"You back? You back, boy?" Gus said, with the excitement that can only come to an old man at the end of a long, seemingly hopeless struggle.
Excelsior tried to speak, but all that came out was a wheezing rasp.
"Easy, easy, you've been down here for a while." He leaned back again and more sunlight flooded into Excelsior. "Goddamn it, I said give me some water. Throw it. THROW IT!"
Water was poured onto Excelsior's dry lips and he drank of it greedily. He swallowed. He cleared his throat and then said one word.
"Windsor."
The ground exploded and Excelsior vaulted into the air. There was a rush of wind and he was gone on his mission of revenge. Revenge for being imprisoned. Revenge for the confusion of his life. Revenge, ultimately, for being born.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
By the seventh hole, the knots in Edwin's shoulders had let go. He was striking drives with high, soaring confidence. The elegance of his game was pouring through every shot.
Winter and the demands of a growing company had kept Edwin from the game he loved, but when he was invited to come south to play golf on one of the finest courses in the country, he had not been able to resist. It also hadn’t hurt that he would be playing with Paul Facto.
Facto was one of the unknown, powerful men of the world. He sat on the boards of 23 of the Fortune 100 companies. He was also a perfectly mediocre golfer. But he knew his mark, and wanted Edwin to be in a good mood when he made his offer.
Over the last six holes, Facto had been evaluating Edwin's character. As inconvenient as Omdemnity Insurance was, Facto couldn’t help but admire Edwin Windsor. He had talent. He showed restraint. He understood business. But the question was, could he be co-opted? Facto believed so. This was good, because Facto wasn't sure that there was another option.
Of course, they could have had him killed. But in addition to being in bad taste, there were other, unknown dangers. Edwin controlled a force of incredible destruction. They did not know how he controlled it, but you do not have to understand how an atomic bomb works to know that assassinating the leader of a country that has one is a very risky move.
What intimidated Facto most of all was that Edwin hadn't brought a security team. In the world in which Facto lived, security teams were a necessary and everyday accessory. In fact, Facto had brought four bodyguards with him for this round of golf. They kept a respectful and polite distance, of course, but still, they were there. Did Edwin have a superpowered person watching over him? Was he suicidal? Did he have no fear? The fact that he had to ask these questions was disconcerting. But Facto believed that Edwin was a man who left nothing to chance. And so he proceeded.
"So Windsor," Facto said as Edwin walked onto the tee, "I'd like you to be on the board of Amalgamated Chemical."
This was a substantial offer. But Edwin was nonplussed. In fact, he did not even stop his pre-swing routine. He said, "I accept."
Again, Facto was rattled. He was not accustomed to the sensation.
"And the board of United Petroleum." By market capitalization, UP was one of the biggest companies in the world. That should surely get his attention, thought Facto.
Edwin did not check the motion of his swing. The compression of the ball against the face of the club sounded like an explosion. Edwin finished his turn and said, "I accept." Facto watched Edwin's shot bounce once and roll to a stop in the middle of the fairway.
"You've won," said Facto. His statement had little or nothing to do with the golf match, even though Edwin was well on his way to winning that as well. What he meant was that Edwin had broken the collective will of the corporate oligarchy. He had made it into the club. It was simply better business to give him an interest in companies that he might otherwise damage with his scheme of extortion and destruction.
Edwin did not snort derisively. He was not the kind of man who snorted. But it had been obvious to Edwin for many months that he had won. He had found it tiresome to bother with the actual destruction of factories at all. But then, Edwin was accustomed to being several steps ahead of those around him. He had grown used to the burden. And also the burden of winning gracefully. "I'll give you a stroke a hole from here on in, just to keep it interesting," Edwin offered magnanimously, politely pretending that Facto had been talking about golf.
As they got into the golf cart, Facto opened his mouth to accept the offer. But before he could agree, the tee box erupted in a superheated inferno of molten grass.
"JESUS CHRIST!" screamed Facto as he gave the cart all it was worth, which, of course, wasn't very much.
As they cut across the golf course, Facto shrieked at his security team, "Shoot it! SHOOT IT!"
A sheet of fire erupted to block their path. Facto swerved to avoid it and skidded to a stop underneath a small stand of trees.
As Edwin looked back, he saw a blur attach itself to one cart full of security personnel and throw it high into the sky. Edwin yelled, "Stand down," at a remaining member of Facto's security team who was firing an automatic weapon into the air indiscriminately.
"No, no!" cried Facto, "Shoot him! Shoot him!"
Edwin shook his head. Even in the face of certain and utter destruction, mankind was an animal that clung to false hopes and delusions. This was not a problem that bullets could solve.
"WINDSOR!" The cry boomed across the golf course. Even before hearing the voice, Edwin had known who it was. Every plan, no matter how carefully executed, has its downside risks. In Edwin's great scheme, this had always been his.
Edwin heard the inclement weather horn sound back at the clubhouse. How fitting, he thought, how Ancient and Honorable. Edwin would regret leaving great works unfinished, but most of all he would miss this game. Its uncompromising standard, its plain sensibility in a world gone mad. As Facto fled, Edwin stepped out on the surface of a nearby green and composed himself. He would face his fate.
