A Once Crowded Sky (18 page)

I need to be a better husband, for her, I need to be a better man. His head hurts, and her hair is warm, soft. He’ll think of something in the morning. It’ll all be easier then, and if it’s not, at least it’ll be later, at least it won’t be right now. And Pen closes his eyes and once again escapes.

1

Ultimate, The Man With The Metal Face #574

Their lives are violence. Another threat, another crack, the sixth since the hospital. They’ve been at this for three weeks now, chasing these explosions, helping with the cleanups. There’s no reason to it, no clues as to why it keeps coming. No ransom notes. No patterns. No villains wanting the world. Just explosions, bombs falling from the sky.

Once again, Pen runs in and comes back out, places another saved woman on the curb outside. If she says thank you before he turns back and rushes in again, he doesn’t notice. Soldier’s outside taking care of those details, ensuring everyone gets listened to and cared for. The physical stuff, the rushing and the lifting, that’s all Pen’s now.

Afterward, once everyone’s as safe as they can make them, Soldier and Pen sit together on a half-scorched bench across the street from the latest disaster. Though his eyes retain their sky-blue purity, Soldier looks so different now, wilted and frail, hunched forward, bent and crooked in places that used to shoot straight out.

“Hey, you remember that one time?” Pen asks.

Soldier looks up at the burning building and squints. “Yeah.”

“That was something.”

“Hell of a thing.”

“You know if I save one more person this month, I think I get a free bagel.” Pen exaggerates his smile.

Soldier coughs a few times. “I think I’ve heard that before.”

“What?”

“During some fight—you and me. I think I heard that before, when you were fighting and talking.”

“Yeah, well, that was me, the sidekick with the quips and—”

“You see her?” Soldier asks, interrupting Pen. “Her red hair.” Soldier points to the crowd gathered around the flames.

“Again with the disappearing devil?”

Soldier squints again, clicks at his teeth with his tongue. “Nothing. It was nothing.” He pats Pen’s arm. “You did all right, kid. You’re doing good.”

“Thanks.” Pen laughs. “I guess things change. Hell, the whole world’s changing.”

“It ain’t changing me.” Soldier stands.

“So, tomorrow?”

“Bright and early. We’ve got that appointment with Star at 0800, don’t forget.”

“Oh, I won’t. Pretty sure that’s when I pick up my bagel.”

“0800,” Soldier says, and with nothing more than that, he walks, or rather saunters, which is to say he sort of just limps off toward the yellow police line surrounding them. Pen thinks to shout out something clever, but nothing good comes to him, and he slouches back onto the bench and watches the streams of water curve down into the fire.

Ultimate, The Man With The Metal Face #575

Soldier and Star-Knight go over all the details, and Pen stares up at the wall, at a large, framed picture showing Star-Knight flying in full uniform, green-on-purple spandex, a blue flame shooting from his belt. Next to Star-Knight flies Ultimate, his right knee bent up, his fist thrust up and out, his muscled metal wrapped in red tights, a red cape flowing behind him.

After a while Star-Knight asks if they’re done, and Soldier answers him, and everyone pushes his chair away from the magnificent round table at the center of Star-Knight’s office.

“Wish we knew more,” Soldier says. “All we’re doing is responding.”

“My people are working it from this end,” Star-Knight says. “We’ll find out what it is. We always do.”

Soldier smiles. “Appreciate that, Georgie.”

Star-Knight gives off a sarcastic hum as he looks over to Pen. “Thought it was over, friend. Thought we didn’t have to do this anymore.”

“I don’t know,” Pen says.

“They all come back,” Star-Knight says.

Soldier stands, and the other two follow him up. Star-Knight walks over and shakes Soldier’s hand before walking over to Pen. “Starry says hello, by the way. You two should get together sometime, I know he’d like that.”

“Yeah,” Pen says, taking Star-Knight’s hand; he looks back at the picture on the wall. “Sun called me, but, you know, I haven’t had much time.”

“Of course. Whenever you get a moment.”

“Hey,” Pen says, looking back at Star-Knight, “whatever happened with that cat? The metal cat.”

Star-Knight shrugs. “I gave it away. You remember Prophetier? He loves that junk.”

“I thought it was for charity.”

“Trust me, kid, no one needs more help than that poor man.”

“I guess.”

“Let the crazies have the crazy,” Star-Knight says as he leads them to the door. One of his secretaries takes them from there.

As they drive out, Pen looks through the windshield of the truck, watches Star-Knight’s building disappear into the high clouds.

“It’s weird,” Pen says. “There’s something off about that guy.”

Soldier grunts and pulls the car onto the highway.

“Him all up there, while we’re down here.”

“Georgie worked for his,” Soldier says, “like you.”

“I know.” Pen scratches at his lip. “But he seems kind of different. Like it all got to him somehow.”

Soldier grunts again, levels his eyes to the road ahead.

“I appreciate the help, I do, and I know without all his money or whatever, we wouldn’t be able to do this. I get that. But he’s weird now, right?”

Soldier looks over to Pen and then back to front. “Georgie’s fine. He’s doing his best.”

Pen leans his head back in his headrest. “I guess.”

