CHAPTER THIRTEEN

June 14, 1992

    A cluster of nurses stood in a corner of Mercy General Hospital's cafeteria, whispering to one another and pointing at the four young men seated at one of the far tables.  This might have seemed out of place and even rude had the four young men not been wearing colorful costumes and masks.

    Pinpoint was sipping something from a Styrofoam cup through his mask's mouth opening.  Next to him, Bluestreak was attempting to clean dead insects off of the visor of his helmet with a wet napkin.  Quartz sat next to Bluestreak, his arms crossed, occasionally looking toward the cafeteria door and beside him Hopscotch was building a small tower using salt and pepper shakers.

    "I can't believe no one told me your birthday was Friday!" Pinpoint said at a low volume.

    "Don't worry about it," Hopscotch said.  "It's no big deal."

    "Everybody got you something, didn't they?"

    "Yeah.  But don't feel that you have to."

    Pinpoint shook his head.  "No.  I want to.  I would have already except that no one thought to tell me about it."  He leaned his chair forward, putting all four legs on the floor.  "There wasn't a party, was there?"

    "It wasn't a party.  We just watched a movie."

    "We had cake too," Bluestreak added between bugs.

    Pinpoint threw up his hands.  "Sheesh!"

    "It was my gift," Quartz said indignantly.  "Not that anyone was able to eat any of it after what happened."

    "What happened?" Pinpoint said.

    "We had to clean it off the walls after Prodigy's gift blew up," Bluestreak said.

    Pinpoint gave Hopscotch a sort of half-grin.  "What did he get you?  A grenade?"

    "Yeah," Hopscotch said, his voice beginning to brighten.  "It was Maniac's suggestion."

    "Why?"

    "Something about not liking fruit-cake."

    Pinpoint raised an eyebrow.  He looked over at Quartz, who was now intently looking away toward the cafeteria door again.  Pinpoint looked back to Hopscotch.

    "He bought you a fruit cake?"

    Hopscotch nodded.

    Pinpoint grinned.  "Must've been some explosion to make even a dent in one of those!"

    Quartz ignored this and tried to change the subject.  "I still do not think it is wise for us to remain in the open like this."

    "Quartz, you never find anything wise!" Bluestreak said, continuing his scraping.

    "I'm simply pointing out that if we are still concerned about avoiding unnecessary exposure to the media, we are not doing it very well.  Any of the people who have seen us could be phoning Fred Franheur at this moment."

    "I say let him come!" Pinpoint said.  "What can he do?  Videotape us to death?"

    "I have to agree with Pinpoint," Hopscotch said.

    Bluestreak stopped scraping.  Quartz turned but remained silent.  Pinpoint put down his drink.

    "Do what?" Pinpoint gasped.

    Hopscotch smiled beneath his mask.  "I said I agree with you.  Surprised?"

    Pinpoint leaned toward Bluestreak.  "Isn't it like a sign of the Apocalypse when Sgt. Major Public Relations agrees with me?"

    "Don't get your ponytail in a knot," Hopscotch said.  "It is good for us to be concerned about Franheur.  But we can't keep running.  If he shows up we'll just have to deal with it."

    Quartz unfolded his arms.  "I hope you all realize how difficult it is for me to grasp exactly what our group priorities are when you make a habit of continually altering them."

    "Adaptability, baby!" Hopscotch laughed.  "Admit it.  That's why you like us so much."  Hopscotch began playing with the salt and pepper shakers again.

    "How much longer do you think Mobius will be up there?" Pinpoint asked after a while.

    "Who knows?"

    "What kind of excuse do you think he'll use this time?  He's already used `skiing accident' and `mountain climbing accident' to cover his last two bone-breaks."

    "And let's not forget the famous `basket-ball accident,'" Hopscotch said.

    "Right.  It'll have to be something good, this time," Bluestreak said.  "His co-workers must think he's the most accident prone guy in the world by now.  Good thing you don't need your legs to program computers."

    "Let's find another subject, `Streak," Hopscotch said indicating the on-lookers nearby.  No one was actually close enough to have heard Bluestreak's words, especially through his helmet.  In fact, there were at least two tables between the four of them and the other patrons in the cafeteria.  Whether this was out of respect for privacy or out of fear was not exactly apparent, though.

    "You know, Bluestreak," Hopscotch said pouncing on the opportunity for ridicule.  "If you would just go de-solid every time you ran you wouldn't have the problem with bugs."

    "Oh, and I'd be a real effective fighter then, wouldn't I?  Just running right through people?  Never being able to hit them?"

