by Stan Lee
After the giants’ riot, that got a groundswell of response, which Matavi again quelled with a gesture. “We must also warn you that agents of the stagnant society we escaped have apparently followed us to this world.”
Leslie Ann remembered the armored figure that had fired on the two Deviants, the figure with the odd-looking S on its breastplate.
“These Stagnators, as we call them, will no doubt attempt to depict us as criminals,” Matavi said. “We only ask you to judge us by our actions on your world.”
With that, Matavi ended her statement and turned back to Dirk Colby. Again, the room thundered with volleys of media questions. Once more, Matavi gestured, and the room went still.
How the hell does she do that? Leslie Ann wondered.
From his podium, Colby announced that his company had signed a license agreement to present the true-life adventures of these new heroes. To do so, Dynasty Corporation was creating an entirely new subsidiary line, Deviant Comics. And to run this line he had acquired the services of a talent whose name was well-known in the field ...
The door behind him opened and Leslie Ann’s advance source stepped in.
Marty Burke’s entrance was not as impressive as that of the Deviants. For one thing, he was jostled by a group of general-assignment reporters taking the quickest way out of the room. For another, hardly any of the journalists knew him. One of the cognoscenti, however, made up for that.
“Holy spit!” yelled the freelancer covering the event for the Comic Purchaser’s Weekly Intelligencer. “That’s Marty Burke!”
Unfortunately, he rather ruined the effect by calling, “Hey, Marty, you looking for writers?”
Burke stepped up to the podium, glancing over the media people he was about to address on the direction of his new line—and his new career. He gave Leslie Ann a little smile and a bow.
Leslie Ann smiled back as she leaned over to whisper in her cameraman’s ear. “Forget him. Keep the camera on the two new heroes.”
Harry Sturdley lifted out of his chair as if he had rockets attached to his fundament. “That sonofabitch Colby!” he howled, pointing at his office television.
Peg Faber quickly entered to see what the commotion was about. She froze when she saw the two Deviants on the screen.
“Now that they’re standing there, I can see what you were telling me!” Sturdley was nearly dancing with rage. “He’s almost a twin for M-16, Weapon Supreme, and she’s a ringer for Madam Vile! Even their names sound like our characters’ names! Colby isn’t going to get away with this!”
Sturdley dialed Frank McManus, the head of his legal department, with stabs of his forefinger. “Frank! Have you got a TV in your office? Switch to INC. No, it’s not just Na-sotrudere. Wait till you see what Colby is pulling this time.”
He let McManus watch for a few minutes, giving a running commentary of the costume and name thievery the Deviants represented.
“I want to sue Colby’s ass,” Sturdley told his head lawyer. “And I want to sue him big-time. Screw the budget on this. Bring in whatever experts you need.”
“There’s a law firm that specializes in copyright and trademark infringement,” McManus said. “Maybe we should bring them on board. They’ve got the name in the field: Mohe, Lorenz, and Kirley.”
“What’s the name again?” Sturdley said.
McManus repeated the names, with spellings, as Sturdley scribbled on his notepad.
“Okay, Frank,” Sturdley said, “you get those people on it right away. Draft a letter to Colby, telling him to cease and desist. Meanwhile, I’ll see if we can’t come up with a way to steal some of the bastard’s PR thunder.”
He hung up the phone. Without even looking at Peg, he said, “Get John in here. Now!”
Even as he spoke, Sturdley dug the police scanner out of his desk.
John dashed down the hallway to Harry’s office at a speed that would appear unseemly for the Fantasy Factory’s executive suite. But whatever was up, Peg had certainly made Sturdley’s summons sound urgent. If he hadn’t been standing in the middle of the artists’ bullpen, John would have Rifted in.
As it was, he outpaced Peg in the race for the door. Without knocking, John threw the portal open, then skidded to a stop on the carpet.
His armor, which had been quietly stacked in Harry’s closet, now occupied a pile in the middle of the floor. Sturdley sat behind his desk, frantically operating the police scanner.
