The Indestructibles (Book 4): Like A Comet (5 page)

      "Are there any left of those
original hosts?" Jane asked.

     
They are all gone now. I have
not seen one in millennia. Such great and noble warriors.

      "All the flying elephants are
dead," Billy interjected. "That's horrible."

     
Please stop editorializing,
Billy,
Straylight said.

      "Sorry. Keep going."

     
In our escape we learned much
of ourselves. Of our ability to turn ordinary beings into heroes. Our ability
to travel at the speed of light. We discovered in ourselves a talent for war.
Of this we are not proud. But we have saved worlds. We've lost worlds as well.
More than we've won. And we have learned much about our Nemesis, their tactics,
their hunger. We have learned that they send advanced scouts to new planets,
and we have rooted them out and destroyed them.

      "Here?"Kate said.

     
Not in your lifetimes,
Straylight said.
But long ago. My partner and I destroyed agents of our
enemies on Earth more than once.

      "Where is your partner?"
Kate asked. "We've heard the name more than once. Horizon. Where did he
go?"

      Straylight was silent a long time.

      Billy felt the eyes of his friends
on him, waiting, and the worry and sadness in his symbiotic companion as well.

      "Where did he go, Dude?"
Billy said.

     
My partner went looking for
another world to save,
Straylight said.
We were here together a very
long time. We watched the rise of mankind. We watched and we waited. And we saw
what Earthlings could be like.

      "He gave up on us," Titus
said.

      Again, Dude was silent. But this
time, Billy waited patiently for his partner to be ready to speak.

     
Horizon believed perhaps there
was a world more worthy of saving,
Straylight said.

      No one spoke.

      Emily rubbed imaginary smudges
from her fingernails; Jane studied her shoes. Doc looked away, his face pained
with memory. Billy knew, through Dude's shared memories, that Doc had been
friends with Horizon. He wondered what they witnessed together that made the
other Luminae so determined to give up on all of them.

      "What about you?" Billy
said. "What did you think? Why did you stay?"

     
Because,
Straylight said,
I
love your world so very much. And I do think it's worth saving.

      "Well then," Jane said,
and as always, her voice set the tone. She filled the room with hope. "We're
in agreement about that. Let's figure out what we need to do to save our world."

* * *

      Billy looked back and forth
between all of his friends and allies, drained by the story; he felt an
inexplicable sadness, a sense of loss and melancholy he could not put into
words.

      I'm sorry for everything you've
been through, Dude, he thought.

     
But if I hadn't been through
all of this,
Dude said.
I would never have known you, Billy Case.

      Now you're just buttering me up
because you're about to ask me to go on a suicide mission with you, Billy
thought.

      Then he experienced that surreal
sensation in the back of his mind that he knew meant Dude was laughing.

      "So what's our next move?"
Titus asked through the monitor.

      "I'm going to go play tag
with an alien parasite armada," Billy said. "I have no idea what you
guys are going to do."

      "First of all, we're going to
make sure they don't have any sleeper agents that are already here on Earth,"
Doc said. "I know Straylight and Horizon have been vigilant about finding
their scouts, but we also realize they've been here before. They may have some
allies on Earth relaying information to them."

      "We could start by figuring
out who has the capability to send a signal deep off-world," Emily said.

      "How do you even do that?"
Billy said.

      "I have some ideas,"
Emily said.

      "Okay," Doc said. "You
and Titus will work on pulling together a list."    

      "Me?" Titus said.

      "Like it or not, you two are
our science brains, " Doc said. "Pull together some leads and we'll
split up to investigate."

      "What are the rest of us
going to be doing?" Jane said.

      "We're dramatically short on
defenses," Doc said. "I'll pay a visit to the Department of What and
see if they've got anything in the vaults we can use. Maybe Henry's been
tinkering on something new."

      "I'll come with you,"
Jane said.

      "No," Doc said. "Right
now, we've got two, maybe three of us who are capable of doing some real damage
in outer space. I'm not counting myself, either, because magic isn't nearly as
effective off world as it is on Earth."

      "You want me to start
recruiting?" Jane said.

      "Kate and you both know some
people who might come in handy if the Nemesis fleet reaches Earth," Doc
said. "There's a fair chance we can't stop them before they get here. We
need to be prepared to fight."

      "What about the press?"
Jane said.

      "You think you can keep your
pet reporter on a leash?" Kate said through the telephone. "Because
if we can't stop them in time, having someone who can help us get the word out
to the civilian world in a trustworthy way might save some lives."

      "I can prep Broadstreet,"
Jane said. "He'll listen if I tell him we shouldn't start a panic."

      "Then we have our
assignments," Doc said. "Neal?"

