#10 Volume Two

Previously: With the Fantastic Four away, it’s fallen to Franklin Richards and his young friends to investigate a robbery at the team’s warehouse. All clues point towards an old foe, Miracle Man, save for one problem: he’s dead. Actually, make that two problems, as panic suddenly floods the city’s streets…

---

 

"I don't get it. I mean, what are they running from?"

A good question. The smoke is what had initially caught Frankin's attention. Spying it through the warehouse's office window, he had rushed outside to investigate the source. Or, more accurately, his friends Eva and Hubert had rushed and he had reluctantly followed them. He'd already known that something bad was apt to be behind it. That's the way things worked in his family. He was used to it.

More than that, he was kind of tired of it.

Eva and Hubert, on the other hand, were ecstatic. He suspected that they'd already convinced themselves that they were now on a genuine Fantastic Four-style adventure. A dream come true for them, although he couldn't quite see why.

"I don't know, but they look frightened."

And it wasn't any fire scaring them. The smoke they'd seen from the window was the result of a few tipped over trash bins whose contents had caught light. Presumably by accident, like the multiple fender benders that had halted traffic up and down the street. Several cars had already been abandoned, their occupants fleeing up the sidewalk on foot, in states varying between their own bewilderment to outright terror.

"Maybe we should ask someone," Eva decided, snatching at the cuff of one of the frantic passerbys. "Excuse me, sir, but what’s going on?"

"Going on? You ask me what’s going on? Are you nuts?" The man jerked his sleeve out of the girl’s hands, his eyes glazed and wild. "Alligators, kid! Giant man-eating alligators! Can't you see them crawling up out the manholes?"

Unfortunately, despite a fervent desire on at least two of their parts, they could see no such thing. No giant alligators, man-eating or otherwise, were visible anywhere on the street. Only mobs of confused people tripping over one another in their flight. Franklin was surprised that no one had been hurt yet, but if things kept on this way that was bound to change very soon.

"And why do they keep ducking into random cars?" Hubert asked.

Franklin had noticed this as well. As the people ran, several would check the doors of the abandoned cars and, if they found them unlocked, would pause to lean inside. They appeared to be turning on the radios, which made even less sense. Especially since the radios, as they grew near enough to hear one, seemed to be playing nothing but static.

"I don't know, guys. This is weird. Maybe we should go back to the warehouse before things get too dangerous."

"Um, Franklin," Eva replied, pointing back the way they came. "I think it might already be too late for that…"

Of course, even without looking, Franklin already knew what was waiting back there for them.

Something bad.

As usual.

---

"I think it's gaining on us! Keep running, keep running!"

They kept running, weaving between stationary cars and around small knots of frightened people cluttering the sidewalks. They'd already gone two blocks and were rapidly growing tired, particularly Hubert who now lagged behind, puffing like a bellows. Although their current pursuer had started out as just a small dot on the horizon, it seemed to be gaining rapidly, both in proximity and size.

What they didn't know, and didn't have time to discuss and so find out, is that there was no consensus among the three as to what exactly was chasing them.

Franklin was certain it was some kind of giant robot, a combination of the old Elektro diagrams he had seen in his father's lab and the stories Mr. Stark used to scare him with when younger about something called Ultimo. Whatever it was, it was large, made of glistening steel, had huge hinged jaws, and eyes that seemed to stream a dark purplish energy.

Eva, on the other hand, would have staked her life that it was an enormous ape chasing them. One that looked a whole lot like the monster in that movie her father had shown her last week, King Kong, dubious anatomy and all.

And, lastly, Hubert knew he was being pursued by an enormous fifty foot woman in a black lace brassiere, a woman with alarming similarities to his mother.

"This is absurd," Eva complained, between breaths. "Giant monsters are, like, physically impossible!"

"Huh?" It seemed a strange time for a science lesson, all considered.

"The bone structure of your average mammal, including human beings, could not support a blown up version of the same. The legs would snap like twigs, for one."

"So what are you trying to say?"

"What I’m trying to say is --" At that moment, a spray of glass erupted through the air as a giant robot/monkey/stiletto heeled foot flattered a Volkswagon a few feet behind them. "EEK!"

"In that case," Hubert said, stumbling to catch up as the other two paused for breath, "I completely agree, well put."

