We Can Save Us All

by Adam Nemett

  But the core League of Nine—no, seven, they were a League of Seven now without Fu and Zoe, weren’t they?—had to protect themselves. Beaches were good for this.

  They set up in a condo called the Calypso, far enough from the ocean and fifty miles from campus, in a Jersey Shore town called Neptune City. The shore regulars were gone, and local lawmen were too busy with hurricane prep and cleanup to worry about some spoiled college kids.

  Mathias’s moratorium on clocks was still in effect, and when they first got to Neptune City David thought the days were speeding up, but then he realized it wasn’t the days, it was his body. He’d exhaust himself so quickly. Circadian rhythms out of whack. His beautiful and vibrant Haley became sluggish. David did some googling and found they were lacking zeitgebers (German for “time givers”), the external stimuli that tell us what time it should be. He once fell asleep while shitting.

  They’d boarded the big windows and kept the blinds closed for security and also because Mathias said the sky was another irrelevant timepiece they needed to relinquish. Didn’t matter, since it was always raining. Every noon looked like night. Death by darkness. The ninth plague.

  — Ø —

  Mathias was comatose on the couch, his drugs worn off or waiting to work. He was officially wanted now, in hiding. He had to stay inside, just in case. Kill the head and the body will die.

  David let him sleep and headed for the door, shushing the TV. He wanted to go for a walk by himself. It was the easiest way to keep a low profile. Rolling solo.

  Venturing outside, he saw a middle-aged lady wobbling down the sidewalk, shirt soaked with rain. She carried a crystal highball glass filled with dark liquor. She had no pants on, and her angry-looking bush poked out from under her tank top. Spotting David, she stopped and reached her arms up to the sky.

  “You feel that stretch?” she called to him. “The sky is pulling us—uh!—I friggin’ love it!”

  See, she felt it. And David’s commitment to Mathias was stronger than ever. He was the mouse who knew the way out of the maze. David felt it, too.

  — Ø —

  They had this jar of coins back in the room, and if David took about four dollars in loose change he could buy himself dinner from the condo vending machine, plus an evening of swirly entertainment. Each snack was a choice, a chance to watch the spiral spin. When foodstuffs dropped he let them collect down there, forgetting what he’d bought. The fun part was when they got stuck. Because then he could wail on that fucker and nobody would wonder why.

  This is another way of saying he still had a lot of mourning to do.

  They got Fu’s helmet back. It sat atop the Calypso’s fireplace mantel. David hated looking at it. Those brown and white scrapes down the side from where his head hit the wall. You’d think he’d been mauled by a jaguar. Britt kept hiding the helmet in the condo closet, but Owen kept exhuming it and placing it back on the mantel. They waged this silent war until Britt gave in and let it stay.

  Once, David broke his sorry silence, but before he could say a full sentence, Britt jumped from the couch, grabbed Fu’s helmet, and hurled it hard at David’s head. He ducked just in time.

  “It’s your fucking fault!” David wasn’t going to fight her on this. She was right. “You were lying in the fucking dirt while we were fighting with cops!”

  That’s not why it was his fault, though.

  The truth, via endless news coverage: the Silent Dance, which seemed to David like it took days and days, actually lasted a grand total of eighty minutes, from the time Party Shooz stopped until Golden Echo sacrificed his noble life for David’s worthless one. Sure, he’d avoided the battle, but he’d also caused it. He was the leak. He’d told Colonel Blue, who’d told the police, who’d certainly tipped off their white supremacist pals, and all of it caused Fu to die. David knew it was cosmic punishment. This was what happened when you betrayed those you were supposed to protect.

  — Ø —

  The news branded it Superstorm Phil, which seemed silly and anticlimactic considering this was the end of things. They should have chosen a name with an X, Y, or Z. Superstorm Xerxes, Yastrzemski, Zeus. Still, Phil was formidable. A combination of jet streams and pressure systems ganging up on the Western Hemisphere. Hail like grapefruits.

