When the interstellar cradle crashed into Arthur and Martha Bahrain’s back yard they took it as a sign from God. They took the infant and called him Manuel, which they thought was fitting name for a messenger from God. They resolved to instill in him all the principles that would create the new and uncorrupted age.

It quickly became evident that Manuel Bahrain possessed many gifts. Almost as soon as he learned to crawl, he could move faster than the naked eye could see, and he learned to fly as soon as he could climb (and fall out of) apple trees. More than one neighbor had set the antiquated Bahrain telephone to ringing, asking if they had possibly lost a son? Then Arthur Bahrain would start up his old blue pick-up and retrieve his wandering messenger of God.

 

Arthur and Martha learned that corporal punishment was less than effective on a boy whose skin could not be pierced or bruised. But they would sit with their son late into the night, explaining what he had done wrong, and exactly what the spiritual consequences would be.           

“You’re a messenger of God, Manuel,” Martha said. “He forgives men and women many times, but you are not mortal. You came straight from heaven, and God expects more from you. Don’t make me worry for your soul, Manuel.”

“You have great abilities,” Arthur agreed. “You must unfailingly use them for the good of others. To do otherwise is a sin.”

 Manuel understood that sins led to hell, and he did his best. So he practiced his abilities in secret, where his parents couldn’t see him failing. He was meant to be perfect, and if he tried hard enough, he would be.

He also picked up the habit of helping people. If he listened hard enough, Manual could hear people for miles around, and someone always needed help. Dogs had to be found, and fields needed harvesting. At dinner each night, Arthur would ask how he had used the gifts God gave him, and Manuel would say how he had helped Anna Row in his math class, or lifted Harold Brown’s car out of the ditch. On days when he had nothing, neither Arthur nor Martha would say a word, but the disapproval would thicken in their air until Manual could hardly breathe. He would eat as quickly as possible and then stared at his plate with his pale jade eyes, lips thin and white.

At the end of the meal, Arthur would push back his plate and bow his head.

“Heavenly Father, grant that we might use the gifts we have been entrusted for the self-less benefit of our fellow men. May we not pass over those ever-present opportunities, the omission of which places a blot upon our eternal souls not easily removed. Amen.”

 

And Martha and Manuel would echo, “Amen.”

 For all the value placed on their son’s abilities, Arthur and Martha never questioned the value of remaining sequestered in a backwater of the country.

 

“When the time comes to announce himself, Manuel will know,” she said.

 When Manuel was sixteen he pushed Carl Wilson out of the path of a thresher, but in the process caught his arm in the teeth and was pulled through. Most people were surprised when the thresher, rather than the boy, died. After that, Arthur and Martha sold their home and left for the city, both confident in the guiding power of God and unwilling to explain their son to their neighbors.

The city unsettled their lives. The Bahrains took a one-room apartment in the bad part of town, and tried to hold on to the life they were used to, but it was hard.

Manuel couldn’t sleep. The constant noise rattled in his bones, and voices screamed in his head, begging someone, anyone to Help! Help! Oh God! When the screaming became too intense, he got up from his sagging couch, climbed through the window, and went into the night, running so quickly he couldn’t clearly see the buildings around him. He went out to stop the screaming and didn’t care what he did as long as some of the pleading stopped.

He didn’t tell Arthur and Martha. They really had no time to ask how he was using his gifts. Arthur struggled with finding work and Martha was worn from her nine to five factory job. The news every morning told them about a spike in local violence, but Manuel tried very hard not to think about what he did at night, and never brought up the subject. His parents didn’t notice anything strange.

He got good at thinking through the noise, the unceasing, unfailing, unbreakable noise. When he got the scholarship to a decent, community college, he took it, over Arthur and Martha’s objections.

“What would you learn?” she said. “Why would you go?”

 

“Do they believe in the Almighty there?” he said.

Martha was crying, something she rarely allowed herself to do. “Your place is with us, your time has not yet come.”

“I forbid this,” Arthur said. “You will not do this thing.”

 

Manuel looked at his parents and told them the only thing they would hear.  “God is calling me to this,” he said. And he knew the words were a sin and a lie, but they let him go.

College was better, but not by much. He learned, but made few friends. He heard everything they said behind his back, and mostly he stayed in his room. He slept soundly one night in three. On the others, he climbed out his window and into the night.

Manuel made one good friend. Richard Win was cynical, wealthy, cheerful, extroverted. He rarely spoke without sarcasm and never meant an insult to hurt

“You’re so messed up, man,” Richard said, tossing a crumpled piece of paper at the small trashcan in the corner of the room. He always threw with too much force and the paper bounced back to where he sprawled against Manuel’s desk.

“Everyone’s messed up. God made us that way, so we can get better.”

 

Richard grinned. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about.”

