Part X: Rocks and Shoals

To watch a war is to know there are people dying, and that you are a spectator. How does that work? You watch because you are not participating, and there are a number of reasons why that may be. The first and most obvious is that you are not physically capable. You may be missing vital limbs, for instance. Go ahead and read that as a joke, too, there’s no one stopping you. This is not a funny story, but there’s no reason to believe you can’t find humor in it. That would be one reason, anyway, a physical inability to participate, however that may be interpreted. Some come back from a war like this, and when the next war happens, they end up in this category. Then again, others won’t let that stop them. A hero known as Manner will make that evident as this conflict draws nearer to its conclusion.

Another reason why someone could become a spectator to someone else’s horror is that they have decided they don’t agree that it is worth fighting over. They see the war as a mistake, so they let bad things happen and gossip over it, reflect on how terrible a mistake the whole business was in the first place. This is okay, because that’s a part of human nature. It’s a direct reflection of how wars happen in the first place, how two sides can clash over issues they’re not willing to talk about, because things have gotten so bad they think they can’t, because they imagine a great divide only bloodshed can cross, only a patch of jagged earth painted crimson can overcome. We like to find reasons to not do things more than to try and accomplish what must be done, because there are always so many distractions, we choose what we want to focus on, and talk about the rest, because talk can be accomplished without much effort, unless it’s to a point where we don’t want to talk about it. Confused yet? There are observers in this Traverse War. One of them has already been mentioned, La Femme, who is familiar to Godsend, the Eidolon, and others as a colleague in the Latter-day Allies. She happens to be one who’s even more removed from the ordinary plane than Godsend because she has the element of being something of an embodiment, a representative as much as anything of a basic human template. She is a feminine ideal, not the only one, because there are many, but one that suggests the power women are capable of. She is also French, like Brother Jack.

In one of her distant places, she is watching the battlefield with a couple of friends, Bodhi and Samsarra, who also have chosen to not participate. “I told them it was a mistake. The whole world knows it was a mistake,” La Femme says. “Now they’ve gotten more of us to join their cause. Jack, my countryman, I understand. He has always allowed himself to be driven by his passion. The Staged Man, though, I was surprised about. I thought he had more wisdom.”

“I have always known him to possess that,” Bodhi says. He is Godsend’s only rival as the world’ most powerful champion. He is less aggressive, and thus less well-known, but for years he has been quietly going about his mission, which he regards as sacred. All corners of the globe know him, all peoples. He doesn’t prioritize among populated areas, and he rarely is found in battle, so his absence is no mystery. He is not here to judge, though he is prepared to offer his own thoughts. “They are better off now with him present than they were before. They will make fewer mistakes.”

“Mistakes are all they’ve been making,” La Femme says. “The tragedies are mounting, the abuses of power they allow alarming. We should put an end to this ourselves, bring our own judgment on them.”

“What would you have us do, Emmanuelle?” Samsarra says. She is Bodhi’s constant companion, La Femme’s counterpart to Godsend, whom they are all aware is chief on her mind. Where there is turmoil and strife between the latter, only harmony between the Indian flames. Still she is here to judge. Samsarra sees turmoil and strife in more places than one. She sees what motivates La Femme, and also what the source of this emotion is. The war is troubling, because its tax is indiscriminate. The city will burn, and because of the war, no one within it will escape the suffering to come. “We see that there are two sides. One we have ourselves fought against, the other we ourselves have fought alongside. They are wasting themselves against each other now, over a useless cause they have only exacerbated. They think they are fighting over a mere matter of control. They are fighting because they have become accustomed to fighting. That is the only reason, but it is not something they are aware of, those who are active in the war. What they see is a matter for which there is only one resolution: defeat of the enemy. How do you propose to alter this view for them?”

“Weaken their chances of victory,” La Femme says.

“They are doing that themselves,” Bodhi says.

“Then I fail to see what the problem is,” Samsarra says.

“They continue to fight,” La Femme says. “We are being irresponsible if we allow that to continue. You see what they’ve accomplished. Godsend and the Eidolon, who were supposed to be the strongest of them, have splintered. One is unaccounted for, the other has taken a reckless course that will bring about his own ruin, which will not only be disastrous for his own cause, but for all of us. We do not stand to profit from this. That is why we must act, make them see the error of their ways.”

“An act which is easier in thought than in action,” Samsarra says. “It astounds me that we are talking of this war as if it is a bad thing, even now. Who is attempting to defend control of this city other than a collection of the worst impulses mankind has to offer. Why are we, in turn, defending them? Shouldn’t we simply take our positions among the ranks of the invaders, whom we’ve trusted for years, with our own lives?”

“What troubles me is how easily we’ve demonized the defenders,” Bodhi says.

“They’re monsters,” La Femme says. “It’s not hard when they’re monsters.”

“Not all of them are,” Bodhi says. “There are those who wield power who may be counted among that number, but the majority of them, they aren’t, or they have been made so by ourselves. The story of Viper is well-known, and he was vindicated in his fear by the fate we have learned. The one of Barracuda, however, I believe would be equally enlightening, if not moreso. The Americans created this man, because they, too, were watching. What are we doing here but escalating the tragedy?”

“Spare me the bleeding heart synopsis,” La Femme says. “We do not dictate the sad courses of human life. We are here as observers, not puppeteers. Their mistakes are their own. Don’t give them anymore power than they’ve already assumed for themselves, in their hubris. This war is a direct result of their own morbid fascination with their exaggerated senses of self-importance. Godsend is our primary case, but he is not the only one. What did the Eidolon accomplish, in his spiral of self-destruction, than the unraveling of everything he had sought to accomplish? This is his city, we shouldn’t forget, the troubles there things he was most familiar with. A war has broken loose there, in one sense, because he allowed it to happen. For ten years, where was he? Where was this champion, this instigator? There were problems there before him, and there were problems after him. He returned recently and now has accomplished the defeat of his hated foe Viper, in league with Godsend. We know already what this means. We know that there are others more powerful yet. We know that the mayor of this city is the greater threat, because he is in plain sight.”

“You speak of Malcolm Bidd, the pacifist,” Samsarra says. “He has never done anything to provoke them. He does more in detriment of the cause you ascribe to him than to aid it, because if he is their great champion, then Traverse is already lost, gained again, however the outcome may be interpreted.”

“The fool of your analysis,” La Femme says. “He is the devil who convinced the world he doesn’t exist. Don’t you see? He is the most dangerous man there. He has declared martial law. Is that the decision of pacifism? It’s the act of tyranny. We all know what it means. If we don’t end this now, the tragedy reaches its zenith, without a conclusion to benefit anyone.”

“Then how do we do that?” Samsarra says.

“We bring judgment to the invaders,” La Femme says. “They have taken the role themselves. We are called to reclaim it. They were wrong. The city was corrupted in a pressure tube, and a war resulted. Take away the offending element and you relieve the pressure, undo the damage. You don’t see Bidd as a threat, and you don’t understand why. Because he is capable of order, and he has demonstrated that in the only way this war would understand, by introducing chaos. Do you see? He has the power to dictate the course of the war. He wields true power. Now that he has revealed this, why would we need to wait longer to put an end to this? War is not something we condone. War is something we are meant to prevent. And yet here is a war certain among us have actually participated in, taken sides in, fought in. We allowed it to happen; why let it continue?”

“You spoke of wisdom earlier,” Bodhi says. “Let me tell you what I know of it: Wisdom is something you earn. It is something gained from experience. It is not knowledge, it isn’t common sense. It is a thing that elevates human thought above petty concerns and conflicts, separates man from his baser instincts, which he is ever trying to overcome. Wisdom is a tool, but it is not something easily applied. We see a thing, see it for what it is, but what do we do about it? Wisdom is the course through which we discover our destination, not the means in which we achieve it. Wisdom is seeing a mistake, not the correction of it, because it is not a solution, but the presentation of a problem. Wisdom is human nature, the awareness of it. It is more common than we believe, but seldom recognized. It is more often ridiculed, because it is not present in the popular consciousness, which sees only the questions of life, because it is only concerned with answers. Wisdom is the question, not the answer; wisdom forms the question and does not expect to find the answer, a problem that knows no solution.

“Who is wise, you ask? More often than not, the outcast, because he has the value of perspective. Why is there a war raging in this moment? There is always war. War is constant. This war is confined to a single city. It has a singular goal in mind, and has never in ten years strayed from that thought. It is a surgical knife. It is an element of fate. Those participating in it have no perspective. They see only the final goal, because that is all they’re capable of. Why do we watch? Because it is not our arena.”

“You wouldn’t fight even if it were right in front of us,” La Femme says. “You don’t fight because the fight is never picked with you.”

“I wonder if there is a reason for that,” Samsarra says.

“I don’t fight because this war is wrong,” La Femme says. “It doesn’t involve me, and it shouldn’t, because it should never have happened. You want to talk about wisdom, like you understand it, like it even matters? This is my wisdom: Instead of recruiting more fighters, instead of bringing in Brother Jack, my countryman, and the Staged Man, they should have started sending their fighters away. Bidd is creating order there? So much for it! Let him! Whatever they were seeking to accomplish there, it was never necessary, and it becomes less and less so every day. And yet they persist. Do you call that wisdom? I call it foolishness, as I have since the beginning. They have followed Godsend into war, Godsend who is the champion of justice. Where is the justice here? I can find none. He himself hasn’t championed it there. The trail of the dead is proof enough. He is faultless? Let me be the first to witness. I have known him for many years. I have fought beside him, too. I have been his dearest ally. Yet I will not stand by as this carnage continues, and I will not aid him, or his enemy. The Eidolon? His removal from that scene will hopefully be of some permanence now. He has done no one there any good, but rather festered in that city. He stumbled, and because he stumbled, because he was a fool, as we have all said, time and time again, this war was brought to Traverse. I do not pity them. I find myself sympathizing more with the dead.”

“Your angry words have never served you,” Samsarra says. “We are meant to stand in judgment? Who are we to wield such power? I for one reject it. We observe. For what purpose? Do we offer our services, do we aid weary warriors, or do we tell them that they are wrong? I wish there were answers to these questions. Bodhi, forgive me.”

