The Push Chronicles (Book 3): Incorruptible (12 page)

"Well, my thought is we try to fry two eggs in one skillet," Quentin said.  He opened his right hand.  "Dr. Roman and one or two of us meet our possible new allies while the rest of us," he opened his left hand, "see if we can draw out and get the last of our guys back on the right side."

"We'll see what we can manage," Rachel said absently, her fingers now gliding over her tablet.  "Eye, get back in contact with our new friends.  I take it we have no objections over this meeting?"

There wasn't a single one. 

Chapter 14 Meet

My calf was still sending jolts of pain up my leg as I gingerly tightened the laces of my boots.  Fortunately, this was all planned, at least on my end, to be as non-violent as possible.  It was just going to be a peaceful talk with some like-minded individuals.  The fact that I was laughing to myself as I thought that spoke volumes as to how likely I thought that would really happen.

"Should I even ask why you are laughing like an idiot while looking at your foot or is it just a private psychosis?" Quentin said flippantly, leaning against the door frame.  Unlike me, he was already fully suited-up and ready to go.  "Don't answer that.  Just letting you know the train is about ready to leave the station."

"It's alright.  Crazy is relative anyway."  I put some weight on the injured leg.  It was going to hurt like hell but I would manage.  "I'm about ready."  I suppressed the limp as I moved to the bare dresser and picked up my mask.

"Excellent.  If this goes as smoothly as it should, we'll be two steps ahead of Epic for once."  I could hear him fidget as I brushed on the spirit gum.  "I guess that is assuming a lot though."

"Hey, optimism isn't the worst thing to be feeling right now."  Carefully, I pushed the mask into place, holding for just a moment to let the spirit gum do its magic.  "Before we go out and potentially get ourselves killed, do you mind if I ask something?  Call it scientific curiosity."

"Sure, I'm an open book.  Well, at least an informative pamphlet."  To no surprise of mine, he was smirking as I turned to face him.

"How did it happen for you?  I mean, how exactly did you become a Natural?"  Ever since I had figured what Quentin was, I was curious.  How I came to be made a strange sort of sense and Mackenzie's story dovetailed into my own but I was grasping at straws as to how what I assumed was a short-order cook could have his eyes wedged open to the Whiteout.

"Oh, that's easy," he said, pushing off the door frame.  "The recipe was wrong."

"I'm not sure I entirely follow."

"Well, Dr. Roman, you certainly have to have examined some of your science-y texts since things went White."

"I have and -"  That's when it clicked.  "Oh!"  I snapped my fingers and pointed at the cook.  "The recipe was wrong."

"Right!"  He rubbed his gloved hands through his close-cropped red hair.  "Oh, sure, it was just a smidge off here and a bit more there but it had changed.  Something that I had served up every day for three years straight was suddenly not the same."  Quentin chuckled.  "It didn't help that the rest of the world had gone crazy that morning.  It just smelt funny to me."

"I can understand that."  I snapped my gear bag around my waist; that was about everything.  "Still ... a recipe?  I can fathom that but -"

"Hey, you take your science seriously.  I take my cooking seriously."  He turned to step out of the door.  "There's nothing saying that stubborn dedication to one's work is strictly connected to big stuff like that.  I'm a great cook and I strive every day to be better at it, even if I have to take breaks to fight bad guys, save cities, and annoying stuff like that."

"Hey, I didn't mean anything by it," I offered as I followed him.  "In fact, really, it makes a lot of sense when you put it that way.  Very enlightening."  I was being sincere.  Quentin's short-but-sweet statement helped drop a few more pieces of the puzzle into place.

"I am glad I could be so helpful, Doc."  He flashed me a smirk.  "So, good luck with your Crusader buddies."

"Good luck with saving the rest of my friends.  Don't hurt them if you can avoid it; friends are a commodity in short supply these days."

"I'll take that under advisement."  Quentin snapped off a short salute as we met up with our respective teams.

