True Heroes (80 page)

              Caleb felt his heart sink a little as the black barrel was shaking inches from his skull. “No, I’m saying you were there by default. What am I supposed to know?”

              “That’s my fucking sickness! I swallow everything around me and can’t see anything that doesn’t relate to me. I can’t name any other countries besides this one. I only know two state names. The idea of anymore scares the shit out of me and I get so nervous I want to scream.”

              “I didn’t know that.”

              “But you guessed right, didn’t you? You were right on the mark when the entire group fit right into your model.”

              “Things just fell into their places.”

              She pulled the gun back and held it tightly at her side. “I hate that little tramp you date. She’s always happy. I hate that she has you and that you make her happy instead of me.” Her hands swept the top of the desk clean. “I bet you to go at it like rabbits don’t you? Nobody’s that happy without sex in their life.”

              “You don’t know me, and you don’t know us. You can’t”

              She pointed the barrel of the gun down into the metal desk. “Get up here with your pants off.”

              ‘Here comes the limit.’ “No.”

              It rose quickly and was steady with its intent at the end of the short tube. “Make me happy.”

              ‘She’s pushing your limit. Push back.’ “No. Not in the way you’re asking.”

              Her hand jutted forward but the trigger remained in place. Her gritting teeth shone unevenly from her turned head while the protruding bones at her wrists could barely be seen beneath the constricted sinews locked within twisting intentions. She never quite relaxed, but her vision of Caleb’s clarity spread within her. “How could you make me happy?”

              ‘Ah damn. I was hoping the staring contest would end in bloodshed.’

              “I can tell you what’s happening to you now, but nothing more. Nothing in the future is ever certain because I don’t know what choices you’re going to make.”

              “That’s it? What the hell will that do?”

              “If you know what’s going to happen—”

              “What? I’ll be able to change it is that you’re huge revelation?”

              “Yes.”

              “To hell with that! What in the world would that do for me? I-I’ve been who I am forever. What the hell is having a map going to solve?”

              “It’s a map and a compass.”

              “A compass?”

              “It will always point where you want to go, but there will always be choices for you to make.”

              “It’s not about that, I thought? You told us it was about going north, not where we wanted to go.”

              “You can’t go north.”

              The barrel slammed into the desk. “Why not?”

              “Because you are stuck in an endless cycle. What happened in the beginning is that you were born thinking that you were all there was, and you did this to such an extreme that the rest of the world blanked out. What’s happened since then is that you’ve been brought up to believe that the only way to approach life is through immediate satisfaction of basic pleasures, which is apparent by your approach to sex. What is going to happen is that you are going to continue to believe all of this is the only way you can live, because it’s true, and you will live and die this way if these are the choices that you make.”

              Her hand shook violently until the weapon finally dropped heavily to the floor with a thud.

              ‘Bravo, Caleb.’

              ‘She’s crushed….’

              ‘So are you, but you still said what had to be said.’

              ‘I feel sick.’

              ‘Come now don’t ruin your moment of maturation.’

              “Are you sure?”

              Caleb stood up and stepped to the door. “I’m sorry. It is how it is how it was lived.”

              He opened the door and walked out to the empty office with Joy’s heaves sounding heavily before the slam of the door behind him. Caleb fell into a fake bench and barely caught his head in his hands. ‘Something is wrong. My stomach…my heart.’

              ‘You did just fine.’

              ‘We’re aligned. There’s something very wrong there.’

              ‘That’s my type of truth. It’s the way you’ve matured. Like you said, there’s nothing you can do about it. We are who we are.’

              ‘Why did I say that?’

              ‘The word of the true.’

              ‘No, no, no, this hurts.’

              ‘I can only say truth so many times.’

              The work bell sounded and cranked Caleb’s knees into position. ‘No, lies hurt. Truth….’

              ‘Does what?’

              ‘I can’t see it. I can’t see the truth of what I was talking about anymore.’

              ‘Then you must’ve been wrong.’

              ‘No, just…incomplete.’

              The consciousness of Caleb subverted its senses, turning to slight emittances of Power to fuel every muscular curl or straighten for the better part of an hour. Monotonous action snagged as his scanning gun continually erred, drawing his external attention only to read on the display that there was an important meeting in the common area. ‘What’s this about?’

              ‘Nothing important.’

              From one of the open shutters against the near exterior wall, Caleb caught a twinkling glance of a red spinning light as he walked. ‘Something important.’

