Minister Faust by From (html) (librera reader txt) 📕

made me feel like a mouse crisping in a child’s Easy-Bake oven. The song on her Q-bot, meanwhile, changed to Patsy Cline’s pathetically innocent rendition of “Tennessee Waltz.” The juxta-position only intensified my anxiety.

She continued staring at me, unblinking, unmoving, until the second verse in which Patsy lilted, “Only you know how much…I have lost…”

I finally broke our gaze, flipping through my file until I found another angle to pursue.

“You’re, um, highly lauded, not only among, uh, the public, but, ah, among F*O*O*J members. As a symbol of the very best in superheroism. Since the F*O*O*J’s founding, you’ve enjoyed the highest consistent approval rating among civilians and heroes of anyone except for Hawk King and Omnipotent Man. Ball Buster said in a 1989 issue of People that if it weren’t for you, she’d’ve committed suicide, and that she knew of at least two other heroines you’d gotten through similarly traumatic times.”

“Ja?”

“You have enormous public regard, endless testimonials in your favour…yet, in 1974, after your daughter is hospitalized under mysterious circumstances, you separate from your husband, and your daughter and son choose to live with him.”

I lowered my voice, kept my eyes on the contents of my file folder, forcing myself to take a step toward this sword-wielding woman with eyes of death.

“You’ve given of yourself to hundreds of thousands of people across the centuries, but the two people in the universe whom you would most logically want to regard you as their icon…they rejected you. And your own icon…it isn’t a person of flesh and blood or even divine ichor…but a group of cold stone buildings atop a mountain.”

Her eyes were ominously huge, like twin amethyst bowling balls full of dynamite, threatening to drop and crush my skull and explode in my brainpan.

“My children, Doktor—”

“Sorry I’m late, ma’am-doctor,” said Omnipotent Man too loudly, stumbling in and scanning the room to deduce what we were doing and why. The arctic fury in Iron Lass’s face melted into something softer but far sadder. Wally tripped over his teammates’ work materials while finding a workbay of his own, laughing at himself self-consciously and whistling the theme to Bonanza.

“C’n I work over here, Doc? Sorry I’m late—rough night’n all. I’m sure y’all unnerstan—I aint th’o’ny one what’s ever had one a them. Hey, Syndi, that’s quite the…Now, whatcha puttin on her—now, I ain’t sure that’s an appropriate kinda…Say, Doc, juss what’re we doin, anyhow?”

I went over to Wally, explaining to him the task while observing his dishevelment: his hair was all a-shag, the bags beneath his eyes were big enough to shop with, and his body reeked of ozone. Reexamining earlier remarks about Wally by Mr. Piltdown and Kareem, I began to suspect a looming scandal which, during this time of crisis, the F*O*O*J and the country might not be able to withstand.

“So I can use anything in the room, ma’am?” he asked before I could inquire about his stench and his shabbiness, not to mention his tremendous tardiness.

“That’s right, Wally, but first, I think we need to—”

“Wellsir, ma’am, gotta get started. Time is money, penny saved, early worm gets two in the bush,” he said, gripping the sides of the ice wall and ripping it up from the floor, hauling it off to his workbay and immediately carving it with his superfast digits. And with the protective wall between Mr. Piltdown and Kareem gone, their conflict inflamed immediately to the verge of vengeance.

They’d both constructed images of the incredible Hawk King.

Iconfrontation

I expected a volley of insults, but each man was silent, stupefied with rage, each hero’s contempt for the other intensified by a jealous, proprietary fury.

With both heroes motionless in their contest of wills, as if the one who moved first would prove himself the lesser worshiper, I was free to inspect their work, which the other F*O*O*Jsters did as well.

Kareem had employed his logogenic powers to sculpt a masterpiece, a six-and-a-half foot tall gleaming black hawk-headed man, adorned with pharaonic double crown and kilt, arms stretched forth, hands clutching crook and flail, and wings spread wide as if to encompass the world. One might easily imagine Egyptian peasants and priests prostrate before this statue. Everyone—except Mr. Piltdown, of course—was impressed.

The Flying Squirrel’s work, while lacking the artistry, sophistication, and three-dimensional grandeur of Kareem’s, was nonetheless fascinating. Since Mr. Piltdown could neither draw nor sculpt, he’d hewn a primitive collage from pictures, logos, and other text he’d torn from his stack of magazines. On a large sheet of Bristol board, a Frankenstein’s monster of a Hawk King had been cobbled together from the body parts of various subjects; the figure stood in front of an undersize Blue Pyramid made from blue stretches of automobile, cleaning products, and perfume ads. Radiating from Hawk King’s crown like the sun’s rays were corporate logos clipped into words and phrases such as “HeRo” and “GETting the JOB doNE Right” and “Master your WORK place” and “MISSion acCOMPlished.”

“Fascinating presentations, gentlemen,” I said. “Who’d like to tell me about his work first?”

The X-Man, without breaking his stare at his adversary, reached up and behind himself to his icon’s face, which moved slightly. I noted with fascination that Kareem’s icon featured limited articulation.

He rasped, “Care to look under the mask, Festy? Or you afraid what you’d find?”

“Well, I’ll be a pigeon’s whiskers, Kreem, but that’s a goshdurn fine piece a work! Fine piece!”

The X-Man, eyes still chained to Flying Squirrel’s, said, “Thanks, Wally. Glad you like it.”

“Kareem,” I said, “tell me about this detail here.”

He didn’t budge. “Which one?”

“This one where I’m pointing, right here.”

Reluctantly breaking his glare, he scowled at me when he found me pointing at nothing and realized he’d been had.

“I just wanted you and Mr. Piltdown to break out of your testosterone-enflamed id-escalation. And now that you have, please take a few minutes to reflect on your icon so I can ask you about it.”

“Hey, Doctor Brain, ma’am, look at mine! Look at what I done!”

Despite his late arrival, Wally had already transmuted Iron Lass’s ice