The Expatriate was careful to keep his smile internal. For once, he was glad to have Norman in his booth on one of his rampages. Of late, the show’s nominal star had become more of a problem. Convinced that the rocketing ratings were his doing, he was throwing his weight around like the Juggernaut. He’d taken to making unreasonable and unnecessary demands, not only of “McComb” but of the rest of the staff as well, often distracting them from tasks that the Expatriate had assigned them. He had been drunk with power, and only the latest ratings reports had brought him back to Earth.
Norman burst through his door and tossed the ratings report on his console. “Look at this!” When he didn’t immediately pick it up, Norman lifted papers and shook them in his face. “Look at this!”
“I’ve seen it already. I’ve been here since six a.m. reviewing those archived sketches, as you requested.”
“Then what are you going to do about it?”
The Expatriate looked up calmly, savoring the moment. Sweat was running down Norman’s bald forehead, and this time it was because of fear, not anger. The numbers had gone flat and now were on the decline, some shows even rating lower than the show had been doing before “Peg” started to call. “Well, Walt, you’re the ratings man, you’ve said so yourself often enough the last week or two. All I can promise is that I, personally, will be a loyal and faithful listener, just in case the ratings people call on me.”
Norman’s body was rigid, almost vibrating, his face reddening. “Trent, you’ve got to do something. We’re headed for the basement. The executives aren’t even returning my calls this week. I’ve tried to tell them it’s a temporary dip, a statistical fluke, but they won’t listen.”
He smiled just a little. “Because, Walt, they know, as I do, that that’s a lie. The show’s in trouble, and it needs a shot in the arm to survive.”
Norman’s eyes were wide, desperate. “What can we do? That girl hasn’t called in almost a week. I don’t even know who she is, or how to find her.”
I do, thought the Expatriate, enjoying the moment. “There’s really not much I can do, Walt. To tell you the truth, just getting the girl to call back won’t be enough. The novelty of that has worn off. What we need now is an event, something that will have all America talking about us today, and the next day, and the day after that.”
“But what?”
I know just the thing—but he couldn’t tell Norman about that. He’d just have to find it out the hard way.
“I can’t do anything, Walt, but I can tell you what to do. How’d you like to be the one who turns this show around, for good?”
It was still midaftemoon when Paige, along with Jubilee and Everett, returned to the Xabago. Paige had decided to try to catch the Norman show on the radio, and to her surprise, the others had decided to tag along.
They arrived to find Monet sitting on the bed, surrounded by a clutter of neatly handwritten pages, and turning out more at a furious pace.
Paige stood in the bedroom doorway, trying to figure out what was up. She picked up one of the pages by the comer and looked at it suspiciously. The words looked familiar. “Monet, what is this?”
“I'm making you a copy of Walt Norman’s book.”
“What? A copy of the book how, copying from what?”
Monet looked up with that patented is there something unusual about this? expression of hers. “Jubilee told me you wanted to read the book and didn’t want to buy it, so I’m making you a copy.”
In her exasperation, Paige was almost shouting, “A copy of what?”
Monet just stared at her like a cat. “I memorized it.” She went back to her neat scribbling.
Behind her. Jubilee giggled. “She was bored. It gave her something to do.”
Paige, finally seeing that she’d been had, broke into laughter.
“Hey,” said Everett from the front of the Xabago, “I’ve got the show. It’s already on. He’s ragging on Rushmore again.”
Paige groaned and marched to the front of the RV. She sat down on the recliner, and found herself unconsciously scanning to see where they’d left the cell phone. It was on the ami of the couch, and she stood up just long enough to reach over and grab it.
Norman was in the middle of one of his rants, “—ow the mutant spits in the face of liberty, tries to desecrate the very symbols of liberty, and how the mutant aligns himself with the enemies of our country. Whereas, the indomitable human spirit, as personified in the heroic Razorback, throws himself against those same forces with every resource at his disposal. He has no fancy powers, no superhuman tricks, just his courage, his determination, his native intelligence, his willingness to fight for what is right. ”
Paige started dialing the phone. “This is too much.” The operator recognized her voice, and told her she was being put right on the air.