              ‘There’s nothing important here. You’re speaking paradoxically.’

              He walked into the common area and unstrapped his bag while tuning into the middle sentence of a paragraph. “So, we can’t answer all of your questions, obviously, as it is an ongoing investigation, but to answer your question, yes, bereavement time will be offered for tonight and tomorrow. I know that she was special to a few of us here.”

              ‘Who’s missing?’ Caleb searched frantically and felt coldly isolated. ‘Joy.’             

              ‘What Joy, indeed.’

              Caleb felt something searing inside of him rocket into his fingertips and through his skin. Every body part he could feel was scorched in the agony of sensation; his power reacting heavily to the frightening pitfall he subconsciously perched atop. ‘Walk. Talk to him.’

              “Hey, Frank, I’m going to go to throw on lanes, okay?”

              Frank looked sideways towards him. ‘Confused. Please. Please say yes. I can’t stay still.’

              The boss nodded his head as Caleb was half turned and walking away. He sped down half of the large warehouse. ‘Walk. Step, step, step, step, step, step. Stop. Watch. Step, step, step.’

              The boxes flew from his hands off the pallet and into the back of a large truck. ‘Pick. Heave. Pick faster. Heave harder. Harder, Caleb, harder!’ One pallet was finished. The second one fell quickly. ‘Stop. Just stop.’

              He heard his own voice hold his will from setting his soul ablaze. His head leaned onto the downed tail-gate, and his lungs couldn’t find a breath deep enough. ‘There’s got to be more. There has to be a way. We’re not done.’

              ‘I hope not.’

              ‘No, we’re done doing what’s wrong. It’s time to do what’s right.’

              Caleb looked up.

                            -                            -                            -                           

              A soft glow spilled across his front as Caleb opened the door into Alice’s apartment with a neutral look beaming. She was curled into her chair within a blanket with her eyes wide with news. “Caleb. Home early.”

              “Joy is dead.”

              “I know.” She let her head fall back into the cushioned back. “What happened?”

              “Something changed. Something new was introduced, and Joy didn’t know how to handle it.”

              “Nothing’s fixed now. Nothing will be.”

              “Joy can be laid to peace. Imagine that kind of soil.” Alice sat up worriedly as Caleb stubbed a toe on the couch before sitting down. “You’re not sad?”

              “Joy hated me. Hated us. I’m not happy, but I’m not sad either. My mind can’t find what it wants to say.”

              “That means you’re sad.”

              “Are you?”

              Caleb stared at the carpet until his eyes completely lost focus. “I’ve got a complicated truth for you.”

‘She has a tear.’ Alice tried to smile. “Let’s hear it.”

“I quit my job tonight, and it was the right thing to do.”

              She sat back and found her mental voice again. “Well, you said that causing inconvenience can be avoided, and I know you—that’s what I start with—you would think of that as a big inconvenience. You…won’t let yourself fail, won’t let yourself do the wrong thing, and certainly wouldn’t ever, ever, let a wrong thing happen twice. If your job represented some sort of failure…Joy? You feel responsible for Joy’s death, and you’re going to make sure it never happens again, which is accompanied by you quitting. But you don’t quit for a change of scenery. You’re too brave for that.”

              “You have some lovely ideals about me.”

              “The job would interfere with you doing the right thing. With your thinking.”

              “With my actions. I’m going to end the war. I’ve gotten all I can from thinking. It’s time to act, and to find the real truth.”

              Alice watched him as he continued to stare down, neither of them able to shake the tragedy of Joy.
                          

Chapter 21

             
The doors opened and Caleb was suddenly washed in various lights. The first flew from the eyes of sweating, entranced scholars of the nature of judgment through sight. The next stuck to his body from the many rows of bulbs snapped tightly to the roof of unknown material, raining pseudo-photonic pockets across his playful shirt and plain shorts in a much more yellow shade than his homogeneous blue. The last strayed half a pace right and ahead of him as they walked: the quick, sideways, flashing smile of Major Howard, perhaps sharking more than the sights of all.

              “Welcome to the Tank. You’re not going to be liked very much here at all.”

              ‘Do you smell that?’

              ‘Sweat?’

              ‘No. The swelter of the spotlight. Amplifies everything.’

              ‘You’re seriously intimidated here?’

              ‘I’m intimidated by your plans because I can’t see them.’

              “Why’s that?”

              ‘Just know that I’m doing what’s right from now on.’