At the same time that Manuel was struggling through school, the city realized there something more at work than muggers conveniently slamming themselves through walls or rapists coincidentally hanging themselves on light poles mid-act. The newspapers quickly gave the phenomenon a name: the Savior. The few sightings in the city said the miracle responding to their cries for help was man-shaped and had eyes like green neon in the night. Gradually, people began sighting him more, first in the long, dark blue cape that blended with the shadows, and then with the full body suit and pale orange mask that flashed his jade eyes.

 

When the Villains first moved into the city, they had nothing to do with the Savior. The gang wasn’t into raw violence so much as straight intimidation, which was more profitable and less dangerous. Its influence grew and strengthened while the Savior’s popularity increased.

Then one day, the gang went out and shot an upstanding member of the community on his neat suburban lawn. The cameras arrived with the police cars, and they took long, glaring, jerky videos of the man’s daughter rocking his bloodless bloody in her lap and wailing,

She looked straight into the camera, eyes wide and unseeing, tears falling

“Why can’t you do something!” she cried. “Why couldn’t you save my father?”

The Savior appeared in the street as though he had created himself from the dust and the emergency lights. He crouched beside her and gently touched her face. While the cameras rolled and the police stared, his turned her face to his, where she could see the pale green eyes glowing in purpose.

“I will stop them,” he said to her. “I will destroy their corruption and bring in a perfect world.”

And then he was gone.

The news reporters only managed to cover the end of the destruction of the Villain’s headquarters. They arrived in time to see the Savior walking from the flames in his shredded costume, blood still on his hands.

From that day forward, evil men in the city trembled in fear, because of the unspoken presence of the Savior. Wherever there was a cry for help, wherever bad men did bad things, the Savior was there with his dark blue suit and glowing eyes, bringing justice, judgment, and retribution.

In the same city, but in a different world, Manuel struggled with school. He became even social, dropping old acquaintances out of his life, refusing to make new ties. He got a free-lance electrician job and worked hard. He unplugged out his phone when his parents tried to call to ask when he would bring in the new age, because Arthur was out of work again and Martha couldn’t stop crying. Richard Win remained the only person he still talked to, and they went out for drinks every Friday. Manuel found himself smiling, even when he didn’t want to, at the jokes and the jibes and the easy confidence his friend carried like a cloak.

The Savior appeared in the news and with the most important people of the city. He was a strong, broad-shouldered man who never hesitated to say what he thought, and what he thought was always heard with care. But he never appeared in public without the skintight suit that disguised his normal appearance, or the mask that hid everything but his eyes. It became something of a sport in the city for reporters to try and find the secret identity of the Savior. They searched everywhere, tracking down retired fighters and cops, reclusive millionaires in their private estates, blind men and the graves around the edges of the city. But no one could ever find that secret face. They even tried Richard Win, cynical, playboy son of a wealthy couple, but he laughed in their faces.

Some people question the value of a masked vigilante, a man who killed seemingly without conscience, who made arbitrary choices about life and death.

“What happens when he runs out of scum?” James Jordan, reporter, demanded, the cigar hanging from his hand. “What about when there’s only normally bad people left? You think the bastard’s going to just fade away?”

If the Savior worried about the end of his usefulness, he gave no sign. But other people wondered about the purpose of a superhero without an enemy. And a few among them worried.

Manuel had just ended a night with Richard. He was closing the door, a tired smile still on his face, when a small sound behind him made him spin around. Arthur Bahrain stood there, Martha a thin shadow beside him. Manuel hadn’t heard them through the noise and the farewell.

“Who was that?” Arthur said.

Manuel felt sixteen again and certain of God’s damnation. “A friend.”

Arthur stared into the eyes of his gift from God. “What ungodly things have you been doing away from us, Manuel? What things will God damn you for? When did we go wrong? Why have you failed in your mission? Why are we still here in this corrupt world, when we have been so faithful, so eager for the next?” He turned his face away and began to swear beneath his breath.

“You must stop seeing that boy,” Martha said. “We should never have let you leave our home. You have been corrupted by the world. This world has corrupted the messenger of God!” And then the tears began dripping down her face, and she raised her arms, as though calling God that moment to punish her for her sins.

“Is this how you use your talents?” Arthur said. “Is this how you serve God?”

Manuel shook his head. “No,” he said. “I can do more. It can mean more.”

His parents stared at him. “For your soul’s sake, you had better.”

And then they hobbled out the door. When Manuel went to his cupboards, he saw that the shelves were bare.

 

On a hot summer night when the people of the city thought there were no more bad men for the Savior to destroy, Mr. Graves sent his first message.

