Mysterious Cairo (16 page)

Philip checked the front pockets for his wallet, keys, sunglasses, notebook, pocket knife, can opener, magnifying glass, and miniature tape recorder. All were in their appointed pockets. Satisfied that he had everything he'd need for a few hours outside the lab, Philip stepped out into the street.

Instantly he was reminded that, despite the usefulness of its many pockets, his vest was a terrible thermal burden. Luckily, the heat of the day had broken and the temperature had already dropped to a manageable ninety-eight degrees Fahrenheit.

Like most afternoons, there was very little activity in the neighborhood. Some children kicked a tattered football around, and traffic could be heard in the distance, but very few adults could be seen. All the men were downtown earning their wages (some more honestly than others). All the women were at home preparing the evening meal, attending the open-air markets, or tending house and supervising children too small to roam the streets.

Cairo was, in many ways, a stratified city. It started in the center with the ultra "modern," high-priced business and tourist districts. If you worked in Cairo there was a 75% chance that you worked within the ten square blocks that made up downtown. If you were a white-collar worker, particularly in a syndicate-owned company, you probably lived somewhere in the five square blocks surrounding downtown. The secretaries, clerks and bookkeepers lived in the next ten block zone. And so it went. Each tier moving another rung down the social ladder and another step closer to the desert which all but engulfed the outermost tent neighborhoods.

Philip's room was in one of the middle tiers. The people were by no means rich, but they were perpetually on the verge of striking it middle-class. The neighborhood was populated by taxi drivers, janitors, shop clerks and foreigners who planned to stay.

Three- and four-story apartment buildings were erected capriciously, forming a ground-level labyrinth where an unwary traveller could literally lose himself for hours, if not days. A few of the buildings had grocery shops, family restaurants or bars on the first floor, but not many.

Walking north from his building, Philip made two turns to the left, one to the right, another left and followed a zig-zagging road nearly a quarter mile until he came to a cul-de-sac formed by three buildings situated too close together. The middle one was built with a deep cement foundation (a rarity among the local architecture) and so had the neighborhood's only basement.

If this weren't remarkable enough, above the stairwell leading down was the neighborhood's only neon sign. Yellow and green lights were arranged in the shape of a palm tree, the trunk of which overhung "The Watering Hole."

The stairs were lit by a single bulb that was necessary anytime after three p.m. (when the sun fell behind the cul-de-sac walls). At the bottom was a strong oak door, with a hinged peep window at eye level.

Philip knocked once on the left side of the closed window, twice on the right and then kicked hard once. Immediately the window opened and was filled with a shiny, green, bloodshot eye.

"What's for dinner?" the eye asked gruffly.

Philip blinked blankly.

"Lamb Cheops," he finally said.

The peephole slammed shut and for a moment Philip was afraid he'd flubbed the counter-sign.
Oh, bother,
he thought and was about to knock again when the door creaked open. A cool breeze smelling of liquor escaped.

"Sorry," said the man who belonged to the bloodshot eye. "Lock jammed. Hafta oil it," he explained in a soft grumbly voice as Philip entered.

"Not to worry, Tim old man. How have you been lately?" Philip tried to look and sound casual but didn't quite pull it off.

A short, deep grunt was the bouncer's only reply as he crossed his arms and leaned back against the door waiting for the next coded knock.

Philip accepted this as meaning, "Fine, thank you, Philip. So nice of you to ask," and made his way to the interior of the bar. Tim always made him nervous. Perhaps it was the fact that the man loved the violent side of his job a bit too much. More likely it was just his sheer size, standing six foot ten and weighing nearly four hundred solid pounds. But Philip maintained that it was because no matter when or where he saw Tim, no matter the heat or wind, his eyes were always bloodshot and they always shone bone dry. He seemed physically incapable of shedding even a single tear.

Like in all good pubs, the room was frugally lit. Not enough light to read by, just enough to recognize people by face. Up close. A half-dozen tables dotted the front area while the bar with stools (traditional backless, semi-comfortable bar stools) took up the rear two thirds of the basement.

