"Sweet dreams are made of this,
Who am I to disagree?"
"The Mass is ended!" The deacon's voice, old yet
strong, tinged with New England twang, echoed through the sanctuary.
"Go in peace to love and serve the Lord!"
"Thanks be to God," responded the dozen or so people
present at the early morning service. They shuffled into the aisles,
bowing or genuflecting toward the altar and tabernacle, then moved toward the
exit. The deacon was there, a grey but vibrant older gent, shaking hand
and calling each person by name. The priest, Father John Olafssen, was
there as well, a slightly younger man, heavy but in a jolly-not-dissipated way.
As the last parishioner exited, the priest shot the deacon a
grin. "Not a bad turn-out for a Thursday morning, Robert."
The deacon, the Reverend Robert Abernathy, nodded, almost
absently. He looked up at the altar of St. Desiderius Episcopal Church,
New York City, and nodded again. "But old," he finally
added. "Retirees. Elderly. Pensioners. Will they be
replaced when they die, or are we seeing an ending here draw slowly nigh?"
The priest blinked, surprised at this sudden shift in his
friend's demeanor. "Well -- I'm not surprised most of the folks here
are retired. Most people in the city are at work this hour, or on their
way. And we're drawing a decent number on Sundays, too."
He took a step closer, put his hand on the deacon's left
shoulder, on the stole that went diagonally across Robert's chest, denoting his
rank, rather than the way the priest's stole ran around his neck and down both
sides of his chest. "Robert, what is it? You've been -- well, you've
been an inspiration since you came out of your own retirement to join us
here. You've added so much to what we do here, so much to the Lord's work
-- why is your spirit troubled?"
Robert looked back at the priest, and his normal, cheerful mien
was gone, replaced by a calm, impassive stare. "I'm going to have to
leave, John. My -- calling here is over." He brought his right
hand up, clapped it in the the priest's hand on his own left shoulder.
"Thank you, John. You've taught me a lot."
Father John was confused, to say the least. "But --
why?" His mind raced. Robert had not been assigned here
formally by the diocese, but was at least informally considered "associate
clergy," an ordained minister, retired from active service to the church,
but still participating as his own strength and health and calling
allowed. That had been quite a bit in Robert's case -- his ability to
contribute, time-wise, had been limited, but when he was there, he'd exhibited a
tremendous amount of energy, enough that John wondered why he'd even
retired. Enough that John, while concerned for his friend on a personal
basis, was also loathe to see him go for what he was providing to St.
Desiderius. "You know," he said, quickly, "the Parish Fall
Picnic is this weekend. You'll be here for that, of course."
Robert smiled, absently, and his voice was smooth, calm, even
the Yankee accent seeming to fade from it. "No, John. As I
said, I have to leave. I won't be back." He slid the priest's
hand from his shoulder, and turned it into a hand-shake. "Good-bye,
John. May God make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to
you."
Then, still dressed in his cassock, alb and stole, with the same
absent smile, and with an extremely puzzled pastor watching him, he turned and
exited the doors of St. Desiderius forever.
* * *
"Exercise begins. Difficulty level 5. Danger
level 5. Exercise will commence upon voice confirmation." The
calm tones of the computer seemed to belie what was about to happen.
"Begin," snapped Victor, and immediately he dove
forward, as a gout of flame shot from the walls behind him. Under the
flames, he rolled, then sprang up to grab rings that dangled by chains from the
ceiling. He twirled upwards with an ease that would have fit him in nicely
at an Olympics Men's Gymnastics competition. Below him, nearly brushing
his boots as he swung up, metal coils sprang outwards from hidden panels,
crackling with electricity.
The goal of the "simulation" was three-fold.
First, survive for one minute. Second, recover a small cube from a niche
on the far side of the room -- but no sooner than thirty seconds after the
simulation began. Third, once the minute was up, to press a deactivation
button back where he'd begun, in order to turn off the various death traps,
pit-falls, and gun mounts that filled the room.
Oh, and just to make things interesting (and, Tony had insisted,
save him a lot of clean-up work), Victor was not allowed to actually disable any
of the defensive/offensive systems during the exercise.
The rings were beginning to warm up quickly, too quickly --
another trap. Victor swung forward on them, intending to bounce from the
wall, kicking back and landing several yards away. Instead, the wall in
front of him opened up, and a set of mechanical tentacles, each ending in large
metal claws, writhed outwards, grasping for him.
