Mr Flux gets a new job

Mister Flux didn’t open his eyes, they were already open.   He just suddenly became aware of their condition.

Which made him think.  “Curses, not again!”.   He pondered on this for awhile, as far as he could recall, having his eyes open was generally a good thing.

His eyes focused, and the general blur sharpened into  the image of an elderly man’s face only inches from his own.

“Waarom bent u lezing dit?!”, he exclaimed, pulling his head back, only to bang it into the top of the table that he was, apparently, lying prone upon.

“Well, there’s another testament to my genius.   Didn’t take much effort at all to get you working again.”, said the wrinkled old man, giving Mister Flux’s chest a hearty slap.  “What’s the last date you remember, Flux?”.

“May 22, 1837”, replied Mister Flux, automatically.  “I was knocked off the roof of the Temple of Schepsel.  You don’t look well, Doctor.”, he added, as the old man’s voice registered.  “Are you ill?”.

Doctor Obolensky chuckled.  “Yes, indeed, Mister Flux…I’m afraid I have a touch of old age.  It has been…more than five decades since you were last awake.   I have a job for you.”

“Five…decades.   That is….disconcerting.”, Mister Flux paused as this bit of information filtered through his head.  Potential consequences flooded through his mind, but one of them seemed more important than the others.   Yet, some faint itch from the back of his head told him it might be best to approach it in a roundabout manner.

“Are the others well?  Eduardo, Iron Pugilist, Liz, and Mister Nom?”, he finally asked.  “They were…a capable team.”

The old doctor chuckled.   “That they were…I haven’t thought of them in years…Eduardo was killed by one of my creations.   The Iron Pugilist had his head knocked off in a battle with his twin brother.”  Obolensky eyed the prone Mister Flux with a critical eye.

“Liz in in a crate nearby, waiting to see how much success I had with you.   Provided you don’t give me any trouble, I’ll see about giving her an overhaul and waking her up, as well.”

“As for Mister Nom, he was seduced by one of my girl hostages, and ran off with her to Italy, where he fathered three muscle-bound idiots who now work for me.   The elder Nom died soon after his sons were born.  A piano fell out of a passing airship and crushed his town.”, Doctor Obolensky smiled at the memory.  “It was quite a large piano, as I recall.”

Flux breathed a sigh of relief, which then reminded his body it should be breathing, so he sorted that out before continuing.   “So, I take it you revived me so that I may once again pretend to be you, and then get killed by the hero?”

Doctor Obolensky smiled.  “Not this time, Mister Flux.  I’m quite aware of how tired you were getting of that little game…and frankly, the quality of heroes over the years has declined such that it’s unnecessary.”

“No, this time, Mister Flux, you are to join the theater.”