Flash Fiction: A Gift for Management

Every tyrannical boss has to start somewhere. Meet Bubbles, years before she becomes the terror extraordinaire of Fairy Godmothers, Inc.

A Gift for Management

By Jenniffer Wardell

When your parents are cruel enough to name you Bubbles, certain professions seem inevitable.

Most of those professions also required the ability to at least pretend to like other people, a talent that Bubbles Applegate neither had nor wanted. What she did have was an obsessive need for order and a glare that could make more fragile souls burst into tears, which eventually led to a job managing the kitchen staff at one of the smaller castles. After a week, she had everything running like clockwork.

During one of the Baroness’s monthly fancy dress balls, however, the clock started breaking down. Her wait staff started disappearing one by one, and when she went to track them down she found them huddled around the coatroom.

A glare from her sent them all scurrying away again, but she caught one young man before he could flee completely. “What was important enough to make you idiots willing to risk my wrath?” she snapped, glaring at her employee.

He swallowed audibly. “There’s someone crying in there,” he stammered. “Big, loud sobs. We wondered if it was the Baroness.”

“If any of you had been listening, she went upstairs an hour ago with a headache. Now go do your job before I fire you.”

Letting the young man run off, she turned her glare to the closed closet door. Pressing an ear against it, she realized that the idiot had been correct about someone crying. Not that she cared, one way or the other, but if that person was still there when people came to get their coats it would make a mess.

Yanking open the door, she was annoyed to find two women crammed into the small space. The crying one was wearing fairy wings and the most ridiculous-looking pink dress Bubbles had ever seen, while the other wore a nightgown and a helpless expression.

Bubbles turned to the more rational of the two. “Is this your Fairy Godmother? Why on earth is she in here instead of presenting you at the party?”

The girl shrugged. “Something went wrong with the dress spell and hour ago, and she can’t seem to fix it. I’ve tried to calm her down, but….”

“Oh, for pity’s sake.” Deciding that the Fairy Godmother was going to be useless for the immediate future, she ushered the girl outside and got one of the pages to fit her into one of the queen’s less fashionable gowns. The witch in charge of the butterfly illusions the queen liked agreed to arrange a little something for the girl’s entrance, and the baron’s son seemed appropriately impressed.

The next morning, she sent a stern letter and a bill for her services to Fairy Godmothers, Inc. They sent her back a job offer.

Supervillain Don’ts #2: Complicated Death Gadgets

It’s time to get back to that complicated wheel of death, or any of the other ludicrously complicated mechanisms that supervillains repeatedly use in their attempts to slaughter heroes. Though their popularity has been on decline since the 70s and 80s, there are still plenty of our villainous brothers and sisters who still have visions of enormous swinging blades and times flamethrowers dancing through their heads.

I understand the appeal. Rube Goldberg machines that kill are both hilarious and are a great way to display how fiendishly clever you are. They’re a perfect place to use your ominous music soundtrack, and it gives a death scene a bit more flare than the traditional stabbing or shooting. If you’ve chosen to be a themed villain – The Evil Cheeseman, for example (though please, don’t take that as a suggestion) – you can construct a device that matches your theme.

There is, however, a fatal flaw in such devices – the more moving parts something has, the more ways it can disastrously break down.  It’s the same fatal flaw that comes with most of the basic technology in our lives, though there isn’t usually someone whose life depends on making sure your television doesn’t work (unless your family really hates your taste in TV shows).

The more complicated a method you use to kill the hero, the more opportunities they have to throw one last gasp of their powers (or, for that matter, a rock) in just the right place to bring the whole thing to a screeching halt. Or worse, send it crumbling into a big heap that will injure five or six minions in the process.

The hero will sadly, always know where these spots are – either they will be hiding an engineering degree/basic scientific genius you know nothing about, or they will be blessed with an incredibly annoying level of luck that will guide the rock right where it needs to go. Even if you shield the spot – hiding it behind thick metal shielding, for example – the hero will be able to reflect the rock in such a manner that feels as though the universe is conspiring against you.

Another advantage that complicated death devices give the hero is time. Spinning blades and flamethrowers are designed to strike fear into the hero’s heart long before something actually comes along to chop that heart in half – what’s the point of all the show, otherwise? But shows take time, which gives the hero a few precious seconds, minutes, or (in the most complicated devices) hours to come up with a plan to escape and stop your current wicked plot.

