The delicate clicking of a ballpoint pen fills a pause in the conversation as TECHNOR, the Mechanical Man (and your fully licensed evil therapist) looks over his notes from your previous meeting. You've always been slightly suspicious about going to a therapy session, but this was an evil therapy session, so you suppose that's all right.
"I want to thank you for agreeing to extend our time together, Doctor." Technor says to you. You always get a warm, fuzzy feeling when people call you by your proper title. 'Supreme Leader' would be better, but you'll take what you can get. "I feel that there is more we can do together in a longer session than our usual brief check-ins."
"What, you got something in mind then?" You ask suspiciously.
"How have things been going?" the robot replies noncommittally.
"Pretty okay." You say, looking out the window at the smoking ruins of your largest Normbot distribution center.
You're not going to lie to yourself. Like you just lied to Technor, you mean. These past few months have been pretty rough. It seemed like everything was coming back to bite you at once, from LOVEMUFFIN's slowly growing resentment at your rule to Hego's resignation. The fact that one of your own agents, right under your nose, dared to attack your city and sabotage your inators was just icing on the cake.
"Mm." TECHNOR hums as he pulls out a clipboard and a pen. You're certain that he can just take the notes in his processing unit, but when asked he mentioned that most patients feel more comfortable seeing him write something down. "In that case, there are a few matters that I'd like to discuss if you're willing." Technor clicks the pen twice. "What are your thoughts on one of your long-term employees finally resigning?"
That's… complicated. It's hard to point to a single place that everything went wrong with Hego, he just wasn't all that good at whatever he was trying to do. Sure, he was decent at the bureaucratic stuff- your Insuricare buyout and raptor mounties could attest to that- but when it came to being a hero…
"Ehh, it's complicated, you know? On one hand, I feel kinda bad for the guy, being awful at what you like to do has to suck. Good thing I've never had to worry about that. But on the other hand, I don't really feel all that responsible?" It's more of a question than you'd admit. "I gave him the chance to do what he wanted with his free time, he just never did anything other than saving cats from trees, and getting beat up by those cats that he saved from the trees. Then I let that chef turn Bueno Nacho into something decent, and that made him mad for some reason. I dunno, I kinda get the sense that Hego never really liked working for me all that much."
"And why do you think that is?"
"I don't know, I'm a great boss! Plenty of time off, vacations, the works- and he should know, he designed my benefits package! Plus, the jobs I actually gave him were always interesting!"
"Has it ever occurred to you that this might not have been the right work environment for him?"
"What?! Why not?! It's a great work environment, despite being evil we're very accepting here at DEI!"
"That's not what I'm talking about. DEI has a very unique company culture, especially with many of the more eccentric individuals on staff. Your expectations aren't always the easiest to manage, nor are they all obvious at first glance. Sometimes… despite everything else, people aren't a good fit for your company."
"Oh, pfft. I suppose you're going to tell me L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N. wasn't a good fit either."
"Tell me, what are your feelings on L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N.'s recent departure?"
"Ugh, don't even get me started on them! Do you have any idea what they did?"
Technor paused for a few seconds. His brief experience with the group of insane manchildren was not one of his proudest moments. They had been utterly impossible to work with, unwilling to talk about even the slightest hint of having a problem, and worse, they mocked and ridiculed him the whole way through. Technor could deal with some banter- it came with the territory of being a supervillain, after all- but this wasn't even clever. Dr. Diminutive had tried to set fire to his notes, Rodney refused to speak to him the entire session, and Dr. Bloodpudding went on a fifteen minute tirade about how the use of insects in cuisine would lead to societal collapse. Even so, Technor's adherence to doctor-patient confidentiality held fast.
"I think I have the general idea, yes."
"They went ahead and did mad science! But not the good mad science, the bad kind! How can they expect me to be evil when they go around inconveniencing people?!"
Technor raises one eyebrow. "Is that not what you told them to do?"
"Well, yeah, duh. But I meant the normal, harmless kind of mad science, not the kind that they ended up doing!"
"...harmless mad science." Technor echoes.
"Yeah! Like turning the moon into cheese, or holding everyone's toasters for ransom, stuff like that!"
"...Doctor. Have you forgotten what mad science means?"
"Huh, weird, that's the exact same thing Monobrow asked. And of course I haven't! It's LOVEMUFFIN that really screwed up this time."
