Luck Unbound

Ivor Messing stood over the map of the world. His workers, minions, milled about in the back, moving this piece of equipment here, or that gizmo there. Ivor studied the map, a real-time geographical map depicting notable points of interest on the globe, a long-stemmed cigarette holder clutched in his mouth.

Something glowed in the arctic. He squinted his eyes and wondered if that was where Yelena's ice palace was hidden. Based on the color of the dot, it was quite interesting indeed. Interesting to an evil genius who dabbled in global domination, someone quite a bit like Ivor. He smiled, puffing smoke from the nostrils of his pointed nose.

"Sir?" someone said, derailing his mental maniacal machinations.

He looked over. It was Manny "Southpaw" Sousa, his most loyal henchman. His glare of irritation went to a kinder look of friendly annoyance.

"Yes?" he said.

Manny held a manilla envelope in his left hand. Bits of snow still clung to its outside. He handed it to Ivor. "The latest dispatch from the Riviera," he said. With his right hand, or rather, the pistol that had replaced it, he scratched the scar along his forehead.

"Thank you, Manny," said Ivor. He popped it open.

"They say that Luck is on the move," Manny said. "He's going to strike tonight. He was overheard saying it was his greatest foe, and that he was going to steal 'some shiny rock for Her Majesty, the Queen.'"

Ivor snorted. "That could only mean one thing," he said, laying the dispatch down upon his world map. As one, the two turned to face the pulsing stone that hovered in the central dais of the room: the Illuminated Opal, a luminous and particolored stone straight from the stuff of legends. Its light outshone the ambient light of the windows of magma flowing through the heart of the active volcano that housed his secret base, keeping the base a comfortable tropical temperature, even in the middle of winter.

"I don't know of any other shiny rocks," said Manny.

Ivor smiled a wicked smile. "Then we have some work to do to prepare for our special guest."

Manny smiled. "Yeah?" he said.

"Lay out a trap. Make it easy, but not too easy. When Luck thinks he has the rock, capture him. Once he's subdued, I'll handle the rest."

Manny nodded. "You going to kill him this time?"

Ivor shrugged. "I've been too easy on him in the past. He escaped my crushing trap, my shark pool, and even my gauntlet of lasers. I wonder if I'm spoiling him, letting him get away too easily in the past. But, all the same, it would be a pity to lose such a formidable foe. I'm sure the feeling is mutual, considering the dispatch." He looked up at Manny, who was picking something off the barrel of his gun hand. "I have much to consider, Manny. I'll be in my office."

He picked up the dispatch and brought it with him to his office. Giant windows of super tough glass held back pools of magma, each giving his office a calm, orange light in which to focus. On the corner of his crescent-moon desk sat a lava lamp with wax the same hue as the magma behind him. He polished his monocle before studying the dispatch: the pictures, the diagrams, the words said.

"His greatest foe," Ivor said. He couldn't help but smile. He let his mind wander as to how he would handle Luck when he was finally captured. "'I'm afraid,'" he said out loud, "'your luck is at its end.'" He ran that through his mind a few times. "'Your luck has run out,'" he tried. "No, that might make him think he can escape. How about, 'I'm earnest when I tell you that your luck will expire,'" He tried other ways of working in Luck's first name into the mix. "'Earnesty,'" he said, "'This is my lucky day.'"

He pushed the page button. "Sir?" said the dispatch minion.

"Send in Lenny," Ivor said. "I want to run some lines by him."

"Yes, sir," said the voice on the phone.

He looked at the clock. He had plenty of time to come up with the perfect line before Luck would arrive.

***

Ernest Luck stood by the open door of the airplane. He looked down below at the snowy mountain in the midst of a blizzard. Taking a look back at the woman flying the plane, he said, "This is where I get off. Don't wait up for me, love. I'll be back by tea."

She gave him a thumbs up. He pulled his goggles over his eyes before jumping from the door and flew through the snowy mist. Soon, he was sailing through the air, the distant mountain growing larger as he descended. His watch gave a high-pitched chirp. "Time to glide," he said. He extended his arms and legs outward, exposing the wings of a squirrel suit. He caught a gust of air and rode it down until he was near the mountainside. He estimated his speed before clicking his heels together. "No place like home," he said as two skis emerged from his boots. He tucked in his arms, making a graceful transition from the sky to the mountainside. He rode down the flurries of snow before coming to a halt several meters from the entrance to the lair.

