Swan Song (Book Three of the Icarus Trilogy) (18 page)

-

Ryan was holding his head in his hands, his eyes were closed and he was breathing raggedly.  Carver knew that expression well; he had seen it, felt it, so many times.  Ryan Jenkins was feeling the weight of far too many looking up to him for guidance; he had finally taken the mantle of leadership.

Jonathon Carver had more than enough experience with that painful existence.  He only held sympathy for his young friend.

Carver walked up to the grey table and dragged a chair along with him.  The rest of the commanders had left with Atlas, leaving Jenkins alone with his thoughts.  Carver had only stayed behind to offer some words of encouragement, but he felt like he needed to give more to the boy.  He needed to help as much as he could.

“Not the best time to introduce your new role, was it?” Carver asked as he sat himself down in the light, plastic chair.  Jenkins opened his eyes at the sound and sighed heavily.  He looked like he hadn’t slept in years.

“You have a talent for understatement, John, you know that?” Jenkins asked as he brought his head up away from his hands and sat back from the table.  Ryan had adopted a more familiar way of speaking with Carver, but the veteran didn’t quite know if it was appropriate.  He certainly held Ryan in great esteem, but to Jonathon it had become more than that.

“I’ve been told it’s endearing,” Carver said, interrupting his own thoughts.  He looked the weary messiah figure in the eye and sighed.  Carver looked around the room and his eyes fell on the chair where Abrams had sat during the briefing, which brought another topic to mind.

“Has Ed checked in recently?” he asked, but he knew the answer already.  Jenkins rubbed his hand through his hair and scoffed at the question.

“No, the bastard is completely AWOL.  Abrams kinda destroyed the guy,” Ryan said, waving away the weight of the woman’s statement.

“Well, can you blame him?  He thought he was about to be a father.  Could be what he was fighting for,” Carver said, his own paternal instincts helping him sympathize with the Englishman.  Jenkins laughed briefly before smiling at his mentor.

“You kidding?  Ed?  He’s way too selfish and reckless for fatherhood.  He’ll never change from the jester we’ve known,” Ryan said, but Carver crossed his arms at that.

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that, kid.  I think we all have it in us to change,” Carver said, but Jenkins just scratched a small plastic deformity in the table.

“You really think Ed would be a good father, John?  He’s not exactly responsible enough for it,” he said with skepticism, but Carver shrugged at the comment.

“All men are not exactly responsible enough for it; you can’t ever tell which ones will be good at the job.  Sometimes the best potential fathers are the ones who run out on their kids.  I’ve been told that most of fatherhood is simply claiming it,” Carver argued, repeating something he had read a long time ago.  He looked at the young man in front of him, who was silent for the time being.  He wondered what kind of father would have left such a boy unclaimed.

“You think you’re ready?” Carver asked as he shifted in his seat.  There was no point in delaying it any longer; this was the conversation they were meant to have.  Jenkins laughed at the question and shook his head.

“John, I’m never going to be ready.  I can say a lot of pretty words, promise a lot of revenge, but no one is ever ready to be the next messiah.  No one is ever ready to be everyone’s hero.  I just hope I can fake it long enough so people won’t notice,” he said with a sad smile.  Ryan looked up at the ceiling, but Carver knew that his gaze was far, far away.  He wished so much better for his young friend.

“I think you’re doing a good job so far, kid.  No one ever expected you to come so far, to grow up so much.  They just expected to use you as a poster boy, but they got more than what they bargained for,” Carver said, trying to encourage his comrade, but Jenkins slammed the table in front of him with both fists.

“That’s the thing, John!  They changed their expectations!  I thought I could have gotten through it all if they just expected me to be a pretty face, but the more I was able to do, the more crap they shoved my way.  Carver, I never wanted this.  I never wanted to be this kind of figure.  I never wanted to be the leader of the revolution.  It just fell in my lap,” Jenkins said, his gaze unfocused as he recounted the last two months.  Carver could tell that he had never told anyone this; he never wanted to let the disguise slip.  But they had been through too much.  Carver had been there when Jenkins committed suicide; he had been there to bring Ryan Jenkins back from the grave.