The distribution of forces had been quite simple.  I needed to be at the meeting so Quentin was in charge of the 'nab our friends' group, splitting our Natural advantages.  Medusa's influence over Hexagon was obvious and Voltage would best be able to leverage the knowledge we had swiped about the helmets (crazy Pushtech though it was) with his own powers, so that rounded out Strange's team.  As for mine, Mind's Eye had been our point of contact so far, so she was already an obvious choice to go with me and Frost would be able to provide muscle if we needed it.  It didn't hurt that she had proven to me to be surprisingly insightful, if a little stuck in the heroic-fantasy mind-set.  It wasn't any worse than the other Pushed, after all.

We made our good-byes, wished our good-lucks, and set our new communication frequency.  With everything in place, we got down to business.

Despite Mind's assurances that the thoughts in the minds of those we were about to meet were pure, I was still anxious.  The fact of the matter was that things could turn crazy in a moment when Pushed were involved.  It seemed almost a requirement that any meeting devolved into at least one moment of tension, if not an outright brawl, before everything got peacefully resolved.  Still, this was a necessary part of the plan, the one I had put forward, so I just had to suck it up.

At least we had the advantage of semi-home turf.  All sides had agreed on a neutral meeting place but, considering what we were doing was certainly frowned on by the current regime, some concessions for security had been made.  The warehouse in which we currently waited was another emergency safe house, one of several it seemed that Rachel and Duane had set up using Foundation funds.  I shouldn't have been surprised, really.  If you were a normal sticking your nose in on this kind of thing, you would want every contingency covered.

The important point was that, though it wasn't exactly familiar terrain, the dynamic duo of Brooks and Choi had the place wired for video and sound (internal and external), as well as remote control over the electronic locks on the main entrances.   It wouldn't make much difference if things did get hairy, but it was still nice as an early-warning system of impending trouble.  Having an actual record of what happened here would also be a plus in later planning, no matter how things went down.

"The hour of our conclave has come and past," Frost rumbled as she paced.  "Perhaps some foul play has interrupted our potential allies?"

"No, all is well," Mind's Eye said as she blindly stared at the back doors.  "In fact, they are here."

Never one to doubt the seer's senses, I turned towards the object of her gaze.  Our watchers must have seen the same thing she did, as there was a chime that indicated the doors had just unlocked.  The metal emergency exit pulled open and three figures hurried into the cover of the old warehouse.

I really shouldn't have been shocked to see Twister among them.  Even through my fevered haze in prison, I had known the old cowboy's heart just wasn't in what Epic was selling, not this invasion gig anyway.  Likewise, the other man in their little trio was obvious: Fray Justicia, the masked
luchador
who claimed to have a direct hotline to God.  While I wasn't about to buy that, he had, in the few times I had encountered him, held himself to a higher standard than others among the Crusaders.

Their last companion I only knew from the files.  One of the youngest among the Crusaders ranks, the slight five foot tall teenaged girl was known as the Mighty Polymer.  As silly as the red-and-white clad girl's name was, Polymer was one of the Crusader's heavy-hitters, with a body composed of some super-tough elastic substance that gave her immense strength and all kinds of bizarre shape-shifting powers.  I guess we both felt the need to have muscle on hand for this.

"Indomitable."  Twister tipped his Stetson as the three Crusaders approached the meeting table and its chairs, the only pieces of furniture gracing the maze of aisles and crates.

"Twister.  Sorry about the whole beating thing but -"

"Water under the bridge."  The sentiment seemed truthful enough.

"
Si
," Justicia added, "our opposition in the past remains there.  There are more important things, matters that linger over the good people of this city, which must be attended to."

"A noble intention, but perhaps it should have been considered before your army sought to wrest control of it, eh?"  I couldn't fault Frost's logic but now wasn't exactly the best time.

"Hey!  Things looked pretty awful when we got here."  Polymer crossed her arms and pouted.  "How could we know that it wasn't like Epic said?  We thought we were helping."

"Okay, look, let's stop this before it even starts."  I looked around the table.  "Mistakes were made and shit happened."  The elastic girl was the only person at the table to blush at my language.  "If we decide to have the blame game right now, we won't get anywhere."  Mind's Eye inclined her head in a soft nod to show her agreement.

