The Push Chronicles (Book 3): Incorruptible (13 page)

"No, that isn't what we're supposed to do!"  Polymer expanded as she cried out, her stature stretching with her emotions.  "We're supposed to be the good guys!"  One of her hands blew up like a cartoon character blowing up her fist and she slammed it into the poor, defenseless table.  The spray of splinters bounced around, harmlessly funneled away by what I assumed was one of Mind's Eye's telekinetic fields.

The look of embarrassment on the girl's face was rivaled only by the tears threatening on the corner of her eyes.  Frost, having tensed in anticipation of battle, relaxed and crossed around the splintered table, putting her hands on the elastic teen's shoulders.  Good, I was happy to let Frost handle that as I turned a hard eye on the two older gentlemen.

"I think she's cast her lot.  So, I have to ask again, are you in?  It's not like I'm asking you to do anything I haven't had to do already."

Fray lowered his head once more and whispered what I assumed was a prayer.  Twister cast an apologetic look at his young compatriot, who had buried her head against Frost's chest, and turned back to me.

"Yeah, we're -"

"Armored truck, coming down the street fast," Duane's voice shouted over the warehouse's intercom.  "Get ready for," he continued, interrupted as the front end of the building caved in, "trouble."

The sound of a roaring engine segued seamlessly into the cacophony of shattering stone and bending steel.

"Impossible," was the only word that Twister could get out as the armored personnel carrier's doors were flung open.

"That's happening a lot lately," was my answer, shouted back as I was already up and moving.

Chapter 15 Battalion

What came out of those metal doors was one of the few things lately to truly give me pause.  It wasn't the fact that the small platoon of armed thugs coming out of the armored car all looked identical; I had faced down duplicators before.  It wasn't the fact that I recognized them: he, well, they were all Battalion, one of Epic's right hands.  I had met him before, briefly, when facing Bathory's vampire army.  Sure, I hadn't known he had a power like this, but I supposed you have to earn the title 'One-Man Army' somehow.

What gave me pause was that all of these things were completely unreal.  Unlike every other Pushed entity I had encountered, dead, living, or created, there was no core of reality, nothing I could see at any rate.  I could very well be completely untouchable by these things but the reverse was also true.

"I've got these guys!" the Mighty Polymer shouted, taking the problem completely out of my hands as she blithely defied the laws of conservation of mass, stretching and expanding as she stepped over our heads.  "Get out before the rest come!"

"Kid's right," Twister said as he turned for the back door.  Winds were already starting to whip up around him.  "I don't know how he found us but he ain't gonna be alone."

Two titanic hands pushed out like a plastic tidal wave, sweeping all of the Battalions back into the vehicle they came from.  I let that sublime mental focus take over and followed Twister's advice, hopping over the shattered remains of the meeting table.  Before now, Epic (or whoever was calling the shots) had been willing to play the 'tit-for-tat' game, meeting us with equal numbers, making it easy to forget he had a thousand Pushed at his beck and call.

"We're leaving, folks," I called out to my team as I made for the door.

"What about her?  We cannot abandon -" Eye began but, to my surprise, Frost cut her off.

"I think we should not fear for her, instead fear for her opponents."  With a beat of silver wings, the dragonwoman was at the door first, tearing it off its hinges.

Mind's Eye cut off her retort and took flight, with myself and Fray Justicia right behind her.  I didn't even take a look back to see the source of the sounds of rending steel and glass.  The back alley seemed clear and staying off the main streets were our best plan to ditch pursuit so I simply pointed left, hoping to keep the others together.

"We will need more speed than what you two can offer, no offense," the Indian psychic pointed out before we had even reached the end of the alley.  "Twister?"

"I agree, ma'am.  Friar?"  Twister looked at the masked grappler, who replied with a nod and a leap into the lawman's cyclonic forces.  It was a testament to his control that Justicia wasn't buffeted about and instead suspended improbably in a relatively stable position.

"Indomitable?"

"Do it."

I stopped where I was and waited for that brief moment, one that seemed far too long knowing we were sitting ducks, as Mind's Eye focused her concentration.  There was a grinding sound as the chunk of asphalt beneath my feet ripped free, suspended by the psychic's telekinetic power.  Sure, she couldn't pick me up directly, but this would do.

