Foiled Again

Abracadabra adjusted his bowtie. From one of the many hidden pockets of his tuxedo, he pulled a deck of cards. He would pass the time as he waited the way he always did: with a magic trick.

He was perched on the edge of the huge stone fountain in Millennium Plaza: a park nestled among the skyscrapers situated at the exact center point of the city. Shuffling the cards in a most ostentatious display, he called out to a group of passing teenagers: "Hey, kids! You want to see a card trick?"

The teens approached with caution. It wasn't everyday a mustachioed man in an old-fashioned tux complete with towering top hat beckoned them.

"Pick a card. Any card," Abracadabra said, fanning the cards out before the nearest boy.

The boy made his choice.

"Now, don't let me see it," Abracadabra instructed. "Slip it back into the deck. Anywhere you like."

"Dude, I'm not an idiot," the boy scoffed, returning the card. "I know how this works."

"Oh? Do you~?" Abracadabra made a lively show of shuffling the cards high up into the air.

"Hey, aren't you the newest supervillain to join Task Mayhem?" a girl of about fourteen asked. "You used to be a magician, right? Yeah! I saw you on the news! You work for Doctor Impossible!"

"Correct, my young apprentice!" Abracadabra concurred, catching the cards and brandishing them with dramatic flair. "With one slight rewrite: I am still a magician. Now, choose your friend's card."

"Alright," she said. She stared at the fanned deck for a moment, then picked a card from the center. Upon the chosen card was no number, royalty, or suit. It simply read: RUN.

"That's not my card," the boy said, pulling a face. "My card was--"

"--the seven of spades. Yes, I know," Abracadabra retorted, standing up to his full, imposing height. "But this is my trick. My mentor, Doctor Impossible, will be here momentarily, and we're going to do unspeakable, villainous things to anyone in close proximity! So?" He held out the RUN card. "Are you sure this isn't your card?"

The teens took off running.

Abracadabra chuckled to himself. It was such fun being bad.

"Terrorizing the local youth?" a voice asked from behind him. "I knew I was wise to take you on as my protégé."

Abracadabra spun around, shocked to find none other than the city's most notorious supervillain and leader of Task Mayhem standing behind him.

"Doctor Impossible," Abracadabra said, bending in a gentile bow. "You certainly know how to appear out of thin air. And I had to amuse myself somehow, sir, since you seem to be running late."

"Fashionably late," Doctor Impossible corrected. He adjusted the massive utility belt on his one-piece leather and spandex costume. His colors were black and red, and he wore the bold combination with pride.

"You said you wanted to meet here, sir?"

"Yes, I did. Today is the day!" Doctor Impossible announced, throwing his arms wide. "We're going to the future!"

"We are?" his protégé inquired, taken aback. "But...tomorrow Task Mayhem takes over the city. With your Doomsday device. We've been planning for months. Are you rescheduling Mayhem Day?"

"No, no, of course not," Doctor Impossible said, patting the magician on the back. "It is precisely because we plan to take over the city tomorrow that we are going to the future today! Mayhem Day is my legacy! I must know that it accomplishes my grand ambitions to my exact specifications."

"So...we're going to the future to...check?"

"Yes! We'll travel forward exactly one year!"

Abracadabra took his seat on the fountain's stone edge once more. "Uh-huh. And...for those of us with IQs below 260, how is that possible again?"

"With this!" Doctor Impossible cried, pulling from his belt a translucent gun covered in buttons and dials and filled with blue gel. "My Fusion Reaction Plasma Death Ray Gun!"

"The name's a bit much," Abracadabra said, grimacing.

"It's pretentious on purpose," Doctor Impossible countered. "It's threatening and descriptive! I like it!"

"It's a full sentence."

"Fine, fine, I'll drop the word 'death'," Doctor Impossible said with a pompous wave of his hand. He looked down at the gun like it was a beloved pet. "In truth, I've been tinkering with the theory of this for years. For someone of my intellectual prowess, creating the fusion device - or gun, if you like - was relatively rudimentary: harnessing the energy of atomic nuclei, then heating the plasma beam with enough energy to cut a hole in the fabric of spacetime. However, I always retreated, frustrated, as I was never able to step through that hole into the past or future. There was a critical element I was overlooking. A missing ingredient, if you will."

