The Indestructibles (Book 2): Breakout (8 page)

Chapter 16:

My fault

      Jane and Billy arrived at the Tower to find Emily attempting to teach the dog fetch in the landing bay. Unfortunately for Emily, Watson appeared to figure out that Emily could fetch things with her mind and decided that watching her retrieve her own tennis ball was more entertaining.

      "So that's going well," Billy said, when Emily bubble of floated the tennis ball back into her hand.

      The dog just watched, sitting daintily in front of her.

      "He came ready with one trick," Emily said.

      "What's that?" Jane said.

      "Not going to the bathroom in inappropriate places."

      "Well," Jane said. "That's a start, at least."

      "Better than not knowing that trick," Billy said.

      Emily threw the ball again, and all four of them, human and dog, watched it bounce passively into the corner of the bay. Emily gave Watson a disapproving glance.

      "You know nothing, Jon Snow," she said.

      Emily drew the ball back into her hand. Billy took it from her.

      "Fetch," he said, and hucked the ball. It ricocheted around the edge of the landing bay and caught a corner, sending it careening down the hallway and out of site. This time, the dog launched himself into action to chase it, disappearing deeper into the Tower.

      "Sure, he chases it for you!" Emily said, and she and Billy chased after the dog, looking, Jane thought, like the kids they actually were instead of the heroes they were all forced to be.

      I wish we had more time, she thought. Time to be themselves. Time to be with each other. She wondered if this was how Doc had felt, watching them, knowing how little time they had to truly be young. Wondering if he had missed his friends, or regretted not spending more moments with them.

      "He must have been so lonely," she said.

      "He was," an unfamiliar voice said, so close behind her it made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Jane whipped around to face the stranger and found a pink-haired woman, tattooed from wrist to shoulder and wearing glasses just like Doc's, looking at her. She smiled at her.

      "Where — " the woman began, but she flickered like a hologram, and was gone, winking out of existence like a light bulb burning out.

      "What. Was. That," Jane said. "Neal, is Kate on board?"

      "Designation: Dancer is in library."

      "Am I alone in the bay right now, Neal?"

      "There are no other lifeforms in the bay."

      "Anyone on board who shouldn't be?"

      "It has been said that perhaps Designation: Entropy Emily might not be safe to have on board, and there is a small unregistered canine in the gymnasium right now chewing on the floor mats."

      "No one else?" Jane said.

      "No," Neal said.

      "Tell Kate I'm on my way up."

* * *

      Jane found Kate pouring over reams of paper in the library. She wore one of Titus's hooded sweatshirts, a red one that had been stitched back together in multiple places — by Emily of all people, who mysteriously was both a skilled knitter and tailor. Titus in human form was about the same size as Kate, and so the hoodie fit a little too big, hanging awkwardly on her shoulders.

      "What have you got?" Jane asked.

      Kate didn't look up. Instead, she leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table so she could rub her eyes with the heels of her hands.

      "Do you remember what I told you about Wegener's lab?" Kate asked.

      She sounded tired, Jane thought. More tired than usual, and Kate had taken to being tired almost all the time these days. The usual edge to her voice wasn't there either, that hard vibe she gave off, particularly when speaking to Jane.

      "Yeah. Where you shut down the cortex bombs?"

      "And blew up all of his gear," Kate said. "I'm an idiot."

      "You set a bunch of teenagers free and got rid of the research that turned them into monsters," Jane said. "I don't see how that makes you an idiot."

      Kate finally looked up.

      "I also destroyed all the information we might have actually had on them," Kate said. "And the funny thing is that cyborg who gave me the grenade probably didn't even mean it that way. We both really thought we were doing the right thing."

      "Setting them free was the right thing," Jane said. "Look at Valkyrie. Look at Bedlam. Those were regular kids who were abused in unimaginable ways."

      Kate shook her head.

      "Jane. The names. Cretaceous Man turned out to be exactly what he sounded like," Kate said. "We keep getting reports of a humanoid shark down by the Keys, and I bet we know who that is."

      "We'll deal with it when the time is right," Jane said.

      "Jane, one of the names on that list was Plague."

      Oh no, Jane thought. Oh not that.

      "I could have killed him. Flip a switch, gone," Kate said. "Instead we've got hundreds of sick people and more than a dozen dead . . ."

      "We don't know it's him. Or her," Jane said. "For all we know this is some kind of swine flu. We haven't seen any evidence that it's a person doing this."

      "And if it is?"

      "We should investigate, find out, and try to help this person," Jane said. "Remember, none of the others we've met so far have been really malicious."

      "Hyde was a beast."

      "Hyde was a selfish little jerk on a power trip," Jane said. "Kate, I was looking him in the eyes when he died. He was just a kid. A kid with a mean streak, but he wasn't a monster. Neither was Val and look how much damage she caused. The girl made out of fire. We never even knew her name, but I saw her, Kate. She wasn't in control. She was scared, and she was sorry."

      Kate just watched her for a moment then returned to rifle through the papers. Jane joined her at the table.

      "What do we have here."

      "Older records," Kate said. "Early research, handwritten notes."

      "These are scorch marks."

      "I set off a grenade in the lab," Kate said.

      "Well that explains the scorch marks."

      Jane pulled a piece of paper out, a rough sketch that looked like a precursor to the dinosaur-man hybrid they'd fought.

      "Huh."

      Kate slid another page across the table to her. A rough design for Bedlam's cybernetics. From the look of things, the final version was much more kind, leaving her far more human-looking than originally planned.

      "These people really are monsters," Jane said.

      "This is marked project Valkyrie, but it's just . . . a lot of math," Kate said. "I'm sure it's translatable, but I have no idea what it means."

      Jane shook her head. "I'm not our science expert," she said.

      "We don't have one of those. We should look into recruiting a genius."

      "We have a genius."

      "And she's downstairs playing fetch with a dog who refuses to play fetch," Kate said.

      "Better than the way she usually spends her free time."

      True," Kate said. "Huh."

      "Whatcha got?"

      Kate pulled a few pages aside.

      "Printouts with facts on different types of respiratory infections."

      "Anything we can use?"

      "No," Kate said. "It just looks like basic research. Encyclopedia stuff, nothing more."

      "It's a start."

      Billy walked in, Watson sitting in the crook of his arm like a teddy bear. Billy was still in uniform but had his half-mask coiled around his neck like a gaiter.

      "What's up?" Jane asked.

      "There's been another incident," Billy said. "Another outbreak."

      Kate pounded her fist onto the table. Jane took a quiet step backward.

      "How bad is it?"

      "Bad," Billy said. "It happened at a hospital."

Chapter 17:

Time stands still

      Titus could feel himself going feral in this place.

      Cold stream water to drink and bath in. Dirt and pine needles beneath his feet. Game to eat, caught by hand with Finnigan or Gabriel or sometimes even Leto, though she mostly would hang back and watch, not because she did not want to, but because, Finnigan said, she was so skilled it was an unfair fight for the prey.

      His lungs felt bigger here, filled with clean air. He became stronger from his sessions with Gabriel, faster, less afraid. His time with Finnigan and Leto gave him a sense of control he hadn't had in a long time.

      Still, when the sky was dark and the moon high, he would sense the pull. Sometimes toward rage, but more often toward freedom. To give it all up, to run north and keep running, to find places where man had not laid waste, to grow claws and fangs and never go back.

      "I can see it in your face," Leto said one night as they sat around the fire, all four of them. "The call."

      "Everything is so ugly back home," Titus said. "You get numb to it. The stink, the yelling, the anger, the grime. What have we been doing to ourselves?"

      "Themselves," Leto said.

      She could see Titus had taken offense to her words, distancing them from humanity. She softened her voice.

      "We are not without our many, many flaws," she corrected. "But mankind . . ."

      "Humanity really knows how to screw things up, kid," Finnigan said.

      "What are some of our mistakes?" Titus asked. "I know what we've done wrong. What humans have. But why are we in such a bad way?"

      "Infighting," Leto said. "Arrogance. A terrible lack of self-awareness of our own mortality. Forgetting what we were here to do."

      "And what is that?" Titus said. "What were we here to do? You've said that a lot. Like we had a higher purpose."

      "We were meant to be the wolf at the gate," Gabriel said. He caught Titus off-guard — the dark-haired werewolf rarely spoke other than to offer advice while training. "We're the monster who keeps worse monsters at bay."

      "And for a long time, we were the monster who needed keeping out," Finnigan said.

      Titus rubbed his eyes, smoke from the fire dried them out.

      "And where do the Whisperings fit in with all of this? All of you talk about the Whisperings like they were special, but I don't see how I'm any different from you. Heck, Finnigan and I like the same cereal, so I know you grew up in a city."

      Finnigan laughed.

      "How do you know I didn't take a liking to chocolate rice puffs as a grown man?"

      Titus raised an eyebrow at him, and they both laughed, like old friends. Leto even smiled, though her tone was sad when she spoke again.

      "Titus, the Whisperings were the only ones who didn't forget. They kept our secrets and brought us home, and that's why the hunters almost wiped you out," Leto said.

      "For being the good guys?"

      "For trying to stop a war everyone else was having too much fun bloody fighting," Finnigan said. "If there's one true thing in the world, it's that nobody likes a peacemaker."

