I offer him coffee, mostly because I want some myself, but I’m not surprised when he turns it down. He seems content, at peace, like sitting under the light in this square, barren room is precisely what he wants to be doing right now. “So tell me,” Magus says, feigning concern, “did All-Star send you in with brass knuckles?”
“Pretty much,” I say. “He doesn’t believe you’re a spiritual advisor.”
“And what do you believe?”
I stare at him over the table and feel suddenly like I’m the one being interrogated. He half-smiles, then says, “This is a question I’ve been pondering since the other evening, when you assured me you weren’t in crisis.”
“I’m not sure what I believe. But I trust you. I’m on your side.”
“Good. That gives us a chance.”
“To do what, exactly?”
“Help Andrew. Help each other.”
I know he’s not using his powers right now, but there’s something mesmerizing about his voice. I feel like I’m falling under his spell. “Can you tell me anything to help convince Clyde?”
“I can tell you what I told him.”
“Let’s start there.”
“Four years ago I went out for one of my night walks.”
“Sure,” I say. “Your strolls.”
He nods. “I found Andrew in a park. He was watching an empty playground—swings and slides with no children. Those big shoulders were sagging low. I knew the Lord had led me to him, and I sat at his side. After a while, we began to talk.” He pauses, as if he’s explained everything.
“What did you talk about?” I ask.
“At first, if I remember, the playground. Andrew’s son was quite ill at the time. He’s in remission now, praise the Lord. But he was worried about his boy’s life, wondering why such things happen, why God allows children to feel pain.”
“Fair question,” I toss in.
“I can’t say that he’d lost his faith, because I think now he never really had any in the first place. Andrew had a difficult childhood, Vincent, the kind that no one deserves. That night in the playground, I convinced him to join a little Bible study I’d formed. After a few months, he began attending the Sunday service at Apostles Assembly, where I act as a kind of deacon. Now he’s an active member, donates his time to help with charity work, that kind of thing. He’s not the man he used to be.”
“He still needs to answer for his crimes.”
“I understand that, Vincent. But you need to accept there is a difference between being incarcerated and making atonement. One is inflicted upon you, and the other arises from within you. It’s true that for me, one led to the other, but whatever the circumstances, each of us faces our demons alone.”
“This is the kind of thing you and Bone have been talking about in between all the Bible study and charity work?”
Magus nods. “For months I’ve been trying to convince him to turn himself in. I thought it would be good for him.”
Suddenly aware of the camera over my shoulder, I imagine Clyde mocking this. I say, “You thought spending the rest of his days behind bars would give him a better quality of life?”
The magician sighs. One of his hands roams over his upturned hat, as if he’s about to reach in and pluck out an answer. “I’m talking now about the quality of his soul, Vincent. I’m talking about helping him leave one life behind and begin another. I’m talking about resurrection.”
My confusion, or discomfort, must show on my face.
“Christ died on the Cross to wash away man’s sins. But He rose from the dead to show us the way. To show us we can transform from one thing to a better thing. And yes, I believe in the afterlife. But I also believe in something more important than heaven. I believe in resurrection within our lifetime. That’s what I’m talking about now. And that’s why I came today when Andrew called me.”
A tightness grips the sides of my head, and Magus seems to be tilting sideways. That he is speaking about more than Bone Crusher is obvious to me, as it surely is to him. He knows what he’s doing. I’ve lost control of this conversation, if I ever had it.
“I’ve told you all I can. The rest, spiritual matters, is between me and Andrew. Now, though, I think it’s important you tell me. What brought you here, to the other side of this table?”
I think about Debbie, leaning in with Clyde watching on the monitor. Do I begin with the night at Chili’s? Or the day in Hamburg when Sparkplug sacrificed himself so I could live, or with the moment I realized Sheila’s love had vanished? It’s hard to know, after all these years, just where my story starts. But that camera is transmitting all this to the control room, where Clyde could be, at this instant, watching closely. I should’ve crushed the damn camera when I came in. Now, I don’t have time to screw around. “I was trying to find Chaos,” I say.
