The sun had finally come up on the land that time cut short. It was once a place of commitments voided and reconstructed out of a vacuum of tears and lamentations and friendships blotted out, an emptiness that tolerated no remnants, a shadow in the dark.
It was the city where all the old heroes died by fire, in a conflagration of sparks and nulls that leaped across the high-rises, the suburbs and railyards, disintegrating every foundry and orphanage and prison in that four-walled world, leaving just steam and ash and scattered ghosts.
But…across time, somewhere, some pitying angel heard the crying of those lost children, the screams of anguish that come with real absolution. And it wanted to help them, those wretched, long dead little heroes.
And so it stole the fire to became a God, and blinked sparks out of ash. The undying city looped around itself, a bosium finally reconnected, an upward spiral of suddenly triggered memory piercing a sky gently turning from vanished gray to a vibrant, neon blue.
“Hey, I just sent you something, Kenny. Article from yesterday. Are they getting melodramatic with this stuff or what? Read that opening. It’s a bit spoony.”
“Yeah, I read that earlier. I don’t know. It sounded pretty good. There’s some good information in there too, about how to access the servers. And you know how these games are. People get into them. They have a lot invested. I used to work with a guy that played with his whole family. Son, daughter, the whole clan. Bonding time.”
“Better than going to baseball games, I guess.”
“Hah! Not even close. Need to get your priorities straight.”
“Yeah, yeah. Well man, it’s just, you read people’s comments, and they’re talking about how much it means to them to see those folks bringing the servers back up, talking about their memories, and being in tears and…”
The audio in Kenny’s ears snapped out before the sentence could end. He never heard how it finished. “I’m not one to go in for that sappy sentimental stuff. But man, my jaw dropped when I read that. Where did they even find the source code?”
“Apparently somebody inside the company leaked it, and then somebody else just squirreled it away. The team talking about it said it took them six years to clone a server and get it operational.”
“Do you remember the name of that first team we were on Cyrus?”
“Oh, the Rowdy Roddy Pipers wasn’t it? Yeah…best name ever.” He could hear Cyrus laughing through the screen in front of him. The two had known each other for years. Since that team, the Pipers. Since that motley startup that was more gang or vigilante crew than fully-functioning crime-fighting unit.
They had known each other since the early days of that first city, the one snuffed out and now rebuilt, the one people were crying about. Kenny didn’t doubt the tears at all. Didn’t know what to make of them, but didn’t doubt them either. Tears of joy maybe, but more likely just neutral emotion. Pure unbonded, stunned crying because what else are you going to do? Meep? Spontaneously tear up the closest sheet of paper and throw confetti? The crying may not have been the most heroic reaction, but damn it if it wasn’t expected.
“I’m pretty sure you could throw darts at a dictionary and come up with a better name Cyr.”
“You ever notice how every ghost you see on TV these days moves with that jerky flicking animation?”
“You mean like from The Ring? Vengeful spirits roam via stop motion. We just didn’t have the technology to properly portray it ’til now. You’re gonna play it right?”
“I mean I figure I gotta. Maybe I’ll be a flickering ghost this time. You?”
“Well, yeah. Of course. How many times do you get to see a city rise from the dead? And fill itself with crying ghosts?” He smirked to himself in the ambient light of the two screens that surrounded him. He hadn’t cried when he heard the news. Heroes can’t cry. It just unnerves the criminals. And the last thing you want when you’re trying to save the day is a nervous criminal.
Those hoods knew Kenny Maine as Cobol back in the days and nights of the original first city. His mom called him Kenneth when he came upstairs. He didn’t come upstairs often though. His hideout had everything he needed. Comfortable futon that served singular duty as a couch, a hammock strung up with masonry anchors between the pipes by the back wall and the water heater. There was a mini-fridge he had used in college that held most of the leftover takeout from a day or two or three before, and a microwave on top of it that was surely a fire-hazard for the overworked surge protector behind it.
Kenny had been there to see the end of the first city, the end of the world. He had stayed to the very last second, to the moment when everything crashed. He hadn’t spent those final hours sipping tea in the penthouses of the elites in downtown Bowie either. Or dancing in the clubs of Vision Row like so many of his teammates. His last moments saw him pulling a girl and a dog out of the water around a small sailing yacht, the boat leaking diesel into the bay as his vision faded and the sky around him went dark. He never found out if that girl survived. But he knew she hadn’t.
