Gecko Rules 6

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Before anyone goes and thinks Venus is back with me for any of the many good reasons I could imagine for someone I forced into a Slave Leia costume that time, she’s been a pain in my ass. Nagging me about stopping and turning myself over to the mercy of the world. Yeah, right. I’m the one who gets to flit about and see that mercy firsthand through various eyes. I’m pretty sure she’s planning something, too. I haven’t seen her use her phone recently, so I stole it and checked it to see who she’d been calling and texting.

I’m already obsessive and I’ve hit her before. Might as well do more stuff to make myself look like an abusive boyfriend, though we’re not dating. She insisted on that, even as she brought me takeout so I didn’t have to suck all my vitamins through an IV tube.

Despite me checking her phone, I found nothing there to help me. She figured out how to go in and delete the records of who she called and for how long, though she couldn’t hide that something had been deleted. I think there was a Sherlock Holmes story where that played a part. One of the things he presented as evidence was “the curious actions of the dog at night,” or something like that. When someone then mentioned that the dog didn’t do anything at night, Holmes said that was precisely the point. Same reason why a parent won’t get worried with kids in the house until it gets too quiet.

Somehow, I doubt siccing Spinetingler on me was the plan that required so many calls, but she tried that. She walked in one day, turned the lights off, said “Spinetingler, Spinetingler, Spinetingler,” three times, and flicked on a lighter to show me a mirror held in front of my face. I could make out the dark, malevolent presence of the supervillain capable of transforming people into horror-themed monsters and slashers. He looked good for a guy I’d injected with nanites following my Grey Goo protocol. There weren’t many beings that could easily survive a mass of nanites tearing them apart at the cellular level and using the materials to create more nanomachines dedicated to doing the same thing. It’s one of those potential dangers with the technology, alongside nanites being able to kill people if they malfunction or are suborned.

“Psycho Gecko,” he growled. He no doubt remembered the incident with the nanites, since it happened a little more than a year ago. He’d engulfed Empyreal City in some sort of Hellish pocket dimension and unleashed monsters. I fought him because I didn’t like the idea of myself or my friends dying or otherwise being trapped in said man-made Hell. Just because I’d be willing to try a xenomorph due to Giger’s paintings doesn’t mean my enjoyment of Bosch would lead me to visit a hell. Still, I remembered what drove him to do that to the city. He was looking for something. Someone.

“Hiya,” I told him, raising a hand to wave at him. “I’m guessing Venus thinks you and I’ll fight and she can capitalize on the confusion to undo my reign of benevolence-”

“Terror,” she interrupted.

“Reign of benevolent terror,” I continued. “But I don’t feel like that. If we fought, I might have to start killing people with nanites, maybe dissolving them so there’d be nothing left to bring back, and that gets messy. Especially if it’s anyone in Empyreal City. Of course, if I were to suddenly die, that kind of thing would kick in anyway, so it looks like there’s really no benefit for you in attacking me.”

Behind the mirror, I saw Venus’s face drop. I couldn’t tell Spinetingler’s expression with all the shadow and the glowing eyes. “Someday, you won’t have your hostages to hide behind. You know what you’ll get then?” His red, glowing eyes narrowed at the question.

I punched the mirror, breaking up the image and leaving nothing but a mirror behind. “Yeah, seven years bad luck.” To Venus I then added, “You disappoint me. On the one hand, I remember you being so much more of a threat to me. Then I remember how much time I spent making this happen, with all the opportunities I took advantage of and all the patience I showed, and I’m really glad you’re not able to foil me at the drop of a hat.”

She dropped the mirror and glared at me. Except then she wasn’t herself. I stood in the ruins of a building, a forcefield providing the backdrop of my field of vision. Bombs exploded, tracing a line of fire over the forcefield. In front of me stood a woman with pale pink hair with conflicted emotions on her face. I laughed. She punched me. Except, this time, it didn’t hurt and I wasn’t frozen like normal. I didn’t get more than a couple of punches in before I realized I wasn’t hitting the woman with the pink hair.

I rolled off her and looked around in spite of my armor’s 360 degree view. “I’m sorry,” I told her. It just slipped out. “Flashback. Wasn’t you.”

Venus grabbed the mirror and swung it down over my head. To her surprise, and probably later relief, I didn’t retaliate. I had to make sure the things happening to me were happening now instead of then. Normally, I don’t worry so much about the flashbacks, but now I’m in charge of billions of lives.

And then I had to struggle with why that mattered at all. I’d sooner kill them all in the past, and every day I have them in my head reinforces that it’s the only correct way to deal with them. Why did I even do that to myself? I wanted to be good, or to pretend I was? Much like the time I used a story I read on a transgender transformation fetish website to justify killing some people, it made sense at the time. That’s why a guy with a computer in his brain has trouble remembering things. It’s not that I can’t remember the events, but I can’t remember the feelings.

I roared and punched the floor, because I wasn’t done being an idiot for the day, then clawed at my ears briefly as I heard people around the world. People hating me, hating each other, wanting things, sad and despairing. For one-point-two seconds, everybody I controlled capable of it attacked anyone nearby. My act of frustration gave me a migraine and once again made me ask the million-dollar question: Why the hell did I do this?

Oh, right. Emotionally vulnerable, I thought of reacting to my archenemy’s numerous attempts to be a righteous hero by staying the villain she tried to redeem as a way to validate her existence out of my love for her and the type of hero she is. That’s easy to follow. That one makes sense. Then that damn lawyer I consigned to Davy Jones’s sweaty, jockstrap-loaded Locker asked me why I’d defend the whole world if I hated it so much. And my answer of “Because I like living,” was a good one, but I also thought about the fact that me living didn’t necessarily have to come with so few casualties among people I hate.

Rolling around on that floor, that’s what started me laughing. That shit right there is why villains shouldn’t have standards! People with principles, honest men, are too dangerous like that. They could do anything at all. Thankfully, I stopped laughing before I could suffocate or have a heart attack. I’d have kept on going if I hadn’t become puzzled by figuring out what the hell my principles were.

As enlightening as the whole thing was, it allowed my dear Venus to run off again. Sadly, she might think I’m holding some grudge against her. It was nice having someone to confide in while it lasted.

That’s not to say that the only thing I did recently was prove my superiority to people and do more boring introspection. There’s been plenty of that, though I’m proud of the fact that I’ve jumped to the top of the power charts due to my machinations. Doctor Doom would be proud, if it was possible to pry any pride for other people out of that self-loving tinpot dictator. Maybe with a can opener? Extra points if someone aims for the ass.

I enacted a few more plans of vile wish-fulfillment, like releasing the contents of college textbooks online for anyone to see, forcing Donald Trump to go without his hairpiece in public, and forcing the Queen of England to wear a dark cloak and act out the scene where he meets Luke Skywalker after the young Jedi’s been captured by Darth Vader. Hopefully they have that movie in y’all’s universe. The guy with the funny ears, Prince Charles made an adequate Vader, but Prince Harry did an excellent job as Luke. They even used authentic antique swords to duel with. I couldn’t manage the lightning thing very well on short notice, so I had Queen Elizabeth shuffle around on some old time rugs in socks and shock the guy a bunch of times before Charles picked her up and chokeslammed her. Sadly, the Royal Family didn’t have any convenient bottomless pits laying around. Smart idea for a ruler, actually. No damn reason for those to be in a throne room. Horrible draft. Then Luke covered her for the pin, as counted by the Prime Minister. Roll credits.

