Calamity

  He sneered at Abraham, then flung his hand to the side, forming his trademark forcefield globe around the Canadian man. Prof clenched his fist to shrink it, but the forcefield caught as Abraham used the rtich to brace it on either side.

  I had a good view of Prof’s startled face through one camera.

  “Cody, go,” I said.

  A flash of light shot from the shadows, and the forcefield around Abraham shattered. Good. As before, the tensor could negate forcefields. Though we had to be careful not to vaporize Abraham’s gun as a byproduct.

  Prof roared and pointed at Cody, though nothing seemed to happen. I frowned at the gesture, but didn’t have time to think on it as Cody and Abraham engaged Prof. Cody wasn’t practiced with forcefields—while perhaps trying to throw a globe around Prof, he instead made a wall between them. That accidentally protected him as Prof sent spears of light Cody’s way. They slammed into the wall, piercing it and getting stuck.

  “Abraham, wind around to his left,” I instructed. A blip appeared on my map of the caverns, a location where Mizzy had set up a pack of explosives. “Megan, see if you can draw him down that tunnel to the right, toward Mizzy’s surprise.”

  “Roger,” Megan said.

  My little cubby of a cave shook as Prof and Cody clashed, tensor blasts vaporizing one another’s forcefields. Abraham held his own with the rtich, forming it into a shield and catching spears of light. Cody wasn’t very useful with his own forcefields, unfortunately. A few hours of practice did not an expert make.

  However, he did have tons of practice with the tensors from back in the day, and he was able to work those easily. He kept vaporizing Prof’s forcefields, protecting himself and—most importantly—Abraham. Cody’s suit had a harmsway attached to it, but Abraham didn’t have such a blessing.

  I directed the team as best I could, and for once I didn’t have time to wish I were with them. I was too busy leading the team to push Prof toward the set explosions—we blasted him several times, staggering him and keeping him from bringing down Cody and Abraham. I also kept watch on Prof as he occasionally ducked through caverns at a run, trying to loop around and gain an advantage.

  On my mark, Megan entered the fray, creating illusory versions of herself and Firefight to draw Prof’s attention and his attacks. So long as she didn’t push too hard, these would just be shadows from other dimensions, like the false faces we’d worn. It wouldn’t put anyone in any other dimension in danger, and hopefully wouldn’t risk her sanity. Only shadows and feints—anything to keep Prof distracted and off-balance.

  I watched all of this with a sinking feeling. The longer they fought, the more obvious it became that Cody’s powers—though aligned more closely with Prof’s own abilities than even Tavi’s had been—would not immediately force Prof to change.

  I zoomed my cameras in on Prof’s face, watching his expressions. His sneers and condescension soon gave way to a look of fierce determination. In that, I saw the man I knew.

  Face it, Prof! I thought, huddled in my cocoon of stone, snapping orders and directing cameras. Come on. Why wasn’t it enough? Why wouldn’t his powers give way before his fears?

  “Megan, Cody,” I said, “I want to try something. The tensors disrupt his forcefields, even the ones protecting his skin. Find a way to catch him in a blast of tensor power, Cody. Then, Megan, I want you to shoot him.”

  “Roger,” Megan said. “Do you care where I hit him?”

  “No,” I said. “His powers are strong enough that he should be able to heal from anything a handgun can dish out.” I paused. “But maybe make the first hit or two someplace non-lethal, just in case.”

  “Roger,” they said as one.

  Cody was panting. “Hitting him with the tensors is going to be tough, lad. He’s been trying to do the same to us, to melt my motivators away. We’ve been keeping our distance.”

  I focused a camera on him. Seemed like using the tensor suit was exhausting. He and Megan maneuvered into position while Mizzy set up some more explosives farther down the corridor.

  “We’ll have to risk it,” I said. “I—”

  “Ach!” Cody interrupted. “What the…”

  “Cody?” I asked. He didn’t seem hurt, but he’d stumbled back against the cavern wall and had managed to surround himself with a box of glowing green forcefields.

  “Was that a squirrel?” he said. “It was running across me. A bloody squirrel?”

  “What are you talking about?” Mizzy asked.

  Cody seemed confused. “Maybe it was a rat or something. I didn’t get a good look.”

  I frowned as he dismissed his forcefields and ran to join Abraham, who had moved in close to Prof after forming the rtich into a gauntlet covered in spikes.

  “Knighthawk, Mizzy,” I said, “did either of you happen to see that thing? Whatever it was that was attacking Cody?”

  “I saw a blur,” Knighthawk said. “I’m rewinding the footage now. I’ll send you a still if I spot something.”

  Prof pushed past Abraham, leaving him tripping over a forcefield rod created right before his legs. Prof slammed his hand to the floor of the cavern and vaporized it in a large swath, dumping Cody into a river of dust. Cody stumbled, slowing down.

  Prof summoned a spike of light in each hand and shot them across the room, pounding them into Cody’s shoulders. Cody screamed and fell into the dust.

  Sparks. It was obvious who knew these powers better.

  “Megan!” I cried.

  “On it,” she said, and the ceiling of the cavern rumbled and collapsed, making Prof jump back in alarm. Merely a shadow of another world, but hopefully it would buy Cody enough time to heal.

  “Prof started speaking into a mobile,” Knighthawk said, surprised. “He must know we’re monitoring his line….Sparks. He’s talking to you, I think.”

  “Patch it through to me,” I said, “but don’t let him hear what we’re saying.”

