Part XI - Empire of Ink and Fragile Foundations
The previous night, exhaustion had finally claimed the titan. Isaiah, after a successful day of sales, had brought his collection of nickels and dimes home. He climbed onto the couch and, with an air of profound business seriousness, spread his meager profits across Maria's lap.
She was reading, but her attention was instantly on his small hands. He was painstakingly counting his capital, oblivious to the fact that his head was resting against her side—an act of profound, physical surrender. Much later, when his calculations were done and his breathing even, he had drifted to sleep on the cushion.
The morning began in the soft, bruised light before dawn. Isaiah stirred, his mind—the seventy-eight-year-old titan's mind—snapping instantly to full alertness. He quickly determined it had been just 31 days since his rebirth in 1980, and he'd amassed exactly $14.85—the entire founding capital of his new paper empire.
His bedroom was a tiny, rectangular box, the walls a pale, sickly green where the paint peeled in brittle strips.
"Mama? How did I get here?" he whispered, his voice thin and confused.
Maria was already up, folding laundry. "You were asleep on the couch, mijo. Counting your gold. I carried you in," she said, sitting down on the edge of the bed.
Isaiah's small hands instinctively went to his chest. "I... I don't remember," he murmured, his eyes darting away from hers.
The physical intimacy of being carried was a profound embarrassment to the titan who had never known maternal love. The weakness of his body felt like a constant betrayal, but beneath that, a dangerous, unwelcome question formed: Did he want more of this warmth?
The idea sickened his strategic mind. Love was a vulnerability, a catastrophic inefficiency, a distraction from his lifelong pursuit of pure power. He fought the sudden, confusing urge to lean into her touch, instead tensing his shoulders.
Maria noticed his shyness. "Don't worry, mi amor. I'm always here. Come on, let's get you cleaned up. The bathroom first, then we can talk strategy."
He scrambled off the bed, eager to escape her gaze, and padded toward the bathroom.
He padded to the bathroom, pulling his clothes off. Maria followed him, closing the door behind them.
The small, cracked mirror over the sink was dim, but Isaiah stopped and looked at his reflection. His hair was a thick, unruly mass of white/silver curls. His eyes—the full, terrifying consciousness of the titan—were an intense, luminous ruby red, burning with calculated intent. It was a cosmic humiliation, but he forced himself to acknowledge the vessel he had to work with.
Maria helped him onto the small step stool. "You're getting so big, Isaiah," she said softly. "Soon you won't need Mama to help with anything."
Isaiah muttered defensively, "I can do it myself."
Maria simply smiled and helped him into the shower stall. As she used a chipped plastic cup to rinse his hair, she spoke.
"You're awfully quiet this morning, Isaiah. Is the empire weighing on you?"
Isaiah closed his ruby red eyes, seeking refuge in the warm water. "I'm thinking about the chains, Mama," he said. "The ones that try to keep us small. The lack of choice."
Maria paused, her hand resting gently on his shoulder. "Those chains are real, mijo. But remember what Abuela says: the Phoenix doesn't stay chained. It uses the fire to burn them off."
"I know," he replied, focusing his mind on the $14.85. "But sometimes, you have to fight fire with strategy first."
He didn't wait for Maria to dry him; the answer was final. He quickly pulled on his patched clothes, the urgency of his mission already a tight knot in his small chest. He paused only when the sweet, heavy smell of tortillas warming on the griddle hit him—Maria's constant effort to provide a layer of comfort.
Maria was already at the small, wobbly kitchen table, pouring lukewarm coffee for herself and placing a small plate of eggs and tortillas in front of him. "Sit down, mijo. You can't run an empire on just water and ambition," she murmured.
Isaiah climbed onto the plastic booster seat. He ate quickly, avoiding her gaze.
"That $14.85 is a lot of money," Maria said softly. "What are you going to do with it? Buy better paper?"
Isaiah paused. "No. It's for the next step, Mama. I need to secure the supply line. I need capital reserves in case... in case the competition tries to choke us out."
Maria sighed, pushing her plate away. "You talk like a man, Isaiah. And you worry like one, too. You're trying to escape the hard way, mijo. The way of the mind. I know that feeling."
Isaiah lifted his ruby red eyes. "What do you mean?"
Maria looked toward the light. "Before you came, I was in a place where I felt nothing but chains, not of money, but of spirit. My life felt like a dark, dusty room. My escape wasn't a rebirth of the body, Isaiah, but a rebirth of belief. I found the little flicker—the smallest ember of hope—and I held onto it. That was my Phoenix moment."
She squeezed his small hand. "The only thing you need to worry about is being three. And eating all your eggs. The rest will come, I promise. Don't let the worry steal your joy, mijo. Now finish up, your generals will be waiting."
He nodded, a tight, focused gesture, swallowing the last bite. He slid off the chair and headed toward the back door, leaving the quiet domestic scene behind.
The air in the courtyard hung thick, stifling the distant sounds of traffic and making the asphalt give off a faint, oily smell. Isaiah headed straight for the open garage, his makeshift office and factory.
The certificate, framed in cheap plastic, hung proudly—a declaration that his paper empire was real. He was so focused on building the walls that he failed to notice the foundational cracks—the human ones.
Rico arrived later, his notebook clutched like a talisman. To Rico, every coin was a nail hammered into the coffin of his pride. He felt like a footnote in Isaiah's legend.
Eddie had positioned himself across the street, his chrome chain flashing, observing Rico like a weak link. He approached Rico, his voice a low, smooth scrape. "He's got the market cornered, don't he? A three-year-old running a whole movement. It's not fair, man. You're older, you're the one who fixed the broken legs on his drawings."
Rico's grip on his notebook tightened. "I can draw the fire better than him," Rico finally mumbled.
"Then why aren't you getting the gold?" Eddie pressed. "You just need to be first in line. Don't let a toddler lock you out of your own future. Go claim what's already half-yours."
Inside, Isaiah, focused solely on expansion, handed out another zine. This happened shortly after breakfast and continued throughout the morning as he hustled with his team from the garage headquarters. "This one's got the new move," he announced. "It's the Phoenix Punch..."
That afternoon, while Isaiah was hustling zines at the corner store, Rico lingered alone in the garage. He worked with frantic energy, redrawing a key fight scene. He carefully altered the dialogue bubble and drew a small note in the margin, stating that the Phoenix's origin story—the core legend—had been his idea first. This was a theft of the narrative's soul.
That night, Isaiah returned home, the exhaustion from the day's sales settling deep in his small body. He went straight to the garage to retrieve his earnings. He then settled himself on the living room couch, meticulously counting his coins near the certificate, organizing his entire $14.85 fortune.
Marcus noticed the coiled tension in Rico's shoulders, recognizing the familiar pattern of loyalty dissolving into greed. Rico, seeing Isaiah absorbed in his counting, finished his act of treachery. Rico's small hand trembled as he slipped the subtly altered notebook onto Isaiah's supply table in the garage before he left.
The paper kingdom had a fracture in its foundation.
Back on the couch, Isaiah finished his calculations and drifted to sleep, his head resting against the cushion near his pile of nickels. Later, Maria found him there. She gently swept the few remaining coins into a small tin and lifted his three-year-old body, carrying him not to his crib, but to her own room, where she settled him securely beside her, allowing him to cuddle into her warmth.
By morning, the titan's body would wake in the soft embrace of maternal love, but in the cold garage, Isaiah would find that a shadow had passed, leaving a mark of ink and envy that could not be erased. The first betrayal had landed.