A Once Crowded Sky (13 page)

“Really? How’s this going to work? Y’know he’s much bigger than you, right?” Her hand is on his shoulder, and she’s jostled back and forth by his muscles’ jerk, the ricochets of his weapons as they release their load.

“Be quiet,” he says, and he steps toward the tank, avoiding putting his foot on the body of the American GI—who looks almost as young as Soldier did last time—lying in front of him. The turret of the Panzer rotates toward him as his bullets bounce off the machine’s metal armor. Soldier’s boots dig into the French soil, and his eyes look like glass.

BWROOOOMPH!

“Oh my God! Soldier, get down!” She leaps into him, managing to tip him over as a shell blasts over their heads, its powder burning in her nose.

A deafening roar. Bricks of the old church at their flank start to rain down. Even though he’s on his back now, being pelted by the sharp debris clouding the air around them, Soldier gets his guns pointed straight and firing true; he keeps bouncing metal off metal.

Annoyed, she crawls over his stomach and gets ahold of the brown material of his army jacket. He’s really heavy, and her calves pop out of her toned legs as she pulls and pulls, dragging him out of the way.

The church groans, gagging and spitting down. She keeps dragging, and he keeps firing. The spire at the top of the building thwacks off and falls forward, gashing into the back of the Panzer, burying the small German crew beneath a few dozen tons of sacred rubble.

On her hands and knees beside the wreckage, DG tries to catch her breath. Soldier seems similarly wiped; he’s not even able to keep his own weight upright, and he leans heavily on her, still blasting his guns into the newly formed lump of brick, glass, and rock.

He very rudely doesn’t thank her before falling unconscious, and she’s honestly tempted to remind him of that the next time they’re together, but these damn Koreans have stuffed a lice-encrusted sock in his mouth, so he probably couldn’t apologize even if he wanted to.

“This might hurt,” she says, and she can’t help but wince as she peels the tape off his cheeks and the gag falls to the floor, insects jumping off and on it as it lands on dark, stained concrete. “Sorry ’bout that.”

“Thank you,” he says. From her red purse, which perfectly matches her crimson dress (she wore it again!), she pulls out half a loaf of brown bread. While placing small pieces in his mouth, she can’t help but apologize for the poor quality of the food, but he was very hard to find this time, and she didn’t have much time for shopping. Not replying, he first sucks at and then chews the hard balls of wheat.

“Y’know, it’s supercold in here. I mean, of course you know. But I guess for a guy that spends most of the time all frozeny up, it’s not a big thing. Y’know, if they ever let you out between these wars, we could maybe get a drink or something.” His tongue jabs out, begging more, and she places another chunk on his lip before stuffing the bread back in the bag. “Okay, okay, don’t forget to chew. Now just give me a sec here.”

She hugs her arms around him and fingers the sharp metal binding his hands to the chair. “Oh. That’s not good. Let me get something.” She fusses through her purse and finds a thin gold key that reflects a light not found in that black room. Again she snuggles around him, feels his breath on her neck, and the key finds its place, and his hands are free. His nails are gone, and he wipes the blood at the edge of his fingers across his naked chest, creating tracks of red that checker his skin.

Thankfully, Soldier’s doing much better the next time she sees him, or at least he would be if the Vietcong hadn’t just put a bayonet into his belly. And the worst part is Soldier was winning: he was on top of the guy, had his own knife tip right at the dude’s throat—and then that damn Cong managed to twist his rifle around his back and into Soldier. Now the other guy’s managed to grab Soldier’s wrist, to hold the blade an inch above his own skin. Their hands twitch as sheets of rain come down indiscriminately, trying to drown them both.

“Help me,” Soldier says, and she springs onto his back. Her arms outstretched, she forms two fists on top of Soldier’s hand and shoves down. Together they make progress, and the metal blade again descends until it’s sinking in, at first easily and then choppy as it bounces and slides off the bones of the Cong’s neck. A low burble spurts from the stranger’s mouth along with a lot of other liquid things, but soon it stops, and he’s gone.

