ref: a00feb029ddcea6188f4324169e5f2b6a389de4e
dir: /troff/av5-002.ms/
.SH HAUS' WILL .R .PP .ps 10 The search for survivors had produced nothing. Still, Piro couldn't shake the feeling this would not be the last they'd hear of their boss. When the heroes arrived at their midtown headquarters, Plinth Mold was there, sitting quietly behind his desk. Their story did not amuse him. .PP .ps 10 "As you can see, I'm fine," he said, his stare boring a hole straight into Piro's eyes. .PP .ps 10 "We figured," Tom said, as if it had been obvious all along. .PP .ps 10 Piro sipped his coffee. .PP .ps 10 The other Plinth, for some reason still going by the name Haus, had not left a will. Piro reasoned he must have come from some other timeline. "Yeah, .I our .R guy has his shit together," Tom observed. "Something like that," Piro allowed. .PP .ps 10 If they only knew. .PP .ps 10 Returning to the timeline again and again was not easy. Plinth's visits would often overlap. He would see himself coming and going. The sensation was never pleasant\(emhe didn't even like to look in the mirror. .PP .ps 10 He'd been born this way. Simple. But could that ever be enough? .PP .ps 10 Such questions were not helpful. There were so many of him running around that sooner or later he was bound to run into himself. And then what? Each of his selves looking out for their own self interest, the continuity would soon be a shambles. .PP .ps 10 But, no changes. Haus refused to abridge himself for the sake of mere humanity. The reader was on his own. .PP .ps 10 Raven beeped his key fob and climbed into his Mercedes coupe. He had just noticed a police cruiser pulling up in his rearview mirror when an outsized explosion rocked his vehicle, obliterating the automobile and himself along with it. .PP .ps 10 The police officer exited his cruiser, drawing his weapon and aiming it approximately at the smoldering wreckage. .PP .ps 10 "Request backup," he shouted into his collar mic, as bits of the Mercedes slowly rained down on his police hat and vest. .PP .ps 10 Unbeknownst to him, a piece of debris had damaged the antenna on his vehicle. There would be no backup, no answer to his following queries. .PP .ps 10 It was a sting. Piro and Thomas had set up a fresh sales operation to draw out loyal customers who might also have recently patronized their competitors. Evidence might be found in their pockets. .PP .ps 10 The very first customer into the barrel produced a hit. Piro searched the body, pulling its pockets out of its pants like rabbit ears. A bootleg comic wrapper bounced off the pavement and started to roll away, propelled by the rising wind. Thomas lunged forward and stepped on it, flattening it under his shoe. Piro scooped up the wrapper and turned it over in his hands, frowning. .PP .ps 10 "It's worse than we thought." .PP .ps 10 Sonic Boom leaned back from his microscope, allowing it all to sink in. He had rushed down to the lab, not even bothering to change out of his hero costume (he had simply thrown the lab coat on over his distinctive black and orange uniform), to examine this lately acquired sample from the distinguished competition's new fall line. A few moment's work confirmed his greatest fear: Somehow, someone had duplicated the Actron team's formula for rock cocaine. .PP .ps 10 The thought itself was unthinkable. The repercussions would be catastrophic\(emhow would this ultimately affect crack sales in New York? The loss of revenue to the Actron team would set back their superseding program of halting the spread of illegal drugs by... years, if not decades. .PP .ps 10 Time stood still as Sonic Boom cleared his mind of distractions. He would bring all his powers of concentration to bear upon this, the most important task of his short career. .PP .ps 10 Eva never like to interfere with Tom's relationship with his father. Whatever had gone on between them during Tom's childhood had left it's scars. Whenever the subject came up in conversation, Eva would simply let Tom speak until he ran out of steam, until he had gotten it out of his system. She never interrupted, never interjected. .PP .ps 10 This time was different. .PP .ps 10 "You \fIknow\fR he's involved with this, somehow." .PP .ps 10 "Yes." .PP .ps 10 "What are you going to \fIdo\fR about it?" .PP .ps 10 Tom seemed to consider his response, spreading his hands flat on the kitchen counter as he stared down into the sink. .PP .ps 10 "I'm going to kill him." .PP .ps 10 And this was exactly why she always worked so hard to never get involved. .PP .ps 10 The RAGNAROK parked silently in orbit, monitoring the events presently unfolding in NYC from a safe distance. Whatever it was her boys had decided to do about the pending copyright conflagration had altered the surface of the future as she could perceive it. Things might never be the same. .PP .ps 10 It figured. Her boys always made a splash. She was proud of them. .PP .ps 10 Mostly, she kept that to herself. .PP .ps 10 Plinth Mold had a problem. .PP .ps 10 Someone was picking off his men. But whom? It was hard to tell. .PP .ps 10 He'd task Piro and TAB2 with getting to the bottom of the mystery. His boys could handle just about anything. It was why he had let them live, after a series of unnecessary setbacks caused mainly by their inept responses to novel challenges. That, and a prior obligation to their mother. .PP .ps 10 Oh, he was well aware of the RAGNAROK, slowly orbiting the Earth. He'd deal with her as time allowed. .PP .ps 10 Plinth depressed a switch on his desk and a holographic display resolved slowly into view. The master map of his overlapping selves, superimposed upon the timeline in which he currently resided. It would be tricky, yes, but he would find a way to wind a path out of this mess. .PP .ps 10 Or something like that. .PP .ps 10 He was starting to lose interest.