Dr. Anarchy’s Rules For World Domination: (Or How I Became God-Emperor Of Rhode Island) Read online

  I wasn’t expecting to have my name mocked. Your alias, your costume, and your reputation define you. A few years ago some rookie out in Chicago decided to call himself Chaos and thought it would be fine since he wasn’t using Lord with it. My friend went to pay this moron a visit and sent him to the hospital for a month, he was damn lucky he didn’t end up in the morgue. The guy changed his name to South Sider for a while, before dropping out of the business. That’s how seriously we take our names.

  So I really didn’t appreciate her flip attitude. Especially from someone whose life I’d saved and for whom I was doing such an amazing service. A little respect would have only been reasonable. As I had more conversations with her I learned that was hoping for too much.

  XXX

  “So tell me, Doc, why’d you become a supervillain?”

  I noticed that despite her comments about me not being a doctor she was still calling me Doc. What an irritating woman. Why did I rescue her again?

  “Why are you a ninja?”

  “Well, my parents were both ninja, my grandparents were, my uncles, aunts, and cousins were. When I was a little girl I got plastic swords to play with along with dolls. It was kind of a no brainer.”

  “You’re an adult, you could have chosen to do something else if you wanted.”

  “You never met my mom. Anyway, I never really wanted to do anything else. It came naturally to me and I liked it.”

  “That’s probably fortunate given what your major was.”

  She grinned at me. “You’re not going to sidetrack me, why’d you end up a bad guy?”

  I shrugged. “I want to rule the world.”

  “Yeah, I get that part, but why?”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “If we’re going to be partners I want to know why you’re doing what you do.”

  I frowned at her. “We’re not partners. A supervillain never partners up with anyone. At best I might agree to work with someone to achieve a short term goal, but that’s it.”

  “Fine, fine, I’m okay with being your sidekick.”

  “Lieutenant,” I muttered. It was like she had a natural talent for getting under my skin.

  “So why are you a supervillain?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “Because it’s a really extreme lifestyle choice, and I would know. Being a ninja means I have a life that ninety-nine percent of people could never understand. I’d make friends, have lunch with them, talk about guys, maybe go shopping, and then later I’d break into a museum and steal a vase or assassinate a mob boss. It’s a weird way to live. I had really good friends who I could never let all the way in. And dating normal guys?” She shook her head. “Total disaster.”

  “You shouldn’t try to have relationships with civilians, we’re different, special. Normals could never understand.”

  “Is that why you do this? Cause you’re special?”

  So annoying. “I have an IQ of two hundred. I don’t fit into the regular world. My professors at MIT could barely keep up with me, the other students couldn’t stand me, and I always made people uncomfortable because I was so much smarter than they were. I wasn’t going to dumb myself down to make the masses happy. I was never going to have a normal life. I mean what was I going to do? Be an engineer for some soulless corporation? Go into business for myself with a startup? Do research? Teach?” The thought made me laugh. “There was no way I was going to waste my life leading a normal, boring existence. I always knew I was special so I wanted to do something extraordinary.”

  “Like take over the world?”

  “If you’re someone with my level of intellect there are really only two choices; superhero or supervillain. Trying to conquer the world is way more challenging than trying to protect it.”

  “You’re so brilliant those were your only options, seriously?”

  “I’m the sixth smartest man in the world. Do you want to know who the five above me are?”

  “Sure.”

  “Gunter Todt, better known as Dr. Death, John Porreca, whose alias is Overlord, Franklin Lang the Third, owner of Lang Tech and the Iron Knight, my friend Patrick Newton, who is Lord Chaos, and Neil Kane, owner of Kane Shipping. All of them are either heroes or villains. If you are that far out on the curve there’s no way you can settle for an ordinary life.”

  “Hold on a second, Kane isn’t a supervillain. He’s just a billionaire, genius, philanthropist, playboy.”

  “Who also happens to be Dark Detective.”

  Her eyes widened. “You serious?”

  “He’s my nemesis, I know him better than anyone.”

  “I thought Whiteface was his nemesis.”

  “Whiteface? He’s nothing but a psychopath with a sense of theatricality! I’m Dark Detective’s nemesis!”

  “Fine, whatever, so you discovered his true identity?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You captured him and got his mask off?”

  “No.”

  “You caught him while he was changing into his costume?”

  “No. I haven’t actually unmasked him, I just figured out his secret identity”

  She blinked at me. “What do you mean you figured it out?”

