Getting Schooled
Golden rule of super science is that when they figured out a new piece of tech, they had to display it. This was both because your average genius can never wait to show off how smart they are, but also because they’ll want to try and sell the thing to the military, pharmaceutical industry, or whoever else could afford it. This, of course, meant that some villain was likely to try and crash the party to steal it.
But want to know the real secret? Most of those times, it was a hired villain like me.
Personally, I’d probably busted up talks on every campus in the city at least once or twice. It was a pretty easy set up, really. The universities in Metro City were well insured, the campus always had lots of open ground for a super brawl, and given the private funding that went into most colleges, every major corp had plenty of leverage to make a fight happen. In fact, a number of annexes and buildings were ‘donated’ by corporations for the specific purpose of having them to get wrecked by villains.
That said, I tried not to do college jobs too often. You’d be amazed how many students at those places end up becoming heroes and villains just looking to meddle in on your heist. You get enough dumb kids together with dangerous equipment, super science and hormones, and you’re just begging for someone to have their face burned off by acid and swear revenge, get their atoms scrambled, mutated, or accidentally unlock the Necronomicon the university kept in the restricted part of the library. So, I was hardly surprised that Dolly would ask for an escort to an event like this. Lovely though she was, her being half-sheep didn’t exactly confer her a lot of powers outside of having a pair of horns, a small tail, and a general disposition to let others take the lead.
I parked outside the neo-gothic annex and got out, quickly scanning the campus. Dolly was quick to follow, inhaling heavily. “Ah! Smell that air, Victor! The scent of science! Of study! Of young people willing to experiment in every way! I missed it.”
“You went here?” I asked.
“Not here. But I did go to university. Not to brag, but I graduated top of my class.”
“You? Brag? No,” I said.
She smacked my arm with a grin. “Fine. You caught me. But I got a lot of memories about places like this,” she said, almost wistfully. She shook her head, woolly hair bouncing. “But whatever! Come on. The talk’s going to start any minute.”
I chuckled and shut the car’s door, joining her and making our way onto the grounds. I kept my powers keyed up to subtly feel for any weapons around, but I wasn’t picking much up, honestly. Lots of notebooks, pens, piercings and electronics, but I wasn’t sensing anything menacing. Which didn’t necessarily mean much. If someone had powers I might not notice until they struck, but I had pretty good instincts for when someone was going to come after me. Spend enough time with heroes looking to pound you into dust and you learned real quick to read the room.
“So this Professor… Umber, was it?” I said. “He’s a big name in super science?”
“One of the biggest!” Dolly gushed. “I mean,” she amended. “He’s not getting published in Mad Science Monthly or National Geographic or whatever, but for those of us in the know, he’s a really big deal!”
“That right?” I said, unable to keep from smiling. Dolly’s excitement was infectious. I’d rarely been privy to when she was like this. Before she moved into Roue Devard, I’d only ever really talked to her for work. Which she’d been eager enough about, but discovering her interests outside of crafting the latest device of inhumane destruction was charming in its own way.
And this was a whole new world for me. I kept a casual eye on the scientific scene, especially the mad science kind. Most big corps didn’t bother hiring me to try and steal a piece of tech unless the scientist in question was well known to the general public. That always got a lot of eyes. Everyone wants the new Ford truck if the villain shows up to try and steal the damn thing. It’s terrific marketing, really.
However, the real science was always done on the downlow. Secretive labs run by super scientists who’d show the world who was the real genius; experiments run after hours in the universities by inventors whose skills were wasted on making new shampoos; kidnapped weapons manufacturers in caves secretly building their tools of escape. That kind of shit. It was why new supervillains and monsters tended to burst onto the scene with minimal prior fanfare. At least, until the giant alligator ate a yacht or the zombie virus started sweeping through the city. That got a lot of attention, you can be damn sure.
But no scientist works in a vacuum. They stand on the shoulders of giants (especially the guy who created Titanos. Too bad he got stepped on). As a result, mad scientists tended to speak with other equally weird nerds. Lots of secretive message boards and such. But though many mad scientists ended up on the wrong side of the law, most meant well in their efforts, but their lack of social skills and general quirkiness gave them a bad rap, and made it hard for them to succeed in most corporate work places. It’s why so many got picked up by villains to develop their evil tech. And most really good mad scientists didn’t really care what their stuff was used for. They were in it for ‘The Science’.
