“And you had never noticed anything odd about the 68
puppets before?” Captain America asked. A patriotic quilt on the wall behind the guard matched Cap’s uniform.
He’s the only one of us who looks like he belongs here, Iron Man thought, taking in all the quaint and old-fashioned Americana on display. The Vision and I stand out like sore thumbs.
“No,” Rodriguez insisted, shaking his head. “They arrived on loan from some museum in Europe last week. I watched the curators mount them on the walls myself. There’s been no problem at all, until this morning.” When the puppets came to life, Iron Man thought. Blast, I hope this doesn’t turn out to be one of those weird sorcerous things. A scientist by both training and inclination, he was never comfortable dealing with the supernatural. Past adventures had forced him to grudgingly concede the existence of mystical forces within the universe, like Asgardian gods or the dread Dormammu, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. Give me a horde of rampaging cyborgs and aliens any day. Unfortunately, when it came to the Scarlet Witch, whose mutant sorcery derived from both science and the supernatural, an occult attack of some sort was a distinct possibility.
“You mentioned a security video earlier,” he reminded the guard. “I’d like to see that.”
“Yes,” the Vision said emphatically. “More data is required.” His sepulchral voice visibly unnerved Rodriguez, who gulped and looked away to avoid meeting the synthezoid’s unblinking plastic eyes. There was an intensity behind the Vision’s eerie stillness, Iron Man thought, that betrayed an unmistakable concern for the safety of his former wife—at least to someone who had known the Vision for as long as Iron Man had.
The guard signaled to a young aide or intern, who hurried over to hand Rodriguez an ordinary videocassette.
“We have cameras in the ceilings,” Rodriguez explained, presenting Iron Man with the tape, “to discourage vandalism, you know.” He cocked his head to one side, toward a closed door beyond the front desk. ‘ ‘If you want, you can use the VCR in the curator’s office, although it might be kind of crowded with all of you in there.” Rodriguez had explained earlier that the office was not a large one, which was why they had chosen to conduct the interview in the lobby, despite the milling spectators.
“Thank you, but that won’t be necessary,” Iron Man replied.
Gripping the cassette gently between his armored fingers, which could have crushed it to powder had he desired, he inserted the tape into the audiovisual communications array built into the collar of his armor. Stark-designed software rapidly converted the information encoded on the tape to his private format, then routed the data to the multi-purpose beam projector embedded in his chestplate. The unbreakable polycrystal lens lit up from within and, only seconds after Iron Man received the tape, it projected a three-dimensional, holographic image onto the empty air in front of the guard and the heroes. The holograph was even colorized.
“Holy cow!” Rodriguez exclaimed, his jaw dropping open.
Iron Man peered through the eye slits in his helmet at the instant replay of Wanda’s battle against, sure enough, a bunch of a very lively marionettes. He nodded in approval as the Scarlet Witch deployed her hex spheres against Baba Yaga and the other puppets, then frowned as a miniature effigy of Victor Von Doom blasted Wanda from behind with some variety of energy beam. For a second, he wondered whether the real Doom might be behind this unlikely ambush, but no, he decided, this didn’t feel like Doom’s style. Doom could be devious, but he had too much pride to shoot a woman in the back, especially via a puny toy version of himself.
Then who? Iron Man wondered. The Puppet Master? Mister Doll?
Before his eyes, the holographic Witch collapsed onto the floor and the malevolent puppets converged on her unconscious body, forming a circle around her. Iron Man held his breath, anxious to see what happened next, when the image dissolved into a blur of incoherent visual static.
“What is it?” Captain America asked, squinting at the globe of flickering electronic snow. “What’s wrong?” Iron Man called up an immediate systems report. Micro-projectors in his eyepieces aimed facts and figures directly onto his retina, causing the visual display to float before his field of vision. He scrolled quickly through the report, but the news was not encouraging. Switching off his multi-beam in disappointment, he turned toward his fellow Avengers.
“It’s no good,” he reported. The flexible metal of his golden faceplate mirrored his disapproving expression. “Some sort of intense electromagnetic pulse erased the tape from that point on.”
