Darius lunged forward and grabbed for the handle.
“NOVA! BROCK!” he yelled at the blank face of the closed door.
No. They were wrong. He had to let them out. Nova had looked far too scared when she was closing the door.
He reefed on the handle.
Locked.
He pulled harder, wrenched on the handle, and the door and the ground tipped away from him. His feet slid out from under him.
The door was suddenly “up,” and he was hanging off the handle by his right hand. And then the diner exploded. Dust blasted into his face. He and the door were thrown backwards. He let go of the handle.
He and the door were hurled against the back wall of the garage. The metal sheeting boomed from the impact, and the air was knocked out of him. He fell to crumple limp on the dusty ground at the base of the tin wall of the garage, still gasping for air. He watched as the ground lifted where the diner had once been and rolled into a wave of crushing earth towards him.
He flipped onto his chest and tried to crawl away. His mouth was open in a big “O” like a fish out of water as his lungs began to work once again. He fell again, this time onto the back wall of the garage because the back wall of the garage had become “down.” The opening to the upper loft of the garage, a blank window, had become a hole into a pit directly in his escape path. The window was now a hole. Sheets of tin were flung into the air as massive clods of earth crashed into the garage.
He plunged through the loft window and screamed as he plummeted across the interior of the garage and landed hard onto the old water truck.
The sound of him striking the water tank resounded like a drum. He scrambled for any purchase, but found none on the smooth oval tank, and slid off and dropped with a crash into the side of the silver bus that made him grunt. There, he came to rest, shook the cobwebs from his head, and coughed.
Soil burst through the walls, and dust filled the air. He groaned and climbed to his feet and scurried down the side of the bus. He was still running along its side as the bus began to lift. Here, at the farthest end of the garage, down was still down, and he dropped to the floor and sprinted out the back door as the floor of the garage rose up behind him.
He ran.
He sprinted across the yard as the tanker truck, the bus, and the limo crashed to the ground behind him like falling trees. He dodged to his right, around the rock cut, and saw the welcoming feature of the old claptrap scabbed-together footbridge.
He ran.
The ground shook, shuddered, snapped, and lifted a wave of earth that staggered him to his knees.
And then Brock’s hand was there, reaching down for him. He grasped it and took it, and everything was still. Brock was with him, had met him standing at the end of the bridge.
“Thanks,” he said, getting to his feet and wincing at the pain in his knees. He spun to find the earth unmoving. The chasing wave had stopped. He bent to knock the dirt from his pants. It felt like he just jump-slid into home plate so harshly that he was going to have scars on his kneecaps.
“Thanks,” he said again, dusting himself off. “What happened?”
Brock was beside him. He turned to look at his friend, the footbridge at their backs, but there was a sudden glare of brightness through dust, and he winced. He shielded his eyes from the glare, but it was the sun setting, all of the suns that had ever existed, a ball of glow much too close. A rock concert of light drowned him.
“Where are the others?” One hand was over his brow, and with his other, he reached back behind him, feeling for the old pipe that was the start of the bridge handrail.
“What do you mean, ‘where are the others?’ You left them, man,” Brock said.
Darius reached back further. Another headache was starting.
I need to find the handrail. It should be right here. “The bridge is the bridge into your mind.”
“No, I didn’t. They chose to stay. They told me to go…”
“You left them,” Brock said.
“No, I didn’t. They stayed. They told me they…”
Wait a minute, he thought. This isn’t right. The light. The headache.
“What did they say? What did they tell you? Where are you going?”
Darius took a step backwards away from the brightness and leaned back, reaching further for the handrail.
“What did they tell you?”
His old buddy stood there and stared right back at him, an angry look on his face. Darius didn’t ever remember Brock looking angry. Not even in the locker room when he was getting in Bucky’s face. He didn’t even look angry then. He had kept it cool, funny almost. Brock was always one cool dude.
“I don’t know where they are.”
“Where did they tell you to go?”
“That doesn’t make any sense, Brock. You were there. You know what they said.” And then he pushed his friend, both hands hard, right in the chest. Brock was forced to take a step back. In that moment Darius spun towards the bridge. And Bucky was there. Brock was gone. Bucky stood in front of him, in front of the end of the footbridge.
“Why in such a hurry, buddy?” Bucky asked. It was old Bucky—the one from the pool deck. Not the one that had the ragged jaw and skin, the arm bones, the skull bones that he could see, but this Bucky was the normal Bucky. Normal pre-bomb Bucky. The all ay-oh-kay Bucky. Even his eyes were the old Bucky eyes. Normal. Not round spheres filled with black seeping oil. “You left everybody back there.”
Darius glanced to find Brock, but he was gone. Disappeared. He faced the thing on the bridge.
