Firefight (34 page)

Mizzy was the worst. At one point I stepped out to go to the bathroom and passed her working in the supply room. She looked at me and her smile faded. I could see anger and disgust in her eyes. She turned back to packing the supplies and didn’t say a word.

And so, I spent the time lying on my bed, alternatingly ashamed and furious. Was I going to get kicked out of the Reckoners? The possibility made me sick. And what of Megan? The things Prof said … well, I didn’t want to believe them. I
couldn’t
believe them. At the very least, I didn’t want to think about them.

Unfortunately, thinking about Prof made me furious. I had betrayed the team, but I couldn’t help feeling that I’d been betrayed even more by him. I’d been
set up
to fail.

When the next morning came, I woke up to noises. Preparations. The plan moving forward. I stewed in my room for a time, but eventually I couldn’t take it any longer. I needed answers. I pushed myself off the bed and went out to the hallway. I braced myself as I passed the storage room, but Mizzy wasn’t there. I heard noises from the far end of the hallway behind me, in the room with the sub. That would be Val and her team packing for the mission.

I didn’t go that way. I wanted Prof and Tia, and I found them in the meeting room with the glass wall. They looked up at me, then Tia glanced at Prof.

“I’ll talk to him,” Prof said to Tia. “Go join the others. We’ll be a man short on this mission, and I want you running operations from inside the sub. Our base is compromised. We won’t be returning here.”

Tia nodded, picking up her laptop, and walked out. She gave me a glance but nothing else as she shut the door. That left only me and Prof, lit by the lamp on Tia’s desk.

“You’re going on the mission,” I said. “The hit on Newton, to expose Regalia.”

“Yes.”

“A man short,” I said. “You’re not taking me?”

Prof didn’t say anything.

“You let me practice with the spyril,” I said. “You let me think I was part of the mission here. Was I really just bait
the whole time
?”

“Yes,” Prof said quietly.

“Is there more to the plan, then?” I demanded. “Things you haven’t told me? What’s really going on here, Prof?”

“We haven’t kept much from you,” he said with a quiet sigh. “Tia’s plan to find Regalia is legitimate, and it’s working. If we can get Regalia to appear in the region Tia wants, it will leave us with only a few buildings Regalia could be hiding in. I’m going to run point, execute the plan against Newton. Chase her through the city, tempt Abigail to appear. If she does, we’ll know her base location. Val, Exel, and Mizzy will move at Tia’s word and run an assault to kill her.”

“Sounds like you could use another point man,” I said.

“Too late for that,” Prof said. “I suspect it will take time for us to rebuild trust. On both sides.”

“And Obliteration?” I asked, stepping forward. “There’s been almost
no
talk about how to deal with him! He’s a bomb—he’s going to destroy the entire city.”

“We don’t need to worry about that,” Prof said. “Because we already have a way to stop Obliteration.”

“We do?”

Prof nodded.

I flogged my brain like a dog who had made a mess on the carpet, but I came up with nothing. How would we stop Obliteration? Was there something they hadn’t told me? I looked at Prof.

And then I saw it in his grim expression, his tightly drawn lips.

“A forcefield,” I realized. “You enclose him in a bubble of it as he releases the destructive force.”

Prof nodded.

“All that heat has to go somewhere,” I said. “You’ll just be bottling it up.”

“I can expand the shield,” he said, “projecting the heat away from the city. I’ve practiced it.”

Wow. But, then, was this really anything more than he’d done in saving me from the blast that killed Steelheart? He was right. We’d had the answer to at least delaying Obliteration right here all along. The heat probably wouldn’t kill Obliteration himself—he seemed immune to his own powers—but it would slow him. And who knew, maybe a focused and concentrated blast reflected back upon him
would
actually be able to destroy him. It was at least worth trying.

I walked forward, approaching Prof, who still sat at Tia’s desk before the wall of dark water. Something brushed against it outside, something wet and slimy, but I lost sight of it in the blackness. I shivered, then looked back at Prof.

“You can do it, right?” I asked. “Hold it in? Not just the explosion, but … other things?”

