The Push Chronicles (Book 3): Incorruptible

by J. B. Garner

  "Oh, I can see that I am simply confirming suspicions at this point, but the true crux was that you had no way to know what drugs were in his system. Even if you hazarded a guess, the risk to Schuller would be so great you wouldn't even try until it was far too late."

  It had been a rigged game from the start and Ian had successfully played us all for suckers. Sure, I now had several ideas on how to deal with Reaper but there was no chance to be free of this temporal nightmare, not without Mackenzie. If I played his game, well, it wouldn't matter anymore. The problem was would I make a world as flawed as the one Epic made? That Ian would have made?

  Mackenzie whistled the tune to an Irish jig. He seemed confident in the situation. I looked up at the near-frozen scene before me. Ian had called me a lynchpin in all of this and he was right. I was a lynchpin because I held the fate of this reality in my hands but for more reasons than that, reasons I was only starting to realize.

  I focused my attention on Epic's face and the man inside the god. There it was, that flash of heroism I had seen a few times briefly. The hero the man named Eric Flynn wanted to be. Somehow, beaten, defeated, he found it in himself to give it one last shot, even if it was probably pointless with how weak he was. It was all there in that unmoving slice of life and tribulation laid out for me. The ultimate lesson to being a hero, that role I never wanted but had come to accept.

  If I was one of these heroes, above all else I had to do the right thing. I looked back down at the crown of wires and probes. There was one vital question I realized that was more important than any other, that would determine what course was the right one.

  Would I put this thing on to try to make the world better, to advance it further or would I do it simply to rewind what had been? Did I have the right, especially in light of the fact I felt no one else did? Could I be the next Ian Mackenzie?

  "Ian."

  "Yes, Irene?"

  "I wanted to thank you for giving me this choice, this chance."

  "I'm just glad you're going to do the right thing, Dr. Roman. For all of our sakes."

  I focused all of my considerable strength and crunched the helmet in between my palms. Ian let out some existential screech, like a dying man deprived of oxygen, as I turned towards him.

  "You taught me that history was filled with Whiteouts and that made me realize that I was wrong. This reality, it doesn't need to stripped away. It's just the next step. Sure, it was birthed through tragedy and brought about too early but it's still reality now."

  The madman flung himself at me, gibbering and clawing. I shielded my face from raking fingernails with my forearm and flung Mackenzie to the ground. In the transition from Natural to Pushed, no matter how powerful, Ian had sold off a chance of taking me in a straight brawl.

  "However it goes, it's not my right or anyone's right to change it again, not like this. I may never entirely forgive Eric for what he did, but it's done now." I drove a motorcycle boot into the machine, toppling it over. "It's time for dinosaurs like us to accept that."

  "You insane- I- You'll never leave the in-between! I'll die before I let you go free." He scuttled to his feet. "You can watch everything go to hell from here, just like I will. We'll see then, won't we?"

  "You might be right, but at least I know I did the right thing." I actually smiled, despite the pain and grief whirling in my heart. "I'll die soon enough and, the entire time before I do, I'll be right here, telling you that I was right every day of the -"

  I cut myself off when a flash of motion caught my attention, out of the corner of my eye. Well, it was more like molasses trickling than a rapid movement, but it was still something.

  Turning to the frozen world around, things were very slowly starting to speed up. Ian had inferred it would do this, but it wasn't like I could take advantage of it. He certainly believed it was solely in his power to push things out of this in-between time frame; he had certainly pulled me in. What struck me as odd, though, was that Quentin, who had been shielding his eyes in super-slow motion from the glare of the blast, was now looking squarely at me with a creeping look of disbelief.

  "Gloat all you want, I don't care, Irene," Mackenzie spat as he clawed his way to his feet. White wisps of pure power started to come off of his scarecrow form like streamers. "I might just kill you now and save the time!" It certainly seemed like a bluff so I kept my attention squarely on Quentin.

  It was a long shot, but what today hadn't been long shots? I ran past the shrieking Mackenzie towards Quentin as the world started to regain color and resolve to normal speed, a hand stretched out towards him pleadingly.

