{"id":25378,"date":"2025-12-01T22:56:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T02:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/?p=25378"},"modified":"2025-12-02T00:36:27","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T04:36:27","slug":"harlan-ellison-santa-claus-vs-s-p-i-d-e-r","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/short-stories\/harlan-ellison-santa-claus-vs-s-p-i-d-e-r\/25378\/","title":{"rendered":"Harlan Ellison: Santa Claus vs. S. P. I. D. E. R."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Synopsis:<\/strong> \u201cSanta Claus vs. S.P.I.D.E.R.\u201d is a short story by Harlan Ellison, published in January 1969 in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Kris, a secret agent living hidden in the Arctic under the identity of Santa Claus, receives an urgent call that draws him into a confrontation with S.P.I.D.E.R., a mysterious organization with an eight-point plan to destabilize the world. Eight American political figures have been possessed and turned into puppets of the enemy. Kris must infiltrate and neutralize each phase of the conspiracy, using his arsenal of sophisticated gadgets and espionage skills, while uncovering the true intentions of this dangerous entity.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\n
\"Harlan<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Santa Claus vs. S. P. I. D. E. R.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Harlan Ellison
(Full story)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It was half-past September when the red phone rang. Kris moved away from the warm and pliant form into which he had been folded, belly to back, and rubbed a hand across sticky eyes. The phone rang again. He could not make out the time on the luminous dial of his wrist watch. \u201cWhat is it, honey?\u201d mumbled the blonde woman beside him. The phone rang a third time. \u201cNothing, baby\u2026go back to sleep,\u201d he soothed her. She burrowed deeper under the covers as he reached for the receiver, plucking it out of the cradle in the middle of a fourth imperative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYeah?\u201d His mouth tasted unhappy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A voice on the other end said, \u201cThe King of Canaan needs your service.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kris sat up. \u201cWait a minute, I\u2019ll take it on the extension.\u201d He thumbed the HOLD button, slipped out of the bed even as he racked the receiver and, naked, padded across the immense bedroom in the dark. He found his way through the hall and into the front office, guiding his passage only by the barest touch of fingertips to walls. He pulled the bronze testimonial plaque from the little people away from the wall, spun the dial on the wall safe, and pulled it open. The red phone with its complex scrambler attachment lurked in the circular opening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He punched out code on the scrambler, lifted the receiver and said, \u201cThe king fears the devil, and the devil fears the Cross.\u201d Code and counter-code.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cKris, it\u2019s S.P.I.D.E.R.,\u201d said the voice on the other end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShit!\u201d he hissed. \u201cWhere?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe States. Alabama, California, D.C., Texas\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSerious?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSerious enough to wake you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRight, right. Sorry. I\u2019m still half-asleep. What time is it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHalf-past September.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kris ran a hand through his thick hair. \u201cNobody any closer for this one?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBelly Button was handling it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYeah\u2026and\u2026?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe floated to the top off the coast of Galveston. He must have been in the Gulf for almost a week. They packed plastic charges on his inner thighs\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOkay, don\u2019t describe it. I\u2019m mad enough at being shook out of sleep. Is there a dossier?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWaiting for you at Hilltop.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be there in six hours.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He racked the receiver, slammed the safe port and spun the dial. He shoved the plaque back in place on the wall and stood with his balled fist lying against the bronze. Faint light from a fluorescent, left burning over one of the little people\u2019s drafting tables, caught his tensed features. The hard, mirthless lines of his face were the work of a Giacometti. The eyes were gun-metal blue, and flat, as though unseeing. The faintly cruel mouth was thinned to an incision. He drew a deep breath and the muscle-corded body drew up with purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, reaching over to his desk, he opened a drawer and rang three times, sharply, on a concealed button set into the underside of the drawer. Down below, in the labyrinth, PoPo would be plunging out of his cocoon, pulling on his loincloth and earrings, tapping out the code to fill the egress chamber with water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeace on Earth\u2026\u201d Kris murmured, starting back for the bedroom and his wet suit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

II<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

PoPo was waiting in the grotto, standing on a let-down shelf beside the air tanks. Kris nodded to the little one and turned his back. PoPo helped him into his rig, and when Kris had cleared the mouthpiece, adjusted the oxygen mixture. \u201cKeeble keeble?\u201d PoPo inquired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSounds like it,\u201d Kris replied. He wanted to be on his way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDill-dill neat peemee,\u201d PoPo said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThanks. I\u2019ll need it.\u201d He moved quickly to the egress chamber which had been filled and emptied. He undogged the wheel and swung the port open. A few trickles of Arctic water hit the basalt floor. He turned. \u201cKeep the toy plant going. And look into that problem on tier 9 with CorLo. I\u2019ll be back in time for the holidays.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He put one foot over the sill, then turned and added, \u201cIf everything goes okay.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWeeble zexfunt,\u201d said PoPo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYeah, no war toys to you, too.\u201d He stepped inside the egress chamber, spun the wheel hard to dog it, and signaled through the lucite port. PoPo filled the chamber and Kris blew himself out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The water was black and sub-zero. The homing light on the sub was his only comfort. He made it to the steel fish quickly, and within minutes was on his way. Once he had passed the outer extreme of the floe, he surfaced, converted to airborne, blew the tanks that extruded the pontoons, and taxied for a takeoff. Aloft, he made ramjet velocity and converted again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three hundred miles behind him, somewhere below the Arctic Ocean, PoPo was rousing CorLo from his cocoon and chiding the hell out of him for putting European threading on all the roller skates, thereby making all the American keys useless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

III<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Hilltop was inside a mountain in Colorado. The peak of the mountain swung open, allowing Kris\u2019s VTOL (the sub, in its third conversion) to drop down onto the target pad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He went quickly to the secret place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Taskmaster was waiting for him with the dossier. Kris flipped it rapidly: eidetic memory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cS.P.I.D.E.R. again,\u201d he said softly. Then, with an inquiring tone, \u201cIt means<\/p>\n\n\n\n

