The Indestructibles (Book 2): Breakout (23 page)

Chapter 46:

Everything has an off-switch

      I thought we determined the Dancer had no advanced abilities," Rourke said from his perch looking over the shoulder of one of the techs in the Labyrinth's main command center.

      Prevention's response was about as pleasant as expected.

      "What?" she said, storming over to join him.

      The battle played out on screen, the Dancer and the werewolf joined by what appeared to be a punk rock cyborg. On the upside, the Distribution suits were more than holding their own, but the kids were putting up a long-winded fight and Prevention wanted them in custody and off the streets a lot sooner than this.

      And why was the Dancer glowing like Straylight?

      "Oh you have got to be kidding me," Prevention said.

      "Her power signature matches that usually associated with Straylight," Rourke said. "You don't think . . ."

      "The bloody Luminae went and got the one person on the planet with a bigger grudge against us than he has," Prevention said.

      "Our psyche profile on Dancer says she'd never allow a symbiotic creature to work with her like this," said Rourke. "You think this was forced?"

      "I think she recognizes a good deal when she sees one," Prevention said. "I assume the other three are still trying to head toward the infirmary?"

      "They are," the tech said.

      "Okay," Prevention said. "I want you to use the mouse trap protocol and corral the escaped prisoners in their direction. If their friends are going to be a nuisance outside, we'll put the three of them to work tying up the villains they probably let escape in the first place."

      "Yes ma'am," the tech said.

      "Straylight is depowered and we bet Solar is running on fumes," Rourke said. "Are you sure you should pit them against someone like Golem? We don't actually want them dead, do we?"

      "The way this day is going, Rourke, I really don't care," Prevention said.

      "Ma'am?" the tech said.

      "If you call me ma'am one more time I'm going to melt your brain," Prevention said.

      The tech stared back at her, too intimidated to speak, which just infuriated her more.

      "What?" she barked.

      The tech just gestured to the screen. Prevention watched in absolute fury as the doors creaked open.

      "Who is doing this?"

      "It's coming from level ten," the tech said.

      "Winter," Prevention said. She pointed at Rourke. "Send a team after him. He's a crippled middle-aged scientist. I want him dragged back to a cell with no electricity until this is over, and then he and I are going to have a talk."

      "You got it," Rourke said.

      "Ma'am — I'm sorry!" the tech said.

      "What now?" Prevention said.

      "She's inside," the tech said.

      "Who? Who is inside? Who are you talking about?"

      "The Dancer," the tech said.

      He replayed the footage of Dancer lancing inside like a bullet.

      "Oh good," Prevention said.

      "That doesn't sound like a 'good' good," Rourke said.

      "She's inside. She's alone. I want to strangle her with my bare hands," Prevention said. "Now — is the disruptor rifle charged?"

      "Yeah," Rourke said.

      Prevention walked over to a wall toward the back of the command center; it was covered in lockers. She swiped her security card on one of the taller lockers and drew out a long, silver rifle, like something out of an old Buck Rogers cartoon, and checked the power levels. She slung it over her shoulder.

      "I'm going to go find this little Dancer, blast her new alien best friend out of her guts, and then put her in her place," Prevention said. "You have the command center, Rourke. Get Winter, and . . ."

      "Agent!" the tech said.

      "What! Now!" Prevention said.

      "The suits appear to be losing power."

      "The Distribution suits?" Prevention said.

      "Yes, ma' — Agent."

      She grabbed Rourke by the lapel of his suit coat.

      "Find Winter, get those doors locked, get those suits recharged, and either lock up those two remaining misfits or kill them. I really don't care which one you need to do," she said. "I'm going to go shut down Dancer. Don't disappoint me."

* * *

      It took longer than anticipated, but Henry Winter was finally able to locate a backdoor command to the Distribution suits and shut them down.

      The Department had used his redesign to improve on the previous iteration, and his suggestion that they not leave such a glaring Achilles heel in the power storage component in version 2.0. But, Winter had been on the receiving end of some rampaging super-suits in the past, so he'd also made sure to install a failsafe to shut them down remotely. The kinetic energy in the suits would have to dissipate, which meant that the young heroes in the court yard still had to contend with powered up guards for a while longer, but if the pilots were smart, they'd see their gear's juice was depleting and retreat before they got themselves killed.

      Unfortunately, the shutdown took several minutes, because Winter had also designed the security system protecting that failsafe, so he watched the monitor out of the corner of his eye with anxiety as the kids outside continued to take a serious pummeling from the Distribution suit pilots.

      He also watched the gates open up before he had a chance to issue the command himself, which told him someone was already on the inside working on their behalf.

      "Who is your little mole, I wonder," Winter said. Out of curiosity, he traced the command for the front gates and found it coming in through a source below the twenty-first level of the structure — where, at least officially, nothing existed. "Well, that's interesting."

      Winter was speculating why they had decided on a two-pronged assault when a violent knock rattled the door to the server room he was hiding in.

      "Come on out, Mr. Winter," a man's voice said. "We're under orders to bring you in."

      "There's no one in here but us mice!" Winter said in a falsetto, quickly packing up his gear and looking for a place to stash it.

      He heard a heavy sigh and the sound of someone swiping a security card through the lock several times. Then the smashing came as whoever was on the other side of that door finally decided that kicking it in would be easier than hacking the code.

      Winter suddenly very much regretted not stopping to get his Coldwall suit before he had begun playing undefended computer genius in what amounted to little more than an oversized closet.

      The door caved in — Winter pondered why the building was designed to hold super-criminals inside but somehow didn't think it was important to install quality doors on its storage closets and server rooms — and three agents from Prevention's retinue streamed in, guns drawn.

      "Dammit, Winter, stop playing games," the lead agent said.

      Winter held up his cane like Zorro.

      "
En garde
," he said.

      "Guys, cuff him. Prevention is going to kill us if we don't have him back upstairs before she gets back," the agent said.

      "Back from where?" Winter said.

      "No idea," the agent said, blissfully unaware, Winter noticed, of the enormous Labyrinth prison guard walking up behind him. The guard knocked the lead agent out with a single swing of his baton and disarmed a second agent with the backswing. The third remaining agent drew his gun to fire, but Winter — I still got it, he thought — snapped his walking cane down on the man's wrist, turning his fingers numb and forcing the gun from his hand.

      The guard apologized.

      "Sorry, man," he said, and knocked the agent upside the head before he could even raise a hand to defend himself. He almost looked too surprised to fight back as it happened.

      "You," Winter said to his savior. "You're Two Ton Tony."

      "Actually, my name's Jerry," the guard said. "I've got no idea how I got the nickname."

      "Because you're seven feet tall?" Winter said.

      The guard shrugged.

      "Look, the kids are in it deep down on level 13," he said. "And the boys and I have a feeling that maybe we're on the wrong side of things right now if we don't help them."

      "I've been thinking the same thing, Jerry," Winter said.

      "I've got ten guys and working knowledge of most of the complex," Jerry said. "How can we help?"

      "Well for starters," Winter said, "I've got a very high tech suit of crowd control armor warming up on level ten . . ."

Chapter 47:

The man of clay

      Emily was humming a bland pop song from the eighties while she rode an elevator to the thirteenth floor with Billy and Jane. Billy, worn out and leaning heavily against the wall of the elevator, coughed out a half-laugh. "Let me guess," he said. "Elevator music?"

      "Got it in one, cowboy," Emily said.

      "I can't believe you really did open up a bunch of cell doors," Jane said.

      "I can't believe you really didn't believe me when I said I opened up a bunch of cell doors," Emily responded. "Why would I lie about something like that?"

      "Thought you were kidding," Jane said.

      Emily gave her best Kate impression, letting her voice get low and gritty.

      "I never kid," she said. "I am the night."

      "I just hope we didn't get anyone killed," Jane said.

