by Stan Lee
He nodded toward the suburban house they’d parked outside. The INC news van wasn’t the only visitor. Police cars, a firetruck, an ambulance—all the emergency services were on hand. At the moment, however, Leslie Ann and her crew were the only representatives of the electronic media. But Leslie Ann was willing to bet that the battered station wagon blocking the driveway across the street had been left there by a local newspaper reporter.
“Let’s try it one more time,” Leslie Ann sighed, speaking into her microphone. If her tone were any more frigid, she’d have flash-frozen the sweating technician in his tracks.
“B-better,” the video tech said. “But we’re still having problems with the audio pickup—”
“Screw it!” Leslie Ann said decisively. “As long as we can get some decent video, we’ll be okay. I can always loop in some commentary back at the studio.”
She shoved the door of the van open and hopped nimbly down. “Start on the establishing shot,” she ordered the cameraman while she straightened her news blazer and applied a little lip gloss.
The home they stood outside was a typical suburban dwelling, a single-story ranch house less than twenty years old, sprouting on what used to be a potato field. It was virtually indistinguishable from the fifty other buildings in this cheap development.
Leslie Ann could almost predict the interior decor—plastic slipcovers over gold velour. And in the backyard, there’d be an above-ground swimming pool.
Now that she was ready for the camera, Leslie Ann led the way up the walk, to be confronted by a Suffolk cop at the front door. He blocked the entrance, but she got a glimpse inside over his shoulder. Okay, so she was wrong about the furniture. It was red velvet.
“What can you tell us, officer?” she asked.
“Female Caucasian.” Conscious of being on-camera, the policeman checked his notebook. “Tiffany Dawn Mascaretto—a teenager. There was a fatal fire in her bed—”
“It was the telephone!” A squat, heavyset middle-aged woman burst out the doorway. “That damned cordless telephone! She kept at us and at us to buy one. We used to have a nice princess phone in her room, but she always used the cordless. She was talking to one of her friends, and I heard a sort of fwoosh from her room, I go in, and the bed’s all on fire. Her hand where she held the phone—gone! And her head—what was left—”
The woman burst into hysterical wailing.
Leslie Ann glanced at the policeman for confirmation. He nodded, then gestured that the camera point away.
“I can’t let you in,” he said in a low voice to Leslie Ann. “But essentially, that’s what happened.”
“Have you had similar appliance-related accidents in the vicinity?” she asked.
“Not like this one.” The man looked a little sick.
“You’re sure we can’t get some footage of the scene?” Leslie Ann pressed.
“Lady,” the cop said, “you don’t want to see the scene. And nobody would want it on their TV. Real crispy critters time. Imagine a bed with a big scorched circle and a dead teenaged girl lying in the middle, half of her cooked, the other half—charred.”
“Are there arson investigators on the scene?” she asked. Learning that there were, Leslie Ann continued to stake out the place. A little more interviewing and some sweet talk to the fire investigator, and she got one of his Polaroid snapshots.
It was too grisly for television viewing. In fact, when the technician caught sight of it, he lost his lunch out the back of the van.
“Well, I can see you’ve never covered any airline crashes,” Leslie Ann said. “Gimme the keys. I’ll drive us back.”
She was working to compress that long outburst from the girl’s mother when the phone rang in the editing room. “For you,” the guy working the console said.
“Leslie Ann Nasotrudere,” she said into the handset.
“Save the pleasant tone,” the voice of her producer came over the line. “I’m not a news source.”
“So what’s up, Curt?”
“This telephone thing in Suffolk—we’re not running it.”
“Don’t tell me that!” she burst out. “I’ve tracked down three cases of people getting killed by appliances in the last week or so, but this one I got while it was hot!” Even though Curt couldn’t see, she gestured to the editing monitor where the image was frozen on the woman’s anguished face. “You won’t believe the speech I got from the mother!”
“Leslie Ann—”
“Just come and see,” she begged into the phone. “One look, and I’ll bet you change your mind.”
“It’s not my mind that’s the problem,” Curt said. “This came down from Corporate.”
“What?” Leslie Ann’s perfectly modulated voice roughened to a snarl. “They running a little short of lead for their pencils up on the top floor? You can’t tell me they’re afraid of the phone company.”
“They don’t want people afraid of their televisions,” Curt said gently. “After all, those are electrical appliances, too.”
Leslie Ann was back at her desk in the newsroom, muttering words that were seldom if ever heard on television— except for certain cable channels. With the demise of her “Revolt of the Appliances” story, she’d lost a week’s work.
She glanced through the typed transcript of her conversations with the Deviants at Burke’s photo session, recorded on a microcassette hidden in her purse. She’d promised not to interview them then and there, but it didn’t hurt to start collecting data.
Leslie Ann reached into her desk and got out a transcript of the Dynasty Comics press conference. Odd how both Deviants used almost the same words to describe their transit to Earth—discussing it with Colby and his minions must have worn the story smooth.
Emsisdin, however, had given some more personal anecdotes of life under the repressive regime of his homeworld. What a gray, grim place it must have been, attempting to stamp out all creativity in an effort to construct the ultimate conformist state. If I ever get hold of him for an exclusive interview, I’ll have to mine that, she thought. If he hasn’t been interviewed to death by then.
