damn. Everybody has forgotten that life doesn’t play by the rules. Every once and a while the bitch just tries to kill you. And sometimes you have to stand on it. Disable the safety and run it until it’s red hot. No matter what the engineers say.
Maybe that was it. The world had gone to the engineers. Had to be it. When they first showed up they had slide rules. Now they had computers. Now nobody could take a crap without running it through a computer simulation. But for all their rules and their simulations and their levels upon levels of yes men, they still trotted old Gus out to deal with Excelsior. That’s ‘cause the Big Man trusted Gus. That’s ‘cause Gus could look in his eye and still see a scared little boy.
And right now, all these people — Hell, they have a name for themselves, Bureau of Meta-Human Affairs, or some such — All these college boy bastards scurry around not because they have something to do, but because they are afraid. If Excelsior wants, he can end all their lives. There’s not a damn thing their simulations can do about it.
It’s not something that’s ever mentioned, but the fear is there all the same. Sure, it is all praises and service and propaganda when Excelsior shows up. But at the same time, everybody’s bowels loosen a little bit. Gus laughs a little at this facade. The laugh becomes a cough.
“You shouldn’t smoke,” says one of the faceless drones or clones or whatever the hell they passed off as men these days. Gus looks right at it and he realizes that it’s the head drone. A piggish little man, everyone calls Director Smiles. In defiance, Gus hooks another cigarette in the corner of his ragged mouth.
“You got a light?”
“No, it’s a filthy habit,” Director Smiles says dismissively, “Now, let’s talk about what we need from the asset.”
“The asset?”
“Bishop Six.”
“He has a name.”
“Ah, Excelsior. We gave him that name. So we can give him another. And he is the most replaceable of us all.”
Gus snorts. “Then why won’t you bastards just let me go home.” Gus is getting riled. It’s good. Make him feel, not young, but less old.
“Duty,” says the Director in a way that Gus finds especially maddening, “You must do your duty. And as for Bishop Six, of course he has certain powers, that is a fact. But without all of this,” his gesture encompasses the field team rushing around them, “it would be to no avail. He cannot be in two places at once. The disasters he so loves to avert happen so fast, that by the time he learns of them, the tragedies would be complete. He cannot reverse time.”
“Sounds like a load of bullshit to me. There ain’t nobody like him.”
“Tensor, the Flamer, Cirrus – any of these could serve as our field operatives.”
“They’re weaker than he is.”
“As Bishop Six is weaker than we are. How can one man contend with the compact mass of humanity? Thousands of operatives connected by the speed of light through broadband communications networks,” he unclips some foul gadget from his belt and holds it up with pride. “Surely, Bishop Six can capture any one man. But which man? With this, I can take a picture and transmit it to the far side of the globe. Only then can our flying delivery boy capture the criminal and deliver him to our justice. Not his justice. Ours. The justice of ordinary, mediocre people.”
Gus is tired of listening to this soft-handed man’s talk. “Yeah, whatever.”
Director Smiles flips open a binder. “Now, we’ll just take a moment to go over the details one more time.”
“He’s not a details kind of guy.”
“All the more reason for you to memorize the procedure—”
“Haw, haw, haw,” Gus cuts him off. “Even if my memory was good enough to remember all that shit, I wouldn’t do it. If you think it’s so goddamned important, you talk to him about it.”
“But you must. He listens to you.”
“Probably because I don’t waste his time with this bullshit,” Gus says, blowing smoke in the fat little man’s face.
“I am going to note your attitude in my report.”
“You shouldn’t threaten me like that. I’m an old man and I’m not sure that my heart can handle the strain. But you go ahead and tell him anything you like.”
“Me, oh, I could never. I mean, that’s your job,” Smiles said, flattening out his chins against his neck as he shook his head in a vigorous No.
“Well, I’m not going to be around forever. Whattya scared or something?”
“Scared? Of Bishop Six? Don’t be ridiculous.”
Gus levers himself up off the car and advances on the small man. “Yeah, damn right you’re scared. You’re so used to snapping at people to get what you want, you forgot how to talk to them. Only you can’t bully the strongest man in the world. Especially ‘cause you’re afraid of him.”
“I am not. I am a rational man, and I understand that there are risks, of course, but I…”
“Bullshit. Back about a thousand years ago, I got to see a Hydrogen bomb. The boys called it ‘Shrimp.’ This bomb was being staged to the South Pacific and by coincidence Shrimp and I happened to be on the same base, at the same time. So the guy in charge of it asks me if I want to have a look. ‘Sure,’ I say, not wanting to look scared. They had it all alone in a hangar. And it didn’t look all that threatening. All alone in a big, cold hanger. Just another piece of technology.
“Like your phone right there. But bigger, maybe like this trailer. There was no hum. There was no smell. There weren’t even any lights. But I was scared anyway. ‘Cause I thought that I knew what it could do.”
“Yes, of course –” says Director Smiles, impatient with the story already.
“But after they set it off, that’s when I really got scared. You see all those guys in lab coats – all those guys with their binders and their big brains. They didn’t know what it would do. Not for certain. Some said it might light the atmosphere on fire. And when they set it off, it was three times more powerful than they had calculated. I mean, when you say that a tree is going to grow a hundred apples and it grows a 103, well, that’s a mistake. You’re just a little off. But when it grows 300? Well sir, that means you don’t know shit about apple trees. And when the smartest guys don’t know shit? That scares me.
“After that they stopped making bombs bigger. They were afraid they might crack the planet’s crust. And even as I think back on it, it makes my palms sweat.”
“But it didn’t destroy the planet,” says Director Smiles, thinking that he has a point.
“Scares me all the same. And Excelsior, The Big Guy, Bishop Six, the asset, whatever you want to call him. I know he can crack the planet. And so do you. So I know you’re scared.”
“But you’re scared as well.”
“Hell, son,” says Gus, “I know I’m done. All I’m afraid of now are arthritis, constipation and not dying with my boots on.”
“Your story is very colorful. But I assure you, as a rational man, doing his duty, I am not afraid.”
A young man leans out of the telemetry trailer and yells, “Bishop Six 500 meters.”
The director throws his binder at Gus and scurries off like a mouse. As he flees he yells, “Just see that he gets it done.”
Gus tucks a fresh cigarette into his mouth and squints at the sky. High above him a bird moves through the air. No, not a bird. It’s hard to get used to it. Even after all these years, Gus still can’t make sense of it. Up in the sky, a man. Re-damn-diculous.
Excelsior settles to earth next to him.
“You look old, sir,” says Excelsior.
“That’s got nothing on how I feel,” Gus replies.
There is the tiniest flash of light from Excelsior’s eyes. Now Gus’ cigarette is lit. Gus doesn’t jump, at least he doesn’t think he jumps. A man’s not supposed to be able to light things with his eyes. He just isn’t.
“What is it this time?” asks Excelsior.
Gus takes a long drag and exhales the word. “Hurricane.”
