King Kane's Biggest Idea.

Horatio Kane was seething and brooding at the same time, stewing at how he had been treated.

Everyone viewed him as a relic, a remnant of a distant past, much like a car that had been designed and tested over a period of months, only to find as it passed the mass-production stage it was already old before it was put into showrooms.

Kane had constructed products and mass-produced them to last within the lifetimes of a man. But now everyone said he lived for the good old days and nothing but the good old days.

They were calling him a relic, him! The man who was one of the biggest captains of industry!

Kane took a deep rasping breath, ignoring the pain in his aged chest as he continued to stew. A part of him hated the thought of just feeling sorry for himself, but he knew he wasn't feeling sorry for himself. He was angry, and he felt he had a good reason to be angry. After all those years of toiling away at business, learning and mastering the art of the deal, of bringing the industry forward, and he was treated like a museum piece. He still had his organisation, but he knew it was but a shadow of its former glory. He still had his fortune with him, but he knew it would not last forever.

Kane wheeled his chair slowly around the apartment he had bought - he had never truly liked massive, expensive homes, and after his accident which had left him in this confounded chair, he had found that he preferred smaller places - and thought it over, knowing that everybody around him was either telling him subtly or openly to retire, to let new minds take over where he had left off or were just simply waiting for him to kick the bucket and put them all out of their misery.

He had no intention of letting that happen because what everyone had failed to realise about him was he was called King Kane for a very good reason. He had used his considerable intellect and his willpower to reach the top of the ladder, and he had no desire to give up now. Kane had worked long and hard to develop his empire.

After all, know what you want, and then go out and get it - those were the keywords to getting what you wanted.

But now they were saying he didn't understand the modern technique, that he was shot and had it. He remembered what his grandfather had told him when he was nothing but a boy, that if you did not fight trying to survive, then you deserved to die. Survival was a choice. It also applied to business, and if you did not move with the times then you failed, you collapsed. How many times during his career had he seen businesses who had failed to catch onto new trends just fizzled out, became nothing, lost money and had to sack many of its workers before its doors closed forever? It also applied to ancient cultures who had failed to survive because they had lived in a new world. The Aztecs had failed to find a way to survive, and if they had then Kane had no doubt in his mind they would still be around. The life lesson his grandfather had imparted on him when he had been a child had been a powerful one, and he had used it as an excuse to grow his business until he had been nicknamed the King, although now he was now crippled and unable to walk, forced to endure the painful humiliation of having to travel in a wheelchair which made everyone thinks he was a relic and that he was unable to cope with modern techniques.

Such a view made Kane furious. His body may be wasting away, but while he was weak in form, his mind and creativity were as strong and as capable as it ever was.

"Modern techniques," he growled to himself, grunting as he wheeled his chair over to the television set in the room, deciding to try to watch something to take his mind off of his current problems. He switched it on with his hand - usually he would use his walking cane to do the work, but at the moment he was too tired, too angry for a stupid game like that, and he wheeled his way towards the small little table where a bowl of fruit and a glass jug filled with water was waiting.

Kane was pouring some water into a glass when the news presenter went on. Kane ignored most of the broadcast since he didn't find most of it interesting in the first place, but then the newsreader said something that caught his attention.

"….nuclear bomb tested at Chagan, conducted at the Semipalatinsk Test site. This is one of the largest nuclear explosions yet recorded as part of the so-called peaceful nuclear explosions designed to move earth and to lead to the creation of artificial lakes and canals. Preliminary reports indicate that the explosions created have released a good deal of steam and pulverised rock, although scientific experts are certain that the area is heavily radioactive…," the newsreader went on, but Kane no longer paid any attention.

He just sat there in his chair, feeling as though his brain had been lit up.

For so long everyone had been claiming he didn't have a grasp on the so-called modern techniques, but after listening to that… An idea was starting to blossom in his mind, an idea that he could even believe he was entertaining, but it was there and real, and it was a powerful idea.

Kane could see now that even if he wanted to, there would be no real way he could actually retake the industrial business by storm, but what if he could actually take over the entire country? As ideas went it was something he had never once imagined himself even contemplating in his life, but as he sat there in his chair, thinking about the power of a nuclear bomb, the more the idea appealed to him.

Yes, everyone will see that I do have a grasp of modern techniques, after all, what could be more modern than a nuclear bomb?! But how should I do it, how do I go about taking over the country….

Kane leaned back in his chair, and he took a deep sip of water and let the cold water trickle down his throat, and he just let his mind think about it more. It wasn't long before he realised it was clear to him, as he thought about the matter more, it was easy to use a nuclear bomb to hold the country to ransom; all he would need to do was to destroy a major city in the United Kingdom, such as Manchester or London, and he would warn the rest of the country that if they did not cede to his demands for power, then he would detonate the rest. That part was easy. The difficult part was finding the right place to prepare the bombs, and keep them hidden long enough before they were ready to be detonated.

Kane closed his eyes for a second, thinking about it, and yet the solution failed to reach his mind. He opened his eyes in frustration and he began reading through the newspaper. It took him an hour to read through to the business pages of the paper because of his rheumy eyes, but he came across something which caught his interest very quickly. It was a report about Pinter's department store business. Kane frowned and read that they had recently acquired a number of older department stores and were currently remodelling them, and their stocks were quite high.

A slow smile spread over Kane's face as the final chunk of the plan entered his mind and finished the puzzle he was working on.

He knew what to do now. After all, who would expect a nuclear bomb to be placed in a department store?

Kane folded up the newspaper, and he wheeled out of the living room, forgetting all about the television, and he went to the telephone. He had a few calls to make, and a lot of work to do, but he was going to succeed in his taking over of the entire country. At the same time, he would keep watch for a scientist who would be able to work for him in the construction of a number of nuclear bombs to be placed inside the various stores.

Author's Note - I really wished the Avengers developed the characters of the various villains that were encountered. The Cybernauts were one thing, but there were dozens of villains who could have come back, and Horatio Kane is one of them. It would have been cool if the mad business mogul had come back with some new plan. Oh well, what's what fan fiction is for, eh?