He instead turned his forward momentum into a roll, dropping to
the floor. "Staff," he snapped, and into his hands appeared a
long, wooden staff, tipped with metal at both ends. "The Staff of
Victory" the press called it, and Victor would ordinarily have gone along
with that. He'd had it as long as he remembered (As if that means
anything, he thought) and it had seen him to victory against more foes than
he could count.
For the moment, though, it would serve to bat back the
tentacles, and then to vault over them into the next zone.
He moved in a dozen directions at once, it seemed, almost to
fast to follow, but everyone knew what Victor looked like. He'd been a
hero since the Second World War, subject of two dozen books over the years, two
movie series, a Saturday morning cartoon, a long-running comic book, and
countless, countless photographs and photo essays. Tall, straight, a skin tone
that gave him a naturally tanned look all the time. Buzz-cut bristly black
hair, though that and his blue eyes were usually hidden under a silvery
helm. A red, white and blue uniform that clung tightly to his powerful,
wiry frame. Red boots and gloves, and a short cape. A belt with
various "survival supplies." And, of course, the Staff, when he
summoned it from wherever it came from.
He was one of a number of "patriotic" heroes who
had come and gone over the decades -- except that he'd stayed, forever young,
forever fighting the good fight. Truman had called him "the symbol of
all that is right with America, and a foe of all that is wrong with her."
The floor beneath him hummed with power as he landed, and he
bounded forward, used one hand to vault over a pivoting gun turret, then ducked
down as a different turret opened up with searing lasers. The room was set
to the highest danger level, and could easily kill him.
If it could catch him.
And everyone knew about him. The son of a decorated
hero of the First World War, he'd grown up on the farms of the Great Plains,
then, with the Depression, had moved with his family to New York. Seeing
the rising tide of fascism in Europe and the Far East, he had begun to train
himself, inspired by his father's example to become a warrior against the
enemies of the United States, foreign and domestic. He'd leapt forth onto
the scene in 1943, though he'd operated in secret before that. Once
revealed, though, and with the blessing of Presidents Roosevelt and Truman, he'd
fought saboteurs and Fifth Columnists at home, and had served time on both
fronts, ever in the forefront, ever leading the armies of the United States
onward to victory.
His true name was kept a secret, because of his family, but
it had been enough to know his code name: Victor.
If only that were the end of the story, he thought.
And stumbled, tangled in a spray of wire from a panel which had
just slipped open. he turned the stumble into a roll, diving over the
wire, and then bringing his feet up. The end of the staff sent a blast of
energy into the mass of wire wrapped around his legs, freeing himself. He
rolled again, this time backwards, narrowly missed being crushed by a great
steel fist that dropped from the ceiling. That brought him, in time and
range, to the "McGuffin," the small cube he had to recover.
Now he had to last only another thirty seconds ...
He had shown up in Korea, had smashed spy rings in the
States, and had occasionally ventured beyond the Iron Curtain to take the battle
against Communism home to the Commissars. During the hiatus, while the
Earth dropped back into the last tatters of the Fitzsimmons Cloud, robbing most
of the metahumans who had appeared during WWII of their powers, he'd still
endured, his abilities dependent on his training and force of will. He'd
managed to avoid being entangled in the McCarthy hearings, the Black List, and
he'd walked a fine line during the 60s as well, enraging extremists on both
sides of the War in Vietnam, on both sides of the Civil Rights struggle.
His service to America had been long and arduous, but,
throughout it all, with the ebb and flow of popular patriotism, with evolution
and revolution about what it even meant to be American, he'd still managed to
survive in the public eye, a figure beyond reproach, slightly old-fashioned
perhaps in his avowed principles, but by no means close-minded or a tool of the
Establishment. If America had a hero, even in 2001, it was Victor.
And it was all based on a lie.
Time was almost up. He'd taken a gamble, like dozens,
hundreds, thousands he'd taken in his long career. Rather than try to
fight his way across the room, he'd stayed where he was, timing and countering
the weaponry and traps in that area. At last, the wall timer showed a
minute had passed.
He broke away from the webbing sprayed on him from a ceiling
nozzle before it could harden and trap him. Three steps, easily timed, and
tumble forward, and land atop that gun turret again, and draw back and let fly
--
Victor's staff, thrown like a javelin, flew in a perfect arc
toward the deactivation button on the far side of the room --
-- and was struck by the flame jets, and vanished from sight.
Victor froze, staring, unbelieving.
There was a shattering of glass, and a voice shouted,
"Down!!" Even through his haze, his reflexes acted
automatically, throwing him forward. Over his head, a delicate-looking lattice
appeared, growing like a crystal on amphetamines. It took the brunt of the
shock-bolt barrage that would have smeared Victor against the floor with
painful, brutal ease, and, though it trembled and bits cracked away, it held.
