One Million Masks: REDUX | ✓

One Million Masks, 2026

"You're a dying breed," I tell him. "You should be happy I even brought you along."

The cruise pitches and rolls on the water, unable to cope with a giant ass hole in the hull. It's been a whole ten minutes of panic and flames and still no sign of you. For Emil's sake, I hope you show up soon. Any more of his whining and I may have to toss the senile bastard overboard.

"In the heat of battle Benedict Arnold once said true evil never grows old, so I have to ask what the hell am I still doing here, still alive on this miserable planet."

"I don't think he said that. I'm pretty sure that was Dr. Armageddon."

"What, so you're a history buff now? You weren't even a thought in your mother's womb then."

"You weren't either, Emil!"

"Bah!" He spits. "Millennials."

I keep Emil around because he's an oldie from the Golden Age of villainy so his nuggets of wisdom aren't all inflated smoke. And he's good company. Usually.

When Emil was nineteen he immigrated to the states from war-torn Bosnia in the cargo store of a Russian submarine, surviving on rats and cornmeal for months. Reports say when the crew opened the cargo hold Professzur Olni popped out like a jack in the box, thin as a rake, stinking to high hell, eager to maim and destroy.

Once Emil earned enough street cred roughing up cops and robbing banks up in Massachusetts he Americanized his career name to Professor Kill and fought his way up the ranks to the #3 seat. But the only real difference was he stopped talking shit in Hungarian so he could start talking shit in heavily accented broken English.

No one could kill Emil in his heyday and now he's too infirm to arrest without drawing sympathy, so no one pays him much mind anymore.

He's become snappy in his old age and for some reason, he's keen on spending his last years on this forsaken earth badgering me. Maybe because I'm the only person who can withstand his barbs, children and grandchild included.

"I can't wait till us legacy villains go extinct and your generation flounders when you realize how good you had it with us around."

"Literally no one's going to even notice you guys are gone."

Below us the passengers fight for the lifeboats, brawling for space. They squabble like toucans in their tacky Hawaiian shirts. A woman shoves a toddler to the deck and flings herself over the railing. The kid might be her son - they look so much alike.

"I hear sirens, dijete." Emil checks his watch, a gaudy Rolex from his favorite granddaughter, and taps the face. "I guess your boyfriend is a no-show."

No. You'll be here. I know you will. Kitemare is a joke - you wouldn't miss a chance to meet me on the battlefield for him.

You and me, we're like Nazi Germany and Imperialist America.

Or Communist Russia and Nuclear America.

Or literally any country versus America.

"Next time you should just send flowers," Professor Kill snickers. "Boys like flowers."

I'm tempted to snatch the tartan blanket off his lap to prove a point but then he'd complain about the cold.

Instead, I turn back to the pink westerly sky where you'll be arriving. I hope.

And then-

There's a sparkle.

An ear-shattering BOOM!!!!