The Indestructibles (Book 3): The Entropy of Everything (14 page)

Chapter 29:

The Straylight connection

      Billy crashed down in the middle of a desiccated baseball diamond a half-mile from the college.
Dude's protective shielding took the brunt of the fall, but the impact rattled him to his bones.

      "Oh, Entropy Emily, you and I are going to have words when I get back," he said, lying very still in the middle of the field.

      Above him, a familiar glow approached. Jessie formed a figure eight in the sky above and then performed a much better landing beside him. She held out a hand and helped Billy back to his feet.

      "Why didn't you get thrown a thousand feet?" Billy said.

      "Because I listened when your little buddy said 'hang onto something,'" Jessie said. "Are you just not good at this stuff?"

      "Listening? No," Billy said. "Not particularly."

      "I'll keep that in mind," Jessie said. She hunched down, scanning the sky for approaching enemy jets. "We should get back."

      "Back to what?" Billy said. "The building's gone."

      "There's a backup meeting location," Jessie said.

      "Then we head there," Billy said.

      Jessie started walking away.

      He hustled to catch up. "Shouldn't we fly?"

      "Okay, you're new here, so I'm going to forgive you for asking a stupid question, but do you really want to be a ball of glowing light on someone's radar when they just bombed our base back to dirt?"

      "We could take 'em if they came after us," Billy said.

      Jessie paused, looked at Billy out of the corner of her eye, and smiled.

      "You like fighting?"

      "You want the responsible answer I tell people back home, or you want the truth?" Billy said.

      "I love fighting," Jessie said. "The Boss is trying to convince me it's a bad habit."

      They walked together toward more significant cover, a wooded area left mostly untouched by combat.

      "The Boss? Bruce Springsteen is telling you not to enjoy fighting?"

      "The Boss. Our alien. The guy who lives in both of our heads."

      "Oh. Dude."

      "You call him Dude?" Jessie said.

      "Yeah. You don't?"

      "He must hate being called Dude," Jessie said.

      "Like 'The Boss' is better?" Billy said.

      "It's better than 'Dude.'"

      "I don't know. What do you think, Dude? What would you rather we call you?"

     
I don't need a name,
Dude said.
I'm simply a part of you. Of both of you. What you call me doesn't matter in the end, because I simply am. I'm simply here.

      "Did he get all philosophical in your head too?" Jessie asked.

      "Yeah," Billy said.

      "I think he's more weirded out by the time travel thing than either of us is," she said.

      "I don't know," Billy said. "I'm still not quite okay with being dead here."

      "Well, now you know what not to do to avoid getting yourself killed," Jessie said.

      Billy thought back to the scientist Emily was trying to talk to him about earlier, the Russian guy. Didn't she say that Igor whatever his name was thought time was unchangeable?

     
Timelines are unchangeable,
Dude said, answering Billy's own thoughts.
But this is another branch in the tree. You can't save yourself here, but what happens to you here is not necessarily the same thing that will happen to you back home.

      "Dude, between you and Emily I understand time travel even less than when I started," Billy said. "This isn't helping."

      The brush crunched under their feet as they walked.

      Billy found himself strangely at ease around this girl, a kindred spirit, someone like him. There aren't many people like us, Billy thought. I never got to meet the guy before me. Neither did she.

      "What I want to know is, if you don't die in your timeline, does that mean I never become Straylight?" Jessie said.

      "I don't know. I guess? Not yet?"

      "I know you can't change this timeline. I get that. I know that you going home doesn't mean that I'll wake up tomorrow and not have these powers anymore," Jessie said. "But you make me anxious. I keep wondering. What am I like in those other timelines where you survive? Am I just . . . me?"

      "This is weirdly gruesome. I never thought talking about a hypothetical 'when I'm
not
dead' would be morbid, but this is pretty morbid."

      "I don't like the idea of just being me," she said. "I think I'd be so bored."

      "But you wouldn't know the difference, right?" Billy asked. "If you never met Dude, then you'd never know what you missed out on."

      "That's even worse," Jessie said.

      Billy grimaced.

      "Yeah. Actually it is."

      He paused, kicking a rock out of their path. "I lost my powers for a little while a few months back. It was not cool."

      "Really?"

      "Yeah," Billy said. "There are these guns that . . . Y'know, the how doesn't matter."

      "Yeah it does."

      "Fine. There are these guns that were designed to kick Dude out of his host body."

      "What happened?" Jessie asked.

      "Well, Dude joined up with Kate and helped rescue me from prison—this story gets stranger the more I tell it, doesn't it?"

