"Tell me this Star Trek nonsense has a USB port," she said.
"To your left, near the bottom."
Kate nodded and slid a new thumb drive into it.
"There wasn't much," she said. "But the funny thing is, Andrew told me, it looked like there was a kill switch on their computer that should have been activated if some specific protocol occurred. He said it was like intentionally putting a virus on your computer."
"They had a failsafe," Titus said.
Kate looked back over her shoulder at Titus, who felt as if he had said something wrong. Not having an idea what he might have done to upset her, he sat down in the chair next to her.
"Yeah, a failsafe," she said. "But remember all the water damage we saw?"
"Probably from the storm."
"Exactly. Well, a few of the machines — the laptop I stole, for example — were damaged by the water almost immediately. They basically became inert objects before the virus could be fired up."
"But if they were inert objects, doesn't that mean they'd be erased?" Titus asked.
"It's like Andrew told me. Nothing is ever really gone," Kate said. "Look, I don't know how he does this stuff. But he was able to salvage a few files. I mean, really, only a few. Not much to go on."
Kate investigated the excessively complex console again.
"Is there a friggin' mouse on here somewhere?"
"Track pad. Right there. It's hard to see."
"Dammit, I need to get better with computers if I'm going to do this detective stuff. I'm way behind."
"You're better than the others," Titus offered.
"Jane knows how to Google and Facebook. Billy can find dirty pictures online without accidentally downloading malware. That's about the extent of his abilities. And Emily, I found out, is some kind of part-time professional Internet troll."
"When does she have time to be an Internet troll?"
"In between sessions of being an antagonistic first person shooter videogame addict, I'm guessing. Did you see what she was doing in there when we walked by? Being a horrible person to people she'll never meet."
"She might need more to do with her time," Titus said.
"I'm not sure if that would make it better or worse. I swear she's posting on Reddit while we're on missions." Kate slumped back in her chair. "Anyway. Andrew found a few leads. Some names. One was a sociopathic teen-aged girl who barely survived a car wreck. Sound like anyone we've met?"
"I can offer a guess."
"And then there was this one," Kate said. She opened up a text file.
Project Designation: Valkyrie Snow
Project Rating: Partial Success
Overview: Subject Valkyrie Snow was an attempt to merge a sentient weather pattern (captured off the coast of Norway [date redacted]) with a human body. Body acquired from Malcolm Height, MD, Miami Central Hospital — body belonged to Caucasian female, age 18, victim of hit and run, vegetative state. Appropriate bribes authorized for transfer of body and necessary paperwork to be filed for subject's legal death.
Initial merging was a partial success — subject began manifesting post-human temperature/weather control abilities immediately. Storm abandoned body within seconds, however. Process to be examined for flaws in retention. Ideal situation would be a permanent merger. Concerns that the storm's mass, while transient, cannot be limited to single mundane body.
During phase two of the experiment, however, the sentient storm exhibited unexpected intellect and immediately made an escape attempt. Security was increased; several post-human mercenaries have been brought in to supervise.
Tracking implants have been placed in test subject's body, as well as electro-stimulation implants intended to use pain as a control mechanism should the storm remain in-corpus. By the request of management, we have also placed a cortex bomb in test subject's skull. Should all else fail, we can terminate the human component.
"Okay, maybe I'm a little slow, but . . . Sentient storm?" Titus said.
"You know as much as I do," Kate said. "I'm more concerned about the phrase 'cortex bomb' and the fact that it sounds like they bought a girl's still living and breathing body off of a doctor in Miami."
"We have to tell Doc."
"We do," Kate said. "But I was thinking — what if we went to talk with that Miami doctor first? We could see if he remembers anything about these body snatchers."
Titus smiled.
"We could play good cop, bad cop," he said.
"I get to be the bad cop," Kate said.
"But I'm a werewolf. I'm inherently bad cop by definition."
Kate flashed her most vicious smile.
"Okay," He said. "You're bad cop. But how are we going to get to Florida on our own? We're a little . . . sedentary."
"Weren't we just saying there is someone living in the tower who could use more responsibility?"
"Emily," Titus said. "But do you think she'll have a problem if we play the bad cop card?"
"You haven't seen what she posts online," Kate said. "She might be more evil than either of us."
Chapter 22:
Valkyrie
Her name was Valerie.
She was born in a suburb of Chicago to a pair of pleasant if slightly boring parents; her mother was a realtor, her father an engineer, and they met later in life, and married later in life, and retired young, when they were tired of the harsh Illinois winters. They moved to Florida with their daughter, who was a teenager at the time, too young to stay behind, but old enough to resent them for taking her so far away from the life she built.
She acted up. She misbehaved. Nothing criminal, but often enough and recklessly enough that when she lost control of her car and drove headlong into a truck on I-95, there was more resignation than shock.
Her best friend, another reckless rebel, died instantly. Valerie ended up in a coma.
The oncoming truck and the flashes of pain and confusion during those first few minutes were the last things she remembered until this other being took control of her body.
