“No,” and Goodi had the sense to sound repentant, “I didn’t know until I checked up on you.”
“And when was that?” I demanded.
“Three months after you were incarcerated,” Goodi said quietly.
Oh!
“So I’m supposed to thank you?”
“No,” TwoShoes said. “They’d already moved you when I found out about it.” A pause. “All I did was make sure that the prison governor was removed for cause.” Goodi Twoshoes would never say ‘fired’; he really had earned his nickname.
“Unh.” I was getting tired; tears do that to me. Stupid tears. I rubbed them off my face angrily. I’d sworn, ten years ago, never to cry again and here I was—only a day out of the joint—bawling like a...like a kid who was sent to jail when she was only twelve.
For a crime everyone knew I didn’t commit. Not that it mattered. The jury didn’t give a shit, nor did the judge, nor did dear ol’ Goodi TwoShoes when it came to it. Someone had to pay, the crime was too enormous —“a crime against humanity so heinous that it revolts all common sense to even consider it”...and my dad was dead.
So li’l ol’ Robin, “the notorious Robin Redbreast” as the newsies decided to call me— ‘cuz they couldn’t call me “Red Robin” or they’d get sued—little twelve-year-old pint-sized me got to take the fall.
They even attempted to try me as an adult.
I was like all of five foot at the time, flat-chested, freckle-faced, ninety-five pounds dripping wet, with flaming red hair and “beautiful, baleful blue eyes.”
At the time, I really didn’t care. Hell, let them kill me was what I thought back then. There wasn’t anything left to live for. My dad was dead, thousands had died because of—”a heinous act of premeditated murder”—no, really, a mistake. A mistake for which I cried every night of those three months in solitary until I finally realized that that was all it had been: a mistake. My mistake, so maybe I deserved some of the punishment.
But not all of it. No, not for a mistake.
“Make sure you report in tomorrow,” Goodi TwoShoes said now. “And don’t think of leaving town.”
“Sure, no problem,” I said. “Is that all?” I knew better than to hang up on him. The shit would probably have revoked my parole just for that alone. Goodi TwoShoes.
“That’s all,” he said and hung up.
I was in my room, just like I said. Of course, I was in the room that no one had ever found, not even my dad.
Maybe if they’d’ve found my room, they wouldn’t have sent me to jail. Maybe not. I’ve had ten years to learn how people will close their eyes to the truth. How would the public have handled my room, all kitted out in pinks and Barbies? It wouldn’t have fit with their nice post-Emo terrorist girl image of me. The kid with mascara tears, the pierced nose, the punk haircut, the intense expression—how is anyone supposed to look when they learn that their father’s dead, that he’s convicted in the eyes of the public of being a mass-murderer/terrorist and that they’re considered his happy accomplice? Would I have looked better if I’d’ve smiled? With all those blackened teeth in my face?
Did anyone REMEMBER that it was Halloween? How was I supposed to look, trick-or-treating with my dad?
I spent a year being mad at my dad. Maybe I would have spent longer but strange things happened in the joint, things I never would have expected. I suppose the strangest thing of all is that I lived—that and they let me out.
It’s true that my dad wanted to be the most notorious evil genius in history. And he tried, he really did.
He almost succeeded in creating a mini-blackhole gun. I had to work really hard to handle that one and, even so, we ended up with the Anomalizer.
When that didn’t work, he tried to make “Evil Genius Pills” and that’s where the trouble began.
My dad was really, really, really smart. And he never set out to be evil. He made mistakes. But because he was really, really, really smart his mistakes were worse than most.
My mom died in childbirth. The car had broken down because dad had stolen some parts for his infinite poker player—the machine that was supposed to make it so he could never lose at poker. Because the car stopped along the highway, dad had to deliver me himself. Biology wasn’t his specialty—even after, he was never really good at it. He wouldn’t say—but I read the police reports—Mom died from a ruptured artery. It’s rare but not uncommon. Her death was ruled “death by misadventure.”
