Isn't It Past Your Bedtime

by J L Ender

  She’d picked him up.

  I sighed again. It was worth a try. At this point, what did I have to lose? I pulled my boots out of two foot-shaped holes in the asphalt and headed toward the park.

  “What are you doing just standing there?” Sandman yelled at Steve. The boy didn’t speak. He just shrugged, and his scattered minions ran toward me.

  Not good.

  I hadn’t dealt with Elephant Boy yet!

  I ran for the park. Elephant Boy was just getting up. My throw hadn’t sent him very far, but he’d landed on a playground and he was all tangled up in a jungle gym. As I grew near, leaping over a park bench, the closest of the little golden men caught up with me. I started kicking them away, using the suit’s upgraded strength and durability to send them flying. It was a temporary solution though. I still couldn’t hurt them, so they were just going to keep coming back for more.

  Elephant Boy stood, brushing away twisted metal poles. I jumped and activated my jet boots. He raised a fist to swing at me and I grabbed his wrist with both hands and immediately tried to fly upward with him. He raised his other fist and punched me in the side so hard I lost my grip. I flew forty feet up, until my jet boots ran out of juice and I began to fall. I couldn’t see anything below but the dark shapes of shrubs and trees.

  I tried and tried to activate my jet boots before I hit the ground, but their charge-up took longer now.

  Not good!

  I let out a little scream as I smacked into the dirt headfirst and made a four foot deep crater. I was… not hurt. The suit was designed to protect its wearer from all kinds of impacts, falling included. I wasn’t going to test it by jumping from any high places, but it made sense that it was able to keep me safe from some crash landings.

  I sighed. “Could have been worse.” At that exact moment my jet boots finally activated and drove me another four feet into the ground.

  After several minutes of wiggling and digging and straining, I finally managed to pull myself out of the ground. My crater was surrounded by little golden men. In the distance, I could see the silhouette of the elephant monster backlit by city lights.

  “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to let me off with a warning?” I asked.

  One of the little golden men smacked the tip of one arm against another as though slapping a fist into a palm before a fight. And then they all jumped into the crater, leaping right at me. I activated my jet boots again. I was facing the right way this time and shot straight up. The golden men were scattered, several of them sent flying. Two clung on to me as I rocketed higher. I grabbed one from my shoulder and threw it. The other was on my foot. I kicked and kicked till he fell away.

  Mindful of the thirty-three seconds my jets could last, I landed about halfway between my crater and the ruined playground. Elephant Boy was rooting around through the nearby trees, looking for me.

  It was too hard to lift him. I wasn’t as strong as the Bluejay and I still couldn’t fly for long. I had to think of something else. I thought about the dust in my pocket. What about a direct blast of the stuff, right into his face? Perhaps it would make him fall asleep. He’d been fending off sleep in the parking lot.

  The best part about that plan was that it would let me test a theory about Sandman. I would know whether I could beat him, too. I would know whether I would save the world… or doom it.

  There was a path through the park lit here and there by small streetlights. It led from the playground into the distance and into darkness. It wasn’t far from the small field where I stood.

  “Hey! Hey, Elephant Boy!” I called out, waving my arms. I ran toward the well-lit path. I would need to see for this. I reached into my pocket and pulled out half of the dust in my pocket.

  “It’s Elephant MAN,” he called down to me. “Elephant Man! Look at how big I am, you little twerp!” He thundered my way.

  I leapt into the air and activated my jet boots. I soared under one swinging fist then over the next, right up to Elephant Boy’s face. I threw the dust into his eyes, which were as big and white as dinner plates.

  “Hey!” he called. “What is that?” His giant lids blinked. Up and down. Up and down… up…and down.

  He fell backward, but didn’t land with a thump. He shrank in midair and hit the ground with an odd sort of sproing sound, like mattress springs bouncing.

  Elephant Boy slept at last. He was sprawled out in his smaller, stretchier form. His arms were sprawled out ten feet over his head, his legs ten feet in the opposite direction. As I watched, his arms and legs shrank back to normal length. His trunk shortened back into a nose, his ears receded, and his tusks slid into his mouth to become normal, pearly white teeth. Gray skin turned pale pink. A thrill of terrible hope shot through me. On losing consciousness, Elephant Boy’s powers had shut off. Exactly what I needed for my plan to— maybe— succeed.

  I turned toward Sandman.

  “You’re next,” I said, too quietly for him to hear from a distance.

  He seemed to sense that I had figured out how to beat him, though, because he took several steps backward. I ran, determined to get to him before he could flee.

  “You have to protect me!” he told Steve. “If he gets near me, it’s all over.” His voice was shrill with panic. If I had been uncertain before about Sandman’s weakness, his own fear confirmed my suspicions.

  He couldn’t handle his own sleeping dust.

