True Heroes (51 page)

              “It’s a lie.” He looked back to her. “Including your reason for this. Why are you doing this?”

              She looked down, away, and back a few times. “It’s how I lived for a long time. I used to walk up to desperate men, but I always one-uped myself. Not on looks, but on how lonely they looked. My first night, I made it with a businessman that lost his job. It kept progressing until I was doing two or three guys a night. The money was great. That’s all that mattered. My daughter and husband live comfortably on my bill alone. Neither of them knows a thing, but we all live happily. I’ve got bills to pay, mouths to feed.”

              “Since you’ve started this way, you can’t stop. Would you if you could?”

              “I can’t think about that.”

              “Because?”

              “Because it hurts too much to think that I could’ve done something else with my life.”

              “You live a lie.”

              She put her shirt back on. “I live happily.”

              He looked down to her. “No you don’t. You live with money and lies.”

              “Nothing in this world is free, and we all live lies.”

              “Not everything is paid for in money, and we all have the choice to live however we want to live.”

              “You don’t lie?”

              “I can’t”

              She laughed. “You’re full of it.”

              He picked up his shirt. “If you say so.”

              She watched him intently as he let the shirt fall onto his body and messed his hair. “You really think you live honestly don’t you?”

              “I know I try to.”

              “You can’t do that. You’d never be happy.”

              He smiled tiredly. “Do I look happy?”

              She watched him from her knees still. “That’d be why I came to you. I’ve never seen a guy look so lonely.” Caleb walked over to his pack in the corner and rummaged. “Maybe you do live like that, but you can’t forever. I’m sorry, but sooner or later you’ll realize how good it feels to be happy.”

              ‘Match point, Caleb.’ He grabbed towards the bottom of the pack. “How much do you charge a session?”

              She laughed. “You’re going to pay me without doing anything? You don’t have the cash, sweetie.”

              He grabbed three wads of hundred dollar bills and tossed them into her lap. “That should be good for two months. Find a legitimate job.”

              She didn’t even look at the money. “Are you trying to recruit me to the good side?”

              “I’m trying to show you that you have a choice.”

              “I won’t tell them the truth.”

              He kneeled in the corner. “Baby steps. First you get yourself to a good place, then you tell them, and you realize that they still love you because you had their interests in mind. I’m giving you the first step.”

              She gently placed her hands on the money and pulled a small slip of paper from under the money wrap. “Your name’s Caleb? That’s the name on here.”

              “Yeah. How about you?”

              “Shyne.”

              Caleb smiled. “Shyne. I’m taking a nap. You’re welcome to stay and do the same. You look tired too.”

              She sat back on her butt. “I feel like I can slow down now. Maybe I will take a nap.”

              Caleb didn’t wait to see what she did next.

-
         
                            -                            -                           

              Caleb was drowning in the sea of speckled black. His back arced as his body floated, his head not bobbing with the tide. The extremes of his flesh felt the sting of bitter cold that reached and wretched from endless bowels. Blue specks flew from searching iris, leaping from league to league without the anchor of land or tree.

              His neck lifted as his arms tingled with the comatose life of slowing blood. Fingers curled slowly as his body righted against the persistent current, and the Earth was in his sight. The spotty veil of clouds did little to sojourn Caleb’s gawk; the green, brown, blue and white plains leapt against the sun at its back, all the turning bleating the churning of life that Caleb simply couldn’t see.

              All pluming clouds disappeared. The turning stopped. A maelstrom formed large enough to bite at Caleb’s black pool, snapping and snarling against the green lows and into the brown and white highs until the planet was split. The meridian: a cruel slice through the tangled knot. The core: an unwoven heap being pushed apart by a tiny blue figure—

              The sun felt too hot as Caleb woke on the floor. ‘Door open. Why? That…. Where’s Shyne?’

              ‘She’s hanging in the air.’

              ‘What…. Damn you! That smell again!’

              ‘I had to get rid of the evidence. There are sirens a ways off.’

              ‘Go freaking figure! You’re murdering innocents you can’t do that.”

              Caleb stood and gathered a pack together quickly. ‘You should’ve seen the way she looked at you. I opened your eyes, stood, she stared up, mumbled about what she’d always wanted to do. It was so pleasant to see her die in my hands after she blanketed me with the praise. She said “thank you, thank you for ending my life.”’

              He zipped the pack. ‘I’m sure that’s a direct quote.’

              ‘Perhaps not, but it was in the subtext. She wasn’t as entertaining as the last. She wanted things slow. We weren’t very compatible.’

              ‘Goddamn shame.’ He flung it over his shoulder and was out the window, sirens now resounding from only a few blocks away. His feet skittered across the roof quickly before he was into the alley and mixed into the walking crowd. He was seething. ‘You have to do it. You can’t control yourself can you? All you are is a—’

              ‘I am power. You are the vessel that enables me. At least you got a refund.’

              The corner quickly came and Caleb ran to the metal container as quietly as possible. His hand hoisted the sliding door, nearly throwing it off the rails, and slammed it shut behind him. Caleb found the area too small to pace; he felt confined in the heated dark with shackles clanging at his feet. A hand punched at the thin metal only to stop short of it.

