by Stan Lee
It was hard for John to drive off people who were stealing food they couldn’t afford anymore. What really chilled John, however, was the fact that several of the looters appeared to be wearing police uniforms.
His appearance caused the forceful shoppers to scatter, firing epithets, bricks, and a couple of bullets at him.
“Gidatta heyah, yuh gawdam freak!” yelled a husky type with a pillowcase full of canned goods.
“Howcum his machines work and ours don’t?” another guy asked around a mouthful of Twinkies.
John had pondered that question himself. When the blackouts hit, even battery-operated items like flashlights and transistor radios went dead. But the Argonian technology John had imported, in some perverse twist, was operating better than ever. The Hoozits, the broadcast power source Harry Sturdley had planted atop the Empire State building, had mysteriously cubed its output, according to the readouts in John’s armor. That meant, if necessary, he could fly hundreds of miles. The suit’s visual scan, radar, and weapons systems were performing above standards.
Unfortunately, so were his audio pickups.
“Go back where ya came from,” an empty-handed running figure screamed. “This is all your fault!”
Streetlights suddenly began throwing a sodium glare on the looters. Windows glowed as lights inside received power again. The store’s burglar alarm cut loose with an ear-splitting blare. In the distance, John heard the approach of sirens. He pulled up into the sky. The police had a tendency to fire indiscriminately at armored figures. The PBA had a court case in hand to ban Stalwarts and Deviants alike from vigilante activity. But technical difficulties had slowed it as badly as Harry’s crusade against Dynasty Comics. And more than ever, citizens needed someone to protect them.
But as he soared above the clouds, John felt more sick than satisfied. Despite the fact that he was on patrol day and night, his efforts were little more than a cup of water thrown at a forest fire.
The final looter’s cry, flung over a shoulder, seemed to echo in John’s mind. What if this growing mess were indeed all his fault? There seemed to be some sort of connection between the Rift and the anomalies of natural law occurring on Earth. As things declined here, the Rift had become more tempestuous—downright dangerous to enter.
Had his travels to other worlds—and bringing aliens to Earth—upset some sort of cosmic balance?
John oriented himself toward the north and began burning gizmo. There was one way to find out. Heroes’ Manor was now well within the flight range of his armor. He’d go up there, start exiling giants back home through the Rift, and see if circumstances began to improve here on Earth. If they did, he’d move out the rest of the giants.
In his exhaustion, John thought this a good strategy. He didn’t consider what it might mean if conditions remained the same or declined further. And he ignored how much effort it might take to navigate through the Rift’s turbulence.
John felt he had to try something. And if Robert and his people resisted ... John’s armored fists clenched. He’d blast them.
High in the sky over Riverdale, John’s mental receptors suddenly detected psionic activity. John swooped down to find Matavi standing in the midst of a hilly park. Before her, hands on each others’ shoulders, moving in lockstep, were the local thugs who’d used the place as their base of operations. John could read that much from their minds. Matavi laughed as she marched them out of the park and toward the nearest police precinct, where she intended them to confess all their crimes.
John felt a familiar blast of anger at the Deviant, but it was tempered by—what? Jealousy? His superheroing had definitely been of the physical sort, the kind trumpeted on the pages of Fantasy Factory and Dynasty Comics. Matavi’s approach, while it would mean very few fight scenes, was actually more effective, John’s tired brain realized. This is how he should have handled the looters, rather than buzzing the store and making them scatter.
But then, he hadn’t had much chance to observe how the Deviants worked. Ever since the start of Sturdley’s case against Dynasty Comics, Fantasy Factory staffers had been cautioned to avoid contact with Emsisdin and Matavi. John had gotten the official letter from Mohe, Lorenz, & Kirley, but the subtext was straight Sturdley. If the Stalwarts did damage to Dirk Colby’s pet heroes, Dynasty would counter-sue the pants off Happy Harry.
