Chapter 58:
Into the eye
Three figures raced across the surface of the ocean, each with their own unique wake: a trail of golden fire, a blue white light, and a faint signature like heat distortion.
Jane, in the lead, kicked up mist below her as the warmth of her flight path changed the water to steam; Emily created tiny realities, turning choppy water still and still water into waves with whitecaps. Billy passed in near silence, his bright energy signature transforming to silvery highlights on the sea's surface.
The storm grew ever closer, becoming more threatening, more ominous, and vaster with every meter traveled.
They pulled up short, less than a mile from the wall of blue-black clouds terminating the horizon, and watched as lightning flickered like pale veins beneath the storm's skin.
"Oh yeah, I can totally just put this in a bubble," Emily said. "Totes easy."
"This is turning out to be such a bad idea," Billy said.
"It's our only choice," Jane said. "Would you like that thing hitting Florida?"
"Is this a multiple choice question?" he asked.
Jane surveyed the storm from left to right, marveling at how alive it appeared, how organic. Every time she looked, it seemed as though the storm were taking on a more definitive shape, an amorphous animal.
"Emily, fly up a bit. Maybe if you can get an idea of its dimensions you'll be in a better spot to contain it."
"Are you watching the same storm I am?" Emily said. "I'm gonna need to be like, satellite height to get a good look at it."
"So go atmospheric," Jane said. "You know you want to."
"What about us?" Billy said.
"I'm going to head in. Maybe I can find and then reason with her one more time. Talk to her like a person," Jane said.
"That went really well last time," Emily said.
"We didn't know as much about her last time," she said.
"And what am I going to do?" Billy said.
"You're going to deal with them," Jane said, pointing to the south, where dozens of targets were suddenly flying their way.
"What are they?"
"Robots, I think," Jane said. "Same as the ones that attacked Kate and me at her apartment."
"I'm going to be in a dog fight with flying robots."
"You have a problem with that?"
"No," Billy said. "Been hoping to fight flying robots my whole life."
Kate and Titus raced across the water's surface as well, trying to stay low and underneath whatever sensors the rig might have searching for them. Kate drove, hunkered down on the hoverbike like a professional racer. Titus, in his lean human form, clung to her waist.
"Why didn't I drive!" he yelled.
"Because you're chicken!" she hollered back. "Don't fall off!"
"Would you save me if I did?"
"No!"
She could distinguish figures on the deck: men in fatigues, clearly carrying firearms. She pointed.
"Don't take your hand off the controls!" Titus said.
"Stop being a wimp!" Kate snarled. "We're going to have to come in hot!"
"What does that even mean?"
"It means we're going to have to hit them as soon as we get off the bike!"
Titus was silent.
Kate looked back.
"You okay?"
"I've got an idea!" he yelled. "Fly up there and pull a U-ee!"
"A what?"
"Make a u-turn!"
Kate squinted at him then turned back to the rig. She gunned the controls of the bike and kicked up speed, narrowing the gap between them and surface of the deck. At the last second, she pulled up and above the deck and then slammed the controls to the right, banking a hard turn.
Titus let go of her and jumped off.
The werewolf could be a graceful critter when he wanted to be. Titus transformed smoothly mid-air, doubling in size, the silvery fur of his werewolf form sprung into existence, huge jaws projected where once there was a boyish face.
Kate floated mid-air long enough to see the looks of the two guards closest to Titus as two hundred and fifty pounds of wolf-man crashed to the deck. Titus wrapped one massive paw around the first guard and tossed him overboard as if he didn't weigh a thing; he swatted the gun from the other man's hand, sending stray bullets skittering across the deck, and then grabbed him by his fatigues and hurled him into the water.
More men rushed in to assist, setting up a firing squad and taking aim at Titus. Kate jumped from the bike, leaving it hovering fifteen feet off the deck, and landed a kick to the face of the closest mercenary on her way to the ground. His partner tried to turn his gun from Titus to Kate, but she punched him in the throat and kicked his inner knee, dropping him to the floor, yowling in pain. She picked up the man's rifle and clubbed him with it, knocking him unconscious. Then, she jogged over to catch up to Titus, who just made a mess of two more mercenaries. They lay bloody, but alive.
"You gonna be okay?" Kate said.
Titus stared at her with those enormous yellow eyes and opened his jaws.
"Behind me," he said, barely human, a deep, rumbling, monstrous voice Kate hadn't heard before.
She smirked.
"You got it, big guy. Let's find us that lab."
Billy was having the time of his life.
He wanted to send a thank you note to whoever decided to send inanimate objects to try to kill him. Without fear of injuring anyone, he was able to fly like a lunatic, blasting through heads and chassis with blinding white light, tearing the robots apart. He got into an aerial dogfight with two of them; they attempted to catch him through pirouettes and loop-de-loops.
Dude, this is the most fun I've ever had in my life.
You need to be more careful,
the alien said.
Why? I'm not hurting anyone.
