The others fell silent. In the quiet, my mobile buzzed. I glanced at it, half expecting it to be Cody with some addendum to his story that he wanted me to hear. Instead it was Knighthawk.
Your crate is on the move, he wrote.
What, already? I typed back.
Yeah. Out of the warehouse, on its way someplace else. What’s going on here? Who ordered that box?
“I need to chase this lead,” I said, looking up to the others. “Megan, stay here. If something does go wrong with Larcener, you’ll have the best chance of getting the others out. Be careful not to touch him, just in case. He can’t take your powers without touching you and holding on a good thirty seconds, or so my reports say. Let’s be careful and not let him have any direct contact with you.”
“Fine,” she said. “But it won’t come to anything like that. If I see a hint that he’s going dark, I’m grabbing the others and we’re bolting.”
“Deal,” I said. “Abraham, I could use some support on this mission. We’ll have to go without Megan’s disguises, so it could be dangerous.”
“More dangerous than staying here?” he asked, looking upward.
“I don’t know, honestly. Depends on how bad a mood our target is in.”
AFTER we slipped from the hideout, I showed Abraham my mobile, which displayed a map of the city. A red dot from Knighthawk showed the location of our target.
“With it moving like that, it could take hours to chase down,” Abraham said with a grunt.
“We’d better get going then,” I said, tucking my mobile into my pocket.
“David, in all kindness and peace,” Abraham said, “your plans have already made me exhaust myself today, and now you want to walk across the city again. Ç’a pas d’allure! One wonders if you have determined I am getting fat. Wait here.” He shoved his large bag into my hands—it held his gun, and was way heavier than I’d expected. As I stumbled, he strode across the street toward a vendor who had set up under a small awning.
You going to tell me what this is about? Knighthawk texted me as I waited.
You’re a smart man, I wrote back. Guess.
I’m a lazy man. And I hate guessing. Despite that, a moment later, he sent me something. Is this about the caverns, somehow? Like…you think maybe Larcener is hiding in them, and you’re trying to track him?
That was a clever guess. Caverns? I wrote. What caverns?
You know. St. Joseph?
The religious figure?
The city, idiot, Knighthawk sent. The one that used to be in this area. You really don’t know?
Know what?
Wow. And here I was beginning to think you were some kind of omniscient super-nerd when it came to Epics. I actually know something about them you don’t? I could sense the self-satisfaction oozing from the screen.
There’s an Epic from St. Joseph, I wrote, that you think I should know about?
Jacob Pham.
Drawing a blank.
Give me a moment. I’m reveling.
I looked up toward Abraham, eager to be on with things, but the Canadian man wasn’t finished with his haggling yet.
You called him Digzone.
I started, feeling a shock of recognition.
The one who created the Diggers, I wrote. Back in Newcago.
Yup, Knighthawk sent. Before he was driving people mad for Steelheart, he came from a sleepy town out there. Half that side of the state is pocketed with the crazy tunnels and caverns he made. But if you didn’t know that, then your little plot with the mobile today couldn’t be about finding Larcener in them.
Digzone. He’d been behind the strange labyrinths underneath Newcago. It felt distinctly odd to think about similar tunnels being out here, cut into the ground.
No, what I’m doing today isn’t about finding Larcener, I wrote to Knighthawk. We don’t need to find him. He showed up on our doorstep.
WHAT?
Sorry. Abraham is back with our bikes. Talk to you in a bit.
Let him chew on that. I pocketed the mobile again as Abraham returned, wheeling two rusty bicycles. I regarded them, dubious. “Those look older than two guys in their sixties.”
Abraham cocked his head.
“What?” I asked.
“I’m still surprised, sometimes, at the things that leave your mouth,” he said, reclaiming his pack. “These bicycles are old because that was all I felt I could pay for without raising suspicion. These should get us where we want to go. You…can ride a bike, can’t you?”
