by Stan Lee
She’d been willing to accept the lamebrain names for the planet’s technical marvels, even as she accepted the comic book science that underlay them. That guy with the half-armor and the force cannon should have been a warning. Who had he looked like if not M-16, Weapon Supreme, the Fantasy Factory’s hottest two-gun bad boy? Granted, the guy on Argon had one gun, but the resemblance was there.
And what about the blond vixen who’d seduced Melador over to the enemy side with drugs and sex appeal? Even her name—Matavi—sounded like a slurring of the Fantasy Factory’s psychic femme fatale, Madam Vile.
Peg caught a flicker of movement down the table and saw that very woman, now dressed in a brief, rather sexy combination of black leather and half-armor—with a bandoleer of drug-darts slung across her shoulders. She looked like a comic artist’s wet dream.
What the hell was going on around here?
She couldn’t accept that the universe worked on comic book rules. Back in college, Peg had come upon a collection of science fiction stories based on the same theme: The stories that we regard as literary fiction are actually blurred visions of other realities, transcribed by Earthly writers. She’d never bought the idea of novelists as psychic mediums—at least, until now.
Just my luck, she thought. I could have visited the universe of Doctorow or Rabelais. Instead, I get the world of Grantfield and Sturdley.
Peg’s skin crawled under her plast-alloy armor. There was yet another explanation for the crazy ordeals they’d undergone since the San Diego convention, the comic book life she’d been living with John Cameron. Suppose the Rift hadn’t created the horrors she’d survived. What if the Rift were a creation of John’s strange mental powers, a case of reality conforming to his fantasies? Fantasies, Peg realized, that had been formed in turn by comics.
The frozen moment finally shattered. Megladon summoned killer robots with his control globe while Scaladon snatched up a golden implement that looked like a high-tech scepter and fired a dazzling yellow beam at the invaders.
This was no time to debate illusion versus reality. Whatever the Deviants might be, alternate reality, phantasms, mental masturbation, they’d already proven that when they hit you, it hurt. She’d have to fight her way through this ... and have a long talk with John when it was finished.
For now, Peg followed her part in the plan that John had proposed. The S-Forcers blocked the room’s only exit, and moved to cover John. Peg again felt the ground-dissolving-under-her-feet sensation—but this was the opening of the Rift shivering her senses.
A quick burst of nausea, and an armored figure grappling with one of Triadon’s techs disappeared. Peg’s stomach flip-flopped in unnerving fashion as more and more of the creme de la creme of Deviant society were Rifted back into exile.
John had specifically designated three of the best S-Forcers to pin down the guy with the force cannon. Now a brilliant white glare filled the room as M-16 or whatever his name was somehow wriggled free.
The shot vaporized one of the S-Forcers—and two Deviant leaders.
“You can’t use that in such close quarters!” Scaladon yelled.
“Then we’ll have to open up the quarters,” the cocky gunner responded, blowing out another wall.
Falling rubble took out a couple more unarmored Deviants. The pressure on the S-Force disintegrated as the leaders rushed for the new exit.
“Afraid this would happen,” John muttered, surging forward.
‘This wasn’t part of the plan!“ Peg cried, jumping after him.
“As Harry says, ‘When in doubt, more hitting!’” John hurled himself over the table, where the ultimate Deviant leaders were still trying to extricate themselves.
Megladon frantically manipulated the controls on his globe. A pair of enormous robots plowed through the wall behind them, moving to smash John with fists like barrel-sized mallets.
Peg felt a pulse of psychic force that nearly lifted off the top of her skull, and watched the robots torn apart in an orgy of telekinetic destruction.
Megladon tried again. This time a golden glow emerged from his control globe, forming into a wall of energy which threw off hideous sparks as John encountered it.
“Enough of this shit,” Peg muttered, aiming both of her blasters at the globe and firing. Megladon screamed as fat sparks enveloped him. He hurled the ruined mechanism at John and tried to dodge away.