"Let's take a look at what they did. Professor Bannister attempted to steal the world's maple syrup supply. Rodney attempted to increase everyone's intelligence so they'd vote for him as leader. Dr. Bloodpudding tried to steal everyone's... dance?" Technor paused for a moment, but decided to move on. "Dr. Diminutive went on a gigantic rampage, and Dr. Killbot had a killbot."
"And did you see what a mess they made? It was awful! I had to pay for so much cleanup that I'm still feeling it in my pocketbook."
"What exactly was out of line with how you view mad science? I've examined several of the schemes you've had in the past."
"Pfft, yeah. My schemes were never anything like that."
"The Major certainly seemed to think there were some similarities. Perhaps he simply has a different perspective. Things could look similar from where he was standing."
The words Curse You, Heinz Doofenshmirtz! echo through your head. You shudder involuntarily.
"Okay, maybe a couple of my schemes might have gone a bit overboard. "There was that time I stole the entire region's lawn gnomes I guess. ...and I suppose I did go on a few rampages. ...Aaaand I did in fact try to force the people of the Tri-State Area to vote for me by making them dumber. But that was completely different!"
Technor quietly files that away within the ever-growing 'self esteem' sub-file. "Forgive me, it's been some time since I have conducted an evil plot that did not center around increasing my own prodigious power. How is it different?"
"Well nothing bad ever happened!" You reply immediately.
"Why not? Petty reprisal is, I do believe, half the fun."
You think about this for a second. Out of the dozens of evil schemes you've enacted, nearly each and every one of them failed to cause significant harm. Whether through the very rare self-sabotage or getting thwarted by your nemesis, only one of your schemes ever came to fruition. The others… usually resulted in a lot of destruction to DEI HQ, your house in the suburbs, your company car, or some large swathe of downtown. You open your mouth to answer Technor's question and realize that you have nothing to say. "I… ah. Huh." In the heat of the moment you wanted to say that your schemes were never as destructive, but that's a lie so bold even you can't tell it.
"I guess… I guess I'm just mad that I have to clean up the mess now. Is that petty?" You ask self-consciously. "No, what am I saying, of course it's petty! I'm allowed to be petty, I'm evil!"
"Indeed you are." Technor politely agrees. "So you're mostly upset that you've been left picking up the pieces."
"Yeah! They made a mess of my city. My city! I've never had a city before and they went and wrecked it!"
"Even though you told them to?" Technor asks.
There it is again. There's really no dancing around the fact that you did give LOVEMUFFIN the go-ahead to do mad science. Sure, they were getting angry and surly, but up till then they hadn't actually done anything aside from giving you dirty looks in the elevator and putting rotten eggs in your desk drawer. Your petty side wars with your rational side, your natural desire to ignore the matter and shove it under the rug getting brushed to the side as you actually think about what happened.
"But… but… I have to do Mad Science!" You almost beg. "I can't be a platypus, I tried once, it was really weird!"
Technor's logic circuits went into overdrive parsing that statement.
"I've got to do evil science! If I don't do evil science then I'm not evil!"
Technor waits a moment.
"Do I… do I have to stop being evil if I want to keep running the Tri-State Area?" You ask fearfully.
You hear the sound of a gentle click.
"ABSOLUTELY NOT!" TECHNOR, THE MECHANICAL MAN declared.
"Wha?"
"DOCTOR, YOU FUNDAMENTALLY MISUNDERSTAND THE VILLAINOUS DYNAMIC! YOU ARE SO USED TO USING PETTY MEANS FOR PETTY ENDS THAT YOU CANNOT SEE THE GRANDER PICTURE. IMAGINE FOR A MOMENT DOCTOR: A PETTY, CHILDISH, MORONIC GOAL: AIDED BY COMPLETE COMPETENCE!"
"Wow, I… wait a second." You clock onto some of the less flattering words in there.
"NEVERMIND THAT! CONSIDER PURCHASING ZINC ON THE COMMODITIES MARKET! DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN ENEMIES BEST LEFT IN ESCAPABLE DEATHTRAPS AND ENEMIES BEST FRAMED FOR MURDER! CAREFULLY VET YOUR EVIL HENCHMEN! CACKLE MADLY TO YOURSELF AS YOU SENSIBLE INVESTMENTS COMPOUND! THE GOAL IS SUPERVILLAINY DOCTOR, DO NOT FORGET THE MEANS ARE JUST THAT- MEANS!"