    "Or be hit by them," Hopscotch said, holding up his staff at neck level.  His voice became a sing-song of smugness.  "I seem to remember a certain danger room where that advice might have come in handy."

    "Shut up!  You're just mad because you lost even after cheating!"

    "Cheating?  I hardly think using your combat inadequacies against you is cheating!"

    "Oh yeah?"

    "Yeah!"

    "Look!  Cut it out!" Pinpoint said.  "Both of you!"

    There was a sudden and profound silence from all four and then Pinpoint dropped his head into his hands.

    "I can't believe I, of all people,  just broke up an argument," he said miserably.  "I must be getting sick."
 

    The door opened and through it walked a bearded man wearing a doctor's coat and a very obvious receding hairline.  His name-tag, which did not match the color or style of the nurse who accompanied him, bore the name Dr. Niels Farin.  His face was worn with deep lines of seriousness.  The hair that remained on top of his head was dark and coarse and combed straight back, ending in an abrupt cut at the rear of his head.  The air of arrogance he brought with him was quickly replaced with one of frustration as he saw what his patient was doing in the examination room.  He narrowed his eyes and seemed to make an effort to force his frown into further severity.

    "Mobius, if you don't set that wheel-chair down you're going to fall.  Then we'll have something else to add to your already considerable list of broken appendages."

    Mobius continued his wheelie uninterrupted, and, considering the heavy plaster cast covering the entirety of his right leg, he was doing an admirable job of it.

    "Anyone ever tell you you're a party-pooper, doc?" Mobius asked, taking delight in the nurse's suppressed giggle.  The doctor stepped closer, pointing a finger at the wheel-chair and then at the floor, silently suggesting their immediate juxtaposition.  To emphasize his point he added an ahem. Mobius considered this for a moment and decided to behave.  "Top of the morning to you too."  He leaned forward and brought his wheelie to a crashing halt, wincing as his cast-covered leg was jolted by the impact.

    The doctor asked the nurse to excuse them.  Mobius waved good-bye as she left.

    "You seem unusually chipper today," Dr. Farin said, checking over the medical file left for him on the examining table.

    "It's your smiling face, doc.  It just keeps me coming back for more.  I can't help it."

    "Would that this were true.  I would hate to think that you're here again due to carelessness on your part.  Speaking of which, how is our leg feeling today?  Still shattered nearly to paste?"

    "Our leg is fine.  You forget what a quick healer I am.  It's been six days so I think it's only shattered to gravel now."

    "Very loose gravel, if the X-Rays are to be trusted.  Still, it's in remarkable condition considering what it looked like last week.  You’re extremely lucky you didn’t bleed to death.  If your femur had actually broken instead of multiply fractured, you very well could have.”  He held up two X-Rays to the light of the outside window and squinted at them.  “Those seem to be healing rather quickly, though.  You really should tell me how you manage it."

    How he managed it was still rather unclear to Mobius himself.  He did heal at a phenomenal rate, compared to other human beings, but the only possible explanation he saw was that because he was able to utilize the other 90 percent of his brain-power, he was better able to direct his body's natural repair systems.  That was the theory, at least.

    "You more than anyone should know the rules about magicians and their secrets, doc."

    Dr. Farin looked up from the file and stared curiously down at his patient.  "Am I to take it that you're still entertaining your little theory that I am not who or what I say I am?"

    "Did I say a word about it?"

    "It's just the turn of your phrase that made me think back to several of our previous discussions on the matter."  He stopped and gave Mobius a curious expression.  "We have had several, haven't we?  I'm afraid I'm beginning to lose count of your visits to this hospital."

    Mobius snickered.  "I think I spent our last discussion trying to get you to give me some straight answers."

     "I'm sorry.  I must have forgotten the questions too."

    "Something along the lines of just why you showed up and replaced the original doctor scheduled to treat me when I came in for the hand-print last year?  Or how no one here has ever heard of you before?  Or how your name does not appear on the hospital's employment records?  Or..."

    "And how is our chest-wound doing?"

    "It's still there.  It's still hand-shaped.  You're avoiding the questions."

    "No, I'm not.  I'm just playing the role of the concerned doctor."

    "Playing the role?" Mobius laughed out loud.  "Now that is about as close to the truth as I think you've come so far."

    "If only your obviously considerable powers of memory extended to the repeated warnings I have given you concerning being more careful in your super-heroics.  You're not indestructible, you know?  Yet you continue to try and get yourself killed in new and more creative ways each time."

    "Avoooooiding!"

