Lafferty, Mur (24 page)

"Hey, thanks," Keepsie called to her. Light of Mornings did not acknowledge her, but floated into Timson's office.

"Best not to bother her," Keepsie said, and went to check on Michelle.

Her friend was unconscious, which was a blessing considering the large wound in her shoulder. As the ice melted, her blood ran freely.

Keepsie turned then to Ian, whose face was bright red from the ice that had recently melted. It looked like first-degree frostbite, as Keepsie had suffered a spot of frostbite on her ear as a child and remembered it vividly. She patted a non-red portion of his cheek.

"Ian, hey, Ian. We need to get Michelle out of here. She's hurt. Well, so are you, but she's worse, I think. Then again, if neither of you can hear me, then I guess you tie at who's worse, and we'll just see which one of you dies first. I suppose I can drag you out one at a time. Hey, maybe Peter can help.

Oh, no, wait, the door is sealed shut."

Light of Mornings exited the room and frowned at Timson, who still panted on the floor. The girl raised her hand and her young face became ugly, morphing into a scowl that reminded Keepsie of a child about ready to throw a tantrum.

Timson swelled, and even as the light grew brighter, her form shimmered once, and then she was gone.

Before Keepsie could act, a wave of light and heat burst from Light of Morning's hand, focused on where Timson had been. It lifted Keepsie as if it were a warm hand and pushed her gently through the concrete wall, through the dirt and out through a hill about a quarter of a mile away. Her friends landed gently beside her and she looked up at the smoking remains of the Academy and thought what a nice day it was to be attacked by the strongest super villain there ever was.

Peter's shoulder ached from repeated attempts to bust the door down.

He had been resting, head in his hands, trying not to breathe the stench of the deceased Librarian too much, and hadn't noticed Timson's sealing of the door until it was too late. When he started hearing cries of pain and yelling, he doubled his efforts, but all he got was a sore shoulder and a promise of a major bruise.

About a minute before, he noticed that he had begun to glow slightly, which was somewhat alarming, but there was no pain associated with it, so he tried to ignore it. The ice had disallowed any scents to seep through, so he felt entirely blind.

Then the door had been blown off, and he only managed to throw his arms up to ward himself before it hit him. Only it didn’t hit him; it vaporized.

The shock wave knocked him into the opposite wall, which vaporized as well. He felt little pain - well, new pain, anyway.

He didn’t realize he had blacked out until he woke up. He picked himself up out of the rubble. There was no blood or new bruising; he was entirely unharmed. For a guy who bruised when brushing up against a counter, he seemed rather well-off.

He approached the crater that used to be the hallway, sticking his head slightly in and looking up the hall. The gaping hole in the ceiling dribbled fire onto the floor. He didn't see any of his friends, and Dr. Timson didn't seem to be anywhere either, unless she'd taken refuge in one of the rooms. Although none of the rooms looked as if they had survived the blast.

A hole in the wall next to the stairwell led to a crudely-and freshly-dug tunnel. Well, not dug so much as punched out. If this had been from a direct Light of Mornings attack, he assumed Keepsie would be all right, or rather, she wouldn't be dead, but the others…

Peter dove into the tunnel. The going was not as easy as he'd assumed it would be, but the glow that came from his skin gave him sufficient illumination. The floor was anything but smooth and his own breath sounded ragged in his ears as he stumbled along.

He had no plan, which frightened him. If they had come to a stop somewhere in the hill, broken and bleeding in a cave made by their own bodies, there wasn't much he could do about it except for maybe pull them out one at a time. But he couldn't leave them there.

Blood. Some day he would remember to use his power. He inhaled sharply, sucking the cool underground air through his nose, but all he smelled was earth. No strong smell of expired bodies. He stumbled over something -a tree root, it felt like -and lay panting on the uneven floor.

You could just stay here. You'd be safe from the fighting and the heroes and the demons and the villains. Your friends are probably dead. You're far enough underground to be safe. It sounded nice. He was so tired.

