A Once Crowded Sky

by Tom King

  “I gave the cat back, to Star-Knight. I told him to sell it with the rest of it. Maybe it could help someone.

  “So I don’t know what I’m supposed to say about Ultimate. I mean really. I couldn’t even figure out the cat.”

  3

  Star-Knight, Ultimate, and The Soldier of Freedom Super Team Special

  The Blue, #12 of 12

  A man with a metal face stands at the precipice. A light burns blue beneath him and around him, killing his world. Thousands of people are nearby. Some of them are crying, pleading with him. Others stand silent, their heads bent down.

  The Man With The Metal Face wears a magical belt, and from this belt comes a magical flame that winds around the crowd, pulling them together, lifting them up. Their bodies held tight, they scream and scream as it’s all taken away. The flame comes back, touches The Man With The Metal Face, and he swells with power.

  The Man With The Metal Face flies forward and falls through. The blue shudders. Alone now, he comes to his destination. Blue. Everywhere, everything is blue. But then there are lines, circles, figures etched into that infinite blue, and The Man With The Metal Face smiles as he too burns in the light.

  The Man With The Metal Face steps forward, melts away. The blue threat retreats back into the dirt. The Man With The Metal Face dies. The Man With The Metal Face saves the world.

  1

  The Runt #174

  She looks Asian, but she’s got red hair, which is weird, to be perfectly honest. But weird isn’t so weird, is it? Yesterday he was at a funeral listening to a gamer who was the archnemesis of his father, who was a supervillain, who died along with the rest of his evil family from a suicidal virus that was linked to The Blue and him losing all his powers, which he used to use to fight crime and evil and all the baddest of the bad. So, yeah, Asian, red hair. He thinks he can go with it.

  Besides, she’s hot.

  He instantly resolves to talk to her, and this instant resolution is immediately followed by a similarly hastily paced epiphany that he probably shouldn’t have to resolve to talk to girls anymore as he’s in high school now and he’s no longer eleven. Honestly, he’s proud of this instinct, but more honestly, he’s got to resolve to talk to her because he doesn’t stand a chance of actually doing it without quite a lot of resolve. So he resolves to talk to her at lunch no matter what, and when lunch comes, he resolves to go to the library and study because, frankly, she’s hot and that’s scary. So then, of course, he resolves to have a new resolution to talk to her after school, and this time he adds an additional resolution that his new resolve will not be superseded by other, seemingly more pressing resolutions that are actually atom-thin disguises for the utter and terrible dread he chokes on whenever she approaches—and this dread is so silly because he used to fight Snake Demon and CrimeBoss and other deadly villains, who, obviously, trembled at the very sound of his name: The Runt!

  As school ends he resolves to talk to her the next day.

  Fortunately, she walks up to him in class the next morning and says hi. Unfortunately, he’s so startled that instead of responding in an appropriate and manly way, he instead squeaks in a distinctly inappropriate and fairly unmanly way. The squeak draws the attention of his fellow classmates as well as his rather large teacher, who asks him if he’s done “flirting” and is now ready to get on with the lesson, to which he responds with another possibly equally unmanly squeak.

  But you suffer the good with the bad, and the important thing is she started to talk to him; so he’s ecstatic, and he immediately resolves to—definitely, without a doubt, for sure, nothing can stop him, the world is his oyster, let the Lord Almighty strike him down if he’s lying—talk to her that very afternoon, no later, not even a second or nanosecond or whatever’s smaller than a nanosecond.

  The next day, he nurses some regrets over the extent of his promises and spends at least a portion of the day assessing from where exactly the Lord Almighty will strike and how, now powerless, he’ll be able to dodge such an attack. It’s during one of his periodic glances to a newly suspect heavens that he again finds himself on the receiving end of an attempted conversation from this beautiful girl, whose straight red hair falls softly on her shoulders, on a place he can’t help but think might be nice to kiss.

  “I know you,” she says in a light foreign accent, French maybe? Should he respond in French? No, that’s overly pretentious. Besides, he doesn’t speak French, so not really an option anyway. Besides, he should be focusing on the fact that he’s not currently participating in any squeaking activities. A great triumph indeed. But, wait, if he hasn’t been squeaking, what has he been saying? Has he said anything? What should he say? Maybe he should squeak. Dear God, will this ever end?

