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

and, only by the grace of God, lands in an easily accessible spot in the middle of the floor. With as much calm as she can possibly be expected to fucking muster, she picks the goddamn thing up one more time and shoves it into the back of the phone, clicks on the back covering, and finally dials his number.
    She can still hear the steady man on the TV pacing through his commentary about heroes. While the phone tries to connect, he meanders on about what it’s like to live in a world where flying men with metal faces can no longer respond to such tragedies. What a tragedy that is.
    “Hey, this is Pen, leave me a message. I guess.” The voice mail from the lost phone, of course, and she hangs up, again swears openly, and dials her own cell number. Stupid boys. They can’t do anything without—
    Yes, the narrator on the TV opines, where are the heroes of today? Where have they all gone?

 
     
    2
     
    Ultimate, The Man With The Metal Face #569
    Pen’s phone rings. Well, thank God.
    “Hey, your phone’s going off.”
    “Yeah,” Pen says to the short, fat, and pale man sitting across the table from him who happens to be sporting lifts, a girdle, and a splotched spray-on tan, “I noticed.”
    “Mine drops the Superman hook, like when it rings, right?”
    Pen nods and smiles, mouthing the words, One sec, as he puts the phone to his ear. He also just barely manages to resist shoving a fork in Sicko’s sweetly open jugular. For now.
    “Hello,” Pen says.
    “Hey, man, you up in comics?” Sicko asks. “You read the comics, man?”
    “Honey? Honey?” Anna’s voice on the phone. “Penny, that you? Are you okay? Is—are you all right? Just tell me you’re all right.”
    “Annie, honey? You okay? I’m fine. Everything’s fine.” Not quite true, but his wife’s tone prevents him from talking about theleech-infested swamp of a lunch he’s been wading through with this, thankfully, former “edgy” gamer.
    “Dude, I crush comics,” Sicko says. “All them people, all them powers. Just like the day, bro, like the mad-ass day.”
    “Good, good,” Anna says. “It’s nothing. I was worried because what, y’know, with the TV thing. It’s stupid, I’m sorry. I know you’re in the middle of your lunch, I can call later.”
    Sicko keeps piping on about his comics, and Pen again judiciously decides not to murder him. “. . . and I’m reading this one, man, about like Wolverine, and he’s back in time like fighting with Jason and the Argonauts, yo, but with powers . . .” Very judiciously, because he could just reach out and—
    “Honey, you there?”
    “Oh, yeah,” Pen says. “Sorry, just—what’d you say? What TV thing?”
    “. . . and they’re on this ship, right, and they’re fighting, right, like with gods and shit . . .”
    “Honey, are you okay?” Anna’s harsh tone: she knows he’s not paying attention. At times he regrets finding an omniscient wife. “Aren’t you seeing this, it’s on every station? There’s been some sort of explosion, I guess, at Arcadia General. They think it’s a terrorist attack. It’s on every channel, and Prophetier called and asked me about you.”
    “Prophetier called?”
    “. . . and Wolverine’s like snikt ! And the other dude’s like . . .”
    “Oh, so what? Now you’re listening?”
    “. . . and this other dude just whacks him! It’s real, I mean really real . . .”
    “Hey, wait, that’s not fair, honey.”
    “Jesus,” Anna says. “I think he was calling from—I don’t know. I’m glad you’re okay. I thought you were there too.”
    “. . . dude, it’s awesome, art’s awesome, story’s awesome . . .”
    “I’m fine,” Pen says. “What did Proph say? Did he want me to do something?”
    Sicko, loudly: “But, dude, seriously, you’ve got to read this one!”
    “I don’t know,” Anna says, her voice breaking softly. “He sounded, I don’t know, like something—look just forget that, just stay safe, okay?”
    “Hon, I’m