As if reading her mind, Greg asked, “Could it be the Abomination?”
“You’re asking me?” Nadia shrugged. “That monster wanted—” she stopped, staring at the mirror. “He wanted my company. He was like a child that watches television and wants the people on the programs to come live with him. I called him a monster, but he was never angry. He let me go.” She heard a scratching sound and looked up to see Mr. Timm scratching notes with a plastic wand on a handheld computer. It was long, like a notepad, with a hinged black cover that hung down from the top.
“Just the same,??, said Greg, v‘we can’t be too careful.”
“WhatT want to know is how did he get in my dressing room, whoever he was?”
“I don’t know,” said March, shaking his head and staring at the floor, hand working the lumbar region. “The security—”
“Your security,’^interrupted Mr. Timm, “leaves a lot to be desired, if i may say so. He could have broken in in the middle of the night, even slipped by with a press pass in the daytime. There are hundreds of people working on this show, Mr, March. People can slip by; security can slip up.”
March nodded sourly. “I agree. We’ll double it. Anything for the star, eh?”
“Wouldn’t hurt,’" said Timm.
Greg nibbed his chin. “Mr. Timm, I appreciate your concern. I m aware that you would not be so concerned if not for Ms. Dornova’s—connection with me. Is there anything you can recommend?”
Timm’s mouth barely moved, but there was a shrug in the voice, at least: “Honestly? Right now I’d say Ms. Dornova should keep acting, and keep thinking, and call if she thinks of anything, or if anything else happens.”
‘ ‘Call me?’ ’ Greg asked.
A card appeared in Timm’s hand, outstretched toward Nadia in a motion that was almost impossible to follow with the eye. “Call me.”
Nadia took the card almost warily and glanced at it before putting it away. It said: julius timm. special AGENT. STRATEGIC ACTION FOR EMERGENCIES. Under it was printed a simple logo bearing the acronym safe, and under that was a locai phone number. She nodded and put the ca±J in her breast pocket. She sighed, ana smiled, looking to each of the three men. “Well.”
That s the ‘Get-the-hell-out-of-my-dressing-room’ weii, folks.’
‘ Fine,” said Timm, slapping the computer closed. It vas an almost comical movement, as if someone had put the hinge on there to make the agents feel like they still had old spiral notepads instead of liquid crystal displays. “I hope all goes well, Ms. Dornova. I’m sure it will.:.’ IL “I’m sure,” she responded. “But I do have a performance to prepare for. Thank you very kindly for your time.”
When they were gone she realized that no one had yet scraped the word off. And all through her makeup session, she stared at the word. Haughty.
Eyes, thought the Abomination. Haughty eyes. In the darkness above the theater, in the rafters, the keyboard clacked beneath long, green nails. If anyone had chanced to look up above the chandelier, the person might possibly have seen the odd creature sitting there cross-legged, back against a post, scaly hands lit by the glowing LCD. The unlucky spectator might have seen the face lit up there; a face more like an amphibious reptile than that of a man, a face with hard, green, thick skin and fins that puckered and splayed with every breath.
The Abomination flexed his fins and looked around the heights of the Langley. No one was watching. No one heard the clacking keys.
Every eye in the theater was on Nadia Dornova far below, and he could hear that voice rising through the air, commanding and defiant. The performance was going well. Antigone was having it out with Creon, the king and her uncle, who swore to execute anyone who gave a proper burial to Antigone's dead brother. The defiant Antigone had stolen into the night to scatter dust on the baking, rotting flesh, a ceremonial burial to appease the gods. And now Creon knew of her defiance, and the house was enrapt as he announced that she was going to die.
“It’s tine,” says Creon, “we are not a very loving family.”
And Oh! Nadia was brilliant. More brilliant than she had ever been before. She was on fire, and the Abomination’s nostrils and fins flared as he thought of those eyes of hers, and the fire he had once felt in her arms, all those years ago. Those eyes, those haughty eyes.
Yes, haughty indeed! Full of pride that she had become this angel of the theater to these snivelling masses, reflecting the haughtiness of all those who stared at her.
