The Push Chronicles (Book 3): Incorruptible (15 page)

"If Epic is the person who's been influencing the Crusaders this whole time, why wouldn't it?" Extinguisher said.  "Even if it doesn't, taking out their lynchpin while also having a significant force to back us up would ensure we could put a swift end to things."

"That's the whole reason I backed this play," Twister nodded.  "I've got a pretty good notion that without Epic hanging over people's heads, they'd be a right bit closer to listening to reason and standing down."

"The problem is what if he isn't exactly in charge anymore?"  I crumpled up the wrapper to the protein bar I had been stuffing in my face to quiet the roar of hunger when the realization had hit me.

"Of course he is," Polymer said with a slight hesitance.  "Right?"  The elastic teen looked at Twister and Archer for confirmation.

"Sure, it ain't like the Crusaders are a democracy, kid.  More like Arthur and the Round Table."

"I would wish that I could confirm that for true but 't would be folly to do so."  Archer shrugged.  "The man I met, the one who judged me with leniency, may have been Epic but he was a lessened man.  Certainly not the demigod that we all fell under the sway of."

"Look, Epic's power shifts with his confidence.  I've seen it first-hand."  I ran my hands through my messy faux-hawk.  "Couple that with the fact that I didn't just beat him up, I humbled him so -"

"- he's probably weak and, if we wager his influence and charisma are tied in with his powers, then -" Ex continued, only to be interrupted himself by Medusa.

"- he'sss not running the crazy train anymore, which helpsss explain why, on top of the invasssion, there are ssssuddenly hundredsss of Crusssadersss willing to ssside with usss."

"If this is true," Mind's Eye said as she began to literally pace in mid-air, "how does it change things?  Would not totally breaking his remaining influence allow the rest of the Crusaders to act as per their true beliefs?"

"How do we know they aren't already?" Quentin said, beating me to the same question.  "It would explain a lot, like the disjointed response we saw today.  We could be looking at more than one split in the ranks."

"It doesn't matter, Quentin," Voltage finally buzzed in.  "We don't have the intel to know for sure.  Without more, all we can do is plan for what we do know and go down the chain of command."

"To hell with 'chains of command', Vee, this isn't -"

"We can't just discount the information we -"

"Verily, which is why we simply can't -"

The growing clamor of the argument was silenced quickly enough as Hexagon rose up to his full height.

"SHUT IT, Y'ALL!" The massive six-armed man looked vaguely embarrassed as soon as he shouted, but it achieved its intended effect.  "I'm real sorry, but this ain't helping out at all.  We're all on the same side, right?"  A collection of nods, some eager, some hesitant, answered him.  "Right, I know I'm the guy who said we should hurry up and get things going again but I'm thinking I was wrong."  He rubbed his head with two hands.  "We're tired, hurtin', and that's just not the best way to plan or fight or anything."

"I've got to go with the big guy on this one," Quentin said, popping his back.  "Some of us here are relatively mortal and all of that."

"I know there is something resembling living quarters here in this part of the sewers.  Mackenzie laid down his head somewhere and he felt safe enough to treat my injuries pretty professionally on top of that."  I pushed myself to my feet, my body complaining the whole way.  Before anyone could move, I put up a hand to wave off any helpers.

"Right!  I'll find 'em and then get everyone and we can see about getting patched up and some shut-eye and heck maybe they have more food because like when I went to camp once we tried MREs and those are actually pretty good!"  Tank didn't bother to wait for approval as he rolled off.  Apparently Polymer had the same thought and bounded after the treaded teen in ground-eating strides.  Mind's Eye's serene expression broke as she rolled her blind eyes and floated off after them, like a mother hen after wayward chicks.  Ex let out another frosty sigh and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"You guys are right." He shook his head slightly, as if trying to clear it.  "I just want this to be over with.  Get back to fighting bad guys and saving lives, not stumbling over the people who we really should be working with."

"Don't beat yourself up, Ex."  I bit back another wince as I found a semi-comfortable standing position.  "Nobody's perfect and I don't think you're the only one who wants to be done with it."

The collective 'yes' of the ragtag group around us was proof enough of that.

Chapter 18 Quiet

It didn't take long at all for the two exuberant teenagers and their sedate chaperone to find the small cluster of rooms that comprised Ian Mackenzie's former living space.  It was a cluster of four Spartan chambers, devoid of excessive comfort but filled, thankfully, with practical items.  Four fold-up cots would give the worst-off of us some decent rest and the small stockpile of scratchy-but-warm Army surplus blankets could make do for the rest.  Most of the medical supplies that had been there were long gone but there was enough odds and ends to patch wounds and replace old dressings with fresh.  There was even enough tinned food and MREs left in a footlocker for Quentin to manage a decent, solid meal for everyone.

In my opinion, though, the two most critical finds were a working shower, tapped straight into the city's water lines, and a humble porcelain toilet.  No matter how glamorous the average normal might consider the Push Hero lifestyle, it was dirty, smelly work.  Just the prospect of conventional toiletries and a way to wash off all the grime was divine to me.

