The Indestructibles (Book 2): Breakout Page 8

  "Titus, the Whisperings were the only ones who didn't forget. They kept our secrets and brought us home, and that's why the hunters almost wiped you out," Leto said.

  "For being the good guys?"

  "For trying to stop a war everyone else was having too much fun bloody fighting," Finnigan said. "If there's one true thing in the world, it's that nobody likes a peacemaker."

  Chapter 18:

  Red tape

  For once, the Department arrived on scene before we did, Jane thought. The Indestructibles flew to the hospital en masse, Kate taking one of the flying cycles, a beefed up long-distance version she rarely used. They landed together in the parking lot to find Prevention and two of her sidekicks already there.

  "What are they doing here?" Kate said, her sneer audible in her tone.

  "I have a bad feeling about this," Emily said.

  Jane started walking across the parking lot and Prevention moved to meet her, wearing a hazmat suit without the mask. She held out a hand and Jane shook it.

  "Didn't realize you were medical experts too," Prevention said.

  "You're an infection control ace?" Kate said, sidling up to Jane's right.

  Prevention smiled, but Jane could feel the irritation radiating off of her.

  "We cover the weird things," Prevention said. "And this is definitely getting weird. Five locations and nowhere else? Something's up."

  "Which is why we're here," Jane said. "Figured we could help."

  Prevention raised an eyebrow.

  "Got any leads? Something you can give us to point us in the right direction?"

  "No," Kate said.

  "We're doing what we can," Jane said.

  Emily, who had been hanging back until now, chimed in.

  "Clearly it's a targeted sentient virus," Emily said. "It's spread through ticks and kissing. You're in terrible danger."

  "We haven't met yet," Prevention said. "I'm Agent Prevention."

  "I'm Double O Stop That."

  Billy snorted.

  "Em," Jane said.

  "She knows who I am. I'm famous."

  "That's true enough," Prevention said. "And you're Dancer."

  Kate grunted.

  "Well," Prevention said. "It was almost nice to meet you. I'm going to have to ask you to leave, though. Sanctioned personnel only on site."

  "We might be able to help," Jane said.

  "Sorry, not my call," Prevention said. "The Department is only here in an advisory capacity. The CDC is in charge right now. You'll have to talk to them if you want to get inside. Unless you have some information you think might help us figure out what's going on."

  Jane gave Prevention a blank look.

  "If we find anything, we'll be in touch."

  "Okay then," Prevention said. "I've got to get back to work."

  She turned and walked away briskly, pulling the hood up on her hazmat suit as she got closer to the building.

  "What a delightful human being she's turning out to be," Billy said. "Was Sam the aberration in the Department or have they just decided to hire mean people now?"

  "Speaking of, were you ever able to reach him?" Jane asked.

  "Not for a few days," Billy said.

  "Do me a favor," Jane said. "You two go to his place, make sure he's okay."

  Billy nodded.

  "What are you going to do?" Billy said.

  Jane gestured at the empty space where Kate had been standing previously, and then at the roof of the hospital where a lean figure was clearly breaking into the building.

  "I'm going to wait around in case Kate gets arrested," Jane said.

  * * *

  It took Kate thirty seconds to scale the building, fifteen seconds to break in through the rooftop access doorway, and five minutes to locate the security office inside the hospital where the security footage was kept. Overall, a disappointing result. I have to be better than this, she thought.

  Unfortunately the security suite was occupied, men in hazmat suits reviewing surveillance video. Kate had assumed this would be the case, though. Which was why she'd stolen a hazmat suit of her own — ninety seconds — and fogged up the inside of the mask enough to hide her identity. Another twenty seconds. She entered the room with a badge she'd palmed off a CDC agent on another floor and informed the men she was with the Department and wanted to look over their shoulder. They obliged her.