She sensed the other presence, knew it was alive, but it never spoke. All Valerie felt was this creature's raw emotions: rage, confusion, loneliness. When she opened her eyes she saw only the black and yellow clouds of a ferocious storm, and sometimes the ocean beneath her, or flashes of destruction she knew the storm — that she — was causing.
But when she closed her eyes, she could see everything.
She was the eye of the storm.
And it was thrilling.
After the first few hours, she felt an agonizing electric jolt beneath her skin, inside her. It tore through her, all the way to her bones. It seemed to try to push her in one direction or another, the right side would hum with electric pain, causing her to jerk away. The storm never left her behind; if she pulled away, the clouds and rain went with her.
But the third time this happened, the other thing, the presence, took notice. She felt it turn its attention to the pain, and the next time the shocks began, she watched as the electricity was diverted from her body, out into the clouds like lightning.
And she heard a voice. Not with her ears. She heard it from within, some stranger inhabiting her own brain.
"No," the storm said.
"Who are you?" Valerie asked. "Will you let me go? What's happening?"
And again, the voice spoke.
"No," the storm said.
Days went by without another word. Valerie watched like a passenger in an airplane as the world flowed by.
And then someone was there in the storm. An intruder. Valerie called out to her, yelling for help, but she felt the storm fighting her, hammering her with rain and hail, trying to push her back.
"Let me talk to her!" Valerie yelled. "Please let me talk to her!"
But the storm pressed on, growing more violent; Valerie could feel the rage at this intrusion like it was in her own heart. She experienced something else also though, a thrill, a living strength as the storm built in her limbs, in her veins. Sh
e felt stronger than she ever had in her entire life.
And she was terrified.
Then the other girl appeared, dressed so strangely in a red and gold costume, cape flapping violently in the wind, her hands on fire, like torches held in front of her to light the way. They locked eyes. Valerie reached a desperate hand out to her.
But the other girl was swept away.
Chapter 23:
The Hospital
Kate performed a bit of research before their surreptitious flight from the Tower, and found that this Dr. Height had an office on the fifth floor of Miami Central Hospital. Emily flew them in with surprising ease and brought them to a soft landing on top of the building because Kate was positive they would have an easier time avoiding security if they broke in from the roof. With the hospital clocking in at six stories high, it also meant fewer floors to bypass while hunting for Height's office.
They landed. Titus dropped to his knees and all but kissed the ground.
"It wasn't that bad," Kate said.
"I rocked this trip," Emily said.
"I was convinced every time you got distracted you'd forget about us and let us fall," Titus said.
Kate refuted him. "Look, I only almost did that once and you barely noticed."
"You did forget about us!"
"I said almost!"
Kate ignored them and found the access door on the rooftop. Locked from the inside, she gave it a solid tug, then put her booted foot against the frame and tried to use her lower body strength to pull.
A familiar outdoorsy smell drifted from behind her. She turned to see Titus in werewolf form, those giant white teeth gleaming in the ambient light of the city. He looked ridiculous, the loose-fitting size-morphing pants Titus had taken to wearing (yoga pants, Emily called them) now stretched tight across the wolf's massive legs. He still wore an oversized hooded sweatshirt, but big enough that it simply appeared one size too small instead of ripping along his back.
"Teenage mutant ninja werewolf," Emily said, laughing.
The werewolf — Titus, Kate reminded herself, for she could see him looking back at her through those luminous wolf eyes — reached past her, grabbed hold of the door, then firmly gave it a yank. Kate half expected him to over-do it and alert the whole building, but he exhibited surprising restraint. There was a clank when some part of the lock snapped, and the werewolf pulled the door open the rest of the way.
"Um," Kate said. "If you can, maybe you should change back to human. You're a little conspicuous."
"You're dressed like Assassin Barbie," Emily said. "And you're picking on him for being conspicuous? I'm the normal one here."
"Titus, if you can't change back, it's okay — you can wait here. We'll come back," Kate said.
The wolf shook his head vigorously. Then, almost comically, one huge, clawed hand reached out and pulled up the hood fastened to his sweatshirt. It did hide his massive ears, but the grayish snout still jutted out into the open.
Emily started giggling.
"The better to eat you with, my dear!"
"That isn't even a little bit funny," Kate said. She reached up and gently adjusted the hood so it wasn't crushing his ears awkwardly, and draped it a little better to mask his jaws.
"That'll almost do. Just don't look directly at any security cameras."
Not that it really mattered, she thought. She was already convinced security knew they were there, and if they didn't now, they would within seconds. Emily did have a point. Showing up in costume wasn't their best idea, though it provided the fringe benefit of hiding their identities if they were caught. Emily's ridiculous steampunk goggles hid her eyes and, because of their size, half her face, and Kate's own mask was intentionally designed for anonymity.
They rushed in, sticking to the fire access stairwell until they reached the fifth floor. Kate stepped out into the hallway first, checking room numbers. Great, she thought. We came in at the wrong end of the building.
"Quickly," she said. She changed to her most confident walk and started following door numbers in the direction of Height's office. Behind her, Emily mimicked Kate in such a way that Kate began wondering if her confident saunter actually made her look like she was nursing a hamstring injury. Poor Titus shuffled along last, arms so long they almost reached the ground, his weirdly jointed werewolf legs bowlegged and awkward under the harsh hospital lights.
