School for Sidekicks (33 page)

I nodded. NightHowl might have vocal chords that could shatter steel—when they worked perfectly, which wasn't all that often—but she simply wasn't in Burnish's league. The question was how best to shut this down. Then I had an idea.

“Come on,” I said loudly as I rounded the corner. “Foxman wanted us to get down to Earth as quickly as possible. This is important, so we shouldn't keep him…” I trailed off when I looked up and met Burnish's eyes.

“What are you up to now, Quick?” she asked me, and I swear I saw relief in her expression—like she really didn't want to beat the daylights out of NightHowl for some reason. “More breaking and entering at OSIRIS high-security facilities? Because, I could be up for that.”

“Uh, no. Nothing like that. We're just out for a walk, right, Jeda?”

“Wha—I mean, sure.” Speedslick looked very confused, but he went with it. “Whatever you say, Evan.”

“You two are the worst liars I've ever seen,” said NightHowl. “You might as well tell us what's up now and get it over with. Otherwise, I'll have to beat it out of you.” She still sounded angry, but like she was getting it under control.

Burnish very visibly clenched her fists. “I'll help.”

“All right, all right.” I held up my hands. “There's something funny going on with the cameras down at OSIRIS headquarters in Heropolis. Foxman asked us to take a look.”

“Us?” Burnish looked skeptical. “That seems a bit unlikely.”

“He thought it would be better if Evan didn't try to handle it alone,” said Speedslick. “He seemed worried.”

“Then we're going with you,” said Burnish.

NightHowl nodded, then looked angrily at Burnish. “But don't think you and I are done.”

Burnish shrugged. “It's your funeral, honey.”

A few minutes later we were looking out through the grill at the incoming transport gate. The arrival well was a perfect mirror of the facility at OSIRIS headquarters, complete with black floor and that same eerie inertial damping effect. The first two shells that came in were absolutely packed, which made the platform way too busy to sneak across. By the time it cleared out the shells had already been picked up and loaded onto the conveyers above.

“We might have a problem,” NightHowl whispered to me.

I shrugged. “Let's wait and see. If they're all this full, maybe Burnish can do her sliding-through-wires thing, and hold one up for us.”

“Or,” said Speedslick, “if we get one with less of a crowd on board, I might be able to zip across and hit the hold button without being spotted. The alarm doesn't sound for a couple of minutes.”

“How likely is that?” asked Burnish. “It's M-Day. They're all going to be packed.”

That's when the next shell opened, and we could all see the lone individual standing in the exact center of the transport.

“Of course.” Burnish's voice came out like pure acid. “Who proves me wrong? My dad. Coming in all by his lonesome. And why? Because there isn't enough room in one of those things for him, his ego, and another single human being.”

Captain Commanding slowly sauntered out of the transport shell.

“Whatever the reason, this is our chance,” I hissed as the Captain stepped away from the closing door. “Speedslick, go!”

The ventilation grill flipped up as soon as the Captain turned toward the exit and Speedslick blurred across the platform. He nipped between the closing doors of the shell and hit the back with an audible thud. The Captain looked over his shoulder, but by then the shell doors had all but finished closing, and there was nothing to see. He glanced around suspiciously, but I had eased the grill into place before it could bang shut.

He frowned, but finally just shook his head and went on through the outer doors. They had barely closed before I slipped out onto the platform followed by Burnish and 'Howl. Burnish was first to the transport, placing a palm against the dull steel of the doors and shifting color to match. She slid her fingertips into the tiny gap left open when Speedslick had hit the hold button and slowly forced it wider.

It froze at around eight inches and she couldn't get it any farther, which made for a bit of a squeeze, but we all managed it. Speedslick released the hold button as soon as NightHowl followed me through. The lights went out when the door closed behind Burnish, because no one was supposed to be in the shell when the conveyers moved it over to the launch cannon. Now, as long as no one had picked this particular shell to catch a ride back to Earth in, we were home free.

Given the way traffic was flowing, I wasn't all that worried, but I do admit to breathing easier once I felt the gravitic accelerator cannon take hold of our darkened shell to fling us back toward Earth.

 

24

Blackout

“Now what?” Burnish asked me as we stepped out into the arrival well.

“Now we get in front of a couple of security cameras and wave nicely for Foxman so that he can calibrate the system.”

“That's it?” She raised both her eyebrows.

“That's it.” I walked to the nearest camera and waved both my arms.

“So what do you need us for?” she demanded. “I mean, I'm plenty happy to skip the inevitable fight my parents are going to have whenever HeartBurn gets to the memorial, but this seems kind of anticlimactic. What was Foxman so worried about?”

I didn't have a good response for her question—Speedslick had just made up the bit about him being worried on the spot. And I
really
didn't know what to say about the sudden revelation of her mother's identity. I was still trying to think of an answer ten seconds later when the lights went out.

“What the heck?” asked Speedslick.

“I don't know, but…” I trailed off suddenly because I had just taken a step, and my foot came down with a distinct clunk. “Uh-oh.”

“What?” NightHowl asked.

“I think the inertial damping field just cut out,” I whispered.

“What does that mean?” asked Speedslick.

“Run!” I yelled as several pieces of the science Foxman had been pounding into my head came together to form a really ugly picture. I activated the Foxlight at my waist as I started running. “If another shell comes in now, there's nothing to slow it down. It's going to hit like a freaking meteor strike!”

“We can't outrun that,” squeaked NightHowl.

“No,” I agreed. “But, if we're very lucky, whoever built this place thought of that, and put in some really heavy-duty blast containment. If so, getting out of the well might save our lives. If not, thanks for being my friends, all of you.” Then I was all out of breath for anything but running.

Now I know what Armageddon sounds like. As we ran into the hallway that led away from the landing well, we had to duck under a slowly descending slab of Indestructabilium that was over three feet thick. There was still no power, so the system was probably a simple gravity-driven emergency measure triggered by the blackout. Two really, since a second slab was closing off the other end of the short hallway.

For that one we had to throw ourselves flat and slide. NightHowl couldn't have had more than three inches to spare when she came through at the back of the pack. As soon as Burnish and I yanked her back to her feet, we started running again. We made it maybe another thirty feet before the world came to an end.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

I can't even begin to describe the noise as it really was: unimaginably big and loud and long, like being inside a tree that's just been struck by chain lightning—thunder, and the sky falling—and a wave of sound that hit like someone breaking a board across your face. The ground leapt and twisted. I fell, bouncing and sliding like a stone skipping across the surface of a lake.

I stopped when I ran into a portion of the ceiling that had collapsed, and I had a vague awareness of NightHowl or Burnish piling into me from behind. I'd lost track of Speedslick by then. He kept running ahead and then coming back to try to hurry us along and I had no idea which side of the cave-in he was on.

Then the world went away.

When it came back, I was lying on my back and staring up into a pair of deep green eyes from a distance of about six inches. The light was very dim and full of concrete dust.

“B-burnish,” I coughed—my throat was dry, packed with that same dust and worse.

The eyes blinked, and I saw more filth caked on her lids. “Yeah.” Her voice sounded terribly distant, and I reached up to touch my right ear.

I wanted to check both, but my left arm didn't seem to work right. When I touched my ear, a big chunk of scabweb fell out. “Are we dead?”

“Not yet, Quick. Not quite.” I could hear her better now, and reached across to my other ear, removing another big chunk of scab-stuff.

“Good.”

“Can you do me a favor?” There was strain in her voice.

“Probably. What do you want?”

“I need you to see if you can slide out past my knees.”

It was only then that I realized that Burnish was more or less crouched atop me, with one arm on either side of my head, and her knees straddling my waist just below where the light shone up between us. There was a chunk of I-beam across her shoulders and what looked like a slab of concrete on top of that.

“Did you save my life?” I asked.

“Maybe. A lot depends on whether there's a way out down by my feet. Speaking of which, could you get moving? Because this rubble is really astonishingly heavy, and when I dived on top of you I didn't have time to get set properly.”

