How To Succeed in Evil Read online

  How To Succeed in Evil

  Patrick E. Mclean

  How to Succeed in Evil is the story of Edwin Windsor, Evil Efficiency Consultant. He tries to help supervillains be more villainous. Or at least more profitable and sensible about the business side of Evil.

  Along with his very proper and English secretary Agnes and his hench-lawyer Topper, he struggles to make the world of superpowered people make sense. But this is very difficult because, while Edwin’s advice is excellent, all of his clients are too egomaniacal to listen. There is, it must be said, a bit of comedy in this work.

  Edwin struggles with a cast of characters including, Dr. Loeb, a trust fund child who desperately wants to be an Evil Genius, but has none of the talent. Dr. Loeb’s hideous mother, Iphagenia – who’s evil scheme is to foment a second Southern Rebellion, beginning with Lower Alabama. And the Cromogoldon, a brute with forehead villainous low and quite possibly the strongest creature on the planet.

  Inevitably, Edwin’s unique clientele lead him into direct conflict with the greatest superhero of them all, Excelsior. And so, the quiet, restrained intellectual is pitted against heroic force.

  Patrick E. McLean

  How to Succeed in Evil

  Prologue. Song

  It’s a beautiful afternoon over Southern California. Up and down the coast, the waves are breaking well and thousands of otherwise responsible professionals have been lured by the call of the sea. The old-timers with their longboards won’t acknowledge it outside the tribe, but they whisper it around beach fires and fish taco stands. This is the best they’ve seen it. A pure gift from the salt mother of us all, the goddess Ocean.

  Amid the dreams of endless summer and perfect waves it’s easy to overlook the balance of nature. It’s a nice concept, but there’s a reason Mother Nature is called a bitch. All of her gifts must be paid for. Good surf in Southern California is purchased with bad weather on the other side of the Pacific. And if these breaks are the best — the best in a lifetime — what does that mean for the other side of the world?

  But, in the unreality of Southern California, the rich and the rich in time do not care. They ride effortlessly, gracefully, impossibly on waves built from the misery of others. The girls on the beach are well-oiled. The volleyballs ping back and forth, forth and back as if time did not exist and all eternity was a sunny day. Truly, it is paradise. Paradise with a little bit of traffic. So is it any wonder, that, for leisure or commerce, Singapore Airlines Flight 209 is inbound?

  209 has had a hell of a trip. It was badly battered shortly after takeoff. Halfway across the Pacific, the number three engine overheated. The pilot, Captain Song, eased it back to 20% power. While it’s not the first time he’s had to baby an engine, this is surely the worst flight of his career. Flight 209 is also losing cabin pressure. Somewhere near the middle of the flight, Song was forced to descend to keep the cabin supplied with sufficient oxygen. This means he has regressed to the beginning of air travel. Unable to fly above the storms, he must now play a deadly game with the weather.

  This day the Pacific is filled with low pressure areas. They form, dissolve and re-form faster than Song’s navigator can keep track of them. They are pawns in a malevolent chess game. Song seeks to slip between them, to climb over them, even backtrack and fly around. He does not always succeed. Sometimes the storms converge on the plane like the fingers of an angry black hand. Even as they try to knock him from the sky, Captain Song curses them. He speaks to them with an intimate hate and names them for demons in the tales his grandmother once told him.

  The demons of the East are largely unknown to meteorologists. So they name these areas of low pressure ‘onions.’ This is because the closely packed isobars on a weather map resemble layers of pungent vegetable. Meteorologists watch them closely, hunting Typhoons in the Pacific and Hurricanes in the East. Surfers also watch the onions. The are the source of the precious waves. The more powerful the onions, the farther out to sea they are and the longer they sit there, the better it is for the waves. Waves are formed by a series of complicated relationships, beyond the limits of human comprehension. Marijuana steeped conversations concerning questions of wave formation often take on mystical dimensions. Oceanographers and meteorologists can get even farther out there. They smoke math.

