The Indestructibles (Book 3): The Entropy of Everything (8 page)

      The subway tunnel was strangely empty. Doc paced slowly down the corridor, feeling the wet density of hard magic all around him. Someone had been casting here, casting large. Pulling terrible things to the surface. Someone who knew magic just as well as Doc did. Maybe more.

      The lights flickered. He turned around.

      Standing in the mouth of the corridor, Lady Natasha Grey, wrapped in an expensive duster, drew her collar up against the chill. Her eyes, like his, glowed with an inner fire, red-gold to his violet, like open flame.

      "What are you doing?" Doc said.

      The lights went dark again.

      Suddenly they weren't in Elephant and Castle station anymore. Light emanated from cracks of the black stone walls like molten lava. Arms of all shapes and sizes jutted out from the wall—disembodied demon arms, scaled or knobbed, skin deep red or jet black or bone white—reached and grasped at him.

      "Why you doing this?" Doc said.

      He conjured a weapon to his hand, another simple spell, the weight of an enchanted sword filled his grip. One of the monstrous arms grabbed him and he lashed out with the sword, slapping it away with the flat of the blade.

      "Natasha?" Doc said.

      She simply gazed at him. Her face blank, her expression stone-like.

      Doc began to cast a teleportation spell, hoping, if Natasha wouldn't answer him, he could simply walk away and figure out what this all was later. But the weight of a counterspell came crashing down on his own, preventing his escape. He tried another spell, a variation of the first, and felt a finely woven layer of magic holding him back. This hallway had been prepared for him, a perfect trap designed by someone who was aware of Doc's secrets.

      Someone who taught him everything he knew.

      "I'm sorry, my little doctor," Natasha said. "I really am. But this is simply business."

      "You can't do this," he said. Then Doc gestured with the sword at the Lady. "I know we never see eye to eye, Natasha, but you can't mean to . . ."

      "We've had a good run, you and I," the Lady said. "We've played our little game long enough. But all good things must come to an end. You were a worthy adversary and a fine student, Doctor Silence. I'm almost sorry to see you go."

      The arms that reached for him grew longer, their claws becoming more vicious. Doc gripped the enchanted sword with both hands, beating back the demonic hands. Then he felt something else biting into his skin, not claws, not a monster, but a spell. Something old, and terrible, and powerful, sapping his strength. His heart raced.

      "Why?" Doc said, realizing, suddenly, that Natasha had prepared this trap too perfectly, that he did not have the time, or the strength, to counter all of the tiers of counterspells she'd set up before he even arrived. This death trap was designed especially for him, and he'd walked right into it.

      Stupid wizard, Doc thought. You really thought nothing could stop you. This is your own fault.

      The Lady watched as Doc's strength, both physical and magical, drained. He fought viciously as the walls closed in on him. Red-tinted glasses knocked from his face and fell to the ground. They crunched beneath his own foot during his struggle to remain standing.

      "I wish things could have been different," the Lady said. She watched a moment longer, then turned and slowly walked away.

      Light in the tunnel faded to oblivion, Doc Silence thought of the future he would never see. So this is how it ends, he thought, feeling the darkness wash over him. Gradually his fist unclenched and the enchanted sword slipped from his hands.

      I hope I gave them all enough to survive, he thought. I hope I taught Jane well.

      And then, nothingness.

* * *

      Now:

      The group was quiet after future-Jane finished telling her story. Doc appeared unmoved, fingers steepled in front of his face as he listened.

      "And that was the last time we saw you," older-Jane said. "We found out a lot of the details later. The Lady covered her tracks."

      "And I hadn't been able to prepare you for dealing with her," Doc said. "You had no idea where to look."

      Future-Jane nodded.

      "Well that was some super-grim stuff," Emily said. "Holy carp. Got any more horrific fairy tales to tell us?"

      "More than I'd rather share," older-Jane said.

      Younger-Jane put a hand on Doc's shoulder.

      "You don't seem at all bothered by this," she said. "You okay?"

      Doc smiled.

      "Honestly?" he said. "I'm intrigued. I want to know what was offered to her for killing me. There were a lot of years when she was more than capable of doing so."

      "Please don't smile when you talk about being dead," younger-Jane said. "It's uncomfortable enough to talk about when you don't look amused."

      Emily hopped off her chair and popped the collar on her goofy red vest.

      "Me next," she said.

      "What?" both Janes said simultaneously. They exchanged alarmed glances.

      "Me next. We heard why Doc's not here. I want to know what happened to me," Emily said.

      The elder Titus shifted, his vast, muscular bulk causing the stage to creak.

      "That's a more difficult story," he said. "Let's feed you first. We'll fill you in during lunch."