“That is unnecessary, Sarra,” Bodhi says. “Emmanuelle, calm yourself. We are witness to a war. That is not reason enough to become warlike. Let us devote our minds to other matters, I say. There are better uses of our time.”

This council ends with those words. There are others who talk like this, still others who write, or make speeches, or debates. Some even make jokes, yes. The world is continuing as it always does. Some are entirely ignorant of these events, either because they have their own problems, or they have their own concerns, or because their way of life is so drastically removed from this that they could know or understand any of this. And yet they are not so different as others may think. There are also those who are aware, and choose not to care. There is a war? They have their own lives to worry about. There is a war in Traverse, in Alabama, in America? They are far removed. How does it affect them? Why should they be concerned? It affects them and it doesn’t. They should be concerned and they shouldn’t. This war is one of many, one of a constant, countless, endless stream of them. The lives lost here are among many lives lost, through war, through inhumanity, through the natural processes of life. Is there a joke in all this? I’m sure you could find one.

Part IX: Year of Hell

How long can someone sulk for? The unquestioned, unrivalled champion Godsend can sulk for a year. He’s done it before, and he means to do it again. This whole business with the Eidolon has gotten to him, how he questioned Godsend’s choice to terminate Viper. It’s the reason he called in Brother Jack and the Staged Man. They come and then they talk about how the Eidolon is his rival, that he means as much to this campaign as Godsend himself? Has that been what he’s been proving all this time, that he’s nothing more than someone else’s equal? He has never known his origins and he’s never known a weakness. And yet, he has been felled by his pride.

Godsend has retreated to his bunker, the one he set up when he and the other heroes arrived, the grand forces he marshaled to eradicate the threat of this city. From Agog, his young stead, to Proposition, the Woman of the Mind, they all came because he asked them to, not because they trusted him, not because there was so much trouble, not because of the Eidolon. One by one, they’ve fallen, too, scores of them. Proposition dueled Loco, and while she won then, the bout left her drained, ready for the clutches of Viper, one more victim, one more opportunity. There was also Midshipman, who traveled the city as one would the ocean, who was sunk by the Piercer. This loss had been great for the old warrior Dust, but Godsend had stopped caring about that man long ago. He only ever had contempt for him, and duties. Godsend shines alone. For the twins Park and Field, who were masters of the earth, they fell together, victims of Barren Blood. For the brothers Royale and Splendor, the same fate, between the jaws of the Barracuda. Godsend exacts revenge for all. Despite his distaste for Dust, he punishes Piercer. Regardless of Blood’s invulnerability, Godsend triumphs. His reward is contempt. Nothing, it seems, is good enough.

Others will carry on this fight now, others will toil in the war. He is mindless now of the casualties, mindless of whether the advantage falls to his side or the other. He is mindless of his friends, mindless of his foes. He is mindless. This power of his has always come at a price, not just the price of losing those he comes to love, but for himself as well. There is always a distance between himself and those he has sworn to protect. He cannot truly live among those he champions. The Eidolon, when he lost his faith, he unknowingly confirmed this belief in Godsend, even as Godsend was planning a mortal future for the first time in his life. He had been here for decades before the tower, and had never known, even before he became known, a life approximating what he saw around him. He was always isolated, isolated from himself, isolated from others, and isolated from a future. What did he have, but a selfless devotion to mankind? Nothing. He was to give his life to the world, and receive nothing in return. The Eidolon spoke of a mounting toll, but this mortal didn’t know what there was to lose, because he actually had something. Godsend never had a thing. Godsend only ever had himself.

He had the earth, which, in the way he grew to understand had once been a form of worship widespread among the earth’s population. He imagined such a relationship, grew to embrace his mother, and his father, too, immortals both of them. His wife had bore him a son, and that son had been sent off before the war. He was ten years old now. Godsend had never seen him. He wondered if he was his father’s son, if this legacy, whatever it was, would be passed down. This was the reason he had taken Agog under his wing. As a mentor, Godsend had much to impart. As a man, he had nothing, and that was what Agog himself had to offer.

As he had never felt with the Eidolon, as a part of that Tandem, Godsend felt a kinship with Agog, who now decides to retreat along with him. There is much still to achieve, a goal Godsend himself has set for himself, but that is some time off. Perhaps someone else will accomplish it for him in the meantime, someone else will slay Malcolm Bidd. He cannot define his relationship with Agog. It is something he never had even with his wife. He would move heaven and earth, and not merely slay Viper, for Agog. But there is no danger there now. Now both of them retreat behind the lines. It is the Eidolon who has caused this, the Eidolon who has angered Godsend into this retreat. They believe this man, this mortal, was worth rallying behind. So let them. See what it will get them. They all came for a war, even though there are other matters elsewhere, even at home, that would offer equal interest. Godsend could direct his attention to these places. He doesn’t. He prefers to remain here, to stay here and sulk.

He has done this before, and before, again, it was because of the Eidolon, who was once his closest ally. In another war, they could not seem to defeat Rancor, the same Rancor whose death had created this war. Again and again they fought him, thwarted him even, but never definitely. This was, as they assumed, what heroes did. They fought villains they’d seen before because each were equal matches for the other. The public cheered at every encounter, because the more familiar, the easier to appreciate. It didn’t matter that what it really meant was continual failure. Godsend only appreciated these moments when Rancor actually presented a new challenge. That was what Viper had once been, not simply a meddler, a mastermind, but a challenge, a new device for Rancor to handle, to deliver unto the Tandem. He attacked the Eidolon first, of course, managing to subdue him so that he would be bait for another villain, called Talisman, the Jailer. If Godsend was ever going to have a weakness, it was against this man, who had the key to a prison that would lock them both up for eternity. There would be no escaping.

For the first time, Godsend felt resentment toward his friend. He had never felt fear before, yet this Talisman provoked great fear in him. He didn’t know if he could avoid the fate set before him, because he had never heard anyone triumph over the Jailer. They had all of them been ensnared within his medallion, trapped forever in the prison of the damned. If the Eidolon could have defeated Viper in the first place, and how hard could that have been? This would never have presented itself. He didn’t sink away, however, not yet. He came, pushed aside Viper, ignoring whatever insignificant threat he might have been, and took on Talisman, while the Eidolon lay prone before them. To eliminate Godsend had been the plan all along. The Eidolon was nothing. When he finally came to, Godsend had wrested control of the medallion from Talisman, who himself had been a formidable challenge. All the time Godsend had feared that item, and now he would destroy it, and thus end its threat forever. It was the Eidolon who stopped him.

“You will be condemning the lives of every one of his previous victims,” he said. “Do you really want that blood on your hands? You’ve defeated Talisman. That was the easy part. Now do the right thing, and allow those souls a chance.”

Godsend couldn’t believe it when he heard it. The audacity of the man. “We know that there is no escape. He’s said so himself.”

“That’s what he knows,” the Eidolon said. “But who’s to say he knows everything? My own history of that medallion goes back centuries. Do you want to know how old our friend is? He should have a birth certificate that you could easily produce in court, without raising any suspicions. He is an expert in its use, but Talisman is not an expert in the medallion. I’ve heard him say so himself. You can even ask Viper. Why do you think I risked any of this in the first place, Godsend? I came for answers, not for these men.”

“You risked your life on what, a hunch?” Godsend said.

“I risked nothing,” the Eidolon said. “I already knew more than both of them combined. This was a confirmation. Do you know what their brilliant plan was going to be, after defeating us? They were simply going to give the medallion to Rancor, as a trophy. A trophy, Godsend. Rancor knows even less about this thing than you do. You want to call this a risk? Go right ahead.”

Godsend indeed called it a risk, an unnecessary gamble on his ally’s part, and put an end to their adventuring for a year, the first time a crack appeared in the Tandem, which would eventually fracture completely. It would be the Eidolon who would seek to mend it, even though he wouldn’t admit it, even in the moments before his final disappearance. It was Godsend who knew this time, what Barracuda had been planning. He stood by and did nothing. Why should he? The alliance was shattered. The Eidolon was holding on to what? To hope? There was no hope anymore. Godsend stepped away, not just from the Tandem, but from all the problems of this planet. He went into deep space then, perhaps in search of his origins.

When he returned, he found Ulysses Kincaid at the height of his powers, having convinced the world that Godsend had abandoned it. When they finally confronted each other again, Kincaid threatened everything Godsend had stood for in his time as champion, having remade so much of it in his, Kincaid’s, own image. In many ways, it was that year, more than any other, that had helped to create this war, since Kincaid secretly funded every operation that had rippled together to create this catastrophe. The murder of Rancor? Viper, a man of meager funds himself, had help from Kincaid, who could afford to lose a rival. Malcolm Bidd’s chief financial backer during his early campaigns? Kincaid, who would have run for president if he’d thought it wouldn’t compromise his lifestyle. He could have won, but he knew too many scandals would follow him. And yet, after that year, after that confrontation, Kincaid, too, slipped away.

Godsend always put so much responsibility on himself. In time, he began to wonder if, as the hero the public most admired, he had a responsibility greater than all the others, a responsibility that asked him to do things others wouldn’t do. He began to wonder if he shouldn’t merely deter threats rather than end them. To end them would be to end the loop that caused needless destruction and hardship, which the same foes caused in the same fights time and time again. Why allow that to happen? Didn’t he have the calling to put an end to those threats? He didn’t let this be known to anyone else. Just as he kept a secret from his own wife, when he attempted to lead a mortal existence, he kept this to himself, this suspicion. He had noticed it before, in the back of his mind, but he had always assumed that a noble champion wouldn’t do such things. Even though it was what, in times past, had been expected. There was no mercy in allowing threats to exist then.

A troubled Godsend broods on these thoughts, these memories, trophies of his victories all around him: Viper’s armor, Piercer’s golden staff, among others. He considers what his absence from the battlefield means again, and then turns the thought away, disgusted. Does he believe that the Eidolon has really been defeated? How should he know? It is probably another of his elaborate plans, more elaborate than the mind of the Staged Man would imagine, nothing more. This disgusts Godsend, too, that he could ever have trusted the Eidolon, much less called him an ally, a friend, even. This was a weakness he is glad to have shaken loose. It will only make him stronger. He has already done his part here, he will already be remembered as the greatest champion of this war, and not just of this generation. They will miss what he has done for them, but they have brought this on themselves. The Eidolon, however, he is done with him, at last. He should have severed those ties a long time ago.