“Then we have no idea where they took Wanda,” Cap stated, frustration burning in his clear blue eyes, ‘ ‘or even how they got her out of the building.”
“I’m afraid not,” Iron Man confirmed. He ejected the cassette from his communications array and handed it back to Rodriguez, who still seemed amazed that such an extraordinary visual display could come from so ordinary a video cassette. “Thank you for your cooperation, sir,” Iron Man said, making a mental note to have Tony Stark donate a sizable endowment to the museum. “Perhaps you can show us exactly where this occurred?”
When in doubt, inspect the scene of the crime, Iron Man thought. He was a scientist and engineer, not a detective, but maybe the marauding marionettes had left some clue to their origins or present whereabouts. Right now, that was the only chance they had to find the Scarlet Witch, hopefully in one piece.
I really, really hope we’re not talking magic here, he wished. Anything but that.
The Vision said nothing at all.
“Oh, my stars and garters!”
Henry McCoy leaped over the camelback sofa toward the television set mounted on the wall of the X-Men’s spacious rec room, the book he was reading—Metaphor and Metaphysics: A New Interpretation of Quantum Reality—instantly forgotten, all thought of its contents driven away by the startling pictures on the TV screen.
“Scott! Ororo! Make haste!” he called out. “The redoubtable Rogue has made the nightly news!”
His hairy blue fingers turned up the volume even as Cyclops and Storm, now garbed in everyday attire, rushed into the room. Scott Summer’s eyes remained concealed behind a pair of ruby quartz glasses, but Ororo Munroe's lustrous azure orbs widened in amazement.
“Goddess!” she exclaimed.
On the screen above their heads, a familiar figure appeared to be fighting off a swarm of. .. angry tee-shirts? Although the woman’s features were obscured by the frenzied layers of fabric clinging to her face, it was obvious to the Beast and his teammates that the lady in question was none other than the X-Men’s very own Southern rebel. The heads and shoulders of fleeing New Yorkers occasionally intruded into the frame as the jostled cameraman struggled to keep Rogue in the center of the picture. As she flailed about wildly, her super-strength tore apart what looked like some sort of flimsy showcase for anti-mutant propaganda, while the typically resonant voice of a local news anchor provided a running commentary:
“... this amateur video, taken by a quick-thinking tourist from Santa Fe, clearly shows the chaos that erupted today at a Greenwich Village street fair, turning an afternoon of outdoor entertainment into a terrifying experience for dozens of innocent fairgoers. Authorities have tentatively identified the woman in this footage as a member of the outlaw mutant organization known as the X-Men. She is believed to go by the alias of ‘Rogue,’ and has been linked to a number of past mutant disturbances....”
An eyewitness, so named by the caption that appeared under his close-up, offered his own take on the episode. “What more proof do we need that these mutant monsters don’t care who gets caught in the middle of one of their paranormal power struggles?” Sweaty but self-satisfied, the witness eagerly launched into what sounded like a well-worn spiel. “The Friends of Humanity have documented over 875 cases of collateral damage caused by rival factions of mutant terrorists....”
“These views do not necessarily represent those of this station or its management,” the B
east interrupted, lowering the volume once more. “Or so one most fervently hopes and prays.”
Thankfully, the unsolicited editorializing quickly gave way to further footage of the incident in the Village. Her hands and face nearly mummified by the seemingly possessed garments, Rogue lifted off from the street, the jerky eye of the camera tracking her into the sky until she flew out of the frame. This was followed by a somewhat more professional shot of a familiar stone monument that looked like it had been hit by a missile. The Washington Square Arch, the Beast recognized, although it would be better described now as the Washington Square Pillars, the arch itself having been reduced to rubble, apparently during Rogue’s headlong attempt to escape the suffocating fabric.
Another landmark destroyed, the Beast thought, sighing. Through no fault of their own, the X-Men’s hard-fought battles against evil mutants and other menaces often left a regrettable amount of damage and debris behind. This is not going to help our already dubious reputation.