S<\/em>OCIETY FOR
P<\/em>OLLUTION,
I<\/em>NFECTION AND
D<\/em>ESTRUCTION OF
E<\/em>ARTHMEN\u2019S
R<\/em>ESOURCES<\/p>\n\n\n\n

is that it?\u201d The Taskmaster shook his head. Kris mmmm\u2019ed. \u201cWell, what are they up to this time? I thought we\u2019d put them out of commission after that anthrax business in the Valley of The Winds.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Taskmaster tilted back in his plastic chair. The multi-faceted eyeball-globes around the room picked up pinpoints of brilliance from the chair and cast them over the walls in a subtle light-show. \u201cIt\u2019s as you read there. They\u2019ve taken over the minds of those eight. What they intend to do with them, as puppets, we have no idea.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kris scanned the list again. \u201cReagan, Johnson, Nixon, Humphrey, Daley, Wallace, Maddox, and\u2014who\u2019s this last one?\u2014Spiro Agnew?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDoesn\u2019t matter. We can usually keep them out of trouble, keep them from hurting themselves\u2026but since S.P.I.D.E.R. got into them, they\u2019ve been running amuck.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never even heard of most of these.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow the hell could you, up there, making toys.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the best cover I\u2019ve ever had.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo don\u2019t get crabby, just because you never see a newspaper. Take my word for it: these are the names this season.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhatever happened to that whatwashisname\u2026Willkie?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDidn\u2019t pan out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cS.P.I.D.E.R.,\u201d Kris said again. \u201cDoes it stand for<\/p>\n\n\n\n

S<\/em>PECIAL
P<\/em>OLITBURO
I<\/em>NTENT ON
D<\/em>ESTROYING
E<\/em>VERYBODY\u2019S
R<\/em>ACE<\/p>\n\n\n\n

?\u201d The Taskmaster shook his head again, a bit wearily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kris rose and pumped the Taskmaster\u2019s hand. \u201cFrom the dossier, I suggest the best place to start is with this Daley, in Chicago.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Taskmaster nodded. \u201cThat\u2019s what COMPgod said, too. You\u2019d better stop down and see the Armorer before you leave. He\u2019s cobbled up a few swell new surprises for you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWill I be working that dumb red suit again?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs a spare, probably. It\u2019s a little early for the red suit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat time is it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHalf-past September.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IV<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

When Kris emerged from the dropshaft, Miss Seven-Seventeen\u2019s eyes grew round. He came toward her, with the easy, muscled stride that set him so far apart from the rest of the agents. (Most of them were little more than pudgy file-clerks; where had she ever gotten the idea that espionage was a line of work best suited to Adonises? Surely from the endless stream of bad spy novels that had glutted the newsstands; what a shock when she had discovered that pinching the trigeminal nerve to cause excruciating pain, or overpowering an enemy by cupping both hands and slapping both of his ears simultaneously were tactics as easily employed by men who resembled auks, as by beefcake contest winners. Tactics equally as effective when struck by gobbets of mud as by Rodin statues.) But Kris\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He came up to her desk, and stared down silently until she dropped her eyes. Then, \u201cHello, Chan.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She could not look at him. It was too painful. The Bahamas. That night. The gibbous moon hanging above them like an all-watching eye as the night winds played a wild accompaniment counterpoint to their insensate passion, the lunatic surf breaking around them on the silver sands. The goodbye. The waiting. The report from upstairs that he had been lost in Tibet. She could handle none of it\u2026now\u2026with him standing there\u2026a thick, white scar across the breastbone, now hidden by his shirt, but known to her nonetheless, a scar made by Tibor Kaszlov\u2019s saber\u2026she knew every inch of his flesh\u2026and she could not answer. \u201cWell, answer, stupid!\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He seemed to understand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She spoke into the intercom, \u201cKris is here, sir.\u201d The red light flashed on her board, and without looking up she said, \u201cThe Armorer will see you now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He strode past her, seemingly intent on walking into the stone wall. At the last possible instant it slid back smoothly and he disappeared into the Armorer\u2019s workshop. The wall slid back and Seven-Seventeen suddenly realized she had been fisting so tightly that her lacquered nails had drawn blood from her palm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Armorer was a thickset, bluff man given to tweeds and pipes. His jackets were made specially for him on Savile Row, with many pockets, to hold the infinitude of gadgets and pipe tools he constantly carried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cKris, good to see you.\u201d He took the agent\u2019s hand and pumped it effusively. \u201cMmm. Harris tweed?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, as a matter of fact it\u2019s one of those miracle fibers,\u201d Kris replied, turning smoothly to show the center-vent, depressed-waist, Edwardian-styled, patch-pocket jacket. \u201cSomething my man in Hong Kong whipped up. Like it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cElegant,\u201d the Armorer said. \u201cBut we aren\u2019t here to discuss each other\u2019s sartorial elegance, are we?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They had a small mutual laugh at that. Divided evenly, it took less than ten seconds. \u201cStep over here,\u201d the Armorer said, moving toward a wall-rack where several gadgets were displayed on pegboard. \u201cI think you\u2019ll find these most intriguing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI thought I wasn\u2019t supposed to use the red suit this time,\u201d Kris said tartly. The red suit was hung neatly on a teakwood valet near the wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Armorer turned and gave him a surprised look. \u201cOh? Who told you that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kris touched the suit, fingered it absently. \u201cThe Taskmaster.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Armorer\u2019s mouth drew down in a frown. He pulled a pipe from a jacket pocket and thrust it between his lips. It was a Sasieni Fantail with an apple bowl shape, seriously in need of a carbon-cake scraping. \u201cWell, let us just say the Taskmaster occasionally fails to follow his own lines of communication.\u201d He was obviously distressed, but Kris was in no mood to become embroiled in inter-office politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShow me what you\u2019ve got.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Armorer pulled a small penlight-shaped gadget off one of the pegboards. There was a clip on its upper end for attaching to a shin pocket. \u201cProud of this one. I call it my deadly nightshade.\u201d He lit the pipe with a Consul butane lighter, turning up the flame till it was blue, just right for soldering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kris took the penlight-shaped gadget and turned it over and over. \u201cNeat. Very compact.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Armorer looked like a man who has just bought a new car, about to ask a neighbor to guess how much he had paid for it. \u201cAsk me what it does.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat does it do?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSpreads darkness for a radius of two miles.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGreat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, really. I mean it. Just twist the clip to the right\u2014no, no, don\u2019t do it now, for Christ\u2019s sake! you\u2019ll blot out all of Hilltop\u2014when you get in a spot, and you need an escape, just twist that clip and pfizzzz you\u2019ve got all the cover you need for an escape.\u201d The Armorer blew a dense cloud of pipe smoke: It was Murray\u2019s Erinmore Mixture, very aromatic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kris kept looking at the suit. \u201cWhat\u2019s new with that?<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Armorer pointed with the stem of the pipe. It was a mannerism. \u201cWell, you\u2019ve got the usual stuff: the rockets, the jet-pack, the napalm, the mace and the Mace, the throwing knives, the high-pressure hoses, the boot-spikes, the .30 calibre machine guns, the acid, the flammable beard, the stomach still inflates into a raft, the flamethrower, the plastic explosives, the red rubber nose grenade, the belt tool-kit, the boomerang, the bolo, the bolas, the machete, the derringer, the belt-buckle time bomb, the lockpick equipment, the scuba gear, the camera and Xerox attachment in the hips, the steel mittens with the extensible hooks, the gas mask, the poison gas, the shark repellent, the Sterno stove, the survival rations and the microfilm library of one hundred great books.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kris fingered the suit again. \u201cHeavy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut in addition,\u201d the Armorer said happily, \u201cthis time we\u2019ve really extended ourselves down here in Armor\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re doing a helluva job.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThanks, sincerely, Kris.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, I mean really!<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes, well. In addition, this time the suit has been fully automated, and when you depress this third button on the jacket, the entire suit becomes inflatable, airborne, and seals for high-level flight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kris pulled a sour face. \u201cIf I ever fall over I\u2019ll be like a turtle on its back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Armorer gave Kris a jab of camaraderie, high on the left biceps. \u201cYou\u2019re a great kidder, Kris.\u201d He pointed to the boots. \u201cGyroscopes. Keep you level at all times. You can\u2019t<\/em> fall over.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m a great kidder. What else have you got for me?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Armorer stepped to the peg-board and pulled off an automatic pistol. \u201cTry this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He depressed a button on the control console and the east wall of the Armory dropped, revealing a concealed firing range behind it. Silhouette targets were lined up at the far end of the tunnel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat happened to my Wembley?\u201d Kris asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cToo bulky. Too unreliable. Latest thing, you\u2019re holding: a Lassiter-Krupp laser explosive. Sensational!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kris turned, showing his thinnest side to the mute silhouettes. He extended and locked his right arm, bracing it with left hand around right wrist, and squeezed the trigger. A beam of light and a sibilant hiss erupted from the muzzle of the weapon. At the same instant, down the tunnel, all ten of the silhouettes vanished in a burst of blinding light. Shrapnel and bits of stone wall ricocheted back and forth in the tunnel. The sound of their destruction was deafening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJesus God in Heaven,\u201d Kris murmured, turning back to the Armorer, who was only now removing the glare-blast goggles. \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you warn me about this stupid thing! I can\u2019t use one of these\u2026I have to be surreptitious, circumspect, unnoticed. This bloody thing would be fine to level Gibraltar, but it\u2019s ridiculous for hand-to-hand combat. Here, take it!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He thrust the weapon at the Armorer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIngrate!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGive me my Wembley, you lunatic!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTake it, it\u2019s there on the wall, you short-sighted slave of the Establishment!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kris grabbed the automatic, and the deadly nightshade. \u201cSend the suit care of my contact in Montgomery, Alabama,\u201d he said, hurrying toward the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMaybe I will, and maybe I won\u2019t, you moron!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kris stopped and turned. \u201cListen, man, dammit, I can\u2019t stand here and argue with you about firepower. I\u2019ve got to save the world!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMelodrama! Lout! Reactionary!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCranky bastard! And I hate your damned blunderbuss, that\u2019s what\u2026I hate<\/em> the stupid loud thing!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He reached the wall, which slid back, and dashed through. Just before it closed completely, the Armorer threw down his pipe, smashed it with his foot and screamed, \u201cAnd I hate that faggy jacket of yours!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