Chapter 18:

Red tape

      For once, the Department arrived on scene before we did, Jane thought. The Indestructibles flew to the hospital en masse, Kate taking one of the flying cycles, a beefed up long-distance version she rarely used. They landed together in the parking lot to find Prevention and two of her sidekicks already there.

      "What are they doing here?" Kate said, her sneer audible in her tone.

      "I have a bad feeling about this," Emily said.

      Jane started walking across the parking lot and Prevention moved to meet her, wearing a hazmat suit without the mask. She held out a hand and Jane shook it.

      "Didn't realize you were medical experts too," Prevention said.

      "You're an infection control ace?" Kate said, sidling up to Jane's right.

      Prevention smiled, but Jane could feel the irritation radiating off of her.

      "We cover the weird things," Prevention said. "And this is definitely getting weird. Five locations and nowhere else? Something's up."

      "Which is why we're here," Jane said. "Figured we could help."

      Prevention raised an eyebrow.

      "Got any leads? Something you can give us to point us in the right direction?"

      "No," Kate said.

      "We're doing what we can," Jane said.

      Emily, who had been hanging back until now, chimed in.

      "Clearly it's a targeted sentient virus," Emily said. "It's spread through ticks and kissing. You're in terrible danger."

      "We haven't met yet," Prevention said. "I'm Agent Prevention."

      "I'm Double O Stop That."

      Billy snorted.

      "Em," Jane said.

      "She knows who I am. I'm famous."

      "That's true enough," Prevention said. "And you're Dancer."

      Kate grunted.

      "Well," Prevention said. "It was almost nice to meet you. I'm going to have to ask you to leave, though. Sanctioned personnel only on site."

      "We might be able to help," Jane said.

      "Sorry, not my call," Prevention said. "The Department is only here in an advisory capacity. The CDC is in charge right now. You'll have to talk to them if you want to get inside. Unless you have some information you think might help us figure out what's going on."

      Jane gave Prevention a blank look.

      "If we find anything, we'll be in touch."

      "Okay then," Prevention said. "I've got to get back to work."

      She turned and walked away briskly, pulling the hood up on her hazmat suit as she got closer to the building.

      "What a delightful human being she's turning out to be," Billy said. "Was Sam the aberration in the Department or have they just decided to hire mean people now?"

      "Speaking of, were you ever able to reach him?" Jane asked.

      "Not for a few days," Billy said.

      "Do me a favor," Jane said. "You two go to his place, make sure he's okay."

      Billy nodded.

      "What are you going to do?" Billy said.

      Jane gestured at the empty space where Kate had been standing previously, and then at the roof of the hospital where a lean figure was clearly breaking into the building.

      "I'm going to wait around in case Kate gets arrested," Jane said.

* * *

      It took Kate thirty seconds to scale the building, fifteen seconds to break in through the rooftop access doorway, and five minutes to locate the security office inside the hospital where the security footage was kept. Overall, a disappointing result. I have to be better than this, she thought.

      Unfortunately the security suite was occupied, men in hazmat suits reviewing surveillance video. Kate had assumed this would be the case, though. Which was why she'd stolen a hazmat suit of her own — ninety seconds — and fogged up the inside of the mask enough to hide her identity. Another twenty seconds. She entered the room with a badge she'd palmed off a CDC agent on another floor and informed the men she was with the Department and wanted to look over their shoulder. They obliged her.

      The men ran the footage at a high speed, so the medical staff and patients whizzed around like bugs with too much caffeine in their system. After a while, a pattern emerged. A single figure, slender, gender undetermined, wearing a hat, hiding his or her face. This same person appeared on floor after floor, in unit after unit, subtly at first but then growing more and more erratic, dancing over prone patients on the floor, taunting doctors who couldn't stand up. Kate backed away when she saw him heading to the nursery.

      "I've seen enough," she said.

      The men nodded.

      "Does the Department need a copy of the footage?" one asked.

      "Sure. Have it sent over?"

      "You've got it."

      Kate exited the security suit and saw someone walking down the hallway looking vaguely familiar — one of Prevention's agents. Kate couldn't make out his face, but he had the walk of a fighter, not a scientist, and was clearly heading for the suite.

      Kate turned and walked away.

      "Hey!" the agent yelled. "Hey! I need to talk to you."

      Kate turned, tapped an imaginary watch on her hand, and continued walking. The agent broke into a run, and Kate let him catch up just as she was passing a janitor's bucket and mop. She yanked the mop out, swept the agent's legs out from under him, and dumped the bucket of dirty, soapy water onto the linoleum floor.

      Then she started running.

