True Heroes (100 page)
“Was it because you lost yourself?”
The gun didn’t waver. “Yes. I didn’t even exist there.”
“They forced you to be part of a group.”
“Like you know how that feels.”
“Right now, you’re forcing yourself to be part of a group. Did you even see active duty?”
“No.”
“You were terrified of saying the word ‘we.’”
“What?”
“If you say ‘I did something,’ then you have the total action under your control, but if you had to say something like ‘we were just following orders,’ well, then the guilt can still eat at your soul because you’re going off someone else’s judgment. A terrifying thought, and what you’re actively doing now.”
“I’m in control of me. Not him.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“You want me to make a choice?”
“For yourself, yes.”
“For myself?”
“Yes.”
“Any choice?”
“Make the right choice for yourself.”
The hammer lowered back gently and without retort before the silver metal thudded against the plastic table. “Never done that before.”
“Yes you have. You’ve just forgotten how to.”
Digital camouflage parted slowly as the man retreated from the table, and all the interested observers slowly began to migrate back to their places. Alice squeezed his leg and received a half-smile in return. ‘He’s being like me now. We’re both so caged….’
Stanley flicked mash potatoes at Caleb’s face. “Somebody has to shoot you.”
Caleb smile and chuckled while Alice looked around. ‘They look excited. Even the President. That wasn’t even his power, guys. You just wait.’
-
- -
Caleb poked at the small fire with a fallen stick. ‘It’s taller than me. Why such a big stick?’
“Is this big stick giving you ideas?”
Her head snapped up from staring towards the fire and her voice came out in shock. “What?”
“Nothing. Trying to be funny.”
“It was, but it surprised me. You haven’t tried to be funny in a while now.”
“Yeah,” he said while dropping the stick between them. Her heart began to sting again. ‘Look at the sun. Oh god it’s almost all the way down. It’s almost the night, then tomorrow. This isn’t helping. I need him and his eyes and his smile, but I can’t see them right anymore!’ “Kain? What brings you out here?”
The familiar face stepped forward and sat across the fire with smiles bounding to both of them. “The government.”
“Ah, the familiar face. Why you?”
“They wouldn’t give me a reason, but it looks like my connection with you is about it. This will make my career, so I didn’t protest too much.”
“Guess not.”
Kain took a notebook and folder from his satchel. ‘He’s going to use Caleb to catapult himself. Why are you letting him?’ “As a little side service, I did some research on a list of old friends they provided me with.”
“Drit?”
“Yeah. Would you like to know about them?”
“Who’d she give you?”
“Sasha and Alex?”
“What are they doing?”
“Sasha runs a computer company and Alex is the head of the accounting branch.”
Caleb smiled and stared joyously into the dirt. ‘What’s he imagining?’ “Who else?”
“Your old principal.”
“Same position?”
“Was fired actually because of the hail-storm of sexual harassment suits brought against him.”
“Poor guy.”
Alice leaned towards him. “Did he do that when you were there?”
“Only once, and it was hilarious at the time.”
“You’re nice….”
She watched as Caleb’s smile disappeared.
“I’ve got the latest on David, too.”
Alice turned her head back to Kain. “What happened to him?”
“They said that he had a mental breakdown in jail. A few inmates nearly beat him to death, but he’s okay now and in a safer place.”
‘Caleb was right. He was like that all along, and he realized it finally. Did I even make the right choice with Caleb? I could’ve said it over and over to David and he would’ve said it back. But…it would’ve been a lie. Why does that matter to me so much? He’s pounded it into my head!’
“He’ll be just fine. Don’t worry, Alice.”
“I’m not worried.”
“You look worried.”
She laughed lowly. “You remember how my faces look? How nice of you.”
Again she witnessed the crumple of Caleb’s confidence. “Caleb? Do you mind if I just ask some preliminary questions? I can be out of your hair in no time.”
Caleb squeezed hard on his temples. “Go for it.”
Alice kept her face down. “All right, first: Do you think this is more important than winning the war?”
“Yes.”
Kain waited a few more moments for elaboration before continuing. “Um, next: What makes this different from the war?”
“Nothing, fundamentally. There is an enemy, but people are finding out that the possibility of that enemy is always there.”
“You implicitly said there was a difference though?”
“The war was a symptom of something much larger. Stephen is the source of what is wrong in this world.”
“Which is?”
Caleb looked at the writing pad in Kain’s hand. “That there is this and yourself and nothing else. How many times have you heard that in your life? Even your dad probably told you at some point that you have to look after yourself, or that you have to devote yourself to something great to be great. Stephen takes himself to the clouds, and shows people that’s the only way to live. That’s not true. But people have to be shown that at the same level as him, or the idea won’t stick.”