    "What is this now?  The second time you've broken that leg?  What about your collar bone?  Twice on that too, if memory serves.  Let's check and make sure."  Dr. Farin held up the medical file.  "Ah, yes.  I was right on the collar, though I was wrong about your leg.  You've only fractured your right tibia once before.  However, this is the first time that you’ve managed to break or fracture all the bones in your right leg at the same time—a remarkable accomplishment for which your knee will probably never forgive you.  Your left leg, on the other hand, is another story.  Fracture, fracture, break," he read.  "Dislocated left shoulder, numerous digit repairs, twelve broken ribs, a fractured jaw, punctured lung, gaping hand-shaped wound in chest, multiple fractures in both arms...  The list goes on and on.  If it weren't for your now legendary powers of healing I do imagine you would very well be pushing up more than the mental daisies."

    "Are you finished avoiding, or was that the warm-up?"

    Dr. Farin leaned back on the edge of the table, not looking at his patient, but appearing to casually glance over the medical chart.  "Mobius, I will repeat the offer I made to you last time.  If you like, you are free to probe my mind for any information you think you will find there.  I'm certain that while this won't satisfy your conspiracy theories, it will at least put your mind at rest."

    "Who's to say I haven't already?"

    The doctor looked up at him.  "Me, for one.  I think I would have noticed."

    "How do you know I didn't scan your mind and then make you forget that I had?"

    "I don't.  But I doubt very much that you would.  If you've actually gone to the trouble of checking hospital employment records when you could have simply read my mind, then I doubt you're looking to find the truth in one fell swoop.  That would ruin all your fun, wouldn't it?  As you said, magicians and their secrets."

    Mobius was silent for a moment.  "You know, doc.  These days, I'm finding my sense of fun just isn't what it used to be."
 

    Standing in the cafeteria's line, bombarded by the stares of the patients and other hospital populace nearby, Hopscotch and Pinpoint studied the culinary choices available to them, hoping some spark of inspiration would arrive to guide them on their quest for sustenance.  Quartz and Bluestreak remained at the table—Quartz claiming not to be hungry and Bluestreak simply snickering and telling them to go on ahead without him.  It was just as well.  The food options may have been healthy but they did not look especially tasty.

    "It's a tough choice," Pinpoint said.  "The cake or the pie?  They both look sort of... old."  He lifted each of the choices near to his face and peered at them through his goggles.  "Hmm.  At least I'm guaranteed some degree of moisture with the pie."  He looked over at Hopscotch who was adjusting his staff so that it fit more comfortably into the loop holder on the back of his belt.  "Scotch?"

    "Huh?" Hopscotch said.

    "What's up?"

    "Nothing."

    "You've been kind of distant for the past few minutes.  Still crying cause I forgot your birthday?"

    Hopscotch smiled only slightly beneath his mask.  "I'm just trying to decide whether or not I should be worried about Mobius."

    "He's going to be fine.  He is fine.  As fast as his body heals he'll be running laps by next week."

    "Not that.  Not his physical health."

    "What then?  His mental health?"  Pinpoint began to laugh but stopped as soon as he realized that Hopscotch had intended just that.  "You've got to be kidding me?!" he said in disbelief.  "He's Mister Mental.  I don't think he could have bad mental health."

    "Have you noticed his behavior lately?"

    "You mean how happy he was this morning?  You're right.  What could I have been thinking?  Let's lock him up right away!"

    "He was only happy because he was looking forward to tormenting Dr. Farin.  I'm talking about how he's been behaving since he was shot."

    "Okay.  I'll admit it.  He's been a little gloomier than usual.  But he's always like that after he gets hurt.  Once he's healed it all up again he'll be back mentally cracking skulls like always."

    "No.  Not like always.  That's exactly what I'm talking about.  I'll have the chicken pot pie."  This last was said to the cafeteria worker who was clutching her spatula as though her life depended on it.  She blinked and hurriedly deposited the requested concoction into a bowl and set it atop the polished, metal sneeze-guard.

    "I don't follow you.  The fish, please," Pinpoint said.

    Hopscotch sighed.  "Look.  You've only been with us a few months," he said, taking out a money clip to pay for his meal.  "You wouldn't have noticed."

    "Noticed what?"

    "That Mobius is changing.  That he's getting...  I don't know.  Darker."

    "Darker?  I'm afraid I'm still lost here.  What are you talking about?"

    "It's hard to describe," he said taking his change from the cashier, who had so bravely extended her hand to give it to him.  "The closest I can think of right now is that he's being needlessly ruthless."

    "Example?"

    "Look at what he did mind-controlling Fred Franheur.  Now tell me that wasn't unnecessary."

