"Office hours" for me usually involved leaving behind a small transmitter tied to my wrist computer that I could use to determine when someone was knocking on my door. From there it was a matter of quickly teleporting back to the university where I could impart my knowledge on the eagerly awaiting student.

  There was no way I was staying in this tiny cramped space when I could pop over to the lab where I had all the space in the world thanks to digger drones and construction drones.

  Only today I didn’t bother with going back to the lab. As soon as the door was shut behind me I flipped up the 3D display on my wrist computer and got ready to watch the show. Sure it wasn’t as good as watching the feeds back at the lab, but I didn’t want to miss anything.

  My only regret was the university’s policy against popping popcorn in faculty lounges, because I had a feeling I was going to want some in a minute.

  “Do you have any drones up CORVAC?”

  “Of course mistress. I always have the drones up now when there is a high probability of Fialux making an appearance. Not that you would notice.”

  I decided to ignore that. Someone sounded testy. He was probably annoyed that I’d been spending most of my time at the university rather than back in the lab working on his stupid giant death robot project.

  Well that could wait just a little longer. It’s not like a giant death robot chassis would do him any good as long as Fialux was a going concern anyways.

  That whole project was a waste of resources. I was happy to have an excuse not to waste those resources on it. Not that he saw it that way.

  The holodisplay resolved in place just in time for me to make out a caped figure hovering over the Thomas building. At first I thought it was Fialux, but upon zooming in I realized that couldn’t be the case.

  There was no way Fialux would be floating in that particular pose. As though she was looking down at an anthill she was about to smash, and there was definitely no way she’d be carrying a massive gun like that.

  Also? That suit and that cape was totally aping my style. I mean it’s not like there was a lot of variation between the catsuits and capes combo, but the dark scheme with some logo that would be forgotten within the week was definitely cribbing off of me.

  How annoying. You’re gone for a few weeks teaching a class, giving back to the world, and suddenly someone comes along trying to take your place.

  “Could you zoom in on the piece CORVAC?”

  A gun. Talk about a lack of imagination. If I wasn’t already irritated at the copycat routine, that would be enough to piss me off.

  “Already identified it mistress,” CORVAC said. “It looks like a crude modification of one of your early designs. From the BFG9K series I believe.”

  “I thought it looked familiar, now the real question is how the hell did some random wannabe get ahold of that?”

  I thought back to that little scuffle in front of the goddamn Applied Sciences building. Particularly to all the potentially stolen tech that had been on display that night. Stuff that looked suspiciously like it’d been lifted from some of my early designs.

  That couldn’t possibly be…

  No. It wouldn’t be her. She wouldn’t dare pull something like that. Would she?

  The figure took off. Then dropped about ten feet before recovering. I squinted as I stared at the full color 3D display. That almost looked like the wild flailing of someone getting used to flying with antigrav units for the first time.

  That figure was definitely a woman. She had a ponytail trailing out behind her. Also? She was totally having trouble floating in and dealing with her massive gun.

  See an example of one of many reasons why I didn’t bother with massive guns. They might look impressive, but why bother when I could put the kind of of firepower that would have military appropriations spending in the billions to achieve into a miniaturized wrist blaster?

  More flailing as she flew out over downtown. Which I could sympathize with. I was irritated that I could sympathize because, again, that looked like my shit.

  It took practice to get used to flying with antigrav. It definitely wasn’t the same sort of flying as the stuff the rocket jockeys used. Actually, this was the first villain other than me to use the antigrav stuff that I was aware of.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Everybody knew the telltale signs. The news people were all talking about this newbie as though she was a knockoff of yours truly. In between breathlessly wondering what’d happened to me that a copycat could come along at all.

  My eyes narrowed. I didn’t like that kind of talk. I didn’t like it one bit. Like they thought they didn’t need to be afraid of me anymore.

  The usual punishment for infringement on intellectual property was a nasty worded letter from some one of the rare liberal arts idiots who made something of themselves by selling their souls to become an attorney, but I preferred to deal with IP infringement by leveling a penalty of one vaporization for each instance of infringement.

  Seeing this woman out there in an obvious Night Terror knockoff costume with tech that I invented was enough to make me want to fly out there myself and get started on the vaporizing.

  “Is that antigrav another copy of my stuff?” I asked.

  Best to be sure before I went and did something hasty I might regret later.

  “Hard to tell mistress,” CORVAC said. “I cannot get a clear reading on that tech in the same way I can the gun.”

  I frowned. That was odd. Usually he had no trouble getting a scan from one of the drones.

