Chapter 35:
We carry on
Kate sat in the dark near the landing bay, alone in her thoughts, listening for the approach of anyone — Titus looking for her to ask more questions she didn't want to answer, that ridiculous little dog looking for the love that she didn't want to give it. At one point, coiled in a corner with her back to the wall, she thought she saw something, a pink-haired woman with Doc's red sunglasses and tattoos running up and down both of her arms, but Kate was sure this was just a hallucination, some phantom born from too much stress and too little sleep.
Eventually she sensed the presence of Alley Hawk, though the older hero didn't speak at first. A stone gargoyle leaning against a wall, he seemed to be waiting for some moment that would never arrive. They didn't speak at first, two people who had always hated the sound of everyone else's voice. But Kate wished they had talked with each other more. Doc had become Jane's accidental father figure, and he had tried, that poor, silly magician, to be a father to Kate as well, but she had done everything she could to make sure Doc never got inside her head, and now he was gone. In some ways she thought telling her about the Alley Hawk was Doc's final gift to her, connecting her with the one person who would ever fully relate to her.
You should talk with him
, Dude said, sensing her melancholy.
I don't know how, Kate thought, wondering how Billy did this, had conversations with some alien presence he couldn't see.
I remember the Alley Hawk when he was young
, Dude said.
He was so angry, and so lost. Do you know what his only real goal was?
To never have a busy body alien telling him what to think? Kate thought.
He never wanted anyone to feel the way he felt. He wanted to take on all the pain in the world for himself.
That sounds terribly selfish, Kate thought.
Then you are so very selfish yourself, Kate Miller.
I don't like you in here, Dude, she thought. I don't like it at all. I haven't been alone in days. I start to go crazy when I'm not alone.
I know
, Dude said.
And rest assured it is as uncomfortable occupying your head as it must be for you to have someone here. Your mind is a dark place, Kate Miller.
Then leave.
You and I both know our best chances are together
, Dude said.
I will not stay a moment longer than I have to
.
How does Billy do this? Kate asked. How does he stand having you in his head all the time?
When I met him, Billy Case was the loneliest boy I had ever met,
Dude said.
Why did you pick him?
Because like you he wanted a better world,
Dude said.
And because our hosts are always better when they are lonely. Because we need to be needed, and we need to be loved
.
Sounds like everyone else, Kate thought. Everyone needs to be needed and loved.
You don't think you need to be needed? Or loved?
I don't, Kate thought.
You believe that to be true
, Dude said.
And that makes you so very strong. But Kate Miller, it will destroy you in the end
.
Kate looked at the Alley Hawk's silhouette in the darkness, unmoving and tragic. The man was built out of sadness and regret the way buildings are constructed of brick and mortar.
That's my future, isn't it, she said.
If you choose
, Dude said.
There are worse things, she thought.
Many worse things.
I'm not lonely, Kate thought.
You are
, Dude said.
But you are strong enough to be lonely. Not everyone is.
Kate sighed. She didn't like the feeling building up in her belly at that moment.
"Did you get what you needed?" she said aloud, looking right at the Alley Hawk as she broke the silence.
"Yeah. I'll be able to get inside," he said.
"So the plan will work."
"Plans have a tendency to go wrong, but yes, this should work."
"Are you okay with it?" Kate said.
"I should have done this a long time ago," the Hawk said. "I'll do my part. Just be ready."
Kate nodded in the darkness.
"When this is over, we'll have to leave, won't we," Kate said. "We can't stay here. We'll be renegades."
Alley Hawk's body language changed, his shoulders relaxing, he seemed suddenly very tired, the weight of the mileage on his body showing through.
"No, you won't," he said. "You won't leave, because you won't be able to."
"Will they stop us?"
"No," Alley Hawk said. "Kate, I did what you do now for twenty years. And for most of that time, there was a price on my head. Sometimes it was the bad guys, sometimes it was the good guys, but in my entire career, there was always someone trying to stop me. Always someone who thought I was the villain."
"And you never left."
"People like us can't leave, Kate," the Alley Hawk said. "Because you're not doing this for the people who hate you. You're not doing this for the people who know you. You're doing this so that nobody ever has to suffer whatever you suffered to make you like this. You will keep doing this until your body fails you because you never want anyone to be hurt again."