              “These guys have been here for months, toning there little minds into what we used to think was the perfect weapon of war. You’ll be here for a couple of hours, then in debriefing for half-an-hour, then sleeping, and out of here by the morning.”

              ‘That idea isn’t supposed to terrify me?’

              ‘It should be encouraging.’

              ‘And if you do find the answer? If everything is suddenly solvable?’

              ‘Then raise your glasses.’

              “I guess that’s good. Maybe I’ll fill my promise with Alice then.”

              “What’s that?”

              “Told her I’d be home by the weekend.”

              The Major lead him around a small sand pit and stopped at a long row of treadmills. “You may very well. Hold up here. I’ll find the station we have set up for you.”

              As the Major walked off, Caleb’s energy pulled at his skin. ‘You at least have to let me fight one of them.’

              ‘Something tells me you’ll get a chance.’

              ‘The man behind you is watching you with decadent nonchalance.’

              Caleb turned around just as the man spoke. “You must be Mr. Special.” He lowered his paper and unevenly folded it across his lap. “Well, I can see why. We don’t have enough scrawny guys in the infantry. Our prayers are answered.”

              Caleb smiled back. “I’m pleased to see the wit of the room is addressing me, and yet depressed that the best quip you could come up with revolves around you emasculating yourself in front of the new guy.”

              The man couldn’t hide a slight glimmer of humor from his eyes. “Therein lies the beauty. I hit you with the blasé first, then the heavy punches later.”

              “Softening my defenses. You are a military man.”

              “Born and bred. Stanley,” he said with his hand extending.

              “Caleb. Stanley doesn’t strike me as a military name.”

              “What does? Stephen?” Caleb’s jovial mood stopped dead. “Yeah, I know all about that little cracked walnut. Name doesn’t seem like the type does it? Should get it changed to Osterizer or Destruco-Man.”

              ‘You were just humbled by a military goon. Glorious.’

              “Good point. Corporal?”

              He waved his hand. “That doesn’t matter here. Not to me. Doesn’t even matter out there. The only line that used to matter is General, which is when most with the title would stop seeing the battlefield. Now, well I suppose classes and ranks have stopped mattering so much.”

              The Major walked back into the conversation. “Now it runs down loyalty lines. Glad you two met.” He turned to Stanley. “Is everything ready for the tests, Rue?”

              “All except the needed men, but from the looks, that won’t be a problem.”

              “Get them together.” The Major swiveled back to Caleb. “This way.” They walked through the thrum of treadmills; their various speeds delighting Caleb and interesting Power. One could hear the speeds at their decisive beats; the very movements in which there was a reaction delighted his symmetrical, intuitive mind at the deepest base of every dashing, sitting machine. The other measured itself against the man, and, more inherently, the machine. ‘Six miles, nine miles, eight-point-six miles, two miles.’ It could judge the speed by the beat within its mind, but could never understand that beneath that beat, his mind tethered every reactive component through a singular unification. ‘You’re thinking of my obsoletion. There’s something running through your mind that terrifies me.’ “Basically, we’re going to have you show for a few hours while our trainers teach you a few moves that’ll help you be a little more efficient at any speed. No scientists. Nothing underhanded.”

              ‘I’m sorry it terrifies you, but that just means it’s right.’ “That’ll be quite a change.”

              ‘What is it?’ “No need for it. We’ve got the source. From a practical standpoint, this is as good as it gets.”

              ‘I feel as though I’m becoming myself again.’ “Couldn’t agree more.” The ground changed back into the padded walkway and ducked under a plastic covering. ‘What is this? A left over biohazard tent?’

              ‘They’re isolating you.’ He looked around at the simple set-up and shrugged. “Seems as though we’ll only be doing one activity today,” he said with a nod to the bench press machine.

              “The floor changes. We just need to get a base line first.” A man and a woman walked up to the Major and nodded. “Nameless trainers. Go ahead and give us a max out, if you will.”

              Caleb smiled a little as he walked towards the bench. “I’ve never actually bench-pressed before.”

              “Go figure,” the Major said with a smile. “We’ll set it to your body weight first.”

              “One-seventy-seven, at last check.” He glimpsed the male trainer moving something along the wall as he let his back become horizontal across the comfortable bench. His hands ran up and down the cool metal a few times until his muscles felt stretched. The weight lifted from the holder on his strength’s command and lowered near his chest before being pushed back up and into the holder. “Send it up to one-ninety.”

