Dr. Who? That was the name of the headline she slowly typed in her office the morning after Captain Hammer disappeared. Dr. Who? He was the one name she really couldn't think of for the moment. He was this villain that she had never heard of before, and all of a sudden he came with the punch to make Captain Hammer run away. The story was clear to her, the page in front of her was filled with colorful words and the sad truth but the names were sadly blank. Cynthia threw her fore head into her hands and leaned on the desk. Dr. Insane-o was the only name she could come up with. She knew it was sadly wrong. She lifted herself back up again, taking her blonde locks with her and looking at the screen again. Captain Hammer's last glorious picture on one side, and the skinny blonde villain on the other. The young girl finally gave up thinking and wanted to shout across the noisy newsroom. Before she spoke up, however, she remembered the note pad she brought with her that day. Although the events were clear in her mind, she had the name written down on that paper
"It's spelled with two R's. H-O-R-R-I-B-L-E"
Dr. Horrible, that was it. She smiled and filled in the name on her paper, reading over all her sentences as she did, making sure the grammar was right and the spelling check didn't miss anything. It was going to be published tonight and read by the curious city tomorrow morning. Cynthia Blackburn prided herself in her articles about Captain Hammer and Johnny Snow. However, work was about to get really slow with Captain Hammer gone and Johnny Snow being ridiculously boring. Perhaps she could follow the villain around, though heroes were much easier to track. She laughed quietly to herself and hit the print button, leaving her story on the boss's printer before grabbing her coat to leave for the night. Not that she had anywhere to go, but Cynthia was often homesick and just wanted to lie on her couch for the night.
The wait for the bus was cold in February. Though there were other people waiting with her, no one was close enough to really keep warm. An older woman with her small bag of groceries; she must have switched bus routes to get home because there were no stores in this area, only businesses. There was what looked like a young successful man, maybe a lawyer or some kind of Marketing expert. Cynthia stood in between to the two, staring at the young man in front of her. He seemed normal enough, with an old coat and a basket full of clean laundry. The buss arrived as the young reported stared at the dozens of white lab coats he had folded in the basket. Perhaps he was a doctor, or a dentist. She needed to find a new dentist for the painful ache in her tooth.
Once on the bus, the seats were even more crowded. Cynthia let the others go ahead of her, the pushy yet successful man and the cold elderly woman. By the time she got on, there were a limited number of seats left. She headed towards the back, which always seemed to stay warmer, and took a seat next to the young man with the laundry. She smiled when she sat, but didn't say much beyond a "is this seat taken" and "thanks." The young man stared in front of him, moving his eyes every so often to glance at her, though Cynthia thought nothing of it. Humans often looked into the faces of other humans just to look, not to stare of admire or anything else. It was two stops from her house that she felt the need to ask him about his profession.
"Are you a dentist?" she asked and pointed at the basket on his lap. " I noticed all the white coats and I have this horrible tooth ache." She said and pointed to her right check, showing him where the tooth was without opening her mouth.
Cynthia never had a problem finding friends in school; she was quite open and talkative, not shy at all. However, her one draw back was that she was a big chicken, and never wanted to make a fool of herself by taking to a stranger. Hopefully she wasn't making a fool of herself right now.
"What coats? Oh, these…" the man was a little awkward; maybe he didn't like to talk to people like Cynthia did. "Oh no, they are not mine. I washed them, for the lab I work at, as a lab assistant." His sentence was long and drawn out, his head bobbing between each pause.
"Oh, I see. Well, never mind then." She said with a smile and stared ahead again. The bus stopped and the young man stood, the motion asking Cynthia to stand and let his leave the window seat.
"Sorry about that. You ride this bus often? Maybe I will, you know, meet a dentist in the future…" he said and tried to smile. It came out this boyish smirk that made Cynthia secretly happy.
"Yeah, it's the only one that goes this way." She said a bit more matter-of-factly and pointed to the front. "See you later, then?" She waved as he nodded nervously and turned to leave.
Not the most attractive of men, not the most social. Cynthia shrugged it off and continued to wait to get home. Once there, the night was a boring as she planned. She had a limited amount of food left in the fridge and ended up eating a salad she saved from a few days ago; the lettuce was full of flavor but not so crisp. She found a pathetic woman's made for Television movie and watched it until she fell asleep. When the credits began to roll, the woman felt herself wake up. Cynthia found the remote and turned the television off, slowly standing to hit the light and climb into her bed for the night.
However, her open window had attracted a visitor. He was clumsily climbing through and trying not to break anything she had on the desk below the window. Cynthia stood frozen in the door way, not sure whether to run out of the house or simply bash him on the head with something heavy. She chose the bashing method over running and slowly began to walk in the room. On her way to the window, she picked up a shoe, stiletto heal, and held it above her head. As she neared the man in the red lab coat, he succeed climbing in a turned to face her bed. However, she wasn't sleeping there, as the man must have expected. Instead, he began to look around the room and when the two locked eyes, the man screamed out. His scream caused her to scream and drop the shoe. Acting quickly the man threw a hand over her mouth, pushing her back into the closet door to make her quiet.
"I am sure you recognize me, miss, though I don't know you name. You were the same reported I spoke with the day Captain Hammer ran off." His voice was smooth, high pitch and slow. It was eerie to listen to, making poor Cynthia's knees shake. Although many of the super heroes knew her by face, none of them have ever spoke out to her let alone a villain. "My superior thinks it's better for me to have a lot of publicity as the man who chased off Captain Hammer. I trust that you will be able to help me with this."
Cynthia didn't answer him. He might have expected a nod through his hand, but she remained frozen and pinned to the wall. He tilted his head to the side and pulled out a small balloon filled with something liquid. "This pops and you slowly loose one of your five senses. I am trying to make it so that people can't breath it in, but I don't have the concoction right just yet." He lost his overall scary demeanor as he looked at the balloon in his hand. Cynthia looked too as he mumbled about the recipe. "Maybe if I try more glitonium and less dethnemium it will fix the balance. Anyway, the point is that if you don't say yes to my request you might loose your sight. After all, only about six of ten subject actually lost sight." Not really wanting to loose anything so valuable, Cynthia nodded yes and the man released her mouth, putting the balloon back in the bad where it came from.
"Starting tomorrow night I am going to put on a special blog just for you, email it to your public email on the newspaper website and I will expect to see some of my quotes in the paper's article. I'll also let you know when I need you to witness something. I'll contact you through the blog."
Dr. Horrible stared into her eyes for a moment before pulling down the large goggles he held on his head. He turned for the window while the girl watched with fearful eyes. He stopped before climbing out and faced her again, pulling the goggles up one last time. "Do you mind showing me out the front door, since climbing in was such a problem?"