“Looks like the biggest thing right now is a botched bank robbery in Chelsea.” Harry glanced at his notepad and rattled off an address. “Should be easy to spot. The building is surrounded by cops. There are just two robbers, but they’ve taken hostages.”
“What?” John tried frantically to get up to speed. “What’s happening?”
“Dirk Colby has signed those two Deviants to become the new heroes at Dynasty Comics,” Harry explained tersely. “You’re going to show them up—and show how heroing is done.”
He glared at his protege, pointing to the armor. “Come on! I gave you the address. Get your stuff on! Get going!”
Moving almost in a daze, John began to pull his sweater over his head.
“Speed it up, kid!” Harry yelled. “Kick off those sneakers. Peg, get his pants down.”
At that order, both of the young people froze.
Sturdley made a sound somewhere between a cough and an ahem. “All right. Peg, help get his sweater off. John, drop your pants.”
In seconds, John was down to his underwear. He quickly donned the armor’s loin protector and the clamshell breast and back plates.
“Come on,” Sturdley said, crouching over the scanner for the latest reports. “They’ll negotiate an end to this before you’re dressed.”
John and Peg bent simultaneously to get the leg guards and greaves. Realizing he was about to butt her with his helmet, John pulled back, inadvertently triggering his giz-moidal drive. Although all the circuits weren’t complete—several components were in the still-to-be-donned arm and leg armor—the field was enough to send John swooping off his feet and into a barrel roll.
Peg dove to the floor, just missing getting kicked in the head by one of John’s flailing heels.
“John?” she said, rising, then throwing herself flat again as his body swooped in a circle in midair. The out-of-control gizmo took him in an orbit that brought him within a foot and a half of the ceiling, then the same distance from the floor.
“This is a hell of a time to be fooling around,” Sturdley barked.
More ready this time, Peg ducked then leapt, grabbing John by the leg. Her weight wasn’t enough to bring him down. It merely unbalanced the orbital equation, sending them both zooming around the room.
“Yike!” Peg yelled.
Now it was Harry’s turn to duck as the two flew at an angle across his desk. Peg nearly smashed her knees against the edge of the desktop. She managed to bring them up. Instead, they caught the scanner, sending it smashing against the wall. The radio hit the framed picture of the Rambunctious Rodent drawn by the legendary Rip Jacoby. The frame fell to the floor, its glass front shattering.
A knock came at the door. “Everything all right in there?” Bob Gunnar asked.
“Fine! Fine!” Harry was struggling to keep his voice calm. “Just a little mishap.”
To Peg, he hissed, “Let him go!”
She did, timing her release so she could land -with a roll and recovery in the best karate style.
Something’s wrong with the controls! John sent the message mind-to-mind.
Peg relayed it to Sturdley. He used his psionic ability to trace circuits. “Of course!” he burst out. “All the armor is supposed to work together! We’ve got to get the rest on him!”
The next few minutes passed like a high-tech Keystone comedy. John spun through the air in wild somersaults as Harry and Peg tried to help him don the remaining armor. Peg got taken for another wild orbit, clinging to John’s waist with one arm while helping him into his leg armor
. Harry nearly got brained when a boot went flying off.
With all his armor finally on, John was able to regain control. He hovered about a foot off the floor as Sturdley collapsed into a chair. Peg leaned, panting, against the desk.
“Go!” Harry wheezed, pointing toward the window. He had no breath for anything more.
The flight to Chelsea was short enough that John didn’t feel it necessary to Rift. It was just a case of getting up enough altitude not to crash into any buildings, then burning gizmo to reach the robbery site.
Even from roof level, it was easy to spot the bank. Police cars and news vans blocked the street. A crowd gathered behind a phalanx of blue uniforms, facing the place.
But as John arrowed down, he also caught the flash of plast-alloy coming out of the bank. He put up the magnification on his facescreen and boosted the gain on his exterior mikes.
Emsisdin and Matavi stood proudly facing TV cameras as police handcuffed a pair of thugs who looked much the worse for wear.