      "I will alert all of you if I
detect any anomalous signals from off-world, Designation: Doc Silence,"
the AI said.

      "Be careful out there,
everyone," Jane said.

      She looked at Billy last. "And
you. Don't leave without saying goodbye."

Chapter
6:

Building
a better Emily

Doc Silence materialized outside the
front door of the Labyrinth, the superhuman prison that had been used to hold
some of the Indestructibles last year, which had since become the de facto
central office for the Department of What. The Department—the international
task force in charge of monitoring and working alongside superhumans—had
cleaned up its act since that time, in no small part through the leadership of
Doc's friends and allies. Formerly retired agent Sam Barren had returned to
limited service as an advisor, and Doc's old teammate, Henry "Coldwall"
Winter, had been named director in charge of getting the agency back on its
feet.

      Why they'd chosen the Labyrinth to
be their home office, Doc didn't quite understand, except, perhaps, because it
was close to the City. Or maybe because it was familiar—Henry had been locked
up here against his will for years by a rogue element of the Department and
presumed dead by everyone he knew. Perhaps it felt more like home than anywhere
else to the former hero.

      Doc approached the front doors,
the massive gateway opened up with a mechanical hum, and Sam Barren waited for
him just inside, whip-thin and still sporting the best silver moustache Doc had
ever seen.

      "I hope you're here to talk
about whatever crash-landed the other night," Sam said. "We know you
took it into your possession immediately."

      "And you knew we'd call on
you as soon as it was safe," Doc said.

      "Safe's a relative word. You
going to fill us in?"

      "And ask for your help,"
Doc said.

      "Now I'm really worried,"
Sam said. "Come on inside."

* * *

      Sam led Doc to a small conference
room, where Henry Winter, looking older than he should be but still dapper in a
tailored suit, waited for him. Henry stood up to greet his old friend, leaning
heavily on a cane.

      "You ever going to tell me
what happened on that little excursion you and the kids went on?" Henry
said, referring to their recent time travel adventure. None of them had really
spoken about the specifics upon returning. It had been an ugly future and one
they'd hoped to avoid repeating.

      "Maybe someday," Doc
said out loud. Probably never, he thought. Nobody needs to know all the details
about how their world could die. "Different problem this time. We've got
ourselves an alien invasion on the way."

      "You realize I have to say
the word 'again,' right?" Henry said.

      "This is the big one,"
Doc said. "You know that thing Straylight and Horizon always warned us about?
The one they were sent here to watch for?"

      Henry's face wrinkled into a deep
frown. Their former teammates had never given them a full account of what their
enemies were capable of, but they all knew whatever it was, it was worse than
anything they'd faced before.

      "And we're short one Luminae,"
Henry said. "Screw Horizon for bailing on us. Judgmental son of a…"

      "We're short staffed in a lot
of ways," Doc said. "Only Billy and Jane are really capable of
fighting in outer space. We're going to need help. Got anything kicking around
we should be looking at?"

      "Actually…" Henry said,
pressing a button on the intercom docket on the center of the table. "Send
Doctor Bohr in please."

      "So our little preemptive
recruitment idea is actually bearing some fruit," Doc said.

      "You were right. He's a
genius," Henry said, sitting down. "Some of his ideas are wonky, but
with the right guidance and motivation, he's a real outside the box thinker. We're
getting good work from him. He has something to show you, actually."

      Sam sat down as well, grunting
like the old man he was as he settled in.

      "We have some old gear in
storage," Sam said. "Space suits. Ray guns. Stuff we've confiscated
over the years."

      "Did you just really say ray
guns?" Henry said.

      "What, that's what they are.
Buck Rogers junk."

      Henry laughed, shaking his head.

      "We really don't have a lot
for deep space. We didn't have the brain power, and we never stole the right
stuff to reverse engineer," he said.

      Doc joined the other men sitting
down and rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses.

      "I'm thinking about talking
with his highness about coming out of retirement to help if we can't stop them,"
Doc said.

      The smile left Henry's face.

      "Not that jerk," he
said. "Not to mention there's no way he'll help."

      Doc held his hands up in a vague
gesture of frustration.

      "I don't have much choice,
Henry," he said. "And also… you know the one thing he couldn't resist
is a challenge. This would be right up his alley."

      "No it wouldn't," Henry
said. "He might just tell you to sink or swim without him."

      "There's no harm in asking,"
Doc said.

      "There's harm. You actually
have to talk to that—" Henry said.

      "Are we talking about the big
guy?" Sam said.

      "Yeah," Doc said.

      "Y'know," Sam said,
leaning back. "He was always nice to me."

      "Then you talk to him,"
Henry said. "I'm not."

