The Indestructibles (25 page)

Chapter 56:

A new ballgame

The entire gang sat around the conference table, in full costume — a sports team before the big game.
The monitor displayed the Atlantic Ocean, the swirl of the living hurricane, and a small blip where Neal had traced the call Kate and Titus received. Everyone sat in near silence; a fretful weight overtook the room.

      Finally, Emily broke the quiet.

      "I know I'm gonna regret this, but are we really making our big move based off of a prank call?"

      "The information looks legitimate," Kate said. "I think the scientist was trying to help us."

      "I've seen a lot of movies," Emily said. "And this is usually where the ambush happens."

      "We have to go with what we know," Kate said.

      "It's a trap!"

       Kate stared Emily down with her worst glare.

      "What we do know is that thing," Titus said, pointing at the monitor, "is going to strike the east coast very soon and hurt a whole lot of people. So if we have a chance to stop it . . . "

      "Her," Jane said. "That's a her, not an it. And we have to help her, not stop her."

      Titus frowned and nodded.

      "So here's the plan," Doc said.

      It was the first time he'd spoken since they all sat down. He deferred to Kate instead, letting her take the lead, watching closely from the sidelines the entire time. "Jane, you, Billy, and Emily will try to distract or contain the storm temporarily. Kate and Titus, you'll mount an assault on the base they've established. When arrive, you'll disable the technological controls they have over her. Hopefully, the information your informant gave you is legitimate, because that not only will eliminate their method of harming her remotely, it'll also take the trigger off the cortex bomb if they have one implanted in her head."

      "And those things we saw last time?" Billy said. "The creatures attacking her? They were definitely not technological anything."

      "I'll take care of those," Doc said. He exchanged a long look with Jane. She averted his eyes and turned her gaze down towards the desk. "They're my job."

      "And after we've disconnected her from all these controls?" Billy said. "Won't that just mean she's . . . cut loose to do whatever she wants?"

      "That's when the three of you have to talk her into managing her own powers," Doc said.

      "The three of us what?" Emily said.

      "You, Entropy Emily, are going to contain her. Make sure she can't go anywhere," he said.

      "That's a faboo idea," Emily said.

      "A big bubble of float, Em," Jane said. "You can do it."

      "Right. Big bubble of float, big enough to hold an entire hurricane. You realize I can barely do long division."

      "You have a genius level IQ, Emily," Doc said. "Stop pretending you don't."

      She folded her arms across her chest and glared at Doc, furious he let her secret out of the bag.

      "Reason with her," he said. "Billy, you're living with a symbiote. You might be able to help her. Jane, try to convince her she can do it. According to this scientist, they are sharing the same body. Someone has to take control."

      "
My
symbiote actually doesn't do anything I tell him to do," Billy said. "Mostly he just tolerates my behavior and cuts me off from my powers when I'm a jerk."

      "What are our other alternatives?" Jane said.

      "The other alternative is the one we don't want," Doc said.

      "We kill her," Kate said. "Destroy the human body, the sentient storm dies. That's what the scientist says."

      "I'm not gonna kill her," Jane said. She turned to Billy.

      He shook his head.

      "Not going down that road again," he said. "Jane, we can do this. We'll be able to help her. I know it."

      "You don't know anything," Emily said. "But I like your optimism."

      "I have a question," Titus said. "If you're going to be here, Doc, and they're going to be chasing the storm, how are Kate and I getting to this base in the middle of the ocean."

      "I was thinking we'd take one of the flying bikes," Kate said.

      "We'd what?"

      "You don't have to ride alone. We can ride doubles. I'll drive."

      "Can't we have Emily drop us off?"

      "I'm going to be too busy trying to make the biggest bubble of float the world has ever seen," Emily said. "I think you should take the bike. It'll be fun."

      "We're not taking a flying bike," Titus said.

      "You could swim," Kate said.

      "Maybe you're part Labrador?" Billy said.

      Titus growled at him.

      Billy laughed.

      "So this is it," Jane said. "We just go charging off into the middle of the ocean and hope we can stop them."

      "That's the plan," Kate said. "This is their big splash. They need this storm to work, otherwise all these threats they've been making seem ridiculous."

      Jane nodded. She kept looking at Doc out of the corner of her eye.

      Kate viewed the exchange, but said nothing.

      "I have something for you, before we go," Doc said.

