“Thank you Topper.”
“So, we gonna get him?”
“Yes,” says Edwin. “We’re going to get him.”
“Really?” says Topper, unable to believe that Edwin is agreeing to revenge. “That’s great. ‘Cause I know you’re hurting. And there is nothing like a big old dish of comforting revenge to make you right with the world.”
“Perhaps,” says Edwin, “But the real question is, which him?”
“Whattya mean?”
“Who are we going to revenge ourselves upon?”
“Excelsior! Who else?”
“They are both at fault. It is only because Lifto resisted that there was a fight. It is only because of the pointless struggle that Agnes was harmed. We could just as well blame Lifto, or The Cromoglodon, or any of a host of villains or heroes.”
“Yeah, but I still say we get Excelsior. Lifto’s one of the good guys. I mean, one of the bad guys. I mean, he’s on our side. Besides, Lifto’s in prison. Not much point.”
Edwin smiles. Topper doesn’t get it. There are no good guys. There are no bad guys. There’s just Edwin and everybody else. And the way Edwin feels right now, they don’t stand a chance. Edwin doesn’t explain this to Topper. Instead he says, “That’s okay, Topper, we can get Excelsior. But I say we get them all, just to be safe.”
“Oh, Edwin, I like the sound of that. This new you is, is — I don’t know, but I like it. Does this mean I get to have a gun? A big friggin’ gun? Bigger than me even?”
“No, Topper.”
“No?” asks Topper, obviously disappointed. “But we’re supposed to be the bad guys!”
“No, Topper. You can have a gun. I’m saying that I don’t think they make a gun big enough for what I need you to do.”
Chapter Forty-Five
Negatively Buoyant
The Cromoglodon wakes early and hungry after a hard night’s work. It was cold last night, so he knocked a small apartment building over on himself to keep warm. He shrugs off the rubble with a tremendous yawn. His clothing is displaying an advertisement for orange juice. Definitely time for breakfast. He sets out in search of a diner or a grocery store to eat.
As he stumbles out into the empty street he is almost aware that something isn’t right. He is accustomed to waking up to sirens or, at the very least, people screaming and running away from him. Today, there is none of that. The Cromoglodon spends most of his time being confused, so he figures that everything is normal.
The first rocket catches him in the ear.
“Take that, you son-of-a-bitch,” Topper yells. He balances the smoking rocket launcher on his shoulder and hustles around the corner as fast as his short legs will carry him.
The Cromoglodon isn’t hurt. The Cromoglodon isn’t really even annoyed. After all, it’s only a rocket. But Topper’s got his attention. So he follows. When he turns the corner, a second volley of rockets takes him off his feet.
“Ahahahahahahahahahahahah! You block-headed bastard!” Topper yells at him from the next corner.
Still mostly curious, The Cromoglodon picks himself up and lumbers on. He follows the shrieking midget into a park. That’s where he steps on the land mines. For all his toughness, The Cromoglodon has very sensitive feet. The land mines get to him. He bellows in pain. Now he’s pissed.
“Oh shit,” says Topper. Around the corner is a red MG. Topper leaps into the car and speeds away. The car is fast, but not quite fast enough. As The Cromoglodon gives chase, he’s able to get a hand on the bumper. He pulls half of the trunk free. Topper gives it all he’s got. He drives like an inspired madman — heedless of red lights, medians, newspaper boxes.
With The Cromoglodon close behind him, Topper barrels down a pier. When he reaches the decrepit warehouse at the end, Topper’s foot never leaves the accelerator. He crashes through the back wall of the warehouse and sails into the harbor beyond. The car quickly sinks.
The Cromoglodon skids to a stop in the middle of the warehouse. The Cromoglodon can not swim. It is not a matter of knowing how. His incredibly tough structure is simply too dense to permit any buoyancy.
Edwin triggers the detonator.
