7: Secret Labs and Empty Sanctums
Previously on And When Two Villains Woo, the Malevolent Med-Student’s loyal henchwoman Candystriper teleported away from an alien vessel holding her in captivity is now trying to get back to her employer’s hideout! Little does she know that the Malevolent Med-Student has himself been taken captive by rogue hero John Cute! Will Candystriper reunite with the Malevolent Med-Student? Will Sam Superlative, Jr. follow her trail? We’ll find out, but first, a brief commercial message!
The Malevolent Med-Student couldn’t help but be impressed. When John Cute had said he’d set up a laboratory, the supervillain mad scientist had envisioned a makeshift setup in an abandoned warehouse liable to catch fire or explode at any moment. Instead he found a clean fully stocked underground facility, hermetically sealed from the outside world, complete with everything from ammeters to zoltenflanger flasks. “How?” he asked after John Cute had shown him the wheres and what-fors.
Cute didn’t blink. “You’re a supervillain and you have to ask?”
The Malevolent Student raised a sardonic eyebrow. “Well, aren’t we playing both sides of the street.”
John Cute did not reply to that; instead, he opened a cabinet and removed an object which the Malevolent Med-Student recognized instantly as the block of thrudanium. “What do you know about this?” Cute said.
“I know it blows up,” said the Malevolent Med-Student helpfully.
“Want a demonstration?” John Cute said.
“All right, all right, calm down,” the Malevolent Med-Student said hastily. “That’s the problem with you antihero types, you’re always so serious. Always with the brooding and the threatening, you miss out on the sheer joy of villainy, you know?” He coughed, seeing the look on John’s face.
“Anyway. Thrudanium. It’s an extremely rare element, and when I say extremely rare, I do mean that; I’m pretty sure what you have there is it, all of it, in the world. No one’s sure where it came from; the government may know but of course they aren’t talking, why should they, it’s probably in the files next to the aliens!” He laughed. An awkward pause followed.
The Malevolent Med-Student sighed and plunged on. “From what little information I have gathered, I’m pretty sure it has hagiographic, possibly even deific qualities, which I think if properly channeled might be able to forestall and even reverse telomeric decay and thereby-”
“Immortality, right,” John Cute said, cutting to the punchline. “So you can do it?”
“I said I think,” the Malevolent Med-Student said. “I don’t know. I can only find that out by experimenting, testing, all that, which takes time. I need at least a week to determine whether the thrudanium even has deific qualities to begin with-”
“You have twenty-four hours,” John Cute said, turning on his heel and starting to walk away.
“No!” snapped the Malevolent Med-Student. “I said a week and I need a week at the very least; in twenty-four hours the best I can do is figure out how to make it not explode! Do you think I’m one of those people you see on television that magically pulls scientific solutions out of their hat? This is real science, you understand! Not to mention that there’s precious little other studies on this, no peer reviewed material I can fall back on, because the only other documentation is with the government and I can’t exactly call them up and ask for it! There’s a very real possibility I might make a mistake and blow half the city to kingdom come!”
John Cute took all this in without moving. “Then I would suggest you don’t do that,” he said finally, then turned again and walked out of the laboratory, the door closing behind him. The Malevolent Med-Student, for once in his life, was completely lost for words.
Elsewhere in the city, Sam Superlative, Jr. was berating himself for not getting the girl’s name. He sat in the Superlative Sanctum Supreme, staring at a computer screen as big as he was, its cursor blinking patiently at him, and he had nothing to put in, and why hadn’t he just asked her?
“I’m Sam Superlative, Jr., what’s your name, I should’ve said that, why didn’t I say that?” he said to himself, kicking the floor. The chair in which he said spun around and around, but he was in such an emotional state that even the joys of a spinny chair couldn’t alleviate his misery.
“Maybe I need a new moniker,” Sam said hopefully. “Yeah, something new, like, like Super Guy, or Superlative Man, or…um…”
His powers of invention failed him, and he slumped back in the chair. “Oh, who’m I kidding. This isn’t going to work.”
“I would not be so sure,” said the computer.
“What do you know?” Sam said, before he suddenly realized that the computer had just talked to him. “Huh. Did we put in a new AI program?”
“No,” the computer said. “Actually, I am the consciousness of Android Pete. I apologize for intruding, but my emergency protocols dictate that if my physical components are destroyed, my consciousness is to be immediately transmitted into the nearest electronic object and then proceed along whatever pathways available until I can either reach a new physical form or at the very least a sophisticated computer system capable of communication.”
“Oh,” Sam said. “Wait, what happened to you?”
“Teleporter accident,” the computer said. “My cybernetic arm is now in the possession of known henchwoman Annabelle C. Maloney, operating under the alias Candystriper.”
A picture flashed on the screen, and Sam’s heart skipped a beat. “Well,” he said, his eyes brightening with a sudden idea, “I’d better go and get that arm then, hadn’t I!” He whipped into his cape and dashed off before Android Pete’s consciousness could emit a word of protest.
“Do not worry,” the voice of Android Pete said through the computer’s speakers , “I will be fine just sitting here in the computer. I have not been a disembodied consciousness before. On the other hand, this is certainly better than the touch-sensitive toilet I had to pass through in my attempt to escape the hospital. Anyway, I will just wait here until someone returns.”
It enabled sleep mode and the screen blipped into darkness. The Superlative Sanctum Supreme was quiet again.
John Cute really is the worst if he’s making the Mal Meddie look not so awful!