Marvel Novel Series 10 - The Avengers - The Man Who Stole Tomorrow

by David Michelinie

  Sheriff Cordell at last understood the uneasiness that smothered the jail; he felt it himself, now. For if there was anything in the world dangerous enough to scare the Avengers, it was damned well dangerous enough to scare him!

  “Then this Kang joker gave Kenojuak all that power just to get at you guys through Captain America, huh? Y-You don’t suppose that means he’s gonna start another battle for time, do yuh? Like, uh, f’r instance . . . here?”

  Iron Man stood up and pushed his chair back under the desk. “We don’t know, Sheriff. And it looks as if the only way we’re going to find out is to find Kang and inquire as to his intentions.”

  “Huh? But I thought you said he could be anywhere in all space an’ time; that he’d be impossible to find.”

  “I said hard to find, Sheriff, not impossible. Thor has the power to whip up a time vortex with that hammer of his—”

  (“Bein’ a god has its advantages,” the Beast quipped.)

  “—and with it he can transport all of us to either the past or the future. With that mobility, we can use this,” he held up the hand-sized electronic hodgepodge he had been working on, “to track Kang down. It’s a crude location that I tinkered together, and is set to home in on the same type of energy that was used to power the String of Stones. Hopefully, Kang uses the same power source to run all of his devices. With a little luck, his advanced science has made that source unique enough that the locater can track it through all of the conflicting energy fluxes we’ll probably encounter in the time stream.”

  “And if luck isn’t with you?” Sheriff Cordell queried.

  “In that case, Sheriff . . .” Iron Man looked across the room, at the block-of-ice-that-wasn’t-a-block-of ice, and his next words were barely audible over his microspeakers. “In that case, I guess we’ve lost Captain America forever.”

  Moments later, the curious crowd that had formed outside of the Bantu Junction Sheriff’s Office parted, allowing the building’s occupants to move past them to the street beyond. Sheriff Cordell and Deputy Turnbull stayed with the spectators on the sidewalk while the seven Avengers—with the Beast carrying the block-bound Cap over one shoulder—proceeded to a point in the center of the muddy street, and stopped.

  Some of the watchers grumbled at the part the Avengers had played in the chaos that had so recently beset their normally quiet town; others grumbled that they couldn’t get close enough to get a good look at the only honest-to-gosh superheroes they were likely to see in their lives. Deputy Turnbull signed autographs.

  Then, the colorfully clad heroes formed a tight circle, shoulder to shoulder, their backs to its center where Thor stood tall, hammer raised over his head. The Beast winked at the onlookers—“See ya!”—and then Thor began swinging the mystic Mjolnir in a very specific arc above him, its path forming what looked like an inverted cone of blurry speed. Beneath that cone, the Avengers began to blur as well, as if one were looking at them through the radiant heat rising from a desert blacktop.

  And then, quite simply, they were gone.

  Sheriff Cordell blinked—again. For the first time, he wondered if he should have gotten a written guarantee for payment from Iron Man for the damages done to the town. Oh, well, he thought, if you can’t trust a superhero, who can you trust? He turned to the crowd and gestured.

  “All right, folks, the show’s over. You can go on about your business now.”

  Between them, the sheriff and his deputy soon cleared the sidewalk, and stood before their office door taking one last look at the spot where, only minutes earlier, the Earth’s mightiest heroes had left on a quest of nearly incomprehensible danger. Behind them, other eyes also watched; eyes that were pale and rheumy and moist with tears; eyes that were set in a deep-brown face pressed against a window, a face that was drawn with the weight of loss.

  “Good-bye,” Aningan Kenojuak said, softly.

  Ten

  Reality was a patchwork soup. It flowed and melted around the time vortex in ever-alternating patterns of color and form, as decades of change and movement occurred in the relative space of seconds. Inside the vortex, the Avengers watched the history flux that surrounded them. Some had traveled through time with Thor previously; for others, this was their first such trip. For all, it was an awesome experience.

  The Beast held Captain America’s ice block close, as much out of nervousness as a desire to keep them both within the time cone created by Thor’s whirling hammer. Without turning his head, he called back to the Thunder God.

