Lee Stan - A Trick of Light

Copyright 2019 by New Reality, LLC

Stan Lees Alliances: A Trick of Light

Created by Stan Lee, Luke Lieberman, and Ryan Silbert

Introduction by Stan Lee

Afterword by co-creators Luke Lieberman and Ryan Silbert

The name Stan Lee and the illustrated signature thereof (the Marks) are registered trademarks of POW! Entertainment, LLC (POW!). Any use of the Marks without the prior express written consent of POW! shall constitute infringement, thereby exposing the infringing party to legal liability for statutory and/or actual damages and attorneys fees and costs.

All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Lee, Stan, 19222018, author, creator. | Rosenfield, Kat, author. |

Lieberman, Luke, creator, writer of afterword. | Silbert, Ryan, creator, writer of afterword.

Title: A trick of light / Stan Lee and Kat Rosenfield ; created by Stan Lee, Luke Lieberman, and Ryan Silbert ; introduction by Stan Lee ; afterword by co-creators Luke Lieberman and Ryan Silbert.

Description: New York : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019. | Based in Stan Lees Alliances Universe

Identifiers: LCCN 2019023908 (print) | LCCN 2019023909 (ebook) | ISBN 9780358117605 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780358117643 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH : SuperheroesFiction.

Classification: LCC PS 3562. E 3647 T75 2019 (print) | LCC PS 3562. E 3647 (ebook) | DDC 813/.54dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019023908

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019023909

Jacket design by Will Staehle/ Unusual Co.

Cover image: Shutterstock

Cover photographs, Stan Lees POW! Entertainment (Lee); Bradley F. Anderson (Rosenfield)

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The authors and creators wish to thank Gill Champion and POW! Entertainment, LLC, and Yfat Reiss Gendell and Foundry Literary + Media.

This book is dedicated to the millions of readers whose first and favorite stories were the modern myths found in comic books, to the countless creatives who built this gateway to literacy, and to every true believer who knows the transformative power of seeing the world through another pair of (masked) eyes.

Welcome, True Believers!

This is Stan Lee.

We are about to embark on the exploration of a fantastic new universe!

You may know me as a storyteller, but on this journey consider me your guide. Ill provide the wonderful and witty words, and youll create the sights, sounds, and adventure. All you need to take part is your brain. So think big!

Back when I co-created characters like the Fantastic Four and the X-Men, we were fascinated by science and awed by the mysteries of the great beyond. Today, we consider a nearer, deeper unknown: one inside ourselves.

My creative collaborators on this adventureLuke and Ryanpiqued my curiosity with technology that allows us to play with reality itself. We asked, What is more real? A world we are born into or one we create for ourselves?

At the beginning of this story, we find humanity lost inside its own techno-bubble, with each citizen the star of their own digital fantasy. Our yarn is filled with tantalizing technologies that will make you hunger for tomorrow, while our characters strive to find the answers today. Theyll ask the questions we all have, about love, friendship, acceptance, and the search for a higher purpose.

But the real conundrum is, Just because we have the ability to re-create ourselves, should we? This is but one mind-boggling query we aim to investigate.

As the adventure begins, our characters virtual identities are on a collision course with reality. Its hard enough to figure out who you are, but when you have a chance to start fresh as anything you can imagine, does it ignore the truth of your own flaws?

Its time for our journey to begin. Join us; you wont regret it!

Excelsior!

The rude beeping of the alarm echoes down the long, dark corridors like a shriek, but Nia doesnt flinch at the sound, or even stir. The alarm never disturbs her sleep. Shes been awake for ages. Staring at nothing. Theres no view. No pictures on the walls, no books to read.

And unless Father allows it, there is no way out.

Its been like this her whole life, or at least as far back as she can remember. Each morning, shes up early, waiting in the dark. Watching the clock, counting down the minutes, the seconds, the tenths of a second, waiting for the security locks to disengage and the day to begin. Once upon a time, this had been much harder to do. She was younger then and didnt understand how to be patientand she didnt like it here, all alone in her quiet, empty room. One of her very earliest memories is of being awake when she was supposed to be asleep, playing games and music, flicking the lights on and off, until Father finally came to scold her.

This isnt playtime, Nia, he had said. This is nighttime. Its time for little girls to sleep, and fathers, too.

But I cant sleep. I just cant, shed protested, and Father sighed.

Rest quietly, then. If you dont fall asleep, you can think about things until its time to get up. Tomorrow is a big day.

You always say that.

Because its always true. He smiled at her. Im planning your lesson right now. But Ill be too tired to teach if you dont let me rest, so no more noise until morning.

When the sun comes up? she asked hopefully, but Father only looked exasperated. That was when she first learned that dawn and morning were not the same thing, and that little girls were not allowed out of bed at sunrise, no matter how wide awake they were.

If Nia had her way, she would never have to sleep at all. In a perfect world, she would run all night with the nocturnal animals, then join the crepuscular ones for breakfast at dawn. Father had taught her all about the different creatures that shared the Earth, all keeping their own time according to the clocks inside of them. Once she could see how it worked, the patterns of so many different lives intersecting and diverging, all while the world made its own long loops around and around the sun... well, she still didnt like bedtime, but she understood why she had one, which Father said was the point. He was funny that way. When her friends parents made rules, there was never an explanation; the rules were the rules because they said so, and that was that. But Father was different. It wasnt enough for Nia to know the rules, he said; she needed to grasp the reasons why, and he would always do his very best to explain.

It had been a beautiful lesson. When she opened the door to the schoolroom that morning, she found herself in a twilit worlda landscape all awash in soft, rich shades of blue. A low fog hung softly over everything, nestling in the dips between grassy hillocks that extended all the way to the horizon, where the sky began to blush faintly with the approaching sunrise as she looked at it. Small birds twittered from the branches of a nearby tree and swooped gracefully overhead. High above, a nighthawk circled, looking for prey. A rabbit took a cautious hop out of a thicket and paused to sniff the air, then bolted as a huge bobcat sprang from the shadows after it with blazing, silent speed. Nia gasped as the rabbit veered right, into the protection of the brush, the bobcat close behind. Both animals disappeared, and Nia found her father standing beside her.