  Newscasters started signing off. The most familiar faces stayed on the air to calm the world through this final tragedy, as they had during so many dark moments before, but they excused off-camera employees to be with their families, whittling down to a skeleton crew. People had to decide where they wanted to be, where they were needed, whose faces they wanted to see last.

  Power was unreliable as ever, but a mobile generator running on biodiesel gave them plenty of juice to keep their phones on, and video clips filtered to them in fits and spurts. The news highlighted Princeton as one of the iconic hubs where humans were gathering for the end times. Jerusalem and Mecca were in shambles. But Trafalgar Square, Stonehenge, Alcatraz, Princeton, these were the magnets. City folks created underground communities in subway tubes, and after The Egg burned down, students gathered in the dorms close to Nassau Street, on higher ground. They did their best to expel all the administrators and adults from campus, who clearly couldn’t be trusted anymore. Most were all too happy to leave, but the ones who’d converted and joined the USV and developed their own superhero personas, some of them had to be forcibly removed.

  Still, the USV didn’t implode, the way some assumed it might. It simply relocated and banded together, tying tight to itself like the logs of a life raft. Some gathered around Spinoza Field House, which was situated on low ground but had nice natural protection from the worst winds. News anchors referred to it as the “Superdome,” a throwback to New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina maybe, or a nod to the costumes and capes that made them who they were. A mass of young humanity orbited the arena’s exterior like some new-fangled Kaaba, paying homage and waiting for their masked messiah to return.

  — Ø —

  David needed to come clean. He needed to apologize. He needed to admit to Mathias that he was now a full believer. How could he have known the exact spot? Dei sub numine viget written in blood? It’s not something Mathias could have premeditatedly orchestrated, not in a million years. Mathias had seen it. He was real. And David almost ruined everything.

  He wanted to tell Mathias of his betrayal and he was about to, really, when they were by the vending machine together one night, but then Mathias beat him to the punch. He told David the most important revelation that ever came from his mouth. David’s face went hot, ears cold.

  “Haley is pregnant,” said Mathias.

  Something cosmic flipped back on itself.

  Early signs of total molecular collapse, perhaps.

  Hurtling toward that black hole in the center of the wishing well.

  About to become a perfect blur.

  David knew he needed to ask a question, but all he could say was “Haley who?”

  “She’s early still.” David couldn’t tell if Mathias was excited or fuming mad.

  “How long… when did you find this out? I mean… how far along is… when did…?”

  “When? How long? Who fucking knows, David.”

  “Are you sure… I mean, are you definitely sure it’s…?”

  “We’re definitely pregnant.”

  “Wait. You think it’s yours?”

  Mathias scratched at his beard and then stared at David. His face was an empty vessel.

  “Yes,” he said, “we’re definitely sure. Under the Gods’ Power She Flourishes. Some other heroes are also with child—lots of little eggs growing—but I know they mean less to you than Haley does.”

  David turned away, afraid to let Mathias see his eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Dave, but I see right through you. I see everything. And you are my nemesis!”

  David hated him in that moment, but he yelled back, “I’m not your enemy, dude.”

  “No, no, no! Nemesis doesn’t mean en
emy, the way everyone thinks. Nemesis is the Greek god of payback! And that’s you, thank the heavens. You’re the one who gives me my due.”

  — Ø —

  Maybe he was right. Maybe Mathias was the flesh and blood David had been waiting for. He’d been fighting invisible enemies most of his life. Those evil cells in Claire’s blood, the good ones that had accidentally turned bad. Cold fronts and barometric pressure, they were faceless, too. Invisible enemies were David’s favorite.

  Because when the real enemies are right there in front of your face?

  By David’s calculation, if you tracked back to the homecoming bonfire, conception could have coincided with either David or Mathias. She was maybe fifteen weeks, barely beginning to show. If anything, she looked skinnier. But everyone found out. It gave their meetings a new weight. When they’d lost Fu, they’d gained a new, tinier member. Cap’n Cunt’s tummy became the new USV figurehead, this child to be born under the flag of revolution. They all operated as expectant parents.

