A Once Crowded Sky (22 page)

Sicko, Vol. 2, #108

“Subtleties. Starry had a fondness for such delicate subtleties. His approach, there was always a sort of curve to it, a way around. Which is fine, really. But sometimes you need to go right at a thing. I don’t think he ever understood that.” Star-Knight leans his head back against a hospital wall decorated with dozens of painted yellow daisies. “Someone should’ve taught him.”

“Dude, you finally talking to me?” Sicko asks, his eyes fixed on a TV suspended from the adjacent wall. He’s been sitting watching this disaster on the box for twenty minutes without anyone saying anything.

“You have to understand,” Star-Knight says, “I spent my career fighting android bank robbers, all those giant sea monsters. Big sorts of things you attack, you find their weakness and you attack. You attack them. But Starry . . . the boy needed . . . I don’t know.”

“I can’t believe this shit.” Sicko gestures up to the TV as another body flashes onto the screen.

Star-Knight takes a sip from a bottle of water. “It’s about management. Finding the right person for the right job.”

“You seeing this? Damn.” Sicko raises his voice, again nodding at the flickering images of emergency crews dragging bodies out of cars from an explosion on Arcadia 66. Another fucking crack.

Star-Knight’s dark eyes peer up at the screen. “I’ve had my reports.” The news flashes the beat-in face of a young, unidentified man, then cuts to gored images of the dozens of attacks cracking across the city. Star-Knight sips from his bottle. “They’re certainly direct.”

“Dude, whoever’s gone and laid this needs a beatdown.” Sicko rubs his hands together. “We got to get Pen, get the army, and get these asslickers. Right? Like in the comics.” Sicko stands up, tucks his left fist into his right hand, and, having no place to go, sits back down again.

Star-Knight nods.

“Dude, I mean, shit! What we gonna do?”

Star-Knight nods again and then stands and walks up to the hanging television. “I’m sorry, I can see this is upsetting you.” Using his bare fist, he starts to hammer at the screen; the colors of the news report bubble out of focus as the glass bends into the light.

“Hey, hey—buddy, it’s okay. Cool it, all right?”

A nurse in a blue uniform opens the door to the waiting room and swivels her neck around the entrance. “Sir, what is— Sir, please stop that!”

Star-Knight doesn’t respond; the pounding continues, and at the center of the television cracks begin to spread.

“That is hospital property!” the nurse yells.

“Get out!” Star-Knight shouts back. “You don’t think I could buy a new TV? You don’t think I could buy a thousand?” Finally, his fist pierces the screen and bits of glass trickle down to the floor of the waiting room. Penetrated by blackened slices, his hand bleeds. “You’re standing in my wing of this goddamn hospital! Get the hell out!”

The nurse looks to Sicko, her eyes full of fright, and Sicko shakes his head and half shrugs, not sure what’ll help. “Okay, whatever you want, Mr. Johnson,” the nurse says as she backs around the corner.

After she leaves, Star-Knight cradles his bloody hand, letting the red wrap around all of his fingers equally. “You see, Sicko. Direct.” He sits back down, picking at his eyes with his dyed fingertips, leaving long red traces across his face.

“Dude, you cool?”

There’s no answer. They’d met before, done some team-up work against Black Plague only a year and a half ago. Sicko remembers him always being all serious, one of these just-get-the-job-done-la-la-la kind of gamers. Like Ultimate, like Soldier, like all the big ones who thought they were all big shit.

“Dude?” Sicko asks.

“Just shut up,” Star-Knight says.

And with a sharp flick of his finger, a chain juts from Sicko’s wrists and wraps itself around Star-Knight’s neck, and the rich fuck begs for mercy, and everything is awesome again.

“Whatever,” Sicko says.

Star-Knight rotates his neck. “I invited you here to offer you a job that pays ten K a week. I know you have no other possible means of procuring such funds, and I know you’ll accept. Let’s not waste each other’s time.”

“Huh?”