“One cent for your thoughts,” a deep voice said from over her head.
“That’s a penny,” Leslie Ann automatically corrected. She glanced up, but there was no one in front of her desk. Then she looked higher, to find Emsisdin floating above her.
The whole newsroom ground to a complete halt as people stared in surprise, shock, and, in some cases, pure journalistic jealousy. Leslie Ann smiled upward, doing her best to project her personality and annoy those onlookers. “I’m surprised you even knew the idiom.”
“Matavi is very skilled at translating languages,” Emsisdin responded.
Leslie Ann felt a moment’s trepidation. “I suppose, then, that she would be the one who talks to reporters.”
“Most reporters, yes,” Emsisdin agreed. “In fact, she’s talking to one now.” His cocky grin came back. “However, I convinced her that we need a ... friendly reporter for our first major interview.”
“Major?” she almost whispered.
“What is the word?” Emsisdin said. “Explicit? No. Exclusive.”
Leslie Ann had to keep her smile from going predatory. After all the ups and downs of the past year, that elusive Pulitzer was finally in her grasp. The first exclusive interview with the mysterious Deviants!
“When?” she asked.
“As soon as possible,” he replied. “If you are available now, we could start making preparations.”
With no hot story on hand, she was definitely available. Leslie Ann opened her desk drawer, tossed in the papers, picked up her phone, and dialed Curt. “Can’t say much now. But I’ve got a big story—definitely not electronics-related. See you later.”
As she picked up her purse, Emsisdin swung round to land on the floor. They walked out together.
Emsisdin had to hide a smile at the reporter’s disappointment when he led her to a luxury hotel. “You were expecting us to have a
headquarters hidden in a cave?”
Matavi had briefed him on the stereotypes of comic books, as well as on what she had read in the mind of Leslie Ann Nasotrudere. The ambition there could be used by both of them. But what he’d seen in the woman’s eyes was something he intended to enjoy privately.
He indicated the couch in the sitting room of the suite. “Why don’t we sit down, you can take out your recording device—yes, we knew about it—and we can talk.”
For the next hour and a half, their conversation moved in a fascinating give and take. Emsisdin told stories about life on Argon, suitably edited to play up the freedom fighting aspects of the Deviants’ campaign of terror. In return, he asked questions about Earth, about the practice of journalism, questions that slowly turned toward the personal.
“I act,” he admitted frankly, “and in the midst of action, I certainly don’t take time to reflect. Your chosen career—reporting and reflecting—is very hard for me to understand.”
“While you men of action are the meat and drink of my profession,” Leslie Ann said with a smile. “We make a living supposedly understanding and explaining the things you do.”
“It’s nice to make a living. But don’t you wish, sometimes, to do instead of listen?” He gestured to the recorder whirring away on the arm of the couch.
Leslie Ann pointed to the hotel room’s TV set. “I can have more influence speaking from that little box there than many men of action.”
“I’m sure of that.” Emsisdin took off his half-helmet and the clamshell breast and back plates.
He smiled as Leslie Ann stared. “Oh, you think I should keep this on? Retain my secret identity?” Emsisdin shrugged. “I have none. I have no history on this world. I have no connections.”
Leslie Ann met his eyes and slowly removed her blue news blazer.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m taking off my armor,” she replied.
Emsisdin didn’t need to be a telepath to feel the vibrations in the air. Leslie Ann stepped into his arms. He ran a hand over the satin blouse she wore, enjoying the warmth and firmness of the flesh beneath. “Ah,” he said quietly, “you can act.”
“Mmmmmm,” she said as their lips met, then turned away to turn off the recorder. “I think this should be off the—aaaaahh!—record.”
Matavi’s press contact was more circumspect. She flew through some low-lying clouds over the borough of Brooklyn, keeping mental tabs on a car rolling along Flatbush Avenue below. Inside the car was a newspaper reporter. His destination was the apartment of a security guard—or rather, an ex-security guard, who had once worked at Tiffany’s. Now the man was collecting unemployment and considerable suspicion as the inside man for a spectacular burglary.
While Matavi knew the man was innocent, she could not allow this interview to take place. She felt exhausted. Being a superhero as defined by Dirk Colby was strenuous work. But in addition, she had to maintain the psychic tripwires that warned of interest in the rash of jewel robberies.
This reporter was especially dangerous. From somewhere, he had managed to make a connection between armored figures and the Tiffany robbery. Matavi was sure the guard would not help him make more connections—when she suppressed memories, they stayed suppressed.
But this journalistic investigation would have to be ended, and that meant she would have to deal with the reporter—something she couldn’t do in the middle of a crowded avenue.
Carefully working her way into the reporter’s mind, she augmented his annoyance at the slow-moving traffic, then inserted the idea of a shortcut. He turned off into a maze of one-way streets, and it was easy to influence the man’s steering until he found himself on an empty, dead-end street surrounded by abandoned buildings.
Although the area appeared desolate, Matavi monitored the buildings to verify they were indeed empty. Then she landed.
“Why don’t you get out of the car, Mr. Simms.”