V<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Chicago, from the Shore Drive, looked like one immense burning garbage dump. They were rioting again on the South Side. And from the direction of Evanston and Skokie could be seen twin spiraling arms of thick, black smoke. In Evanston the D.A.R. was looting and burning; in Skokie the D.A.R. had joined with the women of the W.C.T.U. from Evanston, and the offices of a paperback pornographer were being razed. The city was going insane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kris drove the rental birdcage Maserati into Ohio Street, turned right onto the underground ramp of the motel, and let the attendant take it. Carrying only his attach\u00e9 case, he made for the fire exit leading up to the first floor of the motel. Once inside the stairwell, however, he turned to the blank wall, used his sonic signaler, and the wall pivoted open. He hurried inside, closed the wall, and threw the attach\u00e9 case onto the double bed. The<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WAITING<\/p>\n\n\n\n

light was glowing on the closed-circuit television. He flicked the set on, stood in front of the camera, and was pleased to see that his Chicago contact, Freya, was wearing her hair long again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHello, Ten-Nineteen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHello, Kris. Welcome to the Windy City.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got big troubles.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow soon do you want to start? I\u2019ve got Daley pinpointed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow soon can I get to him?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTonight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSoon enough. What are you doing at the moment?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot much.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhere are you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDown the hall.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCome on over.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the afternoon<\/em>!?!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA healthy mind in a healthy body.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSee you in ten minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWear the R\u00e9plique<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

