Supers Box Set

by Kristofer Bartol

  The bulbous afro atop his head—sagging slightly in the humid air—embellishes his height, like a sequoia in the desert. He tucks his fists into his hips—a pose inherently intimidating and, yet, warm.

  “Ah,” Greene signals, “this is Radiation Brother.”

  The wall of ebony extends his arm—thick like an oak tree—and his fingers unfurl into a mitt. He smiles.

  Private Page palms the man's hand, gently, in hope the manner would be reciprocated.

  The velvet baritone of Radiation Brother swells with greeting. “I've heard much about you, Michael.”

  Pvt. Page raises a brow. “How do you-”

  “Yeah,” Sergeant Greene interjects, “Radiation Brother here was assigned to us directly from the Department of Defense.” He hikes-up his pants and suppresses his adulation. “He reports directly to Secretary McNamara—isn't that dope?”

  Greene looks between the two men—both taller than he—searching for interest. Radiation Brother's eyes glaze and he looks away.

  “Yeah,” croons the ebony giant, “it's what it is.”

  Radiation Brother pats Private Page on the shoulder and treads off, toward the Marvelous Six.

  The sergeant shrugs. “He's not much of a talker.”

  Sgt. Greene nods towards the large tent and enters, beckoning the greenhorn to follow. With hesitance, Pvt. Page peels back the flap and slides in.

  The sides of the tent are lined with cots and metal folding tables. Dozens of steel machines—buzzing four-drum computer mains, blinking lights, beeping radars, and crackling radios—clutter the back wall. There, a short and stocky man faces away, speaking with familiarity to two superiors.

  His shoulders are broad. His steely hair is split, down the right side of his head, by a long and ragged scar.

  The bandolier he wears like a sash holds, dangling behind his kidney, three pineapple grenades. Both hips holster a pistol—one old, the other older.

  Sgt. Greene lowers his voice. “And this,” he motions ahead, “is the Captain.”

  One of the superiors points to Private Page. The steely-haired man turns his face—just enough for a peripheral glimpse—and he smiles.

  He—the Captain; the Candyman—turns around. His good eye focuses, and his other glazes over. He scratches the underside of his chin with his thumb.

  “Hey, kiddo,” the Candyman smirks.

  Private Page falls numb, slack-jawed and black-eyed.

  “How’s your mother?”

  ( II | II )

  “It's so great to see him again.”

  “Radiation Brother?”

  “Yeah—he's such a bang-up guy.”

  “Who was he meeting with?”

  “I dunno. Two guys from top brass.”

  “No, no—the other guy; the old guy.”

  “The Candyman?”

  “Candyman?”

  “You ain't ever heard of Candyman?”

  “Naw, who's he? Some General?”

  “No, a friggin’ Captain, ass-hat. Check the epaulettes,” Watchdog sneers. “You telling me you ain't heard of the Candyman?”

  “I take it he's a big deal where you come from?”

  “Where I come from? You mean America?” he scoffs. “Yeah, he's a big friggin’ deal.”

  “Whatever, pal.”

  “Christ, you ain't never see the reels? Commercials over a decade ago, kickin' chink ass in Korea?”

  “I didn't grow-up glued to a television,” Pharos barks. “And now my eyes aren't all fucked-up like yours. Go figure.”

  “Fuck off,” Watchdog bites. “Candyman's an American icon. The most badass soldier this country's ever produced—and he’s not even a super!”

  “Wow,” Pharos groans, feigning excitement.

  Miss Bliss elbows him in the ribs. “Hey,” she harks, “don't be an ass.”

  Pharos flashes his eyebrows and nods. He relents, “Why should I care?”

  “Oh my God,” Watchdog melts, “why should you care? Jesus!” He turns to Raze, who hides her face beneath her ruby-red hair. “He thinks this is some fuckin’ sideshow or something. Can you believe it?”

  The firestarter smothers her smile.

  “Man, Pharos—you're driving me crazy!”

  “Uh-huh,” groans the wannabe-bad boy, rolling his eyes. “Likewise.”

  “Shit, guy,” he murmurs, shaking his head. “I can’t believe you don't know about Candyman.”

  “Jesus, fuck! Either tell me about him or don't!”

  Watchdog smirks. “You wanna know why they call him the Candyman, don't you?”

