Porkum Goes To The Baxter Building

Rain came. Fat wet drops fell down on Manhattan. Not enough to wash the city clean. Never enough for that. Just enough to make the filth float to the surface. To chase everyone who didn't need to be out from the streets.

Sue Storm heard the pitter-patter of the rain on the roof. Watched the streams of water play down the window. The lights of the city distorted by the water. She lay awake, unable to sleep. Unable to forget. Unable to escape...him.

When she'd gotten back to the Baxter Building, H.E.R.B.I.E. had guided the shell-shocked Sue Storm into the decontamination shower. Herded the Invisible Woman to bed. Yet the little robot couldn't make her sleep. Couldn't make her stop thinking. So Sue lay awake, shivered as she felt the terrible heat on her skin where he had touched her. Where she had let him touch her.

Where I touched him, Sue thought bitterly.

Something splashed through the streets of the city. A hulking figure. The water poured off his trenchcoat and hat, all of him hidden as he lurched. People on the sidewalks gave him a wide berth. The street people sensed the air about him. Sex workers shivered and huddled closer as he passed, oddly aroused and repulsed. **** dealers could sense there was no sale there. Muggers kept their knives and pipes hidden as he passed—slowly, surely, without any rush but with definite purpose. Like a man with a destination.

At four in the morning, Four Freedoms Plaza was empty. No tourists out at night, not in this rain. He stepped forward carefully, hands in his pockets. There was a light, right above the locked doors. The electric eye of the camera aimed right at the spot it illuminated.

He walked right up to it and raised his head, so that the light shown on the bottom half of his face. So his dark eyes could stare straight into the camera.

Silent programs monitored all the cameras. Noted the figure. Facial analysis gave a positive identification. A decision was made. Silently, H.E.R.B.I.E. floated into the Invisible Woman's bedroom.

"Mrs. Richards," H.E.R.B.I.E. said. "He's here."

"Who?" Sue said, her voice soft and fragile in the warm darkness.

"Porkum. He is standing before the entrance of the Baxter Building," H.E.R.B.I.E. said.

Sue frowned, sat up. Her skin crawled, and her stomach rumbled. She felt like Rapunzel trapped in her tower—but Porkum was not a knight come to set her free.

"Show me," she said.

The large flatscreen bolted to the wall came to life. The feed from the camera was focused on Porkum. Sue shook in shock as those dark, piggy eyes seemed to meet hers. Her hands went up to cover her naked body before she could remind herself that he couldn't actually see her. At least, not as far as she knew. In truth, Sue knew almost nothing about him or his powers. What he was capable of. Every step of the way, she had underestimated him, and paid the price for it. Now he was here, on her doorstep.

Why? She wondered. Is it a threat, a challenge? What does he want?

Patiently, he waited in the rain. Water ran off his hat, the broad shoulders of his coat. His pink snout, so much like a real pig's, twitched as though he could smell her.

Something told Sue Storm that it was her move. That he had come here to **** her into doing something. She hated that—the sensation that she was just reacting to him. That he was in control. Yet at the same time, she knew that anything she did might play right into his hands.