The Indestructibles (Book 3): The Entropy of Everything (5 page)

Chapter 9:

Infernal machines

      Kate Miller arrived alone at the site Anachronism Annie had arranged for the trip.
Annie didn't want to try to move all seven of them in an enclosed space because she said time travel could create feedback energy and it didn't make sense to risk it in the Tower, and so she'd configured some sort of contraption in a field just outside the City.

      No clouds dotted the blue sky. Spring would be here soon. Kate felt strange being outside in the daylight. It wasn't her natural habitat and hadn't been for a long, long time.

      Jane arrived next, wearing her cartoonish uniform. She'd added blue leggings underneath her skirt, Kate noted, so at least she didn't look as much like a cheerleader as she normally had. Jane, of course, turned her face toward the clear sky and let the sun wash over her, her skin glittered like diamonds as she absorbed more solar energy.     "What's with the cape?" Jane asked.

      Kate had added a cloak to her uniform, black and utilitarian, which she had wrapped around her shoulders like a cowl.

      "Storage space," Kate said. "Can't fit everything I wanted to bring on my belt."

      Jane nodded.

      "Where's Titus?" Jane asked.

      "Not here yet," she said. Kate wanted to be annoyed with him for voting yes on this trip, but she was a good judge of character, and if she hadn't wanted to be around an idealist, Kate would never have started spending time with Titus. She just wished on occasion that idealism didn't come across as suicidal altruism.

      "You think this is stupid, don't you?" Jane said. She settled down on the grass and stretched her legs, her hair looking more and more like open flame dancing on the light breeze.

      "We haven't caught the Vermin King," Kate said. "The shark-man is still out there. This world needs us right now."

      "That's why we're coming back," Titus said, walking up to both women carrying his ridiculous, arcane spear.

      Kate still struggled with how much he'd changed in the last year. Whatever transpired up in the woods in Canada—and Titus rarely spoke about what happened there in specific terms—had given him a new purpose, and a level of confidence that took them all by surprise. The pouting werewolf they used to know was all but gone.

      "Nice cape!" Billy yelled. He was dressed in full costume as well, walking next to Emily, who had added a puffy red vest to her eyesore of a uniform.

      Behind them, Doc Silence, Annie, and Sam Barren followed. Barren had Billy's dog with him on a
Star Wars
leash.

      "You know what I'm not seeing right now? A police call box," Emily said.

      "I'm not going over this with you again, Emily," Annie said.

      "I would settle for a phone booth, like Bill and Ted had," Emily said.

      "Not happening," Annie said.

      "Okay, fine," Emily said. "How about an Ocarina of Time?"

      "I don't even know what an Ocarina is—is she always like this?" Annie said.

      "Always," Jane said.

      "Perpetually," Billy said.

      Annie sighed.

      "Okay, look. Fine. I don't normally like to go into details, but here's the deal. I am a natural time traveler," Annie said. "Like you can manipulate gravity, I can manipulate time."

      "That seems like a lot of responsibility," Emily said. "But also you must never be late for anything. Ever."

      "Shut. Up." Annie said.

      "That doesn't work," Billy said. "I've tried."

      "Just stop," Annie said. "I can move freely through time. There are so many timelines, it's easier to find my way back to one I've been to if I've got an anchor to go back to. Which was why I had trouble getting back here last time, because Doc decided to go on a vacation to the higher planes."

      "I didn't know I was your anchor," Doc said. "I really wish you'd stop blaming me for that."

      "Anyway," she said. "To move all seven of us, I need a boost." Annie pointed to a small silver box and a ring of cables on the ground. "This device will give a little kick to my powers. It'll help me move you all easier into the future. And before you ask, yes, I have one waiting for me on the other side to get us home. I made sure of that prior to leaving the last time."

      "So you just poof us into the future," Billy said. "By what? Thinking?"

      "It's not unlike Doc's teleportation spells, actually," Annie said. "I use math rather than magic but it's remarkably similar. So it should feel really familiar."

      "Doc's never teleported us before," Jane said.

      Annie glared at Doc. "You've never teleported them?"

      "You can teleport us?" Emily said.

      "It never really came up," Doc said, shrugging. "Sorry. Three of them can fly, Annie. It never seemed necessary."

      Annie ran her tattooed hands through her neon pink hair, clearly distraught.

      "They're all going to throw up," she said.

      "We're all going to what?" Jane said.

      Kate felt her stomach churning. Getting sick to her stomach was one of her few legitimate fears. She looked at Emily who shared her horror.

      "What? Why? Why would you do that?" Emily said.

      "It's just . . . what people do when they're not used to teleporting. Most people only get sick the first time," Annie said. "Which wouldn't be a problem if—"

      "If Doc hadn't been holding out on us with taxi service by teleportation spell," Titus said. He looked over at Kate, concerned. "You okay?"

      "I'm fine," Kate said.

      "You're sweating."

