"Andrew," she said, from the shadows.
He startled in that jangling limbs way people do when they find they're not as alone as they thought they were.
"Holy crap. Kate, that you?"
"Yeah," she said, stepping out of the shadows and into the faint lamplight of the office.
Andrew was officially employed by a tech startup, but ran a software business of his own in the off hours. Kate knew she'd catch him still there a half hour before midnight. It was working too much that led him to be mugged the night they met, out too late and too alone in the wrong part of town.
"Nice new uniform," he said. "You've upgraded since the last time I saw you."
"I had some help."
"Good," Andrew said. He sat down at his desk, still visibly shaken. "Not that I think you need help. Or just, well, I think everybody could use help sometimes. Even you, Kate."
"Funny you should say that. I need a favor."
"You're the reason I'm still walking around. Anything."
Kate slid the briefcase she carried onto his desk.
"How are you with retrieving data from partially erased and water damaged hard drives?"
"That's it?" he asked. "You know nothing's ever really erased."
"I'm better at kicking people in the head than fixing computers."
"I thought you were going to ask me to do something illegal. I mean I probably can't get everything off the drives for you, but . . ."
"I'm just looking for names. I think there's information about missing people somewhere in this pile of junk."
His face darkened.
"Missing people?"
"I hope. I could be wrong. Might be barking up the wrong tree."
"Why don't I give it a shot? It's worth a try."
"How long do you need?" Kate asked.
Andrew clicked the briefcase open and pulled out the external hard drive.
"Considering you just scared me so badly I almost peed my pants, I'll be up all night now. Want to find me tomorrow afternoon?"
"Done," she said and then stepped back into the shadows. Andrew watched for her, but she could tell by the way his eyes unfocused he couldn't see her.
"Huh," he said, starting to laugh.
"And . . . thank you," she said.
Andrew shook again.
"Holy! I thought you were gone. Now I'm really not going to be able to sleep."
"Just doing my part to help," she said. And this time, she really did disappear into the night.
Kate climbed up to the rooftop with spidery grace and found Titus waiting, the hood of his sweatshirt bracing the night's chill.
"He's a good looking guy."
"Yeah. Why? You interested?"
"That's not what I — I just mean. Is he your? Did you ever?"
"What, him? No. Who has time for a relationship? We're busy saving the world, Titus."
The werewolf nodded.
"Just curious. None of us really know much about each other, y'know?"
"Maybe it's better we don't," Kate said.
"Why?"
"Safer that way. Less chance of something bad happening to anyone's families."
"I guess."
They stood in silence for a moment. Kate couldn't read him, didn't understand what he wanted. She sat down on the lip of the building.
Finally, she said, "My parents are dead." Kate wasn't sure why; it just felt like the right thing to say at that particular moment.
Titus sat down next to her, a respectable distance, but facing the other direction. His feet dangled over the street below.
"Sorry."
"This is all . . ."
"You did this for them," Titus said.
"I did it for me," Kate said. "I wish I did it for them. I really do."
It was the first time she'd said that to anyone. The admission felt like an animal in the pit of her stomach, but she knew it was the truth. You should be better than that, Katie, she thought.
"Mine never looked for me," he said.
"You sure?"
"I checked," he said. "Even double-checked when I came to the Tower. They've filed paperwork for death in absentia."
"Already?"
"They knew."
"Knew what?"
"That I'm, well, this," he said. "I think they just realized that I was never coming home."
They sat on the edge of the building for a while, not saying much, listening to street sounds below. A plane rumbled invisibly overhead.
"I really want to find these kids, Kate."
"Me too," she said, still looking away. "Me too."
Chapter 19:
Eye of the Storm
They flew fast and low across the water, the waves kicked up a spray of Atlantic Ocean onto their faces. There was a competitiveness to it, Jane pulling ahead for a few seconds, then Billy, back and forth, with Emily hanging a hundred feet behind, not because she was slow, but because she, as always, didn't seem to care.
They noticed the storm on the horizon, blackened clouds laced with lightning. The manner in which the pouring rain churned the surface of the ocean was plainly visible, even in the distance.
"How do you want to do this?" Billy asked.
"Em, you hang at least a half-mile back," Jane said. "You're a good flyer but if anything happens you're completely vulnerable. Stay behind unless either of us needs you to come fish us out of the water."
"No complaints here," Emily said, snapping her bubblegum.
Her scarf hung strangely limp in the breeze, which meant, Jane knew, that the younger girl had already expanded her gravity field beyond the boundaries of her body for safety.
"You fly a perimeter pattern, Billy."
"What?"
"Fly around the edge of the storm. Try to get an idea of its dimensions."
"You're going in alone?"
"That's my plan," Jane said. "I'm the least vulnerable to harm and I don't think we should both be in there in case something happens."
Billy squinted at her — she could tell by the way his glowing eyes dimmed behind half-closed lids — but he didn't argue.
