Along Came Mike
We were walking down the alley, talking about the effect of a reverse diametric term in Einstein's field equations, when a mugger jumped out from behind a trash can.
At least, he said he was a mugger. And he was wearing a black ski mask and a pair of antlers, just like muggers usually do.
And then four more of them jumped out of a dumpster.
They were armed with axes and pitchforks.
Their eyes were glowing redly.
We thought it was all over, the end of the book, the water was out of the bucket, the candle was finally burning out for us ....
And then along came Mike.
So there we were, enjoying a late spring vacation in Saint Petersburg[1], watching the fish swim around on the reef through the glass bottom of the boat. And then that big black lump appeared.
Lying in a pit in the reef, looking like someone's discarded liver, inflicted with hobnail cirrhosis.[2]
And then that rogue wave came by, and the boat rocked, and there was a dreadful thud as the keel whomped down on the black thing, pushing its buttons like an angry file clerk who loses it and says all the wrong things to his boss. [3]
And the terrible roar, the shattered glass from the bottom flying up like grapeshot, the eruption from below throwing bits of the boat in all directions.
And then along came Mike.
It was three A.M. and the guard was drunk.
That's the only explanation that makes sense.
Otherwise, how could he have ever let the chimpanzee steal his key ring?
Be that as it may, he did. And, of course, the chimp immediately let itself out.
All might have been well, save that the chimp turned out to enjoy unlocking cage doors. And so, in short order, a cave bear, a Bengal tiger, several assorted rogue elephants, and a saber tooth cat were wandering around the zoo grounds looking for some fun.
But what they found was hardly what most of us would call “fun”. The chimp, rushing ahead of the pack to find more cages, got into the “restricted” area behind the zookeeper's cottage and started letting them out, too. And all too soon, the animals' “fun” came to a crunchy end, as several hungry shoggoths and something unnameable joined their little party.
But it was after the tentacally horrors contrived to short out the main power line to the zoo and so set fire to the main office that things really started to take a turn for the worse.
And then along came Mike.
It happened just like it did in the book.[4]
The “failsafe” machines ... failed.
And the pilots got their bogus orders from the robot, and didn't believe the President when he radioed them and told them to stand down. (Really, who would?)
And the interceptors failed to intercept, and the civil defenders failed to defend, and the bombs were soon plummeting toward the streets of the undefended capitol.
And the timers timed, and the detonators detonated, and the igniter sprayed its neutrons, and the atoms broke apart and sprayed more neutrons...
And then along came Mike.
“How do you do it, Mike?” I asked him, over a Scotch and soda, while crunching beer nuts at the Slick Duck after his latest foray saving the world. “You seem to work miracles on demand.”
“Ah, it's nuthin',” he said. “I'm just doin' my job.”
“Your job? You mean you're a professional superhero?”
“Superhero? Yer kiddin', right?” Mike looked bemused.
“But you seem to be able to stop trouble, salvage the worst situation, just make the damage disappear...”
“Yeah, well, making damage disappear – it's just my job,” Mike said. “I'm a claim adjuster.”
- ↑ No, not that Saint Petersburg. I mean the other Saint Petersburg, where people actually go for vacations.
- ↑ You know what I mean, right? Sort of dark and hard and spiky. But round; not really liver-shaped.
- ↑ You know, like the clerk pushes the boss's buttons – it's figurative, right? Make sense now?
- ↑ The eponymous book, I should say -- you know the one I mean, I'm sure.