“Yeah, but kid,” Carver started to console the young hero, but Jenkins looked him in the eye and slapped the table with his right hand.

“No, Carver, I never wanted this.  Hell, I tried to stop
existing
.  Then they brought me back to be this kind of propaganda piece.  They brought me back and in the process of rescuing me from that asteroid all of my friends died.  Feldman and Roberts and everyone on the Crows.  Charlotte,” he started, but he faltered at the mention of the woman he loved.

“That wasn’t your fault,” Carver said, but Ryan shouted at him and tears formed in his eyes.  The old man almost let loose his own when he saw the misery on that boy’s face.

“But it was, Carver.  I told Charlotte to stay behind to revive Haywick, and because of that Cortes and the other Jenkins died.  Roth died getting her to us.  They had no business being there.  Then I didn’t tell her to come with us.  I could have
saved
her, John.  She could be with us right now but I didn’t have the guts to tell her how I felt or how I needed her by my side.  I didn’t deserve to live and then so many people traded their lives for mine,” he said, his breaths labored by silent sobs.

“I thought, I thought that once we got back here all I had to do was stick around, maybe give a few speeches.  But then Tom kept giving me assignments and I felt like I had to make it up to the Crows and it’s.... it’s too much, D....Carver,” he said, almost calling the old man something else entirely.  It was enough to pull on the veteran’s heartstrings and he broke his silence.

“I know it’s too much, Ryan,” he said as he stood up and rounded the table before setting his hand on the messiah figure’s shoulder.  The young revolutionary looked up at him in a desperate plea; he wanted Carver to make everything alright.  “We keep asking so much of you, but that’s only because we know you can do it.  I wish it didn’t have to be this way, I wish all of the Crows were still here.  I wish you didn’t have to feel this pain.  But the only thing we can do is move on.  We have to honor their memories,” he said as he sat down on the grey table.  “The only thing I can offer you is my help.”

“What do you mean?” Jenkins asked; the façade of the leader completely absent from the boy’s persona.  Carver gave a sad smile and patted the young man’s shoulder again.  Carver might never get the chance to have his own son, but he knew after all this time that Ryan was the closest thing he would ever have.

“You take on too much.  You’re right, we ask so much of you, but there’s so much you
don’t
have to do.  There’s plenty of little details and plans that you could leave to others.  You shoulder too much of the guilt; too much of the responsibility.  And while I still live I will help you in any way I can,” he said, realizing now that he would never be able to stay in the background like he wanted.  As long as Ryan was suffering, there would always be more for the old man to do.

“I can’t ask that from you,” Jenkins started, looking down at the table, but Carver grunted at that.

“You sure as hell can.  I have plenty of memories with those Crows, too.  And I might be old, but I still have fight in me.  You know the story of Icarus?” Carver asked, hoping that Ryan would know the old myth.  Jenkins responded by giving him a confused look.  Carver chuckled at the sight and then gave a soft smile.

“Classic story of pride gone wrong.  It's actually where my code name comes from.  Daedalus was this old inventor and he was imprisoned with his son.  All he wanted was to escape this island prison but there was no real way out of it.  So Daedalus went and created these massive wings for him and his son out of feathers and wax,” he started, lost in the story and oblivious to the young man’s reaction at his side.  As Carver continued in the story, Ryan’s face became more and more confused.

“And the only thing that Daedalus told his son was not to fly too close to the sun, because the wax would melt and the wings would fall apart.  They set off and it was working for a while, but Icarus felt freedom for the first time and loved flying.  He ended up becoming so bold that he flew too high and the wings melted.  I always took it as a story about pride.  You can’t fly too high and expect to make it out alive, kid.  You can’t take on so much responsibility and expect not to burn out,” he said as he looked back at the young man sitting in front of him.  Carver mistook the revolutionary’s reaction as that of confusion, rather than fear, and chuckled.

