A Once Crowded Sky (35 page)

But now, the spout in front of him, Pen can’t stop wondering how much death might hurt, how exactly it will sting as it takes him. It probably won’t be a physical thing. Probably it’ll be a sort of mental anguish, a kind of summation of regret compounded into an instant’s shine.

Pen shakes his head, as if he could somehow jostle free the doubts and invite in a new air of clarity and maybe even righteousness. Another dumb thought, and he shakes his head some more.

The word spreads that Pen’s closing in on The Blue, and the stragglers hasten to the edge of Runt’s circle. A few of them even run, hurdling over headstones. The crowd gathers along the line as the sun begins to pour down into the graveyard, coating dead and alive alike.

It’s been nearly a year, a tedious, thick year spent waiting, trying to clutch onto the fleeing virtue that branded them heroes. They all should’ve known it would come back. Everything comes back. But this felt different. They watched Ultimate die, and when someone of that status sacrifices himself, it has to have meaning, for a while at least, or else what’s it all for?

But now, his sidekick leaning in, it starts to coalesce, the symmetry of the story. There’s always symmetry, always a time to revolve back to the unexpected and utterly unsurprising beginning. That’s how these narratives—their lives and adventures—that’s how they all work. The heroes aren’t ignorant; they can perceive the patterns in their own actions as easily as they can discern the figures flying through the light at the center of the drawn circle.

So this is it. Ultimate couldn’t just come back without consequence; no, that would cheapen the sacrifice, taint it with the stink of a gimmick. But his young ward who’d walked away, he could embrace The Blue and return what Ultimate stole, free them all to free Ultimate from the evil that somehow revived him and turned him. That would make perfect sense; it would resemble the circular paths they’ve all walked around in their careers, or flown around or run around with the speed of a dozen cheetahs.

They gather, and they stare at the hero who’ll bring it back. He hasn’t shaved in days. Though his skin is young, it sinks off his face. The eyes should be blue and instead are gray. His hands keep intertwining and disconnecting. He’s tired, and he’s afraid. They can’t help but compare this feeble, frightened boy in front of them to Ultimate and the polished fortitude he demonstrated that day. They try not to, but somehow they can’t help it.

Pen looks over at Runt, and Runt shrugs. There were no rules, no procedures or ceremonies, Pen has to follow. Prophetier had insisted they do it at dawn, said the light looked best then, when it shone neither too bright in the dark nor too dim in the day. The Blue looked lovely then, Prophetier had said, we will do it then. But besides that, Pen could go when he wanted to go.

Pen turns to the light and then turns away, looks for Soldier. There’s fear on Soldier’s face now, and Pen recalls their new adventures, their decision to fight. In all that time, he’d been amazed by the staid Soldier’s bullheaded dedication to getting a thing right. It brought back emotions from the young days when Pen’d fought alongside good men whom he sort of always presumed he’d become someday, maybe even someday soon.

He’d expected Soldier’s approval this morning, had kind of counted on it: some indication the old man was impressed by Pen’s
death-conceding derring-do. That’s how Pen’d imagined this going down whenever he let himself imagine it. That last glance, that final
Good job, son
, and then whoosh, off to the pyre.

But Pen doesn’t see any of that now. Soldier’s just a weak, old man, sweat coming off his brow in the midst of a chilled morning, his hands nervously playing with his guns, flicking the back of the triggers. Pen bites at the tip of his tongue and nods to Soldier and receives a slow nod in return—too slow, not a cool guy-nod, not the right nod. Breaths beat from Pen’s chest and seem so loud, so loud; everyone must hear them. C’mon. It’s okay. Pull it back. Fuck it. Right? Not about him anyway. It’s about them or about her or about something.

Pen turns to the crowd, opens his mouth to say something, and forgets what he was going to say. For a moment he remains all but still, only moving to click his tongue against the top of his palate, marking out a steady if weak beat. He turns back and takes a step forward.

Pen nears the light. In the beam the stories play, but they’re not his stories. Instead, The Blue reveals a thousand of Pen’s favorite Ultimate adventures. There they all are, from the great hero’s first day coming to life as his creator died to Ultimate’s epic quest through space and time to overcome a pulsating cosmic-cancer spreading from the exact center of the universe. In every panel, The Man With The Metal Face overcomes spectacular odds to deliver justice to the enemies of truth. A good man doing good work, and Pen draws closer to the light.

