“Wouldn’t that defeat the point of the timer?”

I shook my head, clasping my hands together. “Quite the opposite, actually. The timer plants the idea of a certain amount of time, a window to defuse the bomb. The timer never has to be timed to the bomb itself, merely displaying a number, and then when a certain number is displayed, that’s when the bomb triggers, but that mechanism is seperate and not linked to the timer’s visual display, and is instead linked to a remote. As such, the supposed heroes are caught off guard.” I tossed the remote around in my hand, grinning with excitement. Not because people were going to die, no, more because I was proud of myself

I got some stares from around the room. Whatever. This was my lab, and if these losers didn’t approve of my science, they could screw off. I turned back around to tend to my stereotypical wall of electronics and screens that the technology efficient villain has, but mine was mostly used for monitoring people. Monitor the base, monitor the locations we would bomb, et cetera. When nobody made a sound, not even a motion to leave the room and get planting the bomb, I turned back to glare at them.

It was just a little bit funny seeing them all shuffle out awkwardly, and even the big boss was a bit stunned looking. Huzzah. Having proven my genius once again, I swung back around to my monitors, typing in the coordinates of where the bomb was about to be placed. It took a little while to get set into motion, but as I was remotely controlling the bomb, I didn’t care. The gaggle of uber losers(‘heroes’) shuffled onto the scene. The leader, with his ugly spandex suit and his even uglier face, declared that he would be the one to bravely defuse this bomb, while the rest of them should look out for ‘innocents’. Stupid. There were no innocents here! Corrupt CEOs and politicians was more like it. But of course, heroes live to serve those that pay.

He fumbled around with the wires. He was so bad at it that I figured I might not even need the remote- he’d explode himself before I would. I zoomed in, watching as the timer ticked down. This was fun. I wish I had brought popcorn, but I had forgotten. Shame. As he failed miserably at dismantling the bomb, I checked my other screens to make sure those other heroes were being held up, that nobody could get out of the building. A few of our goons were fighting valiantly, keeping them at bay and even taking hostages. I would recommend the ones that survived the ordeal to the big boss, they needed promotions.

One hero, the token girl in terrible spandex, was trying to rescue some stupid billionaire. I didn’t care much for this, and it annoyed me to see her succeed. A bit of me felt pity- she probably didn’t know the extent of the evil this man had committed, the people he had harmed, but the rational part of my brain stomped that notion out. Those who have more money than they could spend in a lifetime get there by exploiting people, and those trying to protect them just want in on the exploitation. I pressed a couple buttons, and some goons came to stop her seconds later. I was used to this song and dance. They had been stationed everywhere around the building, and there was more than usual this time, so they were easy to alert, and would swarm those maggots that call themselves heroes.

Looking back to the main spectacle, the spandex clad loser with too much gel in his greasy brown hair only had a minute left. By now, I thought he would’ve cut a few decoy wires, at least, but none. The explosion would probably cause some significant damage to the building, and to him, but since he had some stupid superpowers or something, he’d probably recover. My goal wasn’t to harm the heroes, though. It was to make a statement, to reveal what went on within that specific building, and to knock off a few jackasses in the process. As the clock ticked down, I noticed that, on one of my screens, a hero was headed for the location of the bomb. I didn’t bother to stop him. I could trigger the bomb early if anything went wrong, so I just watched and waited.

He sprinted up to the main loser, tackling him with a muffled ‘get down!’, which I doubted the usefulness of, as he was already making the other man get down, as it were. For dramatic effect, and maybe to cause less damage to the heroes themselves, I triggered the bomb. Narrowly out of the fray, they moved to investigate the damage. And, more importantly, the human trafficking operation hidden right underneath their noses, and exposed by the explosion.

(not my best. not my worst. I’m tired. hate capitalism.)