“You don’t know what Brock told me because you’re not Brock. And you’re not Bucky either,” Darius said to it.
“Ah. Well, you got me.” Bucky smiled and put his hands on his own chest in an “aw shucks” gesture.
“I interrupted a nice meal you guys were having. Tell you what.” Bucky dropped a heavy hand onto Darius’ shoulder. “Let’s me and you turn around and go back and have a nice old-fashioned ‘sit down.’ The smell of ham cooking is to die for, isn’t it?” Darius made to pull away from the hand on his shoulder, but it felt like he had been bolted into a pillar. He absolutely couldn’t move. It was stronger than any strength of grasp he had ever been in. It was if he had been turned into a tree. He felt as if he would never move again.
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“I’m not quite done,” a voice called from behind Bucky. A voice from the footbridge.
Bucky smiled, and still looking at Darius, but not saying the words to Darius, he replied, “Oh, but you’re close to done, old man.” Bucky rolled his eyes and smirked. “Chaos is everywhere, but I’m sure you know that.”
Master Hiruko was standing on the bridge. He had lost his thick robe and now wore a white gi. His hair had changed too. It had been cut into a grey flat-top. His facial hair was gone. Clean shaved.
“Luck is also everywhere,” the master said.
“Ah!” Keeping his hand on Darius, Bucky turned to the bridge. “You really want to go there! You really want to do this. This is head-to-head you’re talking about. Yes, you old goat, luck is everywhere! All types of luck! I notice you never mention bad luck. Don’t challenge me here, for there will be no glancing blows. This is head-to-head we're talking about right now if you don’t leave. You can’t slip this. You can’t luck your way out. If you choose to fight over this ground with me, you’ll lose and be held here. You will be frozen into a statue, and eons from now will turn to dust. I will have you join our young friend here.”
Master Hiruko raised a hand, palm flat, upwards towards them, turned it and curled two fingers.
He just used the “steal a base” signal, Darius realized.
Darius didn’t know if the thought was his, if it was some old memory from a ball game, a memory of a coach standing there, just like that, like Master Hiruko, or if they were words thought from Badrik. But when the master’s fingers curled, Darius ran. That grip of demon strength magic on his shoulder slipped; just for a split moment, it slipped.
“Lucky that,” he thought.
He was free and went for the bridge with all the speed he had. The ground cracked below his feet. Fissures appeared like a mini earthquake. His first step had been on solid ground, but the second pushed off of nothing, and he felt himself fall.
The rough boards crashed into his chest and the end of the bridge lifted upwards, rolled up to become a wall like the ground behind him had. He let himself slide, and the bridge continued to tilt. He grasped at the railing. It slipped his hand; he spun to his back and caught the opposite railing with his other hand. With a jarring rip of his shoulder, he hung. His legs swung. Below him, Bucky stood on the ground, looking up at him, smiling.
“You can’t hang there forever. Plus, I can turn and twist that bridge, or the gravity, or your sense of gravity, or… well, you get my drift. I can do anything to this environment or your perception of it. So… how bout you just come on down here, and we’ll go have some of that ham dinner? We’ll talk this over. Be a nice teammate for ol’ Bucky.” Darius looked straight up, above him, to where the deck of the footbridge pointed up into the sky—the safe side. And Master Hiruko was gone.
“Ya. You don’t have to tell me about it. I’m disappointed, too. The old man took off. Just another one of his attempts at a distraction. I have to admit, he’s very good at them. One of the best. No, actually, probably THE best. You know, credit where credit is due and all that. He’d be a good one to learn from. A good master, I mean. Just too bad he failed, and you won’t be doing any more learning. You or your two little friends. Just a little extension of your time, bringing you to the edge of the astral plane, but eventually, we found you, and now balance will be applied. Your futures are ended here, now, as they should have been back in Japan.”
“Where are the others then?” Darius grunted while he pulled himself up and hooked his elbow around the railing. “If this is the end because of your laws or whatever, then where are the others?”
“Already taken care of. Waiting for you, actually. Waiting for the laws, the rules to be applied to them, as they will be applied to you. Laws of balance.”
“No. You lie. You were trying to trick me. You are asking questions. You’re still trying to trick me.”
“Let go and come down. I’ll show you. I’ll take you to them.”
“If that’s true, then why don’t you know what Brock said to me when I left the diner then, huh?” Darius was getting fatigued. He shifted his weight and got another grip on his arm.
“I do know.”
“No. NO, you lie. When you appeared as Brock, you were asking what was said. You were trying to find out what Brock had said. If you had them, it wouldn’t matter.”
“Maybe I lie. Maybe I say chaotic things. Anyway… I’m tired of your bullshit. So get down here. I don’t need to convince you of anything.”