    "Hey, it's not like we invited Fred over for an interview.  He attacked us first!  Mobius was just defending."

    "Mobius made him look like an idiot on live TV!  Maybe even ruined his career!"

    "The man is an idiot!  After all the shit he's said about us, he deserved what he got!"

    "But it just makes us look bad in the eyes of the public.  Mobius mind-controlled him.  That kind of thing scares the hell out of me.  And I'm his friend!  How do you think the public would feel if they found out?"

    "They don't know anything!  If they did we would have heard about it by now.  Fred's on his way out.  He's harmless!  We'll probably never see him again!"

    "This isn't the first time Mobius has done something like that.  It's been building since the very beginning."  He pondered for a few moments and then his head snapped forward in with a Eureka flair.  "What was your first case with us?"

    "When Bob asked us to help guard a witness extradition from Huntsville to New Auckland."

    "I thought so."

    Pinpoint passed the cashier a five-dollar bill and told her to keep the change.  He turned back to Hopscotch.  "What do you mean, you thought so?  You don't remember?"

    "Believe me.  After you've done this for a while, they all start blending together."  They gathered their trays and started back across the cafeteria.

    "I remember having to ride in a police van and having to listen to Skitso argue with himself," Pinpoint said.  "It nearly drove me mad.  I had almost decided to get out and walk when Chess showed up.  I also remember having to pull Bama Boy's butt out of the fire."

    "His name was Orb.  Not Bama Boy."

    "Whatever!"

    "Do you remember what Mobius did to that one agent?"

    "Mind-blasted him into a coma, didn't he?" Pinpoint said.

    "And why did he do that?"

    "The guy had a grenade.  We were all bunched up together and he was going to throw it right into the middle of us."

    "He never got the chance to even take the grenade out of his coat," Hopscotch said.  "How do we know what he was about to do?"

    "Because Mobius read his mind!  He did a mind-scan on the whole bunch of them and found out about the grenade."

    "Right!"

    Pinpoint stopped walking and set his tray on an empty table.  "Hopscotch, would you mind telling me exactly what the mighty point is?"

    "The mighty point is, that kind of behavior was not at all usual for Mobius!"  Hopscotch realized by the nervous glances of the patients and doctors seated nearby that his voice was probably a bit too loud.  He dropped it to a forceful whisper.  "When we first started Avatar, Mobius told me that he was extremely uncomfortable using his powers to violate the minds of other human beings against their will.  He said he thought it was tantamount to rape and that he would never do it."

    Pinpoint looked at him blankly for a few seconds.  "You're kidding, right?  You're pulling my chain?"

    "No!"

    "He said that?"

    "Yes!"

    "And this time with the caravan was the first time he did it?"

    "That I know of, but it was building before that and he's only gotten worse since then."

    Pinpoint laughed.  "Well, I guess I walked in at just the right time.  It was Mobius blasting that guy that made me decide to keep hanging around with you clowns.  Before that I thought you were all probably a bunch of goody-two shoes.  Except for Maniac," he added.  "When Mobius took that guy down, I said, `Now there's a guy like me.  He won't take shit from anyone.'"

    Hopscotch frowned beneath his mask.  As he saw it, Pinpoint held what could safely be called `not exactly the best' of influences upon Mobius.  Besides having become the best of friends in the short time they had known each other, Mobius and Pinpoint shared many of the same views—especially when it came to their mutual distrust of the Police Department and any similar bureaucratic agency.  Plus when they were together, mischief was never far behind.  They pulled practical jokes on one another and, more often than not, on the other members of the team.  Hopscotch had never been able to determine which of the two was trying to impress the other more.  But rather than open the can of worms that would follow by telling any of this to Pinpoint, Hopscotch opted to silently nod his comprehension.

    "Okay," Pinpoint said.  "So Mobius used his powers to help us out?  Would you rather the Chess agent had thrown the grenade and blown us all away?"

    "No."

    "Then what's the problem?" Pinpoint said.  "Mobius isn't getting darker.  He's getting more experienced.  You and I both know that you can't screw around in combat.  If you let the enemy get the upper hand when you could have done something about it then it's your own fault if you get killed!  So far, Mobius has gotten lucky.  He was hit in the leg but it could just as easily been his head.  But he's still here to tell the tale and I think he's finally realizing that he can't go in half-assed.  He's realizing just how lucky he's been!"

    "We've all been lucky," Hopscotch said solemnly.  "Mentor's Avatar lost two members.  We haven't lost any."

    Pinpoint raised both of his eyebrows.  Hopscotch's head dropped forward briefly and he uttered a small grunt.