Excelsior came down at an impossible speed. His booted feet slammed knee deep into the surface of the carefully manicured green.
This gave Edwin hope. Scant hope, of course, but if Excelsior had wanted him dead, he would have killed him already. This theatricality was something else entirely. Besides, as Excelsior stood knee-deep in the earth, he didn't look as powerful as he might. His skin was an unhealthy shade of whitish green, bits of concrete clung to his costume and hair, and, unless Edwin was mistaken, there appeared to be mold growing on the sweatier parts of his costume. Edwin smoothed his shirt and stood to his full height.
"Windsor!" Excelsior began, but then he realized the absurdity of his position, and he broke his feet free from the earth.
Edwin took this opening, "You have just killed several innocent men and destroyed the life's work of a truly masterful greenskeeper. Am I next?"
"Innocent? INNOCENT? They worked for you. They can't be innocent."
"No, in fact, they worked for Mr. Facto. I have no security team."
"Who the hell is Facto?"
"The man who undoubtedly soiled himself and his golf cart as he fled back to the clubhouse."
At a loss for the moment, Excelsior tried an old standard, "Windsor, FACE ME!"
It was too stupid for Edwin to dignify with a response. He just stared.
Excelsior tried to appear strong, but on the inside he felt unimaginably weak and confused. He had been so long underground. And now he had all these thoughts and feelings that he didn't know what to do with. He realized that there was no way—that there were no words—to give his inarticulate rage expression. A great wave of emotion overcame him again. For some reason, he thought of that long-lost bicycle, the Schwinn Excelsior. The bike he could never have because he no longer had a childhood left with which to ride it.
He couldn't help himself. Tears poured down his face.
"What is it that you want?" asked Edwin.
"I want revenge."
"I'm not in that business," said Edwin.
"Yes, you are. I want to be Evil."
"Ah," said Edwin, considering t
he possibility, "that is something else entirely."
Imagine you are not from around here. And by not from around here, I mean not from this quadrant of the galaxy. You've had no experience with the flora or fauna of Earth. And you are magically (or scientifically) transported to the middle of the desert in Arizona. You are immediately struck with the beauty of the place. The colors of the sunset, the sand, the strangely beautiful creatures that survive in this difficult ecosystem. Maybe you are a Martian and it reminds you of your now-dead home world. For whatever reason, the landscape touches you deeply.
Most of all you are moved by the delicate flowers that are put forth by the many cacti that surround you. Even though you don't really know about cacti, or flowers or deserts.
As you are drawn to one particularly beautiful white flower, you hear a noise. It's a strange sort of rattling noise that increases in intensity as you continue to move towards the flower "Ah,” you think, “this must be that ‘music’ stuff the Voyager satellite kept blasting at us." And because you are most certainly not from around here, the sound fails to create a sense of alarm.
In fact, your slender green body begins jerking in a non-rhythmic and strangely awkward fashion you believe to be ‘dancing. (Because if there is one thing that fringe research, government experiments and Hollywood have shown us, alien life forms have no funk whatsoever.)
That's when the rattlesnake bites you.
Now, if this were a story about an awkward alien come down to earth, this would be the moment where some capable, stoic and completely human son of the desert would happen along, apply a tourniquet, and save your ignorant alien ass. Then would begin a series of hilarious complications that would bring the two of you closer and closer together in an unlikely series of buddy-movie twists that would leave you both forever changed.
This is not that story. So if you are still identifying with the awkward, fish-out-of-water alien then I am sorry because you are now dead. But you have not died in vain. Your death is about to be used to make a point.
The point is this: if you don't know any better, you don't feel the appropriate level of fear when a rattlesnake rattles. Or when Edwin Windsor offers you a contract. But you and I, we do know. We know what it means when Edwin presents you with a contract making him your “agent for all matters personal and business, plenipotentiary, and without limit.” Just like we know that snakes are deadly.
Excelsior signed the contract, and totally missed the rattling noise. As he slid the contract back across the desk to Edwin, he said, "But what am I going to do?"
"Why, whatever our clients ask," Edwin said.
"But..."
"But what?"
"What if they want to pay me to kill someone?"
"Then I would say that is a very unlucky person. But fear not, I find that assassination is the crudest of methods. And you, despite how you have been used before, are not a blunt instrument."
"What?"
"To put it more simply," (and, as he said it, Edwin realized that putting it as simply as possible was going to be a good operating principle with this man) "You are going to be far too expensive to waste on mere assassination."
"Good, 'cause I don't think I want to kill anybody."
Edwin said, "That sounds like a hero talking. That sounds like the kind of a man whose strings are being pulled by someone else." Excelsior looked away uncomfortably. "Don't worry, that feeling will pass."
"What if I don't want it to pass?"
"You told me that you wanted to be your own man. You told me that you wanted to be in the driver's seat. That you didn't want to be at someone else's beck and call."
"Yeah, that's true."
"Well, make up your own mind, then," Edwin said with impatience. "I have no will in this matter. I am merely your agent. You asked me to help you be Evil. My kind of Evil. Ruthless, efficient, profitable. If you do not want to be these things, there is no need for you to take my advice. Tell me now and we will call the whole thing off."