Boom, post-credits teaser for the next movie. I’m thinking Jaws as performed by Australia’s Harold Holt. Maybe work in the other English Prince somehow, since none of his mom’s dresses fit for him to play Leia.

Also, about that time, I gave a bunch of monkeys automatic rifles, trained them to ride ostriches, and set them loose on Westboro Baptist Church. If not for me trying to move the planet away from capitalism, that little snuff film would be the next big hit in movie theaters.

Yep, enforcing my unique brand of justice on Earth got all the more sweet after my little mental revelation. I recreated the Running of the Bulls through the Vatican with cardinals. I made the top brass of the South Korean company NCSoft shove their heads up each other’s asses like the world’s longest human centipede. The population of Yemen broke out into a spontaneous, full-scale dance number to the tune of “Too Sexy For My Shirt.” Inspired by that, I ordered everyone on the planet do The Wave. When I found anyone refusing, I gathered them up and brought them to The Hague so I could force them to wrestle a gorilla in a kiddie pool full of pistachio pudding.

Now, around this time, some news stations were beginning to assert that I had perhaps become mad with power, which is ridiculous. I was mad already. The power just made it easier to make people do things.

And so I laughed and laughed, having my way with the world, until it came to my attention through my link to some astronomers that something approached Earth. It entered the solar system quickly, then slowed down around Jupiter. At my request, they checked the type of ship, and found it to be entirely different from our recent Fluidic invaders but still known to the good people of Earth.

Well, well, well. I’ve got so many of the other most powerful beings on Earth standing down out of fear, I wondered if I’d seen this one coming. The alien conqueror himself, Cercopagis Lysis. Not as much of a threat to the entire world as the Fluidics, since they had the forces for it and he’s just one being, but he is individually powerful beyond my usual ability to kill. On top of that, he has few, if any, meaningful connections to Earth, so I can’t scare him off with my billions of hostages or bluff him with my fictional deadman switch.

Here he is showing up, no doubt to conquer Earth, with my standing in his way whenever he shows up. I have no way to beat him, and pretty much everyone on the planet would prefer if I lost and he won.

Altogether, it brought a twisted little smile to my face as I thought, “This is going to be fun.” Then, to my minions in the more industrialized zones, I spoke right into their ears so they knew my will, “Who does a guy have to kill to get a giant robot around here?”

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Gecko Rules 5

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“If reasonably possible, try to take resistors alive. If they act more like mindless zombies, don’t bother. We could restore their brains, but that’s just the hardware. The software would be gone. And if they’re aliens, kill them. Unless they offer a surrender,” I informed the men in my Australian expedition via Electric Eye Sydney. They didn’t look too happy to be working for me, and it didn’t help that this Electric Eye wore a dark cloak and black leather clothing to hide its appearance.

Elsewhere, a voice asked, “Talking to yourself?” My actual physical head swiveled toward the source of the voice. Someone was actually there in my “throne room” back in The Hague in the Neither World. My eyes found Venus, my longtime archenemy. She’d escaped awhile back, and apparently traded in her Slave Leia costume for something more practical. I ignored her while my mind concentrated on the task of dealing with the situation in Australia.

“We know Technolutionary is using the Sydney Opera House as a forward base. It’s a supervillain thing.” It really is. I wrecked the Statue of Liberty once, and destroyed the Empyre State Building in Empyreal City. It’s about showing off. Rarely does a supervillain gain infamy from blowing up Alberto’s Taco Cart or burning down a Burrito Bell. Depending on the frequency of dysentery in a population, the latter might even make them a hero.

“It doesn’t matter to him if anyone volunteers for any of his experiments. Some of the locals claim that anyone who does volunteer, he turns into the same species of human as Pyscho Gecko. Those who don’t gain a new outlook on life. A computer-in-the-brain outlook on life. Simmons, what are the Fluidics doing?”

Back in the Hague, my translation program worked to solve the problem of military jargon and give me a basic understanding of what the man said. Roughly speaking, there are between a dozen and two dozen aliens in Sydney attacking cell towers, radio towers, satellite uplinks, and anything else that extends my control over the population there. They are scavenging parts and equipment as well. We couldn’t get close enough to see what. On top of that, they’re fighting Technolutionary. They launch attacks every now and then, especially whenever Technolutionary sends a convoy of human-bots off into the wilderness of the Australian interior. If I had to guess, they weren’t onboard with Technolutionary’s little rebellion. It might even be why the shield wasn’t operating at full capacity, though there were too many other factors to tell for sure.

The original briefing involved significantly more acronyms.

“Yes, we’ll try to avoid taking on the aliens. Remember: the enemy of my enemy is my enemy’s enemy. Don’t get me started on enemies who like to keep sea life as pets, because that’s my enemy’s anemones and signficantly more complicated,” I warned them, in part because “enemy’s anemones” is really fun to say. “I suspect following a convoy would lead us to the ship. I won’t tell you the best way to do your jobs, since y’all have your own way of kicking ass and taking names. The Recon Marines have secured transportation, so they’re task is to find the enemy ship, infiltrate it, and damage to the point of failure anything that looks like one of these drawings.”

Electric Eye passed around some drawings I worked hard on, in the sense that I had the robot connect to a printer and create them based on what I managed to pull off the ship I’d commandeered that time, and the shuttle I crashed back to Earth on. They presented the soliders with depictions of the ship’s reactor and capacitor, power transfer nodes and a few important backup fuses, and the shield system itself. Any one set of targets and redundancies should incapacitate the shield.

The marines left, a pretty good bunch. While some would disparage the brains of men and women in the armed forces, recon marines have to be especially tough and bright for their job. Typically, they leave the officers behind and head into hostile territory in smaller groups, to infiltrate, sabotage, and neutralize. A hands-off mission to sneak in and blow shit up is right up their alley. So off they went to slay a dragon and win a fancy-ass sabre while I nailed the kidnapped princess.

“Don’t you ever turn on a light in here?” Venus asked again from where I sat. I preferred the darkness there, actually.

I broke away from Electric Eye to address her. “I’m surprised you came back, but I’m busy.”

“You were busy the other day, too,” she said. Then I remembered her comment on me talking to myself hadn’t been the same day.

“You could say I’ve been distant. Mind elsewhere.” I looked down at her as she approached. Instead of looking directly at me or even sizing up my armor, she focused on the IVs pumping needed nutrients into my body.

She read one of the bags. “What are you doing?”

“Eating takes up time. There are too many problems. One moment, there’s a riot starting in Texas.” I concentrated a moment, going elsewhere. “It’s over with. One riot, no rangers.”

“Step down, please. This is going to end badly for you when it ends. Why is it so important for you to kill yourself?” she asked.

“Killing myself, secondary concern. You got what you wanted. I am putting my talents to better use, helping people. One phone-recorded mass rape in India stopped. Mass transit groping in Japan detected. Terminating. I appear to be one of the few thinking with the correct head on this planet. I- oh come on, you Pakistani bastard, it’s a fucking chicken!”

She turned on a light. “At least something’s ending the robot speak of yours. You can’t control the world. It isn’t right. Someone will kill you. It’s the only way anyone can put up with you now.”

