No, her mother hadn’t stopped loving her; of that I have no doubts. And I had no trouble in telling her she wasn’t the one responsible for Mommy’s absence because she had done nothing to anger my sister. What proved difficult for me was in trying to explain the real reason for the disturbing lack of motherly attention. Gillian was meant to visit me for a weekend; after a year, I’d run out of excuses for why Sienna had never come back to pick up her daughter.
Yes, I suppose I could have just told her the truth, but I never did. I never could. Perhaps it was out of some ridiculous notion that I was protecting her in some way-from what, exactly, I haven’t a clue. Or maybe it was sheer cowardice that stilled my tongue-fear of how negatively she might have reacted were I to tell her everything. (Although why I should have been bothered by the thought of a child directing her hatred at me, when I’d spent a lifetime accumulating enemies who wanted me dead, still escapes me. No doubt it had something to do with our familial connection.) The bottom line was that I’d never been able to work up the nerve to tell her what really happened: that her kindly uncle Josiah was the one who made Sienna go away… along with the rest of the earth’s population.
I mean, how do you explain to a child that you murdered an entire world, even if it was by accident?
There was still a hint of December in the April winds that afternoon when everything went so horribly wrong: the sort of temperate breeze that made it too chilly for T-shirts, yet too warm for winter coats. That didn’t keep the multitudes indoors for long, however-with the first sign in weeks that winter had finally started to relax its five-month grip on the city, the lunchtime streets of Amicus were fairly overflowing with humanity. Secretaries and bike messengers, businessmen in shirtsleeves and mothers with their infants, the first ice cream truck of the year parked at the curb in front of the park-was there any better proof that spring was fast approaching? And the beautiful young women passing by in short skirts and tight jeans, their blouses filled to bursting… my God, they were everywhere, it seemed. Like sleek-limbed gazelles prancing across the veldt, eyed hungrily by the young cubs sprawled on the grass.
Truly, it was the sort of day when, as a far better poet than I once put it, “a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of love.” But all I could think of was, It’s almost a pity they’re all going to die…
Now, when I rose from bed the day before, formulating a plan that might result in the deaths of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of innocent men, women, and children wasn’t the first thing that entered my mind-such fanciful notions never were. In fact, I rarely started my mornings contemplating murder on such a grand scale. It wasn’t something you could just rush into; rather, it was a mindset you gradually eased into during the course of the day. Burned toast, having to shower with cold water because the heater was on the fritz, reviewing profit-and-loss financial statements based on the last failed attempt to subjugate humanity-of such minor annoyances were plans for widespread anarchy born. It really wasn’t until early afternoon that I’d built up a good head of steam to begin my plotting, and then only after I’d checked the papers and cable news channels to see what mayhem had been wrought in the world while I was getting a good night’s sleep. I hated devising a truly masterful scheme only to discover that some third-rate dictator from a postage-stamp-size European country no one had ever heard of had the very same idea… especially when he was able to carry it out for a third of the cost I’d budgeted for mine.
It made me feel… inadequate.
But whenever I slipped into such periods of ennui, Elsinore, my beloved paramour and second-in-command, was there to bolster my spirits. “Of course he was able to do it on the cheap, my love,” she would tell me, “and that is why his plan was doomed to fail from the start. Remember: ‘You have to spend money to make money.’ And if he wasn’t willing to invest in top-of-the-line battle armor for his legions, or purchase a real thermonuclear device instead of just an empty casing for show, then how could he possibly have expected to control a major city?”
As the Righteous Brothers-the musical group, not that trio of do-gooding idiots with the fake Spanish accents-once put it, she was my hope, my inspiration. Elsinore had seen me through the good times and the bad, the highs and the lows, the victories and the lengthy prison sentences. And not once had she ever complained-not during that (I now admit) crazed period when I insisted she wear pink thigh-high boots, hot pants, and sheer blouses, and not that time I ordered her to shoot my former second-in-command for betraying me to the authorities. No greater love had a woman ever shown for a man then when she executed her own father while he begged for mercy.
Dear, sweet, raven-haired Elsinore. I miss her so, these days-the touch of her skin, the sweet taste of her lips. How I wish it hadn’t been necessary to strangle her as she drifted off to sleep, but after a year in this underground hell, what little stale, recycled oxygen remains is a precious commodity. And yet, I’ll always have that last night of passion to remind me of the love we shared. That, and the terrified look in her dimming eyes as she desperately clawed at her pillows, only to realize I’d already removed the gun she kept under them. Sometimes, late at night, I can still feel her lying beside me in bed, her warm body quivering against mine as the garotte tightened around her slender throat; can still hear the almost sensuous whisper of her death rattle as she struggled to draw that one final breath past the cord that had closed off her windpipe.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Once I was satisfied that my latest idea hadn’t been duplicated, I sat down with my trusted advisers to discuss how best to implement it. Krayle normally handled the tactical aspects of the operation, hiring any dimwitted, strapped-for-cash “muscle” needed to replace those lost in the last debacle, then working with me on agent positioning, contingency plans, and escape routes-one never knew when a hasty retreat might have been required. In this case, however, I was working with a much smaller canvas: the operation only required a single synthadroid placed in the heart of the city. Smythe was in charge of intelligence gathering, using my global network of undercover agents, computer hackers, and surveillance satellites to provide me with all I needed to know about the chosen target area: traffic flow, law enforcement presence, average number of city dwellers on the streets at a certain hour, etc. Alessi ran accounting, making sure we never went over budget, even when it came to some of the more… esoteric items I often required. (You couldn’t just go down to Costco and pick up a cold fusion reactor, after all.) I must say, he was quite pleased with this small-scale project-at least at the start. And Gillian…
Gillian was no different from other children her age. Happy and playful, inquisitive and devilishly clever, sweet as a gumdrop yet incredibly advanced for a child still finding enjoyment in endless repeat viewings of Snow White and Shrek on DVD (I still have trouble getting that damn Monkees song out of my head at times). No doubt that heightened intellect came from the genetic material on my side of the family-that boorish lout Sienna married could barely hold a conversation. If my sister hadn’t been so mawkishly devoted to Bernie, I’d have annulled the marriage years ago-with the aid of a gun. My sister deserved better than a trash collector.
Gillian was my fail-safe, my logic being that if a child could pick out the faults in my plan, then so could any of my enemies (even the dullards who failed their advanced algebra classes back in high school). On more than one occasion had Gillian spared me the indignity of a failed operation by assessing the initial plan and reaching the conclusion it was a load of “poopie.”