A Once Crowded Sky (8 page)

The Man With The Metal Face flies forward and falls through. The blue shudders. Alone now, he comes to his destination. Blue. Everywhere, everything is blue. But then there are lines, circles, figures etched into
that infinite blue, and The Man With The Metal Face smiles as he too burns in the light.

The Man With The Metal Face steps forward, melts away. The blue threat retreats back into the dirt. The Man With The Metal Face dies. The Man With The Metal Face saves the world.

1

The Runt #174

She looks Asian, but she’s got red hair, which is weird, to be perfectly honest. But weird isn’t so weird, is it? Yesterday he was at a funeral listening to a gamer who was the archnemesis of his father, who was a supervillain, who died along with the rest of his evil family from a suicidal virus that was linked to The Blue and him losing all his powers, which he used to use to fight crime and evil and all the baddest of the bad. So, yeah, Asian, red hair. He thinks he can go with it.

Besides, she’s hot.

He instantly resolves to talk to her, and this instant resolution is immediately followed by a similarly hastily paced epiphany that he probably shouldn’t have to resolve to talk to girls anymore as he’s in high school now and he’s no longer eleven. Honestly, he’s proud of this instinct, but more honestly, he’s got to resolve to talk to her because he doesn’t stand a chance of actually doing it without quite a lot of resolve. So he resolves to talk to her at lunch no matter what, and when lunch comes, he resolves to go to the library and study because, frankly, she’s hot and that’s scary.
So then, of course, he resolves to have a new resolution to talk to her after school, and this time he adds an additional resolution that his new resolve will not be superseded by other, seemingly more pressing resolutions that are actually atom-thin disguises for the utter and terrible dread he chokes on whenever she approaches—and this dread is so silly because he used to fight Snake Demon and CrimeBoss and other deadly villains, who, obviously, trembled at the very sound of his name: The Runt!

As school ends he resolves to talk to her the next day.

Fortunately, she walks up to him in class the next morning and says hi. Unfortunately, he’s so startled that instead of responding in an appropriate and manly way, he instead squeaks in a distinctly inappropriate and fairly unmanly way. The squeak draws the attention of his fellow classmates as well as his rather large teacher, who asks him if he’s done “flirting” and is now ready to get on with the lesson, to which he responds with another possibly equally unmanly squeak.

But you suffer the good with the bad, and the important thing is she started to talk to him; so he’s ecstatic, and he immediately resolves to—definitely, without a doubt, for sure, nothing can stop him, the world is his oyster, let the Lord Almighty strike him down if he’s lying—talk to her that very afternoon, no later, not even a second or nanosecond or whatever’s smaller than a nanosecond.

The next day, he nurses some regrets over the extent of his promises and spends at least a portion of the day assessing from where exactly the Lord Almighty will strike and how, now powerless, he’ll be able to dodge such an attack. It’s during one of his periodic glances to a newly suspect heavens that he again finds himself on the receiving end of an attempted conversation from this beautiful girl, whose straight red hair falls softly on her shoulders, on a place he can’t help but think might be nice to kiss.

“I know you,” she says in a light foreign accent, French maybe? Should he respond in French? No, that’s overly pretentious. Besides, he doesn’t speak French, so not really an option anyway. Besides, he should be focusing on the fact that he’s not currently participating in any squeaking activities. A great triumph indeed. But, wait, if he hasn’t been squeaking, what has he been saying? Has he said anything? What should he say? Maybe he should squeak. Dear God, will this ever end?

“I saw you at the funeral this weekend. You’re very cute.” She picks up the conversation, having never really dropped it.

“Yes,” he says.

Yes! Brilliant! Well done! Well put! Short, pithy, to the point. She will have to remember him for his obvious mastery of pithiness, and this will most likely induce a love spell from which no maiden can be torn asunder. Awesome! Wait, what’d she say? “Wait, what’d you say?” he asks, perhaps losing the pithy high ground.

“My name’s DG—that’s what everyone calls me.” She reaches out her hand; each of her nails is painted a different shade of red, which is cool. Sadly, he cannot possibly respond to the gesture as his entire body has apparently detached from his mind, which, admittedly, is somewhat less cool.

Her hand hangs. Just hangs out there. For a long time.

“Devil Girl, is what DG is, what it really stands for anyway. That was like my nom de plume before the whole, y’know, blue went like all down and everything.”

Nom de plume.
That’s French. He knew it! He should’ve responded in French! Wait, no, still don’t speak French. Damn.

“Yes,” he says, going with the classic. Nice.

“You’re weird. You’re cute, but you’re weird. I like your white hair. When I used to be in Hell all the time, your dad would totally always visit. He had white hair too, but he wasn’t nearly as cute as you. I like you; we should go on a date.”

“Yes.” Didn’t think he could pull it off, three in a row. But there you go. Booyah! Rocking the
yes.

“Okay? So when do you want to go out?”

“Yes.”

“How ’bout Saturday? Don’t worry, I’ll pick you up. I know where you live anyways. So Saturday? Get you at eight? Cool?”

Yes. Wait, no. That was a good yes, but that was an inside yes, and he needs an outside yes, or she won’t know that the inside yes means yes and she’ll think that the inside yes—

“I’ll take that as a yes, maybe? Yes?”

