The Indestructibles (Book 3): The Entropy of Everything (12 page)

Chapter 24:

Victory and loss

      I didn't travel all the way into the future to hang out in a school," Emily said.
Leto, was waiting by the front door for their friends and allies to return, so Emily followed her, mostly because Old and Even Meaner Kate was the only other real option for company at that moment and Emily wanted none of that noise.

      So they stood in the front foyer of the community college building, Leto gazing at the horizon like she could hear the others coming, or perhaps she possessed a psychic bond or something, Emily couldn't be sure. What she did know was that she was bored and there was a dramatic lack of anything to do here, including ways to get into trouble. No Internet, no TV, nobody to taunt—not for lack of trying, as she'd been pestering Leto for hours—no music, nothing.

      "Do you play chess?" Emily asked, finally. She'd reached that point. Chess with strangers. Better than nothing, she supposed.

      Leto held up a hand. Emily noticed how long the werewolf's fingers were in her human form. And then, of course, she couldn't stop looking at them. Don't look at her weird long fingers, Emily told herself. Don't do it. Don't stare. Stop. Stop looking.

      "So you have really long fingers," Emily blurted out.

      "The others are close," Leto said, ignoring her.

      The first to return were the information retrieval team, approaching on foot to be inconspicuous. They had clearly encountered trouble based on the burn marks and tears on their costumes, but everyone was walking, and nobody seemed hurt.

      "How'd it go?" Emily asked.

      "Giant robot spiders," Titus said, flanked by Finnigan and sounding a little winded.

      "Robot spiders?" Emily asked.

      "Seriously," Jessie, the replacement Billy, said.

      Emily liked and hated the new girl at the same time. Nobody should take Billy's place, she thought, but hey, if someone has to take over as Straylight, Jessie actually seemed like she might be fun.

      "I love giant robot spiders," Emily said. "Why'd you leave me behind? This might be the only time in my entire life I get to see them and you've ruined it."

      Jane—our Jane, Emily thought, the younger—brought up the rear and shook her head.

      "I have a terrible feeling we're going to see more of those creatures at some point," Jane said. "We handled them okay though."

      "Too okay," Finnigan said.

      "That fight was over exceedingly fast," Titus agreed. "Have you fought those things before?"

      "The robots they use are always different," Jessie said. "We think they've got someone who tinkers with them, because they change after every fight, improve a little bit, get better to take us on."

      "And those were not up to the caliber of the last few versions," Finnigan said.

      "So what do you think?" Jane asked. "That they were a distraction?"

      "We'll know soon enough," Leto said, returning to the front door again. "The others are coming. Something's wrong."

      Jane and Jessie bolted out the door immediately, rushing to meet the incoming team.

      Emily looked around, then punched Titus in the arm.

      "Where's Kate?"

      Titus turned to Finnigan, back to Emily, then almost started for the door. He stopped, though, when the others arrived, and realized not everyone was able to walk in under their own power.

      Finnigan hustled to help a wounded werewolf, now transformed to human form, carry one of their own in.

      "He'll live," the newcomer said about the fallen comrade. "Help me get him to a bed."

      Older-Titus walked in next, side by side with Solar, who held another man in her arms. His body, limp and ragged, was covered in old bloodstains. She hurried past Emily, heading toward the room the group used as a medical area.

      Titus put a hand on Emily's shoulder.

      "I've got to go find Kate. Stay put, keep an eye out," he said.

      "You're not the boss of—" she started to say, but Titus left at a full run. "Me."

      Billy sauntered in next. He smiled at Emily, his eyes wild and tired.

      "Bad things, Em."

      "Bad things?"

      Billy gestured to where Solar had scampered off.

      "I think we're too late," he said. "Did the others get what they needed?"

      "They got something," Emily said. "No idea what it is."

      "Well, let's hope this was worth it," Billy said.

      Their Jane grabbed both Billy and Emily by the arm and pulled them along. "Broadstreet's dying," she said.

Chapter 25:

Sacrifice

      The room was quiet as their ally lay slowly dying.