Now, however, John was acting as a free agent, having quit in front of Sturdley. He could ...
Hello, handsome, Matavi sent a thought his way. Why hang around up there when you could come down and join me?
John snapped at the arrogance of this Deviant. He seized on the idea of marching her into the Rift as docilely as she manipulated her criminal conga line and hurled a psychic attack at her.
The thugs broke step, stumbled, then ran for it as Matavi redirected her mental resources from controlling them to defending herself. But John found the weak spot in every shield she raised, piercing, piercing, piercing ... until suddenly he realized his psionic spearhead had somehow been deflected. He should have penetrated to Matavi’s personality centers, to the circuits of her brain. Instead, his immaterial senses transmitted the perception of lunging into something quite physical—warm, yielding flesh, like—
The realization of what he seemed to be thrusting into brought John out of attack mode and into acute embarrassment. What was going on here? It was some sort of psionic construct ... he tried to pull away, but instead got the sensation of a very erotic plunge into a damp, inviting, very private place ...
His thoughts felt very far away, but sensual information seemed to storm through his body. A tremor of sheer, animal need rocked his form.
A trap! a yammering part of his personality warned.
A very tender trap. Matavi’s mind was somehow entwined with his. You have a powerful mind and a powerful body. But I have more experience, handsome. A thousand years caged in that bubble, and nothing to do but hone my mind.
His consciousness thrashed in her immaterial trap, merely intensifying the carnal sensations—not merely for himself, but for her.
Ah! Yes, this will be good ... Matavi’s mind messages became stronger as she came closer. John suddenly felt cool air against his face as the female Deviant removed his helmet. She took her gloves off and pressed her hands to his face.
John reeled. He had never felt anything as exquisite as that simple touch of flesh against flesh.
“Now we’ll have to find one of those quaint motel places,” Matavi whispered. “You’ll impregnate me for the good of the race we’ll create—a race of natural telepaths.”
He felt her smile like a brand against his skin as she looked into his memories. “Yes,” she said. “You know how it can be when one meets mind to mind as well as body to body. Though there can be certain ... refinements.”
Her lips barely brushed his, but undreamt-of carnalities rushed through John’s mind. He quivered like a hound begging to be released, panting.
Then a furious mind intruded. WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE TO HIM?
Matavi glanced skyward. “Ah. Your little red-haired friend. And she doesn’t seem in a mood for discussion.”
Blast-bolts blackened stretches of grass, but Matavi unconcernedly used John for cover as she undid the psychic construct that had held him captive. “I could have left you trapped in that cycle of lust. But I don’t want her to enjoy it.” Matavi’s voice grew caustic. “Nor do I want a novice messing up the job of getting you free.” She patted John’s face. “Save yourself,” she said, “until we meet again.” For a second, she also caressed John’s mind. There’ll be another time.
Matavi released John, who tumbled to the ground. At the same minute, she boosted her gizmoidal drive, heading straight upward.
Both John and Peg could hear her laughter in their minds.
* * *
CHAPTER 35
“We should remember,” the eminent physicist said, steepling his hands at chest level, “that widespread ownership of electronic appliances is
a fairly recent development—a mere century for electric lighting, seventy years for radios, less than that for refrigerators.”
“A hundred years sounds like a long time to me,” the reporter said.
“But it’s merely one-fiftieth of recorded history,” the physicist replied. “We can add in another hundred years for serious scientific examination of electromagnetic phenomena.”
“So you’re saying we wouldn’t know if much could go wrong with a television because they’ve only been around sixty years?”
The physicist’s hands unsteepled so he could point a finger. “Exactly. How long have we known about sunspots and their effect on broadcasting?”
“You’ll have to tell me,” the newsman admitted. “But you think this is the same sort of thing? A—what did you call it?”
“A temporary fluctuation in the electromagnetic spectrum,” the physicist said smoothly. “The Earth may have encountered them before, which may explain certain accounts of ‘miracles.’ The sun standing still at Jericho— light, after all, is an electromagnetic phenomenon.”