“Didn’t I tell you, under the influence of truth potion, that I was distracting myself before? This is me without distractions. One moment, someone in Kenya is wearing a leisure suit. There, another injustice fixed. This is the greatest good I can do for the world. This is the only way I can protect it.”

“The only way you’ll protect it without admitting you are wrong.”

Keeping track of her peripherally, my eye flitted all over the place as I saw things that weren’t there in the room with me, checking up on the world and keeping a portion of my attention fixed in the fuzzy image of Australia. “What are you trying to solve by talking to me here? This is useless and will not end the threat you perceive of me. Besides, it is within the right and potential responsibility of those gifted above their fellow man to guide the rest, as !Chinin said. Sorry, as one of the Founders of the United States said, too. I can look it up later, but this is why I prefer references your world can understand. Either way, the reasoning to the superiority of representative government over pure democracy is sound.”

Venus slapped me across the helmet. “This isn’t what I wanted from you. This isn’t being a hero!”

“I’m sorry if I defied your expectations, my dear Venus. I am not maintaining a status quo I do not believe in. I am helping billions instead of dozens. I just put out a fire in Irkutsk. I just reticulated a number of splines in Macedonia. Someone attempted and failed to rob a bank in Lima. I-…I wish I could sleep. There are too many problems. I am everywhere. Every cry for help I ever imagined, I now hear. I can’t stop them all. I can’t save them all. I can’t even punish them all. At least I’m trying. How dare you, Venus? How dare you hate me! How dare any of you?! Not one of you ‘heroes’ has even tried.”

Venus folded her arms. “Yes, some of us have. Remember Sexahol? You thought that was wrong, too.”

I remembered. An intoxicant hit the streets. Anyone who took it experienced affection and lust. It all turned out to be a plot by an old, retired hero to fix the world. His name was Breakdown. I resented being drugged and used my armor’s life support and filtering to stay sober. I also resented him trying to make a deal with me by offering me various Sexahol-drugged women, including Venus and Leah, a runaway that I went on to mentor briefly.

“You are seeing why we can’t. Even you can’t save everyone, and you’ve done something no one ever has before. No one wants to move forward with all these things you want to do, and I bet they move slowly in spite of your threats. We had to be drugged to be nice and loving to each other. It made us something we aren’t. You haven’t quite done that yet, but it would be the only way to accomplish what you want, and you don’t like it,” she went on, making a good case. She hadn’t yet gotten used to the fact that she herself was no longer human, it seemed. Thank Technolutionary for that one.

“I hate you so much sometimes, Venus. You’re like the little conscience I never had. I’m trying, ok? Not even that’s good enough for you, I guess. Now, I have to deal with aliens and Technolutionary in Australia.”

She looked disappointed, but told me, “Kick his ass.”

I hate her and love her so much. I sure did pick a good archnemesis.

Over the next few days, the SEALs and Eye struck against Technolutinary. Between the Australian military, the Fluidic aliens, and my guys, he could no longer risk convoys or even hunting parties to obtain more human-bot bodies. It didn’t help him any that the Aussies were evacuating their people as much as possible now they had a clearer understanding of what Technolutionary did to people.

Taking out the other supervillain didn’t even matter so much to me. The primary goal of the expedition was the shield. Once it fell, I’d have a world’s worth of military might to rain down on him. Under siege, Technolutionary could no longer reinforce the ship.

Finally, Eye received an acknowledgment from the marines that they found the ship and were going in. Technolutionary must have had some sort of communication with his minions there as well, because he made a push with all his forces, heading in that direction.

Well, as many of his forces as he could. The humans helping him seemed to peel off and stop in the face of the firepower arrayed against them, having neither the loyalty of the human-bots, nor the flying power armor of Technolutionary himself. Eye saw his form-fitting purple armor fly off, emotionless metal face hiding any panic in his real one.

But Electric Eye had rockets. Eye flew and caught up to Technolutionary, timing it so Eye’d catch him just past the edge of the city. He turned and unleashed a cloud of micro missiles. Eye threw off my cloak, letting them suffer premature detonation as the robot closed the distance. He seemed surprised when Eye reached into the top of my back-mounted aquarium, pulled out an octopus with a bit of blue on it, and tosses it at him. Unfortunately, it hadn’t kept very well. Neither did those really bitey clams. Even worse, there had simply been no way to bring in a shark.

Still, it distracted him enough for me to get close. He could blast those animals all he wanted, so long as it let me close enough to whip out my Koala-chuks. The critters were ornery and more than happy to claw away at the armored man Eye swung them at. Then again, most animals would have that response if they had a stick of wood shoved up their ass with a chain attaching it to another of stick of wood shoved in another koala’s ass.

“Who are you?” he asked, bringing his palms together to fire a burst of white-hot plasma at me that Eye effortlessly deflected with a now-sizzling marsupial. He maneuvered backward, firing to suppress me and keep his distance.

A distorted voice answered, singing. “I’m made of metal! My circuits gleam! I am perpetual, I keep the country clean! I’m electric, Electric Eye. I’m protecting, electric spy.”

With that, Eye switched the Koala-Chuks to my left arm. I fired the rocket on that arm, which disconnected and flew at him, koala’s spinning. While he shot at it, Eye fired my right arm on a course for the other villain’s metal codpiece. Ding, ding, ding! It’s not the sound of game show victory so much as repeated armored groin punches.

Technolutionary punched something into a control panel on his left wrist, then slashed at the groin punching arm. A glowing beam sword erupted just in front of his left hand and cut through the rocket. He swung it up to disarm the other hand of its koalas, leaving one to scream for help as it plummeted back to earth.

Seeing that, Eye fired the legs next. They circled him for a few seconds. Then he jerked around, remembering the ship. His armor carried him off, with Electric Eye following. The robot tried to throw him off while avoiding the blade, doing little more than banging its foot uselessly against an ass ensconced in purple armor. Eye even managed a good headbutt at one point, which I like to think justified the decision to add a robotic butt to this Electric Eye robot.

Before long, Eye saw the ship in the distance. But before either of us could reach it, the transparent shield rippled and faded away. I felt whole again. And angry. And like a man who suddenly controlled a lot of aircraft, anti-air missiles, and drones. Electric Eye stopped and let him continue his useless pursuit of the ship. The missiles launched by those lovely American aircraft under my command convinced him to do the same as he dove into the wilderness avoid them. We lost track of him, last heading so far west, he’s probably at the Hutt River. Well, he’s Jabba’s problem now, and if he ever resurfaces, he’ll be in deep Bantha poodoo.

A helicopter helped get the recon marines out of the area before another set of missiles made sure Technolutionary wouldn’t have any more alien ships or forcefields to cause trouble with.

As for the aliens, if they hadn’t surrendered, I’d have housed them in a smoking crater. The fact that they did…well, I could say that I listened to my conscience, annoying as she is, and let someone live. Or I could focus on preparing this new statement I’ll release in a few days about how, thanks to the treasonous efforts of a resistance leader named Technolutionary, the evil, genocidal, mind controlling Fluidics managed to escape in a pair of shuttles, no doubt to gather reinforcements. If I keep this up, I’ll have people practically salivating to follow my lead every time I ring a bell and claim “Aliens want to attack us for our freedoms!”

