A Once Crowded Sky (9 page)

“What the hell d’you just say?” Burn asks.

“Yeah, Prophetier, what the hell did you just say?” Big Bear echoes the sentiment.

Thank God the door opens, and the doctor, a slender woman who Felix hopes is older than she looks, steps out with her patient. Felix recognizes the girl, the redheaded girl from the funeral, but he can’t get her name. But she looks familiar in that way that all the unmasked heroes look familiar now.

The girl leaves, and Burn gets up to take his turn, but the doctor points over at Big, who stands and follows her back into the office. As she’s closing the door, the doctor notices the other man in the room, his cigarette still hanging off his lip. “And you are?”

“Prophetier,” he says.

“Yes, well, make sure you’ve an appointment, okay? Please check with the front desk, if there’s any confusion. And we don’t use the names in this office. Everyone has a real name here. And no smoking.” She pats Big Bear/Mr. Schiff on the shoulder and guides him back into the adjoining room.

“Shit,” Burn says as he sits back down.

Prophetier lights the cigarette.

“Dude, what’d she like
just
say?” Burn yells, and Prophetier’s giggled response burps out of his mouth with a twist of smoke.

Crack.

The world gives in. Folds in on itself.

A tight screech snaps Felix’s ears dead.

Sudden blasts of white, white plaster, white flash, blasts of heat and white, white, white.

Crack.

An explosion.

Somewhere. Somewhere near.

Felix is on the floor. Burn is on top of him. And there’s fire, and there’s light, a piercing, natural shine that shouldn’t be there, that coats the room white, the pounding white sucked into Felix’s lungs, picking at Felix’s lungs. Choking and gagging. The building choking and gagging, exposed to the light, naked and cold in the cold, white light.

The roof. Caved.

A cry. A scream. Loud, blasting through instant quiet and immediately snuffed. A woman’s cry. Like his daughter’s. Like Penelope’s. The second one.

The roof is gone. Mostly gone. And the sun is pushing down on them, a white vise crushing them into a white floor. There’s glass on the floor, glass and wood, and magazines, the magazines are on fire, there’s fire, an explosion, a white, white explosion and fire, white fire, and Burn rolls off him, reaches out, takes a magazine, takes a burnt magazine, a burning magazine, and crumples it in his hands, his hands held in front of his face as his hands bathe in fire, the way they used to bathe in fire, and his hands burn, and he smiles, and he runs away, away from the
bumping and the breaking. He burns, and he runs, and the woman’s cry cries again.

Crack.

The itch rolls its fists and begins pounding on the bar, screaming at the bartender to please, please hurry—for God’s sake! For God’s sake! There’s been an attack! We’ve been attacked! The itch is wailing, throwing all his might into breaking the counter, demanding the man get off his ass and pour a goddamn pour!

A hand tugs him, pulls at Felix’s shirt, tugs him, and he rolls backward on his back a few inches, pulled away from the fire, which has begun to spread. Felix looks up, sees Prophetier, the cigarette still on his lip, one hand on Felix, one hand holding a phone to his ear. Prophetier, his back to the door, his hand wrapped in Felix’s shirt, dragging Felix back toward the door away from the fire, toward the bartender at the end of the bar with his kind jokes and his kind acquiescence to the itch’s kind demands for a kind, kind pour.

Escape and a pour. Escape and a pour. Felix smiles up toward the kind man. Drag me away. Save me. There’s a cool pour ordered and waiting, and his wife won’t mind all that much, and his daughter won’t mind all that much.

The cry cries again. A scream, like his daughter’s scream, but he’s being taken away, and his daughter won’t mind all that much, though sometimes she does cry; when he drinks, sometimes she cries and cries.

The cry. He’s being dragged to freedom, to the quick, easy pour, and he’s being dragged away from the cry, like his daughter’s cry, like his wife’s cry when they shout at him that he shouldn’t have one more, that they mind very much if he does.