“I’ll have to.” Prof stood up and walked to the glass wall, looking out at the dark waters. “Tia tells me that many Epics like Obliteration have a moment of weakness after they expend a large blast of energy. He might be vulnerable. If he survives the heat of his own blast, I might be able to bring him down right after while his powers are dampened. And if not, at least I can stop him long enough for it to matter—and for the other team members to deal with Regalia.”

“And Megan?” I asked.

He didn’t reply.

“Prof,” I said. “Before you kill her, at least try out what she said. Light a fire. See if it destroys the images she creates. You’ll have proof that she was telling me the truth.”

Prof reached up and touched the glass of the window. He’d left his lab coat on the back of the chair and was wearing only a pair of slacks and a button-down shirt, both the same oddly antiquated style that he favored. I could almost imagine him out in the jungle with a machete and a map, exploring ancient ruins.

“You
can
control the darkness inside,” I said to him. “And since you can do it, Megan can too. It—”

“Stop,” Prof whispered.

“But listen, it—”

“Stop!” Prof yelled, spinning on me. His hand moved so fast I barely saw it before he grabbed me by the throat and hauled me into the air, turning and slamming me back against the large window.

I let out a
gurk
. The only illumination in the room was that lamp on the desk, backlighting Prof, hiding his face in shadows. I scrambled, choking, trying to pry his fingers free from my throat. Prof took me under the arm with his other hand and lifted me up, relieving some pressure on my throat. I was able to wheeze in a short breath.

Prof leaned against me, forcing more air out of my lungs, and spoke slowly. “I’ve tried to be patient with you. I’ve tried to tell myself your betrayal isn’t personal, that you were seduced by an expert illusionist and con woman. But damn it, son, you’re making it
very hard
. Even though I knew what you’d do, I hoped for better. I thought you, of all people, understood. We
can’t trust them
!”

I struggled to wheeze something out, and he let me breathe a little more.

“Please … put me down …,” I said.

He studied me for a moment in the dim light, then stepped back, letting me drop to the floor. I gasped for air, pushing myself up beside the wall, tears rolling from the corners of my eyes.

“You should have come to me,” Prof said. “If you’d just come to me instead of hiding everything …”

I struggled to my feet. Sparks! Prof had a
grip
. Did his power portfolio include enhanced physical abilities? I might have to change the entire subset of Epic I’d categorized him under.

“Prof,” I said, rubbing my neck, “something is very, very
wrong
about this city. And we’re blind! Yes, your plan for Obliteration is a good one, but what is Regalia plotting? Who is Dawnslight? I didn’t get a chance to tell you. He contacted me again, yesterday. He seems to be on our side, but there’s something strange about him. He mentioned … surgery on Obliteration? What is Regalia planning? She has to know that we’re going to try to kill some of her pet Epics. She seems to be encouraging it. Why?”

“Because of what I’ve been saying all along!” Prof said, throwing his hands into the air. “She’s
hoping
we’ll be able to stop her. For all I know, she brought Obliteration here so we could kill him.”

“If that’s true, it would imply an element of resistance inside of her,” I said, stepping forward. “It means she’s fighting back. Prof, is it so far a stretch to believe that she might be hoping you’ll be able to help her? Not kill her, but restore her to what she once was?”

Prof stood in the darkness, a hulking silhouette. Sparks, he was so
intimidating
when he chose to be. Broad-chested, square-faced—almost inhuman in his proportions. It was easy to forget how big he was; you start thinking of him as the manager, the leader of the team. Not as this figure of lines and muscles, cut of blackness and shadow.

“Do you realize how dangerous this talk of yours is?” he asked softly. “For me?”

“What?”

“Your talk of good Epics. It gets inside my brain, like maggots eating at the flesh, worming their way toward my core. I decided long ago—for my sanity, for the world itself—that I could not use my powers.”

I felt cold.

“But now, here you come. Talking about Firefight, and how
she lived among us for months, using her powers only when necessary. It starts me wondering. I could do it too, couldn’t I? Aren’t I strong? Don’t I have a handle on it? When you left me yesterday, in the room by myself, I started creating forcefields again. Little ones, to bottle up chemicals, to glow and give me light. I keep finding excuses to use them, and now I’m planning to use my powers to stop Obliteration—create a shield bigger than any I’ve created in years.”