***

Time slows in a vacuum. You can no longer perceive it, locked away from all indications of its motion, its constant motion. That is something, among many things, that Cotton Colinaude, the Eidolon, becomes more aware of as he knows time passes, sealed away in the locker, below the mighty waters of the Palomar. There can be only so much air left, and yet he knows a significant amount of time must have passed by now. How have things led to this, really led to it, he wonders, not just in the sense that he allowed Clayton Neville to set this trap. He has allowed himself to fall into traps before, always with a purpose in mind. He feels there was a purpose this time, too, but he can no longer remember it. Why did he allow himself to fall?

In the moments after his last conversation with Godsend, Cotton was more vulnerable than he had ever been. He had been defeated, truly defeated, by Viper, as he had never been before. Not even at the revealing of the betrayal had Cotton felt himself defeated by this man. Physically, emotionally, Cotton had been defeated. It was Viper’s last plan, for whatever new calculation, to be murdered by Godsend, that Cotton becomes more and more sure of as time, in its way, passes. It was Viper’s plan, and Cotton couldn’t prevent it from happening. He had never let that happen before. Other people called this a war, but what Cotton held it as was a continuing strain, one that had begun long before the death of the Cad, the death of Rancor, or even the death of William Tekamthi. No, it wasn’t a war, it was a strain, one that stretched out long before any of this, before the Eidolon, before the Blue Beacon, before Sidewinder, before everyone, before everything.

In his dying moments, as he now considers them, Cotton has finally embraced the realist philosophy so many have tried to convince him of, a philosophy that influenced him in so many ways he never understood. He became the Eidolon because he thought he could do some good, and when he thought he could no longer do that, when he came to believe that he was doing more harm than good, he gave up the Eidolon, and only took him up twice more. These moments are among the last.

Neville had set his trap on the subway. This was a man who’d found out everything, much as Viper had done. Cotton is at peace with this, too, because he has discovered that secrets are not things to be exposed, but to be shared. They aren’t hidden because they need to be, but because someone wants them to be, and because it is this way, they can’t hurt those who don’t willingly admit them. Viper had no power over Cotton even after revealing who Peter Cooley really was, because it was Cotton who then possessed it. Viper had given away his greatest asset. For what? On the subway, Cotton was given as bait Viper’s files, which he was meant to find value in because, in Neville’s mind, these would be the key to unraveling everything Viper had set in motion. In a way, Cotton did walk into this trap, but only because he was intrigued. He wanted to know where Neville was going with this. He didn’t need the information, because he already had it. Much of Viper’s notes indicated the Palomar, which was apparently an exit strategy in case anything went wrong, as being of great importance. Few considered it remarkable, why not take advantage of it? That was the reasoning behind this whole conflict. Cotton realizes that. He is no longer angry about it. This isn’t a war because it is only an effort to defeat one man. In one sense, that has already been accomplished. Despite himself, despite what he wishes would have happened, Cotton understands that. Viper has finally been defeated. Godsend was right about that. But his death wasn’t the end. By the shores of the Palomar, Cotton discovered a boat, which Viper seemed to have lived out of in the last few years. This was the trap. A failsafe, put in place not by Neville but by Viper himself, ensnared Cotton, locking him away, releasing him from the boat, yes, but down into the muddy bed of the river.

This failsafe had been in Viper’s notes. Cotton had remarked on it particularly, even. He fell into the trap, because he didn’t see it coming. Some of Cotton’s thoughts return to the subway. He stayed there for a while, riding it with no destination in mind, in memory of a friend. Its constant motion, its restlessness, comforted him in those moments. He doesn’t have that now. The locker doesn’t allow him to feel the Palomar around him. All he can feel are the walls around him, and his own body, in his costume, within the walls. He can feel his breathing, too. This alone brings him back to the subway car. He allows it to center him when he begins to panic, because he does that, every now and again, in this quiet moments that seem to have no end. He doesn’t know what dying feels like, he can’t even imagine it. He doesn’t know how near he is to it, to his own end. He remembers a coin he once took for himself, sewed into this costume. It’s here, somewhere. He couldn’t remember, after retrieving it the day he came out of his psychosis, where he’d sewn it, but he could remember the act. He still remembers it. The woman who made the physical appearance of the Eidolon, the woman so closely connected to a family he long ago left behind, he tries to imagine her creating this costume now, how she sewed it herself. Would she remember every stitch? If she had put that coin in here, would she know where to look.

It’s ridiculous, really, not knowing where that coin is. He should be able to feel it, for no other reason than the connection he knows he has to it, the meaning that emblazoned itself into his memory. He chastised Godsend for his action. No one chastised him. Maybe the coin fell out somehow, maybe he did not do as good a job as he thought. Maybe it’s still in the grave, the grave he made for the boy, so long ago. Cotton has already sworn to himself that he’s finally made his piece. The longer he remains like this, the more time he has to think. That has never been kind to him, time. He doesn’t know what it looks like. He doesn’t know how long this war, if indeed it is one as they all say, has been raging, how long he’s been in here, how long he has been the Eidolon. He doesn’t even know how old he is. He stopped paying attention to that long ago. He had to dedicate himself. What business did he have with birthdays? To be selfless is to give of the self. He has made many sacrifices, and each of them has cost him. He had needed Godsend because Godsend could give him what no one else could: vindication. Why could Godsend not understand that? Why did Cotton himself throw that away?

Peace was the reason Cotton gave up on the Eidolon, why he never resumed the life he had assumed for himself. He wanted peace of mind. His experience as Balthazar Romero, taking on a fictional life, was enough to scare him. He didn’t need the peace Dust, Tekamthi, Hopper, anyone, preached at him. He needed peace with himself. He understood what each of them had been trying to tell him. He also understood what each of them, in their own way, represented, the very life he took on from that moment. Each of them had withdrawn into a passive existence. They wanted him to find his peace, and they thought it meant it would mean something different for him than it had for them. Well, they had been wrong. And they had been right. He was supposed to have learned from them, not emulate. He hadn’t learned from his mentor, Elijah Humbert, the Sidewinder, either. He hadn’t learned from Switchblade, the suicidal maniac who, in the end, sacrificed himself.

Is that what Cotton is doing now? How can he know? Should he? Will his death, if that is what it should be, affect the course of this conflict for the better? He wants to let go of the notions that he alone can save the day. That was always his problem, even when he was told, as a young boy, that this is what he had really done. He hadn’t believed it, because he couldn’t remember. Cotton, a hero? That could never be. How could he have done it? Cotton is powerless. Cotton has always been powerless, and he will die powerless. Is this not, in the end, the only truth?

Or is simply the only thing he will accept? He is left alone, once again, in these timeless moments, when the world has ceased, has silenced itself. Has he made a difference, and if he has, was it for the better? That is what he would like to, more than anything, know, in these moments he believes are his last. He has always wanted to know, that’s the reason he became the Eidolon in the first place. He learned of others, and so he wanted to know if he, too, would be known. He decided the means, but he couldn’t decide the way. That was, in the end, his greatest struggle, because it haunted his every thought, his every action, until he let it, finally, overtake him. To defeat it again, he retreated. To where? Ultimately, to here, to this locker beneath the Palomar.

He wishes, once more, that he could look about him, to see this figure that he’s become. He wants to study it, maybe see it from someone else’s eyes, or perhaps his own, for the first time. Who is the Eidolon? What worth has he had in his time on this world? There is no light here, only darkness. For so long, he craved the darkness because it allowed him to carry on with his duties unimpeded, unrecognized and unfazed. He existed in his own mind, in the darkness he created for himself, too. Why was it s comforting then? And why can’t he find that now? He listens to his own heartbeat, its rhythms that are so constant. He listens to his breathing, feels his chest rise and fall, rise and fall. He feels the walls around him, feels the cape, between the gloves he has still not removed. He is preserving himself.

There is a world out there, a war, as they call it, raging, and yet Cotton is no longer a part of it. Has he tried to escape? Of course he has. But even if he does, there are greater obstacles still. There is the Palomar, and all the waits beyond it. Is he afraid? Not for the first time…

Part VIII: Scorpion

When Brother Jack received his summons, he came almost immediately. In this case, “came almost immediately” means that there were significant events that prevented him from departing right away. First and foremost of them was Jack’s encounter with a mysterious girl, wrapped in a scarlet cloak. All he could see were enchanting, fierce eyes, which he immediately recognized, but he didn’t know from where.

The other chief reason was that he was in the middle of a revolution of his own. This woman seemed come to aid him in a struggle of insurgents who claimed they were being oppressed. Calling themselves the Merry Brites, they had been threatening for some time to bring their own form of chaos to Jack’s country. Jack had been assigned guardian duty, as it were. When word reached his ear, he was to alert the population of whatever town he happened to have found himself in. For months, Jack had been a step or three, at best, ahead of the Merry Brites, always surrounded by pilgrims keeping watch with him in his holy mission. This woman was the latest of these, and he decided to call her, since she wouldn’t give him her own name, Sister Rose. It was she who awoke him, so he could once more sound the alarm, and prepare another community.

The Merry Brites were harmless, really, other than their opinion that they were representing a greater cause, that they were only making the world aware of an injustice done to them, and in turn, others like them. They were a minority, and didn’t feel like they should be ignored, or mistreated because of it. They could each of them be known for the distinctive gloves they wore, each missing index fingers, which they had been forbidden by the government, their children in school told to leave them at home. It was something they would not put up with, and yet it fell to Brother Jack to fall in against them, whatever their cause. He was not to allow anarchy to befall the country, and so he would have to be there each time the Merry Brites came to town to spread their message further. He had never engaged in a single scuffle with them in the three years he’d been at this, and yet, it continued. Each year, the public seemed less interested. The Merry Brites happened to have connections to other activities around the globe. In Traverse, Alabama, their sects were waging a war, championed by Viper, until his death, on whose authority they’d come to after Rancor’s own death. Brother Jack had vested interests, too, but chose to remain in his own country, with his own concerns, until he received his summons, because he was eager to leave this fight to others. He saw what was happening there, and he didn’t want a part in it.

It was Dust who came to Jack, offering an impassioned plea. At this time, Jack had not yet heard of Dust’s own misfortune in the war, but he was impressed enough at this old warrior to be on his way. Others would carry on his mission in his own country; Sister Rose would come with him, too.

So Brother Jack set out to join the conflict, take sides with old allies, and see what he could do. Dust was no mere ally, but a blood relation, a descendent from brothers gone exploring centuries ago. This was a motivation, too. In a way, Brother Jack went to another home. He brought his peculiar powers with him. Like Dust’s son, Brother Jack has the ability to produce nightmares in his victims, only it isn’t something he has to concentrate on, but produce automatically. He lulls them to sleep for a moment, but the dreams that come stay long after they wake again, and they are nightmares because they are the victim’s worst acts repeated for them over and over again. Were they able to break the loop, as some have done, they are never the same again. They will repent immediately, and lead the life they would have had those moments never happened in the first place. Most, however, go mad. With such a power, Jack seeks to use it sparingly. It’s the reason why he agreed to take on the Merry Brites mission in the first place, the reason he finds Sister Rose to intoxicating. She represents a chance for Jack himself to start over. He can’t even explain why, but he can see it in those eyes, the eyes that bewitch him even when he doesn’t see them. He can’t escape this woman, even though she has promised to leave him soon. She has been with him, in her own way, for over a year now. She is not always at his side, and he doesn’t know what she does when she isn’t. She’s said she has another allegiance, another fate to follow, but that doesn’t matter to Jack. She has even followed him here to this new phase in his life, this war. Did she have to? It was only when they arrived that he found out she would be leaving him, and he became desperate, almost, to retain her. He believes that he needs her. He also knows that he probably will never see her again, before long. He doesn’t know what to do with all the time in between.

“Rose,” he says, when they happen to cross paths again. In this new place, they hardly see each other any more. He has been taking on new missions, and they are always taking away from his time with her. “You must have heard about Texas.”

“I can’t believe what’s going on there,” Rose says. “Can you believe they got back together, after everything that happened?”

“I didn’t think they could,” Jack says. He wants to say so much more, but he can’t bring himself to, and he knows what this costs him. “Texas almost makes this place look dull, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Rose says. He wishes he knew her real name. “So anyway, I was thinking, wouldn’t it be great to have a problem like that, to have all that happen and still be able to reconnect like that? I just think it’s so romantic.”

There are a million things he wants to say right now. He settles for, “Definitely. Then there’s what’s-his-name, the one who had to save that girl in the elevator. It was his first time and everything.”

“I don’t remember him,” Rose says.

“Really?” Jack wishes he could remember the guy’s name. Rose knows this stuff so much better than him, but she can’t remember this one person. Maybe she doesn’t know him from the same circumstances he does? Maybe she missed that? Anyway, he has to go. There are other matters at hand, too, always different directions to pull them in. He gives a nod, but she happens to have turned away. She doesn’t see it, but he’s already gone when she turns to him again.

There are always other things to concentrate on, that’s not a problem, but Jack is always returning to the thought of her. Is any of it real, or is it all a figment of his imagination? Does he press the issue, is it worth it? Has he simply misunderstood everything? But there are always other matters. The Staged Man, who entered this fray at about the same time, has just informed him that there’s a major new menace, who’s putting a lot of fire under the cause of the opposition. There’s a war going on. Isn’t that enough for Jack to worry about? Dividing his attention is not exactly going to help his cause, now is it? So apparently Boy Benjamin, the charming name for the head heavy in this city, has a new champion, who could very well turn the tide in these dicey waters. Keep your head in the game, Jack tells himself. Forget about her for a moment. You don’t even know her. She doesn’t know you. After all this time? If there were anything, there’d already be more between you than stories from some far off land, which might as well not even be real for all the impact it has on your own lives.

What Staged Man can tell Jack about this new warrior isn’t much. She’s just arrived and she fights like an Amazon, and her greatest weapon is surprise. Her victims never see her coming. Her name is, apparently, Gonzalez Inarittu.

Brother Jack actually volunteers to take her on, even though he knows other may be more capable of taking her down, such as Godsend, but he’s been occupied in other matters. Word is he hasn’t even been fighting since the incident with the Eidolon, since Jack and Staged Man, in fact, arrived. He takes on this challenge both because he wants to, and because he seemingly doesn’t have another choice. His first glimpse of her is from the back, but even in this, he knows instantly. His Rose is Inarittu. He wants to ask her why, but can’t bring himself to that, either. He can see it in her eyes, anyway. This moment was the reason she sought him out in the first place. It was never about the Merry Brites, never about the pilgrimage. “I came to kill you,” she finally says. “And isn’t it obvious? Hasn’t it always been? That was all I was meant to do, Jack. I am a killer, I am a scorpion. Can you feel my sting?”

“Rose…” he says, even as he prepares his powers. He puts her to sleep, and brings on the nightmare, which he doesn’t know. He never knows, and he’s never wanted to know before, never wanted to know worse. How could this happen? What did he do to deserve this? He can feel her sting even now. They’ve gotten each other, they’ve finally communicated, in this final moment. Will either ever be the same again? He can tell it isn’t fatal, and he can tell his powers won’t work on her as they have worked on others in the past, but he knows everything will change now. Everything will have been lost, gone, gone, gone. Now all they can do is wait for the world to change. Has it ever been this horrible? He can’t imagine it, no, not in this moment, he doesn’t want to. All his life, and now this. He supposes that this is some kind of victory, perhaps the greatest one he’s ever achieved, and maybe it’ll help his side, maybe it helps hers, too, maybe it doesn’t actually help either side. That doesn’t matter, either. The only thing that matters is this moment, because he can’t believe it. How did it all come to this?

Days will pass, and this moment will longer. It will probably linger for years, long after the war has ended. Maybe this moment will have made a difference, maybe it won’t, but things are going to change, and there’s no preventing that, not anymore. Something was lost here, and maybe something gained, too, but for now, all Jack can think of is what was lost, because that’s the only thing he can imagine, the only thing he can bring himself to think of. His Rose, his Inarittu. He at least knows her name now, right? Is that enough, is it vindication, even at its cost? He can imagine finding comfort in that, in time, but not right now. For right now, there is only pain, because it’s the only thing he knows will help, in the end. He can’t stand that thought, but he knows it’s true. There is some worth in it, there is a benefit. He doesn’t like it, he wishes it weren’t necessary, but there it is, right here, right now, and he has to deal with it. So that’s what he’s going to do.

Part VII: The Once and Future World

Idiot Box is the sort of person who doesn’t see it coming. They ask for it, a million times a day, but they just don’t see it coming. Idiot Box managed to capture this elusive emotion by thinking he was going to take over Cockeye’s neighborhood. It’s a little known fact that Cockeye isn’t even from Traverse. He was born here, yes, but he spent the first three years of his life tucked away in McGregor, Illinois. He turned four in Alabama, and he figures he may eventually return to the old state, even though he has ambitions for other destinations. He never met a prospect he didn’t like, but he doesn’t know what he’s going to actually become, because he writes. Cockeye writes because he doesn’t know what else to do. He’s a vigilante, yes, but that doesn’t pay the bills, either. Mostly, he inhabits space, and Idiot Box thinks he’s going to take that from him. Idiot Box has another thing coming.

In a prior life, owning this neighborhood meant something completely different. Cockeye was never in a position where he could say such things, but he was a part of that movement. He knew all the stories that said white boys don’t have gangs around here, but he’s heard, and told, so many stories that they become as true as fiction. He knows what life here is like, the great white way, the good old life. Everyone is quick to help out. You can sit outside in a rocking chair at the finer establishments. That and the fact that there’s a latent hostility to anything unfamiliar. It’s everywhere, but it’s here. Cockeye understands this, and he understands who this Idiot Box is. He’s the enemy, and at this time, the enemy means war. There’s nothing for him to do but declare it. There’s also one thing. He’s a vigilante in theory, a hero in training, if you will, and self-taught at that. Some of them will take you under their wing, but the majority of the establishment will leave you behind and hope you can fend for yourself. That happens to be how Cockeye was conceived in the first place. He used to be bitter about it, but things had a way of steering him in more useful directions. He used to be angry, heck, can still sometimes reach new heights of anger, of despair. But he’s feeling, these days, like he can handle it better because he can see his future more clearly. Vision is key to the future.

He also happens to be alone. Cockeye wasn’t always alone. He has a father he’s estranged from, but he’s seen worse days between them. He used to be particularly angry about this, because someone had to point out how miserable things really were in his family. That was the day he snapped, that Cockeye. He spent so much time trying to figure that out, he found the man again, asked for answers, wasn’t given any. He found other things, things that facilitated his journey to becoming Cockeye. Cockeye, another vigilante, another hero without any powers at all. He’s not even much of a fighter, but he scraps along. That’s a lot of what he’s done all his life, maybe not in the sense that he’s been in so many fights that he knows his way around them. He’s never been in a single fight, which of course makes a confrontation he knows is coming with Idiot Box that much more of a question mark.

He’s never had anything handed to him, not outright. He’s stumbled into a few things here and there, but to never have been given the kinds of advantages he hears about, reads about, can see around him, has been a constant source of frustration. He’s even had a few relationships that he thought might lead to that kind of advantage, but they never work out. The closest one came to a dead end when he realized the man was dead, but he was able to capitalize anyway. He found so much stuff that was just left behind. Some of it was more than he wanted to know.

But still, he doesn’t like to concentrate on such things, especially when there are more pressing matters at hand, such as Idiot Box. He’s stepped into Cockeye’s turf, the little spot of earth he’s claimed as his own, to defend against predators. He’s the shepherd to a flock that doesn’t know him, but he’s there. He’s made the commitment, even sent out messages. The first one came as a warning, a note he hastily scribbled out after watching police drag away suspects he’d been watching for a week. He knew what was really going on, and he said so in the note, which he left in the jacket one of the officers left in the squad car, one of those look-at-me reflector-themed numbers. These mooks were innocent of everything but being imbeciles. All they’d really been doing was getting high. He’d known to surveillance them because he’d once included himself in their numbers. They would never have done anything serious, not even in the days they used to hire themselves out as ground-level thugs to the local heavies, asking questions of their own, for answers they couldn’t care less about. They were dangerous in those days, but more danger to themselves than anyone else.

Cockeye should know. That’s how all this happened. He no longer regrets any of it, because it led him to a better life than he could have ever known, to a peace of mind he could have never known without it. He transformed himself from a nobody known as Lincoln Mather, called Random Red, into a self-styled avenger, one who needn’t worry about his life being ruined for nothing. His old gang, innocent of what the boys in blue suspected them, but guilty on so many other levels. They’re still in lockup. Now all he has to worry about is a war. How did that even happen? He had been aware of it for years, but never concerned himself with the reality of it. He was far from it, even if it was in his own city. It never affected him, not with all the battles reported in the Traverse Tracks, which he began reading again, a paper he used to deliver, because of this war. He’s got stacks of it in his room now, copies he’s saved because of articles he finds historically pertinent. The one from Xenon’s death? It holds a special place.

He’s heard a lot about the war. In his neighborhood, as Lincoln, he can move about it and find out what the locals are thinking. He doesn’t consider himself one of them, and he understands why when he hears people talking about what Traverse means to them, how they sympathize with men like Viper, Benjamin Russ, and the mayor, Malcolm Bidd, even though they oppose famous heroes like Godsend, Dust, and The Eidolon. Cockeye’s papers know who’s on what side, who’s the attacker and who’s defending home soil. That’s how it’s reported, by newsmen and streetwalkers alike. It’s a war, except it’s not between heroes and villains, but home and away teams. It’s almost like a game. And the home team is the easy one to root for. Cockeye never has, not even when he seemed to be a part of it. He knew he didn’t belong then, and he knows he doesn’t want to now. But he understands what everyone means, he understands both sides. Cockeye exists to protect something, and now that he’s being threatened, he wants to put up a fight. Does it matter that he can name his foe? Surely Idiot Box can say the same thing. Surely Idiot Box thinks he’s only defending something, too.

From what Cockeye knows, Idiot Box has a claim to this neighborhood, too. He’s familiar with its virtues, its vices. He’s a product of its attributes, much as Cockeye is. Like Cockeye, he’s seems late in the game in claiming it, or at least staking that claim. Cockeye came first, sure, but now here’s Idiot Box, who knows how to fight. His own dad owned the local gym, until it closed. Used to box, naturally. The son specializes in pounding his opponents into submission, with no real finesse to it, just so the job gets done. Idiot Box, then. Cockeye doesn’t know if that’s a self-made moniker, or if someone gave it to him, and he doesn’t care. Regardless, he’s going to become very familiar with the message behind it. He’s going to enter the fray, he’s going to fight this man, in this war, because of this war.

Because of it? Really? Cockeye’s had the benefit of sitting on the sideline all these years. While others have been fighting, experiencing what this war really is, he’s been sitting on the sideline and thinking. He knows what the war means to him. Plenty others think it’s a cause better left unchallenged. They want the costumed folks to just give up, already, retreat, whatever, go home. They’re needed for other things, or maybe, too, to just have a break, not risk their lives for a change. So many have died already. The names almost become meaningless, unless you happen to have a personal connection to them. If they’re needed again here, then they can come back. But this war, this meaningless war, waged over what? a trophy? someone’s grudge? has got to go away already. There’s just no winning it, and everyone knows how clear that is. The leader of the home team is gone, even, executed, as it were. For Cockeye, that’s not this war. He’s about to become a part of it, and not because someone drafted him, but because he’s chosen to. It’s never been about winning something, unless the victory means the world will be a safer place, with a little more order to it. Order can’t be bad, can it? He sees what kind of order there is now, and doesn’t like it. In his neighborhood, he hears whimpers at night, whimpers that seem to say, does the morning really have to come? That feeling, to him, is the worst, even in a world that knows so many who won’t wake up in the morning for a thousand worse reasons. Cockeye believes that you should always look forward to another day, and he should know, having so many times feared them. He decided to become a champion so he could do his part in making that feeling go away, even if in only one person, even if only in himself. The point in this war? There’s no point, there never is in war. War is destruction. Cockeye sees in it, though, a chance to build, too.

This neighborhood of his, yes, he has claimed it, claimed it so he can see it become, one day, a place where his own past can’t be duplicated. He became Cockeye so he could begin to struggle against those who would rather see it stay the way it is, a place where boys cry themselves to sleep at night, where their fathers can’t live up to the duties they’re meant for because they’re too busy still trying to make their own lives work out. Now he’s got to prepare to face the consequences. Now he’s got to prepare to fight Idiot Box. It’s his first fight in this war, his first fight as a vigilante. For ten years now, he’s been headed down this road, preparing himself for the day his new resolve would overtake his dreams, when he could seize the destiny he knew he wanted. The idea of Cockeye was impregnated for so long within him, he could imagine everything about this hero, this champion, without seeing any of it in reality. He would train, a little, but he trusted his instincts most of all, because he knew that they would be the only things that would be with him in the end. In the end, all he has is himself.

Within the past couple of months, he has stepped up his preparation, even though he has been doing things for a few years now, things he knows to have been helpful, things that haven’t been so different from what he is today, this figure he calls Cockeye, small things. He’s never allowed himself to call these activities vigilantism. He reserves such thoughts for others, because he’s never done anything great, anything he’s found in the paper, in the Tracks. He’s helped others, sure, he even believes he’s assisted the Eidolon, even, the Eidolon, who put all this in motion. Imagine! But very soon now, Cockeye is going to make his debut as a functional reality, as a figure tested and not just conceived. Fights are everything. Heroes aren’t really heroes until they’ve confronted enemies. They can do all the good deeds they want, but until they’ve been in a fight no one is going to respect them, remember them, or expect them. Heroes don’t just wait for fights, either, and that’s why they’re such interesting figures, why they get talked about so much. Sometimes when they do go looking, their image changes, and they may end up being remembered more for that than for what they really are. This doesn’t concern Cockeye. Idiot Box hasn’t, technically, provoked him yet. But he’s still going to do this, have this fight. It’s the only thing that can happen now. It’s either hold this ground, or yield it, surrender it. Can you imagine? Idiot Box isn’t a major figure by any measure. No one will have heard of him when the news gets out what happened. This doesn’t concern Cockeye, either.

He does have one concern, though. The source of his power, so to speak, does, the lair of the Dread Poet, which his discovery of prompted, above all, the change of direction in his life. When he found that place, deep below the earth, beyond darkness, past telling, he discovered a new direction that had seemingly been mapped out for him. The Dread Poet’s lair? It was the stuff of legend, and to have found it was to vindicate Cockeye’s existence. In his youth, Cockeye had always believed in destiny, yes, but also in the power of redemption, and that’s what he found in the Dread Poet’s lair. All the files he found, meticulously kept, the journals, the books, each of them seemed to have been created out of a need to rejuvenate the earth. Rejuvenate for what? There were files on every aspect of the city, the journals will filled with the Dread Poet’s own recollections, and the books covered every subject imaginable. Cockeye had somehow always known how important Traverse was, and this was a confirmation.

In the files there were copies of every Traverse Tracks, dating from its very inception to the last edition printed before the Dread Poet’s death. Cockeye poured over all of these. For months, years, all he did was read. He ignored the rest of the world. He was aware of the world and yet he was not a part of it, because there was another layer that concerned him, interested him, so much more. This was his education, his emergence into the wider world, all laid out, as if by design, before him. Gradually, he became aware that he could trace his own life, too, when he came upon the issues devoted to the Eidolon’s mysterious disappearance. He had been a part of that catharsis, too. He never found himself, of course, in those words, but he could follow his journey through them all the same. He began reading back into the past, retracing his life backward, until he discovered a startling fact. There was no record of his birth. He knew he’d been born here. Why wasn’t it here? Why was there such an oversight? He poured still further, trying to confirm a thought he couldn’t understand. He traced lives from birth to death, countless of them. It bothered him that he couldn’t find that one, stupid notice. He could have just written it down as a mistake, but then he remembered how his father had always talked about how remarkable a birth it had been, a miracle. Nowhere in the paper, nowhere in the notes. He began to suspect that the Dread Poet might have known something, that his discovery of this lair really had been destiny.

But what did it mean? It meant that Cockeye had been adopted. His life had been, on all accounts, a lie. This filled him with new resolve, because he began to embrace that lie as never before. That was when he reconnected with his father, or at least the man he had known for so long by that name. He looked back wistfully at the event that had caused his life to turn around, the day the Eidolon told him what a waste his father had been. When he had completed this journey, Cockeye burned the Dread Poet’s lair, and began anew.

Recently he has become aware that his new life came about because of a decision, and so it has been with a newfound resolution that he has taken on this role, this challenge. He sees now that there are no answers, just questions he is going to have to deal with, no matter how angry or happy they make him, how much trouble he can get in because of them. Idiot Box he’s not afraid of. He’s going to survive this, because he knows there are other challenges ahead. He wants to track someone down, someone he knows is out there, even though he doesn’t know who they are, or why they are important. They will have more questions for him, that’s all he knows, questions that will lead to more questions, until the day he dies. Because this is wartime, he knows there are no guarantees.

“So,” he begins, “it looks the day has finally arrived.”

Staring back at him is Idiot Box himself. Neither is dressed very elegantly; Cockeye in a blue track suit, Box in something he found in an army surplus store. Cockeye has dropped in on him in his own home, an apartment that, ten years ago, looked better, but only slightly, not even owing to anything Box himself may have contributed with his characteristically careless lifestyle, boxes and bottles being some of the main things noticeable. That he’s in his uniform already is one key to his state of mind. The environment is another. “You’ve got some nerve, punk,” are words that serve as more indications. Cockeye isn’t concerned.

“You don’t know this, but you’ve had this coming for months” he says. “You think you own this place, that you have a right. You’re wrong. You forfeited that right the day you decided you were going to be so ridiculously reckless about it. You can’t take what’s not yours, right? And you especially can’t take something when you’re going to treat it so badly. You claimed this place, and the first thing you did was round up a few of its residents and shoot their motherfucking brains out. Why did they deserve that? Because they were a threat, to whatever pea-brained shit was rolling around your sorry ass that day. I actually pity you. I’m here talking all this shit and you’re actually letting me get away with it. Well, here you go, asshole.”

He takes Idiot Box out without a fight, just like that. He does it so easily because he does it with a bullet, right to the kneecap. No leg, no heft behind the punch, or so he correctly figured when he was planning this. Cockeye wins. Idiot Box is already crying when his own phone is used to call the medics, and the police. Cockeye would almost do more, but he’s already planning his victory speech, which he’s going to deliver once the news gets out what happened here today. Everyone’s going to hear, and then they’re all going to gather, at the local bar, at Tin Car, which Cockeye owns. Not much of a fight, but it’s a victory. He’s taken down his first foe. He knows what everyone’s going to say about his chosen method, everyone who counts, but it’s something he’s willing to live with. It’s for the right cause. Everyone has their weapons. He’s chosen one that’s a little out of the usual for his line of work, but he’s not playing by rules because they don’t really exist. It was only ever a code. In wartime, though, things change. It’s his first action as a hero, basically, and people will say he didn’t choose it very carefully, but what he’ll say to them, if he has half the chance, is that it doesn’t matter. That’s going to be a part of his speech, too. It doesn’t matter. He won, that’s all there is to it. He’s prepared to deal with the consequences, because that’s all he’s been doing all his life. He’s won this fight, and chosen this manner to do so, because it was the strategy that worked, the strategy that was best against this foe. He had it all figured out, and it worked, so easily. Idiot Box didn’t even put up a fight, just some angry words, really, and those don’t add up to much, not in this arena. And just like that, Cockeye is a combatant. He’s joined the ranks, his ranks, and not just as a number, but one of them. He doesn’t need their understanding, because he knows what he is. He’s a hero. Idiot Box is gone, before he can ruin the neighborhood. Cockeye has done his part.

There are other matters, now, other threats to face, because this one battle doesn’t mean the end of it. Idiot Box was a minor foe, almost insignificant, unless you were really paying attention. He was transforming this place into fear, and now that is over, that threat turned away. Now Cockeye has to venture out, do it again, do it so it counts for more than just a block of this city. He may even, he will, have to do that again, even here, because where there’s one, there’s always more. He’s become a part of the fight, all right. He’s beginning to understand it for the first time. He’s beginning to see what he’s gotten himself into. He sees and doesn’t have a problem, not a single one. The way he sees it, he’s needed, and that’s why Cockeye was born, and why he will persist, as others have before him. There will be obstacles, and he will face them, because he must. If life as a whole isn’t easy, there’s no reason to believe that this will be any different. So he’s going to dive right in.

The war Cockeye now enters has its own expectations for him. He’s another number in an equation that is hungry, because it is always working, always adding, subtracting, dividing, multiplying. It is a beast, and oh, is it hungry. Is there an end in sight? Not so clearly, even ten years in. The forces at work have their vested interests, sure, but they are also impersonal, removed, detached. Whatever happens here will have its ramifications, but it won’t dictate the course of the world. That course knows only one destination. It’s a journey around a sun that gives as much as it takes, and it’s a constant journey, no matter what’s happening or for how long it will continue. Once it ends, it ends, and that’s all that really matters. Cockeye is a single person on this world, and no matter who is father is and how he fares in this war, his life is not going to change the world from spinning. But there are always consequences, and for now, they do mean something. And they cannot be seen coming.

Part VI: The Law Falls Silent

Benjamin Russ is the king on this board of chess. He’s the father of Malcolm Bidd and Odin Roy, and the deadliest, most ornery, most subtle bastard in town. He’s commonly known as Boy Benjamin. Ten years ago, the wife of one of his many victims became absolutely convinced that she was going to succeed where countless others had failed. Bessie Mueller, widow of Freddy “Ratbeard” Mueller, wanted revenge, and the head of Benjamin Russ on a platter. She was an offspring of the Solomon clan, rulers of this roost before Russ’ arrival, before Viper, before Rancor, before the Cad. What nobody ever understood was that Russ is the grandson of John Winston Bidd, the Alarmist, the Blue Beacon’s chief rival of more than half a century ago. He didn’t go off to war because of the color of his skin.

The Alarmist rose during a time when he couldn’t have found less cultural acceptance. He lived nearly thirty years before he found a way, and he did it by doing what he had always done; struggled to survive, only this time he did it under a mask. Armed with a specially tuned bell, he set about making it safe for others to live, putting his own life in danger, and because he had no other abilities beyond his pure strength of will, every fight had the chance of being his last, every battle. He fought corruption. Does that sound ironic? He fought corruption and injustice, and raised a family that had as its only goal to make it to another day. The country was focused on a war, and recovery from a great depression, which made it easy for cities to be overrun with opportunists looking to remake or create fortunes, to seize power. The Alarmist was creating power of his own, but it never crossed his mind. He was angry every day of his life. Traverse had all but surrendered to the Solomons, even as its citizens did what they could to make things right on their own. William Tekamthi, the Dread Poet, invested in the future by ensuring good things were built, too. His betrayal, as the Beacon saw it, was anything but. He was doing what he could. When the Blue Beacon did come, a late arrival from the war and a symbol of the changing reality the Alarmist had worked so tirelessly to create himself, the world had already started the shift to a new reality, one that once again had no place for John Bidd. He didn’t fight for his people. That never crossed his mind. When others did, he wasn’t around to see it. He was already dead. He’d made his fight, and when he died, he thought he hadn’t made a single difference. His family was just as impoverished as when he’d rung his bell for freedom, and corruption still gripped his city.

The Bidds moved on. Mallory Bidd begat Benjamin, who saw the results of his grandfather’s work as John never could. The good fight had produced an opening, and the fight the Alarmist neglected had made it possible for the powerless to finally see the light. Things were changing, and people were, too. The powerless became less interested in settling, less interested in the status quo. They were finally seeing the common ground they stood on, and united against their oppressors. A single decade revolutionized a country. Half a decade later, a president was brought down, and Benjamin Bidd changed his last name, smashed his grandfather’s bell, took up his new cause. He would avenge the Alarmist. He would take the reigns of the city into his owns hands, take it away from those who would tell him what he could not do, when he alone knew what he could do, what he was meant to do, what any one life, given half the chance, was destined for. Benjamin Russ, who never lost the innocence of youth, took hold the reigns of responsibility. He took on the city of Traverse.

Were there compromises in the decades to come? Corruption? Of course there were. No dream comes about from a cocoon, fully realized. There is always work to be done, work that knows no end. And there are always those who think they know better, simply for the reason that they don’t like the methods currently in place. They see the mistakes, but they don’t see the future. Boy Benjamin has always reflected on how he is a man of vision, just as his ancestor was, how the Alarmist sprang as if a wake-up call. He was always more a beacon than the Beacon ever was. Why was there a rivalry between them? A clash of egos? A clash of methods? They were working toward the same goal. They were working to see a better tomorrow. Benjamin sees that tomorrow today. He sees that tomorrow always becomes today. And when Bessie Mueller came to tell him differently, he was forced with the same choice he’d made for thirty years.

Except his son had other ideas. His son, the one the Eidolon had rescued. Benjamin had always wanted to thank the hero, for that and for many other things. Yes, he wanted to thank him. Does that sound perverse? Can a man such as Boy Benjamin, who has only ever hoarded for himself, benefited himself, taken for himself, be seen as good? Can he be seen as a benefactor? He is, in so many words, a mafia boss. He is the mob, the godfather. Is there sympathy for him? Can there be? He gains because others lose, and rarely sticks his own head out to see how. His word is enough. He is sovereign. He would more accurately fit the profile of a feudal lord than a modern philanthropist. Yet that’s how he sees himself.

The intercession came as a shock to everyone. And yet it soon became clear that Odin and Elizabeth, as he preferred to call her, were not entirely strangers to begin with. Benjamin would still have killed her, as a loose end, a threat, or as a simple whim, had it not been for this, and he soon became very pleased with this decision. She had much to offer, this widow. She made Benjamin aware of many things he hadn’t known, and she brought with her Clayton Neville, who was more valuable still, knew even more. This had been at the beginning of the war, and in many ways, the start of it, moreso than anything the pest Viper had done. The Eidolon tried to get her back. It was almost an obsession. For so long he’d been gone, and yet right under Benjamin’s nose. He could almost laugh at this irony. The Eidolon came, and he brought Godsend with him. It was Godsend who interested Benjamin most, because he knew how to unravel him better than any other of these hostiles. Xenon, the grandson, as Benjamin was a grandson, took Lotus off the field, and through this Barracuda was persuaded to fight still further. This war in his city, it has been a matter of contests, orchestrated beyond imagination, champions eliminating each other until each side will be dwindled to a final decision. The hostiles, the barbarians at Benjamin’s gate, are approaching that hour.

Neither Malcolm nor Odin have given him a son, or a daughter for that matter. For this reason above all Benjamin blessed this union, and in effect, gave the signal for this war. He believes the third generation is always the key. He is a third generation. The Alarmist defeated the Blue Beacon in the third generation. This war will see Benjamin’s third generation reap. He wonders in victory, wonders at the causes for such needs. Why couldn’t Traverse support two champions? Why must they have quarreled between each other? They would have been stronger united. He has seen the same today, and he is certainly gracious that he benefits.

Benjamin enjoys most of all the luxury of sitting back during these hours. He has earned it. He is an old man now, his powers reached their peak years ago. Luckily for him, not too long ago, or he would have missed his window, for every victory comes from opportunity, which the careful are there to seize. His grandfather was always angry, but he had a power in that anger, and that power served as an inspiration in the mind of a boy who decided he would never grow up, and with the wisdom of the innocent, he was able to see what none other could: power is not a reward but an obligation. He is told that he is somehow evil because of this knowledge, yet none have ever truly challenged him. What does that mean? It means that he should never become concerned about this war.

In these hours, all he can do is relax, and his favorite form of relaxation is music. There was a time when he preferred it live, when he employed the choir of a local church to sing for him. Such moments tended to remind him that he was better off isolated, because there is always going to be the looming threat of doubt in the company of others. He has a chosen method to deal with that threat, but he long ago grew weary. No, wait, that isn’t true. He forsook that method the day the widow Mueller came to him, and he saw his son embrace her. He beheld her radiance, surely the most beautiful in all the world in that moment. His other son believes he was the instrument of that change, but he only made it official. No, Benjamin changed the day he saw something greater than himself. He had never known love. From that day forth, he was all but impotent. Yet that was the day the war began. The Eidolon came in pursuit of a late friend’s wife, convinced she was in mortal peril, and as he hadn’t for so long, this new vision of the angry avenger Benjamin knew so well was filled with a renewed passion for everything he thought he represented, and he at last set his sights on the biggest threat he had ever known. It wasn’t even the man who had betrayed him. For his part, Benjamin was honored.

In his own council now, Benjamin laments the news that this man, for intents, has met his end. “I will miss him,” he toasts, a pinot noir rolling about his glass as he says this.

Others in the room are uneasy. Malcolm and Odin, Elizabeth and Clayton, rarely all of them in the same room, some for more obvious reasons than others, each in turn raise their own glasses, each for their own reluctant reasons. Malcolm sees the Eidolon as his greatest rival, and now understands whom this torch is passed to. Odin sees a mentor whom he will never be able to properly thank now. Elizabeth sees the last act of treachery fulfilled. Clayton sees the man he wanted dead for so long, dead at last, and by his own hand, the method by which the sweetest he can imagine. The wine is bitter for each, and yet Benjamin doesn’t seem to notice. He places his glass down, and speaks again: “This business of ours is nearly at an end. The siege won’t last much longer, and even if it does, I have one more champion on her way, one more against one less of theirs.”

“They have recently brought their own reinforcements,” Malcolm notes.

“Negligible,” Benjamin says. One change the years have finally brung is that he no longer holds onto his boyishness in anything but appearance. He had once affected an entirely artificial manner of speech that now only embarrasses him to think about. He is the consummate professional, which makes him more menacing now than when he was trying to be. If he wanted, he could have taken the office his son won, on grounds no one would have found fault with. He brings respect with him now, but delegates it only when he deems it appropriate. “The Staged Man? When did anyone take him seriously? Brother Jack? Neither are in the league of the one warrior who refuses to enter this fray, who is herself hardly a match for my own champion, Gonzalez Inarittu. She will see this conflict to its end for us.”

If there’s anything a few of these figures have less taste for than the wine they’re meant to drink, it’s being told that they are inferior in this man’s eyes. One or two have made solids appeals on their own behalves, at least in their own eyes. One knows what he still hopes to accomplish, and he believes it will be greater still. Who is this woman that she holds such sway? Only the woman Benjamin loves. “She will prove a greater challenge than the meddling Viper ever could have,” he adds, and for a moment, his affectation shows itself again.

“I think you underestimate Viper’s worth to this campaign,” Neville says.

“Are you suggesting that I’m wrong?” Benjamin says.

“Of course not,” Neville says, “but to say he had nothing substantial to offer us is to refute the basic fact that without him, we would never have come to this. I believe this war has had its benefit.”

“Its benefit? ITS BENEFIT?” Benjamin howls. For those who knew him so well before the change, it is a far more unsettling moment than it might have been, just on the surface. His glass is shattered on the carpet, the wine staining the white hatch work. “Are you saying there was a need for any of this? That coming anywhere near, no matter how far they always remained, in obtaining their goal is acceptable? That even the suggestion of this city’s ruin has benefits? Benefits? You are a fool, Neville. That is why you have only ever been a pawn. Don’t you see that? Why you could never accomplish something great on your own? Is the Eidolon dead? Can you tell me? It was your job. You were supposed to kill him. Can you tell me that you succeeded? Can you truly admonish me for toasting the man, when you can’t even tell me that you defeated him? He is a far greater man than you could ever be, will ever be. He is still alive, he will still be alive the day your rotting corpse is disposed of, your sad duties on this earth finally complete. I will not kill you now, because you still have some use to me, and because I will kill you when it pleases me, and you will serve me all the better now, because you know your fate. You fool! This war has its benefit? I wish your service was ended now, you mongrel.”

Malcolm, who agrees with every word of his father’s, overheated though he knows them to be, listens to all this, knowing he is as liable of sharing such a fate as anyone else in this city, even though he is Benjamin’s son. That station means nothing. His political accomplishments mean nothing. His power means nothing. “This squabbling will achieve nothing,” he finds the courage to say, even though he relishes it. “You’re only going to help our enemy by dividing your ranks. We have worked a great deal at unifying our forces. Neville is, beyond everything else, an asset.”

“Of course he is,” Benjamin says, noticing what has happened to his glass, frowning. He calls for another. No one else has drank any more in this time, and he was already half-finished the spoiled glass. “You will forgive my temper, but as you may understand, it is frustrating, sitting before this war, the impotence of it. I don’t take it lightly, and I appreciate those who share this sentiment. I also appreciate your efforts, Clayton. I do. A man has certain instincts he’s hard-pressed to subdue. One would claim that such moments reveal the truth that’s hidden in the mind of the speaker, but I prefer to believe that truths are only revealed in action, and not in word. Words are useless. We can do with them as we like. It is harder to accomplish things than to talk about them.”

Those convinced by such words would not be found in this room. Odin, for example, knows better than anyone. As the youngest, he should have the least experience, but as his father discovered years ago, youth has its advantages in its observations. Youth is more likely to catch things older, more plotting minds may overlook. Odin seeks to accomplish his father’s bidding, which he has voiced here today, as much for the reasons Benjamin himself has expressed as for those more obvious. Neville is a parasite, unworthy of what he has lately assumed for himself. He sought to kill the Eidolon. He doesn’t have it within him. He doesn’t have the right. “I prefer, like my father, to believe the vigilante still lives,” he says. “He would make a greater asset than adversary. Is he so far from our ideals?”

“An interesting thought, my son,” Benjamin says. He is suddenly hungry for steak. It is the afternoon, he’s already had lunch, and yet he is suddenly hungry for steak. He will probably be eating it before long. He likes it red. He wouldn’t be waiting long. “Turn your foe to your own side. Would he as powerful for our cause as he is against it? Would his heart truly be in it? You have an interesting mind. An eager appetite, and an interesting mind, son.”

He never uses that term with Malcolm, and he’s never used its equivalent with Elizabeth. She never wanted to become a part of this, not even when she fell for Odin. She still wishes for the day all this can be put behind her, she longs for it, she needs it. Will she earn it? It’s this question that haunts her more than any thought, any regret, any other pain. What must she still do? She fears that she doesn’t have the strength anymore. The day she set out to murder Boy Benjamin, it was the most resolved she’d ever been. Even as a Solomon, she couldn’t bring herself to feel such hate. She married Freddy because he seemed to be so harmless. But that had only been in the sense she’d known, she came to realize. Freddy had still be dangerous, and thus, in danger. “Even if we did manage to turn him, he would become a greater threat than ever? Do you honestly think they wouldn’t become more angry? That their resolve wouldn’t be doubled? It wouldn’t matter what he brought to the table. It would be the end of us all. It wouldn’t matter if we won or not.”

“That is what your family is known for,” Benjamin says. “Its pragmatism. It’s why it’s lasted for so long. You do realize that, right?”

Elizabeth can’t help but blush, and feel ashamed for it. Malcolm can’t help but feel angered. This is a war they’re discussing, and these people are busy making each other feel better? It’s his father, though. He should understand by now. He wishes he could. “For ten years,” he says, trying to change the subject, trying to reinsert his perspective, his influence, his power, “we’ve had the law working on our side. It’s funny, they believe they should have the law the other way, and maybe they’re right. And yet we’ve been undermining them with their own rules, empowering them. That’s how your Eidolon came about in the first place. His whole story is riddled with it. We’re all familiar with his trial, how he was able to barter his freedom. The events in Texas around that time didn’t help, but our own system worked in his favor. Don’t you see? We’re in a position now where we can change that. We have been using our system for ten years to help them. I say that today, the law falls silent. When has it ever done anything but, in a time of war? We let them think they’re free now, free to pursue this conflict as they always wish they could, in the open. We thought it was always to our advantage, , our ability to flaunt the law while they were hindered by it. And yet, they were emboldened by it. All the while, they were no better than us, and yet we allowed the system to reward them. They have the public’s support. We can take that away. We can turn the tide with a single decision, we can win with a single word. Anarchy.”

Moreso than Benjamin’s outburst, this is the single worst moment of this meeting. Even Benjamin recognizes this. His son has asked that a line be crossed, a line that Benjamin long ago conjured out of thin air. He made it. Does he now approve its obliteration? Elizabeth is horrified, Odin troubled. Neville sees what his life has come to. He, like Benjamin, realizes that this is the moment they have been waiting for. This is the moment they seize victory. They retain the city by blessing its destruction. The city is law, the city is a line, the city is an intersection of civilization. Take away each of these? The plan is genius. And it is madness. So begin the descent.

Benjamin has finished his replacement glass. As if this is what they have been waiting for, each member of this council now begins to depart. Benjamin clicks on a stereo with a remote he has had handy all of this time. The choice of music is haunting. The Rolling Stones say “Gimme Shelter” and there’s no one disagreeing, not a single head nodding in dissension. The scene becomes a parade, a funeral march. Benjamin pulls Malcolm aside. “I might have had you killed, saying such things, before,” he says.

“I know,” Malcolm says.

“You’re m son, though,” Benjamin says. “I could never do that.”

“I know,” Malcolm says.

