True Heroes (77 page)
‘We’re going to work this out. We’re not leaving.’ Caleb’s eyes suddenly became hazed and his head felt light. His lids closed for only a moment and opened to a completely new scene; the stable grass and rock beneath his feet had become the narrow foul pole of an empty baseball stadium, overlooking the primed grass and the vacant, folded sea of red seats. He regained his balance before speaking. “There’s no wind. We’re not really here.”
“Were we ever?”
He looked over and up to see his power lounging on the metallic overhang, staring straight up to the starless, cloudless blank slate of night. “What do you mean?”
“Were we not here in every sense of the word with Alice?”
“Of course.”
“When were we ever completely aligned before that? Name one time.”
Caleb was suddenly flowing with the foul pole underneath his feet from memory to memory, back to reading and talking to Carol, to his power’s conflicts and Caleb’s solutions. “We never have.”
The entire spectrum changed again and the color was sapped from the scene. Silence became the nature around him and it; wherever they were inside the massive void that could not be measured or bounded was simply satisfied with its own existence. “What about here?”
Caleb remembered with his eyes open: Alice’s flowing dress suddenly appeared with no body, but the subtle outline of her form still filled all but the folded bottom which gracefully kicked in the windless black. “We were again.”
“Two completely different places: One with everybody and one with nobody. How were we aligned?”
“She was the only common factor.”
“So, maybe I do care for her. It seems reasonably possible that I care for her the same way you do. The realm of possibility even holds that I care for her as much as I cared for Carol.”
“You cared for her?”
“I was born when you thought you loved her, so I naturally cared immediately. I thought you could do no wrong. That’s why I hated you. That’s why I’ll always hate you, but it’s starting to seem more possible that Alice is the one thing we can care about together.”
They were both suddenly back to the grassy cliff. ‘There’s something in the city.’
Caleb turned to look at the glowing skyline only to see it shaded by a purple fog that seemed to blanket the entire city. ‘Stephen….’
‘He’s trying to find us.’
‘He’s a little off target then.’ Power zoomed in Caleb’s vision. ‘There’s a tiny green flame. He’s—’
‘Alice.’
He dropped down and hugged his knees, unleashing his mind. ‘We both care about her. It’s got to be perfect though it can’t be passing we can’t help her that way.’
‘Caleb, the only way we’re ever going to help anybody is with that girl at our side.’ He stared hard at the silhouette standing in front of him. ‘I’ll do good, I’ll do anything. Please, don’t make us go away from her.’
The look in its glowing eyes tipped Caleb’s mental scales. ‘We’ve solved the paradox, for the moment.’
‘You said we couldn’t.’
‘Well, we see now that there was never a paradox to begin with. There were just two things with broken hearts.’
‘You’re still broken.’
‘I know,’ Caleb stood up and threw the backpack away, ‘but now it’s possible to fix it.’
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
---
Alice threw away the paper plate after tossing the remnants of funnel cake to the strategically hidden squirrels and birds. “They’ll enjoy that. They should. I don’t want to make them fat though. Oh well, I’m sure they’ll appreciate the extra fat for next winter.”
“Alice, look!” She turned around to a massive stack of balloons being carried by a single man.
“Wow, they go higher than the trees. Almost as high as that building! I wish…I wish Caleb was here.”
Alice felt a violent tug on her shoulder and was suddenly facing a large man. “Big, huge, look down. No eyes. Something’s flying off of him. It feels like the Prince. But how? That’s not Caleb. He doesn’t have shoes like those.”
“Shut up. You’re not Caleb.”
She looked up to his chest. “You know Caleb? He’s never mentioned you. Someone as big as you, or as mean.”
Her chin suddenly had his hand under it and was forced up. “You don’t shut up do you?”
The intense pressure from his fingers was suddenly released and her tightly closed eyes saw his feet suddenly perpendicular to her face. “The man flew away. Something…Caleb! There he goes. He got the man off me. No, he punched him back. Get him! I’ll help. I don’t know. Should I? What could I do? I…won’t sit by and watch.”
---
Caleb felt the cement rain in chunks against his shield of power as Stephen’s force crushed a grey slab of it easily. The emblazed man came back quickly for a second strike—‘Pressure, use small points, focused points to stop him like before,’—and was stopped as three accurate thrusts pushed on his shoulder and elbow, blocking the blow. Stephen continued to reload and fire in this manner as fast as Caleb could counter, all the while Power and Caleb ceased deliberation and were completely open to one another’s ideas. After a quick jab to their protective casing, Stephen lowered his shoulder and drove through them with everything he had. They were forced into and through a thin store front before Caleb could redirect Power to upend their momentum.
Caleb flipped over Stephen’s back, but hesitated in their next move for just long enough; Stephen reacted to the pause instantly by switching around and gathering a head of steam, tackling straight through Caleb and pushing them through a thicker wall on the other side of the street. Caleb’s footing was lost beneath the rubble but recovered when Power kept him in the air long enough to twist with its many hands and land on one knee. This action allowed Stephen enough time to regain himself and to fire a hook that caught them squarely in the jaw, smashing their head into the rubble at their feet. His head rang loudly, but Power was still alert enough to pull their body out of the way before Stephen’s finishing strike could land.
