A Once Crowded Sky

by Tom King

  “Kid’s all right,” Soldier says. “He’s got problems. Everyone’s got problems.”

  “God, jealous much?”

  Soldier opens his mouth, hesitates, then laughs. “No,” he says through open teeth, “not jealous.”

  DG laces her arm through his and hugs herself closer, nudging her nose into his triceps. Across the way, Pen delivers a screaming child to a waiting ambulance. There aren’t that many more cries on the concrete plain; most of what’s left is a cleanup job, bodies and parts and the like. Dirtied and weary, Pen turns back to the rows and rows of dead, colored metal.

  “You know Runt?” she asks. “Survivor’s Runt, his kid or whatever, his super-handsome, super-adorable, grandly adorable kid, you know him?”

  “He’s on the bike?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Yeah, I remember him. Tough what he did against his dad.”

  Her grip tightens, and as she talks, her breath warms into his shirt. “I think I like him,” she whispers. “Like, like-like him. Like, like-like him a lot. A lot, a lot.”

  “I didn’t think the Devil cared much for people.”

  “Not usually.” She kisses his arm. “Almost never.”

  “He’s helping you? Following me all around, he’s working with you?”

  “He’s a nice boy. He helps. It’s good to have help.”

  Pen’s buried in a blue sedan, and it seems that there’s some commotion in his movements, a quickening of pace, a terror in the flail of his limbs. Soldier takes a step forward and then stops.

  “What’s going on?” DG asks.

  “You can’t save me. Go home.”

  “So we’re like back to this?”

  Pen’s pulled two people from the wreckage: two women, one smaller than the other, mother and child, maybe. His movements about them are frantic but not aimed, powers exercised without hope. Both of them’re dead, that’s clear enough.

  “No,” DG says. “That’s . . .”

  “Penelope.” Soldier’s voice is low and steady. “And Penelope. Doc Speed’s wife and kid.”

  “Soldier, no.”

  “I was meaning to see to them and Doc.”

  Her face is damp against his arm, and he tries to brush her off and snatch his arm away from her, but she clings on. When he looks down, her features are already puffed and red, her makeup dropping crimson and burgundy stripes across her cheeks. After some struggle, he finally wrestles his arm away from her.

  “Go home.”

  “Soldier—”

  “Go home. This ain’t the time for this.”

  “I haven’t—” She cuts herself off. “All right, go and do your manly thing, but I’ll be here, okay? If you . . . I’ll be here.”

  “That’s fine,” he says, and he steps into traffic, dodging broken bumpers, his feet sliding on a river of pebbled glass. By the time he reaches Pen, the bodies’ve been put on the cement. Soldier bends to one knee, rubs his hand against the girl’s face, recalling the last time he’d seen her, scared as anything in that diner, but still helping Jules, not caring at all that the game’d ended, that she was supposed to be out of it now.

  He’d first heard of the game, the clash of myths, when as a child a redheaded girl babysat for him and went on about them for hours upon hours: stories of gods and men, good and evil, the coming together of the two, the friction and energy, the sparks that rise, the fires that spread. He asked her then if he could be a part of it, if it was something a boy like him, a boy from nowhere born with nothing, could partake in, a struggle that might be joined. No, she said, you can’t do that. You’re too little, too small, too loved—I love you too much.

  Besides, she said—and her words come to Soldier now as he picks himself up, wincing at the grind of bones in his back, another friend fallow at his feet—those days are gone, past: the gods have descended; they’ve fallen into books, been translated into words and pictures. And thank goodness for that, thank goodness for that.

  1

  The Soldier of Freedom #525

  Soldier presses the button on the machine. “Soldier, hey, it’s Felix. Doctor Speed. Felix. Soldier, I . . . I got a call, y’know, from the hospital, a guy I know at the hospital. Soldier, she died. Mashallah. There was bleeding. And she died. Like Penelope. I haven’t told anyone, called anyone else. It’s not official. They haven’t spoken to the family yet. But you should know. If you want to talk, I’ll be—”

  A sustained beep, and then silence interrupted periodically by the creaks of a small house under a harsh wind. Soldier flicks a lamp on and sits back into the couch, his pistol scratching into his side. The smell of hot rain pokes through the weak spots in his home as an American flag, singed at its edges, rustles against the weather outside. When he gets up, his body stabs him in those old, used places, but he manages to get out the door. In the open the rain comes, spotting his shirt and eyes. He takes the flag down and returns to shelter.

