My Dark Genius

"Is there anything more stubborn than a 14-year-old girl," Telian growled.

Knowing a rhetorical question when I hear one, I chewed innocently on my quill as he glared at me.

"Daringer is your tutor," he said. "You shall show him the proper respect, or you will find yourself taking lessons from me. You will find I am a far less forgiving taskmaster."

"Daringer is a poncy know-it-all who thinks he's too important to be teaching the poor Blind Princess her maths ."

"He may do, Marevy," Telian said, smirking despite himself. "But if Daringer needs to learn some humility, you, princess, must learn your maths. Blind you might be, but the Queen will not have an ignorant brat for an heir."

"Ignorant --!"

Telian chuckled as I choked back the retort. "At least you aren't disputing 'brat,'" he said as he shuffled to the doorway. "Consider your schooling done for this afternoon. I need to borrow Daringer for more important matters." He cocked a shaggy eyebrow, and I realized that whatever task Telian had in mind for Daringer, my tutor would not consider it a promotion.

He turned as if to go.

"Telian, wait," I said. "Why do you bother with me, really? I may be the heir, but you know better than anyone that I'll never be queen. A Kaelig without sight is - you know what they all say."

He leaned heavily against the doorframe. "'A fish without gills," he said dully. "A bird without wings. A flint without tinder. A harp without strings.' A brainless rhyme for brainless children."

"Not just for them," I pressed. "Every Kaelig queen has also been a Lithian high priestess. It's one of her titles, and one I could never claim. Do you suppose I don't hear the whispers in court? I am blind, not deaf. Your own order would never allow me to succeed my mother. So what am I being prepared for? Not my mother's throne, so then what?"

Telian poked his greying head into the hallway, and seeing no one, he came back into the room and firmly shut the heavy oak door. Wearily he sat in Daringer's empty chair and gazed at me thoughtfully, as if trying to make up his mind about something.

"Very well, then," he muttered to himself, deciding. Pinning me with his eyes, he said, too-casually, "tell me what you know of Minashem."

It's not a memory, exactly. But I've heard the story told so many times that I can imagine it as if I'd been there, aware and paying attention. But I was only a child, eyes barely opened, soft down still on my forehead, when it happened.

The grey man with the long tapering fingers hovers over my cradle, his hand held flat in front of my eyes. Dark curtains block the sunlight from the nursery's lone window. He stares at me intently, as if trying to decide whether I'm paying attention. I see a spindly hand, palm flat.

He snorts softly and straightens, biting his lip thoughtfully.

"Find Kiru," he says softly to a slight bearded man standing in the doorway. Softly, but there is something muscular about his tone. The man strides out, robes swishing.

The grey man just stands there, silently peering down into my cradle until a shuffling in the hall announces an arrival.

He turns on his heel to greet the newcomer.

"Kiru," he says with a nod before turning back to me.

"Telian," chimes the woman who now leans over foot of my cradle, gazing at me with what must have been motherly pride. "You tested her?" she asks as she rearranges my swaddling cloths, then rests slim hands on the polished wooden railing.

"I have," he rumbles. Muscular still, but somehow strained. Then, almost whispering: "Kiru, the girl is stone blind. I --"

The knuckles gripping the foot railing turn white.

"No," she says. "Test her again. It must be too dark in here."

She tugs open the thick curtains, and mild afternoon sunlight spills into the nursery.

"The first time, I did it with the drapes open, lady," Telian says. "The second time, closed. The third, by lamplight. There is no doubt. I'm sorry."

Kiru sits down shakily in the pool of sunlight by the window. "She will never believe, Telian. And your fanatics would drown her before they'd let her grow up here. "

"Would you keep her, then?" Telian asks.

Kiru nods helplessly from the sunbeam, the rays glittering off unshed tears. "I'm being selfish, I know," she croaks. "But would it really be kinder to send her to Minashem?"

"Perhaps," he replies. "It seems bleak to us, but with the right fostering --"

"She might grow up to be Queen of the Blind, perhaps?" Kiru snaps. She slumps again. "I'm sorry, Telian. I shouldn't take this out on you."

"Please don't apologize," Telian sighs. "We will do what we can for her."

I just can't get enough of her. It saddens me that we haven't been able to get past our rivalry in the evil business, and just enjoy each other as human beings, because I admire her imperiousness so damn much. She toured the Houston Astrodome, which is crammed with (mostly black) survivors of Katrina, which, for the record, I had nothing to do with. She told a radio interviewer later that:

What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them.

That, children, is what we call a tart. The tart is made of bile. I don't want to eat the tart, but I will savour its harsh uncompromising beauty. Who cares about Jackie when there's a living ex-First Lady who does for spite what Jackie did for the pillbox hat? Besides, pillbox hats are gauche. Especially when they're pink.

Part of being Dark Genius is recognizing genius in others. Naturally, sinister icons such as myself usually have inflated egos, and I myself am no exception. You can tell because instead of simply saying "I'm no exception," I inserted the pompous "myself" just to emphasize the singularity and hyperbolic nature of myself.

But myself is already getting off track. It pains me deeply to see brilliance go unrewarded. Take the case of hapless Carlos Owens, who built an 18-foot flamethrowing mechwarrior in his backyard, and now has to sell it on e-Bay for a mere $40 grand because nobody cares. (eBay link won't be up forever, kids)

And it's just really a shame. I'd hire the guy myself, myself would. Unfortunately, we're already way overstaffed in Alaska (a lot of old Cold War hacks I ought to "pension off"), and to be frank, my stable of mechwarriors would disassemble Mr. Owens' crappy NMX04-1A (and Mr. Owens) into their component parts before I eat the olive in my martini.

Plus, the bastard wants $8000 for shipping within the continental U.S. I hate those chiseling eBayers who cut you a deal on product only to rape you on the shipping.