People always wondered why Mr. Graves chose that particular building for his first act of senseless violence. It was a tenement, unimportant, in the middle of nowhere. But it went up in scarlet flames, screaming and cracking in the new day sun, and little pieces of paper, some on fire, flew away from it on the light breeze.

The Savior arrived a heartbeat after the blast, his eyes burning like the fire. He caught a piece of paper, still smoldering, and read the words.

 

Couldn’t stop that, could you, Savior? I know who you are. I will destroy you some day. Let’s play? Sincerely, Mr. Graves.

The Savior crumpled the paper, while the news cameras watch his clenching jaw, his stony face. And then he flew into the sky and across the city, working with the strength and speed of a dozen fire departments to quench the fires that had spread everywhere the papers fell. The city wondered if their superhero would be enough for this new and unknown threat.

 

Later than night, Richard Win brought Manuel Bahrain home so he could cry in his arms. Richard had never met the Bahrains, had in fact hated them distantly from what he heard from Manuel, but his friend’s sake he remained silent on the day they died.

Mr. Graves struck again at the First National Bank. He appeared himself, top hat at a jaunty angle, huge dark glasses wrapping around his face, mouth a mass of white arrogant teeth, white gloved hands playing easily with the silver plated cane. There were bombs in the supportive columns, and a number of very bad men standing in the wings to take the money. Only just in time did the Savior arrive, stopping the bombs, catching the crooks, who fired their semi-automatics point-blank into his chest with looks of despair on their faces. He posed carefully in front of the cameras, with his cape swirling around his chiseled calves. But Mr. Graves got away. He left a note, lying on the ground beside the vault where the dead bank guard bled out his life. Whatever it said, no one knows, because the Savior read it, then crumpled it in his rock hard hands and threw it through the already cracking wall.

 

From that day on, the hero and the villain played a game. Mr. Graves would say where he was, laughing on the grand screens, showing his face muffled in fine silk scarves, but he never said enough to give the game away. And the Savior, with his speed and flight and strength and honest good looks, always saved the day, but sometimes only by a hair.

Gradually, as the Savior grew more and more well known, Manuel Bahrain became less. Sometimes he faded away for days, weeks at a time, and when he came back to his rotten little apartment and his sorry little life, he would crouch to the ground and put his hands over his ears to try and block out the eternal noise. The Savior was in the world, making it a better place, a clean place like his parent had always wanted. He was fighting evil. More and more, Manuel though it would be better to stop existing. He could go away, to hell, or wherever failed messengers go, and the Savior could be all he should be.

Only Richard Win kept Manuel in the world, with his visits, his voice, his laughter. And Richard, for his part, watched both his friend Manuel, and the mysterious Savior and became ever more disturbed by what he saw.

One day, he confronted his friend.

“Manuel, I need to talk to you,” Richard said, grabbing his friend by the arm when he would have walked right past.

“What?”

“I think you want to keep this private.”

 Manuel met Richard’s eyes with his own pale green ones. He tried to pull his arm away, but Richard wouldn’t let go. “Okay,” he said.

They went to Richard’s penthouse. Richard closed and locked the door and Manuel glared.

“Be quick about it. I don’t have time for this.”

 

“Manuel, I know you’re the Savior.”

A heartbeat of stillness. Manuel’s face was a mask. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Richard shook his head. “You know, you’re a really really good liar, Manuel.”

The sarcasm said he knew the truth. The sarcasm said he was hurt.

 

Manuel stepped back. “Why would you think I’m the Savior? How could I be the Savior? How could a weak, spineless, sinful worm like me be the Savior? It’s impossible, Rich. It’s laughable.” He laughed. It stuttered out.

Richard shook his head. “The two of you are never in the same place twice. You’re never surprised by what the Savior does. And I saw him once, and, Manuel, he looked like you. You have the same eyes.” He laughed. “But he’s better looking than you are.” The sarcasm said he lied. The laughter said he was hurt.

 

Manuel shook his head violently. “No one can know that. No one should know it. It’s impossible.”

“Look, no one’s going to know. Because the last thing I want if for everyone to know my best friend is a psychotic vigilante.”

“No one should know. No one can know. Unless . . .” Manuel froze, and straightened. He wasn’t himself any more. The face was still his, the greasy, slept in hair, the baggy second hand clothes. But the posture was strong, straight, confident, and the look in his eyes, like a weasel drawn to a blood or a fanatic seeing the heathen; those were the eyes of the Savior. “There’s only one way you could know.”

“Manuel, I mean, seriously, a superhero? That’s so fifties. And impossible. It’s damned impossible that a man can fly though the air and slaughter muggers in a single bound when he can’t even pay his electricity bill!”

“I never would have suspected you. How could you, Richard? We were friends.”

“Were?” Richard stopped, and for the first time what he was seeing made it’s way through the sarcasms and the pain. “What the hell do you mean by were? You’re damned crazy but you’re still my friend.”