The cry is the doctor’s cry, his doctor’s cry, their doctor’s, and she’s not here, she’s not here being saved, and he’s being dragged away from her, Prophetier’s dragging him away to the escape and the pour, and the cry—the cry remains.

Felix peers back, wipes at his eyes. The door to her office is gone, blown in and away. A chunk of the roof went straight through the door, and he sees the chunk now, sitting on top of Big Bear, and Big Bear’s not moving at all, and she’s there too, his doctor, next to him, and her leg is beneath the debris, stuck with the dead hero. The building is still tilting back and forth, still failing, and she’s still crying, screeching out,
anticipating its failure, just like his wife, screaming at him as he pours another, asking him to seek help and then leaving, anticipating his failure.

Felix jerks away from Prophetier’s grip, breaking the hold, but Prophetier only grabs on tighter and drags him faster, and the itch blares at the lines of bottles on the other side of the counter, wills them to fall and fall and fill the glasses and place them on the counter and let the man drag you to the counter full of sweet escape, and Felix hears the scream, and it’s like his daughter’s scream, and he jerks again.

Prophetier drops his phone, bends down, wraps his arms around Felix’s torso, yells into his broken ears. It’s time to go. The hospital’s been attacked. Your family’s outside, the pour is outside, and the itch itches—it itches on and on and on. Get out of here, Doc. Let your family greet you now, while there’s time, sit with your family, have a drink and sit with them. Get out of here, Doc. Get the hell out of here.

I have to save her. I’m a hero, Proph. I’m the fastest surgeon in history, The Surgeon of Speed! I’m a doctor. I save people. I’m a hero.

But you can’t save her, Felix. You’re not Doctor Speed anymore. You’re Felix. And Felix leaves and goes to his family and has another drink. That’s why you’re here. Why they sent you here. Your daughter and your wife—they know: you’re not fast enough.

Felix looks over at Prophetier and then back at the woman squirming under the weight of all that concrete. She’ll die. You’re not fast enough, and she’ll die.

The bartender finally pays some damn attention and pours the itch a drink, three fingers of blissful brown, and the itch clutches the glass, brings the glass to his lips, touches his lips to the glass.

And the woman screams again, and it’s not her, it’s his wife, and she shouts at him that he doesn’t need it, the brown isn’t needed. Just because the speed’s gone doesn’t mean you need this, not you, Felix. You’re more than the speed. Get help. Go to the heroes’ hospital. Go to the doctor. Let her help you, let her teach you that you’re Felix, not Doctor Speed, not a hero, but a man who can live without speed, without heroics, without the itch waiting.

We’ll come back. Once you’re fixed, we’ll come back. Penelope and I will come back. We promise. But for now, go there, be with help, with her. Let her save you. Because you can’t save yourself anymore. You can’t save anyone.

When are you going to accept it, Felix, you can’t save anyone. Not anymore.

The itch smiles as the brown feathers the tip of his tongue, the familiar tease before that fine, fine follow-through, and you can’t save anyone, and Felix twitches, throws his shoulder to the left and slugs Prophetier in the face, the way he used to slug all those villains in those easy, sober days. The itch drops his drink to the bar, the glass still full. Full and waiting.

As Prophetier reels back from the unexpected blow, Felix is able to wiggle out of his grip, able to rise to his feet and finally rush toward the pinned doctor. Prophetier shouts at him, tells him it’s all coming down, there’s no time, the place is coming down, run away, Felix, run away to your family.

But Felix isn’t thinking of any of that now. The pour is on the bar, and the itch is impatient, and he isn’t thinking of any of that now. The girl is screaming, the way his daughter screamed, and someone has to save her, the way he’d save his daughter if she were here, the way he’d save his wife if she were here. You can’t save anyone, but Felix isn’t thinking of any of that now. You’re a drunk, and you can’t save anyone, and the drink’s on the bar, and Felix isn’t thinking of any of that now as he gets to the doctor and hooks his wrists under her armpits and yanks her free.