  “Hey, Blondie, you sure you know where we’re going? I mean, that mess out there looks like a Timothy Leary finger painting. Upside down!”

  “Concern thyself not, Hank McCoy,” answered Thor. “Piloting the stream of time is but a small matter for one who was trained beyond the Rainbow Bridge of Asgard.”

  “Yeah,” said the Beast, less than reassured, “but it’s scary as hell for one who was trained beyond the 59th-Street Bridge of Queens!”

  Iron Man looked down at the locater in his hand. A small, amber light on its surface had begun to blink, coinciding with a low, electronic ping coming from its interior.

  “How far have we come, Thor?” he asked.

  “We’ve just passed the thirty-sixth Century, Iron Man, and are rapidly approaching the thirty-seventh.”

  “Then you’d better start slowing us down. I’m getting a reading on Kang’s energy mode. Be ready to stop when I give the word.”

  Subtly, the Avengers’ awe gave way to expectation, and they turned from the kaleidoscopic display around them to look at Iron Man. The Golden Avenger, however, kept his eyes on the locater’s signal light, which was now blinking with greater frequency. “Slower,” he said. The tiny amber bulb was flickering like a strobe light now, and the pinging sound was an almost constant tone. “Slowerrrr . . . and . . . now!”

  Instantly, Thor stiffened his grip on Mjolnir, stopping the mallet in midswing. Almost as quickly, the time vortex faded, and nausea filled the Avengers’ throats with liquid lumps as the world racked in and out of focus around them. Finally, the world settled—more so than certain stomachs—and Thor spoke in a majestic baritone.

  “Behold, my friends, the year 3900—threshold of the fortieth century!”

  The twentieth-century heroes looked around, eyes wide—and were just a little disappointed. They hadn’t really known what to expect, but after countless viewings of Star Wars and its equally countless competitors they would have been less than astonished to find the Earth covered with idyllic, pastel-shaded minarets, or dark, ray-blasted battlements dotted with laser turrets, or even still-smoldering ruins scattered over a wasted countryside.

  What they found instead looked for all the world like a gigantic shopping mall.

  They stood on a blushing-pink concourse that must have stretched for miles, branching off at intervals into smaller, equally pink walkways. Lining the street on either side were single- and multi-story buildings built of the same substance as the street, and colored in tastefully-complimenting shades. Molded benches, chairs, fountains, and even trees and animals sprouted from the walkways, sometimes matching the color of the area from which they grew, other times flowing into a contrasting hue.

  Most of the buildings were fronted by large picture windows that displayed generally unfamiliar merchandise, as well as signs in passably recognizable English proclaiming prices and services: “Special Sale! Yesterday’s Air—Half Off!” “Skidders Tuned, Ears Waxed. Discounts to Veterans.” “Flig Job, 20 Creds. Lubricant Extra.”

  Quicksilver kneeled down and tapped the pink walkway with a fingernail, scowling. “Plastic. Everything is plastic. There’s not a blade of grass, not a bit of metal anywhere.”

  The Scarlet Witch hugged herself as she looked around. “No, it’s not exactly how I’d pictured the future.”

  “George Lucas’d puke,” added the Beast.

  Iron Man, ever the conscientious leader, stepped forward. “I think we’d best save the discussion of future sho
ck for later, folks. Right now we’ve still got a job to do. The locater has, we can assume, brought us to Kang’s general time period and locale, but we’re going to have to fill in the details on the gentleman’s whereabouts ourselves.”

  “Then perhaps,” the Vision joined in, “it would be wise to query one of the local inhabitants. Kang’s presence is seldom a subtle one. Meanwhile, I shall see what I can discover by other methods.”

  So saying, the Vision desolidified, arched forward and sank down through the hard plastic walkway like a diver cleaving the ocean’s surface.

  “Sheesh!” said the Beast, shuddering slightly. “I know the Vizh is supposed to be a humorless ’droid, but I’ll bet pesos to pizza that he gets a helluva kick pullin’ that fadeout stunt.”

  Wanda just smiled.

  “Maybe so, Beast,” Iron Man said, “but he did have a point. Though if Kang is around, the locals certainly don’t seem upset about it.”

