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“You’re wasting your time, Doctor. I’ll never talk,” said James Bond. He tested the restraints binding him to the chair for the third time and stared defiantly at the giant laser aimed at him. It hummed malevolently and looked like a set piece from a terrible sci-fi flick. Q would love it. The sound echoed through the drafty old warehouse.
The villainous doctor cackled. “I don’t expect you to talk, Mr. Bond. I expect you to pay attention.”
The villain du jour, Doctor Ion, was a tall, spare man, middle aged, wore a dark pseudo-military uniform with decorative shoulder pads sharp enough to cut, black leather gloves, and knee-high black boots shined to a high reflective gloss. In fact, never mind the laser—the entire set-up looked like someone’s small-budget C-rated sci-fi flick. All that was missing were the cardboard robots with vacuum cleaner hoses for arms.
The laser powered down.
The villain snapped his fingers. A henchman rolled in a huge portable screen, while another rolled in an AV cart with a projector and set it up with practiced ease.
“Lights!” called the villain.
A third henchman in a corner control booth dimmed the lights in the lair. The villain fiddled with the screen, adjusting it to his liking.
Bond was terribly confused. Usually by now he was knee-deep in threats and in the middle of a rousing torture section.
“Ah-ha!” exclaimed the villain. On the screen, the first slide of a PowerPoint presentation, entitled “Death Rays 101.”
Bond’s eyes widened in horror. What the hell? How convoluted could this man’s plan possibly be to require a PowerPoint?
“You know what separates the garden-variety villains from the supervillains? Presentation. Traditional monologues are so retro twentieth-century,” the villainous doctor complained. “A good presentation should have snazzy graphics, visual aids, and video components. Prepare yourself, Mr. Bond.”
“Will there be a test?” Bond asked, snarkily.
“Worse, Mr. Bond,” the villain cackled. “There will be pop quizzes!”
“Kind of hard to take notes when you’re tied up,” Bond said, wiggling his fingers for emphasis.
“It’s not hard, unless if you’re a complete idiot. The purpose of this presentation is to explain the Evil Plan for World Domination ™ and to brainwash you into our cause.”
He clicked the prompter. “First Topic is, Why Build a Death Ray.”
“Why indeed,” Bond asked. “I much prefer Freeze Rays, myself.”
Doctor Ion turned purple. Bond sensed there were some unresolved issues about freeze rays plaguing the bad doctor’s psyche. “I take it back, Mr. Bond. There will be an exam, with an essay portion.”
“Oh, goodie.”
Bond had never been so weirded out in his life. This was so, so far beyond his brief. Normally his captors tried to physically torment him. Or mentally terrify him with the prospect of grisly things to come. Getting strapped into a torture chair made from an old dentist’s chair and some pointy, shiny bits and bobs that, on closer examination, may or may not have come from local hardware and craft stores, and then forced to watch a PowerPoint was a new and freaky experience. He really wasn’t sure what to do. No one was following their normal script.
Throughout the presentation, he was not only lectured, but presented with a series of slides and snide asides, such as:
“Is this necessary?” Bond asked.
“Context is everything!”
“But, memes? Really?”
“Where’s Q when you need him?” muttered Bond. He had no doubts that the boffin would thoroughly enjoy the presentation. That was a man who loved a good PowerPoint.
Bond pulled his attention back to the technobabble, a series of slides that contained graphs, schematics, and incomprehensible math and engineering concepts. If Bond’s head didn’t hurt from getting knocked out by Doctor Ion’s right-hand henchman, it did now.
“I studied Asiatic languages at uni and took the bare minimum of math required to graduate,” Bond interrupted. “This means nothing to me.”
The villainous doctor stopped mid-monologue and stared at him like Bond was an idiot.
“Fine.” He fast-clicked through the slides until the next section.
“Oh, now that’s neat,” Bond said. “I’ve been asking Q for something like that for years now. He keeps telling me no, because he doesn’t have room in his budget to make phasers.”
“They’re delightful little devices. Took a solid decade to work out the bugs,” Doctor Ion came closer, showing Bond a completed prototype. “But it was absolutely worth it.”
Bond felt a stab of envy. With one of those things, he could be a modern-day Han Solo. Or Captain Kirk. The possibilities would be endless, and he had to admit, it was a cool-looking device.
Doctor Ion lifted the ray gun and vaporized one of the henchmen.
“It was that or fire him,” Doctor Ion explained. “He microwaves fish in the breakroom every day. The stench might never completely evaporate. I practically have company stock in Febreze now.”
Bond nodded. “Understandable.”
“It used to have two settings, kill and vaporize,” the doctor said, showing Bond the control panel.
“Vaporize is more effective for crime scene cleanup.”
Doctor Ion made a finger gun at Bond. “My thoughts exactly. Now check this out—it’s my latest project.”
“I expect this is why you were sent here, Mr. Bond.”
Bond looked at the picture of the giant beam of destruction and nodded. “That’s a safe guess. A lot of people liked that Alpine ski resort. Myself included.”