"Now go!" I shouted.  The din of the initial confrontation was starting to quiet but anyone with half a brain could hear the sounds of engines and the screech of turbines in the distance, from all directions.   I won't even mention all of the unnatural sounds I couldn't classify coming towards us.

The kid gloves had finally come off.

The wall of blowing dust behind us courtesy of Twister was a help, certainly, but was only a mild deterrent at best.  It wasn't a shock that we were overtaken in short order; even flying, we weren't moving nearly as fast as I knew the fastest among the Pushed could go.  Even so, the exact form of first contact was startling enough.

I risked a glance back, hoping to see a glimpse of Polymer catching up to us.  It was a vain hope but it did give me just the hint of a warning in the form of a glint of rainbow light.  There was no time to shout my surprise before that glint became an encompassing beam and then I was off my asphalt surfboard.

The impact knocked the wind out of me as I was carried, held aloft in the middle of the rainbow beam.  Though fuzzy and dispersed, I could make out the real shape of Wavelength, the living rainbow, who looked almost as shocked as I was.

"Epic was right, this
did
work!" the Japanese woman shouted above the din.  Though she was incorporeal light to the rest of the world, to me she was quite real.  I'm not sure, though, that Wavelength considered the double-edged sword of this situation.  At least she didn't until I slammed my elbow with stunning force right into the back of her head.

Yes, it wasn't the safest way to get free from a flight that was going to end with disaster but it had to be better than the previously intended ending.  The grip around my waist went limp as Wavelength's energy form spiraled away from me.  Sadly, away from her grasp, the laws of physics, strained as they were by the Whiteout, took over and I hurtled through the air with no way to stop my arc before hitting something.

There was a feeling of passing through tissue, no doubt a desperate attempt by Mind's Eye to grab me before I hit something, and a sudden rush of something red, white, and huge to one side but everything was flying by too quickly for even my accelerated mind to take it all in.  I somehow had the foresight to curl up into a fetal position and cover my head with my arms right before I hit something.

It certainly wasn't a wall.  Instead it felt like falling into a dense but pliant cushion, saving me from an instant splatter to a slow but still violent splat.

"Fly ball caught!  You're out," came the echoing, gleeful shout from all around me as I tumbled down the elastic form of a rather huge and stretched out Polymer.  I couldn't help but wonder just how much of her expanded form was real if it could slow my fall like this, though it certainly felt good to be alive.  That sense of victory was short-lived as my slide slowed and, now on my back, I could see the onrush of Crusaders breaching the rolling tsunami of dust and debris.

The sudden impact from Wavelength had put me almost a block ahead of most of my other friends but they were about to be overtaken by more than a dozen others assailants.  That seemed to be only the first wave.  Every size and shape of colorfully costumed form was on display in that swarm of misguided righteousness.  The sheer mass of unreality made my eyes scream in a fashion they hadn't since the Battle of Washington.

"Oh crap."  There was a hint of fear, justified in my opinion, in the Mighty Polymer's voice.

"Polymer!" I shouted up, hoping that the stretched-out teen could hear me.  "We have got to go!  NOW!"  It was probably stupid to think we could get away at this point.  There were just too many of them moving too quickly and guided by who knew what sources of information and divination powers.  I jumped down to street-level, more confident on my own two feet than an unstable platform of unreality, just as they fell down on us like hail stones.

"Did you really think you'd get away with this?"

I tried to pay as little attention as possible to the booming voice of Battalion over a loudspeaker.  After all, I had bigger fish to fry as I slammed my fist hard into the Pushtech armored flier who had presented himself as my first target.  It really had become so simple as 'fight or flight' and flight, well, that was off the table now.  All we could do was go out in a blaze of glory.  Rational Irene was screaming in my ear right then.

"We can forgive our own.  After all, what soldier at one point doesn't question his orders?" the one-man army continued.  "But you, Indomitable, you and your gang of criminals, have had every chance to be part of the inner circle, to do the right thing, to follow an honorable commander.  Still, you refuse at every turn."

One sweep of a comically oversized hand swatted down a few Crusaders from the sky but the elastic teen was swarmed by four Pushed each projecting a different raw element of nature: fire, earth, wind, and water.  I figured most of that couldn't hurt her too badly, but the fire...

