16

This is an OsCorp tower. It's late at night. Up high, it's cloudy. Lightning flashes.

Lightning strikes the rod atop the tower. The tower absorbs its energy, via the rod.

Speed Demon is still under ice. Almost his entire body has been immobilized.

The one part that hasn't been is his hand. It vibrates out of control, free of his own.

Outside his cell, monitors keep track of his systems. He's still alive. OsCorp has plans to exploit him. Military forces all over the world can't wait...

Norma walks into a big room. She's in dark attire, and a pencil skirt. Her pumps click against the floor as she goes along. She wears her hair in a dark bob...as usual. She wears emerald and jade jewelry. Her mascara is dark, but not Gothic.

One wall of this room is a video screen. She activates it. At present, there's no signal. Norma carelessly chuckles; the party she means to speak to tonight has probably never seen a video screen in his life.

With a single green-polished finger, she flips a switch on the wall. Gradually, another wall spins on an adjustable pivot, and stores itself beneath a giant panel. Still frozen, Speed Demon is on that panel. His hand is elevated, and vibrating constantly.

He's got a mask over his head. Norma knows who he is; she's waiting to tell the right person.

She waits. She taps her heel. She checks her watch. She checks the grandfather clock she keeps in here.

Her predecessors adored grandfather clocks, for some reason. They adored Halloween almost just as much...

Norma's almost shocked. With all this green that runs in her family, she'd think they would've preferred St. Patrick's Day...

One of the straps on Norma's corset is loose. She sighs, loosens her jacket, and tightens it...

Finally, a picture appears on the video screen. It's a Turkish eunuch's face. "Hello," he says, in pathetic English. "Testing?!"

Norma screams; her coat is still loose. She turns around, and struggles to better prepare herself.

Behind her, the eunuch grins. Just because he's lost his balls doesn't mean he's lost his appreciation...

When she's ready, she turns back around. "Sorry," she stammers.

"Don't be," the eunuch says, smiling.

Norma adjusts her silver crescent moon-and-star earrings. She's worn them for the Muslim occasion.

"First of all, you don't need to stand that close to the screen."

"Of course I do."

Norma stares at him.

He sighs. "Fine." He backs away. "What else?"

"I need to talk to your boss. Is he there, like he said he'd be?"

The eunuch looks around. "His Imperial Majesty is occupied...but won't be in five minutes."

"Thank you for putting that together, Mustafa," a more masculine voice says, off-screen. "I'll take it from here."

The eunuch stares back at Norma, shyly, and waves. The Sultan shoves him out of the way, summons a fat armchair, and sits, as he addresses OsCorp.

"I'm sorry to inconvenience you like this, your Majesty," Norma says. "But I need..."

"Moment, please," he says. He orders a hookah. His eunuchs bring one to him. He takes up one of its many hoses, and inhales from it.

"Sorry," he blows smoke, nearly blinding Norma's view of him through it. "What've you got for me, Ms. Osborn?"

"If you make it a point to not blow your smoke to where you can't see me," Norma mutters, "I'll show you."

"I will not be commanded by a woman," the Sultan insists, "especially not when she's American. You've no idea, Ms. Osborn, how lucky you are that I even agreed to this...uncomfortably high-tech meeting with you."

"Fine. Very well; between puffs of smoke, I'd like you to consider something."

She summons the panel Speed Demon's strapped to, to where the Sultan would be able to see him...if his hookah cloud didn't almost completely conceal the screen.

Norma taps her heel. She makes a lot of noise. That hookah cloud takes a very long time to clear.

"Could you keep it down, Ms. Osborn! I can't savor my shisha!"

"Take a break from puffing, and I'll stop tapping my heel!"

Behind the cloud, the Sultan scoffs. "I hate American women. They think they're so smart..."

"I heard that," Norma blares.

At last the smoke clears. The Sultan reluctantly hangs up his hookah hose, and looks at the screen. "Very well, Ms. Osborn. What do you have for me to consider?"

Frustrated, she stretches out her arm towards Speed Demon.

Sultan gapes. "Hey! You caught one of the Sultan's Syndicate! Marvelous!"