      A couple of the older werewolf's pack mates led the group out of the theater. Doc, Annie, and, unexpectedly, Leto held back. When the room was nearly empty, Doc watched as Leto transformed, abandoning her Anubis-like werewolf form for a startlingly beautiful human one.

      "It's good to see you again, Doctor," she said.

      "Nice to see you as well, Leto. I'm glad you're here."

      "We did what we had to, these past twenty years," she said. "The last Whispering is doing well."

      Doc grunted.

      "We all knew Titus was special, even among the Whisperings," he said. "Is there a reason he doesn't change back to his human shape anymore?"

      "That's not my story to tell," Leto said.

      Annie glanced back towards the corridor she and the Janes had walked down to find Kate earlier.

      "I think I have an idea what the reason is," Annie said.

      Leto nodded in agreement.

      "Not the world you left, is it," the ethereal werewolf said.

      "It never is," Doc said. "Never is."

Chapter 16:

The Watcher

      It's almost over, the White Shadow thought, gazing at monitors and watching the world crumble to dust.
It's almost over, and I did this.

      It began so innocently, the vigilante reflected. We initiated all this with the best of intentions. No, we started it with murder didn't we, with kidnapping. We set off on the wrong side of good and never crossed the line back onto the other side of right.

      But this is what the world deserves, the White Shadow thought.

      In the vigilante's lair, old newspaper clippings hung from the wall, dating back more than fifty years. Photos of the Shadow on the front page, shaking the mayor's hand after preventing a terrorist crisis, hand on the shoulder of the police commissioner after stopping a crime spree, wrapped in the arms of relieved citizens when the Shadow solved a major murder.

      This is what the White Shadow did for decades. Saved the day. Made the world a better place. Put bad people behind bars, ensured good folks got home safe to their families.

      Except, for every newspaper clipping, there were fifty unsolved murders. For every joyous photo, there would be a hundred awful things the Shadow would never be able to prevent. For every reunion with a rescued family member, there was the heartbreak of knowing someone would never go home.

      We tried for a little while to make the world a better place, the White Shadow thought. All of us. Fools and angels, throwing our lives away for people who never appreciated it, for those who never deserved it.

      That's what broke the Shadow's spirit, twenty years ago. Knowing that all the good intentions in the world amounted to nothing. The world is comprised of scales, the Shadow thought, and they were always tipping in the wrong direction. We don't deserve this world, the Shadow thought. We have never deserved it.

      And so twenty years ago the White Shadow resolved to change things in a different way.

      They realized the girl was the key to it all. And understood she would need someone to control her. And knew there was only one person who could stop them, one person who had enough understanding of just how powerful the girl really was. And so Doc Silence was eliminated, and Keaton Bohr recruited, and the girl snatched. It should have been so simple.

      But now it's almost over, the White Shadow thought. Because it all went too far.

      They didn't deserve it, he thought, eyes flitting back and forth between the yellowing pages of newspapers and the grim, gray images of the monitors all around the room.

      We gave them peace, and they didn't want it. We provided them safety, and they waged war. And now look at what we've become. A world torn apart, dying on its feet like a decaying and feeble old dog. We destroyed all the evil in the world and yet mankind just kept manufacturing more. No matter how many displays of power, no matter how much destruction the White Shadow's forces wrought—and there were forces, followers, acolytes who believed in implementing peace, who believed that humanity needed to be told what to do in order to become better—no matter how much they did to hammer their message home, perpetual wars still, perpetual fighting.

      So they can have this gray old world a little longer, the White Shadow thought. Because I know how it all ends. This is a place that never sought happiness. And it's time to destroy it and allow whatever the universe deemed worthy to follow them have an opportunity to try.

      I've got the might to rip this world in half, the White Shadow thought. I've offered them Solomon's choice, and they've chosen wrongly.

Chapter 17:

Once and Future

Entropy Emily

      "I want to know about me," Entropy Emily said, her mouth full of something passing for frozen pizza in the area the future Indestructibles were treating as a kind of kitchen and mess hall.

      "You're five feet tall, talk too much, and are too smart for your own safety," Billy said.

      He looked more than a little worse for wear, clearly not taking the news that his future incarnation had made the ultimate sacrifice long before the younger Indestructibles arrived.

      "No seriously," Emily said. "We know you're dead."

      "Say it again. Louder. And with even less sensitivity," Billy said.

      "And we know Titus has become Conan the Barbarian Werewolf King. And that Jane grows up to be all glowy and hot."

      "Really? And that's the detail you focus on? Hot?" younger-Jane said. Their older counterparts were speaking with Doc just out of earshot, though clearly not far enough, because older-Jane turned to look back at them when Emily spoke.

      "You're literally on fire," Emily said. "That's pretty hot." She took another bite of pizza but kept talking anyway. "And Doc let the Lady murder him. So it's my turn. I want to know what happens to me," Emily said.

