Part XVI - The Price of Eternal Lines
Meanwhile, outside the workshop's hum, Marcus was fighting a different clock. Armed with Maria's capital, he worked the streets to secure a destination for Isaiah's creation. This wasn't about enthusiasm anymore—it was about logistics, shelf space, and survival.
He spent his days chained to the same payphone on a grimy corner near the distributor's office, dialing through lists and dead ends. His hardest sell was Gary, the aging proprietor of The Collector's Vault—the biggest domino in the territory, a fortress of loyalty to the Big Two. Convincing him meant more than a contract; it meant breaking through decades of allegiance written in ink and nostalgia.
The call of the morning was to Gary.
"Gary, it's Marcus," he barked into the receiver, pacing the pavement, his voice full of manufactured confidence. "Look, I'm not selling you a stack of stapled pamphlets. I'm selling you five thousand copies, printed on paper that costs three times their standard newsprint. You won't find this quality in any of your long boxes."
Marcus waited for the inevitable resistance. Gary's scratchy voice came back: "My customers want Captain America. Their books cost $1.50. Marcus, I don't want that cheap, unground stuff that's not handled properly."
"I know what your customers want, Gary. But you're missing the customers that aren't coming in! Captain America sells for a dollar fifty. This book sells for three dollars. You move one copy of ours, and you've potentially made twice the profit. You put Goku's Adventure on your shelf, and you aren't selling a comic book; you're selling the best print quality in this city. That 100-pound glossy stock I'm guaranteeing will make every other book look cheap. That's the real guarantee. This is print gold." Marcus leaned against the glass of the booth, his voice dropping into a tight whisper for the negotiation.
Gary grumbled, "Fine, Marcus. You're talking about pure quality, but my shelf space is prime real estate. That rack moves a hundred copies of Amazing Heroes a week, so you displace them, you better perform. If this doesn't move two hundred copies that first week, I'm pulling the whole run and sending the bill for the rent right to your payphone. You're talking about displacing established giants with a ghost. And don't send a driver. I want to see this product the moment it leaves the press, and I want to see you. Bring them to the Vault yourself right after the run. We'll call that the entry fee."
Marcus let the silence stretch across the payphone connection, refusing to back down. Gary took the pause as a victory. Gary's voice turned flat and dangerous. "Five hundred copies, Marcus. That's inventory I pay for up front. Why should I carry that cost for a ghost?"
"They will perform," Marcus countered, his voice dropping in absolute certainty. "You put a comic that feels like a bank note next to a comic that feels like toilet paper, and the consumer will decide. The contrast is the sales pitch. We get the prime spot for one week. That's all I need. We take the whole order for the first chapter, 500 copies. I'll drop them off right after the press run. You handle the register, and if they don't sell, I'll pay you for every unsold copy myself. No risk to your inventory. That contrast—quality next to trash—will sell itself."
Gary's voice, harsh and low, came back across the wire. "Fine. You bring the stock yourself. And it better be perfect, Marcus."
Marcus heard the sharp click as Gary disconnected the line. He dropped his coin back into the slot, a slow, tight smile finally spreading across his face. Five hundred copies. Done. The hard part was over; now he just needed volume.
Grabbing the rest of his coin supply, he immediately started dialing. He didn't waste a second, running his hand across the directory. His voice snapped back to its high-energy register.
"Central Newsstand? Yeah, this is Marcus, publisher for Goku's Adventure. Listen, forget $1.50 comics, this is $3.00, 100-pound glossy stock. You sell six copies and you've made more profit than a whole stack of that dollar-fifty newsprint trash..."
He got the order. He spent the rest of the hour hammering that exact message home, securing commitments from newsstands and smaller specialty shops, often selling the book on the strength of its paper quality and high perceived value alone, securing commitments for over a thousand copies.
The work was done on the street; the orders were secured. Now, only the product remained. The creation was finished, but the cost was absolute. It was the definitive version of the first chapter, the Pilaf Saga, forged in an exhaustion that was only familiar to the Titan Tuffin—a grueling, six-week stretch that ran from the end of March straight through to May—a period of relentless drafting, inking, and technical detailing that drove his small body to its absolute limit.