Fortunately, it seemed like Professor Umber was of the kind that was content to putter around in a university giving lectures rather than building a better Mouseman trap. He’d never have gotten a chance to present at the university if the dean thought he’d use the opportunity to unleash the latest in plague technology. It still happened now and then, of course, but university staff had gotten pretty good at sniffing out the loons.
We soon reached the lecture hall after getting a pat down from a burly security guard checking to make sure we weren’t trying to smuggle in any gremlins or shrink rays. It was a huge room. Seats descended like a roman theatre, and at the bottom lay the podium and platform where Professor Umber would be presenting his work on biological remedies. Aside from the lectern, the space was also dominated by a huge metallic canister likely holding whatever it was he was going to be showing off. A bunch of cables snaked from it and into the floor like the roots of an iron tree, the whole thing having a distinctly ‘mad sciencey’ vibe. I looked around and saw a good number of students around, but not an immense number. Seemed like the good professor wasn’t quite as popular as Dolly made it seem. Not that looking at her would give that indication. Dolly was fairly vibrating in excitement, leaning forward and gripping the seat in front of her as she waited for the presentation to begin.
I settled back in my seat, arms propped behind my head as the good professor finally made his appearance and climbed to the podium to began his presentation. A mousy man with harried white hair and large glasses, his tweed suit looked uncomfortably tight, the shoulders patched and his thin fingers nervously handling his notes.
“Th-thank you all for c-coming,” he began, shuffling his papers too close to the mic, his eyes flicking up and down, his hand every now and then brushing through his balding hair. “I ah… I am exceedingly e-excited to be here…”
I sat up a little straighter. He seemed nervous. Maybe it was just my paranoia talking, but the way he glanced around seemed off to me…
“Is he alright?” I asked Dolly.
“He’s usually more composed in his videos,” she said, cocking her head curiously.
My concern growing, I stretched out my magnetic powers, trying to feel for anything out of place. The only metal on the professor I could feel was a watch, some pens, his belt buckle, and a phone. Nothing there. And the rest of the auditorium was much the same with some computers, personal effects and otherwise. Nothing too alarming. But there was an awful lot of metal inside that big ass canister. It was hard to sense just what it was, but the more I focused on it, the more I felt a strange sense of attention. As if it were watching us right back. I focused more on it, leaning forward intently. What was in there...
And what was that screaming from outside about?
My head jerked towards one of the windows seconds before it exploded in a shower of glass, half the wall coming down with it as a massive bulk smashed its way into the lecture hall. It hit the floor near the podium, hideously massive claws tearing chunks out of the linoleum as it skidded to a halt, straightening to reveal itself. It was a dog, at least in outline, but that was about it. Muscles bulged all across it like it hadn’t just been abusing steroids, but chugging them like candy. It was the size of a heavy-duty truck and its jaws were huge, lips peeling back to reveal jagged fangs that glistened with saliva, its eyes red with feral fury. A tail like a snake’s snapped behind it with a sound like a whip as the hideous chimera let out a howl that shook the auditorium.
Screams erupted from students who bolted to their feet and began racing towards the exits. I sprang upright, grabbing Dolly’s arm. Oh great! Either someone’s experiment had just gotten loose or someone was pulling off a goddam heist right here. Well, it was no concern of mine. If someone wanted to try and rob the college, that was between them and the no doubt mob of superpowered college students that were surely on their way to deal with this thing.
“Come on,” I told Dolly, pulling her towards the stairs, but she stumbled after me, practically dead weight as she stared down at the massive monster. “Dolly! Let’s go!”
“But… what about-“
“Not our problem,” I said.
And then it suddenly became our problem.
The mutant hound’s eyes froze as they locked onto Dolly and it gave a triumphant roar. Bunching its legs beneath it, it sprang into the seats, tearing apart desks as it bounded towards us.
Fuck!
I pushed Dolly behind me as I threw out my hand, my magnetic powers grabbing the metal fixtures in one of the desks. I ripped the whole thing right out of the cement it was bolted to, and as the mutant monster lunged towards us I hurled the desk into the creature.
The desk took the monster full in the side, the unexpected impact carrying the monster hard off course to fly through the lecture hall and smash through some desks, only stopping when it hit the far wall.
I dropped my hand, but even as I did the monster groaned and moved under the wreckage. Fuck! That wasn’t good.