      "I think I can answer that," Anachronism Annie said, breaking away from the conversation with Doc and the others.  

      "But you weren't here," Emily said. "I want it from the horse's mouth."

      "Annie knows more than we do, actually," future-Jane said. She sat down next to her younger self.

      Emily looked back and forth between them and repeated the motion as if unsure where to focus her eyes.

      "It's true," Annie said. "I've done some time-digging to try to figure out exactly what happened."

      "Well we know what happened. Doc never came to get me," Emily said.

      "Yes and no," Annie said. "Near as we can tell, there were two incidents that altered your future. One was, in fact, that Doc wasn't here to monitor when your powers manifested themselves."

      "Next comes the 'and' doesn't there?" Emily said.

      "Yep," Annie said. "
And
, the other thing that happened was that you got hit by a car."

      "I've never been hit by a car," Emily said. "Not for lack of trying. I like jaywalking. It's become kind of my sport."

      "How did your powers manifest originally, Emily?" Annie asked, smirking as if she knew the answer already.

      "I told you, I'm a fan of jaywalking," Emily said. "A car almost hit me. I bubble of floated them away. Then I bubble of floated a lot of other cars away, then problems happened, then Billy tackled me and got me out of there."

      "Yeah," Annie said. "In this timeline, that car hit you."

      "Well that doesn't sound even remotely fun," Emily said.

      "Fine," Annie said. "Let me tell you what happened."

* * *

      Twenty years ago:

      Well, Emily thought, lying in a hospital bed with a concussion and a broken leg, maybe jaywalking is overrated.

      It happened so fast. I guess that's how you get hit by a car, she thought. If it had happened slower she could have gotten out of the way. But she'd darted out across the street, as she had a thousand times before, only this time her usual luck hadn't accompanied her. Boom. Crash. Emily street pizza.

      It could've been worse, she thought, I could've been road kill. Instead, I'm sitting here waiting for my mom to come yell at me for running into traffic again. And I can only imagine what will happen if she finds out what outfit I was wearing when I got run over.

      She never thought she'd be so happy to be dressed in a hospital johnny.

      Emily kept thinking back to the moment of the accident, though. The strangeness. She'd thrown up her arms—apparently that's what you do when you know you're about to be hit by a car, you panic and raise your arms up in front of you as if that's going to stop the car—and for a moment, a crystal clear moment, Emily was absolutely sure she could stop the oncoming car. That she could just . . . make it float away.

      But that didn't happen.

      One might deem what happened to Emily afterward floating, but at a high rate of speed, with a very sudden stop.

      There was something else, too. In the haze of the aftermath, the terrified driver trying to call 911, the police who were first to arrive on scene, the EMTs stabilizing her, somewhere in there, Emily thought, I swear I saw someone wearing a mask. A white mask, covered his face, leaving it blank. He—was it a he?—wore a dark suit and an old fedora, a red tie. Don Draper meets a pulp fiction action hero. Simply standing there, casually, content to watch Emily die.

      Except I didn't die. Rather, I broke five bones and my head has ached for the past four hours, but I'm not dead.

      And then the painkillers they'd given her finally kicked in, and Emily nodded off.

      When she woke, everything had changed.

      Her mother spoke quickly to someone just beyond Emily's line of sight. Emily propped herself up on her elbows, creaky and groggy.

      "Mom?" she said, aware that she was about to sound very whiny, and forgetting that she was probably in more trouble than she knew. Her mom had been killing her on the stop-jaywalking thing lately.

      And then Emily saw the nurse on the floor.

      Something was happening in her room.

      "Mom?" she said again, trying to shake the cobwebs out of her head. Her mother pointed at a man in a suit. Emily blinked a few times, and as the man came into focus, she saw he had no face.

      "Where's your face?" Emily said, louder than she intended.

      Her mother stopped talking. The man with no face turned that blank expression—it was a mask, she knew just like the person she remembered at the scene of the accident, a person in a suit wearing a blank white mask—towards her.

      "Leave my daughter alone," Emily's mother said. "You're not him. Not the real one. I knew the real Shadow, you're a fake—"

      The man in the suit pushed Emily's mom aside, deliberately knocking her into a chair beside Emily's bed. When her mother tried to get back up, the masked person hit her with the flat of his palm. The strike startled Emily, made the words catch in her throat, yet her mother didn't appear hurt. Stunned, definitely, but not really injured, as if the masked person had wanted to simply subdue her and not put her down.

      "You're something special, you know," the masked person said.

      The voice was wrong. Too high-pitched. The wrong age. She expected someone from
Mad Men
under there, not this.

      "I'm such a special snowflake you don't even know," Emily said, trying to climb out of bed. "And I'm going to show . . ."

      The room swam, her belly flip-flopped. Emily bit her lip, trying to fight the nausea, the soury sickness of her stomach.

