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

the saliva of ‘You can’t hurt me anymore’? Or was it the albumin of a frightened little boy who was angry that his ‘daddy’ had rejected him?”

He looked down, mumbled, “I’ont know what kinda hork it was, ma’am.”

“Because saliva—the water of life in your body—”

“Actually it was a beam of electrons, ma’am—”

“But the deeper truth of the saliva behind the electricity is what matters, Wally. Look at the rage you released in that single thousand-volt expectoration. You’re the most mild-mannered man I’ve seen in this practice in decades. But then, one remark too many—”

“Yeah,” he chuckled grimly. “Fried squirrel. Courtesy of m’omni-gob.”

“Exactly. Being rejected by your father like that, believing that you’re never good enough…Do you think that might have something to do with your stunning achievements in anti-success?”

“Well, I mean, I spose that…what?”

“Tell me about walking to Antarctica.”

The Black Box of the Soul

Yeah…when I was sixteen. Ma an Pa, well, they’s Jehovah’s Witnesses, but I didn’know what I b’lieved. I was gettin inna trouble, drankin an messin around an such. I still didn’know bout m’powers, y’unnerstan. An Ma an Pa, they was always talkin about doomsday—seems every time a doomsday come up an didn’happen, they always had another one waitin.

“So I stopped wannin t’listen to em, specially when they wannid me t’go out witnessin, farm-to-farm an door-to-door an such. So they was fightin with me suh’m fierce t’go, an I up and decided to spite em by gettin as far away from em as I could.

“So I started walkin, an I member being s’prised by how far an how fast I could walk without ever gettin hungry. An before I knew it—like, on’y a coupla months’d gone by, an I was at the south end a Chile. And the cold didn’bother me neither, which I never knew before on accounta Kentucky always bein so hot. An I was jess so fulla spite I had to go th’whole distance, so I decided I’d swim over to An’ar’tica, which wun’t the smartest thing to do, I admit, considerin I didn’know bout my powers yet, but I was always a good swimmer an figured why not? So I did. I made it.

“But I musta lost m’necklace with the black cube on it or suh’m, cuz when I came out the water, it was gone. But I looked behind me an all th’penguins an walruses were swimmin away cuz a big black iceberg or suh’m was comin up out th’water like a mountain bein born.

“On’y it wun’t no mountain. It had a huge blue doorway glowin like one a them neon signs, an it was willin me to go through it! So I walked on inside an there was all sortsa blinkin machines, like chairs an beds an treadmills—like, like a big ol health spa from the future or suh’m. An I felt this powerful urge to sit inside one a them chairs, an when I did, suddenly I could feel all kindsa powers surging in me.

“An then I looked up and seen right on top a this pedestal—it’s m’black box! Beamin out a ghostly image of m’daddy—that’s what it said to me, that it was m’daddy—talkin to me bout how he sent me to Earth to save m’life an so at least I could be a success somewhere.”

He sat across from me, chewing his lip. “Guess I never really paid attention to how he worded that before.”

“Go on.”

“Well, I got up outta m’trainin machine to pick up m’box, but I’d become so strong, I accidentally ripped the machine outta th’floor an knocked th’pedestal down an then, well…pretty much after that was a blur on accounta th’whole black iceberg commenced t’comin down. An so I flew back home—I could fly now, see?—an all th’while my box-daddy was tellin me I was a complete nimrod, though that wun’t th’word he used.

“I got back to Mannsfall, an I went to see m’step-pa an -ma t’tell em all what’d happened, but I still hadn’t quite got th’hang a m’powers, so I accidentally burned down half th’town and then when I was trying to use m’frost breath to put out the fire I accidentally shrank th’whole place with some other power I didn’even know I had. Still don’know how I did it, actually…so I been workin ever since then to figure out how to unshrank em.”

“The whole town just disappeared? And no one noticed?”

“Well, it was a small town to begin with. An the war’d just started. So anyway, I went over into Cloverport, bought me a aquarium, an put the tinier town of Mannsfall inside it.”

“And you just left it there?”

“No, I took it with me. It’s in my condo, now, right on top the toilet tank, so at least once a month I member to bring in fresh food and water, which I crumble up and dribble down on em like manna and drinks from heaven.”

“Are your stepparents still alive inside the aquarium?”

“Yessir. Time seems to’ve slowed down on accounta the shrankin. Or suh’m…don’rightly know, akchully.” He chirped up, “I can bring in the tank, if you like, to show ya.”

“If you’d like to, Wally. For now, tell me more about what you did after you returned home.”

“For a while I did some herofying as I was learnin m’powers. That’s when I was Omni-Lad. Then the war got worse, an the call went out from Hawk King. I mean, akchully from his hawk legion, which was searchin th’whole country lookin for superheroes to help fight the comm’nists—”

“The Nazis.”

“—right, an that’s when I hooked up with him, Iron Lass, Captain Manifest Destiny, Lady Liberty, Gil Gamoid an th’N-Kid—”

“Actually, Wally,” I said, leafing through the heavily redacted contents of the OMNIPOTENT FRAUD folder Mr. Piltdown had couriered to me, “I meant, what did you do when you weren’t performing superheroics? Tell me about the jobs you held, the friends you had, the kind of life you led in your secret identity.”

“Course, y’already know m’secret name, ma’am. An I expect y’already read Jack Zenith’s book, since