The Push Chronicles (Book 3): Incorruptible

by J. B. Garner

  It really was a spot of luck and maybe just a hint of skill that my arc was perfect to let me get a tenuous grip on the leading edge of Ex's ice trail. The speed of ascent pulled at my body, wrenching at my fingers. It took all of my strength to make one massive pull, throwing myself up and over the edge, right into Extinguisher himself. As we both flew off the slide, I began to wonder if this had been a smart plan after all.

  "I'm sorry I made this happen," I said as we plummeted towards the ground, my shoulder buried in his chest.

  "Why do you keep hurting me th-"

  His question ended abruptly as we hit the ground. I was only a little ashamed that I had twisted right before impact to ensure he hit first, cushioning my own fall. I trusted in that wonderful Pushed resilience to prevent any serious harm from the fall as I rolled off of him. After all, I had no such thing myself. Even with that, I was jarred from the landing.

  The sounds of treads echoed in my ears as I picked myself back up. No more time for dilly-dally, it was time to get out of here before one of these guys got lucky. I intended to buy time for Quentin's escape, not get thrown back into prison.

  All it took was swaying on my feet a moment, a feign of weakness, to lure Tank in. I loved him like a little brother, but he was impulsive, full of bravado, something I was a little sorry to take advantage of. He charged me head on, knowing that mass and speed would affect me far better than his plasma blasts.

  I switched from swaying to feet planted in the blink of an eye, leaping over the charging cyborg before he could even begin to brake. At full tilt, it would take him several seconds to stop and reorient, assuming he managed to before he hit the street and any obstacles there. Those would slow Tank for longer and, with his force field, not harm him seriously, if at all. I rolled through the landing, breaking into a run as I came to my feet.

  "Damn!" Gaslight shouted as he fired another electrical stream after me. "After her! Master Epic needs that vile woman back behind bars. For justice!"

  I always laughed inside when I heard the Crusaders' battle-cry. We'd be seeing soon enough how many of them really drank that particular brand of Kool-Aid. For now, though, I concentrated on speed, putting one foot in front of the other. My goal was the green space adjacent the plaza. There were a few trees for aerial cover and open access to the parking deck. It was the best I could manage off the top of my head.

  As I ducked under the cover of the scattered trees, I tried to form a better plan. The canopy was minimal and the parking deck still only had a limited amount of exits. I was going to have to get creative to have any chance of escape. Hexagon bounding into the middle of the mini-park with one distance eating leap reinforced that notion.

  I always did my best thinking in motion so I broke off into another full-tilt sprint, straight-lining for the parking deck. It was still my best option. It wasn't an impossible notion that I could lose myself in there. More to the point, another option sprang to mind. It was an insane idea but, if it worked, it would be the best possible outcome in my mind.

  Hexagon was nipping at my heels, eating the distance with bounding mini-leaps, as I threw myself over the low wall into the parking deck itself. Electing to stop myself, staying low to the ground, I waited for that split-second until Hex bounded over the wall himself. Even if he had seen me, it was hard to suddenly stop that kind of bounding pace. Hexagon had, indeed, because as soon as he hit the ground inside the deck, he tried to skid to a stop and turn.

  That was my cue. I sprang up from my crouch and threw myself into the massive powerhouse, taking advantage of his awkward position to carry us deeper into the parking deck. His heel hit something, a parking space header probably, and we both tumbled hard into the shadows.

  "Wait, Hex ... Henry, listen to me," I whispered as we settled, sprawled out with me still on top of him. "Give me just one sentence and then you can punch me out if you want."

  Every one of the formidable muscles underneath me, no matter how unreal they actually were, tensed and flexed but the giant fist didn't swung. Hex's face was contorted in a mixture of anger and pain but he wasn't actually doing anything. I took his silence as assent.

  "Meds wants to help you and so do I." Invoking Medusa seemed to stir that same inner well of resistance that she had touched before and without the interruption of Gaslight or anyone else, it seemed to be taking hold. Of course, that wasn't going to last more than a moment. Extinguisher would do an overflight to cover the exits and the Human Tank would be on us in a moment if he followed the path of gouged grass along Hex's path.

  "No," Hex managed to get out through clenched teeth. "Don't help me. I'll ..." A bolt of pain seemed to run through his head and his neck muscles tensed into rigid cords. " ... I'll help you. Run. Keep her safe."

  I hadn't expected that. Not at all. I was, in fact, so shocked that I sat there, dumb-struck, then Hexagon surged up, pushing me off of him. When he reared back with all six of his powerful fists, I instinctively raised my arms, for all the good that would do.

  Those huge fists slammed not into me, but the parking deck itself. Stone shattered and rebar twisted under that impossible strength and the entire structure seemed to buckle. I didn't need to see more to know what he was doing; I only marveled at the depth of emotion it had to take for Hexagon to resist something dug directly into his mind. As I forced myself up and running once more, I tried to ignore that small, hollow feeling that nagged me at my own romantic failures. I could have a pity party once I was safe.

  Hexagon's onslaught was directed at cars, pillars, anything in his path. As I reached the opposite end of the parking deck, one of the sides facing the street, the first sounds of plummeting stone reached my ears. The entire structure had reached a point of critical failure as I threw myself over the side.

  Don't let action movies tell you that leaping out of a collapsing building is any way safe. I could give testament to that. While not immediately in the area of collapse, a spray of debris, twisted fragments of steel, and a rolling cloud of dust and particulates engulfed me as I hit the pavement chest-first. Covering my head with my arms, I focused back the pain from the debris impacts, especially a particularly painful gouge in my left calf.

  It seemed like an eternity, even if it was only a minute at most, for the initial collapse to cease and the debris to settle. Slowly I got to my feet, wincing even through my mental focus at the pain in my calf. There was a sharp shard of concrete jammed into the muscle, more than deep enough to make yanking it out suddenly a risky venture. The cloud of dust lingered in the air, making the shaken bystanders look like ashen ghosts...just like me.

  Tearing off my mask despite the pain of the spirit gum giving way, I smeared dust across my face. All it took was an easy-to-fake stumble to my step and lowered head to mimic the shell-shock of the rest of the victims. The wailing of emergency vehicles was already carrying through the air as I merged with the addled citizenry. One of the men who I knew had to have seen me before the collapse gave me a small nod.

  "Lips sealed," he said and then turned to attend once more to his friend, who had suffered a nasty cut on his forehead. I didn't even reply, just in case there was someone in authority watching, and shuffled on. It wasn't until I had gotten away from the crowd and off into a darkened alleyway that I let myself collapse behind a dumpster.

  As my focus broke down, the aches, pains, and injuries rushed into my mind and I clenched my teeth to keep the scream of agony back. Mixed with all of that was the usual hunger that always came with such inhuman activity. I took another glance at my calf and the blood seeping around the wound. I needed to get to safety. I needed medical attention.

  I was so focused on the pain and my next move that I hadn't even noticed the girl who had sneaked into the alley and now stood beside me.

  "Ms. Indomitable, are you okay?"

  Chapter 11 Family

  "I'll be fine." It was a bald-faced lie, but I had to get this girl to get out of here before I was found. "Just a scratch." To prove my poi
nt, I reached up to the lip of the dumpster and hauled myself up. My regret was deep and immediate as I put weight on my injured leg. Biting down on my scream of pain, I tried to smile through clenched teeth at the girl.

  "My mom said that you should always tell the truth." The girl could be no more than twelve and her pale skin was going paler as her eyes stared at the blood trickling down my leg. Still, she was brave enough to not completely panic.

  "I guess you've got me." Time to accept I wasn't fooling anyone and let myself slide back down to the ground. "I really appreciate you're worried but you have got to get out of here and go back to your -"

  "Kathy!"

  The shout came from the far end of the alley opposite the Plaza. The woman who ran towards us had a mix of panic and relief on her face as she came into clear view. It only took a quick glance between the two to catch the familial resemblance. They had the same wavy hair and blue eyes.

  "Mom! She's hurt!" Kathy grabbed her mother's hand with both of hers. "We gotta help her." Mom squeezed on her daughter's hands and knelt down.

  "Were you in that crash we heard?" she said as she looked me up and down. I could pick out all the usual signs of the fight-or-flight reaction. No doubt the mother was deciding if she should help or if she should get her child away from what could be danger.

  "It doesn't matter, ma'am," I hissed through another bit of pain as I experimentally flexed my calf. "It's not safe for you two to be here."

  Kathy's eyes started darting around, as if that warning was the one that sunk in, and I could see her fingers coil tighter around her mother's fingers. The mother, on the other hand, focused on my face before eying the bits of blue and white that were still plain through the dust of my uniform.

  "No." Her voice was certain. The mother gently turned Kathy to look into her eyes. "Okay, honey, we're going to help this nice lady so I need you to be extra-good for me." She kissed her on the forehead. "It might get scary, but you can be brave, right?"

  Kathy looked uncertainly at her mother then stole a glance at me. Maybe I could have given some indication to be scared. It's possible I could have made them leave me for their own safety. Instead, I nodded to the little girl and tried to give her that confident smile I had so often practiced in front of the mirror. If I was going to be crazy and try to finally embrace what this reality had made me, I was going to go all-in.

  "Yes, Mom, I promise."

  "Alright, we have to do this quickly," the mother said as she slung off her knapsack. The backpack in general had seemed to become an essential part of post-occupation Atlanta. "Kathy, take one of our water bottles and clean the nice lady's face."

  "Mom, that's not just any lady, that's -"

  "I know, dear, I know." She gave Kathy's shoulder a squeeze and pulled off the hoodie she was wearing. "Miss, do you think you can walk at all?"

  "I can do whatever we need to do, Mrs. ...?" If this all went south, I at least wanted to know the name of the person with the guts to try to help me out, knowing all too well the danger she was in.

  "Stephanya." She gave another brief smile before setting the hoodie aside. Kathy pulled a water bottle, obviously reused many times, from the knapsack and a hand towel. "Not that I don't believe that you can walk, but I don't." Stephanya flashed me a smirk. "So, we need to give you a makeover and get you out of here." Motioning at my jacket, she ordered, "Get that off and I'll see what we can do about your leg."

  The next few minutes ticked by in relative silence, with only the occasional tense word as mother and daughter went to work. I swapped my motorcycle jacket for Stephanya's hoodie after letting Kathy do a passable job of washing dust and debris off my face. For a moment, I was worried that Stephanya might pass out as she examined the gouge in my calf, but adrenaline and willpower seemed to keep her going. With the first aid kit from my own gear bag, she bound the wound as best she could and cleaned up the excess blood.

  "I really don't know if that will hold," Stephanya said, shaking her head.

  "We don't have much choice, do we?" I forced myself to focus and fight down the pain. "I'll hold together until we get ... where?"

  "Our apartment is really close," Kathy enthused. She was recovering from the initial shock of seeing me and the anxiety with the vibrancy of youth. "You can make it, you're a -"

  "-a really brave woman to not be crying right now." Stephanya slyly put her finger on her lips to her daughter before nodding to her bag. "Can you get the bag? I know it's heavy for you, but I need to help our new friend." She held out both hands to me.

  Kathy puffed out her chest and saluted to her mother as I took the offered hands. Both mother and child grunted with their respective loads and, a moment later, I was on my feet. At least I was only lightly battered aside from my leg.

  "Oof, you're heavier than you look," Steph quipped as I leaned on her. "Not that that is a bad thing, you know, just saying." She cleared her throat. "Now, you tell me if I start going too fast, okay? Kathy, don't go ahead now." The girl had already started down the alley back the way Stephanya had come, despite her burden, and stopped at her mother's voice.

  "I will, no worries," I said. "Thank you for -"

  "Shush you, save the thanks for when we manage to pull this off and not go to jail." The cut-off was jovial, if final. "Besides, for everything you've done for ... look, we'll just talk when we get home." We started down the alley, one of my arms slung over the shorter and slighter woman for support.

