The Push Chronicles (Book 3): Incorruptible (5 page)

Chapter 6 Therapy

I forced myself to stand, despite the continued throbbing in my muscles, when I heard the door open.  It was more than the pain that wanted to glue me to the chair.  There was a sudden onset of fear.

After all, everyone had been guarded at best in regards to Medusa's condition.  My imagination couldn't help but conjure images of gaping holes in her skull from where I had ripped that headdress free.  Or maybe her mind had been smashed into barely responsive jelly.  Alright, that one was unlikely, she had sounded fine on the intercom, but still my mind ran rampant.

When the door opened, there was no great horror, no reason apparently to be scared of what I had done at all.  Medusa was simply standing there, almost unblemished, dressed in one of her usual jumpsuits.  Every scale, every writhing snake remained in place.  The only evidence there had been any harm done at all were the three clusters of blackened scales I could see along her brow and, more disturbingly, similar dark spots on the brow of the real woman inside the phantom shell.

"Isss that how you sssay 'hi' to your besst friend after everything that'ss happened?"

"I-  No, no it isn't."  I managed a smile.  "Hey, Meds.  God, am I so happy to see you ... especially not trying to throw -"

"Pleasse,
amiga
, don't," she said with a hiss.  "I can't make myssself forget, but I don't want to remember either."  One scaly brow spasmed.  "It doesssn't ... feel good."

"You two should head to the gym, down the hall, catch up," Rachel said.  I could hear the desk chair roll out as she sat back down.  "There's a lot of work to do and a dwindling amount of time to get it done in."

"All business," I smirked.  "Some things never change."

"Pot, kettle, black," Meds said.  "Sssspeaking of that, do I get to tell you 'I told you sssso', too?"

"Sure, why -"

My leg decided to give out under a wash of agony as I took a step toward the door, cutting off my clever retort.  Before I could properly smash my face into the hardwood floor, Medusa, with her snake-like reflexes, neatly caught me by the armpits.  As she steadied me back on my feet, I cleared my throat.

"Well, at least someone around here is up to snuff."

"I'm a sssuperhero, Irene.  Bad things don't ssstick to us, remember?"

It was meant as a joke, sure, but there was a just a hint of something in her voice that made my gut clench.  I tried to dismiss that surge of anxiety and replied to her grin with one of my own, before putting an arm around her shoulders.

"Well, Ms. Superhero, mind helping out a citizen in need?"

"My pleasssure!" she said, punctuated by a sibilant laugh as she helped me out into the hallway.

"I didn't want to ssssay it in front of Rachel," Medusa said, sitting on a weight bench as I struggled into something better than thin scrubs, "but you really don't look that well ssstill."  She paused a moment.  "You're all ... wrung out."

"That matches how I feel."  I gingerly inspected myself in the mirror as I changed.  Mackenzie had said that I had plenty of scars and that was accurate.  A few new ones had joined them, notably the two bullet wounds in my chest and shoulder, probably matched by that stab in my back.

I was pale and drawn, but aside from a strange bruising I could only attribute to thrashing and the need to be restrained, I wasn't a total loss.  I hadn't lost all of my fitness though I had certainly lost some mass and muscle from my (if I took Rachel at face value) two weeks of relative inactivity and sickness.  Pain and aches were the enemy as I pulled on the sweats, as well as the creeping desire to do something about that pain.

An errant thought wondered where Duane kept the medical supplies before it was pushed back into line.

"Hey, it could be worssse,
chica
.  You're not a total lost caussse.  Of courssse it would help if we weren't on the clock."

"I'm trying not to think about that."  I stepped back out from behind the changing screen.  The more I managed to move, the more my muscles started to work the pain out.  Things were starting to progress from 'paralyzing agony' to 'beaten like a drum'.  "I just wish I knew more of what was going on."

"Why not jussst asssk me what I know inssstead of your usssual 'sssslide thingss towardss the information I want' method?"  Meds' snakes danced as she laughed.  "It's no way to talk to your friendsss, Irene."  Medusa was one of the only Pushed I had ever managed to get to call me by my proper name, though I never did figure out how she beat that particular mental block.

