by Stan Lee
“I’m standing in front of the main vault at Tiffany’s— two feet of armor-grade steel. But that wasn’t enough to deter thieves in the early hours of the morning, as you can see ... ” The camera panned to her right, revealing a hole large enough for her to crawl through.
Burke woke up a bit more, leaning toward the screen to study the image. It didn’t seem as though the vault had been blown into. The edges of the opening seemed melted, but there wasn’t enough runoff to account for the size of the hole. It was as though solid steel had vaporized ...
The phone rang as Leslie Ann went into new details about unconscious guards and alarms scaring off the burglars. Without even considering the odd hour of the call, Marty picked up the receiver. “Burke here.”
“Report fully, Lesser scum,” hissed the voice on the other end.
All trace of conscious thought vanished from Burke’s mind. He sat silently holding the phone until the voice asked, “Are you alone?”
“Yes,” Burke answered flatly.
“You will tell me all the details of the stories Leslie Ann Nasotrudere is presently working on.”
Burke rushed into a rapid monotone, revealing everything Leslie Ann had told him in the last few days. “She’s been preparing an undercover piece on the treatment of women at local unemployment offices. There are a couple of allegations of political corruption. And it seems she’s now involved in the investigation of a jewel robbery.”
“Has she continued making inquiries about the beings you call giants?” the caller asked.
“She hasn’t been asking me as many questions since Sturdley came back,” Burke said. “Although she did want to know how much influence Robert had on business decisions I made.”
“You will, of course, tell her there was no such influence,” the voice said. “Deflect all inquiries she makes, but do not seem evasive. Continue to gather as much information on her work as you can, especially any investigations on the giants. You will forget this call and the conversation until the next time you hear the trigger phrase, Report fully, Lesser scum.”
Burke hung up the phone and stared blankly for a second. Then he blinked his eyes. He was watching a commercial—breakfast foods dancing on the screen. What happened to Leslie Ann’s story?
“Must have dozed off,” he muttered, rubbing his face. He’d have to ask her for more details of the story later. Burke smiled to himself. That would be nice. Leslie Ann liked it when he showed an interest in her work.
The giant Thomas disconnected his portable telephone, an impressed expression on his slightly florid features. He’d been dubious when Robert had spoken of the new binding he’d applied to the Lesser Marty Burke, especially when he heard that Robert had discovered the technique from one of the Lessers’ fanciful movies. Fantastic or not, however, the binding had worked. Burke had responded like any brain-burned Lesser.
One more example of Robert’s already impressive mental abilities, Thomas mused. He seems to find new uses for his powers every day. It leaves me a very poor second. Second in command, perhaps. Third in influence, after that bitch Barbara. A fist clenched involuntarily. Certainly not the position my strength deserves.
His hand relaxed, and Thomas sourly put the portable phone away. Physical strength just wasn’t enough in this situation. But situations change ...
Harry Sturdley caught an early shuttle flight to D.C.‘s National Airport, then took a cab to the downtown studio that housed A Capital Morning, Washington’s premier local morning show. Luckily, a glimpse in the taxi’s rearview mirror showed the stony planes and angles of his face.
I’m never going to crash my way onto the show with a mug like that, he thought. But even a more benign expression wasn’t enough to get him past station security.
The door guard was a big, burly black man whose muscles stretched his blue uniform shirt in all the right places. Sturdley touched the guard’s mind and caught the mental tag “crazy old grandpa” being attached to him when he asked to see the show’s producer.
A little mental tweaking changed that to “distinguished elderly gentleman.” The guard reached for the studio phone.
Before the producer even appeared through the studio doors, Harry could sense her fury at damn-fool guards and pushy comics publishers.
It required considerable psionic prodding and readjusting on Harry’s part before she came up with the brilliant idea of slipping him onto the show as an amusing surprise for the guests of honor—Robert and Barbara. Harry was surprised at the effort it took to keep a smug smile off his face as the woman led him to the open-air atrium where the giants were about to go on the air. The segment would be hosted by the station’s media reporter.