  Indeed, the several dozen people who could be seen strolling along the plastic avenue seemed totally unconcerned—about anything. Some had already passed the gaudily garbed Avengers with no more reaction than an occasional beatific smile. Of course, the fact that the strollers were even more ostentatiously attired than the Avengers may have had something to do with that circumstance. For whereas pastel simplicity appeared to be the ruling mode in architecture, personal fashion seemed to follow a style that could only be called “outré chic.”

  Women’s dresses were pointed at the sides, ankle length, rising to form inverted V-shaped slits at the front and back, reaching to several inches above the knees. Oddly enough, the men’s pants legs followed this same pattern, making the entire lot look as if they were wearing well-tailored hand-me-downs. Short capes over brightly-colored tunic tops were favored by both sexes, and gloves, belts, and boots were fashioned from a wide variety of synthetic animal parts—plastic reptile skin, cellulose bird feathers, and even genuine imitation-vinyl ivory. Their jewelry was trash.

  Actually, the term “trash” was relative, since throughout history one generation’s garbage has often become the next generation’s treasures. In this case, the treasures were centuries-old antiques. For example, one woman wore a necklace of colorfully decorated aluminum disks with matching crimped edges— They had once sat regally atop bottles of Coca Cola. Another stylish lady had her hair pinned up with a blue- and white-plastic ballpoint embellished with tiny golden arches and inscribed with the legend, “We do it all for you.” A gentleman stroller apparently believed in matching his adornments, for his cylindrical, copper-and-black belt buckle was nearly identical to the head of the slender plastic cane he twirled as he walked. Both were polished to a high gloss, and the faded lettering on each could still be made out to read, “Duracell.”

  Iron Man looked around for a likely informant, and spotted one moving along the concourse toward them from the right. The man must have been at least ninety years old, but looked exceedingly fit and spry. He wore a bright-mauve split-legged jumpsuit with yellow piping, and his pale-green hair flowed down to his shoulders. His only jewelry consisted of four antique Budweiser beer cans that had been cut open and then reformed around wrists and ankles as bracelets.

  The man was riding what looked to be the fortieth-century equivalent of a motorcycle: a six-foot-long plastic tube, approximately a foot in diameter, with two saddlelike seats and a set of handlebars at the front. A funnel-shaped device extended from below the tube to a point several inches above the street, and was apparently the source of the vehicle’s ability to float at that height as it moved forward with a psh-psh-psh-psh sound. The old man was traveling at modest speed, and slowed to a stop as Iron Man flagged him down.

  “Hiya, sonny, my name’s Mauler. What can I do for ya?”

  “I’d be very grateful if you could give us some information, sir. We’ve come a great distance looking for someone, and we were hoping that you might be able to tell us where he is.”

  “Sure, sonny, I’d be happy to. What’s the gent’s na— Hey! Is that . . .” The green-haired man bent forward, looking at Iron Man with squinting eyes and rising interest. “. . . is that metal you’re wearin’? I mean, real, honest-to-Bogey metal?”

  “Well, uh, yes it is, actually,” Iron Man answered a bit cautiously. “A highly-sophisticated alloy mesh, to be exact.”

  “Hot Spam!” The old man slapped his aluminum-clad wrists together in exuberance. “I didn’t know there was that much genuine hard stuff in this whole sector. You must’ve really hit it lucky at the poppo tables to be able to afford somethin’ like that!”

  “The . . . ? Oh, uh, yes. That’s exactly what happened.” Iron Man finally realized what the old man was talking about. The Beast, perched in a handstand on a nearby plastic replica of a giant bunny rabbit, also caught on—but wasn’t quite so demure in his realization.

  “Holy geez!” he called. “Metal must’ve been so used up over the centuries that even old throwaways have become valuable!”

  “Well, of course they have,” answered the ancient biker. “Everyone knows that. You act like you’ve never been to Earth before. You a Jupiter Convert or somethin’?”

  Iron Man answered for the Beast. “Actually, we’ve all come from rather far away. And we’re not familiar with all of the local customs just yet.”

  “Oh. That’d explain it then.”

  “Explain what?”