They'd all realized that running headlong up the street wasn't going to serve as a longterm strategy. For every ten steps they made, the thing behind them also made ten, covering several times the distance. So Franklin made a command decision. He grabbed Eva’s wrist and went barreling into a nearby alleyway. It would be too narrow for their giant pursuer to follow, he figured.

Unfortunately, there was a slight miscalculation in his plan. A mere fifteen feet into the alleyway, a tall slatboard fence had been erected, one that was too smooth for them to scale. By the time they realized this, the giant robot/ape/Oedipus Complex had already caught up with them, blocking their exit.

"I think that was probably a bad idea," Franklin noted, sheepishly.

"HERBIE! Wake up!" The knapsack on Eva's back jerked left, then right, then left again, until the Velcro seal came undone. A small silver globe with a bright blue glass eye floated up into the air.

"HERBIE activated. Please -- bztt -- input command."

"Use your death ray! On that…that thing! Hurry!"

Hubert, his face as round and red as a tomato now, still managed a smile. "And you said adding a death ray was stupid…"

"Scanning for target. Error, no target found! Input new command."

By this time, the monster had finished studying the alley, which was in fact too narrow for it to enter. It had devised a simple solution to this problem. Placing one hand on each of the opposing buildings, it positioned itself so as squish them with its enormous heel, like bugs caught in a crevice.

Meanwhile, HERBIE continued to be fussy. "Error, no target found! Input new c-"

"Oh, just shoot straight ahead, why don't you? Shoot! Shoot!"

A panel opened in the bottom of the globe and a small appendage shaped like a dental drill emerged. A spiral of greenish plasma erupted from the tip, passing harmlessly through the monster’s kneecap and continuing across the street, where it bored a neat hole through a department store's display window. The fashionably attired mannequins inside melted like wax.

"So…it's, what, intangible too?"

The robot fired again, this time higher, its beam passing through the monster’s neck before disappearing into the sky. (It would miss the wing of a Detroit-bound passenger jet by mere inches.)

"It's not real." Hubert decided with a scowl. "It's some kind of…hologram…or…"

"Illusion!" Eva corrected. "An hypnotically-induced illusion, I bet. As in Miracle Man. This must be why he stole whatever he stole. To terrorize the city."

"I suppose that makes sense."

Actually that didn’t make any sense at all, really, but similar things happened all the time.

"And as the only people who know about the robbery, that means we're going to have to be the ones to stop him!"

"Um, I guess," Franklin said, none too sure that line of logic was sound, "but we don’t even know where he is."

Eva grinned and removed the knapsack from her back, fishing something out of the bottom of it. It was a small handheld device that resembled a GPS unit. A flashing red dot lit up the middle of the display screen. "Actually, I think we might. I found this in the office at the warehouse. I figured your dad would probably place trackers on any confiscated super villain equipment, just in case of a situation like this one."

It did sound like something his dad would do. Unfortunately.

"Oh. Great. So….where's it indicating?"

---

It was, fortunately for them, indicating a location not too far away. Just another three blocks, provided they cut through a few alleyways, to the WJKY radio station. The latter discovery helped them put two and two together, namely the people flipping on car radios and their own sudden hallucinations. Apparently, Miracle Man was broadcasting his hypnotic signal via radio waves, causing anyone who heard them to see frightening visions.

So as the three progressed they did their best to avoid any stationary cars, even stuffing torn bits of clothing into their ears as a precaution. This made conversation rather difficult.

"We're going to need a plan when we get there," Hubert noted. "We need to figure out who's team leader first."

"What?"

"Team leader! We need a team leader!"

"Why do we have to have a leader?" Eva asked.

Huber snorted. "What a total girl question."

"Huh? A grilled what?"

"A total girl question! That's a total girl question! It's obvious why we need a leader!"

"Why?"

"Because!"

"Because why?"

"Conversation's over! Franklin's the leader. No further discussion! Besides…we're here."

The radio station and the street outside it were both eerily calm. Somewhere in the distance they could hear emergency sirens wailing. Things were no doubt getting worse, and they still had no idea why this was happening and only a slightly better notion of who was responsible. Behind those doors, anything could be waiting for them.

Hubert and Eva removed the stuffing from their ears and looked to Franklin. "What's the plan?"

Of course, he hadn't the foggiest. This was something his father excelled at, not him, and yet somehow here he was, playing the same role. It seemed depressingly unavoidable.

"Um, we just go by ear, I guess? Well…maybe not by ear, but…you know. Just so long as we remember that it's all done by hypnosis and can't really hurt us, we should be fine, right?"