The producer waited for the inevitable first couple of questions and answers to pass, letting Robert get into his well-rehearsed public relations rap. Then she spoke into the headset she wore, which was connected to the unobtrusive receiver tucked in the reporter’s ear.
The decorative young woman out in the atrium smiled and said, “We’ve got a little surprise for you this morning.”
Since Robert was scanning the reporter’s mind, he knew immediately what the surprise was. Both he and Barbara wore their best company faces as Harry stepped out into the atrium.
Harry had a smile on his face, too. They looked like one, big, happy family.
Aiming her face at the camera, the reporter said, “Let me introduce Harry Stirling, the editor in chief of the Fantasy Factory, the comic company which makes up the Heroes’ comic book adventures.”
Harry had to fight to keep his smile intact, but he’d had lots of practice with the media. “That’s Harry Sturdley, I’m publisher of the Fantasy Factory, and very soon, we’ll be printing more real-life stories of the Heroes’ adventures. In the meantime, of course, we’ll have the Heroes movie to enjoy. The story may be fictional, but one thing’s for sure: these kids did their own stunts—unless they managed to find twenty-foot-tall doubles.”
Robert’s own smile thinned at the way Harry had both insinuated himself and taken command of the interview.
“It’s a shame Harry was gone when the plot was being thrashed out,” the giant said, turning to the reporter. “I’m sure you remember the big disappearance this summer. Harry and two other people vanished at the San Diego Convention Center when some criminals got out of control.”
At the word “control,” Robert lashed out with mental probes, aiming to seize Harry’s mind even as they sat in front of the TV cameras.
Robert’s look of bland superiority cracked, however, when his psionic tendrils ricocheted off a hurriedly erected mental shield.
“My story is unimportant.” Harry struggled to keep the strain from his voice as he fought off the attempted mental coup. “But I’ve got some good news. The young couple who disappeared that day have also turned up. I was contacted by them just last night.”
That little shocker disorganized Robert’s attack, allowing Harry to riposte.
“Ah—” Robert found himself a little too involved to speak and fight at the same time. The psychic tension produced a static-electric charge which sparked in the air over the reporter’s head.
Luckily, the young woman didn’t have the mental circuitry to detect its source. Barbara did, however, and elected to cover the sudden silence by nervously launching into a story about how she’d done a stunt and gotten her costume blown off. It was better suited for late-night than morning audiences, but it filled the air as both combatants retired behind their psionic shields.
Harry capped Barbara’s story with a hearty, carefully sincere laugh. “Sounds like you got a bit more than you expected that time, Barbara. Though I don’t expect we’ll show that take in the official Fantasy Factory movie tie-in comic.”
The reporter chuckled, her eyes on the set director, who was making slicing gestures at his throat. “Well, for one reason or another, I guess we’ll all be waiting for that movie, which will be out soon. I’m afraid that’s all the time we have, so I’d
like to thank Robert, Barbara, and, ah, Harry—”
The cameraman retreated, trying to catch all three guests in his viewfinder—a difficult job when two of them towered three times the height of the third.
Harry waved jovially as he added, “And don’t forget the comic book!”
Then the red eye on the camera went dead, and the reporter pulled out her earphone. Rising from the director-style chair she’d been sitting in, she thanked the guests again and headed back into the building. Harry walked with her, aware of the poker-faced glare Robert directed at him every step of the way.
“I think that worked very well,” Harry said, beefing up his psionic shields just in case Robert tried another hostile takeover. He gave the hulking giant a shark’s smile over his shoulder. “They sure looked surprised, didn’t they?”
Maybe I gave away more information than I got, he thought, stopping in the studio to thank the producer once again. But I served notice that these big lugs can’t push us around anymore.
