Chapter 14:
Following the storm
So what you're saying is, the storm banged a hard right turn," Emily said.
"I don't know, just don't know," Titus answered.
Jane empathized with his tone because Emily was on still another epic tear of asking intentionally stupid questions. Titus was generally more tolerant of her than most of the others, but even he was approaching his wit's end.
The funny thing though, Emily was right: the storm worked its way up the coast one minute, turned a hard right out to sea and then, before the rest of the team had returned from the disaster zone, turned again, this time heading south and further out to sea.
It wasn't just unnatural, Jane thought, watching the meteorological map reflect this repeated movement over and over again. It seemed deliberate.
"Want me to follow it?" Billy asked.
"You're gonna follow a hurricane? Can we video that and put it online when you get struck by lightning?" Emily said.
Billy flashed an obscene gesture towards Emily.
She stuck her tongue out at him.
"We should track it," Jane said. "But I'm guessing we could do that from here."
Doc leaned against the back wall of the command center and watched them deliberate their actions — letting them make up their own minds. Jane realized, he wasn't so much studying their dynamics as much as allowing them to create their own dynamics. He nodded in assent.
"We have equipment that can track it and alert us to the storm's movement. That's easy," Doc said.
"Can that same equipment retrace where the storm came from?" Kate said.
She'd been standing quietly for so long that Jane almost forgot Kate was there. It was a habit the Dancer practiced that continued to make Jane anxious. Kate behaved like a ghost, until she started talking.
"I like your thinking, Kate," Doc said. "Go ahead and tell the AI to do that."
"How?" Titus asked.
Sitting at the command console, Titus wore a look on his face that made what he thought about a werewolf being the most computer savvy of the group abundantly clear. Jane suspected Kate probably knew more than she was letting on, and Emily spoke ISL (Internet as a Second Language), but Titus seemed the most at home with the futuristic gear Doc had provided access to.
"Talk to it," Doc said. "It's an artificial intelligence. My friend Annie brought it back from . . . elsewhere."
"Are you kidding me?" Emily said. She shoved Titus out of the chair and sat down, fingers wriggling like spiders' legs as she looked over the console. "Does it have a name?"
"My name is Neal," a disembodied voice said.
Everyone except Doc took an involuntary step away from the computer.
"Wait a — you've been able to talk this whole time?" Billy said.
"I've been online since you arrived, Designation Straylight," the voice said.
"Designation Stray — "
"I am programmed to refer to all members of the institute by their official codenames only as part of security protocol 143."
"You're . . . the building?" Emily asked.
"I am charged with maintaining security and monitoring the safety of all team members," the computer said.
Jane looked to Kate, expecting the other girl to flip her lid in anger. Kate had been private to the point of paranoia the entire time, and Jane was curious what her response would be to this invasion of privacy. The quiet girl smiled though — not a happy smile, but a sort of bemused grin, as if storing this information for future reference.
Billy looked at Jane.
"Did you know about this?"
Jane shrugged. She'd been there the longest, and Doc told her there was an artificial intelligence protecting the tower, but she hadn't had a chance to "meet" it yet. She was as surprised as everyone else.
"Do you watch us when we're in the bathroom?" Emily asked. Of course she'd ask that, Jane thought.
"I do not monitor your mundane biological functions," Neal said. "You do require access to the bathroom one point eight times as often as any other team member, Designation Entropy Emily. I suspect you have a smaller than average bladder."
"I pee a lot. Don't judge me," Emily said.
Titus held his head in his hands, rubbed his temples, then finally looked up.
"Neal, would you kindly show us the storm's movement pattern in reverse, all the way back to its origin?"
"Of course, Designation Fury."
"Your super hero name is Furry?" Emily asked.
Titus started rubbing his temples again.
"Fury. We came up with Fury. On account of — "
"On account of you being furry when you turn into the werewolf. I get it," Emily said.
"You're doing this on purpose," Titus said.
"Hey man, if you want to call yourself Furry that's your prerogative. I would have gone something like Super Wolf or Wolf Man or — "
"You call yourself Entropy. Do you even know what that word means?"
"It's the degradation of the matter and energy in the universe to an ultimate state of inert uniformity," Emily said. "I have a black hole where my heart is supposed to be. I thought it fit."
Titus looked at Jane.
And, she shrugged again.
Kate burst out laughing, which startled everyone even more than the discovery of a talking computer.
"And you guys think I'm the crazy one," Kate said, shaking her head.
But Jane looked instead at the monitor, where the storm traced back to a stretch of ocean in reverse and then, very suddenly disappeared into nothing. She watched this happen three or four times.
"Computer? Neal? Can you play that forward again from the beginning?" she asked.
"Of course, Designation Solar."
This time, the storm blossomed like a fireball. The monitor showed clear sky one moment and then, in a blink, a full-strength hurricane setting off for the coastline.
"What the hell is that?" Billy muttered.
Jane, with the benefit of her enhanced vision, was able to see something the others could not — a small, dark mass at the center of the storm. It was easy to overlook against the backdrop of the topographical ocean map.