Magus nods, as if he were expecting this answer. “You’re seeking retribution?”
“Justice.”
“Call it what you want. Vengeance will not ease your troubled mind.”
“Maybe it will, and maybe it won’t. Whatever my motives, the point is moot. Bone says he hasn’t heard from him in years. The trail is stone-cold. He could be anywhere.”
Magus tilts his hat and gazes down into it. “You’d need a lot of luck, or some pretty good help, to find him.”
I fix him with a hard look, knowing he doesn’t believe in luck. “What are you getting at?”
“I’m sure they have plans to move Andrew to the Megajail soon, and I want to speak with him before he’s shipped off. If a show of my good faith will help convince you to let me minister to Andrew, I’m more than happy to oblige. You could consider it my birthday gift. The only catch is, if I’m to be of any help to you at all, I’d need my wand.”
Sixty seconds later, I open the door to the surveillance room, and Clyde hits me with, “Absolutely not. Out of the question.”
Deb looks at me with drowning eyes. “It doesn’t seem... especially prudent.”
“We’re in the prudent business now? I thought we fought bad guys.”
She says, “Don’t be mean, Vince.”
Clyde rubs his head. “That we’re even having this conversation shows just how unstable you are, you know that, Vince? No way I authorize this.”
“Don’t authorize a goddamn thing then. Keep your hands clean. I’ll go back to the HALO, get the damn wand, give it to him for two minutes, and have him finger Chaos. If it doesn’t work, what have you lost? I’m a disgraced rogue agent anyway. But if Magus comes through, think about where that puts us. Think about the Tucker Commission.”
Debbie can’t help but smile. She knows I’ve got Clyde cornered.
He glances around the room, as if searching for cameras himself. “I won’t condone this. But I won’t stop you from going back in to see Magus again in, say, an hour?”
Before I answer, Deb says, “Vince, are you sure about this?”
“One hundred percent,” I tell her.
“Just so we’re clear,” Clyde says, “this is your baby. Officially, you are not a Guardian. The plan goes sour, in any way, and I’ll burn you.”
“Peachy,” I tell him.
Deb looks worried, and I can’t say I blame her. There are too many variables to calculate. But I want to tell her that there’s more on my mind, that if we do catch Chaos, I can say the thing with Menagerie was part of the plan—even my blowup on camera—all of it a scheme to lure Bone Crusher out of hiding. It may sound like a crock of shit, but in the wake of a capture like Chaos, people will believe anything. I can still go out as a hero.
Back at the HALO, I make my way down rarely used corridors and an elevator that requires a DNA scan. I go to the innermost room of the central level and stand before the two-foot-thick steel door of the Vault. My code still works—a sign that Clyde hasn’t had a chance to formally boot me from the ranks—and fist-size titanium rods slide back from above, below, and both sides. There’s a hydraulic hiss, and the enormous slab of me
tal slowly cranks open a few feet. Inside, automated lighting snaps on, and I see that more than a few bulbs have to be replaced. The dusty room is the size of a basketball court, cluttered with war trophies from nearly two decades of Guardian battles. It’s a kind of superpowered evidence locker, loaded with devices too dangerous to be left in the hands of mere mortals.
Moving down the rows, I pass the souped-up chopper of Rider X, the sacred shield of Zulu Blue, and the Venom Beam created by Dr. Cobra. There’s the haunted Mayan mask that turned mild-mannered Professor Hasselmeyer into a bloodthirsty lunatic for two years, the underwater outfit that Arctic Orca used to attack Atlantis, and the parchments of Vsgiril, which Gypsy assured us should never be unscrolled by anyone who wished to live. Every item brings back a memory—of combat, of struggle, of standing shoulder to shoulder with my comrades and facing an unquestionable enemy. Not all our foes were evil, but they were each surely bad. That they had to be stopped was never an issue, and it was clear, too, that we were the ones who had to do it. I miss them all, these sweet adversaries.