  Even as Captain Song prays for these onions to rot away into the sea — to leave his ship and its cargo aloft on the uncertain waves of air – millions of people pray for these onions to abide and grow in strength. If you believe that God answers prayers, Captain Song and the 239 souls aboard Flight 209 are simply outnumbered. But perhaps there is room for higher ideals than majority rule. Song’s cause is just. His prayer is fervent.

  The storms remain.

  By the time Flight 209 reaches the magical area of high pressure that always seems to settle over Southern California, Song can no longer feel his left hand. He has seen his ship through 10 hours of dangerous flying. He is soaked to the skin and his sweat has turned to ammonia. He has taken the weight of the entire task upon himself and prevailed. It’s not that he does not trust his co-pilot. It’s not that he does not have faith in his crew. He is simply the captain. The responsibility is his. He has more experience. He has more training. Song believes in duty. He believes that duty, his sense of honor harnessed to a purpose in the world, will make him something more than a man. The storm has passed, and it seems he is proven right.

  In the tones of an ordinary flight on an ordinary day, he asks the co-pilot to take over. The co-pilot notices that Captain Song must use his right hand to pry his left hand off the wheel. Out of respect, he says nothing. Song’s will has triumphed over the limitations of his body.

  The co-pilot wonders if his will would be strong enough. Somewhere deep inside him, he knows it would not. Captain Song leaves the cockpit and relieves himself. Now that he has a moment to consider it, his bladder is close to bursting. The relief is orgasmic. Even so, Song would have urinated in his seat if it had come to it. He washes his hands and feels every drop of water on his skin. He splashes water on his face and looks in the mirror. He knows the satisfaction that comes from being tested — pushed beyond one’s limits — and finding oneself equal to the challenge.

  The moment is interrupted by the explosion of the number three engine. Song feels the blast ripple through the airframe and is back in the cockpit without drying his hands. Warning horns sound. The fire suppression system is activated. He can hear the screaming of the passengers. Most of the port wing is now gone, and the plane is losing altitude. The starboard engines have been throttled back, right full rudder is applied. Even as Song the man loses hope, Song the Captain does not. His will cannot be broken by circumstance.

  Aircraft aluminum has no will. It has a predictable failure point, beyond which it will give no more. The wing has been through too much and, in accordance with the laws of physics and its technical specifications, it gives up. The copilot calls in a mayday, but he’s so scared he’s screaming it in Chinese. Song puts a hand on his shoulder. At his touch, the copilot regains control of himself.

  Song takes up the mayday, in very clear, and slightly accented English. Los Angeles tower responds that all runways will be made available. Captain Song explains his situation more clearly. He does not know why he does this. It does not matter. Surely they are all dead. The flight recorder beneath his seat will explain everything after he is gone.

  Song turns off the warning horns. If he is to die, at least he will not die with a headache. Small comfort. But comfort is comfort. The jet shudders again. The delicate equilibrium between full left rudder, full right stick, no left wing and reduced power on the remaining engines can’t hold much longer. Next to him, the copilot is chanting
“Namo a mi tuo fo” The copilot believes that this chant will allow one to obtain rebirth in Amitabha’s Pure Land of the West.

  On the beach the well-fed and safe lounge and watch the surfers in the light of the setting sun. If one were to squint, this could be the Pure Land of the West. The co-pilot may never see it, but if some part of his corpse can be recovered, it will probably be buried here.

  Flight 209 is hit by breath of air and tumbles from the sky. The plane has lost its lift characteristics, and, in the eyes of physics, is now a falling body, rushing towards its terminal velocity. There is an equation that describes how long Captain Song has to live. He knows this math. Even though it is hopeless, he fights on. He fights for control of an uncontrollable plane. Song will do his duty unto death. Beyond death if he can. But there is nothing that a man can do. The fate of Flight 209 is bound by the laws of physics.

