The Indestructibles (Book 4): Like A Comet (24 page)

Chapter
41:

We're
killing ourselves

Jane waited in the landing bay for the
returning Kate and company, watching as the trio climbed out of the little
vehicle they'd used to run their most recent mission. If things hadn't been so
dire—and if Kate hadn't stepped off the craft looking fit to murder someone—it
would have been funny to see all three of them squeezed into one little flying
machine, but they'd clearly been in a fight, and that alone swallowed up any
humor Jane might have found in it all.

      Kate stormed toward her, pulling
her cowl down so it hung like a hood off the back of her uniform. She punched
the nearest wall.

      "Lunatics," Kate said,
slamming it again. "Lunatics. We've got an alien invasion force and there
are actual human beings willing to sell us out because they think these things
are some kind of religion. Our own people. We're killing ourselves, Jane."

      "What happened?" Jane
asked.

      Titus, as always looking worse for
wear but simultaneously the least upset of the three, explained.

      "Hosts," he said. "We
found another one of the traitors of the Children of the Elder Star with a
facility full of host-bodies for the aliens."

      Kate slapped the wall a third
time.

      "How do we win when our own
species seems incapable of not destroying itself voluntarily?" she said.

      "Are you okay?" Jane
said.

      Covered in soot, Bedlam brought up
the rear, small cuts evident on her face and the exposed skin of her arms. She
had a sense of sadness to her. Something changed.

      "Bedlam?" Jane said.

      The cyborg shook her head. She
walked over to the wall where Kate had been venting her frustrations and leaned
against it, casting her eyes at her feet.

      "Do we need to go back there?"
Jane asked.

      Kate, who was pacing back and
forth, paused and said, "It's taken care of. But now I'm wondering how
many more of these places exist. They're here building armies of host bodies
for those parasite creatures to use."

      "Were they… powered? Like us?
If this was one of the members of the Children of the Elder Star…" Jane
asked.

      "They'd been modified, but
they weren't actually alive," Titus said softly. "They were amplified
bodies. Kept in some sort of suspended animation."

      "So for our aliens to use a
host body they don't even have to be living," Kate said.

      "Do we know that for sure?"
Jane said. After Kate gave her a frustrated shrug, she looked to Titus for
confirmation.

      "It may have just been an
experiment," he said.

      Kate ran her gloved hands through
her hair and made a low, frustrated growling sound.

      "I… I am a misanthrope on a
good day, guys," she said. "You know this. I see something like this
and I feel a little justified."

      Kate stormed off, leaving the rest
of the group behind. Titus and Jane exchanged a look; Titus nodded his head and
then gestured for Jane to follow her down the hall. Assuming Titus knew who
Kate needed to talk to more, Jane took his advice and ran to catch up. "You
okay?" Jane said.

      Kate stopped walking; her
shoulders slumped.

      "I don't know how we beat
this," Kate said. "I'm just a person. Just an ordinary person. I can't
keep this up. Not against something like this."

      "Yes you can," Jane
said.

      "No, I mean—we've fought
monsters," Kate said. "We've fought evil people before. But we're
what, six, seven people against… it's not the odds, Jane. It's the
relentlessness. We keep hitting them and they don't stop."

      Jane smiled.

      "Well now you know what it's
like to fight you," she said.

      Kate glared at her like she'd said
the most ridiculous thing in the world, but then she almost—almost—cracked a
smile.

      "It was tough on Bedlam,"
Kate said.

      Jane frowned.

      For Kate to say something about
another person's emotional state was rare; it must have been truly awful for
her to bring it up.

      "How was it on the two of
you, though?" Jane asked. "I can't remember the last time I've seen
you this rattled."

      Kate sighed and peeled off her fighting
gloves, tucking them into her belt.

      "I've always hated wasting my
time. What we saw tonight," Kate said. "Could be a waste of our
time."

      Jane leaned against the wall,
folding her arms across her chest.

      "Why do you do all this,
Kate?"

      "What?" Kate asked.

      "Why are you a hero?"
Jane said. "You were doing this before any of us were. There on your own
in leotard and painted-on mask fighting muggers months before Doc found you.
Why?"

      "To be better," Kate
said.

      "Why else."

      "Because I didn't want anyone
else to go through what I went through," Kate said.

      Jane nodded.

      "Has that changed?"

      Kate didn't answer, and simply
looked back at her silently.

      "Do yourself a favor,"
Jane said. "Go down to the streets. Do what you do. Jump around on
rooftops. Go watch the ballet. The Third Symphony of Gustav Mahler is playing
at the City Performing Arts Center."

      "You expect me to sit through
a show," Kate said.

      "It's the end of the world
again," Jane said. "You should see one last ballet just in case."

      Kate let out a soft grunting noise
that might have been an assent to Jane's suggestion and started to walk away.
She turned back.

      "Thanks, Jane."

      "This is what I'm here for,"
Jane said.

      "No, it isn't," Kate
said. "But thank you anyway."