But John, moving quickly despite the bulky backpack he’d insisted on wearing into battle, managed to nab the skinny mad scientist (Peg could see no other way to describe him), tossed him into the invisible-skinned Scaladon, and then landed atop both.
“Peg—here! Quick!” he called.
Peg landed beside John, blasters up, fingers ready to curl into firing position. “One false move,” she snarled, “and you get a face full of tridigirector.”
Scaladon writhed violently under the pile of bodies, his scepter-weapon pinned against his chest. Peg watched in fascination as his face became almost visible, suffused with a blood-red glow of rage.
“Stare at your peril, woman,” the living skeleton rasped. “Many have learned the unwisdom of that since the lab accident that left me this way!”
With a near-superhuman wrench, he freed his scepter, aiming it at Peg. Another burst of telekinesis shuddered through her nervous system, and the golden weapon exploded.
Scaladon cried out with rage. But his shouts were dimmed in Peg’s ears by a psychic call from John.
Peg—that drained me. Need a boost from you to open the Rift.
Taking a ragged breath, Peg opened her mind, feeling herself nearly yanked out of her body by the demand for power.
John! she transmitted in panic, I can’t—
She felt the yawning gulf of the Rift drawing her in, and the horrendous sucking on her soul eased.
You remember how to move through the Rift, John’s mind suddenly came at her. Push us away from Argon. I’m going to try and pull along as many Deviants as I can.
Peg’s previous experience in controlling a Rift transition—the wild, tumbling ride that had brought them to Argon—seemed like a jaunt through the country compared to this passage. Before, no matter how much pitching and rolling they had faced, she was essentially steering.
Now she perceived the job as propelling them away from Argon’s influence—its psychic gravity. It felt like trying to push a fully loaded Mack truck uphill, against the wind ... singlehanded.
Doing fine, John sent. But they’re resisting. And others are trying to push through.
The universe had shrunk to the interior of Peg’s armored suit. She realized she wasn’t in physical contact with John this time. Their connection was merely mind to mind. Even that thought was lost in the exertion of navigating the Rift. Solely on psionic power, she had to move herself, John, and the various Deviants he’d latched onto through the void— angstrom by angstrom, she feared. Peg could hear the blood thudding in her ears.
Panicked, she flailed out—and suddenly the jumble of Rifting bodies was free of Argon. She had a momentary impression of a construct, a bubble in the Rift. Then she heard a wild mental wail as the Deviant leaders were consigned back to their dimensional prison.
John took over the steering, sending himself and Peg across an immensity of emptiness.
We’re not going back, John told her. Our job is done. The backbone of the Deviant leadership is dead or exiled. For the rest, they can be handled by Triadon and the S-Force.
That’s why you packed a bag, Peg thought muzzily. She found herself drifting away.
Peg! John’s mental voice was sharp as he gathered her mind-stuff to himself in a clutch that was like a full body caress. Stick with me. I don’t want you getting lost!
Yeah. There’s a lot we’ve got to talk about, she responded. This was the longest she’d ever been in the Rift. Did John know which way to go?
I’m taking us home, he assured her, but we’re bucking the Rift currents. Think of it as flying against a strong headw
ind.
They continued for perhaps a hundred pulsebeats, then seemed to pause somehow. Peg felt a discharge of psychic energy.
What’s going on? she asked.
Checking our landing zone, John said briefly.
Then the Rift was fading, to be replaced by the faded walls of a pokey, narrow room. On one side was an army cot and cheap dresser, the other wall was lined high with comic boxes. A drawing board stood by a window that had been painted shut generations ago. Every surface was covered with a thick layer of dust.
They’d reached John’s rented room in Astoria, Queens, New York ... New York.
Peg laughed and activated her suit radio. “When you said you were taking us home, I didn’t realize you meant your home.”
“Easiest spot to find,” John returned with a grin. ‘That’s the first rule of Rift navigation.“
They undid their helmets. “Welcome home,” Peg whispered, giving him a kiss.
Then the two of them rebounded with a muffled clunk.