Billy heard a mechanical whine; the robots opened up a pair of hatches on their backs. Now, small rockets bristled there, and with a harsh whistle, they launched, trailing smoke and fire. Billy kicked up his speed, trying to outrace the missiles, but they followed, heat seekers like those in blockbuster films, so he figured he'd try something he saw in the movies a few hundred times. Spinning with stomach-lurching speed, he turned back on the robot attackers and sped between them. One exploded at the receiving end of its own rocket, the other got torn apart by two of its own, but Billy was still being chased by a remaining missile.
What if I blast the rocket? Billy asked.
Try to be responsible,
Dude said.
Billy fired a hand-blast at the missile, which detonated on contact. The force of the blast knocked him out of his flight path momentarily and he skipped along the surface of the ocean, salt water kicking into his eyes.
Well that burns!
I told you to put goggles on your mask,
Dude said.
They keep fogging up.
Two of the robots closed in, trying to hit Billy with some sort of laser weapon strapped to their metallic forearms. Too close for a proper blast, Billy clenched both fists, causing them to glow bright white with built up energy.
Rock 'em, sock 'em . . . he thought.
Some day you will learn you are not meant for comedy,
Dude said.
Billy punched the head off of each robot with wild haymakers. "I love this!" he yelled.
His victory was cut short, however, by a barrage of laser blasts. More robots headed his way, including one that looked like the bigger, nastier sibling to the others, a winged monstrosity ten feet tall.
How does it even stay in the air? Billy asked.
Physics,
Dude said.
Right, Billy said.
He charged the oncoming robots, blasting through the smaller ones easily. His energy beams staggered a larger model, but it seemed to be shielded against his attacks. Each blast knocked the robot off its flight path but otherwise it remained unharmed.
Dude?
He appears to be a later version than the others.
No kidding. Any suggestions?
Try harder?
You want to get me killed?
I am hoping to make you learn.
You really pick the worst times to —
The robot opened up its palm and fired a concussive blast, not unlike Billy's own, right back at him. He spun mid air, his vision becoming a nauseating blend of sky and ocean. When Billy righted himself, the robot was nearly on him, swinging a huge, rust-colored fist. He dodged the punch and countered with two more of his own to the robot's face. With the strength of Dude's energy powers behind him, he'd dented the surface, but the robot was relentless.
I have an idea.
I am not going to like it, am I?
You can read my thoughts, you already know what my idea is.
I was hoping you had something else in reserve.
Billy cut away at top speed, giving himself a bit of distance from the massive robot. He started generating his light blasts, first in his hands, and then letting the power spill down onto his head and shoulders. Billy aimed himself like a bullet at the robot.
This did not work in the city, and it is a terrible idea now.
Ramming speed, Dude. Ramming speed!
Billy poured everything he could into his forward propulsion, all but disappearing in his blue-white energy signature. The robot waited for him, preparing to deflect more of his blasts — its palm outstretched, ready to fire.
Why hasn't he hit me yet?
He appears to be recharging.
Oh good. In that case, this should actually work . . .
Billy plowed into the robot's torso at full speed. His entire body shuddered with the impact, leaving him jarred to the bone, his ears rung, but his shields held. All around him, the robot's mechanical body was torn to shreds, a violent, squealing mess of metal plates and ripped wiring. The smell of burnt electronics filled the air.
Billy, however, kept going, slamming into the surface of the water and kicking up a spray fifty feet into the air. He drifted a moment underwater, the cold shock of the landing kept him from losing himself in the dizziness of the impact.
That was a terrible idea.
All of your ideas are terrible, Billy Case.
He started choking on seawater before he realized he'd let his shields drop. Quickly, effortlessly, he brought them back up and half-swam, half-flew into the air.
He breached the surface and started laughing.
Another ten foot tall robot was flying his way.
"I'm having so much fun," he said.
Miles above, Emily surveyed the size of the storm and began a conversation with herself. More often than not, she answered back.
"Oh, oh, just contain the storm, Emily," she said, in her best imitation of Jane's voice. "Just use your powers nobody understands, it'll be easy!"
To her right, she saw the flashes of white light indicating that Billy was in a pickle. She could go help him, she thought, but while that would be entertaining, it really wouldn't solve her problem with the storm.
"Question, self," she said. "You have, so far, never tried to move something you couldn't see all of. Giant bear mole was easy. You could see his top and tail. This storm has neither top nor tail."
She reached out with her mind, trying to imagine the boundaries of the storm, but without some visual queue to latch onto, she couldn't create the parameters she needed to put a bubble around the whole thing. Happily, she sensed that she really could make a bubble that extended miles across. . . but she would need to know where it ended. Which she didn't.
"Come on, Entropy Emily, think about this," she said. "Think about what? Bubble of float. This should be super easy. Big bubble. It's just a big bubble."
As she muttered, the storm began to move. She looked through the clouds for Jane's fiery heat signature but they were too thick, too murky to see anything below them.
A tendril of cloud lurched out, separate from the rest of the body of the storm. On a whim, Emily prepared a bubble outside the storm, like a wall. The tendril struggled for a moment against it, sputtering out into a fine mist, before splitting in two and working its way around the bubble. She expanded the bubble, and the tendrils did much the same, evaporating before her eyes but then working with alien intelligence to find its way around the wall she created.