The Tower (18 page)

I'd come to this world at the age of thirteen, and even though my mind wasn't that much older, I was beginning to see through some of it. I'd been so caught up in the moment and worshipping these people I'd accepted everything at face value and hadn't realized that maybe, just maybe, my heroes weren't all that perfect or pure.

Justifying things by saying that this was a different dimension also didn't cut it anymore, not with the inconsistencies I'd learned from Phyllis and Nora Nixon. This gap in time of two years, the change in the duty rosters, the missing Association members and the missing super-villains; they had to be interconnected in some way.

I had to get back to the surface, learn more if I could. I wanted to be proved wrong, wanted to believe that all was well, that my heroes were the real deal and that this wasn't sort some of giant cosmic joke. A few days later, when I was well enough to travel around, I hitched a ride on a shuttle going down to Met City, and it was there that once again, very unexpectedly, I found one of the last pieces of the puzzle.

Nineteen: The Joke's On Me

I'd slipped briefly into the Data-Base section while Hillary was away on another coffee binge and took a look at the Personnel files. All was in order, except for one thing. Of all the regular personnel on board, only a few had been working there more than two years. The others had either quit or had retired. John, my boss, was forty-nine and the senior member while most of the other staff was in their early to mid-twenties.

Once again, was there a connection here or was I just spitting into the wind? All this subterfuge was confusing me, not to mention making me feel monumentally frustrated that I couldn't tie it all together.

After that, I'd gone down to Met City, searching in the library for anything that could be of help. Just my luck, I drew another zero, except for one thing; I'd seen an article of an alien ship landing in the desert some time back. I found the article not in the micro-fiches but saw it sticking out of a reference book. After reading it over, I asked myself,
Why hadn't I thought of this before
? Was it possible that the Ultras had come back in a different ship? Perhaps when they'd gone upstairs to battle the whatever-it-was their ship had been damaged and they'd taken over the enemy's vessel. It didn't fit, and somehow, it did. Oh, well, the shuttle would be leaving in about forty minutes, I'd ask once I returned to the Tower.

On my way back, I passed an alleyway and felt the steel tip of a knife press itself against my right kidney. Fighting skills or not, I didn't dare turn around. A voice whispered in my ear, “Boss wants a word with you.”

“Boss who?”

“You'll find out. Get in here and march to the end of the alley.” The man's voice was low and hoarse, as if he'd smoked one too many cigarettes, indulged in too much whisky. We marched, and at the end of the alley was a wall. “Turn around.”

I did, and facing me was a man of about my height, early forties, a lean, tough-looking guy with a switchblade held low in his right hand. From the way he held it, I figured he'd had a lot of practice. “I don't have any money.”

He then folded his blade and stowed it in his pocket, seemingly unconcerned that he wasn't armed anymore. “Don't want your money,” he said calmly. “Like I said, boss wants a word with you.” And with that, he pressed a brick on the wall and the ground gave way beneath us, an elevator of sorts, going down.

Who was I being kidnapped by
? The platform stopped moving after about a minute. My kidnapper motioned me forward. We'd arrived in some kind of cavern-like underground tunnel. It smelled of rotting food, old wine, sweat and body odor. After about twenty paces, he told me to stop and pressed another brick on the wall to his right. The wall slid open, revealing a small, equally filthy room, occupied by a lone figure sitting on a table with his back to us. Long, unkempt black hair hung limply down his equally long and slender form, which was clothed in a ratty red suit. When he swung around to face me, I knew instantly who he was.

Tomato red face, round and bloated, in sharp contrast to his body.

Piercing red eyes and black lips, pulled back in a half-smile.

It was Wildcard. I'd been wrong; there was still one villain out there, one joker in the deck no one had thought of. Facing me was another legend, one of the worst kinds. I'd read three stories about him and out of all the comic books I'd gone through, his was the only character among the super-bad dudes whose name hadn't been changed with my crossing over to this universe. His was also the only character which actually scared me.

Like many comic book villains and many of the cold-blooded killers in real life, he'd been taught by monsters to become a monster. He'd been born in Goder City and raised there; Goder City was not known as a place to bring up children. It had the highest crime rate in the country, political patronage and graft were everywhere, and everyone had connections and no one could be trusted. I'd had it easy, Wildcard got the short end of the stick.

