Primate Typings

From the Desk of the Dictator:

Welcome back from your weekend everyone.

Frigid and I had a long talk before I wrote this post, and I ran the final draft past her before I put it up. She’s still more than a little irritated with me, but she said there’s enough rumors floating around about why things went down they way they did that an accurate explanation won’t upset her more than the rumors.

We wrapped up Project Cut Flowers last week, and it didn’t end as most of you expected. My apologies for that, but operation security required keeping this one close until I was ready to implement it.

As Suncloud personnel massed to attack our skyship, the Dimension Projector began its final countdown. The Projector is an ugly piece of business. It takes everything in its field of fire, disconnects it from its home universe, and throws it away. At the range we were at, it would take out the entire Suncloud and anything attached to it and turn them into a bit of flotsam bobbing in the reality streams between the universes.

I clapped Pipewrench on the back to get his attention as he gave orders to repulse the Suncloud’s assault. He turned on me in irritation then collapsed as the Incapacity Restraint I had slapped on him coursed through his body. It’s a useful little gadget if you don’t have to worry about your prisoner walking on their own feet or answering questions. With Pipewrench safely out of the command loop, I issued my own orders for Technefarious staff to teleport away, starting with those attending to the Projector and finishing with those holding off the Suncloud’s forces.

I stayed behind, waiting for the countdown to get closer to zero. I wasn’t really expecting anyone from the floating island to get to the command center in time to shut it down, but I also didn’t want to take that chance. We have enough enemies on this planet without squaring away an opportunity to get some of them off of it.

That’s when Pipewrench surprised me by talking. I’m still impressed by that. The Incapacity Restraint is pretty hefty piece of technology, and he had started to work around it in just minutes with no tools handy. He was curious about what I was up to. Well, curious understates his intensity. Sufficient to say, despite the effort it took him to gasp his words, he still took the time to pepper his questions with cursing. He couched his question in the form of an accusation, but I felt he deserved an answer.

I told him I had offered the Positronic Ghost a part in Project Cut Flower in exchange for money. The Ghost declined, citing Pipewrench’s involvement with the project. This struck me as curious. Certainly, Technefarious has its share of bad blood among its former employees, but it’s at rate far lower than most villainous organizations, even after factoring in the number that have personally died by my hands. It seems sometime before I joined the organization, Pipewrench had decided the personal limits of Frigid’s chosen moniker. This was unwise, as Frigid’s powers are well balanced between offense and defense. Pipewrench survived the experience, but there were rumors about it even back then. The Positronic Ghost’s vices include recreational snooping, and he happened to catch the event firsthand. When I asked about his distaste for Pipewrench, he shared this bit of history with me.

Although it was before my time, I still frown strongly on criminal activity practiced on fellow members of Technefarious. I have, in fact, slain henchmen for the inability to get along with their fellows. Nevertheless, I am not a hasty man, so I approached Frigid to discuss the matter. She was not pleased with me for bringing up her past with Pipewrench, but as my second-in-command, she has a significant say in our organization. Unaware of their history, I had agreed to set up Project Cut Flowers for him without consulting her. She saw through my soft selling and told me that if she wanted Pipewrench dead, she would have done herself. Furthermore, she then forbade me to kill Pipewrench on her behalf.

My hands tied, I proceeded with Project Cut Flowers as quickly as I could. Despite how irritating I found working with Pipewrench, he never presented an excuse to dispose of him. His use of Technefarious would even ensure he’d succeed in his efforts to send his former countrymen of the Suncloud adrift in the multiverse. Our contract, however, did not say whether or not Pipewrench would accompany them on the journey. After modifying his designs in our drive to save time, my staff had pointed out to me that if certain safeguards were removed, the Dimension Projector would end up traveling with its target, lost among the worlds. Before we had launched the attack, I had made sure those safeguards were removed.

In pain-filled grunts, Pipewrench told me he’d kill me himself. The countdown was almost complete by then, but I took a moment to answer him with some satisfaction that I certainly hope he tried as I was fairly certain Frigid would forgive me for self-defense. Then I allowed our teleportation teams to rescue me from the doomed vessel.

Satellite imagery indicates the skyship with the Dimension Projector disappeared from the Earth the same time as the Suncloud.

Have a good week everyone. Remember, the world is already ours – it just doesn’t realize it yet.

Your Leader,

Dr. Photius Callaway
The Killing Man

From the Desk of the Dictator:

Welcome back from your weekend everyone.

Operation I-Should-Have-Probably-Named-It-But-It-Wasn’t-Part-Of-One-Of-Our-Take-Over-The-World-Plots-So-I-Didn’t was a success with some additional positive, if unexpected, results. We successfully rescued the soul of Henchman 98B-3O (Carl), which we expected, but it looks like it may have resulted in a proper secret origin story for him too.

