by Stan Lee
Antony Carron stared at the dead phone in his hand, then turned to his chief henchman, Joey Santangelo.
“Pass the word—we’re blowing this joint.” Carron’s cafe au lait complexion was suffused with rage, the nostrils of his hooked Arabic nose pinched.
Joey wasn’t necessarily surprised at the sudden decision to move—Carron often shifted base, especially since the police starting coming after him. A fully-packed bag for every member of the crew was a house rule in the gangster’s Jersey estate.
What did surprise Santangelo was seeing the boss stalk over to the kitchen and throw open the door to the cellar. “Meet me downstairs when you finish with the guys,” Carron ordered.
Santangelo’s broken-nosed face showed even more puzzlement when he found Carron in the fenced-off-section of the basement. The original builders had installed the hurricane mesh and locked door for a wine cellar. As New York’s illegal armaments king, Carron kept his most heavy-duty merchandise in there.
The boss turned, a crowbar in his hand as Joey came through the door. “Come on. I want this box unloaded.”
He’d already cracked the top of an olive-drab packing case, and removed a yard-long launching tube. Joey saw that the rest of the box was filled with foot-long cylindrical rockets with rounded heads, like oversized bullets—or suppositories. Joey hefted one of them in his hand. “I don’t know how many of these we can load into a car. What are we going to do with them?”
Carron turned, a death’s head grin on his aquiline features. “We’re gonna go hunting giants, Joey. Maybe the big freaks are bulletproof, but I think an antitank round would give them a nasty surprise.”
“We’re rolling,” the assistant director called. Producer Stuart Silikis leaned forward, following the action as the giantess Barbara came into the shot, heading for the three-story brick warehouse. A stuntman in a blond wig and white dress clung to one of the rusty window shutters, frantically waving an arm.
“Okay—cut!” the director’s voice boomed over a megaphone. “That’s the last we need of that. Arm the demolition charges.”
Special effects people rushed into the old building, while a pair of riggers pulled the stuntman in from the shutter. They affixed a life-sized dummy outfitted in identical dress and wig in the stuntman’s place.
Silikis glanced over at his special effects man, who was apparently carrying on about seven conversations at once over a walkie-talkie.
The director, a bearded, tanned veteran of innumerable action movies, walked over to the producer with an obviously synthetic smile. “Good to see you, Stu.”
“Calm down, Steve,” Silikis’s buzz-saw voice interjected. “I know you’d want me around as much as you want a case of crabs. But this is our single problem shot.”
The director nodded. “A one-take wonder. After Charlie here blows the charges, there won’t be a building left.”
“Yeah, and the bank that owns the property can put up a shopping center,” Silikis said. “I could give a rat’s ass about that. You’re sure this will work?”
“We’ve talked it over with Barbara, and she’s completely confident. It’s a straight mechanical thing. She grabs the dummy, which is wired to the charges. As soon as the dummy is out of that window, ba-boom! She turns away, runs toward the camera, the building falls down, then we cut to the shot where she’s holding the live actress.”
“She’s not worried about the blast?” Silikis said.
The director shrugged. “She tells me she’s got some kind of force-field around her body. I didn’t buy it until she had one of the stunt guys shoot a couple of rounds at her leg. Real bullets, not blanks. Those stories are true.”
“Okay then,” Silikis said, hunching his shoulders. “Whenever you’re ready.”
The special effects people finished their preparations, the set was cleared, and the continuity staff went into action, posing Barbara as she’d looked in the previous shot.
“Barbara, I’ll talk you through the scene. We don’t have to worry about the sound, except for the explosion. Okay, ready on the set.”
“Cameras rolling,” the photography director reported.
An assistant held up a clapper board with the scene number, clacked, and pulled it away.
“Okay, Barbara, you’re running to save the girl. Now grab for her—both hands! Remember, as you pull her away, the blast comes.”
Barbara ran in yards-long strides, tension showing in the play of gorgeously sculpted muscles beneath her skintight white suit.
