isn’t she pretty?”

“Why do you have a picture of Mommy in the crazy
spider web?”

“Because I love Mommy, and I want to think about
her while I work,” Evan said as he steered his precocious child
back to the pile of unsorted screws.

“Where’s my picture?”

“What?”

“Mommy has a picture. Where’s my picture? Don’t
you love me?”

The other three girls gasped.

“You don’t love us, Daddy?” Blessing asked.

“Of course I love you!” Evan knelt down as his
brain raced to dig himself out of this hole. They were too much
like their mother. Far too perceptive for his peace of mind. “I
didn’t have the pictures I want of you,” he said slowly,
constructing the lie as he went. “Why don’t you girls color Daddy
some pictures and we can hang them up for me to see every day?”

Maria clapped. “Can we decorate?”

“Sure, why not? Hert, do we have a decorating
minion?”

“We have several programmed for color awareness
and spatial reasoning, Master. Those are useful tools for
programming.”

“Great, bring one of them over.”

Evan plopped Delila in his lap while the girls
showed him the funny shaped things from the jar—mostly scrap
metal—until Hert shuffled back over with a black and purple polka
dotted minion. Like Tabitha’s canisters upstairs, the color codes
had made sense at one time, but now he couldn’t remember why he’d
programmed the genes for polka dots. Maybe he’d been drunk at the
time.

“Master, this is Fishy Thing.”

“Fishy Thing? That sounds like one of my high
school projects.”

“Yes, Master. You programmed Fishy Thing during
your senior year.”

Purple and black. That’s right, he’d meant it to
look like the homecoming game with everyone in school colors.
“Great. Fishy Thing, my girls want to decorate. Help them out and
keep them away from the machines and anything else dangerous.
Understood?”

“Yes, Master,” Fishy Thing answered.

He checked on Agree-With-Me the Third, then went
to work fine-tuning the Election Ray. The plan was the epitome of
simplicity. Everyone knew the president of the United States was
the most powerful person in the world. Power, influence, acclaim,
wealth, attention...everything Evan had ever wanted rolled into
one. But becoming president meant close public scrutiny, lying on a
daily basis, and a year of hard work as he tried to build support
for his lies. Unless, of course, everyone happened to want to write
his name in the box for president on Election Day.