“They just didn’t have telephones to explode,” the reporter amplified.
“That might be a little more colorful than I would put it, but it’s essentially the case.” The physicist frowned significantly. “The important thing for the public to realize is that the situation is undoubtedly natural and temporary. We can survive this fluctuation, study it, design safeguards for the future, if we all keep our heads ...”
His lips twitched in annoyance as he interrupted his speech. “Pardon me, but I notice you’re not writing any of this down. I thought this conversation was for attribution.”
“Certainly, Doctor,” the journalist reached into the open case on the table between them. “This recorder is getting everything—”
“Turn that goddamn thing off!” The professor’s voice rose in a screech. “What are you trying to do, get the two of us killed?”
Outside, the reporter’s car wouldn’t start. He wound up walking a mile and a half until he found a working pay phone. Using the tip of a fallen tree branch, he poked the number of his office on the keypad.
Pinning the handset in the crook of the branch, he yelled, “You there, Pete?” until his editor responded.
“We can scratch the Nobel Laureate interview,” the reporter shouted into the phone. “He’s not as calm about this whole thing as his letter to the editor suggested.”
“Don’t worry about it,” the editor responded. “Looks like everything goes on the spike for the time being, until we get the printers on-line.”
The reporter sighed. ‘This is a hell of a time for the union to go out.“
“Oh, it’s not the printers going out,” Pete replied. “It’s the presses themselves. They went up in about a million little pieces. We don’t have a printing plant anymore, just a hole in the ground. Bet you this will have a bad effect on circulation.”
“Yeah,” the reporter commiserated, “and right when so many people were giving up on TV news.”
The sun had come up unnoticed in Marty Burke’s studio. The blinds were still drawn, the lights on, the television muttering in the corner. Burke wasn’t channel surfing this morning. His remote lay on the corner of a supply taboret, right beside his electric eraser.
He’d been using the eraser rather liberally through the night. For some reason, despite his photos, despite his light box, in spite of his other tracing equipment, Burke could not seem to get Emsisdin’s face right whenever he appeared in the story—a major problem when one is dealing with the title character of a book.
But there it was. The eyes were wrong, or the head was cocked at an odd angle, or, most often, no matter what expression Burke set out to draw, Emsisdin’s image smirked on the page.
This was the fifth version of a closeup panel, and the Bristol layout board had been erased in some spots down to tracing-paper thinness. Burke was trying to rerender the eyebrow so it wasn’t raised, and instead managed to run his pencil point right through Emsisdin’s eye.
“Damnation,” he muttered, ripping the heavy paper free. The panel was useless with a hole torn in it. No amount of whiteout would fix that. Tossing the paper atop a growing pile, he turned on his lightbox and positioned the original, offending picture with a sheet of layout board on top.
Then the phone rang. Burke groped for the handset and picked it up without even looking. “What?” he demanded impatiently.
“Report fully, Lesser scum.” The voice on the other end sounded rushed, but Burke didn’t notice. He sat glassy-eyed, falling into the trance of Robert’s binding.
As was standard, the voice of Burke’s controller asked if he were alone.
“Yes,” the artist intoned.
“What stories is the woman Leslie Ann Nasotrudere working on?”
Burke plodded through each story Leslie Ann had discussed or mentioned in recent days. The voice interrupted. “Has she been working on any stories in relation to giants?”
“No,” Burke replied tonelessly. She—“ He stopped.
“What is it?” the controller on the other end of the line demanded.
“She has not—” Burke’s voice broke again, a hint of emotion showing through.
“You are to report fully,” the controlling voice said impatiently. “Any and all details that may be of interest.”
“She—” Strain still showed in Burke’s voice. This information was not something of which his conscious mind was aware. It was something repressed to the subconscious, something Burke didn’t want to think about.