She rolls off Soldier’s back and melts into the wet leaves that paint the ground in gold and red. DG’s dress is so ruined, she doesn’t even want to think about it.

He turns to his side and places his head in her lap. He’s crying. There are things she could say, but she decides to be quiet instead. She just keeps stroking his drenched hair, the way she used to do when he was a child.

Which is kind of funny, because the next time she sees him he’s flying through the air in an F-16, which reminds her of how he used to play flying back then, his arms flapping about as he sped across that expansive green lawn. Two thousand feet below, a group of Iraqi soldiers disguised as sheepherders are marching north toward Turkey. At least they’re supposed to be Iraqi soldiers, but they do look a lot like sheepherders. It’s hard to tell from this far up, really. The missile lock is engaged; his finger hovers over the button that’ll release the bombs.

“I can’t,” Soldier says as he puts both hands back on the stick.

“Oh, c’mon. Press it and just get back to base. I’m hungry.” A bit of her now stained crimson dress has been caught in the cockpit, and she so knows it’s going to rip getting out of this clumsy thing. “I’m sure they’re at least mostly bad, if that’s what’s bothering you.”

Ever obstinate, he shakes his head, and she leans forward, flattening her chest to his back, reaching over his shoulder toward the button. The metal bombs drop and descend smartly into the desert night.

“There,” she says, “that wasn’t so bad.”

Tugging on the stick, Soldier tips the aircraft to the right and starts to head home, but before he gets there, he’s rerouted to another mission, another bomb. She sighs, knowing it’ll be hours before she gets something to eat.

It isn’t until years later that he finally buys her a meal and they actually get to sit together at a nice restaurant and have at least a teeny hint of conversation. Of course with this typically taciturn man, it ends up being mostly a one-way thing. As she talks, DG straightens out her crimson dress, which, though torn and stained, still heightens her beauty.

“So finally decided to keep yourself thawed? The last battle won, right? Well done, well done! Y’know, you’re not that old, what with being all laid out between the wars and all. Your life is totally ahead of you now. You’re finally going to be all sorts of happy!”

“Who are you?” Soldier asks.

“Me? God, I don’t know.” Her cheeks rise red. “Geesh, not many people ask, I don’t know what to say. It’s not a secret or anything. I’m, y’know, The Devil. Y’know with the whole horns and brimstone—whatever that is—and all that jumping-Jesus judgment stuff. Anyway, most people call me DG, but it really stands for Devil Girl. But, we go back, so you can call me whatever you want.”

She picks up her metal fork and scrapes at a bit of warm goat cheese on her plate before corrupting it with a cherry tomato and popping it in her mouth. “I was in heaven for, I don’t know, ever, but that got so dull, so I went down to hell. And, of course, that got to be even more dull, so I came here. It’s fun here.”

The Devil smiles, her twin dimples dipping in.

“Anyway, now that you’re like out and everything, just wanted to make sure I got a chance to say my good-byes ’cause you’re all safe now and we won’t be seeing so much of each other anymore, I guess. I know, it’s all so tragic! I mean, I kind of think we had a good thing. But, whatever, who cares, right?”

She takes another bite and follows it with a sip of wine. There’s a delicacy to her grip on the glass, a practice, a balance. “How cool is it that they didn’t card me?” She leans forward, brushes her hand over his arm; the overlapping scars that entwine beneath his shirt play against her fingers.

“I guess I wanted to say good-bye,” she says. “Because it’s been a long time. Bye, Soldier. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” he says.

The Soldier of Freedom #521

It takes thirty minutes of swerving through midday traffic to get to the exit for the farm, and another ten minutes navigating through the rural streets that tangle outside the complex to get to the gate of the hospital. Soldier crooks his head upward; the sky’s clear, except for the snarl of smoke coming from the wreckage.

His Liberty Legion badge gets him waved through the security checkpoint, though the guard might’ve recognized him anyway—he’s been in a few recruiting videos over the past century. Things seem calmer now than he’d seen on the TV, and he looks for a space to leave his car, a place he can get out of quickly so he—goddamnit!