      Jane watched Solar hold the man's hand. He breathed raggedly. She looked over poor Broadstreet's body, the cuts and burn marks. He'd been tortured extensively. Unspeakable injuries marred his face. Still, he smiled at Solar who was holding his hand.

      "Did you get the package?" Broadstreet said, his voice a harsh rasp.

      "The others did," Jane heard herself say. "You did well, Jon."

      "I just hope . . ."

      "It
will
help, Jon. And you're going to be here to see that it does," Solar said.

      "No I won't," he said.

      Broadstreet smiled. It was pained, but also radiant, a smile of true happiness. Jane felt someone put a hand on her shoulder. Annie. The pink-haired woman gripped the Jane of the past tightly as they both watched the future unfold before them.

      "I realize what they did to me, and I know you won't be able to fix it," Broadstreet said. "But I believe you won't let it go to waste. That's why I did all of this for you, Solar. You'll do what needs to be done."

      "We don't tolerate pessimism around here," Solar said. "Leto's going to fix you up."

      Jane found herself involuntarily walking forward; Annie's grip on her shoulder loosened and fell away. She picked up Broadstreet's other hand, Solar looked on. The flickering light from a swaying, old fixture beamed across his forehead and cheeks. Broadstreet's face was older than the one she remembered, lined with more worries, his beard gray-flecked, making him appear so much older than he was.

      "I remember that face," he said softly. "That's the one you wore when I first met you."

      "We're going to save this world, Jon," Jane said.

      "Now I know I'm dying," Broadstreet said. He tried to force a smile. "You know, once upon a time I was in love with you?"

      Jane's eyes flicked to her future self, who was staring right back at her, her mouth a stoic, pale line.

      "I didn't know that," Jane said.

      Solar patted Broadstreet's arm. "But I did," she said.

      "It didn't matter in the end," Broadstreet said. "It was only a little thing. Schoolboy crush. We were young and the world wasn't dying. That isn't why I did this though."

      "I know," both Janes said together.

      "I just hoped to leave the world better than I found it," Broadstreet said. "Just wanted to help people who could possibly make that happen. That's not a bad life, is it?"

      Jane's eyes welled up. You don't know this man, she thought, you don't know this future, you know nothing about him. He's a branch on the tree of the life of a boy you barely know in a timeline you may never return to. He's a stranger.

      "That's the best life anyone could strive for," she said, instead.

      Jane held this Broadstreet's hand, realizing she'd never even shaken hands with the young man she knew in her own timeline. Human beings can be so stupidly brave when we have to be, she thought. For reasons we never really understand.

      "You're a good man, Jon Broadstreet," Jane heard Solar say.

      He turned his head to her, the golden goddess Jane would someday become, and he smiled again, as if looking for the last time into the sun.

      His fingers loosened in hers, and Jane knew he was gone. She knew, she knew in her heart, that somewhere else, in another time, he would live another life, that this would never happen, but this man now lay dead on a table in front of her, and she felt her heart break just a little, another life she couldn't save, another end that should have been better. And she could see, across the table, the same emotions tearing her future self apart.

      Leto saved them. The strange woman gently took Broadstreet's hand away from them both each in turn, placed an old blanket over his body, and clicked off the overhead light. Somehow, in the darkened room, it felt less real.

      "I don't want to lose any more friends," Solar said. "I'm so tired of losing friends."

      "Then let's see what his life gave us," Jane said.

Chapter 26:

Never become that

      Kate found a vantage point across the dust-covered street so that she could watch the community college building in peace.
She climbed up barricaded windows to the second story of an old storefront where once upon a time someone had lived over their own convenience store. The windows all smashed now, the food now spoiled or stolen. Kate hunched down near the ledge and listened. She closed her eyes, taking in all the sounds around her, listening for the voices of her allies, listening to the wind.

      Kate wondered what it would be like without sight.

      She heard Titus coming before she saw him. The boy, for all his predatory abilities when he transformed, was hopelessly clumsy as a human. He couldn't walk softly if his life depended on it but located her easily, though, which he always did. The dangers of being close friends with a tracker. They'll know where you are.