The binding won. “She has shown very little interest in the giants lately,” he said in a tight voice. “Her attention is all on the newly arrived aliens called Deviants. This may be because she is having a sexual liaison with the one known as Emsisdin.”
The voice on the other end was silent for a moment, then broke out in a laugh. “Listen well, cuckold,” it ordered coldly. “You will continue to associate with the Nasotrudere woman. Make yourself pleasing to her. Keep her in your company, and keep her in New York City. Continue to gather information on her work, especially as it pertains to giants. And you will forget this call and this conversation until the next time you hear the trigger phrase, Report fully. Lesser scum.”
The contact was broken.
A second later, Marty Burke cried out in agony. The handset of his telephone lay grasped in his left hand, its body cracked, shards of plastic piercing the skin. Blood trickled in thick tendrils down his wrist.
“Damn!” Burke muttered, dropping the ruined handset onto the cradle. He plucked ineffectively at his wounds. “Why’d I even pick that thing up? I guess it must have blown.”
He took a moment to deal with the fact that he might have died. Then there were more urgent concerns. “Damn,” he muttered again. “And my drawing hand, too.”
In Heroes’ Manor, Thomas took one more moment to chuckle over the spectacle of a cuckold unconsciously reporting his own shame. Then he dismissed the report as unrelated to his efforts. There were not enough hours in the day to accomplish all he had been ordered to do.
He punched in the number of yet another interstate trucking concern and asked about the availability of their units. The call had finally come from Washington. Robert had arranged for his people to remove themselves to the remoteness of Idaho, far from big cities, disturbances—and the destruction targeted on the Lessers’ dwelling places.
Coordinating this hegira had been a nightmare as the Lessers’ vaunted technology had apparently begun falling apart. After a few trips—barely enough to establish a housekeeping presence at their haven—the Heroplane had fallen from the sky. Thomas thanked the gods below that it had happened on a return flight. The only loss had been the crew of Lessers.
Thomas then had turned to ground transportation, which had also proven unreliable and dangerous. After leasing a fleet of twenty big rigs to carry the bulk of the Masterly colonists, a third of the vehicles had broken down before even l
eaving Heroes’ Manor. Twenty-eight giants, mainly females, had left on the remaining transports while Thomas strove to find wheels for the ten who had to stay behind.
The trucks he’d managed to find for the second wave were inferior in space and cleanliness, but at least all of them had moved out.
This success hadn’t ended the problems for Robert’s deputy. Reports kept coming back to him, both psionically and by mobile phone, of disasters on the road. Trucks had blown up, killing their drivers. Masterly casualties had been kept to a minimum thanks to the giants’ protective fields of immaterial force, but some were wounded. And those more gifted in mind powers were wearing themselves out controlling the drivers who survived.
Where he could, Thomas tried to arrange for replacement trucks at various towns along the way. But it seemed an endless task, aggravated by the Lessers’ low cunning and treachery. Thomas was not the Master to deal with the genus of Lessers known as “biznizman.” Too often, he’d wire enormous sums of money—when that system could be used—for the use of nonexistent trucks. He began to hope that when Robert’s promised fire-from-the-sky fell, it would land on all those Lesser rats.
Lessers were also making nuisances of themselves by attacking the caravans, thinking they held something worth stealing. In cities, the cargo was imagined to be food. In the open spaces the trucks were thought to contain big-city valuables. In all cases, the would-be thieves got a big surprise before they were eliminated.
Between wrecks and raids, many of the travelers found themselves stranded. By the latest count, almost a fifth of Robert’s people were making their way westward by foot. The only advice Thomas had been able to give was that they should avoid large cities and show restraint in acquiring food—i.e., try not to kill too many farmers.
Thomas had remained in Heroes’ Manor with two male giants as brawny as he was. For the public at large, they were supposed to be his guards. In actuality, the pair was on call as a strong-arm squad and as backup in the process of closing down the giants’ base.