“Look, I know Deb wants me to quit, be some kind of stay-at-home dad and sit on my ass waiting to collect my pension. But I’m not ready to talk about my career in the past tense.”
He releases the railing and looks up at me. His eyes tell me I’m misreading him, and again I realize that he’s the exact same height as Nate. “I know, naddeo,” he says. “But I am.”
I gape at him. “You’ve completed your generator?”
He shakes his green head, then explains. “For six weeks I’ve been detecting a buildup of anomalous radiation in the ionosphere. I’m virtually certain now that it’s an Andromedan transport signature.”
“Speak English.”
“Someone’s been working on the interstellar vortex from the other end, constructing a tunnel through space from Andromeda to Earth. They’re coming to get me, Vincent. My people are coming to bring me home.”
I feel dizzy, almost like I might drop over the railing, a sensation I blame in part on the Zone. “That’s great news,” I hear myself saying. “That’s wonderful. How long?”
“My calculations suggest it will be fully formed in the next few days. A week at most.”
“And then you’ll be gone?”
He nods.
A plane floats across the star field above us. I back into the sliding glass door and wish I could sit down.
“You’re the only person I’ve told. And I’m telling you now because I feel bad about leaving you. I don’t want you to be the last one.”
“You think I should quit?”
“Our time is done, Vincent. The kind of thing we used to do—it’s obsolete. There aren’t any more villains.”
“There will always be villains.”
“You know what I mean. The world changed around you. It’s time for you to accept that.”
“I hate change.”
“I know you do. But Debbie and Clyde came to me on the very day I was coming to my conclusions about that radiation. It’s a kind of galactic harmony. The last two original Guardians. We could go out together. Really Vincent, that business in Biloxi. You can’t think you’re making good decisions.”
“It was a Category 5,” I say.
“There’s nothing left for us. We did everything we set out to do.”
Not everything, I think. I picture the Guardians, all of us standing over Sparkplug’s grave on a day with a perfect blue sky. It was Titan who said it, but he spoke for us all. We’ll make Chaos pay.
Just then, a rapid series of beeps sounds from a speaker on the outer wall. The HALO’s computerized voice says, “Incoming heat signatures. Recognized and affirmed as non-hostiles.”
Rising up from below us, I see a dozen shadowy figures and a hovercar. The triumphant heroes are returning. My wife is surely among them, and right now I have no words for her. Ecklar says, “I’d better go help debrief these guys.”
“Sure,” I say. Even though it was all a hoax, there’s a ton of paperwork. By the time Debbie gets out of that meeting, I’ll either be passed out or pretending I am.
“There’s more to this, Vince, a silver lining. Clyde has put together a little something to send you off in style.”
“Clyde wouldn’t know style if it bit him in the ass.”
My friend makes his laughing sound, but I can tell it is more forced than usual. He didn’t think it was funny. He pats me on the leg, then shuffles off.
Once he’s gone, I remain on the balcony alone for a little bit, trying to get a grip on just what I’m feeling. The wave of anxiety at Ecklar leaving, the deep desire to smash Clyde’s skull, the consuming regret at a life that isn’t what it was supposed to be: all this swirls in my head. I can’t quite be sure how much of it is compounded by the Xonopexal, which is supposed to take the edge off things like anxiety.
Finally, I decide to gather my son and return to our quarters. The first step in being a good father is acting like a good father. Debbie will return to find all has been put in order. I stumble into Ecklar’s back room and find Nate sprawled on the couch, snoring softly. Ecklar is right. I scoop one arm beneath his legs, one under his back, and hoist him. His head lolls back for a few steps, then his dead weight stirs, and his eyes come open. Without smiling he says, “It doesn’t feel like morning.”
“No,” I tell him. “It’s still night.”
“Is Momma home?”
“I’m here,” I say. “I’ll bring you to your bed.”
“I want to walk.”
I set him down, and he knuckles his eyes. I say, “Ecklar told me you guys watched a cool movie. About cowboys.”
“It was all right. I liked the black-and-white. Did you like movies without color?”
“Cowboys are heroes,” I say. “Same as your daddy.”
“These cowboys were singing,” he tells me. “Do you ever sing?”
“Well, I sang to you when you were little.”
“I’m still little. Are you talking about lullabies?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Lots of lullabies.”
Perhaps Nate can tell I’m not being entirely truthful, but he holds a silence before changing the subject. “Are you gonna come to Grandy’s tomorrow?”
I didn’t know my wife had plans to visit her parents. “We’ll see,” I say. “Daddy saved a family tonight. Their house caught on fire, and I saved them.”
“Ecklar let me eat popcorn.”
I stop and take a knee, face my sleepy son. “Popcorn? Did you hear what I said? There was a house on fire, and I flew into it. I pulled people out and saved their lives. If not for me, right now those people would be—” I manage to stop.
Nate blinks a couple times, unfazed by my sharp tone. He says, “Awesome.”
I grin, and we stare at each other for a few awkward moments. Then I ask if he wants to be a cowboy when he grows up.
“I want to be a book teacher like Grandma,” he says. “Either that or I want to train dolphins to help sick children get better.”
These are the kinds of answers he always gives. And usually I can shake it off, focus on the fact that he’s just a boy and boys change. Still, I remember being not much older than him and determined already to follow my dad into space, be an astronaut just like him though it cost him his life. “Maybe you’ll be a hero,” I say.
Nate smirks, like I’m telling a joke. “I’m too little to be a hero.”
“Size has got nothing to do with it. It’s your heart that matters. That’s the most important muscle.”
Nate yawns, and I picture his bed downstairs. The longer I keep him awake, the harder it will be for him to settle down. I know this. “If you could have any superpower, which one would you pick?”
He shrugs. “I dunno. Maybe be invisible?”
“Invisible?” I say. “That’s good for sneaking around and hiding. But you want something better than that, don’t you?”
“OK,” he says. “How about flying?”
“Now you’re talking. You could be Captain Speed or Mister Torpedo.”
Nate looks away. “I might be scared of being up in the air by myself.”
“No,” I tell him. “You wouldn’t be scared. You’d get used to it, and it would be great fun.” I’ve flown with my son before, of course, brief flights like balloon rides, never far from the ground. I consider taking him out right now to show him there’s nothing to fear, but I realize this is a bad impulse, quite possibly influenced by certain chemicals coursing through my bloodstream. Nate’s face is still downcast, and I look away. My eyes fall on inspiration just a few feet away, and I slide my hands under his arms, swing him into the air. Before he can ask what I’m doing, I take three strides over to Ecklar’s battle armor, dormant and dusty. With one hand I swipe off the magnets, mostly goofy souvenirs from amusement parks and tourist traps. A few are thick, heavy black squares of metal. I pull open the chest door, and the mask above it lifts like the plate protecting a knight’s face. There before me is Ecklar’s tiny control chair. I roll Nate off my forearm into the seat
and beam. He glances around at the computer screens and control panels. The helmet covers both sides of his head. “This feels funny,” he says.
“You’re a hero,” I tell him. “The world is counting on you. Be brave.”
“I don’t want to be brave,” he says. “I’m too little to be brave.”
“Don’t be silly,” I insist. “I told you it isn’t a question of size.”
“I’m not silly,” he says, and he fidgets as if he’s going to slide down.
I set an open hand on his tiny chest. I hold my son where he is, against his will. “You can’t really pretend with this thing open. Here.” I secure the five-point safety harness, the same as the seatbelt in the hovercar, then swing the chest hatch shut. It snaps into place. Now only his face is exposed, with the metal plate flipped up like a welder’s mask. Nate’s eyes scan left and right quickly now, and he’s squirming. “I don’t like this,” he says. “Get me out.”
“You’re OK,” I tell him. “This is fun.” I reach up and tap the faceplate down. When it clicks shut, three bulbs on the armor’s chest flash red. The whole contraption hums like a computer booting up. I say, “Shit.”
“Dad?” I hear from inside.
“Hang on.” I try prying up the faceplate, thinking this might deactivate the startup sequence, but the helmet is sealed tight. “Don’t touch anything. I’ll call—”
“Dad!”
