1 Minute 36 Seconds

Long arguments always leave me with a splitting headache. And a desire to punch someone, although that wasn't feasible at the moment. If only he'd stop the timer. For the millionth time, I shouted, "No, you stop!"

"What?" called Francis, as if he hadn't the slightest idea what I wanted him to stop doing. The sight of him standing there in his ridiculously oversized boots, coat and fur-lined hat, the nearly blinding glare of sunlight reflected off snow backlighting him from the cave entrance was absurd. Posing, as if he had nothing better to do.

"This!" I spluttered. "Everything that you're doing!" The sounds of hissing and fizzing and electricity arcing echoed through the icy cave, so I projected my voice over the quiet cacophony.

Francis cocked his head and paused before finally asking, "You mean, blowing up the world?"

He pointed to the doomsday machine right beside him, as if to check that this device was truly the basis of our argument. There were copper wires and coils and sparks coming off of it. A long tube extended further into the cave, towards the glow of the volcano. There were also marshmallows on sticks spaced at even intervals next to the tube, but I hadn't gotten around to asking about that. An antique timer on the machine flipped one numbered strip after another. 1 minute, 25 seconds, 1 minute, 24 seconds. 1 minute, 23 seconds...

"Of course!" I thundered. Rather a good thunder, too, what with the echoes and all. Francis, aka Dr. McEvil, which is odd, now that I think of it, since I don't think he's Irish...anyway, he almost took a step back. I swear. At the very least his eyes widened a little.

I stared him down boldly. He just sighed.

"Is it really that important to you? There are better worlds."

I crossed my arms with a clink.

"Yes, well I happen to live on this one."

Dr. McEvil gestured to the bluish cave opening behind him.

"You could move," he suggested helpfully.

I stamped my foot. More jangling. "Not in a minute and 7 seconds!"

"I gave you plenty of notice."

That little-! I nearly screamed.

"One day is not plenty of notice, especially when you speak in riddles!"

Seriously, who refers to the world as "a slimy gumdrop dropped in a cyanide puddle on the milk street of emptiness"? You'd think that "I'm going to blow up the world" would take exactly 7 words to say, but his "notice" was practically a textbook, both in terms of length and opacity.

"Well maybe if you hadn't wasted your day trying to find me, we wouldn't be here!"

"Maybe if you weren't trying to destroy the world, I wouldn't have to stop you!"

"And how's that going for you?"

I looked down at the chains binding me to the wall of the icy cave. I didn't have enough time to free myself, even with the concealed buzz-saw in my boot.

"...not well."

"Getting chained up will do that to you."

36 seconds. Time to try a new tactic.

"Now, Francis, do you think we could talk this over?" I gestured meaningfully.

Dr. McEvil looked to where I'd gestured. "You mean, without the timer?"

"Yeah."

He harrumphed. "But I told everyone 24 hours. And besides, it's very dramatic."

I spread my hands in a placating manner, my chains clanking. "We can always blame it on a rounding error. Don't you want to see where this conversation goes?"

13 seconds.

12 Seconds.

11 seconds.

10 seconds. My fingers were getting twitchy, though at this point they couldn't do any good.

9 seconds.

"You might have a point," said Francis, "I guess, for the sake of argument, I could pause the timer. Just this once."

Francis reaches over and flipped a switch.

1 second.

The timer stopped moving, but I had to be sure. "Thank you. Is it off?"

Francis gave me an exasperated look, as if to say, duh, what do you think I was doing?

"It's off. Now tell me, what possible argument could you make for saving the world?"

I relaxed my left arm so that it aimed at Francis, then pushed the hidden button.

"A simple one. It's called the 'use a dart with a fast-acting sedative to postpone such conversations until we've stepped back from the brink of destruction' argument."

Dr. McEvil crumpled to the floor.

"Oh look! It worked out perfectly."

Now to get myself out of these chains.

The End