“But there is some reason why you do, why you are trying to right now. Why are you even talking? Why don’t you just come and get me?”
“How bout you let go, or I’ll pull your arms off like a bug.”
“I don’t think Master Hiruko failed. I think he succeeded. He distracted you. His goal was to allow me to get on the bridge. Now I’m on it. I don’t think you can control the bridge because it belongs to Badrik. Or me. You’re still trying to trick me. I don’t think there is anything wrong with the bridge. I think I’ve stolen a base, and I’m free and clear for as long as I stay, safe, on this base.”
“I will boil you for an eternity if you don’t get down here right now.”
“I’m safe. The bridge is ok. I’m not hanging. The bridge is flat. I’m going to let go and lay on my bridge, the bridge Badrik built for me and I’m going to control it like I’m supposed to.” And Darius did let go. He did not fall. And he laid on his back on the bridge. He felt the normal weight of gravity. He stood up and shook the numbness out of his arms. He looked to the diner end of the bridge, and there, where the ground was curled up into the sky, Bucky stood, arms crossed, looking down at him.
“You are Chaos, but you are constrained by laws that make balance.”
“I will give you one last chance.”
“I don’t think you can affect this bridge because there is no chaos in it. Badrik made it. He wouldn’t put chaos into it, and I don’t want chaos in it. And it is not part of the real word, it is part of me.”
“You are a child babbling about things you do not comprehend, nor could you comprehend.”
Darius turned his back on Bucky. It took an incredible amount of willpower to do it, but do it, he did. He winced, his back to him, expecting a startling whisper in his ear, a hole to appear in his own chest, but he paused, waited a little longer, and when those things didn’t happen, he took a step across the bridge.
“Badrik made this bridge. This is my bridge.”
“It is my responsibility to test the boundaries.”
Darius was to step onto the next section of planking, which was actually an old sun-faded sign printed with bold lettering that read “ACE PULL CHAINS - BE BETTER BOUND.” As he read it, this panel dissolved into butterflies. He held his foot in the air, not stepping into nothingness, and held onto the railings. Jump, he thought and was about to, but he stopped. To jump across, maybe he’d make it, or maybe that section of boards would disappear, too.
The gods of luck… “We will protect you… luck is also everywhere.” Why did the board have those letters printed on them? What had it been printed with? He closed his eyes and remembered the sign.
“Chains. Ace. Be better…”
Darius turned back around to face Bucky. To face Chaos.
“You mentioned the laws?” he asked.
“I see reasoning has finally entered your mind. If you look at it from my perspective, you know you had it pretty good. You got extra time to live. You got to win a little. A little extra time in a realm you had no right to travel to. How bout some of that ham?”
“You mentioned testing the boundaries before. You ‘overstepped your bounds,’ you said.”
Bucky stood on the bent ground, looking down at him where he stood on the bridge, and Bucky changed. He changed like the night at the pool. He grew the thick cartoon neck and the too-wide mouth full of teeth. “You said that when you hit me during the arbitration. Mr. Mercury said I could declare at any place or time… well, that will be now.”
The voice, this time, came from out of the sky, from behind deep clouds, rumbling like dying thunder.
“You declared an assault back to be owed.” The demon god raised a hand, and all the boards were flung up off the bridge. Darius still stood, but he stood on nothing. His shoes pressed against nothing. He stood still on an invisible glass bridge that wasn’t there, but he didn’t fall. He still stood motionless amongst a bridge skeleton of rusted water pipes. He looked long down at his feet, then back up.
The demon voice continued speaking to him from out of the sky. “You are allowed to harm me. Strike me. Go ahead. Please do. Then I may continue.”
“I claim personal injury retribution. You don’t want me to cross this bridge. It would harm Chaos to do so; therefore, my retribution is that you allow me to continue. The laws that you agreed to will allow it.” Darius turned his back on the thing that was swelling, the thing that was expanding too big to be held inside the body that Bucky had worn, what seemed like long ago now. He turned his back, and he walked across the bridge to his grandmother’s house.
“You only prolong the inevitable. Your history has ended long past.” The clouds growled with their heavy bass rumbles.
Before Darius stepped off the bridge, he turned and took a chance to look towards the garage and the diner. Chaos was on the other side. The Bucky, who looked like he was trying to swallow a lizard shark, stared back. The metal sheeting from the garage had come alive and looked like piranha fish that swam and bit chunks from the air as it swirled around the demon.
The scene made Darius dizzy, but he had no headache, and he turned away from Chaos. Time would still be an issue. He didn’t think he had much of that. Brock said they would meet him on the other side.
Brock. Nova. Where are you?