The skis retracted back into his boots. "Didn't think it would be this cold," he said. He clicked the toes of his boots, causing built-in crampons snapped into place on his feet. He took the rest of the way down the hill on foot, keeping out of view of the two guards who stood by the entrance. He looked back up at the peak of the mountain, mostly occluded by a vast wall of grey clouds. Intelligence had briefed him that it was technically not a mountain, but it was something else, he just couldn't remember the technical word they used, nor did he care. If he could scale it, it was a mountain enough.

He took a moment to study the two guards as they stared out into the wilderness, looking for anything of interest. He imagined it would be a dreadfully boring job, and part of him pitied them. This part of him, however, was not the same part that dropped down on the first while the other wasn't looking. With a quick karate chop (his martial arts trainer had said it wasn't technically a karate chop, as he wasn't learning karate, but he couldn't remember the word for the martial arts he had learned, so karate chop it was), he incapacitated the first guard. The second one was unaware of this until he heard the impact of the body hitting the ground. Before he knew it, he felt an arm around his neck. "Sorry, old chum," he heard a voice say before everything grew black. "Nothing personal."

Luck stood over the two fallen guards. "You're both lucky my license to kill is pending renewal." With that, he stepped into the entrance. The inside of the mountainside base was much warmer than he had expected. He removed his outer coat and boots, setting them in the corner out of site. He stood there in a tuxedo. Pulling his Thunder 380 from within his jacket, he took a moment to admire himself in a nearby reflection. "You old dog," he said. "Now, let's get that rock."

He sneaked through the tunnels, hiding behind the convenient packing crate or barrel every time a group of minions happened by. "Keep casualties to a minimum," Dash had told him. "But get the rock," Dot had added. He pretended to pay attention during the briefing about why national security depended on his getting the rock. He didn't care how the sausage was made, just that he got to make it.

His current hallway opened up into a large area. Orange lights shifted in the periphery, giving the room the look of a dance hall with a fancy lighting scheme. He thought about taking that lady pilot for a dance when this was over, and faltered when he tried to remember her name. "Was it Josephine?" he said to himself.

He'd ask Nigel when giving an update on the mission status.

He saw in the middle of the room: the something-or-other rock. It glowed all by itself, and reminded him of one of his mother's overpriced bits of jewelry. "Or maybe Francine," he said.

He stepped up to the rock. This was easy. Almost too easy. He stopped. Was it too easy, or just easy enough? He shrugged before grabbing the rock from the pedestal. "Maybe it was Justine," he said. An alarm broke the silence of the base. A spotlight illuminating him, blinding him for a moment. "What's this now?" he said.

From every doorway emerged a well armed minion, each with his gun trained on Luck.

"At last," he heard a voice say from the balcony above. "It appears my luck has finally arrived."

Using his hand and the rock to shield his eyes from the spotlight, he peered at the figure on the balcony. "Yelena Boldocka," he said. "I should have guessed." He dropped his Thunder 380 and set the stone back on the pedestal. Placing his hands behind his head, he let a minion cuff him.

"Tie him to the table," Yelena said. "We'll see if we can make him squeal like the pig he is." She gave him a crooked smile. The minion leading him to the table gave him a look as if to say, "Don't blame me."

***

Ivor had eaten his dinner, complete with the dessert. He pushed a stray blueberry around his plate. He pressed the intercom. "Any word, yet?" he said.

"No, sir," said the voice on the other end.

He looked at the dispatch once more. The date was today's date. He even double checked to make sure he wasn't missing some important international date line sort of thing. Everything was right for today, so why wasn't Luck present?

"Any activity in the skies?"

"No sir, nor in the water or on the ground. We've been monitoring it closely since this afternoon."

"Thank you," he said. He gave the blueberry a stab, but the force of the motion only sent it flying off into some corner of the room. He pushed the plate away. "What could have gone wrong? Was it faulty intel? Maybe that was it. You can never trust those Riviera agents, dishonest as water voles. I'm sure that was it. That has to be it."

He took a calming breath. It was just a misunderstanding. He would loudly tell the henchmen and minions that there was some bad intel, and hey, we all make mistakes. With a quick laugh and then a back-to-business, everything would be back to normal by the next day.

He went out into the command room. "Everybody," he said, taking a stand next to the Opal, "I have an announcement to make."

"Incoming call," said one of the minions.

Ivor rolled his eyes. "What now?" he said. "Put it on the big screen."

He saw the gleaming crooked smile of Yelena staring back at him. Other faces lined the bottom of the screen, showing some of his most powerful colleagues in their respective bases.