      Titus didn't ask if she was okay. He never did that anymore, and Kate understood it was because she never answered, never gave him a verbal insight into her mood or her emotions, and so he'd simply stopped asking and relied on his superhuman senses to detect her mood. Titus admitted as much to her, that he could hear her heartbeat, could determine by the speed of her breathing if she was upset. It would be difficult to lie to him. In some ways it made Kate furious, yet in others, it was comforting to know there was at least one person in the world she shouldn't bother wearing her mask around.

      He sat beside her. She tensed, annoyed that he'd intruded upon her sulking. But then she put a hand on his knee, half in greeting and half to simply acknowledge he was really there.

      "We don't fare well in the future, do we?" he said, finally.

      "This isn't us," she said. "This isn't our future. It's someone else's."

      "I know," Titus said. "Still, I thought we'd do better."

      Kate closed her eyes again. Now it was she listening to his breathing, straining to hear his heartbeat. To the way his feet scuffled on the tar of the roof.

      "So you can actually speak when you're in your werewolf form," Kate said, uncharacteristically breaking the silence. "Have you been holding out on us?"

      Titus shook his head.

      "Finnigan told me I'd be able to eventually, but it's harder than it looks," Titus said. "Not only am I not all there, really—I'm me, but I'm also
him
, you know? But I mean . . . you try talking when your jaw is stretched out into a snout and full of huge fangs."

      "Do you need braces?"

      "I need practice," Titus responded quickly. "But I never figured I'd need it. I always know I'll change back."

      "But here you don't," Kate said.

      "Here I don't. No." He scooted around to look at her. "The future me and the future you stopped talking, and he never changed back. I don't understand it."

      Because I broke your heart, you stupid boy, Kate thought.

      She didn't say a word, though. Kate was always best when she said nothing.

      "Does that bother you?" Titus asked.

      "I don't want that kind of power over anyone," Kate said.

      Titus nodded, his shoulders loosening. He'd been holding his frame tight, as if afraid, and Kate noticed.

      Kate unfastened and then refastened her boots.

      Titus played with his sweatshirt absently.  He scooped up some fine roof dust and scattered it toward a chimney.

      "Don't ever let me end up like that," Kate said finally.

      Titus cocked his head, questioning.

      "Down there. That's a woman who's given up. If I ever give up, just put me out of my misery. Don't leave me there like an indoor cat."

      "There's nothing wrong with indoor cats," Titus said.

      Kate held his gaze for a moment.

      Titus looked away.

      "What do you want me to do? Kill you if you ever become blinded or something?"

      "I don't know," Kate said, sharper than she intended. "I just don't know. But those are two people who have surrendered. Your future you is still fighting, but he's capitulated. Look at him. Those scars. He's been trying to die for years. And me? She's become too much of a coward to find her own way out."

      "I won't put you out of your misery if you give up," Titus said.

      "I'm not asking you to. I'm asking you to . . ." Kate paused. "I'm asking you to encourage me to be better than that. If I ever need it."

      Titus's mouth quirked into the slightest of smiles. "I can do that."

      "And don't let me break your heart that badly. I'm not worth it."

      "If you're not worth it, neither am I."

      "You sure as hell aren't," Kate said.

      They laughed, an honest, real laugh, the sort Kate only revealed at the rarest of moments, and lately, almost never.

      "We'll be okay," Titus said, wiping a tear of laughter from his eye. "We've got to see our mistakes before we make them. We know things now."

      "We do," Kate said. She peered out into the night, feeling lighter than she had a few moments before. "We know things . . ."

      Suddenly the attack at the junkyard sprung back to mind. Knowing things. The enemy had known they were coming. They knew things. They knew they'd come for the hidden data cache.

      "Titus. Where's the drive we found?"

      "The others are going to open it up, see what Broadstreet uncovered."

      "Where is it?"

      "It's in the school," Titus said. "Why?"

      "They knew we were coming," Kate said. "They expected us to come for it. What if they . . ."

      And then they both heard the sound of aircraft flying, and looked up into the night sky.

      "We have to get them out of the school," Kate said.

      Titus was already transforming though, doubling in size, his scrawny human body changing into a massive beast. They jumped down to street level.

      And then the college building was hit with a missile and exploded in a ball of red flames.