      "And by we you mean me."

      "Sort of," Jane said.

      "Just checking," Emily said.

      Jane turned to look at Billy, taking in his hunched shoulders, the bruises around his eyes.

      "How are you holding up, hot shot?"

      "What about you?" Billy responded back. "Doing okay?"

      "Still feeling indestructible," Jane lied.

      Truth was she could feel every injury from the fight downstairs. Nothing had broken her impenetrable skin, but Billy looked — worn down, exhausted, like he was running on fumes.

      "I'm fine," Billy said. "No force fields, no flying — my best buddy is no longer hanging out somewhere behind my cerebellum, I'm doing just great."

      Jane smiled.

      "You did an excellent job downstairs, coming up with that plan."

      "Guess I'm not so useless in a fight after all," Billy said. "I'd be more useful with Dude back."

      "What's it like in there without him?" Emily said.

      "In where?"

      "In your brain, bozo," Emily said.

      "It's . . . is it weird if I say it's lonely? I mean, at first it was always invasive," Billy said. "Dude knew everything I was thinking, but he's been there for so long it seems like I lost half my personality."

      "Clearly, you have," Emily said.

      "Thanks," he said.

      "That's me, your resident ego boost," Emily said.

      The elevator dinged softly when it arrived on level 13, and Billy walked confidently out into the hallway.

      "Gotta admit for a guy with no superpowers I'm holding my own, huh?" Billy said.

      And then a giant grayish hand grabbed Billy by the shoulder and tossed him down the hall like a ragdoll.

      "Billy!" Emily yelled, and Jane jumped into action, leaping into the hall to see the massive, blocky shape of Golem waiting for her there.

      She threw a series of punches at the monster, who was nearly big enough to block the entire hallway, but it was useless — she felt like she was punching wet clay, leaving small dents but no lasting harm as she watched her fist-shaped marks heal and disappear. Golem swatted her aside easily, and Jane limbs went watery.

      I can't be this tired, she thought. I can't.

      The alien sensation of Emily's bubble of float passed through her and then crashed into the huge monster, lifting him off his feet as far as possible in the cramped corridor. Golem reached out to both sides though, and with thick, stone-like fingers, he gripped the walls, pulling himself free of the bubble and tearing hunks of plaster and tile from the hallway.

      "I'm legitimately amazed nobody's ever done that before," Emily said. "Bubble of float failure."

      Jane heard Billy groaning and glanced over to see him struggling to get back onto his feat.

      "Em, take Billy and go get Sam," Jane said.

      "How about a big pile of no," Emily said. "I'm not leaving you here."

      Jane dodged a huge swinging punch and grabbed hold of the monster's wrist. She let her hands burst into flames, then dug her fingers into the creature's clay-like skin and Golem screamed; his clay skin dried and cracked like mud in the hot sun. More clay bubbled down, filling in where Jane was burning him, but it was slow and clearly enraged the monster as well.

      Maybe I can take him out, she thought. If not . . .

      "I can buy you enough time to get Sam!"

      She was trading punches with the creature now, trying to keep him as far from Emily and Billy, who had clearly had his bell rung by that throw. Emily helped him to his feet and Billy attempted to aim that wrist-mounted freeze-weapon at Golem but couldn't seem to get his eyes to focus on the same place at the same time.

      Jane threw a flame-engulfed fist at Golem's knee, turning some of the joint from mud to ceramic. She punched it again and it shattered with a satisfying crash, but then the monster kicked her with a foot nearly as long as her torso and send her sliding down the hall.

      Golem charged her and the floor shook with each footstep.

      "Emily, you need to save Sam! I'll catch up!" she said.

      Emily looked back at her in horror, so distracted that she wasn't even using her gravitational powers to help her keep Billy on his feet, so the boy's entire weight seemed to lean heavily on her shoulder. She was hesitating.

      "I got this, Em," Jane said. "Go save our friend."

      Emily nodded gravely and then, supporting the still groggy Billy, headed toward cell 1313.