              A confirmation noise came from somewhere beside the trio at the wall, and Caleb lifted again. The resistance was minimal until the bar touched his chest; the return trip was painfully slow under his rapidly snapping muscles and decreasing ability to focus. As the bar lowered and the trainers raced over, Caleb unleashed the smallest bit of power he could to easily compensate his overwhelmed pectorals. He sat up with an exaggerated breath. “That’s it? I’ve benched broads heavier than that.”

              Caleb smiled over as Stanley walked in with a chorus line of shirtless and barely-shirted men behind him. “The formula we used for our suit would have you at much less power than we expected.”

              He smiled over to the Major. “I promise I can produce more than you think I can.”

              “We’ll see I guess. Line up along the four walls, men. Even spaces.” ‘Did you notice the stacks of weights against the walls when we walked in?’

              ‘You didn’t?’

              “Grab a weight.” A button descended and the bench suddenly lowered from underneath his buttocks. Caleb stood up straight and looked around while feeling pleasantly curious. “Caleb, I’d get out that blue power of yours. Men, throw those weights as hard as you can toward his body.”

              The men threw out various hollers and whooping noises as they wound up their throwing arms. Caleb just smiled. “And what should I be doing?”

              “I think that would be kind of obvious. We’re not going to order you around, just observe.”

              His hands opened at his side and let Power fuel his response. “My head is light from this sudden shift in the tide.”

              A few of the more zealous men threw small weights first—‘Five pounds,’—to which Caleb’s power didn’t even respond. The small weights bounced off of a field of power so purposefully vague that it relished in the confounded looks around the room. ‘They think it hit skin. I like this group. Very gullible.’ More forced disks flew and bounced from his transparent shield. The zealous men had reloaded, their weights a few inches circummed and a few pounds more weighted. Their tosses were equally useless. “You boys better step up the strength if you want me to actually try at all.”

              They hurried their pace. Metal was flying towards Power’s all-compassing protection, and it was hardly paying attention, but was extended from Caleb’s body in a playful way. “That thirty-five pound weight almost indented slightly.”

              “The forty-fives will, at least at these low levels. Show off a bit if you want.”

              “With pleasure.”

              The heaving and heavily-breathing soldiers of valor took the last weight in each stack in hand while their minds seemed to have lost whatever tread their muddied motivations allowed them. Caleb and Power could enjoy, at varying levels, the frustrated looks upon the faces of his cage that extended no further than one dimension in a three-dimensional world. The forty-fives were hurled with grunts and beginnings of sweat, and Power expelled itself within the spacious cage to catch them. Ten weights that hadn’t the strength behind them to actually reach Caleb’s body hung in the slightly blue hue before being stacked neatly behind him.

              Caleb retook his body and sat down on the stack with one leg crossed over a knee. “That’s supposed to test me?”

              The Major pushed off the wall and smiled to Stanley, who dismissed the flabbergasted soldiers. “It’s more of a test of inaction than anything. We put Stephen through a similar test and he tossed a weight across the warehouse and dented the wall. You, pure defense. A little showy, but eh, I’m sure that’ll go away.”

              ‘He’s complimenting you.’

              ‘He tricked me. Had I known my leash wasn’t held by you, I would’ve torn them a part.’

              ‘You would’ve four months ago. Not even a month ago.’

              ‘You have a point?’

              ‘Alice has changed you.’

              ‘Alice has changed both of us.’

              ‘I’m finding myself.’

              ‘And yet you can’t love her.’

              ‘And you’re not capable of loving anything.’

              ‘I have no problems with myself.’

              ‘What a romantic life you live. I truly wish I was that delusional.’

              ‘I know you do.’

              ‘As if your defenses don’t prove my point.’

              ‘I’ve always offered resistance.’

              ‘But never appealed to our mutual feelings for Alice. That’s almost an admittance of our union and not yours. You don’t show-off because you have no reason to. She’s stolen your fire and left you nothing in return.’

              ‘All this from a simple declaration of a simple, narcissistic move?’

              ‘I can find the patterns too.’

              Stanley approached him slowly and crossed his arms. “You’ll be more useful than I thought.”

              “And those men, more useless. Life is fun for learning new things.”

              “Ain’t it, though?” He pulled Caleb into the center again as the Major disappeared behind the thin tent. “Keep the blue stuff bottled up for now. We’ll do a little hand-to-hand. No formal training, correct?”