  Pharos looks away, at the foliage, the stems, and the canopy; at his compatriots, Boy Cumulus, Raze, and Miss Bliss—and they wait for him.

  He holds firm, but soon spurts, “Yeah, alright—so I'm fucking curious. Get on with it!”

  The others chuckle. Watchdog waves his hands like a soothsayer preparing to spin yarn. “This guy's like, a teen, right? Fixing cars or whatever in Middle America. Your typical golden-haired farm boy. The Japs bomb Hawaii at the end of forty-one and he enlists almost immediately. Call of the nation, right? Honor-bound. So he goes to basic training at some camp; I don't know the camps, but it was probably in Georgia or fuck-all. Anyway, his mom ships him those caramel cremes—the goat ones, right?”

  “Goetze's.”

  “Right, caramel cremes. His mom sends him over this big box of 'em, and everyone gives him shit. ‘Hardy-har-har,’ they say. It's all a big laugh, and they ship out—Africa, Sicily, Normandy—seeing every major battle, and this guy—back then, just called Leo Page—he's fucking slaying Nazis left and right. Instincts of a Spartan warrior; the power of a Hun; the cunning of a… fox, or whatever.”

  “Checks out.”

  “Ferocious motherfucker. He's on the front lines of every offensive. And his division, the Big Red One, are known for this, but he's on the front lines of the front lines! He's leading the charge. He's giving commands that his superiors follow.”

  “In-credible.”

  “Right. And this fuggin’ guy is taking ass and kicking names. By the time he hits Sicily, he's taking trophies off the bodies of note. By the time he hits France, he's trading with the dead for their dogtags, like the goddamn merchant of death.”

  “Huh?”

  “Yeah—after taking a dogtag, he'd leave two of those caramel cremes on the body: one per eye. Sometimes he'd gouge-out the eye and pop the caramel in. Word got around; word of ‘the Candyman.’ Fame and fear spread on both sides of the line. I heard even the Russians were curious.”

  Pharos furrows his brow.

  “Ass-end of the European Theater, nineteen-forty-five, he's running amok in Czechoslovakia, rooting-out the last of the Schutzstaffel like a badger hunting rats. Sure enough, Hitler's dead and the war ends—but not for the Candyman. He transfers to a new corps for the occupation of Korea, ensuring the Soviets stay on their side of the DMZ. Nineteen-fifty rolls around and he's there for the Invasion of Inchon and the Battle for Chosin Reservoir.”

  “Never heard of it-”

  “Then he transfers to the third infantry when his corps rotates home, and he's elevated to their Ranger company, the ‘Cold Steel Third’; specialists in guerilla warfare. They heard the stories but it wasn't until they saw him in action that they accepted him as their own. Sure enough, war draws a stalemate where it began and his service ends, right?”

  “I don't know-”

  “Wrong! He gets attached to special operations—four-man teams on mythic missions—all over the international plantation, sweeping-up commies and dropping bodies. Real shit.”

  “I’m speechless.”

  “Leaving caramel on the eyes of the world.”

  “Wowie-zowie.”

  “Man—you just don’t care about anything.”

  “No,” Pharos groans, “I wanted to know why he was called the Candyman. Instead, you recited his portfolio.”

  “You can’t not-know about the Candyman. Everyone knows about the Candyman.
”

  “Alright—enough! Jeez,” he sighs. “I’m starting to wonder if you’ve got Candyman’s face tattooed on the top of your thigh, so you’ve got a visual for whenever you wanna ja-”

  Watchdog spits a curt hiss—a warning signal—and he raises a flat hand.

  His compatriots crouch in silence.

  Watchdog hesitates, listening to the wind through the trees… and he points in the direction of his canted ear.

  Miss Bliss takes a step towards him, whispering with urgency, “Periscope.”

  Watchdog nods. Miss Bliss rolls her fingers skyward and conjures a silver-edged shimmering disc a hundred feet in the air above her. Beside her, and just above Watchdog’s crouched position, she conjures a second disc.

  The sentinel looks up, through the disc, and—as he stands—the upper half of his body vanishes into it, simultaneously reappearing a hundred feet above; emerging from the elevated and foremost shimmer.

  From on high, Watchdog looks at the ground below, in the direction of his canted ear. His eyes shift, rack, and shudder as he narrows his gaze with incredible precision, scanning the trees and all that which lies beyond them.