  “I saw you at the funeral this weekend. You’re very cute.” She picks up the conversation, having never really dropped it.

  “Yes,” he says.

  Yes! Brilliant! Well done! Well put! Short, pithy, to the point. She will have to remember him for his obvious mastery of pithiness, and this will most likely induce a love spell from which no maiden can be torn asunder. Awesome! Wait, what’d she say? “Wait, what’d you say?” he asks, perhaps losing the pithy high ground.

  “My name’s DG—that’s what everyone calls me.” She reaches out her hand; each of her nails is painted a different shade of red, which is cool. Sadly, he cannot possibly respond to the gesture as his entire body has apparently detached from his mind, which, admittedly, is somewhat less cool.

  Her hand hangs. Just hangs out there. For a long time.

  “Devil Girl, is what DG is, what it really stands for anyway. That was like my nom de plume before the whole, y’know, blue went like all down and everything.”

  Nom de plume. That’s French. He knew it! He should’ve responded in French! Wait, no, still don’t speak French. Damn.

  “Yes,” he says, going with the classic. Nice.

  “You’re weird. You’re cute, but you’re weird. I like your white hair. When I used to be in Hell all the time, your dad would totally always visit. He had white hair too, but he wasn’t nearly as cute as you. I like you; we should go on a date.”

  “Yes.” Didn’t think he could pull it off, three in a row. But there you go. Booyah! Rocking the yes.

  “Okay? So when do you want to go out?”

  “Yes.”

  “How ’bout Saturday? Don’t worry, I’ll pick you up. I know where you live anyways. So Saturday? Get you at eight? Cool?”

  Yes. Wait, no. That was a good yes, but that was an inside yes, and he needs an outside yes, or she won’t know that the inside yes means yes and she’ll think that the inside yes—

  “I’ll take that as a yes, maybe? Yes?”

  Yes. Yes! Yes!!! Dear God, he’s gone mute. Dear God, where the hell’s that lightning?

  “Okay, whatever, Saturday, cool?” She giggles, then she winks a very pretty wink. “I’ve kind of got to get going. Appointment with the stupid shrink over at Arcadia General, ’cause everyone in this school thinks I’m crazy. But, hey, we know better, right? Or not.” And she smiles a very pretty smile, and the whole world blinks and goes dark, leaving only that very pretty smile lingering there, just sort of hanging out there, and for a long time. Then she’s gone. He didn’t notice if she walked away or flew. But nobody flies anymore.

  For like a ridiculous amount of time Runt stands motionless in the middle of the quad of Arcadia High. It’s a little weird, but weird isn’t so weird anymore. Eventually, his still-large teacher comes up to him. This could be related to the bells that went off some time ago, but he’s not one to prejudge.

  “Lloyd,” she says, “what’re you doing out here? Go home. School’s out. Don’t you see what’s in the news, this hospital, this bombing? Go home to your family.”

  “Yes,” he says, and though it’s not quite as excellent as that previous usage, he still feels it retains some power.

  Doctor Speed #327

  Felix hasn’t touched a
drop of alcohol since his last drink, so maybe all this therapy’s finally coming to something. His wife (Penelope) would be ecstatic. His kid (also Penelope) also ecstatic. The whole family’d be leaping for loy. Jumping for joy. Whatever.

  Not that he can tell them now. Neither of them are here at the psych ward of Arcadia General of course. Or at home either, he supposes. They left. They ran. All those drinks, and they ran, and he couldn’t catch them. Felix, who used to be Doctor Speed—The Surgeon of Speed—couldn’t quite get to them quick enough. But maybe with some therapy, maybe. Maybe. God, a drink’d be nice.

  Looking around the waiting room, he’s sure he must be early. Or late. The doctor sees only one hero at a time, so Felix must be something, besides thirsty. Anyway, it’s crowded today. Felix is on a couch scrunched between two Liberty Legion members: Burn, who made stuff burn, and Big Bear, who turned into a big bear. And across from this tremendous trio, in the only other chair in the room, sits The Prophetier, who profited from tears, or saw the future, or something.