The audience, the Abomination knew, stared at her with pride, because they felt they owned her. They paid their money and they got to watch her, got to hear that voice that should have been his alone and watch that body that should have been his alone.
Breath rasped and bubbled within the Abomination’s mouth, which bung open slightly as he concentrated on entering the memorized codes. He squinted his demonic eyes and cursed at the bulk of his claws, which required him to be extra careful not to crush the keyboard, much less enter the wrong code. One slip and his claw would punch right through the liquid crystal display, and the: Abomination watched the image for a moment in his mind, the glowing crystal oozing from the sliced fabric. Later. That would amuse him later.
He tapped the keyboard again, and something about ten feet away clicked twice and hummed. The Abomination listened as he tapped a few more times. Klik-klik-humm, from various parts of the rafters throughout the building. His allies had done good work. It pleased him that they were willing to help him as much as he helped them. With each click and hum, a small jet dislodged from its cradle and lowered itself a couple of feet, titling downward. The sound multiplied itself a hundred times, throughout the theater, like a rainstorm of barely audible clicks, until at last each jet lay in its proper position.
Haughty indeed! They would learn haughtiness. The Abomination tapped another entry code into the keyboard and heard a new humming sound, saw the rubber hoses snaking through the rafters whip as the gas came online and travelled to the jets, ready.
The Abomination’s vision shifted in focus and he peered down to look on Nadia once more. Something in his gills hissed angrily as he looked at her, not anger at her, not at himself, but at whatever demon forced him into this. There she was, supple and tall, slender like a gymnast, like that gymnast bureaucrat Vranjesevic she was carrying on with. He changed his mind—he was angry with her after all. Angry that because she was beautiful and soft he could not see her, could not talk to her, because for every soft curve of her body he had scales, and rocklike green flesh, and where her eyes were soft and radiant, his radiated hatred and glowed like rubies. What had she called him? Like a child? A child?
All of them would pay, every last haughty one of them, laughing at Anouilh’s clever witticisms and laughing at their good fortune to be the Beautiful People, the happy people, the worst of the whole lot of these Americans who rape and pillage the entire Earth because they feel entitled to it. They looked at Nadia and heard her velvet voice and their eyes travelled over her body. They laughed and smiled because they owned her and she owned them, and when one owns something beautiful one surely became beautiful. That was what they thought, the Abomination was sure, and they would all learn; they were abominations just as he was the Abomination, and by the living Lord he would surely teach them.
The computer beeped twice and a timer flashed on the LCD. Fifteen seconds, it said, counting down. The Abom-lation smiled as best his warped mouth could manage, and he felt the slime stretch between his lips, bubbling as he breathed. He watched the seconds tick away, as he stared down at the theater, at all those heads, all those haughty eyes, and finally at Nadia.
And Nadia was looking at him. For a moment he froze, felt the gamma-irradiated blood chill in his hardened veins. It was an illusion, of course, just a freezing of time, a snapshot of her looking up at him by chance, not seeing him at all. Nadia was deep in her part, and he watched that faraway look and dove into her eyes, and rode them back to their youth.
God, my God, Nadia, yo
u were so beautiful. God, my God, Nadia, how I loved you.
And they were young again and disgustingly happy, as he recalled, and she sat by the fire as he brought in more wood. She laughed at the furry cap he wore, because it was his father’s and must have been a hundred years old and should have been taken out and buried, she said, and she would take off his cap and she would kiss him. The Abomination watched those eyes, felt those eyes looking on him with love, with simple love, and he felt his throat gurgling. Somewhere in the back oFhis mind the timer beeped away, and he held the vision a moment longer, almost reaching out a scaly claw as if to tonch her.
Beep. The Abomination looked at the keyboard and at the vision and thought, No. He reached through the vision arid tapped a code quickly, and one, specially aimed jet went offline, clicking and bumming back into its cradle.
Haughty were her eyes, it was true. She was an abomination. But it would be enough, he decided, for her to watch.