---

Fifteen minutes later, Franklin was fairly certain they were all going to die.

He had already lost sight of Eva and Hubert, which should have been physically impossible in a studio this size. The room's dimensions, however, were shifting at random. At times he'd find himself moving through a series of narrow, winding hallways, or suddenly standing in the middle of an impossibly cavernous room, its walls stretching to the very limits of his vision. One moment he might be floating in mid-air, the next falling down a kaleidoscope-ing shoot into the blackest of bottomless pits.

That was of course all in his head. The result of hypnotically-induced illusions playing mind games with him. But realizing this did not make the illusions seem any less real or disorienting to Franklin. His last glimpse of his friends had told him they were fairing no better, Eva under the impression she was being eaten alive by feral aardvarks and Hubert certain he was drowning in a vat of rancid chocolate mousse.

Only HERBIE remained unaffected. But, without anyone to give him orders, he now floated motionless in the center of the room.

Think, Franklin told himself. There's got to be a way to overcome this, to break this spell we're under. After all, even when alive, Miracle Man was hardly considered an A-lister. He was, frankly, kind of a dork. There must be something…

The room shifted again, twirling like a gigantic cyclotron and turning Franklin’s stomach into taffy. He closed his eyes and was surprised to find the sickness quickly dissipating. But, then, of course it would, he told himself. He was not actually spinning. There were no centrifugal forces involved. The hypnosis might be muddling his thoughts but not his actual body.

So he kept his eyes closed and tried instead to focus on sound. Slowly he began to isolate the people around him. He could hear Eva, almost at his shoulder, making small whimpering noises as she struggled with whatever illusions were attacking her now. And those heavy gasps from a few feet away were probably Hubert's.

Next he made out a third person, one breathing rapidly as though his or her adrenaline was pumping, and he took a tentative step in that direction, then another. As he did new sounds assailed him, as if correcting for his change in strategy. He heard the voice of his father clearly.

“Franklin? Franklin, for Pete's sake, can't you concentrate? This is simple rudimentary physics, you should already be familiar. Sometimes I don't think you listen to a word I --"

It faded into another voice, one he recognized as belonging to his parents' good friend, Dr. Strange.

"…have a placed mental block on your powers. It's to everyone's benefit for now young man. Of course it's not a permanent solution, and you could still…."

"…disappoint me," his father sighed. "Is it too much to expect at least a little of myself in you? Some flicker of curiosity? When I was your age, I'd already built my first superconductor out of household items from the family junk drawer. Sometimes I wonder if you're really…"

"…not too dangerous to be allowed to run free," Dr. Strange continued. "With Franklin's powers, there's really no telling what he might do one day, even by accident! He's a danger to everyone, he's…"

Between these increasingly shrill voices, Franklin could just distinguish the breathing, now so close he could almost feel it on his face. Gripping the broken flashlight he'd borrowed from Mr. Gogol* in one sweaty hand, Franklin swung it with an angry howl. It hit something solid.

(See last issue. Yes, every detail I write has a purpose! (Except when it doesn't). - Al)

Something solid that yelped.

He opened his eyes, just in time to see the last wisps of a giant distorted Mr. Fantastic fade from sight. On the floor in front of him Miracle Man was sitting on his behind, his top hat askew. He looked more surprised than injured and slowly his form began to evaporate, like mist in a sudden wind.

In his place was left a young girl roughly Franklin's own age.

And she did not look pleased.

---

"You broke it!"

The girl stopped scowling at Franklin just long enough to gather the pieces of a small box-shaped gizmo up off the floor.

"Broke what?"

"What do you think, genius?"

She was a small reed-thin girl, scrawny almost, with curly hair, caramel-toned skin and a pert nose. Her eyes, narrowed and teary now, were normally quite large and almond-shaped. Franklin felt strangely guilty as she glared at him, although he was still fairly certain she was the bad guy here, not him.

"Hey, you're a girl."

She rolled her eyes. “Gee, you think?”

"No, I just mean…what happened to Miracle Man?"

She sighed and stood up, still fiddling with the box, slowly putting the pieces back in order. "I know who you are, of course. You're Franklin Richards, aren't you? I've seen your picture in the paper before. I suppose that means we're, like, destined to be archenemies."

"It does?"

"Probably. Miracle Man was my father, you see."

"Oh." Franklin paused, unsure what to make of that revelation. "So he put you up to this then? Is he around here somewhere…?"