VI<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Dressed entirely in black, the Wembley in an upside-down breakaway rig, its butt just protruding from his left armpit, Kris pulled himself across the open space between the electrified fence and the dark, squat powerhouse, his arms and legs crablike in the traditional infantryman\u2019s crawl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inside that building, Daley had been pinpointed by Ten-Nineteen\u2019s tracking equipment. He had been there for almost two days, even through the riots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kris had asked Freya what he was up to, there in the powerhouse. She had not known. The entire building was damped, impenetrable to any sensors she had employed. But it was S.P.I.D.E.R. business, whatever it was\u2014that had to be for dead certain. For a man in his position to be closeted away like that, while his city went up in flames\u2014that had to be for dead<\/em> certain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kris reached the base of the powerhouse. He slid along its face till he could see the blacked-over windows of the el above him. They were nearly a foot over his head. No purchase for climbing. He had to pull a smash&grab. He drew three deep breaths, broke the Wembley out of its packet and pulled the tape wound round the butt. It came loose, and he taped the weapon into his hand. Then three more deep breaths. Digging hard he dashed away from the building, thirty feet into the open, sucked in breath again, spun, and dashed back for the powerhouse. Almost at the face of the building he bent deeply from the knees, pushed off, and crossed his arms over his head as he smashed full into the window.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then he was through, arching into the powerhouse, performing a tight somersault and coming down with knees still bent, absorbing the impact up through his hips. Glass tinkled all around him, his blacksuit was ripped raggedly down across the chest. His right arm came out, straight, the Wembley extended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Light suddenly flooded the powerhouse. Kris caught the scene in one total impression: everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daley was hunched over an intricate clockwork mechanism, set high on a podiumlike structure at the far end of the room. Black-light equipment throughout the room still glowed an evil rotting purple. Three men, wearing skintight outfits of pale green, were starting toward him, pulling off black-light goggles. A fourth man still had his hand on the knife-switch that had raised the interior lights. There was more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kris saw great serpentine connections running from Daley\u2019s clockwork mechanism, snaking across the floor to hookups on the walls. A blower system, immense and bulky, dominated one entire wall. Vats of some bubbling dark substance, almost like liquid smoke, ranked behind the podium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStop him!\u201d Daley screamed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kris had only a moment as the three men in green came for him. And in that instant he chose to firm his resolve for what was certainly to come. He always had this instant, on every assignment, and he had to prove to himself that it was right, what he must do, however brutal. He chose, in that instant, to look at Daley; and his resolve was firmed more eloquently than he could have hoped. This was an evil old man. What might have been generous old age in another man, had been cemented into lines of unspeakable ugliness. This man was evil incarnate. Totally owned by S.P.I.D.E.R.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The three green men lumbered forward. Big men, heavily muscled, faces dulled with malice. Kris fired. He took the first one in the stomach, spinning him back and around, into one of his companions, who tried to sidestep, but went down in a twist of arms and legs as the first green man died. Kris pumped three shots into the tangle and the arms and legs ceased moving, save for an occasional quiver. The third man broke sidewise and tried to tackle Kris. He pulled back a step and shot him in the face. The green man went limp as a Raggedy Andy doll and settled comically onto his knees, then tumbled forward onto the meat that had been his head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As though what had happened to his companions meant nothing to the fourth man, he stretched both arms out before him\u2014zombielike\u2014and stumbled toward Kris. The agent disposed of him with one shot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then he turned for Daley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The man was raising a deadly-looking hand weapon with a needle-muzzle. Kris threw himself flat-out to the side. It was only empty space that Daley\u2019s weapon burned with its beam of sizzling crimson energy. Kris rolled, and rolled, and rolled right up to the blower system. Then he was up, had the Wembley leveled and yelled, \u201cDon\u2019t make me do it, Daley!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The weapon in Daley\u2019s hand tracked, came to rest on Kris, and the agent fired at that moment. The needle-nosed weapon shattered under the impact of the steel-jacketed round, and Daley fell backward off the podium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kris was on him in a moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He had him up on his feet, thrust against the podium, and a two-fingered paralyzer applied to a pressure point in the clavial depression before Daley could regain himself. Daley\u2019s mouth dropped open with the pain, but he could not speak. Kris hauled him up on the podium, a bit more roughly than was necessary, and threw him down at the foot of the clockwork mechanism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was incredibly complex, with timers and chronographs hooked in somehow between the vats of bubbling smoke and the blower system on the wall. Kris was absorbed in trying to understand precisely what the equipment did<\/em>, when he heard the sigh at his feet. He glanced down just in time to see something so hideous he could not look at it straight on, emerge from Daley\u2019s right ear, slither and scuttle onto the floor of the podium, and then explode in a black puff of soot and filth. When Kris looked again, all that remained was a dusty smear; what might be left should a child set fire to a heap of powdered magnesium and potassium nitrate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daley stirred. He rolled over on his back and lay gasping. Then he tried to sit. Kris knelt and helped him to a sitting position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh, my God, my God,\u201d Daley mumbled, shaking his head as if to clear it. The evil was gone from his face. Now he was little less than a kindly old gentleman who had been sick for a very very long time. \u201cThank you, whoever you are. Thank you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kris helped Daley to his feet, and the old man leaned against the clockwork mechanism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey took me over\u2026years ago,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cS.P.I.D.E.R., eh?\u201d Kris said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes. Slipped inside my head, inside my mind. Evil. Totally evil. Oh, God, it was awful. The things I\u2019ve done. The rotten, unconscionable things! I\u2019m so ashamed. I have so much to atone for.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot you, Your Honor,\u201d said Kris, \u201cS.P.I.D.E.R. They\u2019re<\/em> the ones who\u2019ll pay. Even as this one did.\u201d The black splotch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, no, no\u2026me<\/em>! I did all those terrible things, now I<\/em> have to clean it all up. I\u2019ll tear down the South Side slums, the Back o\u2019 the Yards squalor. I\u2019ll hire the best city planners to make living space for all those black people I ignored, that I used shamefully for my own political needs. Not soulless high-rises wherein people stifle and lose their dignity, but decent communities filled with light and laughter. And I\u2019ll free the Polacks! And all the machine politics I used to use to assign contracts to inadequate builders\u2026I\u2019ll tear down all those unsafe buildings and have them done right! I\u2019ll disband the secret gestapo I\u2019ve been gathering all these years, and hire only those men who can pass a stringent police exam that will take into account how much humanitarianism they have in them. I\u2019ll landscape everything so this city will be beautiful. And then I\u2019ll have to give myself up for trial. I hope I don\u2019t get more than fifty years. I\u2019m not that young any more.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kris sucked on a tooth reflectively. \u201cDon\u2019t get carried away, Your Honor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then he indicated the clockwork machine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat was this all about?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daley looked at the machine with loathing. \u201cWe\u2019ll have to destroy it. This was my part of the eight-point plan S.P.I.D.E.R. put into operation twenty-four years ago, to\u2026to\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He stumbled to a halt; a confused, perplexed look spread over his kindly features. He bit his lower lip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes, go on,\u201d Kris urged him, \u201cto do what? What\u2019s S.P.I.D.E.R.\u2019s master plan? What is their goal?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daley spread his hands. \u201cI\u2014I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThen tell me\u2026who are<\/em> they? Where do they come from? We\u2019ve battled them for years, but we have no more idea of who they are than when we started. They always self-destruct themselves like that one\u2014\u201d he nodded toward the sooty smear on the podium, \u201c\u2014and we haven\u2019t been able to capture one. In fact, you\u2019re the first pawn of theirs that we\u2019ve ever captured alive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daley kept nodding all through Kris\u2019s unnecessary explanation. When the agent was finished, he shrugged. \u201cAll I remember\u2014whatever it was in my head there, it seems to have kept me blocked off from learning anything very much\u2014all I remember is that they\u2019re from another planet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAliens!\u201d Kris almost shouted, instantly grasping what Daley had said. \u201cAn eight-point plan. The other seven names on the list, and yourself. Each of you taking one phase of a master plan whose purpose we do not as yet understand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daley looked at him. \u201cYou have a genuine gift for stating the obvious.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI like to synthesize things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAmalgamate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNothing. Forget it. Go on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kris looked confused. \u201cNo, as a matter of fact, you<\/em> go on. Tell me what this equipment here was supposed to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s still doing it. We haven\u2019t shut it off.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kris looked alarmed. \u201cHow do we shut it off?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPush that button.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kris pushed the button, and almost immediately the vats stopped bubbling, the smoke-like substance in the vats subsided, the blowers ceased blowing, the clockwork machine slowed and stopped, the cuckoo turned blue and died, the hoses flattened, the room became silent. \u201cWhat did<\/em> it do?\u201d Kris asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt created and sowed smog in the atmosphere.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re kidding.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m not<\/em> kidding. You don\u2019t really think smog comes from factories and cars and cigarettes, do you? It cost S.P.I.D.E.R. a fortune to dummy up reports and put on a publicity campaign that it was cars and suchlike. In actuality, I\u2019ve been spreading smog into the atmosphere for twenty-four years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSonofagun,\u201d Kris said, with awe. Then he paused, looked cagey, and asked, \u201cTell me, since we now know that S.P.I.D.E.R. are aliens from outer space, does it mean<\/p>\n\n\n\n