"Well, ten of us, two shifts of five would make the most sense, sir," Voltage reported to Extinguisher, even snapping him a brief salute.  You can take the man out of the military but apparently you couldn't take the military out of this particular man.  "Considering our position isn't one-hundred percent secure, caution would be advisable."

"Sounds smart to me."  The firefighter glanced around as we finished up Quentin's expertly cobbled together food.  "Any volunteers for the first watch?  I'll take a slot for that."

"Count me in," I said.  "I'm still a bit too wired to sleep right now anyway."  To my dismay, there hadn't been any painkillers, at least any I would even consider to have enough kick, in the medical supplies.  I suspected that Quentin had lifted them before I could find them but I had no proof.

"'T would be an honor to serve, good friend fireman."  Archer seemed quick to volunteer after I did, almost overrunning my last few words.

"I'll do it too because wow exciting!"  It was short for Tank but no slower than usual.  It came out almost like one blur of words.  The Mighty Polymer waved a comically oversized hand behind him.

"Me too!  I don't ever sleep any more anyways, well, not often. Well, like once a week.  Maybe.  Not always though!  I'm good!"

Ex arched an eyebrow and glanced at Mind's Eye.  The seemingly put-upon seer simply shrugged her slender shoulders.

"Alright then, that's that.  Everyone else, enjoy some shuteye."

I had not really considered the situation I had placed myself in until after the initial quiet had fallen over our impromptu sanctuary.

It was a relative quiet because, well, the fact was there were two teenagers, both obviously prone to be a bit over-exuberant, one a boy, the other a girl.  There was either going to lead to fighting, hushed enthusiastic friend-talk, or hushed talking leading to furious making-out.  Whatever it was, it was going to make noise and should probably be private.  Thankfully, in some measure of self-awareness, Tank and Polymer had taken the watch post at the main chamber entrance, the furthest away from where everyone else was sleeping.

That left me in the undesirable situation of being in close proximity to two very different men who, again facing facts, had one commonality, well, aside from the Push Hero thing.  On top of that, I wanted to talk to each of them but not at the same time.  That would be troublesome, to put it mildly.

After all, one was an ex-boyfriend that, honestly, I had made more mistakes with than I could count.  The other, well, the expression 'absence makes the heart grow fonder' wasn't born out of a vacuum.  I needed to make peace with Ex, he deserved that much, and, well, I made a habit in life of pursuing what I wanted.  There was every chance that, no matter how hard we tried and my desire to pull this out of the fire, we would all be very, very dead in the next few days.  Nothing could afford to wait.

"Hey, Indy."  While I had been working all of this out, Extinguisher had decided to grab the bull by the proverbial horns.  "Looking pretty thoughtful there.  If you can spare a -"

"Yeah, I can."  I frowned a little.  "I wanted to have a chance to talk to you anyhow.  Now is probably better than later, you know?"

He grunted an affirmative and settled down on the sewer floor next to me, a polite, respectful distance to my right.  From across the room, I saw Archer quirk an eyebrow and I could see the start of tension as he was about to move but I just gave him a very subtle shake of the head.  There was a pause but then, instead of coming over to us, he pushed off his perch on a broken-down pump and moved to a further vantage point.

"I know what I said when I had that helmet on, when we were falling."

"I remember."  Part of me wanted to drop in with the 'oh, it wasn't you' bit, but that would have been a lie.  A lie we both would know about.

"Maybe it made me do some things I normally wouldn't, say things to be just a bit more hurtful but ... it wasn't a lie."  He hung his head.  "You know, I always kept imagining, that month after we split, that it was just a phase.   That we'd work it all out in the end."

"I know and, Ex, I'm sorry."  I put a hand on his shoulder.  "I really screwed things up.  All of this, it was so much, so soon, and I wasn't ready."

He glanced over at me with a spark of some renewed hope.

"Are you ready now?  Does this mean -"

"No.  Not like that."  There was a sadness that came over me, but it was more that I hurt a friend, not that I was losing a lover.  "We can't be that again, at least not for a long time.  Look at Meds and Hex then look at us."

"Bio couldn't figure it out.  Neither could Gaslight.  How he resisted the helmet those times."  Ex closed his eyes and let out a heavy sigh.  His shoulder, even through the fireman's coat, was soothingly cold under my hand.  "Too wrapped up in science to see the obvious, you know?"

"Yeah."  I copied his sigh and gave his shoulder a squeeze.  "That's why this is so obvious now.  If there was ever an indicator that something just wasn't going to work out -"

"- that would be it."  Just like old times, completing my sentences.  "Did I push too hard?  You know, to make it more than just friends with benefits?"

"Maybe a little but, man, it was mostly me."  I shook my head again.  "I was bitter, tired, breaking down.  I lashed out and I lashed out in a way that just ended it with no way to fix it, not that I can see."

"I understand."  He thought about that a moment, then added, "Well, I'm trying to.  I respect that point of view, at the very least."  Ex took a deep breath.  I could tell he was doing his best to keep himself even-tempered.  "We're still friends though, right?  You won't go arguing that you need your space and I better hike on out of town?"  He smirked a bit.  The attempt at humor was a good sign.