From the observation window above the fray -- said window, of
one-way glass, now shattered by a similar crystalline growth, a young Latino man
in a tuxedo and domino mask gestured. The same lattice-work grew like an
arrow across the room, striking the button that deactivated the
offensive/defensive systems. With a whir and a crackle and a snap, various
devices powered down, slid back into the wall, or otherwise stopped being a
menace to life and limb.
Victor slowly slid out from under the crystalline structure,
then got to his feet. He looked up, silently, as the tuxedoed man rode a
wave of crystals down to the floor of the room. "Hey, Vic, sorry,
didn't mean to interfere, but ..." He trailed off.
After a brief pause, Victor smiled, wanly. "No
problem, Donato." His voice was the rich bass that anyone who'd
listened to the radio or television over the past five decades could
recognize. "I appreciate the help." He gestured around at
the crystal lattices, littering the room but rapidly disintegrating.
"You're getting better and better at this."
Donato Esquierra bowed deeply. "Rococo, at your
service." The Latino man grinned broadly. "I'd better be
getting better, Vic. I've got to hold up the home town pride off in the
distant realm of Chicago."
Victor clapped him on the shoulder. "You'll do fine,
I have no doubt. I only hope your replacement can do half the job for the
Big Heroes that you can."
Rococo beamed. Getting praise from Victor was like getting
blessed by the Pope -- both because of what the man doing the praising
represented, and because, Well, hokey as it sounds, it really feels like he
means it with his whole heart. The guy is a legend, and with good reason.
Victor looked at the young man smiling at him, and suddenly felt
waves of emotion, none of them pleasant, wash over him. Shame.
Anger. Guilt. Despair. He turned away, without a word, and
began walking away.
Donato looked after him a moment, then rushed to catch up.
"Victor!" The other hero stopped, turned back to him.
"Vic, wait up. Hey, is --" He paused. How do you
ask -- well, ask the perfect man what's bugging him? Looking at
Victor's face, he realized the answer: the same way you ask anyone else
you care about. "You -- seem like something's on your mind. You
weren't completely on the ball there a minute ago." At the clear
dismay on the other man's face, Donato added, quickly, "I've seen you go
through that same simulation like it was a stroll in the park. Made me
feel -- like I'd never measure up." He cracked another grin.
"You didn't have to mess up just to make me feel better."
Victor gave a half-chuckle, then pulled off his helmet and
motioned the other to walk with him. "Come on. I haven't had my
breakfast yet. Maybe that's what's causing me problems." The
words rang false even to Donato, which disturbed him still more.
They walked in silence through the Big Heroes headquarters, a
five story building on Manhattan Island which had once been a health club and
gymnasium. It had been relatively simple, several years ago, to convert it
to a training facility, communications hub, barracks and general
place-to-hang-your-hat for New York's premiere metahuman team.
There was fresh coffee in the coffee maker, and pastries on the
table. The City of New York, in gratitude for all that the Big Heroes had
done for the city over the decades, had provided a small stipend for a staff,
which at the present time consisted of a housekeeper, a janitor/mechanic, and a
cook. The latter was in the main part of the kitchen, working hard to make
sure he was ready for the luncheon later that day, when the two Chicago heroes
they'd be hosting would arrive.
Victor opened a cabinet and pulled out a box of cereal, some
sort of grain flake with a smiling athlete on the brightly-colored cover.
He poured himself a large bowl, then filled it with milk from the fridge, and
gave it a light sprinkle of sugar and a few banana slices. Evidently
pleased with his work, he brought it back over to the table.
Donato, at the same time, had peeled off his white gloves and
was finishing off the last of a lemon poppy seed muffin. "I really
love lemon poppy seed," he commented, feeling suddenly awkward. He'd
been with the team for a year now, but was still somewhat in awe of the man busy
eating cereal in front of him. "Bruce, he bakes a mean muffin,"
he added.
Victor nodded. Even knowing something was wrong, Donato
had the impression that, once more, Victor was in complete charge, in full
control of things. "How does Bruce feel about your trip to
Chicago?" he asked, conversationally.
Donato shrugged. They'd actually had a fight about it, but
that seemed kind of lame to admit. "He's not thrilled about it, but
he understands. And it's better than heading off to the Moon to take out
an invading alien base. I'm still trying to make up for that one."
