The Indestructibles (5 page)

      "Berserk?" Billy again.

      "The work he's been doing with Doc . . . wasn't enough. I think when he saw one of us get hurt he lost control. He's — "

      "I'm on it," said Jane. She dropped Distribution to the pavement and threw back her cape, ready to fly off after the werewolf.

      Kate grabbed Jane's boot and then struggled to her feet.

      "No," she said.

      "But he's a menace like this. I can — "

      "I've got this," Kate said.

      Jane tried to stare her down. It didn't work.

      Kate looked at Billy.

      "No argument from me," he said. "If you can soothe the savage beast, go for it."

      Kate ran. Or, more accurately, limped aggressively, but she was moving, and each step got easier, as did ignoring the dull hum of pain down her right leg left from the gunshot. Titus howled again and the ensuing adrenaline boost chased away a little more pain. Soon, she was actually running.

      You don't need super powers, she said to herself. You just need to be better.

      Titus hadn't traveled too far — she found him cornering another of Distribution's goons in a parking lot, slowly advancing on him, jaws slavering, claws skittering across the pavement. Kate heard a deep hiss with each breath.

      "Titus," Kate said.

      The wolf ignored her.

      "Titus, look at me."

      A pause. Then the wolf turned. And for the first time, Kate felt truly afraid of him. She'd watched him in action and in the training room back at the tower, but she'd always been able to find the quiet kid behind the wolf mask somewhere. Now, though, the monster was in charge, red-rimmed eyes and huge white teeth. The better to eat you with.

      "What's the matter with you," Kate said, trying to keep the fear out of her voice. Stay level. Stay cool. Be better.

      The wolf stared at her. Through her.

      "I'm okay, y'know," she said. "Look."

      She held her arms out at her sides.

      "In one piece. Right? . . . You can cut it out now."

      The wolf crept toward her. And the gangster behind him took the opportunity to run like hell; in this case, she figured, that was okay.

      The wolf reached out to her, slowly, with one massive, clawed hand. He rested one talon on the shoulder where she'd been shot, the touch incongruously gentle, those huge, golden eyes staring, slowly taking in the damaged armor.

      The wolf dropped his clawed hand. And, as rapidly as he had changed before, slithered back into another shape, fur and claws disappearing so quickly as if they'd never been there in the first place. Titus stood before her, human again, in his ridiculous bike shorts, and smiled weakly.

      "I'm glad you're okay," he said, before falling over.

      It was only then that Kate noticed the knife he'd been stabbed with earlier still stuck out of his back.

Chapter 9:

Interlude, the storm

She remembered her mother.

      Tearing across the South Pacific, rain so powerful mortal eyes could not tell the difference between sea and sky. The way the waves rose like colossi across the surface, behemoths to wash away ships and structures. Those same waves crumbling buildings, huts and skyscrapers alike, evaporating all living things in her path.

      Her mother had been beautiful.

      But storms have short life spans, and soon she was gone, leaving her daughter behind, to find her own way, to raise her own hell.

      Until they found her.

      Now it was the daughter who tore across the night sky, opening the clouds, hiding the stars. She felt chained, though, prohibited, something held her back. In the center of her being she sensed it, a weight, a tiny voice, a desperate cry.

      The voice spoke to her. It asked for help.

      It pleaded for her to stop.

Chapter 10:

Leadership

I still don't understand why you didn't let me go," Emily said.

      Jane had her back to the younger girl as she argued with Doc — well, Emily ranted and Doc calmly addressed her concerns, so it couldn't really qualify as an argument, but Emily could argue enough for two people.

      Titus lay face down on a bed in the recovery room; Jane watched his skin knit itself back together again.

      "Emily, what did I tell you about Distribution's power suit?"

      "That it has something something with kinetic whatevers and then it blammo whammo stuffs."

      Doc paused for a moment, staring at Emily before speaking. "The suit absorbed kinetic energy. Why would we send someone who has control over gravitational fields, little fine control over her own powers yet, and a tendency to hurl cars at people into a fight against a villain who uses kinetic energy?"

      "Jane throws cars too."

      "But she throws cars on purpose. If you stop flinging them by accident, I'll let you go on the next mission."

      Emily stormed off in a huff, her ridiculously long scarf trailing behind her. When it got caught in the door on the way out, she was forced to attempt her dramatic exit a second time; this took some of the impact away.