  Still, Haley and David hadn’t really spoken about it. He’d been waiting for her to apologize, to divulge a secret, to confess her love anew. To tell David it was his. But she steered clear of the topic and they were never alone in that crowded condo. He was forced to confront Haley in the bathroom while the others were sleeping. She was running her fingers through a rising bath.

  “I can’t really think about that right now,” she said, eyes focused on the ripples.

  “Well, I can’t really think about anything else,” David shot back.

  “There are bigger things at stake.”

  And this was kind of true. When one thing felt huge it would soon give way to something so crushingly overwhelming that the previous thing would crumble and dissolve. When he thought about school, his career, his friends, his love life, those notions were washed away by the threat of war, the flood, and the end of time itself.

  But no, wait! A month ago David might’ve agreed with her. But now? From here on out? He really couldn’t think of a single bigger thing in the world than that goodness growing inside her. She told him it wasn’t the right time for a DNA paternity test. And ultimately he acquiesced. Either answer might’ve destroyed him. Neither father was good enough. Case in point:

  “Mathias thinks someone tipped off the cops about the Silent Dance,” Haley told him. “He says they reacted too fast. They were in perfect position to trap us. He thinks there’s a leak.”

  “I bet it was Lee,” David whispered, adding another shitty silk to his web of lies.

  Owen took ownership of Fu’s helmet, co-opting it into his own Peacemaker costume. Personally, David thought he ruined the thing. But it was Owen’s now, so whatever.

  Also, Owen began fashioning a sword/staff/pole weapon comprising all the nightsticks he’d ripped away from various riot cops, attaching them end to end through some fusing process David didn’t understand. What did he understand anymore?

  One night, Owen told David the tenets of the samurai code: honor, honesty, respect, kindness, courage, righteousness, and, above all, loyalty. He said he wished to be “a good retainer.” David touched Owen’s shoulder, thanked him for his service. Owen made a face and said, “You’re not my master.”

  Britt fell apart. Which, somehow, only strengthened her persona. It Girl became a hot mess, a once-great starlet fallen from grace. Her weight dipped and her ribs rose. She wore less clothing but adopted a huge furry hunter’s cap with earflaps. This was her new thing. This and melancholy. And having sex with Mathias Blue.

  David wondered if that was Mathias’s ultimate superpower: fucking broken people to make them whole again. Whatever he’d done to Lee had made that shithead much more centered lately, David thought. But no. Britt was getting worse. One time he asked how her day was going and she said, “The entire right side of my head and body is ringing.” What do you say to that?

  — Ø —

  Tactical nuclear strikes on Iran were said to be precise, targeted, of generally low radioactivity. The nukes hit Iran’s underground sites and uranium-enrichment plants, but a goodly number of civilians were also wiped off the map. Nobody knew what China would do.

  David fled to Google, reading about Ragnarök this time. A Norse legend. The gods fight the evil giants of chaos and destruction. The Naglfar, a ship made from the fingernails of the dead, sails to the battlefield to strike the final blow against Odin’s army.

  And then, when all seems lost, a Golden Age rises from the sea.

  Getting up his confidence, David finished drafting the USV’s final spectacle. He made his presentation to the group, and they unanimously approved it. He then recommended everyone call their parents to say goodbye. Poor moms and dads who’d coached their kids so far only to watch them sit down in the middle of the race and marvel at the stars.

  David went to 7-Eleven and bought a burner. He dialed from a windy beach, hoping the signal might get lost in the surf. His mom sounded as if she’d been through the more hysterical stages of the grieving process and was now residing in quiet anger. He asked them to get Beth.

  “I might be going away for a while,” David said to her. He’d kind of always wanted to say something like that, and he’d kind of never wanted to say anything like that.

  “The news said that USV leaders have abandoned their followers,” said Beth. She sounded about thirty-five years old. “I told my friends that’s probably true since you already abandoned your family.”

  “Jesus,” David said.

  “I have to help bail water from Uncle Marc’s basement. We can just say goodbye now.”

  With that, she dropped the phone. And it was true, he couldn’t argue. He’d gone to college, grown into a new family, left his old one behind. Was he doing it again to the USV?

