Night Sweats by Tom Cardamone

Author:Tom Cardamone [Cardamone, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781626395732
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Published: 2015-12-27T00:00:00+00:00

1998

The ceremony was appropriately solemn and only slightly awkward. It was over much too quickly to warrant such a gathering of power and dignitaries. Everyone shuffled about and were then ushered back into place as it was re-enacted for different camera angles. The heroes had cool costumes while Edwin had to make do with his typical gray camouflage. He noticed the other heroes winced or turned ever so slightly from the repetitive bursts of flashbulbs, but Edwin never wavered. Capes swirled and bored mutants moaned, ready for the buffet laid out at the reception in the underground bunker. The World Guardians had been following his story in the newspapers since he was a baby, just as he knew of them, more or less, from the comic book retelling of their adventures and the badly made TV movies. Several made sure they gave him private words of encouragement. One hero, Light Stream, kindly offered to take him camping up in Canada, describing a snowy desolation that warmed the Cyclops’s soul.

To the military and the World Guardians’ chagrin, he couldn’t fit through the bunker’s entrance and was spared the uncomfortable small talk that always accompanied such events. He strolled along the shore of Governor’s Island, ostensibly his new home, though he longed for isolation and hoped that Light Stream’s offer was sincere. His last home, the USS Colin Powell, was moored nearby. The towers of Manhattan loomed just beyond the aircraft carrier, each equally gray in the light rain, and each too populated for him to easily bear. Construction equipment was strewn about the freshly laid airstrip—the island was being prepped to house the heroes’ headquarters. A rusted World War Two–era aircraft hangar had been retrofitted to serve as his abode for the time being.

He was twenty-five and a veteran of two wars, one for the greater good, one ill-conceived and poorly executed. He’d left too many brothers and sisters buried in the jungles of Honduras and quietly wished Diego had been killed in action as well. Edwin’s star status in the Gulf War had allotted him power he was willing to wield for the benefit of his Cyclops crew, gaining them better protective gear and improved medical treatment. With extreme difficulty, he even managed the reassignment of Diego to the Marines as his personal attaché. As the war in Nicaragua widened, the once-formidable Cyclops troops were stretched thin. Urban combat decimated their numbers, and the jungles were even worse. Determined and trained Communist guerillas made for more recalcitrant foes than the reluctant Iraqi Army. Diego was prepared to do anything to serve his now high-ranking lover, but the tense, often deeply intellectual and strategic conversation among the Cyclopes often alienated him. The other enlisted men guessed his liaison with Edwin, so he faced ostracism on that front. Edwin had tried desperately to salvage the relationship. Rest and relaxation in Aruba provided brief, naked moments in the green surf. But for Diego, with blood and bombs came the bottle.

The noble band of Cyclopes fared far worse.

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