In the center of the room, standing like a sentinel over all this history, is the grandest prize of all—a complete set of Chaos’s armor. Right after Sparkplug’s death, a tip led us to an abandoned base on the southern tip of Madagascar. We fought through a series of outer defenses—missiles and lasers and a cloud of purple gas—but when we reached the inner lair, it was empty. Gypsy did a quick reading and told us no one had been there in weeks. The attack against us had been automated by computers that self-destructed when the compound was breached, so there were fires burning and smoke in the air. Titan saw the armor first. Instinctually, he attacked, flying so hard into it that he drove through two concrete walls. That was all it took to realize he was dealing with a dummy. Nobody had ever tackled Chaos.
For weeks afterward Ecklar did nothing but stay in his lab and study the armor. He’d been moping around the HALO, feeling guilty he hadn’t been in the field that day in Hamburg. So I wasn’t surprised when Ecklar asked me to help him test a hush-hush project. Out on the salt flats of Utah, far from prying eyes, Ecklar had me don the armor pilfered from our greatest enemy, the villain who killed my best friend. To understand the technology, he had to see it in action. Did I have mixed feelings about this? Sure. Did I put them aside for the possibility of having an ally as powerful as Chaos? You bet.
Now in the Vault, I recall the weight of the great red helmet, threehorned, and the heaviness of the black chest plating. I admire the shoulder-mounted proton grenade launcher and the pulse cannons affixed to each forearm. He was a different class of villain, no doubt. That day in Hamburg, I could’ve taken him, though. I know it. Standing before the armor now, I’m reminded of its raw and awesome power. I think of Titan, who nearly had a heart attack last night. Even together, the two of us could barely handle Chaos’s henchman. It’s clear that if I manage to locate our old nemesis, he’ll kill me. Once again, that scenario plays out in my mind—a vicious battle, a heroic last act, a glorious death. The grand funeral, streets lined with mourning masses. The eulogies, delivered with tears and silly jokes. The white stone memorial and the rectangular hole. It will be raining. My proud, weeping wife. The stiff-chinned, determined sons, arms at their sides as the horse-drawn hearse passes by.
In the wake of such a thing, the public outcry would be deafening. The Tucker Commission wouldn’t touch the Guardians. My family would be protected from all my fuck-ups. And my memory would be dipped in gold forever.
And so I make the calculation: if Magus can pinpoint Chaos, I’ll go after him alone. If somehow I can defeat him, great. But that’s not the only way I can win.
I turn to locate Merlin’s wand, and that’s when I see that I’m not alone. A few feet back, Sparkplug sits cross-legged on the enchanted pirate chest of Jean Lafitte. With both hands he scratches at his red hair like someone just waking. He looks through his arms at me, almost embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I couldn’t just let this go on anymore.”
“Please, Billy, please just screw off.”
“There’s something you need to know.”
“I don’t want your help. I told you already that I forgive you. Can’t you go back to limbo or purgatory or wherever the hell it is you came from?”
“I don’t think this place has a name. Look, I wouldn’t be bothering you if I didn’t think it was important.” He stands and shrugs.
“Fine, then. If you won’t leave, I will.”
With that, I turn my back on my onetime best friend and start walking toward the Vault door.
“Vince,” he says behind me. “Chaos is dead.”
This stops me cold. “No,” I hear myself say. I turn back to Billy.
“Sorry, but it’s true,” he says. “Three years ago. Cirrhosis.”
“That doesn’t sound right.”
“Doesn’t matter how it sounds. Guy’s name was Harold Cuttwater, and he lived in Tokyo. Owned a company that manufactured microprocessors. Probably one in your TV.”
There’s nowhere to sit, and my legs feel jittery all of sudden, something I can’t blame on the absence of coffee. So I’m forced to join Billy on the treasure chest, where we sit like two old codgers on a park bench. I cradle my forehead in my palms. A bug crawls through my feet, big enough to leave a trail in the dust. Billy says he’s sorry again.
“So he’s in hell?” I ask him.
Billy lifts his open hands. “Nobody in here talks in terms of heaven and hell. Word got around that he passed through, that’s all.”
“Then you don’t know for sure. If you didn’t see him yourself.”