      "I'm fine," Kate said again. She cracked open a pouch on her belt and pulled out a small pill bottle packed with cotton to prevent rattling and pulled out a tablet.

      "Now I really don't think you're okay," Titus said.

      "Dimenhydrinate," Kate said. "Motion sickness pill."

      "Gimme one," Emily said.

      Kate frowned at her but gave the blue-haired girl one of the pills.

      Annie herded everyone into the ring of cables. She pointed at Titus.

      "You should probably leave the Capitoline Spear here," she said.

      "The what which where?" Titus said.

      "The mystical artifact you're using as a walking stick," she said. "Unique artifacts are risky to transport between timelines. They carry a lot of embedded power with them."

      "It's a spear," Titus said.

      "It's a two-thousand year old magical artifact that has been used to kill at least one demi-god," Annie said. "Again, Doc? You didn't tell him that?"

      "He's not planning on killing any gods, are you Titus?" Doc said.

      "Not on my itinerary, no," Titus said.

      "And it was his peoples' choice to tell him or not. Because the Capitoline Spear really isn't that dangerous, Annie," Doc said.

      "And you," Annie said. "Empty your pockets."

      Titus handed his spear over to Sam as Doc removed two amulets, a coin the size of the palm of his hand, an intricate knife made out of bone, a broken mirror, a necklace made of blue crystal beads, and what appeared to be a glass eyeball, out of his coat pockets.

      "Minor magic, Annie," Doc said. "This is just my everyday gear."

      "Anything in this pile luck-based or involve teleportation?" Annie asked.

      Doc tossed one of the amulets to Sam and then walked the broken mirror over to him as well.

      Annie fixed her eyes on Kate next.

      "Anything in that bag of tricks you've got wrapped around your shoulder magical or high-tech?"

      Kate shook her head.

      Annie nodded. "Okay then," she said.

      "So do we need to . . . hold hands or something?" Emily asked.

      "No," Annie said.

      "Sing Huey Lewis and the News?"

      "No."

      "Say the alphabet backwards?"

      "Someone help," Annie said.

      "Come on, Em. Let her concentrate," Jane said.

      Emily crossed her arms and pouted, looking all the more ridiculous as her puffy vest rode up under her chin.

      "We'll be back, Sam," Doc said.

      "Better be," he said. "I'll keep an eye on things."

      Annie began to mumble under her breath, eyes closed.

      Kate felt suddenly lightheaded, unsure of herself. Her knees buckled slightly. She looked down at her hands, and saw them flickering, going out of focus like a scrambled television set. She turned to Titus, who was watching her with concern. He too flickered in and out like a fading hologram. He nodded at her. In between flickers, he smiled.

      And then they were gone.

Chapter 10:

The White Shadow

      Keaton Bohr had come to hate visiting with the White Shadow.

      Years ago, the masked hero had plucked him out of obscurity, given him a reason to be, provided a usefulness to his work. The White Shadow found Keaton when the scientist had lost all hope in science, when his ideas on energy manipulation and automatons—ideas Keaton had wanted to use to feed the world and make it a better place—had been ignored for so long he was prepared to give everything up.

      The White Shadow approached him that night, dressed as always in an impeccable black suit, face wrapped in white silk like a ghost, no eyes or mouth visible, as Keaton leaned on the guardrail of the bridge leading into the City over the river near the Financial District. A light snow fell, and Keaton watched the lights of the City twinkling in the distance, a million lives quietly going about their activities in pointless repetition.

      Keaton knew the White Shadow from the news. He'd been around for decades, a mysterious vigilante, solving crimes, a faceless Sherlock Holmes, working from the darkness, a thinking man's superhero. But this character in front of Keaton, regarding him with the blankest of gazes, was smaller than Keaton would have expected. Slighter, the dark suit hanging on the Shadow's frame seemed as if it were tailored to someone else's body, someone bigger, broader of shoulder.

      "I understand you want to change the world," the Shadow had said to him.

      Keaton stood, slack-jawed. The voice felt wrong too. But, he supposed all of these masked heroes are different in person. They have to be. Up close, perhaps they're just human beings like anyone else. He stared and didn't answer.

      "It's almost as if they don't want things to get better," the White Shadow said, gesturing towards the City.

      And that was how it began, twenty years ago. A lifetime. They were friends at first. The White Shadow shared vast plans with Keaton. Ways to make the world a better place. And now, as Keaton walked down into the depths of the massive laboratory they had converted into a base of operations, he had started to become frightened of the Shadow.

      Started to? No, Keaton thought. I've been afraid much longer than that.

      He found the White Shadow sitting alone in the dark, as always, in a tall-backed chair, watching monitors upon which the most recent battle with Solar were replaying.

      "Your robots held up well this time, Keaton," Shadow said.

      "Not really," Keaton said. "She tore them apart."

      "We can always make more," Shadow said. "Do we know what she was looking for?"