  The men ran the footage at a high speed, so the medical staff and patients whizzed around like bugs with too much caffeine in their system. After a while, a pattern emerged. A single figure, slender, gender undetermined, wearing a hat, hiding his or her face. This same person appeared on floor after floor, in unit after unit, subtly at first but then growing more and more erratic, dancing over prone patients on the floor, taunting doctors who couldn't stand up. Kate backed away when she saw him heading to the nursery.

  "I've seen enough," she said.

  The men nodded.

  "Does the Department need a copy of the footage?" one asked.

  "Sure. Have it sent over?"

  "You've got it."

  Kate exited the security suit and saw someone walking down the hallway looking vaguely familiar — one of Prevention's agents. Kate couldn't make out his face, but he had the walk of a fighter, not a scientist, and was clearly heading for the suite.

  Kate turned and walked away.

  "Hey!" the agent yelled. "Hey! I need to talk to you."

  Kate turned, tapped an imaginary watch on her hand, and continued walking. The agent broke into a run, and Kate let him catch up just as she was passing a janitor's bucket and mop. She yanked the mop out, swept the agent's legs out from under him, and dumped the bucket of dirty, soapy water onto the linoleum floor.

  Then she started running.

  She went up, taking the stairs, headed for the roof. She could hear activity in the stairwell below, muffled voices and heavy footsteps. She reached the rooftop, pulling a short length of chain obviously kept there for a lowbrow security measure, and slammed the door behind her. She used the chain, which had a padlock hanging from it complete with key still in the lock itself, to fasten the door shut.

  And then she realized she was on the rooftop with nowhere to go.

  Forty-five seconds. That's how long it took someone to start banging on the rooftop door. She could hear a foot pounding against the door itself, trying to break the chain.

  Five seconds. The amount of time it took her to decide to jump off the roof and take her chances. Kate got a running start, not even bothering to remove the hazmat suit, and leapt over the edge of the building.

  Two seconds of hang time. Adrift in the air. Nothing to hold onto. Her grappling gun inside the suit, unreachable.

  Half a second. Two impossibly strong arms hooked under her armpits, radiating a strange and familiar heat, the world whipping by as she moved with incredible speed away from the hospital.

  "Tell me you got what you were looking for," Jane said.

  "It's a person," Kate said. "A human being is doing this."

  * * *

  It didn't occur to either Billy or Emily that arriving at Sam's apartment building in costume was a terrible idea. They landed at the foot of the front steps of his brownstone and exchanged awkward glances.

  "Well I mean, we're here," Emily said. "Do you want to go home and change?"

  "That seems like an incredible waste of effort."

  "Also we're famous."

  "Yeah," Billy said. He walked up to the front door, rang the buzzer, stepped back and waited.

  Emily ran out of patience first and leaned on the button. For a long time.

  Dude, are we able to jimmy locks with our powers? Billy thought.

  Jimmy locks?

  Breaking and entering. I mean I've done this before but I had tools and stuff, Billy thought.

  I have never tried it before, Dude said. Breaking and entering really has not been something I have needed to do before. It is not . . .

  Heroic?

>   Practical.

  Can we blow the door off its hinges?

  Even less practical, Billy Case.

  I'm going to try blowing it off its hinges.

  I will not let you.

  Gawd you are such a party pooper.

  "Are you talking to your alien again?" Emily asked.

  "Yes. Trying to figure out if he'll stop me from exploding the door."

  Emily sighed and leaned her forearms on every single buzzer she could reach. The door unlocked.

  "Have you never done this before?" she asked.

  "I should have thought of that."

  "Stick with me, pumpkin, I'll make a crook out of you yet," Emily said, striding into the building like she lived there.

  Upstairs, they found a few days worth of mail piled outside Sam's door. Emily knocked, then knocked again, then pounded on the door with two small fists.

  "Oh my gawd he's had a heart attack," Emily said. "Open it!"

  "How?"

  "Blow it up!"

  "Dude?"

  Hit the door, Billy Case.