The look in Billy’s eyes stops me. Whatever his other transgressions, he wouldn’t have told me this if he wasn’t certain.
That bug skirts off into the shadows by the enchanted roller skates of Disco Queen. “Chaos is in hell,” I declare. “There’s right and wrong and a heaven and hell. And Chaos was evil.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Billy says.
“Cirrhosis,” I say. “Son of a bitch.”
He says, “That day at Titanland, I wanted to tell you. I mean, I thought I owed you that much. But you seemed so energized and happy to be on a mission.”
I lift my face so he can see my eyes. I speak slowly. “You don’t owe me anything. This is something I need you to be clear on.”
“I owe somebody something.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“Unfinished business. That’s the phrase most of the spooks around here use. I can’t go on to my final resting place until I come to terms with my life on the mortal plane.”
“Tell it to Oprah,” I say. “Don’t put your stalled career in the afterlife on my shoulders.”
“That’s not what I’m doing. I’m only telling you how it is. I mean, just because you don’t need my help doesn’t mean I don’t need to atone for the wrongs I’ve done.”
“I don’t want to be anybody’s penance, Billy. Besides, you took a bullet for me. I haven’t forgotten that.”
He stands up, scratches at the base of his neck, and drags his feet as he walks in a slow circle. From a shelf across from me, he lifts up a set of aviator goggles. “Remember the Baron?” he says.
I nod. He was a crop duster in Louisiana who somehow became possessed by the spirit of Manfred von Richthofen. He buzzed a Mardi Gras parade thinking he was strafing them with bullets, but in fact he was just dousing them in bug spray. Gypsy figured out the antique goggles he’d bought on eBay were authentic, actually belonged to the Red Baron himself.
Billy sets the glasses back. “That day in Hamburg,” he says. “I wasn’t trying to save your life.”
I stare at him and try to make sense of what he’s said, a statement that clearly took him some effort. “What were you trying to do?”
“I saw Chaos take out Titan. I knew the team was in trouble. But I was so confused then. So confused and upset and guilty.”
He brings his eyes into mine, and I
know what was making him guilty.
“I’m not saying it’s a wrong choice for everyone. That’s not for me to decide. But taking things into my own hands like that. Just giving up. For me that was a cowardly act.”
“You’re not making any sense. I’ve seen the tape a hundred times. Chaos aimed my way, and you flew into the path of his laser. You were saving me.”
He shakes his head. “I wasn’t trying to be a hero. I just saw a way out. I didn’t even see you.”
Now his meaning settles in my mind. He sees the epiphany on my face. “That’s right,” he says.
More than anything, I feel angry at my friend. “That was a dumb fucking thing to do.”
“Tell me about it. I miss being alive.”
“We could’ve talked. What you did with Sheila was ... well, you did what you did, those choices were made. But we could’ve talked. I was your friend. I was your brother.”
“I know what you were, Vince. I never doubted that.”
“I’m not saying you didn’t screw up royally. But there was plenty of fuck-up to go around that whole situation. If things had been right at home, Sheila, maybe she wouldn’t have needed somebody else. It’s taken me a long time, a whole second marriage, to figure this out, but apparently I’m not really Grade A husband material.”
“You were a good friend,” he offers.
“Not good enough,” I say, a statement that has become my slogan. “I failed you both. Same as you both failed me.”
We say nothing. The proton generators kick in, and the floor beneath our feet hums and vibrates. Surrounded by relics, I feel right at home. If someone sealed the Vault door and entombed me here, I wouldn’t try to stop him.
“What’ll you do?” Billy finally asks.
I tell him I don’t know. Magus is waiting, not to mention Clyde and Debbie. “Thanks for telling me about Chaos. You saved me some trouble.”
“Least I can do,” he says, and he stands up. He doesn’t offer his hand, and I don’t offer mine.
“You think you’ll head for greener pastures now? You finish up your business?”
“I hope,” he says. “I’m ready for the next thing.”
The Midlife Crisis of Commander Invincible: A Novel (Yellow Shoe Fiction) Page 20