Just think, some critics actually claim I can’t control what people think.

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Gecko Rules 4

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Well, The Empire of Gecko is unofficially at war with Australia. I say unofficially, because there’s this whole technical definition thing at work where a country can only be at war with another country. Technically, I’m putting down a rebellion, which is hard for me to admit. With an accent like that, it’s difficult to claim the Australians are revolting.

And it isn’t really their fault. That alien ship that hid in the Australian outback turned out to contain Technolutionary, the mad genius who allied with the aliens. He had something of an obsession with me. While it’s true that I am clearly a superior lifeform to the humans of earth, he had this idea that he could study my organs and tissues and such to turn regular homo sapiens into homo machina like me. This was one of those obsessions like “We could be so great together! I broke into your room and left you a model replica of you compiled out of your discarded boogers because I love you!” He’s not a mentally stable guy.

On top of that, went phenotypically female for awhile there and he felt that was even more evidence that he and I were soulmates. Which is ridiculous. Clearly, Wildbow-senpai is my soulmate. I’m just kidding. He probably barely even thinks of me.

Anyway, I caved to some of Technolutionary’s demands in light of the oncoming alien invasion and we figured out a way to transform humans into a superior form. He was supposed to get on that more, but then broke away to join with the aliens and started turning the humans they captured into people like me. On the plus side, his stalker-esque love for me led to him dealing with the aliens to try and give me amnesty too. I took it long enough to get out of Empyreal City, then figured out a way I actually could stop the aliens and gave neutrality the finger.

I know a bit of a recap, but not everyone has such a fine memory as me. I have a mind like a…uh…thingy that holds stuff really well. Like a hooker with boobs, a dick, a high-tech sledgehammer, and a suit of metal power armor, maybe. I dunno, it’ll come to me. The phrase, I mean, though his experiments mean there could very well be hookers in power armor flying around somewhere. Hell, he even turned Venus into a homo machina like myself.

So he’s in Australia, stirring up trouble. He activated his ship’s forcefield in such a way that it surrounds the continent. It’s not perfect, though. Probably damaged, or maybe he wants people to actually live. But he turned on a forcefield that made it fuzzier for me to connect to Elecric Eye Sydney and any of my nanite-infected potential minions down there.

Then, he declared to the people of Australia that he was Technolutonary and he was there to save them from the evil Psycho Gecko. I heard that through Electric Eye, concentrated on staying connected to me at the expense of keeping track of people I could control.

Technolutionary even had a way to undo exposure to the nanites, which he sorta does. I can control nanites by touch because of my species’s unique natural abilities. Any of them converted to the same species could, too, though he’s more likely to scoop out their brains and replace them with CPUs programmed to do his bidding. He always preferred his human-bots to homo machina.

None of that announcement got out to the outside world, which still whined and moaned at me like a Young Earth Creationist reading a science textbook. So I was like “Fuck it.” They keep wanting to resist. Hardly anybody picked a leader for their zones, and a few smartasses tried to get together and elect the same representative for multiple zones. For those fuckers, I liquidated the would-be leader. I know, it sounds harsh, but if they’d only let them control one zone, the others nearby might have picked someone who’d be subordinate to them as another loophole.

Some of my picks weren’t entirely random, either. Ouroroboros of Paradise City already had experience leading things. I don’t trust him, but my stranglehold on Earth means I don’t have to trust anybody. I just have to be able to kill them or a few million of their best friends. Plus, many criminal leaders would be at least somewhat amenable to my way of doing things as it could afford them even more power in the new system. That’s one reason why I went with some of them. That, and they would be excellent at putting down anybody rebelling against me and, by happy new coincidence, them.

Over on the West Coast of North America, I went with Victor Mender, the head of Master Academy. That whole “killing people if you disobey me” thing is even more effective on good guys like him, which is part of the reason why I liked picking leaders who had a conscience. They’re more common than most would think. Good, respected leaders like that might be held hostage by the nanites in their own body, but they’d definitely think twice before crossing someone who would kill half their zone. And folks being respectful of their leadership would be less likely to rebel against it or me.

I rushed through the process of picking people in part so I could reveal what happened to Australia to them and the rest of the world.

“My fellow Earthicans, we have a grave danger at our doorstep. The threat that I initially saved the world from has not been completely vanquished. That’s right, in the time when some thought me dead, the world’s leaders ignored at least one alien vessel that hid on Terra Firma. My protectiveness for this planet in the face of so much is part of the reason I took the reins of power from the incompetent. I may be a fearsome leader to many of you, but I am your fearsome leader! Like a mama bear tearing a head off aliens coming to anally probe my cubs, I vow to keep Earth safe from this alien threat and any others! Yes, others, because I’m afraid your former leaders have allowed the ship to send off a transmission that is bringing reinforcements. I now urge all of you to look to your representatives and myself. Help us to keep you safe. Help us to keep Earth strong. Help us to show these xeno scum that we will not abide our conquest by them and their slimy tentacles. All hail Earth!”

I really wanted to add an “All hail Emperor Gecko!” to that, but I was pushing my luck as is. I think the announcement went well for the most part. I probably lost the Japanese at fighting against alien tentacles, but I’m sure I can figure out some way to continue compelling their loyalty. Oh, that’s right, the ability to kill almost everyone in their country. That oughta do it.

The transmission bit was total bullshit, too. I just got tired of trying to be the nicest fellow around with ruling them. I took a shortcut, and one of the easiest ways to unite a people is by invoking an external threat. The English had the French, the French had the English, Greece had Persia, China had everyone whose ancestors hadn’t boned the Yellow Emperor, and the Slavs had all the people who enslaved their women. But, come on, have you seen Slavic women? The only reason nobody’s enslaving them nowadays is because it’s easier to pay to look at them naked online. See a spicy latina online? They’ll call her Marta, but you’ll find out her real name is something like Zdenka Malkova.

But enough about porn. This is the internet, not a place for porn. I lied about the transmission because if they feel threatened, they’ll be more likely to stick with my leadership, no matter how bad it is. It happens all the time, and it’s much better I do it this way rather than try to consolidate my rule by going apeshit on people of a different color or religion. Although, technically speaking, most aliens are a different skin color and believe in different religions. Eh, it’ll all work out, I’m sure.

That little announcement sure sent various news sources buzzing. Good. Many of them had chosen to stick with their chosen profession even though I’m trying to still get rid of currency, so it’s nice to see the ones that stuck with it aren’t just assholes. I don’t know, maybe I’ll scrap the idea of a post-currency for now and work on easing my way there. I’ll have to design proper money though. Get a picture of my face to go on the front, and one of my ass to go on the back. If they think that’s bad, wait until I do the same for stamps.

The fact of Australia being cut off from the rest of the world only helped my case. Yep, with my fledgling economy going through such major upheavals, nothing distracts quite like a war, but that also put it on me to muster some forces and prove my worth. Luckily, I had the U.S. Navy.

I know, all this seems focused on the West and U.S.-centric, but this is one where anyone doing their homework will know what I’m talking about. The United States Navy is like the Mastercard of Navy’s: it’s everywhere you want to be. Most European countries’ navies are smaller and restricted to their particular area of interest. The United Kingdom and Canada don’t have to bother too much because the Yankees have their back if any military problem breaks out. Russia doesn’t have much coastline for its size, though I’ll definitely call them if we ever get invaded by icebergs. And countries like China and India are just emerging as industrial and technological powers. They’re getting there, but they aren’t there yet. Unlike armies, navies require a lot of technical expertise and logistics.

