Minister Faust by From (html) (best ereader for pdf txt) 📗

head-high smoked meat sandwiches and its heart attack–inducing cheesecake. Just as New York actors roosted at Sardi’s, Los Ditkos hyperhominids congregated at Soup ’n’ Heroes, an old-fashioned two-story deli dwarfed by surrounding skyscrapers and owned by brothers Jan and “Stack” Leeby, who still squabbled daily over who invented which soup and which sandwich. And almost as famous as Soup ’n’ Heroes’ founders was its manager, the eye-patched and affable S. Bruce Pippen.

Sadly, Soup ’n’ Heroes was no stranger to funeral receptions, and that day was crowded even more than usual. Its trademarked howling waiters merely whispered above the crowd’s murmurs, while the diner’s jukebox sat mutely, un-played. Draped with black cloth monogrammed with golden letters spelling HAWK KING, the deli’s mirrors reflected only shadows.

Despite my obvious capelessness, no one questioned my presence as I nudged my way through the overcapacity; I’d treated enough of these men, women, and cyborgs to have been accepted silently into their community.

Regret: the Ghost That Haunts the Living

There were almost as many heroes on the walls as there were between them: framed and autographed black-and-whites from the Golden Age to the Glitter Age, including shots of Gil Gamoid and the N-Kid. Despite complaints from some diners and even a few hyperhominids, manager Bruce had always refused to take them down. Regardless of Gil’s and the N-Kid’s poisonous paranoia and murderous, malevolent madness, old-time hero-watchers still adored those two F*O*O*J pioneers from Ur-Prime, the planet orbiting the distant Quasar Q-939.

Among the assembled mourners, only quiet clucking over the brawl remained, mixed with awe over the phantasmagoric apparition of Hawk King’s divine relatives. But then that soft conversing was crushed into absolute silence, enough to seem as if it had been the braying of an army of donkeys.

But after all, how could anyone utter a word when the world’s mightiest man ambled in after having announced his own self-imposed exile?

Mr. Piltdown could.

“Well, well, well—if it isn’t the world’s mightiest quitter,” he rumbled, not even in a mock-whisper. “To what do we mere mortals owe this anticlimactic farce of an honor?”

Despite his white dress cape with black trim and epaulets, Wally looked like a broken man, his shoulders hunched beyond even their usual enhunchment, like a show pony struggling beneath a morbidly obese rider.

“Jess wannid…to…I’ont know. Say g’bye t’folks? Proper-like. I didn’mean to have all that come out like it did at th’fun’ral.”

Mr. Piltdown, perhaps in irony, made a sound very much like the word harrumph. “No, of course not. You certainly didn’t intend to steal the funeral’s spotlight any more than that logos-powered lawn jockey did.” (Outside the therapeutic environment, it was clear that whatever inhibitions Mr. Piltdown might have had against unleashing his anticompassionate behavior were negated.) “No, your grandstanding just…‘happened,’ is that right?”

“What? I didn’—”

“No, of course you diddin,” sneered Mr. Piltdown. Reaching toward his boot, he removed his Squirrel Screen from its utility sheath. He unfurled it like a scroll, then plucked Wally’s framed photo from the wall and hung the screen from the now-free nail. Tabbing concealed buttons on his left long glove, he brought the screen to life and sifted among television channels.

Nearly every image was of Wally at the funeral dais uttering his resignation until finally cleaving skyward. The images were all identical. Evidently PNN had opted to sell the lucrative rights for the footage over maintaining the journalistic honor of an exclusive.

“Look, Festy, I never spected t’have m’speech all over th’TV like that—”

The image on Channel 101 switched to another event: Mr. Piltdown heckling Kareem before storming the platform; Mr. Piltdown racing toward Kareem who was yelling back “what, you gonna throw down right here in the middle of a—”; Flying Squirrel decking X-Man, only to be throat-punched in return before the melee of a thousand capes and tights burst out.

“This is outrageous! How in the hell did—?” said Mr. Piltdown. “Filthy goddamned media whores! There was another camera smuggled in there?”

The image then switched to a howling pack of journalists outside the wall of the Blue Pyramid complex.

CBS reporter: With the impending F*O*O*J election and this special relationship you’re claiming to have had with, uh, with Hawk King, not to mention the, the “fracas” allegedly begun by the Flying Squirrel during the funeral, do you think either of you will be disciplined by the F*L*A*C, or do you think you’re now a shoo-in for the post of Director of Operations?

X-Man (grinning): Well, Sheila, if there’s one thing I learned today [gingerly touching his belly], it’s that you can’t ever know for sure what’s gonna happen—

Reporters: (laughter)

CBS reporter: What about this scroll, this papyrus you mentioned? What’s it about?

X-Man: It was—The Instructions of Hawk King—it was Hawk King’s final analysis of what’s wrong with the planet and how to fix it before—

Second reporter: How will you be able to verify its authenticity?

X-Man: Trust me. Everyone’ll see. Everyone’ll know. Third reporter: Why are you waiting a week to reveal its contents?

X-Man: The country, the world, needs time to grieve. But as soon as the grieving’s done, like ol’ Joe Hill said, “We’ve got to organize—”

“Can you believe the nerve of that nattering negro nimrod?” said Mr. Piltdown to no one and everyone. “He’s exploiting the death of our leader to advance his own political career! He’s a goddamned polyp inside the colon of propriety!”

CBS reporter: Following release of this violent amateur video smuggled out of this morning’s funeral, an unscientific CBS phone-in poll found a majority of callers supporting the X-Man’s Five-Point Plan for F*O*O*J Renewal, favoring the so-called X Slate of candidates over the Squirrel Slate, and indicating that if the vote were today, and by a ratio of eight to one, they would support the X-Man over the Flying Squirrel for the post of Director of Operations—

Stabbing the keypad on his glove and listening to his earbud, Mr. Piltdown paused a moment before hissing into his wrist: “Yes, tell him—I don’t goddamned care if he’s meeting with the affiliates, I own the goddamned