  Soldier goes to the dining table and starts the usual, tucking corners where they need to be tucked, straightening wrinkles where they need to be straightened. Eventually, he lays the tight triangle on the counter and eases back into the couch. In the dim light of a dying lamp, he waits for the rain to let up, waits to put the flag out.

  The phone rings a few times, and a beep sounds, and a voice plays: “Soldier, it’s Doc. I’m going out for a drink. I’ll call you from the place.”

  The phone keeps ringing. It rings all night. The rain doesn’t end. It keeps falling good and hard. But The Soldier of Freedom waits patiently, his flag by the door, just in case it stops.

  His eyelids drop, his arm stretches out, his finger slips the trigger, but the gun doesn’t fire—everyone lives; everyone’s saved. Then everyone dies. And everyone comes back. Pull the trigger.

  As Soldier wakes, he goes to his hip, fondling his gun until he knows there’re no threats about. After getting off the couch, he undresses, placing his shirt in the empty hamper before stepping into the shower. He likes it hot—the water testing him, demanding his sweat. When he comes out, his back is stained red.

  Using a badger brush and straight razor picked up in ’16, he scrapes off his face before getting into his outfit for the day. As he knots his belt, he pauses periodically to slot his holsters. The dark blue overcoat he pulls on hangs long enough to hide any weapons. It’s morning, and he’s ready. Soldier returns to the couch in his living room, sits down, and stares straight ahead. He wipes at his nose and eyes.

  She’d come back for him. Mashallah had been so close to quitting this game, and she turned around and came back for him, to give him the next clue as to how to solve this latest thrilling mystery. Star-Knight knew something, was hiding something. Of course. How thrilling. Now Soldier and Pen are going to have to confront the man, probably fight him for whatever reason, before he reveals the unexpected, thrilling conclusion.

  That’s how it worked. Follow the clues. Have a fight, sometimes with friends, and find the solution. Puzzles and fights. Destinies and guns. That was the game Mashallah was walking away from. And then she came back. She came back for him, like the whole goddamn game were coming back just for him.

  Back in the graveyard—Prophetier’d said it, kept saying it, going off to Soldier that it was coming, that all the work Soldier’d done to end this game, all the men Soldier’d killed, would come to nothing. All the powers stopped. All the villains dead. All for nothing. And if he was too weak when it came, Soldier wouldn’t be able to save anyone, not even Mashallah. Those were Prophetier’s words, and they didn’t seem to come to much then. But somehow without any powers he’d predicted it, seen it all coming.

  Soldier stands and walks to the door. As he leaves, he grabs the flag off the counter and takes the time to hang it up again over the door. Once he gets it flying, Soldier clasps the soft fabric in his fist and kisses the old red, white, and blue.

  So, Prophetier had something. He had something Soldier ought to have. And Soldier was going to get that from him, be
cause that was what was demanded of him and had been demanded of him and would always be goddamn demanded of him.

  Soldier sets off alone, toward Prophetier, away from his home. He doesn’t call Pen. He doesn’t need any of that now.

  A half hour later, Soldier gets out of his truck and heads up Prophetier’s walkway. Last night’s rain puddles along the porch steps, clings to the cuffs of his slacks, and he makes his way up, and he knocks at the door. The air’s moist on Soldier’s overlapped lips. He knocks again. Unsure of exactly what he’s doing, he knows right where his gun is.

  The door opens. His hair uncombed, his shirt unbuttoned, a cigarette swinging on his lower lip, Prophetier glowers up at his guest. Soldier needs to say something, to put this thing straight; but Prophetier goes first, grabs a gun from inside his belt. Someone behind Soldier cries out a warning. Soldier reaches for his holster, but he’s too slow, and Prophetier pulls the trigger, and Soldier goes down.