"Sorry, Meds."  I limped over to an older but serviceable exercise bike.  It took some deliberation and focus, but I managed to get into the seat without any embarrassing wipe-outs.  "Rachel and I had a bit of an argument about that sort of thing."  I wanted to get my legs pumping right away, but they protested.  "I mean, I suppose I've been a bit of an ass but I don't know if that justified all of ... this."  I gestured all around me.

"Well,
sssi
, a bit of an assss is right."  Despite agreeing with me, she still smiled.  "I would sssay though you had a good reassson, if you assk me."  She glanced around.  "I don't know what you mean by all of thissss though.  Looksss like good planning to me."  As Medusa spoke, I managed to get my legs to push and slowly the bike's speedometer inched into life.

"I was thinking more the 'pros from Dover' and the whole secret weapon bit with Alma."  I grit my teeth as I hit a bad muscle kink but kept peddling.  "I had tried to keep that girl out of all of this and, yeah, that was wrong but was it any less wrong to drag her back in without telling any of us?"

"Honessstly, Irene, I would ssswear you're trying to look for problemsss."  Medusa absently touched at one of the scorched spots on her temple.  "You were too busssy to sssee what was coming.  Duane and Rachel, thisss kind of thing iss their job, right?  Keeping uss focussed and handling all the thingsss we were too bussy to deal with.  Jusst think what would have happened if they hadn't done all of thisss."

I took a deep breath and let that roll around in my head.  Rational Irene pointed out that it made perfect sense.  It made so much sense, in fact, that I began to wonder if, like Mackenzie had, I was letting the Whiteout start to influence me.

An inordinate distrust between two members of a superteam, despite the illogic of it, simply to cause some dramatic tension?  Classic comic book storyline right there, especially as I fit the role of the 'maverick', the team outsider who still always managed to pull through for the group.  I shook my head, as if a physical gesture would hold an omnipresent reality-warping force at bay.

"Are you okay?  Ssshould I get Duane?"

"No, it's nothing."  There.  I felt a little more myself as I smiled.  "Passing ache, that's all."  That wasn't entirely a lie.  The Whiteout, after all, was the biggest pain in the world's collective neck at the moment, no matter if this was the first or the one-hundredth time it stung.  "To turn that around though ..."

"It'sss taking a bit to heal, but Duane sayss the burnsss are going to be just fine," Medusa said, pointing at the spot on her forehead.  "Electrical feedback from whatever signal that thing on my head wasss usssing to..." - the pause was short, so short that to anyone who didn't know her well it wouldn't even register - "...control me."  As if remembering the purpose of the equipment she had been using for a chair, the snakewoman busied herself with picking out some weights.

"That's good, I suppose," I said as each turn of my pedals worked out another sore spot in my legs.  "The thing is, that's not exactly what I was getting at.  Physical stuff has never been a problem for you and the others."

The good news is that the majority of my own problems seemed to be the damage I caused myself more than the enforced dry-out I had experienced.  Not that that hadn't made an impact but this entrenched pain I had probably caused myself from spasms and fits.  I just had to not think about the easy way out of the pain.  Biting the inside of my cheek to focus, I kept my eyes locked on Medusa.

"What do you mean?"

"Now it's your turn to stop it.  Look, I may have had my head up my own butt some of the time these past months but I can still tell there's something eating at you."

Of course.  That's why we were here.  Rachel wasn't just looking forward to reuniting two friends.  Sometimes I wondered, no matter how much of a friend she was, if Agent Choi didn't have an angle in mind even when she ordered her coffee in the morning.

"I- Well, really, it'sss nothing.  Essspecially not anything for you to worry about,
chica
, you have enough on your plate asss it iss."  Selfless as always.  I stopped peddling and leaned my elbows on the handlebars.

"It especially does sound like something for me to worry about."  I flashed a smile.  "You're the one person when we get out there that I know I can count on.  Sure, Quentin, Frost, Voltage, they seem like good folks and they're decent when things get hot, but it's not the same thing.  We've saved each others' lives how many times now?"