Beep. A hundred rubber hoses pumped and whipped in the rafters, and sometliing began to spray . In a moment, the Abomination heard screams, and he sat still, listening, clawing the liquid crystal, and letting the glowing greenish-blue fluid run down his fingers.
Nadia heard the first scream as she was delivering a line that always gave her trouble, and she found she had to step out of character for a microsecond in order to remember how the line went. And then the line disappeared entirely from her mind, and she struggled to grasp it, chasing the white rabbit of a lost line, trying to ignore the sound of screaming"? The line, the play, vanished- She stared out into the audience and heard a rumble of voices, questions being hurriedly whispered, and the spotlight was so bright that the audicnce looked as if it were on the other side of a cloud. After a moment the lights seemed to dim, or else Nadia’s vision adjusted, and she heard a scream again and looked out and saw a woman, in about the tenth row. She was middle-aged and wore a smashing evening gown, and she was rubbing, no, clawing at her eyes. A man next to her stood, to help her, Nadia thought, but no* he too was tearing at his eyes, rocking on his legs with his fists in his hands.
Nadia gasped now, not because of the woman, exactly, but because she saw the green cloud for the first time, and marvelled that she had not seen it before, A green mist hung in the air, floating down, and the air glowed with iridescent sparkles as the lights pierced through a billion droplets of green liquid. More murmurs, still just that one woman, screaming, and then another scream lit the air, and another. Nadia looked around in horror and saw more people howling in pain and tearing at their eyes, rubbing violendy, and someone was screaming from the back, ^‘‘Please, get it out!”
Nadia backed away, numb, tripped over a prop lamp and fell to the floorboards, and she looked over at the man playing Creon. He was backing off the stage. Nadia propped herself up too hurriedly, and saw a man running towards the stage, a stranger to her, running blind with his face in his hands. The man hit the stage and feU over. She watched his hands reach the stage as he clawed to get up on to it. Time froze for a second as she saw the man’s bald head top the edge,-and slowly lift, and then she saw his eyes.
Fused, hideously fused eyes glowing green and bub-Jbly, and the man was screaming in terror and running bund and she could not take it and scrcamed herself. Ha scream mixed with those of the man and the thousand in the theater and she looked out and saw them ah, the whole of the audicnce, on the floor and in the balcony, crawling over one another, blind, eyes fused, hands learing at one anothei and at their own faces. They resembled a large mound of worms, people without minds, squirming, irrational masses of green-glowing terror. Nadia saw the man get closer to her and she found her feet and ran.
Across the stage, off and into the corridors she ran. She felt the edge of a desk tear at her leg, heard cloth rip away, and the sound of howling terror eased as she ran, but it was still hack there. She saw her dressing room door and ran for it, thinking all the while that she should turn, head out onto the street. Someone said her name and touched her shoulder. She shook furiously and ran on, and heard again, “Nadia!”- She found her dressing room door and whipped it open.
She was just running inside when something caught her, hands on her shoulders, turning her around. She cried and screamed and looked in lus eyes, and saw Greg Vran-jesevic. Greg shook his head and held her as she shook violently and wept onto his chest. After what seemed like an eternity the shaking dwindled to a tremble, she opened her eyes and blinked as Greg asked again and again if she were all right. She knew that she was. And then she looked in the dressing room and saw the mirror and began to shake and scream again, because the message there had been lengthened by one word
It Said, HAUGHTY EYES.
Michael Cross watched the Hulk through a pair of field glasses. The glasses recorded everything he saw, feeding into the SAFE databank miles overhead in the agency’s Helicamer. Cross stood about fifty yards from where he had parked his car. He had considered himself lucky— this was the first night the Hulk had stirred from his nest in White Plains, and Cross had followed at a safe distance, watching everything. So Cross had been in perfect position to see the fugitive gamma giant desperately try to rescue the parties to one of the grisliest accidents Cross had ever seen. Cross’s eali to EMS brought the trucks and helicopters by the time the Hulk was doing his jaws of life act. Now Cross stood, his jacket flapping in the wind, binoculars pressing a crease into his face, and below him the highway still smoked aud burned with wreckage and jelly.