He was still in college in those last days, and after those last days, but he didn’t have much else to do without anyone to save. After the crash, he spent the next week walking around the campus in mostly ponderous silence, shuffling from class to class, not really hearing anything. He ate tasteless lunches, drank too much for his age, and almost always just went to sleep when he got back to his dorm. He entertained himself with eight-bit graphics and eight-bit problems, sometimes with the rise and fall of Rome at the hands of the malevolent Mahatma, or helping a bunch of misanthropic teenagers kill God. And he eventually finished his degree with mediocre marks and no real prospects, and moved back home.
He put his education to use, working at convenience stores, as a brick-layer for almost a year. Once for about two weeks he had sold drugs on the Internet. He forgot about playing guitar, and, in some way he couldn’t quantify and couldn’t bring himself to think about, he hated himself. And the world.
Everyone who has ever read a comic book, or watched a buddy-cop drama or cared enough to spend time reading up on the conquests of the ancient world knows there’s no difference between Julius Caesar and Attila the Hun, the Fourth Crusade and the Third Reich, Batman and Milton’s protagonist. No man thinks himself a monster, and no evil empire has ever truly existed.
With his origin story swept away, Kenny became a machine for hire, he became a villain. He stalked through electric lands, myriad dimensions of space slugs and minotaurs, robot space slugs, space slug minotaurs, slaughtering indiscriminately, taking no prisoners, living off the blood and cries of a thousand different deaths like they were old the crab rangoon in the fridge.
Other villains, and even some heroes, tried to take him in. Give him a new home. But he didn’t want friends, and he didn’t want a home. Not for a long time. And all the while, ignoring the fact that it was more him than it, he asked “What use does the world have for a homeless hero?” The phrase played constantly across the sensory cathode behind his eyes, etched in neon blue digits, as if it were some kind of perfect metaphor, some mantra written to memory. And it was his existence – it was just too paltry a thing to him for him to call it a life – for six years.
The lights cracked on a hundred feet overhead, illuminating concrete and the center rows of empty metal shelves. The recesses of the warehouse were still in shadow, but Cobol was bathed in ghostly halos.
A man who looked like Prince if the artist were formerly a scarecrow turned to him with a creepy shifting smile drifting across its blue bag of a face. “What do you think?”
Cobol looked around. Into the distance. Looked for something that wasn’t nondescript, and didn’t find it. “It’s not much of a headquarters, Syn.”
“Oh come on! Do you know how much I spent on this place? Location, location, location man! I’m thinking I might rent it out for raves.”
Cobol turned back to the wad of ill fitting clothes. “Did Rook show?”
“No, she didn’t make it last night.”
“She must have been held up. It’s a busy season for her.”
“Yeah. We were down on support though. We could have really used her.”
“Well, yeah. But if everyone would do their jobs Syn, we wouldn’t have to rely on someone with a life to get it done.”
“Weird to think we’ve been back at this a month, C.”
“I know, right?” He grinned to himself in spite of himself. “Yeah. Those kids have got to be a handful. I’d help her out if I could.”
“Rook? Eh. I think the biggest problem we run into is lack of preparation. Nobody is ever ready, nobody trains. We barely made it out of there last night. With or without her, we were pretty fucked. Iceman didn’t make it.”
“He can’t call himself Iceman.”
Who are you, the name police?”
“What… Syn, he’s made of fire. He’s a man that is literally made of the thing that is the opposite of ice.”
“Fireman sounds stupid though.” The baggy clothes man shifted.
“Have you heard from her today? Do you know if she’ll be on?”
“Nah, I haven’t heard anything. Do you think my cape is too blue?”
“I’ll text her.”
“No need. Right here guys!” Cobol and The Synthetic Man turned to see a woman walking into the edge of the light. “Yeah, Cyrus, you have to do something about that cape. Did your mom dress you?”
“I fuckin’ knew it! Fuck this! I’m changing.” The Synthetic Man stomped off into the shade, the azure glittering nonsense behind him that could have been a cape swishing on the concrete as he disappeared into the recesses of the warehouse, pouting at the rejection that would condemn it to a costume trunk.