First, let’s talk about the actual execution of the rescue. Carl’s soul was being held by the dragon statue Granquartz. Our occult department prepared some materials, and I hired the Positronic Ghost to deliver them to since he could complete the job more quietly than anyone currently on staff.

The Positronic Ghost was built by one of the former leaders of Technefarious, Dr. Masivo. The doctor had found that building a sentient computer was easier if the materials used were entirely antimatter. Unfortunately, antimatter has a bad habit of exploding when it actually touches anything on Earth. Masivo addressed that problem by building the entire thing slightly out of phase with the rest of the world. As a result, it could seen and heard and but not touched. In keeping with the theme, he built his computer an antimatter body of a seven-foot tall robotic skeleton dressed in rags. Dr. Masivo had a sense of humor.

I’ve always liked the Positronic Ghost. Sure, his attention span isn’t great, and you have to prod him sometimes to get moving again, but he’s a pleasant (if occasional abstract) conversationalist. I was sorry when he left us to pursue his own projects.

Positronic Ghost snuck Granquartz’s lair and coated the stone eggs in her nest with the dragon semen our occult department had prepared. Now fertilized, the eggs quickened within a couple of days and then hatched. Carl was reborn with his soul now attached to a body of baby dragon statue. The other eggs had also hatched with other souls Granquartz had captured. In the confusion of the dozen or so sudden births, Carl escaped from the Soil Six’s base and flew back to us. Apparently learning to fly with a body made of stone is easier than you might think.

The occult department has reattached Carl’s soul to a clone body but found that they did not have to detach it from the dragon statue. So if you see the clone or the statue walking around, keep in mind that they are both Carl. Given his unusual condition, we’re evaluating him to see what additional training and duties might be suitable for him.

Later in this week, the science department will start their battle robot contest. Be sure you get your filled out elimination brackets to Dr. Ratchetman by Thursday morning to have a chance at winning the betting pool.

I have one quick note on the package exchange program with our enemies, the Golden Web. They haven’t sent us anything back yet, but Frigid noted I should have put a mesmerizing subliminal in the Manimal Betamax tapes I sent the Golden Web. So thanks, Frigid, for the brilliant idea after the fact. I’m going to go be grumpy now.

Have a good week everyone. Remember, the world is already ours – it just doesn’t realize it yet.

Your Leader,

Dr. Photius Callaway

The Killing Man

From the Desk of the Dictator:

Welcome back from your weekend everyone.

For those of you wondering how I was going recap the end of last week’s reality rewrite, I’ll say that the solution involved a cartoon animal orgy. Now let us never speak of it again.

Rather than press on with one of our big projects this week, I authorized the recovery of Henchman 98B-3O (Carl). We lost him during our operation against the Soil Six when he was eaten by Granquartz the Magnificent, the giant living stone dragon statue that makes her home in the Six’s base. Normally, we would have just brought Carl back by putting his soul into a clone of his body, but after the battle his soul did not show up in the Technefarious’s soul catchers. Our occult department determined that Granquartz had somehow ensnared Carl’s soul during the fight.

While I was away last month playing with aliens, our wizards figured out a way to extract Carl from Granquartz’s claws. Most of the process could be accomplished using in-house resources, but there a few aspects that needed to be brought in from outside. I took it upon myself to arrange for their acquisition, which means I got to call Bleach into my office and tell him to bring me five gallons of dragon semen. I love being the supervillain in charge.

He succeeded in his mission, but refused to discuss the details after he got back. I thought that was a little odd. I mean dragon semen isn’t as useful as dragon blood, but it is available on the black market. He would have just told me if he bought it, right?

The occult department did their work on the materials Bleach had acquired, and then all that was left to do was to deliver the load. I decided to go with a more subtle approach than our last attack on the Soil Six’s base. Since Quanquartz’s quarters are in the caves in the back of their base and we weren’t trying to steal anything out of it this time, I went with a phase-shifter to sneak in. No one currently on our staff specializes in that power set, but I make it a policy to stay on good term with former Technefarious employees whenever possible. I contacted the Positronic Ghost and he has agreed to make the run for a tidy sum.

There were no henchmen deaths to memorialize this week. Hopefully, that’s a good sign for this operation.

In another news, the Golden Web responded to cremated remains of their agents, the note, and the bomb we sent them the other week. They responded by sending back a fruitcake with a file baked into it. The science and occult departments tell me that it doesn’t seemed to be booby trapped or otherwise stranger than it appears to be. I had it teleported to one of our storage facilities in the asteroid belt to play it safe. I responded to the Golden Web’s puzzling package by sending them a set of pirated copies of the television series Manimal recorded on Betamax tapes. I had the commercials left in.

This week’s recreational activities include the propaganda department screening a marathon of Larry Lemur animated shorts in auditorium A. I won’t be attending.

Have a good week everyone. Remember, the world is already ours – it just doesn’t realize it yet.

Your Leader,

Dr. Photius Callaway 

The Killing Man