The Best of Galaxy’s Edge 2013-2014 (12 page)

B
ernard Kowalski destroyed the Verrazano Bridge during the Friday rush.

But there are three important things to keep in mind: It was unintentional, no one died, and he caught the bank robbers he was chasing. It was a classic superhero feat. They
should
have given him a ticker-tape parade.

Instead he got thirty years in prison.

In his closing argument, the prosecutor called Bernie a “living, breathing weapon of mass destruction.” She also called him an “irresponsible, reckless vigilante” and a “fame-seeking psychopath.” Never once did she mention the word “hero.” Bernie easily could have flicked a paperclip through her throat and decapitated her right on the spot. But he was a superhero and superheroes don’t kill.

They held him on Rikers Island while they built a special long-term prison for him on Guantánamo Bay. He saved them the trouble. He busted out with one well-placed punch to the four-foot-thick cement wall and eventually settled on a desert island in the Pacific Ocean.

A superhero, Bernie lamented, has no place in the real world.

* * *

Bernie watched the sun sink into the ocean as he squeezed another yam into a coconut shell.

He had super strength. He could throw a garbage truck a mile. He could run so fast he was just a blur. He could blow down buildings with his ultra-breath. He could fly. And what did it get him, the world’s first and only superhero? All the yams he could eat and his very own tropical prison.

No one bothered with him except for some neighboring islanders who would leave him food and gifts. They thought he was an angry deity. The yams were offerings. On special occasions they left roasted pig. He was happy for the food. It wasn’t like he could fly over to Paris and grab some baguettes—not without causing an international incident.

He was thinking how Superman never got hauled into court in the comics when he spotted the helicopter. At first he figured it was sightseers. They occasionally flew over the island to take a peek at the superhuman, snap a few photos. He usually waved at them. Sometimes they’d wave back, sometimes they’d give him the finger.

He used his telescopic vision and saw that it was a Marine copter. In all the time he’d been on the island, no authorities had ever tried to contact him or haul him back to the U.S. Was this an assault? Were they stupid enough to try to finish him off now?

He scanned the sky, but there was only the one helicopter. If this was an attack, then the copter had to be equipped with a
WMD
.

He could hurl a palm tree at it or blow it down with his ultra-breath. But he continued squeezing yams. After two years on the island, the only way he could eat the tubers was by slurping them up like milkshakes.

The helicopter landed down the beach. He watched a man in a military uniform jump out. Alone, he headed toward the superhuman. Bernie relaxed.

The man said, “Bernard Kowalski?”

“No,” he said. “I’m Batman.” Military man didn’t laugh.

“I am General William Duncan, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”

Bernie picked up a yam, squeezed it so hard it exploded in his hand. “Care for a yam?”

“I’m not going to pussyfoot around, Kowalski. Your government needs you, maybe even the world.”

“My government? You mean the one that arrested me for being a superhero?”

“We’re in a big jam, the chili is really hitting the fan, and it is my opinion that you’re the solution. We’re prepared to offer you full asylum and will expunge your past crimes from the record.”

“Crimes, huh? I was
fighting
crime!”

“Believe me, as a soldier myself, I understand. Collateral damage is inevitable in war. The greater good, son, that’s what matters.”

“Exactly! That’s what I kept saying at the trial. I’m a super
hero
. There should be different rules.”

“Well, Kowalski, the rules have just changed.”

Bernie wiped the yam juice off his hands, sat up straighter. “They have, huh?”

“It seems you are no longer the world’s only superhuman. But you can still be the world’s only superhero. Madame Devastator has already destroyed most of New Jersey.”

“Madame Devastator? Cool name.”

“We’ve thrown everything at her, but it’s done no good. We need you to take her out. You are cleared to use any means necessary. We’re in a real bind here. What do you say, Kowalski?”

“General, I’ve been waiting a long time for this.”

“I’ll brief you at the Pentagon. We have an aircraft carrier not too far away.”

“It’ll be quicker if I take you.”

Bernie scooped up the general and flew east.

* * *

Madame Devastator’s real name was Hannah Bormann. She was a twenty-two-year-old art student from Connecticut, at least until about a week ago when she went berserk in Jersey.

At the Pentagon, Bernie watched videos of her obliterating Hoboken. She could fire bolts of lightning out of her fingertips and create storms with a hand gesture. She also sported a killer costume, something Bernie had always wanted. But his superhero career had ended before he could design one. Madame Devastator wore black high-heeled boots with laces up to her knees, a leather bodysuit with lightning bolts running down the sides, and a scarlet cape. At the moment, Bernie was in yellow Bermuda shorts, flip-flops, and a pink tank top.

When the briefing was over, General Duncan said, “Do you need any assistance from us?”

“Can you guys rustle me up a uniform? I feel kinda dorky here.”

A half-hour later he was wearing Henry Winkler’s leather jacket from
Happy Days
, John Wayne’s cowboy hat from
True Grit
, Harrison Ford’s pants from
Raiders of the Lost Ark
, and James Dean’s boots from
Rebel Without a Cause
. Some wise guy had made a run to the Smithsonian and thought the clothes had some mojo that might help. They started calling Bernie “Mr. Americana.” His previous superhero name was Bernard Kowalski.