“Sure I can,” I said, getting onto one of the squeaky things. “At least I used to be able to. Haven’t done it in years, but it’s like riding a bike, right?”
“Technically, yes.”
He watched me with skepticism, which was unwarranted. My hesitance hadn’t come from inability, as I proved by riding around on the bike to get used to it.
Bikes reminded me of my father.
I checked my mobile’s map—and sent a quick explanation to Knighthawk to keep him from freaking out about Larcener—and we set out, joining a smattering of other cyclists on the street. I hadn’t seen these often in Newcago; in the overstreets, the rich had prided themselves on using working automobiles. On the understreets, things had been too twisty and uneven to make bikes practical.
In Ildithia they made perfect sense. Here, the sides of the streets were lined with cars made of salt, but there was open space in the road. Many of the salt cars had been pushed out of the way—they didn’t fuse to the roadway, like things had in Newcago—leaving an open and wide road. It was easy, even when you had to weave around a traffic jam nobody had cleared out. These things must grow again each week.
I enjoyed our ride for a short time, though I couldn’t help remembering earlier days. I’d been seven when my father had taught me to ride. Way too late to be first learning; all my friends could already do it, and had started to make fun of me. Sometimes I wished I could just go back and slap myself around. I’d been so timid, so unwilling to act.
After I’d turned seven, Father had decided I was ready. Though I’d whined the whole time, he’d never seemed frustrated. Perhaps teaching me to ride had been a way to distract himself from the eviction notices and an apartment that felt too empty, now that it had only two occupants.
For a moment I was there with him, on the street in front of our building. Life hadn’t been good then. We’d been in the middle of a crisis, but I’d had him. I remembered his hand on my back as he walked with me, then ran with me, then let go so I could ride on my own for the first time.
And I remembered feeling, suddenly, that I could do it. A swelling of emotion had overwhelmed me, one that had almost nothing at all to do with riding a bike. I’d looked back at my father’s tired grin and had started to believe—for the first time in months—that everything was going to be okay.
That day, I’d recaptured something. I’d lost so much with Mom’s death, but I still had him. I’d known I could do anything, so long as I still had him.
Abraham pulled up to a street corner and halted, yielding to a couple of horse-drawn wagons bearing grain from the harvest, men with battle rifles riding alongside. I stopped beside him, my head lowered.
“David?” Abraham asked. “David, are you…crying?”
“I’m fine,” I rasped, checking my mobile. “We turn left here. The crate has stopped moving. We should be able to catch it soon.”
Abraham didn’t press further and I took off again. I hadn’t realized that the pain was still so close to the surface, like a fish who liked to sunbathe. Probably best not to dwell on the memories. Instead, I tried to enjoy the breeze and the thrill of motion. The bikes certainly did beat walking.
We took another corner at an eager speed, then were forced to slow as a group of bikes ahead of us stopped. We pulled to a stop too, and my skin prickled, hairs standing on end. No people on the sidewalks. Nobody carting their possessions toward a new home, as had been prevalent on the other streets. No one leaning out windows
they’d broken open.
This roadway was quiet, save for the rattling of bike pedals and a voice, farther up the street.
“Now, this’ll just take a minute.” A British accent of some flavor I didn’t recognize. I grew cold as I caught a glimpse of a man with a shaved head wearing spiked black leather. A little neon sphere hovered to his side, changing colors from red to green. A tag, they sometimes called it. Epics who could manifest their powers visually would sometimes walk around with an obvious display—a glow about them, or a few spinning leaves. Something that said, Yes, I’m one of them. So don’t mess with me.
“David,” Abraham said softly.
“Neon,” I whispered. “Minor Epic. Light-manipulation powers. No invisibility, but he can put on quite a show—and drill you dead with a laser.” Weakness…Did my notes have a weakness for him?
He spoke further with the group in front of us while some men in long jackets approached, carrying a device that looked like a plate with a screen on one side. One of the dowsers that Larcener had mentioned. It was indeed identical to the one I’d seen the team use in Newcago.
