Free The Indestructibles (Book 4): Like A Comet by Matthew Phillion Page B

down
to stubble on the sides and back and kept the top, which she dyed electric
orange, swept back dramatically. She wore florescent green lipstick, which made
her wild smile even more distracting.
          "Ninja Girl and Wolf Boy,"
she said, reaching a hand out to shake Titus's. "How the hell are you?"
          "Thanks for meeting us,"
Titus said.
          Kate found his reaction to the
manic cyborg almost as strange as she found the girl's feral demeanor. Titus
was comfortable around her, completely at ease, as if they were old friends. He'd
explained it to Kate after the fight at the Labyrinth. They'd fought together,
a pair of brawlers and berserkers. They came from the same sort of place, where
you survived by losing control, where you saw red until the fight was over. He
said he understood her.
          These two were, in many ways, Kate's
polar opposite. But she knew that their team needed both kinds of warriors to
win the coming war, berserkers and samurai, wild creatures and Zen.
          And in spite of herself, she did
like the cyborg. It was hard not to admire someone who so clearly did not care
what the rest of the world thought of her. Not that Kate would ever tell anyone
that, of course.
          "Where's your boss?"
Kate asked.
          Bedlam usually traveled with the
mercenary Agent Black, who had, in the Indestructibles' earliest days, fought
on the opposing side. But Kate had been the only Indestructible to speak to him
during that early battle, to look him in the eye, and she respected him as
well. Black was a mercenary, but the Dancer could discern honesty in a person's
demeanor, and she understood he wasn't a pure villain.
          "Black? He still takes jobs
he doesn't want me to be a part of," Bedlam said, looking out over the
City.
          "Working for the bad guys,"
Titus said, his tone conversational.   Bedlam shrugged.
          "Don't know, exactly. But we
have to take what we can get. Not like I can walk into an Apollo's Coffee
looking like this and ask for a job," Bedlam said.
          "You'd probably be a hell of
a barista," Titus said.
          "You know it," Bedlam
said. "Look, I don't want a lecture. Whatever he's out there doing right
now, it paid for a lot of my cybernetic work. He's helped me finish the work
those Children bastards started on me. I was Humpty Dumpty when you found me."
          "You're still doing work
together though, yeah?" Titus said.
          "Plenty of it," Bedlam
said, quirking a dastardly smile at both of them. "I do love making a
mess. But some of the… nastier stuff pays better. Also I won't use a gun. That
makes a difference."
          "Do you even need one?"
Titus said.
          Bedlam raised her hands up,
resigned.
          "Perception I guess,"
she said. "Merc without a gun? Not as scary. Though you drop me into a hot
zone and tell me to start breaking things and I'll get the job done for you."
          "I'm not sure I really want
to know," Titus said.
          "No, you don't," Bedlam
said. "Then again you're a weapon of mass destruction yourself, werewolf
boy. I bet you could cause some serious havoc if you ever want to take an
assignment."
          Titus waved his hands dismissively.
          "I'm good, thanks," he
said.
          "You're here to ask me to
break things for you again, aren't you," Bedlam said.
          "If you're still in the
breaking things business," Titus said.
          "Sneaking into another
prison?" Bedlam said.
          "Preventing an alien
invasion," Kate interrupted.
          Bedlam looked her and shrugged nonchalantly.
          "Not the reaction I was
expecting," Titus said.
          "I'm half-robot and I'm
talking to a werewolf. If you told me we were going to ride dragons to go fight
the invading aliens, I'd be like, cool, sounds like fun," Bedlam said. "What's
flyboy got to do with this? He's your alien expert, isn't he?"