A Once Crowded Sky (17 page)

Explain me! Explain me! Explain me!

But he doesn’t. Instead he flips through the pages, reads about Superman and his incredible adventure, another girl screaming in distress, another world set at the precipice of disaster, another hero out of the blue, and about halfway through, Pen looks up and sees the windboard, sees his windboard hanging on the south wall. It was dark. He hadn’t seen it before. The walls have always been empty. Mostly empty.

He stares up at it for a while, remembers when Ultimate gave it to him as a gift for his eleventh birthday. They’d been going out on patrols for a while then, had defeated dozens of villains working together, using the endless training to put the good above the man. It was Pen’s birthday, and Ultimate got some metal and shaped it into a board, even put a small ribbon on it. Pen found it in the morning when he came down at 0500 for their usual session. After sparring for an hour, Pen asked what it was, and Ultimate told him, and Pen asked him, why, why now, and Ultimate told him, told Pen that he was finally ready to fly.

Pen still has the ribbon. He’d put it in the box. With his Ultimate toys. And it’s still in the box, at the bottom of Anna’s closet somewhere.
He took it with him when he left. He’d been meaning to do something with it, with all of it, but he never had.

Pen bends down, places Ultimate’s comic neatly on the floor, near the wall. He stands, reaches up, and he can’t touch it. It’s too far up. He stands on his toes, brushes the tips of his fingers against the metal.

Pen hasn’t been here for years. He didn’t know. Ultimate didn’t like to say things. But that’s all right. Some people are like that. He didn’t have a father or a mother. Just an explosion, a death, a comic book, the hero out of the blue. We don’t need trophies. We don’t do it for glory. We put the good of them over the good of us.

Explain me. Explain me. Explain me.

Pen again leaps, and he grabs the board off the wall, brings it down. He puts it on the floor, stands on it, lets it wobble left and right, clanking in and out of the metal floor. He’s in the sky, storming into another glorious battle; he’s swooping between heroes, tilting left and right around all their colorful tights and capes; he’s holding tight to the rope, smiling proud; and the Giant of the North appears before them, roaring and raving, his rock-fists swatting at the heroes rising into the air around him, and Ultimate and PenUltimate charge into the fray.

Ultimate, The Man With The Metal Face #572

“You call your wife?”

“Are we going to fight?” Pen is sitting on the board, his knees pulled under his chest, his arms hugged around his legs. “Remember that? How all the heroes used to fight before we figured everything out?”

“Call your wife. She’ll be worried.” Soldier stands above him, looking down.

“I mean, really, what was the point of that?” Pen tries to get up, but he just slips farther down the board.

“You been drinking?”

Pen flicks his hand in Soldier’s direction. “What’re you going to do?”

“What you’re going to do is call your wife.” Soldier squats down and places his hand on Pen’s shoulder. “Then you and me’re going to save the world.”

“So we’re not fighting then?”

“This thing here, at the hospital, it likely ain’t done. You and I been around enough to know that might just’ve been the beginning of it.”

“I don’t want to call my wife. She’ll yell at me. She doesn’t want this. I don’t want her to have it, okay?” Pen leans forward and places his chin on his knees. “I’m sorry.”

“Son, people’re in danger now. We got to start preparing for the next one. Go on the offensive—”

“Take the high ground,” Pen interrupts. “Charge the bridge. Flank ’em on the right and the left and the right and the left . . .” It becomes a sort of song that trails off until Pen’s just mouthing the words into the ether.

“You all right?”

“Huh? Yeah-yeah. Give me a sec. Just . . . let me call the wife, will you?” He reaches in his pocket and feels nothing. “Lost the phone. That will prove to be an impediment.”

“Son, right now you’re the most powerful player left, so if we’re going to rally here, we need you.”

“Ah, no wonder you don’t want to fight.” Pen dips his voice in an attempt to parrot Soldier’s baritone. “I’m the most powerful player left.”

