He'd done the best he could with the time he had, he thought. And this was the only way to keep her safe and give these inadvertent heroes a fighting chance to save lives.
If he did this . . . well, it's not as though he would be gone forever. That was the problem, though: the not knowing.
"You okay?" Jane asked. Earnestness in her voice. She — more than all the others — was so earnest. That was John and Doris speaking. They did a fine job helping her grow.
"Jane," he said, and he could hear the tone in his voice, could see her pick up on it. She'd never seen him upset before. There'd never really been a reason.
"You're not okay."
"There's a way I can take the Lady out of the fight. When we make our big move," Doc said. "She's too much for anyone else to handle. Too much for all of you to handle. But I can . . . I can just remove her from the fight."
"That's a good thing, right?" Jane said.
"Yeah," Doc said. "Except I have to take myself out of it as well. And it . . . it might be a while Before I get back."
"What do you mean? Where you going?"
"Jane, there are worlds upon worlds," he said. "Layers and layers of reality, all piled on top of each other. I'd really hoped I'd get to show you a few of the good ones some day."
"You still can, right?"
"I think so," he said. "I just. Just don't know how long I'll be gone. It may be a long time."
"We have other options, right? There's got to be other options."
"There isn't time," Doc said.
Jane tried to speak a few times, the words not forming. Then she latched onto him, a bear hug too big for her small frame. She still radiated heat like a warm day.
"You can trust Sam," Doc said. "He knows things. He can help you."
"What are we going to do without you? We barely know how to do anything on our own. You can't — "
"If you only knew how great you are already," he said.
"Stop talking like you're gone already," Jane said.
"And look out for the others while I'm away," he said. "They'll follow you. You set the tone; they'll follow you."
She looked up.
"I'll leave Emily in charge if you go," she said, sniffing back tears. "I will. You can't leave."
Doc smiled. She'll be fine, he thought. She just needed someone to show her how to fly.
"When?" Jane asked.
He didn't answer.
Then Neal's voice chattered over the intercom.
"Designation: Doctor Silence," Neal said. "Designation: Dancer is looking for you. We have pinpointed the enemy's base of operations. Shall I recall Designations: Straylight and Entropy?"
Doc kissed the top of Jane's head and wiped his eyes.
"Now's as good a time as any," he said.
Chapter 55:
Home
Billy's family lived, Emily was surprised to discover, in one of those suburban towns large enough to feel like a real city but small enough to not have the name recognition of a genuine metropolis, an outlier stuck with all the big city problems without the big city fame.
His mother waited on the porch of their house: a two family located on a side street off a busy main drag. She paced until they touched down. Her eyes widened when her son and his goggle-wearing friend dropped out of the sky and landed.
"You," she said, and then ran down the front steps and clenched him in a huge hug.
Emily smiled.
"Told you it was a good idea," she said.
"We saw you on the news," his mother said, fussing over his face, which was, Emily thought, still pretty well busted up. Billy looked like he crash-landed into a tree trunk. "What happened to you?"
"Last week, I got punched in the face by a giant bear crab mole and was exploded on yesterday — or the day before. I forget."
"Billy Case," his mother said, adjusting and dusting off his beat up street-clothes jacket. "We thought you were dead."
"I didn't think you'd worry," he said.
"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard," she said. "Your father's been beside himself."
"Dad?"
"Yes."
"He here?"
"Waiting inside," she said.
Billy looked at Emily in a plea for help.
She simply smirked.
"Go on!" Emily said.
Billy's mom looked her over, squinting at her hair and clothes.
"This your girlfriend?" she asked.
"No way, " Emily said, laughing. "Billy's like my big brother. But he totally has a crush on one of the other super girls and doesn't know it yet."
Billy scowled.
Emily shrugged her shoulders.
"I'm just glad you're here," his mother said.
I shouldn't have come home, Dude, Billy said.
His father sat in the living room, looking as big as he always had — all shoulders and dark hair and that long, exhausted face that said so much about how he labored too hard at his dying hardware store. Billy knew that face. He'd seen it as the face of disappointment, because his son was, admittedly, lazy, and, also admittedly, inept at almost everything he applied himself to. His father wanted him to take over the family business, but Billy had little aptitude with his hands and even less with money, and then there was that unspoken truth between them that the store would probably not survive another bad turn in the economy.
More than once, Billy suggested they adopt another son who might be better suited to save the business. He gave his father credit for never taking the bait, even if they both knew it would have probably been for the best.
So there the old man sat, staring at him like he was a stranger, and all Billy could think of was, who was working at the store right now?
I really screwed up, Dude. Should have stayed away.
Give them time, Billy Case, Dude said.
"That was you all the while, flying around the city?" his father asked.
"We never recognized you, until the news covered that . . . thing attacking a building," his mother said. "We'd seen you hovering around but you all wear masks and . . . "
"I was . . . on an errand when that happened," Billy said. "Didn't have time to put my costume on."
