Reed Richards was in a state of some confusion, which was not a state he enjoyed. He had become distracted from the various projects he was working on by strange happenings in the Baxter building, and he didn’t like being distracted either.
The Mad Hatter’s subliminal influence had been working on him along with the rest of the team, through the various visual and audio signals that had been set up throughout their quarters, but Reed’s powerful mind and laser-focused intellect were not as easily warped as the other members of the Fantastic Four. So, while on some level he accepted some of the weird things that had been happening around him, he was still troubled by them.
The most obvious changes were in Sue. His wife had been behaving in a more animated and exuberant way than he was used to, and he’d certainly noticed that her mode of dress had changed. Not that he objected to her suddenly wearing tight, shiny mini-dresses and the like, but it was so out of character. When he’d mentioned it, she’d waved it away as an attempt to freshen her look a little, but there was fresh and there was fresh!
Then she’d suggested this trip to a hookah bar, which was again something he couldn’t have imagined her coming up with only a week ago. One of the many queer notions she seemed to have lately. One of the queerest was that he was sure he’d heard her refer to herself as Alice a couple of times, and even heard Johnny call her that at one point. Or had he only imagined that? It was possible, since there always seemed to be an adaptation of Alice in Wonderland playing on a screen in many of the rooms he passed through, to and from his labs. Everyone seemed to have gone mad for Lewis Carroll since that odd stranger, Jervis Tetch, had entered their lives!
Reed was certainly bemused by all of this but didn’t want to be the party pooper and spoil everyone’s fun, because he’d noticed everyone’s mood seemed to be very light and merry, especially Sue. He liked seeing her beautiful smile and sparkling eyes whenever she saw him. Much more pleasant than the looks of concern that usually met him in those rare moments when he made time for her.
However, he was also aware that he tended to neglect Sue so made an extra effort to make allowances for her odd behaviour, and so didn’t want to object when she suggested they spend an evening together at a hookah bar. He felt pleased that she wanted to spend time with him and not Jervis, who seemed to have become her pet project lately.
Something niggled in his mind about a connection between all these things, but thanks to the Hatter’s subliminal conditioning, he couldn’t quite put the pieces together. Still, he had a nagging sense that he was missing something important, and it wouldn’t go away…
So, here he was in a cab with Sue, heading through the teeming streets of New York to a place called Kazuza. She was wearing another of her new latex dresses, a very tight and shiny mini-dress that wasn’t too scandalously short, but wasn’t far from it. However, over that she wore a stylish coat so perhaps tight latex was just a new fashion trend that he wasn’t aware of. That was entirely possible.
Deciding to have a talk about some of his concerns, he turned to her and saw her staring out of the cab window, the lights of the city reflected in her wide, twinkling eyes.
“Susan, I…”
She turned to him with a pout. “Oh, do call me Alice, if you please!”
So he hadn’t imagined it after all! But he laughed, assuming this was some kind of weird joke. He looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “Darling, I know I can get distracted at times, but I was paying attention when the priest married us, and I’m pretty sure he called you Susan!”
That caused a flood of memories for Sue, and Reed watched as her beautiful brow furrowed with confusion. Yes, they were married. She was Susan Storm-Richards and this was Reed, her husband. Why did she keep forgetting that? And what was she doing in this ridiculous latex dress, and why were they heading for a hookah bar? Then she remembered! She was part of an insidious plot to drug Reed, to turn her own husband into a drugged-out lackey, who would do the bidding of the evil Mad Hatter! She had to put a stop to this!
She grabbed Reed by the arm and leaned close, and spoke to him hurriedly in an urgent tone. “Reed, we have to…”, but at that very moment, the cab pulled up outside the establishment in question, and her expression changed back to one of childlike wonder and glee.
She had no idea what the place had looked like originally, but now it had been made over with a complete Alice in Wonderland theme. The windows were painted with scenes of the Mad Hatter’s tea party, and the entrance was flanked by two huge paper-mache mushrooms, on top of which sat a pair of caterpillars, each smoking from a hookah pipe.
The decoration had been done with more enthusiasm than talent, as though by a gang of unruly children, but somehow that only added to the charm of the effect, for Sue. Reed was particularly taken with the two caterpillars, and was starting to feel oddly enthusiastic about experimenting with the hookah pipe. The Mad Hatter’s subliminal suggestions had given him just enough of a nudge to set him on the path to his own corruption…