Abracadabra watched as his mentor circled around the plaza, hands behind his back, a thoughtful expression of reminiscence on his face, like a university professor in the middle of a lecture. He was an evil genius, wrapped in self-importance, wrapped in spandex.

"Uhh, this is real scientific, and all," Abracadabra said, covertly rolling his eyes, "but I'm assuming you're getting to the point now..?"

Doctor Impossible looked over his shoulder at his protégé as though surprised to find the tuxedo-clad man still there. "Yes. Yes!" he cried, one finger in the air. "Quite right. The point is, I found that missing ingredient, and implemented it into the plasma! Ha!"

"And what is it?" Abracadabra asked. "The missing ingredient?"

Doctor Impossible grinned: a horrible, dastardly grin. "Tomorrow Man," he murmured in his most ominous voice.

"Tomorrow Man? The hero who's supposedly from the future?" Abracadabra scoffed. "I don't know, sir, I find his whole schtick kind of far fetched."

"It's not a schtick!" Doctor Impossible shouted. "He escaped from a military research facility in the year 2525! The ability to pass through the fabric of time has literally been infused into his DNA!"

"And how did you get his DNA?" Abracadabra asked, knowing he'd be made to hear the answer, regardless of his level of interest.

"I stole it, of course!" Doctor Impossible proclaimed. "He should be more cautious about how he discards his bloody bandages."

"That's gross."

"Perhaps. But it's also brilliant," Doctor Impossible stated, rubbing a gloved finger across his immaculately trimmed goatee. "Now, thanks to my genius and Tomorrow Man's negligence, when I pull this trigger, we'll travel one year into the future!"

"To see if your plan to take over the city worked," Abracadabra summed up.

"Yes, precisely!" Doctor Impossible said, his tone gleeful. "To see if my devious, rotten, evil plan worked! And if I discover the results of my efforts are unfavorable in any way, I will simply adjust accordingly upon my return! Muhaha! Muhahahahahahaha!!"

Abracadabra observed his mentor with a blank stare.

Doctor Impossible ceased his laughter and ran a hand over his face. "What are you doing? When the supervillain leader begins laughing, that's the cue for all associated villains to also laugh. Being A Villain 101!"

"My evil laugh still needs some work, sir."

"It won't get better without practice. Now laugh! That's an order!"

"Heh-heh-heh-heh!"

"Not like you're having a seizure. From the belly! Like me! Muhahahahaha!!"

"Hahahaha!"

"That's close enough!" Doctor Impossible waved his hand through the air, like a symphony conductor cutting off the final note of a musical piece. "Now, do what you do best, and create an illusion so that no one in the future will recognize us!"

Grinning, Abracadabra plucked the paper flower from his lapel, crushed it, and fluttered his fingers, producing a handful of silver powder. He clapped his hands together twice, and bathed them both in the shimmering substance. "Allakhazam!" he shouted. The substance vanished, leaving the pair of them donning inconspicuous disguises. "Done! Little razzle-dazzle, and now even our future selves won't recognize us."

They leaned over the edge of the fountain, looking at their reflections in the water. Doctor Impossible looked like a typical middle-aged college professor in his sweater-vest and spectacles, and Abracadabra appeared to be an artsy student, complete with a pretentious scarf and matching beret.

"Perfection!" Doctor Impossible declared. He twisted a few dials on the plasma gun, setting the date for one year in the future. "Now, to see if Mayhem Day succeeded!"

He aimed the gun at the empty space in front of the fountain.

He pulled the trigger.

A blue plasma beam erupted from the nozzle, and a seam appeared in the air before them - no more than a hairline crack at first, but as the heated plasma continued to burn through the fabric of spacetime, the crack became a gap. Larger and larger it grew, until it was seven feet in height and three feet in diameter. A bright kaleidoscope of swirling colors was visible inside the gap, and beyond that, the outline of a cityscape.

"It works!" Doctor Impossible shrieked. "It wooooooorks!! Come, protégé! To the future! Muhahahahaha!!"

Laughing, the pair of villains stepped through gap, and out of time...

~ * ~

"Are...are you sure it worked, sir?" Abracadabra asked, moments later. "Everything looks the same."