  “It’s a simple matter of deduction. Most superheroes just rely on their super powers or mutant or mystic abilities to fight crime. The only real cost they have is their costume. Dark Detective doesn’t have any powers, except intelligence. His exo-suits, gas guns, grappling hooks, super computers, and justicemobiles, cost a literal fortune. Believe me, I know. I fund myself through criminal activity, but a hero like him wouldn’t. The only possible way he could afford to be Dark Detective is if he already had access to a large fortune. Logistically he would also need to be based in, or near, New York City. Given my research I found that only one hundred and thirty-two individuals meet this criteria. Through the process of elimination I have ascertained that the only person who could possibly be Dark Detective is Neil Kane.”

  She closed her eyes and shook her head from side to side. “That’s still just a guess. You don’t really know.”

  “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. On August ninth, two thousand and eight, Dark Detective captured a gang of criminals who were attempting to break into the bridge of the new tanker Atlantica to try and steal its brand new, state of the art, navigation computer.”

  “So?”

  “The attempted theft didn’t happen in New York, it took place in the port of Miami. Neil Kane just happened to be present as he was scheduled to attend the launch ceremonies on the following day. None of the other possible candidates were even in the state of Florida on that date. I’ve also confirmed that Dark Detective has never made an appearance in New York at any time when Neil Kane was at another location.”

  I was pleased to see her pause and take all that in. My chest puffed out a little as I waited for her to acknowledge my brilliance.

  “Okay then, why haven’t you done anything about it?”

  Her question caught me off guard. “What do you mean?”

  “If you really think Dark Detective is Neil Kane why haven’t you taken him out when he was in his civilian identity? Even if you didn’t manage to kill him, you could have exposed him to the public.”

  “Why would I want to do that?”

  “Uh, because he’s your enemy?”

  “He’s not just my enemy, he’s my nemesis! As a supervillain, more than anything else, your reputation is based on who your nemesis is. The more powerful the hero who faces you, the bigger threat you are.”

  “Sooooooo you don’t want to kill him?”

  “Well sure I want to kill him, eventually. But it has to be done in the right way. We’ve had a relationship for years. You can’t just suddenly sever that kind of special bond. When it ends it needs to be face to face. I want him to see me coming, and for him to give me everything he has. I want him to know it’s
me beating him, just pounding away. I want to hear him whimper and beg and say it’s too much for him to take. There will be tears and blood as I bend him to my will and drive my fury into him again and again! I want to overcome every possible resistance and break him completely. I want to hear him cry out my name and beg me to make it stop! Only then, after I’ve satisfied myself completely and broken him body and soul, can I bring him to an end.”

  She stared at me and gaped like a fish. “Is he your nemesis or your boyfriend?”

  “WHAT?!”

  “Not that I have any problem with that. I did grow up in San Francisco. But if that’s how you feel you should just tell him. Be honest, but if he’s not gay, or if he just doesn’t feel the same way, you have to respect that and move on.”

  I literally sputtered. “I am NOT gay! You’re completely misunderstanding what I’m saying!”

  “Hey, you don’t need to get defensive about it. I had gay friends all through high school and college. In fact I’d love to go shopping with you, maybe get some matching purses. Or we could go get drinks and talk about guys’ butts.”

  I walked away. I just had to walk away.

  XXX

  All of our early conversations were like that! I’d try to explain the supervillain lifestyle to her and she would somehow flip it around to mock me! Honestly, if I hadn’t already ordered the parts and been excited about having my very own cyborg ninja I’d have disintegrated her. Mercifully the parts did finally arrive and I was able to get to work. I had her exact measurements and built the limb casings to be a perfect match to her body. Before I assembled them we talked about the different ‘extras’ I could have included. I was really disappointed when she shot all my ideas down. She just wanted the ‘basic’ package. It seemed like a real waste of potential. I mean if you’re going to build a cyborg ninja why not go all out? I resisted the urge to include a few add-ons despite what she wanted. Most people find the addition of artificial limbs to be mentally taxing, I wanted her to accept them with as little issue as possible.

  Besides, there were bound to be repairs and upgrades later on.

  Would you believe she actually asked me who the doctor would be for the operation? In my life I have literally spent tens of thousands of hours soldering, installing wires, connecting computer chips, and tightening screws. No surgeon in the world has more skilled hands and eyes than I do. Now admittedly, I’d never actually performed surgery before, but I’d studied all the necessary anatomy texts. And yes, I KNOW how that sounds, but I have an IQ of two hundred, and the fact is the human body isn’t much more complicated than a fully functioning spy or killbot. I’d built flying spybots the size and shape of house flies. Compared to that attaching four cybernetic limbs was a piece of cake.

  I had one of the old storage rooms cleaned out and set up as a temporary operating room. I was lucky that one of my henchmen was a former nurse named Jane Weslyn. She’d been fired and unable to find work in her profession after being caught stealing amphetamines. I allowed her to anesthetize Raven and monitor her vitals while I worked.

