Chapter Five
COMMON SENSE
Over the next few days, Archie opened up a little more to Warden and talked about Annette and Jonathan and the work the three of them had done. Being someone who never threw anything away, Archie still had his notebooks from the early days before he donned the armor or met Annette, back when the only thing standing between him and a criminal’s blades and bullets were his own wits. Warden was an eager audience for such stories and the lessons they always contained. The promise of Warden being able to read these voluminous case files and notebooks for himself acted as just the incentive Archie hoped it would and Warden soon left his embarrassment behind and launched furiously into his remedial reading studies.
Learning to read wasn’t the only thing that Warden picked up. Anyone unfortunate enough to live in close proximity to Archie for any period of time had no choice but to learn the proper way to break an egg, bake a casserole and roll a croissant. Archie insisted on eating well and the good news was that Warden got the chance to share in that. The bad news was that Archie assumed that everyone, including the professional cook he employed, enjoyed listening to his amateur nattering on everything culinary. Warden feigned interest. For a while. To his dismay, it didn’t matter--Archie just kept talking.
Still, Warden couldn’t get too upset. He realized that this was one of the few things Archie still had from the normal life he’d left behind so many years ago. It was the last shred of a time before the twin voids left by Annette and Jonathan ached inside him and he desperately tried to fill them with saved lives. Cooking was something he needed, more perhaps than he even needed the red armor, and cooking was unencumbered with the pain that came with that.
**********
Even before recent events that had put everyone in the JLA on edge and forced them all to re-evaluate their security precautions, Archie had moved the armor from the library’s glass case to the secret, steel vault in the basement. As much as Annette and Jonathan might have been surprised to learn it, Archie had leaned a few things about prudence over the years.
Prudence.
Archie knew that he and Warden were going to have to flee abroad soon. Archie couldn’t shake the feeling that he was abandoning his country. Archie had never run from anything in his life before and he didn’t like the concept, even as he realized the necessity of it.
For Archie was not running for his own sake--if it had just been him, Archie would’ve stayed and fought like the others were going to. No, there was now someone else who was depending on him. And this time he would take no chances.
Archie would not fail Warden like he had Annette and Jonathon. He would die before he’d let that happen again.
**********
It was their last night in Winchester’s mansion. The arrangements had already been made to leave for Europe, but Archie dreaded telling Warden. The boy was making real progress in his studies, and, between the staff of the house and his tutors, the boy was starting to finally have something approaching stability in his life. Now Archie was going to have to take it all away, and he couldn’t even give Warden any real time to prepare.
Archie told him after dinner that they would have to
go far away. Warden took it well. Too well. He was a boy used to constant
unpleasant shocks which ripped away normalcy just when he needed it most, and
the way he handled it was with a saint’s equity and reserve. But he was still
just a boy; a boy who’d had to act like a grown up for most of his life. Archie
knew Warden didn’t deserve this and, more importantly, that sooner or later he
would decide he’d been patient for long enough.
Archie had wished there had been time for Warden to have a conversation or two with Dr. Foster Forest, now known as Supernova. Forest was a man who could really empathize with Warden, as he, too, had been put through the ringer by gaining super powers, but had also managed to come out the other end of his trials a better person. It was the sort of thing that Warden needed to hear and Dr. Forest was anxious to help. Indeed, Forest and Archie had tried several times to arrange a meeting with Warden, but the times were simply moving too fast for such plans: Forest was now spending most of his waking hours trying to prevent the government from locking him and his family away due to his past activities as Dr. Phosphorous.
Thus, Archie merely hoped to cushion the blow with some after-dinner entertainment that, he hoped, would take Warden’s mind off of it. Unfortunately, TV was too depressing for that these days. Commercial breaks were filled with jingoistic “public service announcements” for the Sentinel Of Liberty, where the American Knights hectored kids to join and form “youth vigilance brigades.” Even worse were the newscasts, alternating between dire reports of the newly reunified Soviet Germany and lurid accounts of mask/superhuman atrocities.
The last time Archie had turned on a TV, he had been greeted by an interview with Mike Galvin, who once had gone by the name Bulldozer. Archie hadn’t seen him in years, not since Galvin’s sudden, bitter retirement. The years had not been kind to the man who could once bench press a bus. The monochrome only made him look older and wearier, with shadows beneath his eyes and pallid, sunken cheeks. He spoke quietly and slowly, every word an effort.
“We set ourselves on a pedestal and presume to act, blissfully ignorant of the consequences,” he said. “We flit in and out of problems, leaving flaming wreaks in our wake. We don’t have the training or experience to handle these problems. Our motives are the best, but we undertake responsibilities that don’t belong to us--that we aren’t prepared for--and when we make the wrong decisions, innocent people die.
“We’re amateurs who think we have all the answers, but what we really do is bring out the worst in people. We slap Band-Aids on problems, think we can solve everything with violence and then wonder why everything is falling apart.”
Archie watched in morbid fascination until the interview was over. It was very clear to Archie what he was seeing. Here was a man who was much like Annette: A person left alive, but lifeless, by The Patchwork Man.
Archie hadn’t turned a TV on, or allowed one to be on in his presence, since.
Luckily, Archie still had his sources and they had scored for him a few reels of some Warner Bros. cartoons, in lieu of Dumbo, which was supposed to arrive the next day, missing them by a mere 24 hours. These reels were originally intended to celebrate Warden learning to read, but now they were pressed into service as a makeshift farewell party to the first home Warden had known since his parents died.
Warden sat in polite silence throughout the show. Archie looked over a few times and the boy was obviously in deep thought. He hardly noticed when they were over.
The projector rewound the film and Archie removed the last reel from the sprockets. Warden stood up and shifted uncomfortably from one foot to another as he watched Archie gingerly slide the film reel back into its case. Warden’s throat went dry as he felt the weight of the silence upon him and the question livid on his tongue.
“What happened to Annette?” Warden heard himself ask and wondered if he was going to regret it.
Archie stiffened and turned around. His expression was complex... a sad, lopsided smile. Resignation. “Don’t be afraid to ask the tough questions....”
“‘....when you think you might finally get the answers,’” Warden recited. “Are you angry?”
“For you being a good student? For you finally wanting to know the story about the 300 pound gorilla that has been standing in the corner ever since it carried you in here?”
Warden looked puzzled. “Uh, does that mean no?”
Archie chuckled. “Yes, it means no.”
“So? What happened? I’d really like to know.”
“Annette read the mind of something awful. It hurt her so much.... she went away.”
“But she’d not dead, is she?”
“No. She’s just sick. And lost. Terribly lost.” His voice brightened unnaturally. “And all in the comfort of her own home.” A smile, more like a pained wince.
“Mentalon can find her,” Warden said proudly. “He can help.”
Archie grimaced. “Thanks, kid, but it’s more complicated than that.”
Warden’s expression was not naive anymore. “Then explain it to me. I want to understand.”
Archie began to say something and then stopped. “No. I can’t,” he finally said. “I can’t do this. I can’t influence you any more than I already have, if I want to be able to live with myself.”
Warden was quiet for a moment. “I need to know, Mr. Goodwin.”
“Yeah, I guess you do,” Archie said. “And while I can’t tell you, I know who can.”
Chapter Six: “Separation Of Powers”
“In some ways, it is fortunate that T.H.U.N.D.E.R. does not currently exist. Some of the contingency plans for a global situation such as this were quite unpleasant…”