"Yes. And no. He's still dead as far as I'm aware. I never actually met him."

"So how could he…"

"A videotaped recording," she explained. "He left me a bunch of taped recordings. My mother didn't want me listening to them but I snuck them on my own. This whole thing was all his plan. I just sort of followed the steps he laid out."

"Including breaking into my family's warehouse?"

"Yes." She grinned suddenly. "That part was actually kind of fun!"

"But how did you…"

"Hypnotize people? Mostly this box my dad made, which you better not have wrecked. All I do is switch between the different settings. It's pretty cool and super easy."

"Is that what's been hypnotizing everyone around town?"

She explained that, no, that was done through a separate recording currently being transmitted over the studio's radio relay. That's what she'd retrieved from the warehouse, actually. She was rather happy to hear that it was working too, since it was difficult to tell from up here.

"You realize it's causing a lot of trouble though, right?"

"Well, duh. I mean, I think that was pretty much my father's plan! You know, revenge and stuff, for not appreciating his genius, etcetera, etcetera."

"Right, yeah. Of course." This was, in fact, a very common source of motivation among career super villains. They were all chronic attention hogs. "But people are going to get hurt if it keeps up. Someone could even die, if they haven't already…"

She stopped to consider, as though this was the first the thought had crossed her mind, and bit her lower lip. "Oh. Well… I guess I could probably shut it off now. I suppose it's made enough of an impression. As long as Miracle Man gets the credit for everything."

"Oh, I’ll be sure to tell the authorities who was responsible alright…"

Now the girl, perhaps noting the disapproval in his tone, sighed. "You know, it's not easy having a famous father like mine. It's a lot to live up to. I guess you probably know something about having a famous dad though…"

Franklin did and for some reason that softened him towards her, despite the fact she was obviously nuts and had put them through a great deal of trouble. "Yeah, well, anyways, you said you could turn it off?"

He followed along behind her as she stopped the recording and then handed the tape over to him. She wouldn't be needing it any more, she explained. There wasn't really any purpose to performing the same act of villainy twice. In her father's instructional tapes, he had explained many times over the importance of keeping an act fresh if you wanted to maintain your audience.

"Wait. You're not, um, going to keep doing these things are you?"

She smiled and shrugged but any reply she may have planned beyond that was drowned out by a long groan from under the console. The radio program's host was currently crawling his way back out into the open. He looked a bit worse for wear but otherwise okay. Seeing him reminded Franklin of his own friends and he went to check on their condition. Eva was sitting cross legged on the floor, rubbing her head, while Hubert lay prone on his back, his right hand shielding his eyes. It had been a long day for both.

"Because, I mean, I think that would be a bad idea. I can understand you feeling pressured to follow in your father's footsteps, believe me, but he was, no offense, kind of a dangerous lunatic and…"

"Um, Franklin?"

"…well, have you considered therapy? They'll probably make it a mandatory part of your rehabilitation anyways when we turn you in and…"

"Um, Franklin?"

"What?"

"Who are you talking to?" Eva asked.

"To…you know, I forgot to ask your name? Since you already know mine, I…"

Franklin turned around and found himself gazing across a now empty studio. The little curly haired girl was gone, along with any sign of her hypno-box. Obviously it wasn't quite as broken as she'd claimed or else she was amazingly quick on her feet. Either way, it appeared that he'd let her get away.

"Oh, jeez."

"I take it Miracle Man is gone?"

"Girl, and, yeah, it looks that way. I think I may kind of suck at adventuring."

Eva smiled. "You’ll get better! Anyways, we still stopped the bad guy, and it was fun, wasn't it?"

Somewhere behind them Hubert groaned. That seemed like answer enough, for now.

---

 

NEXT ISSUE: It's back to the Negative Zone as Namor searches for the missing Mr. Fantastic. But does Earth's greatest scientist even want to be found?  

 

---

 

FANTASTIC FORUM

 

And so concludes a bit of silliness that I hope readers didn't find too off-putting. This will be the last we see of Franklin, Eva, Hubert, and HERBIE (August, what, 6? 7? I don't know…) for the time being, as we instead zero in on this run's final two storyarchs.

What's in store? More Negative Zone, more Impossible Man, a return of the Frightful Four, and maybe even some answers to a few lingering questions, who knows? Either way, I hope you'll stick around to find out.

- Alan Strauss