The Push Chronicles (Book 3): Incorruptible (6 page)

"And you, Irene, you keep me from doubting myssself.  You keep me from ssecond-guesssing all my thoughtsss and feelingsss sso I don't go crazy from what thosse pigsss did to my head."

"I swear!"  To add an extra level of grade-school solemnity to the affair, I crossed my heart and hoped to die.

"I sswear!"  Medusa took it a step further, formally crossing herself in the Catholic tradition.

Maybe it was stupid.  Maybe it was childish.  It didn't matter.  There's a refuge to be found in the rituals of childhood.  More importantly, there was comfort in simply knowing there was someone else who understood.  Someone else who was there to watch your back and support you when you were down.

Whatever our new friends could do, how powerful they might be, that was one thing they couldn't provide.

"Now with that sssettled, my firssst official action to sssave you from yourssself isss to get you back to work."  Medusa rose off the weight bench in one graceful motion and gestured to it with a mock bow.  "It'sss all yoursss."  My arms already started lodging formal complaints at the mere thought of lifting even a pound.

"See, what makes you such a great friend is your boundless compassion and empathy for my pain," I snarked as I forced myself to ignore those protests and turn to lay back on the weight bench.

"It'sss what I'm here for, Irene."  Medusa flashed me a final smirk as I grabbed the weight bar to begin. 

Chapter 7 Mixer

The next few days passed quickly.  I had only the barest idea of where we were, a small property that Rachel and Duane had purchased and somehow kept off the record, but it was safe and secure.  Rachel, for her part, seemed to stay purposefully busy for most of her waking hours and I barely saw her outside of passing in the hall or momentarily at meals.  Probably for the best.  I still wasn't sure how I felt about her place as the master planner of all of this.  Unjustified as it was, the stubborn thought lingered as I worked it out of my system.

Duane, well, I had some small recriminations about him as well but that was countered by the simple fact the man had patched me back together more times than I could count.  There was something to be said for the doctor-patient bond.  Medusa and I were called up daily for a poking-and-prodding session to see how we were progressing to be ready to get out in the field again.

As for the B-team (something else that stuck in my mind and I felt horrible for), they were being constantly sent out in a mad scramble to at least present something of a resistance to the Crusaders.  It was at the end of one of these sorties, two days after I had started down the road to recovery, that we all had a chance to do more than exchange pleasantries.

Medusa was having her daily check-up with Duane, something I had a feeling was not a physical check-up like my own was, while I was running through a set of exercises in the small gym.  Honestly, I was feeling very positive about my progress.  My inactivity had been shorter than I had originally feared and, well, as much as I disagreed with the Whiteout's effects, some of those reality twists worked in my favor.  Even normal people seemed to bounce back quicker from illness, injury, that sort of thing.  Unfortunately, they died just as easily as before.  That grim thought pushed me through my next sit-up.

"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen," Quentin's voice echoed over the loudspeaker.  "In honor of our last-minute escape today, I'm whipping up a special brunch."  He had taken the affectation of a cheesy cruise ship host from the 1970s.  "Enjoy wonderful cuisine and mingle with your fellow resistance fighters!  It will be a wonderful morning for all."

Well, it was a hard offer to pass up.  I had worked up a hunger and at least most of that could be filled there.  Besides, these were the people I was going to be trusting my life with.  There was no better time to forge some kind of bond with them.  I sat up, toweled myself off, and headed to the dining room.

I had yet to figure exactly what this building had been before as I walked into the dining room.  My first guess had been an old hotel, but I was edging towards an apartment building or tower of condos.  After all, what we called the 'dining room' bore more resemblance to a repurposed living room.  An open bar-style counter led into the kitchen proper.  The very first thing that struck me as I opened to door was the positively divine smell of eggs, bacon, and coffee.  At least the Crusaders were keeping food flowing into the city somehow.

Voltage, still hurting my eyes, was hovering, sitting, lingering, whatever you wanted to call it, around the battered table in the center of the room.  Frost sat opposite of him, delicately typing on a laptop with her clawed fingers.  To her credit, the laptop was remarkably free of gouges or missing keys.  The 'I'm A Dragon In My Other Life' bumper sticker slapped on the back of the display was either prophetic or plain strange.

"Looking good, Doc," Quentin called from over the open bar.  He was in the middle of simultaneously tossing an omelet and a skillet of pancakes.  "I, and every red-blooded American male, appreciate your hard work."