"It appears that it takes a woman to accomplish what even the greatest men in the world, and on the moon (she nodded at Derrik Bravo, whose face sat in the corner), have continually failed to do." She stepped away to reveal behind her: Ernest Luck, tied to a table. A large and painful looking device was pointed at him.

"You see, gentlemen, I have captured Agent Luck, the perpetual thorn in our side. And in the next few hours, I will torment him until he eventually succumbs to the pain and dies in the most miserable way possible." She laughed a laugh that crescendoed into a squeak.

Ivor ran from the room. "Get the Bird ready," he said to a nearby minion. "Now!"

***

The flight seemed intolerably long. The minions were sitting with expressionless faces, ready at a moment's notice to follow his orders. Manny was looking at a newspaper folded into quarters, working on what looked to be a crossword. The pilot wordlessly navigated the airplane through the skies. Ivor saw snowflakes out the window. He had wrung every bit of life out of his fur hat.

He tried with every ounce of strength to not rock back and forth, muttering "C'mon, c'mon, hurry up and get there."

"What's that, boss?" asked Manny. He pinned the newspaper to the seat beside him with his gun hand before penciling in the answer to 27 down.

"Nothing," said Ivor. "Just thinking out loud, I guess."

"I'm as shocked as you at the intel," Manny said while filling in 32 across. "I'll have to have a word with the agents on the Riviera."

"Of course," said Ivor.

"Between the two of us," he said, ignoring for the moment the half-dozen minions and pilot, "I always thought you were his most formidable foe. I mean, what does Yelena have that you don't?"

"She has Luck," said Ivor.

"Of course, and soon you'll have the luck. It's just how these things work out."

Before Ivor could let Manny know that he wasn't talking about that sort of luck, the pilot got on the intercom. "We're making our descent," he said. "Please prepare for a landing."

Manny stuck his newspaper and pencil between his teeth before buckling himself into the seatbelt. Ivor went to put his on as well, but stopped when he noticed that he had never taken it off. He gave the fur hat one more wring before doing his best to straighten it out. When the Bird landed, after half of the minions took point, Ivor descended from the ramp, wearing a grey fur coat and the mostly head-shaped black fur cap. His monocle fogged up as the cold air hit his face. Manny walked down behind him, followed by the remaining minions.

"I heard," said Manny, "that if you walk out backwards, your glasses don't fog up."

Ivor nodded.

They marched toward the icy mountain. At the door, a group of guards were gathered. Two wore heavy blankets and were drinking hot chocolate. The others eyed Ivor and his posse with a look of curiosity, but otherwise let them pass. They made their way directly to the main chamber of Yelena's base. A spinning wheel bedecked with all manner of blades slowly descended down toward Luck. A man with pointed metal teeth held the lever controlling the mechanism. Yelena stood over the tied down form of Luck in a sort of gloating stance.

"Do you expect me to cry?"

"No," said Yelena. "Just die. Your luck is about to expire." She said this as she looked up to see Ivor and his group approach.

"Stop this!" he shouted. "I demand it!"

Yelena gave him a steady look before raising a single hand to her own minions. The bladed wheel stopped inches above Luck's face.

"Thanks, Iggy," he said. "I'd shake your hand, but I'm a bit tied up at the moment."

Ivor looked over at Luck. "I'll deal with you later," he said. He looked squarely at Yelena. "Are you crazy?" he asked her.

"No more than the rest of us," she said. "What do you mean?"

"You can't actually kill him," he said.

"Why not? He constantly thwarts our goals. Think of what we could do without this pesky gnat buzzing in our ears."

"But," said Ivor, "you're forgetting one important thing."

"What is that?"

"The fun. The cat and mouse. The raison d'etre. Where would we be without Luck?"

"We'd be running the world, finally."

"But would that be enjoyable?"

Yelena's icy gaze softened. Before she could respond, a loud commotion emerged from one of the hallways. An enormous, hairy man in an equally enormous fur hat burst into the room. He was trailed by his own minions and his most loyal henchman, a sort of robot with a glass jar for a head. The jar contained what looked to be a human brain.

"Stop this madness!" he shouted in a thick Eastern European accent.

"Derrik!" said Yelena. "Why are you here?"

Derrik took off his fur hat revealing another hat, almost quite as large. This one had a crescent-moon emblem on the front. "First you steal my stone, then you kill my greatest foe? What madness is this?"