  Chapter One. A Lot of Words He Doesn't Know

  To the East of Flight 209 the laws of physics are under serious assault. The surface of the ocean parts in a perfectly straight line. Superheated seawater explodes into the air. An impossibility is headed West.

  This impossibility is a man flying many times faster than the speed of sound. This man never had a chance to study physics. He doesn’t know what he’s doing is impossible. He just does it. He is called Excelsior. In Latin the name means “ever higher” This impossible man does not know this. To be fair, there are a lot of words he doesn’t know.

  But what good are words in moments of disaster? The endless stretching instant as the car begins to skid. That high speed memory that the survivors play over and over again, looking for the meaning of it all. What words are equal to these moments? What words are of use? No? Please? Stop? Don’t?

  When the wheels lose traction and you look over at the innocent eyes in the car seat next to you, there are no words.

  And this is where he is asked to go, this Excelsior. This is where he lives. Do we expect eloquence from the avalanche? From a mighty rocket? From the forces that shift the continents? No. We expect action. Power, undeniable. And this is what his powers have made him. A force of nature with the will of a man.

  To be sure, there are other heroes. Other people with exceptional powers who have been called to help their fellow and (it must be admitted) lesser men and women. Some are more colorful. Some are more eloquent. But Excelsior has always been the most powerful.

  In a perfect world, Excelsior would race towards flight 209 with a full heart. With humility. With fear. With angry tears in his eyes at the injustice of it all. He would be fully aware that each life on that plane was woven into the fabric of mankind. They might be sons, brothers, mothers, daughters, friends or enemies, but in his heart he would recognize that each was part of the mass. Each one another’s hope of redemption, of love, of care. And that when even one soul is cut from the cloth of humanity, the entire garment is weaker. Unravelled in pain and loss.

  In the perfect world, Excelsior would recognize that there are no explanations for tragedy, just excuses that masquerade as facts. But then, if it was a perfect world, planes would not crash.

  Excelsior is ignorant of all of this. Perhaps he is desensitized. But he flies towards this disaster (as he flies towards all disasters) not because people are at risk. He goes because he has been told to go. For him, Heroism has ceased to be right thing to do. Doing what he is told is the right thing to do.

  And today he’s also going because he needs a win. He’s been taking it on the chin lately. Not feeling like a hero. But what else could he be? He’s the most heroic hero there has ever been. He’s the first. The best. The strongest. Like as not, there will never be another like him.

  But for all his power, he is, like anyone else, held captive to his own feelings. And right now, he’s excited about a plane crash. Mostly because the last one was so good.

  It seems like a dream now, but it had been 1944. A different age altogether. A bomber’s controls had failed and it dropped over New York City. He caught the B-29 and layed it down right in the middle of Broadway. Everyone had cheered. He drank with the bomber crew. He had found a pretty girl, flew her around the island of Manhattan, made love to her in a cloud and went home to sleep it off. It was a pure win.

  And a pure win was what he needed. To feel like himself again. To feel that it all made sense. Now, if he had sex with a girl in a cloud she would get pregnant and sue him for paternity. How had it all gone so wrong?

  But not today. He knows he will save this day. He imagines the cheering crowds. Some of them will have video cameras. The footage of his rescue will play over and over again on television and computer screens. He will not just be a hero again, he will feel like a hero again. He will watch himself on TV.

  When he intercepts the plane it is at 6,000 feet, spinning and yawing and pitching out of control. Excelsior’s stomach churns just to think about being trapped inside the metal frame. He thinks to himself that he has been through worse. But has he? He has never faced certain death. The beach, he thinks. Set the plane down on the beach. That will look good.

  As the plane continues to fall, he imagines girls in Bikinis. The sun glinting off aircraft aluminum. Survivors wandering through a volleyball game, trying to figure out why the afterlife looks like Southern California.

  Before he dives towards the plane, he fills his lungs and cries, “EXCELSIOR!” He doesn’t want there to be any doubt about who’s actually saving this plane. But everything goes wrong. He can’t throw a jaunty salute to the pilot or the passengers. The windows are rolling so fast, they are just a blur. And he can’t get a hold of the damn thing. As he darts in towards the fuselage, the spinning plane slaps him away with its one good wing. He’s glad no one sees it.

