The After-Hero Read online

The exploration ship is on self-destruct. That soft, sexy voice that you just want to pay $3.95 a minute to hear is counting down the seconds. I have no fear. There's a hero onboard; it can't explode. The only question is will it stop when it gets to 00:01 or 00:03 seconds? They picked up some evil alien in some quadrant and now it's tearing the ship apart. Classic. All the space-marines, ave two, are dead. Inescapably, almost biblically, it's a male and a female. With an elaborate trap they lure the alien to an airlock and flush it. They assume that's the end of it.

  So... they're making love, the ship wobbling, while I'm the one in the spacesuit having my stomach turned by Zero-G. The ugly bastard latched on to the hull right above the aft-thrusters. My HIBW 5650K, with a three-carat diamond for a focus-prism and an ionic bayonet, goes to work. The laser dissects him, taking me back to biology class. Heart. Lungs. Some very interesting lumps of half-digested space marine in its intestines. I retch into my helmet. Some very interesting lumps of half-digested chicken.

  A few thermal grenades leave nothing but microscopic dust, just to make sure. And just in case, I vacuum him up for my next trip past a black hole.

  The way back from the mission is spent in some cargo hold of an ancient transport. It's sub-light, so this trip's going to take four months. They're ferrying some weird alien variations of pigs. They're just as filthy as on earth, only shit more. After I clean out puke from under my shirt, I practice drawing my laser gun. I got the basics down, but I try the super-move: draw with one hand, throw it around your back, roll under it and come up shooting. It fumbles, goes off, fries a pig.

  "There's a new sheriff in town," I tell the pigs in a cool, soothingly-raspy voice. Yes there is, I realize. And he's gathering the others. He must be their hero. When they gang up to gore me, I grab on to a chain hanging from the ceiling and pull myself up. As the pigs settle in for a wait and my sweaty hands begin to slide a centimeter at a time, I start wondering.

  So why do I do this? 'Cause suicide's a sin.

  It's definitely not the fame, either. The hero enjoys the feasts/ballads/songs, the medals pinned to his chest by presidents/kings/emperors. He gets the girl. All I get is the ex-stripper with track marks up and down her arm, constantly complaining that I'm nothing like the heroes in ballads/books/TV. She doesn't even want to dress up as a damsel in distress anymore.

  Heroes get the popular acclaim of the critics, adoration of the people. All I get are intergalactic welfare checks and a tin hut on a backwater planet orbiting a star called 'Gina's.'

  I know why it's done. I might not like it, but I know why. The hero, he has to remain pure. Unquestionable in virtue; a pillar of humanity; the light of the world. Besides, the heroes don't have the guts for this kind of stuff. But it has to be done, or the villains will keep coming back again and again, and eventually they'll win. I just wish I would get a little appreciation too.

  And sometimes, as I twist and turn on the dirty cot that is my bed, scratching at the lice, I wonder whether I could get that appreciation if only there were no heroes around.

  My hands slip off the chain. The leading pig squeals in delight. I bet a hero's hands never slip.