A hiss made me realize it had just gotten worse. I looked down quickly as the huge metal canister at the bottom of the room opened, hydraulics releasing a gush of steam and smoke as another monster shambled out of it. This one appeared to be an ape, or at least started as one. Now, it looked more like someone had crossed Donkey Kong with a toaster. The gorilla knuckled his way out, metal plating running along his back, one eye a red lens and fists huge metal gauntlets. He reared back on his legs and pounded his metal fists against his armoured chest with a bellowing roar and clamour of steel on steel.
“Youuuuuu!” the ape roared. “Youuuu give Kooong giiirl!”
“Of course its name is fucking Kong,” I sighed. Seriously. Some villains have no imaginations.
“You give! I Kong! I once just ape, but master make me Kong! I strongest! Hoo! Hoo! You give! Or I smaaaash!” Kong bellowed and slammed his steel hands on the ground, propelling himself across the floor in great bounds. I didn’t know who sent this thing, but clearly they hadn’t expected to be dealing with a guy with magnet powers. The ape was practically vibrating with metal, and I just had to stretch out my powers to grasp it.
As Kong started to lunge over the desks I caught the magnetic pull of his parts mid-bound and lifted him into the air. The cyborg ape’s face grew shocked and confused, his head swinging about as he hovered in midair, his limbs pinwheeling as if to try to swim.
“You and us are going to have a little chat,” I said, drawing him closer. “What’s going on? Who are you?”
“Ook! Hoo! I Kong! I get girl! I bring girl to master!”
“Master?” I said, looking back at Dolly, who was shockingly pale.
“Hoo! He wants! He wants her back!” Kong bellowed.
“Dolly?” I said to the scientist behind me.
“I…” she gasped.
A snarling howl cut off whatever she was about to say. I looked sharply back around to find the massive monster dog bulldozing through the auditorium. I swore, hurling Kong at the thing like he was a NASA monkey testing the new rockets.
Kong screamed as he slammed into the chimera’s face, barely slowing the brute down before getting trampled under the monster’s feet, the hound still coming at me. I shoved Dolly away from me, already deploying my armour with a snicking sound as the monster’s jaws opened wide. I grabbed its upper teeth with my gauntlets, my metal plated foot wedging itself in its fangs below as I held its mouth from closing on me like a steel trap.
Ugh! A blast of foul breath hit me full in the face, but that was a damn sight better than meeting its guts personally. But its jaws were strong as hell! As they tried to close, I repelled the metal of my boot and gloves off each other, forcing its maw back apart.
The beast bellowed in frustration, practically deafening me as its head rose, lifting me into the air as it tried to bite down. Likely it had never actually faced something it couldn’t just chomp through before, giving it a real puzzler before its instincts took over. It swung its head like a terrier with a rat, which was pretty stupid of it as that just hurled me out of its mouth.
And that certainly worked for me. I spun through the air before righting myself, magnetically repelling my armour to let me float. The massive monster dog snarled, jumping for me, but I lifted myself just out of his reach at the last second. And while he was busy trying to close his snapping jaws on my leg, I reached out with my powers, grabbing the canister that had deployed Kong.
Cabling ripped out of the floor as I yanked the metal mass into the air. The thing was damn heavy, but that worked for me. As the chimera jumped for me again, missing once more, I hurled the canister at it.
No sooner had the monster landed than the canister smashed into it like a missile. The beast yelped, hurled across the room and slammed into the wall so hard it partially collapsed. For good measure, I smashed the canister a few more times into the beast until it lay still.
There. That’d do it.
“Victor! Watch out!”
I spun around at Dolly’s cry and found Kong had gotten back to his feet, his arms raised, metal hands bunched into fists.
“Ook! Ooh! Shoooooot! Shoot with Kong fiiiiists!” the ape howled as a pair of compartments on his bulky upper arms slid open, revealing the heads of two missiles. They fired, launching with a whistling shriek at me.
…Wow, okay. Sure.
I flicked my fingers, a burst of magnetic power knocking the missiles off target, the pair hurtling through the air and exploding behind me among the undamaged seats. Kong stared at me, his face going slack.
“Ook?”
I stretched out my hands, my powers gripping his fists in magnetic fields. Kong looked down, just in time for me to slam his fists into his own face.