    "All right.  If things work out for the best, we may not have lost any," Hopscotch corrected.

    "Look.  I can sort of see your point about Mobius.  If you're that worried about it then talk to him.  Tell him how you feel and iron it all out nice and smooth.  I still say you're worrying for nothing, though.  It's not as though he's out to kill anyone."
 

    Upon reaching the table with their trays they found Bluestreak already had one of his own.  It was loaded down with sandwiches and chips of several varieties.

    "Hah!  I win!" he said.  "I got my food back to the table first!"

    Hopscotch set his tray down, unhooked his staff from the back of his belt and sat in a chair.  "Yes, Bluestreak.  You win.  You certainly showed us who's the fastest around here.  I am sorely humbled.  Oh, my, how humble I feel.  I just can't imagine feeling any more humble than..."

    "Oh, shut up!" Bluestreak said.  "You just have to go and bleed all the fun out of it, don't you?"

    "Yes.  I do."

    Pinpoint forked a piece of fish and ate it.

    Bluestreak picked up one of the sandwiches on his tray and raised it to his mouth, smooshing it absent-mindedly against the face-plate of his helmet.  "Shit!" he hissed.

    Quartz glanced from Bluestreak to Hopscotch and began laughing.  "I was wondering how long it would take you both to remember your masks."

    Hopscotch lifted his staff from its position across his lap.

    "I guess I'll just have to take my mask off, then, won't I?"  With a slight sparkle from his staff, Hopscotch slowly faded from visibility until only a slight outline of odd discoloration remained in the air.  The discoloration removed its transparent mask and silently began gobbling up spoonfuls of chicken-pot pie.  The bites faded from view only after they had been well-chewed and swallowed.

    "That's nasty," Pinpoint said putting his fork down in disgust.

    "Yeah," Bluestreak said, averting his eyes to his own food.  "At least he's quiet now, though."
 

    The wheel-chair rolled silently into the hospital corridor, pushed by the capable Dr. Farin.  It rolled down the hall, carrying its cloaked passenger toward the elevators near the nurses' station.  Mobius waved good-bye to the giggling nurse from before.  Just for fun he turned back to Dr. Farin and said, "Home, Jeeves!"  This elicited a burst of giggles from within the nurses' station.  Dr. Farin sighed and continued pushing until they were at the bank of elevators.

    "So," Dr. Farin said pressing the call-button.  "Are we in agreement that you will refrain from breaking anything else at least until after our next visit?"

    "That depends on whether or not I decide to show up for our next visit," Mobius said smoothly.

    "Let me put it to you this way then.  If your super-healing works anything like normal human healing it could very well heal your shattered leg in something other than perfect operating condition.  In which case, you would not likely be able to walk without pain and discomfort and we might have to break it again to repair the damage.  Assuming, of course, that repairing it is even an option at that point.  You can see how it would be beneficial for us to be able to catch such problems early."

    Mobius lolled his head in mock exhaustion.  "I guess we have a date then."

    "Good.  I'll see you in two days.  And you will keep the heroics limited to your chair, and your chair limited to a very safe distance from any trouble.  Won't you?"

    "Just call me Charles Xavier," Mobius said as the elevator arrived.

    Dr. Farin smiled as he watched his patient wheel back through the open doors.  "You know, I'd be willing to wager that you thought I wouldn't get that X-Men reference."

    "Good thing I didn't take the wager, then," Mobius said.  "Later, doc."
 

    Mobius rolled into the cafeteria a scant two minutes later and over to his teammates' table.  He paid little mind to the bites of food being chewed by a particularly wavy patch of air, and instead looked at the three remaining friends who he could see clearly.

    "Well?  How'd it go?" Pinpoint asked in a hopeful tone.

    "Great.  The doc thinks I'll be up and around in no time."

    Pinpoint smiled.  His smile immediately dropped and he gave Mobius a curious expression.  "He, uh, actually said that himself, did he?"

    "Not in so many words, but that's the implication."

    "Oh.  Good," Pinpoint said.  "Glad to hear it."

    "I do have some bad news, though," Mobius said.  Everyone was silent in anticipation.  "I have to go to the bathroom again.  And one of you has to help me."
 

    Morton Rock, was a towering monolith of granite, that had over-looked a small secluded section of Las Tunas beach for the better part of three centuries.  Once a part of the cliffs above the beach, it had fallen off and rolled to its present position in 1647.  Since then it had braved wind, waves, graffiti and the occasional rock-climber with little change.  Change is, however, inevitable.  Morton Rock learned this truth as its face was suddenly struck at tremendous velocity by the body of an old man.  The formerly smooth surface cracked in a wide spider-web pattern, raining fragments and splinters down upon the fallen body at the base of the rock.  The old man lay there motionless in the sand.  His legs were crossed in the lotus position, his arms folded on his chest.  He did not seem to breathe.  His body was undamaged and in once piece.