Yelena looked over at the glowing moonstone still sitting on the pedestal beside her. "It was a misunderstanding, Derrik," she said. "I only took the stone to capture Luck."

"But then you kill him? Why? Have you lost all joy in life as well as sanity?"

"No, Derrik," she said. "I haven't killed him. Yet. What do you mean?"

Ivor gave Derrik a look. "You kill Luck," said the large man, "And you rob life of what it is that brings us the most joy. What good does it man to have everything he wants without trying? There is no joy in that life. Please, do not kill Luck."

Yelena looked from Derrik to Ivor to Luck. She gave her henchman a hand signal. He pushed the lever up, causing the mechanism to ascend.

"I owe you gentlemen an apology," she said. "I did not think it through. I am sorry."

"Apology accepted," said Luck.

"I wasn't talking to you," she said. She looked at Ivor and Derrik. "Can you find it in your evil hearts to forgive me?" she said. She batted her eyes at them.

Ivor rolled his eyes.

"Of course, dear Yelena," said Derrik. "But I do expect the return of my moonstone."

Yelena sighed. "Of course," she said. She plucked it off of its pedestal before handing it to the brain-jar henchman. "Though I was just getting used to it. It will be a pity to give up such a beautiful stone." She took a step toward Derrik.

"I must admit, dear Yelena," he said, taking a step toward her. "I did not tell you the whole story regarding your larceny. It did not start with your theft of the stone."

Yelena looked surprised and confused. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," he said, "the first thing you stole was not this glowing rock from the cosmos, but rather the beating stone of my heart." He took the rock from his henchman before plopping down on one knee, though he was still taller than Yelena, he held it out to her. "Yelena Boldocka, will you do me the honor of being my wife?"

The confusion of Yelena's face transformed into a smile. "Of course, Derrik. I have had too many cold days in my icy castle." They embraced and their respective minions gave a round of applause.

Ivor elbowed Manny. "Let's get out of here," he said. His minions untied and shackled Luck.

As he led the agent out into the hallway, he heard Yelena say, "But do you expect me to take on your last name? Yelena Bravo?"

"We can work out the details later, my love," said Derrik. He lifted his betrothed in his arms and gave her a kiss.

Near the end of the hallway, Luck pointed to the pile of his coat. "Can we get that before we leave, Iggy? It's a touch cold outside."

"Sure," said Ivor. One of the minions draped it over Luck's back.

"Thanks for saving my bacon, back there," said Luck, as they passed the guards at the door.

"Don't mention it," said Ivor. They climbed into the Bird. It rose into the air and made its way back toward Ivor's volcano base.

"You seem down, old chum," said Luck.

Ivor looked at the agent. He looked right at him, like he cared about what Ivor was feeling. Ivor sighed. "It's nothing," he said. He looked down at his polished boots and the wilted fur hat in his hands.

"It's never nothing," said Luck. "Tell old Ernie, Iggy. I'm all ears."

Ivor took a deep breath. "Well, when we got the intelligence from the Riviera, I thought you were going to come steal my luminescent opal." He pulled it from his pocket. It filled the cabin of the airplane with a deep ethereal glow. "I thought you were coming for me because I was your greatest foe." He set the rock on the seat beside him and looked back into the hat clutched in his hands. "I thought I meant something to you. That we were more than just enemies. That we were something more... you know."

"Meaningful?" asked Luck.

"Yes, that."

"Pish posh, Iggy," said Luck. "That thing with Yelena was just a ruse. I knew you'd come through for me. After all, what are the best of enemies for?" Ivor felt Luck pat his shoulders. He looked up at the agent. Ernest Luck stood there, no longer shackled. The minions and Manny were all unconscious, and the shackles were now securing Ivor's wrist to the bulkhead. Luck picked up the rock. "All a ruse to get this beauty," he said. He stuck it into his coat before walking up to the door. "I knew your trap would be too much for me to handle, so I planned a little diversion."

"What?" was all Ivor could manage.

Luck pried the door open. "This is my stop," he said. "Until next time, Iggy, or should I say, my number one enemy, it looks like your Luck is running out." He put on his goggles. "Maybe it was Darline," he said before jumping out of the plane. Ivor watched him go. Once the shock wore away, he thought about what Luck had said.

"My number one enemy," he repeated. His normally stern face turned into a smile. "Did you hear that?" he asked the pilot. The pilot did not respond. Like the others, he too sat unconscious, draped over the yoke. Ivor shook his head. "My number one enemy," he said once more. Then he laughed.