"No pedestals, Titus," Kate said.
"I wish you could understand that putting someone on a pedestal really is different from recognizing they are important to you," Titus said.
Kate didn't answer. She looked back at their future selves, though, and saw them pressing their foreheads together, speaking softly to each other, conspirators.
"What we believe doesn't matter anyway," Kate said. "He's going to need her."
Titus looked intently at her.
Kate stared back.
"You're so romantic," he said.
By now, the other survivors started to arrive. Jane and Emily walking ahead of a crestfallen Annie, with no Solar in sight. No future-Emily, either. Kate felt a gnawing in the pit of her stomach that things had gone badly for everyone. Doc sat alone, the collar of his long black coat turned up, reflecting in solitude.
And then there was Billy.
Kate only spotted him because Emily was pointing and yelling. Everyone took notice, though, during Billy's reentry, a blazing white figure awash in a glow of energy and light. He held Jessie, who appeared to be incapable of flying on her own and extremely unhappy about it, in tow. Billy set her down and then landed as the others gathered around. Kate and Titus walked up to him together.
"What did you do to yourself now?" Emily said.
"It's a long story," Billy said.
"No it's not," Jessie said. "Flyboy stole my powers."
"I didn't steal your powers, I temporarily and involuntarily borrowed them," he said.
"We leave you alone for ten minutes and . . ." Emily said. "You're like a superhuman toddler."
"You copped her powers?" Titus asked, shielding his eyes as he got closer to Billy's still shining self.
"No. She got hit with a null gun and the other Dude went to the nearest available host," Billy said.
"And he decided the appropriate thing to do was give you twice the power?" Kate said.
"Would you rather he came to find you? It's not like that hasn't happened before," he said.
"I'm okay without, thanks," Kate said.
Billy glanced around, his blue-white light aura gave him a searchlight effect when he scanned the group. "Anyway, I'm working on a solution," he said.
"You mean Dude is working on a solution," Emily said.
"We're partners, we share credit for things," Billy said. "So where's Solar? I need to talk to her."
"Billy," Emily said.
"Because the strangest thing happened out there," Billy said. "Stuff she needs to know. I understand it sounds weird but—"
"—She's gone, Billy," Jane said, speaking for the first time.
Kate watched Jane fight to remain composed, her eyes shrouded in dark circles, her mouth a hard line, holding back tears.
"She's what?" Billy said softly.
"She's gone," she said. "She and future-Emily. They didn't make it."
"They saved the world," Annie said, joining them, looking even worse than Jane did, as if they'd seen their own graves.
Whispering and future-Kate sauntered in, hands almost touching but never actually grasping.
Kate watched Annie smile the faintest of smiles when she saw Whispering's face.
"I remember that ugly mug," Annie said.
Whispering smiled, but the smile didn't touch his eyes. "She's really gone?" he said.
Emily and Jane nodded together slowly.
Whispering looked at his feet. "She was my friend and ally for a long, long time," he said. "There were moments when I felt like she was my only friend."
"Are you okay, Billy?" Emily said, rushing up to her friend. It seemed like he was about to pass out.
"Yeah," he said, a crestfallen expression lurking behind the glow of his halo. "I just . . . I learned things I wish she'd known. That's all."
An unspoken moment for the departed passed, a long, drawn out silence. A soft breeze wandered its way through the broken streets of the City. The light, clicking sounds of a rolling styrofoam coffee cup rumbled. Leaves swirled and then gathered together at the bottom corner of a bent and damaged chain-link fence. The conflicting odors of fire and old city smells permeated the air.
Finally, Annie broke the reverie.
"We should go home," she said.
"You go on ahead," Doc Silence said, looking up at the sky at nothing in particular, his glasses lost and missing, his eyes open flames of purplish light. "There's something I need to do first."
He stepped into the air, taking flight as if he were simply going for a walk, and then he was gone.
Chapter 62:
Butterflies and I love yous
Doc returned to the Lady's castle in the clouds to discover it deserted, its guardians gone, its gates wide open. He walked inside, fearless and ready, wondering what sort of monster could drive Natasha Grey from her home.
He found her sitting alone in the parlor, a planar knife in her hand, like the one he'd used not long ago to send himself and another timeline's version of Natasha to a different plane of existence, to keep her from harming his students.
The knife was so thin and so bright it looked like the blade itself was made of still water.
"So tell me, little Doctor," the Lady said, her voice cold and lilting. "Did you save this world, you and your little merry band?"
"What happened here, Natasha?" Doc said.
She ignored him and continued. "I suppose you must have, if you're still here. You wouldn't be able to see me if you'd failed. You'd be dead again, wouldn't you?"
"Natasha," he repeated.
"Look at you, without your glasses," she said, smiling joylessly. "I always liked you when you didn't hide behind those silly red things. You're a being of great power, Doctor Silence. I never could understand why you refused to act like it. Why you always pretended to be simply ordinary."
"Because we've all got to exist here together, Natasha," Doc said. "What are you doing with that planar knife?"