“I swear, it makes more sense the older you get.  For now you should go get some sleep.  You look tired.  And remember, you’re not alone in this, alright?” Carver said as he picked himself up and headed towards the exit of the briefing room.  As he left, he felt a special kinship with the messiah figure sitting down in that room.  Carver finally felt like he was giving the life lessons he was always meant to give.

Jenkins watched the old man leave the room, but his thoughts were much further away.  The myth seemed familiar, like he had heard it before, but what was far more disconcerting was the imagery associated with it.  The wings, the escape, the sun; everything seemed to correspond to what he had seen in his dreams.

After that revelation, sleeping was the last thing that Ryan wanted to do.

-

Douglas sat in the chair and felt more than just a little anxious.  He put out his hands and tried to feel the desk in front of him, but nothing was comfortable; nothing was familiar.  It didn’t help that he couldn’t see anything and that he had no idea what he was going to say.

“We’ll record something in just a minute, Doug.  Don’t worry about it, just talk.  We won’t air anything unless it’s what you want,” Goldstein said at his side, but Douglas could only feel more worried.

“Zach, I don’t know about this.  What can I even say to these people?  They don’t know me and I don’t know this world, really,” he said, but he could hear the former merchant hush him.

“Like I said, Doug, don’t worry about it.  All you have to do is talk, talk about your feelings, your experiences and what you hope happens.  Once we get some material down and you hear what it’s like, we can decide what to air, what to keep on the drawing board.  No pressure at all.  The people just want to hear a friendly voice; they just want to hear someone who’s on their side and who’s in the same position,” Goldstein said, but Douglas could only sink into despair.

“But I’m not in the same position, Zach.  I’m blind, I’m crippled, I haven’t been able to fight and I’ll never be able to,” Douglas said, but he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“You’ve fought more than you had to, Finnegan.  You’ve given up much more than you had to.  And people will respect you because even after all that you’re still fighting.  You’re still on their side.  People will flock to your message and your voice because you haven’t given up.  Do you understand how powerful that is?  Just by talking you can keep the revolution going.  Isn’t that worth trying, at least?” Goldstein asked from the darkness.  Douglas breathed in deeply and resolved himself to the act.  He decided that Goldstein was right.

“Alright, Zach.  Just .... Just tell me when to start,” Douglas Finnegan said, trying to muster the courage to speak to an entire world.  He felt the warm hand leave his shoulder and could hear Zachary walking away.

“Whenever you’re ready, Doug.  Just talk,” Goldstein said before slipping into silence.  Douglas sat there for a moment, trying to consider what to say, but then he realized that he just needed to start.  He could figure out the message later.

“Hello, everyone.  My name was Douglas Finnegan, but I’ve given that up, now.  I used to be the announcer for
War World
, and I’m sure many of you have heard my voice before.  In fact, the last time I was able to speak in public was in that last broadcast, where Eric Jones declared the beginning of this revolution.”

“I say it is a revolution because Jasper Montgomery and the Trade Union and all of the news outlets are not telling you the truth.  You can’t trust them with their misinformation because they want to trick you.  They want to tell you that this is just a little squabble and that a sorry lot of terrorists are on the run.  That the good guys are about to win,” Douglas said, fury starting to build inside him.  He did what he could to maintain a calm and level voice, but his passion started to seep through.

“Well they are right about one thing.  The good guys are about to win.  But it is not the status quo.  It is not the Earth Orbit Security Forces.  The Earth Freedom Initiative is fighting for you every day.  We are fighting to create a new world order; a new world where everybody is free and has equal opportunities.  We are not striving to maintain a world where the rich get richer and the poor are left to fend for themselves, often resorting to crime against their own neighbors just to survive,” he said, the volume of his voice raising with the statements.