She screams again, but Felix knows it’s all right, he’s a doctor and he knows it’s all right, it can be fixed with the right surgery, and who is he if not The Surgeon of Speed, and a chunk of the roof crashes in, gouges into the floor inches behind them, and Felix starts to pull, dragging the woman as he was once dragged not so long ago.

Prophetier’s gone; the waiting room’s been abandoned, and chunks of the building now hammer around them as the structure disintegrates under the stress of the attack, and Felix pulls, though his legs are no longer strong, and the speed is no longer his, and the drink sits there waiting, and he pulls her, pulls her to the door, out the door, to the hallway, and something hits him in the knee, in the head, and it hurts, and it bleeds, and he pulls her, and the pour, the pretty pour, is waiting.

But he doesn’t need it. Real heroes don’t. That was the lesson, wasn’t it? That’s what he’s learning as he skates her body through the building to the last exit, to the waiting grass and the waiting glass—that was the lesson. He hadn’t had the powers, so he’d had the drink, but now he
didn’t have the drink, all he had was the girl, his girl, his daughter, his wife, dragging them all to safety, all he had was the drag, and he was still the hero. He didn’t care about the itch or any of that. He cared about the scream at the far end of the building, like his daughter’s scream, like his wife’s, like Penelope’s, and he saved her, he saved her.

Felix pulls the doctor through a final door, out onto the cool lawn in front of the building and then pulls her farther as the building collapses, and it’s one of those unexpected last-minute victories that is just like all the old unexpected last-minute victories. When they’re finally far enough, he allows her to lie on the ground, the blast of sirens declaring that real help is on the way, real doctors who can save them, save them more.

And Felix drops down next to his doctor, lies next to her, comforts her as he once comforted his child, Penelope, and his wife, Penelope, he comforts them all, and he notices for the first time that the itch has fallen back, pulled back from the bar and stretched his hands out, and Felix smiles because he saved them, he saved them, he saved them.

He doesn’t need the drink. He doesn’t need the power. He saved them. He can still be the hero. He can live without the drink and the power, and live with his family, live again with his family. It’s better to be with your family.

And above him stands a pretty girl, her red hair haloed by the sun’s brilliant light. It’s the unmasked girl from the office and the funeral, the one with the doctor, and she bends down and kisses his cheek and tells him he’s done well, he’s done good, and he thanks her, but he doesn’t get up. He’s too tired.

The girl giggles, stands, and twirls in the chaos surrounding them. And Felix laughs too, happy to be out, safe and happy for the first time in a long time, since The Blue, since the itch, since his wife left, since his daughter left, and the girl bends down and offers him a swig of the good stuff off a flask she keeps in her coat, and Felix has a swig of the good stuff, and another swig, because it’s better to be with your family, drunk with your family, than sober without them, than drunk without them, and he takes another swig, until he too is twirling in the chaos, celebrating the return of the game, the redemption of them all.

Anna Averies Romance, Vol. 3, #1 of 4

The phone in the kitchen rings three times before Anna can answer it, interrupting her writing. Her deadline’s in a few hours, and if she—

“Hello,” she says.

A screech of noise.

After giving it a few seconds, she hangs up and heads back to the computer. By the time she reaches her chair, the phone’s ringing again. Under her breath she swears freely and then returns to the kitchen, her bare feet chilled on the linoleum floor.

“Yes,” she says.

A slow-stirring static comes down the line. Small tones now bounce under the liquid fuzz, attempting to pierce the crackled surface. Sounds of screaming.

“Hello, is there—hello? Are you okay?”

A voice breaches the white noise: “Put PenUltimate—phone.”

“Hello? Hello? I can’t hear, you. Please can you—what did you—hello?”

The voice on the other side pokes again through the buzz: “My—Prophetier—PenUltimate—come—the—now.”

“Hello? Can you hear me? Is that you? Profet . . . Proafeteer . . . hello? Pen’s not here, he’s at a lunch. Can I . . . I mean, get you a message—get a message to Pen?”

“You—tell him—Arcadia General—attack—dead—tell him to—attack.”

“What did you say? Can you talk louder? Hello? What attack? I don’t . . . hello?”