The place was almost empty. Dave and Dave, two self-proclaimed ancient veterans of these "Possibility Wars" (and several wars before), sat at their usual table in the corner. Nobody knew how to tell one Dave from the other, but they were never seen apart so it didn't matter. Truthfully, they'd never been seen outside The Watering Hole. Rumor had it that they were either part of the decor (perhaps bought from white slavers when they were younger and stronger) belonging to whomever owned the bar, or mass hallucinations brought on by too much beer with too much formaldehyde.

Otherwise, there was only a party seated on the last four stools at the bar. On the first two stools were Jack Pantheon, a visiting professor of archeology, and Rex McMasters, a local private detective. The other two stools held, barely, the girth of the Amazing Dr. Zap, a self-proclaimed super-hero.

In fact, everyone in the bar was a hero of one sort or another. That was the clientele The Watering Hole attracted. It was a place where people who fight the just fight could gather for comradeship and momentarily escape the never-ending pressure and danger of their lives.

Philip was never quite sure why they let him in. He had never done anything exciting, let alone adventurous. He had never saved a child from a burning building or saved the city from certain doom. He cringed at the thought of physical violence and avoided danger at every turn.

But he did help his selfless friends at every opportunity. He would repair broken devices, and improve them if he could. From time to time he even invented new tools to aid the heroes in their war on evil. Actually, that was the reason the had come tonight. He was meeting Bob Foster so that he could give him a new weapon for Bob's alter ego, Sandstorm. But Bob was even later than Philip.

"Phil," called Rex McMasters. "C'mon down and pull up a stool."

Dr. Zap waved stiffly, as though he were overly conscious of every move. In a blustering pseudo-narrative, he said, "Striking a nonchalant pose, our hero invites the newcomer to join him —" and then, in a more "normal voice," "Hey, Phil, want a beer?"

"Thank you, no, Doctor. I'll stick to my usual." To the bartender he said, "A pot of Darjeeling, please. Well steeped."

"Relieved at not having to share his precious nectar, the Incredible Dr. Zap prepares to imbibe once more." The stools underneath him squeaked.

One of the strangest heroes to prosper in Cairo, it was a habit (bordering on compulsion) of Dr. Zap's to maintain a running play-by-play of his own actions. This had the effect of unnerving his enemies (and most of his friends, too) giving him the unofficial, but well deserved, title of "World's Most Annoying Hero."

"Dramatically lifting his drink to his mouth," said Zap, as he grabbed a nearly full pitcher in a meaty hand and poised it, very dramatically, on his lips. "The Scourge of the Underworld slakes his mighty thirst with the amber liquid. Tasting sweeter than ." The rest of his narrative became heaving gargles as Zap somehow succeeded at getting the beer in while forcing his words out.

It was clear by the stains on his uniform and puddle under his stools that Zap had been doing this for some time. It was equally clear from Rex and Jack's expressions that, as far as they were concerned, it had been far too long. They looked about ready to foreswear their oaths of heroism and fair play in order to gain a little peace and quiet.

"You know," Philip said to no one in particular, but loud enough to be sure Dr. Zap could hear clearly. "On my way here I saw the most adorable kitten stuck in a tree."

Dr. Zap stopped drinking and listened intently.

"The little girl who owns it was desperately trying to get the poor thing down, but it was too frightened."

Rex and Jack looked at each other quizzically. As far as they knew, there were no little girls with cats in the neighborhood, and there certainly were no trees. Dr. Zap, however, had apparently drunk enough to temporarily forget these facts (if indeed he had ever noticed).

Staggering off his bar stools, Zap struck a wobbly stance that, somehow, still managed to be awe-inspiring.

"Obviously, some evil fiend thought to get away with this heinous deed while our hero broke bread with his comrades in arms."

"We haven't eaten anything," Jack pointed out.

Zap frowned and wobbled some more.

