by Stan Lee
“Office help who proofread the first scripts for the Hero books—by God, I know she helped write some of it!” Elvio surged to his feet, his heavy mustache bristling. “Peg trafficked those books, not to mention holding John Cameron’s hand every step of the way. You’re not going to leave her out.”
Burke’s gut tightened. Elvio’s reputation was that of a peacemaker, an easygoing guy. An angry Elvio was a rare sight—one that few people wanted to see twice.
“If you think you can get away with ignoring that poor girl, you’d better think again.” Elvio was so furious, he began swearing in Spanish. Regaining some composure, he said, “I’ll tell Mrs. Sturdley myself, then you’ll see what happens to your little show!”
“I bet Myra wouldn’t even turn up if she heard,” Mack Nagel yelled. “I know I would boycott the farce!”
“Me, too,” Thibault added.
Burke scowled. Thibault had it in for him ever since he’d been ousted from Mr. Pain. Trust the old has-been to take any chance to stick it to him. But Marty recognized a potent threat. Even Burke’s own followers looked shamefaced.
It took a little effort, but Burke managed to force a jovial look onto his face. “Okay, Elvio, point taken. For her work on the series, Peg should be memorialized in the film as well. She was a fine young woman—”
“More of a lady than that big-boobed bimbo you’ve got working for you now.”
Burke glared at Mack Nagel. How did the old bastard make his asides audible to the whole table like that?
“Since Elvio has defended Peg so nobly,” Burke went on, “I’d like him to offer something in the way of a eulogy for her. I’ll say a few words about Harry.”
“Yeah, you two were always having words when he was around here.”
Nagel had trumped him again, but Burke chose to ignore it. “And I thought Bob here might come up with some sort of tribute to John. It’s just that very few people actually knew the kid.”
Bob Gunnar opened his mouth to say something, then closed it.
Marty smiled, his ends achieved. The service would bring tons of free publicity, and the ploy of dedicating the Heroes’ film to the missing trio would generate tons of advance coverage for the movie. And he’d be the keynote speaker ...
Although the ends of his mouth remained curled up, Burke’s eyes darkened as they wandered down the table toward Elvio Vital. One more name on his enemies list.
Harry Sturdley sat atop one of the rocky escarpments that hid the Citadel of Silence, a chilly breeze ruffling his gray hair, his helmet beside him. It would have been an impossible climb, but it was an easy flight in his armored suit. Sturdley had taken to this eyrie of late, needing an isolated place to sort out his thoughts. Back home, he’d have had his office, with Peg guarding the door if necessary.
That thought brought a worried frown to his face. What was happening back home? How was Myra dealing with his disappearance? Was he presumed to be dead? What kind of dogfight was developing for control of the Fantasy Factory? Bob Gunnar considered himself the heir apparent, but Harry had doubts that Gunnar’s personality was right for the top job. And Marty Burke would be circling around like a rabid hyena.
Harry pushed those questions away. He shouldn’t even consider the problems he’d face back home until he cleared the decks here on Argon. And given the state of the struggle against the Deviants, that wouldn’t be anytime soon. They struck out of nowhere, disappearing into the populace. Hell, they could even chemically convert the people to their side. Harry hated to admit it, but John had a point when he said they were fighting a war. It was even worse than the classic guerrilla situation, since Sturdley only had a handful of units to meet the enemy’s thrusts.
Sure, they’d gotten some new recruits after the attack on Boradon. But it would be a while before those kids were trained and hardened. He needed some trick, some masterstroke to offset the enemy’s advantages.
Sturdley’s frown grew deeper as he combed his memories. Somewhere there had to be a Fantasy Factory hero who had faced this problem and won. Mr. Pain perhaps, or the Rambunctious Rodent—he was always sort of an underdog. Nothing came to mind, however. Harry was almost glad for the interruption when another armored figure came in for a landing.
From the size and the unmarked armor, Sturdley knew who his visitor was before John Cameron removed his helmet. Harry stood silent, wondering if he had to face another argument.