‘ 7 see here on my screen that we have Peg, the mutant girl who has been calling us of late on the phone. I’m really glad, because maybe she can try to explain the shameful behavior of those mutant terrorists at Rushmore. Thanks for calling, Peg. Can you explain this to me?”
“I can’t explain it, because it didn’t happen. There were terrorists at Mt. Rushmore, human terrorists. There just also happened to be some mutants there, and they helped. They were the ones who captured the terrorists and freed the hostages.”
“Well, that’s not the way we hear it, Peg. We had an eyewitness yesterday telling us how the hostages had been brutalized and terrified by mutants. ’ ’
“Eyewitnesses are wrong sometimes. Just because somebody says something doesn’t mean it’s the truth. That’s not what happened.”
“And just because you tell me, I’m supposed to believe it? Now, I’m not saying I think you’re a liar, because / don’t. You ’ve always told us the version of truth that you believe, distorted though I think it is, but that’s honesty of a sort. But how would you know, Peg? We talked to one of the actual hostages. Are you calling her a liar? Because she was there— and how would you know?”
“Because I was there too!”
These was a stunned silence from the radio. Finally: ‘ ‘Peg, are you telling me that you’re involved with these mutant terrorists, an obviously well intended young lady such as yourself?”
“They—we aren’t terrorists. We’re just regular people on vacation who stumbled into something.”
‘ ‘Regular people who fly and shoot death rays and scramble people’s minds, Peg. Dangerous people walking among unsuspecting tourists. . .”
“Why can’t you give us the benefit of the doubt? You don’t assume this Razorback has some ulterior motive. You don’t assume he’s evil. Why? Why?” She was on the verge of tears, some still calm part of her brain realizing that things were spinning totally out of her control.
‘ 'Because he’s one of us, Peg. He doesn 1 pose a threat to us because he is one of us. Can’t you see that?”
She laughed bitterly. ‘ ‘That just shows you how much you know. I’ll tell you something about your hero Razorback, something you don’t know. He—” Tbe word hung in her throat, and she realized the horrible thing she was on the brink of doing. The access they had to Xavier’s files, as students of the school, was a precious trust. That had been instilled in them from the beginning. The information in those files could do immeasurable harm, aid enemies, destroy lives. To violate that trust would make her the most horrible kind of traitor. “He’s a poser,” she finished lamely. “He’s a real poser.” She turned off the phone and let it fall to her lap, even as tears began to stream down her cheeks. Jubilee and Everett were at her side, trying to comfort her, but she barely even saw them. How had things gotten this bad?
And then, from the radio, she heard Norman. “Peg? Are you there, Peg? I think we lost her, but I hope she’s still listening out there. Peg, I know sometimes its hard to make yourself understood on the telephone. That’s why I’m extending an invitation to you, personally. I want you to come into our Chicago studios and be our guest for an enti
re show. The whole country will be listening, Peg, and you’ll have your chance to set things straight. ’ ’
Paige looked up, not believing the words, grabbing at them the way a drowning person grabs at a life ring. She had to make things right, and this was indeed the only chance she’d have.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“This Friday, don’t miss ‘Peg,’ the mutant mystery girl, live and in person in our studios. It’s Walt Norman versus the mutant menace, up close, personal, and nasty, just the way you like it. When everybody is talking about it on Monday, don’t be the only human in America that missed it.”
—promo spot for The Walt Norman Show
As the Xtravagant rolled into a truck stop outside Madison, Wisconsin, Paige sat with Jubilee and Monet in the rear bedroom finishing a phone call. She managed to wrap things up and shut down the phone just as there was a tapping at the door.
“Girls, are you okay back there?” It was Emma’s voice.
“Sure,” said Jubilee, “we’re—” She stopped with her mouth hanging open, eyes searching desperately from side to side.
“We’re trying on clothes,” added Paige hastily.
“Oh,” Emma said. “Well, I’m going to stretch my legs while they fill us up and see if they have anything resembling a cup of coffee here.”
