The Indestructibles (Book 3): The Entropy of Everything

by Phillion, Matthew

  "You should probably leave the Capitoline Spear here," she said.

  "The what which where?" Titus said.

  "The mystical artifact you're using as a walking stick," she said. "Unique artifacts are risky to transport between timelines. They carry a lot of embedded power with them."

  "It's a spear," Titus said.

  "It's a two-thousand year old magical artifact that has been used to kill at least one demi-god," Annie said. "Again, Doc? You didn't tell him that?"

  "He's not planning on killing any gods, are you Titus?" Doc said.

  "Not on my itinerary, no," Titus said.

  "And it was his peoples' choice to tell him or not. Because the Capitoline Spear really isn't that dangerous, Annie," Doc said.

  "And you," Annie said. "Empty your pockets."

  Titus handed his spear over to Sam as Doc removed two amulets, a coin the size of the palm of his hand, an intricate knife made out of bone, a broken mirror, a necklace made of blue crystal beads, and what appeared to be a glass eyeball, out of his coat pockets.

  "Minor magic, Annie," Doc said. "This is just my everyday gear."

  "Anything in this pile luck-based or involve teleportation?" Annie asked.

  Doc tossed one of the amulets to Sam and then walked the broken mirror over to him as well.

  Annie fixed her eyes on Kate next.

  "Anything in that bag of tricks you've got wrapped around your shoulder magical or high-tech?"

  Kate shook her head.

  Annie nodded. "Okay then," she said.

  "So do we need to . . . hold hands or something?" Emily asked.

  "No," Annie said.

  "Sing Huey Lewis and the News?"

  "No."

  "Say the alphabet backwards?"

  "Someone help," Annie said.

  "Come on, Em. Let her concentrate," Jane said.

  Emily crossed her arms and pouted, looking all the more ridiculous as her puffy vest rode up under her chin.

  "We'll be back, Sam," Doc said.

  "Better be," he said. "I'll keep an eye on things."

  Annie began to mumble under her breath, eyes closed.

  Kate felt suddenly lightheaded, unsure of herself. Her knees buckled slightly. She looked down at her hands, and saw them flickering, going out of focus like a scrambled television set. She turned to Titus, who was watching her with concern. He too flickered in and out like a fading hologram. He nodded at her. In between flickers, he smiled.

  And then they were gone.

  Chapter 10:

  The White Shadow

  Keaton Bohr had come to hate visiting with the White Shadow.

  Years ago, the masked hero had plucked him out of obscurity, given him a reason to be, provided a usefulness to his work. The White Shadow found Keaton when the scientist had lost all hope in science, when his ideas on energy manipulation and automatons—ideas Keaton had wanted to use to feed the world and make it a better place—had been ignored for so long he was prepared to give everything up.

  The White Shadow approached him that night, dressed as always in an impeccable black suit, face wrapped in white silk like a ghost, no eyes or mouth visible, as Keaton leaned on the guardrail of the bridge leading into the City over the river near the Financial District. A light snow fell, and Keaton watched the lights of the City twinkling in the distance, a million lives quietly going about their activities in pointless repetition.

  Keaton knew the White Shadow from the news. He'd been around for decades, a mysterious vigilante, solving crimes, a faceless Sherlock Holmes, working from the darkness, a thinking man's superhero. But this character in front of Keaton, regarding him with the blankest of gazes, was smaller than Keaton would have expected. Slighter, the dark suit hanging on the Shadow's frame seemed as if it were tailored to someone else's body, someone bigger, broader of shoulder.

  "I understand you want to change the world," the Shadow had said to him.

  Keaton stood, slack-jawed. The voice felt wrong too. But, he supposed all of these masked heroes are different in person. They have to be. Up close, perhaps they're just human beings like anyone else. He stared and didn't answer.

  "It's almost as if they don't want things to get better," the White Shadow said, gesturing towards the City.