* * *

When Bernie reached New York City, where Madame Devastator was currently wreaking havoc, he perched himself on top of the Freedom Tower. He didn’t need his telescopic vision to find her. A boulder the size of a minivan blasted into the air over Central Park. Bernie rocketed uptown, and just before it crashed on top of The Dakota apartment building he obliterated the boulder with a mighty uppercut. A mist of pebbles showered down.

Bernie bolted into the park, flying just above the treetops.

He was nearing the lake when a street lamp rose into the air and swatted him as if he were a pesky fly. He crashed into the water.

As he sank, Bernie thought how he had only ever fought purse snatchers and jaywalkers.

He sprang out of the water, grabbed his hat—which was floating nearby—and placed it back on his head.

Madame Devastator stood beside the Bethesda Fountain, sparks dancing on her fingertips. “I should have figured they’d send for you,” she said. “You’ve always struck me as a brownnoser.”

“Is that why you’re doing this? To get to me?”

“Don’t flatter yourself. I’m doing this because I can. It’s fun. Besides, what the hell else can you do with fingertips that shoot lightning?”

“You got me there,” Bernie said, and blasted her with his ultra-breath. She hurtled backwards, knocking down trees and statues. She didn’t come to a stop until she crashed into the side of an M10 bus.

All the vehicles on Central Park West were abandoned. General Duncan had pulled the military out of the area and evacuated as many civilians as he could, though there were plenty of them watching from their apartment windows, snapping photos and taking video.

A woman stuck her head out of a fourth-story window and shouted, “Get her, Mr. Americana!” Bernie’s face burned with pride, though he wondered how she knew his nickname.

Bernie spotted a garbage truck up the block. He’d always wanted to chuck one.

As he lifted it over his head, he noticed with glee the camera flashes coming from the surrounding buildings. He paused, flexed his muscles, then heaved the truck at Madame Devastator, just as she was getting to her feet. Bernie was disappointed when the truck crash-landed right-side up a few yards from her. It tottered and he helped it along with a blast of his ultra-breath. A moment after the truck fell onto the super villain, windows were thrown open and there was a thunderclap of applauds and hooting. Some people were giving Bernie the thumbs-up. They held out their cellphones. Bernie smiled and waved as if he had just won the Miss America Pageant.

He was thinking about the ticker-tape parade they were going to give him, when Madame Devastator zapped him with the lightning from her fingertips.

His body seized. His muscles felt as if they had been turned to stone. Then came the burning. Bernie screamed.

Suddenly the sky darkened and the wind howled. He floated into the air and began spinning in the darkness. Thunder crashed around him. He was caught inside a tornado.

He tried to get his equilibrium, but he couldn’t stop the spinning. He was blind and disoriented. His arms were pinned at his side.

He couldn’t die like this before the world. It would be all over the Internet in seconds. In his panic, he pursed his lips and blew as hard as he could, hoping to jolt himself out of the twister. There was an explosion. He heard glass shattering and stone crumbling. He blew again. Another explosion. Screams. Car alarms blared. Still he was trapped in the funnel. He blew straight down and kept blowing until he rose above the bad weather. He stopped blowing when he saw the sun and the bright blue sky. Then he was falling, his muscles still cramped from the lightning strikes. The roof of the American Museum of Natural History rushed up to the meet him and he crashed through it. He landed on a stegosaurus skeleton, which was now a pile of rubble.

After a moment, his power returned to him and he shot through the hole in the roof. Madame Devastator was waiting for him in front of the museum. She looked tired, drained. The lightning flickered on her fingertips like a dying light bulb.

“You don’t have to fight me,” she said, gasping for breath. “We’re the same. In fact, we’re the only two of our kind. They”—she swept out her arms—“are our real enemies. You saw how they treated you when you tried to help them the first time.”

“I’m a superhero,” Bernie said. “This is what superheroes do.”

One moment Bernie was hovering in the air, the next he was behind Madame Devastator. He held her in a headlock. She barely resisted.

“This ends now,” he said.

“If you’re going to kill me, you could at least use an original line.”

A small crowd watched from the park across the street. Someone yelled, “Finish her!” Another screamed, “We love you, Mr. Americana!”

Bernie tightened his grip on Madame Devastator. Camera flashes, like bolts of lightning, ripped through the air. In minutes he’d be the champion of the world, his face on every TV screen, newspaper, and magazine. He was probably already trending like crazy on the Internet. Before he twisted his arch-nemesis’s neck, he whispered in her ear.

Then Madame Devastator went limp in his arms.

For a moment the city was silent. Bernie heard only his ragged breathing. Then there came an eruption of cheers and shouts. People began to appear from all over. They chanted his name and it echoed across the city. Bernie’s eyes moistened. He wished his parents were still alive to see this.

As the crowd inched toward him, Mr. Americana, née Bernard Kowalski, flew off with Madame Devastator’s body in his arms.

* * *

The yams were all gone, so he flew to Tokyo and got sushi. He didn’t even have to pay. Heroes don’t have to pay. It’s one of the many perks.

Back on the island, he sat on the beach reading an English-language newspaper he grabbed along with his lunch. The front page showed him holding Madame Devastator. “Mr. Americana Saves the Day!” the headline blared.

A few pages in he found an editorial questioning whether Mr. Americana (the Pentagon had leaked the nickname to the media shortly after Bernie left for New York) was needed now that Madame Devastator was dead. He knew that would come. In time they’d return to seeing him as a ticking time bomb. Weapons of mass destruction are only tolerated in times of war.