He stepped forward and grabbed me by the front of my shirt again. He yanked me close.

“
It’s not working
,” Prof hissed at me. “It’s destroying me, step by step.
You
are destroying me, David.”

“I …” I licked my lips.

“Yes,” Prof whispered, dropping me. “We tried this once. Me. Abigail. Lincoln. Amala. A team, just like in the movies, you know?”

“… And?”

He met my gaze in the gloom. “Lincoln went bad—you call him Murkwood these days. He always did love those sparking books. I had to kill Amala.”

I swallowed.

“It doesn’t work, David,” Prof said. “It
can’t
work. It’s destroying me. And …” He took a deep breath. “It has already destroyed Megan. She texted this morning. She wants to meet with you again. So at least something good will come out of this.”

“No!” I said. “You’re not—”

“We’ll do what we do, David,” Prof said quietly. “There will be a reckoning.”

I felt a mounting horror. I had an image of Sourcefield powerless in the deluge of Kool-Aid, struggling with the bathroom door, looking back at me with pleading in her eyes. Only in my mind, she had Megan’s face.

A pulled trigger.

Red mixing with red.

“Please,” I said, frantic, scrambling for Prof. “Don’t. We can think of something else. You heard about the nightmares. Is that what happens to you? Tell me, Prof. Was Megan right? Do they have something to do with weaknesses?”

He took me by the arm and shoved me backward. “I forgive you,” he said. Then he walked toward the doorway.

“Prof?” I demanded, following him toward the door. “No! It—”

Prof raised a hand absently and a forcefield sprang into place in the doorway, separating us.

I pressed my palms on it, watching Prof walk down the hallway. “Prof! Jon Phaedrus!” I pounded on the forcefield, for all the good that did.

He stopped, then looked back at me. In that moment, his face in shadows, I didn’t see Prof the leader—or even Prof the man.

I saw a High Epic who had been defied.

He turned and continued down the hallway, vanishing from my sight. The forcefield remained. If the jackets were any guide, it could stay in place as long as it was needed, and Prof could travel quite a distance without it vanishing.

A short time later I spotted the sub in the enormous window, passing in the dark water. They left me without my mobile, the spyril, or any way to escape.

I was alone.

Just me and the water.

PART FOUR

40

I
spent the next hour or so slumped at Tia’s desk in the meeting room, the huge window looming over me like a roommate who just heard you unwrap a bag of toffee-pulls. I stood up and began pacing, but moving only reminded me of what the team would be doing out there. Running, fighting for their lives. Trying to save the city.

And here I was. Benched.

I looked up at Prof’s forcefield. I couldn’t help feeling that Prof specifically wanted me out of the way for this operation—that catching me with Megan was an excuse, not a reason.

Megan. Sparks!
Megan
. He wouldn’t really kill her, would he? My thoughts kept turning back to her over and over, like a penguin who couldn’t be convinced that these plastic fish
weren’t real. She’d trusted me. She’d told me her weakness. Now Prof might kill her because of it.

I hadn’t completely sorted out my emotions regarding her. But I
was
sure I didn’t want her to get hurt.

I stalked back to the desk and sat, trying to keep my eyes off that dominating view of the dark waters. I started digging through the desk drawers, looking for something to distract myself. I found an emergency sidearm—just a little nine-millimeter, but at least I would be armed if I could ever get out of this stupid room—and ammunition. In another drawer I found a datapad. It had no connectivity to the Knighthawk networks, but it did contain a folder with a copy of Tia’s notes about Regalia’s location.

The map showed the path that the Reckoners would use for today’s trap. They’d follow Newton on her rounds, then hit her in a specific spot in an attempt to make Regalia appear. I found a little
X
on the datapad’s battle map with an oblique reference to Prof in position for an emergency—and I now recognized that as an indication of where Prof would be waiting to stop Obliteration if necessary. But what were they planning to do about Megan?

Prof has my mobile
, I thought.
He wouldn’t even have to work to set a trap for Megan. All he’d have to do is send her a text asking to meet, then attack her
. And if she died by fire, she wouldn’t reincarnate.