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Evil Janet · Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 9:15 am Post subject: How Janet Came to be Evil

About time this was posted up!

A Woman Named Janet

“You are evil, Janet!”

“Oh, go on! One more piece of chocolate won’t hurt you! It’s Friday, it’s sunny and today is the day the old man provides me with the tools to finally get my project into the public domain,” said Janet.

Janet Stern was a handsome woman in her early thirties, a typical mousy-brown brunette with her porcelain face framed in a bob-cut, her blue-grey eyes framed in designer spectacles and her athletic physique (that was bespoke of the finest fitness trainers money could buy) hidden away in an austere and clinical trouser suit, pinstripe, white on black.

This was a woman who had studied hard, worked hard, applied herself in the right direction, made the best of connections with the most influential of people, taken every chance that came her way and pushed all the right buttons. She had never managed to keep a boyfriend longer than a few weeks; was rarely seen out past ten o’clock and never at parties; she had no idea what was on at the cinema, nor whom it was that was the latest talk of all the gossip-rags.

She had given it her all.

The “it” being her work on internal gravity, a theorem that had been lambasted and derided throughout the scientific community as well as the more serious popular newspapers. The idea that humans could generate their own gravity and project it beyond, to affect their surroundings, was frankly ridiculous. Janet had postulated that there were numerous accounts of people having the ability to levitate, or move objects by the power of their mind and that there must be some substance behind these reports. Accepted science laughed.

Now, after ten years of research, after so many wrong avenues that turned into cul-de-sacs (Telekinesis? Yeah, right!), after continuous battles for funding, she was about to unveil the zenith of her achievements, the IGAD!

Practically, the Internal Gravity Amplification Device was virtually useless. At the moment it was massive, filling two laboratories (getting permission to have that wall knocked down had been a major obstacle!) However, it was a starting point and Janet knew that with time she could work around the current dimensional restrictions to get it down to a portable size, thus rendering it of service.

Today was the day it was going to be green-lighted and Janet was celebrating with her secretary Felicity, a dowdy woman of advancing age who showed a remarkable affinity with word-processors and filing cabinets. The fifty-something clerk was swivelling left and right on her office chair in the mistaken belief that this would stop her somehow having another chocolate from the luxury box Janet had brought in by way of celebration. Abruptly she stopped and lunged forward to swoop on a strawberry cream that disappeared so fast that Janet could not be sure she had removed the wrapper.

“Gannet!” laughed Janet. She was sat on the corner of Felicity’s well-organised desk and staring out of the large windows that gave some of the best views over Paragon City.

“Well, you did say!” replied Felicity defensively. “I…”

“Mr Mainwearing will see you now,” a third voice cut in on the conversation. A head had popped around the office door without knocking. Not that the owner of the voice needed to knock; being Godfrey Mainwearing’s PA afforded certain privileges, even if you were an ineffectual, blonde, size six, mini-skirt adorned teen of some pulchritudinous value.

Janet hopped down from her perch and brushed herself down.

“Wish me luck,” she asked her secretary.

“Luck,” said Felicity and waggled her fingers farewell. As Janet disappeared, she crossed them.

* * *

“So your,” Mainwearing paused and consulted a piece of paper on his untidy desk, “IGAD is ready to under go final tests I take it?”

Janet stood in the middle of the CEO’s office in the headquarters of Gravitron Technologies Inc. It was immense, imposing and indicative of the success that the company had enjoyed in the last five years from their anti-grav propulsion systems, many of which had resulted from offshoots of Janet’s research. GTI had done very well out of Janet Stern and the oak-panelled walls that hung with the finest contemporary art, Persian carpeted floors and high coffered ceiling with meticulous crafting served to emphasise this.

“Yes,” answered Janet precisely and glanced over at the third person in the room.

Behind and slightly to the right of Godfrey Mainwearing was his niece, Hazel Barents. She had only been at GTI for six months, but already she had overtaken Janet in terms of influence and authority. There was only one reason why she had been made project director ahead of Janet and it was nepotism.

“But will it work?” asked Mainwearing, shifting his considerable bulk in his tight leather executive chair. It creaked ominously. As yet Gravitron Technologies had not been able to minimise their anti-grav devices to anything that could prevent wear and tear on the CEO’s chair. He tugged at his whiskery, grey moustache.