    Presently, a very large shadow spread across the ground, covering the old man entirely.  The shadow was attached to a tremendous man who wore little more than a pair of torn, blue over-alls and who was shod with two thick-soled sandals.  His broad chest was tattooed with a block letter T.  Atop his head was perched a battered and oily John Deere ball-cap that served to keep his lengthy hair out of his face most of the time.  He looked to be about thirty-years of age.

    The enormous man reached down and picked up the old man's body with one hand and held it at arms length.  It did not move at all—legs remained crossed, arms remained folded and sand-crusted eyes focused far away.  The big guy raised the old man back over his shoulder and then smashed him into the sand in front of him.  A good deal of the immediate beach was blasted into the air by the force of the impact.  Some of the sand got into the big guy's eyes causing him to wipe them on the backs of his arms, which were also covered with sand.  After a few more similar attempts he had to walk away and cry for a moment to clear them.  When he turned back, he saw the old man bottom up in the sandy crater.

    "You `wake, yet?" the big guy said, looking into the crater.  Hearing no response, he picked up the old man again and flung him toward the cliff.  The old man struck, causing another shower of rocks as he rolled down to the ground.

    "Didn't think so," the big guy said with a frown.  He walked up the beach to where the old man was at and snatched him up again.  He turned and faced the ocean, feeling the cool salt breeze pour off of it.  He hefted the old man back behind his head again, like a pitcher cocking his arm for the pivotal, game-winning, third strike.

    "Are you finished?" the old man said looking down at him.

    The big guy looked up and saw that the old man was indeed conscious.  His eyes were focused properly and his legs now uncrossed.  "Nope," he said before hurling the old man back down the beach with such force that he skipped across the crashing surf nearly four times before sinking into the loose sand beneath it.

    Loud laughter echoed down the beach as the big guy approached the struggling form of the old man, whose head was buried so deeply in the muck that he was having difficulty in wrenching it free.  The big guy reached down and yanked him out.

    "Dammit Truk!" Stone sputtered through the streams of sand, water and hair pouring down his face.

    Truk let loose with another blast of laughter and set his friend down gently.  "`Bout time you woke up, grandad.  I been throwin' you around for near ten minutes now."  He gestured at the beach around them.  It was pocked and crater-ridden as though it had just undergone a horrible cataclysm.

    "Throwing me around!  Have you no respect for your elders?"

    Truk picked him up and slammed him into the ground again.  "Here.  Let me respectfully help you up, grandad" he said.

    "Don't you think it's time you stopped callin' me `grandad'?" snorted Stone.  "I am not your grand-father!"

     "Yer right!" Truk said.  "My grandad wouldn't sit on the beach for two weeks straight."

    "Oh, such fancy comebacks?" Stone said.  "That's just dandy!  So that's what they've been teaching you up in Hollywood, is it?  You need to tell them to teach you a thing or two about acting!"

    "Whut?"

    "Acting, boy!  Acting!  As in, you can't worth shit!"

    "There you go again, makin' fun of my actin'!  I act jest fine!"

    "Have you ever been to one of your pictures?  They show them to you before they release them, don't they?"

    "Yeah!"

    "Blood Fist Part III?"  Stone laughed.  "`I'm gunna be back h'yar in jest a minute, then a'hm gunna whup your ass real good, you Iraqi terrorist you!'" he said imitating Truk's deep Nebraska drawl.

    "I didn't say I was the best actor!  I said I act jest fine!"

    "Hah!"

    Truk smiled slyly.  "My agent said I made more money last year than Dustin Hoffman."

    Stone almost responded and then stopped and blinked several times.  "That's a lot of money," he gulped.

    "Yup."

    Stone eyed him irately.  "I guess you can finally afford that tractor you've had your eye on."

    "Nope.  It's a Ford.  With a wet bar," he added.