They swam to their feet while Stephen pursued, swinging and grunting while every slice at their body missed its intended target. Caleb stumbled out onto the street and barely glimpsed a barricade of police officers attempting to cage the fighters. Stephen paid them no attention as he swung and hit Caleb’s stomach. Power had its major attention on the police, keeping bullets and taser claws away from their flesh, leaving Caleb with a completely defensive mindset. Stephen tried to punch low at his knees, but Caleb jumped, folded back his leg, and used what power he had to force his abdominals to cross a punch, which landed squarely across Stephen’s cheek. While falling back on his hand, the recovery time wasn’t nearly as long as hoped as another uppercut was loosed as he was airborne. Caleb’s hands wrapped around Stephen’s before substantial contact was made, lessening the rising whine at his ears.
The force still moved him back five feet, where Power exploded the rest of their reserves and pushed the officers back and out of commission. Stephen roared as he flew forward again—“Alice! Behind us!”
Power encased her immediately as Caleb pulled up a slab of a disfigured building to block the brunt of the bulrush. Stephen crashed hard against the shield, reinforced by the minority of Caleb’s strength, and moved all three of them back with Caleb’s rubber soles squeaking against the blacktop. Stephen pushed and pushed with Alice completely surrounded by Power, and Caleb losing ground with every passing second. Stephen began using the slab as a steering wheel, soon forcing Caleb to the edge of fifty-foot bridge that fell to a heavily-populated street. Alice’s protective capsule stayed resilient as Caleb groaned through the sharp corners slicing at his field and bones that began to pop louder than the moan in his head. “I need you, now.”
“We have to protect her.”
“We won’t have her if he pushes me any further.”
Power didn’t deliberate anymore; Caleb let his eyes blaze blue again as the concrete between the men crumbled until they had clasped hands: Stephen’s larger body leaning over Caleb’s as Alice was hunched beneath, barely shielded behind the bending torso of Caleb and Power. They timed their counter perfectly; Power snapped the lock with two heavy pounds at the elbows while Caleb rotated an elbow into his solar plexus with strength he’d never had to use. The reverberation was massive as it echoed through the bridge beneath them and between the buildings for half the city. His fist stayed flexed, and through another blinding move, every bit of force allowable to Caleb plummeted into Stephen’s forehead. The man’s flight resembled the echo as he crashed through the other side of the bridge and pounded the pavement below.
Caleb was at the broken rail in a blink. When he looked down, Stephen was already up, but running away, his groans coming freely as he disappeared at the horizon.
‘Alice.’
‘Is fine.’
Caleb tried to turn around, but felt incredibly weak as Power receded completely.
---
“No!” Alice sprang forward in time to wrap her arms around Caleb’s body, saving it from falling the same way the large man had done just seconds ago.
-
- -
Power awoke a few seconds before Caleb. It stepped aside to allow Caleb control as they both took inventory. ‘Are we in pain?’
‘Not that I can tell. We’re restrained and blindfolded. Did the idiots really think our eyes were, what, the source of your energy?’
‘They’re bound to try anything. Get out and look around the room.’
Power escaped through the gauze bandages and allowed Caleb to observe everything through it. ‘Body looks okay. We’re healing now that we’re conscious. Some sort of quarantine room: white walls with plexiglass and slick floors.’ It seeped through the cracks and into the hallway. ‘Room of a hospital. Ten floors up. The boy scout brigade is here; about a dozen armed guards with the faint smell of helicopter fuel on all of them, so at least two gunner ships somewhere nearby.’ It retracted with a slight chuckle from Caleb filling its form. ‘Something funny?’
‘We could take them all couldn’t we?’
Power looked away from his eyes. ‘I suppose we could.’
Caleb kept his eyes closed and gazed through his cloudless mind. ‘But we don’t want to, do we?’
‘No, we don’t.’
He put imaginary hands behind his imaginary head. ‘How far did he push us?’
The memories began projecting against the roof of his mind as they both watched; intoxicating revolutions of double-helixes comprising colorful emotions sprang to the roof before raining back from sagging clouds. ‘He hurt me this time. Neither one of us could block a full attack, but redirection worked. Within a bull fight, he would win, but with our combined vessel, his chances of winning were lessened considerably. We still weren’t ready, and he did get away.’
The images continued to flash by. ‘So did we.’
‘Do you think he’ll be back?’
‘He’d come after us.’
‘Us? Your proposing some backwards permanent truce?’
‘You said it yourself: we fought him together.’
‘We did, yes.’
‘And we’re caring for the same things.’
‘Heh, you’re attempting to get in your own head?’
‘Listen,’ he said within his head as his internal eyes closed again, and they were suddenly back on the cliff with Power looming over the wide view of the city. Caleb laid his imaginary body in the crotch of the tree ten feet above him with his back relaxed against the trunk and his leg dangling and swinging over the edge. ‘Do you really want all of this to go away?’
‘I wouldn’t miss it.’
The light suddenly went out all around them. ‘This?’
‘What is this?’
‘The night with Alice.’
‘Don’t bring her into this.’
‘You know that’s what we’re both here for now.’
‘You don’t believe that.’
Caleb squirmed in the dark. ‘It’s what we both want.’
‘I…can’t help but want her.’