      Jessie stopped walking and hit Billy in the chest.

      "He joined up with Dancer?"

      "That was pretty much my reaction, too," Billy said.

      "How did that turn out?"

     
I have barely begun to recover
, Dude said, his tone completely without irony.

      "He's still rattled. She wasn't a great host," Billy said.

      "I bet her brain is as welcoming as an icebox," Jessie said. "Wow. I actually feel bad for him."

      Billy shrugged, and they both started walking again.

      "Yeah, well. Anyway. You're right. It was lonely. I almost lost it myself. You'd think having some privacy in my own head would've been amazing, but . . ."

      "No," Jessie said. "It's not privacy anymore. It's . . ."

      "Vacancy," Billy said.

      "I don't want that," Jessie said. "I like to fight, but you know what I love more?"

      "Being a hero?"

      "Exactly," Jessie said.

      "Well, you know what else I learned when Dude wasn't in my head?" Billy said.

      "That walking sucks?"

      "That someone like me can be a hero, even without possessing any powers," Billy said.

      "But powers help," Jessie said.

      They both laughed.

      Billy looked at his feet and smiled. "Yeah," he said. "Powers definitely help."

Chapter 30:

Solar reflection

      Jane smashed through the hull of the last of the bombers, sending the pilotless machine plummeting to the earth.
In her home timeline, she would have tried to guide its descent to prevent loss of life; but here, in the empty wasteland the City and its outskirts had become, that kind of effort felt pointless.

      Solar watched the shells of the other bombers burning on the ground below. She gestured that they both should land, and Jane followed her down to street level.

      "Did everyone get out okay?" Jane asked as they touched down.

      Solar shrugged helplessly.

      "We have to hope for the best," she said. "We've done all we can."

      "Why did they bomb us?" Jane said. "Were they hoping to smoke us out? Or actually kill us?"

      "We've been fighting this battle a long time," Solar said. "It might just be that this White Shadow has become tired of dealing with us and was hoping to take us out once and for all."

      "They had to know you couldn't be killed by a bombing run," Jane said. "Or Straylight."

      "They could have wiped the rest of them out with a well-timed attack, though," Solar said. "Even Titus's people can't come back easily from nearly burning to death."

      Jane watched the sky for more aircraft, but none arrived.

      "How'd you end up sharing leadership with Titus?" Jane asked.

      Solar glanced over, curious.

      "What's that?"

      "You and Titus. Whispering. Older-Titus. You share command. Back home everyone kind of leaves the leadership to me," Jane said.

      "Do you like it better that way?"

      "Not even a little," Jane said.

      "Good," Solar said.

      "So did you always share the lead, or did it change?"

      Solar lifted up her hands in a vague, noncommittal gesture.

      "He brought his people on board to fight. I didn't feel right taking command, and I don't think they would've followed me as long as he was there," Solar said. "So for quite a while, I was essentially in charge, but Whispering commanded the werewolf tribe."

      "What changed?" Jane asked.

      "Everything," Solar said. "Things got very bad. Our friends started dying. And then Billy died, and Kate was blinded, and it felt like it was just Titus and I trying to save the world. So to say we shared leadership isn't really accurate. There wasn't a reason to lead. We were just the last two people standing, and we stood there by each other's side as equals."

      "It's strange," Jane said. "I feel like I know him the least of all the Indestructibles. Kate pretends to be mysterious, but I understand her. I know her story. Billy and Em are open books, but Titus is . . ."

      "His people are mysterious for a reason," Solar said. "They have to be. To protect themselves and to look after their legacy. It's how they're raised."

      "Did it bother you to give up part of the lead?" Jane asked.

      "Would it bother you?"

      "You keep turning this back onto me," Jane said.

      "Because it's been so long, I don't remember myself when I was your age," Solar said. "I'm curious. Was I arrogant? Was I jealous?"

      "I don't feel arrogant. I don't feel jealous," Jane said. "I don't know. Maybe I am?"

      "Everyone always said I was so good as to be boring," Solar said. "And they might be right."

      "Emily says I'm boring."

      "Boring keeps your friends alive," Solar said. "There's no harm in being boring."

      "So you think I'm boring too," Jane said. She caught the look of shock on the older reflection of her own face looking back and laughed. "I'm kidding."

      "No, you weren't," Solar said. "And that's how I know we're the same person, you and I. I always wished, before this war started, that I'd lived more. That I'd smiled more. That I worried less."

      "Is there anything you could have done to worry less?" Jane asked.