      "Yes you are," Doc said.
"We're both going."

      "Why," Henry said.

      "Because I'll need you there
to corroborate a few facts."

      "He'll believe you if you say
there's an alien invasion coming," Henry said. "Whether that properly
motivates him to come out of his little monastery of selfishness or not is
debatable."

      "I might need you there to
verify some familial information for me," Doc said.

      Henry stared at him for a long,
hard second, caught off guard and clearly curious. Before he could speak, the
conference room door opened and in walked Keaton Bohr.

      The scientist looked healthier
than the last time Doc had seen him—in an alternate future the scientist had unintentionally
helped to destroy. Without telling Henry and Sam the specifics, Doc and the
Indestructibles had told the agents to recruit him. The other option was to
kill him, but despite Doc's fury towards the man for the choices he made in
another timeline, he was, in fact, still innocent here. And he was as brilliant
as they said he was. Giving him a job with the Department was a better
alternative than locking him up or murdering him in cold blood.

      Bohr had a box in his hands when
he walked in, looking around nervously.

      "You're Doc Silence," he
said. Doc forgot that they'd never actually met in this timeline, but Doc was a
public figure, and an easily recognizable one at that.

      "I am. How are you settling
in, Doctor Bohr?" Doc said.

      "You know I spent my whole
life trying to invent things to make the world a better place and nobody would
let me," he said. "I figured, I'm offered a job in the Department of
What and I'll be, I don't know, making weapons of war and the like. And instead
they've got me working on alternate energy sources. It's like I've found the
dream job I never knew I wanted."

      "Glad to hear that," Doc
said.

      "What's in the box?" Sam
said.

      Bohr set the box down on the
conference room table nervously. He looked at Henry, who gestured for him to
speak.

      "I know we were under orders
to not look too deeply at how the Indestructibles powers work," Bohr said.

      Doc looked at Henry angrily. Henry
held up one finger, gesturing for him to wait.

      "I don't like where this is
going," Doc said.

      "Give it a second,"
Henry said.

      Bohr pulled a glove out of the
box, a mechanical gauntlet in bronze and black.

      "But we were discussing how
Entropy Emily doesn't have a way to defend herself during a fight," Bohr
sad.

      "I am really unhappy with how
this is progressing," Doc said.

      "Give it a chance, Doc,"
Henry said.

      Bohr's eyes flitted nervously
between Henry and Doc. Henry gestured for him to continue.

      "All we've done is—do you
remember Emily learning how to… what did she call it, Henry?"

      "Her 'Wall of Slam,'"
Henry said. "Do you remember
that
unfortunate incident?"

      Doc almost laughed in spite of his
anger. He'd specifically told them not to tinker with Emily's powers to avoid
Bohr repeating the actions he took in the alternate timeline. Somehow he had reversed
the gravitational powers Emily possessed, turning her into a bomb capable of
tearing the whole world apart. Everyone—with the possible exception of Emily
herself—knew that she had more power than any of her teammates if she ever
learned how to use her abilities, but she was still young, and still very
unpredictable, and Doc wanted her to learn how to use those powers on her own,
not through scientific interference.

      "She actually used them
against suits the Department designed based on an item acquired during the
Indestructibles' first public battle—the Distribution suit," Bohr said. "Kinetic
energy stored, redistributed, and used as a weapon. So we got some crazy
readings."

      "What does this glove do,"
Doc said. "Simple words. Pretend I'm not smart."

      "All these gloves do is let
Emily aim her 'Wall of Slam' into a single place. A… punch," Bohr said.

      "Does this drain her powers
at all? Tap into her power source?"

      "It just points the wall,
Doc," Henry said. "It's just an idea."

      Doc picked up the glove, turned it
over in his hand, then placed it back on the table, frowning. He looked back
and forth between Henry and Bohr. They were lying to him. He could feel it. Not
about the gloves—which, he hated to admit, might be helpful if things got
really bad—but something else. He decided not to call them on it. Not here and
now. For the moment, they had bigger worries.

      "We can talk about this
later," Doc said. "For now, she doesn't use these. You and I both
know she'll be a better hero if she doesn't have rely on technology to cheat,
Henry."

      "I agree," Henry said.

      Doc turned to Sam.

      "Will you make a list of toys
you might have to help us? Not just in space. There's a good chance these
creatures actually make Earth fall. If they do…"

      "We'll have all hands on
deck," Sam said.

      "I have a few more stops to
make," Doc said. He looked at Henry one more time. "And you're coming
with me to talk with the big guy later."

      "If I have to," Henry
said.

      "I don't like him any more
than you do," Doc said. "But at the end of the world, you can't be as
picky about your friends."