True Heroes (91 page)

              “Yeah, yeah, that’s been all cleared up. Just in town for something completely different and saw the section in the newspaper.”

              “I wasn’t even aware of that. The wife’s the news-reader.” Kain’s eyes travelled over to Alice. “Sorry, miss, you are?”

              Alice twirled back into the conversation and smiled widely. “Alice.”

              “Girlfriend Alice.”

              Kain stood and met her halfway with a handshake. “Really?”

              “Yeah, knew you’d find that interesting.”

              He sat back down and laughed slowly. “I guess things have been pretty good since we last met then?”

              Caleb smiled sympathetically. “A lot has happened, but the good seems here to stay finally.”

              “How did he die?”

              Kain and Caleb both looked towards Alice, whose eyes had assumed a sad, nearly tearful look. “Peacefully.”

              Both occupants of the couch nodded while the son in the chair folded one leg across the other. Caleb brought his hands over his lap as he leaned forward and found himself smiling. “He got to see a lot of the important things didn’t he? Your birth, school, wedding; that sounds like a great life for a father to live with his son.”

              Kain smiled a little before looking away; his eyes drifted through the open blinds and seemed to track along a distant cloud. “What did he see of yours?”

              “My baptism where I boiled the water, my mother’s funeral where I almost went crazy, then at my graduation when I actually did go crazy and had the speech to prove it. That’s about it.”

              Kain smiled wider. “You never did tell me about graduation.”

              “Yeah, me neither.”

              He looked between Alice and Kain and smiled. “Where’s his computer?”

              “The desk in the office why?”

              “Because I guarantee you he still has a copy of my speech. Maybe that’ll show you what I mean.”

              They all stood up and quickly walked into the other room. As Kain sat down and brought the computer to life, Caleb kept the conversation running between movements. “How’s school been going?”

              “Off today…,” Kain quickly clicked in the password and found the file. “Would you like to do the honor of reading it to us?”

              “It’s the middle of the week.” The son held his head down and inflated his lips while they tightly held against one another. Caleb didn’t bother to lean as he read from memory. “‘I hope you have heard this before. I hope it is engrained into your senses. I hope that you have learned everything you could possibly learn from it, and that you will hear it again simply for the entertainment. Those that have known it is not a short story. It is simple, and it is apparent. They would have you believe otherwise. They would want it to dance, to sing, to juggle and cavort, but they do not know this story. We have lived this story and have never known. We have always known the truth, but never been able to grasp it. Everybody has heard it, but nobody is ever known for it.’”

              Alice applauded lightly while Kain looked up and smiled. “You really sent a strange message there.”

              “I said what needed to be said at the time.”

              “Like things have improved at all.”

              “Have you heard of a little war that’s finally ended?”

              “Yeah, and now the real problems finally can come around. We’ve already seen our own dollar bills pass through the circle of economic trade six times, and now the rebuilding will see it pass another nine times twice as fast.”

              “But things can be better now,” Alice injected. “Everybody can make things better now.”

              “I’m sorry, but no, things will not be getting better anytime soon. There’s too much to fix too soon. Nobody can perform miracles like that.”

              Caleb pulled out the rolling chair and sat a few feet from both Kain and Alice. “Why aren’t you in school today?”

              Kain leaned forward with his hands rubbing through is short hair. “My presentation is in three months, and I have simply run out of stuff to write about since you’ve fallen off the map.”

              “Sorry to hear that.”

              He recoiled and breathed deeply. “It’s not your fault. It’s just the timing of everything. No, it’s the context of everything. I can’t find th-the overwhelming theme of it all. I’m smart, I know that, and staring at problems helps me focus on them and brings out the answer almost always, especially in this stuff, but nothing’s coming out of it, nothing at all.”

              Caleb leaned forward and spoke calmly. “If you force an answer out of the actions, you will get the wrong one. Maybe there’s something else that needs to happen before you can see it all.”

              “Or maybe it’s already happened.”

              He smiled up to Alice before pulling up the homepage of the internet on the late father’s computer. Appearing was one of the millions of variations of “war” and “over,” and Caleb simply smiled; a coy, cautious movement that could barely be noticed from any sideways angle, but Kain was directly ahead of him: his perception was uninhibited. The younger man gently raised his finger and wagged it between the screen and Caleb’s curt face. “You?”

              “He did. In a day.”

              “You didn’t sign it with any of your names. How will anybody know?”

              “That’s the point,” Caleb recited calmly. “But, I’m telling you so you have something to give to that larger idea of yours.”

              “How would I ever be able to prove it?”

              Caleb sat back. “I don’t think it’s really about proving anything. This entire project seems to be more about believing that the right thing is out there and it can be acted upon, and that when it’s acted upon, incredible things can happen. If that’s the case, then you’ve compiled all the fuel you’ll need for this.”

