The Indestructibles (Book 4): Like A Comet (8 page)

Chapter
11:

A
bit of Bedlam

Kate and Titus stepped out onto the roof
of a tall, aging apartment building on the edge of the City, the sort of place
young professionals cram themselves into right after college graduation. Too
grungy to be suburban, too far from the action of the downtown to be high-end,
the type of complex ordinary people rent because they have nowhere else to go.
Kate still kept a space like this on the other side of town, a bolt hole for
when she needed to get away from the team, little more than a bed and a closet
full of old clothes. Something that was hers and no one else's.

      Today, though, they were here on
team business, to meet someone who was the furthest thing from the ordinary residents
one might find walking around the City. Bedlam, the cyborg who they'd rescued
from the Children of the Elder Star long ago, had agreed to meet them here, far
from the bustle of the city. She insisted on a rooftop rendezvous because she
wanted to see the sky.

      Kate gazed at Bedlam and
understood why she preferred locations like this. There were very few places
someone like Bedlam could stand under an open sky and not draw attention to
herself. Her appearance had changed somewhat since their last meeting—she'd
helped Kate and Titus spring the rest of the Indestructibles from the Labyrinth
prison months before—and she'd been clearly upgrading her cybernetics.

      Still, she was a strange sight to
behold. Both legs cybernetic replacements from the knee down, powerful
machinery that had been slightly streamlined from before, appearing less
blatantly robotic from a distance. Bedlam wasn't embarrassed about them,
though. She stood waiting for them in a short black skirt, as if daring the
world to stare at her mechanical legs.

      An entire arm was cybernetic from
the shoulder down. At one time clunky and almost unfinished in appearance, with
hydraulic parts visible and uncovered, it had since been rebuilt to more
closely resemble human musculature, though it still gleamed silver and black, and
motors became audible when she moved. Her other arm was robotic below the
elbow, but that piece had always been the most elegantly crafted, smooth and
silver and nearly human to look at.

      When she smiled at the Kate and
Titus, the Dancer found herself, as always, taken aback more by the cyborg's
face than by her limbs. Her left eye and the area around it had been replaced
by cybernetics, running smoothly down her cheek, with her jaw reinforced with
metallic parts as well. The transformative work performed on her made it
completely impossible for Bedlam to pass for fully human in public. She didn't
do much to improve that, either—not only did she proudly keep her legs bare,
she wore a tank top with the British flag emblazoned on it, leaving both arms
completely visible. Her neon mohawk was gone, but she still shaved her hair down
to stubble on the sides and back and kept the top, which she dyed electric
orange, swept back dramatically. She wore florescent green lipstick, which made
her wild smile even more distracting.

      "Ninja Girl and Wolf Boy,"
she said, reaching a hand out to shake Titus's. "How the hell are you?"

      "Thanks for meeting us,"
Titus said.

      Kate found his reaction to the
manic cyborg almost as strange as she found the girl's feral demeanor. Titus
was comfortable around her, completely at ease, as if they were old friends. He'd
explained it to Kate after the fight at the Labyrinth. They'd fought together,
a pair of brawlers and berserkers. They came from the same sort of place, where
you survived by losing control, where you saw red until the fight was over. He
said he understood her.

      These two were, in many ways, Kate's
polar opposite. But she knew that their team needed both kinds of warriors to
win the coming war, berserkers and samurai, wild creatures and Zen.

      And in spite of herself, she did
like the cyborg. It was hard not to admire someone who so clearly did not care
what the rest of the world thought of her. Not that Kate would ever tell anyone
that, of course.

      "Where's your boss?"
Kate asked.

      Bedlam usually traveled with the
mercenary Agent Black, who had, in the Indestructibles' earliest days, fought
on the opposing side. But Kate had been the only Indestructible to speak to him
during that early battle, to look him in the eye, and she respected him as
well. Black was a mercenary, but the Dancer could discern honesty in a person's
demeanor, and she understood he wasn't a pure villain.

      "Black? He still takes jobs
he doesn't want me to be a part of," Bedlam said, looking out over the
City.

      "Working for the bad guys,"
Titus said, his tone conversational.   Bedlam shrugged.

      "Don't know, exactly. But we
have to take what we can get. Not like I can walk into an Apollo's Coffee
looking like this and ask for a job," Bedlam said.

      "You'd probably be a hell of
a barista," Titus said.

      "You know it," Bedlam
said. "Look, I don't want a lecture. Whatever he's out there doing right
now, it paid for a lot of my cybernetic work. He's helped me finish the work
those Children bastards started on me. I was Humpty Dumpty when you found me."

      "You're still doing work
together though, yeah?" Titus said.

