//------------------------------// // Part Three // Story: How To Train Your Evil Doppelganger // by River Road //------------------------------// Doctor Ulric Chia smirked down at the S.M.I.L.E. agent kneeling on the floor in chains in front of the raised platform that held the central control to his machine. “Ah, finally. The elusive spy that has been hindering my operations this whole time. It’s good to finally meet you, Agent…” The spy straightened up, meeting his eyes with an unflappable expression. “Bonds. War Bonds.” Doctor Chia paused. “...truly? That seems a little on the nose, doesn’t it?” “I won’t deny there were certain expectations growing up.” “Ah yes, speaking of expectations…” The villain tilted his head expectantly. “You won’t get away with this!” “There we go. You will find, Agent Bonds, that I will very much get away with this. You will find it quite easily, considering that you are going to have a front-row seat.” Doctor Chia paused again. “Now would be the time to ask me to explain my nefarious plan, you know. I’d be happy to, really. The machine needs a bit more time to power up and I’d hate for you to spend your last moments of freedom in awkward silence.” He paused again, looking over the good twenty pounds of chains. “Well, relative freedom.” The agent tilted his chin up defiantly. “I’ve already uncovered your scheme. You plan to bounce a gigantic hypno-ray off the surface of the moon to enslave everyone on the continent to your will.” “Awww, no! Who blabbed? Come on, I thought we had this whole thing going on!” Doctor Chia gesticulated wildly, whining a little. “Really, who else am I supposed to gloat to about this? My minions? They built this thing! We have weekly meetings about the status of the evil world domination plot! I can’t just hold a speech to a bunch of mindless hypnotized slaves, it’s just not the same.” “There will be no mindless slaves!” Agent Bonds glared at him, squirming a bit in his chains. “Oh?” Doctor Chia leaned in. “And who is going to stop me? You?” “What? Of course not, don’t be daft. I’m quite chained up down here.” “I’m sorry?” “Oh yes, completely immobile. Quite expertly, I might add, just tight enough to be uncomfortable but not so much to be mean. I have to commend whoever did this.” Agent Bonds wiggled a bit to demonstrate. “Oh yes, that was probably Jim, he says he used to be a magician’s assistant… no, wait, no! If you’re not going to stop me, then who else is?!” “That would be me.” The buxom blonde overseeing the console straightened up and turned around, gloved hands taking off her wig and sunglasses. “An infiltrator! Impossible!” Doctor Chia paused. “Another infiltrator, I mean. Not to disparage the skills of Agent Bonds earlier. Apologies, I tend to get distracted.” He gasped dramatically. “Impossible! You’re–! ...I’m sorry, who are you?” “Chrystine Fey, although you might know me as Agent Queen.” Chrystine tossed her dark green hair and posed with a hand on her hip. “...doesn’t ring a bell, sorry. I mean, you’re a secret agency, you can’t expect every villain to just coincidentally have a list of your most relevant agents.” Chrystine tapped her foot, glancing over at Agent Bonds. “And this guy was a threat enough to send out two teams?” “Eh…” Bonds tilted his head back and forth lightly. “He’s very good at HR and delegating.” “My apologies, the tangents.” Doctor Chia shook his head. “What did you do with Miss Moneypincher, fiend!” He paused again. “And what did you do with her dehydrationator, for that matter? Really, that thing was quite expensive to make and ah there it is.” Agent Bonds rubbed the blood back into his wrists, looking between Agent Bishop towering over him with the gun in question and the small silver cube that used to be the steel chains. “You realize that dehydration doesn’t work like that, right?” Tyrek raised an eyebrow. “Do you want them back?” “Magic, not physics. I’m good.” Bonds held up his hands, standing up and stepping back. “Well now, this isn’t going to plan at all.” Doctor Chia pouted, pulling out his phone. “Test test, ahem… GUARDS! TO THE MAIN CHAMBER!” He paused, tapping his foot a little impatiently before looking at the three agents again. “Give them a minute. It’s a big facility, they should be here any moment.” There was another few seconds of silence before one of the doors opened with a soft whoosh, a single sharply uniformed guard marching out a few steps before coming to a stop with a salute, futuristic rifle at the ready. “Excellent, excellent! Well, 2.3 percent of excellent. Where’s the rest?” The guard paused, blinking and looking around in confusion… and then froze, twitching lightly before he fell over like a tree, thin cords at his back still connected to the taser held by the small figure of Agent Rook.  “Sorry about that, must’ve missed that one. I swear one always slips by.” Chrystine tapped her foot. “Was that all of them, then? Can we finally wrap this up?” Doctor Chia sputtered a little before straightening up and pulling out a key. “Fools! Even if you have defeated all my henchmen, you can’t stop my Infinite Moon Spiral Reflector Cannon without the emergency key!” He blinked, looking down at his empty hand. “Oh right, Miss Moneypincher had the Larceny Gloves on her, didn’t she? Well, you still don’t have the secret password necessary to oh no wait, I told you that one twenty minutes ago, didn’t I? Well, there’s still… no, that was a different secret lair. Hmm…” He paused again, thinking for a moment before looking up sheepishly. “I’ll profess, this is a little embarrassing. I swear this doesn’t usually happen.” Agent Bond patted him on the shoulder, putting him in a pair of handcuffs before leading him off. “If it helps, you were really quite sporting. Definitely one of the most accommodating evil mad scientists I have worked against.” “Why yes, naturally. It wouldn’t do to be impolite just because you’re nefarious. You know, my mother always said…” The three remaining agents watched them disappear into the lair until Suzy piped up. “So… we’re done here, then?” Tyrek cracked his neck. “I’d say so. Someone else can take this whole mess apart. I think that guy has a partner with a whole crew at base for that stuff, Municipal or something.” “Don’t know, don’t care. Let’s go, I’m starving.” Chrystine shrugged and headed down towards the nearest door, leaving the other two to catch up.  Suzy grinned. “Well, it’s my turn to pick! I think I saw an Ukrainian restaurant in the town we passed through on the way.” Tyrek snorted. “You know, some people will get concerned over your weird obsession with horse-meat-based dishes.” “So? What are they going to say? We’re humans now, it’s cultural or something.” Suzy waved off. “Besides, you don’t hear me complain when Chrys drags us along every time she sees someone sell fried crickets, or all the money you spend ordering yak steaks and lizard-on-a-stick.” Chrystine smirked, showing a hint of fangs. “What can I say. It’s a taste of home.”