The reporter blinked as if coming out of a daze (he was) then moved to confront Matavi. “Glad to meet you,” he said belligerently. “I’ve got some questions—”
“Yes,” Matavi said, “I see.”
Casting psionic tendrils inside the reporter’s head, she did indeed perceive his questions, and more importantly, his sources. There was a late-shift office worker who would soon receive a visit to have his memories of flying armored figures fuzzed. It had become a regular operation of late. Matavi had hit upon the trick of inserting the image of a passing helicopter. That was usually enough to confuse the subject’s memory.
Adjusting the reporter’s mind, however, was more ticklish work. She couldn’t merely suppress his memories and suspicions. The key here was to temper his enthusiasm for the story.
Of course, she already had a start here, with Simms’s frustration at getting lost. Building on that emotion, she introduced doubt about the guard. Was it worth the effort going to talk to a guy who’d probably wind up in jail?
Next came doubt about his eyewitness, who would now be doubtful himself. Was the guy as certain as he seemed?
Matavi then turned up his concern about other deadlines. Was he taking too much time away from better stories for a wild-goose chase? How was his editor going to react?
After having done similar jobs on the brains of three other reporters sniffing around the same story, Matavi had an excellent working knowledge of a journalist’s fears and paranoias.
In this case, she had one more disincentive for Mr. Simms. Leaving him in trance state, she searched the street until she found a broken bottle, which she rammed into his left rear tire. In Matavi’s flights over the roads of New York, she frequently encountered enraged motorists trying to repair this problem. Personally, she was glad she could fly.
Now came the memory-wipe, so Simms would never remember confronting her. But before she pulled out of his mind, Matavi raided the reporter’s mental files for any references to telepaths.
She frowned in disgust. Another dead end. The only entry in Simms’s “telepath” file was something called a stage magician, whom Simms dismissed as a charlatan.
It had been the same with the other three reporters whose minds she’d invaded. They either had no idea what a telepath was, or dismissed the idea of mind-to-mind communication as a fraud.
Except, of course, for that one journalist from The International World Weekly Evening Star. Her memories had included references to hundreds of telepaths, some of whom she’d dated. Unfortunately, none of them had been genuine. The journalist had participated in several frauds herself.
Shrugging, Matavi directed Simms back into the car and behind the wheel. Then, after flying well out of sight, she let him out of his trance, inserting the memory of a swerve to the curb.
She grinned to herself as the reporter began swearing at his flat.
But the smile faded as Matavi had to face the apparent facts. It seemed that telepaths were even more rare on this world than they had been home on Argon. There were the giants, of course, but it was evident that many local news-gatherers were not even aware that the giants had mind powers.
Nor could the giants help Matavi with her long-range goal—propagating a race of telepaths. As far as she could determine, there were only three people on this planet with psionic capability.
One of them, Sturdley, was too old to take to stud. Another was the female, Peg Faber. She’d be no help to Matavi in terms of fathering a telepathic child. And considering the way John Cameron had rushed to the rescue during the abortive Deviant kidnap attempt, there was an obvious relationship between the two.
No, this Peg would be a definite hindrance to any experiments in eugenics with John Cameron.
Matavi smiled again.
No matter how enjoyable they might prove to be ...
* * *
CHAPTER 33
Marty Burke’s eyes went from the photograph taped on his drawing board to the face he was sketching on the fourth panel of the thirteenth page of what would become the f
irst issue of Deviants!
This was no Latter-Day Breed, a project that was now years in the making. He couldn’t afford to dawdle over this artwork. Dirk Colby had been emphatic enough on that point. Burke’s deadline was ridiculously short, especially when he was still feeling his way in terms of rendering the characters. For instance, if he wasn’t careful here, Matavi would end up looking perilously close to the Fantasy Factory’s Madam Vile.
The photo reference was at least useful—all he had to do was copy Matavi’s face. If the crunch kept up, he might even wind up lightboxing features or projecting them with his camera lucida for tracing. Too bad the physical poses didn’t work out. Why the hell did comic book perspective have to be so much more exaggerated than the real thing?
As his left hand busily wielded the pencil, Burke’s right hand pointed a compact remote control at his television set. The TV was large, high tech, and full of the latest bells and whistles.
But even when all he’d owned was a battered black-and-white portable, Burke had always used channel surfing to help stay awake on all-nighters.
Of course, he hadn’t worked all last night. Leslie Ann Nasotrudere had turned up at his door about two A.M., looking tired and frustrated. Something about covering a fire that had been started by someone’s electric blanket...
Anyway, she’d been surprisingly affectionate, as if she were going out of her way to be nice to him. And all work and no play ...
But after she’d dropped off to sleep, Burke had returned to his drawing board. Then disaster struck. The remote control died on him. And the damned thing required those really tiny batteries! Where could he find them at five in the morning?
At that moment, an ad for beepers came on the screen. Of course! Leslie Ann carried one of them—and they used the same tiny batteries.
Burke rifled through Leslie Ann’s clothes until he found the tiny device, then switched batteries with his remote. When she got up two hours later, she’d collected her stuff, given him a kiss, and regretfully told him she’d be working all night again.