  He identifies, in a quarter moment, his object of interest. His hands, then—still dangling inches above the forest floor by his arms’ protrusions through the portal—perform a ballet of semaphore: a complex series of gestures and figures, including a thumbs-up, a wave-on, crossed forearms, four fingers, and a spun fist.

  Raze leans forward and taps Watchdog twice on the shin. He descends. Miss Bliss evaporates her portals.

  Watchdog stands and pats his shoulder. Miss Bliss points down upon her own with both hands.

  Pharos forgets his apathy and links with Watchdog, placing his right hand upon his comrade’s left shoulder. Miss Bliss falls-in after, followed by Raze, who lights ablaze her left hand: a glove of fire.

  Boy Cumulus links himself to Raze’s shoulder and looks beyond her, waiting.

  Miss Bliss peers back and, like an orchestra conductor feeling the moment, she waggles the fingers of her free hand, as if to mimic the gentle flow of a woodland stream.

  Boy Cumulus inhales and, with a gentle breath and a twist of his fingers, an eerie fog rolls-in upon them, spreading among the gnarled thicket of ferns and palms. Its height grows—thick and white—as it permeates the jungle floor, sweeping onward like a tsunami against the shore.

  Miss Bliss then scoops the air with two fingers and, on cue, Boy Cumulus spreads his fingers. A generous platform of dense cloud rises from the dirt beneath their feet, lifting the five of them aboard a plank of flocculent, downy, silent white.

  Watchdog nods and signals ahead. The cloud board begins with a crawl, and ever quicker, trolleys the five through the jungle. Boy Cumulus steers, serpentine—weaving past and between trees—as tacitly as a gang of a phantoms. Seeing beyond what’s there, Watchdog maintains an outstretched arm—a corpulent compass needle—guiding Boy Cumulus and his cloud shuttle.

  They drift like the breeze; like the specters of gentlemen.

  Watchdog holds-up five fingers with his free hand — then four.

  Raze intensifies the fire that blazes around her hand — and three.

  Pharos peers over his guide’s shoulder, and his irises fade to yellow — two.

  Miss Bliss conjures, in her grasp, a shimmering disc — one.

  The cloud shuttle breaches a thicket of ferns and brambles, rising over a dusty tread-worn trail that weaves through the jungle like a serpent of mud ten miles long. The convoy—a cargo truck and three jeeps—screeches to a halt as the slant-eyed communists rush from their posts and take-up arms.

  Raze closes her fist and a column of fire collapses on the lead jeep, lighting it ablaze. Its occupants dive out, into the dirt—screaming—save for the one standing at the mounted machine gun. Despite his combustion, he remains standing, unleashing a metallurgical torrent upon the cloud shuttle.

  Miss Bliss adjusts her grip on her shimmering disc, capturing the brunt of the torrent and returning it via the partner disc she's cast above the second jeep, riddling those within from on high.

  The machine gunner, then, is overcome by the flames, and the bandolier he wears around his chest becomes a firecracker, igniting and firing bullets with wanton autonomy.

  Boy Cumulus wraps the cloud platform up and around his compatriots. He tilts the shuttle’s nose and dispatches Watchdog, Pharos, and Raze to the jungle floor. They regain their footing as a sunkissed guerilla breaches the thicket between them and the road, and Pharos strikes him in the chest with a beam of concussive force, piercing through to the bone and launching the guerilla back over the hedgerow.

  Miss Bliss kneels on the cloud shuttle as it lifts back into the sky. She holds her shimmering disc before Boy Cumulus and conjures the second, condensed in the palm of her free hand. As Boy Cumulus steers the cloud back into the air above, he funnels a deluge of sleet into her held disc, and she redirects his fusillade broadside, casting his hailstorm upon the same Viet Cong guerillas that aim their armaments upon him.

  Needles of ice splinter, shower, and sting the slant-eyed commandos, crippling them.

  Pharos blasts the third and trailing jeep with an ocular bolt before the swiveling machine gunner can get an angle on him. The combustive bolt strikes the reserve fuel canister on the jeep’s aft-end and, as the vehicle is swallowed in flame, it launches into a front-flip to land on its headroom, crushing the gunner beneath the chassis.

