“Igor!” the mad scientist commanded. “Throw the switch!” He’d worked on his vocal exercises specially that morning to prepare for this: when delivering the line, it was important to enunciate correctly.
“Sure thing, boss,” Jane said, then seized hold of the oversized lever on the wall and started to pull.
At that moment she hesitated for a fraction of a second. A thought crossed her mind. True, they were on the point of a real scientific breakthrough here, crossing the frontiers of knowledge, breaking through that final Rubicon and establishing humankind’s dominion even over Life and Death, etc., etc., etc. But, after all, was it really the right thing to do?
“Come on,” her guardian angel, Sheila, said invisibly over her shoulder, shifting from one golden-booted foot to another. “Say no, say no, say no…”
“Oh, please,” snapped Sheila’s diabolical counterpart. Her name was Vicky and she loathed Sheila, Jane, and the doctor himself in equal measure. “Just do it already. It’ll be fun. You’ll see. Besides, you gotta pay off all those loans from Igor U.”
In the fraction of suspended time Sheila saw Jane’s arm twitch, and she gasped at the realization that Vicky’s point had hit home. “But, but, you can’t!” she blurted. “You mustn’t! It… it wouldn’t be right!”
Vicky rolled her eyes. “Yeesh, noob. They pull you straight from Choir practice or what?” Already bored, she decided to go straight to her clincher. “Look, Jane, he’ll kill you if you don’t, so just do it already.”
“I didn’t come from Choir practice,” Sheila protested, “I was in Choir! I’ve been in Choir since Bethlehem!”
“Ah, well, that explains that,” Vicky said.
“Explains what?” Sheila said, suspiciously. This was a mistake; one should never ask for clarification when an agent of the Other Side has made an ambiguous remark.
“Where the ass came from,” Vicky said sweetly.
A pregnant pause lingered in the air. Then Sheila registered exactly what Vicky had just said, and she exploded, launching into an angelic flying kick that sent her diabolical counterpart flying off Jane’s shoulder and clear into a corner of the laboratory. The force of the kick caused a tremendous flash, startling Jane badly enough that she nearly fell over; unfortunately, she grabbed onto the switch for support. It moved downwards with an ominous clunk.
Lightning crackled in the chamber. The mad scientist, confused by what had just happened, quickly gathered himself and let out a serviceable burst of wild laughter. “Live, my creation! LIIIVE!” he shrieked.
“Oh no,” moaned Sheila.
“Oh, yeah!” Vicky said.
“What the-?” Jane said.
“Urrrgh,” said an entirely new voice.
To be continued….
This story inspired by
‘s prompt: Write from an omniscient POV:
"It's pronounced EYE-gor U." "They told me it was Igor U and that they'd cover my student loans." "Well, they were WRONG then, weren't they?"