head resembles an obscene Christmas tree bulb. Perhaps he will have an aneurysm. This thought does not alarm Edwin. But, if it has to happen, Edwin would prefer for it to happen outside of his office. Just when the pressure seems to reach intolerable levels, Dr. Loeb releases it by screaming, “WORLD DOMINATION!”
Dr. Loeb’s face returns to a more reasonable shade. Now Edwin has a ringing in his ears. In an effort to clear some of the insanity from the room, he says, “That’s really more of a goal than a plan.”
“DOMINATION! DOMINATION! DOMINATION!”
Clearly, Dr. Loeb is insane. All of Edwin’s clients are insane. But not all of them are so obnoxious about it. Edwin tries to appease the man, in the hopes that this interview might end sooner. “I’ll just put down Mergers and Acquisitions,” he says as he pretends to scribble something on a pad.
“Ja, JA. Acquisitions! I will overtake ze vorld. And if you help me mit my endeavoring, I vill grant to you a small island as your revard. Say Aftsralia. Muhahahahahaha HAHA AHHAHAHAHAHAH!”
As the laughter continues, the wrinkle of frustration digs deeper into Edwin’s forehead. Australia? How insulting. Edwin’s standard arrangement is 35% of the post-laundered gross. Edwin is not in the real estate business. And even if he was, Edwin knows that Australia is a mere 5% of the Earth’s surface. Australia is not enough. To say nothing of the fact that Edwin does not keep score in yards. He keeps score in dollars. 35% of the world’s wealth, that is a goal.
Most importantly, taking over the world is an impossibility. The foolish conceit of a deluded mind. But his clients never seem to understand this. The less equipped they were to control themselves, the more they wanted to control the world. Why not start with an small island? A city block? An apartment building? One’s own temper?
Edwin knows that a reasonable goals are not buildings levelled, damsels abducted or heroes taunted — these are not the ends. They are means. The end is wealth. For lack of a better term, money. If a person has power or abilities, and that person is willing to live by their own moral code, then Edwin can help them. But this creature? This Dr. Loeb? All he seems to have is a shaved head and a formidable command of the cliches of villainy. This is a colossal waste of Edwin’s time.
Sensing that Edwin’s attention has wandered. Dr. Loeb shouts “AUSFSTRALIA!” again. He gargles on the word. Edwin flicks his eyes to Dr. Loeb. What is this obsession with land? True, it is the only thing they’re not making any more of. But time — time is the only thing you can’t buy. Edwin wonders why he is wasting his time with this idiot. One more try, he thinks, and then I will be done.
“Why are you yelling?,” Edwin asks.
“I’m excited.”
“Please try to control yourself.”
“Vell, I, ja, okay.”
“Now, I am also excited. Because if you are this excited, you must have a wonderful plan — a brilliant idea with which to take over the world. Please, tell me what it is, so I can help you.”
“I have plans for a giant Laser.”
Please, don’t say, in space, Edwin thinks. Anything but another giant laser in space scheme.
“A giant laser!” cries Dr. Loeb. His eyes dart from one side of the room to another, looking for those who would steal his secret and sinister plan. Seeing that the coast is clear, he bellows “IN SPACE!” Once again, maniacal laughter.
Edwin rubs the bridge of his nose and waits.
“You’re not laughing,” says Dr. Loeb.
“That is correct. I am not laughing.”
“But why? Do you not see the beauty of my sinister plan? Is it not unstoppable?”
“Unstoppable?” Edwin asks. “It’s unstartable.” Edwin gets up, buttons his suit jacket and walks from the room. He has decided that Dr. Loeb is the ultimate waste of time. A sunk cost. A waste so wasteful, so irredeemable, the only rational thing to do is to make future decisions as if Dr. Loeb had never existed.
“You’re coming back, right? I mean, ja?”
Chapter Three. Ghosts of Clients Past
No doubt, you are familiar with the cramped wightwarrens of the modern business world. Perhaps you are one of the unfortunates who spends your every working hour longing to escape these narrow, frustrated places where the smell of cheap carpet hangs low amid poorly ventilated cubes. These places where the lesser demons of distraction run riot through phone systems and email. These places where The plants are plastic. The worker apes, hairless, hunched and pale. And hopeless. Oh so hopeless.
When these worker apes dream of their reward after death, their Heaven looks a lot like Edwin’s office. It occupies the top of a high tower that has the benefit of the cleanest air and clearest light in the city. And, if you didn’t know what Edwin did, you could easily mistake it for a temple dedicated to a clearer and more civilized religion than the world has ever known.
Edwin’s office is the size of a football field. On two sides, three-story windows reveal the city spread out below. Edwin’s desk is a simple slab, carved from the heart of a redwood tree. The surface is clean. Most notably, there is no computer.
This office is a place designed for the contemplation of lofty matters. If it were any kind of temple, it would be a temple of clarity. This is a room constructed to capture God-like intellect. Here one can nod to Apollo as he drives his blazing chariot across the sky. And here, Apollo will nod back.
This is the room Edwin abandons. Edwin is frustrated that he must relinquish such a space to Dr. Loeb. None of this shows on Edwin’s face. None of it shows in Edwin’s thoughts. But all the same, the carefully controlled emotions are there. They are pouring into a giant cistern of feeling hidden deep within him.
As Edwin walks the long hallway to his lobby, visages of past clients stare out at him from the walls.
Here, a picture of Aluminar, who’s semi-metallic skin flashes as Edwin passes. Aluminar had once attempted to mine the center of the Earth and convert part of its molten core into counterfeit nickels. Edwin had advised against this scheme, suggesting that if one was going to use the power to tunnel effortlessly through the Earth for mining, perhaps gold or oil would a more profitable objective. Aluminar had not seen it that way. He had never returned from his storybook attempt to reach the center of the Earth. Perhaps he was still down there? Or perhaps he had encountered one of the several elements that rendered him powerless and inert. Whatever the case, the hole he had created in the poor soil of Eastern Oregon had collapsed in on itself. And now, only a nameless sinkhole marked Aluminar’s grave.
Next on the wall is the Voodoin’. Edwin had been able to persuade him that the proper use of powers was to provide Zombies as cheap temporary labor to large manufacturing concerns. It had been an exceptionally profitable scheme. But the Voodoin’ had no love for business. He retired to his native Haiti where he indulged his first love, the sport of baseball. He exhumed the bodies of many famous baseball players and reanimated them so he could watch them play on his own bizarre field of dreams hidden deep within the mountains.
Perhaps, most absurd among the collection, is the Carolignian, a man who had the power to transform himself into a warrior monk from the time of Charlemagne by rubbing a bit of dead flesh that he claimed was the foreskin of St. Paul. Edwin had not asked questions. He had merely harnessed the man’s powers to make money. But, soon after the money started rolling in, the Carolignian had disregarded Edwin’s advice, demanding of him, “Since God is for me, who can be against me?” As it turned out, a great many people could be against him. Edwin had never known the victory of secular humanism to be so bittersweet.
And finally, Brainitar. Brainitar had cost Edwin dearly. Both financially and personally. He admitted, only to himself, that he had made a terrible mistake when he had been sucked in by Doctor Grapewigget’s mad obsession. Steven Grapewigget had invented a way to remove his brain from his perfectly healthy body and implant it in an ageless, multi-function robotic pod. He hoped to prolong his life indefinitely and prove that this was the next logical stage in human evolution.
Edwin cared for none of that. But with the vast parallel processing resources of the human brain now in a machine interface, he devised a way for Brainitar to plug directly into the futures market. Using a combination of Brainitar’s unique insight and a massive array of supercomputers, he had devised a seemingly infallible trading