"Yeah! Yeah!" You say, feeling pumped. "I'm gonna be the best supervillain ever!"
You leap to your feet and look for some suitable way to express your enthusiasm. After a moment, you choose to honor Technor's choice by smashing through the plaster, just like him. You take a running leap- and slam facefirst into the wall. You slide down it slowly, making a loud squeaking noise before coming to rest.
"...A FOR ENTHUSIASM!" Technor declares, before switching his Ego module off once again.
"...Hey Technor?" You ask from the floor.
"Yes?"
"I just realized I have no idea how to do that."
"Perhaps an example will help. Why, precisely, did you refuse the federal aid money?"
"Well, duh. Because they addressed it for the city of Danville! Come on, it's not hard! Doofania! It's right there in purple and green." You gesture out the window at the gigantic neon sign spanning dozens of buildings.
"...and?"
"And it's just another refusal to accept my legitimacy! They refuse to send it to Doofania, I refuse to take it. It's as simple as that."
Technor pauses for a second. "Would it not be eviler to accept the money regardless, then use it in service of 'Doofania', even though the government thinks otherwise?"
You really wish that thought had occurred to you a few days ago before you sent that scathing retort back to Washington. "Uhhhhhhhh……"
Technor clears his non-existent throat. "Let's move on to another item on top of your 'evil itinerary'. Attempting to sue Mark Beaks."
You hadn't actually gone through with it yet on account of not having the time, but you've drafted up a hundred and one different cases in your head. Some of them even made it to paper! This was all despite the fact that all of your bean counters, Mirage, Roger, and pretty much everyone you know with an understanding of the legal system told you all sorts of tripe about his commercial being protected by 'parody' and 'fair use' and a whole lot of other legal nonsense that the States seemed to enjoy way too much.
"Of course I'm gonna sue him someday! Do you know what he did?!? He put out a commercial mocking the brilliance of DoofOS, what part of that is not worthy of a lawsuit?!"
"Do you intend to pick a fight with everyone who insults you online?"
"People insult me online?"
"Another tack then." Technor attempted. "Isn't there anything else you could do to achieve your revenge, assuming that it really is your current petty goal?"
"Hrrrm." You reply. "I did have a few other ideas kicking around." You pause for a moment to fire off a message to one of your least trusted employees.
"It's a process. Now, I think it's time for your daily affirmation."
"My what?"
You barely notice the following click.
"ALL YOU MUST DO IS GET YOUR PRIORITIES IN ORDER. DECIDE WHICH PETTY, CHILDISH GOALS TRULY MATTER, AND THEN PURSUE THEM WITH CLEAR EYED FERVOR! DOOFENSHMIRTZ! WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO?!?!"
"I… I want to cause Mark Beaks significant mental distress and financial problems!"
"AND?"
"And… and… I want to do it without facing consequences for my actions!!!"
"GOOD!" Technor declares. "NOW, CACKLE WITH ME! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
"EHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE!"
"YES! TO PERFIDITY AND BEYOND!"
As if to emphasize his point, Technor slams through the wall, the secretary stepping in a moment later to replace the removable panel with a new one.
It saved a fortune, apparently. Huh. Sensible villainy. Would you look at that.
You scroll through your DoofOS phone as you leave Technor's offices. Get your priorities in order and act on them, huh?
---
800 miles away, a Kitsune gazed up at the garish sight of Calistota's tech sector from behind a pair of very expensive sunglasses she would never tell anyone where she got. She glanced impassively at the bottle in her hand, wrapped in a brown paper bag.
She took a deep swig.
---
WADDLE CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS BURNS TO GROUND the headline on your phone blared back at you.
Yeah. You think you can do that.
---
Your therapy session with TECHNOR went pretty well! You managed to work through a few issues, at least.
Discussing Hego made you aware that some employees might not be a great fit for DEI. From now on, you'll try to do a little more investigating before hiring people to see how well you'll get along.
Mark Beaks' corporate HQ has been mysteriously burned to the ground! This… probably won't affect all that much in the grand scheme of things, but it sure does make you feel better!
New Personal Actions Unlocked!
