ton wondered what the asteroids
were like. Maybe that would be the place to go after this job was done.
Maybe they'd have a place in the asteroids for a hopped-up superman.

Or maybe there'd only be a place here, beneath the streets of Government
City for a dead superman.

_Not if I can help it,_ Stanton thought with a grim smile.

* * * * *

The walking seemed to take forever, but, somehow, Stanton didn't mind it.
He had a lot to think over. Seeing his brother had been unnerving
yesterday, but today he felt as though everything had been all right all
along.

His memory still was a long way from being complete, and it probably
always would be. He could still scarcely recall any real memories of a boy
named Martin Stanton, but--and he smiled at the thought--he knew more
about him than his brother did, at that.

It didn't matter. That Martin Stanton was gone. In effect, he had been
demolished--what little there had been of him--and a new structure had
been built on the old foundation.

And yet, in another way, the new structure was very like what would have
developed naturally if the accident so early in life had not occurred.

Stanton skirted a pile of rubble on his right. There had been a station
here, once; the street above had caved in and filled in with brick,
concrete, cobblestones, and steel scrap, and then it had been sealed over
when Government City was built.

A part of one wall was still unbroken, though. A sign built of tile said
_86th Street_, he knew, although it wasn't visible in the dim glow. He
kept walking, ignoring the rats that scampered over the rubble.

"Barhop to Barbell," said the soft voice near his ear. "No sign of
activity from the Nipe. So far, you haven't triggered any of his alarms."

"Barbell to Barhop," Stanton whispered. "What's he doing?"

"Still sitting motionless. Thinking, I guess. Or sleeping. It's hard to
tell."

"Let me know if he starts moving around."

"Will do."

_Poor, unsuspecting beastie,_ Stanton thought. _Ten years of hard work,
ten years of feeling secure, and within a very short time he's going to
get the shock of his life._

Or maybe not. There was no way of knowing what kind of shocks the Nipe had
taken in his life, Stanton thought. Not even of knowing whether the Nipe
was capable of feeling anything like security.

It was odd, he thought, that he should feel a kinship toward both the Nipe
and his brother in such simila