Near enough now, Pen stops and stretches his hand toward the colors. Step in. Take the leap. Shouldn’t it be hot? Shouldn’t it burn or something? Maybe he should—Jesus, he’s got to stop it; he’s already gone through all this. Pen reaches out even farther.

Pen stares into the entwining light, admires the images reaching out to the graves. And there’s Ultimate, flying off into The Blue on the day he died. Pen peers deeper into The Blue and sees the now familiar sweeps of light—the same colors that stream in front of him now, streamed in front of Ultimate then. And inside these colors there are more pictures, stories, figures, etched into that infinite blue. Ultimate’s flying right toward them. Pen leans forward, squinting into The Blue inside The Blue.

There he is—Pen’s own face glares back at him from inside the light. Hidden in the background, in the smoke in front of The Man With The Metal Face, is the story of Pen’s life. There’s his father crushed under
a metal fist. There’s a boy looking out the window, awed by the fogged streets of Arcadia. There’s a ten-year-old bouncing down the side of a building on his first mission. There’s a cocky teenager piping off while combing the sky on a ridiculously small board. There’s a seventeen-year-old single-handedly fighting off a horde of dream-goblins. Pen is there—telling Ultimate he’s done. There he is, with his wife.

There he is. There’s Pen peering into the light, reaching The Blue at the center of the circle, looking at the stories, seeking endings.

The sun edges up, and in its light the blue rose begins to dim. A soft wind comes through, pittering past the heroes without care. They’re all quiet; they don’t know what to say as they watch the boy inch closer, bring them all closer.

That’s it. At the end, as he flew away, that’s what Ultimate saw: this story, bubbling out. Pen’s story. Pen’s sacrifice. It was the last thing Ultimate ever saw. And Ultimate is smiling.

Closer, closer, and closer still. A speck of space left—a little farther. Maybe he should turn back. No. This is it. Take a step, just take it. Go, go. Go, you fucking coward, go.

He smiled.

A boy who followed a man with a metal face stands at the precipice. He stands, and he tries to smile, tries not to think of his wife. Only for a second. Just one more second. He forgot to say good-bye. To her. Just one more second.

From the line, Soldier draws his gun. One eye shut, he fixes his friend’s back onto the three sites. Soldier pulls the trigger—and Prophetier lunges toward him, grabbing his arm as he fires.

The shot yells past Pen’s ear; and Pen reacts as he was trained to react. Faster than a man should be able to move, Pen juts his body over and to the right, twisting and landing on his gut. He looks up, his chin scratching the dirt, and he sees Prophetier wrestling with Soldier, the gun in Soldier’s hand emptying bullets into the air, bullets meant for Pen.

Soldier howls and clasps the trigger again and again, blasting his gun into a worthless sky. It’s all futile. Prophetier’s grip is true, and Soldier’s wrist is nothing. These are the arms of an old fool now, the muscles of a bridled wimp who couldn’t do anything, who had one shot, one damn good shot, and missed.

The pulls on the trigger go dry; the sharp cracks in the morning
light end and are replaced by a whispered
click, click, click.
Soldier tugs on metal that does nothing, old, rusty, no-good metal that never did nobody no good anyhow.

“It’s done,” Prophetier says. “You tried, but it’s done.”

Soldier looks over to him, remembers the field around the hospital, remembers missing him. Then, the man’d seemed so lost. Now though, he’s nothing but found.

“Stop it, Soldier,” Prophetier says. “It’s done.”

He’s right. It’s done. It was only because Pen was distracted in that final moment that Soldier’s managed to get the one bullet off. Now that Pen’s suspicious, he’ll focus all those powers on Soldier, and that’ll be that. Soldier might as well go down and stay down.

“Get away from me!” Soldier yells, and he rattles his arm loose from Prophetier’s grip. He’s got another gun, and he reaches for California now, but the holster’s empty. Desperate, Soldier searches the ground, locates his gun in the dirt at the crowd’s edge, near Strength. Someone must’ve grabbed it, before . . . before . . . damnit. Goddamnit!