The amount of higher-dimensional energy radiating from the mental duel at the Earth-nexus “Washington” was infinitesimal compared to the forces roiling in the flux known as the Rift. But as a lightning rod offers a superior circuit, the small energy expenditure drew a vortex of extrauniversal force—a vortex capable of warping the three-dimensional norms of space, time, and energy.
The smiling salesman watched as Judd Corcoran signed the sales contract, the finance contract, the extended warranty contract, and the rider that insured that the finance payments would be made even if Judd dropped dead. Lots of dotted lines to be signed, all outlined in bright yellow by the salesman’s highlighter pen. And every dotted line boosted the salesman’s commission a little higher.
“That was work,” Judd said, shaking out his wrist after pressing down on the ballpoint to imprint the multipart forms. The salesman let him keep the pen with the Metro Motors name and logo. Five cents apiece when buying twenty-five hundred.
“But look what you’re getting,” the salesman said, jingling the keys between his thumb and forefinger. “This year’s MC2 is already acknowledged as the industry’s hottest car. You don’t know what I had to do to reserve you one.”
Actually, all he’d done was see what was available in inventory, but it didn’t hurt for the customer to think that he’d gone the extra mile. The overpowered, undersprung MC2 could use all the favorable word of mouth it could get.
The keys dropped into Corcoran’s palm, and the young man almost ran out the door to his new purchase. The salesman trailed behind with an avuncular smile.
Corcoran wedged himself behind the car’s wheel—a slightly clumsy operation, thanks to one of the car’s many design faults—and slipped the key into the ignition.
“Happy motoring,” the salesman called, raising his paper-free hand to wave good-bye.
As Judd Corcoran turned the key, the laws of physics changed in that section of the three-dimensional universe occupied by the hood of the car.
For a split second, instead of delivering twelve volts to power the electrical ignition and spark plugs, the battery instantaneously delivered one hundred percent of its power potential.
The engine exploded up and outward, sending Judd Corcoran through the rear roof of his new MC2 on a soaring trajectory that took him a good twenty feet into the air at its highest point. Were he still alive, he’d have been most impressed at the way the battery lived up to the car’s name.
* * *
CHAPTER 22
“Turn that shit off!” Antony Carron’s usually cool, precise voice was more like a snarl as he walked into the tenement living room. His current hideout was a far cry from his suburban mansion. This was a depressed area in one of the Hudson County river towns, and the building stank of urine and scents from cuisines of many lands—all of them poor.
Carron pinched his fingers against his high-arched nose. The smell had been choking him for days, but it was the picture on the television set that made him want to vomit— the smug, almost inhumanly handsome face of Robert, shot as usual from a worm’s-eye view. The big bastard—with the accent on big—was chatting with some Barbie-doll bimbo about his new movie.
At least he was, until Joey Santangelo shot up from the swaybacked couch and mashed in the off button on the plastic portable. The wire coat hanger used as an antenna fell down with a rattle.
“They were going to show his woman—Barbara,” Nildo, one of the other bodyguards, suddenly spoke, complaint in his voice. That was another indication of the sorry state of things. Once upon a time, no underling would have dared to speak to Carron in that tone.
The former gun-running king of New York considered the 9 mm pistol holstered under his fleece running jacket. Eliminating Nildo might shore up his authority, but it would further erode morale.
Like a good lieutenant, Joey Santangelo leapt into the breach. “Whaddaya want with her?” he asked.
“She a chica linda” Nildo said, gesturing exuberantly toward his chest. “Got good tetas.”
“She’s too big for you,” Joey-boy mocked.
“Nobody too big for Nildo.” That wasn’t only Latin machismo speaking. Carron had shared a John with Nildo once. The bodyguard was justifiably proud of his size.
Joey simply laughed, his eyes inviting the other guards in the room to join the joke. “She’s almost twenty feet tall— veinte. No matter how happy you might get, it will look—” he extended the smallest finger on his right hand, and made a chopping motion with his left—“like a pinkie to her.”