  Billy slammed his shoulder into the door and his signature blue-white light flickered, alien energy redirected to the impact site. The door snapped easily off its hinges. Emily, without thinking, expelled a hand gesture and the door stopped falling. She floated it gently to the floor.

  "I do this like we didn't just break his door," Emily said. "Oh, let me place the door we just kicked down on the floor nicely, because we're polite."

  The dark apartment was small, modest, tidy, with stacks of books and dark, aging furniture. The photos on the wall were of a younger Sam and a woman — his wife, Billy thought, he said she'd passed away but he never told them much about her — smiling back at them from vacations on Cape Cod, in Paris, in the Florida Keys.

  "This is where he lives?" Emily said. "It's so . . ."

  "Lonely," Billy said.

  "It is. Why didn't he come live with us?"

  Billy picked up a coffee cup on the tiny table in a small kitchenette. The surface of the coffee was oily and gritty, as if the cup had been sitting unfinished for days.

  "Em, check the bedroom." Billy said. Billy pushed open the bathroom door. Please don't let me find him on the floor, Dude. Please.

  He is not here, Billy Case.

  Billy yanked aside the plain blue shower curtain to find the tub empty.

  "Billy!" Emily yelled.

  He went tearing through the apartment to the bedroom to find Emily standing by the nightstand, replaying a phone message.

  "Sam has a girlfriend!" she said. "Listen listen."

  Emily hit the play button again. The voice on the line sounded older, not nearly Sam's age but mature, and happy, and kind.

  "Where have you been, doll?" the woman on the line said. "Are we still on for dinner tomorrow? I'm worried about you. Give me a call and let me know you're okay? It's not like you to play mysterious. Love you."

  "Girlfriend!" Emily said. "Sam. Girlfriend. He's so old. I wonder if she's old too. She doesn't sound old. Maybe it's a May-December romance! Or September-December. He is bald. Also mustache."

  "Girlfriend who hasn't heard from him in a few days, Em," Billy said.

  "That too."

  "Carp."

  "Yeah. Where the heck is he?"

  Chapter 19:

  Breakout

  Where are you headed?" Jane asked, watching Kate walking out of the control center in full uniform.

  "I've got to do a street patrol. I've been negligent."

  "Right now?"

  "I'm the only one who does street-level patrolling. Someone has to do it."

  "I just mean," Jane said. "We've got clues about who or what is making these people sick. We need you here."

  Kate's mouth softened from a hard line into a gentle frown. She kept pace in direction of the landing bay, but then slowed to let Jane walk with her.

  "Let me do this," Kate said. "It'll clear my head. I'm no use to you all wound up."

  Jane nodded.

  "You want company?"

  Kate raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  "I just mean you've got a few people looking for you. I'm offering to watch your back."

  "No," Kate said. "No offense. Seriously. I just need a few hours alone. Maybe I'll come up with some way of figuring out this other thing if I can get some fresh air."

  They looked at each other for a minute, an awkward, uncomfortable silence, and then Jane smiled.

  "Watch your back," she said.

  "I always do."

  Kate hoped on one of the hoverbikes and took off. The dog, who had trotted down alongside them from the control room, barked at the bike and chased it a few feet until he realized he'd never catch it. Then Watson fixated on something behind Jane, one paw lifted off the floor.

  "Oh no," Jane said. She spun around.

  The pink-haired woman stood there, once again in that same olive green shirt, the same red sunglasses. She reached out to Jane like a person trying to catch a rapidly closing elevator door, flickered, and disappeared.

  "Neal! Is there anyone else on board?"

  "Only the dog, Designation: Solar," the computer said. "Who, I should add, has been marking his territory. I have had the auto-scrubbers clean up after him but I sense this only encourages him."

  "Never mind."

  Billy and Emily returned, both looking confused.

  "What are you doing hanging around the landing bay?" Billy asked.

  "Losing my mind," Jane said. "Did you find Sam?"

