The Indestructibles (Book 3): The Entropy of Everything

The entropy of everything:

The Indestructibles Book 3

by

Matthew Phillion

The Entropy of Everything: The Indestructibles Book 3

PFP, INC

[email protected]

PO Box 829

Byfield, MA 01922

July 2015

Printed in the United States of America

© 2015 Matthew Phillion

First PFP edition © 2015

ISBN-10:0990889874

ISBN-13:978-0-9908898-7-8

(also available in print format)

Front cover design: © Christian Sterling Hegg

http://www.sterlingartsanddesign.com/

Other Books By Matthew Phillion

The Indestructibles

The Indestructibles: Breakout

"Gifted: An Indestructibles Christmas Story"

"The Soloist"

Praise for Matthew Phillion's Work

It's refreshing to have the book's one truly indestructible hero be female . . . But there's plenty that you haven't seen before . . . Phillion ramps up the action often enough to keep things moving . . . in the end, it's the heroes' well-drawn personalities that make
The Indestructibles
fly . . . And [he] doesn't give the villains short shrift either  . . . It's the rare young superhero fan who won't find him — or herself plowing through
The Indestructibles
in as few sittings as possible — and the rare older fan who won't want to scoop it up as soon as junior finishes."

— Peter Chianca 
Gatehouse Media

* * *

 "Three cheers for Solar, Dancer, Fury, Straylight, and Entropy: the five brightest stars in the sky . . .a young woman with Supergirl-like strength and abilities; Kate Miller, who wasn't really a superhero at all; a teenage werewolf; a kid with an alien super symbiote living in his brain; and a girl who could control gravity . . .In other words, the superteam was filled with a disparate mix of monsters and freaks. Or, we suppose, they could simply be called Dr. Strange and the Furious Five . . .[an] indefatigably entertaining novel."

—Eric Searleman - Superheronovels.com

* * *

"Like the first installment, [in
Breakout
] superhero fans of all ages are likely to appreciate the plot's action-packed twists and turns, the pop culture references, the revolving door of special guest heroes and villains and above all the humor, which comes both from well-placed one-liners and the characters' well-drawn personalities . . . Phillion juggles the multi-pronged plotlines well, even managing to fit in a burgeoning subplot involving the resurgence of the generation of heroes that preceded the current crop. And the action is impeccably choreographed, no small achievement when you don't have panels full of artwork to fall back on . . .But the novel's strength is no doubt its characters: the superheroes of 
Breakout
are people first, Spandex-clad adventurers second. Add in the particular depth of Phillion's female characters — heroes and villains both — and you've got a superhero saga that really does deserve to break out"

—Peter Chianca, 
Gatehouse Media

* * *

"Superheroes are famous for being perfectionists. Bruce Wayne, Big Barda, Natasha Romanova, Matt Murdock — they all trained diligently to reach their utmost physical and mental potential. And so it is with Kate Miller too ("The Soloist"). In two excellent novels Miller fought evildoers as a member of a superhero team called the Indestructibles. But she was the only member of her crew who wasn't bit by a spider, hit by lightning, or cursed by Galactus. She had to work hard to be a badass. They called her Dancer because she moved like a ballerina and hit like a mixed martial artists fighter. Now, in a prequel to the first
Indestructibles
novel, we get an insight into Miller's motivation. As it turns out, being a ballerina is excellent training for being a crimefighting vigilante. You never know when a perfectly executed grande jeté will come in handy. Coda: the author recommends listening to Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings" while reading his story.

— Eric Searleman - Superheronovels.com

Acknowledgments

When you're writing a book about time travel, you learn a lot. I learned that writing a book about time travel is incredibly complicated. From figuring out how the mechanics of time travel would work in the world of the Indestructibles to determining just how to write scenes where there are two versions of the same character,
The Entropy of Everything
was easily the most challenging book to write so far.

And for that reason, I have to send a huge thank you to my test readers, Stephanie Buck, Bec Gianotti, Christian Hegg, Colin Carlton, and Jen Howland. While I've said before that having people read the story as I'm writing keeps me motivated, this time, your feedback helped me avoid getting lost or overwhelmed by the complexities of time travel. Thank you for your honesty, and for pointing out where I got turned around or bogged down.

(Additional thanks to Steph for not only being my test reader but being the poor person I rambled my thoughts to as I wrote. I'm sorry for all the hours I basically channeled Entropy Emily and talked your ear off.)

Another thank you goes to Jay Kumar and Christine Geiger for their proofreading and copyediting efforts. Any writer will tell you, it's the copyeditor who saves you from yourself. I needed a lot of saving this time around.

And while we're talking about big picture stuff, thanks to my publisher, Peter Sarno and PFP Publishing, who have continued to have faith in the series and kept us moving forward. We've done a lot in just over a year with this series and I couldn't have done it without them.

To Sterling Arts & Design, AKA the aforementioned Christian Sterling Hegg—much thanks for the artwork you've provided the past few months, including the cover of this book, the one-shot covers, and of course the posters we use at every comic con. And the funny stuff, too. I really was tempted to use the photoshopped version of me as Doc Silence as my author photo this time.