They heard her walking away, and the outside door open and close. Even with the windows closed, the air started to smell slightly of oil and spilled gas. Jubilee glared at Paige. “Well that was a great story. Trying on clothes? How third grade can you get?”
Paige shrugged. “She bought it, didn’t she?”
“Ms. Frost,” said Jubilee, “doesn’t buy anything without looking at it closely first. Anyway, that was too close. I told you we shouldn’t call from here.”
Paige looked at the phone dejectedly. “Where was I going to call from, what with Sean over in the Xabago all the time? Our RV is bigger. It has more places to hide.”
Jubilee looked skeptical. ‘ ‘Oh, yeah, and if Emma so much as touches one of us with her telepathy, we’re cooked. She’s probably suspicious as it is. This is never going to work, especially with them suddenly giving us this lame baby-sitter routine.”
Paige looked grim. “It’s got to work. It’s all set. I’m going on The Walt Norman Show day after tomorrow. I’ll wear a ski mask so they won’t see my face. They’ve promised that they'd respect my privacy and let me leave without being molested or followed.”
Monet assumed a lotus position, then slowly floated up a few inches above the bed. “And you believe this from Norman?”
“I didn’t talk to Norman. I talked to his producer, Trent McComb.”
Jubilee peered out through the curtain looking for Emma.
A smiling pump boy looked back at her, and she jerked the curtain shut. “This place is full of Peeping Toms.” She sat back on the bed. “Well, that’s great. Norman has somebody to delegate his lying to. Listen to me, Paige, they’re up to something. You need backup.”
“Of course he’s up to something, which is exactly why I have to go alone. I got myself into this mess, and I have to straighten it out. If something goes wrong, I don’t want any of the rest of you to get into trouble.” She tossed the cell phone to Monet. “Listen, I’m going to go find a Moon Pie or something. See you guys in a bit.”
Jubilee watched closely as she left the room, then met Monet’s eyes. They didn’t agree on a lot of things, but she suspected this time that they were on exactly the same wavelength. Monet said, “We can’t let Paige walk into the Norman den without an escort.”
“Absolutely,” agreed Jubilee. “We’re a team, and we’re going in together, whether she likes it or not.” She bounced nervously on the edge of the bed, then looked out through the curtains again. “Thing is, how do we convince Paige of that?” “There’s a more significant problem. While we might possibly cover for Paige while she’s gone, all of us leaving at once isn’t going to go unnoticed.”
Jubilee nodded. “And our goose is like, cooked, good. But it won’t be cooked until after we get back, and if that’s the way it’s got to be, then that’s the way it’s got to be.”
Ivan paced the warehouse nervously, his shoes scuffing on the worn plywood flooring. The place had been a dog-food factory until recently when the company had been bought up, in typical American fashion, by a conglomerate that wanted only to shut it down and end competition.
Now the workers were gone and the machines stood just the way they’d been when the last person had flipped the switch on the way out the door. The hoppers were still filled with ingredients, conveyers with unbaked dog biscuits in the shape of cartoon bones. Rats scuttled in every dark comer, fat and happy from the bounty left behind for them, and the building smelled like the inside of a dog-food bag.
It was an industrial corpse, victim of neglect by a decadent society that did not deserve the men and women who had once toiled here. Ivan hated the place, but it was only a staging area, rented through an untraceable chain of dummy corporations from landlords so eager to be relieved of it that they asked no questions once the cashier’s check cleared.
In a few days they would be gone, the dummy corporations would cease to even pretend to exist, and the Expatriate would sit on top of a powerful media empire that would be completely in his control.
Ivan heard the combination lock on a nearby door click, and squinted as it opened, allowing a flood of sunlight into the dim space. A man stepped in, the profile of his hawklike nose visible, his blue eyes glittering in the shadows. The man walked across the warehouse, muscular, graceful, confident, alert to every sound and movement, his once-military-cropped blond hair now grown long, slicked tightly back and tied in a short ponytail.