"Eyes on the food," I shot back.  "I'd appreciate a non-burned non-spilled meal."  I certainly didn't mind a compliment, of course, but not quite in the vernacular of your average New York construction worker.  Quentin flashed a grin and tossed off a salute as he reached for a spatula.

"Don't mind Quentin too much, ma'am," Voltage buzzed as I grabbed a seat.  "He's kind of a screw-ball."

"It's a good thing to find humor in all of the madness around us."  Frost's sparkling sapphire eyes had crested the top of her laptop.  "There is far too little of it in this fair city."  She paused a moment, then smirked.  Well, I thought it was a smirk; I wasn't up to date on draconic facial expressions.  "Besides, Quentin's observation isn't exactly wrong.  You certainly seem to be back in fighting trim, Indomitable."

I dropped down into a creaking folding chair as I gave the dragon a fake sour look.

"Do I need to start fighting off suitors or something?  I just came here for the food."

"Ssssuitorss?  Why do I alwaysss misss the good ssstuff?" Medusa said, standing in the door frame.

"I can see I'm vastly outnumbered here."  I rubbed my face with my hands as Medusa dropped down on the bench with Frost, directly across from me.

"Well, you can always join us, Dr. Roman," Quentin noted as he slid two plates on the table before ringing a bell.  "Orders one and two are up!  Get it while it's hot!"

The witty repartee was broken up by the rapid succession of plates served up to sate everyone's hunger.  Quentin was almost a blur in the kitchen.  The best way I could describe it would be watching a hibachi chef applying all that skill and theatrics to the fine art of the short-order cook.  Greasy spoon meets Iron Chef.  It was, I had to say, impressive to watch.

"So does anyone know where our fearless leaders are?" the cook asked as he took a place at the table.  He must still have been dressed for whatever mission they had been out on.  In many ways, it mimicked my own gear: altered motorcycle gear but in shades of black and gray as opposed to my own very impractical white and blue.  Parallel thought or did he get a similar helping hand as I had?

"Duane sssaid he had to do sssome planning with Rachel and to not wait up on them."  Medusa tossed some crumbled-up bacon into the air for her snakes.  "How did thingsss go out there?"

"Our primary mission was a success, ma'am."  I found it exceedingly hard to look in Voltage's direction normally.  Watching him eat caused even greater visual confusion for me.  "Secondary objectives, well, no luck there."

"What was your mission?  What were the objectives?" I said as I speared a perfectly cooked sausage link.  "I don't know if we should be cheering or brooding."  If no one else was going to be very informative, the team might be.

"Recon on the Bank of America Plaza," Voltage reported automatically.  "Secondary objective was to try to isolate any of your former teammates to try to disable those Pushtech headbands."

"I'm not sure if we were supposed to be spreading that around, Vee."

"Sssorry, Quentin, but we need to know thesse thingsss too!"

"I obviously agree with Meds.  If Rachel or Duane have a problem with it, they can deal with me later."

I glanced between the three of them.  Quentin didn't look too off-put by Medusa's outburst, still chewing on a stack of pancakes.  Voltage's patterns had shifted which probably meant something, while Frost had closed her laptop.

"I can see the wisdom of both sides," the dragonwoman began.  "You are both intimately close to what stand as our most dangerous enemies at the moment, so there's a point in shielding you from it.  At the same time, well, I imagine you will both be with us out there soon.  Being ready to face them is just as important."

"I don't disagree exactly.  It's, well, we owe the Foundation a lot."  Quentin scratched his cheek.  "I don't want to come off as an ass when they ask us to do something."

"We can dissscuss the ethicsss of it later."  Medusa glanced in Voltage's direction.  "Did you guysss run into any of them?"

"Yes, ma'am.  They seem to do a good job of being around when we stick our heads above water.  Our clash was inconclusive."  The buzzing voice, past the strict military edge, seemed a bit disappointed.

"The info we were sent to get is more important than having a scrap to maybe possibly free up an ally."  Quentin frowned a bit.  "No offense to you ladies."

"None taken," I said, nodding to Medusa.  "We all have to make hard choices.  Greater good and all of that."

"I am not sure I entirely agree."  Frost steepled her silvery hands.  I hadn't noticed before, but even her claws seemed to be made of pure silver.  "For every member of the Five we free deprives Epic of one of his most powerful champions and adds them to our fellowship.  It's just simple math."