      "I won't send her out with you until she's ready," Doc said, sitting down next to Jane.

      "I'm not sure any of us are really ready," she said.

      Doc put a hand on her shoulder.

      "Would you believe me if I told you the old team never felt prepared? We saved the day for twenty years and never thought we knew what we were doing."

      "I still think we're actually not all set."

      "You did fine."

      "We almost lost Titus."

      Jane kept her eyes on Titus's bare back. It was amazing, the way his body healed itself, even when he wasn't the werewolf.

      "He has a long life ahead of him," Doc said.

      "Not if we keep almost getting him killed."

      "I mean it. Unless someone puts a silver bullet in his heart, that kid will live three hundred years, easy. His species lives for ages."

      Jane looked up at Doc.

      "Why doesn't he know? Nobody told him?"

      He shook his head.

      "I will, soon. When he's more used to what he is. In the old days, another one of his kind would have found him and explained things, but they're all gone. The good ones are no longer here. The bad ones are still around, but they're different. A lot different."

      Jane stood up, walked to Titus's bedside, and pulled the blankets up higher to cover his back. The werewolf stirred in his sleep. Dog dreams.

      "You really expect me to lead these guys?" Jane asked.

      She saw her own reflection in Doc's lenses. She looked like a kid in a Halloween costume, not a hero.

      "What about Kate? She's better at this. Older. She was doing the whole crime fighter thing before any of us — "

      "It's gotta be you, Jane. Kate's very good, and you should listen to her, because she sees the world in a very different way than you do, and you'll need that. But, you're the one they'll admire."

      "Billy and Emily and Titus? Billy doesn't look up to anyone, and Emily doesn't even respect you!"

      "The world, Jane." Doc smiled at her. "The world will look up to you."

      She shrugged and turned back to Titus, sleeping and sedated on the bed. What the world thought of her didn't seem very important at that moment.

Chapter 11:

Gravity

They hovered twenty miles off the coast, over the Atlantic, and about fifty feet above the water.
Jane led the way, flying with one arm forward as always, a mental trick Doc taught her when he first took her from the farm. She hoped to eventually not need it, and certainly understood her powers were not dependent upon pointing a fist in the direction she wanted to fly, but it helped her concentrate and, she had to admit, it did make her appear more heroic.

      Jane, while not vain, didn't mind looking heroic when she flew.

      Billy performed the usual routine, that effortless drifting flight surrounded by the blue-white light generated by his symbiotic alien companion. Jane was a bit jealous, it came so easily to him, like having a built in copilot with "Dude" coaching him at all times. But she also realized that Billy was more dependent on the alien than he wanted to be, and Jane was already more self-reliant than him, and that provided fine consolation.

      Watching Emily "fly" was even greater consolation.

      Emily flew only in the sense that she remained airborne; this flight resembled more of a high altitude tumble through the air. She spun and drifted, yet was bizarrely able to keep pace with the others. To say it was a graceless endeavor would be an understatement. Rather, it was like watching someone in a particularly awkward freefall that never ended.

      Finally, Jane put on the breaks; all three of them halted in mid-air. Emily stopped moving forward, but it took her a moment or two to cease drifting and spinning in place. Even then, she still moved awkwardly, pin-wheeling her arms when she started to tilt one way and the other. That ridiculous scarf had become entangled around her face during the journey and she yanked it away to reveal her absurd pair of steampunk goggles.

      "You're a menace," Billy said.

      He laughed, but it wasn't a mean laugh.

      Jane had assumed Billy would act more like a bully, but he'd developed a fondness for Emily, and treated her kindly even when they traded verbal barbs. It was the only reason she invited him along on Emily's training flights because, in reality, Billy had little advice to offer.

      "I'm not a menace. I'm the least menacing thing out here. I'm like a reject from the Cirque de Moliére," she said.

      "Soleil," said Billy.

      "Gesundheit," said Emily.

      "Emily," Jane said. "How do you fly?"

      "Badly."

      "No. I mean, what are you doing, internally, to make yourself fly? Do you do anything specific? Focus on anything?"

      "Pixie dust. I think about pixie dust."

      "Stop it," Jane said. "I'm serious."

      "I . . . " Emily said. Then she started listing to the left. Slowly, but distractingly, with that long scarf flowing straight down. "Crap."

