It was not a place that he would have come on his own free will, but he was promised money. His face did not change expression when he got into the car. The driver tried to engage him in small talk, but he did not so much as turn his head from the spectacle of the city displayed for him on the other side of the tinted window.
It was a rich country, a fat country, a weak country, he thought to himself. They had never known suffering. They had only known discomfort. How can one develop strength of spirit without being tested? Even as he asked the question, he knew the answer.
To Klibanov this city was the pinnacle of ego and weakness. This city was the place where the American Dream came to die. To beach itself, senselessly, like a whale from a calm ocean. He thought of his daughter, Natasha. His thoughts seldom strayed from her. What would she have made of this? What kind of child would she have grown up to be if she had had a "normal" childhood in such a place?
Klibanov could not even pretend to know what a normal childhood would be like. A childhood with plenty of warmth, food, comfort. To grow old in the company of family and friends, instead of becoming, like Klibanov, an old man with a head full of knowledge and joints that pained him with cold even here in the desert of the American soul.
"Welcome to Topper's!" said the attendant as he held the Casino door open for Klibanov. When the doors of the express elevator opened at the very top of the tower, he saw the vile midget surrounded by beautiful women who were draped over pieces of furniture as so much decoration.
"Klibi, baby, you made it!" cried Topper as he rushed to greet him. "What are you drinking?" Klibanov did not answer. Behind Topper's strained facade of happiness, Klibanov could sense the little man's pain.
"What have you done to Edwin Windsor?" the doctor asked.
"Me?" said Topper, "I didn't do anything to Edwin. He, uh, he died defending himself from that madman, Excelsior. And I resent your insinuation, sir. I am mortified, deeply wounded, that you would say such a thing to a guy that you personally know was close to Edwin Windsor."
Klibanov looked past the affronted midget, past the beautiful women and the serving staff, though the windows and towards the west where the sun was setting.
"Dismiss these people," said Klibanov, "And tell me what you want."
"Okay, everybody OUT! Get out. He's tired from the journey."
When the room was cleared, Topper approached the Doctor who was watching the dying of the light. "Power," Topper said, scarcely above a whisper. "I want power."
"Perhaps you should run for mayor," Klibanov said, with no trace of humor.
"That's not the kind of power I'm—"
"I know."
"Look, Doc, I gotta suspicion about you. I think you don't just know what makes superheroes tick. I think you know how to make them."
Klibanov rubbed his hand across his face. As a medical doctor, trained in the Soviet system, religion had been forbidden to him. After all, he was a glorious scientist of the new State. But he had seen and done things too awful for the telling. Experiments that seemed justified at the time, but now, late at night, it was the questions of the spirit that plagued him. And now this little man was asking him to unseal the vaults of memory and wander through those nightmares.
Klibanov said, "I can."
"HOT DAMN! I knew it. I knew you were the right guy. I want you to make me powerful. SUPER-powerful. And," Topper got a little choked up, "tall."
With the blood red of the last moments of a desert sunset behind him, Klibanov turned and looked down on Topper, "I cannot make you tall, but I can make you powerful."
"Okay, now we're cookin' with gas. Whattaya need to get started?"
"All of it."
"Whattaya mean, all of it? Did you go to the Edwin Windsor school of negotiating or something?"
Klibanov said nothing.
"Oh, yeah, the silence trick. That was another one of his. Look. Klibi. I appreciate that a man has to do well, but...." When Topper saw the deep wells of pain in Klibanov's eyes, he trailed off.
"The equipment I require is very expensive. Both for you and for my Natasha. You know of my struggle, yes?"
"Yeah," said Topper, able to read the brilliant man's fight to save his only daughter from slow and certain death.
"You do not have children, so I will explain to you. This is not a job of work for me. It is not something you can negotiate. I will not agree for you to take my daughter's chance of life away from me. I must have money to hire researchers, test ideas, procure expensive drugs and equipment. So, vile little man, you may buy my services, but they will not come cheap. I can make you powerful beyond your wildest imagination, but you must liquidate your company. Everything, all of it. "
Topper wanted to argue, wanted to negotiate, but deep down, a tiny voice reminded him that he never wanted a job anyway. "Okay. Okay, if it'll save your daughter, I'm in."
"Yes, of course, you are so selfless. Is good to see. Also, procedure will be dangerous and painful. I will not be responsible."
"I'm paying you millions of dollars to perform illegal surgery and you want me to sign a waiver?"
Klibanov did not respond to the comment. "I will give you a list of what I need. Now I must rest."
"Fine, we'll put you up downstairs. And I'll give you a line of credit with the house. Play some games, relax a little while we get things together. Stay loose for the big day."
"I only gamble with your life," said Klibanov. It might have been his idea of a joke.
Topper went to the Adjustors with the list of things he needed. After the debacle at the bank, they had resisted Topper's every suggestion and laughed at his every command. "Look," Topper told Timothy, "This isn't a scheme. This is a list of things we need to acquire for a special project. You can buy them, you can steal them. I don't care. But this is the kind of thing you guys are good at."
"What's it for?" Timothy asked with skepticism.
"Something we should have done already. Revenge for Edwin," Topper lied, telling Timothy what he wanted to hear.
He took the list from Topper and looked at it. "Some of this stuff is very rare, hard to get."