". While our hero knocked a few back with his comrades in arms," he continued. "Vigilance is ever my duty. Let evil beware! Dr. Zap is on patrol."

Due to truly heroic strength of will, the three others at the bar resisted laughter when, on his way to the stairs, the six-hundred-pound hero walked through a table, knocking it over and breaking two legs. Table legs, fortunately. Tim opened the door to let Zap out without running into anything else.

As he made his way to street level, the corpulent hero's voice could still be heard:

"Bringing all his Zap-Power to bear, the Savior of the Oppressed concentrates on the task at hand. His Zap-Senses straining to their limits, our hero sets out to find the frightened feline ."

Dr. Zap's voice was drowned out by the laughter of the three friends. Dave and Dave chuckled to themselves cynically and even Tim, mighty Tim, was smiling.

Things were just quieting down when Bob gave the password five minutes later.

He apologized for being late and then asked, "Does anyone know why Dr. Zap is walking around outside meowing?"

* * *

The Watering Hole was full almost to capacity when Philip and Bob left three hours later.

The night had cooled considerably. It was about eighty on the street as the two worked their way up the long zig-zag back to Philip's workshop.

Traffic could no longer be heard, but occasional gunshots and screams replaced it as the accepted background noise. For Philip, this was always a chilling reminder that barely half of Cairo's business was done during conventional hours. What's more, the majority of these "normal" corporations were merely fronts protecting and legitimizing the numerous crime czars.

Most of the local businesses, and practically all of the big money deals, took place after dark in smoky back rooms or at exclusive clubs and closed-door casinos. Hundreds of thousands of royals exchanged hands every night through drug deals, prostitution, illegal gambling and just about every other unsavory method imaginable. And sixty percent of this money eventually found its way into the pockets of the richest two percent of Cairo's syndicate bosses.

These realizations left Philip numbed to the soul. It was at night that he questioned he sanity for having stayed in the city for so long. The dark gave him nothing but fear. Just the opposite of the reaction most of his friends had. Especially Bob.

Bob was a tall, slight man of about thirty years. American by birth, he had told Philip that, before the Maelstrom Bridges landed, he had been a postal carrier in a small Nebraska town. But he had always dreamed of being something more.

When the Possibility Raiders landed, all kinds of rumors were spread. Tales of ogres in Oxford and dinosaurs in New York. Things too outlandish to believe. But Bob wanted to believe. Especially the stories about Egypt. About how men and women, ordinary men and women, suddenly put down their pens and papers, walked away from their jobs and histories and became heroes.

Bob left for Cairo the next day knowing that this was what he had waited his whole life for. And, here in this city of sin, he never felt so alive as he did at night.

About two blocks from his building, Philip began to notice that there was an unusually large number of people walking the streets. Some were walking in the direction he and Bob were coming from, herding sleepy children in front as they carried suitcases and sacks of personal belongings. Others were milling about as though they were waiting for something, and would occasionally glance hopefully in the direction he and Bob were going.

"It can't be a fire," Bob observed, "or we'd have smelled it."

"These are my neighbors," Philip said in a hollow voice. He'd never actually talked to any of them, as his Arabic vocabulary was not up to anything more complex than, "Good day. My name is Phil." But he knew which family lived where, which children played together, and whether each man worked night or day shifts. Seeing their fear and uncertainty put a lump in Philip's heart.

As they got within sight of Philip's lab, the cause of the local anxiety became obvious. The roads were blocked off by wooden sawhorses and the secured area was teeming with men wearing golden headdresses in the ancient style, white skirts, and carrying automatic weapons.

In Cairo, it was a rare occurrence to see shocktroopers from Dr. Mobius' Imperial Militia. For reasons unknown to Phil, the mad Emperor had all but abandoned the largest city in his realm. There were several garrisons of soldiers stationed throughout the city, but they served a purely symbolic role. Their message to the wheeler-dealers of Cairo was simple: carve the city amongst yourselves as you see fit, but do not overreach your grasp. Interference in Imperial matters would never be brooked.