Now, only the final page remained. Maria knelt beside the low table, her entire presence a steady, heavy anchor. Under the harsh glare of the utility lamp, she pressed the heel of her hand firmly onto the drawing board, pinning the final page down so it could not shift or buckle. Her other hand gently cupped Isaiah's forearm, not steering the pen, but bracing his entire small limb against the fatigue-induced tremors. Maria stared, reading the tension in his arm. The strain was absolute. Isaiah's small knuckles were white, rigid against the plastic casing of the pen. His lightly brown skin was pulled taut over his cheekbones, the sweat gathering on his brow. His silvery hair, usually an eclipsing white against the darkness, was now dull and matted to his temples. But the intensity was all in his gaze: those ruby red eyes, the twin sparks of an ancient, reborn sun, were heavy and bloodshot from weeks of minimal sleep, yet they were LOCKED—an unbreakable orbit—on the final, dense black line.
Maria leaned in, her voice cutting through the intense silence. "Steady, mijo. You have to breathe," she whispered, her voice a calm anchor against the fatigue and adrenaline. "Just one more breath. Push through the tremble."
His voice was a barely audible rasp of exhaustion and deep conviction: "The line is the steel, Mama. If it wavers, the whole damn thing is just dust. It has to be eternal."
Maria's grip tightened on his arm, giving him the physical stability he no longer had. "It is eternal, Zay. That is what you guarantee. Finish the line. The quality is the only thing that lasts."
Maria gently withdrew her hand and released the page as the stroke finished, the inking complete. The creation was finished.
The final art was delivered to the press. May 15th: The Day of the Launch. In the predawn quiet of the apartment, the weight of the gamble shifted entirely to Maria and Marcus. Before the inevitable chaos of the day began, Maria went to where the genesis of the risk still slept—the living room table, where Isaiah had finally collapsed.
She found him asleep there, his head resting on the drawing board. Maria knelt beside the small table and gently began to stroke his hair. "We finished it, mijo. You held the lines. You are the dragon now."
His eyes fluttered open at her touch. Isaiah looked up, his eyes heavy but bright. He held up a hand, smeared with ink. "The last panel is inked, Mama. The chapter is closed."
Maria gently squeezed his ink-stained hand, her gaze full of pride and sorrow at his exhaustion. Maria carefully lifted him, cradling his small, exhausted body against her chest. "It is perfect," Maria confirmed, moving away from the table and walking toward his room. "The best work. Now, the artist must sleep."
As she walked, the movement and the quiet brought a sudden doubt to the surface. Isaiah mumbled against her collarbone, his voice thick with sleep and doubt. "Mama... can my work ever be... published? Like the big ones?"
Maria carried him to his room. Her voice was smooth and final, betraying nothing of the financial bomb Marcus was carrying. "When you're older, Mijo. The real work is just for us now. Goodnight."
She gently placed him in the bed and tucked him beneath the sheets. She pulled a single copy of Goku's Adventure from her robe pocket—the first print, smelling faintly of ink and paper dust.
Maria: "Close your eyes, Zay. Now, for the real reward. We read the first line." She opened the comic and began to read from the first panel, her voice soft against the predawn quiet.
The opening splash page, where Goku sat on the rock, was a crisp, dense black on the glossy white stock, the lines perfectly reproduced.
Isaiah: (A tired murmur) "The start..."
Maria: "The start. The perfect start. Look what we made, mijo."
Isaiah's small hand slipped from beneath the blanket to touch the air, tracing an invisible line of ink. "Just... our lines," he whispered, his eyes already drifting shut, believing the magic was a secret owned only by their family.
Maria watched him for a long moment. She reached out and deliberately wiped a smudge of the Rotring technical ink from her own thumb—the real, professional dirt of the operation. She closed his door softly and took a necessary, steeling breath, leaving the gentle world of the bedroom behind.
Marcus was already there, his back to her, checking the first load of the printed shipment. The early morning light cut starkly across the kitchen table, highlighting the raw cardboard of the shipping box. The scent of fresh newsprint and industrial glue filled the air. Maria walked up to the table and watched him.
Her hand pressed flat on the wooden surface that now represented their foundation, and her voice, barely a whisper, broke the silence. "Five thousand copies, Marcus. That's everything. If they don't move, we have nothing left to bet."
Marcus stood still for a moment, the silence of the kitchen absorbing the weight of her words. He then straightened, his jaw set. "They'll move, Maria. Because this is the best product on the market. I'll get it where it needs to go. I won't fail you on the street again."
Maria nodded. Her gaze, cold and uncompromising, held steady on his, ensuring he understood the full, final nature of the risk. "Then go. And bring back clean capital."
Marcus didn't speak again. Hefted the first box—the culmination of their risk and Maria's entire life savings—and walked quickly out into the predawn cool. The Fairlane's engine roared to life, and the heavy, solid thud of the car door closing echoed the finality of the gamble. He shifted into gear, and the car pulled away, its single pair of headlights cutting a focused beam through the city's dark, empty arteries, heading toward the city's first accounts.