The Lady looked at the knife as if she'd forgotten she held it in her hand, raising an eyebrow at it, seeming to not understand what its purpose was.
"Is a place really worth saving?" the Lady said, standing up, her feet bare on the stone floor. "I mean isn't there a point when it's not? Like an old dog. Even if you love that dog, even if you love it with all your heart, isn't there a point where it's better to let the thing die rather than let it continue suffering?"
"This world wasn't done yet," he said.
"You would say that," she said. "Forever the optimist. Forever seeing the good in things. Look at you with your demon's blood eyes and your big dark coat. You disappointed me so much, my student. So much."
"No I didn't," Doc said. "Don't lie to me. Not here, not now. Not in this place."
The Lady exhaled, a pained smile on her lips.
"I have lived a life without regret, for more centuries than even you know," Natasha said. "I was here when certain things began. I made myself in this world, and I bound myself to countless other planes, and I can count on one hand the actions I regret."
"Two of my students died," Doc said. "Not mine, not really, not the ones who came with me here from my own timeline. But I saw two of them die, together. And I can't tell, Natasha. I can't tell if this is because of us, or because of someone else's mistakes, or because in this timeline everything is just pain and sadness. I need you to help me understand."
"There's no understanding it, little Doctor," the Lady said. "Haven't we talked about all this before? Maybe we didn't, in your timeline. But it's all . . ."
"Butterflies and I love yous," he said.
"Attempting to understand it will drive you mad, Doc Silence," she said. "Your best bet is to stop trying to fix things and just coast on the consequences of what you see happening all around you."
"And retire to a castle in the clouds," Doc said.
"That too," the Lady said.
"We're going home," he said.
"I know."
"What's going to happen to this p
lace?" Doc asked. "Do you know? Do you have any idea?"
"It won't end," the Lady said. "Not yet anyway. Beyond that, who can tell? Someone will come along and destroy it. You know that's the case as well. It happens in every timeline. Someone selfish appears and ruins everything for everyone. It's only a matter of time."
"And what about you?" he said. "What will happen to you?"
The Lady wagged the planar knife back and forth in her hand.
"I'm leaving," she said.
"Leaving?" Doc repeated.
"There's nothing for me here in this world anymore," the Lady said. "I've overstayed my welcome. I've made every bargain I can. There are no more games to play, and no one to play them with."
"Where will you go?" he said.
"The higher planes, maybe," Natasha said. "Or the lower. I'll grow wings and set myself up as a goddess in the Dreamlands. Or maybe wander the Forgotten Places for a while, lose myself in the Mists of Memory."
Doc rubbed his forehead, studied the half-mad face of his nemesis, his friend. I don't know what to do to help her, he thought. She killed me here, murdered me, but even here, even still, I want to make her better somehow. This is where madness comes from.
The Lady walked up to Doc, adjusted the lapels of his coat with her free hand, looked him in the eyes, her red flames to his violet.
"This world was more interesting with you in it," she said. "I do regret making that no longer so."
With her back towards him, the Lady raised the planar knife, and with a dramatic slashing movement, opened up a thin crack in reality. She turned around to look at him one last time.
"Take care of yourself, Doctor," the Lady said. "It's true. I do miss you."
She stepped through the tear in reality and it closed up quickly behind her, as if the Lady never existed.
Doc stood alone, listening to the creak and sway of the now-empty castle in the sky. He inspected the desk where Natasha had been sitting when he arrived. Resting on the edge sat a pair of red glasses.
Doc's glasses looked older, a little battered, but he knew for certain they were his. Silence picked up the forgotten sunglasses and put them on. He walked out of the castle in the clouds and took flight. He never looked back.
Chapter 63:
Beginnings
What remained of the Indestructibles, both past and future incarnations, gathered and set up shop in what used to be an assisted living facility on the north side of the City. It made sense after all—beds, leftover medical supplies, an emergency generator, all the things they needed to put themselves back together again. Although the facility had been evacuated years before, there were even nonperishable foods left behind as well.
Whispering moved among his surviving people, laughing as they tugged at his long gray beard and teased him about how long it had been since they'd been able to see his face. A pale and weak Finnigan nearly coughed himself sick at the sight of the older wolf. Titus took all of this in from a distance, trying to ascertain how this other version of himself had developed into a leader, a chieftain, a just king. He wondered if this was to be his future as well.
Kate spoke at length with her future self. The two Dancers did not share the details of that conversation, though they both knew that eyes were on them, and ears. Titus caught little snippets as he watched them walk arm in arm out into the overgrown garden behind the facility. Even while conversing they acted like dancers, moving in synch with the other, balanced, elegant, graceful.
Emily and Jane sat together alone, not speaking much.
A pall hung over them, a sense that they'd witnessed their own destruction and survived to tell the tale. It was a companionable silence, and they seemed comforted by each other's presence, but they were both quite clearly alone in their own thoughts. Emily found a box of unspoiled yellow snack cakes stashed in a pantry. She made a joke about Twinkies and the end of the world.
Jane almost laughed.