Kenny couldn’t help but laugh, chuckling more over the memories conjured than the laundry’s lamenting whine. These two were all he needed. They were a triumvirate, a fire team. They were unstoppable together. At least that’s how he remembered it. “So new name eh?” he said.
“I like it,” she said, smiling. “Rook sounds short and sweet. Knife in the dark. It’s got this old crone sort-of vibe to it too.” She spun around, black feathers rustling as they shifted weightlessly around her “Plus I love the cape.”
“Yeah, no. It works. Looks scary as hell honestly.”
“Keeps the guys off at the bar.” Still smiling. She was always smiling. Here anyway. “How have you been Ken?!” she said, coming in to hug him. “God, how long has it been?”
“Six years. I’m getting by. I like the knives. Never thought of you as much of a killer though.”
“Immortals don’t have much market for a medic. And these weapons have a history.” She grinned, swiped the jet black hair from her forehead and pulled out a curious blade, the steel glinting in eyes that looked ludicrously capricious in their interest. It was one of a pair, a knife curving first back, then forward, with a hook in the belly, close to the tip. “Found them on the Moon.”
“Yeah.” He grinned too. “The best ones tend to have a history. But everything does. Glad you were able to make it this time Amber. Really has been too long. Having you along’ll make me feel a lot better too, whether you’re keeping us alive or stabbing or whatever.”
Rook threw her head back and barked a laugh. “So you’ll have someone to keep your ass alive this time. I heard about that stupid Iceman. He’s not coming. I’ll go help Cyrus. If that idiot dresses himself, he’ll come back looking like he’s auditioning for a Pixar movie.”
The raven walked into the darkness, following the friendly ghost, leaving Cobol alone in the light.
“You know, it’s been a long time since we stood here Kenny. Me with Mr. Cobol himself. You know, I had forgotten how pretty the sky was here when the sun was setting.”
“Right? Yeah, too long. Or the statue garden in front of city hall?” Cobol turned and grinned at the tall figure standing beside him. “Those gothic skyscrapers in Nicomedia? This… it’s almost too much man. I feel like we shouldn’t be standing here. I feel like I don’t have a right.”
“What do you mean?” The demigod turned and looked down at him, its feathers rustling with the breeze on the rooftop. “We’re here. It’s here. We took the right. Took it back.”
“Nah, it’s not that. That’s not what I mean. Just, what the fuck am I doing with my life Allen? I’ve seen beautiful places like this a thousand times. I’ve run across deserts on Mars, gunning down everything in my path. Fearlessly. Like a fucking god. Why can’t I do that with my life? Why am I back here? This place isn’t for me anymore.”
“That’s not true. Sure you aren’t the same person you were when you left. But none of us are. And this place isn’t the same place you remember, it’s not the same place it was when we left. You can’t say it’s not for you any more than you can say this isn’t your life. I mean, you are here. This is your life.”
“We didn’t leave though, Allen. We died.”
“Stop being so melodramatic man. You surely could give over to obsession, bathe in the cheers of these people again. You could do that. Or you could take its whole existence for the lesson it is. You didn’t leave. None of us ever leave. Or die. It honestly wouldn’t hurt to think of it more as a day job. It’s here until it isn’t. But in some ways, in a lot of ways, it’s always here, even when you’re not. And either way, Kenny, seriously, get a fucking day job. You’d be amazed how many problems it solves.”
“It’s an easy thing to say ‘Hey, yeah, just go do this.’ Bit more difficult in practice.”
“True. But everything’s more difficult in practice. Killing giant robots that look like giant gorillas, for instance.”
“What are those crickets I keep hearing?”
“We’re camping.”
“Camping?! I’m pretty sure you’re on your computer.”
“Beauty of modern technology my man. Sitting by the fire right now. I figure the smoke has to be bad for the laptop, but… We used to come up here a lot when we were still in school. Asha’s never been here though, and we wanted to do something with the kids before school starts.”
“I suspect that means they’re playing too?”
“Nah, they’re all swimming right now. But they’ve got their own team. Tiny Terrors or Toons or something. They’re villains…”
“The kids aren’t alright.”
“Not even slightly. Hey, Kenny. You know I love you man. But you tie this shit to yourself, drag it around like some sort of Jacob Marley nonsense.”