"Better to be hated by the people in power than abandon the people who are not," she said.
"People are always going to hate you. That's the part of being a hero nobody tells you about," Alley Hawk said. "Nobody likes a hero, except the people whose lives you make a difference in."
Kate felt herself taking an involuntary, sharp breath.
"Is it worth it?" she asked. "Do you regret it? Do you ever wish you just stayed home?"
Alley Hawk let out a hissing breath, his body perfectly still. Kate let him stand there in silence for a moment, maybe longer, not answering.
"I don't know, Kate," he said. "Everyone I've ever cared about is gone. I don't think I'll live to see sixty because of what I've put my body through. And I'm not sure anything I've done to make the world a better place will be sustained when I'm gone."
"So why do it?" she asked.
"Because even if everything I do turns to dust, I made this horrible place better for a little bit while I was here. It's all we can do, Kate. It's all we're capable of."
Chapter 36:
Diagnosis
Caleb Roth sat outside the elementary school for hours. He was there so long he couldn't believe no one stopped him, a parent or police officer curious about what this strange young man was doing alone in the dark. But no one passed by, and not for the first time Caleb thought that perhaps the other part of his condition was that he had now become somehow invisible. People ignore the sick, he knew. We're afraid to look them, he thought, because they remind us of our frailty, or our own mortality, or because they make us uncomfortable or nervous. And so the sick became invisible, and if you happened to be sick and unimportant to anyone, like Caleb, then you became a ghost. No one wanted to look at you, and no one wanted to look for you.
He thought about going into the school. That had to draw their attention, making three hundred children deathly ill. The panic would make the evening news, and how could they ignore that?
But then again, Caleb thought, no one turned up looking for him after the hospital, and he'd done his worst there, walking among the weak, all of them ready to become infected. But no one appeared.
What does it take to get a little bit of attention around here? Who do I have to put in the hospital? He thought.
The sun rose, and still Caleb sat on a bench across the street, watching. Not a single person made eye contact with him, parents crossed their children to the other side of the walkway, sometimes even the other side of the street, to avoid getting too close to him. Cars created detours so that they didn't have to stop next to him. People looked right through him, ignored him, pretending he didn't exist. When one little girl, holding her mother's hand, tried to make eye contact, engage him, her mother jerked the child's arm and led her away in a rush.
Maybe this is what I've been doing wrong, Caleb thought. I need to make them look at me.
A rage boiled up in his guts. I could make all of you sick. I could put your children in the hospital, so you would have to look at them the way parents looked at me, that terrible blending of pity and fear and loathing. Your children would waste away before your eyes, and what would you do? Would you try to save them? Would you run from them? Hide behind surgical masks and hospital bills? Would you let strangers take them away and see what magic feats science had in store for them? Nothing saves us, you know. Everything leads to a terrible end.
He thought of those strange, slow nights in the laboratory, unfamiliar faces coming and going as he was poked and prodded, as test after test came and went. Of conversations comprised of
hmm's
and
huh's
and nothing else but the punctuation of needle sticks and blood draws. Even still, the scientists were an improvement from the hospital. At least at the lab they treated him like an object to be studied instead of a creature to be pitied. Anything was better than pity.
He continued to watch the school for a while. A teacher on the first floor almost make eye contact with him, and he waited, waited for her to meet his gaze, but she simple pulled a window blind, shutting him out. Like everyone else.
I need to make them see me, he thought. I need to force them all to look at me.
He thought about walking into the school, thought about the havoc and distress he could cause, but it seemed useless, somehow. He needed to do something a little different. Something a little more preemptive. He needed a voice.
He had a better idea.
Chapter 37:
Nothin' but a Hound Dog
Jane knew Emily was up to something when she started singing Elvis songs the entire way back to their holding cell.
It started off with "Jailhouse Rock," which Jane assumed was Emily being antagonistic, but Emily clearly ran out of the words after the second verse and moved on to "Nothin' but a Hound Dog." She knew all the words to that tune, and in addition to making that fact known to Jane, Billy, and their entire security contingent, she also assured everyone that she had a dance to go with it.
Jane put Elvis the Pelvis thrusts on the ever-growing list of things she wished she never saw Emily do. She did her best to tune Emily out and turned to Billy.