So the damn Yanks simply had the best navy for me to begin bombarding the crap out of this forcefield. The barrier let light through enough to see everything, but did an excellent job of preventing missiles and shells from penetrating. But if anything could break through Australian protection, it’s American seamen. At my request, they chummed the waters a bit. Spread powerful shortwave radio beacons into the water for sharks and other underwater critters to munch on, then herded them toward the barrier. Upon confirmation that the chicken of the sea could slip their peckers through, they began to bombard the barrier again, with the intention of drawing attention away from the approach of SEALs and Marines.

They were met by Electric Eye Sydney, who relocated to help secure their landing zone, scout for staging areas, and otherwise help them to infiltrate the country.

So that’s what y’all have to look forward to from me next time. Over the next few days, my seamen are going down under and deep outback.

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Gecko Rules 3

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Things aren’t going so well. Enough beating around that bush, right? I’m sure I inspired a lot of confidence in my dear readers last time with all my talk of the economy and so on. I even figured out another way to better motivate my naked religious dancers in the Middle East: threaten to kill the worst-performers. I think it’s bringing people together.

But that’s not all that’s going on. Let’s start with the nightmares. Everyone gets them, even me. Ya know, a handful of times a month, more often in certain conditions. Stuff that reminds me of now and back in the old world. Like this one I had, I was leading an army of zombies, but then they all turned on me, except they had superpowers and I couldn’t stop them all, even with the motorcycle I had in the dream. It had a chrome battering ram built in to the front instead of a light, and the head of the ram was a hand giving the middle finger.

Now, normally this kind of thing isn’t so much of a problem, even with the increased frequency, but the method of maintaining my power complicates things. It’s not just me waking up punching. Plus, it’s way more confusing when you actually wake up in someone else’s body and have to remember to get back to your own. Or waking up as multiple people. Which can be dangerous for other people in bed with that person. I swear, some people shouldn’t be seen naked. And sometimes I’m those people.

For those times when I’m not, my imagination is tempted to run wild like Hulkamania did back before Hogan got caught on tape being racist in bed with another man’s wife. Sadly, I’m a lot less fun right now. It’s one of the reasons why I resent Venus even as I force her into boobtastic outfits and chain her up close to me. When I have to concentrate, I can be as perfectly warped as any normal person, regular people often being inherently circumspect in desires.

Regular folks will say “I swear I’m going to be rich someday” or “It’s a sure-thing investment!” or “I pray God will bless me financially,” but think it’s absolutely crazy if someone goes, “I hope I get lucky and become rich somehow.” It’s all in how you word things to them, which is a bit upsetting to the mentally ill. They probably don’t like their problems compared to people who speak their mind or to folks like myself, which the regular folks would know if they hadn’t decided to clamp car batteries to crazy patients’ nipples and call it therapy.

In that way, I’m disappointed to see that people don’t know a good thing when it takes over the world. I’d probably try to rub the point in Venus’s face just because I can, but she ran off. Yep. Woke up and the chain was cut through. Where does she hide those wonderful toys? Eh, I can think of a couple of spots where a woman can hide things of variable size, especially if they’re in some sort of elongated shape.

And people keep resisting. I get that some folks feel you can’t force people to change, and they think that progress just means bad shit happens faster, but I’ve seen otherwise. I could spout off some conquerors and empires from my world, but I understand that one to be quite a bit different from this one. And anywhere this little blog of mine goes, it’s probably to a nearby universe with a great deal of similarity up to a certain point. Plus, I’ve become a fan of my adoptive home. Don’t tell anyone.

So, sure, you can’t force people to change their beliefs, unless it’s Hellenism. You can’t mandate fairness, Hammurabi. You cannot radically change the future of the world with nothing but a tiny bit of conquest, Mongol Khans. Traditional destructive religious practices can’t be forever ended, even by someone as bad as Spanish Conquistadors.

And so I am opposed. In Japan, they put down last year’s insect-based monsters who wished to take over, but now they’ve got another batch popping up who want to destroy everything. Something about being the Oni of Discordant Melodies or something. I saw one the other day, through the eyes of someone over there. The monsters look like musical instruments, except for the minions. They thin, either all white or all black, and have limbs that look like they’re made of lots of wires in the shape of arms and legs. They’ve already got someone opposing them, the Ongaku Rangers, but I have to support them to make sure. Anyone whose goal is the utter destruction of all other life on earth is stupid, but they only have to succeed once. Ya know, because then everyone will be dead. That’s a tough one to come back from, barring time travel. And that’s awkward, because then you might just be going to an alternate reality, full of copies of the real people you saw die. And I’d like to say that’s none of my business, but as the King of Earth, my duty is as clear as my need to dress up as Elvis for Halloween.

See the sacrifices I’ve made? People question whether or not I’m just some madman who wants to control everything, but I’m willing to help out a group of Rangers. It actually makes me feel a little disgusting, like right down around my balls. Still, they ought to be grateful for that artillery strike. That shamisen didn’t fuck around when it came to stringing them up.

Other bad guys have also tried to be a problem, but most of them tried to get their hands on the nanites, too. Hephaestus/Faustus used them to bring some villains back from the dead back when they were sending others of the superpowered criminal persuasion after me, so some very jealous folks have been exposed. Plenty of others just wanted the protection and security of pumping tiny machines they don’t understand into their bodies. Eh, I shouldn’t sound so smug about that, or people will confuse me for an anti-vaxxer.

But there’s always some people. Someone tried to mail me a toy bomb. As soon as I figure out who it was, and I have one or two ideas, then I’m going to break some bones and have them sealed inside a hippopotamus sex doll. Then, while they’re getting some, I’m going to fuck their spouse. Or their mother if they aren’t married. Or their kid. Hopefully a teen or adult kid, too, or this is going to get some people other than me in a hell of a lot of trouble.

This is all starting to sound a little dark and dramatic. Let me start over.

Things are going great. I received a very respectful diplomat from The Claw today, who insisted on giving me lots of stuff I might like, including my very own giant lobster in a tank. I’d heard those things exist, but nobody in the rest of the world ever found proof outside of unusually big claws inside the stomachs of scarred sperm whales. I have decided to call him Huggy. The ambassador, who wore a more regal, robed version of the Claw minion outfit, asked to please speak with his master and consider the use of his knowledge and experience for my administrative needs. Angling to be put in control of more than just his own country, I reckon. Fishing for favoritism, you might say. I’ll consider it. I like Huggy. He reminds me I need to bring Moai over.

I also spent awhile dealing with some wannabe-separatists. North Korea, for example. I have a bit of a grudge with the Kim family, and that didn’t help things. They claimed to have a nuke and said that if they weren’t given better position, I’d face the wrath of mighty missile!