Harris, a tall black thug, and Sam, the blocklike fourth member of the team, added their own indelicate riffs on the general theme. Nildo sank down on the couch, humiliated.
Carron smiled approvingly at Santangelo. Sometimes there were better ways than a bullet to cut someone down to size. His eyes flashed a sneering glance at the blank TV screen while one hand went to the single out-of-place element in the shabby room—the olive drab cases of antitank rockets stacked behind the couch.
And sometimes, what you needed was a bigger bullet to cut a foe down to size.
“I’ve got to get out of this place,” Carron announced suddenly. “I’m going for a drive.”
The bodyguards rose almost as one man.
“Alone,” Carron told them.
Joey Santangelo looked dubious. “Are you sure that’s—”
“It’s what I want,” Carron said.
Like a good subordinate, Santangelo sat down.
Carron held his breath on the stairs. One hand held his keys, the other was tucked unobtrusively under his hooded sweat suit jacket. Nobody paid attention as he walked down the block to his car.
Hiding out in neighborhoods like this one had dictated the demise of Carron’s Porsche. The car awaiting him at curbside had a ten-year-old body, a faded paint job, and lots of dents and dings. Under the hood, however, it boasted the most powerful available production engine with all of the E.P.A. modifications removed.
It was a car meant to run, and Carron appreciated the low, throaty rumble that sounded when he turned the key in the ignition.
Carron took the bridge into Manhattan, intending to meet with some uptown business associates. The gun-running trade had suffered a brief downturn when the giants began intercepting shipments using some kind of mental x-ray vision to see which vans were carrying what loads.
But the Police Benevolent Association had quickly moved to stop any competition in the law and order field. They’d gotten an injunction barring the Heroes from stopping crimes. With that legal restraint in place, the neighborhood armaments merchants were going gangbusters.
Carron should have been right back on top again. Instead, he was being forced into the position of peripheral player, dealing from across the river. The city had gotten too hot for him after he’d tried to arrange a trap for the Heroes, where their interference should have triggered a massacre of innocent bystanders. That had made him persona non grata in Manhattan.
Time would
have taken care of that problem—the cops always have new crimes to deal with. But he’d thought he could move ahead of schedule when the head Hero—Robert—had offered him a contract to waste the Fantasy Factory’s comic book artist, John Cameron. It had required a trip to California and a shoot-out at a comics convention, but he and his people had done the job.
Except Cameron hadn’t died, he’d just disappeared. Robert had refused to pay off on the contract, and then gotten ugly when Carron tried to apply pressure. That ugliness is what kept Carron undercover, while Robert moved from one publicity triumph to another.
Carron viciously jammed on the brakes as he passed a playground. Even up here, the damned Heroes were playing up to the crowds. They weren’t doing crime fighting anymore. Now they were into social work. A nearly twenty-foot-tall redhead with a spectacular figure was refereeing a basketball game. And astonishingly, the gangbangers on the court were behaving themselves. Carron glared with pure hatred from behind his steering wheel.
The giantess stirred, as if she were smelling something on the wind. Her eyes left the game and briefly went vague. Then she turned to look straight in Carron’s direction. The redhead squinted, then her eyes went wide—with recognition.
Panic gushed through Carron. She knew his face—Robert had his freaks out looking for him!
The giantess put fingers to her mouth and gave vent to a piercing whistle, stopping the game. Then she began taking yards-long strides toward Carron. He goosed the gas on his car and roared out of there, jolting down a potholed street toward Broadway. In his rearview mirror, he saw the giantess vault over the twelve-foot cyclone fence surrounding the park.
Instead of providing an escape route, Broadway was jammed with traffic, not to mention hordes of school kids heading for the subway. The giantess was coming on. Carron stopped the car, flung the door open, and joined the moving crowd of kids. He compelled himself to match their pace and pulled up the hood on his sweatsuit jacket.