“It does work,” said Janet emphatically, returning her gaze to the CEO and looking him straight in the eye. “We have already successfully moved a one tonne block of lead ten metres using the IGAD. I just need to demonstrate it.”

Mainwearing again shifted uncomfortably, though there was a feeling emanating that his discomfiture was not just from his unfit body. A mood hung ripe in the air. He smoothed thinning grey wisps of hair over his head before he cleared his throat.

“Well I’m afraid, we have to pull the plug on the project Janet,” he said quickly and mumbled.

Immediately Janet’s eyes shot back to Hazel Barents, whom she was sure was smiling. It was almost imperceptible, but only almost. The corners so very slightly up-turned and a brightness in her eyes. With ill judgement she decided to speak her first words of the brief meeting.

“It has cost too much Janet,” Hazel explained in an over-placatory tone that came over just a little too smugly. “Uncle assumed you would have results by now and there’s no doubting that you have results, but not enough.” She offered a consolatory smile that made Janet want to stick her fist through her teeth. “If we had something marketable now, then yes, we could proceed. But as it is, we need to divert funding to more realistic possibilities that will provide a better return for us. We are all very sorry Janet and we think we have put together a very amenable severance package.”

“You’re FIRING me!” blurted Janet incredulously. She raked a hand down the right side of her face and thought out loud, “then I shall take my research to someone who appreciates it!”

Mainwearing rose from his chair and clasped his hands behind him, shaking his head. “As every milligram of research was financed by Graviton Tech and undertaken in our laboratories, all research data and devices will remain our property.” He bowed his head before adding, “you have until tomorrow lunch to clear your office and we would like to thank you most sincerely for all your work here over the years.”

* * *

Stupefied and stunned, Janet was zombie-like as she returned to her office. Felicity had gone, but had left a note on her desk saying to meet her later at the King’s Row Keg for a drink to tell her how it had all gone.

But Janet did not feel like drinking. That was something she did to celebrate and there would be no celebration tonight. The bitch Hazel had gotten to her uncle and cut her right out of the loop. Had she really felt so threatened by her? All she wanted was to prove herself, to show the world that she was right! Now, she was sure, her work would disappear for a year or two and then re-emerge in a fine-tuned and refined state, with Hazel Barents taking all the credit. BITCH!

Janet stared down at the security card in her hand. She would have to hand that back tomorrow and then she would never see the IGAD again. Her creation; her baby. She needed one last look at least.

She made her way out of her office down to her lab two floors below. She nodded at Ramone the security guard, glad at least that she would not have to put up with his misogynistic comments for much longer and entered without bothering to change into an environment suit. There seemed little point, what would it matter if she contaminated what would become someone else’s project. As she opened the door to the lab that contained the IGAD, it dawned on her that maybe it did not have to be that way. Maybe it would be no one’s project!

She stood in the amplification module and beads of perspiration formed on her brow with the stress of what she was about to do. She stretched out her arms left and right level with her shoulders and said simply, “deploy.”

Either side, robotic arms reached out and fastened their cuff-like claws around her wrists. She felt two tiny needles prick her skin in each wrist and then a dome with a multitude of wires protruding from it lowered onto her head.

Janet stood like that for almost twenty minutes, eyes closed in terrible meditation, in prayer to any deity that would listen to her, before she took a deep breath and said, “activate.”

There was a loud hum and as usual when the IGAD was employed all the lights on the floor dimmed. Through several layers of window Janet was peripherally aware of Ramone entering the laboratory block, suspicion and alarm on his face, but the rest of her attention was on the one tonne block of lead that lay on the floor ahead of her.

As she had done several times before, she lifted the block fifty centimetres above the ground, but she needed more height. She drew on her inner gravity intuitively. It was not a mental power she knew, it was drawn from somewhere far less precise and untouchable. Reaching for it was like grabbing a feather out of the air. You could snatch at it but it would waft out of your reach infuriatingly.

It did not help her that she could discern Ramone walking fast and loosening something from his belt, a radio or a weapon. Then she knew what she needed. She formulated a picture of Hazel Barents in her head, her smug, fat, smiling face.