"My boy's running round the city in tights," the old man said.
"They're more of a space age polymer, chemically manufactured, under sterile — uh, never mind," Billy said.
"Who would have thought . . . You up and leave us and we imagined you'd taken off to become homeless or do drugs and you're a goddamn superhuman," his father said.
"Something like that."
"Same people, down south helping out with the hurricane cleanup?"
"That was us," Emily said. "Billy's not quite as useful at cleaning up as he is at fighting monsters, but he tries."
"You should see his room," his mother said.
"Why didn't you tell us what you were running off to do?" his father asked. "Wouldn't it have been better if you told us the truth? You scared your mother worse than I've ever seen her. We've been nailing posters to telephone poles thirty miles in every direction looking for you."
"You looked for me?"
"You thought we wouldn't?" his mother said.
They looked for me, Dude. I didn't think they'd . . .
We are all wrong sometimes, Billy Case.
I can't even run away from home the right way, Billy said. I even screwed this up.
"But . . . would you have believed me if I told you?" Billy asked.
His father nodded yes.
"Fair enough. Actually, you would have locked me up in the loony bin."
"Perhaps we would have had you see a psychologist, yes," his mother said. "You can fly? I saw you fly, and what was that stuff? Shooting lasers out of your hands?"
"That's. . . way cooler than how I usually describe it."
"But how did it happen?"
"I . . . " Billy said. And then: how did it happen, Dude?
I picked you.
Why? Why pick some
one like me?
Does it matter?
Maybe?
I am a very good judge of character, Billy Case.
I wouldn't have been anyone's first pick.
My other choices were already inhabited by aliens.
Did you just make a joke?
And then he heard something he had never, not once in all his time with him, heard before: Dude laughing.
"Why are you smiling?" his father asked.
"Because I have an alien living inside me," Billy said. "Which sounds, like, completely insane, and also really creepy. But one day I'm walking home from school, and this bolt of light hits me, just, pow, out of the sky, right? And I felt awful for a few days, and you wouldn't let me skip school — "
"— Because we thought you were faking," his mother said. "You have to admit you faked it a lot."
"Yeah," Billy said. "But after a few days I start hearing this voice, and begin to think I'm losing my mind, except this voice starts telling me all these amazing things I can do, and they turn out to be true. So I thought, well now I'm a freak."
"Well, you are," Emily said. "We all are. That's why we get to do what we do."
Billy's father directed his attention to her for the first time.
"Who are you, anyway?"
"Billy's teammate, and also his Jiminy Cricket."
Billy's dad stood up and paced back and forth across the small living room.
"So you're not crazy, and you have all these powers, and, what, now you . . . you save people? That's your job?"
"It doesn't pay much," he said. "But the benefits are pretty rad."
His father stopped pacing and looked Billy right in the eyes.
"You know, we saw you on the news, and I thought, that can't be my kid," his father said. "And then I saw how bad it was, and how much destruction was happening right there in front of me, and I thought, I hope that isn't my kid. Then I realized what you were all doing, and how you're all out there together like a bunch of, I don't know, miracles, and I said to myself — no, I wish that's my kid."
"And there you were," his mother said.
"Why did you wish it was me?" Billy said.
His father laughed, that scratchy, ex-smoker's laugh that no friend or family member ever heard enough of. The man never had a lot of reasons to laugh.
"Because I was so damn proud of you, Billy," his father said. "You were doing things the rest of us could only dream of. And you were out there without a single consideration for yourself."
"I, uh, think about myself a lot during these expeditions. Mostly how to keep from getting blown up. Again," he said. "The again part is important."
"Keep doing that," his mother said. "I'd prefer my son not get blown up all the time."
"You're really proud of me? Not mad?"
"I'm still mad about the note," his mother said. "I expect the best mother's day present ever to make up for that."
"There's a lot of things people would do if they had your gifts, your power. And you've decided to do the noblest thing you could with it," his father said.
Did he just call me noble, Dude?
You are not noble yet, Billy Case. Give it time. You might get there.
Thanks for keeping me humble.
It is not easy. You are particularly prone to moments of self-aggrandizement.
Emily's transmitter beeped. A second later, Billy's did as well.
"What's that mean?" his mother asked.
"Em?"
Emily popped into dining room to answer the call.
"You get paged these days?" his father asked.
"I tried to talk them into using a spotlight as a signal, but it didn't work well during the day."
His father laughed again.
It wouldn't take much convincing to get used to that sound, Billy thought.
Emily rushed in and pulled her goggles down over her eyes.
"We gotta head back," she said. "Kate found something important. Gotta move quick."
"Off to save the day again?" his mother asked.
"People are in constant need of saving, you know that? I never knew," Billy said.
"Do you really have to go?" his mother said. "Can't they do this one without you?"
Billy looked at Emily.
She frowned.