* * *

      Titus sat down next to Bedlam and
allowed her to ignore him for a few minutes. She smelled like burnt
electronics, his superhuman senses able to pick out the specific parts of the
machine she'd torn apart, copper wiring and steel plates, circuit boards and
solder.

      "You want to talk about what
happened?" he asked.

      Bedlam refused to answer at first.

      Titus didn't press. He leaned his
head against the wall and closed his eyes.

      "I don't know why I lived,"
Bedlam said finally.

      Titus kept his eyes closed, listening
to the strange and no longer completely human beating of her heart.

      "After the accident. I was
like them, I think. I should've been dead." She hesitated, took a deep
breath and exhaled anxiously. "One of the scientists in the lab where they
put me back together, I remember him talking to one of the others, and he said,
he was amazed at the trauma the human body can endure," Bedlam said. "In
some ways we're these fragile little flowers, yet in others, the trials and
tribulations we can withstand… it's not fair. Not fair at all. Sometimes
surviving is suffering."

      "But you're alive, and you
are
extraordinary," Titus said.

      "And I can't go out in
public," Bedlam said. "But that's not what's bothering me. It's that…
those people in the jars down there, those bodies. They got to leave. To die. And
they left fair and square. Their turn on the ride is over."

      Titus nodded and watched as Bedlam's
face screwed up into a heartbreaking mask of sadness.

      "They died. That's okay. That's
how it works. And they weren't going to suffer anymore. They were able to rest.
Because it was over."

      "And those people wanted to
bring them back," Titus said.

      "Yes," Bedlam answered. "How
dare they. How dare they drag those poor people back. What if they remembered
how they died? What if they were trapped in there somehow, just, hurting and
remembering?"

      "It sounded like they were
just corpses," Titus said. "Whatever it was inside them, whoever they
were had long since gone. It is horrible, that they were being desecrated in that
way, but I don't think they were still present."

      "How do we know?" Bedlam
said. "I was dead too for a few minutes. I came back. And I didn't want
to."

      "You didn't?"

      Bedlam looked at her feet again,
not answering. Finally she returned her gaze to Titus.

      "You know what my last
thought was? As the accident was happening? I was just happy to get off the
ride. I was okay with what was taking place." 

      "And then you came back,"
Titus said.

      "And I was angry. I've been
so angry. I make the best of it, but…"

      "You hide it well,"
Titus said.

      "That's what people like me
do, Titus," Bedlam said, a tiny smile flickering across her lips. "We
cover it up really well."

      "It won't help if I tell you
we're glad you're here with us, will it?" he said.

      Bedlam shook her head.

      "It doesn't hurt to hear it,"
Bedlam said. "But you understand? Why it doesn't help?"

      "I do," Titus said.

      Bedlam studied his face.

      "You've been there too, haven't
you," Bedlam said. "Sad little werewolf."

      "Sad little boy, but yeah,"
Titus said. "I've been there."

      They both looked away, sitting in
companionable quiet for a while. Titus broke the silence.

      "I don't know if it's ever
going to offer real consolation or not, but they were dead, Bedlam. Those
bodies. They were really and truly gone," he said.

      "You know that?"

      Titus tapped his nose with his
finger.

      "The downside to being a
freak," he said. "I would have known if they were alive."

      "That doesn't fix everything
but… it makes it a little easier to take, I guess."

      "Little victories, Bedlam,"
Titus said.

      "I guess so," she said.

Chapter
42:

Magicians
and their books

Doc walked up the path to the Lady's
current home, a modernized castle she'd settled into on the Spanish coast. He
was surprised she hadn't moved on already. She rarely stayed in one place long,
flitting about this world and others as if on permanent vacation.

      He knocked on the door, pleasantly
surprised when, for the second time, Natasha answered it herself.

      "Look who darkens my
doorstep," she said. "Good morning, my little Doctor."

      "You're still here."

      "I like it," Natasha
said. "And it's been a long time since I've liked it anywhere. I'd prefer
to enjoy the feeling for a bit."

      Leading him through the foyer into
a sitting room, she gestured for him to take up a spot on one of the burgundy
couches. Natasha sat across from him and folded her legs. She appeared to be a
wealthy woman on vacation, linen pants, a soft white shirt, her hair slicked
back as if she'd just been swimming. The apparent normalcy of it boggled Doc's
mind.

      "I can't get over this,"
he said.

      "What's
this
?"

      "You. Not trying to take over
the world."

      "I never wanted to take over
the world, you know that," Natasha said. "I just prefer things my
way."

      "Well, it's nice to see you
relaxed. Which makes my visit even worse."

      "That sounds ominous,"
she said.

      Natasha gestured with one hand and
a tray with a teapot and two cups floated into the room. Despite all her
outward affectations of normalcy, the Lady Natasha Grey was still one of the
most powerful magicians on Earth. Of course she'd continue to use air
elementals to do her cooking and cleaning for her. She'd have it no other way.

      "What brings you to my humble
hideaway?" the Lady said. "Since you've already warned me I won't
like the reason, you might as well spill it."