Kenny could hear the sigh through the speakers, could hear the beginnings, or maybe continuation, of a lecture. “I mean, I get it man. It’s difficult to wash away sins, you know? And make no mistake, that’s what you’ve got. Your own sin. And sure, as silly as it might seem to me, it’s your sin to you. But it’s not impossible, to wash it away I mean. It really only requires one thing. And that thing is not penance, man. That thing is not efficacy exacted through personal guilt. It’s just…a letting go. The shit still accumulates at your feet, but at least it’s not staining your heart anymore, your mind. It’s sitting in the drain, there to remind you that you really should clean the bathtub and that those iron stains come from the city water, and that stuff you drink every night when you wake up parched from a deviated septum resulting from way too much smoking is totally going to kill you just as fast as those cigarettes.”
Kenny could feel his eyebrows raising as he looked at the dimming sky a thousand miles away and only two feet from him, wondering if the sun would come up again, if it would come up in the same place, and musing on what a silly thought that was, and how it wasn’t a real sun at all. He could feel his lip twisting, eyes rolling, waiting for the winged man beside him to continue pontificating. “Are you drunk?”
“No! Maybe! Doesn’t matter. Life isn’t high-minded at all Kenny. It’s essentially a series of binary choices. In this case, it’s just a choice to forgive. To choose kindness. And to start by choosing it for yourself. It’s the choice to be a hero again, for no other reason than because that’s what you want to be. And yeah, it’s difficult to wash away sin, despite that minimum standard requirement. It costs more in personal capital than any video card.
“Allen, who the fuck talks like that?”
“Me motherfucker. Ain’tcha glad you’ve got me around?”
“I would if you were here to fight. You going to be there tomorrow night? We’re going to finish raiding that citadel. We’ve got a shortcut to the parapets this time, but we’re going to be light on bodies. Should be able to get to the top pretty quick all the same.”
“Are you hoping to get anything good out of there? Rook coming?”
“Not really. Got everything I need for the moment. And I don’t know. I haven’t seen her yet. But somebody’s gotta do it though. Scale it. The thing’s just… looming there. With that damned gorilla on top. Syn will be there.”
“Nothing like a fabric softener commercial watching your back in the crunch. Nah, I’ll pass. The kids are leaving with Asha’s parents tonight. We’re going to stick around here for another day and have some fun. We picked up these chocolates before we left.”
“Oh. Hah! Sweet. Alright, bro. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Kenny, let’s grab some lunch when I get back. It’d be good to see you out in the sunlight.” Allen turned to him again and smiled, and then blinked out of sight with the last light of day.
“Wow, she Queer Eyed your ass. Looks good man. What is that thing following you?” Cobol nodded toward a floating black diamond hovering behind The Synthetic Man. There was music coming out of it. The closest analogy within grasp was a speaker covered in bird feathers stuck to its sides with Elmer’s paste.
“I built it. I’m calling it Crowbot. Figured Rook’d get a kick out of it. Payback for the duds. Do I look cool or what?”
“So what, it just flies around playing Too Short? Does it do anything, like, laser eyes or something?”
“Nope. Just the radio. But man, don’t need nothin’ but hip-hop in the holidays!” If Cyrus could grin, Cobol was pretty sure he was doing just that. But the new Synthetic Man looked nothing like the old Synthetic Man. He hardly looked like a man at all, just a swathe of walking color, a melted Sprite can with agency.
“Rook’s already on her way to the top. Why don’t you fly up there and give her a hand. I’m going in through the central exhaust over there. Got a plan.”
“A plan, he says. Alright chief. That woman doesn’t need my help though, but I’ll leave ya the Crowbot for company.” With that, the Synthetic Man shot off through the metal bridges spiderwebbing the central tower. And Cobol took the low road, hand over hand, up through the bowels of a purpose.
He turned behind him, to the fluttering whirring that followed him incessantly. “Can you play anything else? Liquid Swords?”
“That content has been restricted in your region.”
He nodded. And then didn’t. He was here.
He saw Rook first as he left the tunnel. She landed beside him, rolling, grunting. Still alive.
“You have one minute, twelve seconds Cobol,” the robotic voice squeeked in his ear. “You need to make it fast.”