"Point taken."  Medusa looked up from the dumbbells she had set in front of her.  "There'sss been a lot in my mind thesse passt weeks and -"

"Don't you mean 'on your mind'?"

"No."  She paused to see if I would interrupt again.  I didn't.  "Firssst it wasss Bathory.  Do you have any idea what it'sss like to have sssomething ssso ... wrong ... insside your head?"

"Only a little."  The Countess had certainly tried to stick her hypnotic claws into my brain but if there was one thing I had you could call a 'superpower', stubborn willpower would be it.  "It didn't feel good, even that little touch."

"I wasssn't ssso lucky."  Her serpentine face contorted in an unreadable expression, but the look of horror on the woman inside that face spoke volumes.  "If sshe had jussst taken me over like a puppet, it wouldn't have been sssso bad.  Bathory, though, for thossse minutesss ssshe wass there, she made me love her.  I would have done,
Madre de Diosss,
anything I could to protect her."

I remembered that all too well.  Her gaze hadn't been directed to just crumble the ice slide Extinguisher and I were riding.  She had full well meant to turn us to statues and it was Ex's last minute evasion that saved us (well, him at any rate) from that fate.

"It could have been any of us.  You can't beat yourself up over -"

"You don't underssstand.  Thossse thoughtsss linger.  Even though I know that wasssn't entirely my fault, I ssstill felt those things.  Did thossse thingsss."  Her fingers clenched the handles of the weights and her knuckles were turning from deep emerald to pale green.  Meds wasn't nearly as strong as Hexagon was, but her inhuman strength was enough I feared for the equipment if she got too upset.

"Those headbands, they didn't control you either, did they?"  Even one minute forced to feel that way would linger, sure, but it seemed to me that weeks of it would turn that moment into a lasting trauma.

Medusa's eyes widened slightly and she nodded with deliberate slowness.  I knew that snakes couldn't cry and it appeared that she couldn't either.  Despite that, the rest of her body reacted as if she were starting to sob.  Her long fingers came up to her face, as if she herself was hunting for tears that should be coming but couldn't.

I was sitting on the long bench facing her before I knew it, gently grabbing her hands in my own.  I tried to be careful and not press through the soap-bubble scales.  I didn't want to upset her more, after all.  She turned her gaze away as much for my safety, unnecessary as it was, than her embarrassment.

"Eight daysss, Irene.  Eight daysss of thinking Epic and his commandersss were the bessst, that I ... that we'd all do anything for them."  Her snakes hissed like mad.  "Firssst Bathory, then Epic, then Gassslight and Bio -"

"Wait, why them?"  Gaslight was one of the Crusaders that Epic had brought in with him to fight Mackenzie's horde of vampire terrorists (which sounded as crazy as the actual event had been), his specialty was Pushtech inspired by steampunk designs.  As for Bio, well, Doc Bio I knew all too well.

"I guesss that the headbands were their creation."  Medusa tried to calm the intermittent sobs.  I gave her hands another squeeze as encouragement.  "Ssso they were alsso the folksss who acted as our directorsss.  We rarely if ever saw Epic himssself.  I guesss that devotion thossse machines causssed transsferred over time."  She shook her head.  "I don't know.  I don't care.  It doesssn't make it any less frightening."

"Maybe they didn't stick a headband on my head, but I do know something about having your mind changed."  I moved a hand up to her shoulder.  "You're right to be afraid of it.  It makes you question yourself and wonder how much of what you did was the influence and how much of it was you all along."

"
Sssi
, that'sss it exactly."  She looked me straight in the eyes.  I never quite realized that it had to be hard for her these past months.  One accidental gaze, one wrong turn of the head at just the wrong time, and Medusa could kill.  Certainly, there was a brief moment when she almost panicked but that passed when I didn't turn to stone.

"Alright then, let's make a pact."  I shifted my grip on her hand from a comforting hold to a more traditional clasp of the hand.  "You keep me from being an asshole any more.  You keep me grounded and save me from myself."