Electric Eye Seoul strolled right past the DMZ, indulging in the time-honored tradition of blasting subversive music for all the North Koreans to enjoy. The Northerners hate that part. I started with “Dance Magic,” when crossing the border, but by the time I dragged little Kim out of his private roller coaster in Pyongyang, I’d gotten all the way to “Party in the CIA” in my North Korean Invasion Playlist. It didn’t even matter that Electric Eye Seoul had less violent adaptations to his environment. It had four arms for better competitive esports, which I justified by giving it different weapons. A laser here, a napalm squirter there, a cylindrical mass of rotating sawblades, and a high-velocity ice cream launcher. Why settle for a freeze ray when I can soft-serve some vengeance?

All of that, unnecessary. High command didn’t do anything, in part because the leaders of the country made sure they had all the best medical care. Their underlings were almost entirely out of my control, but the rule of fear had done such wonderful things to their initiative. They would give their lives out of fear for what the Kim family would do to them if they didn’t obey, but they weren’t about to do something that, for all they knew, would be the opposite of what their ruler wanted.

I’m sure there’s a lesson in mistreating the people responsible for your success somewhere there, but hell if I know. I’m just the guy who stripped down Kim Jong-un to his underwear, made him dance like a ballerina in front of North Korean television, then killed him via ice cream hypothermia.

I don’t know where the ice cream gun has been my entire life. I’d say my dreams, but that night is when I had one where a hero turned on me, beat me up, broke my armor, and tossed me off to some foreign country where I couldn’t speak the language or understand any of the customs. I don’t remember if she looked like Leah or Venus, but it got weird when she had my old friend Good Doctor’s face for awhile. He doesn’t make a pretty woman.

Now, hopefully all this national boundaries shit will go away once people have to divide up along different lines.

Ah, but I’m forgetting about the Quebec people. The bane of Canada for so long, only for me to inherit the problem. They blew up a tv station as a way to stick it to the man. I love sticking it to men as much as the next bisexual person, but this time the man is me. And I do not look like the sort of person I would stick it to. So now I’ve got the Electric Eye from Los Angeles up there in Montreal, cyclopean eye laser read to carve through my enemies.

Unfortunately, they’re not rushing out to fight, and it’s a little difficult to burn down the frozen north until they’re forced out of hiding. On top of that, I’ll bet I’ve got plenty of similar groups who decided that separatist causes are still all the rage. I’ll have to watch out for the Irish, Basques, and the entire Middle East.

No, that wouldn’t do, so I contacted the great factories of India, Japan, and China, and put together a plan. Little flying drones with the ability to carry quite a bit of weight. When some elderly ex-IRA took out a cell phone tower with the non-alcoholic version of an Irish Car Bomb, these little clamp-happy robots swarmed in from where they’d been waiting. It wasn’t that hard to find them. What were they going to do, bomb a police station or church to get to me?

Well, they dug their dirty paws into my personal cereal box for the first and last time! What did they win? A visit to Canada, where they’ll no doubt get along well with people of similar goals as themselves. Or would have, if the Quebec separatists hadn’t assumed I was bringing in my own private army and ambushed them.

I like it when two problems take care of themselves all at once. It made me so happy, I ordered my North Korean army to dance for joy. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Might have to have them practice with the Jerusalem folks. I know this one Sunni cleric who is always trying to be the odd man out, which sometimes happens. After all, it takes two to naked tango.

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Gecko Rules 2

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Too many fucking people. I think I’m pretty much living with a headache now, but it’s necessary. I’m stopping them, and by them I mean several of the other assholes around the world. What world leader didn’t get the nanites? I sure as shit got the North Koreans to play ball easily. China, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, and on and on.

It’s widely believed that mind control, or body control to be more accurate, is wrong. You shouldn’t control another person because it’s wrong. For some reason. I guess they assume too much that it’s a matter of taking a good person’s autonomy away. And then they apply a bit of politically expedient cultural relativism. Sure, every time someone else interferes in the Middle East, it inevitably causes more problems. Except I control the people who would make the problems. Not just the leaders, the clerics, but the people. I didn’t drop bombs, I showered nanites.

Then again, why bother defending myself on that? I’m not a hero. I’m the bad guy, and I happen to be making the world a better place because I’m crossing boundaries that the good guys never would. If I wanted to, I could have the religious council in charge of Iran lining up to blow the Israeli prime minister, or vice versa. Instead, I’m just making them stop with the bombs. And having them dismantle all the nuclear weapons they already have, but that’s entirely incidental and in no way limited to the Middle East.

Officially, it’s a policy of beating swords into plowshares. Unofficially, nuclear bombs can have a devastating electromagnetic affect on a wide area if detonated in the upper atmosphere, something that this entire Earth could figure out with just a couple seconds on Wikipedia.

On top of that, I have asserted my will in other ways that have a dual meaning. For example, the internet. It’s a necessity for most people anyway, and a nice thing to have for those who don’t use it, so who doesn’t love the idea of a massive public works project to spread worldwide internet coverage? Plus, it widens my area of control. There have been a few problems as far as motivating workers there, especially since I’ve been doing my best to stay away from the prior stick-heavy system. “Don’t want to work, eh? Well I’ll just withhold the way you obtain food, medicine, and shelter for your family!”

Oddly enough, giving people food, shelter, and medicine makes some of them less motivated. On the plus side, at least it gave me an opportunity to trim some fat and get rid of the lazy ones like that. The grateful ones and the ones who actually like the work still do it. And I have a plan to get some of the lazy ones involved again: education.

It’s not easy. I’m trying to get rid of currency, after all, and it’s a system people are used to. It’s the system they’re used to as far as distribution of goods and services. Some of the food won’t be a problem there, since people are sometimes paid to destroy crops so the market price of food doesn’t dip too low to make a living off selling the food. In other words, there’s lots of some of it.

Then there’s the whole mess trying to get things repaired. Shit still whack, and I’m trying to motivate without breaking out the whips and firing squads.

In the words of Rodney Dangerfield, I feel like I just gave birth…to an accountant!

But seriously, there’s a reason why post-capitalist societies are supposed to evolve naturally rather than being forced into it all of a sudden. Advancements in technology and industry are necessary. Like how robotics and computers cut down on the work load until people don’t need to work so much. At least I wasn’t crazy enough to try in rural areas that are almost entirely agricultural, like some idiots did in the past.

And I’m sick of hearing about Marx already, as if nobody else had any economic imagination! The guy wasn’t even the only type of communist, and his stuff on history was atrocious.

Suffice it to say, if there was any communist I felt like taking cues from at the whole mess I foresee, it’s Stalin. I just can’t decide if it’s the bit where he purged the country, military included, or months later when the Nazis invaded and he holed up in his room with several bottles of vodka for a few days.

But it’s ok. I can control this. I just have to maintain enough control that various argumentative elements learn they can’t resist. When they stop, I can relax and progress will move quicker. It’s still early is all. They’ll thank me when things are better.

Hell, who am I kidding? I could create a literal heaven on Earth and people will still bitch.

Just like these bastards protesting me. There are groups everywhere. Outside capital buildings, presidential palaces, and Prime Minister residences. On the plus side, as far as unity is concerned, the ones in Jerusalem have truly brought people together. Muslims, Jews, and Christians all united to call me a big fat poopy head. I’m paraphrasing, of course.

That whole mess started when I had the Electric Eye there make an announcement for me: universal freedom of religion. Because I’m trying to show people the right way, whether they like it or not. Well, they didn’t. All three groups there started pointing to each other and saying their languages’ equivalent of “They will ruin our way of life!” and “You can not make us all atheists!”