  "Wait, wait ..." Pleading desperation had taken over for the anger in Ian's voice. Long, thin fingers clutched my shoulders. "You can't go, you can't leave me! You're supposed to save people, Irene, aren't you?" It only took a shrug of my shoulders to throw off the stick-thin ghost of a man.

  Faster. Some recognition played on the short-order cook's face. He had said his senses were sharper than anyone's and once more his boast seemed to be true. His hand started to move towards mine. The trick was if we would meet at that one fraction of a millisecond when I would be moving in his time. It was an impossible bit of synchronicity to hope for, but I hoped all the same.

  Faster still. I held my hand in place, trusting to Quentin's unnatural senses to guide his timing. Sweat poured down my brow as salvation was so close yet so far.

  "I'm going easy on you, Ian. Enjoy your freedom." Those were my last words to Ian Mackenzie as, almost full speed now, Quentin's hand rushed towards mine. I closed my eyes and made a prayer to a God that I didn't think existed to just give me this one thing, this one moment, in exchange for all he had taken from me today.

  Then, in a second, it was done. Hands clasped together as the tremendous rush of sound filled my ears. I cracked open my eyes to see Quentin looking at me in disbelief. Ian Mackenzie's final mournful cry still echoed in my ears.

  That moment was gone when the channeled onslaught of energy from Alma, Voltage, and Eric slammed into Reaper with a senses-shattering explosion.

  Chapter 24 Finale

  As my senses returned from the overload of light and fury, I took in the fact that the blast wave from the collision of god and energy had thrown everyone around like tenpins. It was hard for me, as I groggily rose to my feet, to separate the living from the dead Reaper had already left strewn about. My heart jumped, though, as those combatants among my friends and allies all seemed to be stirring.

  "Did we win?" Voltage buzzed as his electric form, erratic and amorphous, reoriented itself off the ground.

  "I don't know," Alma said in her echoing voice as she brushed chips of her own crystal off of her body. "I don't even know where I am!"

  Epic, though still far from his former glory, seemed somewhat renewed as he righted himself into a hover, chunks of rubble cascading off of his body. His gaze cut through the billowing cloud of dust and atomized debris where Reaper had been. I read his expression before he spoke.

  "No, I -"

  He was cut off as Reaper, his cape nothing but shreds, his clothes tattered, and his skin charred and cracking in huge patches, exploded out of the dust and blasted Eric with a titanic uppercut, flinging him up and away. Already the monster's wounds were mending themselves and his lips let loose a guttural roar.

  "Maggots!" the monster said, thumping his chest for effect. "You can't kill me! You won't kill me!" He rocketed towards Alma in a blink of an eye. "As long as Schuller is gone, you don't have a way out."

  I pushed myself up and started to sprint as Alma, despite the fear I could see in her human eyes beneath the crystal, let out a shrill cry of defiance. Voltage launched himself, the only thing left faster than the god-like Reaper, but not at the monster. Instead he threw his entire being into the faceted Latina. I had no choice but to look away as the strange ripples of reality, caused by their real bodies seeming to merge, threatened to make my eyes burst.

  The aftermath, though, was apparent from th
e explosion of light and deafening clap of thunder as Voltage's electric form was doubled, tripled, quadrupled on itself and coursed out of Alma's pointed fingers. The electrical surge played over Reaper's form and the room filled with the smell of cooked flesh.

  Somehow, despite all of that, the beast moved. Blurring in motion, Reaper grabbed Alma's outstretched arm and just squeezed. Crystal shattered and fragments exploded outward. Far worse for me, I could see the flesh underneath, the real woman, pulp and smash under the impossible pressure. Voltage ... I didn't even see him. Had he literally burned himself out in that desperate measure?

  "Two down," Reaper snorted as smoke wafted off of his body. "Who's next?"

  "There's only one chance," I cried out, trying not to lose focus as I scrambled up the stairs. "You have to try to slow him. Try to save the injured. Anything. I need a little time to do my magic."

