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

intoxicating, highly speculative, totally circumstantial concoction Kareem had brewed, and the hundred or so terrified F*O*O*Jmates in attendance, still reeling from the loss of Hawk King and Omnipotent Man, were all too willing to snort it up by the mugfull. But unfortunately for sanity’s sake, Asteroid Zed’s destruction (which by Kareem’s own admission was due to a structural defect) meant no one could verify X-Man’s claims. And lack of verifiability was a paranoiac’s playground paradise.

But what happened next stunned even me.

“I agree with the X-Man,” announced Mr. Piltdown, taking a step onto the stage.

Every head swiveled toward the Flying Squirrel. Kareem was agog.

“Our organization is under threat,” called the Squirrel, moving toward the microphone. “Perhaps its gravest threat since the Götterdämmerung itself. And whether we’re facing an escaped Destroyer, or person or persons unknown of similar threat level—my own investigation, which for reasons I’m not yet at liberty to reveal, points to none other than Warmaster Set—we are clearly being hunted by a shadowy foe of enormous cunning, power, and danger.”

With greater delicacy than I’d ever seen him employ, Festus Piltdown wedged himself between Kareem and the microphone, saying, “On the authority of F*O*O*J General Security Order Number One, we are now at Defense Condition Cyan.”

With that, he clicked a button on his glove and the auditorium plunged into deep cyan.

Confused mumbling flooded the hall. Mr. Piltdown shook his head, finally shouting at the questions only he could hear: “No, no, no, you shankshaft, you put on scuba gear for Def-Con Mauve, not Cyan! Are you color-blind?”

“Why couldn’t it be L-Raunzenu?” shouted somebody, slicing through the din.

Mr. Piltdown flushed darkly while the challenger railed on.

“Everything Kareem said about the attack, the plot against us, all of it could’ve been carried out by L-Raunzenu. Which you know better than anybody, Squirrel, since Piltdown Psychotronics synthesized the damn thing outta ten million neurocorded nightmares—”

“—at the cost of a billion dollars of defense-contract taxpayers’ money,” said Kareem, grabbing the microphone. “Look—HeliCop, isn’t it? Listen, I hear where you’re coming from, but L-Raunzenu has no need to free Menton, right? And I’m telling you, I was up there on Asteroid Zed, and Menton wasn’t. If you wanna pursue that as a complementary investigation, we can continue this conversation in camera. But for now,” he said, appealing to the crowd, “this is the angle I’m working.”

“That we’re working,” said Mr. Piltdown, glaring at HeliCop. “Def-Con Cyan, everyone! Action stations! Action stations!”

And off they all shuffled beneath cyan lighting. By then there wasn’t a hero in the Fortress who hadn’t been swept up in Kareem’s cyclone of neurotic panic. And when those heavyweights eventually hit the earth, inevitably the innocent would be crushed where they stood.

When the Hall was clear, I was alone in the cyan light except for one man. At six-five, he was hard to miss, but it was as if he’d been invisible until that point. Yet at that moment he was a lightning bolt of a presence in his dark blue suit and red tie, with his coal-and-silver hair greased into a single e-curl in front. His face looked as if it’d been dipped in tempura and yanked from the deep-fryer five minutes too soon.

“Doctor Brain, sir, ma’am,” he whispered, shuffling toward me as if his every bone ached. “I…I need y’hep.”

What Type of Sandwich Are You?

One glance into Wally’s eyes communicated an epic of disorientation and dysfunction. If you’ve ever looked yourself in the mirror at three A.M. and seen such distress, felt so out of control, and been so desperate for answers, maybe it’s time to stop looking around you, and start looking behind you. Your pain and life-disorientation may seem to be the products of your present, but they’re not; your present is merely the effect of your past.

Just as a ham sandwich is composed of ham, bread, and condiments such as mayonnaise, mustard, and relish, and occasionally a slice of lettuce, avocado, or sweet pickle, every human being is formed of experiences. Some of them are supplemental, while others are primary. The tastes and textures of a smear of emotional relish and a leaf of psychic lettuce change drastically in relation to the bread and ham of your primary development.

Ask yourself honestly: are you two slices of rich, multigrain whole wheat sandwiching a fresh serving of organic country ham? Or are you two easily torn white wafers of over-processed flour mass-cooked into a lifeless loaf, trapping the fatty, cold, red-dyed sinews of a factory reconstituted swine product?

Only when you’ve answered that can you start asking the questions that will unlock the mysteries containing your misery. And if Wally couldn’t do that for himself, there was no telling how far he’d plummet, or if he’d even survive.

Paying the Power Bill

Listen, Miss Brain—are you listening to me? Because so far I don’t think you’ve heard a goddamned word I’ve said about anything.”

I assured Mr. Piltdown that I was indeed listening, knowing how oblivious he was to the irony of his insistence, since he rarely listened to anyone. Because I sensed that Wally needed the comfort of meeting with his agemates, I’d sought out Iron Lass, who was unfortunately unavailable; the normally steely heroine had been so psychically fatigued by the events of the past few days that she’d been returning nobody’s telephone calls. And so I invited Festus Piltdown to join Wally and me.

Having reconvened at my Mount Palomax offices, I quickly tucked away the Elect X-MAN Director of Operations, F*O*O*J! pamphlets Kareem had somehow managed to leave around—whether for electioneering purposes or simply to antagonize Mr. Piltdown, I was not sure, although by then it was clear that antagonizing the Flying Squirrel was difficult to avoid, even for someone with my training.

“You were expressing,” I mirrored to Mr. Piltdown reassuringly, “your reservations about Wally’s performance in the Id-Smasher® simulation we ran last week.”

“Expressing my—did you say expressing my reservations? I was detailing the eight hundred and twenty-three reasons why that man is an unapologizeable cock-up!”

He tugged at