  Having so much of it in the air was making him sleepy. That had been the oddity. The state of the bed at the apartment had told me that Sandman normally didn’t sleep. His powers somehow allowed him to stay awake… but he couldn’t inhale his own sleeping dust. Normally, this wasn’t an issue, but his powers were amplified somehow, and that made all the difference.

  Now all I needed to do was get near enough to use the dust, and this nightmare would be over.

  Or so I hoped.

  “Stop him!” Sandman cried. I was back in the parking lot now, boots slapping hard against the ground. Little golden men were streaming after me. Several moved to intercept, but they were too small and lightweight to stop me. I just kicked and shoved my way through, determined to get to Sandman.

  For the first time, there was no smirk on his lips. All I saw there now was exhaustion and fear. I might have felt sorry for him if he weren’t trying to take over the planet. He turned and ran. I pressed past all of the little golden men. Cleared of obstacles, I could really run now and catch the older boy.

  Steve stepped in my path, holding up a hand to stop me. I skidded to a stop in front of him. “Move aside,” I told him. The brass child studied me for a moment with his dull, yellow eyes. He shook his head. I began to take a step forward, ready to shove the metal being aside.

  “He’s my brother,” the brass child said. His voice was dry and rough, and the words seemed to come slow, as though it were difficult for the boy to form them. “Please don’t hurt him. He meant well.”

  And then he stepped aside.

  “Meaning well is no excuse for doing wrong,” I said.

  He nodded.

  I was shocked at the brass child’s surrender, but there was no time to think about it. I ran after the Sandman. He was fleeing down that same dark alley I’d run down earlier. I could still remember the sound of his echoing laughter. He made it out into the street on the other side before I caught him. I grabbed him by one arm. He struggled, but couldn’t get away. I reached into my pocket with my other hand and grabbed a fistful of dust.

  “No! No! No!” Sandman cried. “Please no!” He started writhing, kicking all his limbs, in desperation. “We could have been allies! Why!” And then he started crying. It was pathetic, someone bigger than me breaking down into tears. This time I really did feel sorry for him. He’d been trying to help his brother get medical help, as far as I could tell. That by itself was admirable, even if he’d gone about it in the worst way possible.

  Part of me hoped he’d offer to wake everyone up, but he didn’t. He was in too deep. Maybe he
couldn’t even think of turning back now. Maybe it didn’t even occur to him to try to give me what I was really after.

  I threw the dust into Sandman’s face. He stopped jerking his arms and legs and went limp. His eyes drooped. He pressed a single hand against the face of my helmet, as though to ward me off, but there was no strength behind the push. “I just wanted to… change the world…” he managed.

  “I know,” I said, feeling sad and sick to my stomach at the same time.

  “I wanted to help my baby brother,” he whispered with his eyes closed. “Help my…”

  Sandman fell into a deep sleep.

  I lowered him to the ground, and I listened. Perfect silence. Fear hit me. I’d assumed putting Sandman to sleep would wake everyone up. What if I was wrong? A big assumption, if you think about it, one based on my knowing that he normally didn’t need to sleep, and that powers sometimes quit working when the powered person is knocked out. All I could do now was hope.

  There was a shivery moment, standing there in the streetlights, when I thought the world might really be over. It would just be me and a boy made of brass in a world full of slumbering people.

  And then I heard them. Screams and shouts and sirens and engines, and all the noises that had been missing for so long suddenly crashing back into existence.

  The world was awake again.

  Chapter 21

  For several minutes, I just stood there in the street, listening. The city had come back to life and I wanted to hear every last bit of noise. Sandman slept on. I had to figure out what to do with him. If he woke up, the whole thing could start over again.

  Steve walked out of the alley, a horde of glowing, golden men following at his heels. I tensed, wondering if he would try to fight me again.

  “Is he… ok?” the brass child asked.

  “I guess so,” I said.

  “His powers seem to cancel out when he falls asleep,” the boy replied. “I wondered. He never needed to sleep. Even when he was little he didn’t sleep much.”

  “So he could wake up any second?” I asked, worried.

  “I don’t think so,” the brass child said. He seemed very sad. “Our powers worked together. When I took on this form,” —he waved a hand at his metal skin— “I was able to amplify his abilities. Once amplified, no one under his sway could wake up without his say-so, but now he’s the only one caught.”

  “And since he’s asleep, he can’t release himself?” I asked.

  “Exactly. He’s trapped. I don’t know if he’ll ever wake up.” Steve’s creepy, metal eyes shifted to the ground in shame.

  “Why did you help me?" I asked.

  “We’re… alike in a way. We both need metal to protect ourselves from the world, and to experience it the way the superpowered do. Seeing you defeat Elephant Boy and stand up to Matty… it got me thinking.” For the first time, his rough voice cracked with emotion. “I know I should have done something sooner, but I was so tired of being in that hospital bed. So sick of being treated like a cripple. And he was my big brother! He always looked out for me, and I always did what he told me to do. But I see now how right you were. Meaning well is no excuse for doing wrong.”