Kong staggered back, head swaying even as I smashed his fists again and again into himself, beating the ape to the floor with his own metal hands. Kong fell finally, his massive frame going limp with unconsciousness. Only then did I let him stop hitting himself, releasing the magnetic field to allow the ape’s bloodied fists to fall with a loud clang. Juvenile of me? Maybe. But I didn’t really care at the moment.
Dolly stared at the ape in shock. “Is…” she said shakily. “Is he dead?”
“No,” I said as I floated back down beside her. “He’s still alive. Damn thing is probably endangered or something. And the last thing I need is getting David Attenborough on my ass.
“And speaking of scientists,” I said, throwing my hand back towards the podium, my powers grasping Professor Umber by his watch and belt buckle, dragging him out from behind the lectern where he’d been hiding. “Maybe the good professor can enlighten us about what the fuck that was about, hm?”
The professor whimpered, trying to pull away, but I was having none of that. By his wrist and waist I dragged him towards us and with my other hand I had my powers lift some of the busted pieces of chairs and desks that had been scattered by the battle. “Time to talk, professor,” I said, sharpened bits of metal hovering around me like an array of knives. “Or am I going to have to make you?”
“Please!” the professor cried, sobbing, hands clutched before him in desperation. “I didn’t want to! I didn’t! He made me! He said if I didn’t, he’d kill my family! Kill me too! Please! Please…”
“Who?” I demanded. “Who, dammit!”
“Doctor Teklin.”
It wasn’t Umber who’d said that. I turned my head slowly. Dolly stood behind me, her woolly head bowed, her teeth nibbling her lower lip uneasily. “What did you say?” I said.
“Doctor Teklin sent them,” Dolly said. She looked up at me, pained. “I’m… I’m sorry Victor.”
I glanced back to Professor Umber, but he just nodded frantically, whimpering. I released him, letting him drop to the ground. As soon as he landed the professor scrambled away, running for the rear exit. I dismissed him from my mind as I turned fully to face Dolly. “Who the fuck is Doctor Teklin?” I said.
“I’ll… I’ll tell you,” she said, then looked around nervously. “But… maybe not here?”
I glanced about the ruined auditorium. Oh. Right. “Come on,” I said, taking her hand and pulling her towards the doors. “We’ve got some talking to do…”
Dolly offered no arguments, meekly following me, which was in itself an indication of just how afraid she was. I left Kong where he lay, as I doubted I’d be able to squeeze any new info out of him, and also carrying around a giant ape through the university would be tough to explain. And the last thing I wanted to do was waste time.
Whenever a super fight happened, you could always count on the rubberneckers trying to see what was happening. In fact, my job was basically built around that instinct. If no one watched heroes beating the crap out of me, there went the whole business model.
But the most important part about fighting heroes was making a getaway in the end, and in that I was an expert. I dragged Dolly away from the main commotion and hit the grounds through a fire exit. We made a circuitous route back to the parking lot, and as Dolly ducked into my Civic I lingered at the open door, looking back at the exterior of the auditorium. A whole bunch of students had gathered near it and were pointing and talking to each excitedly and… yeeeeep, there they were. A couple heroes finally zipped down towards the scene, one flying through the window while another climbed up the wall while wearing what looked like a gecko outfit.
They’d handle the cleanup, so I ducked into the car and started the engine. After the usual struggling it finally turned over and I pulled out of the parking lot, heading back towards the freeway to get back home.
One hand balanced on the wheel, keeping an eye on the road, I glanced over to Dolly where she hunched in the seat, arms wrapped tightly around herself like she were trying to sink into her lab coat. “Well?” I prompted.
“Promise you won’t be mad,” she said.
I’d never heard her voice shake like that before. She was a fair distance away from the flirty, cocky scientist I was used to. “Just tell me, Dolly.”
She took a deep breath and let it out. “So… you know how I always told you I was hiding out from the Feds?”
“You told me a lot of things,” I noted. “The Dogecoin one was a particular favorite.”
“Right. Yeah. Well, those were lies.”
“Go figure.”
“I used to work for… for Doctor Dementor.”
“Dementor?” I said, the rolodex of my mind instantly pulling the proper file. “King of a European micronation? Has a flying castle and robot horde? That one?”
“Yeah. Him. But I was just one of the scientists. He had a whole lot of them. I worked in the Doomsday Division. Making monsters. Giant robots. Trying to breach dimensional walls to reach into realms of chaos. That sort of thing.”