      He pulled a small pouch from his coat pocket and dumped its contents onto the table. A set of flat metal objects toppled out with a clang. He tossed the first to Titus, who caught it easily.

      "No joke," Titus said.

      "What, we get presents?" Emily said.

      Titus held the object up. It was an emblem in the shape of an abstract wolf's head. Doc tossed the next one to Emily, who caught it with her gravity powers and drew it to her hand. It was the same nuclear fallout warning symbol she'd adorned her entire costume with.

      "Wicked," she said.

      The third went to Billy, a silver-blue comet. Doc handed Jane hers, an idealized, artistic version of the sun done up in gold.

      "I don't have a symbol," Kate said.

      Doc slid a final emblem across the table to her. She stopped it with the tip of her finger.

      "I took my best guess," he said. "I hope it works."

      Kate held it up between her forefinger and thumb. It was a woman in silhouette, a dancer, spinning in a pirouette. She examined it with a lost and longing look, and then set it back down on the table.

      "Close enough, Doc. Thank you."

      "You're welcome," he said. "Back in the old days, we kept our personal symbols on the backs of our chairs. Don't know why, it's not like we wanted to stake a claim to a particular seat. It just . . . felt like the appropriate thing to do. To make it official. Whenever someone new joined the team, they got one of these for their chair."

      "So we're official?" Titus said, smirking.

      "You've been official for a long time," he said. "Consider this your graduation gift."

      "No turning back now, is there?" Billy said.

      "Like there ever was," Emily said. "We were in it the minute the big guy showed up."

      Everyone stood, brushed invisible dust off their costumes, checked buckles, exchanged worried glances.

      "Here goes nothing," Billy said.

      Emily followed him out into the hall, taunting Titus about his pending bike ride. Jane stared at Doc a moment longer before joining them. Doc caught Kate by the arm as she walked by.

      "One minute, Kate," he said.

      "I knew you had something on your mind," Kate said. "What's wrong?"

      "There's someone you should contact if anything happens to me today," Doc said.

      "What do you mean?"

      "I'm going to do something particularly stupid and there's a chance I might . . . be gone for a while," he said.

      "Is particularly stupid a technical term in the magical vernacular?" she said.

      "I'm going to set a trap for the woman controlling the girl in the storm," Doc said. "If she tries to hit back at me, we might . . . get kicked out of this world for a little while. I don't know how long."

      "Kicked out of this world?" Kate asked

      "I'm gonna lead her on a merry chase," he said, a sad smile across his face suddenly tugged on a part of Kate's guts she spent most of her time trying to surpress. "And it might take me quite a while to get back."

      "You're going to die, aren't you?"

      "I'm not," Doc said. "There's rules to what I do, Kate. She and I can't murder each other. It's just not done. It's not allowed."

      "But you're going to lead her away. From us."

      "I'm going to lead her away from you."

      Kate shook her head at him, musing.

      "You're the old man in that parable."

      "What parable?" Doc said.

      "I remember a story once. Maybe it was a Buddhist story. Maybe it was in the Bible. I don't know," Kate said. "But an old man helps a snake, or maybe it was a scorpion, cross a desert, or a river, or . . . somewhere. And at the end, the snake bites the man, and asks, why did you help me all this time, when you knew in the end I'd bite you? And the man tells the snake he was leading him away from his village the whole time, and he'd led him too far away to ever do any harm."

      "I wish I could remember that story," Doc said.

      "Is she really that bad? That dangerous?"

      "The most dangerous person I've ever met," he said.

      Kate rubbed her eyes. She studied Doc's face again, saw the worry, saw how thin he'd become since they first met. He wasn't an old man, but he was older now than he was just a short while ago, and it seemed terribly unfair to her.

      "You'll come back," she said.

      "Fast as I can."

      "I wish I was kinder to you, Doc Silence," Kate said. "I could have been easier to get along with."

      "You've been exactly the way you had to be," he said.

      She nodded. In a lot of ways, he was precisely right.

      "So this person I should meet. Who is he?"

      "Neal will help you find him. Just ask him. He'll be able to tell you where he is."

      "Why me?" Kate said. "Why not Jane?"

      "Because you remind me of him," Doc said. "He was like you. An ordinary person who willed himself to be extraordinary. He always distrusted those of us with great power for that reason. He'll like you, respond to you. And you might need someone to turn to while I'm gone."