He dabbed at his forehead again, keeping the blood out of his left eye, and got up, trying to remember to keep stooped down. He squinted and thought he could see some light. He picked up his pace, breathing in Keepsie’s scent from the shirt he still carried. She wasn’t far away. He neared the edge of the tunnel, a hole punched into -or rather, out of -the side of a slope that led to a grocery store parking lot.

As he stepped out of the hole, he caught a whiff of something, a something malevolent, frightened, and slightly mad. He staggered back into the hole, falling onto his back, his eyes wide and blind, everything that Dr.

Timson had been and was currently overriding his brain.

Peter had never inhaled a superhero before. Not inhaled some of their body. He convulsed, rolled over to his side and vomited. He blew air out his nose as hard as he could, attempting to remove her. And still, the images ran through his mind.

Young, eager scientist, studying the effects of the super-drug. Offering herself up as a petri dish, wishing for a super-child. Rising through the ranks as her colleagues recognized her brilliance. Taking more time to build the secret Academy than raise her son. Setting up labs to make an even strong super-drug to give powers to adults.

The images came faster.

Loss, betrayal of her son, imprisonment, grief, rage at the Third Wave, situation spiraling out of control, forming her inner circle, finally, finally, before it was ready, testing the drug. Rush, power, excitement, base elements, power, loss of control, loss of sanity, loss of medicine, the Third Wave, always the Third Wave, they started it, they caused it, it was them, all their fault.

Peter clawed at his nose. This was worse than when he'd kissed Keepsie, he knew everything, and she knew he knew.

Stop it, stop it.

The race of images stopped, replaced with one image, that of Dr.

Timson, half of her face fire, half ice, still in her white lab coat. She grinned at him. Stupid Third Wave. Control is the first thing we teach those with powers.

With lesser powers, you'd think you could control yourself.

Get out.

I like it here. It's quieter than inside my head.

Please.

No.

He screamed then, clutching his head. He could feel nothing, see nothing, smell nothing but the woman inside his head. His friends were forgotten.

Keepsie sat up and looked around her. Ian and Michelle lay within ten feet of her. Had they lost their glow, or was it simply lost in the daylight? Was it daytime already?

Keepsie shielded her eyes, squinting. Or was it just the glow of Light of Mornings, who outshone the sun, hovering above the Academy? Her back was to the parking lot where Keepsie and her friends lay, and neither Clever Jack nor Timson were in sight.

"I wonder if we're going to start losing teeth." She got up and took stock of her body.

Ill-used, certainly, but there was an odd absence of any indication she had been hit square-on with a blast of nuclear power and blown through a wall and many feet of earth.

Her friends. She felt a stirring of worry. They couldn't have survived it.

Wincing, she approached Michelle.

Her wound still bled freely - need to do something about that - but otherwise she seemed fine. She stirred, groaning, but did not look to have the crushed bones and shredded skin and other symptoms of death that Keepsie had expected.

Ian, also unconscious, was much the same. Beaten up, sure: they'd had a bad day. But not looking as if he had lost a battle with a nuclear girl and a concrete wall.

Keepsie sighed. She was surprised that she was not more surprised. She leaned over, slipped her arm under Ian's shoulders, and heaved him up. She got her shoulder under his armpit with ease, and went to pick up Michelle. With little effort, she dragged them both behind her, heading for the bar.

Keepsie hadn't expected all the commotion. It was nice to walk through the empty streets without being attacked once. She didn't look to see if Light of Mornings was still there; she really didn't care.

The mech patrolled the sidewalk and it stopped when she got near. It ran at her, then, great lumbering steps.

She made a face at it. “Oh please.” It reached within ten feet of her and stopped cold, frozen in place.

She shook her head. “They’ll never learn,” she said to her unconscious friends. She dragged them down the stairs to the bar, then stared at the door.

It was closed. She had no hands free. She frowned at it, and it opened. She walked inside, banging Ian's head on the doorjamb before she remembered to sidle in, and the door closed behind her.

