Debi Orton's Editor's Pick
The Henchman Diaries: Project Giant Arachnid
by Jeffrey R. DeRego
Okay, I'll be the first to admit this isn't the usual flashquake fare. But I was having a simply awful day at my job at a small government agency, and came home to this in my inbox. Within minutes I was laughing out loud, which is highly unusual for me. This story's premise is a perfect analogy for life as a bureaucrat, and every time I think about it, I smile. What could be better than that?
What a mess! Two prototypes got loose and rampaged through the cafeteria for a half hour before security could bring them down. Today is "Spaghetti and Meatballs Day" and there were noodles, sauce, and body parts everywhere – not to mention a couple of five-hundred-pound spider carcasses to deal with. No one is sure how a Henchman managed to get the prototype's cage open, it's sealed with a magnetic lock, but smart money says we have an infiltrator – probably CIA or MI-5.
Things have started to go bad, which isn't really abnormal; there is always a lot of drama just before a big project launch. We are now on lockdown and can't get the giant spiders into the trucks or into the Paris sewers. And without the spiders in place, Dr. Maniacal's address to the United Nations, and his subsequent demand for ransom money, won't have any meat behind it. Anyone who has been in this business for more than a day knows that the UN doesn't flinch unless you can scare up a really good demonstration.
I have to remember the rule: Your life span synchronizes with the countdown clock if you are still on base when the countdown starts. It's almost time to move on. Even the dumbest of my co-Henchmen can see that this plan is going to succeed only in bringing a few platoons of Special Forces down on us.
We get paid next week, so I can't make a move until then, and besides, Tuesday is "Fish and Chips Day" in the caf, and they do a great breaded Tilapia here. Say what you want about Big Bosses, but Dr. Maniacal really takes care of his people. We've got good food, a rocking gymnasium, video games, comfy mattresses in the dorm, clean showers, and the coveralls are orange cotton not polyester.
The Big Boss only spoke directly to me once; he barked, "out of the way idiot!" and shoved me away from a control board during the phase one genetic mutation tests. It did draw some sharp looks from the Inner Circle and at least one of the Lackeys, but the test was in progress and they were too focused on mixing the tarantula DNA with the growth serum to make a stink. Usually the Big Bosses just monologue to whoever is within earshot, you know, "Soon the world will feel my wrath blah blah blah bring the UN to its knees yadda yadda yadda" after a while we just stop listening, and the speeches are pretty much all the same no mater who runs the show.
Being a Henchman is a pretty good gig, not a lot of responsibility (that's for the Lackeys and those of the Inner Circle), decent pay, free room and board, and hell, these places are crawling with doctors so it's not like medical care is a worry. We are the backbone of the organization, the grunts. We clean the toilets, wash the dishes, scrub unshielded reactors, shovel snow (if an arctic base) or chop vines around the secret entrance (if a jungle base), watch the blinking lights and analog needles on the control board during tests, and of course, wash about a thousand pairs of orange overalls.
Henchman rule number 2: You don't want to know how anything works. Knowing the technical particulars of the Doomsday Machine makes you extremely valuable, and being valuable is dangerous. Let's say I know how a Doomsday laser works, then I'll probably be standing next to the damn thing doing something important when the Marines drop through the ceiling. I'd rather be in the Henchman bathroom holding a mop. No one bothers with the mop guy.
You have to have priorities in this business, and allegiance to your current Big Boss is almost an E-Ticket to the great secret base in the sky (and no, I don't mean the one hovering over the South Pacific working on Project Giant Shark). My priority is getting the hell out of here with some money in my pocket and my skin intact.
I drew cleanup duty around the reactor again. I think my supervisor, Lackey 43, has it in for me. He's new, the old Lackey 43 tripped over his bootlaces while carrying a jar of nitroglycerine to the chemistry lab. Henchman Number 4156 said he'd worked alongside the new Lackey 43 on Project Doomsday Space Mirror, but the new guy doesn't seem to have the laissez faire attitude that tends to make the whole system work.
So it won't be a surprise when Lackey 43 is shot, blown up, or has his neck twisted and broken when the authorities finally storm the place. He'll certainly be one of the idiots facing off against a platoon of Special Forces armed only with a swagger stick and a Korean Luger knock off.
Maybe the cafeteria incident is a blessing? At the very least it buys me some time to find the tunnel out. No Henchman worth his orange coveralls would even take a job in one of these places if they weren't certain of escape. It's somewhere in the sub-basement under the dormitory, probably connected to the wastewater outflow pipe. I'll ask around tomorrow. There are some old-timers here, they'll know the particulars. I'm pretty sure I've worked with at least one of them on Project Robot Gorilla under Dr. Hu, or was it Project Doomsday Gas under Red Beret?
Escape won't be a problem once I find the tunnel, this base is close enough to a large South American city that I can walk to safety then disappear. As for the next gig, hell there's always an evil plan being put into production somewhere in the world, so that's no problem. Plus, I've made some good contacts with some of the Henchmen here and one of them has to have a foot in the door at the next place. If not, I'll go back to the temp agency, they always have listings.
Note to self: Ask about Project Giant Shark.
Jeffrey R. DeRego is an instructional designer and project manager as well as a writer. His fiction has appeared in Lost Worlds Magazine, Henniker Review. His short story "Iron Bars and the Glass Jaw" was a recently released for download as a podcast through Escape Pod Magazine (Episode 27). Escape Pod will also feature another of DeRego's stories, "Off White Lies" as a podcast in Feb '06. To read more of The Henchman Diaries, please read Henchman 4156's blog at http://henchmandiaries.blogspot.com. Jeffrey is married and lives in Derry, NH with his wife Cindy and their kids Ian and Margaret.