The warehouse and The Cromoglodon explode and sink to the bottom of the harbor. The Cromoglodon does not sink like a stone. Stones don’t struggle. Stones don’t have lungs that burn for air. As stupid as he is, even The Cromoglodon is smart enough to realize that he is going to die. Fear, the true gut-wrenching, bowel-loosening fear of death is something that the invulnerable Cromoglodon has never been forced to consider. As he claws in vain against the dark water, the certainty of death sinks its reptilian teeth into The Cromoglodon’s brain stem.
From the deck of a powerful motor yacht far out in the harbor, Edwin allows himself a brief smile and turns his attention to the radio. As the first dive team comes alongside in a zodiac raft with a soaked and shivering Topper, Edwin keys the mic. “Bravo team report.”
“Bravo Actual, here. I think we’ve got him. If not I’d hate to know what else is stirring up all this muck. We’re moving in.”
“Negative, B-team, wait until favorable visibility conditions. Stay calm, safe and smart.”
“Sir, whatever else he is, he is drowning and soon to die.”
“Bravo Actual, whatever else he is, he deserves to die several times over. The medical team tells me that they will be able to revive him. The cold water will preserve him for several hours at least.”
“Roger that. Holding.”
“Holy Jesus, that was fun,” says Topper. Edwin does not understand Topper’s thrill-seeking behavior, but he is glad to see him happy.
“I’m glad you enjoyed your role,” says Edwin.
“If I had known being a villain was this much fun, I never would have gone to law school. So now what?”
“We’re going to wait until he is good and dead and then give him to the surgeon. And then, and only then, will we warm the brute and see if we can bring him back to life.”
“I think you should just let the bastard suck water and drown,” says Topper.
“Yes, I will take your blood thirst under advisement. You did beautifully by the way.”
“Do you really think so? My aim was a little off with some of the rockets. I’ll get it better next time.”
Edwin doesn’t bother to explain that there will be no next time. A plan that relies on extraordinary acts with less than 100% chance of success is not a good plan. Edwin is a little disappointed in himself that he couldn’t come up with a better scheme. He longs for all his machinations to be inexorable rather than spectacular. Edwin does not mean to seize glory, but rather to crush it out of circumstance as an Anaconda kills its prey.
Eighteen hours later, The Cromoglodon is thawing on a slab. His head is now circumnavigated by a crown of fresh stitches and attached to high tension power lines. From Edwin’s viewpoint, the stitches make his head look like a grisly baseball. Of course there are neater ways to place implants into a person’s brain, but Edwin hadn’t captured the beast for his looks. He had little trouble convincing the surgeon that speed was more important than aesthetics.
On the panel in front of Edwin are two switches. One switch will activate an automatic defibrillator, which will tickle The Cromoglodon’s heart and bring him back to life. The other switch, will shunt half the city’s power directly into The Cromoglodon’s brain — probably killing him.
This kill switch is to be used only if the electrodes implanted in The Cromoglodon’s brain prove to be ineffective. But for a moment Edwin’s hand wavers between them. Of course, it would be wasteful to destroy such a powerful creature, but all of Edwin’s purposes are cruel. His hand wavers as his demons wrestles with his better angels. The demons win. Edwin closes the switch that restarts the beast’s heart.
As The Cromoglodon’s eyes flutter and his vital signs gain strength, Topper climbs up onto his chest and slaps him across the face. “Rise and Shine!” The Cromoglodon awakes and instantly lunges for Topper. Edwin tri
ggers the implants.
The surgeon who installed the implants argued that they should be placed in the pain center of The Cromoglodon’s brain, but Edwin disagreed. He feared that, brute that he was, The Cromoglodon would be inured to pain. But fear, fear is something unknown to him; something The Cromoglodon is unequipped to deal with. The electricity triggers impossible and unknowable terrors within The Cromoglodon. Tears pour down his face. He attempts to curl up under a table that is half his size.