      "Let me help — "

      "No, I got me, I got myself," Emily said.

      Using the doggie paddle, Emily nearly corrected her slow descent to the left, but she overcompensated, causing her feet to rise up in the back. She bent at the waist; this did nothing to help, and then she twisted her body into a T shape.

      "Downward facing dog. Plank pose . . . Name another."

      Billy moved to help her, but Emily pointed at him threateningly.

      "Back off, Billy Case. I said I got this."

      He waved her off, laughing again.

      "And for the record, I think of a bubble," Emily said.

      "A bubble?" Jane said.

      "Ya. I imagine a bubble of float surrounding me, and that's how I fly."

      "A bubble of float. Do you ever listen to yourself?"

      "Fight me, Billy Case," Emily said. "A bubble. Okay? I picture it and then I float in that bubble."

      Jane reached out to help Emily right herself up, drifting beside her easily and grabbing hold of her shoulder. The moment she got close though, she felt her stomach drop, like on a rollercoaster.

      And then suddenly it was Jane who was freefalling.

      Spinning, arms flailing, brain not locking onto whatever faculties were required to get herself airborne again. Every rotation showed the Atlantic Ocean rushing up towards her, black and angry. In the back of her mind she knew it wouldn't hurt — I've been punched through a building, this is only water, calm down — but something about her sudden loss of up and down made her heart race. C'mon Jane, she thought, would you "up, up and away" already . . .

      Then there was a bright light beside her, a strong grip around her wrist and she was no longer falling. Billy had a hold of her, slowing her descent.

      "What are you doing?" he asked. There was, unexpectedly, real concern in his voice. "You're not doing your arm thing! Do your arm thing!"

      "My arm thing?" Jane said. Then: "Oh, right."

      And she pulled herself from Billy's grasp and started skyward again, toward the still pin wheeling Emily.

      "What the hell was that?" Billy asked. He kept pace with her, neither of them at top speed. They wanted a moment to talk before they got within earshot of Emily.

      "She thinks of a bubble," Jane said.

      "A bubble of float."

      "A bubble of anti-gravity," she said. "I've got an idea."

      She parked herself mid-air facing Emily. Billy caught up and stopped beside her. Then strayed back a bit, watching. He seemed very glad to let Jane take the lead.

      "A bubble?" Jane said.

      "That's what I said. Did the fall have an adverse effect on your short term memory?"

      "How big is it, Em?"

      Emily shrugged.

      "Five, six . . . eight-something feet wide. A big bubble. I fit in it."

      "Think about a smaller one."

      "Like four feet?"

      "Little. A little bubble of light that you can hold in your center of gravity." Jane made a shape with her hands, like cupping a baseball. Like cupping a heart. "Think about a little ball of light in the center of you. That's the thing that carries you."

      "Wasn't aware we were in yoga class," Emily said.

      "You were the one practicing downward facing dog a minute ago."

      "Now I'm doing 'really doubtful superhuman,'" said Emily.

      "Just do it."

      "Or else?"

      "Or else I'll set your scarf on fire with my brain."

      "Okay. I'll try."

      Emily squinted, closed then opened her eyes, then rolled them at Jane, and then squinted again. She dropped a full foot and a half in elevation but stopped immediately, as if catching on a seatbelt. Then she was upright.

      "Move around a little," Jane said.

      "One thing at a time, Xena Warrior Princess."

      But Emily complied, scooting a few feet in either direction, then drifting vertically.

      "How does it feel?"

      "Well I'm not seasick. Is that a good sign?"

      "You're also right-side up," said Jane.

      "Depends on your definition of right."

      Billy looked at Jane.

      She returned his glance.

      "Guess there's one last thing to try out," Billy said. "Catch me if I fall?"

      "Stop flirting with Thunder Girl and get it over with Billy Case," Emily said.

      "Thunder Girl?" Billy and Jane asked simultaneously.

      "Whatever. Do it."

      Billy drifted up right next to Emily and put a hand on her shoulder.

      "Hey look. No hands!"

      Billy gave Emily a playful shove.

      She squinted at him.

      "Bubble."

      Billy dropped out of the sky like a rock.

      Jane and Emily exchanged glances.

      "I can't make more than one," Emily said. "You probably should save him."

      And Jane did.