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the Cromoglodon, a name which had become synonymous with total, irresistible and irrevocable destruction. But as he stood next to General Business Machines' automated manufacturing facility, he did not look fearsome or powerful. He looked like a man who had forgotten his own name.
    He blinked and raised a hand against the bright light of the sun. His home, or rather his pen, was now a cage in the basement of Omdemnity Insurance. They didn't let him out much.
    He had been tamed (if that was a word one should apply to humans) when Edwin Windsor had placed an electrode deep within his cerebral cortex. Now, whenever he failed to comply with his handler's wishes, the electrode would be activated and his body would be wracked with fear and pain.
    Barry stared at the gigantic building. He knew what was expected of him. It was the same thing that was expected of him every time he was let out of his cage. They wanted him to let loose his colossal fury and bash everything into tiny little bits. But the tools of pain and the fear that they had used to control him had burned him clean. There was no more rage left. He was just happy to be outside.
    He took a breath. He let it out.
    From behind him he heard yelling. He turned to look at several men standing next to the armored truck that they transported him in. They were all yelling at him to get on with it. Two of them were in overalls, another was in a suit. And there was the little one. He remembered the little one. Sometimes the little one came to see Barry in the basement. He was the only visitor Barry ever had.
    As the little one walked towards him, one of the technicians said, "Eh, it's your funeral."
    “Just hold off on shocking his brain,” Topper said. "Hey pal," Topper said, holding his hands out to the side so that the Cromoglodon could see the apple. "You glad to be out of that hole?" Topper produced an apple from his pocket. "Here you go."
    Barry crunched the apple once between his molars and swallowed it.
    "There you go," said Topper, soft like he was talking to a horse. "I'm not gonna lie to you big fella. I'm having a rough time of it. All these rules. All these procedures. About the only thing that cheers me up is watching you work your magic." Topper scratched the huge brute behind his knee.
    A smile broke across Barry's face.
    "Ah, go on you big lug," Topper said, "bust some shit up."
    Barry lumbered down the hill towards the soon-to-be ex-facility.
    The technician said "I thought for sure I was gonna have to use the button."
    "Nah," said Topper, "I told you, I have a way with animals."
    "Heh, heh," chortled the average-height technician.
    Topper didn't say what he was thinking: "Hey pal, us freaks have to stick together."

CHAPTER FOUR
    For Milton Smiles, director of the Bureau of MetaHuman Affairs, life was pretty good. One might have thought that the loss of Excelsior, the Bureau’s most powerful asset, would have put a dent in his career. That would only mean that one did not understand how bureaucracy worked.
When Excelsior had disappeared nearly two years before, it had caused a crisis. Just as yeast feeds on sugar, Bureaus and their Crats feed on crisis. There had been calls for increased funding, new mandates and new powers. And all of these calls seemed to come from outside his agency. The crisis had been the best kind of political capital an ambitious and self-serving bureaucrat can ever hope for.
    It had long been taken as a cornerstone of national security that Excelsior was unwaveringly loyal, completely controllable and absolutely indestructible. Smiles had learned for himself that the most powerful man in the world had been, at best, marginally stable. He was aware, vaguely, that Edwin Windsor had had something to do with Excelsior's disappearance. But he tried not to think about it too much. You see, he was much better off without Excelsior.
    True, the talent his agency had to work with was less powerful, but there were now more of them. And they were