      "Listen, Rorschach, why don't you just back off before I . . . do something I'll regret!" Emily said. She slid her feet to the floor and put up her fists like something she'd seen Rocky Balboa do. Or maybe it was from
I Love Lucy
? She suddenly wasn't sure.

      The masked person lifted a hand and, before Emily could fully register what was happening, fired a dart from a small gun. The dart sank into Emily's bony shoulder, and she felt the area around it go numb.

      "Sorry, Emily," the mask said. As whatever drugs Emily had been hit with crashed into her system, strange faces began forming in the shadows of the blank face. "But we need you in one piece, and we need to hold off manifesting those powers of yours just a little longer."

      "Powers?" Emily said. She tried to sit back on her bed, but slid to the floor instead. "I have powers? Are they pew pew powers, or kablammo powers?"

      "Something of each," the masked person said.

      Emily felt her consciousness slipping away and she was lifted from the floor and deposited into a wheelchair.

      "You don't know it yet," the masked person said. "But you and I are going to change the world."

* * *

      Now:

      "Remind me to never ask you to read me a bedtime story," Emily said.

      "Just telling you what we know," Annie said, shrugging. "Your powers didn't manifest in the same way in this timeline, and someone else got to you first. "

      "And the rest of the Get Along Gang never came to get me?" Emily said.

      "This was so early on we hadn't discovered Doc's files on other super-powered individuals yet," future-Jane said. "By the time we knew to look for you, you were gone."

      Future-Titus shifted again.

      Emily found herself incredibly jealous of the way the entire room deferred to him when he simply moved—everyone, future hero and the ones from her own timeline alike, stopped what they were doing to watch the older, scarred wolf when he made a motion. She was about to ask him how he did that but then he started talking.

      No one else talked when older-Titus spoke either, Emily thought. I want to learn how to do that, too.

      "We did eventually find out you were on the list of people to watch, but it wasn't until our enemy started using your powers as a weapon that we knew how to look for you," older-Titus said.

      "And by then, we were looking for ways to stop you, not recruit you," the other werewolf said, the one whom Emily had started thinking of as Lucky Charms.

      "Who really took me, then?" Emily said. "Was I recruited by the Emperor? Is it the Cybermen? All things being equal, I'd rather get recruited by the Sith than a race of cyborgs."

      "Of course you'd rather join the Dark Side," Billy said.

      "I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints," Emily said.

      "Did you really just quote Billy Joel? Are you suddenly fifty years old?"

      "Well there is, in fact, a version of me running around who is almost forty," Emily said. "The same of which cannot be said about you, so—"

      "You have to be the meanest person I've ever met," Billy said.

      "Watch the hyperbole there, Spud," Emily said.

      Jessie and Finnigan exchanged a quizzical look.

      "Are we sure she's not actually supposed to be a villain?" Jessie said.

      Younger-Titus, always the most mortified person in the room, was holding his head in his hands, rubbing his hair anxiously. "We have this conversation all the time," he said.

      "I mean seriously, what's the worst thing I could've done?" Emily said. "I make bubbles of float, it's not like I'm actually a nuclear weapon."

      "You destroyed California," future-Jane said.

      Silence overtook the room. Everyone stared at older-Jane, and then back at Emily.

      "What?" Emily said. "I didn't do it. The other Emily did it. Wait, I destroyed California?"

      Future-Jane looked to her younger self, and then to Doc. Both nodded to her in return.

      "She can handle it," younger-Jane said.

      The elder Jane took a deep breath.

      "You know how there was always talk of the wrong earthquake pushing California into the sea? How the San Andreas Fault or something like that might lead to a natural disaster that would tear the geographical area apart?" future-Jane said.

      "I think I'm being unfairly accused here," Emily said. "In our timeline there's some kid running around who can make earthquakes we haven't caught yet. Clearly it's his fault."

      "No," future-Jane said. "No, we know exactly what happened. One of your gravitational fields appeared and engulfed the entire California coastline years ago. Cars floated away. Buildings unmoored. But we could fix all that. Your powers had been used to cause that kind of destruction before, in New York, in Chicago, but in small areas. A city block maybe, a few square miles."

      "I floated the entire state?" Emily said. "Can I be impressed with myself?"

      "You didn't float the state, Emily," future-Jane said. "From what we can tell, you put one of your—"

      "—Bubbles of float."

      "You created one of your bubbles of float around a huge swath of California, and then you . . . just held it. And you let the rotation of the Earth do the rest."

      "I don't get it," Billy said.

      "I get it. I understand. Think about when Watson tries to run after a squirrel but you're holding the leash," Emily said. "And he reaches the end of the leash."

      "The poor little guy gets jerked backwards," Billy said.

      "So she used the weight of the earth to tear California away," younger-Jane said. "That's got to be the most terrifying thing I've ever heard."