So I grew up with Dad. And he tried. He never really saw me though. Because whenever he really looked, he saw my mother and he couldn’t bear it. So, instead, he saw a girl-clone of himself. My mother was arty, airy, light-hearted, heavy-humored, and totally the sort of person my dad needed to keep him grounded. Only she was dead and I was supposed to be my dad’s clone. So for him—by day—I was the emo-Goth super-scientist nerd lab Egor.
At night, in my special room, I could be me and draw pictures of butterflies, play with Barbies and pretend I was a normal girl. I even managed to get pink dresses and I’d put them on when I was playing.
My mother’s memory preyed on him. I guess I was maybe four or five when I finally realized what my dad was trying to do—back then—and that was bring my mother back to life. He studied biology and he worked on resurrection, revitalization, and several things.
He came up with some good ideas but, somehow, ChemCo always seemed to patent them before he remembered to file. So he was never given the credit he deserved. He’d threaten to sue; they’d rattle their lawyers; and finally there’d be a small settlement—enough to distract him and off he’d go in a new direction, sure that this time he’d find the answer and bring mom back to life.
For the first two years or more, I was his willing accomplice in this. He’d tell me all about my mother when he was working and I got this brilliant image of her, I could see how much he loved her and how great our lives would be with her back—maybe I’d have her in my special room and we’d play tea or house. Maybe—and I only thought this in the deepest, secretest parts of my mind—maybe she’d let me wear dresses to school! And then maybe (and now I couldn’t even really bring myself to think this even in the deepest, secretest parts of my mind because it was just too miraculous and impossible), maybe I’d get friends and I wouldn’t have to take karate classes and break all the bullies’ bones at recess—and then I’d never get sent to the principal again.
But that stopped the night he tried to dig up Mom’s body. I was asleep, I guess he couldn’t bring himself to take me, so I only found out about it when the police banged on the door and barged in, throwing all our stuff around and scaring me so badly that I almost wet myself.
Dad was sent to jail and I was sent to a foster home while he was there. They wouldn’t let me wear dresses, they were convinced that I liked being goth and, after a while, out of loyalty to Dad, I stopped trying.
Things were very different when he got out. He looked warier, meaner. I suppose I looked the same, too—because I discovered that the cops had found my special place and they’d taken all my pretty toys and clothes, “for evidence.” I guess none of them believed that I could actually want the stuff.
I was about eight, then, and I cried myself to sleep—when I could sleep—for the next year. I started wetting the bed again, too, but I couldn’t tell Dad, so I learned how to clean the sheets myself and finally figured out how to stop the bedwetting, too.
Everything was different. School was worse, way worse. Finally, one day, some mean kid shouted, “Why don’t you go home and stay there?” I really wanted to but I knew I couldn’t.
But when I got home, I started to find out why I couldn’t. By the end of the week, the school received an official notification that I had transferred to the NightBridge school. They called the school to be certain and a very lady-like voice answered and assured them that, indeed, Robin Beaumont had been accepted and
was currently enrolled there. It was the first time I used a voice-changer and I really liked it.
After that, every day Dad would send me off to school and I’d go back around the house and upstairs to my special room. I studied very hard and my grades were excellent—I made sure that dad got regular report cards. And I really was studying. I studied Math, Science, Thermodynamics, Philosophy, Sociology, Criminal Law—everything. I learned French (they say I sound like a Belgian), German (they say I sound French), Japanese (they say I sound Chinese) and a smattering of Chinese (they say—you probably guessed—Japanese). I learned computer programming. And I don’t meant that baby web-programming stuff that the kids on the net brag about. I mean real programming. Because the first thing I needed to do was break into my dad’s computers to find out what he was doing.
You see, I’d decided that I never wanted to go to a foster home again. And the best way to do that was to make sure that Dad never went to jail again.
And for four years, I did just that.
