Jeff Wysaski
You Are an Evil Genius is Pleated Jean’s first full-length parody Choose Your Own Adventure novel (currently a work in progress). Whereas CYOA novels take the premise of “YOU are the hero,” Pleated Jeans prefers the alternate – and much more awesome – approach of “YOU are the villain.” The first page of this epic adventure is below:
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“Finally, it is done,” you think to yourself as you slump into your favorite hover chair and begin to massage your beautifully enlarged cranium. The last six months have left you exhausted, but even as your brain aches, you can’t help but crack a slight, malicious grin.
At long last, your secret mountain lair is complete. It took longer than expected – hours of digging, pages of complex mathematical equations, an endless pile of wallpaper samples – but it was all worth it. For the first time in your life, you finally have an evil lair befitting of your superior evil genius. Slowly, the reality of the accomplishment sets in and, upon realizing that you will never again have to rent lab space alongside the flunkies and Goths at the local community college, you happily tilt your head back and let slip a boisterous, maniacal laugh.
A moment later, you stare contently at your latest work-in-progress – the Death Orb.
“The gingham throw pillows really add some much-needed country flair to the internal chamber,” you think to yourself. As you play around with the arrangement of the pillows, trying to find a pattern that delivers “maximum pizzazz,” the doorbell rings.
The sound of the electronic chime echoes off the towering stonewalls, and freezes you dead in your tracks.
“Who could be at the door?” you think to yourself. You’d gone to great lengths to keep the location of your mountain lair a secret from everyone. Had one of the day laborers you hired to dig the tunnels survived the Matter Degenerator and returned to exact his revenge?
“Impossible,” you think to yourself. You personally watched with demented glee as the MD ripped each one of those poor men apart, and you had the video scrapbook to prove it.
The doorbell rings again and you start to panic a little. Whoever’s on the other side of that door could be trouble (with a capital “T”). If you just pretend like no one is home, maybe they’ll go away and never come back. On the other hand, whoever is out there obviously knows the location of your secret mountain lair. Perhaps it’s better to confront the issue head on.
If you decide to answer the door, turn to page 64.
If you decide to not answer the door, turn to page 12.
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