  The entire three block walk was one anxiety and pain-riddled step after another. The only things that gave me any comfort or safety was the fact that the Whiteout-altered perceptions of people seemed to let them fall for even flimsy disguises like, say, domino masks and the surprisingly heartening back-and-forth banter between mother and daughter. It was a change from all the insanity of my own life to hear people talking about something as simple as what they were going to cook for dinner.

  The other people we passed on the sidewalks were still focused primarily on the ground in front of them. It was even more apparent up close that there was a current of fear and hopelessness here. Why shouldn't people feel like that? Their entire lives had been taken over by a seemingly all-powerful individual and his cronies. What course of action could they take to make a difference?

  "We're here," Stephanya finally announced. "Well, the ground floor at least. Only three floors to go!" Her grin was playful as I looked up at the modest apartment building.

  "Please tell me the elevator works." I was ready to groan at the thought of all of the stairs in our way.

  "While the rules of comedy would want me to say 'no, of course it doesn't', that look in your eyes tells me that would simply be cruel to say. Yes, the elevator does work."

  "Thank God."

  "Just hold on a little longer, okay?" Kathy said, patting my free arm. "Can I go ahead and unlock the door, Mom?"

  "Now, Kathy, just hold on a minute." Stephanya glanced at me. "I'm sorry, she's excited. She never imagined she'd get to meet her personal hero."

  I could only nod. I mean, I had encountered this before, more often near the start of all of this, but in the past month I had retreated more and more into the hermitage that the never-ending mission provided me. As we mounted the steps to the lobby and waiting on the elevator, I thought back on that decision. I began to wonder if I had made the right choice.

  The apartment, despite the uncertainty that reigned outside, was rather cozy and lived in. I could instantly pick out what were concessions to the Crusader occupation: the improvised security bar for the front door, the kitchen cluttered with sorted piles of canned goods and bottled water, and the seemingly recent addition of heavy curtains drawn tight. Still, the right things were there: pictures of Stephanya, Kathy, and a man I guessed to be Steph's age, a pile of children's DVDs scattered in front of the TV, a disheveled cocoon of afghans where someone had cozied up on the couch. The signs of life ... a good life ... nothing like what my barren quarters were before the invasion.

&
nbsp; "Now, sweetie, please sort the food and hang our friend's jacket in the laundry room."

  "Okay, Mom!" Kathy disappeared behind the kitchen counter and its piles of cans. "You can help her, can't you?" Her head reappeared, poking between two piles.

  "Well, my little Igor, we're either going to save her life or have to amputate the leg." Steph added a bit of Dr. Frankenstein to her speech, much to the giggling delight of her daughter. "Now hurry up!"

  "I do appreciate all of this, Stephanya, but the longer I'm here -" I tried to say as she led me towards another room.

  "No, no," she interrupted. "This thing that you're doing, it is not happening anymore. Total cancellation of said topic." I was about to open my mouth one more time when she pinched my lips shut with her free hand. "Sssh. No." I could only shake my head, both amused and frustrated. A few more limping steps and we were inside what had to be the master bedroom.

  "Now, what is going to happen is you are going to lie down and we'll figure it out from there, alright?"

  I glanced at her for a moment and nodded. Her eyes were set, full of resolve underneath an impish twinkle, and I wasn't going to insult the people helping me by pushing further. It wasn't hard to get into the bed with the rest of my body being in decent shape and, a moment later, I found my injured leg propped up by a mound of pillows.

  "Alright, I'm down," I conceded. "This is the part where I hope you're a nurse or an EMT."

  "Sorry," she shook her head. "The good news is that all those first aid courses do add up after a while." Stephanya tucked her brown hair back behind her ears. "What? If you had a kid, you'd understand by the time they turn six that you need to know to deal with everything."

  "Well, it could certainly be worse." I glanced around the room. "Do you have any alcohol? I could probably use some before we do this."