To my family and friends—thanks for being so ridiculously supportive. And for being understanding now that I've regressed back to my fifteen year old self and spend half my waking hours thinking about superheroes. You know how they say you don't get to pick your family? Well if we could, I'd still pick mine. Every day you prove how lucky I am to have you.

And of course, to you, the readers. You don't get to have a third book in a series if people didn't support the first and second books, and your unerring support—particularly those of you who have gone out of your way to talk about the books online, who have sent messages about your favorite characters, who have stayed in touch after we met at a Comic-Con, who crafted cosplays of the Indestructibles—this book doesn't exist without you.

To the reviewers who took the time to read and discuss the books, to the libraries and brick and mortar bookstores who have invited me to speak, to the organizers who gave me the chance to take place in contests and editors who let me write guest columns weighing in on issues important to our tribe of superhero fans—thank you for everything you've done. Every action you've taken to involve me in your communities has helped keep this series going.

If the first book was an origin story, and the second book was about consequences, this book is about self-exploration. This is where our young superheroes have to look into a dark mirror and learn about themselves, and about who they want to become. If I'm honest, I'll admit I learned a lot about myself as I wrote as well. I hope you enjoy this dark journey through time. I'll see you on the other side.

Matthew Phillion

Salem, Massachusetts

July 2015

For my nephews, Joseph, Nicholas, and Callan,

because this is a story about time travel, and you are the future.

And for Stephanie,

who keeps the present in one piece every single day.

Prologue:

Post-apocalyptic

      Somewhere in the future, Jane Hawkins landed in the remnants of a flattened city block, a gray landscape that used to be the City's financial district.
Now, dusty moonscape of crumpled buildings and powdered concrete, a desolate wasteland lay where living people once thrived.

      Jane, the hero known her entire adult life as Solar, looked up at the overcast sky, glad she'd spent time above the cloud cover soaking in the sun's rays. She heard the enemy's approach, the whine of mechanical parts and heavy clunking of robotic footsteps.

      I'm getting too old for this, Jane thought, taking in the ruins of the city she'd dedicated a lifetime defending. After each instance she'd return to discover something new had been destroyed. Her team realized something existed here, in the corpse of the City, some clue that would help them defeat their nemesis. But that enemy seemed to realize this as well and defended the vacant landscape with a ferocity they reserved for nowhere else. It had become bad enough that even Titus's werewolf commandos couldn't come back here for fear of whatever new threat waited for them. Only the powerhouses, like Jane, could explore the City and survive.

      Robotic joints whirred, some sort of propulsion engine roared, and the first of the robots appeared. Jane, ever-ready, met the flying machine with a fist engulfed in white-hot flames. One hand melted through the robot's head, tore into its torso. Then, her impossibly strong fingers closed around its wiry guts and ripped them out. Another robot joined the first, a mottled mash-up of scavenged parts with eyes glowing neon green, and Jane smashed it into pieces using the body of its fallen comrade as a blunt weapon.

      "What's happening out there?" Titus's growling voice said into Jane's earpiece.

      "They've got robots," Jane said.

      "New robots or old ones?"

      "Old with new tricks," Jane said. "Nothing I can't handle."

      "Get out of there," Titus said. "It's not worth it. We'll try something stealthier next time."

      Jane finished off the second robot with her boot, crushing its chassis, and then headed toward one of the last buildings still standing in the district. It had once been home to a huge data storage company. Titus and Neal, the team's sentient Artificial Intelligence program, had come upon information that the power source their enemy utilized to keep so many of their weapons running might still be housed there, possibly containing clues on how to get past their defenses.

      "I'm right there, Titus," Jane said. "I'm going in."

      Then she heard the footsteps. No simple robotic grinding this time, real footsteps, big ones, the sort that shake the ground. Jane waited, looking into the dusty, sooty distance as a huge silhouette started to coalesce.

      "Oh come on," Jane said.

      "We're coming in to help you," Titus said.

      "No," Jane said. "There's nobody there who can help."

      "We'll scramble Straylight."

      "Tell Straylight to stay put," Jane said. "I've got this."

      Then she saw the massive shadow reach back an arm the length of a city bus and wallop the building, huge mechanical fingers tearing into the structure and driving it into the ground, a child smashing a sand castle in petty rage.

      "Now I'm mad," Jane said.

      "Tell me that boom wasn't our target," Titus said.

      "I'm changing targets," Jane said.

      She ran, her boots crunched on the gravel and broken glass beneath her feet. The robot turned its massive, neon green eyes her way, its mouthless face passive and inexpressive, and raised both arms toward her.

      Jane launched from the ground, a human missile, enveloped in radiant light, then let the solar power she'd soaked up all day flow through her. One fist forward, she aimed her flight as she'd done since she was a teenager, making her a living bullet, her other arm remained cocked back, fist clenched. The robot put up a hand to grab her, or to stop her, but Jane tore through it like a marathoner ripping through a finish line, as if the metal were tissue paper, and she continued, shattering the giant mech's head with one swing of her fist.

      The hulking monstrosity collapsed to the ground, an almost comical crash, its body stiff as a board. Still airborne, Jane saw another robot on its way. And this one had a mouth sporting teeth like a shark's.

      "Titus, I'm going to be a while," Jane said.