The red hair. The immortal grin. She’s here. Squinting, he can even make out the stains on her crimson dress, but his eyes ain’t what they used to be, so maybe he’s only imagining it.

He’s late; he’s much too late. She’s already here. DG waves at him from inside her car.

Crack.

Soldier’s truck rattles violently, bolting him hard against his seat belt. The earth rises; the truck rocks, tilts, topples. Soldier lands on his side and draws his guns. He unleashes a double volley into the windshield, clearing a path of escape. But he forgets to unbuckle his seat belt, and as he tries to get out, the restraint whips him back.

Soldier unhooks the belt and crawls through the front cab, balls of gravel and glass rolling into his palm. And there she is, the red-haired girl trapped in her own overturned car. And she’s laughing. Guns tucked back in his holsters, Soldier stands and makes his way toward her.

Another
crack.
Then another. Fire and debris belching from the buildings adjacent to the parking lot. A stray piece of asphalt spinning through the air, puncturing the back of Soldier’s right leg, sending him again to his hands and knees. There’s a little blood there, but not all that much. He’s crawled through worse.

Finally, he reaches DG’s car, and after pounding on the window
some, Soldier takes the more direct route, unholsters California and fires into the glass, which shatters white. His fist clenched, he punches at the windshield until it folds and falls down next to the girl. He reaches in and drags DG out of the car.

She tucks into his chest, drops a kiss on his forehead. “My hero! It’s been how long? How are you? Thanks for saving me and all that. Though, y’know,” she chuckles, “could of just, I don’t know, opened up the door, maybe?”

“What is this?”

“Pow! Pow!” With thumb and finger extended, she mock-shoots Soldier. “Same old boy, after all these years! God, it’s bananas to see you! I was going to leave, but now, you’re here, so cool, right? C’mon, let’s get farting.” And she’s on her feet, and she’s running toward the smoldering buildings in front of them.

He manages to get his body up on one leg, but no farther. His heart’s bumping too fast, stabbing out at his sternum like its seeking revenge. More cracks wreck through the air. The screams follow after them soon enough.

She had to be here, didn’t she? When Soldier’d seen the cracks on the news, when he decided to help, he knew.

Jesus, he’s so tired, tired of it all. It was supposed to stop; it was supposed to be done with. At some point, a man ends his day. Like Ultimate did. At some point you fly off into the blue, and you don’t come back.

Cracks come and go now, causing the world to pulsate in their wake, buildings whinnying and squealing as their structures fragment, chunks of architecture booming into the hospital concrete; sirens soar from every angle; the wind belts out the crackle of fire; all those people cry on with the high panic of the hopeful. And in the midst of all that clatter, her laughter swoops right to him, imbued with a soft, fierce purity.

A redheaded girl in a flipped car. A crack in the air. An attack. A scattering of strangers seeking sanctuary. Another puzzle. Another beginning.

There was a time when he could go forever, when all he wanted to do was fight and fight and fight and fight. Every time he woke, he knew his role—somewhere guns were firing and men were suffering, and he’d do his part. He was ever the good soldier, The Soldier of Freedom.

Soldier picks himself up and follows DG toward the falling building because he understands people there need his help. His feet’re beneath
him, and they’re strong enough, and the game begins again, as it had to, and men and women wither and die, coming to their end around him, as they have to, as we all have to.

Star-Knight #504

Georgie Johnson, Star-Knight, used to fly, but now he takes the elevator: 127 stories up to a penthouse office encased in rolling windows from which he can look down upon the clouds. He doesn’t bother with a desk, preferring to stand as he works as a method of maintaining a toned body it took him a day to obtain and, after The Blue, months to retrieve.

The floor is tiled with televisions, each one tuned to a different news station broadcasting from the seven continents. Typically, they reveal the diversity of the international scene: what Russians consider vital is trivial to Brazilians, whose obsessions are incomprehensible to South Africans. Today though they are united in imagery. Beneath a pair of shoes that cost Star-Knight more than his father made in a year, Arcadia General burns over and over again.