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

opened ’em, they spoke their words to you and then—whoof!—they just disappeared. And because I was searching for them, I met a bunch of other young brothers and sisters looking for them, too. That’s how I met the people who’d end up forming the L*A*B and the Supa Soul Sistas. It was like a, a, a Hawk King affirmative action program.

“At last, deserving people weren’t gonna be held back by where they were born, or what they sounded like on the phone, or looked like when they showed up for the interview. Brother Grimhotep, he found so many jars and gained so much wisdom, he was the one who created the Brotherhood of the Forty-Two Chambers and initiated the rest of us. We connected, selected, directed, and defended Stun-Glas. And waited for the day Hawk King promised when we’d be trained enough and ready for him to reveal to us all his celestial, revolutionary vision.”

“So,” I asked, “with all that success and what you saw as an inspiring vision, Kareem, what happened? Why did the L*A*B to which you were so devoted decide to excommunicate you?”

He looked back toward me, his lips parted, not even trying to hide his shock.

“I am a psychiatrist, Kareem. We don’t get our degrees for being completely dim, you know.”

I got up, joined him at the window, noticing how the street-lights turned into stars in the blackness of his eyes. “Did the L*A*B kick you out…because they found out?”

He looked down. His jaw muscles bulged visibly around the base of his scalp as he ground his teeth against one another.

“So this is it, huh?” He chuckled grimly to himself. “This is how my career ends. Not because some dickwad’s laser beam cuts me in half, not because the Ammit Monster chews me to bits, not because the Turner Diarists blow me up in the Los Ditkos Federal Building…but because of the kot-tam lie that I hated Hawk King…and the truth that I…that I—”

“—that you did have an affair with Power Grrrl.”

He stood, still as a statue.

“Yeah,” he said finally.

I touched my wrist. “Ms. Olsen, would you please show in Ms. Tycho now?”

Kareem looked up at me, eyes bulging as if he were choking.

Syndi walked in. Gone was all her glamorous glitteralia, the look-at-me paraphernalia and the outrageous temporary tattoos, all replaced by a simple black PG!-logo T-shirt and jeans. Even her trademarked blond mane had changed—faded to black.

“Hello, Eva,” said Syndi, her mascara drenched into raccoon smears. “Hello, Kareem.”

The Long Kiss Good Morning

The two black-garmented heroes sat as far as possible from each other on opposite corners of my wide white leather chaise loungue.

“This is bullshit!” rumbled Kareem. “I should be investigating a murder case! Hawk King’s dead, Jack Zenith’s dead, Asteroid Zed’s destroyed, Iron Lass is dying, Menton and Sarah Bellum are missing—”

I cut him off. “Syndi, how do you feel about what Kareem’s just said?”

She shook her head. “It’s just, like, sad, Eva? Because Kareem was always, like, afraid to look inside himself. Which is why he was always looking ‘out there.’ But snap, like, let the world save itself? You’ve gotta save yourself, you know?”

“So you don’t believe Kareem’s claims about the Destroyer being responsible for this current crisis?”

“Gawd, no. Even when we were together, Kareem spent half the time talking about these, like, elaborate conspiracies. This Menton-thingy’s just the latest one.”

“So, Syndi,” I asked, “why did you lie about being a lesbian?”

She twirled her hair, rolled her eyes at the ceiling and then back toward me, indignant at being questioned. “I didn’t, like, lie, Eva.”

I produced the advance copy of Butch Like Me that Festus had acquired for me, flipping through the ghost-written Billi Biceps autoherography until finding the first of many passages I’d marked. “ ‘In eight months together, Syndi never even let me get past first base. Or maybe second—I never really got that whole baseball thing. That’s a man’s game, anyway, what with all the phallic crap. So let’s just say volleyball. Well, I never spiked her or anything like that. Just overhand serves. But regardless, the point is, she’s no dyke, you understand? I don’t think she’s even bi. She’s just the world’s biggest poser. Everything is all about appearances with her, and it’s always all about her.’ ”

I closed the book and kept my hand on the cover image of Billi as a steroidal Rosie the Riveter. “Well, Syndi? Is Billi lying? Or are you?”

“I never, never said, Eva, that I was a lesbian. Never! I just created provocative imagery and let people think, like, whatever they wanted to!”

“You joined GLAAD.”

“You don’t have to be lesbian to join GLAAD. They got something they wanted out of it, and I got something I wanted out of it. Everyone profits. What’s your hyper-damage?”

“So your profit was more albums sold, a possible film deal, more makeup endorsements, and more sales of your books, perfumes, breast enhancers, Power Grrrl Dental Dams™—”

“And they got to use me for their own PR. Everyone wants to use me. Even these men who think I’m lesbian and buy my posters and videos and go to my movies…I mean, how insane is that? I’m more popular with men because they think they can’t attain me?”

“You lied to Billi.”

She looked back at me, her eyes blue radiant rage inside the black halos of smeared makeup.

“According to this book,” I said, tapping the cover, “you broke Billi’s heart. Did she profit?”

Deformed into its trademarked pout, Syndi’s mouth suggested indignation far more than photogenic lust.

“How does it make you feel…to know what you did to her?”

“I feel ashamed, okay? Are you happy? Is that what you want to hear?” she yelled. “I never meant to break her heart. No one was supposed to get hurt. It just…things got out of control. Like they are now. Kareem won’t even talk to me, for months he’s refused to even look at me, he won’t even say my fucking name, people are dying left and right around me and I’m gonna