This is Boull. Here, the Celtic nations are always in a primitive state of development. Meanwhile, the Great Powers grow, breed, and build new technology all around them.


A long blacktop highway runs through this cool and rainy countryside. A lot of Celts who come through here find it chilling to the bone. And with good reason; it's often patrolled by Makuas.

On the roadside out here, a nice white sedan has been pulled over...by a much faster black sedan with flashing roof lights. While this lasts, a truck drives by, pulling a stock trailer full of wildebeest. It stinks as it passes...but at least the smell won't linger as long as its source doesn't.

The lady cop checks Bobby Drake's license and registration. Bobby's surprised that she's not more suspicious because he's both white and only so straight.

Bobby waits, dreading the lady cop's judgement. In the meantime, he scratches his hair a lot. It's been itching a lot lately. Freezing his hair doesn't seem to work, either...

At last, the lady cop returns his license and registration...and as a revolted reaction when she looks at him.

O no, Bobby thinks to himself. She's racist. She's gonna throw me in a cage and never let me out. I'm doomed!

"Boy," she says, in a semi-sexy Makua accent, "you gotta go up datta way and getcha some hair cut!"

Bobby checks himself in the mirror. As relieved as he is that she's not going to pull a racist one on him, she's right.

At this, Bobby mopes. When you're a Celt living on Boull, finding a barber who won't abuse your head can be like...trying to find good beer in Sakha.

At last, the lady cop drives on. Relieved, Bobby waits until she's long gone. He waits a while, for any rushing traffic to pass. It doesn't. Bobby steps on it, and makes his way up north, in search of a barber...

Ray Stevens, he's going to hate this...


The road abandons the countryside, and enters a forest. The forest seems to greet Bobby's anti-haircut pessimism...

At last, he gets to a house. Near it, there's a barn. The estate decorates itself with vintage material from different time periods. If asked, the host tells what few visitors he ever has that these relics are mere replicas.

Bobby's not too convinced. He's not much of a historian...but these relics look VERY authentic... Almost as if...

The host keeps a lot of tools in the barn. Most of them look like metal arms. One of them is a chainsaw. Bobby swallows hard.

There's a glass counter. Inside, there are glass shelves. Displayed here and there, there are prosthetic eyes. They all have light bulbs in them. None of them look like anything you'd find in one of todays optometrist's clinics...

The barber chair is the driver seat of an old Peterbilt rig. Bobby has to ascend a set of steps just to access it.

The barber comes upstairs from a cellar. He's dressed like the Golden Horde. He sheds this clothing, as he's preparing for the haircut. If the barber didn't intimidate Bobby more, he'd joke about whether the barber thinks he's a model or a barber.

Bobby watches...and screams like a girl...when the barber takes his metal arm off. He temporarily puts another one on, and uses it to hang his first arm in its special place among the racks. With this same arm, he pulls a lever. This causes all of the prosthetic arms to revolve around the barn vault, via a conveyor that they hang from.

This creeps Bobby out a bit. Even so, he'd have to admit that he'd probably do the same thing if he were a cyborg.

At last, Summers pulls the lever back. With the second arm, he takes down a third one from its rack. Once it's down, he removes the second, puts it back in its case, and plugs the third one into his arm socket.

Again, Bobby feels like vomiting. He knows he shouldn't judge. But damn, if it isn't so easy...

"I'll be with you in a minute," Summers tells his client, as he goes into a back room. He stays gone for a bit. Until then, Bobby tries to come to terms with the living hell he'll be getting a haircut in.

Moments later, it gets worse. Summers comes out of the back room wearing a shirt that says I HATE CRYO-MUTANTS on the front, in fire-red letters.

And so, Summers cuffs Bobby's hands to the Peterbilt chair...and his ankles. This nightmare just keeps getting worse. And Bobby's asking for none of it.

Summers stands before Bobby, in all of his cyborg-from-the-future terror. He crosses his arms; his real one with his cyber-prosthetic one. His cyber-eye shines with a bright red fiery beacon.

"What," he grumbles, "do you want?"

A lot of cryo-mutants would be intimidated in a sitch like this. Bobby was not. Deep down inside, he knows he's got nothing to be ashamed of. He's just a simple little mutant. He generates his little ice, and protects his little homefolk if they get in trouble.

He can't tell Mr. Summers the truth, so he improvises something on the spot. "I was an automatic rifleman," he says, "on a fire team in a marine infantry regiment. In the field, I mowed the enemy down as if they were cornstalks in the field. I showed them no mercy...on the grounds that I knew that I could trust them to show me none."

Summers smiles, and claps his hands together. "PERFECT!" Bobby still has NO clue as to how Summers doesn't hurt his human hand with his cyber-prosthetic one as he claps them. "Say goodbye to your hair, debonair!"

"Goodbye?! But..."

Before Bobby can complain more, Mr. Summers enlarges and activates the many hair-cutting tools on what appears to be his default barber's arm...if he even has a variety where that is. Bobby feels bad. First of all, he's still very terrified of Mr. Summers. And second of all, you'd think that a man who has as many prosthetic arms as Kitty Pryde does pairs of shoes would at least have TEN prosthetic arms for cutting hair...


Regardless of what difference it would make, Bobby's soon highballing down the highway in his white car, making a beeline towards the state line. And yes, as much as it pains him to admit it...his hair is gone with the Uzi.

On the upside, he thinks Kitty Pryde might be hot for guys with no hair. On the downside, he REALLY wishes he knew for sure... Kitty sure multiverse-fares a lot...