Breaking into his computers was the easy part. As soon as I managed that, I had to get a spy eye into his lab and follow his calculations. So, while I was downloading his data, building a microtech robot that looked like a mosquito but could fly soundlessly when I wanted, I was also learning Calculus, Tensor Math, Manifolds, Number Theory, Quantum Mechanics, and sub-atomic element theory.
Because I discovered that dad had been trying to build a time machine. Only, after getting out of jail, he was now trying to build a mini-blackhole gun. And, from what I could tell, he was just about to complete it.
Yeah, I know, what’s a ten year-old doing learning about black holes and stuff? Well, from the time I could speak, I could say, “Black holes warp space-time.” I mean, who couldn’t? Dad taught me a lot growing up and if we didn’t do regular girlie things we did build model rockets—the kind with real liquid propellants, not the kind you can buy in a store—we learning rappelling, skydiving, hang-gliding and all sorts of stuff. When I was six, I got a microscope and, at seven, I got a telescope. I did mention that my dad was really, really, really smart, didn’t I? I forgot to mention that my mom was really, really, really, really smarter. And I’m smarter than both of them put together. Really, I’m not joking — they made me take the damned IQ test five times in the joint, they couldn’t believe the numbers. In fact, I flubbed the fifth test on purpose and that’s the number they used. So, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, I’ve got an IQ of 129—not the 229 that I scored on the first four tests.
Anyway, Dad was good. And that mini-blackhole gun? Just about ready. It would’ve worked too, except I was smarter. Just as he was about to finish with the mini-blackhole gun, I perfected the anti-blackhole shield. So when Dad first tried his gun on the door of the First Intermediate Bank—because he was flat broke after that year in jail—I knew it wasn’t going to work because I’d added my anti-blackhole circuitry to his gun while he’d been sleeping. So Dad thought it didn’t work. Hell, I thought it didn’t work. I’m smart but I’d been rushing things too much and hadn’t bothered with the math beyond the first solution.
Of course, I knew it wouldn’t work so while Dad was banging on it (not a great idea with a quantum fusion reactor), I said to him, “You know, Dad, there’s usually more money is selling the tools of the trade than there is in doing the grunt work yourself.”
“What?” Dad looked up from pounding on the gun. Fortunately, he decided to stop at that moment—which was a good thing. “What do you mean?”
“I was thinking, rather than do the robbing yourself, why not sell the tools?”
“Sell the tools?”
“Yeah, you could advertise.”
“Where?”
“Soldier of Fortune, Evildoers Anonymous, on-line,” I said, adding with a shrug, “the usual places.”
“I don’t know...”
“Well, I could help,” I said. “After all, I’m kinda good at that sort of stuff.” I had managed, after he got of jail, to convince him that I could help him by finding suppliers. That gave me a leg up in figuring out what he was trying to do — hence, the anti-blackhole shield.
“But your common evil-doer is so dumb!” Dad complained.
“Well, that’s it, then!” I told him. “Just make an evil genius pill or something.”
“An Evil Genius Pill?” Dad said, trying out the sound of it. He gave me an approving look. “You know, that might just work!”
“Hey, and if it does, will you come trick-or-treating with me for Halloween?”
“Trick-or-treating?” Dad sounded dubious.
“All the kids do it,” I said. I could see that he wasn’t impressed. “And if people don’t give treats, then I can do some really good tricks.”
“Oh,” Dad said, sounding suddenly enlightened. “And what tricks do you have in mind?”
“What tricks do you suggest?”
Dad thought for a moment and then listed four or five really nasty tricks ranging from letting air out of tires to infecting toothbrushes with teeth-removing bacteria.
“Wow, Dad, you’re really good at this!” I told him. Maybe I could distract him enough, and maybe slow him down enough that I wouldn’t have to worry about him going back to jail.
“But first, I’ll need to make those Evil Genius Pills,” he said. I could tell he really relished the idea, even without his rubbing his hands together and laughing maniacally. But that was Dad—when he did something, he did it all out. Which is why I should have been more careful.