“He’s a good man.”

“I know you think that, I get it.”

“I ain’t saying it to make you upset.”

“I’m not upset. I mean, fuck.”

Soldier’s quiet for a few seconds. “It don’t mean I don’t take your opinion. Just my own opinion is all.”

“I get it.”

“Just my opinion. Ain’t more to it than that.”

“I didn’t bring it up to have a fight.” Pen flicks his fingers against the window. “I’m sorry. I’m not saying he wasn’t a good hero. I don’t know, maybe The Blue broke him or messed him up or something. Like it did with Doc Speed. Maybe he’s all fucked-up now. Maybe he couldn’t take it.”

Soldier looks over at Pen, then looks back front. He jerks on the wheel, screeching the car to the side of the highway, earning a spattering of honks. Pen protests, but Soldier doesn’t respond. After the car’s stopped, Soldier gets out and crosses to Pen’s side, opens Pen’s door. “Get out.”

Pen again starts to object, but stops with his mouth half-open. “Whatever,” Pen says as he steps out of the car and follows Soldier to the side of the road. The old man stands close to him, almost touching.

“Listen,” Soldier says.

“Hey, if this is about—”

“Just listen.” Soldier raises his voice. “You’re one of the one’s who likes to jabber on, and I ain’t. But stop your jabbering now and listen.”

Pen nods. “I mean, yeah, sure—”

“Goddamnit! Shut your mouth, boy. Shut it and listen.”

Pen looks down, thumbs the long scar on his chest.

“I never had one of these sidekicks,” Soldier says, “one of these kids running after me. I never did that. Mostly because I thought it was cruel.
This world’s cruel, this game, and it ain’t got an inch for children. And I felt bad for you. And I felt sorry you had to do that. I did. Going through what you had to. I saw it, son. I was there. And I’m sorry for that. I’m damn sorry.”

Pen bends his head down, then cocks it to the right, looking up at Soldier.

“But I expected you to be there. He expected you to be there. I don’t care what you been through, we all showed up, we’ve all done our part. You suffered, you had something put on you. Fine, that’s fine. But who the hell hadn’t? Who the hell was there that day that didn’t have something wrong with them?”

Pen puffs up the air under his lips. He lets it leak out in a wrinkled whistle.

“You got the powers now, you can do good, and that’s all right. But don’t let it make you think you’re special, that you can judge those that showed. Just because you can jump and swing. You ain’t special. You ain’t better than Doc Speed, you ain’t better than Ultimate, and you sure as hell ain’t better than Georgie. Those men—those men gave up everything, just damn everything. It cost them everything.” Soldier looks down and then back at Pen. “You understand that, you understand the lesson here.”

Pen hesitates, plucks at his scar a few more times, rubs his hand on his face. “Soldier, look, that’s not what I meant, okay? I’m sorry.”

“No, son, it’s exactly what you meant. You just don’t know it.”

“Goddamnit!” Pen yells. “I’m trying to be nice here, but fuck you. I didn’t have to be there. Okay? It was my fucking choice! I had a choice, it’s not fucking slavery!”

Soldier doesn’t say anything. He just waits a while, licks at his lips.

“Look, I’m sorry,” Pen says, after a long minute.

“Are you done?”

Pen doesn’t respond; he just looks away.

“It ain’t slavery,” Soldier says.

“Man, I know—”

“It’s just doing what you can, or else someone else dies. Those are the rules. That’s the choice. Showing up. That’s the game. That’s all it is. That and it never ends. We all keep coming back.”

“Look, I know—”

“There’s a threat, and we got to stop it. We got to find whatever’s causing these attacks, whoever’s throwing these bombs. So people can be safe. Until the next one. And that’s it. There ain’t more to it than that. No matter what you think of you or Georgie or any of us.”

Soldier places his hand on Pen’s chest, and Pen feels it tremble against his own heart.

“All right, okay, Soldier, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything, okay?”

Soldier says nothing; he just pats Pen’s shoulder a few times and walks over to the truck. The engine roars, then whines, and Pen goes back, hops back into the passenger seat. They drive for a while before Pen asks where they’re going. Soldier tells him that there’s nowhere to go really, they might as well wait, the enemy’s not clear yet, above us and coming, always coming, but not clear. So they drive and wait for the next one to come crashing down.

2

Distant Sun #96

He meets her at the airport and pretends it was an accident. When she sees him, Mashallah smiles and leans toward him, perhaps to hug him. Sun hesitates, having heard that she’s different now, that her religion has given her a new set of rules that he could never understand. She hugs him, and he apologizes, explains his confusion. She laughs and tells him the universe is vast, there are many worlds full of many things, “as long as my love for God goes with me in all of them, the rest will come.”

He gives her his story, tells her he’s going overseas to see about another attack. How funny to have run into her here just as she was leaving to go back to her home. He doesn’t tell her why he follows the attacks, the orders his father’s given him to follow Pen, save Pen. He doesn’t tell her that he knew she’d be here, that when Star-Knight paid for her tickets, Sun had found her schedule, noticed that they would overlap at the airport, that they would be together long enough for Sun finally to save the world.