Only in his case, he'd sharpened it to a fine point. His father had been a hit-man for some crime syndicate with a penchant for torturing his victims before doing them in, his mother was a free-lance prostitute. Wonderful family values, I thought. Oddly enough, he'd been a straight-A student until the end of junior high…and then genetics caught up to him, I guess. He was kicked out of high school the first week for almost beating another student to death in a fight over lunch money.

At any rate, he'd drifted a bit, getting into trouble on occasion, but nothing outstanding. Until two years after his expulsion, that is; he was caught robbing a store and slowly beheading the owner. That earned him a trial as an adult and ten years in jail in San Francisco—it was later reduced to three years as he'd shown, in the warden's words, “exemplary behavior” while behind bars.

And he
had
bettered himself. Like me, he'd hit the books, only he'd done it himself and had studied up to eight hours a day. Exercise periods often found him reading books on chemistry, electronics, banking, or even novels. He favored crime novels and also law books. By the time he got out, it was said that he was as smart as any lawyer, was capable of quoting any philosopher alive or dead, and had the ability to construct an exploding fountain pen out of Scotch Tape, some ink, and a little potassium nitrate. All useful skills learned while incarcerated.

Especially useful were his skills with a knife. He was never caught killing anyone with a homemade shiv he carried which he called “Little Shirley” and woe to anyone who made fun of it. Many inmates died during his three-year stay in prison. Although Wildcard was a suspect he was never implicated in any of the slayings. When he was finally released, the overseer of the prison spoke to him and praised his self-improvements, stating that going straight was the best course of action any ex-con could take.

The warden was later found murdered, his throat torn out. Wildcard was never considered a suspect in that murder, either. Whitman Kelvin, Wildcard's real name, was almost twenty at the time. He was too young to vote in many states but not too young to have seen the lowest depths of Hell.

Returning to Goder City, he'd thrown himself on the mercy of his father, begged his forgiveness, and was introduced into the “murder-for-hire” milieu. He proved to be a better-than-average assassin for the mob, and had eventually taken over his father's job, after killing him, of course, and then offing his mother. Not your typical, loving son at all.

After that, it was just a matter of time as he rose through the ranks and did in victim after victim. He'd been arrested numerous times by the police and the Association, he had always beaten the charges and gotten off. After less than two years of doing contract work for various crime lords, he decided to take matters into his own hands and rid society of all the major menaces, gunning them down single-handedly during the annual crime-boss dinner. He'd popped out of a cake, a machine-gun in each hand, the oldest cliché in the book.

Pity the other crime syndicate members never learned how to read.

After that, Wildcard, at the tender age of twenty-one, became the biggest crime boss in all of Goder City, and spread his tentacles of crime over most of the eastern seaboard. He had it all: Fame, money, women, all he had to do was snap his fingers and his will was done.

And just how did he gain his altered appearance? According to all reports, he'd been gifted with not only brains but also good looks. However, after another of those typical comic-book fights he'd accidentally been injected with some kind of mutating serum meant for one of his victims; that had happened in a fight with Avenger. They'd done battle many times before and Avenger always managed to thwart his plans. Wildcard had disappeared after the battle, only to surface later on in his present condition and had started up his “Killers, Inc.” empire all over again. His gang had been taken down by the Association in a number of separate battles and was considered a non-entity, but Wildcard had always managed to make good his escape. And he remained Avenger's arch-nemesis.

This particular denizen of the underworld was a genius of the worst sort. He had a special talent for manufacturing explosives and was gifted in the understanding and usage of electronics and computers; added to that he was also a sadistic psycho who enjoyed torturing his victims before murdering them. No morals, no conscience, and no compunction about offing anyone whom he didn't like. Since the body count on the Net fact sheet was so high, it was pretty clear that he didn't like a lot of people. I wondered if I was about to meet the same fate.

“Surprised to see me?” he asked brightly, hopping off the table. Around thirty years old, he stood a good six feet-plus but was much less muscular than the average Ultra. Yet, despite his lack of muscle, from what I'd read of him he was more dangerous than many of the other super-villains, simply because of his unpredictability. He'd either kill you or shower you with money, no one ever knew which. He himself probably didn't know. Absently waving his henchman out, he sat down on the table again and faced me.

Surprised? “I thought you lived in Goder City.”

“I did. Packed up and moved. Better weather here.”

“I didn't know there were any other super-villains around.”

