The warehouse had been curated for menace.

Not merely chosen—curated.

Doctor Cataclysm stood on the grated catwalk above the main floor, cape hanging in mathematically perfect folds, and breathed in the perfume of his own villainy: hot metal, ozone, machine oil, and the faint acidic tang of the electrified moat surrounding the central platform. Below him, the damsel in distress was tied—not uncomfortably, he was not a barbarian—to a polished chrome pillar beneath the enormous humming engine he had spent three weeks assembling for dramatic effect.

Green indicator lights blinked in sequence along the machine’s curved ribs. Tesla coils crackled. Steam hissed from a floor vent at exactly seven-second intervals.

He checked his pocket watch.

“Any moment now,” he murmured.

The damsel, a woman in a torn but expensive red dress, looked up at him with flat irritation. “You’ve said that for twenty minutes.”

“Great entrances,” said Doctor Cataclysm, smoothing the front of his armored coat, “cannot be rushed.”

He drew himself to full height and quietly rehearsed under his breath.

“At last, Sentinel, you arrive too late to—no, no— At last, Paragon of Justice, you stand helpless before the—hm.” He frowned. “Too archaic.”

A distant crash echoed through the warehouse district.

Doctor Cataclysm’s eyes lit. “Ah.”

The skylight exploded inward in a glittering rain of glass.

A figure dropped through the opening in a blur of navy, gold, and red, cape snapping behind him. He landed in a three-point crouch on the concrete floor hard enough to send a spiderweb of cracks racing outward. Dust puffed up around him. Somewhere, one of the damsel’s discarded high heels toppled from a crate.

The hero rose slowly, jaw set, eyes blazing.

“Cataclysm!” he thundered.

Doctor Cataclysm spread his arms. “At last, Centurion, you have come to witness—”

“You forgot.”

The hero blinked.

The damsel stared. “Excuse me?”

“You forgot,” Centurion repeated, pointing at her from across the warehouse. “Again.”

Doctor Cataclysm kept his arms open. “I’m sorry, what?”

“The dry cleaning,” said the damsel. “Oh my word, are you seriously doing this right now?”

“Yes, right now, Vanessa, because I specifically asked you to pick it up before six.”

“You asked me?” Vanessa laughed sharply. “No. No, you mumbled something while flying out the balcony window because you were ‘late for patrol.’”

Doctor Cataclysm slowly lowered his arms.

Centurion planted his fists on his hips. “I was not late for patrol. I was intercepting an armored car on Fifth.”

“And yet somehow you had time to stop for coffee.”

“That was one coffee.”

“That was two coffees, Marcus, because I saw the carrier in the kitchen!”

Doctor Cataclysm cleared his throat and tried again, drawing himself up with villainous dignity. “If you two are quite finished, I have prepared a declaration that will chill the blood of this entire city. You see, tonight the Dynamo of Endless—”

Vanessa turned her head toward him. “Did you know about this?”

He faltered. “About... the dry cleaning?”

“The coffee,” she snapped.

“I—no?”

Centurion pointed accusingly at the villain. “Exactly. Because it wasn’t a stop. Meteor Maiden handed it to me during the bank chase.”

Vanessa’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Oh, of course she did.”

Doctor Cataclysm looked between them. “Who is Meteor Maiden?”

“Oh, don’t you start,” Vanessa said.

Centurion threw up his hands. “Nothing is going on with Meteor Maiden!”

“I did not say anything was going on with Meteor Maiden.”

“You implied it.”

“I did not.”

“You absolutely did.”

The machine behind Vanessa gave a tremendous theatrical hum, its coils filling with green light. Doctor Cataclysm glanced back at it helplessly. The timing cue had arrived. This was where the monologue was supposed to crest.

He stepped forward and projected his voice.

“Fools! While you prattle over garments and beverages, you fail to see that above your very heads stands the instrument of your annihilation! With this engine, I shall invert the city’s power grid, plunge the populace into chaos, and from the darkness forge a new—”

“Marcus, tell me right now,” Vanessa said over him, “did you or did you not tell your mother we were free on Sunday?”

Centurion froze.

Doctor Cataclysm stopped mid-gesture.

“Oh no,” said Vanessa, in the quiet tone of someone discovering a body. “You did.”

“It was tentative.”

“It was not tentative, because she texted me, ‘So excited for roast at one!’”

“Well, maybe she was being optimistic!”

Doctor Cataclysm inhaled, preparing to point out—with perfect reason—that optimism was a distinctly maternal trait, when both of them whipped toward him and barked, “You stay out of this.”

He shut his mouth.

For a moment the only sounds were the crackle of current, the slow drip of water from a broken pipe, and the distant city sirens outside. A ribbon of smoke curled from one of the shattered skylight frames, catching blue-white in the machine light.

Centurion rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Vanessa, I can reschedule.”

“No, don’t do me any favors now.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“It never is.”

Doctor Cataclysm tried once more, more softly this time. “I did also prepare a death ray.”

Neither of them looked at him.

Vanessa took a breath, visibly reining herself in. “You know what? Fine. Untie me.”

Centurion looked up. “Really?”

“Yes. Untie me, we are going home, and we are finishing this conversation somewhere that does not smell like a mechanic’s nightmare.”

“I polished the chrome,” muttered Doctor Cataclysm.

Vanessa shot him a look.

He sighed and pressed a button on his wrist console. Her restraints clicked open.

She stepped off the platform, brushing dust from her dress. Centurion moved to help her over a sparking cable, and though she accepted the hand, she did so with the rigid dignity of an empress acknowledging a servant.

“We are not done talking about your mother,” she said.

“We can talk about my mother,” said Centurion, “but we are also talking about the dry cleaning.”

“Oh, absolutely not.”

They walked toward the blasted loading doors, still bickering.

Their voices faded into the night.

Doctor Cataclysm remained alone beside his magnificent engine. The green lights continued their dramatic pulse. Steam sighed from the vent. High above, wind whispered through the broken skylight.

After a long silence, he looked down at the speech cards in his hand.

Then he looked at the open warehouse doors.

Finally he muttered, to no one at all, “It was an excellent monologue.”