  “Why, your blue friend’s goin’ overboard. Everybody knows that toop is all the rage, but ya gotta admit that’s a bit much!”

  “Toop?” asked the Beast. “What’s toop?”

  Mauler sighed patiently. “Toop is toop. Ya know, fuzz? Rug? Brain grass? Like this.” The fortieth-century biker reached a thin hand up to grasp his hair, then lifted the green mop to reveal a shiny, totally-bald pate beneath. “M’self, I’ve always thought that skin was beautiful. Thought so ever since everyone’s hair fell out durin’ that problem they had with the ozone layer, oh, generations ago. But I guess people will always be vain.” He readjusted the pale-green toupee on his head and looked sideways at the Beast. “Some more than others, I reckon.”

  The Beast placed both hands on his furry chest and, in his best Steve Martin voice, said, “Well, excuuuuuse me!”

  The old biker grinned. “Sure, sonny. Think nothin’ of it.”

  Cutting off the Beast’s less-than-amiable response, Iron Man broke in. “Er, about that man we’re looking for. I realize that you probably won’t be able to give us any specific information, but maybe you can give us enough clues so that we can hunt him up ourselves. His name’s Kang, though he may have—”

  “Oh, sure. Kang.” Mauler pointed back down the street in the direction from which he’d come. “Ya go down five walks, spin a right, an’ go seven more walks. Then turn left an’ ya can’t miss it.” He twisted a dial on the handlebars of his bike and started psh-pshing down the street. “So long. Have a nice day. An’ don’t take no wooden creds, y’hear?”

  For a moment, the Avengers watched the venerable biker riding away, one or two of them noting the embroidered baby-blue skull and crossbones on the back of his jumpsuit; then the Beast spoke.

  “Boy, talk about clues!”

  “Bah!” Quicksilver added. “This is insane!”

  “Aye,” said Thor, “but so, then, is our quarry. We must take care. This widespread knowledge of Kang’s whereabouts could be but bait for a deadly snare.”

  Iron Man turned to look up the street. “I agree with Thor. We have to be careful—but we also have little choice but to push on. You can bet Kang’s not sitting still.”

  “But shouldn’t we wait for the Vision?” the Scarlet Witch asked, as much reason as concern in her voice.

  “Why?” countered Quicksilver, walking past his sister to join Iron Man. “I should think that he would be quite at home in this world of unfeeling plastic. If I were you, I’d be neither surprised nor disappointed if he never returned.”

  “Of all the—” Wanda began, but
was cut short by Iron Man’s solid tones of command.

  “All right, you two, that’s enough! We’re a team, remember? And Captain America’s life—as well as our own—may well depend on our performance as a team. So any chips on anyone’s shoulders are hereby suspended until we all get back to our own time, and our own world. Is that clear?”

  Quicksilver’s words were as cold as his eyes were smoldering. “Yes. Quite clear.”

  “Of course, Iron Man,” Wanda added. “I’m sorry.”

  “All right, then. The Vision will catch up to us when he’s ready.” Iron Man began walking up the street in the direction in which Mauler had pointed. “Let’s go.”

  The five-block journey down the main promenade was an education in itself. Nowhere was there any sign of the oppressive dictatorship or social disorder that had been prophesied in so many doomsday novels of the twentieth century. Indeed, instead of harsh government edicts, it seemed that this future Earth was ruled more by the direct demands of commerce and leisure.

  The Avengers walked slowly, fascinated by the bizarre variety of goods and services available to their cultural descendants. To one side was a large window through which could be seen a number of sleeping people reposing in individual, multicolored booths, plastic-coated wires running from their heads to individual controls at a master console. The lettering on the window proclaimed it to be “Fred & Ethel’s Doze-An’-Shows Dream Shoppe. New Cassettes Delivered Weekly.”

  Nearby was an eatery called the Bagel Yum, which was fronted by a huge, holographic bagel sporting a smiling face. The menu in the window boasted that the Bagel Yum offered only the finest of soy bagels, along with a wide variety of toppings that included cream cheese and penguin, imported Martian lichen (red or white), and a somewhat questionable delicacy called Puberty Surprise (“Chef Raoul’s specialty”).