You see, even I didn’t think that Dad could come up with something in the four weeks before Halloween. So I slacked off, checking out Halloween costumes that I could wear and that Dad would approve. I finally settled, after having regretfully shelved the Pistol-packing Pink Barbie outfit, on emoGoth girl. Complete with blackened teeth and a tear-drop out of one eye. When I mentioned it to Dad, he merely said, “We’ve still got to get the Evil Genius Pills perfected.”
“Come on, Dad, with your brains, it’s got to be easy!” I told him. “Just do the whole little girls thing and corrupt it.”
“What?”
“Well you know, they say that little girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice,” I told him, being very careful to scowl and roll my eyes—something I wasn’t quite faking because while I might like to wear pink, I honestly couldn’t subscribe to the whole girls-as-wimps thing. “So just take that and corrupt it—make it evil.”
“Huh,” Dad said. He frowned and shook his head. “I don’t think it’ll be that easy.”
“Well, it’s worth a shot,” I told him.
Dad got that far-off dreamy look he got when he was thinking deeply and following his intuition. “Hmm, maybe some plutonium and some anti-protons coupled with a degenerate DNA interferon bacterial transport...” he looked back at me again. “I’ll be in the lab.”
As soon as he was out of sight, I raced up to my room and fired up my computer. I wanted to know what he was doing. And, as I said, I’d promised to look at the whole marketing angle. I made a mistake, then, and got totally lost in an article in Soldier of Fortune— “Girls, the next superweapon?”
When I finished, it was way late and I was too tired. I should have checked in on Dad but I didn’t.
The next morning, he was late for breakfast. Heck, he was late for lunch. So I made a pair of sandwiches—roast beef with horseradish and chili peppers, just the sort he likes—and ran up to the lab with it. I knocked but no one answered.
Worried, I keyed in the combination to the lock. The normal combination, the one Dad had given me. But the door didn’t open. So I left the tray by the door and ran back to my room. Inside, I fired up my computer and did a quick security scan, then I turned on the spybot in Dad’s lab. He wasn’t there. I turned on my tracking device and discovered that he was in the downstairs john. I turned everything off—with a super-g
enius Dad you can never be too careful—and raced back down.
“Dad?” I asked, knocking gently on the door. “Are you in there?”
“I know what went wrong,” Dad’s voice came rasping through the door. It sounded echo-y and I couldn’t figure out what was up until I heard him retch into the toilet again. “Oh, no!” he sounded weak. “That’s the twenty-third time.”
“Should I call a doctor?” I asked. Dad had never barfed more than twelve times in a row with his previous experiments and then he’d had to get his stomach pumped. This sounded serious.
“No, no, at least it’s not green anymore,” he called back weakly.
“Should I make toast or tea?” I asked, just wishing for something to do, some way to help.
I heard the toilet flush and my Dad open the door. I stood back, ready for anything. I wasn’t ready for pink. And I wasn’t ready for the hair.
“What’s wrong?”
“Your hair!” I said, pointing at it. I didn’t dare mention the pink—Dad has a thing about pink. He turned and looked into the bathroom mirror. He jumped and slapped his hands to his face, crying desperately, “I’m pink!”
“I’m sure it’ll wear off,” I told him quickly. His face, hands, every part of his body was the color pink that I dreamed about. Guiltily, I wondered if somehow I’d managed to infect his project, to somehow project my hopes into his actions—after all, neither of us could ever tell for a certainty that Dad’s old Psychic Projector hadn’t worked. “You should drink some water, get some rest.”
“Not now, not now!” He said, moving past me and climbing back up to the lab. “I’ve got it, I know I’ve got it.”
“What?”
“The Evil Genius Pills, I know what to do now!” Dad exclaimed.
“How?”
“I took some and now I know,” he told me. He gave me a grateful look that at was spoiled by the deep, pulsing pink that had filled the whites of his eyes. “Sugar, spice, everything nice—and plutonium! That’s just the start, Robin, just the start! Today the pills, tomorrow the world!”
When the Villian Comes Home Page 34