              Kain laughed again. “It is about that, but there has to be somebody to filter it through. Somebody to…act upon what is good and to repel what is bad. Show us what’s right and what’s wrong.” Alice placed her hand on Caleb’s shoulder as his smile widened. “If you’d ever come forward, I’d have my guy.”

              “Sorry, but this doesn’t work like that. You shouldn’t be worried about that anyways. If you find the idea, that will be enough to show everyone that the right thing is worth fighting for.”

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              David walked up to the window with a tremendous view. His hands were shaking as he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket. The retrieved parcel—small, cylindrical, silver—was clutched between his pointer and thumb.

              Around him, people performed their duties of the moment, a moment that would pass into another moment, but find such a jar that the memory would either live forever, or be lost in a ringing haze.

              A small blue light emanated from the outward end of the object in short bursts. One blink, followed by two quick ones, and three slower ones, seen from miles away through a tremendous scope before the object skittered to the tiled floor and David began to walk briskly for the stairwell.

---

                 “These two jogging up.”

              Caleb closed his eyes behind the dark shades on his nose and calmly jostled Power into position to follow the slowly moving older couple. Power sighed through the cylinder of variant waves between him and Caleb before reporting, “One’s talking in the New York accent about lampshade designs while the other enthusiastically responds. She used to be a sparkling redhead, and apparently wants something to bring her back to the glory days. In a lampshade…. They live together. Ah, they’re an older lesbian couple. Alice would’ve surely seen that in their smile.”

              “I’m ready whenever you are.”

              Caleb opened his eyes while keeping his power slightly extended. “Go for it.”

              “The one on the right really has a crush with the woman on the left, and the woman on the left is ready to take it to the next level, but neither one of them are brave enough to do anything beyond sex adventures.”

              “How did you go down that path?”

              ‘They are wearing lipstick on a jog,’ Power said as it retracted.

              “They’re wearing lipstick while jogging, and they have the same comfort level as you and I when it comes to physical stuff. Maybe a little more because I’m a pansy.”

              Caleb smiled from his squatted position atop the new, dedicated bench and adjusted his deeply black glasses. “Or because we’re not about that.”

              She wandered back from the path as the two ladies of focus passed by with a mutual laugh. “That could be it too. Tell me how close I was.”

              “I think you were closer than they were willing to talk about in Central Park.”

              “Did they have the accents?”

              “It said they did.”

              “Then tell him he did a good job.”

              ‘My pleasure.’

              “Its pleasure.” A massive, grey wave suddenly struck against the side of his tiny field and caused everything to retract completely. The sides wavered heavily against the unsuspected force and had both entities wincing in pain. Caleb looked up into the sky as quickly as his head would allow. ‘A jet engine?’

              ‘That seems right. It’s flying very close to the ground with that sonic boom.’

              Caleb felt Alice over his shoulder as they both watched a low flying jet—‘Weapons on the underside, and just barely clearing these building tops,’—turn the heads of several thousand people. “It’s not going to clear the Empire State building. It’s flying right at it, Caleb.”

              His power exploded from his body; an arm flung Alice to his back while his legs instantly felt the rush of blue and red blood. He kept to the streets, but ran atop the cars and any other suitable obstacle his mind could quickly locate and facilitate to his pushing legs. As the greenery of Central Park gave way to the shades of industry, the jet suddenly turned hard to the right, detaching something from its underbelly, the metallic shine glistening even from miles away as it wrapped around three sides of the middle of the large structure. Caleb pushed faster and tightened his grip on Alice until they were six blocks away. The explosion began its chain of resounding percussions, and when the pieces of the building began falling carelessly to the streets below, Caleb dropped Alice safely behind a car before leaping into the air. His bodily heave brought him two blocks closer, and he erupted; every bit of bright blue he could muster came flowing onto the streets until a cocoon was weaved with tremendous speed around the falling building, preventing the debris from spreading the massive wave of dust any further. His blue shell towered to the heights of the cresting plume for three blocks away on all sides.

              He looked up when the worst of the resistance had passed, and saw Stephen standing from the cockpit of the hovering tool, his grin wide with delivered malice while his eyes pointed to the delivery of some message. Power instinctively reached for the wing of the contraption, but the bold man pushed forward on the accelerator while sitting quickly. Before the stretch of Power could elasticize enough, he was completely out of reach.

              “Damn him!”

              Caleb shook his head and quickly held out his hand, retracting Power slowly from the settled volcano of fallen rubble. As soon as the blue was reeled back to Caleb’s body, everybody behind him was in action. It was moments until the entire scene was alive with sirens and flashes of lights, all nearly drowned out by the shouts of desperate people attempting whatever rescue they could for the people trapped within. Caleb pushed past all of them. “Back off the rubble! Get some huge dump trucks out here now! Have the people clear an area all around here!” The blue sparked from his body again with the mist of dust shrouding all but the field and eyes of Caleb. Power muscled and blew the thick pathogens from the immediate vicinity and both entities began lifting. A large chunk of rubble flew up from beneath the feet of a few wayward onlookers, and three people began crawling from beneath the suspended cement. “Everyone’s moving now. Over to the right there’s an empty space.” Power levitated the chunk slowly back to the ground while continuing the work at hand.