  I tried not to sound as insane as I felt I was becoming. The obvious answer would be for me and Quentin to snap every bone in Schuller's body but I wasn't even sure that would work anymore, even if we could get an open shot to do so. The very fact he could manifest himself with Gerald in this dream state might mean Reaper could exist beyond the man that he was spawned from.

  Compounding the problem of 'how' to beat Reaper was the time factor. The truth was that Reaper had every bit as much power as Epic at his peak with none of the moral inhibitions. The moment he stopped having 'fun', he would just collapse the entire building or something else cataclysmic. Rock falls, everyone dies.

  The only way to counter a god was another god, as we had seen before, even if it was just to keep him at bay long enough for the rest of us to figure a way to win. We needed that god. We needed that hero.

  "Okay, dammit," Extinguisher called out through grit teeth. "Quentin, clear the wounded. Frost, you alive?"

  I had thought the dragon-woman to be out for the count, but I saw her pull herself to the edge of the pit, the direction I was ascending towards. One of her arms was bent horribly wrong and her wings were bleeding, tatters of membrane hanging loose from the tortured bone, but somehow Frost had picked herself up and moved, inch by agonizing inch.

  "Yes, though he will not be for long." Frost's rumble was interrupted only once by a swallowed cry of pain as she moved to towards her intended target.

  "Then we sub-zero him!"

  I didn't know the plan this time but I prayed whatever it was worked as I climbed higher through the rubble, following the hole where Epic had been knocked through the building.

  "Q's clear! Archer, Twister, cover! Everyone else, get ready to chill," Ex directed as the sounds of battle remained scarily clear below me. I wobbled for a moment in mid-climb as a wave of dizziness hit me. Forcing it down, willing myself into control, I pulled myself up one more shattered section of floor to where Epic had come to rest.

  Winds and exploding crossbow bolts made it horribly hard to hear, but I was close enough to hear Epic's groans as he lay there, on his hands and knees, fighting a losing battle with the will to rise. I ran to his side and grabbed him by a shoulder.

  "Come on, Eric, we're not finished yet." I tugged harder, but he seemed immovable. "Let's go, up and at it!"

  "We cannot win."

  "Of course we can, come on!"

  "No!" The shout was loud enough to make me take a step back. Below, an unnatural sound started up low but rising in pitch and intensity. It was like the cracking of a million pieces of ice all at once and it wasn't showing signs of ceasing. "How can we? If you cannot defeat him, we have no hope."

  "What the hell are you saying?" The spark I had seen frozen in that moment in time before had gone out. Desperation was all I saw in Eric's eyes now.

  "You, Irene, are the hero. You said the universe needed its big hero and I say it has found it." He looked at me not with bitterness but shame. "If you cannot succeed, there is little hope I can make a difference."

  I bit on my first impulse to shout, to berate. That was the anger in me, the part of me that still hated Eric for being the genesis of all of this insanity, and that wouldn't help him. It wouldn't save us. Instead, I had to show him what he had shown me not minutes ago. I walked up to him and laid a hand his neck, my best attempt at a soothing gesture.

  "Pour it on," came the shout over the com. "More cold! Eye, crank it up, make it colder! I think it's working."

  "Eric," I said, trying to keep my voice soft while still loud enough to breech the growing din, "you're right." A look of surprise came over his face. "Partly right, anyway. I've denied what I was becoming this entire time, even as I dove deeper down the rabbit hole. I never wanted to be a hero.

  "Look at me now, though. Fate dealt the hand and, finally, I've realized I have to accept it. I won't ever give in to the Whiteout ... I'll always stay who I am ... but I can't deny that I have a place in this twisted world and I'm going to fulfill it.

  "I'm not alone though. Eric, you said I'm the hero, but I'm not the only one. You showed me that down there when you got up, broken and beaten, and still found it in you to try one last time."

  "I cannot do more." Mind's Eye's voice on the com was strained, cracking.

  "No, you can," Extinguisher extolled, like the true leader he was. "You have to! NOW!"

  "What do you mean?" There was something in Eric's eyes, some glimmer, as the sound from below hit a dangerous keening. "You do not mean to suggest ... No. It is impossible. I wanted to be a hero for all the wrong reasons. Everything I did, I did for me, no matter what I may have said. How can I be a hero?"

  "You just said why." I tried to ignore the catastrophe that had to be brewing below us. "You know now what held you back, what kept you from being the great hero the reality that sprang from your imagination wanted to make you. I'm the crazy woman who denied everything and was forced to be a hero until she gave in. You're the crazy man who wanted to be a hero but was held back until he accepted his own frailty and overcame it."

  "Still -"

  "No, Eric. Listen to me. Millions of people in this city, this country believe in me, I know that now. They trust that I'm going to do the right thing, to somehow save the day every stupid time it gets in trouble. They trust me and ... I trust you. I trust you can be the hero you are meant to be."

  This time there was no anger, no bitterness, and no baggage from what he had done to me. It was the truth. It had to be.

  Mackenzie had thought I was the one lynchpin but what thing is stable with only one point of support? As insane as I thought I might be, it made perfect sense. There was a duality that seemed to run through the Whiteout like a strange law of nature. Just like Epic and Reaper. Maybe that explained Ian and myself. The point remained that this reality needed two heroes to hold it up. Opposite and starkly different but no less important from one another.

  There was a slow moment of realization as that brilliant mind in Eric's skull ran through the possibility. Somewhere in that mind was some insane master equation that bred this reality and I could tell he measured my words against that grand design, looking for an answer in it. Was it an unknown variable that I had provided a value for that he had missed? Could it be that, like so many geniuses before, he had been stymied by a plus that should have been a minus? I could only imagine.

  "We did it," Ex gasped over the radio.

  "Ye gods, you did," Archer gasped. "Frozen solid, near absolute zero. Stunning!"

  "Did you get him and please say yes because that would be great and I think maybe I can help Alma too even though I'm not a doctor or a bricklayer or -" Tank's ramble was cut off by an immense cracking and bubbling sound, something that reminded me of the sound of lava hitting the ocean.

  Eric, no, Epic started to finally rise. Though he seemed to swell up with that same strength he had before, there was a subtle difference to the cast of his phantasmal features. Most of the patronizing arrogance seemed to be gone. Oh, I could still see some of it, deep down. It was no purifying rebirth, no Catholic confession cleansing Eric of every sin and flaw,
but there was a difference. That difference, however incomplete, was crucial.

  Below us, the cracking and bubbling turned into a hideous rending and a brief explosion.

  "I told you, told you all, this time, Reaper wins!" The roar needed no amplification to carry up to our ears.

  "Epic, I think this is a job for you." I was, for all the anxiety, rage, and sorrow, remarkably calm.

  "No, Indomitable, this is a job for us." Epic hovered up into the air and called out to what awaited us two floors down. "All of us."

  "REAPER! We would have words with you!"

  Epic plowed into Reaper with colossal force as I took the more conventional route down from the floors above. The demonic villain was even more ravaged-looking than he had before. Though the remaining team had been blown back by Reaper's counter to whatever they actually did to him, they had hurt him. Hurt him badly, badly enough that it would take even him a few minutes to recover. That hurt and shock was multiplied by the impact of demigod and demigod.

  "If anyone's still alive, now's our chance," I hissed into the com as I took a risk, pushing off from the floor above Reaper to dive onto him. I'd probably break my legs in the fall, but I didn't care. He was going down. "Epic and I will hold him off. Tank, keep working on the wounded. Anybody, somebody, get Bio awake."

  "Are you sure because I think I've done all I can and it's a mess up here but I want to do more and -" I missed the rest of Tank's question as the sound of my impact into the murderer's chest drowned it out.

  To my surprise, I didn't break my legs as I crashed into the reeling demon knee-first. I could feel Gerald's ribs crack from the impact. Could we save him at this point? I didn't know but we were going to try. If anyone had a chance of figuring out how to get Gerald back, it was Doc Bio. From there, well, I had one last long shot up my sleeve.

  "Get the Doc then. Give him something to wake him up!"

  To my greater surprise, Epic, Tank, and I weren't the only ones still alive and conscious as I heard the roar of the teen's treads on the floor above.