“Before you take it, you—you have to understand, why he failed, his predilection for subtleties.”

“What job, yo?”

Star-Knight rolls his hands together. The red multiplies. “You’re the replacement. He was no good. How hard a task was that? Look after Pen, look after the boy, someone had to look after
his
boy.”

“Pen—what? What replacement?”

Star-Knight again looks over at Sicko. “You were there with Pen, when he came out to save the hospital. I have no idea why, but he listened to you. Moreover, my son informed me that you’ve talked yourself into his apartment a few times since then, that you’ve become friendly. Friendly enough. So it’s your job now.”

“Dude, what the fuck? What job?”

“To look after Pen. To follow him, report on him, save him.”

“Hey, hey, what are you jamming about, bro? You want me to what? Spy on Pen. Dude, I’m no pussy spy.”

“Oh, please, be quiet. I don’t feel like going around and around with you. Haggle with your own conscience on your own time.”

“Dude, what the fuck you know about me?”

Star-Knight leans forward and rests his hands on his knees. Another red stain. “You want to be back in the game?”

“What?”

“Stop playing the idiot and listen and answer. Do you want to be back in the game?”

Sicko scratches at his half-grown beard. “Everyone wants that.”

“You said you wanted to defeat this—these attacks. You want to work for that?”

“Yeah. Hell yeah.”

“Then listen. I want you to save Pen, look after Pen. Keep visiting him, tell me what he’s doing. Can you do this for me? It’ll help the fight, I promise. Saving him.”

“It’d help, help jack this thing, beat it?”

Star-Knight grunts. “Don’t you remember . . .
dude
? Don’t you remember who defeated The Blue, who had the plan, told you all how? You were there. Don’t you remember?”

“Yeah, man, yeah, of course.”

“Who told you to put the powers in my belt, who gave the belt to Ultimate?”

“Yeah, man, I know.”

“Well then,” Star-Knight says, “this is another plan. And it will work too.”

“Dude, honestly—”

“Now that it’s been cleared of its subtleties.”

“Man, buddy, stop for a sec, listen to me. I got no idea what the fuck you are saying. Fuck, tell the truth, I didn’t never get what you were saying about The Blue neither, when we were all like that. You want me to work for you? That it? Like against The Blue, is this The Blue, this thing, here?” Sicko juts his chin out to the world beyond the room. “Did it come back? Dude, I don’t get it. I just, y’know, went with it then. All right? I don’t know if you want—I don’t even know what the fuck The Blue is.”

Star-Knight laughs.

“Dude, what the hell?”

“Dear God, man, you mean no one told you?”

“What?” Sicko asks.

“It’s not complicated. It’s us, a hole that leaks us, that shows us our, well, energy, our story, which is all we really are. It’s a hole, a circle needing to close.”

“Wait—what?”

Star-Knight points toward the broken screen. “A hole. An opening that needed to be closed a certain way. It’s why I could act, when others couldn’t. Because I know, you can always do the right thing, the direct thing, especially if you have a few prophets about.”

“I don’t get it.”

Star-Knight smiles, and he stands and crosses the room. He places Sicko’s hand in his, the slow warmth of his blood smearing onto Sicko’s palm. “It was destiny, my friend, our story told. That’s why we had to fight it so damn hard.”

Star-Knight lets Sicko go and returns to his chair, and they sit in silence for a few minutes. The nurse eventually returns and, without speaking, gestures toward Star-Knight, who nods and stands.

“Good, good,” Star-Knight says. “I told her it wouldn’t take long. I’ve almost predicted it exactly right. But I need an answer. Before I go. Before I end this.”

“End? What, like with Starry? Like pulling-plug end?”

“Take this job. You’re direct, not like my son. You’ll do fine, I have
faith in you. Only needed to make sure there was a replacement for the position before the last one was terminated. Continuity in management and all that.”

“Dude, listen, you’re insane. I hope you know that.”

“Take the job. Save Pen, save the day.”