      "The same thing she's always looking for, I suspect," he said.

      "Well, we'll give her what she wants soon," the White Shadow said. There was a quiet threat in that simple statement.

      Keaton's stomach churned with anxiety. "We will?" he said.

      "My friend," the White Shadow said. "She's looking for an end to all of this. And we are so close."

      The Shadow waved a hand and the monitors clicked off, leaving them both in near darkness, with only the light seeping in from the hallway illuminating them.

      "It's almost over," the White Shadow said. "It's finally almost over."

Chapter 11:

To the future

      "The future," Emily said, sneering and looking around at the desiccated landscape surrounding them, "is disgusting."

      Billy had to agree.

      Of course the future was extra disgusting because most of the Indestructibles had come through their time-traveling experience dizzy and sick to their stomachs. Everyone sat around a few meters away from their arrival point and tried to get their sea legs back. Even Doc looked a little shaken up by it, though he was holding it together better than the others. Apparently Kate's anti-seasickness pills hadn't done much for her or Emily. Both their faces were dressed in varied shades of green.

      I feel fine, though, Billy thought.

     
That's because I controlled your inner ear sensations to stabilize your equilibrium
, Dude said.
You'd actually be faring very poorly if I weren't here to help.

      "I feel fine," Billy said out loud to everyone.

     
You never miss a chance to be dishonest, do you, Billy Case?

      Nope, Billy thought. Never.

      Jane wasn't feeling particularly well either by the look of it, but she'd taken a few steps away from the group and turned her face skyward again.

      "It's so gray here," she said. "What happened? Nuclear war?"

      "War, and lots of it," Annie said. "The people we need to stop systematically declared war on humanity."

      "All of it?" Titus asked.

      "At first they seemed to be doing good—they went after the bad guys in the beginning," Annie said. "But when all the bad guys disappeared, they started coming after everyone else."

      "What do you mean, came after everyone else?" Kate asked. She adjusted the newly added cape to ensure her arms were completely free.

      "They went after power sources. Food supplies. They destroyed highways," Annie said.

      "So they did all this?" Titus asked. "Everything smells like smoke and death."

      Annie stood up, stretched her legs, and started walking away.

      "That's the sad part," Annie said. "They didn't have to do this. They destroyed the things people wanted, and you know what happened?"

      "People destroyed each other to get what was left," Jane said.

      Annie pointed at her.

      "Which I think was exactly what the adversaries were planning," Annie said. "Follow me. We're not far from the safe house where. . ."

      Annie started laughing and caught herself.

      "Where what?" Billy said.

      "Where the Indestructibles have set up a makeshift base," Annie said.

* * *

      The base turned out to be an abandoned community college building. Cars littered the parking lot, upturned and blackened by fire. Here, too, everything was gray and covered with dust and grime. Annie walked ahead of the group and stepped through the shattered glass where large double doors once stood.

      Titus made a low growling noise and Billy turned.

      "What's the matter, Lassie? Timmy fall down a well?" Billy asked.

      "There's others here," Titus said. "Like me."

      "What's it like going out with a bloodhound?" Emily asked, looking at Kate.

      As usual, Kate ignored her, moving ahead to scout, but Doc put a hand on her arm.

      "Wait," he said.

      Kate glared at him, but listened.

      Titus's eyes started to change color, a precursor to transforming into full werewolf mode. They scanned the darker parts of the hall.

      "It will never stop freaking me out when you smell things we can't smell," Billy said.

      "I'll tell you if I ever stop freaking myself out when it happens," Titus said. "Also, you talking to yourself all the time is way weirder. . . Annie?"

      "There are other werewolves here, yes," Annie said. "But they're on our side."

      Titus cocked his head to one side.

      "And . . . someone singing?" he said.

      Now they all stopped to listen, walking slowly and quietly behind Annie as she led them deeper into the building.

      Billy finally caught up with Titus's superhuman hearing. The faint sound of a woman singing reached his ears, a delicate voice, but pretty, high and folksy. The closer they drew, the clearer the voice became. A melancholy feeling tingled in his chest. The sound of the woman's voice made him feel suddenly very lonely.

     
"Of all the comrades that e'er I had, they are sorry for my going away,"
the voice sang.
"And all the sweethearts that e'er I had, they would wish me one more day to stay."

      "That's . . . awfully pretty," Emily said.

      Billy looked at her.

      Emily shrugged. "What, you disagree?"

     
"But since it falls unto my lot, that I should rise and you should not,"
the singing voice continued,
"I'll gently rise and softly call, good night and joy be with you all."

      Doc had stopped walking entirely. He stood completely still, hands in his pockets and head bowed. Titus's body had relaxed, no longer ready to pounce, a near smile lit his face.

      "Who is that?" Billy asked.

      Jane pushed her way to the front of the group, gently moving Annie aside with a hand on her shoulder.

      "I think that's me," Jane said.

      And she ran on without them, into the hallway ahead.