They reached Height's office door without incident. Apparently this area of the building was mostly administrative, with no wandering patient families to spot them.
"Follow my lead. We're going to rifle his office, see if he has any documentation we can use to prove his connection to the test subject. If we get lucky, he'll show up and we can ask him ourselves," she said.
"Keen, yo," Emily said.
Titus nodded.
Kate opened the door.
Dr. Height sat at his desk eating a sandwich, which he dropped onto his desk instantly — mayonnaise, oil and bits of lettuce dripped out onto paperwork below.
He reached for the phone.
Kate launched herself across the room, stepped onto his desk on the point of one foot, and punted the phone across the room with enough force to disconnect it from the wall. She then used that same foot to pin Dr. Height in his seat.
"Who the hell are you?" he asked.
Kate decided to try full-on vigilante mode. Her voice grew husky and she moved her kicking foot to his throat.
"You've been a bad man, Dr. Height."
"You can't do this."
Kate let the tungsten tip of her boot dig into his neck a little.
"You're going to tell us about the girl whose death you faked," Kate said.
"I don't know anything about — "
Emily started pulling binders off shelves along the wall with her mind. They spilled out onto the floor sloppily; more than once she left a dirty footprint on pristine white pages.
"Which files are for illegal dealings? Those in the red binders or the blue?"
"Stop it! Those are patient records!"
"There was a girl in a coma. You were paid to fake her death. Who paid you?"
"You're not the police. You've got nothing on me."
This wasn't working, Kate thought. A boot to the throat didn't seem intimidating enough. She'd need to figure out better ways to increase the fear factor in the future — maybe dangling him from the roof? For now, though, she thought of an easier solution.
"I may have nothing on you, but I do have a werewolf. Titus, come along and say hi."
After a deep, rumbling growl, the werewolf's weight — his physical presence — filled the entire room. Titus leaned in so close his saliva dripped onto the doctor's shirt.
"What the hell is that!"
"My friend," Kate said. "He doesn't play nearly as nice as I do. Entropy, close the door so Titus can introduce himself properly to Dr. Height."
Emily flicked a finger at the door and it slammed shut.
Kate grimaced at the noise, but had to admit it projected the right effect.
"Stop! Okay. It was a woman. Don't know who she worked for. They got me out of . . . I was in big trouble for something else."
"What else?" Kate said.
The doctor hesitated, but Titus growled again and he loosened up.
"Okay okay. I was about to get caught diverting drugs. Would have ruined me. They said they took care of it, but would take it all back if I didn't do one favor for them."
"So you sold them a teenager for a clean record." Kate jumped off the desk and grabbed the doctor by the collar, letting the fabric of his shirt dig into his neck.
"She was a vegetable! The family was having trouble letting go. I would never have done this to someone who had a chance of recovering."
Kate pulled harder, memories creeping in of her own hospital stay, of that moment of despair when she knew she'd never dance again. She might have sold herself at that moment if she could.
"What were they going to do with her?" Kate s
aid.
"I never asked," Height said. "Just did what I was told."
"That is so messed up, dude," Emily said. "Can we throw him out the window?"
Titus made a huffing noise in agreement.
Kate hauled the doctor out of his chair.
"Give me something. A phone number. Name. An address. What do you know!"
"I don't have anything!" Height said. He was sweating through his shirt. "She had an eye patch! Like a something out of a movie!"
"What else!"
"She said — when I turned over the girl, she said they just might give her . . . an interesting life! That's all she said! I was convinced they were going to kill me too!"
A knock came at the office door. Kate shook her head at Height.
"Doctor? Security. You okay in there? We heard yelling."
"Don't," said Kate.
"Help! Help me!" Height said.
The door opened, and Kate threw the doctor over his desk and at the security guards when they walked in.
"You've gotta be kidding me," one of the guards said. He looked at his fellow guard, who stared, frozen, at Titus.
Titus moved.
Kate yelled, a barking "No!" thinking he was moving to attack the guards. But instead, the werewolf looped one arm around her waist and bound across the room, scooping Emily up with the other. He roared a challenge at the guard, a horrific, primal scream, and then ran for the office windows.
"Em, close your eyes!" yelled Kate.
Titus's massive body shattered the windows easily, sending all three of them soaring into the night air.
"Fly us, Em! Fly!"
"I can't I'm too busy peeing my pants. What the hell is he trying to do? Get us killed? Oh my gawd!"
"Shut up and fly!"
But instead of flying, she felt Titus's supernaturally strong legs hit the ground far earlier than expected, and opened her eyes to see they had landed on the roof of an ancillary building, only two stories below. Only two stories, she thought, werewolf boy can fall two stories and land on his feet carrying a couple of people. Not bad.
And then he jumped again, onto the side of a neighboring taller building. She heard his claws digging into the brick, finding or creating purchase in the masonry. Without using his hands, Titus hauled them quickly up the side of the structure. He ran towards the edge. "Can you fly now, Emily?"
The Indestructibles Page 10