  And that was how it began, twenty years ago. A lifetime. They were friends at first. The White Shadow shared vast plans with Keaton. Ways to make the world a better place. And now, as Keaton walked down into the depths of the massive laboratory they had converted into a base of operations, he had started to become frightened of the Shadow.

  Started to? No, Keaton thought. I've been afraid much longer than that.

  He found the White Shadow sitting alone in the dark, as always, in a tall-backed chair, watching monitors upon which the most recent battle with Solar were replaying.

  "Your robots held up well this time, Keaton," Shadow said.

  "Not really," Keaton said. "She tore them apart."

  "We can always make more," Shadow said. "Do we know what she was looking for?"

  "The same thing she's always looking for, I suspect," he said.

  "Well, we'll give her what she wants soon," the White Shadow said. There was a quiet threat in that simple statement.

  Keaton's stomach churned with anxiety. "We will?" he said.

  "My friend," the White Shadow said. "She's looking for an end to all of this. And we are so close."

  The Shadow waved a hand and the monitors clicked off, leaving them both in near darkness, with only the light seeping in from the hallway illuminating them.

  "It's almost over," the White Shadow said. "It's finally almost over."

  Chapter 11:

  To the future

  "The future," Emily said, sneering and looking around at the desiccated landscape surrounding them, "is disgusting."

  Billy had to agree.

  Of course the future was extra disgusting because most of the Indestructibles had come through their time-traveling experience dizzy and sick to their stomachs. Everyone sat around a few meters away from their arrival point and tried to get their sea legs back. Even Doc looked a little shaken up by it, though he was holding it together better than the others. Apparently Kate's anti-seasickness pills hadn't done much for her or Emily. Both their faces were dressed in varied shades of green.

  I feel fine, though, Billy thought.

  That's because I controlled your inner ear sensations to stabilize your equilibrium, Dude said. You'd actually be faring very poorly if I weren't here to help.

  "I feel fine," Billy said out loud to everyone.

  You never miss a chance to be dishonest, do you, Billy Case?

  Nope, Billy thought. Never.

  Jane wasn't feeling particularly well either by the look of it, but she'd taken a few steps away from the group and turned her face skyward again.

  "It's so gray here," she said. "What happened? Nuclear war?"

  "War, and lots of it," Annie said. "The people we need to stop systematically declared war on humanity."

  "All of it?" Titus asked.

  "At first they seemed to be doing good—they went after the bad guys in the beginning," Annie said. "But when all the bad guys disappeared, they started coming after everyone else."

  "What do you mean, came after everyone else?" Kate asked. She adjusted the newly added cape to ensure her arms were completely free.

  "They went after power sources. Food supplies. They destroyed highways," Annie said.

  "So they did all this?" Titus asked. "Everything smells like smoke and death."

  Annie stood up, stretched her legs, and started walking away.

  "That's the sad part," Annie said. "They didn't have to do this. They destroyed the things people wanted, and you know what happened?"

  "People destroyed each other to get what was left," Jane said.

  Annie pointed at her.

  "Which I think was exactly what the adversaries were planning," Annie said. "Follow me. We're not far
from the safe house where. . ."

  Annie started laughing and caught herself.

  "Where what?" Billy said.

  "Where the Indestructibles have set up a makeshift base," Annie said.

  * * *

  The base turned out to be an abandoned community college building. Cars littered the parking lot, upturned and blackened by fire. Here, too, everything was gray and covered with dust and grime. Annie walked ahead of the group and stepped through the shattered glass where large double doors once stood.

  Titus made a low growling noise and Billy turned.

  "What's the matter, Lassie? Timmy fall down a well?" Billy asked.

  "There's others here," Titus said. "Like me."

  "What's it like going out with a bloodhound?" Emily asked, looking at Kate.

  As usual, Kate ignored her, moving ahead to scout, but Doc put a hand on her arm.

  "Wait," he said.

  Kate glared at him, but listened.

  Titus's eyes started to change color, a precursor to transforming into full werewolf mode. They scanned the darker parts of the hall.