“Looks good,” Silikis muttered.
“Now grab the dummy and turn, quick turn! Remember, you’re supposed to look concerned.”
In a single, limber move, she leapt gracefully, cupped the dummy’s torso in her hands, removed it from the shutter, and dropped lightly to the ground, turning.
At the same moment, the demolition charges cut loose. A sheet of fire blasted from the open window, tearing away the shutters.
“Too strong!” the special effects director cried in a stricken voice that was swallowed in the explosion.
The blast wave hit Barbara, who stumbled slightly, a look of anxiety on her beautiful face. She kept her feet though, despite the unexpected force, her protective aura deflecting serious harm from her flesh.
Unfortunately, the force-field was only skin-deep. Burning gases and the billowing stream of air charred and shredded the spandex top of her uniform, literally blowing it off to fall in smoking tatters.
With the supreme unconcern of a healthy animal used to bare skin, Barbara ran toward the camera cradling the dummy, a look of concern on her face, the glorious rondures of her naked breasts bobbing dramatically with her every step.
She reached her mark, stopped, and stared in bafflement at the consternation below.
“Did I do something wrong?” Barbara asked.
“C-c-c-cut!” The director finally found his voice.
Silikis slapped his forehead. “Well,” he said, “There goes our PG rating.”
“Yeah,” the director said with an appreciative grin. “But our appeal in foreign markets has just gone sky-high.”
“You look great, Peg,” Mike said with a smile.
“Oh, this little thing?” she said airily, making a quick turn to display her outfit. She’d decided to try a more daring Argonian fashion, something in deep green that was almost spray-painted on top, but flowered out in petal-like panels to create a sedate-looking skirt—except for the fact that each panel was of a mist-thin lace.
Sturdley had to admit that she was one toothsome example of pulchritude. The outward signs of Peg’s hormone-induced pseudo-pregnancy had dissipated, except for a glow to her skin and a bit more amplitude in the upper story.
Mike looked pretty impressive himself in a silver robe and black tights, the blazon of the S-Force embroidered like a crest. He stood by one of the enclosed flying platforms in the hangar within the Citadel of Silence. They had a date to fly in to Kaldoa and have dinner—formal recognition of his promotion to team leadership.
As the couple headed out to enjoy their off-hours, they passed a squad of S-Forcers preparing to leave on patrol. Two were Argonian techs in wildly-decorated armor. Their leader was a figure in gray-and-white flying armor, unadorned except for the S-Force sign on its chest—John Cameron.
“Have a nice evening.”
Harry frowned. Either John was having a problem with his suit loudspeakers, or he was really rasping out those words. He knew he should have a talk with the kid about his attitude, but what could he say? John was doing the work of five men. He didn’t take nights off, flying double shifts to bash at the Deviants as hard as he could. And the rivalry between Mike and John, superhero-wise and for Peg’s affections, had become worse. Somehow it had to be resolved, or the whole team would be torn apart.
With a sigh, Harry waved goodbye both to the patrol and to the celebrating couple. What would Professor X do in a situation like this?
John had barely arrived in the enviro
ns of the city of Valmot when his immaterial senses detected someone in great pain. He reported as much to his two wingmen. “I’ll pinpoint where the trouble is. You follow me in,” he said.
He tried to zero in on the tortured psyche, but the personality—and its location—were rendered inchoate by the pulsing waves of agony. John had to flick probes out in a wide search pattern. His face tightened. This wasn’t the pain from an injury or accident—the recurring pattern indicated torture.
The general heading he was able to determine led to the lowest levels of a nearby tower. With John in the lead, the patrol swooped down, aiming for the plaza entrance. The psionic picture was a haze of pain, like a roaring bank of flames that covered several floors. John still couldn’t get a firm location for the victim, so he switched mental gears, searching instead for the torturers.
But he didn’t find them—that is, he didn’t find any minds enjoying the injuries being inflicted. In fact, it seemed mechanical.
Mechanical? John retuned his probes, this time finding several robots tormenting a young woman three tiers below the ground. The blasted things had been specially designed for the purpose, some sort of heat-induction coils built into their fingers as they pressed their hands against the writhing form trapped and floating in a gizmoidal field.
John was already plummeting down the drop shaft as he flung out new mental probes, scouting beyond the sickening scene. The whole torture chamber was a huge, mechanized deadfall. All four walls were wired—blasters, stunners, and what looked like a jury-rigged imitation of a nullifier net.
Whoever came in there would be nailed with the most unbeatable offensive combination available to Argonian science. There were even backup robots on the level above—the tier he’d just passed.
“Up! Up! Out!” John screamed into his radio. “It’s a trap!” He was already reversing his armor’s drive. The other patrol members reacted more slowly, descending farther, almost into range of the automated ambush downstairs.
Overhead, John’s probes revealed the backup robots lumbering into position around the tube, bringing weapons to bear. John spun about in midair, flinging out both arms in the tridigirector. Blue blast-bolts erupted from projectors imbedded in his armor. At close range, they tore through the mechanical warriors, wrecking them before they were in position for a decent shot.
Now John was on the radio, calling for local reinforcements. The call must have been intercepted, because the whole room below them blew up, the torturer-robots exploding, taking their captive with them. John and his wing-men were spewn up the shaftway on the Shockwave.
But John’s mind was whirling faster than his body. The whole snare they’d so narrowly escaped down there had been set up to capture someone with psionic powers. The bait—pain radiating on the menta/ frequencies—could only attract a telepath. And he could imagine which telepath the Deviants wanted: the one who could open an escape route from the Sphere of Exile through the Rift.
The problem was, how did they know he’d be patrolling Valmot this particular evening? Harry worked carefully to keep the patrol leaders shifting randomly among Argon’s cities.
John got his trajectory back under control, moving up the drop shaft under his own power now. One of the patrolling S-Forcers matched courses with him.
“Uh, sir ... ” the technician-turned-fighting-man said. “I’m glad you got us out of that.” He hesitated for a second. “But I thought Sturdley had all blasters replaced with stun-weapons. His code—”
“Harry’s code is a fine thing,” John said. “But I don’t believe in following something blindly.” He stroked a hand over the blast-projector set behind his gauntlet. “Following blindly is the easiest way to go off a cliff.”
The soft glow of a force-field above the outdoor terrace and the anachronistic candlelight were the only illumination in the restaurant, which Peg had already identified as a sure sign of expense, even with her limited exposure to Argonian culture.
She’d also managed to master the odder aspects of Argonian cutlery... beside the silver spork was a silver-hilted ultrasonic meat-cutter.
But Peg had no concept of what was on the menu. Mike had to order for her, and as she tasted her entree, she could only guess at what she was eating. The meat had a vaguely gamy flavor, but was covered with something that tasted like McDonald’s special sauce.
There was also wine of unknown origin and vintage, a deep red, heady liquid served in self-chilling goblets.
Peg could feel the color rise in her cheeks, both from the wine and from Mike’s flirting. One thing was obvious—his adopted culture suited him very well. He was totally at ease as the floor show began—a show literally in the floor, as the terrace beneath their feet slowly became transparent, then lit with dancing showers of tiny sparks as music surrounded them from an unseen source. Peg found herself hard-put not to gape like a yokel.
Mike simply smiled. “Like it? Several of the guys recommended this restaurant.”
Triadon must pay well, if his technicians can afford to dine here, Peg thought. She glanced off into the distance. I thought that was Melador off by the edge of the platform, sitting with a blond babe.
A richly-dressed pair of Argonians came up to the table—an embarrassed-looking man of middle age accompanied by a wife who appeared to be fizzing.
“ ”Excuse me,“ the man said, ”you’re ah—Mike—aren’t you?“
He handles this a lot better than Marty Burke, Peg thought as Mike graciously chatted with the couple. I’ve seen fanboys and fangirls, but this is a new one on me. The Argonian wife gazed rapturously at Mike for several minutes, hero-worship in her eyes, then finally recognized Peg. With the aid of her translator, Peg managed some halting conversation, hoping her smile didn’t look too nervous and forced.
Mike’s a hero around here, she thought, while I’m definitely a fish out of water.
The fan couple—Peg could think of them in no other way—took an almost scandalized pleasure in being near two people who had experienced life-threatening danger. Culturally speaking, that represented a step forward from recent popular opinion. It had really hurt when John had shared his perception stolen from Argonians in the street—Peg didn’t like being considered some sort of weapon-wielding psycho.
The Argonian couple chatted a while more. They finally left when they saw the waiter coming with dessert.
Peg found a genuine smile on her face as she bade them goodbye. The waiter had taken a station behind Mike’s back. Peg was glancing from the departing couple to him when something violently jarred her immaterial senses.
“Mike! Get down!” The words seemed torn from her throat.
Mike ducked before her cry ended. The ultrasonic cutter in the stone-faced waiter’s hand slashed air that a moment before had been occupied by Mike’s throat.
Peg could now mentally pinpoint several other people, waiters and patrons, stalking them through the semidark-ness. The floor show was considerably enlivened as Mike leapt up to grapple with the knife-wielding waiter and Peg moved to protect his back.
It was obvious that the attackers were merely Deviant-drugged civilians. They had no weapons other than tableware, and no technique or training in their fighting—only a single-minded desire to cause pain.
Those that Peg didn’t dispatch martial-arts style, Mike simply overpowered.
As the local S-Force detachment arrived with ambulances, the only cost they’d paid was a worked-up sweat and the broken mood of the evening.
Mike saw her home in silence. As the rocky face of the Citadel of Silence opened for them, Mike finally spoke. “I’d never have seen that coming.” He gave her a pained smile. “That’s the big difference between John and me—between me and you.”
Peg tried to say something, anything, but Mike just raised a hand. “No. I’ve come very far from what I was to what I am now. But no matter how hard I try, I’ll always just be a human.”
* * *
CHAPTER 11
“... so the farm
boy says to the hooker, ‘That may be sophisticated as all get-out, ma’am, but I don’t think I can take it sixty-seven more times.’”
The smutty joke’s punchline was told in syncopation with Marty Burke’s hammer-rappings. The gavel didn’t do much to quell the restless noise in the conference room, but it saved wear and tear on Burke’s hand. “All right now, settle down!” he shouted. “We’ve got important business to discuss.”
The racket moderated a little, then died completely at his next words. “After long and careful discussion with Myra Sturdley, she’s finally agreed to a memorial service for Harry.”
“You’ve only been trying to bury Harry since about a week after he disappeared,” Mack Nagel mumbled. “I’m surprised she put up with your nagging this long.”
“Mrs. Sturdley insisted that the others who disappeared with Harry should be honored as well,” Burke continued, trying to ride over Nagel’s razzing. “I’ve secured a nice nondenominational chapel up on the West Side, and set the date for three weeks from Friday. That should give us time to organize a guest list—”
“Give ample notice to the media, you mean.” Nagel wasn’t finished giving Burke the needle. “That’s all you see this as—cheap publicity for your movie.”
“There will be some mention of the Heroes movie,” Burke admitted. “As a matter of fact, Stuart Silikis asked to say a few words—”
“What the hell is this?” Fabian Thibault burst out. “We worked with Harry for years! How come this Hollywood guy hears about his memorial before we do?”
Bob Gunnar frowned. “I don’t think it’s in the best of taste, Burke.”
“Just let me finish,” Marty said, trying not to grit his teeth. “Silikis is dedicating the movie to Harry and John, since in a way the giants were their creations.”
“What about Peg Faber?” a voice came from the other end of the table.
“Well, Elvio, we didn’t think that was quite appropriate,” Burke said. “I mean, Peg was a nice girl, but she was just office help—”