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The man in the Air Force standard issue BDU's or battle dress uniform kneeled in the middle of the large room.
The whole time looking around himself at the ornate chamber and the heavily armed guards who had their weapons trained on him the entire time that their boss continued to lecture him like the captive audience he was.
The headman, or headwoman as the prisoner corrected himself seemed to be hitting all the supervillain monologue hot points.
How inferior his efforts had been.
How inevitable his defeat was.
How if he had been in her employ he would have been the winner and not the loser.
Looking at the guards, he absently noted they were the typical giant sized, grim faced lot who took whatever work they could get. Putting up with just about anything so long as the pay was good.
The pay probably was good, the boss was immaculately well groomed, wearing a ridiculously expensive looking outfit. Probably tailor made. The room was large and well appointed. Business must be good.
Judging by the guards blank expressions, he had a feeling he should have been paying more attention for what felt like a well rehearsed speech. It was obviously lost on all of them.
Still, that was probably for the best. You couldn't be the boss of the bad guys if you had henchmen who were as smart as you were. They might start asking questions, or even worse, decide they should be the boss instead.
Thinking about it from this perspective, he couldn't help wondering if the bosses were lonely running their groups, plotting their plots, scheming their schemes and of course, rehearsing their supervillain monologues.
It would explain why they got so damn chatty when they had someone new to talk to.
A completely absurd thought of setting up a supervillain dating service suddenly popped into his mind. Almost making him giggle in front of his captors. Villains, villains, villains. Where you can meet up, chat, exchange numbers and world domination plans.
Testing his bonds again, Clark Kent couldn't help wondering what his life would have been like if not for one Air Force recruiter.
Danny Kwan, the son of the late principal James Kwan. Had set up a booth on career day for the Air Force at Smallville High.
It was shortly after meeting Danny that his father, the principal had been killed in a matter that actually involved Danny himself.
Turned out Danny had been indirectly the cause for what had amounted to a revenge killing by a boy named Justin Gaines, who only remembered the car that nearly killed him, not the driver.
When he had been arrested, Danny had used his one phone call to get help from a friend he had gone to the academy with.
This friend had turned up in Smallville a day later and had proceeded to take an interest in the case and everything and everyone even remotely involved.
Including the young man who had all but solved said case.
In times of stress, people go with what they know best. Bakers, bake. Farmers, farm.
Recruiters, it turned out, recruit.
So now that Clark had been marked as a person of interest and a potential candidate. Danny's Air Force friend had insisted on staying in touch.
Over the years she had nudged, cajoled and baited Clark towards service in the Air Force with logic puzzles, mathematical equations, obscure translations and a host of other things until he became old enough for enlistment.
Clark had done his level best to keep away from a very tempting, very promising future and certain exposure as an alien on earth.
In retrospect he should have known better than to try to keep a mystery away from the frighteningly intelligent Samantha Carter of SG-1.
"I said! Do you have anything to say for yourself tau'ri? Before your life is taken by the living god Amaterasu?" the slender, asian woman who was possessed by a small snake like symbiote with delusions of grandeur demanded of him.
Clark Kent, newest member of SG-1, simply looked up at her.
Then he smiled.
"Have you ever heard the term, 'Trojan Horse'?"
The superior look Amaterasu gave him turned to confusion, then fear as he snapped his bonds with a flex of his arms.