The effects of time, are, at times, incredible. The last time we had met was in an exploding volcano—a rather unstable situation for a lair or anything else—and we were trading punches as the Lord Blackridge cackled maniacally about the end of the world. It wasn’t the end of the world then, though it was close to it.
The whole superhero/villain dichotomy was on the way out; I just couldn’t see it at the time. Already, voices I didn’t bother to listen to were decrying the harmful effects of individualism and the “cult of personality” infecting the minds of children. We couldn’t have the youths daydreaming about being heroes when the world needed bean counters and working stiffs. Where did I, and those like me, get off showcasing our talents, our strange gifts? We were “undemocratic,” apparently, but if we were, God made us so. I guess God isn’t a democrat either; He certainly never made a democracy. No, this bland world of increasingly washed out and converging shades of grey was the sin of man.
Time had changed him, and, I suppose, it had changed me. I could see in his eyes, see that initial shock on his weathered face, that I was not the memory he had of me. He looked worn out, like he had lived twenty years to my ten. I suppose prison can do that. I wonder what he saw, what ten years of marriage and family had done to me; I know the mirror showed me a more and more Santa Claus looking figure every day.
“Thank you for coming,” he said, sitting down.
I nodded.
“I thought they gave you life,” I said.
“You gave me life,” he replied. “Saved my life. They gave me work. I went from one master to many, from the rule of one madman to the dictated insanity of a committee. I can tell you which one is easier to serve. At least with the madman, there is some sort of idea or goal; you’re working toward something. You can at least face a madman,” he said, his eyes wandering, “but the powers that order me now have no face.”
“And they sent you to me?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head, “but they think they did. You saved my life when that doomsday weapon went off, but all they know is that you’re the one who brought me in. They’re making a list,” he added. This somewhat ambiguous non-sequitur gave me pause, and I felt a shiver run up my spine. “They started with us, prisoners and parolees and ex-cons, anyone who had been part of the scene back in the day, but I saw your name on it too; Captain Stanford, the Majestic, Bear-man, all of you, all of us, all on the same list.” He paused, biting his lip. “They’re not making any distinctions. Heroes and villains are all the same now, all threats to the new order.”
“Threat?” I asked.
“Yes,” his voice had dropped to a whisper.
“How am I a threat?”
“You can lift a car over your head and throw it, and despite all their programs and lectures and nagging, people want to watch, to marvel, to be amazed. People want—no, that’s not it. People think in terms of heroes, of exceptions. We may not be in vogue anymore, but children still prefer hearing about us rather than about the great progress in efficiency in their local factory. If you got up and juggled cars for them, they’d flock to you, and you might say something the regime didn’t like.”
“I’m retired,” I said.
“Yeah? So was Boris.”
My hand tightened into a fist, and I growled:
“What do you know about Boris.”
“Some driver, a dreamer as they call them now, was racing through a school zone on a joyride. Boris prevented a tragedy, but he also stopped any future ones. He got the kids out of the way first, but he ran that ‘dreamer’ all the way back down to the southern border and deported him himself. The Regime doesn’t like borders, or having their cheap labor frightened off, so they placed him in that hamster wheel the late Dr. G trapped him in once.”
“Where is he?”
“Then they sent me here to tell you all this,” he went on, “to tell you where he is, or at least where they told me he is.” He fiddled with his phone a moment, and my phone pinged, the screen lighting up to show me a text with a location. “They wanted me to tell you because they know you will save him, try to, but I’m telling you they told me to tell you. They want you to rescue him so they can grab both of you.”
“So, it’s a trap?”
“It is a trap,” he agreed.
We then both fell into silence as the noisy world passed before us on its myriad errands and chores, a tableau of blurred details. I felt my jaw tightening as I thought through the whole situation. There didn’t seem to be a right answer anywhere.
“Of course,” he broke into my troubled thoughts, “my masters would just love to capture two birds with one stone. One of you steps out of line, just slightly, and they know you’re best friends. What better way to get you than to dangle him as bait? If they would like to get two, they might just as well catch three.” I looked over at his haggard face. Our eyes met, and I began to understand what he was saying. “The only reason I haven’t rebelled,” he went on, “is out of respect for you.”
I nodded and let my gaze wander, once more, out toward the street where passing cars and cyclists and people walking dogs and the whole panoply of life appeared and dispersed, living out lives I’d never know, joys and sorrows, each a world unto itself full of its own temporary triumphs ere the inevitable came.
“Why not two? Why not three?” I said. “Or, why not a hundred? Why not give them what they want? Why don’t we give them everyone?”
“Do you think they can handle it?”
“I hope not.”
Tale Told 