Soldier dives forward, trying to get to the ground, get to his weapon, but he knows it’s useless. Prophetier ducks into him, seizes him with hands much more powerful than his own.

“Stop it,” Prophetier says.

Soldier looks around, sees Strength; he yells for her help, but she turns away. Doc Speed, close by, within reach of the weapon. If he could just—Soldier shouts again, pleads with him to do something, and Felix takes a drink from a metal container. DG moves at Soldier’s periphery, and he calls to her, begs her to come, get the damn gun, help me one more time; but the Devil doesn’t move.

No. No. No. Soldier doesn’t want to go out this way. He’s got a mission. Help. Damnit. Help. This once. One more time.

Prophetier says something—something meant to be calming, which comes out with a hint of triumph—and Soldier twists around meaning to surprise him, to fling a knee into his gut or something. As he turns, he doesn’t see Pen’s fist, but he soon feels it, each knuckle, each line of finger butting up against the front edge of Soldier’s skull.

Soldier drops to the ground, blood streaming from his nose and lip. He spits some of it out, but not enough, and a cough wrecks up his throat.

Two hands grip him from behind and raise him into the air. They’re
strong hands, and he knows damn well who they belong to. Pen tosses the older man farther away from his gun, toward the light leaking out of the ground. And Soldier flies, falls into the earth, hard—a truck of pain crashing into his well-used joints.

Soldier turns, and Pen’s there, picking him off the ground. When Soldier finally has his feet under him, he shoots his clutched fist into Pen’s shoulder; the move is anticipated, and Pen grabs Soldier’s wrist and nonchalantly twists it all the way around, rendering it useless before reaching out and flipping the older man back onto the ground.

This time Soldier doesn’t wait for help getting up and instead instantly bounces back into Pen, thrashing his elbows and knees into the boy. For the second time, Pen swings through Soldier’s head, and Soldier reels back in a blind of red, his limbs flopping around his humbled body.

Those around the circle—the heroes anticipating their return—know they should go forward. Without exception, Soldier’s saved each of their lives. Before The Blue they all admired him, but more so, they loved him in some way, the same way they loved being heroes, the higher ideal, the abstract notion that a man like Soldier should always exist: a man who did with his power what they were all trying to do with their own.

They should go forward. They should cross the line and help this great man overcome this cowardly boy. There’s no ambivalence here. Regardless of the appearance of his motives, Soldier’s surely found out something, he’s surely doing something good and decent. He’s The Soldier of Freedom; he’s earned that assumption.

They should go, but they don’t move, and they tell themselves it’s because the boy’s trying to do something noble, to collect some redemption for the errors he’s made. Everyone comes back, even PenUltimate. Besides, Soldier’ll take care of this himself; it’s his adventure, not theirs, one of his famous solo numbers. The two of them up there’ll sort it out, somehow.

And each of them knows it’s not because they need Pen to burn in the light and die in front of them, renewing their supremacy. The villains beneath them might entertain such petty motives, but not this crowd. Not them. They’re the heroes. They’re the good guys. They’re the ones still standing above.

“Soldier,” Pen says, kneeling down. “Talk to me, man. What is this?”

Soldier stays quiet, puts his face in the dirt.

Pen doesn’t know what to do. This was supposed to be the day to finally transcend all this bullshit, to become a hero, a hero as good as The Soldier of Freedom. “C’mon, man,” Pen says. “Goddamnit, say something. Please.”

Prophetier places his hand on the back of Pen’s neck. “He killed all those villains,” Prophetier says. “He knows what that makes him. So he doesn’t want to play the game anymore, he’d rather we all lay down and die, because he’s no longer the hero.”

His face still pressed into the graves, Soldier reaches for one of his holsters, twitches his fingers into its holes. Pen reaches out, takes Soldier’s hand.

“Your friend betrayed you,” Prophetier continues, “and now you beat him. Well done. Well done. But remember, you’ve still got a mission. Ultimate’s still out there. He’s coming to kill us. Right now. But you can stop him. You can help us all stop him.”