Norma stares.

"If you're trying to negotiate a prisoner exchange, forget it. I've already told the Daily Bugle that the Syndicate isn't affiliated with me."

"Oh sure," Norma grumbles. "And HAMMER isn't affiliated with me, right?"

He reaches for his hookah hose. Norma goes back to tapping her heel. The Sultan hesitates, and stays his smoke.

"I don't want one of your prisoners," Norma clarifies. "I want to have sex with more than half of them, but that's not what I'm here for. I want you to invest in some of my company's stock."

"Why would I do that? As much as I appreciate your country for harboring Turkish emigrants as well as...relatively degenerate races within your melting pot there...somehow I doubt my investment in an American company will encourage my subjects to pay me their zakat."

"Because if you do, you'll get more than my company's stock in exchange for your payment. Your country's throne will get to have an heir again."

In the Sultan's background, all falls silent. There's something about the Sultan's stare that Norma doesn't like...

The Sultan chuckles. "What heir? What makes you think my heir's in trouble?"

"HA," Norma exclaims. "Let me give you a clue."

A clawed robotic arm reaches across the panel Speed Demon's strapped to. It pinches the mask that's over his face. Gradually, the mask is pulled off.

When it's off, Norma arches her brows. "What say you, your Imperial Majesty? Care to consider my company's stock?"

A silent moment passes. Then, and for some reason Norma can't quite decipher, the Sultan bursts out laughing. He laughs hard, and he laughs long. He falls over in his chair.

Confused, Norma shakes her head. She doesn't get it.

The Sultan stops laughing on a dime, still fallen over. "HEY, EUNUCHS! DO YOU THINK I PAY YOU TO BE A PACK OF NEUTERED HYENAS?! COME SET MY CHAIR BACK UPRIGHT!"

The eunuchs swarm back, and set the chair back upright. In a flash, they scurry away.

"Hyena clans are actually led by the females," one eunuch mutters.

"SHUT UP," the Sultan shouts.

"Your Majesty, what are you doing?!" Norma seems more confused, and less confident, than before. "This man is your kin! He's going to succeed you..."

"I don't know if you read the Daily Bugle where you are, Ms. Osborn," Abdülaziz begins, reaching back for his hookah, "but the boy behind that mask was never my heir. He's not even my pride and joy." He blows another hookah cloud. "On the contrary, he's my shame and sadness. He might be my royal family's product, but I wish he wasn't."

"But...you can't do that to him! He's your family!"

"I've heard your words before, Ms. Osborn. But first of all, they're not your own. And second of all, you should know better than to waste them on me. I'm the Ottoman Emperor. It's my job to make compromises for the expansion of the empire, and seeing as that boy you have on a slab is hardly military material, you'll understand why I'd never ask him to handle the Ottoman throne with care. As the news reports of the Sultan's Syndicate say-and again, I have NOTHING to do with them-the Speed Demon is NOT careful. Stylish, maybe... But about as careful with a throne of men as Human Torch once was with Princess Crystal's heart!"

"Hey, that's not his...!" Norma sobers up, remembering that that's not what she's mad at. "What do you mean the Speed Demon isn't military material?! HE'S A FUCKING SPEEDSTER!"

"He's also a terrorist. And as far as my people are concerned, terrorists belong where they'll do the least damage: OUTSIDE OF MY COUNTRY'S BORDERS. I'm glad you have him there at one of your facilities. Therefore, I implore you to keep him there until one of you dies!"

"Your Majesty, you can't just..."

"I admire your effort, Ms. Osborn. I really do. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a nation to lead and an empire to expand." With that, he stands, and calls for one of his eunuchs to disassemble the videophone.

Flustered, Norma angrily uses a remote control to shut off her own video screen. She sighs, and orders the AI to re-mask Speed Demon and put him back in his cell.

Around her, the AI complies. Norma gets on an elevator, and takes it up to the penthouse.

Once up there, she stands on the penthouse's terrace. She looks up at the dark cloudy sky, lets go, and screams in rage.

Simultaneously, lightning flashes, and thunder rumbles. She screams again; the lightning and thunder keeps it up.