His voice went dark. “We're not. Not anymore. They left without me.” He got up and walked over to another table in the corner, picked up a sandwich which was at least two days old, nibbled on it half-heartedly, put it down. “Even the food here sucks,” he muttered.

“Where'd they go?”

“Oh, away, up there, up and away,” he gestured with his arm.

“You mean they left with the Association? Why?”

He turned back to me. “For reasons which are best left unsaid for now,” he answered. He looked around the room, shaking his head with distaste. “See what's happened to me?” he asked bitterly. “I was a king once, a king! I ruled Goder, could've ruled this city, too. Hell with the other petty crooks, I was a god! And now, here I am, living off the orts of humanity, all in the confines of an abandoned subway tunnel. Oh, how the mighty have fallen!”

How could I counter this without him doing me in? “Are you kidnapping me by any chance?”

That caused Wildcard to double over in laughter, hooting and slapping his thigh. “Kidnap you? Ha, ha…ha,” he finished flatly, abruptly stopping his chortling. “No, no kidnap intended. Who would rescue you? And what could I get in exchange for your freedom if I did? Would they give me money? Ha! Don't need it, don't need
them
in my…kingdom,” he added in a desultory tone.

“Didn't the Association ever come looking for you?”

He shook his head. “They haven't come in almost two years. This place is lined with lead; totally shielded and no way to see into here. Old AV-boy spends all his time up in his ivory tower, and the others, well…” his voice trailed off.

This was confusing me. If I wasn't being kidnapped, then what did he want me for? He sensed my confusion and swung around to face me squarely.

“Information, young man, information,” he said in a reasonable tone. “You, for some reason, and I both know things aren't what they seem. Don't have to tell you that.” He gave me another innocent and reasonable look; there was no reason to lie, not with the threat I felt seeping out of him.

“Well,” I began, “I've been asking around. It seems like everyone has some kind of amnesia….”

“Amnesia,” he interrupted. “Yes, that's good. Continue,” he prompted, staring at me like a cat mesmerizing a mouse.

“No one knows anything, even that reporter….”

“The Nixon bird you talked to.” How did he know that? He seemed to be reading my mind. “Oh, yes, I saw you. I still have my eyes and spies around. I
know
.” The grin on his face got a little bigger.
Was he enjoying this
?

“Are you going to tell me?”

“Nope, nope, nope,” he replied, his bright veneer coming back again. “That, you'll have to do for yourself. But,” he said, waggling a dirty index finger at me, “I will give you something to chew on. Ask yourself why all the mystery about them, why they're so different from before.”

“Before; do you mean…?

“From two years ago. They ran off and LEFT ME!” he exploded, voice rising to a shriek, face purpling with rage and then just as abruptly subsiding to normalcy again. These eruptions—he was sick, alright, and I wondered if he'd turn his wrath on me. And what was he saying? This wasn't making any sense at all.

Wildcard, calm now, paused for a moment, thought things through, and then picked up a piece of paper from the table, folded it and handed it to me. “Your clues, Mr. Lamp-kin; please take them.” It didn't surprise me that he knew my name, although the way he pronounced it, with two distinct syllables, it came out as if it were some kind of alien code. “You play detective for awhile,” he said. “I'm going to relax a bit, watch some TV, and plan my comeback. I've been doing it for a long time.”

I took the paper and put it in my pocket. “So, what do I do now?”

Wildcard looked at me, a frown on his face. At least, I thought he was frowning. “What now? You leave.
You
figure it out. You're closer than you think and I'm not really in the position to go anywhere.” He pressed a button underneath the table and the wall slid open.

“What happens if I do find out something? And what makes you so sure I won't tell them where you are?”

Wildcard then walked over to me, neither grinning nor scowling, his eyes were almost sane. “Because you're the curious kind, just like I am, and there still is such a thing as honor, even in this silly old world. If you feel like it, drop me a line—I'll be here.” And with that, he turned away.

Walking back the way I'd come, I found the henchman waiting for me, his face a mask. All done, I told him. He nodded, pressed a brick on the wall, and the elevator took us up to the surface again. “You can find your way from here,” he said. “See you around,” then he disappeared below. That was it, not a threat, exactly, more like a dismissal. Wiping the sweat from my forehead and inhaling the fresh air, I found a quiet bench to sit on and unfolded the letter. It read: