The Indestructibles (Book 2): Breakout (12 page)

Chapter 23:

Angel of Mercy

      Caleb Roth broke into a small one family home after the sky opened up on him. He kicked the frame loose on a basement window and crawled inside, the smells of must and mothballs brought him back to a house his grandmother owned years ago. The cellar was filled with useless curios, old toys, faded prints of ordinary paintings, furniture someone would never get to repair but didn't have the heart to dispose of.

      He crept up into the kitchen, flicking the light switch several times before realizing the power had been knocked out. The storm outside was one of those quick and brutal summer thunderstorms, sweeping in and flooding basements before tapering off and leaving a hot, murky evening in its wake.

      Caleb opened the fridge and rummaged in the dark for a still-cold can of cola and sat down at the rickety kitchen table to wait out the storm, his hood still up and dripping from the rain.

      He'd been sure his attack on the hospital would send people looking for him. It had to. He made too many people sick, caused too much of a stir for no one to take notice. The heroes in the City should be looking for him by now, or at least the ordinary police. Someone. Anyone.

      His bony hands clenched into fists. All he wanted was someone to notice what he was doing.

      "So you're finally here," a cracked old voice said. If he hadn't already been shivering from the rain, Caleb would have jumped out of his own skin. Instead, he looked up at the doorway into the living room and saw a ghost.

      No, not a ghost, just an old woman, frail and withered, a dull yellow house coat hung on her like autumn leaves on a tree.

      "I'm sorry," Caleb said.

      "Sorry? What are you sorry for? I've been waiting for you for a while now," she said.

      "I don't think I'm who you think I am," Caleb said.

      "You're Death," the woman said. "Look at you. You're nothing but skin and bones in a black hood. Didn't take Death for a soda pop man though."

      The old woman sat down across from him, slowly, as if every movement hurt. Her chin shook with the slightest tremble at all times. She looked exhausted simply by the effort of changing positions.

      "I'm not Death," Caleb said.

      Even in his own ears he didn't sound convincing.

      "That
is
disappointing," the woman said. "I've been waiting a long time. I was hoping he'd finally shown up."

      Caleb thought about just standing up and leaving before things got any weirder, but before he could, his own voice surprised him.

      "Why were you waiting for Death?" he asked.

      "I've overstayed my welcome," she said. "Everything hurts. Do you know what it's like for everything to hurt? My body, my bones, the noise in the street. All of it . . . hurts."

      "I know what that feels like," Caleb said.

      The old woman studied him with cloudy eyes.

      "I think you really do," she said. "You've been sick a long time, haven't you."

      "All my life."

      "Still not as long as I've been sick," she said. "Not that dying slowly is a competition."

      "More like a prison sentence," he said.

      "Got that right."

      They sat together in silence for a while, in the dark, the rain spattering on the windows, the sound of leaves scraping against the side of the house. Caleb tried to remember the last time he'd been able to have a conversation with someone. In the lab? Maybe. Though they really only talked
at
him, not with him. Before that. At the hospital. Maybe one of the other patients. Though he was always so sick, so alarmingly ill, that no one really ever stopped to speak with him for very long. Everyone was always afraid. Don't touch me, don't breath on me, don't make me sick.

      And now that's all he knew how to do.

      "Do you really want to die?" Caleb asked.

      The woman nodded her head.

      "I'm past my expiration date," she said. "Do you ever feel like that? Like you're nothing but rotted fruit?"

      "I'm sure you were beautiful once," he said.

      "Not really," the woman said. "But I could dance."

      A long period of silence passed between them. The only sounds he heard were those of the storm outside and the quiet tick tock of a mantle clock resting on an old caste iron stove that guarded the corner.

      After a while, Caleb stood up, his own broken body a mass of old aches and fever burns, and held out a hand. The old woman took it, put her other hand on his shoulder. She let him lead, but hummed a tune from an old Broadway show, something to rock back and forth to.

      "I can help you," Caleb said. "But only if you want me to."

      She could see his face now, really see it, the taut skin, the hollow eyes. Her own eyes welled up with tears.

      "Will it take long?" she asked.

      "No," he said.

      "You must be in so much pain," the woman said.

      Up close, Caleb saw her scalp through her thin white hair, the blue veins beneath her skin.

      "There's nothing I can do about that," he said. "But I
can
help you."

      The old woman placed her head against Caleb's chest. He reached out with his mind, let the fever spill from his skin. He felt her temperature rising even before he heard her first dry cough. Her fingers dug into his jacket, spasms of fear rippled through her arms. And then she stopped rocking.

      Caleb picked up her frail body, a bag of dry bones where a life once lived, and placed her on the bed. He found fake flowers in a porcelain jar on the dining room table and arranged them in a bouquet, gently wrapping her fingers around the stems and her hands on her chest.

      "I don't even know your name," he said.

      He thought about rummaging through her purse, looking for a driver's license, maybe even finding whatever cash she might still have. Instead, he stepped back out into the rain.

      Caleb closed the door quietly behind him, as if to let it slam would wake the dead.

Chapter 24:

Titus and Kate

      Kate and Alley Hawk took off riding double on her hoverbike under cover of darkness. She had no idea if Prevention or the Department were looking for her still, but the less opportunity to see her the better.

      The Tower had taken up residence over a state park a few miles outside the City, drifting there like a squat blimp over a ballgame. Aside from a few running lights to warn off other aircraft, it was dark. Kate found herself wondering if the Tower had always been so shadowy in the night and was simply illuminated by all the ambient light of the City, or if Neal was deliberately making the flying structure appear more menacing.

      She parked her bike and patted the Alley Hawk on his shoulder.

      "Thank you for what you did today," she said.

      "I told you I'd be there if you needed me," he said. Dressed in full costume again, his gray and brown armored garb was not far removed from her own combat gear. Somehow, the scars around his jaw and mouth looked even more intimidating when the top half of his face was covered.

      A jingling noise greeted them as that ridiculous dog Billy adopted trotted up to their feet. Watson sniffed Alley Hawk's boot, then Kate's, then looked her in the eyes, furry eyebrows raising and drooping like a Muppet's. Then the dog ran away from her and toward a newcomer in the room.

      He looked like he had been starving, his face hollowed out, his frame lean, but Titus stood up straighter than he had when he left, and Kate could see something of herself in the way he held his body, lighter on his feet, ready to move. Something had changed in him. Although his face still wore that always questioning, almost sad guise. He didn't smile when he saw her.

      "You're okay," Titus said.

      "So are you," Kate said.

      She thought he would let the moment linger longer, but instead, he walked over to the Alley Hawk, with Watson nipping at his heels.

      "I'm Titus," he said, offering his hand.

      "The werewolf," Alley Hawk said. "You know who I am?"

      "Everyone knows who you are," Titus said.

      "Good," Alley Hawk said. "You're smaller than I would have expected."

      "So are you."

      They grinned at each other. Titus turned to Kate.

      "So what's the plan?"

* * *

      "Here's what we know," Kate said. The three of them had taken up residence in the command center, which had been consumed by an eerie hollowness without the others to join them. Neal was running what little footage they captured of the fight at the Labyrinth. Mostly all they possessed was audio, from which they knew that the Department had somehow cannibalized the Distribution suit they'd fought last year. Unfortunately the two Indestructibles who figured out a way to defeat the suits were now presumably locked up in the Labyrinth.

      "Neal, do we know what caused the fight to end?" Titus asked. "Your communications lines were running the whole time, right?"

      "They were, but as you know, verbal communication can be scattered during combat, Designation: Whispering," Neal said. "It appears Designation: Straylight was injured during the fight, bringing it to a halt."

      "Whispering?" Kate asked.

      "Long story," Titus said. "I'll explain, I promise."

      "Never liked Fury anyway," Kate said. And she hadn't. She thought it was tacky. No one called him Fury anyway. Even the news just called him the werewolf. "Neal, what could hurt Billy? He's almost invulnerable. He's survived explosions at point blank range. What hit him?"

      "Energy source unknown, Designation: Dancer. I am currently running scans for matches."

      "Keep doing that," Kate said.

      "There was something, years ago," Alley Hawk said in his rumbling voice. "A weapon used on Horizon, Straylight's predecessor. I thought we destroyed it though."

      "Did it kill him?" Titus said.

      Alley Hawk shook his head.

      "Horizon never explained it, but it shorted him out," Alley Hawk said. "He called the weapon an abomination."

      Kate's mind wandered to the files Doc gave her access to last year. The failsafe files. She had refused to look at them, wanted nothing to do with knowing how she might someday be able to kill her friends. She wondered now if she had made a mistake. Whatever this was, it had exploited a weakness in their second-most powerful teammate. Maybe she could have warned him.

      "So the question is, I guess — how do we get them out?" Titus said.

      "Frontal assault is out of the question," Kate said. "You're terrifying in a fight but the place is a fortress. Two street fighters and a werewolf can't just walk in."

      "We need help," Titus said. "Doc could just, I don't know, turn the place into butterflies or something."

      Alley Hawk made a coughing noise that came dangerously close to a laugh.

      "You know he threatened to do that once," Alley Hawk said. "If they ever abused their power. He hated the idea of a prison, but . . ."

      "Had to put the bad guys somewhere," Titus said.

      Alley Hawk nodded.

      "I've got Neal trying to find Bedlam," Kate said. "I know she's problematic . . ."

      "She's borderline insane," Titus said.

      "Are you saying she's a risk?"

      "She respects Billy," Titus said. "She might help us if she knows he's in trouble."

      "She knocked him out cold at least twice last year."

      "Trust me. She likes him. I have no idea why, but she likes him."

      "Well, if we can find her, that gives us some muscle, at least," Kate said. "And I'd like to ask Valkyrie to return the favor she owes us."

      Titus's eyes narrowed.

      "What?" Kate said.

      "Val Snow is not a fighter, Kate," Titus said.

      "I don't want her to fight, I want her to scare the living hell out of them," Kate said. "This might be a moot point anyway. We have to find her, and then we have to find a way to talk to her."

      "I believe I have found her current location, Designation: Dancer," Neal said.

      A map overtook one of the bigger wall monitors, showing a strangely compact storm hanging out near Nova Scotia.

      "Well then. We'll just, y'know, flag her down," Titus said.

      Kate smiled at him. It was the first time she recognized the boy who left months ago, hearing the anxiety in his voice. At least he's still afraid of flying. Something stayed the same.

      Neal's voice shook her from her thoughts.

      "Alert. We have an incoming energy source. It is moving at a high rate of speed," the AI said.

      "Is it a weapon?" Titus said.

      "Negative. Scanning now."

      Neal brought up images of the incoming attack, a blue-white light, almost like a comet. It was moving too fast for the video to keep up. After three jumps, they lost it.

      "It's gone?" Titus said.

      "Get it back on screen," Kate said.

      "It — it appears to be in the Tower," Neal said.

      Moments like this, Kate thought, the AI was too human. She heard fear in his voice.

      There was a ripping sound as Titus transformed, the slender boy disappearing beneath a behemoth of muscle and fur. He ran for the door, but as he arrived, the light collided with him, knocking him from his feet. Titus scrambled to regain his footing, and Alley Hawk, moving faster than Kate had ever seen him move, launched himself over the table. But he was too late.

      The light slammed into Kate with a breathtaking force she'd never experienced before. Her heart pounded so hard it felt as if it might crack her ribs. She was aware of every cell in her body, her fingertips rippling with energy, her voice screaming, but it all seemed distant, like they belonged to a stranger. Her muscles spasmed, her eyes streamed with tears. Everything glowed blue white.

      And finally, perhaps worst of all, she knew she wasn't alone in her own head.

     
Kate Miller,
a gentle, ghostly voice said.
I need your help.

      "Oh you have got to be kidding me," she said, kneeling but not trying to stand up.

     
We need to get Billy Case and the others out of the Labyrinth,
the voice said.

      "Yes we do," she said.

      Titus had reverted back to human form and was clinging onto the edge of the table for support. The Alley Hawk was still in a fighting stance but looked more confused than aggressive.

      "Who are you talking to, Kate?" Titus said.

      "Dude," Kate said.

     
My name is not Dude,
Dude said.

      "Billy's Dude?" Titus said.

      "Dude is in my head," Kate said. "I think I had this nightmare once."

      "Well," Titus said. "You did say we needed help."