  Anna Averies Romance, Vol. 3, #4 of 4

  “So, Star-Knight might know something?”

  “Supposedly.”

  “So, Star-Knight might know something, supposedly.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And now you and Soldier are going to use your superteam to find out what he knows.”

  “More of a team-up than a superteam. Team-up’s usually only two. Superteam can be like, y’know, any number. Any number more than two.”

  “Okay. So now you and Soldier are going to use your quote/unquote team-up to find out what Star-Knight knows? Supposedly.”

  “Yeah.”

  “God, you’re such a nerd.”

  Anna tucks the sheets into the side of the bed and watches her husband fail to mimic the act; some parts fold fine into the cracks while other obviously overlooked corners retain their unearned freedom. With a purposefully audible sigh, she shifts around to the other side of the bed to help him.

  “This is right, right?” Pen asks.

  “You’re not a run-of-the-mill nerd either. You’re like . . . king of all the nerds in Nerdland.” She bumps her hips into his and, having shuffled him aside, starts to slip the wayward blue fabric back in underneath their mattress, using her hands to smooth out the wrinkles. Strongest man in the world. Indeed.

  “So . . . not right then?”

  “I mean, ‘team-up,’ ‘superteam.’ I was dating a nice doctor before I met you. He liked football. Football, Pen. Football.”

  Pen shrugs. “Bet I could beat him up.”

  She runs her hand over the now smooth sheet. “Hand me a pillowcase.”

  “Sure.” Pen rolls his neck, searching around their small bedroom, which is full of mismatched furniture culled from both of their former places. “Pillowcases. Yes. Pillow. Cases. And they would be located where, exactly?”

  “Seriously? We’ve been living here for how many years?”

  Pen shrugs again and makes a perfunctory movement toward the taller dresser, glancing behind him, clearly looking to his wife’s facial expressions to see if maybe he’s hot, or perhaps cold? Maybe?

  She meets his glance with a sharp, conceding glare. “The doctor, he even cooked. Knew where all the utensils were and everything. And after he cooked, and, mind you, did all the dishes, he might—I don’t know—call up his poker buddies and invite them over to watch the game on TV. No Star Trekking across the multiverse to fight Quadruple-Man using fatchian-catchian rays. Just guys, beers, football. I think he might’ve been homecoming king or something.”

  “Still could beat him up.” Pen rolls up his T-shirt sleeve and flexes. Veins ramble through his arm, the artificial ones Ultimate left there. From this close, she can see their pulse, the purpled-yellow streaks waxing and waning against his tight, pink skin. If she were closer still, she’d hear their hum as they vibrate through her husband’s responding tissue.

  No matter how many times—it still scares her. A ten-year-old boy strapped to a sterile table, his eyes draining, pleading; a giant robot towering over him, sewing wires into his body, tying off knots that had been needled through muscle.

  “Well,” she says, “least he made his bed every day.”

  She doesn’t see Pen move. She never does; he’s too fast. She’s in the air, then she’s on top of him, his arms tugging her deeper into the comforter.

  “But did he get to make our bed every day?”

  “God, you’re a nerd and a cheese ball.”

  “Yes, but I’m your nerd and your cheese ball.”

  She turns her head, and they kiss. “All this stuff, this superteam stuff—”

  “Team-up stuff.”

  “Team-up stuff.” Her eyes roll and then come back to him. “It’s all safe, right?”

  The doorbell to the apartment rings, but she ignores it. When he begins to move, she grasps his shirt and pulls him closer. She touches her nose against his, allows the small hairs on his face to scratch her chin.

  “You don’t have to worry,” Pen says.

  “All these heroes, they’re dying.”

  “C’mon, we’ve been over this.” The bell rings again, and Pen doesn’t move.

  “Go over it again.”

  “Yes, okay, people get hurt, yeah. But, look, other people’re dying too. These explosions, right? Maybe we can help.” The door rings frantically, repeatedly. Someone’s yelling on the other side. It’s the morning. It’s a weekday. “Look, I’m trying to do this the right way. Safe, like you said.”

  “Safe.”

  “Yeah. Yes, safe. Okay? Safe?”