Neon’s team scanned each person in the group ahead of us, then waved them on. Prof’s hunting Larcener, I thought. He wouldn’t use one of those to try to find us. He knows Megan can beat them.
Neon’s team motioned us forward.
“Loud noises,” I whispered, remembering. “If this goes south, start screaming. It will negate his powers.”
Abraham nodded, looking far more confident as the two of us wheeled our bikes forward. There was a chance this team had our descriptions—depending on how worried Prof was about the Reckoners. I was relieved when Neon yawned and had his team scan Abraham, with no look of recognition in his eyes.
The dowser approved Abraham, and the team waved him forward. Then they wrapped the scanner’s strap around my arm.
And we stood quietly on the street. It took forever, long enough that Neon stepped over, looking annoyed. I started to sweat, preparing to yell. Would he decide to burn me away out of frustration for slowing him down? He wasn’t that important an Epic; the minor ones had to be more careful about wanton murder. If they ruined the working population of a city, the High Epics wouldn’t have anyone to serve them.
Finally, lethargically, the machine gave a response. “Huh,” Neon said. “Haven’t had it take that long before. Let’s search the nearby buildings. Maybe someone’s in them, making our machine flip.” He unhooked the device and waved me away. “Get outta here.”
I moved, noticing as I passed that the dowser had given me a negative reading, as it should. I was no Epic.
No matter what Regalia claimed.
I spent the rest of the ride feeling sick, remembering those moments confronting my reflection in the water. Listening to her awful promise.
You were angry at Prof for hiding things from the team, a voice inside me whispered. Aren’t you doing exactly the same?
That was stupid. There was nothing to hide.
We reached the location where the crate had stopped moving: a street lined with three- and four-story apartment buildings. After two days in the city, I was well aware that the powerful clans looked for locations like this, while what had once been rich suburban homes were now widely ignored. In a world of Epics and rival gangs, living space was far less valuable than security.
The two of us stopped at the mouth of the street. A group of young men no older than me lounged here holding an assortment of old weapons, including one teenager with a crossbow of all things. A large flag flying the emblem of a stingray fluttered above one of the buildings.
“We’re not recruiting,” one of the youths said to me. “Beat it.”
“You have a visitor among you,” I said to them, hoping my guess was correct. “An outsider. Give this person our descriptions.”
The youths shared a few looks, then one ran off to do as I ordered. Within moments I knew I’d guessed something right, because a good number of older men and women with really nice guns came stalking down the street toward us.
“Uh…David?” Abraham asked. “Do you want to say something more, perhaps? That we…”
He trailed off as he spotted one person among the group wearing a hoodie, rifle slung over her arm. The hood made her face difficult to see, but several locks of red hair poked out next to her chin.
Tia.
ABRAHAM didn’t say anything as the two of us were quickly surrounded by armed people and hustled off the street toward one of the apartment buildings. He simply gave Tia a friendly salute, one finger tapping the middle of his brow. He’d obviously figured out what we were doing long ago.
Tia’s people shuffled us into a room with no windows, lit only by a row of candles that were slowly melting onto the countertop of an old kitchen bar. Why bother with candlesticks when your home would be dissolving anyway? Though the room did have an actual wooden door on it, which was rare in this city. It would have to be carted each week to the next location and reattached.
One of the armed Ildithians relieved us of our weapons, while another shoved us down into chairs. Tia stood at the back of the group, arms folded, her face shrouded by that hood. She was slender and short, and her lips—which I could see within the hood’s shadows—were drawn into a line of disapproval. She was the Reckoners’ second in command, and one of the smartest people I’d ever met.
“David,” she said calmly, “in Babilar, you and I met together in our hideout, after you’d gone out to deliver supplies. Tell me what we discussed.”
“What does that matter? Tia! We need to talk about—”
“Answer the question, David,” Abraham said. “She is testing to see if we are ourselves.”
