* I will maintain a realistic
assessment of my strengths and weaknesses. Even though this takes some of the
fun out of the job, at least I will never utter the line "No, this cannot
be! I AM INVINCIBLE!!!" (After that, death is usually instantaneous.)
* I will dress in bright and
cheery colors, and so throw my enemies into confusion.
* My dungeon will have its
own qualified medical staff complete with bodyguards. That way if a prisoner
becomes sick and his cell mate tells the guard it's an emergency, the guard
will fetch a trauma team instead of opening up the cell for a look.
* If my advisors ask
"Why are you risking everything on such a mad scheme?" I will not
proceed until I have a response that satisfies them.
* I will not have captives of
one sex guarded by members of the opposite sex.
* I will not tell my Legions
of Terror, "And he must be taken alive!" The command will be,
"And try to take him alive if it is reasonably practical."
* If my weakest troops fail
to eliminate a hero, I will send out my best troops instead of wasting time
with progressively stronger ones as he gets closer and closer to my fortress.
* Prior to kidnapping an
older male scientist and forcing him to work for me, I will investigate his
offspring and make sure that he has neither a beautiful but naive daughter who
is willing to risk anything to get him back, nor an estranged son who works in
the same field but had a falling-out with his father many years ago.
* Rather than having only one
secret escape pod, which the hero can easily spot and follow, I'll
simultaneously launch a few dozen decoys to throw him off track.
* My security keypad will
actually be a fingerprint scanner. Anyone who watches someone press a sequence
of buttons or dusts the pad for fingerprints then subsequently tries to enter
by repeating that sequence will trigger the alarm system.
* No matter how many shorts
we have in the system, my guards will be instructed to treat every surveillance
camera malfunction as a full-scale emergency.
* The gun turrets on my
fortress will not rotate enough so that they may direct fire inward or at each
other.
* I will not engage an enemy
single-handedly until all my soldiers are dead.
* I will not interrogate my
enemies in the inner sanctum--a small hotel well outside my borders will work
just as well.
* I will funnel some of my
ill-gotten gains into urban renewal projects. Although slums add a quaint and
picturesque quality to any city, they too often contain unexpected allies for
heroes.
* I will make several
ludicrously erroneous maps to secret passages in my fortress and hire travelers
to entrust them to aged hermits.
* If I capture the hero's
starship, I will keep it in the landing bay with the ramp down, only a few
token guards on duty and a ton of explosives set to go off as soon as it clears
the blast-range.
* If I decide to hold a
contest of skill open to the general public, contestants will be required to
remove their hooded cloaks and shave their beards before entering.
* If all the heroes are
standing together around a strange device and begin to taunt me, I will pull
out a conventional weapon instead of using my unstoppable superweapon on them.
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