“C’mon now, let’s get you out of here.” Soldier stands and goes around behind Pen, puts his hands under Pen’s arms. The two heroes struggle together and manage to get Pen on his feet. As soon as he’s up, Pen squirms free of Soldier’s grip and tries to lean against the wall, which is near Pen’s outstretched arm, but not as near as Pen thinks. He crumples again to the ground in a muddle of shoulders, legs, and torso.

“That’s not good,” Pen says. “Did not go well, my friend.”

“Get up.”

“Man, if I am who you need, dude, you are out of like a lot of luck.”

“PenUltimate—”

“If only I had some sort of, y’know, like, standing power. Wait. Waaaait. Yes. That’s it. That’s it!”

“Son, I need your help.”

Pen looks up and smiles. “And you shall have it. You shall have it, my friend. For I shall become Stand-Man! The Man With The Standing Face!”

“Pen, get up.”

“Once . . . once he was mild-mannered, and frequently seated,
Pen . . . Pencil . . . Dick . . . Dick Pencil. Yes. Dick Pencil, poor mild-mannered Dick, all the girls used to ask him to the dance, but he couldn’t dance, no, he couldn’t. Know why? That’s right. No standing. But now, after being bit by a radiated guy who happened to be standing, he has the power to stand! Stand-Man! The last boy in the game! Thank God he’s not stuck on his ass.” Pen giggles at this last joke.

“That ain’t funny.” Soldier leans against the metal wall.

“Poor Stand-Man, though. Should’ve gone to The Blue. Now there’s no one else. Now he must stand on his own. Which, y’know, is okay, because his powers actually involve, well, standing. So that’ll work out then.”

“Look, son, I don’t want to be involved in this any more than you. Let me say that. Fighting’s not supposed to be my thing anymore.”

“Me neither. Either. Y’know, either way. Neither way.”

“Ain’t no choice in it though,” Soldier says. “You know that.”

Pen looks at the comic book on the floor. “I quit this game. I’m out. And I’m going home. To my wife.”

Soldier picks up the comic, starts flipping through the pages. “I saw Prophetier back at the hospital.”

“Yeah, yeah, how is old Proph, any other damsels in need of distress relief?”

“He went on about the game coming back. He went on about you. Said you were our savior and all other sorts of BS.”

“What’d you say?”

“I shot at him.”

“Holy shit.” Pen cocks his head toward Soldier. “Is he dead?”

“No.” Soldier puts the comic back. “I missed. I always miss.”

“Wow. That’s depressing, man. Look, next time you need to shoot Proph, you come see me. I’m the most powerful player left. I’ll take care of it. For you.” Pen reaches out and swipes at some material on Soldier’s pant leg. “Wait, how’d you get in here again?”

“Prophetier said you’d probably be here. Star-Knight lent me a ride, got me a key. Teamwork. Like the old days.”

“Yeah, except then you didn’t shoot the team.”

“Or at least you didn’t miss.”

Both men laugh, loud and hard. It goes on for a while until Pen can’t exactly remember what was so funny, and he rests his head against his knees. Then they’re quiet, and that lasts for a while too.

“Did you like being a soldier?” Pen eventually asks. “For all those years, I mean.”

“Son, we’ve got to do this. This thing here’s got to be settled.”

“I mean, did you ever really want it, did you ever really like doing it?”

Soldier doesn’t respond.

“I didn’t mean to—”

“No,” Soldier says. “No, I never did.”

“What? Really?”

“It’s time to get up, Pen. It’s time to go.”

“Didn’t like the game?” Bile rises in Pen’s throat and he chokes it back down. “I get that. Everyone knows what happened to poor Soldier, all locked up and for so long. Until Ultimate came and found you, found you in that cage . . . ice . . . thing. There you were, like a Popsicle.” Pen sticks out his tongue and pulls his arms into his chest, mimicking something he saw a long time ago, when he was young. “And he broke it open. And saved you. You remember that? Government people, weren’t they going to use you for some bad stuff or something?”

“You were there. You know.”

“I was there. I know.” Pen wipes at his mouth.

“Plan was to release me in the middle of Arcadia and tell me another war was on. They were going to use it to get votes, scare people. Yeah, I remember that.”