"Neal, zoom in on that island there."
"Island?" Titus said.
The AI complied, zooming in rapidly until the island filled the screen. It looked no larger than a city block. A single, nondescript building stood on the Eastern half of the island. The roof appeared to have been all but torn off.
"Is this before or after the storm, Neal?" Kate said.
"This image is in real time, Designation Dancer."
"Can you show us the section immediately before the storm, um, blew up?" Jane asked.
"Complying," the computer said.
The same building appeared on screen, with an intact roof.
"Keep going," Kate said. "At . . . a quarter speed?"
And before their eyes, the roof of the structure exploded.
"Great Googly Moogly!" Emily yelled.
"Looks like we're going to check out that place," Jane said.
Doc stood up and picked his black trench coat off a nearby chair.
"I'm coming with you," he said. "Don't want you on your own for this."
Kate stared him down for a moment.
Doc returned the gaze.
Finally, Kate said, "You're probably right."
Jane turned and headed for the roof to fly away. Behind her, she heard Billy muttering to Emily.
"Great Googly Moogly?" he asked.
"I'm workin' on my catch phrase," Emily said.
Chapter 15:
Bedlam
From above, it looked like a giant had punched through the roof with a fist from the inside. Jane spied smoking machinery and broken walls, but when she tried to listen for signs of life with her amplified hearing, she heard nothing but dripping water.
Well, that and Billy talking to himself as he hovered a few yards to her right. No, not to himself, she rea
lized — he was talking to the alien. She heard him muttering like this before, but this was the first time she'd paid attention long enough to realize it was a conversation.
"But I should be able to, right?" Billy asked. "No, not that. Will the shields hold? If I go under. Do I need . . . I know I can leave the atmosphere, so I'm asking, can I?"
"Can you what?" Jane asked
"I'm trying to ask Dude if I can breathe underwater."
Jane raised an eyebrow.
Billy shrugged.
"Why are you asking that?"
"Because I want to know if I can?"
"How come?"
"If you had the option, wouldn't you want to try it?" said Billy. "Can you breathe underwater? You can do everything else."
"I . . . Have no idea if I can breathe underwater."
"Let's try it."
"Or, we can check out this building like we're supposed to," Jane said. In the distance, she saw Emily catching up and Kate and Titus in view. She might be certifiable, but Emily was also a fast learner when it came to her powers — she'd already figured out how to expand or contract her gravity field in order to carry passengers with her. Although, from the look on Titus's face, it wasn't a smooth flight. Kate, as always, seemed impassive.
Jane drifted down into the gaping hole in the roof of the building, avoiding exposed pipes and crumbling mortar. Billy stayed close, raising one hand to light up the cavernous entryway. Doc, already there, sat lotus style on the floor and waited for them.
"I'm going to perform a scan of the building for mystical tampering," Doc said. "Give the place a good look."
"Mystical what?" Emily asked. "Is that like astral projection?"
He raised an eyebrow and then smirked.
"Close enough."
Doc closed his eyes, letting his chin rest on his chest. He appeared to be sleeping, but Jane sensed an alertness that radiated off of him like electricity.
"Come on," she said.
The opening was a living room sized hole punched through three entire landings inside the building. When they flew lower, Jane saw additional floors, doors opening into nothing, broken tiles where there once was a place to stand. She dropped to the first level, the only one left with an actual floor.
It was a lab.
A huge window had been fractured, instruments strewn all around, glass and bricks scattered. Past the now-empty window stood an open space, a large sphere coated in some kind of reflective tile.
"Think they kept something in there?" Titus asked, relieved to be on solid ground once again.
Kate walked the periphery of the room, head cocked, listening.
"Titus, how's your hearing when you're not wolfed out?"
He grinned.
"Not nearly as good as when I am."
She nodded.
"Just wondering."
"Does someone hear . . . banging?" Jane said. Her hearing, after all, was always superhuman.
"Definitely banging," Billy said.
"Machines?" Jane offered.
Kate shook her head.
"It's rhythmic but not consistent enough to be a machine."
Kate took off into the shadows, disappearing from site; her night-colored body armor blended in with the darkness. Titus followed quickly behind her. Jane and Billy exchanged a glance, then shrugged.
"You want to try to tell her what to do?" Billy asked.
"Not even a little bit," Jane said.
Emily, who was scurrying after Kate and Titus already, turned back. "I'm frigging terrified of her," she said, before disappearing into the darkness as well.
Two floors down, they discovered a prison.
Perhaps prison isn't the right word Kate thought as she scanned the hallway. The rooms were reinforced, certainly, and the doors were meant to be locked by the appearance of their massive hinges and latches. A few looked like they belonged on a submarine. But the atmosphere — the colors of the walls, the hospital scent that still superseded the growing musty smell from dampness that pervaded the place — was much more akin to a psych ward.
In any case, the place was clearly abandoned; the doors were open. All but one.
Kate walked up to a metal door, which appeared more like the entrance to a bank vault than a patient room. The hammering definitely came from the other side.
Emily sidled up beside her.
"Bedlam," she said.
"What?" Kate asked.