Doctor Impossible stared in disbelief at the tidy plaza, the pristine steel and glass skyscrapers, and the beautiful blue sky that surrounded them. He blinked. He glanced down at his plasma gun, then back up. "It worked..." he said slowly, his brow knit in confusion. "But I'm as puzzled as you are. Why are all the buildings still standing? Where are the hordes of hopeless slaves working as my Impossible Army? Why is nothing on fire? I don't understand... Look! Look at that couple crossing the street! They're smiling! And those children over there are laughing and playing games! People are happy! I can hear birds chirping! What is the meaning of this?! It's as if my hostile takeover never happened!!"

Abracadabra tapped Doctor Impossible on the shoulder. "Sir?" he said, pointing to the fountain. "Something happened."

Doctor Impossible turned around. Instead of the decorative stone tiers that had made up the elegant water display in the present, there stood a twenty foot statue of Doctor Impossible. His stone cloak permanently blowing in a nonexistent breeze, he stared out from his aquatic platform with a serene expression on his unblinking face. His costume was an immaculate likeness, and his gloved fists rested on his hips in eternal determination.

"Holy ace of spades..." Abracadabra murmured, staring up at the prestigious tribute. "I think you did it, sir."

"No," Doctor Impossible said, shaking his head. "No, something is wrong. Why would my slaves build a statue of me looking...not evil? And why am I in the classic Hero Stance? Villains don't stand like that."

"I..." Abracadabra removed his beret and scratched his head.

"Amazing, isn't he?" asked a voice from beside them.

They both turned. A casually dressed, pretty woman of about thirty-five stood there, stars in her eyes as she gazed up at the statue of Doctor Impossible.

"I beg your pardon?" Doctor Impossible said, indignant. "Amazing?"

"Yes," the woman said. She turned to them with a smile. "He was the greatest hero this city has ever known."

Doctor Impossible felt as though he'd been suckerpunched in the gut by an iron giant. He reached for Abracadabra's shoulder, steadying himself against the sudden onslaught of gravity. "The greatest 'hero'?" he repeated, his voice croaking.

"Absolutely!" the woman exclaimed. "The people we believed to be heroes - NightHawk, Lady Silk, that whole crew - went rogue. They had a Doomsday device! Something to do with fusion and the destruction of particles...I don't completely understand how it worked, to be honest. It would have left the city in ruin, but Doctor Impossible got it away from them, saving us all!"

"I think I'm going to be sick," Doctor Impossible mumbled.

"But couldn't that have all been hearsay?" Abracadabra asked the woman. "A rumor? A ruse?"

"No, definitely not," the woman said. "The whole exchange was captured live by multiple news broadcasts, and witnessed by a couple thousand civilians, myself included. It happened right here, actually. In Impossible Plaza."

"This is Millennium Plaza," Abracadabra corrected.

The woman smiled. "Not anymore. It was renamed in honor and memory of our great hero." She waved a graceful hand at the statue. "In fact, tomorrow will be the one-year anniversary. There's going to be a huge celebration in remembrance of Doctor Impossible. You two should come!"

It was then that Doctor Impossible noticed the bundles of black and red helium balloons displayed all around the perimeter of the plaza.

"In remembrance?" the evil genius repeated. "You mean...he's dead?"

"Oh, yes," the woman said, biting her lip in embarrassment. "You didn't know? I'm sorry. Yes, he died that day, at the hands of NightHawk, Lady Silk, and the other so-called 'heroes.' Frankly, I'm glad they're rotting in prison."

"The heroes are in prison?" Doctor Impossible squeaked.

"A special prison for people with special abilities," the woman confirmed. She tossed her mousey-brown hair over one shoulder. "They deserve it. Anyway, I have to go. My kiddos get out of school in a few minutes. I just like to pass through this plaza on my way to pick them up." She gazed up at the statue once more. "I feel like he's still watching over us: the city he saved."

Giving them one last smile, the woman departed, heading for the crosswalk.

"Sir," Abracadabra said, looking at Doctor Impossible's face in concern, "even with the illusion veiling the real you, I can see that you're turning white."

"I need...to sit down..." Doctor Impossible gasped.

Abracadabra helped his mentor over to the fountain, setting him gently on the edge. They were directly beneath the statue's watchful eyes.

