The Antagonist was irritated. When he got irritated bad things happened. Nasty, irrational ideas sprouted in his mind and spread like little angry weeds. The weeds grew and grew, choking anything sensible, until his mind was a garden of death, destruction, chaos, and fires. He knew he should try to calm down. But he just hated to shop. He hated it!
And Staplertown—the tristate area’s largest office supply store—was not helping. He was lost inside its labyrinth of aisles, all stacked nearly to the ceiling with copy paper, shredders, computers, packing tape, and toner cartridges. All he wanted was a three-ring binder, but he had been up and down every aisle, searched every bin and shelf from top to bottom, and there wasn’t one to be found. He would have loved to ask for help. Actually, he would have loved to have asked for help a couple hours ago, but the store didn’t seem to have any employees. He was all alone, among the Post-its and label makers, struggling with the urge to burn the building to the ground.
Suddenly, he spotted something moving. Down at the farthest end of the aisle, seemingly miles away … It was an employee! He wore a Staplertown vest and a matching hat. The Antagonist raced after him, desperate not to lose him in the maze they called a store, and finally reached him—a pimple-faced mouth breather playing a game on his phone as he walked through the store.
“Excuse me, but I require a three-ring binder,” the Antagonist said. The sound of his voice startled him. In the last few weeks his vocabulary had grown dramatically, and he’d lost the Brooklyn accent he acquired as a kid hanging around the waterfront. Now when he spoke, he sounded intelligent—almost sophisticated—and he wasn’t sure how the change had happened. But then again, he’d been going through a lot of changes lately.
The glassy-eyed teenager looked up from his game. “You’re wearing a mask.”
The Antagonist sighed. The mask was another of the big changes. It was causing problems. The white skull painted on it shouted “LOOK AT ME!” Whether he was at a drive-thru or a greeting card store, taking a walk in the park, or watching the puppies in the dog run, someone always wanted to know about the mask. Sometimes he hated wearing the stupid thing, but a little voice in his head wouldn’t let him stop. It demanded that he wear it, even in the shower.
“Yes, I’m wearing a—”
“And you have a hook for a hand.”
“Can we get back to the three-ring binder?”
“What is it?” the teenager asked.
The Antagonist wanted to crush the boy’s spine. “You mean to tell me that you do not know what a three-ring binder is? It is used to hold documents so that they can be stored indefinitely in an organized manner. This type of binder is quite popular with businesspeople, students, teachers, and evil geniuses.”
“We don’t have those,” the teenager said, and turned back to his game.
The blood boiled inside the Antagonist and a fever swept over him. With a fierce, violent slash, he impaled the teenager’s phone with the sharp tip of his hook.
“Dude, that is so not cool. I’m calling my manager,” the boy said. “Belle! Belle!”
Another employee came around the corner. She had thick glasses and pasty skin. Beneath her Staplertown smock was a black sweater and she wore dark purple eye shadow that made her look like a vampire in a very cheap horror movie. She was playing a game on her phone as well, and seemed irritated that she had to look up from it.
“What’s going on, Darryl?” she asked.
“This psychopath attacked me!”
“Young lady, I’d like to see your manager,” the Antagonist said.
“I’m the manager,” the girl replied.
The Antagonist was dumbfounded. “You? You manage this entire store? You can’t be older than nineteen.”
“I’m eighteen. Now, what’s going on?”
“My name is the Antagonist. I am a supervillain. I’m building an organization that deals in chaos and world war. Right now, I have twenty different operatives in ten international cities. Each is planning a terrible crime. I even have a lab where I combine animals with people to create horrible mutant hybrids. As world conquerors go, I am the real deal. To keep all these moving parts running smoothly, I need to be organized. I need to keep meticulous records, including maps, plans, blueprints, and tax forms. So … I need a three-ring binder.”
“They’re in the next aisle over by the color-copy paper,” the manager said.
“Thank you,” he said. Then he turned to Darryl and lifted him off the ground by his neck with his good hand. Darryl’s face turned red and puffy. He tried to say something, but it came out as chokes and spittle. While the clerk struggled, the Antagonist turned his attention back to Belle.
“Young lady, I’m going to take your friend with me to the next aisle. If the three-ring binders aren’t there, something terrible will happen to him. So, are you sure they are in the next aisle?”
Belle thought for a moment. “Actually, I’m not sure I know what a three-ring binder is.”
What happened next is far too terrible to record, but suffice it to say that Darryl and Belle learned a valuable lesson about work ethic and taking pride in their jobs. Of course, they spent the rest of their lives in hospital beds convalescing, but they did realize that they had been rude. And the happy ending for the Antagonist was that he found the three-ring binders by the cash registers on his way out of the store.
In the parking lot, he was loading his purchases into the Antagocar, which was really a Subaru Outback with a skull painted on the hood, when a woman came racing toward him. She was lean and tall, but he could not see her face because she was wearing a black mask with a white skull painted on it.
“I saw what you did to those oafs,” she said.
The Antagonist was surprised. He hated surprises. He snatched the woman by the collar, but she caught his wrist and gave it a quick turn to free herself. He was about to attack again but realized by her stance that she knew a great deal about the martial arts. Fighting her would be useless. And painful. “And?”
“I thought it was awesome.”
“Yes,” the Antagonist agreed. How strange it was for him to receive compliments. Even stranger was how desperately he seemed to need them. “It was most certainly awesome.”
The woman nodded. “I hate this store. I come here all the time to buy stuff and they never know what I’m talking about. I’m glad someone finally did something about it.”
The Antagonist smiled under his mask.
“My name is Miss Information. I heard you talking about your evil organization. You wouldn’t happen to have any openings for an assistant?” she asked. “I’m very good with calendars and I know my way around a fax machine. Plus, I’m really pretty evil.”
He eyed the woman up and down. It seemed that lately everywhere he went people were eager to join his cause. It had become a little overwhelming. Still, he could use an assistant to help around the office. The files were getting out of control, and his henchmen kept complaining that the watercooler was always empty. This was a woman who could handle the details.
“You’re hired. You start immediately. The first thing you’re going to do is burn this office supply store to the ground.”
Miss Information held up a box of matches. “Already on it, boss.”
THE POWERS THAT BE THINK YOU’VE SHOWN SOME REAL SPUNK GETTING THIS FAR IN YOUR TRAINING, BUT I’M NOT SO SURE. I MEAN, ADMITTEDLY, YOU’RE A LOT CLEVERER THAN YOU LOOK (YOU LOOK LIKE A GROUNDHOG WITH A HEAD COLD). BUT WHAT ABOUT YOUR PHYSICAL ABILITIES? BEING A SPY ISN’T ALL ABOUT YOUR BRAINS. SOMETIMES, IN DANGEROUS SITUATIONS, YOU NEED TO BE STRONG, FAST, AND AGILE.