Sicko cracks his neck and bites his wrists, nibbles at the missing hole where the power used to shoot out. It’s an old, bad habit, and he jerks his hands back to his lap, looking up at the spotted man above him, at the TV behind him, the images of the helpless now broken and gone.

“Okay,” Sicko says, “yeah, okay, whatever.”

“I need your help, Sicko, I need it again. I’m sorry, but I do.”

“Dude, yes, I said yes.”

Again, Star-Knight pulls his hand over his face, creating streaks of blood down his forehead, blending the liquid into his chin. “Okay, good. We’re done.” His eyes shut, and when they open, they’re staring directly at Sicko, black eyes on a black face, marked by a crossing of red. “My assistant will call you,” Star-Knight says, his voice steady. “But now, if you’ll excuse me, this should probably be a private moment.”

“Sure, man, whatever you need.”

The Soldier of Freedom #524

They’re digging through cars—Pen’s digging through cars. Soldier’s only watching from the side of the highway as Pen clambers through the crowded lanes of stopped traffic, ripping metal doors away from their frames, reaching into one vehicle after another and yanking out a bloodied victim, another bloodied victim.

Soldier’s gotten the statements from the witnesses, talked to the police and fire crews, organized the ones that needed organizing and left the rest alone to do their jobs. About two hours ago a crack ruptured near the merge between 66 and 144, flinging cars and people through the air, burning and tearing down everything for no damn reason anyone could figure. Soldier and Pen were there as soon as they could be, which was already too late.

The vroom and click of a motorcycle jumping to a stop—and she’s here, her red hair scattered across her face, back, and shoulders, as usual. This time he manages to catch her eye, let her know that she’s been
spotted. Someone’s sitting behind her on the bike, but he stays behind as she smiles big, waves, and finally bounces toward him, her toned legs hustling along.

“Everything all right?” DG’s already out of breath by the time she reaches him.

“Why do you do this, follow me, what’s the point of it?” Soldier looks back to Pen as the kid jerks a seat belt loose and extracts a child from a tipped-over red van.

“Y’know it was totally much easier when I had my abilities and I could communicate with the underworld and all that. They had all sorts of info on you. Now it’s all Internet this, GPS that—you should frigging thank me for trying.”

Soldier looks over at her; her small frame barely comes up to his elbow. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m saving you, duh.”

He grunts and looks back to the road. “Go home.”

She drags a finger across his arm. “You were nicer when you were littler.”

“Go home, there’s nothing left to be done here.”

“Pen seems to be doing things.”

Soldier crosses his arms and shakes his head.

“Pen does lots and lots and lots of things with his big, stwong muskles,” she says in a singsong voice, hitting him with her small fists. “Pwoor, pwoor, Soldier, can’t do anything at all, pwoor, pwoor Soldier.” She giggles.

“We’re helping. Go home.”

“Ah, don’t be all like that. C’mon, we go back, right? I’m only joshing you, geesh. You’re so macho-sensitive these days. Lighten up, man.” She pushes him, and he doesn’t move. “Loosen up! C’mon!”

“There are people . . .” Soldier’s voice fades.

“Oh, big gwumpy man, everything’s so . . . blah dee blah, blah, blah.” Her voice lowers, mocks him. “Have to save the world, now. Nobody left but poor, poor me. What a burden it is. Poor Soldier of Freedom, poor, poor me.”

Again, he looks over to her, sees that her hair is not one shade of red but many blending and overlapping, as if each strand had been uniquely hand-painted. Soldier puts his eyes back to the concrete and metal
playground, back to Pen chucking his hand through the back window of a station wagon. Soldier tries not to smile.

“Who’s going to kid you if I don’t kid you?” she asks. “Who’s going to save you, if I don’t? Who? Seriously. Answer me that, big man.”

“Who’s on the bike?”

“Oh, that? That’s nobody. Nobody really.”

Soldier angles his neck back, but the figure’s too blurred in his vision to make out. When he looks back at her, she’s blushing. “Do I know him?”