“They were my parents.”

Richard took an involuntary step back. “Manuel,” he said, “What are you doing?”

“Your game is up, Mr. Graves.”

Only later, did Manuel step back and realize that he had made a horrible horrible mistake only God could correct. And God would never hear him.

The Savior told the newspapers that Richard’s death was the tragic result of his war on Mr. Graves.

 

“He was my friend, and I misjudged him,” he said, perfect tears flowing from his glowing jade eyes. “Mr. Graves made a great mistake when he killed him instead of me.”

From that day on, the war between them became more vicious. The diabolical Mr. Graves, laughing from behind his neat white gloves never stained by the blood he shed, planned bombings, murders and train wreaks, one right after the other. But the Savior was always there, catching the trains, stopping the bombs, rescuing children, killing those who followed Mr. Graves in his bloody, horrible deeds.

Their battles were like those of two great Titans, locked in an eternal war. Always Mr. Graves used his mind, and his skills and his money, and always the strength, the speed and the might of the Savior pitted against the brains, the plans, the guns, the bodies that Mr. Graves brought to the game. And people died in the war, both the innocent and the guilty, but neither the hero nor the villain became any closer to destroying the other.

But the death of Richard Win drove the Savior. He must, above all other things, destroy Mr. Graves for that death. But Mr. Graves never said why he was there. Some days he claimed he loved the money, or the fame, or just reveled in the destruction. But always, he would grin at the Savior through the video or the letter or the scrawled bloody mural on the edge of a burnt out wall that carried his latest threat, and say:

“Hello, Savior. Let’s play the game.”

 

And no matter how many times the Savior wanted to scream that this was no game, that people died, that the voices in his head were real, and that he would destroy, utterly and forever Mr. Graves; no matter how many times these words came to his lips, the letter or the screen or tape player or the projector would snap out, nothing but silence and emptiness, and leave his lips without the words.

The cameras loved the Savior, and feared and craved sights of Mr. Graves. His attack on the Central News Agency was one of the few attacks the Savior was unable to stop. Hundreds died. When the superhero escaped the chains of some unknown metal that had held him in a small basement prison, he vowed eternal enmity against this enemy that had taken everything from him, both parents and friend and name and worshipers.

Years passed, and their battles spread into other cities, consumed other places, and other heroes and villains were spawned like whirlwinds of dust spinning out of the fury a tornado. But the Savior and Mr. Graves were always the greatest, unequaled, ever feared, ever admired.

Until one day when the fall was turning into winter, fading into the dark.

 

Mr. Graves had been about to launch a biochemical atomic bomb over the heart of the city where the two began. His ageless face had laughed on the cameras, and told the Savior where he would be waiting.

 “Come to the place we began, you an I, to hate one another truly,” he said to the Savior through the flickering video. “If you’re not afraid, Savior.”

 

The Savior was standing in an isle of calm in Head Quarters when Mr. Graves broadcast the message on all channels. The frightened military personnel turned to him, saw him tall and strong and tired and straight as tree. Saw him take the message, breath in, and out again.

“I’ll see you there, Mr. Graves,” he said, even though the image couldn’t hear him. He looked the general in the eye. “I have to go.”

The general nodded. There was nothing else to say. Something in those jade green eyes made words seem pointless. The Savior left and flew into the evening for his final, greatest battle.

 

Following an anonymous tip, the police went to the abandoned penthouse apartment where Richard Win died twelve years before, and found the Savior dead. He lay on the floor, hands wrapped around his own neck. His eyes bulged in death, and the police could see where his nails had broken through his otherwise impenetrable skin. A detective tried to close the superhero’s eyes, but the lids wouldn’t move. Standing, he shuddered and flexed his hand.

The note was neatly folded, resting on the desk like an invitation.

The same detective that had tried to close the Savior’s eyes took it and unfolded it.

 

Nemean Lion, killed by his own claws, serpent swallowing his tail, the Savior is dead. Don’t weep that he is gone, but that he was never there. I used my gifts and you can see how much better this place is because I was there. Sincerely, Mr. Graves

P.S. Someone else killed Richard Win. Not I.

Later that week, when the rent was past due, Manuel Bahrain’s landlord broke through the extra locks bolted to the plywood door and found the room a wreak, like someone had trashed it looking for a secret that was life and death. He looked for a body, but Manuel wasn’t there. The landlord grumbled under his breath and did some searching of his own, hoping the thieves had left something of value so he could recoup his losses on the rent.

The Savior was buried by the State in the tomb beneath where his statue stands today. No one ever learned his secret identify, though some determined people still search through moldy records for who the Savior really was, when he wasn’t saving them.

Like Manuel Bahrain, Mr. Graves was never heard from again.