Beams of light ignite from the massive boots, and a high whine rises to earsplitting volume. With a whoosh the suit bolts straight up, punching through the ceiling. Above me, a ragged circle shows the stars. I bolt up into the night sky, pouring on the speed and trying not to choke on the exhaust from the flaming rocket boots.
The damn thing’s got a decent head start on me, and it takes maximum burn to stay even close. That suit’s got collision dampeners and automated evasive programs, along with enough firepower to raze a small city. Ecklar controlled it mostly through a brain-scanning device in the helmet, technology he pirated from that old set of King Chaos’s armor. But there are all kinds of manual overrides inside, plenty of shiny buttons Nate could push that would send him soaring into space or corkscrewing into the earth. So I keep screaming, “Slow down!” in hopes that Nate hears me and thinks these thoughts, perhaps triggering that action. Above the racket of the armor’s engines and the wind in my ear, I pick up the sound of my son crying. This could be my ultrahearing, but I tell myself instead it’s just my imagination, and I will myself to go faster. We’re traveling together straight up, toward the stratosphere. I feel panic trying to get hold of me, but in a crisis, you need to stay calm.
The thin air gets difficult to breathe, and ice crystals start forming on my cheeks, but I’ve gained some ground. I inch up alongside the suit. Flying parallel and in close proximity, I can hear his weeping clearly now. “Hang on!” I yell, and I open my arms wide then wrap them around the big barrel chest in a bear hug. It’s so thick that I can’t grab my own hands, and the streamlined shell gives me nothing to take hold of. I strain to the side, hoping to tilt us, veer us away from the stars at least. But the armor’s boosters are too powerful, and I find that I’m basically a passenger riding a missile. Along the horizon, I can make out the curve of the darkened planet. I find myself sucking just to draw breath. I squeeze harder, hoping to break something nonessential and shut down the flight program. If I squeeze too hard, I will crush my son. I picture the boy’s fragile ribcage.
The suit’s automated defenses finally interpret my actions rightly as an attack. Blue lightning crackles around the armor, and electricity floods my brain with white pain. I try to hang on, but the shock is too much. The rocketing armor rips free of my grip, and I tumble backward. Above me, like a shuttle launch, I can see the thin trail of his flame, fading as he escapes Earth. The madness of this, that I’m about to lose my son to space the same way I lost my father, is more than I can take. So I gather what strength I have and blast up in hopeless pursuit, determined to die in a vacuum rather than bear witness.
Only, as I rise up, the distant tail of white flame seems to curve, loop back around. And then I see the armor facing me and growing larger, heading my way, back to the planet. I inhale and let the breath escape, then fall in formation beside it. I yell Nate’s name but hear no response. As we descend together, I wonder if he’s simply picturing his home, his bed, his mother, and the cerebral scanner is magically interpreting his wish. But as we zoom in on the HALO, I see this is not the case at all. On a rooftop helipad, a cluster of heroes has gathered. There are Clyde and Debbie and Bigfoot and the Jersey Devil and Ice Queen. At the center, Ecklar wears what looks like a flight helmet, complete with lowered eye screen. In his stringy hands, he holds a joystick with a massive antenna.
He guides his armor down for a perfect landing, and I’m next to it in an instant. As Deb pushes me out of the way, a series of beeps sounds, two streams of steam burst from the shoulders, and the face and chest plates spring open. Inside, my son is trembling, huddled into a fetal tuck. His eyes are locked closed. Debbie unstraps him and takes him into her arms. She brushes back his hair, looks into his eyes, then settles his head onto her shoulder. “What the hell happened?” she asks.
Ecklar pulls off his helmet, and his huge eyes fix on me. Clyde, Bigfoot, most of all Debbie, they all stare my way and wait for an explanation. “He crawled up into the armor when I wasn’t looking,” I say. “This damn thing was sitting around active all this time?”
Ecklar holds up a hand. “There’s a weight sensor in the control chair. Twenty years ago, who else would I expect to sit in it? Besides, I had servo magnets locked on the exterior. They’re pretty heavy.”
“Well, install a freakin’ safety lock, would you? Christ.”