Cross spoke softly* the binoculars picking up the sound of his voice. “Look at that. Look at that. This is the Hulk, ladies and gents. This is the guy who rips tanks apart, that’s him, handing an injured kid over to the paramedics like he’s the Green Samaritan.”
Cross watched the Hulk walk away from the paramedics for a while and look around him. For a moment, as the Hulk stepped under a shadowy overpass, the green giant gazed around, and Cross sucked in air as the gamma creature seemed to focus up on the hill, directly toward Cross himself. But after a moment, Cross saw the Hulk look away, and slink into the shadows.
The SAFE agent watched the shadowy patch of the underpass for a long while. After a quarter of an hour had passed he saw no more movement and cursed softly. The Hulk must have disappeared out the other side. Cross decided to go hack to his car; he could chase the rabbit a bit before parking again.
God, what an assignment. SAFE didn’t pay well enough for this. Half the time Cross’s quarry hung out at home, the other half, he could suddenly leap way the hell off into the southwest, leaving Cross at the mercy of other authorities to tip him off. Sometimes it was hopeless and he could do nothing but wait for the Hulk to reappear at his home base. Sometimes he didn’t reappear; that was whenever he and Mrs. Banner moved, and then it could be weeks before intel got caught up. SAFE was very good at its job. But the Hulk was a hard man to follow.
Cross looked up in the sky. [f all went well, it would all be a lot easier very soon. They’d never have to lose the Hulk again.
Cross sighed and turned as he clicked the binoculars onto his belt and walked toward his car. He shook his head, thinking of the accident—how remarkable, that this was what it took to get a little action out of the reclusive
Hulk. How lucky that the Hulk had decided to go for a walk. Life was funny
Cross sighed as he got closer to the black sedan parked by a shadowy walnut tree at the side of the road. It was just so—identifiable. There was something bright neon obnoxious about the black suits and black cars that agency men and women utilized. Cross suspected there might be something deliberate there, in fact. Sean Morgan, SAFE’s less-than-jovial boss, was a clever man, and he knew a little intimidation, even a little encouraged paranoia, could go a long way. So they followed people in big black sedans and wore black raincoats and Elvis Costello sunglasses, just like in the movies. It all worked to the right effect.
Of course, Cross thought, perhaps the heroes were different, and perhaps they should be dealt with differen
tly. The Hulk was not some crooked numbers runner you want to notice the black car parked a block up. With the Hulk, it really was a better idea to keep pretty clear.
Cross opened his car door, sliding into die front seat. He was about to put the key in the ignition when he remembered he hadn’t noted his itinerary in at least an hour. If the Hulk was out of sight now, another twenty seconds wouldn’t matter. Hell, with the Hulk, he could almost pack it in for the next week once the gamma giant was out of sight. Cross retrieved his notepad and pen device from his coat pocket, flipped the cover of the pad back, and began to scribble a few notes on the LCD. Typical stuff. Here, going there. Big crash, Hulk heroics. Can’t wait for GamiruiTrac to render me obsolete, yadda yadda yadda.
The SAFE agent flipped the pad closed and dropped it and the pen device back in his coat pocket. He placed the key in the ignition and heard the eight-cylinder engine turn over and begin to purr—Morgan insisted that all machinery be kept in top condition, from pocket pads to the engines in the cars. “We’re on a budget heregj Morgan kept saying,§‘and there’s no way we’re letting what we have go to waste.”
Cross was about to put the car in reverse when he reached up to adjust the rear-view mirror and saw a hand-scrawled note stuck to the glass: behind you.
Cross dropped three inches in his seat and drew his gun as he fell sideways and twisted to peer between the seats and see:
Nothing. Cross breathed for a second, rising in the seat to peer over. No one was there. He allowed his eyes to adjust and he saw what he was looking for: there was a hole in the rear passenger-side aoor, where something large lacl ripped out the lock. Something not unaccustomed to acting like a jaws of—^
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