"How you holding up, cowboy?" Jane asked.
"I'm fine," Billy said. He wiggled his wrist to show her it had healed. "Good as new, see?"
"Any idea how that happened?"
"Aside from Sam becoming some kind of miracle worker?" Billy said. "I dunno."
"At least he's alive," Jane said.
"Little victories," Billy said.
Emily wrapped up "Hound Dog" in grand style and immediately jumped into "A Little Less Conversation."
Jane glared at her. "Are you kidding?"
Emily smiled and bopped around frenetically.
"Do you have to pee again, Emily?" Billy said. "I swear your bladder is the size of a peanut. I don't know how you get anything done all day."
Emily switched over to "Don't Be Cruel."
"You could do this all day, couldn't you," Billy said.
Emily nodded but kept singing all the way down the elevator to the nineteenth level. There, she broke out into a raucous version of "Heartbreak Hotel," forcing the caravan to stop several times while she played air guitar. Even the guards were getting a kick out of the performance, one of them singing right along in an almost pitch perfect Elvis imitation.
"Only Emily can get her jailers to sing with her," Jane said.
By the time they reached their cell, Emily and the guard — it turned out to be the one nicknamed "Two Ton Tony" a guy who they'd dealt in the past when dropping off super-villains before all this happened, but Jane hadn't recognized him in his full riot gear — were singing a wild duet of "Blue Suede Shoes."
Billy was losing it, and he bounced over to Jane and tried to convince her to dance. She looked at the other guards, and everyone just kind of shrugged, so she let Billy lead her in a sloppy, goofy boogey. When the song wrapped up, Tony couldn't stop laughing.
"I'm sorry we have to do this to you guys," he said. "We're just..."
"Following orders," Jane said. "We understand."
"You feeling okay there, Solar? You look a little run down."
"Nothing an afternoon in the sun won't fix. I'm good."
"Let me know if you need anything," he said. "Again, sorry to have to lock you back in."
Emily broke into "That's Alright, Mama" which sent everyone into a fit of hysteria again. The guards politely nudged the trio of heroes back into their cell and locked up. When Jane figured they were out of earshot, she turned on Emily.
"What are you up to, you little lunatic?"
Emily switched back to "Hound Dog," but this time replacing the lyrics.
"We know Prevention is a psychic, spying all the time," Emily said. "We know Prevention is a psychic, spying all the time. I didn't want her spying so I sang to tune her out. Bum da da bum."
"Tune her out from doing what, Em?" Billy said.
"I figured how to open cell doors, up and down the hall," Emily sang. "I figured how unlock cell doors, up and down the hall. This is our distraction while we try to break out. Bum da da bum."
"Tell me you didn't unlock all those doors we passed," Jane said.
"You ain't nothin' but a worrywart, worried all the time," Emily sang. "You ain' nothing but a worrywart, worried all the time!"
"Em, if you let the bad guys out of their cells, a lot of people are going to get hurt. We won't be able to help them. We're locked in," Billy said.
Emily gestured at the door and a heavy clunk followed suit.
"Have you been able to unlock this cell door the whole time?" Jane asked.
Emily broke into "It's Now or Never."
"No! It is not now or never! Stop it! We need a plan, Emily."
Emily shifted into "I'm Counting on You."
"Are you serious? You're singing B-sides now?" Jane said.
Emily kept singing but beamed a huge smile at Billy and pointed at him. He shrugged and held out a hand. They started waltzing together. Even Jane stifled a laugh. The whole thing was too absurd.
"Billy's depowered, I'm running on fumes, and your only offensive power is the so called 'wall of slam,' Emily," Jane said. "Will you at least wait for the right time."
Emily started singing "My Way" instead.
"That's not an Elvis song. Frank Sinatra wrote that," Jane said.
Finally, Emily stopped singing.
"But Elvis covered it. My mom loves that version. And Sinatra didn't write it, that was Paul Anka."
"You do know everything, don't you?"
"Genius. Yo."
"You already unlocked the doors, didn't you?"
"Maybe a couple," Emily said. "They tried to kill Sam and they broke Billy's wrist. So I did it . . ."
"Don't," Jane said.
"My! Way!" Emily sang.
"This is going to cause so many problems," Billy said.