Generally, the world of psychology agrees that dangerous psychopaths and sociopaths alike need prompting to send them frolicking down the path of wickedness. Well, maybe most didn't frolic, and the duller they were for it.

He didn't remember. Not really. No childhood trauma stood out in his mind, a shining beacon of this-made-you. The entire human race had always been Other, even his own family, and eventually he had disposed of them.

Even so, as alien as ordinary people had always been, on the day when the metal spheres descended from the sky, his teeth bared and his hackles rose. He had stood for a long while, gazing into London Crater, knowing that the six-block hole in the heart of the city existed because Harry Saxon had taken it into his head to assassinate Mycroft Holmes. Long into the curfew he stood and stared and felt. A howling rage had been born within him that day, and he understood what a stressor was.

Three days later, he stood outside a military base. The troops inside were loyal to Saxon. Well, at least they followed his orders. That counted.

Turning away, Jim Moriarty ducked his head against the wind as he lit a cigarette. Smoke curled away into the breeze. Without a care in the world, he strode for the road.

Behind him, a rapid sequence of explosions consumed the military base.