"No! Yes! Yes I got us!"
"You sure?" Kate asked.
"Ya!"
"Good, because — "
And Titus launched them off the side of the building as if he himself could fly.
Kate felt her body go weightless when Emily's powers took over. They stayed level for a few hundred feet, and then Emily regained her confidence and flew them higher and faster, both girls still cradled in his vast, furry arms.
"You can let us go now, sport," Kate said.
"No," Emily said, scooting herself up higher so she was almost sitting on Titus's shoulder. "I kind of like it here."
She wanted to argue, but instead, Kate settled in, letting their monstrous friend hold them tight while Emily carried them across the night sky and home.
Chapter 24:
What we know
So let me get this straight," Jane said, as the entire team sat around the conference table. "You broke into a hospital and assaulted a doctor."
"Kate barely hit the guy!" Emily said. "Mostly just poked him with her boot."
Jane turned to Doc.
"We can do this? Is it cool? The assault thing? I didn't think we could attack people who didn't have it coming."
"Back in the old days, we all had methods," he said. "One of my best friends was fond of dangling informants off the roof of buildings to get them to talk."
"Did he ever drop anyone?" Emily asked.
"On purpose? No. But, he slipped, once."
"No way," said Billy.
"Accidents happen. In any case, I've seen worse. Scaring people into talking can be effective, but you have to be judicious about it. Your reputation will make or break you. Some people, like my friend, used that fear to his advantage, but he was never loved by the public, and that caused him a lot of problems down the line."
"What was your tactic?" Jane said. "When you needed to make someone talk?"
"Magic," Doc said. "And if I'm being completely honest, I think magic is a lot less ethical than using fear to make people talk. It's a slippery slope. I only did it when nobody else's methods worked."
"So, ignoring the fact that Kate is now officially our biggest badass on the team — "
"I was there! I intimidated!" Titus said. "Growled, drooled and everything."
"That's practically cheating. Kate scared him with her voice and she doesn't have fangs," said Billy.
"Some might call it cheating. I call it using your basic assets," Titus said.
"Anyway — what kind of leads did you get?" Billy said.
"Well," said Kate. "Based on the information the doctor gave us and some medical records I stole — "
"You stole medical records?" said Jane.
"Are you worried about HIPAA? Jeez. I was going to put them back, but we got interrupted. Anyway, based on those, I think I know where her parents are. The girl in the storm."
"What's our next move?" Billy said.
"Someone should talk to them," Emily said.
Doc nodded.
"What's the point?" Kate asked. "They won't know anything about the storm."
"But they should know their daughter didn't die," Jane said. "They deserve to know that."
Kate stared at her, but Jane didn't flinch, the two locked eyes while everyone waited for their momentary power struggle to work itself out.
"Kate's right. They won't know anything, but they do deserve to be told what happened," Doc said.
"Who goes?" Jane said.
"I do," Doc said.
Everyone leaned back into their chairs. No one was interested in visiting with grieving parents, even Jane who had so strongly wanted them to know what had occurred. "I'll go. Emily, you'll come with me."
'Why me?" she said.
"Just a hunch. Don't argue."
Emily crossed her arms, anxiety flashed across her face.
"Someone should find Bedlam," Doc said. "If controls were put in place on the girl in the storm, she may be walking around with an explosive device in her head. Even if she doesn't want our help, she deserves to be warned, and the fact is, Bedlam's a walking weapon. If she's been armed in that way they could use her at any time as a living bomb."
"I'll go," said Billy.
Jane rolled her eyes.
Billy shot her a look.
"I was going to suggest that," said Doc. "Bring Titus."
"She punched me in the face," Titus said.
"She head-butted me and I'm not afraid of her," Billy said.
"That is due to all manner of reasons I have no intention of getting into right now," Titus said. "Why send me?"
"I got the impression Miss Bedlam related better to boys," Doc said. "She'll be less defensive around you two than around the others, which is what we need. We don't want to fight her — we hope to offer our help."
"We supposed to bring her in by force if we have to?"
Doc shook his head.
"Let her decide. Tell her we have the equipment here to scan for implants and the ability to help her if they're there, but don't force her."
"Got it," Billy said.
"What about us?" Jane asked.
"You and Kate should review the files Kate's contact was able to salvage. See if there's anyone else we ought to be looking for. Maybe we'll get lucky," he said.
Kate and Jane stared each other down once again.
"This going to be a problem?" Doc asked.
"Nah," Kate said. "We'll get along just fine."
Chapter 25:
Mourning
Their house was a small ranch in a small city twenty minutes outside Miami. The hard Florida sun bleached the streets silvery white and the walls were the color of a clear sky. The sun shone so bright overhead the entire world appeared whitewashed and dreamlike with distorted waves of heat.
Their surname was Snow. At another time, Emily might have thought that funny: the "Snows of Florida." But when she saw the dog in their window, a yellow lab searching outside for the girl who would never return home, the "Snows of Florida" didn't seem that humorous anymore.
The poignancy of that scene gripped Entropy Emily's heart like a fist. She bit her lower lip and thought about flying. It almost helped.