“Thanks Crowbot. Skip song. Play Naughty by Nature.” Fast and methodical, he thought. There was no point in speed without precision accuracy. A seventy foot tall raging gorilla has only so many weak points. Attacking one would make it angry. Missing one though…well, it probably wouldn’t matter how angry it was, not for long. Bloodstains don’t really have a capacity for worry.
“Hip Hop Hooraaaaaaay! Hooooo!” Something man-shaped but distinctly not man-colored, bubbling greens and yellows, some star of white in the center, streaked through his periphery and smashed into the side of the giant stalking toward him, cleaving a hole in its abdomen and a split second later through its back, landing in a heap only a few feet away from the paws of the simian machine.
“Jesus Christ Syn!” Cobol heard himself shouting. The monster shrieked too, careened, and then wheeled on one foot to look at the kneeling, grinning pulsar that was staring at the exit wound sizzling, the hair around the hole catching fire.
“Sorry I’m late! Got hung up for a minute. He’s lookin’ at me now. Get to work!”
“Where the hell have you been Cyrus?!” Rook shouted at the bouncing star man.
“Hey, you like my robot Rook? No ‘Mama Said Knock You Out’ C? Man, you missed a good opportunity.”
“Well if I had seen you coming…”
“Will you both shut up and kill the damned thing! It smells so bad!”
“It’s leaking entrails and motor oil. Of course it does.”
“And you don’t have a nose, ass. Kill it Ken!”
Kenny didn’t hesitate. He had never been one to hesitate in this city. Too many lives on the line. Running at the monster, he began to focus on the battery in his hands, feeling the dynamism in it, feeling it exciting, turning. It didn’t take much, but it never did. He tossed the generator, and watched as the beast reflexively clutched at it, watched the flash, watched the denotation, and watched nothing else.
Everyone else had managed to escape in time. He could hear Erik B. & Rakim. So even the stupid robot, he thought. The citadel was destroyed from spire to base. The raid was over.
But Cobol was dead. No, not dead. Heroes never died in that city. They just disappeared. Stopped. He could still talk, would have talked to his team, but the phone rang. “Who’s calling at seven o’clock?” he wondered out loud. Who was calling him at all? “I’ll be right back guys.”
“Hello?”
“Is this Mr. Maine?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Hello, this is Josh Herman with Human Resources at —-. Your background check came back clear, so we would like to go ahead and offer you the position. Would you be interested?” the receiver asked him.
“Yes. Yes, of course! When can I start?”
“Would you be able to start on the fifteenth? That would give us time to get you into the system and set you up for training.”
“Yeah, that’s fine. Absolutely.”
“Fantastic. Welcome aboard, Mr. Maine. We look forward to seeing you next week.”
“Thanks!”
The line went dead. For a second, so did Kenny’s brain. “Guys I’ve gotta go.”
“Everything alright?” he heard Rook ask. “We can get you out of there. Patch you up no problem.”
“Uh, yeah, fine. You keep those scalpels away from me. Going to give Allen a call.”
“He probably doesn’t know what a phone is right now, C. He’ll probably just sit there trying to translate the ring tone. Explain to it the nature of reality.”
“Right? Yeah, great job tonight guys. That was a blast. I’ll get with you tomorrow.”
“Later C.”
“Bye Ken!”
“Hey man. How you been? Haven’t seen you around in a bit.” Cyrus sound curious, and almost concerned. Maybe he really was. Both of those things. Kenny hadn’t spoken to The Synthetic Man or anyone on the team in weeks. Hadn’t heard that Iceman had been banned for DMCA violations. There he goeth.
“Nah, nothing like that Cyr. I got a new job.”
“Oh, no shit?”
“Yeah, nothing special. Just data-entry stuff. It’s keeping me out of the house though. And in front of a computer, so there’s that.”
“Sounds like you need to be logging in from work!”
“Heh, sure. No, I’ll be back soon. You can bet your ass. I have a troll hunting holiday planned.”
“Holler at your boy man.”
You remember I said I was calling my bro after that citadel run, when it crumbled right?
“Yeah, yeah, I remember. Shit, it was the last time you were on.”
“I don’t know. He said the weirdest thing to me. It was probably the mushrooms, but… he said, ‘There’s a special skill that only degrades with age – the conceit that is play.’”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“Uh….yeah. Some kind of mantra, I guess. You know he talks to angels. I’ll catch up with you this weekend Cyr.”