  "It will never stop freaking me out when you smell things we can't smell," Billy said.

  "I'll tell you if I ever stop freaking myself out when it happens," Titus said. "Also, you talking to yourself all the time is way weirder. . . Annie?"

  "There are other werewolves here, yes," Annie said. "But they're on our side."

  Titus cocked his head to one side.

  "And . . . someone singing?" he said.

  Now they all stopped to listen, walking slowly and quietly behind Annie as she led them deeper into the building.

  Billy finally caught up with Titus's superhuman hearing. The faint sound of a woman singing reached his ears, a delicate voice, but pretty, high and folksy. The closer they drew, the clearer the voice became. A melancholy feeling tingled in his chest. The sound of the woman's voice made him feel suddenly very lonely.

  "Of all the comrades that e'er I had, they are sorry for my going away," the voice sang. "And all the sweethearts that e'er I had, they would wish me one more day to stay."

  "That's . . . awfully pretty," Emily said.

  Billy looked at her.

  Emily shrugged. "What, you disagree?"

  "But since it falls unto my lot, that I should rise and you should not," the singing voice continued, "I'll gently rise and softly call, good night and joy be with you all."

  Doc had stopped walking entirely. He stood completely still, hands in his pockets and head bowed. Titus's body had relaxed, no longer ready to pounce, a near smile lit his face.

  "Who is that?" Billy asked.

  Jane pushed her way to the front of the group, gently moving Annie aside with a hand on her shoulder.

  "I think that's me," Jane said.

  And she ran on without them, into the hallway ahead.

  Chapter 12:

  The other side of the mirror

  Jane stormed into the next room at a run, coming to an awkward halt just within the doorway as she discovered a woman standing over a body laying on a medical gurney. The woman was dressed in a uniform, all white, except for a black and gold trim across the shoulders like a tribal version of the sun. Her hair was the color of open flame, and flickered the same way, moving with a life of its own, the way fire always does.

  She was singing.

  "My father sang that song," Jane said, creeping into the room.

  The woman stood up to her full height but did not turn around. "My adopted father," Jane said. "An old Irish pub song. He sang it whenever he had to leave."

  "The Parting Glass," the woman said in Jane's own voice.

  She turned, and Jane's breath caught in her throat.

  This other Jane had her face, but her skin was different, almost glowing with a golden light, as if all the sunlight she gathered up in the twenty years between them stayed with her and illuminated her from within.

  "I'm going to glow," Jane said.

  And her older self nodded.

  "You already do," the older-Jane said and smiled. "This has to be at least as weird for you as it is for me."

  "If I ever see anything stranger than this in my entire life, I'll be amazed," Jane said.

  "Who did you bring with you?" her future self said. "Annie must be back."

  "I am," Annie said, walking in the room, thumbs tucked into her belt loops. "I told you I'd bring help, didn't I?"

  Doc strode in next, placing a hand on younger-Jane's shoulder.

  Older-Jane's mouth quirked as if she might cry.

  "Oh, Doc," she said, holding a hand out to him. "I haven't seen you in so long."

  "Looks like you turned out alright without me," he said as older-Jane took his hand in hers.

  Titus and Kate came in next.

  The elder Jane gasped and put a hand on Titus's face.

  "Look at you," she said. "Look at your face. I haven't seen your face in so long."

  "Am I . . . Is there . . ." Titus said.

  "It's better if I let him explain," future-Jane said. "You should hear it from him yourself. But you're here. Your older self is in this building."

  She turned to Kate, and a shadow of sorrow fell across her eyes.

  "I'm dead, aren't I?" Kate said.

  "No," older-Jane said. "But again, it's not my story to tell. I'll bring you to her."

  Emily strutted in next; the darkness in the elder Jane's face faded.

  "Who is this?" she asked.

  "Entropy Emily," Emily said. "I'm the leader."

  "Is that so," future-Jane said.

  "Emily is our secret weapon," Annie said. "She's going to turn this fight around, whether she knows it or not."