The simplest solution to all this is to simply shoot the hero in the head once you have him imprisoned (chest shots are also acceptable, though it will increase the chance of the hero miraculously surviving). If you need to show off your device of death, send the hero’s corpse through, then gather your minions together so you have an appreciative audience.

Supervillain Don'ts: Sharing the Evil Plot

Supervillain Don’ts: Sharing the Evil Plot

We’ve all been there. You have the hero at your mercy, either tied up in some complicated wheel of death or simply bleeding on the ground in front of you. The plan you’ve been slaving over has worked flawlessly, as you knew it would, and you’re only seconds away from crushing the last vestiges of life out of your victim. You NEED the fool to know just how badly you’ve crushed him, to torture him in his final moments by draining him of his last vestiges of hope. Surely it will just make him suffer more if you tell him your wonderful plan, right?

In short, no.  Because the hero is still alive, even if it’s just barely, and you’ve now told him exactly what he needs to do to keep your marvelously evil plan from coming to fruition.

The moment you give the hero this information, something that will inevitably happen that will force you to leave the room for a moment. The universe, and the writers, will demand this, no matter how many times you swear you’d never be one of those idiots who walk away just as the hero is dying. Perhaps your secret fortress will be invaded, or collapse into a flaming heap around you. Perhaps one of your minions will choose this unfortunate moment to be ambitious. Either way, you will leave the room. And the hero will escape, now fully aware of everything you’re about to do.

If you don’t tell the hero, you still might not be able to keep them from escaping. But they’ll have no way to stop your plan (another supervillain don’t: leaving the door to your plotting room unlocked) and you can proceed with your villainy unchecked. It might be fun to boast to the hero when they’re at your mercy, but it’s even more fun when they’re staring at your glorious success. Once the plan is fully completed, you’ll have plenty of leisure time to share your villainous monologue with anyone you’d like.

If you do indeed manage to kill them, your chance to torment them with your plan will have admittedly passed. Your fellow supervillains will still be around, however, and watching them turn green with envy at your evil victory can be remarkably entertaining.

So You Want to Rule the World: The Aiming Question, pt. 1

Does this look like a happy villain?
I don't think so.

The Aiming Question, pt. 1

It is a tragic but well known prejudice against villainry that they will never be allowed to shoot the hero. No matter how many times supervillains, average guys or people doing the grunt work for supervillains try and aim at the hero (especially during a shoot-out) they will always miss.

The hero, of course, will hit your men with disabling or lethal shots at least half the time, and more so if they are slightly more intelligent than a rock. Since few heroes fall into this category, however, it’s safe to assume that approximately 50 percent of your recently hired minions will survive a run in with an average hero.

Sadly, there is no way to get around this, no matter how good a marksman a supervillain is. Writers may give villains all the witty dialogue – heroes can never deliver it properly – but they also refuse to let a hero be killed in all but a very narrow window of circumstances. The reading/viewing public has an appallingly narrow definition of a happy ending, and that generally involves truth or justice and other such nonsense. Especially in a recession, no one wants to see an enormous castle of bones or 20-foot robots capable of kicking down buildings.

One of the few exceptions to this rule are horror movies, particularly if you have a particular resentment against attractive but stupid college girls. The problem with this is that the antagonists in horror movies are pigeonholed into constant killing and menacing, which is only a small slice of the duties and rewards a supervillain is generally responsible for. If this is your niche then more power to you, but there will be no ostentatious thrones or floating castles in your future.

The second exception is mob movies, which will occasionally let an enterprising young soul parlay drugs, guns and menacing into a life of parties and attractive women. Unfortunately, these are generally booby-trapped with pernicious moral lessons, and any villain who finds himself in this situation is likely to die in a hail of bullets.

Thankfully, there’s hope. While fatally shooting the hero might not be in your immediate future, there are plenty of other ways to disable the hero while you make off with the loot. We’ll discuss some of these options in part two.

So You Want To Rule The World: The Hiring Process

The perfect scapegoat.

The Hiring Process, or Torture is Optional

Admittedly, going through the HR process is one of the less entertaining parts of beginning one’s evil empire. Some supervillains may be able to gather people around them just on the basis of their charm and savoire-faire. However, it would be wisest to assume that this is not the case for you. Not to be rude about it or anything, but the results of such an assumption about one's self can produce some downright embarrassing results, such as big muscular men laughing at you and slapping you around like a girl. Also, the few, blessed individuals that such an approach does work for are generally to smart to assume such a thing anyway.