“How do you expect people to sit back and understand that? I mean, I’m college educated and it’s still completely unreal what you’re doing here. What do you expect people to get out of this?”
Caleb smiled widely and breathed out a laugh. “When this first started, that question would’ve been loaded with answers. The people will sit and read about this between bites of a bagel or hear it hurriedly from a car radio, but it won’t stop their day. Not many will claim epiphany or adulation. Maybe what happens tomorrow won’t make any difference at all. How would that be different from any other day? It isn’t a special thing to be here now and there tomorrow, but what drives a person can be spectacular in presence. Those who do stop and those that do listen will question and question and question; the world has kept spinning without itself, and to the sky they’ve been screaming ‘why, why, why,’ but the question that has always needed its answer will rain back with a steady fall. It is not that destiny corners us, or that circumstance corrals our mind, it is that there was a choice to make between our eternal three options, and life to be lived through them. Just so happens that this choice was the perfect one.”
Alice noticed Kain’s face holding the same look as hers. ‘I miss that Caleb.’
“What about you? This is something else, this is…beyond all that. It’s got to be.”
“This will be.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because it needs to be done.”
“You could’ve lived, Caleb. You’ve got a girl that loves you two feet away. Why you?”
“Because no one else would. Nobody has had to.”
“Hey kids! We’re putting the generators out. Get some sleep for tomorrow!”
Alice and Kain stayed seated as Caleb began to stamp out the fire.
-
- -
Alice heard a flutter against a dark bush. ‘Who else would be out here this late?’
“That you, Alice?”
Her heart skipped through the subsequent beats. “Caleb?”
“I’m nobody, remember?”
She smiled as the generators at the campsite ceased churning and the remaining remnants of light blackened in an instant. “Everybody is here, then.”
Her skin felt the constant friction of his hand running up her arm and around the back of her neck. She felt her feet leave the ground suddenly and her bare toes were soon digging into the cloth top of his shoes. Alice could feel his eyes looking into hers. ‘What are you feeling? It’s been so long since—’
“Remember? Like last time. I’m still nobody, just like last time. How many events can possibly fill up fifteen months and nine days? I’m not sure, but I think every single moment until now, I’ve had somewhere else to be. I’ve had someone else to talk to or some other thing to correct. There was always a piece of me…my past. I couldn’t shake it no matter how hard my spine tingled or how fast my feet flew. You took my past away, and I was left with a stable void inside, a black hole that didn’t destroy. It didn’t eat or drink, but any time I saw you, it extended like my power, and I suddenly forgot that I was human. I forgot the need for breath, the taste of food, and the way to feel. Everything we ever experienced together was through a warm filter that made your entire world sparkle, and that’s all that matters.”
His warm exhale pillowed above her head. “Why are you saying this?”
Alice felt his face fall to the flat of her head. “Tomorrow, I’m going to be everywhere at once. There will be a moment when I fight where every action in the world will suddenly be relying on mine. That’s why I’m treating this like the last time I’ll ever have nowhere else to be. That’s why I have to tell you that I do love you.”
Alice’s air escaped too quickly and her head was light. There were no thoughts strong enough to permeate the buzzing warmth consuming every sense and encapsulating the ever-long second of speech. Her hands moved down each arm. “What’s this?”
‘Porous cloth, wet on his wrist.’
“I don’t have my power anymore.”
Alice rebounded from his chest. “What? What’s that have to do with this?”
“I had to test it.”
‘Cut his wrists. Suicide.’ “He didn’t come out?”
“I had to stop the bleeding myself.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” Caleb gently pulled her closer. ‘You haven’t said you love him back….’ “Either way, it’s not responding.”
“You can’t go, then.”
“Don’t”
“Don’t what? You’ll die.”
“Please don’t give me a choice.”
She looked up, barely seeing his closed eyes. “You always have a choice. You taught me that.”
“And it’s true until you’re faced with something that needs to be done. I can’t leave now. My heart and brain have been screaming at me for days now to grab your hand and to run as fast as I can away from this and live anywhere, but I…can’t. Alice, I can’t. The world placed this in front of me, and I cannot run.”
“You’ll die against him without your power, won’t you?”
“I…,” Alice felt his hand flinch on her wrist.
“No more protecting. Tell me the truth.”
“The truth is of the moment. You and I are the truth of this night. The truth of the future is never certain.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s the system this universe offers us. There is a chance that I will die tomorrow, and that I’ll live. That we’ll be victorious, and that we’ll fail. The truth is that I will not stop or back down or run away because I will do anything to make this world right for you.”
“You can’t make this about me.” The moon rose slightly above a cluster of bushes and finally shown enough for Alice to see Caleb’s face. His energetic eyes were concealed behind locked lids while the stiffness of his cheeks was undercut by the swollen bags beneath each eye. “Open your eyes.”