I didn’t even say that, but they still ended up chanting “Let my people go!” over and over at me without any irony. And unlike that pharaoh, I’m not going to try and let them go after only the second time they curse at me. My reaction may not have won me any friends by forcing them all to quote a relevant bit of scripture to put things into perspective: “And then the Lord hardened pharaoh’s heart and he did not let them go.”

When I let them all go, they tried to get violent. They did not grasp the lesson about free will I tried to teach them. So I made them strip naked and dance with each other until they shut their mouths, then I danced them all back home. Good thing I had an Electric Eye there, too. That took a lot of fine control. Without that thing taking some of the load off, I would have resorted to murder. It’s a lot easier and convenient to obtain peace in the short term by just killing people.

A hand wiping at my face brought me out of my post-despotism reverie. I focused back on my actual body and realized I left my eyes open. There I saw Venus who, despite now being allowed to wear different clothes, still stuck close to me thanks to a chain. I told her she could wear normal clothes, then strongly hinted that the gold slave outfit was normal. She didn’t buy it and had me send for jeans and a t-shirt.

Now, for some reason, she had decided to clean up my face. “What’s all that about?” I asked.

She raised the rag up in front of my face, showing off a familiar red stain. I gasped. “Just because it’s your time of the month doesn’t mean you have to rub it in!”

“You’re bleeding,” she said, then continued to clean up a trickle of bodily fluid out of my nose.

“That shouldn’t be happening. I haven’t been spelunking in there, nor have my nostrils been exposed to excessively cold, dry air.”

She looked close at my nose, nodded, then looked me in the eye. “What were you straining yourself doing? Am I going to hear about it on the news, if you let me see any?”

I rolled my eyes, glad to have the laser one back. “You might, but any idea of a strain nosebleed is preposterous. Besides, if I’d killed them, there’d be a lot less strain.”

“You’re hurting yourself, but not killing them?” she asked, frowning. That wasn’t the complete truth. Soon after eliminating the International Court of Justice judges and asserting my rule over the planet, I brought up Electric Eye Rome and some nice Italians. Sicilians, to be specific. Cobblers. They fitted Mrs. Pretorious, the legal counselor so dedicated to protecting me that she had me dugged, with a nice pair of shoes. A bit on the heavy side, but that’s the fault of the material. So light, you’d swear they could walk on water, just like Jesus himself.

Mrs. Pretorious sleeps with Cthulhu.

“I’m not trying to kill everyone. I’m trying to help them, whether they realize it or not. They can be better, but I don’t have to be like other dictators. I don’t have to restrict them all or kill off everyone. I don’t need to get them on my side by invoking bigotry. The motivation issue’s a problem, though. Don’t want this screwed up by loyalty to money.”

She held my gaze. “What are you trying to prove to me?”

“I’m not trying to prove anything, except that they can be better. And if I’m going to spend so much of my time wanting to kill them, I might as well put my money where my mouth is. It beats whining all the time.” My eyes started to flicker from side to side as I felt another trouble spot tug at the edge of my attention.

Attempted rape. The man stopped in the middle of undressing the tied-up older lady and stood up, zipped up. He hadn’t been flaccid. Luckily, I didn’t have to feel the pain. I made him speak aloud to himself, “You could have just paid for a prostitute, you know. That’s legal now. Go to a BDSM club if that doesn’t do it for you. Safe, sane, consensual.”

He took a knife off the floor nearby that he’d used to threaten his older victim who, to the disdain of my own tastes, looked more like a granny than a cougar. I made him cut the woman loose of the zip ties around her wrists and ankles, then led him outside. Things were easier to clean up outside.

“Justice, like lightning,” I forced him to speak. “Ever should appear, to few men’s ruin, but all men’s fear.” I gave that a second to sink in, before adding, “Now, let’s go down to the local zoo, find the wombat enclosure, and see how they like to play with Mr. Winky down there, eh?”

I’m not that bad of a guy, see? Turned over a new leaf after all. I mean, I didn’t kill him. I didn’t even let him get mauled enough by wombats to lead to his death. He has no one to blame but himself for falling into one of the pens and interrupting the giraffe mating going on there. Apparently, giraffes get real ornery when you interrupt them having sex. The same could be said of humans. But still, I technically didn’t kill him.

It’s hard to be the king. It’s even harder when you’re maybe-sorta-kinda trying to be a nicer person in the process. Perhaps I’ll hold off on declaring myself “God-Emperor” until I’m less confused.

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Gecko Rules 1

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What does a man do when he’s become king of the world? When all that power has been handed over to you?

As someone who has told the world to bow before me, I have firsthand knowledge of what it’s like. First off, there’s the pants policy. I take those bad boys off and just walk around anywhere I want. Sometimes I leave my underwear on. Well, my boxers. Now that I have balls again, I don’t like any clothing crowding in on them. My boys need their freedom. I’d say “Let freedom ring,” but that sounds painful in this context. Just trust me on this, any women readers.

Anyways, once the pants came off, it was time to start working on the throne. Now, hear me out on this: gold. It’s a softer metal, gaudy, and not very intimidating, but I figure if I sit in it long enough, it’ll began to mold to fit my ass for a more comfortable fit. I suppose I could just cover something else with gold and try to make it work, but that wouldn’t conform as well, and it’d make me seem gilty.

While thinking over the throne situation, I still had to deal with a new capital. And a Cabinet, or some sort of organization. Technically, my corporate plan of using criminals in various fields could still work, only this time the criminals are politicians. Like the Russians. Some diplomat from the Russian Federation came forward to offer me his president’s aid in establishing a strong rule over the world, with perhaps some consideration for him having been among the first to join up. Yeah right. If I know Putin, and that’s an answer he does not want to hear, he’s probably trying to spike my food with plutonium. If he offers someone a bright blue drink with an umbrella in it, it’s best to check if the blue comes from Cherenkov radiation.

Still, the Russian diplomat’s overtures set off a small flood of others and made me realize I needed to work on some policy crap. Ah yes, policy. Taking over the world is a bit like a drunken Vegas wedding; I’ve had the fun part, now I get to put up with the nagging. I looked down at my receiving line of diplomats as they stretched out from my temporary throne made of some sort of ordinary wood. Bit of a letdown there. If they don’t get me a gold one quick, I might start shopping around with some of the monarchies around. Oh, that reminds me of the big pronouncement I came up with while looking down at all of them.

“That’s it! No more nations!” I stood up and yelled.

“Excuse me?” asked some nearby reporter, so I excused him. Doesn’t take many nanites to cause an embolism. Death by gas. Not necessarily a noble death, unless perhaps the man had been injected with helium, neon, radon, xenon, argon, krypton, or ununoctium. His body helped to punctuate the importance of my statement. I might need to kill someone every time I announce something. Sure shuts people up. Just so impersonal to do so using the nanites instead of getting my own hands dirty, but it helps to remind people why I’m the one giving orders and they’re the ones taking them, hard, over and over again.

And, at times, it can be really fun to handle things impersonally. This guy put a video out on Youtube, surrounded by a bunch of his buddies in camo, claiming he would fight to resist me and that they were holing up in some compound, daring me to come fight him. One drone later, he and his friends learned about the joys of napalm. Then again, is it really impersonal when I have so much fun doing it?