He paused. He'd wanted to probe more into what was bugging
Victor, see if there was anything he could do to help his team mate, but this
had suddenly turned into a discussion about him. And, if that was the
case, there was a question he'd also been dying to ask. "Y'know, Vic,
I've always wondered. Well, ah -- you're kind of a traditional
guy." He inflected that almost as a question, as though trying to get
Victor to agree. A nod, and Donato continued, "I just -- you've never
said much about Bruce and me, except to ask how he's doing, how we're doing,
things like that. It's just -- a surprise. 'Traditional Values' and
all that?"
Victor was still for a moment, then put his spoon down in his
cereal bowl. He almost seemed to Donato to be searching for the right
words, which was as unprecedented a his getting tagged in the training
room. At last, Victor replied, "You and Bruce have -- a loving
relationship. Committed. I could talk about freedom, the pursuit of
happiness. Things like that. Or I could talk about many, many brave
soldiers I've known who were -- inclined as you are."
Victor paused another moment, his eyes wandering past Donato,
seeing something the younger man could not. "But what's important is
that you are family, however that family is constituted. It gives you --
roots. Something to rely upon. Something that makes you more than
what you are, and so makes you -- special. You have a family.
Fire crackled and machines flared and burned and exploded in
final releases of energy. Victor had been hurled back by one of those
explosions, and now was held back by the heat of those flames. Beyond
them, he could just make out the hunched profile of the Experimenter, an elderly
man now, but still frighteningly vibrant in his hatred and willpower, both as
strong as when he'd been a young SS doctor at Bergen-Belsen. They'd
tracked him down to this lair, where he was working on turning New York's
homeless into enhanced, mindless thralls.
"Have you not ever wondered, Victor, why your childhood
memories seem so flat, so unreal, compared to what you remember of the last
fifty-eight years? Why those memories roll of your tongue so easily, but
have no life, no emotion to them? Have you not ever wondered why?"
"Family is nothing to sneeze at, or condemn, Donato, not
when it is part of you, part of who you are."
"It's all lies, Victor! All lies! Look in
the old records, if Herr Doktor Greenburg did not destroy them after your
deployment. If your Herr Hoover did not destroy them in his tenure, or
some President or the other. Look for Project Building Blocks,
Victor. Project Building Blocks."
And the ceiling had collapsed, and things had exploded, and
Victor had barely gotten out alive.
Abruptly, Victor focused on Donato. He reached over,
grabbed the young man by the wrists with an surprisingly strong grip.
"I don't care who Bruce is, or what you do together. That you are
together, that's the important thing. It gives you roots, makes you
real. If you are in love, then that love is blessed, no matter what others
say. Hold onto it, like it was a rope thrown to you in a fire. Hold
onto it!"
It was all there, though it took some time to find it.
Last weekend, in fact, Victor had been in the Pentagon, going through WWII-era
files. He had Ultima clearance, and had a reasonable cover story that he
was checking out old records pertaining to Doktor Schreck, who was recently
spotted in Zaire.
Project Building Blocks. Gene splicing. The germ
matter of a dozen individuals, listed by name, fused together in a series of
ground-breaking experiments by Doctor Greenburg. Accelerated development
and growth in an artificial womb.
And the worst part of all, was that the notes on his life
prior to 1943 were all there. With revision marks, addenda, suggestions,
name changes scribbled in the margins -- "Suggest older brother be named
Steve instead, as more common than Leroy. Have him killed at Pearl, rather
than on Leyte." All in damnable detail.
Even now, he could remember his older brother Steve,
enlisting in the Navy, writing back to them from where his ship, the Arizona,
was stationed at Pearl Harbor. He could remember listening to the radio
broadcast from their little apartment in New York, could remember his mother's
crying, his father's tears.
All lies.
There was something in Victor's eyes that made Donato want to
pull away -- if he'd been able to break that grip. Then, abruptly, Victor
let go, getting up, grabbing his helmet and putting it on, walking away.
Victor stopped at the door, turned and looked back at the young
hero. "I'm -- sorry. I've just been under a lot of pressure
lately, and --" Suddenly, the smile was back, that famous smile, the
one that had lit up the 1944 "Man of the Year" cover of Time
and was still as bright and cheerful and encouraging fifty-seven years
later. "-- and I've got some remedial training to catch up on.
I'll see you at lunch, Rococo. And -- thanks again for your help."
And he was gone.
Donato leaned back in his chair. "Madre de Dios,"
he murmured. For a moment, he considered whether he should try to call off
the whole Chicago/New York thing. But how could he do that without
explaining why. And trying to explain that Victor, the Symbol of America
and the paragon of all that it meant to be a hero, was cracking up -- well, at
best, nobody would believe him. And at worse -- everyone would.
"Madre de Dios." What the hell was he
going to do?
* * *