      "Plenty of it," Bedlam
said, quirking a dastardly smile at both of them. "I do love making a
mess. But some of the… nastier stuff pays better. Also I won't use a gun. That
makes a difference."

      "Do you even need one?"
Titus said.

      Bedlam raised her hands up,
resigned.

      "Perception I guess,"
she said. "Merc without a gun? Not as scary. Though you drop me into a hot
zone and tell me to start breaking things and I'll get the job done for you."

      "I'm not sure I really want
to know," Titus said.

      "No, you don't," Bedlam
said. "Then again you're a weapon of mass destruction yourself, werewolf
boy. I bet you could cause some serious havoc if you ever want to take an
assignment."

      Titus waved his hands dismissively.

      "I'm good, thanks," he
said.

      "You're here to ask me to
break things for you again, aren't you," Bedlam said.

      "If you're still in the
breaking things business," Titus said.

      "Sneaking into another
prison?" Bedlam said.

      "Preventing an alien
invasion," Kate interrupted.

      Bedlam looked her and shrugged nonchalantly.

      "Not the reaction I was
expecting," Titus said.

      "I'm half-robot and I'm
talking to a werewolf. If you told me we were going to ride dragons to go fight
the invading aliens, I'd be like, cool, sounds like fun," Bedlam said. "What's
flyboy got to do with this? He's your alien expert, isn't he?"

      "Straylight's off-world,
scouting," Kate said.

      Again, Bedlam stared, but more
curious this time.

      "Off-world. Glow-stick is in
outer space," she said.

      "Yeah," Titus said. "Trying
to figure out what we're up against."

      "He is… coming back,"
Bedlam asked.

      "Hopefully," Kate said
bluntly.

      Bedlam looked back out over the
City, chewing on her lip.

      "I should hate this world, y'know?"
Bedlam said. "Car accident takes half my body, terrible bastards use me as
an experiment to put me back together. Can't do anything normal anymore. Can't
be normal. I should hate everything about this place."

      "But you don't," Kate
said.

      Bedlam studied her, more with her
human eye than the robotic one.

      "You've been through some
stuff too, haven't you?" Bedlam said. "You're as crazy as I am. You
just hide it better."

      "She really doesn't hide it
as well as you'd think," Titus said.

      Kate glared at him, but he smiled
back at her, almost laughing.

      "What do you think, Bedlam,"
Kate said. "Ready to put your grownup pants on and become a hero? Or are
you content to run around knocking buildings over for fun and profit."

      Bedlam rolled her eyes, barking
out a hard, frustrated laugh.

      "Man I should hate this
horrible dump of place," Bedlam said. "But it's all we've got, right?
Yeah I'm in. You need help saving the world, the hell with it, I'm in."

      "Glad to have you,"
Titus said, a big grin on his face.

      "What's our first thing? Our
first mission? Is that what you heroes call 'em? Missions?" Bedlam said.

      "We're going to make sure the
bad guys can't talk to each other," Kate said.

      "Now that sounds like it
involves breaking things," Bedlam said.

      "With any luck," Kate
said. "With any luck at all."

Chapter
12:

Division
of labor

Jane watched Emily simultaneously sulk
and binge on Wikipedia entries in the control room of the Tower while they
waited for Kate and Titus to return. In a way it was actually impressive—she
was absorbing, assessing, and retrieving information from the computer screen
with part of her brain while being uncharacteristically petty with another
part.

      "You, of all people, I don't
understand being upset about this," Jane said as Emily scanned through
doctored photos of faked alien landings on one of the larger monitors. Doc sat
at the conference table as well, feigning meditation. Jane knew he was
pretending because he smirked every time Emily said something off the wall.

      "All I'm saying is, there's
only room on this team for one florescent-haired crazy person," Emily
said. "And that's me. The position's filled."

      "I would've thought you two
would be best friends," Jane said. "You and Bedlam are so much alike."

      Emily threw back her head in
frustration.

      "Don't you see? That's the
problem! I'm like a cat. I don't want to be around another cat just like me,"
Emily said.

      "There is nobody just like
you," Titus said, entering ahead of Kate and the newly roped-in Bedlam.
Jane nodded to the cyborg, who threw back a tough if friendly smirk. They hadn't
had much time to talk, but Jane knew Bedlam had taken a beating for them in the
breakout from the Labyrinth. She'd earned a place here.

      "Any word from Billy?"
Titus said.

      Jane shook her head.

      "I don't know if we will,"
Doc said. "Perhaps if our patient in the infirmary wakes up he can tell us
how to communicate with Straylight, but for now, we just have to wait for him
to return."