Instead, John said, “Could I talk to you for a moment, Mr. Sturdley?”
“What is it?” Harry asked with a sigh. He knew they were in for a serious conversation. Nowadays, the kid tended to call him “Mr. Sturdley” only when he needed mentoring.
“This isn’t exactly—” John swallowed, then started again. “If I were home, I’d probably have gone to talk to Elvio.”
“Something art-related?” Harry asked.
“Uh—no.” John looked more embarrassed and miserable. “I used to ask Elvio for advice when I was first getting to know Peg.”
“Ah.” Sturdley raised an eyebrow. “Advice to the lovelorn isn’t exactly my strong suit.”
“Who else can I turn to?” John sank to a sitting position on part of a crag. Harry noticed dents in his protege’s plast-alloy armor and realized John had been duking it out with some Deviants again. He must have come here straight from flying patrol. It came as a shock when Harry realized that John looked tired. He’d never seen the kid weary, not even when he was fighting the crazy deadlines to get out the first Robert comic.
John sighed. “Back at the San Diego Comics Convention, I thought there was hope for Peg and me. But all the stuff she went through while I was out of it on the giants’ world—the time she spent with Mike—”
He shook his head. “Things haven’t been the same between us since I woke up on this planet. But I can’t let Mike take her ... without a fight.”
John turned pleading eyes to Sturdley. “What can I do?”
“Kid,...” Sturdley tried to keep his voice gentle, thinking back to his own courting days. “You haven’t really followed up on what you had with Peg. Instead, you went off to war—and got yourself involved in a whole macho pissing contest with Mike.” His eyes suddenly got very far away. “In a way, that’s what happened to all of us. We got ourselves into a pissing contest with the Deviants, with them taking the initiative and us doing all the reacting. If we want to win, we’ve got to change all that.”
“How?” John said.
“We’re gonna have to take the ball into their court.” Harry gave John a lop-sided smile. “Just like you have to pay more attention to the curvaceous Ms. Faber. Forget about Mike. Concentrate on Peg.”
“I think I see what you’re saying,” John said. “Even if I’m not too sure about how to do it.”
“Well, don’t come looking to Uncle Harry for more advice,” Sturdley told him. “I may not be around. There’s another job this outfit needs doing if we’re going to win this war.”
“What’s that?” John asked.
Harry tapped the side of his head. “Intelligence.”
Ruth was more happy than she’d ever expected upon hearing the words, “That’s a wrap.”
It wasn’t that the young giantess found the work of movie-making physically taxing. A typical day back on her homeworld required much more exertion.
But a typical day back home didn’t call for endless retakes, excruciating waits between scenes, and the unceasing responsibility to memorize lines despite constant rewrites.
Ruth was suffering from a pounding headache and wanted nothing so much as a nice, long swim, some food, and then rest.
Instead, she got ‘The Director,“ as the California contingent of giants had come to call Thomas.
“Let’s be off to our lodgings!” Thomas’s words were nearly a barked order as she approached the unused sound-stage that had been turned into the Heroes’ temporary quarters.
Thomas stood outside the doorway, a huge affair built to accommodate enormous flats and
props for spectacles of bygone days. Robert’s tough-minded lieutenant looked something like a giant idol himself. Nude to the waist, skin glistening, he’d dispensed with the spandex top of his uniform between shots in response to the oppressive California weather.
“I wish I could do that,” Ruth complained to Barbara. What ridiculous taboos these Lessers had! Back home, simple clouts served for purposes of utility and modesty.
But the small ones here seemingly had a fear of exposed bosoms—especially Sturdley and the film leader called Silikis. Barbara had laughingly recounted the story of his reaction to her little mishap.
“Come along!” Thomas’s voice grew downright testy as he led the way to the two tractor-trailers provided as transport. In comparison with the vehicles they had used on the East Coast, these were luxuriously appointed, with carpeting, plastic roof panels to let in the light, air conditioning, and countless soft pillows.
Still, none of the giants was all that fond of entering such a confined space, especially when ordered in so peremptory a manner.