  The sandwiched cargo truck lurches into motion, rear-ending the bullet-riddled jeep in an attempt to rout it. It pushes through, switching into a higher gear and kicking-up mud with its tread. As the truck circumvents the lead jeep—engulfed in flame—Raze leaps from the bushes and sparks a haste of infernos beneath it.

  The truck swerves among the ground-burst fires, evading one after another; kicking-up mud and tossing dirt into the air like smoke. Ever-faster, the truck races away from her, and she steams frustrated—and with her temper flaring, so grows the intensity of her fires.

  She strikes the ground with magmatic eruptions, spewing ignominious pyres. One particular fire spout catches the underside of the front right wheel and launches the truck into a roll, to land on its port side and grind to a halt in the mud; careening into a tree to settle.

  Pharos and Raze break into a sprint, toward it, and Boy Cumulus steers his cloud shuttle down. Watchdog focuses his gaze on the canvas cover of the overturned truck and, with a gasp, he shouts after his compatriots. His voice—trembling with trepidation—only reaches his hot-headed footworn colleagues, who turn in expectation.

  The cloud shuttle encircles the fallen truck and Boy Cumulus cakes its canvas in permafrost. As Watchdog’s voice of warning sounds below, the canvas is split by an skyward missile, launching out the truck and away, into the dry summer stratosphere.

  Miss Bliss, with the flick of her wrist, spawns a succession of portals in pursuit of the fleeing object, eventually conjuring one with such efficacy that the missile vanishes—for the barest sliver of a moment—before hurtling out of Miss Bliss's palm and into the mud below.

  The Marvelous Six surround the meaty mass that slumps in a cloud of dust. It rises, slowly; silhouetted by the silt.

  Boy Cumulus blows the shroud away, revealing a herculean man—his head shaved and his eyes dark, slanted. His massive body threaded with the bulging sinew of incorruptible muscles, bound by taut, tan, amortal flesh. Across his left breast is an illegible scar, seared by a branding iron: “phản bội.”

  “Oh, shit,” Watchdog pants, “it's Victor Charlie.”

  “What do you mean?” Pharos asks. “All gooks are victor charlie—Viet Cong, dumbass.”

  “No, man…”

  The herculean slope snorts, like a bull seeing red.

  “That is the Victor Charlie.”

  Raze holds-up her blazing hands, pointed.

  The herculean slope pivots, eyeballing the boers who surround him. He hunches his shoulders and scowls, grit
ting his teeth.

  The hairs on the back of Watchdog's neck stand.

  Victor Charlie's feet beat the earth as he breaks for Pharos. The bad boy's eyes sizzle, but not quick enough, and Watchdog shoves him aside as the herculean slope dives headlong into the dirt, tumbling, and leaping back to his feet. He turns around and roars.

  Raze lights his feet ablaze and he hops backward, into a portal swiftly spawned by Miss Bliss. He falls through and drops from the sky, only to regain his composure midair and aim himself at the Marvelous Six, reaching a velocity beyond that of gravity's aid.

  Boy Cumulus summons a gust of wind, to push the missile off-course, but Victor Charlie steers into the breeze—avoiding two successive portals—and he collides with the earth beneath Miss Bliss, like a meteor making impact.

  She careens thirty feet and crashes into the brush. Watchdog runs to her. Pharos fumes, and his irises fade from pale hazel to burning orange. He snarls and unleashes a fury of ocular firebolts, striking Victor Charlie more often than not—yet, despite the concussive impact of each, the girthy slope barely stumbles.

  Raze lights the ground around him, encircling him with a ring of fire and turning-up the heat.

  Boy Cumulus hops aboard a small cloud and ascends above the duel. He thrusts his arm to the sky and conjures a dark cloud, from which he calls forth a fearsome lightning storm that crackles and thunders. Electricity flares below like tentacles, ensnaring the herculean slope in a sizzling cage.

  The electric bars catch the next volley of Pharos's ocular bolts and Victor Charlie, sensing an opportunity, leaps upward and rockets through the dark cloud. He circles around and dives low, parallel with the ground, and slams into Raze, catching her in his grip and carrying her into the sky.

  Boy Cumulus races upward after them.

  Victor Charlie carries her higher, and higher, into the stratosphere. As the air thins, Raze struggles to breathe, and the fire that enshrouds her arms extinguishes. She falls unconscious—snuffed like a candle—and he drops her.