  Felix’s throat itches the way it always itches these days, the way it never did before. Not a strong itch, not an overpowering, mind-splitting itch, but more a tickle with teeth almost politely demanding a simple, pure pour, which it swears will stop its whinings for a little while. He clears his throat, drawing a turn of head from the collected, demented heroes awaiting their session.

  “So . . . guys,” Felix speaks to quell the embarrassment or the itch or whatever, “what’d you think of Pen’s speech yesterday?”

  Prophetier peeks over the top of a magazine. His voice is muffled by the unlit cigarette dangling at his lips. “Pen is the best of us. He’ll learn. He’ll bring us back.”

  “What, seriously?” Burn asks. “Yeah, man, can’t imagine why you’re in therapy.”

  “I’m not in therapy,” Prophetier says.

  “Yeah,” Felix says, “me neither. This is just where I come on my off time, right? Nothing’s more fun than this, right?”

  “If I were you, I’d be with my family,” Prophetier says to Felix. “A family like yours—I’d get every minute I could.”

  Felix gets out a fake laugh that manages to scooch right past the itch. “Yeah, well, maybe, you know, after this, right? Maybe, yeah, but later. When it’s more, you know.”

  “Sure, friend, sure,” Prophetier says, “but remember, sometimes it’s better to drink with them than to be sober without them.”

  “Ha, yeah, I guess.”

  “Or drunk without them.”

  Felix again laughs awkwardly as he crosses his legs, stealing a few precious inches away from Burn, who bumps his hip back in response. Felix smiles and turns to the man on the other side of him, a Neanderthal type with straw hair who sits cocked up in his seat, staring forward as if he’s looking for something. “What-what about you, Big? You like the speech?”

  “Don’t call me Big. I have been intelligently advised to no longer embrace that identity. You can feel free to call me Mr. Schiff.”

  “Oh,” Felix says. “Yeah, me too.” The itch puts a dollar on the table and calls the bartender with a cool whistle. “No more Doctor Speed. No more speed or doctor, or even surgery, right? Just Felix now.”

  Mr. Schiff/Big Bear rolls his eyes in an obvious way and doesn’t respond. Except for the grumble of the air conditioner, the room’s quiet, and Felix taps his throat hinting to the itch what it might like to order.

  “I thought the thing offensive,” Burn says, breaking the silence. “I mean, this is the guy who raised you and shit. Not human. You can’t talk like that. Not at the man’s funeral.”

  “What?” Felix asks.

  “The speech, Doctor Dumbass. Pen’s speech.”

  “Don’t call him names,” Prophetier says to Burn.

  “I’ll call him whatever I damn want to call him. I’ll call all y’all whatever I damn want to call you.” Burn cranes his neck over Felix. “Ain’t that right, Big Bear?”

  “You use that name again, I’ll break your neck,” Mr. Schiff says in a calm voice.

  “Boys, boys,” Felix says, “there’s no need for it.”

  “You see what a waste this is,” Prophetier says as he bends forward, places his hand on Felix’s thigh. All three men on the couch look up at him, each one itching in his own way. “Get a drink. Get out of here. Go to your family, spend time with your family instead of these broken, burnt losers.”

  “What the hell d’you just say?” Burn asks.

  “Yeah, Prophetier, what the hell did you just say?” Big Bear echoes the sentiment.

  Thank God the door opens, and the doctor, a slender woman who Felix hopes is older than she looks, steps out with her patient. Felix recognizes the girl, the redheaded girl from the funeral, but he can’t get her name. But she looks familiar in that way that all the unmasked heroes look familiar now.

  The girl leaves, and Burn gets up to take his turn, but the doctor points over at Big, who stands and follows her back into the office. As she’s closing the door, the doctor notices the other man in the room, his cigarette still hanging off his lip. “And you are?”

  “Prophetier,” he says.

  “Yes, well, make sure you’ve an appointment, okay? Please check with the front desk, if there’s any confusion. And we don’t use the names in this office. Everyone has a real name here. And no smoking.” She pats Big Bear/Mr. Schiff on the shoulder and guides him back into the adjoining room.