"Anything goes wrong I'm coming to find you."
"Anything goes wrong I won't complain," she said.
They took off, matched rockets, Billy leaving a streak of blue-white light behind him as he started a clockwise circuit around the storm.
And Jane dove straight in.
The wind blew surprisingly strong, not powerful enough to stop her from entering, yet forceful enough that she felt noticeable drag in her flight speed. What she had not anticipated was how bad the visibility would be. The rain was incredible and mixed with hail just past the start of the clouds, but it was the clouds themselves — black and gray and a sickly, smoke-like yellow — that caused the biggest headache. Jane quickly lost her bearings. She allowed her lead hand, the one she held forward as she flew, to become enveloped in flames, that horrible side effect of her powers she so rarely had reason to use. When that didn't help her cut through the morass, she set the other hand to burning as well. The downpour wasn't strong enough to extinguish either hand, but Jane felt the water fighting her, and sensed her own body fighting to keep that light blazing.
Billy believed the storm was messing with him.
He started out nearly at his top speed — or at least the highest speed at which he could convince Dude to let him fly — and followed the edge of the storm, just beyond the tendrils of soupy clouds. He arrived so close to the lightning he smelled sulfur in the air. But it was taking him far too long to run around the edge of the weather pattern.
Where are we, Dude?
The storm is a changing shape, Billy Case, the alien said. Do not anticipate, just skim the edge like a circle.
But this is a really big edge, isn't it?
There does appear to be intent. As if the storm knows you are trying to find the end.
It's leading me back to where I started?
Not exactly. It just seems to be creating ridges and p
atterns to slow you down.
Great. What do you think we should do?
I would push above the cloud cover and fly a direct path back to Entropy Emily. But I know you will not listen to me.
I'm going to fly in and see if I can find Jane.
Why do you never listen to me?
Billy stopped and hovered, watching the storm fluctuate and change shape in front of him. It did indeed appear to be messing with him, trying to delay his flight. He spoke into the tiny earpiece they all wore. "Em? Are you listening?"
"You sound like you're on the moon," Emily said. "What are you doing?"
"I don't know."
"That's not very reassuring."
"Have you heard from Jane? Jane, are you listening?"
There was a crackle of static, a muffled message, something that sounded like Jane, but incoherent.
"Do you need a hand?"
More static and echoing voices.
"That's it. I'm going in."
Jane understood, without a doubt, that she was completely lost. At this point she only knew which way was up because she'd feel her blood rushing to her head if she flew in the wrong direction.
"Jane are you listening?" she heard Billy say.
"I'm really lost, guys," she said. "Any ideas?"
She got a muddled, static-filled response back. She felt worry — not panic, but worry — building in her chest. Worse, she sensed her strength sapping. Jane had overdone it with the firelight and hadn't considered how much strength it took to stay in the air inside the storm, or how much energy she lost with the sun blotted out overhead.
At that moment, the tempest hit her.
It felt like flying into a wall, a head to toe slam against her entire being. Then it happened again, from another direction, and a third time. The gale battered her, turned her around and she had nothing to grab onto . . .
And then there was a girl.
Just for a split second, drifting through the mist, a girl, an ordinary girl in a hospital gown, with skin the color of storm clouds and hair the faintest of blue. She locked eyes on Jane, and reached out with one long, thin hand.
And soon, the storm swallowed her up.
"No! Come back!" Jane yelled, unable to hear her own voice above the storm's din. Another wall of wind hit her; her head grew fuzzy and light. How long had she been in here? An hour? Three hours? Ten minutes?
Finally, she heard Emily's voice on the transmitter.
"Maybe . . . should . . . straight up?"
Jane gathered her strength and aimed, she hoped, for the open sky.
"Maybe she should fly straight up?" Emily said. It just made sense to her. Everyone knew which way was up, right?
"That's brilliant!" Billy said over the transmitter. "Right Dude? Brilliant?"
Emily started flying skyward herself, trying to get above the storm. This was bull, she thought. Who fights the weather? Who considered this a good idea? Now they were down one hero with the other one lost somewhere over the coast of Norway as far as she could tell, talking to his invisible friend.
"Hey Billy and Dude. I'm flying up. Do you hear me? Up! Jane, can you hear anything we're saying?"
Nothing. Fine. Don't listen to me, Emily thought. I won't take it personally if they ignore everything I say, even if I'm always right . . .
"There she is," Billy said, and Emily saw her, except she was weaving like an airplane out of fuel, spinning and drifting on the air currents.
"She's tapped out, Billy," Emily said. "That girl is done-zo."
"What?"
Emily watched as Jane pointed her hand — not her fist like she usually did when she flew, but a grasping, outstretched hand toward the sky.
Not the sky. The sun. The solar-powered girl was reaching for the sun.
"Oh crap Billy she's really out of gas and I can't — "
"I got her."
There was a beat, just a moment, and Jane stopped rising, drifted, and then started to sink.