Doc asked her to dress down for this visit, so she dressed as normal as she was capable of, a tee shirt without a weird cartoon on it, cargo pants that hadn't ripped yet, a pair of Chuck Taylors that didn't glow in the sun. She wore her goggles while they flew, but even these she took off, looping them around her wrist, hoping they didn't appear conspicuous.
Doc looked like Doc. He still wore his long, dark coat, but he didn't seem to mind the heat. Emily wondered what it was like to have the kind of magic at hand to make the sun's warmth feel like a light breeze.
"Are you ready?" he said.
Emily attempted to say yes, but she had an odd sensation in the back of her throat, and her tongue felt slow and confused, so, without thinking, she grabbed Doc's hand. He smiled, that sad, kind smile Doc always seemed to revert to when he had nothing else to say. Emily half expected his smile to push her over the edge, but instead it made her feel safe. Doc sensed what she was feeling. He had no desire to knock on that door any more than she did.
But they walked up the flagstone path anyway, passed a neglected palm tree, an abandoned garden hose, and knocked.
Mrs. Snow was very blonde, with the fading tan of someone who had stopped spending much time in the sun. She answered the door with a haunted look, her eyes appearing older than the rest of her face. Mr. Snow wore that same haunted gaze, and Emily wondered if that was simply the look of someone who had outlived his or her child. Both seemed tired, unhealthy. Emily wanted somehow to touch them, to hold their hands or hug them. Instead, she stared at the floor.
"Can I help you?" Mrs. Snow asked.
She spoke with a light accent, something northern European that Emily couldn't quite place. Maybe Swedish, maybe Norwegian. Somewhere Emily had never visited, that much was for certain.
"Mr. and Mrs.
Snow? We have information about your daughter. We need to speak with you," Doc said.
"My daughter's dead," Mrs. Snow said.
Her husband moved to close the door on Doc's face, and Emily watched Doc's fingers twitch, just a little, and the door stayed open.
"Your daughter was taken," Doc said. "I make no promises that she ever woke up from her coma, but I swear to you she was still alive when she left that hospital."
"But her ashes," Mr. Snow began.
Doc shook his head.
Emily watched the father's eyes dart around. Unsure of what to do, what to say, she grabbed Mrs. Snow by the hand.
"I'm Emily," she said and then looked into the woman's eyes. "May we come in?"
The couple sat on a cream colored sofa, hand in hand. Emily took up residence on a loveseat, alone. Doc remained standing.
"Who are you?" Mrs. Snow asked.
"Doc Silence," he said.
"Not the — " began Mr. Snow.
Doc nodded solemnly.
"I thought you were all dead," the father said.
"Most of us are," he said.
"But why you? What does this have to do with us?" Mr. Snow said.
"We're investigating missing children," Doc said.
Emily listened closely and heard Doc twist the truth just a little, to make it simpler, less frightening. He didn't say, "we think someone turned your daughter into something else." But instead, "We're just looking for missing kids."
"Some of what we've uncovered proves that your daughter was taken. She wasn't the only one," Doc said.
"But why our Valerie?" Mrs. Snow asked. "What possible purpose could taking her from us have?"
"I don't know," he said, softly. "The few we've found out about were all in terrible accidents. I'm not sure what that means. It might mean nothing."
"Do you think she's still out there?" Mr. Snow said. "What are you going to do?"
Doc pulled an ottoman away from a sofa chair so that he could sit directly in front of both parents.
"I can't say for certain what we'll find. Can't promise you that the people who took her haven't changed her, somehow, or if she'll still be in a coma if we find her. But I came here today because no one should have to live thinking their daughter is gone when there's a chance she's not. And I came to promise you that we'll do everything we can to find the truth for you."
The Snows looked at Doc, then turned to each other in unison. Mrs. Snow put a hand on her husband's shoulder.
"What can we do to help?" she said.
"An item of hers might help us find her," Doc said. "Anything. A favorite piece of clothing, a childhood toy. Perhaps a hairbrush?"
Neither Doc nor Emily glanced back as they left the house and took to the air together. They flew no more than a few blocks before Doc motioned for her to land. When they touched down in a small park, Doc sat on a bench. He looked more tired than Emily had ever seen him.
"You okay?" she asked.
"Damn it. I wish I could look people in the eyes," he said. "I'm tired of never being able to look anyone in the eyes."
Emily sat next to him. She knew she should do something, so she lifted a hand and hovered over his shoulder awkwardly for a few moments before touching him.
"Will the brush really help us find her?" Emily asked.
"If she's the storm, we're not going to have any trouble finding her," Doc said. "I can cast a very simple spell that should tell us if the girl in the storm is really Valerie Snow."
"Will it help us save her?"
"Probably not," he said. "Science and magic are funny. Sometimes they play together like it was meant to be, and sometimes it's like they work in two different realities. Hard to predict."
"Why did you take the hairbrush?" Emily said.
Doc rubbed the bridge of his nose, looked up at the sky and let out a heavy sign.
"If all else fails and she keeps destroying whole cities, we might be able to stop her with a lock of her hair."
"By stop her, you mean kill her."