Bad publicity could be dealt with another day, however; finding out what had become of Rogue was the preeminent matter at the moment. With Cyclops and Storm, the Beast watched the news broadcast for a few minutes more, until it became obvious that there was nothing further to be learned there. He channel-surfed rapidly, checking out the coverage on other stations, but they all seemed to be repeating the same information and footage over and over.
“So much for the mass media,” he pronounced, clicking the TV off and hopping over to confer with Scott and Ororo. He perched on the back of a chair, his toes wrapped around the carved wooden ridge atop the seat. “No one seems clear on what transpired after Rogue’s collision with the Arch, but this does not bode well for the ready return of our absent amigo.”
“We have to assume she’s in the hands of the enemy,” Cyclops stated. He paced behind the couch, his hands jammed into the pockets of his slacks, too engaged with the crisis to sit down. Storm, wearing a floor-length green housedress of African design, stood by the window, looking on with a deceptive aura of serenity. The Beast knew that Ororo was no doubt just as impatient to come to Rogue’s aid as Cyclops.
“Ah, but which one?” the Beast asked. “Refresh my overtaxed memory,” he said, balancing on one foot while he scratched his head with the other. “Isn’t there some costumed character out west—California, I believe— who’s supposed to have the ability to psychically manipulate clothing and other textiles?”
“Gypsy Moth,” Cyclops supplied, having done his homework as usual; Scott was the only person Hank knew who read super-criminal case studies in his spare time. “But she’s never had any grudge against us. More likely, we’re dealing with a powerful telekinetic capable of turning inanimate objects into weapons. The Black Queen maybe, or the Shadow King.”
“It is unfortunate that Phoenix is abroad,” Storm commented. “In her absence, we are ill-equipped to deal with attacks of a psionic nature. Especially now that Psylocke can no longer access her telekinetic gifts.”
Betsy Braddock, the Beast recalled, had recently departed the X-Men, following her crippling psychic clash with Amahl Farouk. A costly victory, that, he mused, and a reminder that we X-Men do not always emerge unscathed from our various sorties into all manner of peril. “We’ll just have to do the best we can,” Cyclops declared grimly. His hands gripped the back of the overstuffed ottoman. “I’ll send out a general alert, but Lord only knows when Jean and the others will wrap up that business in the Savage Land.” He strode decisively for the door, turning his back on the silent television. ‘ ‘Into uniform, everyone. There's nothing more we can do here. I want to be in NYC by 2030 hours.”
Already wearing as much of a uniform as he ever did, the Beast headed for the lab to assemble whatever equipment might be required. Somehow, he guessed that finding Rogue was going to take a lot of old-fashioned detective work, including a forensic examination of whatever evidence remained.
I mean, homicidal tee-shirts? he thought. Well, I’ll be an anthropoid’s antecedent. . . .
Yellow crime scene ribbons still cordoned off the back wing of the museum. The Vision glided right through them, leaving the banners untouched, but Iron Man and Captain America waited for the security guard to pull the tape aside before entering the site of the Scarlet Witch’s abduction. Curious onlookers lingered behind the yellow banners, watching the heroes’ every move through the viewfinders of clicking disposable cameras.
The walls were conspicuously bare, except for mounted plaques describing the now-missing exhibits. Spotlights shone on empty hooks where once the puppets had hung. Iron Man noted some scuff marks on the floor, possibly from the tussle earlier that day, but he imagined that the museum probably got a fair amount of foot traffic in any event.
I’m not even sure what we hope to find here, he thought. One could hardly expect puppets to leave behind fingerprints or samples of DNA. Unless they weren’t really puppets. . . .
“The police found some tom-out hair on the floor, plus a silver earring,” Rodriguez informed them, pointing to a spot on the tiles. lion Man noticed a single speck of blood.
“Wanda has numerous earrings that fit that description,” the Vision observed, his inscrutable gaze riveted to that solitary bloodstain. ‘ ‘My memory banks confirm that she was wearing a pair of silver earrings when she departed the Mansion this morning.”
