We were standing in what had been my grandmother's kitchen, and was now a filthy, fetid mess, a breeding ground for cockroaches and mold. So many of my memories, good and bad, were in that place, the bad overlaying the good, trying to smother them out.
My mind was working frantically as I pointed to the hall and said—"Down there, and around the corner." What could I say that would keep him from killing me, if it came to that? 'Talk to Boris first, ask him if what I have done has been good or bad for you.' 'Did what I said in Hell support what you think of me now, or what you thought of me before?' 'Remember—I'm carrying your child!'
That last statement was going to be my last resort, because if it failed—I could not bear to think of that. I followed him down the narrow hall made narrower still by the boxes crowding it, and as we turned the corner and began up the stairs, I cleared my throat and asked, "Have you ever wondered why all the heroes in New York—there must be dozens of them—couldn't prevent the tragedy of 9/11?
"Why , when they've saved the world who knows how many times, couldn't they prevent two little planes from crashing into two buildings? Why they couldn't save the people in the towers? Just by flying or telekinetically moving the severed tops to a location where they could get out? Why they couldn't keep the towers from collapsing, or burning? Why were they powerless to save one single life? It wasn't simple incompetence."
"I cannot say that I have." Victor remarked dryly. "Where is the attic?"
"The only way to get to it is in the master bedroom." I pointed to the door. "They were unable to prevent 9/11 because some events—and some people are more real than others."
"I dislike the implication that I am , by extension, unreal. You will oblige me by staying quiet." I followed him into the bedroom, and found him looking at the closed hatch in the ceiling. He reached up and grasped the cord that operated the pull-down stairs, which unfolded with their familiar screeching and squealing, and a small shower of dust.
"They'll never hold your weight –not when you're in armor." I informed him.
"Will they not?" He set a foot on the lowest tread, shifted his weight onto it—and the board promptly cracked in two.
"The space up there isn't high enough for you to stand upright, even in the center. I have to stoop a little to keep from bumping my head. Unless you want to get out of your armor, you'll have to trust me." I told him.
"And if I get out of the armor, I will have to trust you. Go—get your proofs—but see you bring every scrap, or it will be the worse for you." I did not like that, but I went.
I began with the box of china—wrapped in the various newspaper pieces. Not just the one with Jean Grey/Phoenix's original obituary, but the others which I painstakingly assembled, one by one, telling of contradictions and impossibilities. Franklin Richards' birth announcement—from 1968. 1981—when Senator Kelly was attacked by the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. The first Daily Bugle with a photograph of Spiderman—1962. It had been taken by Peter Parker himself, on a timer. It had his by-line. And others—so many others.
I handed it to him and went back up. Next came the box with the prizes from my spree of burglaries and breaking-and entering—the ledger from the stonemason showing the original order for Jean Grey's headstone. The photograph showing Reed Richards, Ben Grimm, the Submariner, and Captain America jointly being decorated for their service in World War Two. A copy of Frank Castle's — he was the Punisher— service records for Viet Nam. That one was speculative on my part—he was young enough to have served in Viet Nam and still be running around playing vigilante-superhero with a gun today. Some day he wouldn't be. And other items…
I passed that to Victor, who was unwrapping the china—a very ugly set of stoneware from the seventies with clumsy daylilies painted on it—, and returned to the attic. There was more up here than just my proofs, of course. The rocking horse that had carried both my father and me. Great-Grandma Hildarose's wedding dress. An old, old crazy quilt, embroidered every which way. A box of delicate Christmas tree ornaments. This was my past, going back for generations…
I wanted to take my time, but I couldn't. Instead, I went to the unfinished part of the attic, and edged my way along the two-by-four beams to the spot where I had hidden the box, the one I had bought at the yard sale, with my notes, and the other things.
I carried it down the stairs, and said to Victor, who was looking at the photo of Reed Richards and the others with a predictably hostile expression in his eyes, "The living room shouldn't be too bad, if I remember right. There's better light, and we can sit down."
"That is all?" he asked.
"Yes." I replied.
"Upon your word?" he pressed, adding, "For whatever that may be worth."
"Upon my given word." I was not going to comment on that last bit.
Two minutes later, he threw the handful of comic books down on the coffee table, saying, "So these are your proofs—this juvenile trash, the products of Richards' publicity machine!"
He was referring to the Fantastic Four comic books, which were licensed by the Four, and, along with the action figures, the t-shirts, etc, contributed substantially to their operating expenses.
"No." I gathered them up again. "Look again. You never gave them permission to use your name or image in their comics, and if they went ahead and put you in them, you would have leveled the publisher's building to the bare rock underneath. And these others—the X-Men don't have a comic book deal. Nor does the Hulk, or Spiderman, or Thor…."
He took them from me, and started to read them in total silence—the eye of the storm. I let him, and looked through the ones he wasn't reading. He had taken off his gloves, the better to handle the older books, the ones that were brittle and yellowing, from the days before they realized that people would want to keep them for years, that some of those who loved them when they were young would keep on loving them.
"At first I thought what anybody would," I said, just to fill the heavy silence. "That they couldn't be for real—that they were faked up somehow. But I did some research, and found that all the people who worked on them—all the writers and artists—were real. They just hadn't produced these books—not in this universe. Somehow—I don't know if the yard sale was in another universe, and I wandered into it—or if the box itself wound up in ours—it wound up here, and in my possession.
"At first I thought that some of the comic books simply happened to mirror what went on in our reality—but then things started happening here that followed the stories in the books exactly. Like when Galactus collapsed in New York, and Reed Richards saved his life with some form of cosmic dialysis. Then I knew that the books didn't just record what was happening—they dictated it. Every member of the costumed adventurer community was no more able to control what they did or said than a train is capable of being steered as an automobile is steered. It's a form of predestination worse than Calvinism—because whether you're saved or damned, at least with Calvinism, once you're dead, you're dead. You don't have to come back and go through it all over and over again."
I leaned over to see what Victor was reading—it was the infamous 'Squirrel Girl' feature, in which a teenage girl with the ability to command squirrels has them swarm all over him and nibble his armor until its functions break down. "This never happened." he said with disgust.
"It was probably a Doombot." I soothed him.
He flung it down, and sprang to his feet. "The worst of these make me out to be a buffoon, a caricature, a stock villain from melodrama—posturing and mouthing clichéd dialog. The best leave me some modicum of dignity—but always, I am left to shake my fist and bellow 'Richards' ineffectually at the sky—."
"As you are defeated over and over again. That's the first Law of Heroics." I interrupted, speaking softly and low-pitched, as I usually did. "'The Hero always wins—even if he or she has to die in the process.' Richards was created first, to be the hero. You came afterwards, to be the villain. While our universe is linked slavishly to the universe where the Marvel Entertainment Group prints these stories—you—and not only you, but every member of the costumed adventurer community—might imagine you had free will, that you were making your own decisions, and that you stood a chance of winning—when you were no more free than a water balloon in the grip of gravity.
"Everything I have planned —everything I have done—every waking hour of my life for more than three years, has been done with the goal of severing the link between the universes—to set you, and everyone else, free." I folded my hands, and looked him in the eyes,
He stared at me for a very long moment. At least it seemed long. Then he held out his hand, palm up and open. "Your notes." he demanded.
TBC...