Written to book_worm5‘s prompts here to my Summer Giraffe Call.

“Sometimes a controlled burn is good, and sometimes a forest fire is what you need.” Ted Fidelli was not what you’d think of when you were picturing evil scientists — unless you’d read his papers and happened to be his assistant. Sometimes you need to clear the world of the deadwood and let everything burn.”

Yolanda Giana, who happened to have ended up taking exactly the wrong internship, frowned at her boss. “You’re not talking about trees. You’re talking about people. About ninety-nine percent of the world’s population.”

“But not you. You’re a much better assistant than Mea Goldberg there was.” He gestured negligently at the test chamber, in which Dr. Goldberg — or what was left of her — had been the last test subject in Dr. Fidelli’s plan for world domination by survival of the meanest. “You understand, don’t you? This population surge, it’s a blight on the earth. Mother earth can’t handle what we’re doing to her, and we’re going to have to strip the population back to more reasonable numbers.”

Yolanda counted to twenty silently. She needed this job. She needed not to be the next person in Dr. Fidelli’s testing room there with Dr. Goldberg.

She took a shallow breath. “I’m sure you’re right, doctor. It makes perfect sense.” She’d gotten good at lying through her teeth since finding herself working for a madman. “I’ll just get your coffee then.”

Yolanda took three steps backwards, then, when it became clear that the doctor wasn’t going to call her back, turned and left the lab for the kitchen. She slapped the contamination-lockdown button casually on her way by and slid out as the seals ground closed.

The smoke-bomb of Dr. Fidelli’s formula she had left carefully connected to a timer went off three seconds after the door sealed shut. By the time the doctor realized what was going, he was already as good as dead.

Yolanda called the police while she carefully destroyed all record of her existence. It was just a good thing the doctor had wanted to pay her under the table. She was pretty sure it was still murder even if you did it while saving the world.

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1138150.html

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