Ivan smiled and held out his hand. “Expatriate!”
The man took his hand eagerly, then pulled him into a bear hug, slapping him on the back. He released him and stepped back. “Ivan, it’s been too long.”
“I understand too well the sacrifices of going deep undercover, my friend. Perhaps when our plan is complete, you won’t have to be so secretive.”
He nodded. “Indeed. After Friday’s program, we’ll be back on top of the ratings, and the network executives will answer to me, and not the other way around. And Norman, poor Norman, will cease to be a problem. I’ll replace the staff members not already in on our operation, and the show will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Expatriate Arms.” He noticed the truck parked in the comer of the warehouse, the door open and the rear stairway unfolded, and gestured in that direction. “Come, show me what I’ve paid so much money for.”
Ivan led him into the truck, where the technicians were still busy finishing up their work. The Expatriate stood in front of the first unit in line, a somewhat human-shaped thing of sleek silver metal.
“Mandroids,” said the Expatriate, as though only now accepting them as being real. The suits of powered armor had been covertly shipped out of the country by S.H.I.E.L.D. years ago to support “friendly” governments against revolutionaries. Eventually, despite this aid, the revolutionaries had won and the units had been surplused into the international black market, where the Expatriate had returned them to their country of origin. Ivan enjoyed the irony of these metal men returning to wreak havoc on the country that had created them.
The Expatriate bent to examine the weapons’ housings. The oversized forearms on this first unit were closed, marked only by a few exhaust ports and muzzle openings, but on most of the other units, the forearms were open and were the focus of the greater part of the technicians’ attentions.
“The weapon systems are still being worked on,” explained Ivan. ‘ ‘Not all units will have all weapons, except for the star of our show, of course. Still, we’ll have an assortment of concussion cannons, tanglefoot antipersonnel grenades, flamethrowers, and needle repeaters, at least one functional weapon per unit. ‘Peg’ will have all these, plus the magnetic constrictor. It’s mainly intended for use against mechanical targets
, but may suit our purposes."
“Let me see our darling ‘Peg.’ ”
For dramatic effect, Ivan had covered the next unit in line with a canvas tarp, which he now pulled aside. The thing had the same rough shape as the other units, but its metal skin was all hidden under latex rubber or false hair. The rubber face was horrific, yet the kinship to humanity was recognizable. Inky glass eyes stared out of the deep eye sockets. A simple smock provided the thing’s only clothing. The exposed arms and legs were covered with dark, shaggy hair, giving it an apelike appearance. The hair extended up the neck and face. Only the top of the head was different, where a long, flowing wig of straight, silvery-gray hair had been attached.
Ivan pointed at the snout/mouth. “We’ve wired servo actuators into the voice box. The lips will move in time to the speech. It may not be convincing enough to fool anyone for long, but I think it will do. People tend to see what they expect to see. We’ve also fabricated a robe with a hood, which will further disguise the unit while it enters the building.”
The Expatriate ran his hand over the latex, feeling the thin but effective armor-plate skin underneath. “Excellent. They should be more than adequate for the task. They need only delay a few mutant children, and of course,” he added with a laugh, “kill a fat radio host while his audience listens in horror.”
Recall sat on the bed in his room, back to the wall. He looked around at the old toys (he’d never lost one, and certainly never let his mom throw one away), the comic books, the outgrown sports equipment, the low-watt radio transmitter where he’d broadcast his first radio program to the rest of the block, the faded poster reading hank mccoy of the new defenders, the second bed that had once belonged to his big brother Ted, now a lawyer, and realized that not only didn’t the room fit him anymore, he was faintly embarrassed about it. Somehow in the nine months he’d been gone, this room had changed from “where he was going” into “where he’d been.”
He’d been on real radio now, at least the campus station. He’d lived away from home in the dorms, found that there were other mutants in the world, met real super heroes, or close enough to super heroes anyway. When he’d started out on this trip, summer at home had seemed like a pleasant break from the constant pressures of campus life. Now his old room was looking like a prison, a misguided museum to someone who didn’t exist anymore.
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