      She went up, taking the stairs, headed for the roof. She could hear activity in the stairwell below, muffled voices and heavy footsteps. She reached the rooftop, pulling a short length of chain obviously kept there for a lowbrow security measure, and slammed the door behind her. She used the chain, which had a padlock hanging from it complete with key still in the lock itself, to fasten the door shut.

      And then she realized she was on the rooftop with nowhere to go.

      Forty-five seconds. That's how long it took someone to start banging on the rooftop door. She could hear a foot pounding against the door itself, trying to break the chain.

      Five seconds. The amount of time it took her to decide to jump off the roof and take her chances. Kate got a running start, not even bothering to remove the hazmat suit, and leapt over the edge of the building.

      Two seconds of hang time. Adrift in the air. Nothing to hold onto. Her grappling gun inside the suit, unreachable.

      Half a second. Two impossibly strong arms hooked under her armpits, radiating a strange and familiar heat, the world whipping by as she moved with incredible speed away from the hospital.

      "Tell me you got what you were looking for," Jane said.

      "It's a person," Kate said. "A human being is doing this."

* * *

      It didn't occur to either Billy or Emily that arriving at Sam's apartment building in costume was a terrible idea. They landed at the foot of the front steps of his brownstone and exchanged awkward glances.

      "Well I mean, we're here," Emily said. "Do you want to go home and change?"

      "That seems like an incredible waste of effort."

      "Also we're famous."

      "Yeah," Billy said. He walked up to the front door, rang the buzzer, stepped back and waited.

      Emily ran out of patience first and leaned on the button. For a long time.

      Dude, are we able to jimmy locks with our powers? Billy thought.

     
Jimmy locks?

     
Breaking and entering. I mean I've done this before but I had tools and stuff, Billy thought.

     
I have never tried it before,
Dude said.
Breaking and entering really has not been something I have needed to do before. It is not . . .

     
Heroic?

     
Practical.

     
Can we blow the door off its hinges?

      Even less practical, Billy Case.

      I'm going to try blowing it off its hinges.

     
I will not let you.

     
Gawd you are such a party pooper.

      "Are you talking to your alien again?" Emily asked.

      "Yes. Trying to figure out if he'll stop me from exploding the door."

      Emily sighed and leaned her forearms on every single buzzer she could reach. The door unlocked.

      "Have you never done this before?" she asked.

      "I should have thought of that."

      "Stick with me, pumpkin, I'll make a crook out of you yet," Emily said, striding into the building like she lived there.

      Upstairs, they found a few days worth of mail piled outside Sam's door. Emily knocked, then knocked again, then pounded on the door with two small fists.

      "Oh my gawd he's had a heart attack," Emily said. "Open it!"

      "How?"

      "Blow it up!"

      "Dude?"

      Hit the door, Billy Case.

      Billy slammed his shoulder into the door and his signature blue-white light flickered, alien energy redirected to the impact site. The door snapped easily off its hinges. Emily, without thinking, expelled a hand gesture and the door stopped falling. She floated it gently to the floor.

      "I do this like we didn't just break his door," Emily said. "Oh, let me place the door we just kicked down on the floor nicely, because we're polite."

      The dark apartment was small, modest, tidy, with stacks of books and dark, aging furniture. The photos on the wall were of a younger Sam and a woman — his wife, Billy thought, he said she'd passed away but he never told them much about her — smiling back at them from vacations on Cape Cod, in Paris, in the Florida Keys.

      "This is where he lives?" Emily said. "It's so . . ."

      "Lonely," Billy said.

      "It is. Why didn't he come live with us?"

      Billy picked up a coffee cup on the tiny table in a small kitchenette. The surface of the coffee was oily and gritty, as if the cup had been sitting unfinished for days.

      "Em, check the bedroom." Billy said. Billy pushed open the bathroom door. Please don't let me find him on the floor, Dude. Please.

     
He is not here, Billy Case.

     
Billy yanked aside the plain blue shower curtain to find the tub empty.

      "Billy!" Emily yelled.

      He went tearing through the apartment to the bedroom to find Emily standing by the nightstand, replaying a phone message.

      "Sam has a girlfriend!" she said. "Listen listen."

      Emily hit the play button again. The voice on the line sounded older, not nearly Sam's age but mature, and happy, and kind.

      "Where have you been, doll?" the woman on the line said. "Are we still on for dinner tomorrow? I'm worried about you. Give me a call and let me know you're okay? It's not like you to play mysterious. Love you."

      "Girlfriend!" Emily said. "Sam. Girlfriend. He's so old. I wonder if she's old too. She doesn't sound old. Maybe it's a May-December romance! Or September-December. He is bald. Also mustache."

      "Girlfriend who hasn't heard from him in a few days, Em," Billy said.

      "That too."

      "Carp."

      "Yeah. Where the heck is he?"