              ‘You see? Here is where your mind travels always. You believe this metal box cares if you use me to disintegrate it? Can’t change the fact that violence is the only way you know how to face anything.’

              ‘That’s what you meant.’

              ‘That’s what this entire pathetic life you have means.’

              Sirens wailed by as Caleb screamed. Nerves shook his hands to the bone as he sat.

---

              “No, no, no, if there has to be a chest piece, then it’s got to look like this to be efficient.” Stephen grabbed the computer pen and gently traced along a three-dimensional figure. The pen secreted a silver lining across the chest, leaving only the blank arms without a silver shine. “That opens the shoulders. You guys are worrying about aesthetics too damn much. C’mon! The more we worry about this, the more he can run.”

              “He hasn’t moved from the metropolitan area that we know of.”

              Stephen turned around.

              “The Major will give the green light soon.” Doctor Ancel walked to his back. “You will need to be more ready than the forces.”

              Stephen pushed him away. “There won’t be any other forces! Boneheads like the General just open their mouths and breathe stupidity.”

              “I’ll talk to the Major. He’ll send me with you next time.”

              “Why? Why do I have to have a sitter?”

              “You’re letting yourself be compromised by anger.”

              “You haven’t seen me angry yet, Ancel.”

              Both glared. The door opened with the Major inflowing the room. “Problem, gentlemen?”

              Stephen didn’t break the contact. “Yes. When can we reload and go?”

              Ancel broke his stance. The Major set a folder down and sighed. “You just can’t wait to get back out there can you?”

              “When?”

              “How’s the design look, Ancel?”

              “Sound.” His eyes deliberately averted from Stephen’s area. “The sergeant fixed our design problems. It’s more practical, but will require direct insertion of conduction pins and constant drip of catalyst into the spinal column.”

              “You ready for a little cosmetic surgery?”

              “Yes, damn it, let’s get this over with.”

              The Major looked up. “What is it you’re chomping at?”

              “I just want to win. I want to get the test over with, and the war.”

              “There’s nothing that selfless in your body.”

              Ancel stepped forward. “He’s trying to be.”

              “No, I’m not. I’d never be stupid enough to try to be selfless.”

              The Major chuckled a little. “Stupid?”

              “What does it matter? I said I’d do it. If we’re going to do it, then you have to let me do it.”

              “It’ll be done. You’re going to be impatient until it’s built?”

              “How long?”

              The Major turned towards Ancel. “If I gave the green light today?”

              “At least three months if he was into surgery tomorrow.”

              “Three months? He could completely regroup by then.”

              “Or he could be lulled into a false sense of security.”

              “Or he could become more paranoid. Either way, things progress in their own ways, at their own times. We’re not going to risk another fortune and this country because you want to pound a high school enemy.”

              The Major picked up a phone receiver and began to dial. Doctor Ancel walked closer to Stephen. He leaned heavily against the back of a chair. “He’s more than that. You know he is now.”

              Ancel leaned against the desk. “I know.”

              “I can’t wait that long.”

              “If you don’t, you’ll lose.”

              “I can’t lose.”

              “Which can’t you do more?”

              Stephen pushed off the chair and put his hands behind his head. “I can’t let him win. Not again. He doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t even want it. It just comes to him. What has he ever done to win? Nothing! It’s handed to him. I’ve worked. I’ve trained. It’s my victory to have. My glory. My legacy to win the war for red-white-and-fucking-blue.”

              “You think he’ll try to take that from you?”

              “He would if he knew. He’d rip the rug from under me, and then fly it like a flag.”

              “If you wait, you will have the power to take the flag back.”

              They looked at one another; Stephen felt his teeth grinding. “I’m not doing it for you guys.”

              “We never thought you would.”

-
         
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              A strong gust brought Caleb’s power around the spire to steady the point. Under one foot the point of the Ascent dug into his shoe. The other held up one end of a cheap skateboard. ‘Why are we here exactly?’

              “Shut up,” Caleb said against the wind. “Keep us from dying.”

              ‘Aye, Captain.’

              Caleb jumped with both feet, landing on the board as it began to roll. The uneven surface challenged the wheels and the balance of Caleb’s horizon line as the plastic found the off-road experience too stressful. They chipped and snapped at the descent and curve, turning his lean into a run. ‘What are we doing now? You think you can make that jump?’

              “You’ll make it.”

              A solid metal part came to his sole and his legs uncoiled against the wind. With his body splayed and eyes wide, gusts tackled his chest while the blue air brushed them aside. It pushed for him; as he screamed in futile fury against tepid air, it and he knew that not making the balcony would mean a fall. The gray cement was well within reach, Power was sufficiently motivated, but he held back. His will kept the metal bar rooted in solid structure out of blue finger’s clutch, and as the wind took no note of the victory, they did fall. Caleb looked up as they did, elation beaming from his pursed mouth and closed eyes. Power drug a dumpster from an alley to catch the body with a massive twang, and returned the container on rusted wheels. “You are a fool.”