"My plan..." Doctor Impossible whimpered. "My perfect, horrible, genius plan..."

"How did it all go wrong?" Abracadabra asked in rhetoric, shaking his head.

"That 'fusion, particle-destroying Doomsday device' that she mentioned?" Doctor Impossible said, jerking his thumb to where the mousey-haired woman had stood. "That's my device! The one I built! Obviously, the heroes stole it from me covertly. What the news cameras and civilians witnessed must have been me trying to steal it back!"

Abracadabra's eyes widened. "The entire fight was misinterpreted!"

"Yes!" Doctor Impossible cried. "Yes! And now, instead of being a fear-inspiring evil overlord, I'm dead, and remembered as a hero! A hero! Can you imagine anything more disgusting? Oh, this won't do! This won't do at all!"

He beat the edge of the fountain with his fists, only then noticing the metal plaque embedded in the stone. Craning his neck, he read aloud:

In Memory of Our Beloved

Doctor Impossible

Gone too Soon,

but Forever in Our Hearts

May He Be Forever Remembered

as a HERO

Doctor Impossible's eyebrow twitched.

"GAH!!!" he exploded, jumping up. "Gaaah! Foiled again! And this time, by a ridiculous misunderstanding! No! No! NO!!"

He began to pace in a seizing, frenzied manner.

Abracadabra stared at him, feeling helpless. "Is this really the worst outcome, sir?" he asked, trying to calm his mentor down. "True, Mayhem Day wasn't exactly a success, but people love you. You'll be remembered forever!"

"As a hero!" Doctor Impossible spat. "Like NightHawk! Or Lady Silk! It's unforgivable! And I don't want them to love me! How appalling! I want them to fear me!"

"But...you're famous."

"I. Am. A. VILLAIN!!" Doctor Impossible shouted. "I don't want to be famous! I want to be infamous! This is unacceptable! We're going back to the present! NOW!"

~ * ~

Back in Millennium Plaza, Doctor Impossible continued his pacing.

"I could just kick a puppy!" he sneered.

"Don't do that," Abracadabra said, holding out a pacifying hand, and dispelling their disguises. "I'm sure I can find a rabbit for you."

Doctor Impossible whirled around, glaring at his protégé. "I have decided what adjustments need to be made to my plan."

"Great," Abracadabra said, clapping his hands together. "Let's hear them!"

"As of now," Doctor Impossible said, "Mayhem Day is canceled. Indefinitely."

"Canceled?!"

"I will not be subjected to a legacy of lies!" Doctor Impossible declared. "Better an honest villain than a faux hero. I will think of some other way to take over this cursed city!"

"I'm at your assistance, sir," Abracadabra said, tipping his top hat. "Any tricks you might need. Coffee might be a good way to start."

"True," Doctor Impossible agreed, rubbing his chin. "Nothing like a strong espresso to really get my diabolical wheels turning."

"Perfect," Abracadabra said. "We can get coffee, and you can watch me perform 'make the barista disappear.' That trick always seems to cheer you up."

~ * ~

Across town, deep within the secret and secure confines of vigilante hero headquarters, Tomorrow Man watched Doctor Impossible and Abracadabra via the surveillance monitors.

"He called off the whole plan," Tomorrow Man announced.

"Unbelievable," NightHawk said, approaching with a mug of coffee in each hand. "You did it, man."

"We did it," Tomorrow Man corrected, taking one mug and clinking it against NightHawk's in a toast.

The door opened, and both men turned to see the mousey-haired woman from the future stride in.

"Can you believe that douchebag?" the woman asked. She turned a dial on her watch, powering down her electronic disguise, and revealing herself as Lady Silk. "He completely bought it. The whole act. I honestly thought he was going to start crying."

"You did well," Tomorrow Man said, nodding in approval.

"Thanks!" Lady Silk chirped, pleased. "I can't believe we're completely avoiding this fight with him! Still glad we stole his Doomsday device, though. Just in case."

"Agreed," Tomorrow Man said.

"So," NightHawk said. "Looks like we've earned ourselves an unexpected day off. You guys want to do something? Maybe go somewhere?"

Tomorrow Man grinned. "Back to the future, perhaps?"

*