Blunderball

This Would Have Worked Better Yesterday

Challenge #3: Write story including a conveniently interrupted document and an anti-villain. One of these tropes must be lampshaded.

"Mr. President!" Special Planetary UFO Defence agent Brock Stone burst through the doors, waving a slightly singed journal. "Hold the nuclear strike! We've recovered Professor Nerdlinger's research notes on the anti-alien ray!"

"Oh, thank God." The President took the journal and began to read:

I've done it! At long last I've done it! In all my years studying the approaching alien fleet, I never imagined that such a force, such a terrible foe, could have such an enormous weakness. And such an obvious weakness! I simply can't believe I didn't see it sooner. I have run the numbers over and over in my head, and I am convinced the the machine I have devised will cause the aliens' brains to explode instantly. It promises to be as simple as it is effective. All that remains is to outline the means of constructing this wonderous device, which I shall do post haste within the pages of this very—

"That's as far as it goes?" asked the President.

"It appears the aliens managed to guess the purpose of the professor's research and fired a death ray at the lab."

"Well," the President shrugged. "Back to Plan B." He flipped up the cover of the nuclear launch button.

"Not so fast!" came a voice from another figure bursting into the room. She wore a lab coat and thick, dark goggles.

"How did you get past security?" demanded Brock.

"Freeze ray," the newcomer shrugged. She turned to the President. "My name is Doctor E. Volt. I have devised my own method of defeating the alien fleet, but if you want my help it's going to cost you."

"We'll never work with a fiend like you!" spat Brock Stone.

"I don't think you have a choice."

"How much?" asked the President.

Doctor Volt put her pinkie finger to the corner of her mouth. "One billion dollars!"

"Yeah, okay then," said the President.

"What, really?" Doctor Volt shook her head in surprise.

"A billion dollars to save the Earth? Of course!"

"A billion dollars and you have to publicly acknowledge that you're paying a supervillain."

"We invested two billion dollars in Professor Nerdlinger's research and he's best known as the inventor of the puppy cannon."

"Oh."

There was a pause.

"Probably not the most relevant question to ask in the middle of an alien invasion, but was the puppy cannon operated by puppies or did puppies get fired out of—"

"Both." The president grimaced. "They'd drag it into place, hit the button then..." he made a noise with his mouth like a narwhal getting sucked into a turbine. "Puppy bits everywhere."

"Oh."

There was another pause.

"Can I get two billion dollars too?" Doctor E. Volt asked.

"Half now, half when we know your plan works."

***

"It's kind of an eyesore," said the President, looking out the window of the White House.

"It's that or let them Independence Day the place," observed Doctor Volt.

"KTHFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFSTFIZZ!" went the eighteenth UFO that morning, as it collided with the giant bug zapper they'd constructed around the building.

The TV on the desk showed identical structures around Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower and the Taj Mahal.

"Kind of weird this works," said Brock. "They're really not going for any other targets?"

"Nowhere that wouldn't look really awesome if it blew up in a movie."

"Huh." He watched as the nineteenth UFO buzzed lazily towards the mesh. "Ten out of ten for saving the Earth, but it's not very supervillainy, is it?"

"Eh. I got my..." Doctor E. Volt put her pinkie to her mouth again "two billion dollars! And also I figure that anything I do to prevent things blowing up will help stop people confusing me with that guy from Austin Powers."

"You could also say 'however many billion dollars' like a normal person instead of making a big deal about it and doing the finger thing."

The nineteenth UFO sparked against the mesh.

"Up to you, though."