  She cups his head in her hands; he’s smaller than she thought. “Didn’t you give this up? Didn’t you not go?”

  He looks away and back, and when his eyes return, there’s desperation in them, though she’s not sure what they’re desperate for: to get away, to say something better, to crawl back through time, stand up again, and tell a man with a metal face to go fuck himself. Folding herself into him, she kisses his forehead and enjoys the wet of his breath at the cusp of her shoulder.

  “Get the door, we can talk later.” Then, with a smile meant to draw out his smile, she adds, “Nerd.”

  He smiles back. In his arms she’s safe, found, and when he lets go and heads toward the living room, not so far away, she’s lost again. Every time. Every damn time.

  The bed’s ruined: blankets, sheets, and pillows hopelessly scattered, and she lies back and drags a snow angel through the chaos. The ceiling fan above her coaxes down a lazy breeze. Now, she’ll have to start all over; maybe this time he’ll catch on, and maybe next time he can do it himself.

  The muffled calls behind the door grow louder, and she recognizes the voice as the only voice it could really be at this time of day. “What do you want?” she hears her husband yell in his truest faux-authoritative tone.

  “C’mon, dude,” Sicko shouts from the other side, “let me in!”

  “The king of the nerds and his ever-faithful subjects,” she says to no one, and she gets off the bed and walks to the smaller dresser, getting some pillowcases out of the bottom drawer.

  “Man, I’m a little busy,” Pen answers. She can already hear him turning the locks, letting his scruffy friend in.

  “Dude, I was coming to see you, and then I, holy shit—you are not going to believe this. . . .”

  Sicko’s certainly the dumbest of all of Pen’s subjects, but perhaps the most loyal. He’s been by the house a dozen times since the hospital attack, proposing one silly scheme after another, always trying to get out with Pen and Soldier. It’d be creepy if there weren’t something a little sweet about it. He’s the only one of Pen’s friends who sees Pen the way she suspects Pen might see himself, the way she suspects she might see her husband—which is sick in its own way.

  “All right, one sec, one sec.” Pen finishes with the locks, and the door creaks open.

  “Dude, dude.” Sicko’s voice is louder now; he must’ve slipped inside. “He’s back! Ultimate came back!”

  2

  The Soldier of Freedom
#526

  What saves the day? What makes the man?

  A searing burn gouges across his face, and Soldier tries to hold on to his holstered pistol. As his knees strike the ground, Soldier manages to stay upright for a second before his center of gravity lurches forward, and he smacks onto the porch, taking the impact in his shoulders and neck.

  Above him a boy, DG’s boy, Runt, rushes to him, a familiar gun clutched in his unsteady hand pointed at the man that got Soldier. Three men. Three guns. What saves the day?

  Soldier can’t remember what he’s fighting for. Not through the blur and the blood. But that’s all right. Lots of times he couldn’t remember what he was fighting for. Go that way and win. When you win, stay there until someone tells you to go some other way. If someone’s shooting at you, shoot back. Wasn’t much more to it than that. Now, he can’t remember who told him which way to go or how to win, but he damn well knows someone was shooting at him, and from that stink of new blood, he knows they got off a fine one.

  Soldier starts to draw his gun out. Won’t be too hard. Just be quick about it. Soldier’s body cocks into position, readies for the fight.

  What saves the day? What makes the man?

  Like most, Soldier’s story begins with a lie. It’s not well-known, but Soldier’s famous grandfather lied twice, first about a cherry tree he hadn’t cut down and later about a girl he hadn’t gotten pregnant. She was a slave, and he was an owner, so it had something illicit to it beyond being an unnecessary affair; he undoubtedly descended the mountain that separates a man from heaven and hell. But soldiers pace up and down that path all their days, and he was nothing if not a soldier.

  Besides, he tried to do good by her and the kid, made sure after he and the wife had gone that the girl was released, that her and the boy got a bit of money. To hide the thing, he granted freedom to the slaves of his estate; a cover-up to let his child slip out with the bathwater, as it were. Needless to say, it was a disgusting time full of irredeemable men. That one of these men happened also to be a noble warrior and a virtuous leader was just a sign of ironies to come.