"Jane sounded really worried," Emily said.
"I think they need me," he said.
Billy's father stuck his hand out.
They shook hands, like adults, like grown men do. It made Billy feel taller, somehow.
"Go get 'em, kid."
"Sure you're not mad?"
"Just come back in one piece," his father said. "Maybe bring your mom flowers when you visit."
Billy responded with a smile so wide it hurt his cheeks.
"You got it, dad."
His parents followed them out onto the porch, looking on with a mixture of disbelief and excitement when Billy and Emily took flight.
"Roses!" his mother yelled as they increased altitude. "My favorite are yellow!"
"I'll be back soon," Billy yelled.
But as they cranked up their speed and headed home, Billy wondered if they could ever really promise anyone they would return at all.
Chapter 56:
A new ballgame
The entire gang sat around the conference table, in full costume — a sports team before the big game. The monitor displayed the Atlantic Ocean, the swirl of the living hurricane, and a small blip where Neal had traced the call Kate and Titus received. Everyone sat in near silence; a fretful weight overtook the room.
Finally, Emily broke the quiet.
"I know I'm gonna regret this, but are we really making our big move based off of a prank call?"
"The information looks legitimate," Kate said. "I think the scientist was trying to help us."
"I've seen a lot of movies," Emily said. "And this is usually where the ambush happens."
"We have to go with what we know," Kate said.
"It's a trap!"
Kate stared Emily down with her worst glare.
"What we do know is that thing," Titus said, pointing at the monitor, "is going to strike the east coast very soon and hurt a whole lot of people. So if we have a chance to stop it . . . "
"Her," Jane said. "That's a her, not an it. And we have to help her, not stop her."
Titus frowned and nodded.
"So here's the plan," Doc said.
It was the first time he'd spoken since they all sat down. He deferred to Kate instead, letting her take the lead, watching closely from the sidelines the entire time. "Jane, you, Billy, and Emily will try to distract or contain the storm temporarily. Kate and Titus, you'll mount an assault on the base they've established. When arrive, you'll disable the technological controls they have over her. Hopefully, the information your informant gave you is legitimate, because that not only will eliminate their method of harming her remotely, it'll also take the trigger off the cortex bomb if they have one implanted in her head."
"And those things we saw last time?" Billy said. "The creatures attacking her? They were definitely not technological anything."
"I'll take care of those," Doc said. He exchanged a long look with Jane. She averted his eyes and turned her gaze down towards the desk. "They're my job."
"And after we've disconnected her from all these controls?" Billy said. "Won't that just mean she's . . . cut loose to do whatever she wants?"
"That's when the three of you have to talk her into managing her own powers," Doc said.
"The three of us what?" Emily said.
"You, Entropy Emily, are going to contain her. Make sure she can't go anywhere," he said.
"That's a faboo idea," Emily said.
"A big bubble of float, Em," Jane said. "You can do it."
"Right. Big bubble of float, big enough to hold an entire hurricane. You realize I can barely do long division."
"You have a genius level IQ, Emily," Doc said. "Stop pretending you don't."
She folded her arms across her chest and glared at Doc, furious he let her secret out of the bag.
"Reason with her," he said. "Billy, you're living with a symbiote. You might be able to help her. Jane, try to convince her she can do it. According to this scientist, they are sharing the same body. Someone has to take control."
"My symbiote actually doesn't do anything I tell him to do," Billy said. "Mostly he just tolerates my behavior and cuts me off from my powers when I'm a jerk."
"What are our other alternatives?" Jane said.
"The other alternative is the one we don't want," Doc said.
"We kill her," Kate said. "Destroy the human body, the sentient storm dies. That's what the scientist says."
"I'm not gonna kill her," Jane said. She turned to Billy.
He shook his head.
"Not going down that road again," he said. "Jane, we can do this. We'll be able to help her. I know it."
"You don't know anything," Emily said. "But I like your optimism."
"I have a question," Titus said. "If you're going to be here, Doc, and they're going to be chasing the storm, how are Kate and I getting to this base in the middle of the ocean."
"I was thinking we'd take one of the flying bikes," Kate said.
"We'd what?"
"You don't have to ride alone. We can ride doubles. I'll drive."
"Can't we have Emily drop us off?"
"I'm going to be too busy trying to make the biggest bubble of float the world has ever seen," Emily said. "I think you should take the bike. It'll be fun."
"We're not taking a flying bike," Titus said.
"You could swim," Kate said.
"Maybe you're part Labrador?" Billy said.
Titus growled at him.
Billy laughed.
"So this is it," Jane said. "We just go charging off into the middle of the ocean and hope we can stop them."
"That's the plan," Kate said. "This is their big splash. They need this storm to work, otherwise all these threats they've been making seem ridiculous."
Jane nodded. She kept looking at Doc out of the corner of her eye.
Kate viewed the exchange, but said nothing.
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