John looked down ruefully. “I’m glad I chose somewhere private to arrive, dressed like this. Luckily, after I got the first check for doing the Robert comic, I gave the Putniks six months’ rent in advance.”
Peg had already encountered the immigrant family who were John’s landlords. “Most people would have cleaned this room out and rented it again,” she said.
John shook his head. “Not the Putniks. With their kind of pride, when they make a deal, they stick to it.”
“I guess it’s kind of useful to be able to read your landlord’s mind,” Peg said.
You should know, she caught John’s thought. You’ve been doing it long enough now.
Peg’s eyes went wide. “You mean—” she began in words, then finished her sentence psionically. I’m telepathic here? I thought that was just on the Riftworlds. She paused for a second, then went back to speech. “So Harry and I—”
“Looks like it,” John said. “I guess Harry’s done well so far. He must have gotten the broadcast power unit up and working, or we’d be having a lot of trouble with these suits.”
He slipped off his backpack and began divesting himself of his armor. “We’re in luck, by the way. Nobody’s in the apartment.”
Peg stared at him in consternation as he stood before her, peeling off his baggy undersuit. “God!” she exclaimed. “Is that all you can think of?”
He rolled his eyes. “There’s a change of clothes for both of us in my backpack. And there’s nothing here you haven’t seen before. We can dress and quietly go out—unless you want to walk down Astoria Boulevard in that get-up.”
“Oh,” she said in a small voice, getting to work on her armor.
John grinned. “I mean, we’ve got a lot of work to do. Is that all you can think of?”
Two figures shimmered into being on the roof of an apartment building in the working-class enclave of Astoria. Matavi’s hair was matted with sweat as she nearly collapsed onto Emsisdin. “I told you I could do it,” she gasped in Ar-gonian. “It was just a case of hanging onto their psychic coattails, close enough to transit through the dimensional flux, far enough away not to be detected.”
“I had doubts,” Emsisdin admitted. “But even at the cost of you blowing a few circuits, this beats the alternatives. Just think of the great Scaladon, once again consigned to ignominious exile.”
He looked at the drooping blond head resting against his half-armor. “Are you all right?”
“Just a little rest,” she said, running a shaky hand over her forehead. The transit had taken more out of her than she cared to admit.
Emsisdin helped her to a sitting position against the rooftop parapet. “Where are we?” he asked.
“The aliens’ homeworld,” Matavi answered, her eyes closed. “I get conflicting identification-images. This is either Astawya or Nooyok.”
“Well, it seems to be a major population center,” Emsisdin said, looking off across the vista of brick apartment houses to the distant towers of Manhattan.
“Rather primitive.” He coughed, shifting the weight of the force cannon in his hand as a cloud of truck exhaust wafted up.
‘There are possibilities, though,“ he said. ”A worldful of possibilities.“
* * *
CHAPTER 20
John Cameron felt distressingly earthbound as he and Peg Faber walked the Queens streets down Astoria Boulevard toward Thirty-first Street and the elevated trains. Maybe he’d gotten too used to the high technology of the planet Argon. In the time it took them to walk to the Hoyt Street station, they could have cruised to Peg’s Manhattan apartment in their suits of flying armor.
“Sorry about taking the subway,” he apologized for the fifteenth time. “I scoured the house, but all I could find was a couple of bucks.”
“Too bad I left my bank card on the world of the giants,” Peg said. “Now that things are back to normal, we’ve got to get you set up in the legitimate economy.”
“We.” The word had never sounded sweeter in John’s ears. Home again, a future ahead of them ...
They climbed the steps to find that someone named JO-JOE had decorated the station with repeated spray-painted renditions of his name. Persons unknown had used the stairwell for a toilet. Everybody on the platform seemed slumped and pale-faced.
“Welcome back to New York,” John muttered.
After a change of trains, an hour’s ride, and a five-minute walk, they finally reached Peg’s apartment building on Amsterdam Avenue.
“I don’t have a key, of course,” she sighed. “Luckily, the super lives in the building.”
