“We’re falling back. We going to regroup.”
“Fall BACK!” Excelsior discovers that it hurts to yell with a broken rib. He was also learning that it hurts to breath, hurts to stand, hurts to twist — in fact, he was beginning to get the idea that everything hurts when you have a broken rib. Was this the way ordinary people felt all the time?
“Protocol. We’ve got to come up with a game plan.”
“But he just got lucky.”
“No he didn’t.”
“You didn’t even see what happened,” says Excelsior.
“Saw the whole thing on satellite. You got your tights-wearing ass handed to you.”
“I was careless.”
“Like that’s a surprise. Now listen to me son,” Excelsior hates it when Gus calls him son. They are almost the same age. He figures that Gus is upset because he’s grown older while Excelsior hasn’t. But Gus is always pissed, so how could he tell? Excelsior wonders if the only thing holding the old man together is anger.
“Son,” Gus repeats himself to make sure he has Excelsior’s attention, “We ain’t ever seen anything you couldn’t beat without really trying. Now I know you’ll get him. I know you will. You’ll beat his ass until it glows like a ring-tailed baboon.”
“Yeah I will.”
“But right now, we’ve got orders to pull back. Re-group and come up with a game plan. We keep making this thing angry and it’s just going to destroy more of the city. Hurt more people. You don’t want that, do you?”
Excelsior sulks. He says “No,” when what he means is, “I don’t care. I just want to get back into the fight.”
Gus is pleased to hear rage and frustration in Excelsior’s voice. Of course they’d known this day would come. But you can never know — really know — how a man will react to losing. In Gus’ mind it was combat. The guy you thought was the toughest hombre for miles would sometimes go to pieces after the first artillery shell. While the little guy you figured was only good for making coffee would come walking back from the battle with a leg full of shrapnel and spear full of scalps. Sure, Excelsior had lost, but it hadn’t taken the fight out of him. That was good.
They walk off together. Gus tries not to cough. Excelsior tries not to limp.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The Cromoglodon is Born
Deep within the brothel, the Cromoglodon is sleeping. His gigantic chest heaves up and down in a way that is out of proportion with the tiny snoring noises he is making. Next to him, a blond girl named Selene hugs herself in a sheet and weeps with relief.
She doesn’t know exactly how it can be, but the child-man sleeping next to her is responsible for the destruction outside. If he is angered, he could easily destroy this building and everyone in it. It isn’t the most comfortable of situations, but it isn’t exactly unfamiliar to Selene. All manner of powerful men come to the Evanston Street brothel. Men who could, with a word or a wave of a hand, also obliterate the building and everyone in it if they aren’t kept happy. You don’t need superpowers to do damage. But Selene knows many, many ways to make a man happy.
Selene has been with a lot of men. It has not always been pleasant, gentle or even consensual. But now she is lucky enough to work in a good establishment. The clientele is exclusive and the rates are high. A girl like Selene can do much worse. Most girls like Selene do.
Still, she has seen more than her share of hard times. And when they had been lined up for Barry to take his pick, she had prayed that one of the other girls would strike his fancy. In spite of her efforts to hide, or perhaps, because of them, Barry is drawn to her. Selene is of a definite type — light skin, hair so blond it is almost white and impossibly pale blue eyes. To some men she is irresistible. Barry is one of these men.
She sees no spark of intelligence or mercy in his face. In fact, from the way he looks, Selene can’t figure out why he’s not drooling. When he wrapped his awkward arms around her, she had feared the worse. But he had been gentle. Gentle, inexperienced and — most amazingly of all — tender. She would not have been surprised to learn that she had taken the man-child’s virginity.
As they moved beneath the sheets, in spite of the tenderness, she could feel his pain. There were oh so many ways to wrong the flesh. And Selene knew that each of these wrongs left a mark. The damaged always recognize one another. She would have known Barry’s pain even at the bottom of a dark ocean. When they joined the impossibly dense cords of muscle in his back writhed beneath her fingertips.
Hours later, the door to Selene’s room opens and clean light floods in. Selene gasps. Silhouetted in the doorway is a tall figure. Her pupils contract and adjust to the flood of light. Edwin enters the room.
Barry does not wake. Topper peeks out from behind Edwin’s knee and says, “You see? I told you! I knew it would work. It was beauty killed the beast!” Topper’s eyes linger on Selene. He loves women with that fresh from the bed look.
Selene looks away. She can remember being with him, even if Topper has forgotten. Some girls liked the little man. They thought he was cute or funny. But when Selene had touched him, she had felt anger crawling around underneath his skin. For weeks after she had nightmares of the anger breaking free and swarming into her body.
But Topper’s anger is nothing compared to the tall one. He isn’t hot with anger. He is cold. So very cold. Without really knowing why, she leans over and covers Barry with her arms. “Please don’t hurt him,” she says to Edwin, “He didn’t mean to do it.”
Edwin looks at her with surprise. As if noticing, for the first time, that someone else is in the room. “Mean to do it? I’m not sure he means to do anything in the conventional sense. As for hurting him, I wouldn’t know how. Not physically at least. And I’m sure I wouldn’t know why. His talents are far too valuable to me.” Selene doesn’t like the way Edwin speaks. In his words she hears reasons, reasons, reasons, but no emotion. She realizes, that if he can come up with a reason, he can do anything. There is no mercy in him. No warmth. Just cold.
Edwin turns and gestures to the people standing outside the room. They enter reluctantly. “Dress him.” Edwin commands.
“But, but, but...,” says the designer.
“We have a contract,” Edwin says, “a contract you do not wish to break.”
It takes three people to lift the Cromoglodon and slip a shirt of unique fabric over his head. The material is completely black and clings like Spandex. It looks like an ordinary athletic T-shirt, but it is much, much more. Next, come the pants, the same material, but loose, like warm-up pants. And finally, a tight skull cap with the letters CRO in heavy gothic letters across the front.
Selene had feared the worst when she had seen Edwin in the door way, but clothes? What is going on? She doesn’t understand at all.
“Now,” says Edwin, to a man holding a tablet computer, “turn it on.” The man taps the screen, Selene becomes scared again. She doesn’t like any of this. She wishes she could hide between the mattresses. Why doesn’t Barry wake up? Maybe that would make things worse.
Selene jumps when the garments make a high-pitched whine. “Can I go?” asks Selene.
“No,” says Edwin, not bothering to look at her. “We may need you.”
“Oh yes,” says Topper, “She is exceptionally talented.”
Barry’s shirt changes from black to white and back again. A flurry of images and logos tear across the fabric. A diagnostic runs on the pants and hat. The images sweep outward to glowing white and then condense into a white dot in the center of his chest. The white dot bounces around the limits of the fabric like a pixel ball in a game of pong.
“Is that all you came here for? Tuh, tuh, tuh to make him into a television?” Selene asks.
“Yes,” says Edwin. He turns and leaves the room.