Yes. Yes! Yes!!! Dear God, he’s gone mute. Dear God, where the hell’s that lightning?

“Okay, whatever, Saturday, cool?” She giggles, then she winks a very pretty wink. “I’ve kind of got to get going. Appointment with the stupid shrink over at Arcadia General, ’cause everyone in this school thinks I’m
crazy. But, hey, we know better, right? Or not.” And she smiles a very pretty smile, and the whole world blinks and goes dark, leaving only that very pretty smile lingering there, just sort of hanging out there, and for a long time. Then she’s gone. He didn’t notice if she walked away or flew. But nobody flies anymore.

For like a ridiculous amount of time Runt stands motionless in the middle of the quad of Arcadia High. It’s a little weird, but weird isn’t so weird anymore. Eventually, his still-large teacher comes up to him. This could be related to the bells that went off some time ago, but he’s not one to prejudge.

“Lloyd,” she says, “what’re you doing out here? Go home. School’s out. Don’t you see what’s in the news, this hospital, this bombing? Go home to your family.”

“Yes,” he says, and though it’s not quite as excellent as that previous usage, he still feels it retains some power.

Doctor Speed #327

Felix hasn’t touched a drop of alcohol since his last drink, so maybe all this therapy’s finally coming to something. His wife (Penelope) would be ecstatic. His kid (also Penelope) also ecstatic. The whole family’d be leaping for loy. Jumping for joy. Whatever.

Not that he can tell them now. Neither of them are here at the psych ward of Arcadia General of course. Or at home either, he supposes. They left. They ran. All those drinks, and they ran, and he couldn’t catch them. Felix, who used to be Doctor Speed—The Surgeon of Speed—couldn’t quite get to them quick enough. But maybe with some therapy, maybe. Maybe. God, a drink’d be nice.

Looking around the waiting room, he’s sure he must be early. Or late. The doctor sees only one hero at a time, so Felix must be something, besides thirsty. Anyway, it’s crowded today. Felix is on a couch scrunched between two Liberty Legion members: Burn, who made stuff burn, and Big Bear, who turned into a big bear. And across from this tremendous trio, in the only other chair in the room, sits The Prophetier, who profited from tears, or saw the future, or something.

Felix’s throat itches the way it always itches these days, the way it never did before. Not a strong itch, not an overpowering, mind-splitting
itch, but more a tickle with teeth almost politely demanding a simple, pure pour, which it swears will stop its whinings for a little while. He clears his throat, drawing a turn of head from the collected, demented heroes awaiting their session.

“So . . . guys,” Felix speaks to quell the embarrassment or the itch or whatever, “what’d you think of Pen’s speech yesterday?”

Prophetier peeks over the top of a magazine. His voice is muffled by the unlit cigarette dangling at his lips. “Pen is the best of us. He’ll learn. He’ll bring us back.”

“What, seriously?” Burn asks. “Yeah, man, can’t imagine why you’re in therapy.”

“I’m not in therapy,” Prophetier says.

“Yeah,” Felix says, “me neither. This is just where I come on my off time, right? Nothing’s more fun than this, right?”

“If I were you, I’d be with my family,” Prophetier says to Felix. “A family like yours—I’d get every minute I could.”

Felix gets out a fake laugh that manages to scooch right past the itch. “Yeah, well, maybe, you know, after this, right? Maybe, yeah, but later. When it’s more, you know.”

“Sure, friend, sure,” Prophetier says, “but remember, sometimes it’s better to drink with them than to be sober without them.”

“Ha, yeah, I guess.”

“Or drunk without them.”

Felix again laughs awkwardly as he crosses his legs, stealing a few precious inches away from Burn, who bumps his hip back in response. Felix smiles and turns to the man on the other side of him, a Neanderthal type with straw hair who sits cocked up in his seat, staring forward as if he’s looking for something. “What-what about you, Big? You like the speech?”

“Don’t call me Big. I have been intelligently advised to no longer embrace that identity. You can feel free to call me Mr. Schiff.”

“Oh,” Felix says. “Yeah, me too.” The itch puts a dollar on the table and calls the bartender with a cool whistle. “No more Doctor Speed. No more speed or doctor, or even surgery, right? Just Felix now.”

Mr. Schiff/Big Bear rolls his eyes in an obvious way and doesn’t respond. Except for the grumble of the air conditioner, the room’s quiet, and Felix taps his throat hinting to the itch what it might like to order.

“I thought the thing offensive,” Burn says, breaking the silence. “I mean, this is the guy who raised you and shit. Not human. You can’t talk like that. Not at the man’s funeral.”

“What?” Felix asks.

“The speech, Doctor Dumbass. Pen’s speech.”

“Don’t call him names,” Prophetier says to Burn.

“I’ll call him whatever I damn want to call him. I’ll call all y’all whatever I damn want to call you.” Burn cranes his neck over Felix. “Ain’t that right, Big Bear?”

“You use that name again, I’ll break your neck,” Mr. Schiff says in a calm voice.

“Boys, boys,” Felix says, “there’s no need for it.”

“You see what a waste this is,” Prophetier says as he bends forward, places his hand on Felix’s thigh. All three men on the couch look up at him, each one itching in his own way. “Get a drink. Get out of here. Go to your family, spend time with your family instead of these broken, burnt losers.”