    Truk's career in motion pictures owed its existence to Hollywood's tendency to run popular trends into the ground.  In 1989 a very successful motion picture called Dynaforce had been made featuring a former super-hero, Captain Dynamo.  The movie was made on a shoestring budget, but was creative enough to become a sleeper hit and make a tidy little profit.  As a result, every movie studio in Southern California leapt upon the bandwagon with glee, holding casting calls open to established super-heroes.  One studio decided to go their competitors one better and open auditions to established villains as well.  Their mistake was holding both the hero and villain auditions on the same day.  Inevitably, there was a battle that resulted in the destruction of the entire soundstage.  It was during this very incident that Angels member, Truk, was discovered.  He was soon cast in an action adventure picture called Blood Fist Part I.  Since then two equally lucrative sequels had been made and a fourth one was in the works.  Cinematic genius they were not, but even most detractors of the genre admitted that they were at least enjoyable for no other reason than Truk's likable persona.  Most agreed that if he played his cards right he could be the next Stalone.
 

    "Well?  What are you waiting for?" the old man said.

    "Waitin' for?"

    "They sent you up here to tell me that my problems are all just in my head and that I should come back with you."  He waited to see if this had any effect.  It didn't appear to.  "Well?  Go on, now!  Try your best!"

    Truk slowly shook his head.

    "No?" Stone asked.  "You're not even going to try?"

    "I don't need to try.  I could just pick you up and carry you back, if I wanted to.  But I don't figure that'll do a lick of good if you don't want to go.  You'll just come back as soon as we're not lookin'.  Or you'll go someplace we can't find you."

    "Well, it would seem that at least one of the Angels has finally developed some intelligence about this."  He frowned.  "It would have to be you, wouldn't it?"  Stone walked up the shore and sat down in the damp, post-tide sand.  Truk's massive form dropped down beside him.  The two of them stared at the ocean in silence, letting the late morning sun beat down upon their heads.  The beach-goers, the few of them who knew about this particular little cove, would not arrive for at least another hour.  Most of the regulars only passed through on their way to the sections of the beach that were not shadowed over by cliffs.  They had casually wondered who the old man was and which of the nearby houses he had strayed from.  They would have been surprised to see that he was no longer seated in his usual spot and that he could indeed move and speak.  Once they had recognized who he was speaking to, though, an entirely new set of concerns would have entered their heads.  Fortunately Stone and Truk remained alone.

    "Why're you out here, grandad?" Truk asked, at last breaking the silence.

    "Didn't they tell you?  I've lost my marbles again."

    "You know nobody said that!"

    "Well they think it."

    "Mr. Carter said you was sittin' out here, thinkin' `bout the old days when you was still in Avatar."

    Stone nodded.

    "How come?"

    "Very good question," Stone said after a moment's consideration.  "I don't know if I have an answer.  At least, not one that makes a lot of sense.  I have suspicions, though.  I wish to God that I didn't."

    "What is it?"

    "Something big.  Something I had to face once before.  I don't want to face it again.  I don't even want to even think about it, but it may turn out that I have to," he said.  The old man continued staring at the ocean as he spoke.  "Did anyone ever tell you about the first time I went insane?"

    "No."

    "Well, I did.  Just over thirty years ago."  Stone stopped and thought for a moment.  "I don't know if you know this, but I've been around a lot longer than most people think.  A damn long time, as far as human life is concerned."

    "Well, you're immortal, ain't ya?"

    "No.  Not immortal.  Just invulnerable, or invincible, or indestructible or whatever they want to call it these days.  There's not much in this world that can harm me, except the powers of time—and even they have some trouble at it.  The way I figure," he said, looking pensive, "as old as I look and as old as I recall being, I probably age about one day for every two that go by."

    "Shoo!  I should start callin' you Great Grandad."

    "Try Great Great Grandad."

    "How the hell'd you get to be that old?"

    "I fell into an underground river in Greece."  He waited to see what Truk's reaction would be.  Expectedly, the big guy blinked twice and remained quiet, assuming that he had simply missed the joke.  Stone gave a small chuckle.  "Believe me, it's a longer story than that," Stone said.  "I'm not going to go into it, though."

    Seagulls cawed merrily, swooping at the creatures left by the receding tide.  Stone watched this for nearly a minute before speaking again.

    "Back then, I was about the cockiest son-of-a-bitch you'd ever care to meet.  Being invulnerable will do that to you.  You can't be hurt, and damned if you don't know it.  You start thinking of yourself as a god.  At least, I did.  I was insufferable by the time I hooked up with Avatar.  I'd charge into combat, right at the front, taking all the bullets Chess or anybody else cared to send my way.  When they got tired of shooting me, or I got tired of bein' shot, I'd start cracking them over the head with their own guns.  What did I care?  I couldn't be hurt, right?"  He finally looked away from the ocean and into Truk's eyes.  "Except that wasn't exactly true.  You can understand how it might come as a shock to someone who thought himself a god for the the better part of one hundred and twenty years to suddenly find out that he can be hurt after all."