"Right, so quiet down, you two.  We ain't got time for that."  A stern look from the lawman quieted Frost and seemed to especially chastise his fellow Crusader.  Polymer seemed to almost deflate an inch or two from the gaze.  I rubbed my eyes as the interaction of the unreal and the real in the teenager's body made my brain throb.

"With that out of the way," I continued, "we know why we're here."  I gestured to my team.  "We're trying to free the city, get it back into the hands of the proper government, and hopefully cut off the military before they can get in the dome and wage good old-fashioned warfare."

"For our part, we desire what is best for the people here," the masked priest said, gesturing outward.  "That would now seem to be to try to convince Epic that this is not the best course, to counteract what has been done."  His full-head mask disguised his expression but as he turned his head down, I could feel a sense of regret.  "I had been unsure of what he had proposed from the start but I let the assurance I had felt in what he represented overtake my good judgment."

"'Course, that would be assuming we could even talk to him.  None of us ain't seen hide or hair of Epic outside of a few scattered meetings here and there."

"There was the big speech-thing he did right after the, uh, take-over thing."

I glanced at Polymer quizzically, but it was Frost that answered the question on my mind.

"Epic broadcast an address over the airwaves in the city right after the dome fell.  He even had his image projected through some arcane means into the sky so none could ignore his declaration."  Frost shrugged and flapped her wings.  "It seemed of little importance to tell you about earlier.  The usual prattle of any dictator justifying their actions."

"Such things can never be justified."  Mind's Eye absently rubbed at the center of her forehead, where her behavior-warping helmet had rested.  "Freedom is vital for good to take hold."

"Look, I ain't agreeing with how some things happened, but you've got to have order for society to work.  Sometimes, a little freedom is the price you pay fer the safety to exercise the rest of those freedoms."

"I believe we are once more going off course," Justicia said with just a slight raise of his voice.  "What is important is Epic has become a hermit king and that, above all, is why this meeting is happening."

"We want to fix things but, without him, we don't have a choice but to do things another way."  Polymer bit her lip.  "I, well, I just don't want to have to fight anybody to do it.  We're all good guys, right?"

"That might be."  I sighed.  "I don't see how we are going to avoid a fight of any kind though."  Epic's sequester was not what I expected to hear about.  I wasn't sure how to judge it ... was he even in control anymore?  "Just how far are you and the others who agree with you willing to go against your fellow Crusaders?  Right now, I don't know exactly what we might have to do, but if you guys aren't one-hundred percent committed ..."

The implied conclusion hung in the air as the three Crusaders shared glances.  No doubt they had a telepath in their mix like we did, letting them mentally conference.  If not, they must have talked long and hard about this before.  Even the most naive person in the world, a title I suspect might be currently held by the Mighty Polymer, must have known this would come up.

"You know that you ask a very hard thing for us to agree to."  Fray Justicia shook his head gravely.  "For brother to turn against brother -"

"Silence!"  The bitterness in Eye's interruption wasn't unexpected but the outburst itself was.  "How dare you say such a thing when that is what you Crusaders have forced us to do?  I have been made to lash out against those I hold dear.  Every one of us among the Five and, most of all, Indomitable have had no choice but to do the very thing you flinch from now.  You have no right to complain, to shy away from what may very well have to be done!"

"...what does she mean, Mr. Twister?"  Again, nothing but innocence in the teenaged Push Hero's voice.  I guess when you have a thousand-man army, it's easy enough to tell people only what you want them to hear.

"Again, I never liked it but Gaslight and the Doc, they made these helmets that -"

"I did not know what it was they intended to do.  If I had, I would have done something sooner."

"Done what?  What did those helmets do?"

"Well, kid, I was told they were just supposed to change people's behavior like, well, instant rehabilitation.  Help them think straight and not cause trouble while they came around to our side."

"That's not exactly what they do," I added.  "It's far worse than -"