Edwin leaves the electrodes on for longer than he needs to. As he watches The Cromoglodon writhe on the floor, Edwin has an epiphany. Of course these creatures that surround him have the capacity to choose, but all their choices are bad. Edwin had believed that he could teach them, advise them, lead them to a truer path. Tip the scales of the world back to balance with a merest touch. Edwin realizes now that he had been mistaken. He can see now that he has been blinded by a sympathetic conceit. Now his thinking is clear and free from illusion. He quickly reaches the only possible conclusion.
In a time gone mad the only sane thing to do is to take over the world.
With The Cromoglodon cowering in fear, Topper returns to the room. “So, we’re going to use him to get Excelsior. Is that the plan?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then how are we going to get Excelsior? As much as I love that rocket launcher, I don’t think it’s going to be enough. What are we going to use on Excelsior?”
“The law.”
“What?”
Edwin does not take his eyes off The Cromoglodon. “We’re going to sue him.”
“You’re going to sue Excelsior. THE Excelsior?”
“Yes. You don’t like the idea?”
“Well, sure, I like the idea. It just doesn’t seem like enough.”
Edwin turns away. “It’s not. But it’s a start.”
Chapter Forty-Six
Serving the Process
For a suit to be brought against a person, he or she has to know that they are being sued. Usually, this is nothing more than a formality. A representative of the court, usually the plaintiff’s attorney, presents the defendant with a special set of papers known as a process. Despite what television drama might lead you to believe, this is usually a pretty mundane affair. Someone walks up and hands the defendant (or sue-ee, if you are not fond of legal jargon) a stack of papers. Usually they say something like, “You’re being sued,” and walk off. As a general rule, they do not say anything like, “This is for what you did to Billy!” Or, “I told you we’d get you, you bastard!” Or even, “Have a nice day!”
But the standard process does not apply when it comes to someone like Excelsior. First of all, how do you find such a man? He does not keep regular office hours. And even if you do manage to locate him at the scene of a disaster chances are he will fly off before you can get to him. Sure, there is the occasional public speaking event, but security is tight, and there is still the flying-off problem. Topper had considered all of these things.
Oh, Topper is devil-may-care about a lot of things, but he is a meticulous and exacting lawyer. Because he hates to lose. Worse than anything you have ever hated in your life, he hates to lose. And if he is to stand any chance at all, he must first get Excelsior in the courtroom. So he schemes a scheme. Topper thinks it is marvelous and subtle and on par with Edwin’s best work. It isn’t. But it is good. It is very good.
Excelsior has moved to a hotel on the West Side while a new apartment is being found for him. He spends his time much as he always does, lazing about and waiting for something to happen. And nothing has happened for several days. Absolutely nothing. He finds it hard to believe, but there has been no world-ending emergency, no alien attack, no earthquake, no sinister plot to foil. Another person might be glad, or thankful, or at least remembered that he had just been complaining about not having any time off. But not Excelsior. He’s bored.
He turns on the television, looking for something. Anything. Anyone to save. He doesn’t have to watch long. A local television channel has preempted regular programming with breaking news. Excelsior has no idea how long this emergency has been going on, but they’ve already created a name and a logo. “Bridge to Disaster!” That has to take a news channel at least ten minutes, right? Undoubtedly there is someone in a corner of the station frantically composing a theme song.
The screen shows helicopter footage of the Turnbuckle bridge. There, in the very middle, an accident has forced a red minivan through the guardrail. The vehicle teeters precipitously on the edge. The only thing holding the car back from an eight-hundred-foot drop into the water is a badly damaged guy wire.
Excelsior doesn’t think too much of it. C’mon, it’s just one car. He can see several fire trucks and police cars in the background. That’s fine, Excelsior thinks, let the little people handle the light work. But then, just as he is about to change the channel, he sees the driver stick her head out the window. She is beautiful. As she screams hysterically, her blonde hair flies in all directions. The car lurches closer to the edge of the bridge. As the woman points frantically at the back seat of the car, Excelsior notices that she’s not wearing a wedding ring. The shot changes to a helicopter camera. There, on extreme zoom, Excelsior can see a child in a car seat.
