Chapter 67:
Generations
Bedlam often thought about hitchhiking.
Not because she was exhausted. Her cyborg legs and whatever engine they'd given her to keep her heart pumping ensured she was never tired. But a constant plod north, particularly in the rain like today, got old fast.
And as much as she hated to admit it, she missed talking to people. She pretended to dislike everyone, but even the world's worst curmudgeon wants someone to have a conversation with once in a while.
Maybe that's why she was heading for the city. That idiot boy she beat up seemed nice enough. It was fun taunting the werewolf. Teasing counted as conversation, right? And the alien boy had been almost interesting. Not actually interesting mind you, but close.
So fine. She was going north because she was lonely. She could admit that. But would they really let her feel like one of them? Of course not. Why would they? They'd never trust her, not with where she came from and where she got her powers. And she hadn't exactly made a great first impression. She needed to stop punching first and asking questions later.
That was becoming a really bad habit.
And as for hitchhiking, well, yeah, who was going to pick her up? They might slow down, since she looked practically like a normal girl in a poncho from behind, but when they saw her face, or noticed that the thumb sticking out looking for a ride was dull chrome, would they call the cops, or just gun it and run? Either way, she wasn't interested in that particular kind of human interaction.
People suck, she thought. That's pretty much the sum of it.
Because of all this, she looked at the truck pulled over on the side of the road ahead of her with some trepidation. She couldn't really help, unless they were stuck in a ditch or something. Not like she could give them a jump-start if their battery was dead. And she really didn't want police attention, or some trigger-happy road warrior thinking she was a threat.
The driver slid out of the car and looked right at her. Fight or flight kicked in when she saw his face, one side bristling with cybernetics that ran down his neck, an entire arm replaced with a robotic one, like hers had been. He looked familiar.
And then Bedlam realized he might be from the lab. There were other modified people there. Would they bother sending someone like him after her? Was she worth pursuing?
She tensed, ready to attack. So much for not punching first and asking questions later, she thought.
Then he waved and smiled, almost sheepishly.
"You have got to be kidding me," she said.
"You Bedlam?" the man said.
His voice was definitely familiar. She wondered if he'd been in the room during some of the early experiments, when she wasn't fully conscious yet after the surgeries.
"You're from the lab," Bedlam said. "You're not bringing me back alive."
He waved a hand dismissively.
"Lab's gone," he said. "I'm not here to bring you back."
She flexed the fingers of her robotic hands. He didn't look as powerful as she was, nor nearly as modified, but she knew there were a million ways to build a six million dollar man.
"Then what do you want?" she said.
"Can I come over there?"
"No."
He laughed.
"Fair enough," he said.
"Are you gonna to tell me what you want, or am I gonna have to punch you in the face?" she said.
"I'd rather you didn't," he said. "Have you thought about your future?"
My future? She thought. Sure. Mall job. Working at Build-A-Bear. I'd be great at it, my arms never get tired. What a stupid question.
"I was thinking about going to veterinary school," she said. "People suck, dogs don't."
"If that's what you want, good luck to you," he said. "Look, I was at the lab. Never really liked what was going on there. You in particular, because, well . . . "
He gestured at his own face.
"Because I could relate. I'm not working for them anymore."
"Oh really?"
"Yeah. I'm done," he said. "And I knew you were out here on your own, and, well, like I said, I could relate."
"You're here out of the goodness of your heart?" she said.
"I'm here because once upon a time I was like you, and someone gave me a leg up," he said. "Granted it was a leg up into a pretty violent career, but it was better than what I could've been doing."
"What do you want from me?"
"I'm thinking of starting a new business," the man said. "I need a partner."
"You gotta be pretty desperate if you're offering homeless girls on the highway a partnership."
The man laughed again.
"I'm not desperate. I'm just figuring . . . I got some karma I'd like to balance off. I can help you get that bomb out of your head. Show you how to get around this world looking like we do without needing to put a trash bag over your head."
"I think my poncho is quite fashionable."
He shrugged.
"Up to you, kid," he said. "I'm not forcing you. Your choice."
She offered him a long dose of stink-eye.
The man shrugged again and turned to get back in his truck.
She called out. "What's your name, anyway?"
"Name's Black," he said. "You got a name you prefer to Bedlam?"
"Nah," she said. "Bedlam's what I am now. It stays."
"What do you say, Bedlam? Want to join cyborgs for hire?"
She raised an eyebrow.
"Do I have to sign a contract or anything?"
The man shook his head.
"I'm sick of the paperwork. You leave any time you want to. At least let's get that thing out of your brain. If you want to work at a fast food joint after that, I'll pay for your train ticket to wherever you'd like to go."
"That's a crap offer," she said. "Nobody's letting me on a train looking like this."
"Lesson number one, Bedlam," the man said. "When you look like this, you can do almost anything you want."
She pulled her makeshift poncho over her head and then threw it onto the side of the road.
"I'm in," she said. "Was sick of wearing a trash bag over my head anyway."
Chapter 68:
The old friend
Neal's directions sent Kate to an old industrial building on the edge of town.
The exterior looked as if it hadn't been touched in a decade, the brick walls crumbling and slathered with moss and vines, the parking lot more rubble than pavement. She vaulted the fence — not a simple task with the barbed wire skirting the top — and walked up to the front door.
Before she could knock, the door unlocked with a heavy thump and creaked open.
"Huh," she said and walked inside.
The interior was an abstract painting of shadows and cobwebs. Things moved in the dark, small rodents, a night bird squawked at her interrupting presence. Kate took a few steps inside and paused in the light of one of the large, cracked windows.
"Hello?" she said.
Sam had gifted her a pair of infrared goggles, which she now slid down over her eyes. But all she saw was more of the same: cobwebs, small mammals. Nothing human, not yet anyway.
"You have a recurring pain in your left ankle, an old injury that never healed right," a voice in the dark said. "You've recently been wounded in the shoulder. You're moving sluggishly on your left side. You're what, eighteen? Start seeing a chiropractor now. It'll do you a world of good if you hope to have a career after thirty."
"Where are you?"
"You haven't given me a reason to show my face yet."
"Doc Silence sent me."
The voice stopped.
She could almost hear him formulating his response.
"He's not dead," the voice said.
"We don't think so," Kate said.
"We?"
"My friends and me. Doc's students. He's gone, but said he didn't know how long it would take him to get back," she said.
"Magic," the voice said. "Most dangerous thing in the world. Stay away from it. Another tip for having a long career."
"Doc said you might help us."
The voice went quiet again.
"You were the Alley Hawk, right?" she said. "One of the heroes who stayed. Doc's friend."
"He used that word liberally," the voice said.
"You weren't friends?"
"I didn't say that," the voice said. "Just don't believe everyone who says they were once his friend. Doc trusted too many people. Never wore a mask. Never hid his identity."
"Wait. His real name was Doc Silence?"
The voice laughed, sounding like car tires on a gravel road.
"I don't think Doc even remembered his real name. It's a magician thing. Stay away from magic."
"I'll keep that in mind," Kate said.
She lifted the goggles off her eyes and blinked as her pupils adjusted. When she opened them again, a man stood in front of her. Shorter than she expected, and powerfully wide. He wore a khaki jacket with a hooded sweatshirt underneath, the hood pulled up to hide his face.
"You're the Dancer," he said.
"Why did you quit?" Kate said.
"Didn't quit," he said. "But things got too hot. I was getting older. Slower. Figured there was a better way to do things. Tried to set up a legacy. Failed on that count."
"And now you hide here."
"Not hiding," he said. "Waiting."
"For what?" she said.
The man pulled back his hood. His face was carved out of a cinder block — hard lines with tired eyes. Small scars marked his skin; a large one cut from above his right eye and into his hairline. His hair had been shaved down to stubble, but more because of that scar than for vanity. The man resembled a gargoyle.
"I've been waiting for a world worth throwing my life away for again," he said.
"Well, it's not, really," she said.
The Alley Hawk laughed his car-on-gravel laugh again.
"At least you're honest," he said. "Doc said you needed help."
"He just said you'd help us."
The Alley Hawk shook his head.
"With what?"
"We . . . we don't know what to do next," Kate said. "Without Doc."
The man sighed. He sounded tired, but not angry.
"You're doing fine, you know," he said. "I've been observing. Just keep doing what you believe is right. It's the only way to stay sane in this job."
"But what if we screw up?" she said. "What if we make the wrong decision? We're a bunch of kids. We don't know anything."
"That's a lie," he said.
He turned and began to walk away.
"That's it? That's all you have for me?"
The Alley Hawk stopped and turned around.
"It's what we all did, kid," he said. "But I'll be watching. If you need a hand . . . I'll do what I can."
Kate's eyes followed him as limped into the dark, the pain of each step evident in his every movement. And she wondered, was this the future she had to look forward to?
Chapter 69:
Those left behind
Jane sat in her same chair, next to Doc's empty one, as the others shuffled in.
With everyone dressed in their dusty and disheveled street clothes, costumes now abandoned, they seemed weary and more than a little haunted. Kate, in particular, looked like she'd seen a ghost.
Jane wished she knew how to communicate with Kate. She understood it was something she must learn. They were going to need each other from now on, more than ever.
Titus relayed his battle with the werewolf hunter and her silver-plated knives, which had more than slowed down his normally miraculous healing. He still patched himself back together better than a normal human could, but these cuts would leave scars. They all worried about the shoulder wound, in particular, but he assured them that he was healthier and stronger every day.
Yet watching him fiddle with his sweatshirt, Jane could see he was still struggling. He flexed his fingers often, to keep them from tightening up with pain.
Billy stopped glowing. Mostly. His eyes weren't the same, though. His irises, now closer to silver than their former blue, shined faintly in the dark when his eyes opened. Nothing like Doc's fiery gaze, yet still unearthly and strange.
Emily was just Emily, texting on her phone when she stumbled in and barely looking up when Jane opened the meeting. "Do we know where Valkyrie went?" she asked.
"We tracked her for a bit over Europe," Titus said. "But she seems to have the storm under control — there was an unseasonable snow squall in London a few days ago, but nothing terrible. We lost her yesterday, no strange weather patterns have been reported . . . "
"Can we leave her alone for a bit?" Emily said.
"We've got to at least keep an eye on her," Kate said. "If she loses control of the storm, we're back to square one."
"I'm just sayin', she has some crap to work through."
"Noted," Kate said.
"We'll try," Jane said. "What about the others?"
"Bedlam's dropped off the map entirely," Billy said.
"You must be heartbroken," Titus said.
"I
was
hoping she'd come in and at least let us help with the bomb," Billy said.
"She'll show up if she wants to," Jane said. "Sorry your charm wasn't enough to woo her back to the Tower."
He shrugged, a scowl lined his face.
"And the other names on the list Kate found are . . . nowhere," Billy said. "I guess we'll just keep hoping they show up."
"No," Emily said. "One of them was called Megalodon. I think we have a pretty fair idea what he's going to look like. I'm not wishing he'll show up."
Everyone stared blankly. And, she threw her hands up into the air.
"Megalodon? Prehistoric shark? Ate dinosaurs? Come on, am I the only one who reads around here?"
Jane sat back and sighed, allowing Emily her minor meltdown. They'd become endearing. Everything was becoming so. Emily's nonsense, Kate's practicality, Billy's cockiness, Titus's sarcasm. She didn't want it to end.
"So I guess the only thing to talk about is: what happens next?" she said.
"What huh?" Emily said.
"For us? Do we go home? Stick together? What are we, without Doc around?" Jane said.
"We're talking about splitting up? I didn't know this was on the agenda!" Billy said.
"You and Emily have homes to go to," Jane said. "You don't have to stay."
"I'm not going home," Billy said. "Finally found something I'm good at. I'm staying."
"I've stopped annoying my mom," Emily said. "I'm not goin' anywhere."
"We just keep doing what we're doing," Kate said, her tone flat and authoritative. "I'm in."
"That leaves you, Titus," Jane said. "What about you?"
He sighed.
"I, ah, need to leave for a bit," Titus said.
Kate sent him a death look that made Jane's heart skip a beat. Titus wilted under the glare.
"Just need to go home for a little while. The woman I fought on the rig said a lot of things. I want to find some answers. Where I came from. What I am," he said. "I'm not quitting. Just want to check things out. See if I can get a better handle on who I am."
Jane nodded. "Makes sense. You want any help?" she said. "I bet we could lend a hand."
Titus looked at Kate and her alone. She shook her head once, almost imperceptibly. He acknowledged it with a tiny tilt of his head. Then, he looked back to Jane.
"No, I'll be okay," Titus said. "I won't be gone long. Promise."
"Well, you need us, you call, furball," Billy said. "We'll be there faster than a speeding — "
"If you finish that sentence Billy Case I will punch you in the mouth," Jane said.
"Why is everyone so violent around here?" Billy said.
"It's how we show affection, I guess," Emily said.
They dispersed, Billy and Emily both intent on checking in with their families, Jane saying she wanted to look through Doc's notes to see if he left any clues to where he went.
Titus watched them go, a cold fist in his stomach. He'd been alone a long time before Doc found him. He wasn't looking forward to repeating the experience.
Kate grabbed him and shoved him against the wall.
"You skinny little jerk, you're leaving?"
"Why won't you come with me?" he said. "I want you to come. We could — maybe we'd have fun."
Kate's face darkened, her mouth twisted in a hard frown.
"I can't just leave, Titus," she said. "There are parts of this city that I'm the only one looking out for."
"You could take a few weeks off," Titus said. "Just a few weeks?"
Kate exhaled sharply.
"It — I don't want to meet your family, Titus. Don't like what they did to you. And, don't want to know what I'd be like if I met them. Not sure I want to see that part of myself."
He smiled.
Kate's eyes flared open. She almost hit him.
"What are you smiling about?"
"You care about that stuff?"
"Of course I care about that stuff you idiot," she said.
"Will you wait for me, at least?"
"What?"
"I mean, will you not go looking for a boyfriend or anything while I'm — "
"Oh, I don't know, I meet scrawny little superhumans who turn into monstrous creatures all the time, I may find a new one while you're gone."
"Now I'm jealous."
"I'm going to punch you."
"No you're not."
"Yes I — "
Titus kissed her. Just a quick kiss, light on the lips. She pulled back and really did look like she wanted to punch him.
Then, she kissed him back.
He bit his own lip at the force of it.
"You're taking me to a movie before you go."
"Okay," he said.
"I get to pick the movie. . . . And we're seeing something funny," she said. "I'm sick of everything sucking."
"Me too," he said.
For once, she smiled at him, and for just a split second, Titus thought she looked her age, without the world resting on her shoulders.
Out of a hot Florida sky, a single cloud fell. It moved faster than any cloud should, and with far too much purpose; it had a place to go, and nothing would stop its momentum.
The cloud took shape. It became a girl. Her eyes glowed like distant lightning, her hair the color of the summer sky, her skin mottled white and gray, ever changing.
She paused outside a small ranch, a modest home; peered through a window. She saw a man and a woman sitting together on the couch, watching television, but not watching television, the blank-eyed stare of those who are searching for anything, anything at all to distract them from the things that are breaking their hearts.
She wanted to call out their names. But she knew she was not the daughter they lost, and never would be again, and she was afraid, so very afraid, that she would startle them. She didn't want her mother to be frightened of her. Didn't want to break her father's heart.
But she wanted very much to say she was sorry for letting them down.
The sky clouded over. It was subtle, at first, then faster, and later a light mist began to fall. The sky wept, because the girl made of clouds was weeping, and the sky was her body as much as this form she wore to help her feel human.
Inside, she felt the other presence, the sentient storm, grieve with her. They had talked, the past few days, about their losses. Not spoken in words, but in feelings and memories. The little storm had lost her mother.
They'd come to understand each other, if only in the most raw and saddest of ways.
The rain tapped against the window panes. Valerie's mother stood up and closed the window closest to her, and then turned to look at the one Valerie was staring through.
Her mother's eyes grew wide. She called her father's name. He jumped up quickly, as if to defend his wife, but then he saw the face in the window, the face Valerie realized was not the one they remembered. But they knew. She could see it in their expressions, in the tears welling up in her father's eyes.
Together, they walked to the window, hand in hand. Her mother pressed a palm against the glass. Valerie put her own on top of it. Their hands stayed there for awhile.
Nothing would be the same.
Perhaps some things would be okay.
Saturday morning. Quiet. Three figures flew above the cloud line, surveying the world.
"How are we supposed to look after all this," Jane said, in awe.
She'd flown hundreds and hundreds of times, but she never stopped to look at the enormity of it all. This world went on forever.
"One day at a time," Billy said.
"When did you get Zen, Billy Case," Emily said. Her goggles were down, and the pink clouds around them reflected in her lenses.
"I'm not Zen. Dude's Zen," Billy said. "Just trying to listen to him more."
Jane breathed in sharply. She looked away from both of her friends. "I miss him," she said. "I never realized how much he was doing for us."
"We're gonna be fine," Emily said. "You're in charge. What can go wrong?"
"Everything," Jane said.
"No," Billy said. "That's what would happen if I were in charge."
"Or me," Emily said.
"You always do the right thing," Billy said. "We trust you."
"That's really comforting coming from two of the craziest people I've ever met in my life."
"Did she just say we're crazier than a werewolf?" Billy said.
"And Assassin Barbie," Emily said.
"I'm okay with that," Billy said.
"I'll take it as a compliment," Emily said.
"Great," Jane said, starting to laugh. "Titus leaves and now I'm stuck with the Comedic Duo."
"Is that our new nickname?" Billy said.
"I vote yes," Emily said.
They high-fived.
Jane laughed.
"You know, we have no name," Jane said. "We need a name."
"Team Emily," Emily said.
"The Unbeatables," said Billy.
"Invulnerables," said Emily.
"The Rock Stars."
"The Indestructibles," Emily said.
Billy and Jane both looked at her in shock.
"What was that last one?" Jane asked.
"The Indestructibles," Emily said. "It's what the ancient Egyptians called the two stars they could always see around the North Pole. One star is in the Little Dipper and the other is in the Big Dipper. They believed the area the stars circled and protected was heaven."
Billy's mouth hung open.
"Every once in a while I'm convinced you're the smartest person on Earth," he said.
"I'm a genius, yo," Emily said.
"And then you say something like that."
"It works," Jane said. "It really works."
"We're not indestructible," Billy said. "Maybe you are, but the rest of us officially don't qualify as indestructible."