  "Don't go giving her a swelled head," Billy said, walking into the room last. "She's got a big enough ego as it is."

  Older-Jane lost all decorum and rushed to him, throwing her arms around him ferociously. She picked him up off the ground so only his toes touched the floor.

  "You were saying something about never seeing anything weirder in your entire life?" Emily said to younger-Jane.

  "I take that back," younger-Jane said. "What's happening?"

  Her older self had Billy's shoulders in her hands as if to make sure he still existed.

  "So this isn't awkward at all," Billy said.

  Older-Jane started to talk, but a harsh sob came out instead.

  Billy looked at younger-Jane for help, but she just shrugged.

  Another uniformed person walked into the room from a separate entrance, a teenaged girl with dark hair wearing what appeared to be a knockoff of Billy's costume. She looked around at everyone, particularly staring at younger-Jane, before turning to address Annie.

  "What the heck is happening in here? And why is Solar crying?"

  "I'm sorry," the elder Jane said, composing herself. "Straylight, these are . . . these are the Indestructibles."

  "The beta version," Emily said. "Did she just call you Straylight?"

  "Did you just call her Straylight?" Billy asked.

  "She did. Because I'm Straylight," the girl said. "Who the heck are you?"

  "I'm a girl in this timeline?" Billy said.

  "You're totally a girl in this timeline!" Emily said.

  "He can't be. She's our age now," Titus said. "You're a different Straylight entirely."

  "Oh no," Doc said, stepping back a little.

  Younger-Jane watched as he melded into the shadows a bit, letting the events unfold as best they could.

  "Dude, did you pick someone else in this timeline?" Billy said, clearly talking to the alien in his head.

  "Are you talking to the alien right now?" the new girl asked.

  "Of course I'm talking to Dude right now!" Billy said.

  "I don't even know how this is possible," the new girl said.

  "How what is possible?" Billy said.

  "I'm guessing all of it," Titus said. He looked at Kate, who had, like Doc, taken a step away from everyone else to simply obs
erve.

  Younger-Jane watched as Titus tried to disappear as well, but, in a throwback to his less confident days, mostly looked like he was mortified.

  "This is why I didn't want to tell you guys anything," Annie said. "I knew you'd freak out."

  "I am not freaking out!" Billy said. "Okay. I'm freaking out!"

  "I'm not you!" the new girl said. "Wait, this is the old Straylight?"

  Billy stomped his feet.

  "Old Straylight? I'm the old Straylight? Did I quit? Tell me I didn't quit. Wait, Dude, did you dump me? For someone younger?"

  "Billy," younger-Jane said. "Give it a minute."

  "This is so much worse than finding out I'm a hot girl in this other timeline."

  "Watch it," the new Straylight said. "Don't be a creep. I didn't realize my predecessor was a creep."

  "I'm not a creep. And where am I?" Billy said. "Did I get captured again? Seriously, did they shoot me with the thing that kicks Dude out again? I don't want to do that twice. I hope that doesn't happen a second time."

  "You died, Billy," older-Jane said softly.

  She grabbed his hand and held it.

  Billy stopped fidgeting and stood completely still as she spoke.

  "You're gone. You died."

  "I'm dead?" Billy said.

  "You were so brave," older-Jane said. "You died saving so many people. It was the stupidest, bravest thing I ever saw."

  "I'm dead? You're saying I'm dead?"

  "You died a hero, Billy Case," older-Jane said.

  "I don't care if I died king of Mars, I don't want to be dead!" Billy said.

  "Well it's the truth," older-Jane said. "It's so strange to see you here, like this."

  "Yeah, it's pretty weird for me too," Billy said.

  Older-Jane shook her head, then looked back and forth from her younger self to Billy.

  "You aren't together in your timeline, are you?" she said. "I can tell."

  Younger-Jane and Billy locked eyes.

  "Together?" Billy, Jane, and Emily all said at the same time.

  Emily started laughing so hard she had to cling to Doc's jacket for support.

  "The future is amazing," she said, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes.