A Once Crowded Sky by Tom King, Tom Fowler Page A

sky—they were like stars.
    Pen jumps, and he comes up short; and to be honest, he probably knew before he leapt that he would. He’s not used to being out here on his own; he was hoping someone would help him. But there’s only one player in the game now, and he saved sixteen lives today.
    His fingers reach out, and they’re so close. Inches, a few slender inches. The fall begins; his hands drift beneath the surface of the ledge, beige outlined on the hospital’s filthy white wall.
    He’s been nearer to death than this, and he knows what’s coming: his parents and Anna’ll all crash together, blend, swirl, all crying, screaming, until at the very very last second Ultimate sweeps in and tucks Pen close into that metal skin, and PenUltimate lives another day to fight another day. God, he’s been through this so much, it’s almost boring.
    But they don’t come. Both the familiar visions and the rescue parties keep their distance, watching from afar as their hero slides down and down. Instead, he’s left alone with only one beating thought, steady and clear.
    “I’m sorry,” over and over again, “I’m sorry.”
    A hand on his wrist. A pain in his shoulder. And he’s suspended. Saved.
    “You’re doing good,” Prophetier says, smoke from his lips winding down their locked arms, “keep going.”

 
     
    3
     
    Devil Girl #66
    She babysat for him all the time when he was little, chasing after him as he scurried through the White House, young Tad Lincoln as ever trailing a few slivers behind, but she hasn’t seen him in some time, and the girl with the red hair certainly didn’t expect to see him here, her little soldier all grown up, laid out and bloodied, chewing on his lip to keep the pain from coming out, to make sure no one sees he’s found himself dusted on one of the great battlefields of Europe. The wind doesn’t blow, and her long, crimson dress lies still.
    “Another battle won,” she says. “Well done, well done.” She bends down and places his arm over her shoulder. “Y’know, it’s going to get kind of light soon. Big, blinding, they’ll-shoot-you, dangerous kind of light. You should maybe get back to your line.”
    “I’m dying,” he says.
    “Yeah, sure, well, most of us are, right? Anyway, if you’re caught out here, you’ll be dying a whole bunch of faster. So c’mon, ’kay?”
    The morning sun bends over the stripped-white plane. The lightbegins to crawl forward, nudging at the few desiccated tree limbs left that fill in the spaces between the bodies of the doughboys nested all around them.
    He starts to stand, but as he rises, a strap of barbed wire tied around his ankle sinks in a little deeper. She bends down and untangles the metal from his muscle, and when she’s done, she kisses his gouged skin. “There you go,” she whispers, and she returns to her place under his arm, hoisting him up. “Not too tall now, Soldier, the snipers’ll get you.”
    He nods and starts to limp forward. Soon he’s walking on his own, his body hunched, his track marked by the blood dripping off his stomach. Jerry’s waking, and a few stray bullets shriek in the air.
    “Wait! Wait!” she shouts, and he looks back at her slim figure jogging toward him. Her feet are white and bare, her toes painted the color of a girl’s nursery. “You forgot these, dummy.” She flips the two guns in her hands so the grips face him. “There you go, Soldier, okay? Good luck! Better go quick.” He grunts and turns back toward the trenches.
    The next time she gets to see him, he’s got both of those guns blazing, firing at a German Panzer, a tank notoriously resistant to small arms, and his arms seem particularly small. She’s again wearing a long, crimson dress, which she hopes is not the same one as last time.
    “Really? How’s this going to work? Y’know he’s much bigger than you, right?” Her hand is on his shoulder, and she’s jostled back and forth by his muscles’ jerk, the ricochets of