I grabbed Armored Thug #1 and spun once on my heels, throwing him like a track and field hammer at the fiery Pushed as Polymer let out a shriek of pain.  It was a spot-on throw, bowling both of them aside and taking out an immediate threat, but I was left wide open, a fact communicated to me by the hard impact of a kick to the small of my back.

"Well, the offers are over.  I have been fully authorized to take you and your rebellious band down through any means necessary."  There was an unmistakable glee in the man's voice.  I think he was getting off on this.  "Order will be restored.  Order will be maintained!"

I staggered from the kick and turned just in time to see another lightning-fast foot follow it.  Some Pushed in an Asian dragon-themed motif was my designated sparring partner at the moment.  Unfortunately, whatever martial arts skill was slammed into his head by the Whiteout seemed to leave out one of the basic rules that even I, in my very limited self-defense training, knew.  Kicks are impractical at best and a lethal mistake at worst.

Matching my attacker's reflexes with my own accelerated speed, I blocked the incoming kick easily and took advantage of the opening it provided, stepping into the arc of the high kick to drive my left hand hard into his crotch.  One down, thousands to go.  Sure enough, as soon as he fell away shrieking, I was tackled by another two costumed Crusaders and driven to the ground.  I had the distinct thought that this could be going better.

The one that had wound up straddling my chest, about to bash my head in with two steel hands, took a preemptive punch to the face as he was about to swing.  Much to his shock, his steely skin didn't save him as I broke his jaw in one clean strike.  Tackler #2, though, had a solid grab of my foot with one scaly hand (he had six of them) and picked me up by the ankle, by my bad leg of course.  I was about to have a painful date with the asphalt when Mr. Scaly suddenly froze.

In fact, almost everyone froze.  Even Battalion's amplified braying ceased.  The only sound other than Twister's blowing wind (something I was strangely overjoyed to hear) was a continual chant in Latin.  No, it wasn't a chant.  It was prayer.  Distinct and continual.  Everyone, Crusader, rebel, or teammate, had the distinct look of someone either totally at peace or totally stoned, depending on how you thought of it.  Mr. Scaly even put me very gently back onto the ground and let go.

Fray Justicia was not more than ten yards away, the crowds having parted slightly around him.  He was on his knees and fervently praying.  I wasn't one to put stock in miracles, but I couldn't process this in any other way.  He was praying for peace, no doubt, and he was getting it.  Even I couldn't help but feel an overwhelming sense of calm, but I certainly still had a deep desire to punch Battalion's face in.

The problem was that this was, at best, a holding action.  The friar wouldn't keep praying if he didn't need to and we couldn't leave him.

Could we?  Or maybe that was the point the whole time.

"Battalion!" I shouted above the prayers.  "We're leaving.  No more fighting."

"I-" The effort to try to resist what was going on in his brain was obvious as Battalion replied.  "I can't force you to stop but" - his teeth were clenched hard, I could tell - "there will be a reckoning.  There already is one."

I ignored that last implied threat as the Crusaders began to check on their wounded as the battered-but-standing forms of Twister, Mind's Eye, and Frost caught up to Polymer and me.  Even under the full-face mask, I could see the sweat rolling down Justicia's neck.  It might be some kind of miracle, but whatever source it was coming from was charging a high price.

"Let's go.  Now.  Fast."

We were all carried aloft again and on our way to our rendez-vous point (hopefully still secret and safe) in moments.  Once more I was ferried along by Mind's Eye, this time with an even more stylish bit of transport in the form of a sewer cap.  Not that it was much comfort, leaving the friar behind.  He had been willing to lay himself on the line and be captured with not even a thought to his own safety, just to get us free.

Of course, who knew how long that freedom would last?  We were given a head-start, nothing more.  I hated it.  I hated not being in control of the situation.  Right as things seemed to be turning around, once more, things were falling to pieces.  My mouth felt dry and I had the sudden desire to have my medicine cabinet full of pharmacological wonders right here with me.

"We're compromised."

The sudden break of radio silence was jarring enough.  The message was worse, delivered by Rachel Choi herself.

"They're breaching the building now.  We're going full torch."  That meant they were going to quite literally burn the place down, destroy any information that could be used against us.  "Good luck, people."

And then, there was static.