“BITCH!” she screamed and the picture in her head began to laugh. “BIIIIIITCH!!!”

It happened in less than five seconds, though Janet would remember it in clinical detail seeming like five minutes for the rest of her life. The block had started to spin wildly and swing from side to side. It was now two metres off the floor. Ramone entered the lab at a run, reaching for a gun, but too slowly. The lead block slammed into his face with such force and velocity that he would later have to be identified by fingerprints; the cause of death concluded from DNA samples off the ooze to be found on the block.

The picture of Hazel in Janet’s head was screaming now. Beads of blood formed on Janet’s brow where previously sweat had perspired and simultaneously blood poured out of the face in her head. From the mouth, eyes, nose, ears, the roots of her curly hair, from every ugly, ugly pore! An unearthly scream eminated from Janet and the lead block flew at the IGAD itself. There was an explosion. The clasps ripped from Janet’s wrist, tearing flesh as the needles tore across them rather than withdrawing straight out. The dome sparked and fizzled. Blood oozed from Janet, but cauterised almost immediately, only a few drops falling to the floor, before there was a blinding light and then darkness.

* * *

Janet was not sure how long she had been unconscious. Getting to her feet, she could only assume that it had not been long as no one had come to investigate what had happened and small clouds of smoke still wafted through the air. She gave a small quiet sob when she saw the wrecked IGAD, but was less emotive when she noticed the headless corpse of Ramone. She shook her head as realisation came that there was no recompense for her actions, no going back, and that she would have to get out of there swiftly.

However, the one tonne lead block ironically blocked her only way out. Frustrated and angry, she shook a fist at it… and it moved. Not much, but it had. She checked to see if by some coincidence she was still connected to the IGAD, that it might still be working, but there were no wires and no chance that it would ever work again, such a mess of circuitry and wiring had been created.

It was only when she examined her surroundings that she made her next discovery. She was thirty centimetres at least off the floor. She was levitating! Janet took a hold of her senses and calmed her breathing as both panic and a rush of wonderment threatened to overwhelm her. Then she reached out her hand to the lead block and raised it. The block lifted from the floor with ease and the left corner of Janet’s mouth turned up in a wry smile. She then flung her arm across her body towards an outside wall. The lead block followed suit and created a sizeable cavity more than big enough for her escape before reaching the proximity of Janet’s new powers and plummeting Earthward.

Janet hovered through the hole and looked down. She had quite forgotten that her lab was on the forty-second floor and she carefully lowered herself down, not quite sure how, but instinctively. As she approached the ground she could see that the block had fallen in the middle of the busy avenue that ran past GTI Tower and caused a severe traffic accident. Red and blue lights flashed below and sirens blared as more emergency services approached. Bodies ran back and forth, whilst some lay motionless. Flames flickered, smoke, a loud explosion. Janet decided she needed to make herself scarce, to lay low and refine her powers so that she could defend herself when the authorities came after her as they surely would.

Unfortunately, she did not lay low enough. Janet had no history in crime, had not even taken time to watch thrillers or read crime novels. There was no natural aptitude for deviousness in Janet, so it was almost inevitable that the police would catch her before she had time to harness her true power. They did. They threw her in the Zig and the press named her Evil Janet.

Nevertheless, high in Spider Tower at the centre of Grandville, a certain individual had followed her story with keen interest and had already formulated plans for her untimely release!

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Evil Janet - Grav/Energy Dom 50 * Jimmy Spoons - Thug/Poison MM 40 * Womanman - Super Strength /Invulnerability Brute 32 * Doc Och - Dark/Dark Stalker 13

Alts not in the SG: Sweet Fanny Adams - MCBeth - Evil Ken Eval

Dr Zweistein · Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 11:47 am Post subject:

Well, I think it could have included more gore, but that's just me Twisted Evil

Nice to read more in detail on how Janet came to be Very Happy

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Warmonger · Joined: 04 Apr 2007 Posts: 17 Location: Knock..Knock

That was quite cool.. I could do something like this.. find out more after the break.
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Dr. Sterfgeval · Joined: 08 Apr 2007 Posts: 33 Location: Skandinavia

Very cool and well written. Smile

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