"Bedlam," Emily repeated, pointing at the sign hanging sideways from a single screw in the wall. "Look."
Kate tried the latch, a circular handle designed to be twisted like a release valve. It wouldn't budge.
"Hey I've got an idea, let's open up the big scary metal door labeled with the word 'bedlam,'" Emily said.
"You don't even know what bedlam means," Kate said.
"A place, scene, or state of uproar and confusion," Emily said. "Also can be used as a synonym for a lunatic asylum."
Kate stared at Emily.
Emily flinched.
"What? You never read the dictionary? It's more fun than Harry Potter."
"I'll try it," Jane said, stepping up to the hatch.
"Uh, I'm with the pipsqueak on this one," Billy said. "The door isn't labeled 'puppies.'"
The hammering grew louder and louder. When she looked closely, Kate saw the door vibrating with each thump.
"Maybe you're right," Kate said.
At that exact moment Jane twisted the handle and they heard the hearty clunk of a massive lock sliding open.
"Got it!" Jane said.
And then the door flew off the hinges, propelling Jane — door and all — through the nearest wall. The entire corridor shook.
"Holy carp!" Emily said beside her, and Kate sensed rather than saw Titus fluidly transform into his werewolf shape. The room filled with the smell of outdoors: forest and mud. His low growl rumbled in Kate's ribcage.
"I'm okay," Jane's muffled voice said from the next room. She sounded stunned but not in pain.
"No you're not," said a new voice, from inside the Bedlam room.
Kate tensed, side-stepping to the right of the newly opened door to prepare to strike from behind.
Moving hydraulics roared, robotic feet clicked and thumped. And out from the debris walked a girl Kate's own age.
"Who the hell are you guys?" the girl asked.
At least she was mostly girl; a lot of her was robot, though, Kate saw instantly. Silver and black cybernetics hung below both her knees — nothing human left at all about them. One entire arm was the same, but unfinished — where there should have been bicep and shoulder, exposed parts moved. The girl wore black shorts and a men's tank top, exposing a metallic ring on her chest that glowed neon green in the center. Her other hand was also cybernetic, but only to the elbow, and revealed a much cleaner architecture than her more robotic arm — it looked almost elegant, and human, with thin black and silver fingers.
It was her face, though, that concerned Kate the most. A very young face ravaged by science, her lower jaw encased — or replaced? — by silvery metal. Her right eye appeared organic, but the other was a glowing green bauble, surrounded by scars running crisscross patterns across her cheek and eye socket. Inexplicably, she wore her hair in a fluorescent orange Mohawk that had seen better days, shaved on both sides. A tattoo marked the left side of her skull.
Titus jumped.
The cyborg girl swung her all-robot arm at him, connecting with his head; the werewolf flipped in the air with the distinctive yelping whine of an injured dog.
"Em, now would be a good time," Kate said.
"To do what?" Emily asked.
Kate wanted to glare at her, but didn't think she could take her eyes off the newcomer.
"I've got her!" Billy said.
And with a streak of light, he football-tackled the cyborg girl and knocked her back into the cell. Or at least that's what Kate thought he was trying to do. Instead, he overshot his mark, and Billy and robo-girl crashed throug
h the hallway, through two sets of walls, and out into the open sky before disappearing.
"Well, to do what?" Emily asked again.
We didn't think this through, Dude, Billy said.
You did not think this through. I had nothing to do with this decision. I would have advised against it.
They hurtled through the open sky, arms wrapped tightly around the very small frame of a surprisingly heavy cyborg. The entire decision making process was doomed from the start, Billy realized. He'd initially been worried for Jane — forgetting, momentarily, that she was invulnerable — but then Crazy Cyborg Girl walked out of her holding cell and Billy found himself at a very strange crossroads.
Wow, he'd thought to himself.
Don't you dare, Dude said.
"I got her!" Billy said.
This will end poorly, Dude said.
And then Billy tried to tackle Crazy Cyborg Girl. He wasn't sure exactly what he'd been planning to do with her when he caught her, but knew he had two goals — get her away from the squishier members of the team, and hopefully get her alone long enough to ask for her phone number.
Combat is not the time to be thinking about flirtation, Billy Case, Dude said.
Billy ignored him.
He carried Crazy Cyborg Girl as far as he could outside the building, wiping out a single tree at the base and crash landing on the very edge of the island. The wet sand almost made the landing bearable. As it was, it was still awkward, with Billy's limbs tangled up with Crazy Cyborg Girl's. They were both out of breath when they stopped falling.
Billy realized he was on top of her, and they were now face to face. So he did the only thing he could think of doing.
"Do you have a boyfriend?" he asked.
Crazy Cyborg Girl headbutted him.
This was not the response he'd been hoping for.
A few minutes later, Jane and Doc found them on the beach standing ankle-deep in seawater. The cyborg girl held Billy by the scruff of his costumed neck.
"I see you met Straylight," Doc said, his tone conversational, light.
Jane wanted to pick the cyborg up and throw her into the ocean. Her ears still rang from being hit with that door.
The Indestructibles Page 7