"Yes," he said.
"We can't do that to those people," she said.
"When I say when all else fails, Emily, I mean when we have absolutely no other option. I want her to go home as much as you do."
"Have you ever done it before?" Emily asked. "Killed someone with their own hair?"
"I still wake up at night dreaming about it," Doc said. "Come on. Let's bring this girl home."
Chapter 26:
Bedlam (again)
They found her on a beach not far from the town hit by the storm, a lone figure sitting on an outcropping of rock, debris from the hurricane still rocking in the soft ocean tide. Bedlam had wrapped herself in a parka three sizes too big to hide her mechanical arms. The entire effect caused her to look like a lost urchin.
Billy, still nursing a pair of fading black eyes from Bedlam's head butt, had no plans to let her fool him. Or so he hoped. He continued to formulate ways of asking for her number.
"There's your hot robot girl," Titus said.
They'd landed a quarter mile away in order to approach on foot, boots squelching in the wet, gray sand, both of them in their street clothes. Advance in silence, proceed in a low-key fashion, hopefully don't get head-butted again: this was Billy's plan.
"Hey! Bedlam!" Billy yelled.
"Hey! Sparkles!"
"I don't think Sparkles is a nickname that inspires a lot of fear," Titus said.
"Shut up," Billy said, and started climbing up the rocks. "Been looking for you."
"Here I am. Do I need to kick your ass again?"
Titus laughed.
"Titus, she knocked you out with one punch. Shut it."
"You're the wolf, then?" Bedlam said. "You're better looking the other way."
"I get that a lot," Titus said.
Billy pointed at a rock near Bedlam.
"Mind if I sit?"
"We're not going to fight again?"
"No."
"What if I head-butt you right now. Can we fight then?" Bedlam said. "Because I really want to punch something. A lot. I need to break things."
"Your anger management issues rival wolf-boy's over there," said Billy.
"I have a condition!" Titus said, slipping on sea slime while climbing up to meet them.
"Look," Billy said. "We come in peace. Just wanna talk."
"I'll give you three minutes. Less if you annoy me."
"You might have a bomb in your head," Billy said.
"What?"
"And so obviously, since you insist on slamming your head into things — namely my own face, I thought you might appreciate being warned," Billy said.
Bedlam turned her full attention to him. Billy heard motors whine and sigh when she shifted on the rocks.
"How do you know this?"
"We recovered some of the files from the lab," Titus said, finally reaching the top. He casually brushed the sand off his palms and sat down. "They installed cortex bombs in at least one other person as a failsafe in case they got out of control. Which, it could be then postulated, they did for everyone."
"You could be lying."
"Trust me, if there's one thing I don't lie about, it's brain bombs," Billy said. "If the bomb was in your liver I'd be making pâté jokes."
"I should punch you just for making that joke," Bedlam said.
"Don't fight him," Titus said. "He thinks you're cute and he won't try hard enough. You can fight me though. It's been way too long since I've really let loose."
"Really, Chewie?"
Billy threw up his hands.
"Don't! Fight! Dammit!" Billy sighed. "Look, we came to say we can try to help."
"You gonna perform brain surgery on me, Sparkles?"
"Doc says we've got technology back at the base that could remove the bomb. Or deactivate it. Or something," Billy said.
"Oh good," Bedlam said. "More lab rat stuff. I'll take my chances with the brain bomb, thanks."
Titus stood up and started to lea
ve.
"Hey, don't say we never offered," he said. "You want to leave an explosive device in your head someone else can detonate at any time, that's your thing. I don't care. Billy's the one that thought we should warn you."
"I am!" Billy said.
You are not, Dude chimed in. The alien had been so quiet for the entire conversation that his voice visibly startled Billy.
"Having seizures there, cowboy?" Bedlam said.
Dude, Billy said, silently, don't embarrass me in front of my friends.
It was Silence's idea to warn her. It is dishonorable to take credit when it is not deserved.
I'm telling you Dude, we're just playing good cop, bad cop. I'm not being dishonorable, Billy thought.
I am inside your mind, Billy Case. I know exactly what you are doing, all the time.
And can we talk about how creepy that is, Dude? Can we? Because we should talk about how creepy that is.
"Seriously," Bedlam said. "Is he tweaking out? What's happening over there."
"He has an alien living in his brain," Titus said. "Sometimes they have disagreements."
"I'm fine!" Billy said, as Dude continued to snipe at him over what Billy considered a very minor lie. "But seriously. We came to warn you. And to offer help. We're not going to drag you back to the base and operate on you. But if you change your mind . . . "
"Yeah, we went through this once before," Bedlam said. "I know how to find you."
"Right," Billy said. "Well then. I guess. I guess we'll be going."
"Bye, Sparkles," Bedlam said.
Billy followed Titus down the rock formation slowly, looking back up at the cyborg girl as if expecting her to change her mind. She didn't speak again until they both reached the sand.
"She did all this? The storm girl?" Bedlam yelled.
"Yeah," Titus yelled back.
"She doing it on purpose?" Bedlam said.
"No idea," Billy said. "If I were to guess, I think she's just lashing out."
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