As a major figure on the evil scene, I get a lot of questions, from people looking to break into the business (stay in school, kids) and from the merely curious. One of the stranger misconceptions I've encountered is this notion that stupid people are easier to manipulate than the sharpies.

Au contraire. The smart ones are a cinch to swing. Intelligent people can usually be bribed, and they're masters at rationalization. Even when they know something's evil, they will usually talk themselves into it, given appropriate encouragement. It's the dummies that really give me headaches.

Case in point: your beloved President Bush.

When I first started hearing whispers that Bush would be the next Republican candidate for president - back when he was still governor of Texas - we decided to get to work on him so that, if elected, I'd have my very own stooge right there in the Oval Office. (We already had Cheney, of course, but with the heart attacks and the hushed-up airplane hissy fits, I didn't think we could count on him to be around forever.) But none of the usual inducements worked.

We tried everything: bribery, sex, drugs, honorary degrees. The suitcase full of money became a squadron of misshapen paper airplanes. The naughty librarians we sent to the governor's mansion returned with bruises and broken fingernails: George had no experience with the naughty librarian type, but Laura knew them by their girlish hips and musty scents and so flailed them mercilessly with a yardstick. Quietly.

I was at my wit's end until I consulted with Jerome over in IT. Jerome had been itching to try out some new gadgetry, and suggested we exploit the Guv's religious beliefs, which he was always blathering about even then. So we broke into the mansion and installed a tiny holographic projector, some fiber optic monitoring cameras, and some speakers. The plan was to recruit a Jesus lookalike - in this case Merv Timmins from Covert Ops - and to project the J-Man into Bush's office when no one else was around.

Jackpot. But not at first:

"Obi-Wan," Bush cried, clapping his hands and hopping about delightedly when the wavering image of "Jesus" first appeared to him.

"You idiot," Merv replied, a disembodied voice in the speakers. "I'm Jesus, your Savior. You know, Son of God, died for your sins, etcetera?"

Bush looked confused. "I pictured you taller," he said, sounding disappointed.

"Never mind that," Merv said. "Are you my servant or not?"

"Of course," Bush said, not wanting to piss off the Messiah. Then, eagerly: "Whaddaya want me to do? Execute more racial minorities? Cut taxes? Sacrifice Jenna to our wrathful father? Just say the word."

"Not today," Merv replied. "Today the man upstairs has more pressing business...."

Bush talks to "Jesus" every day now, and trusts this, um, spiritual guidance on all matters of concern to Dark Genius. The only complication so far has been Merv, who's been threatening to tell the President that God has recanted his old-fashioned position on masturbation if "Jesus" doesn't get a hefty raise. Merv's a chiseler, but not as smart as he thinks he is. That's a Rose Garden revelation I would relish, if only for the moralistic sputtering that would follow.

It's not easy being Dark Genius, especially in springtime. Everywhere I go, I see puny couples holding hands, gazing adoringly into each other's eyes. Birds, squirrels, and less inhibited humans brazenly mount each other in public, and tumble from trees in their frenzy. (Well, maybe not the humans). The demurest flowers reek of sex and marmalade.

But where is Dark Genius' action? Being a supervillain has its perks = parking in the disabled spots, making a fast buck off runaway nuclear proliferation - but it can be a lonely life. When I threaten mass-murdering dictators until they sob into their khakis, I get a big kick out of that. When I hijack Angel Tree Christmas toy shipments, and leave snot-nosed poor kids emptyhanded, that's a delicious thrill. But sniveling and cowering and pleading for mercy don't turn me on sexually; in the bedroom at least, I want an equal partner, someone who's not afraid to tell Dark Genius he's been naughty. Because of course I have.

But it's extremely hard to find ladies who are not only geniuses themselves - Dark Genius does not waste precious saliva on dummies - but are also comfortable with the evil. So idealistic and well-meaning, some of those hot lady geniuses. Attempts to lure curvaceous hippy public interest lawyer girls to the side of oppression fail miserably.

There was Ann Coulter, of course - the last real thing I had actually. At first I thought, "not bad, if a little bonier than I usually go for. " It was always the same, though. She'd come over, smoke two packs of cigarettes, get stinking drunk on Chardonnay, and rave for hours and hours about Jews. Really tiresome. Sometimes I'd order a bunch of Chinese, just to dilute the alcohol, but she'd always sneak off to the bathroom before long and puke it all back up. I have it on camera. I think for her evil was a way of dealing with her insecurities, and man did she have a lot. I don't want to go into it though, because she's heading out this way next week and I might just be desperate enough to ask her over.

Meanwhile, if there are any smokin' evil ladies 25-32 out there who'd like to coordinate diplomatic incidents, slip Dick Cheney cigarettes and beef jerky, and take long walks on the beach, gimme a call. Race unimportant. Must have demonstrated prior commitment to mayhem, red wine and stealing from sample bins. Graduate degree in something other than teaching or social work required. (Dark Genius is not looking for a mother figure)

Someday soon, your leaders will tremble at my feet, their pink tongues lapping the blood of innocents from my almighty boots.

But we're in a bit of a financial crunch over here my secret mountain lair. Seems the American military somehow got the idea that Osama bin Laden was hanging out in my neighborhood, so they naturally bombed the shit out of everything. Long story short, they damaged the foundation, and the hot tub leaked, and all that chlorinated water got into the computers downstairs. So I had to replace all that, thank you very much Michael Dell and your snippy "out of warranty means out of warranty."

So instead of jumping right into world domination, I've consulted my familiars and decided to take over the blogosphere this week, just to test out some strategies. Also, it never hurts to get folks used to the idea of being serfs in my galactic empire, cowering under my penetrating gaze, and seeing Michael Dell writhing on their screens, covered in honey and fire ants.