Hmm, thinks Excelsior. Hot mom, with child, in danger. He should probably go check that out. In the back of his head, he hears Gus saying, “Just don’t do ANYTHING!” He decides he doesn’t care. He wants to save them. He wants the easy win and the gratitude of a beautiful woman. The adoration of the public. So he’s going to do it. What were they going to do, punish him for saving a mother and child? He didn’t think so. It’s not much of a rebellion, but it’s a start.
Excelsior flies low and fast along the surface of the water. It’s more fun that way. When he reaches the bridge, he arcs high into the air so that everybody gets a chance to see him. A cheer goes up. That’s right, he thinks, Excelsior is here to save the day. As if there is all the time in the world, he floats down and grabs the front of the car.
“My child! Save my child,” the beautiful blond screams. She’s even better looking in person.
“Don’t worry, ma’am, Excelsior is here.” He lifts the car and puts it back on the bridge. The crowd roars its approval. Excelsior laps it up. The adoration is deafening. He is the hero. It feels good. It is a pure win.
The woman struggles to open the back door and remove her baby from the car seat. Excelsior steps forward. “Allow me, ma’am.” There is a screech of twisting metal as he effortlessly rips the door from the frame. Without looking, he tosses it off the bridge.
“Hey there, little fella, your mother is worried sick about you,” Excelsior says as he leans into the car. But as he’s leaning across the seat, the child leaps up and shoves a handful of papers into his face.
“Surprise, you’re being sued!” says Topper.
“What? What is this? What’s going on here?”
“It’s all in the papers. Don’t try and figure it out for yourself. Take it to a professional.”
“What about the woman?” Excelsior asks.
“Oh, her?” Topper looks as his watch. “She’s paid up for another hour and a half. Have a ball.”
“What? I don’t understand any of this.”
“That’s why you need a professional,” Topper says. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.” Topper steps down from the car and sees the crowd. This is a moment Topper cannot waste. “Hey everybody, let’s have a big hand for Excelsior. He SAVED ME!” The crowd erupts into cheering again. Excelsior is still trying to make sense of the strange little man. Before he can ask any questions, Topper scurries off into the crowd.
“I’m dismissing your case,” says the Judge.
“Dismissing my case?” says Topper, “But it hasn’t even started! Besides, the defendant didn’t send counsel. It’s over, we win.”
“This trial isn’t even getting started. You don’t have proof of service.”
“Proof of service!
Your Honor, please,” Topper holds up a picture of himself waving to the crowd on the bridge. In the background of the picture, Excelsior is holding a stack of papers. He has a confused look on his face. “Not only do I have proof of service, service was covered on NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN and CNBC. How much more proof does the court require?”
“Yes, but whom did you serve papers to? The court will agree that you presented documents to a man in a costume. But this court does not recognize that you have correctly identified the party you wish to sue.”
“What are you talking about? He’s Excelsior. Everybody knows Excelsior.”
“And everyone knows Mickey Mouse as well. And if you want to sue a man who wears a Mickey Mouse costume, you don’t file suit against Mickey Mouse. You find out the man’s name and file the proper legal papers in the proper legal manner. Your case is dismissed.”
“This is a travesty! A friggin’ tra-ves-ty. I don’t have to put up with this kind of runaround.”
“Yes, in fact, you do,” says the judge. He drops the gavel.
“Son of a bitch.” Topper grumbles as he storms from the courtroom. “I need an angle.”
Twenty minutes later Topper has related the whole story to Edwin. “We’re sunk. We’re sunk before we even get out of the harbor.”
“I am shocked,” says Edwin, not shocked in the least.
“I know, right? You’d at least think they would play by their own rules.”
“No, I am shocked that you managed to leave the courtroom without being held in contempt.”
“What? Let my passion interfere with my work? Sir, I am a professional. But I don’t know what to do with this. I’m stymied. We could try getting the case heard in another court, but if this is going to be their defense…”
Edwin smiles at his little friend. “Topper, don’t worry. This is a simple problem. Easy to solve.”
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