Please be Waiting, Chapter Three

Sunset had arrived on that early autumn day in Nottingham. Long black shadows by now claimed the alleyways and yards, while the western sky blazed a magnificent orange-red that lit the world but from which the last of the daytime warmth was all but gone. The stars tonight would glint brighter and sharper than they had done all year, and maybe a wind would start to blow, rustling leaves that had clustered silently on their branches since spring. These first gusts of the season, presaging winter frosts to come, might even steal through ventilators into bedrooms and rattle a waste-bin liner or a sheet of paper on a dressing-table. Then sleepers would stir at the unexpected noise in the night and ponder once again all that had come to pass that day, not only its joyful celebrations but also the future that herewith began, in which The Four Heroes and the city they created would seem to have parted company at last and forevermore. For some time it had not been as it was, but henceforth no member of the quartet remained on Planet Earth, and the chill wind of tomorrow even now striking up needs must be faced without them.

Bret and Dylan were quietly aware that all this was to be, as they stood or sat on the roof of the Town Hall and watched the sun going down. The angular landscape of the City Centre directly below, mostly made up of silhouettes edged here and there by the final flames of dusk, was all war-damage and early forays at rebuilding. It was impossible for either hero to keep from his mind a topic Dylan had reflected on earlier, that their Nottingham was by this time buried under layer after layer of its ever-embattled history. It bought no comfort at all in such wistful thoughts that this late sunset pilgrimage consisted of exactly half the number it had boasted in its heyday.

And yet, both friends were aware too, here they were. Neither Dylan nor Bret found they could be wholly mournful, even in spite of it all. The flagstones beneath them, the shadowed rooftops, the distant mountains and the sky’s resplendence glowing from beyond the craggy horizon, felt as they should. Who was to say things ended or changed? At this time and place was indication enough, suffused somehow into the slabs and bricks and the opaque dusky sunbeams, that things might also stay the same.

Finally, Bret spoke.

“Dylan, it’s too much to hope Empress Ungus was lying,” he pointed out. “So shouldn’t you be making the most of this last opportunity to talk to Joe?”

But the other shook his head sadly. “Way too much to hope,” Dylan agreed. “And that’s why one rushed conversation won’t get the job done. This is just going to have to run its course. I’m on my way there now, to the other galaxy I mean, my real body along with the Neetkinses. Joe and Neet will be back there too before the end of the day, and two different temporal iterations of Harbin already are. That’s where the next stage of all this is going to play out. Me and Phoenix, I mean, bringing up our evil children to serve The Foretold One as henchmen on his Dark Four Heroes Strike Force.”

He gave a mirthless laugh.

“That’s what Empress Ungus made it sound like,” added Dylan. “Feel free to tell me you don’t believe it any more than I do, Bret. The only problem is, neither of us wants to believe Joe’s the one who’s going to join Harbin instead. And apparently it’s got to be him or me.”

“Dylan…” Bret began.

“But I’ll tell you the worst part,” that one went on. “It’s going into this knowing The Four Heroes won’t be together.”

Bret smiled, hoping his friend knew what this compliment meant to him. “Gonna have to get used to that,” he remarked, in plain reference to their present reduced circumstances.

“I guess so,” said Dylan. “Besides…”

By now the pair of them were smiling. Bret hadn’t wanted to be the first to say it, but the real reason their comrades would not be joining them was clear enough to both.

“Can’t stand in the way of changes like that, buddy,” Bret declared comfortably. “And no-one should try.”

For certainly, from the day The Four Heroes incorporated the Town Hall at sunset into their regular routine, the boy Joe once was and Neetra the little girl had been the most faithful of attendees for many a year. Life was all that had come in between since then. The Neetra and Joe of today had something more important before them than being here at sunset, or talking with Dylan about future events, or anything else but that one great something.

“I still catch myself calling her ‘flower,’ like when she was a kid,” chuckled Bret, fondly shaking his head. “Washed-up prizefighter trying to sound all kung-fu wisdom, like he’d not forgotten what the fighting disciplines were really all about. That, or I’d just watched too many old Chinese movies.”

“I used to call her ma’am,” Dylan grinned. “I know, yellow ribbons in her hair, younger than I was. But it was like she somehow understood everything about the cause, when it was all so new to me.”

“Still true about Neetra,” said Bret. His voice was sure. “These days she understands more about it even than Joe. In the end, that’s what’s going to save us.”

Then, where he had been sitting down, Bret rose steadily to his feet. He and Dylan both felt it. Without warning, though with neither urgency nor panic, the time had come.

They faced each other in farewell. “Couldn’t expect it to hold you here much longer,” observed Dylan with a last smile. “I mean, just think what’s waiting for you.”

“You too, pal,” Bret reminded him warmly. “The minute you wake up, under those different stars, with Phoenix right there by your side.”

There seemed to be nothing else to say. Each stretched out a hand and clasped the other tight.

“This isn’t the end of The Four Heroes, Bret,” Dylan declared.

Then a light scintillation of gold dust-motes danced fleetingly in the oblique rays, and Nottingham’s domed Town Hall roof fell silent and empty.

As Dylan’s consciousness reverted to the comatose form that lay in a stasis tank somewhere enroute to constellations new, Bret likewise looked up from the couch in the Martian apartments where he had lain. Amy and Max, who had sat with his sleeping self for the whole of his off-world adventure, were there to welcome him.

“Taken care a’ business, buddy?” Max inquired cheerfully.

“Oh, pretty much the same old same old,” reported Bret. “It’s what’s next that bears a little consideration.”

Bret accepted the hand Max held out, and let the huge man haul him to his feet as if he weighed nothing at all.

“You see, the guys are hitting the road for a while because they’ve got a few matters to sort out,” our hero explained solemnly. “Couldn’t say when they’re going to be back. In other words, what we’re looking at is anything but retirement. We three are going to be needed more than ever, to safeguard the local galaxy while the rest of The Four Heroes are away in another. Earth, Mars, Deluvion – heck, even Gorbrogdis World – it’ll be up to us to hold down the fort. But that’s exactly why we all need to know just where we stand.”

Something about the corners of his mouth was already hinting at the good news in store, all the more so because Bret knew in turn from Max’s smiling stubbly face that his oldest friend had already figured it out. Nevertheless Bret took Amy’s hand, and held his peace so that she could be the one to make it official.

“Wherever Phoenix is, she’d better come home soon so we can try and find some way to thank her for all she’s done,” the cat-girl declared. “Because the treatment she designed us has worked. I’m pregnant. Our son Ned’s on the way!”

Bret clapped Max on the shoulder.

“So I’m going to need a Best Man, because there’s a Martian wedding ahead for all of us,” our hero announced, then turning to Amy with a twinkle in his eye, added: “Always provided, of course, you’ve no objection to my making an honest cat of you?”

And Amy, softly aglow, confirmed she had no objection at all.

A moment later they were holding each other, and a moment after that Max’s massive arms were encompassing them both as with a great whooping laugh of joy he whirled the pair of them round and around the apartment room. Once they were safely set down again, the trio turned as one to the chamber window and the panorama it commanded of the Capital City and the solar system beyond. Over the red mountain-peaks a new Earthrise was shining its light across the Martian heavens. Bret smote his hands together.

“Well,” he pronounced in enormous satisfaction. “Forces of evil won’t vanquish themselves. Let’s get to work.”

END OF CHAPTER THREE