Simply conscripting people and forcing them to work for you is also an option, but it is a general rule that anyone makes a better employee if they are being paid. The better you want the employee to be, the more money you should pay them. This of course, doesn't count in cases of brainwashing, but it's not very cost or energy effective to use the practice on a large group of people.

Also, when someone breaks out of brainwashing, they are left with a most distressing urge to kill you, along with any employees you have tried to avoid paying. So hiring them is simply smarter.

In this economy, even a supervillain with very little mayhem to his or her name should have a relatively easy time hiring goons, technical staff, or any other employees needed in your world domination plans. Though you should  be able to access even the most legitimate employee sites, Craigslist may help you find the sort of employees that will be more comfortable with the basic requirements of lawbreaking.

True, this method won’t exactly find you the cream of the crop, but that can be solved by having the candidates meet you at an abandoned office building and having them undergo whatever tests you might find necessary (tell the rejected ones that you were casting for a reality show, and you won’t have to kill them to keep them from talking to the authorities). If they start asking about benefits, tell them you’re a start-up that is currently hiring employees only on a contract basis. Benefits, naturally, are dependent on company successes.

Note: Competitive reality shows, particularly ones such as "Survivor," may also be an interesting location to seek future employees. Though winners should be avoided - they already have money, and will have the kind of egos you don't want in underlings - those the winner has manipulated should be perfect for your purposes. This is especially true if they're muscular and not terribly bright. 

A Handbook for Supervillains: The Joy of Minions

Note: Minions should rarely be this
colorful.

The Joy of Minions, or Why You Need Employees

As I discussed in chapter one, ruling the world is simply too large a job for just one supervillain (yes, even one as impressive as you - have you been paying any attention?) Most other worthy supervillain ambitions also fall into this category, the only possible exception being if you plan to do something with computers. (And if that's the case, then I feel it's my duty to tell you that computer-based plans for world domination don't get much further these days than scaring traditional news media. Besides, anonymity is the name of the game with hacking-based evil - the only thing you could really do under your own name is the takeover of a company, and with the economy the way it is that can be accomplished by a reasonably clever and well-funded 12 year-old).

If it helps, don’t think of them as personnel. Goons is quite a popular term, but can seem out of place if the employees aren’t suitably hulking. Minions, however, can be applied to a far wider range of staff. Minions can be made to do all sorts of dirty work, from helping to build your fortress of terror to arguing with the phone company that no, no one from this number ever made a 20 minute long distance phone call to San Quentin, and you have no idea why they would even think such a thing.

Also, they tend to be very convenient for standing in the way of bullets that would have otherwise ended up in your very attractive person (bodyguards, one of the greatest uses for minions that I have personally ever heard of) or throwing themselves on the hero in a fight. Of course, unless they are particularly impressive minions, they will be immediately defeated by the hero by something as incredibly ludicrous as a single punch to the jaw.

Yes, I know this is unfair. I completely agree with you, and would urge you to write your congressman (or have them assassinated, depending on your opinions of civic involvement) if I thought it would do any good. But it won't - it's written into the heroes contract, and there's nothing we can do about it. So I would advise you to, instead of worrying about it, allocate more minions for just that purpose, and consider every time they fall as one less bruise for you.

Also, minions endowed with a certain degree of intelligence (not as common as you might think, sadly) are great at information gathering. The obnoxiously snobby fellows with headsets and mouthpieces stationed in front of computers that always seem to be surrounding international supervillains in the movies are great examples of this. They always seem to be shouting something to whoever has been declared in charge for that particular scene, and it must be important enough that they haven't all been shot before this (though I suspect one of them is there strictly for ordering take-out). The great failsafe is for one of them to be "watching the perimeter," but any other information they should get for you is, of course, completely up to you. You can't expect me to handle everything.

As an added bonus, minions simply make you look more cool. Don't ask me why this happens, but the general thought process of anyone watching seems to be "Well, I thought he was the scum of the Earth (don't kill them at this point - it gets better) but he does seem to be able to control all these people. Oooooooh, he must be much more scary and impressive than we thought!" The fact that most of these people are here simply because you have promised to pay them a healthy sum of money (whether you'll actually deliver is entirely up to you) and they are less scrupulous then some of their fellow humans is for some reason never mentioned. For the sake of your image, I suggest you keep it that way.

Next: The Hiring Process, or Torture Is Optional