      "Have fewer friends," Solar said. "Learned less about the world. Not cared as much."

      "I don't think any of those things are possible," Jane said.

      "Then no," her older counterpart said, face breaking into a smile. "There isn't anything you can do to worry less. So try instead to worry well."

Chapter 31:

Rose

      Keaton Bohr found the White Shadow sitting in a conference chamber alone, watching the bombing of the old community college building on a giant screen.
The masked vigilante didn't turn around, but held up a hand absently to acknowledge the scientist's entrance.

      "Did bombing them really do any good?" Keaton said, watching the screen as the structure burned.

      "More than you'd know," the Shadow said. "Computer, from the beginning. Watch."

      The screen cycled back to the start of the attack, artillery shells causing the building to collapse upon itself like crumpling matchsticks. Bohr saw the flames erupt, blasting out from the strike point, then mysteriously, almost fluidly, changed shape and extinguish.

      "Notice anything familiar about what just happened?" the Shadow said.

      Bohr watched again. Any number of superpowers could snuff out flames easily enough, but there was something strange about what occurred. He amplified the image, looking for some clue in the movement of the flames. Instead, it was the motion of the debris that caught his eye.

      "The shrapnel isn't moving right," Keaton said. "It hung in the air too long. Took unnatural trajectories when it did fly away. Something altered how the explosion moved. From the inside. We haven't encountered anything like this before. Except . . ."

      "Except in our own labs," the White Shadow said.

      The girl in the bubble. She could do things like this. Change gravity's effect on falling objects. Cause alterations in density at the molecular level.

      "Keep watching," the Shadow said.

      They stared as the building exploded in real time now, flames mostly gone but the structure an obliterated disaster. From the rubble, two streaks of fire launched into the air in pursuit of the mechanized bombing vehicles.

      "Is that an echo?" Keaton said. "It looks like Solar's energy signature is doubling on screen." He ordered the computer to focus in on the flyers in a single frame of video. "That's no echo," he corrected himself. "There's two of them."

      "A second Solar," the Shadow said.

      "Another Gawain mutation?" Keaton said. "It may be time. We have a new human born with the Gawain mutation every few decades. Could she have been training her replacement in secret?"

      "I'm not sure," the Shadow said. "But clearly they have more help on their side than they had previously. It's been a long time since we've seen them recruit new powered heroes. Reports from our men on the ground in the Waterfront and at the ambush we left in the junkyard seem to indicate there's more of them than before. It warrants researching."

      "I'll look into it," Keaton said.

      The screen returned to playing the explosion in real time, and he took in the strange sight of werewolves running out of the destroyed building like rats on a sinking boat. "I'm amazed the werewolves are still fighting the good fight," Keaton said. "It seems ridiculous. Either they're zealots or they just like to go into battle."

      "Probably both," the Shadow said. "But regardless of why, they need to be dealt with."

      "I can return to my research," Keaton said. "I'm sure there's some way to make an airborne silver powder poison."

      "No," the Shadow said. "I want you looking at the end game, devising ways to make use of what's left of our girl in the bubble."

      "But if that pack of wolves is on the move . . ."

      "They will be dealt with," the White Shadow said.

      "How? More of our foot soldiers? I don't doubt the conviction of our men, but they can't handle monsters. They don't have the practice or the manpower."

      "I've brought in a specialist," the Shadow he said, tapping a command into the room's telecomm system. "Please come in. I'd like to introduce you to Dr. Bohr."

      "Who did you recruit? Mercenaries?" Keaton said.

      "Better," the Shadow said. "Professional monster hunters."

      The chamber door opened, and a short-haired woman dressed all in black walked in. One eye, hidden behind a patch, was surrounded by old scar tissue. Several knives visible on her belt, she carried herself, Keaton noticed, like someone who had knives hidden out of sight as well. The woman was flanked on either side by masked fighters like herself.

      "Keaton, this is Rose," the Shadow said. "Rose, meet my second in command, Keaton Bohr."

      "You're the professional monster hunter?" Keaton asked.

      Rose smirked. It was a vicious grin, marred by the toughness of the scar tissue on her face.

      "For centuries, my people have kept the werewolf population in check," Rose said. "We destroy monsters."

      "I don't understand," Keaton said. "Why work with us? What's the point? Money's not worth anything anymore. Power? Promises?"

      "Oh, we're much easier than that," Rose said.

      "Really?" Keaton said.

      "Yes," Rose said. "Money is worthless, but professional pride still counts for something. The end of the world is coming. All we want to do is have a chance to finish the work we started while we still can."