Before the rubber chicken blimp, before the giggle gas, before the chaos…

There was Simon Caleb.

At just 19, Simon was already hailed as the "Young Da Vinci" at the Grinsberg Institute of Advanced Sciences. A child prodigy. A brain wired like a motherboard. The kid who built a prototype quantum motor for his electric scooter... just to skip bus fare.

He wasn’t just smart—he belonged to the future.

Then came the Omega Lens Project—a satellite-based energy redirection array meant to help drought-ridden countries receive heat-controlled weather adjustments. Simon proposed the initial design as an intern.

But something went wrong.

Not with the equations. Not with the tech.
With the humans.

The lead researcher pushed the prototype too early, bypassing Simon’s final stabilizer algorithm. The beam misfired during the demo. It hit a civilian water tower—boiling it. The media called it a “steampunk death ray.” Public outrage exploded. The lab was shut down.

Simon begged to explain the truth.
But no one listened.

His professors denounced him to save their careers.
His fellow interns avoided him.
News anchors called him “The Boil Kid.”

In a matter of weeks, Simon Caleb—rising star—was reduced to a joke in every coffee shop punchline.

He disappeared. Some said he ran to another country. Others claimed he joined a cult.

The truth?

Simon stood on the edge of Grinsberg Bridge one foggy night, a note in his pocket that simply read:

“I just wanted to help.”

Then, a slow clap broke the silence.

“Tragic,” said a voice behind him. “Not the jump. The waste. A brain like yours? You could cook a city with comedy.”

Simon turned, eyes wide.

Standing behind him was a tall man in a dark violet three-piece suit, the fabric shimmering slightly under the bridge lights like velvet midnight. A bone-white lab coat hung over his shoulders like a cape, streaked with dark maroon and navy stains—ink? Paint? Blood? Who could say?

His black gloves tapped a cane shaped like a question mark, and his wild eyes sparkled behind round, cobalt-blue tinted goggles that reflected the fog like swirling gas.

Professor Deathjoke.

“You're Simon Caleb. You built an entire solar array using tinfoil, mirrors, and thirty stolen calculators.”

Simon didn’t speak. His lips were trembling.

“Everyone thinks you’re a failure,” Deathjoke said. “Which means they’re all wrong. You’re not a failure, Simon. You’re unpolished brilliance.”

He extended a hand clad in sleek leather.

“Come with me. Be my assistant. My protegee. Let’s make inventions that matter—not to them, but to us. Let’s give the world chaos… and color.”

Simon didn’t take the hand immediately.

But he didn’t jump either.

Five Years Later

Time passed. The world forgot Simon Caleb.

But Professor Deathjoke didn’t.

In an underground laboratory lit by neon spirals and walls made of repurposed carnival rides, the mad duo set to work. Laughter-powered generators, banana-peel drones, echo-mirrors that repeated every word in opera tone—each day a new invention, each night a new scheme.

Simon never smiled. Not truly. He spoke little. Ate little. But he built.

And built.

One night, deep in the lab, while testing the Jokeflux Accelerator (which had accidentally turned two rats into stand-up comedians), Simon stared at his reflection in a cracked mirror.

Behind his emotionless face, barely visible through the lab lights and smudges, was a grin.
Twisted. Subtle. Ugly. Unnatural. But it was there.

Professor Deathjoke saw it. And laughed.

“There it is!” he cried, spinning around in delight. “You’ve got it now! That smile! That cursed, beautiful thing. Like a cracked mask on a ghost!”

Simon blinked.

“It’s not a smile,” he muttered. “It’s muscle tension from sleep deprivation.”

“No no no,” Deathjoke wagged a finger. “It’s a smile. A warning label. A symbol. From now on…”

He raised a gloved finger with a flourish.

“You’re not Simon. You’re Smiley. Because that grin means we’ve won. Every time they called you a joke, we owned it. You’re not the punchline anymore…”

“You’re the setup.”

Smiley stared for a long moment.

Then gave the faintest shrug.

“Fine. But if you ever name another machine ‘Laughinator,’ I’m out.”

They both burst out laughing.

Back in the present day, in their hideout beneath the old abandoned theater, Smiley tightened the giggle valve on their latest contraption: the Soap Sneeze Sprinkler 2.0.

“Hybrid’s closing in,” he said, sipping cola through a curly straw. “Think she’ll enjoy the ‘banana trap hallway’ or the ‘reverse-sticky floor’ more?”

Deathjoke twirled a screwdriver.

“She’s clever. Maybe both. Maybe she’ll inject herself with spider DNA just to cling to the ceiling again.”

“Gross. Effective though.”

Smiley gazed at the screen, watching the female hero Hybrid leap across rooftops.

The twisted grin curled again on his face.

Not fake.

Not forced.

Just real enough to scare the sky.