In the distance, Emily saw a flash of blue light so bright she was forced to shield her eyes.
Steady, Billy Case, Dude said.
Stop talking, Billy said. He aimed his body like a bullet at the red and gold figure in the distance. I totally have this.
Jane began to fall. Not complete freefall, she wasn't running on empty — he would swear later he saw her hand start to sparkle and glow as the sun hit her palm — but if he didn't pick up the pace their fearless leader was definitely going to plop back into the pea soup of the storm.
Billy altered his course just slightly, trying to predict Jane's descent into the clouds. Closer, closer, closer, close enough to make out her facial expression. He reached for her outstretched arm and grabbed her wrist just below the hand. He felt her hand — hot enough to burn his skin — a vice grip on his arm, latch on.
He had hold of her. But something tugged them both.
The storm.
Tendrils of cloud wrapped around Jane's foot and, somehow, took possession.
"Em, I need a little help."
"I gotcha both, Billy Boy. Air Emily is flying non-stop to get us the hell out of here-istan."
And the world let go of its hold on Billy. Not the storm, not some villainous grasping thing, but the Earth itself. He was weightless.
"Holy crap, Emily. Is this how it feels when you fly?"
"Kid, this is how I feel all the time," she said.
And she was there, a few feet away, smiling like a devil, looking like a hero.
"All the time?"
"It's a miracle I don't ever float away and never come back," she said.
"No wonder you're so weird," Billy said.
"Now you're starting to get it," Emily said. "Don't tell anyone."
Billy glanced down at Jane, still hanging onto his arm. His own wrist was raw; it hurt like a terrible sunburn, but only on the spot where Jane held on tight when she fell. She stared at him, smiling; but her eyes were sunken and hollow. She looked exhausted.
"Hey Em, take us up higher."
"How far ya wanna go?"
"As close to the sun as you can take us."
"This'll be a hoot," she said.
And she carried all three of them higher, above the clouds, above the haze. The stars seemed suddenly and uncomfortably close.
Dude, will we be able to breathe?
You were meant to roam the stars, Billy Case. You have nothing to be afraid of.
What about the girls?
I don't know.
"Em, I don't know if Jane will be able to breathe if we fly much higher. Will you?"
"I've always wondered," Emily said, her voice dreamy. "If I have a black hole for a heart, can I touch a star?"
"Can we not find out today?"
"Okay," she said. "Chicken."
Billy looked at Jane, drifting in the protective bubble of Emily's gravity field. Her skin shimmered like a disco ball, silver and gold glinting across the surface. She held up her free hand and made a peace sign with her index and middle finger.
"That's two," she said.
Chapter 20:
Debriefing
I'm telling you, there's a girl in there," Jane said.
"Are you sure?" Billy said.
"Why don't you believe me?"
They sat in the conference room with Doc, reviewing the crap show their storm investigation had turned into. Emily milled about, bored, trying to get the chairs to spin around as fast as possible.
"I believe you saw a girl," Doc said. "But there's a hundred things that could mean. There could be someone with inherent, natural powers like your own, able to effect the weather, but not able to control herself. It could be a supernatural being — you said she was colorless?"
"She was . . . she was like the color of storm clouds," Jane said. "Her hair was sky blue."
"That might mean she's something supernatural, if she were showing signs of not looking fully human," Doc said. "If werewolves exist, then you have to understand that there might be lot
of entities you once thought were myths and legends. I've seen more than I can remember."
"'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,'" Emily said.
Everyone in the room turned to look at her.
"You gotta be kidding me," Billy said.
"Think I don't know Shakespeare?"
"You act like you're semi-literate half the time, and the other half you're some kind of walking encyclopedia," he said.
"Whatever. I'm going to play video games. Call me when you need someone to mess with gravity."
Emily left, and Jane watched her follow through on her threat, plunking down on a sofa in a rec area across the hall.
"What you're saying is it could be anything," Jane said.
"There are a lot of possibilities, and we need to know more before we can do anything about it," Doc said.
"Considering what just happened, I think we can safely assume nobody's punching out the storm," Billy said.
"Maybe she's an alien symbiote. We could deck a symbiote," Jane said.
"Hey."
"I'm just saying."
"Our best bet, for now," Doc said, "is to see what Kate comes back with. Maybe it will help."
"And if not?" Jane asked.
"I suppose you'll get your chance to try to punch out a thunderstorm," Doc said.
Chapter 21:
Test Subjects
Kate didn't bring Titus with her when she traveled to pick up the assorted drives from Andrew. Titus couldn't help but have a twinge of jealousy, but she returned quickly and strode directly towards him, bypassing the room where Billy and Jane were dissecting their trip to the storm front. Emily played a video game in one of the entertainment rooms, alone. She waved when Kate dragged Titus down the hall with her bag full of mistreated tech equipment.
They walked into the command center and Kate plopped down onto one of the chairs, clearly inspecting the console for something.
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