      "Is he as good a teacher as you've been?" she said.

      "No," Doc said. "He was always afraid to teach. But he never refused to help when we asked."

      Kate pursed her lips, nodded again, held out her hand.

      Doc shook it.

      "I hope you're wrong. Hope you're here when I get back."

      "Believe me, Kate, so do I."

      She released his hand.

      "The others know?"

      "Only Jane."

      "Great. Always her and I, isn't it."

      "Get used to it," he said.

      Kate smiled a crooked grin.

      "Safe travels, Doc."

      "Be careful out there."

Chapter 57:

To strike fear

Agent Black found the Lady and Rose talking on the deck.
The storm was closer than ever and out here on the open ocean the enormity of the thing — of her, he reminded himself — became clearer. She stretched on for miles in every direction, clouds so dark they were nearly purple, rain so heavy you could see foam forming on the ocean surface with the human eye.

      "She's angry," Black said.

      "Your men ready?" Rose asked.

      Black had watched Rose's agents, her ninjas, setting up their positions throughout the rig. In a way, this structure was easier to defend than a land-based location. The perimeter was the edge of the rig, and with guards at the proper points, they could set up a three hundred and sixty degree lookout.

      But there was also nowhere to go if things went bad, and it was a large rig — a lot could go wrong very quickly.

      "They're ready," Black said. "You think they'll come?"

      "Yes," Rose said. "Wegener revealed enough to pique their interest."

      "He spoke longer than that," the Lady said. "Do you know what he told them, exactly?"

      "No," Rose said. "And he was smart enough to encrypt his outgoing message. We could crack it, given a little time, but . . . "

      "We have things to do," the Lady said.

      The Lady raised her face to the sky, feeling the mist of the ocean gathering on her skin. Black found himself wondering, as always, why she did what she did. It all seemed beneath her, working with the Children. Maybe it was just a game to her. Maybe they were simply bugs to pull wings off of.

      "You won't let your problem with werewolves get the better of you, will you Rose?" the Lady asked.

      "I don't have a werewolf problem," Rose said.

      "We both know that's not true," the Lady said. "But I do hope you have fun killing the pup. It must be so much less satisfying killing one that isn't fully grown."

      "A pelt's a pelt," she said.

      "And what about you, Agent," the Lady said. "Any special vendettas you're hoping to feed today?"

      "Yeah," he said. "I'd like to stay afloat long enough to get paid."

      "We all have our motivations," she said. "Would either of you care to join me during the ritual? I love having an audience for these things."

      Black shook his head.

      Rose's face was blank.

      "I won't be of much use if the little things do try to attack us," the Lady said. "I imagine they'll do something to try to stop my pets from corralling the storm toward land, so I'll be adding a bit more complexity to my spells. Some additional security, so to speak."

      "We'll have guards posted at your door," Black said.

      "No," the Lady said. "If I can't have the two of you, I'd rather work alone."

      "Done," Rose said.

      The Lady flashed them her radiant, seductive smile.

      "Well then. Enjoy your party," she said, and walked off toward her chamber.

      "You see their list of demands?" Black asked.

      "Yeah," Rose said.

      He spit into the ocean.

      "So what happens if they don't get everything they asked for," Black said. "They send a hurricane against the East Coast every day 'til they do?"

      "Maybe," she said. "We'll be pushing her across to Europe too, you know. They want to hit England next."

      Black spit again.

      "Lotta work."

      "Yeah."

      "It's not really about the demands, is it?" he said.

      "Is it ever?" Rose said. "It's about creating fear. It's about making everything unstable. The Children always did best in times of chaos."

      "So their goal is really just . . . to make a mess?"

      "Yep," she said. "And then, be there to pick up all the pieces. It's an old game."

      "Huh."

      "You having cold feet, Agent?"

      "Nah," Black said. "I'd rather be on the side picking up the pieces than on the side losing them."

      "So long as the check clears."

      "Exactly," he said.

      Black scanned the horizon again, his cyborg eye looking for signs of an impending attack and coming up empty. He felt tired, just then.

      "Oh, c'mon," Rose said. "Have a little fun. You didn't get into this to have a normal life."

      "That's for damned sure," he said. Black checked his stubby rifle one more time and started to leave.

      "Have fun slaying your werewolf," he said.

      "Don't fall into the ocean."