I nodded. That tracked from what I’d seen of Dolly’s work thus far. That she was a technical genius wasn’t in question. That her skills ran in the… evil style was also pretty obvious. “So, who’s Doctor Tekla?”
“He was my supervisor.”
Oh dear.
“I see,” I said.
“Yeah,” she said, scowling deeper. “But he was smart, and seemed like he knew what he was doing. So, when he asked me to join him in working for ourselves, I was all for it. We started a super arms business. Developing weapons, monsters, all that sort of stuff.”
“I’m guessing things didn’t work out?” I said.
“Yeah,” Dolly said, giving my glove box a sullen kick. “He was always a bit of a dick, but he got way worse once we went out on our own,” Dolly said. “He had all these big ideas. Or so he claimed. But he was an absolute asshole. And he loved hurting things.”
“You love hurting things,” I noted.
“Yeah, but I still have standards. I mean, he was selling stuff to real scumbags. Even for supervillains. I’m all about giving bad guys access to laser sharks and giant mech suits, but he was selling things to really awful people. Terrorists, mutant supremacists, mass murdering clowns, guys who kick dogs and steal forty cakes. Forty cakes! That’s as much as four tens. That’s terrible!” Dolly huffed, crossing her arms frumpily in her seat. “Those people were seriously fucked up! And Teklin was a massive prick too. Talked down to everyone and fed people he disliked to his monsters. When he was grafting on cybernetics, he didn’t even use anesthetic!”
I winced. Ouch. There were few things more painful than getting machines hooked up to nerve endings. Thinking back to the two monsters I’d fought in the auditorium, I suddenly felt a little bad for them. Not enough to reconsider beating the hell out of them. When a giant mutant dog is trying to eat you, it’s neither the time or place to lament what brought them to that end.
“I see,” I said. “So you left?”
“I did,” Dolly said, grimacing at the memory. “But he wouldn’t let me go. He needed me. He was smart, sure, but he was a bio engineer, not a machinist. And he was impatient. If something didn’t work, he blamed his assistants and ended up killing them. But then I had to train more for him. It was wasting so much of my time! And he took credit for all my inventions. Those were my ideas! I tried to quit, but he wouldn’t take it. Plus, he had a DNA tracker. Even if I ran, he’d just hunt me down and drag me back.”
Realization hit me. I looked at her sheep horns. “So you…”
“I scrambled my DNA,” she said, sighing and letting her head flop against the back of her seat, her woolly hair cushioning the impact. “It wasn’t so bad. Got me away from him and the horns are pretty cute. And thanks to it, he couldn’t track me the usual ways. Giant mutant hounds. DNA readers. None of them would be able to find me.”
“But you still stayed in cover,” I said, recalling how she’d been keeping her lab hidden under the old paint factory.
“Yeah,” Dolly said. “I didn’t want to risk it. So, I kept my head down. If I ended up on a newspaper or recorded by some tween’s cellphone and ended up on Twitter or whatever, he’d be able to find me eventually.”
“So that’s why you really wanted me to come with you to the talk,” I said. “Just in case this might happen.”
“Yeah,” Dolly said miserably, her fingers playing with the hem of her sweater. “I’m sorry, Victor. I didn’t… you know. I thought it would be okay. But it was all a trap. He set it up to find me.”
“That seems clear,” I said.
“Are you mad at me?” she asked.
I beat my fingers on the wheel of the car. “…No,” I said. “No, I’m not mad at you. A bit annoyed you didn’t tell me I might end up fighting giant mechanical apes, but I’m not mad.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Really for real absolutely-“
“Yes, Dolly! I’m sure.”
Dolly sagged in relief. “Thanks, Victor. Really. I mean it. But,” she added with another uneasy glance my way. “What are you going to do now?”
“Well,” I said. “First thing we’re going to do is get you back to the chalet. Then, you’re going to build up some decent defences around the place. Do you think he’s tracking the car?”
She shook her head. “I doubt it. Teklin is kind of shit on his follow through. He’s super arrogant, so probably didn’t set up a plan B. He probably thought his monsters could handle it.”
More fool him. But I knew that wouldn’t buy us long. I needed to investigate this guy. Given the elaborateness of the trap we’d just walked out of, I doubted just beating up his dog and pet monkey would get him off our backs forever. He’d be back, and I for damn sure wasn’t going to sit around waiting for it.