“My apologies. It was unfortunate collateral. I heard it was beautiful.”
“They had excellent martinis,” said Bond. “And an ice-bar, with some of the most beautiful ice sculptures.”
“Alas. But they were sacrificed for the greater good.”
“Vaporizing Mr. Bigly?”
“It is lovely to be understood, Mr. Bond. It’s too bad you like Freeze Rays better.”
“No one’s perfect.”
“Least of all, this guy.” Doctor Ion clicked over to the last slide.
Bond squinted at the screen, memory working overtime until it came to him.
“Dooley Park? That was you? The poser in a parka?”
Doctor Ion flushed. “That was years ago! You watched his blog?”
“He had a lovely singing voice and the tunes were catchy. Terrible about Penny. In any case, I don’t think you’re over it if you’re still challenging him.”
“He never took me seriously. But I will prove once and for all that I am superior when my plan to hold the world hostage with a gigantic space death ray succeeds.”
“Oh,” Bond said, as though that explained everything. “I see. This is your last application to the League?”
Doctor Ion deflated. “Very last.”
Well, that certainly put everything into context, including the drafty old warehouse with the blacked-out windows and the converted dentist’s chair. A supervillain on a budget.
The contemplative silence started to get a little awkward. “So,” Bond said. “This has been a different experience. But I’ve got plans to decimate my boss on a golf course on Saturday morning, and I’d appreciate it if we moved this along.”
The villainous doctor blinked rapidly. Bond thought he might have gotten distracted. “Ah, yes,” Doctor Ion said. “Of course. This has rather dragged on.”
Thumping outside the warehouse, Bond heard military choppers arrive. Finally! The distress beacon that Q had made standard with every kit was a handy device. Usually, Bond just had to stall long enough for Q to scramble resources. At least this time, all he had to do was sit back and watch a mind-numbing PowerPoint. Admittedly, it wasn’t terrible. At least, it improved when he moved on from incomprehensible science and into a show and tell.
“Rats,” muttered the doctor. He whirled around dramatically and cackled. Bond rolled his eyes.
Doctor Ion powered up the large laser—death ray, Bond now understood it to be—and once more the humming echoed off the concrete walls and floors of the warehouse.
The laser sputtered and died.
The doctor swore at it, hit it with a wrench, and then swore some more. Huh. Must be an engineer thing. Bond was pretty sure he’d seen every Q he’d ever worked with do the exact same thing more than once, even and especially the cute boffin he had now. The laser crackled and grumbled but came back to life. The doctor tinkered a bit with the control panel.
“And now, Mr. Bond, I shall make my escape!”
“Naturally,” Bond said, drily. “So much for the exam.”
Doctor Ion ignored him. “Unless your companions can get to the laser and turn it off in time, you shall be lasered in half! Farewell Mr. Bond!”
Bond was securely strapped down to the chair, so he just waved a few fingers in a laconic goodbye as Doctor Ion and his henchmen repaired to the sewers.
“In here!” he yelled. The laser was making steady progress up the concrete, neatly cutting a deep groove in the floor. Bond struggled in the chair, but the damn thing was built to contain people who didn’t want to get root canals and thus was quite sturdy.
A team of black-fatigued commandos streamed into the warehouse. Behind them, Felix Leiter.
“A little help here?” Bond called.
The laser was almost to the chair. Felix trotted over, pushed the helpfully labeled Start/Stop button. The laser sputtered out between Bond’s ankles. Bond exhaled.
Felix looked around the warehouse, at the laser, and at Bond strapped into the nightmarish chair. “Honestly, James. Are you a magnet for crazy bastards or something?”
“It’s a valid theory,” Bond said. “Do you mind letting me loose?”
“Oh, sure.”
But first, Felix pulled out his phone and snapped a picture of the tableau of Bond and the death ray, grinning. His thumbs flew over the screen.
“Delete that, now,” Bond said.
“Too late. Already sent it.” The phone pinged. Felix looked at the screen. “Ah, the wifey says hello and that you look dashing as ever.” Another ping. “And I am to invite you to dinner sometime before you leave again.”
“Sounds lovely.”
The phone pinged a third time. “And your Q says cute pic, and that he wants the laser. Too bad. It’s on American soil, and possession is nine-tenths.”
Felix put the phone away and loosened the straps holding Bond down. Bond shook his hands and feet to get the feeling back in them and then hobbled on pins and needles to the escape hatch that Doctor Ion and his henchmen had used to escape.
“Aw, man. The sewers?” Felix crinkled his nose. “First of all, this is screwy city planning, and second, you take me to some of the nicest places, James.”
Bond climbed down into the sewer. If nothing else, he really, really wanted one of those ray guns. “Don’t ever say that I bore you, Felix. Round up your commandos already. We’ve got a madman to hunt before he starts vaporizing cites with a giant death ray.”
“…Death ray?”
“The PowerPoint will explain everything.”
“…PowerPoint?!”