"Hey guys, can you help me out here?" she asked. That's when the commotion started.

"Good God, are they dead?" Barry cried, rushing forward to take Michelle from her.

"No, but she'll need a towel, I think."

"What happened?" asked Tomas, helping her lie Ian down.

"There was a fight. A couple of fights, actually."

"Where's Peter?" The voice was the usual matter-of-fact, cut-the-bullshit tone that Colette excelled at. It managed to break through the haze in Keepsie's brain. She rubbed her forehead, frowning. "I'm not really sure. We were separated. He smelled something bad. Then we got blown out of the Academy."

"Was that the blast we heard?" Colette asked.

Keepsie nodded. She felt uncomfortable all of a sudden. Colette motioned her into the kitchen. She followed meekly.

Colette wordlessly handed her kitchen towels from the linen cabinet, a plastic bag of crushed ice, and a first aid kit. Then, with Keepsie's hands full, she crossed her arms.

"How did you open the door?" she asked.

"I -" she paused. How had she opened the door? She didn't know. She just did.

"Does it have something to do with why we're all glowing?"

Now that she focused on Colette in the kitchen's harsh light, she realized that her cook was glowing, like her other friends had been.

"I thought that was just my eyes." She looked down. "Shouldn't we get these in there?"

"Yes, and as we clean up the others, you're going to tell me what happened. The guys are terrified, and how could you leave Peter behind?"

Without waiting for an answer, she banged through the door, which hit Keepsie in the elbow on the backswing.

Her head began to clear. She hurried after Colette and helped wordlessly as the cook directed Tomas on how to clean, dress and ice Ian's head wounds.

She and Colette pressed towels on Michelle's wound, which had slowed its bleeding. Michelle groaned as they applied pressure, and Keepsie sighed in pity and relief. She was alive enough to feel pain, at least.

"Jesus fuck," Ian mumbled. "Wha happen?" He rolled over and vomited onto Tomas’s lap.

Tomas got up to clean himself and Barry took over tending to Ian. "I feel like someone's hit me several times with a large stick," Ian said.

"Well, that looks to be true," Colette said. "What happened to your face, kiddo?"

Ian passed his hand over his face, and his eyes widened. "That bitch Timson. Now she's got like ice powers or something. She covered me with ice, I couldn't breathe. And I don't remember what happened after that."

Colette looked at Keepsie, but Michelle groaned again. She sat up with difficulty and Keepsie's help. "She's like an elemental or something." She looked around, frowning. "How did we get here?"

"Keepsie carried you. Both of you. And how did Timson get powers?"

Colette said, looking again at Keepsie.

"Wow? Is it that drug you took?" Michelle interrupted.

"I guess," Keepsie's words trailed off. Something was important.

Something that didn't seem important before.

"Drug?" Colette's voice was very soft. "You took that drug?"

"She was going to kill them," Keepsie said. "I think. I took one of the drugs that Timson used to get her powers. Or -I'm not sure what it was."

She pulled on her ear. If only she could think. Colette held out her hand, as formidable as a mother, and Keepsie retrieved a pill for her and handed it to her without comment.

Colette turned her back and stomped into the kitchen.

"What was that all about?" Tomas asked.

"She can figure out what's in it," Keepsie scowled at the floor. "Or rather, she can figure out how to use it to make the tastiest dish with it. From there she makes, um, guesses."

Michelle pulled the towel from her shoulder. The nasty puncture wound had nearly closed. She looked at Ian, who was no longer needing Barry's help to sit upright. "OK, this is not right. We should be seriously injured. What happened?"

"Oh. We got blown through a wall. That's right," Keepsie looked up suddenly. "Light of Mornings came back, looked for files, and blew us through a wall. We ended up in the parking lot of the diner. Oh, and I got a file. Here."

She handed the file she had managed to bring with her to Barry.

They stared at her as if she had suggested they form a militant commune in the bar and have lots of love children. The glow around them subsided and her head finally cleared.