9

You hang up the phone. The conversation was a complete waste of time. But at least now you have some better ideas for what you will do to take over the world. You have an idea for a brand new weapon! You have a Power Amplifier!

You scoop the money into a nondescript duffel bag and set it back on your desk. Your creative juices have been flowing, your brain is nice and ripe, and it is time to get down to the lab and get to work before you think of a third, even grosser metaphor. You fling open the door to the office, dash down the labyrinthine walls of your lair, and enter the lab.

Every single one of your henchmen is in there. But they are not hard at work. They don't wear lab equipment like rubber gloves. They don't even wear their lab coats!

Over their uniforms, they wear T-shirts of your face with an X drawn through it and carry signs that say, "Henchpeople on Strike!"

Next Chapter

Chapter Three: What a Piece of Work Is a Henchman

Your laboratory has always been your pride and joy. It is filled with all the necessary doodads any lab needs: bubbling beakers filled with colorful fluids, crackling Jacob's ladders, and enormous computers that spin audio tapes in infinite circles. Your lab robots keep the place well-sanitized, even though you painted the place with grungy colors to make it look appropriately filthy and sinister. In one corner is an enormous cage. Within it lies the hideous lake monster you found on your trip to Scotland.

But you cannot enjoy your beautiful lab, because your henchmen have committed the ultimate insubordination. They wear T-shirts with pictures of your crossed-out face. They carry large signs with slogans like, "Villain Employees on Strike," "No Hench or Go Home," the aforementioned "Henchpeople on Strike," and "It Shouldn't Pay Minimum Wage to Rob Banks."

They break into a particularly off-key variation of "La Marseillaise," which is strange, since none of them are French. To your musically-attuned ears, it is particularly painful.

I Have Somehow Attended Two Protests in Twenty-Four Hours

This is a slap to your face. No, this is a punch to the gut. This is below the belt! This is just freaking unfair!

These were your friends—dare you say, your family! How could they do this to you? Sure you have taken all of the work (and most of the money) for yourself, but there is no need for them to betray you like this! Perhaps you asked for it for being too nice. There is nothing wrong with niceness (other than how niceness flies in the face of your quest for evil).

But, this should serve as proof that you are not your henchmen's friend: you are their boss. If you give them everything they ask for, you will soon run out of things to give. A little bit of discipline is necessary. And while you shouldn't go around killing your henchmen like some villains do, sometimes, you need a good balance to be successful.

Time to put a strategy into action. You need to quickly take control of the situation with a verbal declaration. You must be careful, though. You will have to say just the right thing to take back the room. You clear your throat over the loud and pitchy cover of the French national anthem. What do you say?

Who needs henchmen, anyway? An ancient villain saying is, "If you want things done right, do it yourself." The same person who said that said, "You just can't get good help these days."

Maybe you should fire all of your henchmen and work on the doomsday weapon yourself. You could probably build the stupid thing all by yourself. It would just take much longer.

But then, who would be there to catch you when you fall or make you smile on a bad day?

In My Evil Scheme, My Henchmen Are the Lynchpin

Smartica walks out of the crowd. This is a particularly hard blow. Not only did your henchmen betray you, but the person you trusted, hell, loved the most out of any of them, has decided to stand with them. Worst of all, even now that you've been hit so hard, you cannot force yourself to stop feeling the way you feel for her. Now, you are angry, miserable, and still in love.

What do you say to Smartica?

"I don't see traitors here," Smartica says. "What I do see are people who want to communicate. These are people who desire the chance to perform the job they love and afford to live a decent life."

The way she says it, she makes it seem as if what the henchmen are doing is completely reasonable!

You Just Cannot Reason with Reason

"This is a conversation we have been needing to have for a long time. Since the both of us have to sign off on everything," Smartica says, "you are the lone holdout on this conversation."

"Well, why are they striking?" you say. "What could I have done that wasn't enough?"

"As if you've not been awful to us the last five years," Tin-E Tam, the smallest henchman, says. They roll their eyes.

Tin-E Tam is your chief of security on the island. Everything that requires bullets or missiles goes through them. They are one of your personal bodyguards. They also own one of the two keys to the island's self-destruct system. The other key you misplaced the other day in the henchmen's mess hall.

Oh, That Is Very, Very, Very Bad

"If we are going to work this out, we all need to be on the same page," Smartica says. There is the hint of measured authority in her voice.

"I'm still confused here," you say. "The henchmen want to complain?"

"Complain and compromise," Smartica says. "But that depends on if you listen to them. So, what do you say?"

There's a reason that costumed heroes don't often get involved with diplomacy. The first reason is that in comparison to people in suits, they look rather ridiculous. The second and most important reason is because in diplomatic affairs, amazing powers are worthless. The moment a costumed hero uses their amazing powers against someone as a bargaining tool, they have overstepped their bounds.

But you are not a costumed hero. You are a villain. You have no bounds to overstep, save the ones you have set for yourself. No one has ever said that you can't use your amazing powers against the weak in a civil discussion.

Well at Least, No One Who Really Mattered