  Excelsior gets mad and knocks the wing off. The plane falls like a stone. Behind Excelsior the remaining fuel in the wing explodes in a bright fireball. It’s now or never. No more time for battle cries or salutes.

  Excelsior dives hard and gets under the plane. His fingers dig into the aluminum. The plane slows, but not fast enough. He strains. The ocean rushes closer. At this rate, he’ll never make it.

  Rivets pop out of the plane as he presses harder. It is a physical impossibility to lift something without a place to stand. But he does. The plane slows. But then, with the shriek of rending metal the fuselage rips in the middle. The tail and the nose slam sharply together, trapping Excelsior in an aluminum sandwich of disaster. He is exempt from the laws of physics, but the plane is not.

  The fuselage disintegrates. Pieces of bodies and pieces of the aircraft are everywhere. Excelsior can think of nothing. Dread and failure overcome him. Somehow, he spies a man in a uniform falling beneath him. He seems whole. Perhaps he is alive. But the water is so close.

  He dives again. Perhaps he can still save one. One would be something. It wouldn’t be victory, but it wouldn’t be failure. He snatches for the pilot mere feet above the ocean. The grab is good. His fingers close around the man’s wrist, and Excelsior launches himself skyward.

  It is a feeling he wishes he could forget. Through the skin he can feel the muscles stretch. He feels the vibrating strings of the tendons give way. He feels, more than hears, the pop as the shoulder comes free from the socket. The body hits the water at over a hundred miles an hour.

  For a moment, Excelsior is silhouetted against the setting sun clutching the arm he has managed to saved.

  No one will say it is his fault. And the few who will know the truth of it will say that he did all he could. But Excelsior knows differently. He is the child of an age that knew right and wrong. And even though he is surrounded by relativists, he remembers that a loss is a loss.

  He stares down at the slick of blood and oil. Watches the aluminum sink beneath the waves. He won’t go to the beach. Maybe he’ll head west for a while. Find an unmapped atoll and hide himself away in shame. It’s the only thing he can think to do.

  But he knows, the next time there is a call, the next time there is another
chance to be a hero again, he will go.

  Like a junkie, he cannot refuse.

  Chapter Two. Vorld Domination

  Edwin Windsor leans back in his chair. His long form is all angles and ease. Well over seven feet of him stretches from immaculately polished wingtip to slightly loosened tie. At the end of this day, he displays the rumpled elegance of a man who is perfectly at ease in a suit. Examining his face, one might mistake him for a serene mystic of the East. Except for a wrinkle that surfaces between his eyebrows.

  This is frustration. Client-induced frustration. Deep inside him, Edwin believes that his life would be perfect if not for his clients. But, unfortunately for Mr. Windsor, his life is his clients. He is a most unusual kind of consultant. In all their myriad shapes and forms, consultants are a kind of parasite. At best symbiotic, but in all cases, useless without a host.

  Even though he knows it is hopeless, he must try again. He interrupts the flow of babble that has engulfed him.

  “So, Dr. Loeb,” he says, “tell me about your business plan?”

  Blood rushes to Dr. Loeb’s shaven head. He is wearing a Neru jacket that is a little too small. The collar seems to prevent the blood from returning to his torso. It festers and turns purple. Edwin thinks that Dr. Loeb’s head resembles an obscene Christmas tree bulb. Perhaps he will have an aneurysm. This thought does not alarm Edwin. But, if it has to happen, Edwin would prefer for it to happen outside of his office. Just when the pressure seems to reach intolerable levels, Dr. Loeb releases it by screaming, “WORLD DOMINATION!”

  Dr. Loeb’s face returns to a more reasonable shade. Now Edwin has a ringing in his ears. In an effort to clear some of the insanity from the room, he says, “That’s really more of a goal than a plan.”