“Matavi pinpointed their location,” Emsisdin said. “All we had to do was wait on the floor above till they got close to each other. Then—” He aimed the force cannon in his right hand at the sidewalk and made a circle—“we dropped the ceiling on them!”
Reporters gabbled questions, but John was no longer hearing. When he’d agreed to play hero, Harry had said it would be best to avoid conflicts with the Deviants if they bumped into each other.
That suggestion was the farthest thing from John’s mind as he continued his dive. Without conscious thought, he activated his external speakers. “Deviants!” he yelled, his voice thick and savage.
Emsisdin and Matavi boosted off the ground immediately, trying to deprive him of the high ground advantage. John nearly crashed into the blond witch, prompting a mocking mental message: If you want me that badly, there are easier ways.
The ground came up with frightening speed. Working sheerly on instinct, John managed to haul himself around and head skyward once again. The Deviants were above him now, silhouetted against the sky. John twisted to aim for Emsisdin, his fingers curling into the tridigirector. Blast-bolts leapt for the Deviant, but the range was too extreme. He managed to evade them.
Emsisdin brought up the force cannon, but Matavi intervened. Even from a distance, John caught the mental overtones of their wrangling. At last Emsisdin put the weapon down.
John and the Deviants flashed past each other. Now John was the higher one. He looked down. On the ground below the Deviants the crowd had expanded, everyone looking up. Some had seen Dirk Colby’s press conference. The mental opinion of the crowd was that they were seeing a publicity stunt.
Emsisdin was again aiming the force cannon, this time upward. Matavi tried to stop her partner, but Emsisdin fired anyway. The thick beam of destruction had knocked John from the sky before. He flung himself back in a looping bit of aerobatics, and the blast missed.
That is, it missed John. The force cannon’s beam went on to take a neat slice off the corner of a building. Brickwork and weathered copper cornice began to slide downward ... down to the crowd below.
A little belatedly, the audience in the street began to realize this was no stunt show. This was the real thing.
Swinging desperately around, John drove for the collapsing corner of the building. His blasters were useless in this situation—they couldn’t disintegrate enough of the falling stuff.
There was, perhaps, another way. John swooped below the deluge of debris. Resting his chest against the main piece of masonry, he increased the push of his gizmoidal drive. Then, reaching out with his mind, he caught the rest of the deadly avalanche in a psychokinetic net.
He couldn’t hope to stop it altogether. But maybe he could slow it for long enough ...
“Clear the street,” he yelled. The message boomed out from his exterior speakers. “Get out from under—”
Then he had to save his breath. Holding back a body this massive was the greatest test he’d pitted his powers against so far.
They were still going down, despite his efforts. Red dots swam before John’s eyes. The periphery of his vision went gray, then black. He couldn’t hold on any longer.
John slid aside, and the landslide of debris thundered to the ground.
He shook his head, afraid of what his returning vision might reveal.
Dust still rose from a huge pile of shattered masonry. But there was very little damage, as though the bricks and metal had fallen perhaps one story instead of twelve. And the gawkers who had crowded the impact spot were a good half-block away, behind a wall of pale-faced police.
All was well on the ground. John turned his attention to the sky. But Emsisdin and Matavi had disappeared.
* * *
CHAPTER 30
The autumn wind coming off the water had traveled two thousand miles across the cold Atlantic. It was just short of bitter. But the giant called Andrew didn’t mind. He just tempered the shields of immaterial force around himself to retain more body heat, and felt just as comfortable as if he were strolling the East Hampton beach in midsummer.
Both the private beach and the oceanfront mansion that hid it from the landward side were part of a diplomatic compound, operated by the Arab state whose shadowy agents had contacted Andrew months before. They had continued negotiations, and the debacle at the premiere of the movie Heroes had finally convinced Andrew to sever his ties with Robert, Thomas, and the other would-be world conquerors.