  I nodded. What a terrible choice he'd been faced with, choosing between his brother and his conscience. “What are you going to do?” I asked.

  “I’d like to take him away.” He wrung his hands together, which made an unpleasant grinding sound. “He cared for me for years… now it is my turn to take care of him.”

  “Why should I allow that?” I asked. “He caused a lot of harm.”

  “He can’t cause any trouble now. Please. He got the ultimate taste of his own medicine. Just let us go and we won’t bother you again.”

  I took a deep breath, weighing the idea. It wasn’t the worst option. Back in those days, we didn’t have supervillain prisons. I didn’t have a clue what to do with him myself, other than turn him over to the police. Like the prison system though, the police were still adjusting to the idea of superpowers and hadn’t really figured anything out yet.

  Iron Wraith suddenly appeared at my side. The little golden men all tensed, crouching into fighting stances, but Steve didn’t react.

  “Copycat,” Iron Wraith said, eyeing the brass child’s metal skin.

  Steve laughed. It was the first time I’d seen anything on his face other than sadness or a flat, blank expression. “Hardly,” he said. “It’s a coating. I can manipulate and transform brass, so I coated myself in a bit of the stuff. Normally I’m paralyzed from the waist down and can’t walk.”

  “That’s super weird.” Iron Wraith looked at me. “Is he the dude that made everyone fall asleep?”

  “No, that was still Sandman,” I told him.

  “No kidding?” he asked. “And you got him? You got Sandman?”

  “Guess I did,” I admitted. “He won’t be causing trouble any time soon.”

  Iron Wraith threw an arm around my shoulder. “I knew you could do it! I had a good feeling about you, buddy. Nice work!”

  It felt good to have my hard work praised, but it stung a little too, knowing I wouldn’t get to do any of this again. I had meant it when I said we had to disband after we stopped the Sandman, and now that moment had come.

  “With your permission?” Steve asked, waving a hand toward his sleeping brother.

  I nodded. “Keep him out of trouble,” I said. I wasn’t wholly convinced he would sleep forever. “And keep him out of my city,” I added, letting a slight note of menace slip into the words.

  The brass boy nodded. “We’ll go. That’s a small price to pay to keep my brother safe,” he said. The little golden men walked forward and hefted the boy onto their shoulders. Together, the odd crowd began to walk away.

  I took off my helmet, taking a deep breath of crisp morning air. The sun was just beginning to rise, turning the eastern skyline a rosy orange. The night was over at last.

  “So you gotta tell me the whole story of how you saved everyone,” Iron Wraith said. “Oh wait though! Did you see anyone sleepwalking while you were out here?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Why?”

  “You’ll never believe it, man! Someone stole my cell phone.”

  Oops. That was me.

  I decided it wouldn’t be fair to laugh that he thought a sleepwalker had taken it somehow…

  “Yeah, about your phone…”

  Chapter 22

  My first order of business was to find my little sister. The city did not seem so safe to me. Not anymore. Iron Wraith and I found her with the Bluejay and Stuffmaker. They seemed to be debating what to do about the remains of the giant golden man, which was blocking traffic. There were lines of cars on either side of the wrecked thing.

  A traffic jam. Just the fact that such a thing was possible again was wonderful, in a weird way. People could form traffic jams. They could lean their heads out their windows and yell. They could be grateful, and ungrateful. They could go to work and go home and go to school and they could play baseball and they could vote and they could listen to rock music and they could fly through the air and swim in the ocean. They had freedom, and they had life.

  “Fox saved us!” Iron Wraith said as we walked up to our friends.

  “Your name is Fox?” the Bluejay asked.

  “Steel Fox,” I said. The name felt silly now, but I would use it one last time, to conceal my identity.

  “We can’t disband,” Katrina said suddenly. “They need us.”

  “We… need you?” the Bluejay asked. “That’s absurd.”

  “That’s crazy,” I added, agreeing. “They don’t need us. We don’t have superpowers.”

  “You just saved the world, Steel Fox,” Iron Wraith said. “I couldn’t do it. Bluejay couldn’t do it. We could definitely use your help. You’re good at thinking things through and seeing all different angles. Not something I’m good at. Forget everyone else. Forget any kind of team. I want your help even if no one else does.” He paused. �
�Plus, I’m Iron and you’re Steel. Our names will sound so cool together!”

  “I souped up that suit for you! You better use it!” Stuffmaker added. “Not that I want any part of this ‘team’ crap. I work alone.”

  “I… don’t know what to say.” This was exactly what I had always wanted. A chance to be a superhero. I hadn’t thought it was possible, but now the opportunity was here. Could I really turn it down?

  “I do. I’m out of here,” the Bluejay said. “You turkey sniffers can have fun playing patty cake together.”