"That sounds great, but think about it like this."  Quentin scooped a spoonful of his delightful cheese-smothered scrambled eggs onto his plate.  "This, this is us."  He tapped the chipped serving bowl, heaped with more eggs, with the other.  "All the rest of these eggs, these are the Crusaders."  He scraped the barest hint out of the bowl and added it to his plate.  "That's the effect of snatching another of the Five."

"We almossst ssstopped thiss whole thing in the firssst place," Meds hissed.  "I think we count for more than a ssspoonful."  She gestured at me.  "Irene beat Epic down one-on-one, after all."

"That may be, but there's this thing called 'economy of action'," the cook said.  "It doesn't matter how bad-ass each of us may be if their numbers are too great.  You can take out, let's say, two of them at once, but there's still a hundred more coming down on you.  It's a physical impossibility to take them all down before they nickle-and-dime you to death."

It was a hard statement to counter.  Mackenzie had pointed it out before and I certainly realized the reality of it, even if I preferred not to.

"Come on, folks," Voltage said, speaking up before Medusa could add a retort, "it doesn't matter.  We didn't have a chance to make a move, even if it wouldn't have threatened our primary mission."

"Electric Company has a point," I added.  "Uh, no offense."  I looked around the table.  "We'll get them back and we'll put a stop to all this.  That
is
why you guys were working on springing me, right?"

"In a manner of speaking."  The draconic author made a motion as if to adjust a pair of glasses she no longer needed.  "The idea is that, with two people of Quentin's unique abilities, we can fight through and take down whatever they are using to generate the barrier and rescue your friend, Alma.  The cavalry is just beyond the edge of the dome, no doubting waiting to surge to our rescue."

"None of you were at the Battle of Washington, were you?"  I already thought I knew the answer, but there's always the chance I missed them in the wash of thousands of Pushed.  The trio responded with shakes of their heads.

"You don't know what the 'cavalry' will be like then."  Medusa knew what I was thinking.

"It could be good but, at the same time, it could go very bad.  As much as I want to get Alma out of whatever damn contraption they have her in, I don't know if we can risk it.  After Washington, it was like moving mountains to get the powers that be to back off and give us a chance to let the Pushed police themselves," I said.  I avoided shaking my head at the thought of all that lost goodwill.  "What Epic did here, no matter how well it was spun for the press, is going to ruin all of that, if it hasn't already."

"They might be right," Vee hummed after a moment's silence.  "Unless the Crusaders have a top-notch bullshit artist out there, the Pentagon's going to see this as an armed invasion of U.S. territory.  Heck, they will no doubt connect 'Crusader' with 'terrorist' and I doubt they will be too picky when it comes to dangerous-looking Pushed when they get in here."

"It doesn't matter."  Quentin had put down his silverware and his tone had darkened.  "There is no other way to win this.  Even with both Irene and myself, how can we beat a thousand man army?  Add on to that all the people who
do
support the Crusaders.  That is a lot of bystanders, not to mention those in the police and emergency services who are on their side."

"There'sss alwayss another way!  There hasss to be!"

I wondered about that.  I wanted to say yes, to agree with Medusa with every ounce of my heart.  It wasn't entirely the Whiteout thinking for me either.  I knew that once the military became involved, it would be lighting the fuse of the bomb.  At the same time, though, Quentin had a pile of excellent, realistic points.  The forces just weren't there for a viable Option B.  As I mulled this over, another aspect of the argument, a personal one, came into my head.

Like it or not, I had gained a reputation since the Battle of Washington.  People looked up to Indomitable, believed in that smiling image I posed for in pictures.  Whatever I said, if I gave it that same sincerity, would strongly sway everyone at this table.  So what was I going to be?  Irene Roman, scientist and realist picking the lesser of two evils in a bad situation, or Indomitable, relentless heroine who would always choose 'the other way', even if she had to make it up on the fly?

The argument had continued, polite but passionate, as I collected myself.  The pause I needed to say my peace came when I suddenly stood up from my chair.  Everyone at the table turned to face the abrupt movement.

"All of us here at this table, we want to save lives, don't we?  We want to protect the innocent and the people who can't stand up for themselves.  That's why we're here, right?"

One by one, they all nodded or gave a solemn yes in reply.

"We have a terrible choice to make then, it seems.  We can keep going how things have gone these past weeks, a delaying action at best from everything you have all said, or we break down that barrier and let the full wrath of the United States government, justified as it may be, wash down on this city.  Either way, it seems, thousands, tens of thousands, can ... will ... die.  Can any of you make that decision with a clear conscience?"