      "We should get to work, then,"
Kate said. She sat in her usual chair and picked up one of the tablets on the
table, taking command of the largest monitor in the room and closing Emily's
Wikipedia search.

      "I was reading that,"
Emily said.

      "And now you're not,"
Kate said.

      Doc ignored the bickering and
stood up, taking position in front of the monitor. Kate retrieved a map of the
United States with the three spots they needed to investigate marked in red.

      "Three locations, three teams
of two," Doc said. He looked at Jane for approval. "Sound good?"

      "Who should go where?"
she said.

      Doc quirked an eyebrow.

      "I want your input,
Doc," Jane said. "You know more of the history of what's going on."

      "Okay," he said and
tapped the California location. "This organization, the Research Institute
for Extra-Terrestrial Information, has been sending signals out to space for a
long time. It's a civilian program. Their mission is to make informed, peaceful
contact with new species."

      "It seems odd that there'd be
a civilian organization doing this, knowing what we've learned," Jane
said.

      "It's always been a moral
quandary for us," Doc said. "We realize there's alien life out there.
We're friendly with some of it, even. But the less the world knows…"

      "Less chance to cause a
panic," Titus said.

      "Exactly," Doc said.

      "It seems sketchy to me,"
Kate said. "I have trouble believing that's all they want."

      "They've also been sending
out different signals in recent months," Emily said, chiming in. "Slight
variations to the 'we come in peace' message they've broadcast for decades."

      "That's why I suggest Kate
and Titus head there," Doc said. "You're our detectives. Sniff
around, see if they're hiding anything."

      "I resent that metaphor,"
Titus said.

      "Sorry," Doc said
sheepishly. "Unintentional."

      "Dibs on Area 51," Emily
said.

      "Hang on," Bedlam said,
speaking for the first time. "Where's that mark over the Appalachian
Mountains? Why does that look vaguely familiar?"

      "I was hoping you'd recognize
that," Doc said. He motioned to Kate, who zoomed in on the spot. "After
you escaped, did you ever do any research on the people who held you captive?"

      Bedlam let out a hardy laugh.

      "Oh yeah," she said. "I
want to find those twisted bastards some day."

      Doc smiled, not unkindly.

      "I was hoping you might say
something like that," he said. "That is the location of an old bolt
hole for the Children of the Elder Star. A lab carved into a mountain."

      Bedlam looked at Doc and then to
Kate and back again.

      "That's not the place Black
and his squad ran to after you destroyed their island base, is it?" she
said.

      "It is," Doc said. "And
it was supposed to have been empty ever since they evacuated it."

      "So who's sending a bloody
signal to space from it," Kate asked.

      Bedlam looked at Emily, who stared
right back at her.

      "You can keep Area 51,"
Bedlam said. "I want to go there."

      "Me too," Doc said. "I'm
best prepared for any traps the Children might have left behind. Care to join
me?"

      "Absolutely," Bedlam
said through gritted teeth.

      Emily slapped her hands on the
table.

      "Area 51 for me!" she
yelled.

      "It's not really Area 51, Em,"
Jane said. "But there's something there, and I'm going to check it out,
and your big genius brain is going to come with me to help me figure it out."

      "Aces," Emily said. "Field
trip."

      "Then we have our
assignments," Jane said. "Neal?"

      "Yes, Designation: Solar,"
the AI said.

      Bedlam's eyes wandered around the
room at the sound of Neal's disembodied voice.

      "I know you guys explained
him to me before, but that is still creepy," Bedlam said.

      "I apologize for upsetting
you, Designation: Bedlam."

      "Neal," Jane said,
interrupting. "You will contact us the second you hear anything from
Billy, got it?"

      "Of course, Designation:
Solar."

      "Hey Neal?" Titus said.

      "Hello, Designation:
Whispering," the computer said.

      "You should probably ping us
if anything troublesome falls from the sky," Titus said.

      "I will remain on high alert,
Designation: Whispering," Neal said.

      "Thanks," Titus said. He
looked around the room, as if, Jane thought, he were solving a very long math
equation in his mind.

      "You okay?" she asked.

      "Doc can teleport, and you
and Emily can fly," Titus said. "How are Kate and I getting to
California?"

      Kate stood up dramatically,
tapping away at her tablet, sending coordinates and details to the three teams.

      "I found something in the
landing bay we can use," Kate said.

      Titus stared at her. "Found
something. In the landing bay," he said.

      "Do not be concerned,
Designation: Whispering," Neal said. "Designation: Dancer has been
approved to operate the vehicle. You will be perfectly safe."

      "You always say that,"
Titus said. "And I'm never fully convinced."