  “We understand,” said Dad when he got back on the phone. “It’s safer to stay put, David.”

  “No, Gil,” said Mom. “Nothing is so important. Come home. We’ll protect you.”

  “You can’t protect me anymore.”

  “Sorry, we can’t just say goodbye,” Dad said. “You’re our son.”

  It suddenly hit David that he might have a son, or a daughter, and there was nothing much he could do to protect it from the inevitable, and that feeling crushed him into the sand. He caught his breath and told his parents what he wished his own child might say to him someday.

  “Hey, guys,” David said, finally crying. “I need you to know I’ve really loved being your son.”

  “Please come home?” Mom asked.

  He considered saying something dark and cinematic, like “I am home.” But instead he just said, “I’ve really loved you.” And they said it back. And then he threw his phone into the sea.

  — Ø —

  Mathias and Britt stayed home, but the rest went scavenging.

  Nyla scrounged up a cooler full of live lobsters to steam in the kitchenette.

  “Where did you find these?” David asked.

  “Jailbroke them from an abandoned Chinese restaurant aquarium. They smell okay.”

  Then Lee and Owen returned with a duffel full of guns. They unzipped it, and there on the floral condo bedspread was a shotgun and a 9 mm..

  Nyla left momentarily and came back with her AR-15.

  “This one is my father’s,” she announced. David was still freaked out by firearms and said as much and asked if they’d stolen them, wondering if someone was now looking for them. Mathias, however, was boundless energy. He threw in his grandfather’s axe, adding to the pile.

  That night, when the winds picked up, Mathias and Britt moved all the beds from their respective rooms to form a communal sleeping space in the living area. It felt like a family beach vacation. From a Calypso closet they’d foraged an ancient DVD player, and the only DVD they could find in the house was Miss Congeniality with Sandra Bullock, but they watched it three times through, stupidly eating into their limited generator supply, but they didn’t care, they needed a laugh.

  After rippin
g Nyla’s crustaceans apart, the gills and mustardy intestines flying helter-skelter across the table, they created their own carnage in the living room, making love again as if the world might end at any moment, as if they were still ripping shells apart to suck out morsels of meat.

  And, in that way, it actually wasn’t very much like a family beach vacation.

  — Ø —

  “It’s time,” David said to Mathias. “Storm cell just passed. Let’s move before the next hits.”

  The power was back and the news showed two massive high-precipitation supercells on their way to Jersey, white humps rising from Doppler radar like twin sharks cresting from the ocean.

  Mathias stared at the condo vending machine. “Famous Amos or honey roasted nuts?”

  “Peanuts are more substantial, but cookies are more fun,” David counseled. “Depends which is more important to you at a time like this. Survival or indulgence?”

  “Evolve or perish,” he said. “I do like honey. When I die, I’d like my body to be mellified. Embalmed in honey. It preserves the tissue for centuries. Turkish kings used to do it.”

  “So…” David continued. “We should probably hit the riggity-road, yeah?”

  “I guess my time capsules achieve the same effect. Still, it’s an interesting way to die.”

  “Well, we don’t always get to choose how we die.”

  “Do you feel like you’ve grown since meeting me, David? Evolved a little?”

  “If life were a video game I would’ve leveled-up like six times since meeting you.”

  “I’ve treated you well? Gave you a place to live. Funded your thesis. Helped get you laid.”

  “Sure.”

  “And you still believe in what we’re doing, yeah?”

  “Yes,” David answered. “Completely. More than ever.” It was the absolute truth.

  “And you’d never abandon me or hand me to the cops, just as we’re reaching the End?”

  Stop. Stay stiff. Don’t move.

  “Of course not. I won’t abandon you, and you won’t abandon the USV. I am another yourself.”

  He smiled. “We do get to decide how we die. Once you realize how much power we have, anything’s possible. Some people seem like nice, law-abiding citizens. Then they put on a mask and rape girls on Halloween. Others subvert obsolete laws. We put on a mask and save the world.”