              After two hours of moving and loading, Caleb felt his knees give out from beneath him. A few strangers held under his arms and carried him out of the foggy disaster zone and he soon found a seat beneath his tired limbs, an oxygen mask around his mouth, and Alice’s hands wrapping roughly around his neck. Her first sentences were completely drowned out by the rapid buzz within his enclosed skull, but three deep breathes from the generous tank finally returned his senses. “Are you okay?”

              “Yes,” he said through the mask before removing it. “Have to get back in there.”

              “No, you need to rest. They’ve got equipment out there ready to move anything if they find someone. Please stay here, right here. I’ll go tell them where you are if you stay right here and rest.”

              Caleb lazily shook his head while fighting to retain his consciousness. “Take a mask.”

              She grabbed a thin mask and quickly left. He watched from the small corner-shop as everyone relayed between the clear day at his front and the early morning, thick fog where once had stood a building. He turned in his seat while flexing his power. ‘Rest it or we won’t be around to help.’ “Caleb?”

              He scanned the medical personnel and moaning patients slowly before David walked up from between several of them. “David. Are you okay?”

              “Yeah, yeah, fine. You don’t look too good.”

              He walked around to the front of the chair and started to examine Caleb. ‘He’s not trembling anymore. His eyes are focused and driven.’

              ‘A tragedy like this kind of demands his A-game. A job doesn’t rank at this level.’

              “I saw you out there just now. That was amazing.”

              ‘His tone is flat.’

              ‘Paranoia doesn’t rank on this level either.’ “Yeah, I guess the secret’s out there now.”

              “I suppose it is.” Caleb lowered and twisted off the oxygen while intently looking down to David from a few inches away. “You’re not cut or injured at all.”

              David looked up, and Caleb could suddenly see everything David had been hiding. ‘For one moment, we were all-knowing of David.’ “You sure you’re okay? There’s something coming off of you….”

              “I don’t know what you mean.”

              Caleb pushed a small amount of Power into his eyes, and a cascade of purple waves came from the object in David’s jacket pocket. The psychologist recoiled onto his knees from Caleb’s eyes, but Caleb snatched his shirt and retrieved the small piece of paper. David didn’t attempt to fight. “I think you know all about waves. Like the fear that’s coming out of every pore on your body.” Caleb stood and threw David back into the chair. “You probably need a seat more than I do. Schemes and killing take a lot out of the knees, I hear.”

              David looked down and clenched his fists across the top of the wooden armrests.

              “We keep running into each other.”

              Caleb held his hand up to stop Stanley’s banter. “Look at me!” David obeyed with salty tears becoming preeminent. “Before I open this letter, you might want to tell me what happened, because this paper could be the end of everything for you.”

              “Everything?”

              “Everything you love and hold dear.”

              David laughed quickly. “Tell me then, hero, what do I have? Tell me one goddamn thing that I have! No Alice, no group, no real job. I’m a nobody. Take anything you want from me.”

              “You are not a nobody. All you’ve ever been is a man that’s too in love with the question of the world to ever see how it really was. You think the world is all about decisions and actions that promote who you are and validate ‘David,’ but that’s bull. You know it’s bull.” Caleb calmed down. ‘He had the letter. He was glad I came. He always knew….’ “And you’re trying to destroy yourself. That’s why you had the letter and let Alice bring me.”

              David had his hair by the roots and his glasses fallen in his lap. “Please,” he begged between sobs, “don’t tell Alice.”

              “Stay back little lady.”

              Alice fought out of Stanley’s grip and walked into Caleb’s turned chest and hug. She struggled and tried to rip his arms from their coil, but could find no real fight in her body. “Let me go Caleb!”

              Her look scalded against the side of his face, but he didn’t budge. “Talk, not hit. Don’t you dare be like him.”

              David held his head up. “I’m sorry, Alice.”

              “Oh don’t you even say that! You would lie to me now? Of all times to ever lie to me you see this as the best? You’re polluting the air these poor people are breathing! You don’t care at all! He’s right, you just wanted there to be an answer. You wanted the world to be changed by you and you didn’t care how! All of those faces—” Her final word rose from anger into a higher pitched signal of the beginning of a torrent of agony as what little fight she had left escaped through slow sobs as Caleb lowered her to her knees. “There’s nothing left of them. There’s nothing left of you. Someone took every ounce of sensitivity, caring, and compassion you had left. Those things were in you first! It’s not fair, and now they’re gone forever, and you don’t care a bit.”