“I’m glad you do,” Benjamin says. “It warms my heart, it really does. Do you understand? I’m proud of you. I always have been. You think I prefer your brother, don’t you? You always have. I don’t know where you’d get such ideas. It pains me to think about. I love you, Malcolm. We both know what waits for you out there. I wish it wouldn’t come to this, I regret this war because of that. I don’t want to lose you. I believe in you, but I won’t pretend to know better. I’m not a fool, Malcolm. I would have said what you said, but it wasn’t my place. My time is coming to its end, too. I can’t ignore that. I respect you enough to say all this. I respect you as a man. You deserve to hear it. I’ve owed it to you for too long. I’m sorry for that. Even now, I can’t be sure how receptive you are to all this, and it pains me to think so. I should never have let things get this bad. But I can sleep easier knowing that you’re here, Malcolm, do you understand that? I can sleep easier knowing that I’ve done that much good in this world.”

He doesn’t expect a response, and Malcolm doesn’t disappoint him. This was a big day for both of them, these are important moments. They are acting out their parts.

Part V: Nor the Battle to the Strong

The moments surrounding Viper’s death are interesting ones. They contain the broad, the intimate strokes of the Terrific Tandem dynamic. The Eidolon, as if realizing what they symbolize, cannot help but reflect, and he forces Godsend to do the same. They talk in front of Viper, as they battle him, as if he is already dead. Cotton knows what will happen, it’s not as if he’s a fool, a beginner. Viper strikes mostly at him, uses his augment frame, through which he is able to contend with Godsend, who spends little of his time concerned over the fortunes of his ally.

“You’re throwing it all away,” the Eidolon says. “And for what? For some two-bit thug who managed to finagle a significant advantage for himself? Look at him, he can hardly fight us now. He’s the same villain we trounced countless times. He’s a lackey, he’s meant to be nothing but cannon fodder. He’s more than that on a fluke. Why are you so concerned about him? What do you think he represents?”

“He’s war,” Godsend says. “He wouldn’t have been if you’d been able to contain him, but you failed and now here we are. This is not the first time. It will certainly be the last.”

“I failed?” the Eidolon says. “I tried explaining all of this to you, remember? And you wouldn’t have any of it. You told me yourself how villains like him weren’t important, not in the grand scheme. You told me fear was something that gets people killed. I was afraid of this man, or rather, of his boss. I turned out to be right.”

“Except your fear had consequences,” Godsend says. “You caused all of this. You and your cavalier attitude.”

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” the Eidolon says. “You’re pompous, you’re arrogant. You think the world owes you, you son of a bitch. You’re the hero, Godsend. You owe the world. Every time you dress up, every time you call yourself ‘Godsend’ instead of ‘Robert,’ you’ve acknowledged your debt.”

“Heroism isn’t a debt,” Godsend says. “It’s a promise, a contract.”

“Contracts are debts,” the Eidolon says. “Contracts are things that mean you’ve agreed in advance to provide a service. Until you’ve done that, you’re in debt, and not the other way around. You repay a debt to complete a contract, because you’ve made a promise. You call me cavalier. You don’t even understand, after all these years, what you’ve agreed to do. You think it’s all just one big adventure, that you’re here, and that’s the final word, that’s what gets the job done. You get your hands dirty, Godsend. You want to kill this man. Don’t even try and deny it. You think it’s the best, the only solution. He’s eluded us too many times, caused too much harm. You think his murder of your wife was the final straw.”

It was, originally, Rancor who brought together this partnership. Both found themselves in pursuit, and teamed up to conclude matters. But that was not the end of the beginning. They stayed because they recognized what each meant to the other. This was in Godsend’s earliest days, when the building still echoed in his ears. This was in the Eidolon’s formative days, when he couldn’t fathom what he meant to the public. For both, the Tandem meant legitimacy, a means to prove what they were really worth. They were already distinguished among costumed circles. The Eidolon’s triumph in his original Intifada campaign, during which he undermined the Butlerian coup which would have destabilized the entire city, was a famous ghost story already. Their next adventure put them in pursuit of Calypso, a simple diamond thief who sometimes engaged in extracurricular activities such as running errands for Rancor. Alongside Calypso was a girl by the name of Amelia Delphi, who would go on, by most public accounts, to a distinguished career as a bank auditor, as well as one of the best sources of information within Traverse. She would also marry a man named Robert Roy.

The business of making a name for oneself is difficult enough, but to make a name of a team is another matter. What were Godsend and the Eidolon doing, working together? The public wanted to know. This was how the Eidolon became known on the streets, not for the work he’d done alone, but as the darker, more sinister ally of Godsend, as the one who could match up with any opponent in a fight, and discover any secret that could topple any conspiracy. But as respected as he became, he was no more trusted by the authorities now than before. It became a matter of Godsend, so the reasoning went, trying to steer in a positive direction a rogue warrior, and that was how the Tandem was always received, and why, when Godsend received awards, the Eidolon was never present, even on the occasion he himself was deemed worthy of commendation. In the hero world, the Eidolon was more respected, and it was because he vouched for Godsend that things such as the Latter-day Allies happened. The Staged Man, never one to trust many new faces, was convinced by the hand of the Eidolon. In this circle of three, the Staged Man, the Eidolon, and Godsend, others came, including La Femme, whom Brother Jack had introduced to them, who was as mysterious as she was powerful. She and Godsend might have ended up with each other had Godsend not become bound to more earthly subjects.

Together, Godsend and the Eidolon fought many battles, but they explored much of what heroes could be capable of, on grand and small scales. The Eidolon introduced his ally to the idea of holding a secret identity, and they spent a month in Traverse establishing it. Calypso was back in town, and had once more attracted their attention. Instead of pursuing her outright, they chose to shadow her. They found that on this account, she was working for the Solomons. As Balthazar Romero, the Eidolon led Godsend in his new civilian guise to Humbert Savings, where Cinder Solomon, one of the younger of the clan, did most of his business, in whatever form it happened to take. This was when Godsend met Delphi, who was, of course, familiar with Balthazar but not with the charming man she came to know as Roy. The operation turned out to be a bust, Calypso ditching the mission of her own prerogative, and there was nothing to pin on Cinder, but all had not been lost. Roy and Delphi married not long after. Delphi never learned whom her husband really was.

When Viper struck at her, it was in retaliation not against Godsend, but against a business partner who’d outlived her usefulness. She’d gotten herself mixed in with Lotus, and after a while seemed to lose all her interest. Her flow of information ceased, as if she’d grown a conscience. So Viper did away with her. He’d killed random civilians before, without seeming motive or need. This was the first time, in the war or out of it, that it had affected Godsend, Godsend who never knew who he’d married. The Eidolon had, all along. “You want to bring him to justice,” he says now.

“Don’t tell me what I want!” Godsend says. “You have never known your place, ghost! I found you and made you who you were, and yet you were never grateful! You thought your methods were better. You even adopted the methods of others, and yet, in all the years we were allies, you never learned anything from me! What do you think that looks like? What do you think it feels like, Eidolon?”

“That was never the purpose of the Tandem, Godsend,” the Eidolon says. “We were a fighting unit, and we did a lot of good. I guess it wasn’t good enough for you. What did you really expect, anyway?”

“I expected my ally to be loyal to me!” Godsend says. “I expected that I could count on him! How else did you expect me to react when I learned I was wrong?”

“You never learned from me, either,” the Eidolon says. It is a strain, keeping up now. Viper’s armor has done its damage. Before this, the Eidolon hadn’t been in a real fight in years. The beating from Lotus was light compared to this. The daylong pursuit of the Cad simple. Ten rounds with Calypso, ten thousand with the gangs, even a single with Viper in his prime. This Viper is no longer bred for war. He is meant for conquest. That has been his only goal. He made himself formidable again artificially, more powerful to compensate for his enlarged sense of purpose. They have fought through Delphi’s office, and Godsend doesn’t even notice. He practically drags the both of them to the roof. “Our mission was never to end these threats, but to contain them. We couldn’t end them. Don’t you understand, Godsend? Our efforts are futile. We will fail. I learned nothing greater in all my years. You haven’t learned anything. You have never listened to a word I’ve spoken to you.”

“You want to fail? Fine,” Godsend says. He throws a single punch in the Eidolon’s direction. It is the first time either has assaulted the other, and even he pauses for a moment, even Viper does. Cotton can’t absorb it, not with all the punishment he’s already received in this fight. He collapses. Godsend turns away.

“Be a murderer,” the Eidolon finally says. Godsend has already resumed pounding on Viper, stripping his armor away, so that he is as defenseless as the Eidolon. “Murder Viper now, because of what he’s done. Oh, not for the war, not for all he’s done before this. Murder him because of her. I wonder how good you will feel after, how much better the world will be. I needed you, when all this began. I could go it alone, but I needed you to be effective. I needed the Tandem and without it, I spiraled out of control. Is that what you’ve been waiting to hear?”

Godsend pauses for a moment. Maybe it is. “You are a brave man,” he finally says. “All this time, everything that has happened, and finally you say that. And you think that’s what I’ve been waiting for, that now I am going to turn away from what I am about to do, that now everything is going to change, back to as it should be. You said we are meant to fail, we heroes. Those are your words. If we are meant to fail, then so what about failure? It’s your reasoning. Maybe I am failing now. This is the solution I’ve come up with.” He continues with his speech, the one where he explains to Viper his own vision of heroism. And then he drops the villain, and turns away, flies away. Godsend leaves, and there remains the Eidolon. There is still time for him, still time before the trap ensnares him, just as there’s still time for him now, as he waits in that trap itself, the coffin beneath the Palomar. If he could free himself, the Palomar wouldn’t be trouble at all for him. He is an expert swimmer, as he has needed to be on occasion. Yet he doesn’t have a chance, even though this is the hour of his greatest need. He once turned to Godsend because he knew he needed an ally, a champion of his own. He wonders now if he was wrong all along. Maybe he had it backwards. Maybe it’s Godsend who needed him all along. It’s a thought he’s never had before. Godsend was always so pompous, so arrogant, it never occurred to him. Maybe the Eidolon was meant to save a fellow hero all this time. It may be too late.

He wants to believe that he has affected Godsend already, that the only natural and inevitable conclusion to this dilemma is that he will be rescued by the man he once formed a Tandem with. The more he reflects, the less likely Cotton believes this to be true.