      "Ever have one of those
moments when you realize just how strange your life has been?" Doc said,
sipping his tea. Ginger lemon. Of course. "You get used to it after a
while, the strangeness. We're magicians. We've seen just about all of the weird
things we could possibly imagine. And then you travel to your friend's home and
say: there's an alien invasion happening and I need your help."

      Natasha raised both eyebrows and
held the cup in front of her mouth without taking a sip.

      "Part of me is genuinely
surprised that it hasn't happened before now," she said. "I'm caught
off-guard."

      "I wondered if you already
knew," Doc said.

      "I'm retired, darling. I don't
even watch the evening news let alone gaze to the stars for approaching
enemies," she said. "You and yours are, I assume, preparing to stop
it."

      "Trying," Doc said. "It's
a lot. I'm worried."

      "You're always worried. That's
what you've always done," she said. "Doc Silence, magician and
professional worrier."

      "You really knew nothing
about this?"

      "You're thinking I had
something to do with it?" Natasha asked.

      "No, you've always steered
clear of aliens," Doc said.

      Natasha laughed.

      "Speaking of surreal phrases,"
she said. "So why come to me?"

      Doc rubbed his eyes behind his
glasses, and squinted.

      "I need something to cast at
their fleet. A spell. Anything. I could use a hammer, Natasha," Doc said.

      "All the knowledge at your
disposal and you don't have what you're looking for?"

      "I have a lot," Doc
said. "I can do a great deal. But I just…"

      "You've never really gone to
war," Natasha said.

      "No. No I haven't," Doc
said.

      Natasha set her cup aside, stood
up, and motioned for Doc to follow her. They walked down one of the ancient
stone corridors of the castle until the space opened up into a library, bookshelves
rose two stories high, natural light spilled in through tall, stained glass
windows.

      "So this is where all the
books in the world went," Doc said.

      He approached the nearest stack
and ran a finger along the spines of the books. They were in all languages,
mortal and not, bound in fanciful skins. Some felt warm to the touch, as if
alive, others ice cold. Some hummed with strange energy and still others called
out to him, begging to be opened, malignant intelligence hiding inside.

      "The most dangerous library
in the world," Natasha said. "Or I like to think so. I've bargained
for centuries to build this library."

      "It's not really here, is it,"
Doc said.

      Natasha spread her arms out.

      "This room? It's here. But it's
not
only
here," she said. "You know that old trick."

      "I have a similar set up with
my own library," he said.

      Natasha reached up toward the
ceiling and motioned with her hand. A single book slid from the top shelf and
floated down to her gently. She caught it in both hands.

      "Magicians and our books,"
she said, thumbing through the tome she'd pulled from the shelf. She let go and
it drifted back up to its previous home. She reached for another and a second floated
down. This time, she nodded as she opened it. Bound in gray leather, like an
elephant's skin, its pages were dotted with red ink or blood.

      Natasha handed the book to Doc. He
flipped through it and saw fire spells and schematic designs for siege engines
that could not possibly be built in this dimension.

      "I took that from a battle
mage in another plane where life is eternal war," she said. "I was
there bartering other goods, because a place made of perpetual destruction
rarely learns how to make things not related to warfare, so I marked up the
price of my magic astronomically. I never had much use for a book like this,
but I thought, it never hurts to know more about anything. So I took it."

      "Just a book of hellmagic
sitting on your shelf for a few decades," Doc said.

      "Pretty much. I never turn
down a book of magic, Doc. Somewhere on these shelves there's a book of cooking
magic written by gnomes. I've never lifted a finger in the kitchen my entire
long life but why not learn how to make cupcakes that help you travel between
realities?"

      "Must be delightful cupcakes,"
Doc said.

      "I can't say. Never made
them," she said.

      Doc closed the book and turned it
over in his hands.

      "There's some dark things in
there, Doctor Silence," Natasha said.

      "You and I both realize I'm
no stranger to dark magic," he said.

      "Yes, but I know you've
become averse to it," the Lady said. "I don't need to warn you that
what you do with the contents of that book cannot be undone."

      "Thanks for the warning,"
he said, tucking the book inside his coat.

      "So you haven't asked me,"
Natasha said.

      "What?" Doc said.

      "If I'll help you."

      Doc smiled at his own nemesis,
oldest friend, and teacher, the one who brought out the best and worst in all that
he did. At the end of the world, it always came down to the two of them. There
was a unique kind of magic in that.

      "I think you like this world,"
Doc said.

      "Maybe I do," Natasha
said, smiling.

      "I suspect I don't have to
ask you to help. I think if things get dark enough, you'd rather fight to save
it than pack up your library and move to another world."

      "I do have that option,"
Natasha said.

      "I know."   

      "So do you," Natasha
said. "Could come with me. We've done it before."

      "In theory, yeah," Doc
said. "But in practice…"

      "In practice this is our
home," Natasha said. "I may be ruthless, Doctor, but I do understand."

      "So do I have to ask?"
Doc said.

      Natasha straightened his coat for
him and touched his face.

      "I make no promises,"
she said. "But I do have to admit… I like it here."