Well, that’s a question to leave to someone else. I had to lay out my plan to the world about their new system of governance. Yep, big announcement time. Well, a few big announcements. After I shouted about no more nations, I realized I had some ass covering to do in case I should somehow happen to ever be dethroned. Just a bit of thinking that most dictators wouldn’t think to add, except maybe Lord Vetinari. “But first, a couple of legal statements to help clarify things. First off, anything Emperor Psycho Gecko the First does is legal. Also, the new nation of Planet Gecko hereby prohibits the passing of ex post facto laws.”

Stroke of legal genius, that. Ex post facto laws are basically retroactive laws. If someone did the now-illegal thing in the past, they could be arrested and convicted, even though it wasn’t a crime at the time. They’re kind of a dick move like that. It’s also ripe for all sorts of abuses by countries if they don’t have prohibitions against them. How does this protect my glorious imperial booty? In combination with that whole “Everything I do is legal,” thing. If something should happen to remove me from power but keep me alive, a legal argument can now be made that, since nothing I’m doing from here until then is a crime, they couldn’t go after me for any of it.

I mean, not that they’d follow that, but every tyrant’s got to try at least a little bit of preemptive legalese protection. The brilliant political strategist Havelock Vetinari once noted that being an absolute ruler today is not so simple, at least if you want to be an absolute ruler tomorrow. Which reminded me that I really need to organize some partying. Something to get people’s spirits up. But first, on to business.

“Now that’s clarified, no more nations. All of you who are here on behalf of a ruler, you’ll want to go home. I’m done with you. Countries don’t exist any more. I’m going to scribble up a map where the world is divided into 100 sections of, say, between seventy and eighty million each. Gives it a little leeway. Each province will choose their own representative within the next two weeks however they want. Democracy, civil war, arm wrestling; I don’t care, just get it done within two weeks or I’m picking someone myself and possibly killing whoever the hell wasted my time in the first place. And let’s remember that while I come from another universe, I am an American supervillain, so I won’t care about which of you is to blame for inconveniencing me.” I glared down at them.

Ah, so nice to see people actually shake with fear. I think it was the makeover. I went pale, like a vampire, and grew out my hair. I then did up the hair like three thick ponytails, one on each side of my head and another atop it. Then I dyed them. Purple, green, and yellow. Along with my rather liberal use of red lipstick, I like to think it hits an instinctively fearful part of the human soul.

Oh, wait, someone had raised a hand. “What will the representative be doing?” asked someone way in the back around whom the crowd parted like he’d had a deep-fried hot dog and decided to cut loose with a fart.

“Glad you asked that.” I pointed to the man. “For your bravery, you may come forth, and help yourself to whatever that dead guy was carrying. I suggest the wallet, personally, though he’s got a nice watch on if you’re into that sort of thing. Take his shoes, see if I care. So, yeah, the representative will be the one who conveys the concerns of my new populace to me. After all, this is a whole planet. I can only deal with so many things at once and be informed of so much at once.” Perhaps not the best thing to admit. “Think of it like making a list of important things to do during my day, only each item on the list is another province. But more importantly, anybody who shows they are competent and actually give a damn about their province, I may allow them some degree of autonomy to solve the problems of their area on my behalf.”

I folded my hands and sat back down, then shifted position so I was more lounging with my legs on one arm of the chair. “Unless someone has something really important to say, I’ll also start drawing up plans for new courts in each of those areas. Any good public servants who take office early might provide some good recommendations for judges. Any bad ones will learn how I treat nepotism. Now, if anybody’s feeling up to it, I’m going to throw a party tonight at Noordeinde Palace. We’re going to rock that place so hard, Google maps will use a black bar to censor it. Everyone’s allowed to attend and it’ll be open bar. Ta ta, folks!”

Surprisingly, it didn’t take much work to throw that together. While showing a willingness to kill people for mistakes is often an easy way to make underlings come to you for advice so as not to mess up, mitigating that stick with a thick, juicy carrot can bring out the best in them. In this case, remember, I had access to all sorts of shiny things like the Dutch Royal Regalia.

Good thing that one didn’t require all my attention. I’d been ironing out some of the problems with the Electric Eyes. They’ve been passively handling the load for me as far as enforcing those little robotic laws about not harming me. Unfortunately, their uneven distribution didn’t help them shoulder the load as effectively as they could. Still, they did ultimately ship me my date for the evening. Oh how the heads turned when I walked into that palatial ballroom with by far the most beautiful belle. I led in the lovely Venus, in a Leia-inspired outfit, by her neck chain. She has a very lovely scowl at times. I had plenty of opportunity to familiarize myself with it that evening in particular.

“Are you going to gloat and say I was wrong about you?” the object of my unhealthy obsession asked.

Ignoring her, I said, “I’m thinking I’ll let people vote on the anthem. Three choices, and let them know that if the vote splits, I’ll just make it ‘Barbie Girl’ instead. Oooh, or maybe Cotton-Eye Joe. And hush, dear, you weren’t wrong about me at all. I’m owning up, taking responsibility, and turning over a new leaf.’

“I hate you.”

“That’s nice, dear, though I’m curious why you think so now. Honestly, those songs aren’t that bad.” She tried to slow down a bit, but I wasn’t having it, so I tugged her along, sending her stumbling after me. The waitress I’d been following recognized me and turned to offer refreshment. I tipped her with a gold bar I’d recently acquired on her tray, and asked Venus, “By the way, would you care for a drink?” I heard the waitress stumble off, unprepared for the gold’s weight, and go crashing into something or someone else with a sound of breaking glass.

Venus shook her head, so I pulled her over to the dance floor and wound her in tight for a slow one, despite the concert band playing a rendition of “Ballroom Blitz”. I’d revised the song selection for more interesting songs than just classical, though I mentioned to Venus, “I do regret not grabbing a pianist to play Chopin’s Etude Op. 10, No. 12. The woodwinds will have to suffice. What do you think of my ball, Venus? It got a little hairy, there, but I’d say it’s all smooth now.”

“I can’t believe you had this ready the entire time.”

“Now, now. I told you this was a last minute change. Originally, I was just going to use them to kill lots of people out of spite for their theft by you heroes, but I underestimated how cautiously the world would treat them. The idea that I could use them thanks to the alien invasion, secondary, if that. It wasn’t really on my mind until you trapped me in Antarctica. I knew you were screwing me, but I wasn’t going to lay there and take it. Nope, I screw back.” I laid my head down on her shoulder. “But I want you to know, I decided not to be the perpetual villain to give your life meaning, as I justified it to myself. “

“You think enslaving the world is better?” She tried to push me away, but I kept her on a pretty tight leash. A chain leash. I stayed right where I was.

“Relativism, pluralism, and tradition do not mean that those things are right. Progress involves change, sometimes drastically. Rarely is a government created peacefully, or do you forget that one man’s Founding Fathers are another man’s tea-wasting traitors? I just want you to understand and help me, Venus. I’ll even let you out of that stupid outfit.”

“No deal,” she responded quickly and went to pull away. This time, I let her.

Damn, she figured out I meant to have her serve me in the nude. Ah well, I’m sure the humongous workload will take my mind of things. But, compared to what people almost did to each other in the Cold War, am I really the worst thing to happen to this planet?

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