“Oh. Thanks. I, uh, thanks.” I tried moving my foot, and was pleased when it seemed to work. I started to slide myself downward, but paused after a couple of inches.

“Is something wrong?” she asked, and I could definitely hear the strain this time.

“No, I guess I … You don't even like me!”

“Not really, no.”

“Then, why?” I asked.

“Do we really have to have this conversation right now?” she demanded.

“I want to know, in case we don't make it out of this.”

“Fine, but if we get squashed I'm going to blame you.”

“Fair enough.”

“It's because of what you said after ‘Run!' Are you happy now? Can we go?”

“About the meteor?”

“No. After that.”

“I don't…”

Burnish closed her eyes, and I could see her practically counting to ten. “You thanked us all for being your friends, and you did it with what you thought might be your last breath.”

“Well, yeah. In my old school I didn't really have anyone I cared about, but I still can't see what—”

“Quick!”

“Yes?”

“Shut it for five seconds. I don't have a lot of friends—well, any really. You're not my favorite person in the world, and you piss me off a lot, but you called me your friend when it really mattered. So, when I saw the ceiling about to fall on you, I decided that I should maybe keep you from getting squashed. Now, will you
please
quit talking and move?”

“All right.” And then, because I'd never done it before and I didn't know if I'd ever get another chance, I lifted my head and kissed my first girl.

It was awkward, and she only barely kissed me back, and when we were done she shook her head and muttered, “Idiot.” But it didn't sound nearly so angry as I'd expected.

I started inching my way downward at that point, turning on my side to get past her knees. As my head slid past her ankle I felt someone grab on to my feet and start pulling. A half second later I was lying on my back in an open section of the hallway with NightHowl and Speedslick each holding on to one of my legs. A sudden crunching behind my head made me look back in time to see the rubble mound settle abruptly, filling the hole I'd just come out of.

“Burnish!”

Before I could get too panicked, a purplish ball of plasma emerged from a broken conduit end, shaping itself into a copper-skinned girl. She stepped closer and glared down at me.

“Quick.”

“Yes.”

“I'm going to forgive you this once. But if you ever kiss me again without me asking you to first, I'm going to pull your lips off and feed them to you. Seriously, not cool. Is that perfectly clear?”

“Yes.” And not just the threat part. She was right. It wasn't cool. It was pure impulse, and bad manners at the very least. “Crystal clear. I'm sorry.”

“Good.”

I raised a finger. “One question?”

“Now what?”

“Is there any chance you're going to ask me?”

“What do you think?”

“No.”

“Good answer. Now, let's see if we can get out of here somehow.”

NightHowl dropped my leg. “You kissed Burnish?”

“Uh, yeah. Moment of madness.”

“Ewwww!”

I looked at Speedslick, who simply shook his head.

At that point, I was saved from further embarrassment by the sound of the Foxphone ringing.

“Meerkat here.” I rolled my eyes as I said it, but Foxman had insisted I use that phrase when he keyed in the voice recognition prompt.

“Are you all right?” said the voice from my earbud—I switched it over to external speakers so the others could hear. “I'm on my way.”

“Yeah, I think so. Nothing feels broken anyway. My left arm doesn't like me much, but it's cocooned and it'll be back to normal in a few minutes.”

“Where have you been? Your phone's been registering as blocked or destroyed ever since the blast hit.”

“That'd be my fault,” said Burnish. “In steel form I tend to block transmission.”

“Is that Burnish?” asked Foxman. “Why is she with you?”

“Long story. Do you have any idea what's going on? Why did everything go black?”

“Another long story. Short version, Spartanicus is making his move. Step one was taking out the only way for the metas on Deimos to get back to Earth in anything less than six months. It was supposed to happen during the memorial. But when you waved for the camera, he must have realized someone else had noticed the security system was compromised, so he hit the go button. I was able to trace that back and hack his system, but it was already too late to do anything more than grab his plans and trip into his communications.”