"No, no," said Excelsior, "I do want to be Evil. But don't I get a nemesis or something? Like an arch-enemy?"
"That sounds rather pointless to me," said Edwin.
"But that's the way it's done. That's what Supervillains always did to me."
"Yes, I know. And how did that work out for them?"
"Well, it worked out great for me."
"Yes, I understand that, but how did it work out for them, Excelsior? How did it work for them?"
"Well, I'd generally beat them up and then hand them over to Gus. And he'd put them in a prison somewhere."
"And does that sound like a very profitable turn of events to you?"
"Well, no, but I like I told you, I don't know anything about money."
"And this prison? Have you ever seen it?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Well, if it took someone with your powers to subdue these people, what prison do you think could contain them?"
"Uh… I… y'know?" Excelsior said with genuine Midwestern Innocence "I don't know."
"Ah, bliss," said Edwin as a shrug rippled through his well-tailored suit.
"Bliss?"
"Ignorance is... never mind. There is a place far from here. North of Las Vegas. In and around the Nevada Test Site, there are a number of secure facilities where above-ground tests of atomic weapons were performed in the 50's. Since the advent of people with, let us diplomatically say, much-greater-than-average abilities—like yourself—these facilities have gained in importance. To understand why, you must understand radiation. Do you understand radiation?"
"Uh, yeah, I..." Excelsior's eyes glazed over. He remembered getting a lecture sometime in 1960 or so from some scared-looking guys in lab coats about radiation. They had talked and talked and talked. In the end Gus had helped him understand. This was a young Gus, still strong and with a full head of hair, a chin like a piece of granite and a walk like he'd never been scared of anything in his life.
Gus had told him, "Son, ya ain't invulnerable. Ya gotta stay away from the radiation. These eggheads aren't sure what it might do to you and all them… unstable elements ya got running through your bloodstream or whatever." Then Gus had lit a cigarette and leaned in and said, "They also keep telling me cigarettes can kill ya." He had blown smoke right towards the delicate-looking men in the lab coats. "But then, they don't know their raggedy asses from a raggedy hole in the ground, do they?"
Back in the present day, Excelsior said, "Uh, radiation is bad?"
"Radiation is bad. And hidden deep in these pockets of radiation is a hole in the Earth. This where the people you defeated were taken. They were placed in a lead-lined room in a cavern deep below the earth. They were questioned. Then the questioners left. Then the lead shields were raised and, superpowers or not, they were left to be torn apart by the radiation."
Edwin shifted in his chair and waved a professorial hand. "You see, against large enemies, those that can be bashed and broken and thrown into the sky—opponents with whom you can exchange banter and develop a perverse and unproductive relationship—you are nigh undefeatable. But against the small and the secret enemies, say a virus, or gamma rays—the inexorable march of time, the heartbreak of choice—against these things even the most powerful man can be defenseless."
"But, isn't that what bad guys are supposed to do? Fight the good guys?" Excelsior asked, suffering from real confusion.
"Bad guys, yes. Villains with pencil-thin mustaches, men in black hats, any cliché you like, yes, that is what they do. But that is not Evil. Evil does not exist to oppose the hero. Evil exists, like everything else, for its own ends."
"But then..." said Excelsior, not connecting the dots.
"Let me put it this way. We will not struggle with adversaries. We will buy them. We will corrupt them. We will make it easy for them to get what they want if they will give us what we want. But we will not struggle." He shook his head as if the very idea left a bad taste in his mouth, "Accept or avoid. Struggle is a waste
."
"Okay," said Excelsior, even though he still didn't get it. "So what are we going to do?"
"We're going to make money."
"How much money?" asked Excelsior, simple greed being something he was more comfortable with.
"All of it."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Topper gestured violently and was brought up short by his restraints. "So the whole damn thing backfired! The first time I come up with a clever plan in my entire life and it backfires. I mean imagine my surprise! I figured Excelsior would go right out and try to kill Edwin."
"You wanted your friend dead?" asked the interrogator.
"No. Hell no. Not then. Not when I could see another way. Besides, you think that overgrown, supersonic boy scout could outwit Edwin Windsor? Never happen. I don't know what his plan was, but, rest assured, Edwin had a plan.
"I just wanted the scales balanced a little bit. You know. It was all too easy for Edwin. He didn't have any opposition. I thought if he could be slowed down, y'know, humbled a little, he might go back to being his old self. That I might get my friend back. That's all I wanted, really, I just wanted my friend back. But I made a mistake."
"What was that?"
"I underestimated him. It's one of those cardinal rules. Don't spit into the wind, don't get involved in a land war in Asia, and never, ever underestimate Edwin Windsor. Or at least, it was one of those rules. Now..." Topper hung his head and was quiet for a long, long time.
The interrogator prompted him by asking, "You didn't worry that Edwin would find out that you had brought Gus back from the dead."
"Nah, there was enough static in the signal. See, it's not what you suspect, it's what you can prove. Gus could have come back on his own. Somebody at the hospital could have just made a mistake. I figured there was enough to get me out of trouble if I needed to start weaseling. I'm very good at weaseling."
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