S<\/em>CABROUS,
P<\/em>REDATORY
I<\/em>NVADERS
D<\/em>ETERMINED TO
E<\/em>LIMINATE
R<\/em>ATIONALITY<\/p>\n\n\n\n

?\u201d Daley stared at him. \u201cDon\u2019t ask me<\/em>; no one tells me anything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then he jumped down off the podium and started for the door to the powerhouse. Kris looked after him, then picked up a crowbar, and set about destroying the smog machine. When he had finished, sweating, and surrounded by crushed and twisted wreckage, he looked up to see Daley standing by the open door leading outside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSomething I can do for you?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daley smiled wistfully. \u201cNo. Just watching. Now that I\u2019m a nice fellah again, I wanted to see my last example of random, brutal violence. It\u2019s going to be so quiet in Chicago.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTough it out, baby,\u201d Kris said, with feeling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

VII<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The eight-point plan seemed to tie together in Alabama. Wallace. But Wallace was off campaigning for something or other, and apparently the eight-point plan needed his special touch (filtered through the even gentler touch of a S.P.I.D.E.R. operative, inside his head) to be tied together. Kris decided to save Wallace for the last. Time was important, but Freya was covering for Daley and the death of the smog machine in Chicago, and frankly, time be hanged! This looked like the last showdown with S.P.I.D.E.R., so Kris informed Hilltop he was going to track down and eradicate the remaining seven points of the plan, with Wallace coming under his attention around Christmastime. It would press Kris close, but he was sure PoPo was on the job at the factory; and what had to be done\u2026had to be done. It was going to be anything but easy. He thought wistfully of his Arctic home, the happily buzzing toy factory, the way Blitzen, particularly, nuzzled his palm when he brought the sugar cubes drenched in LSD, and the way the little mothers flew when they got loaded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then he pulled his thoughts away from happier times and cooler climes, setting out to wreck S.P.I.D.E.R. He took the remaining seven in order\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

VIII REAGAN: CAMARILLO, CALIFORNIA<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Having closed down all the state mental institutions on the unassailable theory that nobody was really in need of psychiatric attention (\u201cIt\u2019s all in their heads!\u201d Reagan had said at a $500-a-plate American Legion dinner only six months earlier), Kris found him in the men\u2019s toilet on the first floor of the abandoned Camarillo state facility, combing his pompadour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reagan spun around, seeing Kris\u2019s reflection in the mirror, and screamed for help from one of his zombie assistants, a man in green, who was closeted in a pay toilet. (Inmates had been paid a monthly dole in Regulation Golden State Scrip, converted from monies sent to them by married children who didn\u2019t want their freako-devo-pervo relatives around; this Scrip could be used to work the pay toilets. Reagan had always believed in a pay-as-you-go system of state government.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kris hit the booth with a savate kick that shattered the door just as the man in green was emerging, the side of his shoe collapsing the man\u2019s spleen. Then the agent hurled himself on Reagan, in an attempt to capture him, subdue him, and somehow keep the S.P.I.D.E.R. symbiote within Reagan\u2019s head from self-destructing. But the devilishly handsome Reagan abruptly pulled away and as Kris watched, horrified, he began to shimmer and change shape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In moments it was not Reagan standing before Kris, but a seven-headed Hydra, breathing from its seven mouths a) fire, b) ammonia clouds, c) dust, d) broken glass, e) chlorine gas, f) mustard gas and g) a combination of halitosis and rock music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three of the heads (c, e, & f) lunged forward on their serpentine necks, and Kris flattened against the toilet wall. His hand darted into his jacket and came out with a ball-point pen. He shook it twice, anticlockwise, and the pen converted into a two-handed sword. Wielding the carver easily, Kris lay about him with vigor, and in a few minutes the seven heads had been severed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kris aimed true for the heart of the beast, and ran it through. The great body thumped over on its side, and lay still. It shimmered and changed back into Reagan. Then the black thing scampered out of his ear, erupted and smeared the floor tiles with soot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later, Reagan combed his hair and applied pancake makeup to the glare spots on his nose and cheekbones, and moaned piteously about the really funky things he had done under the stupefying and incredibly evil direction of S.P.I.D.E.R. He swore he didn\u2019t know what the letters of the organization\u2019s name stood for. Kris was depressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reagan then showed him around the Camarillo plant, explaining that his<\/em> part of the eight-point plan was to use the great machines on the second and third floors to spread insanity through the atmosphere. They broke up the machines with some difficulty: much of the equipment was very hard plastic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reagan assured Kris he would work with Hilltop to cover the demise of the second phase of the eight-point plan, and that from this day forward (he raised a hand in the Boy Scout salute) he would be as good as good could be: he would bring about much-needed property tax reform, he would stop nuhdzing<\/em> the students at UCLA, he would subscribe to the L.A. Free Press, The Avatar, The East Village Other<\/em>, the Berkeley Barb, Horseshit, Open City<\/em> and all the other underground newspapers so he could find out what was really<\/em> happening; and within the week he would institute daily classes in folk dancing, soul music and peaceful coercion for members of the various police departments within the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was smiling like a man who has regained that innocence of childhood or nature that he had somehow lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IX JOHNSON: JOHNSON CITY, TEXAS<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Kris found him eating mashed potatoes with his hands, sitting apart from the rest of the crowd. He looked like hell. He looked weary. There was half an eaten cow on a spit, turning lazily over charcoal embers. Kris settled down beside him and passed the time of day. He thought Kris was with the party. He belched. Then Kris snapped a finger against his right temple, and dragged his unconscious form into the woods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Johnson came around, he knew it was all over. The S.P.I.D.E.R. symbiote scuttled, erupted, smeared on the dead leaves\u2014it was now the middle of October\u2014and Johnson said he had to hurry off to stop the war. Kris didn\u2019t know which war he was referring to, but it sounded like a fine idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTell me,\u201d said Kris, earnestly, \u201cdoes S.P.I.D.E.R. mean<\/p>\n\n\n\n

S<\/em>ECRET
P<\/em>REYERS
I<\/em>NVOLVED IN
D<\/em>EMOLISHING
E<\/em>VERYTHING
R<\/em>IGHT-MINDED<\/p>\n\n\n\n

or is it something even more obscure?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnson spread his hands. He didn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnson told him his part of the eight-point plan was fomenting war. And butchering babies. But now that was all over. He would recall the troops. He would let all the dissenters out of prison. He would retool for peace. He would send grain to needy nations. He would take elocution lessons. Kris shrugged and moved on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

X HUMPHREY & NIXON: WASHINGTON, D.C.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It was a week after the election. One of them was President. It didn\u2019t matter. The other one was shilling for the opposition, and between them they\u2019d divided the country down the middle. Nixon was trying to get a good shave, and Humphrey was trying to learn to wear contact lenses that would make his eyes look bigger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou know, Dick, the trouble is, basically, I got funny little eyes, like a bird, y\u2019know?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nixon turned from the mirror on the office wall and said, \u201cYou should complain. I\u2019ve got five o\u2019clock shadow and it\u2019s only three-thirty. Hey, who\u2019s that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Humphrey turned in the easy chair and saw Kris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGoodbye, S.P.I.D.E.R.,\u201d Kris said, and fired sleep-darts at each of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before the darts could hit, the black things scuttled, erupted and smeared. \u201cDamn!\u201d Kris said, and left the office without waiting for Nixon and Humphrey to regain consciousness. It would be a week or two before that happened, in any case. The Armorer wasn\u2019t yet on-target when it came to gauging how long people stayed under with these darts. Kris left, because he knew their parts of the eight-point plan were to confuse issues, to sow confusion and dissension in the atmosphere. Johnson had told him that much. Now they would become sweet fellahs, and the President would play like he had a watchbird watching him, saying no-no.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christmas was fast a-coming. Kris was homesick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

XI<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

S.P.I.D.E.R. tried to kill Kris in Memphis, Detroit, Cleveland, Great Falls and Los Angeles. They missed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

XII MADDOX: ATLANTA, GEORGIA<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It was too ugly to describe. It was the only S.P.I.D.E.R. pawn that Kris had to kill. With a little gold ax-handle: a souvenir of Maddox\u2019s famous restaurant. Kris destroyed the nigger-hating machine, Maddox\u2019s part in the eight-point plan, and ate fried chicken all the way to Montgomery, Alabama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

XIII WALLACE: MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The red-suited Santa Claus trudged across the open square in front of the Montgomery state building, clanging his little brass bell. The Santa Claus was fat, jolly, bearded, and possibly the deadliest man in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kris looked around him as he plowed through the ankle-deep snow. The state buildings were clustered around the perimeter of the circular square, and he had a terrible prickling feeling up and down his spine. It might have been the cumbersome suit with all its equipment, so confining it made him sweat even in the midst of December 24th cold and whiteness. His boots were soaking wet from the snow, his pace measured, as he climbed the State House steps\u2026watching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everything was closed down for the holidays. All Alabama state facilities. Yet there was movement inside the city\u2026last-minute shoppers hurrying to fulfill their quotas as happy consumers\u2026children scurrying here and there, seeming to be going somewhere, but probably just caroming. (Kris always smiled when he saw the kids; they were truly the only hope; they had to be protected; not cut off from reality, but simply protected; and the increasing cynicism in the young had begun to disturb him; yet it seemed as though the young activists were fighting against everything S.P.I.D.E.R. stood for, unconsciously, but doing a far better job than their elders.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A man, hurrying past, down the steps, bundled to the chin in a heavy topcoat, glanced sidewise, squinting, and ignored the outstretched donation cup the Santa Claus proffered. Kris continued on up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tracking devices inside the fur-tasseled hat he wore now bleeped and the range-finding trackers were phasing higher as Kris neared Wallace. It was going to be a problem getting into the building. But then, if it weren\u2019t for problems making it necessary to carry such a surfeit of equipment in the red suit, Santa Claus would be a thin, svelte figure. \u201cHo ho ho,\u201d Kris murmured, expelling puffs of frosty air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As he reached the first landing of the State House, Kris began the implementation of his plan to gain access. Fingertipping the suit controls in the palm of his right mitten, he directed the high-pressure hoses toward a barred window on the left wing of the State House. Once they had locked-in directionally, Kris coded the tubes to run acid and napalm, depressed the firing studs, and watched as the hoses sprayed the window with acid, dissolving bars and glass alike. Then the napalm erupted from the hoses in a burning spray, arcing over the snow and striking the gaping hole in the face of the State House. In moments the front of the State House was burning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kris hit the jet-pack and went straight up. When he was hovering at two hundred feet, he cut in the rockets and zoomed over the State House. The rockets died and Kris settled slowly, then cut out the jet-pack. He was on the roof\u2026unseen. The fire would keep their attention. At this stage in the eradication of the eight-point plan they would be expecting him, but they wouldn\u2019t know it would be this formidable an assault force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The geigers were giving a hot reading from the North Wing of the State House. His seven-league boots allowed him to leap over in three strides, and he packed plastic charges along the edges of the roof, damping them with implosion spray so the force of their blast would be directed straight down. Then he set the timer and leaped back to the section of roof where his trackers gave him the strongest Wallace reading. Extending the hooks in his mittens, he cut a circular patch in the roof, then burned it out with acid. It hung in its place. Suddenly, the plastic charges went off on the roof of the North Wing, and under cover of the tumult, he struck! He used the boot-spikes to kick in the circular patch he\u2019d cut in the roof. The circular opening had cut through the roofing material; now he used the flamethrower to burn through the several layers of lath and plaster and beaming, till all that stood between him and entrance was the plaster of the ceiling. He withdrew a grenade from the inner pockets of the capacious suit, pulled the pin, released the handle, and dropped it into the hole. There was a sharp, short explosion, and when the plaster dust cleared he was free to leap down inside the Alabama State House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kris jumped, setting the boots for light bounce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He jumped into a readily waiting group of green-suited zombies. \u201cHo ho ho!\u201d Kris chortled again, opening up with the machine guns. Bodies spun and flopped and caromed off walls, and seconds later the reception squad was stacked high in its own seepage of blood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They had barricaded the doors to the room. Kris now had no time for lockpicks. He pulled off his red rubber nose and hurled it. The doors exploded outward in a cascading shower of splintered toothpickery. He plunged through the smoke and still-flying wreckage, hit the hallway, turned to follow the pinging urgency of his trackers. Wallace was moving. Trying to get away? Maybe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hauling out the bolo knife, he dashed forward again. Green-suited zombies came at him from a cross-corridor and he hacked his way through them without pause. A shot spanged off the wall beside his ear and he half-turned, letting a throwing-knife drop into his hand from its oiled sheath. The marksman was half-in, half-out of a doorway down the corridor. Kris let the knife slide down his palm, caught it by the tip, and in one quicksilver movement overhanded it. The knife just scored the edge of the doorjamb and buried itself in the zombie\u2019s throat. He disappeared inside the room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trackers were now indicating a blank wall at the end of a cul-de-sac. Kris came on at it, full out, his suit\u2019s body armor locked for ramming. He hit the wall and went right through. Behind the blank face of the cul-de-sac was a stone stairway, leading down into the darkness. Zombies lurked on those stairs. The .30 cal\u2019s were good enough for them; Kris fled down the stairs, firing ahead of him. The zombies peeled away and fell into darkness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the bottom he found the underground river, and saw the triangular black blades of shark dorsals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still murmuring ho ho ho, Kris dove headfirst into the stygian blackness. The water closed over him, and nothing more could be seen, save the thrashing of sharks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Less than an hour later, the entire Alabama State House and much of the public square went straight up in a hellfire explosion of such ferocity that windows were knocked out in slat-back houses of po\u2019 darkies in Selma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