I swallowed. Of course. Any number of Epics could have created doppelgangers of the Reckoners at Prof’s command. I tried to recall the event she was talking about. Why hadn’t she picked something more memorable, like when I’d first joined the Reckoners?
She needs something Prof wouldn’t know about, I realized.
I started to sweat. I’d been out on the submarine, and…Sparks, it was hard to think with those armed men and women staring at me, each as angry as a cabdriver who’d discovered I’d ralphed all over his back seat.
“I met with Prof that day,” I said. “I came to the base to report, and we talked about some of the other Epics in Babilar.”
“And what…interesting metaphor did you make?”
“Sparks, you expect me to remember those?”
“I’ve heard a few that were rather hard to forget,” Abraham noted. “Despite a great deal of time trying.”
“Not helping,” I muttered. “Uh…mmm…Oh! I talked about using toothpaste for hair gel. No, wait. Ketchup. Ketchup for hair gel, but as I think about it, toothpaste would have been a way better metaphor. It hardens stronger, I think, and—”
“It’s him,” Tia said. “Put your guns down.”
“How did you know she was with us, kid?” said one of the Ildithians, a stocky older woman with thinning hair.
“Your shipments,” I said.
“We get shipments twice a week,” the woman said. “As do most of the sizable families in the city. How would that have led you here?”
“Well…,” I said.
Tia groaned, putting her hand to her face. “My cola?”
I nodded. I’d spotted it in the crate that day when I’d first seen Prof. Not just any cola; the brand she loved. It was expensive, unique, and worth playing a hunch on.
“I told you,” said another Ildithian, a bulky man with a face like a barbecue grill. In that it was ugly. “I told you that accepting this woman among us would be trouble. You said we wouldn’t be in danger!”
“I never said that,” replied the woman with thinning hair. “I said that helping her was something we needed to do.”
“This is worse than you think, Carla,” Tia said. “David is smarter than he might first seem, but it’s hardly outside of reason that something he discovered might b
e discovered by someone else.”
“Uh…,” I said.
They all looked at me.
“Now that you mention it,” I said, “Prof might know about the cola. At least, he spotted some of it in the boxes the other day.”
The people in the room froze, then started shouting to one another, sending messengers, warning their lookouts. Tia pulled off her hood, exposing her short red hair, and rubbed her forehead. “I’m a fool,” she said, barely audible over the shouted orders from Carla. “They put in their supply order and asked if I needed anything. I barely gave it any thought. A few cans of cola would be nice….”
Nearby, the ugly Ildithian man entered with the crate that had held the cola and dug through it, discovering the broken mobile. “A Knighthawk mobile?” he said. “I thought these were untraceable.”
“It’s only a shell,” I said quickly. “Convenient to put the bug in, since it had a power supply and antenna.” I wasn’t giving everything up.
The man accepted that and tossed the mobile to Carla. She removed the battery, then moved to the side of the room with several other people, where they held a quiet conference. When I stood up, ugly-face glared at me, hand on his pistol, so I sat back down.
“Tia?” I asked. It was odd to see her like this, with a rifle slung over her shoulder. She had always run operations for us from positions of relative safety; I didn’t think I’d ever seen her fire a weapon. “Why didn’t you contact us?”
“Contact you how, David?” she asked, sounding tired. She stepped closer to me and Abraham. “Jonathan had access to our mobile network and knew every one of our hideouts. I didn’t even know if you’d survived.”
“We tried contacting you in Babilar,” I said.
“I was in hiding. He…” She sighed, sitting down on the table next to us. “He was hunting me, David. He came directly to where I’d been set up during the Regalia hit, pulled the sub out of the water, and crushed it. I was out by then, thankfully. But I heard him calling for me. Pleading, begging me to help him with the darkness.” She closed her eyes. “We both knew that if this day came, I’d be in more danger than anyone else in the Reckoners.”