Peg scanned the intercom buttons. “Good. His name is still on.” She buzzed, and a growly voice with a heavy accent demanded to know who it was.
“Gergely, it’s Peg Faber. I need to get into my apartment—” Peg’s words were drowned out in an outburst of Mitteleuropean language. She buzzed again, apparently to an empty apartment.
A moment later, a short, hairy man in paint-stained slacks and an athletic undershirt burst into the lobby. His eyes went big, as if he were seeing a ghost. “Peg!” With his accent, it came out more like “Payg.” Gergely raised a shaking hand. “You dead! I see on TV.”
“I’m not.” Peg rapped sharply on the glass of the lobby door. “See? I’m solid. I’ve got to go to the bathroom. And I’d like to do that in my own apartment.”
Gergely shook his head. “No,”
“What do you mean?” Peg demanded.
“Not yours anymore,” the super said nervously. “When you die—” He decided to amend that. “When everyone think you die, we send all your things back to Pennsylvania.”
“Pennsylvania?” Peg repeated, her face looking numb.
“To your parents. Everything sent back. Apartment went to new tenant.”
Peg didn’t seem to hear anything after the first sentence. “My parents think I’m dead?” She turned to John, who retreated a step at the fury in her eyes. As she stalked off, he trailed after, trying to contact her mentally. His tentative probe bounced off a beefed-up psionic shield. John blinked. It seemed as though her latest passage through the Rift had strengthened Peg’s immaterial abilities.
“Urn, Peg?” John ventured. “If you need a bathroom, I bet whatsisname will let you use his.”
That earned him yet another baffling glare from Peg. “Right now, I’m more concerned about a bedroom than a bathroom,” she snapped. “I’ve lost my apartment, everybody seems to think I’m dead, and I don’t have any ID or money. Where am I supposed to stay?”
“I don’t have the money for a hotel,” John said, unhappily checking the change in his pocket. “We could call some of your friends, or we could head back to Astoria.” He squirmed at the look on her face. “I know it’s not the most beautiful place...”
“I’m not spending the night with—in there.” Peg looked away.
John wished he could get an idea of what was eating Peg. But her shields were impenetrable. Throughout their trip to Manhat
tan, all he’d caught was Peg’s need—more like a hunger—for normality. He could have Rifted them to her apartment with no expense at all—although their sudden appearance might have scared the new tenant to death. Using his powers, he could probably sneak her into any vacant hotel room in the city. But judging from her mood, that wouldn’t be a wise plan.
“So what do you think we should do?” he finally asked.
Peg frowned. “Have you got enough bus fare to get us over to Harry’s?”
Harry Sturdley was just settling down to the ten o’clock news when the doorman rang him. “Send them up right away!” he yelled after hearing the identities of his visitors. After warning Myra about late-night company, he pulled a robe over his pajamas and waited eagerly by the apartment door.
At first glance, the kids looked almost aggressively normal, dressed in jeans and cotton sweaters. Then he saw the look on Peg’s face—and the scar on John’s.
The scarring wasn’t that noticeable—a barely detectable seam of keloid tissue spanning his left cheek from nose to jawline. But it marked a subtle alteration in John’s features. He looked as if a knife had pared away all traces of youthful softness—a knife that perhaps had slipped on the kid’s cheek.
“I expected the pair of you weeks ago,” Harry said. “What happened back there on Argon?”
“We weren’t goofing off,” Peg replied in angry tones. “It was no vacation—and definitely no day at the beach.”
Harry listened in growing shock to their account of the bloody warfare his departure had precipitated. “Mike ... dead?” he echoed, trying to come to grips with the facts. “And the Deviants?”
“We finally beat them,” John said. “I managed to jam their leaders back into the Sphere of Exile when Peg and I Rifted out of there.”
“So we won the war,” Harry said in satisfaction. “And maybe it did some good, shaking a little life into that zombie-world—”
“You weren’t there,” Peg interrupted, her voice rasping. “You never saw the worst of it.”