“Right,” I said thoughtfully. “Let me see what I can do. I got some contacts I can pull. See what they can dig up.”
“And I’ll check the net. I might be able to get some info too,” Dolly said. “And, you know, just so we’re clear, you’re not kicking me out. Right?”
“Of course not,” I said.
Dolly squealed, throwing herself across the car and wrapping her arms around my neck in a hug. “Thank you! Thank you, Victor! You don’t know what this means to me!”
“Driving. Driving!” I shouted as I struggled not to go into the oncoming lane.
“Whoops! Sorry, boss,” Dolly said, giving me a quick kiss before pulling back to her seat with a giggle. “But you gotta know, I really am super relieved. I thought you were gonna kick me out of the car when you heard who I had after me.”
“What? Just because an arms dealer for supervillains is gunning for you with genetically modified horrors from man’s deepest nightmares? Dolly, really. Who do you take me for?”
Dolly giggled again and swatted my arm. “That’s my man,” she said, beaming.
I gave her a wry grin, but it was more for her benefit than mine. Shit. Teklin after us was not going to go well by any measure. Regular arms dealers were bad enough. Arms dealers that trafficked in supers were so much worse. In addition to your usual guns, you were probably looking at death rays, giant robots, mutagen super drugs, and plenty more that could royally fuck up your day. And it sure sounded like Teklin was a big player in the game. I kept semi-track of that angle of supervillainy. I rarely had any business with them, and that was fine with me. I had Dolly for all my gear, and the real heroes were usually the ones who battled the arms dealers. Both capes and streeters often duked it out with those kinds of villains. Hell, half the streeters in Metro City were rogue experiments from some villainy gone wrong. But though I had no business with superarms, it was always good to keep an ear out about the underworld. You never knew when some part of it would bleed into your work.
And by the sounds of it I was about to get a flood of it. But there was no helping it now. I drummed my fingers on the wheel as we left the city, the treeline enfolding the highway as we veered up along the paths towards the mountains where my ‘lair’ was. By the time we reached the gate, which opened with an automatic creak, I had a pretty good idea of what to do.
We stopped and I got out, fishing my phone out of my jacket pocket and dialing a number. It rang a few times, and then picked up.
“Eyyyy!” Steve’s lazy drawl said. “My bud! My friend. How’s it hanging?”
“Been better,” I said. “Listen, can you arrange a meeting between me and Arman Glint?”
Dolly looked my way sharply, surprise written on her face. I couldn’t blame her. The last thing I wanted was to get involved with the Rumble Ring, or its owner. I once fought in the Ring years ago when I first developed my powers, before hitting onto a career as a villain for hire. I didn’t have anything against people paying money to watch superpowered nutjobs beating the hell out of each other, but there was a lot of sketchier shit going on under the Ring. Even worse than just fight fixing. But that was what I was counting on in this case. If anyone knew anything about what Teklin was up to, it would probably be Arman.
“Eyyy? You want him? Victor, my man! Somethin’ up?”
“Got a bit of a problem with a superarms dealer,” I said. “I’d rather settle it up quick.”
“Sure, sure. Anything you say, my man. I’ll see what I can do. I’ll let you know.”
“Thanks,” I said, hanging up and tucking away the phone again.
“You sure that’s a good idea, Victor?” Dolly said uneasily.
“Best we’ve got for now,” I said, nodding towards the chalet. “Come on. Let’s get inside.”
Dolly hurried before me, and once the system scanned her the doors opened wide and let us in. I could almost see the relief in her once we were back indoors. Her shoulders sagged and whole stance seemed to grow more relaxed. Clearly, our little encounter with Teklin’s monsters had rattled her worse than I expected.
I moved closer, slinging an arm over her shoulders and tugging her against my side. “Hey,” I said. “It’s gonna be okay. We’ll figure this out.”
I felt Dolly stiffen, then relax, snuggling against me. “Mmm. Yeah, I guess so,” she said, glancing up at me with a familiar impish grin. “But, does this mean I can hook up that death ray after all?”
I sighed, but things had changed. “Fine,” I said.
Dolly squealed and hugged me tight, her soft breasts mashed against me. “Thanks Victor! I knew you’d love it. You won’t regret it!”
Wouldn’t I? I had a feeling I was going to already. But there was no helping it now. Like it or not, I was going to have a death ray in the house, and more trouble than ever.