  After Raven was washed up and her stumps sterilized, she was wheeled in.

  “Remember, the arms go at the shoulders.”

  “I’ll do my best to not forget.” I imagined flipping one leg and arm just to see her freak out. I nodded to Jane who put a mask over Raven’s mouth and soon had her unconscious. She was far more pleasant that way. Before I started I took a minute to look her over.

  She was certainly very pretty. Japanese with brown eyes, high cheekbones, small nose, slender neck, and dark thick black hair. It was obvious she trained a lot. No one gets those abs by doing step aerobics. Her shoulders weren't exactly feminine, or dress slender. They had seen some use, as well as her pelvis, buttocks, and chest. She had scars. There was a laceration on her lower abdomen by her left lumbar region. There had been a stab wound just below her left breast and between her second and third rib. There were two puncture wounds near the left shoulder blade that could only have been the result of small caliber rounds. All the scars were well healed. Almost her entire body had faded yellow and brown bruises, she had taken quite a beating before being dumped on my island. I could have given her sedatives to help with the pain, but she never asked for so much as an aspirin. From a scientific perspective, she was in amazing psychical shape considering her circumstances. As a man, it felt weird looking at such a beautiful woman with so many missing pieces. Ah well, it was time to augment. I took one of the steel limbs and caressed its beautiful shining metal.

  “You really are lucky. How many people get this kind of opportunity?”

  Jane looked up from her gauges. I couldn’t see her face because of the surgical mask, but her eyes had an accusing look to them. As soon as I glanced at her she put her face back down. I put the arm back and took out a scalpel and clamp. I hummed some Britney Spears and got to work.

  XXX

  Do I even need to say the surgery went perfectly? There was no infection, and she had no issues physically or mentally accepting the limbs. Just twenty-four hours later I had her come down to my lab to run some tests. She was dressed in the same bright red jumpsuit that was the standard uniform for all my henchmen. She had on the usual red leather boots that came included, so the only part of her cybernetics that were exposed were the hands. They were obviously metal with hinges where the joints would be. The parts were all shaped to mimic a woman’s hand.

  I had her run in place, do jumping jacks, cartwheels, back flips, go through a set of monkey bars, jump up and down off tables and chairs, bend steel bars, turn the pages of a book, pick up a feather, and throw darts. She performed every single test without issue. Seeing her perform so flawlessly started to get me excited. There was no limit to the possibilities! All her stupid complaints and jokes were momentarily forgotten as I gazed in wonder at my very own cyborg ninja.

  “You know, Doc, I have got to give you props. You really do know what you’re doing.” She was juggling six eggs.

  “Thank you, and maybe now you can stop calling me ‘Doc’ all the time and refer to me as Anarchy or boss.”

  “Nah, I think Doc suits you better.” She put down five of the eggs one by one, while keeping the rest airborne.

  “Even though you don’t consider me a real doctor?”

  “Hey, it’s all about image, right?” The final egg she balanced on the tip of her left pinky. She then tossed it to the tip of her ring finger, then middle finger. She tossed and balanced the egg on all ten digits before finally setting it down too. She let the tips of her right hand slide across the table top. “It’s amazing! I can feel with these things!”

  “Their use would be pretty limited if you couldn’t. The sensors in your limbs and the nerve adapters will let you ‘feel’ whatever you make physical contact with, and also sense the amount of pressure you’re applying. Otherwise you wouldn’t be able to pick up a pen or shake someone’s hand without crushing it. The nerve net and all the extra sensors are the only things that make your arms and legs different from standard robotic appendages.”

  “I notice I can’t feel temperature.”

  “They haven’t added that feature yet. It might be available in future versions.”

  “What about pain? Can I still feel pain?”

  I shook my head. “No. If you’re in combat you’ll need to take special care. It’s very possible to suffer serious damage without even noticing.”

  “Well I’m not going to lie, I won’t miss it. You wouldn’t believe what it’s like to have someone saw off your limbs.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  Raven gave me a big smile, brought her arms and legs together and actually bowed. “Thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. Now I’ll be able to hunt down Viper and avenge my family. I swear that as soon as that’s done I’m all yours.”

  “Taking care of your vendetta will have to wait. Since you seem to be functioning at full capacity I have a job for you.” I looked down at my lap top and ope
ned a file. “Lang Industries has developed a new generation capacitor that could increase the efficiency of my robots by up to forty percent I want you to-”

  When I looked back up the lab was empty. I’d taken my eyes off of her for maybe fifteen seconds! The last egg she’d put down was still wobbling a little.