For someone with no more ties to his ex-wife, the Vision sure pays a lot of attention to her comings and goings, Iron Man noted. He also recalled that the Scarlet Witch had a fondness for bangles that reflected her gypsy roots.
“Umm, yeah,” Rodriguez answered, still somewhat spooked by the Vision’s icy voice. “The cops thought the earring might belong to the Witch, but you’d have to check with them about that.”
“We’ll be sure we do that, Mr. Rodriguez,” Captain America said. “Thank you for being so helpful.” As the guard departed toward the lobby, clearing away the assembled spectators, Cap searched the deserted gallery with his eyes, then turned toward Iron Man. “What do you think? Should we have those hair samples sent onto S.H.I.E.L.D. for analysis?”
“Couldn’t hurt,” Iron Man agreed, remembering thei
“Not the black,” she whispered vehemently, her lip
“Ororo,” a plaintive voice cried out weakly. Strug
“Couldn’t hurt,” Iron Man agreed, remembering their teleconference with Nick Fury earlier that day. I wonder if Wanda's disappearance has anything to do with those UFOs S.H.I.E.L.D. reported? “Fury owes us a favor or two.”
Identifying Wanda as the victim wasn’t the problem, though; finding out who was behind those malignant puppets was. Puppets, dolls. . . hmm. “Give me a second, Cap, while I check on some of the more obvious suspects.”
Without budging one inch from the desolate gallery, Iron Man used the satellite link in his antenna array to go onto the Internet in search of information. A quick link to the main Avengers data base, accessible once he cy-bemetically keyed in the correct password, revealed that his old adversary, Mr. Doll, was still serving time for extortion and other crimes, but that Philip Masters, the so-called Puppet Master, was currently out on parole.
Interesting, Iron Man thought, although Masters was usually more a threat to the Fantastic Four than the Avengers. Justice Department records, available to all Avengers via their executive-level security clearances, further informed Iron Man of the intriguing fact that Masters’ current workshop was located in SoHo, only about ten minutes away by subway. Could be just a coincidence, Iron Man reminded himself. As he recalled, the Puppet Master’s niece, the noted sculptor Alicia Masters, kept a studio down in SoHo, too. Sounded worth following up on, even if the Puppet Master’s M.O. didn’t quite fit the incident under investigation.
In the past, the Puppet Master had always used his trademark figurines to control his victims’ minds, not attack them physically, but who else combined crime and puppetry? Django Maximoff, Wanda’s adopted father, had once transformed both her and her brother
, Quicksilver, into marionettes, and later pitted animated mannequins against the Avengers, but the old gypsy was unequivocally dead; Cap and the others had helped bury him themselves after that fracas in Transia a few years back.
That doesn’t leave many other likely candidates, Iron
Man thought. Aside from assorted gods and demons, that is, whose doings and current whereabouts were not exactly the stuff of Web pages.
A copyrighted Stark search engine led him straight to the Puppet Master’s personal e-mail address. An instant link to that address brought unexpectedly immediate results when Masters himself responded with a real-time transmission from his workshop.
“Iron Man?” he asked suspiciously, as an image of the Puppet Master’s distinctive features, like a cross between Howdy Doody and Peter Lorre, were projected onto Iron Man’s retinas. His bulging eyes protruded from beneath a shiny bald dome. “What do you Avengers want with me? I haven’t done anything. Nothing at all, I tell you!” Saliva sprayed from his mouth as he sputtered vehemently, making Iron Man thankful this wasn’t a genuine face-to-face encounter. “Why, I haven’t left my workshop in weeks. My niece will back me on that, I assure you. Ask Alicia . .. she’ll testify that I have a perfect alibi!”
“Calm down, Mr. Masters,” Iron Man said, although he couldn’t help thinking that the former villain was protesting a bit too much. Maybe 1 should advise the Fantastic Four to keep a closer eye on him, just in case. “No one is accusing you of anything.” He briefly recounted the pertinent details of the Scarlet Witch’s encounter with the rampaging puppets. “So you can see,” he concluded, “why I thought to contact you. Even if you aren’t guilty yourself—and no one’s saying you are—maybe you can point us in the right direction.”