Nate stirs at my outburst, and Deb shushes him. She says to no one in particular, “He’s pretty rattled. I’m calling Dr. H.”
We all start walking in, and Ecklar falls in beside me. He’s got one hand on the joystick, and the armor marches obediently behind us. “It’s a good thing you slowed him down when you did.” There’s something in my friend’s tone, a hint of accusation. Nobody else seems to notice.
“Yeah,” Clyde says. “Guess you saved the day after all.”
Bubba pats my back, and Deb turns her head just enough so I know she heard this. I know that she’s imagining the unthinkable. And she’s got it in her head that only my fast action prevented a tragedy beyond description. But this thought—that she views me as a hero—warms me for only a moment. Then Nate lifts his face from his mother’s gentle shoulder. His eyes seek mine out. I can’t stop walking, and I can’t turn away. In silence, my son bears witness to the truth of what I’ve become.
FIVE
The Threat of Nazi Domination. Erecting Barriers to Absolute Honesty.
A Chance to Finish on Top. Provisions in the Bylaws.
Engaging the Enemy.
During the glory days of WWII, when the fate of the free world hung in the balance, the USS Endeavor was recognized as a singular vessel. An Atlanta Class antiaircraft cruiser, the Endeavor played a crucial role in the Battle of the Komandorski Islands west of the Aleutian Islands in the Pacific theater. During the invasion of Normandy, she protected the Mulberry Harbour off the coast of France. Though she was among the smaller cruisers, her sixteen .38 caliber dual-purpose guns, twin-mounted, could rain down a veritable shitstorm upon the heads of her foolish enemies. In battle, she was never defeated.
I learn all this from the man at the lectern set up beneath a trio of those five-inch barrels. The man is not the captain, who died after a battle with leukemia back in the ’70s, but the Endeavor’s first mate. He is frail, bent, but speaks with a proud voice. Even though the sky is overcast, his uniform shines white. Serving aboard the Endeavor, he tells the audience, was the most meaningful experience of his life. His aged compatriots, the half-dozen they’ve managed to drag from nursing homes and hospitals, struggle to their weary feet and applaud. I clap too, of course, and a
young lady escorts him back to his folded chair.
Then a long-haired thirtysomething wearing jeans and a green T-shirt steps to the mike. With the glee of a game show host, he announces that the Endeavor’s service isn’t done yet. She can still defend freedom, he insists, just “the freedom of eco-diversity.” Since it was saved by a junior senator from Virginia during the Eisenhower administration, the Endeavor’s been a floating museum docked just south of Newport News. They thought it would draw tourists and money to a disadvantaged area. Instead, things kept getting worse over the decades, so much so that by the time Hurricane Edwina trashed the dock they’d built around the Endeavor, town officials decided it was no longer worth supporting. So now she’s been towed eight miles off the coast. In an effort to promote ecotourism, which apparently has something to do with reef development and scuba divers, today she’s to be sunk. This is where the Guardians come in.
After the environmentalist finishes his lame-ass speech, there’s a scattering of applause. But compared to beating back the threat of Nazi domination, fostering sea life just isn’t sexy. The reluctant octogenarians are escorted respectfully toward a waiting helicopter. They wear oversized jackets and caps. Two have walkers, and a handful more are bent into canes. One man has a hold of Clyde’s arm. Bubba and J.D. help load the folding chairs and lectern on board. Behind them, toward the stern, is an anachronistic rocket with red wings and a skull painted on the side.
An oval-shaped door to my left swings open, and Debbie strides through, speaking on a cellphone. She’s dressed in her Venus outfit, a spandex bodysuit covered in red and orange flames that is, ironically, inflammable. As she nears me, she snaps the cell closed. “Mom says Nate ate seven pancakes.”
I nod. “You could’ve stayed with him if you wanted.”
She fixes me with a look. “Last night was scary as hell, but he’s fine,” she says. “I’m second in command of this team, and this is a major event for us.” She’s starting to sound more like Clyde every day.
Both my hands go up in surrender. “I didn’t mean to suggest you weren’t being a good mother—or a good Guardian.”
The Midlife Crisis of Commander Invincible: A Novel (Yellow Shoe Fiction) Page 7