XIV<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

She was lightly scraping her long painted fingernails down his naked back. He lay prone on the bed, occasionally reaching to the nightstand for a pull on the whiskey and water. The livid scars that still pulsed on his back seemed to attract her. She wet her full lips, and her naked, large-nippled breasts heaved as she surveyed his body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe fought to the end. The sonofabitch was the only one of the eight who really liked<\/em> that black thing in his head. Really, genuinely evil. Worst of the bunch; no wonder S.P.I.D.E.R. picked him to ramrod the eight-point plan.\u201d He buried his face in the pillow, as though trying to blot out the memory of what had gone before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI waited three and a half months for you to come back,\u201d the blonde said, tidying her bosom. \u201cThe least you could do is tell me where you were<\/em>!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He turned over and grabbed her. He pulled her down to him and ran his hands over her lush flesh. She seemed to burn with a special heat. Much, much later, some time in mid-January, he released her, and said, \u201cBaby, it\u2019s just too goddam ugly to talk about. All I\u2019ll say is that if there had been any<\/em> chance of saving that Wallace mother from his own meanness, I\u2019d have taken it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe was killed?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen the underground caverns blew. Sank half the state of Alabama. Funny thing was\u2026it sunk mostly Caucasian holdings. All the ghettos are still standing. The new governor\u2014Shabbaz X. Turner\u2014has declared the entire state a disaster area, and he\u2019s got the Black Cross organized to come in and help all the poor white folks who were refugee\u2019d by the explosion. That bastard Wallace must have had the entire state wired.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSounds dreadful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDreadful? You know what that fink had as his part of the eight-point plan?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The girl looked at him wide-eyed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ll tell you. It was his job\u2014through the use of tremendously sophisticated equipment\u2014to harden the thought-processes of the young, to age them. To set their concepts like concrete. When we exploded all that devil\u2019s machinery, suddenly everyone started thinking freely, digging each other, turning to one another and realizing that the world was in a sorry state, and that what they\u2019d been sure of, a moment before, might just possibly be in question. He was literally turning the young into old. And it was causing aging.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou mean we don\u2019t age naturally?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHell no. It was S.P.I.D.E.R. that was making us get older and older, and fall apart. Now we\u2019ll all stay the way we are, reach an age physically of about thirty-six or -seven, and then coast on out for another two or three hundred years. And oh yeah, no cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat too?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kris nodded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The blonde lay on her back, and Kris traced a pattern on her stomach with his large, scarred hands. \u201cJust one thing,\u201d the blonde said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYeah, what\u2019s that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat was S.P.I.D.E.R.\u2019s eight-point plan all about? I mean, aside from the individual elements of making everyone hate everyone else, what were they trying for?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kris shrugged. \u201cThat, and what the name S.P.I.D.E.R. means, we may never know. Now that their organization has been broken up. Shame. I would\u2019ve liked to\u2019ve known.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And you will know<\/em>, a voice suddenly said, inside Kris\u2019s head. The blonde rose up off the bed and withdrew a deadly stinger pistol from beneath the pillow. Our agents are everywhere<\/em>, she said, telepathically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou!\u201d Kris ejaculated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the moment you returned, after Christmas. While you were recuperating from your wounds, lying there unconscious, I slipped in\u2014having trailed you from Alabama\u2014that\u2019s why you never found evidence that Wallace\u2019s symbiote had self-destructed\u2014I slipped in and invaded this poor husk. What made you think you had beaten us, fool? We are everywhere. We came to this planet sixty years ago\u2014check your history; you\u2019ll find the exact date. We are here, and here we stay. For the present to wage a terrorist war, but soon\u2014to take everything for ourselves. The eight-point plan was our most ambitious to date<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAmbitious!\u201d Kris sneered. \u201cHate, madness, cancer, prejudice, confusion, subservience, smog, corruption, aging\u2026what kind of filth are you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are S.P.I.D.E.R<\/em>. the voice said, while the blonde held the needle on him. And once you know what S.P.I.D.E.R. stands for, you will know what our eight-part plan was intended to do to you poor, weak Earthmen<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watch!<\/em> The voice was jubilant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the S.P.I.D.E.R. symbiote crawled out of her ear and darted for Kris\u2019s throat. He reacted instantly, spinning off the bed. The symbiote missed his throat by micro-millimeters. Kris hit the wall, shoved off with a bare foot and dove back onto the bed, scrambling around the blonde, grabbing her hand, and directing the needle of the weapon at the symbiote. It scuttled for cover, even as the lethal blast seared across the bedsheets. Then Kris grabbed for the deadly nightshade, on the bedstand beside him, and hurled it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instantly, all of the underground toy-making complex was awash in darkness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He felt the blonde jerk in his grasp, and he knew that the S.P.I.D.E.R. symbiote had fled back to its one place of safety. Inside her. He had no choice but to kill her. But she threw the needle away, and he was locked there in eternal darkness, on the bed, holding her body as it struggled to free itself; and he was forced by his nakedness to kill her using the one weapon God had given him when he came into the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a special weapon, and it took almost a week to kill her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when it was over, and the darkness had cleared, he lay there thinking. Exhausted, ten pounds lighter, weak as a kitten, and thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now he knew what S.P.I.D.E.R. meant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The symbiote was small, black, hairy, and scuttled on many little legs. The eight-point plan was intended to make people feel bad. That simple. It was to make them feel simply crummy. And crummy people kill each other. And people who kill each other leave a world intact enough for S.P.I.D.E.R.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All he had to do was delete the periods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

XV<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The time\/motion studies came in the next week. They said that the deliveries this past holiday had been the sloppiest on record. Kris and PoPo shuffled the reports and smiled. Well, it would be better next year. No wonder it was so sloppy this year\u2026how effective was a Santa Claus who was really an imposter? How effective could Santa Claus be when he was PoPo and CorLo, the one standing on the other\u2019s shoulders, wearing a red suit three sizes too big for them? But with Kris laid up from saving the world, they had had no choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were complaints coming in from all over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even from Hilltop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPoPo,\u201d Kris said, when the phones refused to cease clanging, \u201cI\u2019m not taking any calls. They want me, they can reach me at Antibes. I\u2019m going off to sleep for three months. They can reach me in April sometime.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He started out of the office just as CorLo ran in, a wild expression on his face. \u201cGeeble gip freesee jim jim,\u201d CorLo said. Kris slumped back into his seat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He dropped his head into his hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everything went wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dasher had knocked-up Vixen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe shits just won\u2019t let you live,\u201d Kris murmured, and began crying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

EDITOR\u2019S NOTE: the astute reader will be quick to notice that Mr. Ellison\u2019s story has one small flaw in it. The insidious eight-point plan totally ignores the Republican vice-presidential candidate, Mr. Spiro Agnew. Apparently the Author forgot him. Apparently the Author was not the only one<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THE END<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cSanta Claus vs. S.P.I.D.E.R.\u201d is a short story by Harlan Ellison, published in January 1969 in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Kris, a secret agent living hidden in the Arctic under the identity of Santa Claus, receives an urgent call that draws him into a confrontation with S.P.I.D.E.R., a mysterious organization with an eight-point plan to destabilize the world. Eight American political figures have been possessed and turned into puppets of the enemy. Kris must infiltrate and neutralize each phase of the conspiracy, using his arsenal of sophisticated gadgets and espionage skills, while uncovering the true intentions of this dangerous entity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25382,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[581,618,552,570],"class_list":["post-25378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-short-stories","tag-christmas","tag-harlan-ellison-en","tag-science-fiction","tag-united-states","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-33"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":559,"label":"Short stories"}],"post_tag":[{"value":581,"label":"Christmas"},{"value":618,"label":"Harlan Ellison"},{"value":552,"label":"Science fiction"},{"value":570,"label":"United States"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/lecturia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Harlan-Ellison-Santa-Claus-contra-A.R.A.C.N.I.D.O.2.webp",1024,1024,false],"author_info":{"display_name":"Juan Pablo Guevara","author_link":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/author\/spartakku\/"},"comment_info":"","category_info":[{"term_id":559,"name":"Short stories","slug":"short-stories","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":559,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":417,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":559,"category_count":417,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Short stories","category_nicename":"short-stories","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":581,"name":"Christmas","slug":"christmas","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":581,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":17,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":618,"name":"Harlan Ellison","slug":"harlan-ellison-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":618,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":9,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":552,"name":"Science fiction","slug":"science-fiction","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":552,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":120,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":570,"name":"United States","slug":"united-states","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":570,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":292,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}