Despite the watch around Heroes’ Manor, it had been childishly easy to swim the lake, avoiding the patrol boats and troops on the far side. Mental control of the guards had caused heads to turn at the right moments so that he slipped by unnoticed. Then came the work of establishing communication with his contact, and the humiliating string of truck trips and safe houses—actually warehouses—until he had reached this compound. It was to be his jump-off point to leave the domain called the United States.
Tonight, an oil tanker would pass the point of land that housed this estate. It was run by the national oil company of his new hosts, and entirely crewed by his new employers. An unremarkable radio message would be sent to the compound, but it would actually be the signal for Andrew to start swimming. He’d rendezvous with the ship and then sail off to an opulent existence as military commander and personal bodyguard of the foreign domain’s Supreme Leader.
Andrew stretched out full-length on the sand, lazily gazing out to the line where sea and sky met. He’d gain much luxury, and be out from under Robert’s thumb. But there were things he’d miss—pleasures that would be denied him.
Closing his eyes, Andrew thought of a young giantess named Veronica. Honey-blond hair, blue eyes, a slim figure, but lithe, and full enough for him ... he wished he could have taken Veronica along. But that would have meant revealing his secret negotiations, and no Master would ever let another of his peers acquire so dangerous an advantage.
Still, it would have been pleasant to carry off Veronica to a faraway land where they could establish their own domain.
Andrew opened his eyes and blinked in astonishment. Was he still daydreaming? There, in the water, not so far away, bobbed a swimmer’s head. A blond head.
He shook his head, a wry smile forming on his face. The owner of that shining hair, was swimming in the wrong section of sea. He’d have to reach out and eliminate all memory of seeing a giant lounging on the beach.
Andrew extended a mental probe just as the swimmer rose from the water—way too far out at sea for a mere Lesser. A giant—blond hair—but it wasn’t the delectable Veronica.
Robert strode his way ashore, clad only in a traditional Master’s clout. “You led me quite a chase, young Andrew. I’d probably have lost you, except your new paymasters made a mistake. Instead of pulling out after you disappeared, they left an agent to maintain watch.”
Andrew managed to get his mouth to work. “I told them—”
“I’m sure you did.” Robert’s lips twisted. “But they disregard
ed your warning. I caught up with the agent. He wasn’t hard to break.”
Robert looked down at his hands, but Andrew knew he was referring to the power of his mind. Now his erstwhile leader was looming over him. Andrew tried to scramble up, but Robert stopped him by the simple expedient of shooting out a heavily callused foot. It caught Andrew in the temple, and he dropped to the sand, his senses reeling.
Then Robert knelt, grabbing Andrew’s head in both hands and twisting it so their eyes met, Andrew’s blinking and watery, Robert’s as cold as two stones.
“You were quite enterprising, reasonably clever, and brave enough in choosing where, how, and when to desert us.” Robert’s voice hissed as he spoke. “Those qualities also make you dangerous. I can’t have any other of my followers taking your example. Which means I’ll have to make an object lesson out of you ...”
Pinions of mental force suddenly encircled Andrew’s mind. He tried to resist, a stifled whimper coming from between his clenched teeth.
Perhaps Robert would be out of practice. In his recent travels, he’d only bound Lesser minds, Lessers who were unaware of what was happening. It would be much more difficult to bind a mind in active revolt. Harder still to bring a Master’s mind to his will.
Even as Andrew clung to those comforting thoughts, he felt his mental shields begin to crack. Frantically, Andrew tried to shore them up, to bolster his defenses. The pressure inexorably increased. Andrew contracted his shields, letting Robert into his brain circuits.
The smaller shield was stronger and should have been easier to maintain, but Robert was stronger still, crushing in, forcing a new contraction, and another.
With each retreat, Andrew lost a bit of himself. Memories, likes, dislikes, even control of voluntary muscles. Still the relentless pressure was exerted on the shrinking shields.
By this time, Andrew didn’t even remember why he was resisting. All he knew was that the pressure was a danger, a deadly danger, a threat to everything that was Andrew. The retreat continued until all that was left was a tiny seed of Andrewness nestled down in a slack body’s lizard-brain.