And that would have to be enough, a slight victory, a smile over junk food being one of the few remaining staples in a place still burdened and heavy with death.
Annie disappeared and then returned several times. She told Jane that she was reviewing the time stream, checking to see if their actions had impacted other timelines, satisfying a curiosity about the state of things. She revealed nothing about what she saw, except to say that things were as quiet as they possibly could be in the time stream. No ripples appearing so far.
Not long after, Doc arrived looking haunted and sad. He joined Jane and Emily in their silence. Emily, unusually affectionate, draped one of Doc's arms over her shoulder and napped. The aging magician looked down at her like a proud father might, a proud father who worries, as all dads do.
Jane eventually joined them, sitting down on his other side, and the three rested together like a family cramped in a small room. The gray light of a battered world filtered in through dusty windows.
And Billy Case glowed.
* * *
We've got to fix this, Billy Case thought.
Billy was trying to keep away from everyone he could at the assisted living facility. Entirely a self-conscious activity, part of him wanted to avoid anyone who might have been confused by his behavior when he found out Solar had died, because he had no interest in trying to explain how he somehow had fragments of the memories of himself from this timeline.
But he also continued to glow like a lantern and felt ridiculous and annoying. People were forced to shade their eyes when he passed.
Agreed, Dude said. This is too much power. I'm afraid what the long-term effects will be on you. I do not believe a single human body can sustain this level of intensity.
I just meant I don't want to glow all the time, Billy thought. Are you indicating this might even kill me?
There was an uncomfortably long pause before Dude answered. Kill might be too aggressive a word, Dude said.
Do you have any plan, at all? Billy thought.
There is one possibility, Dude said. You may not like it, though.
"What do you mean I may not like it?" Billy said out loud.
"I don't care if you like it or not, if you can fix both of us, you do it," Jessie said, coming around the corner of the hallway where Billy was hiding.
"Are you following me?" Billy said.
"Yes!" Jessie said. "I'm following you! You stole my alien partner!"
"Dude?"
We did not steal her partner, Dude said. This is unprecedented.
"He says this is unprecedented," Billy said.
"I want to talk to him," Jessie said. "Put him on the line or something."
"I can't just put him on the line. This isn't a phone!" Billy said. "Come on, Dude. There's got to be a way you can split yourself back up again, right?"
I really do not think I can, Dude said. I merged with my alternate timeline self at a core level. We became essentially one being at that moment and I gained most of his sentience. All of his strength. You felt the effects. You were impacted also, with memories of your other self.
Yeah, Billy thought. About that. Why didn't I get memories from the other hosts like that when we merged originally?
You have had glimpses, Dude said. You have said it yourself, that you have phantom memories from my past partners, from other times in history. In this case those memories were very close to your own brainwaves. They merged cleaner, because they came from an older, but otherwise identical host.
"I hate that you're having a conversation right now and I can't be a part of it," Jessie said.
"How could you tell?" Billy asked.
Jessie sneered at him.
"You really don't think I can tell when you're having a conversation in your own head? I was you six hours ago!"
"Okay, fine!" Billy said. "Dude, you've got to have a suggestion."
You are really not going to like it, Dude said. But it might be our only option.
"Whatever we have to do, Dude. I'm listening."
I can split off a po
rtion of my powers into a new Luminae, Dude said. It will not be another me, but it will be nearly as powerful, and have much of my institutional memory. This will let us siphon off some of our excess power, and it will need a host right away—Jessie would be the perfect person for it to join with.
"That sounds alarmingly like we're going to have a baby," Billy said.
It is completely different, Dude said.
"No, not completely different," Billy said.
"You're pregnant?" Jessie said.
Think of it more like when a single-celled organism splits in two, Dude said. But much more complicated.
"That is so not making this sound any better, Dude," Billy said.
Either way, it is the only solution I can think of that will work, Dude said. You are going to need a third person to assist, just in case.
"Absolutely not," Billy said.
"Absolutely yes we're doing this," Jessie said. "What's he saying?"
"He's saying we need a midwife," Billy said, putting his head in his hands.
* * *
In what would become the strangest conversation Billy would ever have in his entire life, he and Dude determined who they would seek out to help. The first thought, of course, was Emily, but best friend or not, there was no way Billy wanted to Emily to know about this before he was mentally prepared to be ridiculed for it. Jane was the most trustworthy, of course, but she was in bad shape and Billy was having trouble looking her in the eyes without picturing snow melting in her hair.
Telling Doc about it felt incredibly awkward, and Kate terrified him by default. Which is why Billy sent Jessie to go get Titus.
"You're going to have a baby?" the werewolf said, laughing so hard he choked on his own spit.
"Seriously, Titus, I asked you to help because I believe you would not make fun of me," Billy said. "If I wanted comments from a peanut gallery I could have asked Emily."
"Okay, okay, I'll stop, momma. Don't worry," Titus said. "I'll be your midwife."
"Seriously man—"
"Kidding," Titus said. "What am I doing?"
The Indestructibles (Book 3): The Entropy of Everything Page 27