    "But you can't be hurt!" Truk said.  "I seen you take a grenade once and walk away.  Hell, I've thrown you through enough walls to know you can't be hurt by nothin'."

    "That's physical harm.  My body is indestructible.  My mind isn't so lucky.  It's just like anybody else's mind, except it's been around a lot longer than most.  It's vulnerable.  That's what I found out, thirty years ago."  The old man was silent for a long time.  "Somebody...  some thing got into my head and started pulling switches.  It showed me images... fear... madness.  And it made damned sure that I knew that what it was doing was nothing compared to what it could do.  What it would have done, if we hadn't stopped it.  After that I went crazy.  Actually, I don't know if crazy is the right word for it.  I like to think I just took my mental receiver off the hook and took a vacation from reality.  I left my home and my friends and began spending a lot of time sitting on top of mountains.  After a while I came down and started walking.  I didn't stop until the Mojave desert.  Then I just sat down in the sand and began staring at the horizon.  By the time I decided that I'd sat long enough, eight years had passed and the world had moved on a bit.  A new day had dawned."

    Truk whistled.

    "I found out that while I was gone the country'd nearly blown itself to hell with the Soviets on more than one occasion.  President Kennedy had been assassinated.  They'd up and elected Nixon.  Men had actually walked on the moon and Eddie Cantor had died.

    "And I came to find out that Avatar had changed a lot as well.  Spider-Bat and Blue Bird were gone.  That Indian fellow had joined the team.  And Peter and Emily had come out to California to start The Angels."

    "You joined them then?"

    "Not right away, but after a few months of adjustment I decided to get back into the swing of things.  It was what I had been doing for near thirteen years before my vacation."

    Truk frowned.  "Is that what you're tryin' to do out here?  Takin' another vacation?"

    "The thought had crossed my mind."

    "Why?"

    "Because I think the thing that tried to destroy us thirty years ago—the thing that drove me crazy—has come back to finish the job.  And if he can, he'll destroy everything we've built.  And when he's finished doing that he'll come for those of us who're left—those who hurt him the last time.  He'll kill us one by one, if he can.  Except Omega, maybe.  I doubt he's that stupid."  He shook his head sadly and turned back to the ocean.  "After everyone else, I expect he'll come for me.  That's where his fun will really begin.  I think he wants me to know that.  In the end it won't matter what he does to any of us.  We're not who he really wants, anyway.  We're just the creation of the one he really wants.  Not even that.  We're the creation's creation.  But he'll burn the branches first on his way to the trunk.  Even if  he never gets there."

    Truk's face shifted in frustration.  "You mean some guy's come back to destroy you all....  And you're just gonna sit here.  You're gonna wait for him to do it?"

    The old man was quiet for a very long time.  "I thought I might.  But now, I don't know."
 

    Geoff came around the side of the house making engine noises with his mouth as his right hand flew his new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Air-Ship across the green terrain of his back-yard.  Under his left arm he carried a nearly unmanageable bundle of sticks and small branches.  The demands of the blob were increasingly becoming a time-consuming occupation to fill.  Their sawdust supply had run out ages ago and Geoff was not about to use any of his father's fresh lumber.  Not that his dad would have noticed.  These days he spent about as much time wood-working in the shed as he did cooking, which thankfully was none at all.  Still, one day he would get the bug to make something large, useless and wooden and if his lumber wasn't there he would not be happy.  In order to keep the blob supplied with food, Geoff had been forced to journey down to the rail-road tracks and collect the tree-trimmings left after the recent track-renovations.

    "Rrrrrmmmmmmm!" Geoff rmmmed, flying his air-ship close to the swing-set skyscrapers of his imaginary city-scape.  The swing-set and attached jungle-gym always served as towering buildings for his action figures.  Or, when he and Brian were playing Solar Kids, the swings were used as their personal-pod-ship launching bays.  He was about to set the wood down so he could allow his Usagi Yojimbo action figure to disembark from the air-ship and onto the thick wooden rail of the swing-set when he noticed a noise coming from the shed.

    He stopped and listened intently for the sound.  All was silent.  He waited nearly a minute before cautiously approaching the shed door.  The silence continued as he slowly walked forward.  Then he saw something through the shed's front window.  It was smoke.  Wispy strands of dark vapor were flowing up past the window.  Fire! he thought.  His mind was just beginning to turn over his options when there came a sudden humming crescendo from the shed.  The humming rose in pitch and volume until it reached a peak at which point there came the sound of an explosion from within the shed.  Geoff saw a dark flash through the window as the entire structure was rocked from within.

    But the thing that truly chilled Geoff's blood was the sound which followed.