“Yeah? Cool.” Pen looks over at Soldier.

“I remember it different than you though. Way I remember, it was you that did the finding, did the research into the corrupt senator, figured out what was going on, alerted Ultimate. Snuck into the compound where they’d hidden me. Got the job done. Really can’t recall Ultimate doing all that much besides some fighting.” Soldier looks back at Pen.

“Another battle won! Well done! Well done!”

“Another battle won. Well done. Well done.”

“Man, I rock. Stand-Man can eat my shit.”

“Now, there’s no need for swearing.”

“Yeah, well, I have to call my wife.” Pen makes a last effort to get to his feet. Halfway up he starts to teeter, and for the second time that day he reaches out into the air in front of him and finds a steady hand. Soldier’s muscles quiver, but the arm holds firm, and Soldier pulls Pen up.

“My hero,” Pen says.

Soldier grunts, draws Pen in. “You going to help? I’m getting tired of asking.” Soldier squeezes down on Pen’s palm.

“I don’t do this anymore. I don’t play the game.”

“Yeah, well, did you ever?”

Pen laughs, but he wants to cry, but he doesn’t want to look weak, not in front of Soldier. The two men are eye to eye now, and Pen can see the scars. Soldier’s face is handsome from afar, but up close you notice the crevices, dozens of them worming up and down and side to side, around his nose, down into the dimple in his chin. Pen remembers where he is. He remembers the room, the comic, the board. He remembers a barren, metal face, his own reflection pasted inside it, the scars in that curved image that were waiting to grow. He remembers that last time, when Ultimate hugged him and said good-bye.

“I don’t like trophies,” Pen says, ducking his chin to his chest.

“Okay.”

“If we do good, we can’t get any trophies. This place has got to stay like it is.”

“Okay.”

“Yeah?”

“All right,” Soldier says, “is that it?”

Pen pops his head up, licks his lips, and smiles. “Let’s go then. Let’s find the marvelous threat. Let’s save the world! You. Me. And—if we can get him—the Stupendous Stand-Man. But, y’know, I’m just dreaming here. He’s kind of an exclusive guy. What with the whole standing thing. We may have to do this ourselves.”

“There should be more,” Soldier says.

Pen ignores him and stumbles forward, wobbling to the steps that lead back to the mansion, to a phone so he can call his wife. He hears Soldier’s boots hit the ground behind him, their echo trembling up and down the metal walls.

Ultimate, The Man With The Metal Face #573

The fluffed bathroom mat’s more comfortable than it should be, but it’s too damn short. Silently, so as not wake up his wife (who’s awake in the next room), Pen drags his knees into his chest and attempts to situate as much of his six-foot frame on the miniature gray island as he can.
Unfortunately, his fetal attempt proves to be too taxing on his stomach, and Pen jolts up to get his head in position over the toilet bowl, his chin bone-crunched against the hard front of the seat.

The nauseous feeling must be worse than the act itself, though when the act comes, he reminisces fondly about that same, cozy nausea. Afterward, he blows his nose with some toilet paper and washes out his mouth before sliding back into his position on the gray mat.

“Penny, you okay? You need anything?”

“I’m good, honey,” Pen says, stretching his back, targeting the aches that have cleverly hidden themselves there.

“Are you sure? I can get some water or some . . . a pillow, if you need a pillow.”

“Good. Going to rest.” Pen kicks his leg out at the open door (which is closed) and hits only air—though he doesn’t remember this after a few hours pass, and he wakes in a small puddle of drool. With seemingly superhuman power, he manages to stand and make his way out of the bathroom. It’s dark in the room, and Anna’s mostly sleeping. He climbs up onto his side of the bed and lies on top of the comforter, resting the back of his hands on his forehead.

“Are you all right?” she whispers from afar as she hugs her body into his.

“Go to sleep, Annie. It’s all fine, I swear.”

She hums a bit and curls herself into him and is gone. In the morning he’ll have to tell her. He’ll have to find a way to make it seem vital but not dangerous, to explain it so it has urgency without terror.