Making Love the Mad Scientist Way

As the transport made its way back to Castle Doom, Victor monitored Vanessa's condition via the small bay he used to repair his armor while in transit. Most of the remaining damage was cosmetic. Her armor had taken the brunt of it and was now scrap. His main concern had been her CPU, which was in her unprotected head. It galled him that he had Richards to thank for her continued survival. If only her force field had been on she could have withstood the assault with minimal damage to her armor. "But that would have defeated the purpose of your sacrifice," Victor mused as he gently stroked what was left of her face.

Vanessa's groan of pain snapped him back to reality. "Why am I not dead?"

"Because I made you a lot tougher than a normal human," he replied with a hint of pride.

She couldn't sit up yet but she was able to raise and examine her hand. Much of the synthetic flesh was damaged exposing the endoskeleton beneath. To her credit she remained calm as she asked, "What am I?"

You are the answer to one man's lonely life," he said and he told her about the moment of weakness and inspiration that lead to her creation.

Victor Von Doom awoke feeling the loneliness of being the only living person in a castle populated by robots. As ruler of Latvaria he could have any woman in his kingdom that struck his fancy and had often done just that, but not even the smartest or most beautiful of them ever lasted long. They were always either too scared of him, or too attracted to the power he possessed to care about him. Most became little more than obedient sex slaves. Something to warm his bed but often useless for much else.

He sighed as he pulled his silk sleep mask from his face and ran his hand over the ruined remains of what had once been the image of the perfect male. He had grown tired of meaningless sex, but who could love a man with a face as scarred as his? He could do as that repulsive golem Ben Grimm had done and have a blind woman, but he could not accept someone so flawed. He could not show such a weakness even to himself. Doom must have perfection!

His thoughts, as they often did, turned to the four fantastic banes of his existence. Reed Richards had Susan, the Thing had a blind woman but at least he had a woman, and even that blasted boy, the Human Torch, had someone. So why could the brilliant Dr. Victor Von Doom not find someone? If only finding the perfect woman was as easy as designing another doom-bot.

He sat up in bed. Why couldn't it be that simple? Hadn't he created Lucia von Bardas? If that fool Richards could create an artificial intelligence like that naive Herbie, then surely the genius mind of Doom could create an AI that would be his intellectual equal! He got out of his four poster bed and strode over to his closet where he changed from his silk pajamas to his usual daytime attire. He then went to his laboratory. He had much work to do to bring his perfect woman to life.

"That was approximately three and a half years ago. It took me half a year to perfect your design. I wanted to make you as close to human as my limited technology and unlimited genius could. I based your mind on my own, although there were some anomalies in the scan I used that didn't make themselves evident until after your activation."

She smiled as best she could, "Like my sense of humor."

"Among other things. I have since examined the scan, as well as the entire process of your creation, but I still can't locate the source of the anomalies. Not that it matters anymore. I can't think of anything about you that I would change even if I could."

"That's reassuring. I don't think either of us would want me to be a Stepford wife."

"When I activated you three years ago," Victor continued, "I made sure you had no idea you were not what you seemed. I told you that you were a survivor of a terrible avalanche."

"An avalanche that never happened I assume," said Vanessa.

"Actually, it did," Doom countered. "It happened near my castle and it was the inspiration for my explanation of your amnesia. "

"So the two years we spent working on that system…"

"Were the best I have had in a long time. I had no idea that working with someone whose genius was so close to my own could be so fulfilling."

"But why the deception?"

Victor turned away as if the truth shamed him. "I hoped, despite your artificial origins, that you could truly love me and that your not knowing the truth about yourself could, somehow, make you woman enough for me to love you in return. I now realize that it was a foolish hope. How could a machine ever truly love me? How could I deceive myself into loving someone that I know is just a machine in the form of a woman?"

Her short burst of laughter forced him to turn back to her. "You tin-headed egotist. You're so busy trying to prove to yourself that it couldn't happen that you don't see the truth."

"Don't you dare mock me woman!" Doom shouted, barely keeping himself from lashing out. "I did not ally myself with my hated enemy to save the life of a machine just so she could insult me!"

"Think about it Victor." Her tone turned serious. "For years you've been willing to do anything to crush Reed and thus prove yourself to be his superior, yet you were willing to abandon that vendetta, to work alongside you most hated rival, in order to save the life of a machine you claim not to love. I was willing to sacrifice myself to save you from your obsession in the name of an emotion you claim I can't feel. Don't you see? Despite everything, your ego, my origin, etc, we've fallen in love with each other!"

Victor thought about that for a few moments. For the first time since his childhood he was at a loss for words. Had he achieved his goal without realizing it? He thought about his actions in the past three years. He had courted her as he would have any other woman of course. He hadn't wanted to give her any indication that she was less than human. But that aside, he had accepted behavior from her that he would not have tolerated from anyone else. When her sense of humor first manifested itself in little ways he had at first dismissed it as a minor glitch that would soon clear up. Then, when it began to annoy him he tried to find the source of the problem, even going so far as to scan her without her knowing, but to no avail. He had briefly considered deactivating her and starting over but by that time he had already worked alongside her for several months. He had convinced himself that quitting in the face of a correctable malfunction was the escape route of lesser men.

Her presences had also caused changes in his behavior. Changes so subtle that, individually, they could be easily missed even by the brilliant mind of Doom. He had done things purely for the pleasure of pleasing her. He had even come to tolerate, and to a point, admire her humor. He had allowed her to do things that he still would not tolerate from anyone else. When she painted his mask he had almost destroyed her as he would have anyone else who dared to commit such an offence, but afterward their fight, when she dismissed the issue he realized that she had meant no insult. He should have destroyed that mask, but he found himself saving it instead. He had told himself that it was a reminder to be careful. That he could not trust her completely. But the emotion he felt when he looked at the mask was no longer a feeling of betrayal, if it ever was. When she sacrificed herself against the doom-bots he felt each impact, each explosion, almost as if it were happening to him. Was this love? He thought about the box hidden in his chambers and what the item in that box meant. He looked at her ruined face, a face that, unlike his, could be restored to its former glory.

"Assuming you are correct," he finally said, ignoring her chuckle, "where do we go from here?"

"Home my dear Victor," she replied as she held his hand. First we go home and repair me. Then we do what all who are in love do. We figure it out as we go."

He smiled behind his mask. "That," he said as he lifted her hand and mimed a kiss upon it, "is a challenge worthy of our combined genius."

The End of the Beginning