"Of course, Christ, you, the rest of the Five, you're my friends, my family."  My smile was pure honesty.  "You'll never not be my friend and I don't need you or any of them leaving for your brooding spot in the clouds or some bullshit.  I need you here, all of you, side by side with me."

"Right.  I couldn't have put it better."  He nodded once, as if to affirm that to himself.  I hesitantly pulled back my hand as I felt him start to shift, to stand.  "Well, I'm going to do the graceful thing and exit stage right.  Check the back tunnels, get some alone time, let this all settle in, you know?"

"I can do that if you wa-"

"No way, Indy," Ex said, shaking his head.  "I'm not the one with the gaping calf wound.  We need you as good as possible before we do ... well ... whatever it is we do."  He flashed me a wan smile and headed off into the gloom of the nearby tunnels.

It had been the right thing to do and, painful as it was, I was pretty sure I handled that a lot better than the entire rest of our relationship combined.  Still, I felt for the man.  I wondered if things would ever really get back to how they were before we had complicated our lives with that.  More than that, the very fact I was contemplating doing it again was probably grounds for being put in an insane asylum.  The thing was ... was I actually going to do it or not?

"Archer, we have to talk."

For the rest of those long hours of watching the gloom, I had no real company save the occasional muffled peals of laughter or overly-loud whispers of teenaged voices.  I almost made my best 'old woman waving her cane' impression at the kids but who was I to decide to ban fun right now?  Ex and Archer both seemed to decide, hopefully independently, to give me space, despite the fact I had been pretty clear that I didn't need any.  So much for people listening.

It was when it was time to change positions that I limped over to intercept Archer before we entered the general mingle of the others.  If direct was what was called for, then direct I was going to be.

"Anything you wish, milady," he smiled and glanced past me.  "I take it this is something of a private discussion?"

I answered with my best 'no shit' look which evoked an uncomfortable back step from the bowman.

"Duly noted, Indomitable."  Casting a glance around as he smoothed his mustache, he looked back at me.  "We seem to have a moment's privacy.  What do you wish to talk about?"

"You.  Me."  I pressed my hands together and tried to put thoughts into words.  "Look, I've been in two relationships in the past year.  One was really deep, one could have been if I had let it, but both of them got completely screwed up, so -"

"Wait, just a moment, milady."  He quirked a smile.  "Are you implying by this strange ramble that you engender some tender feelings for me?"

I punched him in the shoulder, eliciting a cry of surprise.  Archer rubbed at his probably-bruising joint as he gaped at me.

"Don't play stupid.  I hate stupid."  My scowl was only momentary.  "You're not the poncy swashbuckler you play at and you're also not the non-thinking head-bowing Crusader drone you seemed to be at the start."

"I am guilty of both things yet these things do not automatically imply romance."  He raised his hands defensively.  "Now, lest milady think that I would not reciprocate such feelings, to be truthful, how could anyone, man or woman, not do so in time once you have set your sights on such?  Through sheer willpower alone, not even speaking of your other virtues, milady could bend the most stubborn of hearts to her whim."

"That's exactly the point, Archer," I said as I rubbed at my temples.  "I can barrel right into things, no matter how smart I think I am or how rational I think I'm acting and the last thing I want to do right now is to barrel into yet another one."  I favored the bowman with a smile.  "Now that I'm not so wrapped up in my own screwed-up head, I can accept that you've got feelings about me.  Maybe I do about you."

"Ah, but you have also realized that you are about to charge headlong into yet another situation, set to perhaps turn another friendship into a tangled morass of confused feelings and burning bridges?"

"Right in one."  I shrugged my shoulders.  In my mind, I knew this was the right thing to do but, still, I felt like I was hurting another friend.  It was probably just my over-developed sense of responsibility.  "As much as I want to say 'damn the consequences, we could be dead tomorrow', well, what if we don't die?"

"Milady ..." Archer paused, as much from emotion as for effect, "... you do this humble knight a great service with your honesty.  Would that all men and women be so noble as to follow in your example, then there would be much less gnashing of teeth and beating of the breast in errors of passion.  Besides, 'twould be sheer folly to tie our hearts down now, in this moment of turmoil, when impulse is the driver of the chariot of the mind instead of reason."

I nodded slowly.  This was the part I had been worried the most about.  Would the man whose inner thoughts turned him into a modern day knight be able to deal with this kind of, well, rational approach to the feelings he had?  Instead, it looked like the rational, scientific mind that designed a suit of power armor (even if it was Pushtech) had prevailed.  I felt a smile coming on as I realized he was smiling too.

"You are a real piece of work, you know that?"

"Methinks most would argue that you are far more of one than myself."

"Flatterer."

"I speak but the truth."

"Okay, let's just agree to get a shower and some shut-eye before this flirting makes either of us reconsider the sane, rational decision we both just made."

"On this, I concur."

So, in the end, that was the end of that.  After navigating that tangled minefield, I was feeling strangely optimistic about trying to untangle the Crusader problem.

It couldn't possibly be more difficult than the affairs of the heart.