“I think The Director is beginning to think he’s a Master of Masters,” the giant Victor grumbled, a scowl clouding his almost pretty face.
“That attitude could be dangerous for Thomas—if it were reported.” Maurice was frowning, too, which made his slightly weak chin look even more ridiculous.
Barbara merely raised a perfect eyebrow. “Oh, Thomas is still loyal to Robert. Ridiculously overbearing, but loyal.”
They arrived at the nearest parking area that could accommodate the huge trucks, Thomas still in the lead. The hired Lesser drivers scrambled into the cabs of the vehicles as soon as they saw Thomas arrive. He turned to give brusque orders. “Barbara, Maurice, and Victor will travel in that one. Ruth will ride with me.”
“I’d rather ride with Barbara,” Ruth said quietly. Warning bells were ringing in her head. She hadn’t liked the look in Thomas’s eyes when he mentioned her name. “Perhaps Victor would—”
“You and Barbara can have this to yourselves,” Thomas interrupted curtly. “We men will ride together.”
As they made their way along the California freeways, Barbara gave her transit mate an odd look. “I thought you and Thomas were—”
Now it was Ruth’s turn to scowl. She brought up her fore and middle fingers tightly together. “Like that?” she asked. “It’s more like this.” She twisted her hand so the fingers were horizontal, the longer one on top. “You called Thomas overbearing—overwhelming might be a better description.”
The ride to the Malibu camping ground where tents had been pitched to house the giants during filming had apparently not improved Thomas’s disposition. He forbade any excursions from the camp, much to the annoyance of the other males, who had discovered a drive-in theater not too far away.
Ruth was annoyed, too, since Thomas’s order also put out of bounds the swimming pool that had been rented for the giants’ use. Although it barely came to her waist at its deepest point, the Olympic-sized pool’s heated water was her favorite decompression chamber.
She bided her time through dinner, waiting for full darkness to fall. Then Ruth quietly made her way to the edge of the campground and set off down the road to the jented house and its pool.
If I don’t turn on the pool lights, no one will know I’m here, she thought, kicking off her buskins, then slipping her spandex top over her head. She shook out her mop of russet-colored curls and slid her thumbs into the waistband of her lower garment, working it off.
Nude, she sank into the water with a grateful sigh, letting the liquid warmth unknot her muscles, her eyes closed in contentment. Then she heard the sound.
Ruth’s feet scrabbled for purchase on the pool floor. Her wide eyes made out a patch of deeper darkness obscuring a huge part of the night sky.
“I thought I’d find you here when I realized you’d left the camp,” Thomas’s voice came from the shadows. “You disobeyed.”
“I—I—” Ruth rose in the pool, the water barely coming to her knees. Her aura kept off the coolness of the night air, but she felt a chill from deep inside.
Thomas stepped closer, and she realized that the sound she’d heard had been him removing his only garment.
“I though we’d bathe together,” Thomas said as he stepped into the pool. His white, square teeth showed in a cool smile. “And—perhaps you won’t be so disobedient in the future.”
Mike had already flown his vehicle past the bent figure in the ramshackle, mismatched armor when Peg received the mental message: Slow him down. It’s me.
Harry? she sent in disbelief. Jeeze. When you go undercover, you go all the way.
She told Mike to slow the craft, and Harry smoothly slid into the open back of the flying platform.
“You’ve been gone for a week,” Peg said, trying to keep the worry from her voice as she helped Sturdley change into a standard S-Force combat suit.
“Get this bucket back to the Citadel of Silence—top speed,” Sturdley ordered Mike, ignoring Peg’s words. Then he turned to her, a tight smile lightening his haggard features. “1 did it, kid. I pinpointed their headquarters. It’s here in Valmot, in a slum section—if you can call a mile-high tower a slum. It’s actually a complex of several interconnected towers. As soon as we arrive at the Citadel, I’m bringing back our whole rapid-reaction force.”
“What about our people on patrol? Triadon’s in Kaldoa, Melador is in Kemot, and John is up in Ahkeya,” Peg objected.
“I’ll call them in to mop up after we attack,” Harry said. “But I’m not going to give these guys any warning. If you think we need numbers, we’ll take along the recruits. But until we arrive, everyone but you, me, and Mike will think this is a drill.”
He sat down, wishing this Utopian society had something like coffee. The past week had gone by with precious little sleep as he traced his way through a labyrinthian network of interlocking Deviant cells to the top of the criminal hierarchy. In a variety of disguised armor shells, he’d gone cruising until he mentally detected a Deviant. Then he’d probed, finding the head of the local cell, that leader’s contact to the next level, and so on.
Harry didn’t think he’d been spotted, but he wanted to act on his information as soon as possible. One thing his spy work had shown was that Triadon’s security had a number of leaks.
The attack on Deviant Central was almost an anticlimax. Harry used the recruits to ring the spire complex and prevent escape. Then he took the experienced S-Force fighters in to storm the central tower from several levels at once. When he, Peg, and Mike went in, they all followed John’s example, carrying lethal blasters in their armor.
The attack was a complete surprise. Mike, as the most technically trained leader, was in charge of seizing the power array and reducing the amount of broadcast power in the area. The enemy had been forced to choose between activating defense robots or keeping their own armor and weapons operational.
Harry and Peg had led their teams in a blitzkrieg through half-paralyzed defense posts, capturing dozens of Deviants—hard-core exiles, not the temporary variety of drug-induced citizens.
At last the attack teams joined forces at the drop shaft that led to the basement sanctum sanctorum of the Deviant hierarchy.
“If we go down this thing, we’ll be sitting ducks,” Peg said, frowning.
“That’s why we’re not going down first,” Sturdley said, hooking a thumb at several of Triadon’s technicians refitting a trio of nullified Deviant robots.
“You’re going to use the bad guys’ own robots against them?” Peg still looked dubious. “Won’t they be able to take control of them again?”
“Those things will have only one command,” Sturdley responded. “Ready?”
The lead technician nodded, his team moving the robots to the verge of the shaftway.
“Go!”
As the robots plummeted downward, Sturdley yelled, “Everybody hold on tight!”
The blast wave from the explosion literally
shook the spire to its foundations.
“We set them to self-destruct,” Harry explained to Peg as he led the way into the shaft. “Any welcoming committee is out of it now.”
There were no last-ditch defenses, however. Harry’s raiders burst through an armored door to find what looked like a high-tech, high-cost Argonian office—an empty office, with one wall completely vaporized.
Sturdley looked through the opening, blown through thirty feet of solid rock, and saw a municipal utility tunnel. “A bolt-hole,” he said through gritted teeth.
John Cameron was one of the last S-Force members to arrive on the scene, flying at top speed from distant Ahkeya. As such, his part of the mopping-up operation was restricted to the psychic search for fugitives and assembling the damage reports.
“Our casualties were remarkably low,” John told the assembled leaders. “One of Harry’s raiders walked into a blaster-bolt and is off to the automeds.” His face grew more solemn. “And three of the recruits were killed. As near as we can make out, they blundered across the escaping Deviant leaders and were wiped out.”
Sturdley shook his head at this reminder of his attack’s only shortcoming. “We should have captured them,” he muttered for the fiftieth time.
“In any event, we’ve dealt the Deviants a crushing blow,” Triadon said. “Not only did we capture dozens of prisoners, we’ve confiscated vast quantities of their ‘recruiting’ drug—and secured the factory where it was made.”
“My people came across a workshop where they were trying to build more force cannons,” Mike said. “They must have found one of the other prototypes and were clumsily trying to copy it.”
“And they must have taken the prototype with them, after they used it to burn their way to the escape tunnel,” Harry said. “As soon as they find another hidey-hole, they’ll be trying to reproduce it again.”
“But for the nonce, we’ve crippled them,” Triadon said, gesturing around the inner sanctum. “We even have all their records.”
He picked up a pile of plastic flimsies to illustrate his point, glanced at them, and blanched.