  “But I’m the only one who’s supposed to have that tech,” I said.

  “Up until now I would have agreed with you,” CORVAC said.

  I tapped a finger against my lips. This wasn’t good. If someone was showing up using tech that only I had it meant either there was someone else out there who was as inventive as I was and was capable of pulling together the resources needed to fund an operation similar to my own…

  Or somebody, somehow, was stealing my stuff. I’d like to say it was ego that told me that was the case, but honestly I just knew there was no one else out there who could come up with the stuff I came up with.

  My bad blood with the assholes over in the goddamn Applied Sciences department here at Starlight City University was proof of that, and that bad blood was enough to give me a few ideas as to who was doing the stealing.

  The bastards. The real question was how the hell did this obviously incompetent bag of slop get her hands on my stuff? Because looking at them the description “incompetent bag of slop” was starting to seem downright charitable.

  It also annoyed me that she was wearing a mask that covered the top half of her face. Which was even more effective than a pair of glasses at foiling CORVAC’s facial recognition.

  “We’re gonna have to figure that out,” I muttered.

  “Picking something up on the long range scanner mistress,” CORVAC said.

  I turned to a dot projected off in the distance glowing brightly and moving in fast. I smiled. That had to be her.

  “Our buddy Fialux?”

  “Affirmative mistress,” CORVAC said. “Either that or another alien from another world with impossible powers has arrived on the scene.”

  “CORVAC, that was almost a joke,” I said.

  “I’ll try not to make it a habit,” he said.

  “Let’s try not to manifest things that will make life more difficult while we’re at it,” I muttered.

  “You know I don’t believe in that superstitious nonsense,” he said with a digital sniff.

  After all that buildup the ultimate result was anticlimactic. The villain of the week was gesticulating wildly on the display. I didn’t have the sound turned up since the doors and walls in this building were ridiculously cheap and by extension ridiculously thin. The last thing I needed was for some balding ancient professor to stick his head in and see me using the sort of technology that would give me away.

  Though most of the older professors marking time until they kicked the bucket were also so close to being deaf that they wouldn’t hear if I pumped up the volume anyway.

  Fialux appeared on screen with her cape trailing behind her. The villain seemed to notice. I could imagine the noise the pressure wave traveling in front of her was making even if I couldn’t turn up the volume enough to hear it.

  That giant gun swung around and she nearly dropped it. Then she started firing indiscriminately. She didn’t even bother to aim before she pulled the trigger.

  I shook my head as blasts slammed into buildings and sent chunks of concrete, steel, and glass raining down on the streets below. I could imagine people down below running in terror trying to get out of the way.

  And journalists running towards the heroic intervention to die ignominiously covering a minor scrape between a wannabe and a goddess.

  Amateur hour. I might cause some damage, but it was always with a purpose or in defense of my life. Right behind the no collateral damage rule was no nonessential property damage.

  Public opinion turned against you pretty damn quick when you did that, but apparently this lady never got the memo.

  I’d obviously been away for far too long if this was the sort of trash that was crawling out of the woodwork. This never would’ve happened when I was running the show. This city deserved a better class of villain.

  Of course firing indiscriminately into architecture was also counterproductive in that it didn’t do anything to stop the hero barreling towards the villain in question. That became painfully obvious when a green blur flashed across the screen and the amateur was gone, futuristic stolen gun design and all.

  “Well that was anticlimactic,” I said.

  “Indeed mistress,” CORVAC replied.

  “So much for her coming to office hours,” I muttered.

  “What was that mistress?”

  “Nothing CORVAC. Just observing that even the great Fialux can’t be in two places at once.”

  “So will you be returning to the lab?”

  “Yeah, I’ll teleport over in a minute.”

  Nobody had actually bothered to take me up on my office hours since I started this new position anyways. Most of them were probably too terrified to come chat with me during office hours considering the way I terrorized them in class. I doubt they wanted to risk a one on one demonstration of my lessons.

  I don’t know why I was expecting anything different. If Selena was Fialux then she was off dropping that poor hapless wannabe off at the police station right now, not…

  There was a knock on the door. I looked up. That never happened.

  I opened the door and my eyes widened in surprise. Either I was wrong about Fialux’s secret identity or that super speed was way faster than I thought.

  I wondered what had happened to the villain of the week considering Fialux got here so fast, but decided I didn’t really care as long as she was here.

  Assuming Selena was Fialux and her arriving so soon after Fialux took out a villain wasn’t just a major coincidence.