"That's why I'm asking you. You're very, very good," Topper said, swallowing his pride to flatter a man he thought of as a vicious bean counter.
"When do you need it?"
"Quickly."
"When's quickly?"
"By the end of the week."
"My team can have all of it by Thursday," he said, a man taking pride in his abilities.
"Of course you can. You're the best." Topper reached up and patted him on the back. He wasn't fighting it anymore. It was handy to have people whose only source of identity was their job.
True to his word, Timothy and the Adjustors had it all wrapped up before the end of the week. They even had Klibanov installed in an industrial building on the outskirts of town. By Saturday, everything was ready.
That afternoon, Stevie helped Topper record the announcement that would go out to all Omdemnity Employees. Topper sat behind a desk, propped up on a stack of books, and did his best to be professional, or at least, serious.
"Uh, okay, Effective immediately, I'm resigning as CEO of Omdemnity Insurance. Rest assured, it's not me, it's you. I'm sorry, entire company, but it could never work out between us. You're just too uptight. Sure, you're into your career and success and all of that, and that's great… for you. But that's just not who I am. I'm not getting what I need. And I really don't think you can give it me.
"When you get right down to it, I'm a guy who likes to argue. A scrapper. And I'm tired of scrappin' with you. So I'm leaving to pursue other interests. I wish you all the best. I'm sorry it didn't work out between us, but hey, that the way it goes sometimes. But, cheer up, you'll find somebody great to run you. Especially since I've sold you to a very caring, talented and profit-minded group of men who own several other insurance companies. I'm not convinced that they're going to treat you well, or that the conversion is going to be much fun for you, but I am pretty sure they will give you what you need and think you deserve.
"If you don't like it (and I don't see any reason why you should) you can quit and stick it to The Man. Until a few moments ago, I was the Man, so you can believe me when I tell you that the Man sucks and so does his job. Go have some fun. Go make a life for yourself." Topper hopped off the chair and said, "Whattaya think? Did I come on too strong?"
Stevie looked at him for a long while, his eyes filling with tears.
"What is this?" asked Topper.
"Please don’t do this" asked Stevie.
"What are you talking about, you going soft on me Stevie?”
"Don’t trust that Klibanov," continued Stevie. "It's going to end badly."
"Of course it ends badly, Stevie. Everything ends badly, or it wouldn't end. Right? Now c'mon, you gotta give me a ride. It's gonna be a hot time in the old town tonight," Topper's voice cracked with a note of false bravado.
"I'm not going to be a part of it."
"After all we've been through?” said Topper. “The good times, the bad times… well, mostly the bad times, but—"
"Goodbye, sir."
Topper got out of a cab in front of the unfriendly-looking warehouse. The wind of the desert was surprisingly cold. Before he entered, he paused and looked up to see the first stars of evening. For the first time since he had come to Vegas, he stood outside long enough to get the sense that he was in the desert. Love and ego have made people do a lot of stupid things throughout the ages. For an instant, in the clarity of the cold light of the stars, impossibly distant and uncaring, Topper realized he was about to do one of those stupid things. With a considerable effort of will and personality, he banished the thought from his mind and entered the warehouse.
Inside, the space had been completely sealed off with white plastic to create a sterile environment. Large cables ran across the floor. The metal of expensive medical machinery gleamed from behind moveable curtain walls. There was the sound of a high-speed centrifuge and the smell of plastic and disinfectant. A team of perhaps thirty people in medical scrubs moved around the space quietly and effectively. Their faces were all covered with surgical masks, which made everyone seem somewhat less than human and gave the place the quiet intensity of an operating theatre. As the door closed behind him, all eyes turned to Topper.
At a moment like this, Topper would usually have made some kind of joke to break the tension and ingratiate himself. But, for some reason, his maniacal wit failed him. He swallowed, and looked around for Klibanov. A nurse came over to him and took his arm.
"But, where's Dr.—"
"We must prepare you for the procedure."
Topper was stripped naked, put through a decontamination shower and then strapped to a hospital bed. As the restraints were locked on, Topper asked "Do we really need those?" The nurse didn't look up from injecting something into his IV, so Topper couldn't see her mouth move when she said, "Doctor's orders."
Topper was very glad that he had set up the deal so that Klibanov got only half up front. A man needs to wake up broke, groggy and confused, with nothing to show for it only once—okay, three or four times—before he learns his lesson.
Whatever the nurse injected into Topper took effect very quickly. As they wheeled the bed to the temporary operating room, Topper began to imagine that the people around him weren't wearing masks, but, in fact, had no faces. It was a funny thought at first, but he started to believe it and it became scary. He went in and out of consciousness a little.
When he saw Klibanov, the overhead lights transformed his face into an expressionless slab of mouth-absent Slavic meat. His eyes were cold and emotionless as he leaned over his patient. Topper could see that Klibanov was holding several large needles attached to rubber tubes.
"Will it hurt?" Topper asked in a small, scared voice.
"Yes."
Someone he couldn't see said, "Only after. We're going to put you out now." A hissing plastic mask was placed over Topper's nose and mouth, and a voice said, "I want you to breathe deeply and count backwards from 10."
Topper tried to count, but the numbers he was trying to say came out as words, "Rutabaga, Tits, Salami, Half-asssssssss..."