  "We have confirmed Sam has a girlfriend," Emily said. "We don't know, however, where he is. We can assume he's not with that girlfriend though since she's looking for him also."

  "He wasn't at the apartment," Billy said. "Not for a while, either, by the looks of it."

  "This is so strange," Jane said.

  "I know! What do people that old do when they go out? Bowling?"

  "Em," Jane said.

  "I know."

  Just then Neal chimed in with a screeching alert tone none of them had ever heard before. It was loud enough that Emily actually startled. So did the dog.

  "Why! What is with the beeping!" Emily said.

  "Your feet actually left the ground," Billy said.

  "I think I peed my pants," Emily said.

  "What is it, Neal," Jane said.

  "Incoming call from Jon Broadstreet, Designation: Solar," Neal said. "I believe there's been a prison break at the Labyrinth."

  * * *

  "No other information to report, but that's what my sources are saying," Broadstreet said. He was larger than life on the communications screen in the control center. Emily had insisted on giving him a number to dial in with months ago, something both Jane and Kate had balked at, but so far he usually provided good information when he called.

  "Do we know who got out?" Jane asked.

  "They're not allowing the press anywhere near the site," Broadstreet said. "It's offshore so we'd have to rely on our news choppers, but the Department has set up a perimeter and isn't letting anyone close enough to see."

  Jane rubbed her eyes. Without looking up, she spoke. "Has anyone been hurt?"

  "They have a complete blackout," Broadstreet said. "Look, this is all I have. I just wanted to let you know."

  "Hoping for an exclusive if we fly in and save the day?" Billy said.

  "A man can dream, right?" Broadstreet said. "Hey Solar. Do me a favor?"

  "I'm not promising you an exclusive, Jon."

  "Not what I was going to say," the reporter said. "This just . . . it looks fishy? Okay? It doesn't feel right. Be careful if you head in there."

  Emily laughed. Jane ignored her and just nodded.

  "We'll look out for ourselves, Broadstreet. Thanks."

  "Always. Luck, Solar."

  "You too."

  Emily turned to Jane. "You should totally go on a date with him. You'd be so cute. Also I think you could use a break."

  "After we deal with this situatio
n," Jane said. "What do you think?"

  "They've got some awful people locked up in the Labyrinth," Billy said. "Old school villains from Doc's days. People who are a lot more trouble than what we've dealt with before."

  "You think we should hold back?"

  "I think whoever broke out of there is probably too much for the security and Department agents on site," Billy said. "I think they're in trouble."

  "Up, up and away?" Emily said.

  "Looks like," Jane said. "Neal? Ping Kate, let her know where we're headed and we could use some backup."

  "Yes, Designation: Solar."

  "Up, up and away," she said.

  * * *

  The Labyrinth predated Doc Silence and his team by a generation, though it had been updated frequently over the years as the super-villains emerging evolved in new and more dangerous ways. An off-shore, man-made island, it was a honeycomb of specialized containment units, each uniquely designed to house the villain in question and to neutralize his or her powers.

  It extended all the way to the sea floor, possibly even further, though no one outside of the Labyrinth permanent team really knew everything that occurred there. It had provided a service, a safe place for criminals too powerful and too dangerous for a normal prison to contain, for over fifty years.

  The Indestructibles had never been past the front gate. On a few occasions they'd dropped off criminals they didn't know how to handle themselves, handing them over to the care of the armored security forces there, and as they approached from the sky, and Billy found himself suddenly wishing he'd paid more attention.

  We have no idea what they do in there, Dude.

  Horizon said they treated the prisoners humanely, Dude said. I myself never set foot inside.

  You don't talk much about Horizon, Dude. Who was he?

  Horizon was another like me.

  Is he alive?

  I hope so, Dude said. He went on a mission into deep space years ago with his partner.

  Partner? Another one of you?

  No, Billy Case, Dude said. With his host. As you are my partner.

  We're partners?

  To call us partners does not mean I think us equals, Billy.