  “Shit,” Burn says as he sits back down.

  Prophetier lights the cigarette.

  “Dude, what’d she like just say?” Burn yells, and Prophetier’s giggled response burps out of his mouth with a twist of smoke.

  Crack.

  The world gives in. Folds in on itself.

  A tight screech snaps Felix’s ears dead.

  Sudden blasts of white, white plaster, white flash, blasts of heat and white, white, white.

  Crack.

  An explosion.

  Somewhere. Somewhere near.

  Felix is on the floor. Burn is on top of him. And there’s fire, and there’s light, a piercing, natural shine that shouldn’t be there, that coats the room white, the pounding white sucked into Felix’s lungs, picking at Felix’s lungs. Choking and gagging. The building choking and gagging, exposed to the light, naked and cold in the cold, white light.

  The roof. Caved.

  A cry. A scream. Loud, blasting through instant quiet and immediately snuffed. A woman’s cry. Like his daughter’s. Like Penelope’s. The second one.

  The roof is gone. Mostly gone. And the sun is pushing down on them, a white vise crushing them into a white floor. There’s glass on the floor, glass and wood, and magazines, the magazines are on fire, there’s fire, an explosion, a white, white explosion and fire, white fire, and Burn rolls off him, reaches out, takes a magazine, takes a burnt magazine, a burning magazine, and crumples it in his hands, his hands held in front of his face as his hands bathe in fire, the way they used to bathe in fire, and his hands burn, and he smiles, and he runs away, away from the bumping and the breaking. He burns, and he runs, and the woman’s cry cries again.

  Crack.

  The itch rolls its fists and begins pounding on the bar, screaming at the bartender to please, please hurry—for God’s sake! For God’s sake! There’s been an attack! We’ve been attacked! The itch is wailing, throwing all his might into breaking the counter, demanding the man get off his ass and pour a goddamn pour!

  A hand tugs him, pulls at Felix’s shirt, tugs him, and he rolls backward on his back a few inches, pulled away from the fire, which has begun to spread. Felix looks up, sees Prophetier, the cigarette still on his lip, one hand on Felix, one hand holding a phone to his ear. Prophetier, his back to the door, his hand wrapped in Felix’s shirt, dragging Felix back toward the door away from the fire, toward the bartender at the end of the bar with his kind jokes and his kind acquiescence to the itch’s kind demands for a kind, kind pour.

  Escape and a pour. Escape and a
pour. Felix smiles up toward the kind man. Drag me away. Save me. There’s a cool pour ordered and waiting, and his wife won’t mind all that much, and his daughter won’t mind all that much.

  The cry cries again. A scream, like his daughter’s scream, but he’s being taken away, and his daughter won’t mind all that much, though sometimes she does cry; when he drinks, sometimes she cries and cries.

  The cry. He’s being dragged to freedom, to the quick, easy pour, and he’s being dragged away from the cry, like his daughter’s cry, like his wife’s cry when they shout at him that he shouldn’t have one more, that they mind very much if he does.

  The cry is the doctor’s cry, his doctor’s cry, their doctor’s, and she’s not here, she’s not here being saved, and he’s being dragged away from her, Prophetier’s dragging him away to the escape and the pour, and the cry—the cry remains.

  Felix peers back, wipes at his eyes. The door to her office is gone, blown in and away. A chunk of the roof went straight through the door, and he sees the chunk now, sitting on top of Big Bear, and Big Bear’s not moving at all, and she’s there too, his doctor, next to him, and her leg is beneath the debris, stuck with the dead hero. The building is still tilting back and forth, still failing, and she’s still crying, screeching out, anticipating its failure, just like his wife, screaming at him as he pours another, asking him to seek help and then leaving, anticipating his failure.

  Felix jerks away from Prophetier’s grip, breaking the hold, but Prophetier only grabs on tighter and drags him faster, and the itch blares at the lines of bottles on the other side of the counter, wills them to fall and fall and fill the glasses and place them on the counter and let the man drag you to the counter full of sweet escape, and Felix hears the scream, and it’s like his daughter’s scream, and he jerks again.