Playing Doctor E-Book

Robert Jeschonek

• Herausgeber: Pie Press
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Can a gnarly lab assistant find love with his smoking hot mad scientist boss? Faithful lab lackey Glugor lusts after sexy Dr. Medici, but Dr. M only cares about taking over the world. She uses him like a glorified guinea pig, turning him into rampaging monsters and strapping him into inventions gone horribly wrong. Poor Glugor takes the heat when the doomsday schemes blow up in his face...but can even the power of his secret passion stand between Dr. M and the deadliest doom of all? It might take a monster of an experiment to build the heart Glugor needs to save his heart's desire. Don't miss this exciting tale by award-winning storyteller Robert Jeschonek, a master of unique and unexpected science fiction and fantasy that really packs a punch.

Leseprobe

Playing Doctor

A FANTASY TALE

ROBERT JESCHONEK

Contents

Also by Robert Jeschonek

Playing Doctor

About the Author

Special Preview : Six Scifi Stories Volume Four

PLAYING DOCTOR

Copyright © 2023 by Robert Jeschonek

www.bobscribe.com

Cover Art Copyright © 2023 by Ben Baldwin

www.benbaldwin.co.uk

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved by the author.

Published by Blastoff Books

An Imprint of Pie Press

411 Chancellor Street

Johnstown, Pennsylvania 15904

www.piepresspublishing.com

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Also by Robert Jeschonek

100th Power Book 1

100th Power Book 2

100th Power Book 3

Blastoff!

Cosmic Conflicts

Gray Lady Rising (with Annie Reed)

In a Green Dress, Surrounded by Exploding Clowns and Other Stories

In the Empire of Underpants and Other Stories

Battlenaut Crucible

Scifi Motherlode

Sticks and Stones: A Trek Novel

Playing Doctor

The problem with having a crush on your mad scientist boss is, every day she doesn’t see how wonderful you really are seems like the end of the world.

"This is all wrong!" says Dr. Hildegarde Medici, hurling the tray across her cavernous secret laboratory. "You’re a complete imbecile, Glue!"

Her words sting, but at least she’s paying attention to me. I’ll take what I can get from the woman I love. "I’m sorry, Dr. M. Please let me try again."

"Everything is ruined." With one arm, Dr. Medici sweeps notebooks and glass beakers from the table in front of her. "Now I’ll never finish the doomsday weapon today!"

As Dr. Medici throws her head down onto her folded arms on the table, I cross the lab and pick up the silver tray that she threw. I see myself reflected in its surface--thick glasses, big nose, bald head, pure geek...not her type. "I thought you liked the crinkle-cut ones," I say as I pluck chicken fingers and french fries from the floor and drop them onto the tray.

"Steak fries," says Dr. Medici without raising her head. "How many times do I have to tell you, Glue?"

She is such a drama queen, but what do you expect? Her line of work attracts a certain type of personality-- passionate, temperamental, creative, flamboyant. To tell you the truth, it’s one of the things I love most about her.

"I could run to the store," I say, dumping the chicken and fries into a waste basket. "By the time you’re done building your doomsday weapon, I could have hot fries ready for you."

Dr. Medici rolls her eyes like a disgusted teenager. "I can’t concentrate on building a doomsday weapon on an empty stomach."

I know the feeling...the not being able to concentrate part, that is. Most days, I can barely focus on my work instead of Dr. Medici’s long black hair and bright green eyes. Once, I was so distracted by Dr. M that I cross-wired the brain of a giant robot, which proceeded to rampage at a garbage dump instead of an army base.

If only I could tell her I love her. If only I could close that final mile that has always stood between us.

If only I could finally set free the words that I’ve longed to speak, and she would turn to me and say the words I’ve longed to hear.

"Don’t just stand there, you putz!" She spins away from me on her work-stool. "Get me a TV dinner out of the freezer or something!"

I don’t take it personally. I know it’s just the stress talking. She’s been having a rough time lately, just like the rest of the mad scientist community.

Thanks a lot, terrorists.

* * *

In the good old days, mad scientists weren’t considered public enemies like they are now. They were tolerated, in fact, because the government loved getting its hands on their way-out inventions after their crazy schemes were thwarted.

But not anymore. Not since the terrorists.

What difference is there between a politically motivated insane genius and one who is motivated by greed?

How can the government go after one group of people threatening to blow things up and not the other?

It can’t.

As a result, business has dropped off considerably. No one will negotiate in good faith with a mad scientist anymore. Instead of musclebound private citizen thrill-seekers coming after us, we get black ops Special Forces and heat-seeking bunker-buster missiles courtesy of Homeland Security.

It’s a tough time to be a mad scientist. Lots of them have quit already and become street people or college professors.

But not my Hildegarde. She won’t give up that easily. Being a mad scientist has been her lifelong dream.

I know, because I grew up with her.

* * *

Hildegarde Medici always wanted to be the first female mad scientist in history.

"Call me Doctor Medici." When she started with that, she couldn’t have been older than seven. She was three years younger than I was, and already she was giving me orders.

Not that I minded. I think I was born to follow her. She ruled my heart even then, when she was just the girl next door.

We played laboratory in her family’s garage, building contraptions from tin cans and coat hangers. We pretended to build ray guns and bombs and robots and monsters, and she always got to be the evil genius and I was her helper.

"The townspeople have failed to meet our demands!" she would say, shaking her fist in the air. "It is time to activate the framistat, Glugor!" She always called me by my last name, Glugor, because it sounded so much like "Igor."

"Immediately, Dr. Medici!" I always enhanced my performance by adopting a nasally voice and hunching over like Igor in the movies. "Firing framistat!"

"They will rue the day they crossed me!" Even as a child, Hildegarde had mastered every nuance of mad scientist behavior. She was a true prodigy and wanted nothing less than to achieve the complete perfection of the consummate evil genius.

It didn’t matter to her that all the mad scientists we heard about were men. If anything, it made her want to be one all the more.

And that made me want to be her assistant all the more, too.

* * *