  “…think to beat me with my own curse.” Prof’s familiar voice, gruff and deep, startled me even though I’d been expecting it. “I have borne this viper for years, felt it poisoning me day by day. I know it like a man knows his own heartbeat.”

  “David, lad,” Cody said, coughing. “I’m…I’m not healing….”

  I felt an icy chill. I focused on Cody, and it was true. He crawled through dust in the trench Prof had made, bleeding from both shoulders, where he’d been struck by light made solid. Why wasn’t the harmsway working?

  “Got it,” Knighthawk said. “Kid, this is trouble.” He sent to my screen an image from the camera footage from moments earlier. It showed a blur moving away from Cody, small like a mouse. Or a tiny person.

  “Loophole is here!” I said over the line. “He didn’t come alone! Warning, there’s another Epic in the cavern.” I hesitated. “Sparks, she unhooked one of the motivators from Cody’s vest and ran off with it.”

  “Cameras have infrared,” Knighthawk said, taking control of several of them. He sounded excited. Engaged, even. “Overlaying now…There! I’ve got her. Ha. Think you can hide from my all-seeing eyes, little Epic? You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”

  Knighthawk zoomed one of our cameras toward a tiny figure hiding in the shadows near one of the cavern’s many broken chunks of rock. She wore jeans, goggles, and a tight shirt. I didn’t spot the motivator, but she’d likely shrunk it to a size small enough to carry.

  “Megan!” I said as Prof rounded the false cave-in. “You and Abraham are going to have to handle him on your own for a time. Keep him distracted; he’s going to try to finish off Cody. Mizzy, go help get Cody bandaged. Don’t let him bleed out!”

  A series of “rogers” sounded. I started wriggling out of my stone confines.

  “Should have known,” Knighthawk said over the line. “Of course Jonathan came with a plan. He may not have realized I used multiple motivators on this version of the suit though, so his orders to Loophole weren’t complete enough.”

  “I nee
d you to run ops, Knighthawk.”

  “Fine,” he said, reluctant. “You’re going to take on the mini-Epic by yourself?”

  I squeezed out of my cubby and rolled to my feet, Gottschalk to my shoulder. “She’s not a High Epic. A single bullet will kill her.”

  “Yeah. Hit her with a bullet the same size as she is—I’m sure that won’t harm the motivator she’s carrying.”

  I grimaced as I crept down the hallway. It was a valid point. “Keep an eye on her for me.”

  “Already done. One of the cameras is set to auto-track her. Jonathan’s talking again.”

  “Patch him through to me, but not the others. I don’t want them distracted. And Knighthawk…keep them alive for me, please.”

  “I’ll try. Get that motivator, kid. Fast.”

  “I didn’t want to be here.”

  I had to listen to Prof as I crept back up the tunnel, lit by the sickly green light of glowsticks.

  “I wanted to remain quiet,” Prof continued, grunting as he fought. “I didn’t want to push myself, or my teams, too hard. This is your fault, David. Everything that happens here is because of you.”

  I couldn’t see the battle. I still wore the domed headset, but my task was now Loophole and that motivator. I had one screen fixed on the map of the caverns with her location pinpointed; another showed the view from the camera watching her. They hovered at the edges of my vision; I needed the area right in front of my eyes clear.

  I walked carefully, as if preparing to join the battle with Prof. I didn’t want to alert Loophole.

  “Tia…,” Prof whispered. “You drove me to this, David. You and your idiot dreams. You upset the balance. You should have accepted that I was right.”

  I gritted my teeth, face flushing. I couldn’t let him get to me. But his words were dangerous for reasons he likely didn’t know. Last time I’d been in a fight, back in Sharp Tower…things had happened.

  Something lurked inside me. And so, while Prof’s belittling voice in my ears was abrasive, Larcener’s taunts from the rooftop earlier were what truly dug into me.

  You see the truth of men manifest in those first moments, David…New Epics. They murder, they destroy, showing what every man would do if his inhibitions were relaxed. Men are a race of monsters, inefficiently chained….

  Loophole. I had to focus on Loophole. She was the problem right now! What could she do?

  She…she had slightly augmented speed and could alter the size of things, herself included. She had to touch them first though. Her size manipulation lasted a few minutes if left unchecked—she couldn’t do it permanently, but she could shrink something and leave it. It would return to normal on its own later, or if she touched it and changed its size again.

  Fortunately, unlike other similar Epics, when she shrank she didn’t retain her strength or mass. She was fast, clever, and dangerous—but not a High Epic. And her weakness…I strained trying to remember…her weakness was sneezing. Her powers disappeared if she sneezed. I had explicit records of that.

  Well, just because she wasn’t a High Epic didn’t mean she wasn’t dangerous. I reached the part of the corridor where she was hiding, then continued down it toward the others, pretending I didn’t know she was there. Light shone down from the hole Prof had made in the ceiling. I grabbed a handful of rock dust off the ground, shoving it into my pocket. Distant crashes and shouts echoed from ahead. I resisted the urge to switch camera views and check in.

  “And where are you, David?” Prof said in my ear. “You let the others die fighting me, but you hide? I never would have figured you for a coward.”

  On the screen hovering to my right, Loophole was beside her rock, waiting with her back pressed against it. She didn’t seem concerned; she was a mercenary, known for giving her loyalty to whichever powerful Epic paid her. Prof had likely hired her only to steal the motivator. She’d want nothing else to do with this fight.

  Too bad for her.

  Go.

  I leaped toward the rock where she was hiding, shoving it against the wall of the cavern, hoping to pinch her in place. Halfway through my push the rock vanished, shrinking to the size of a pebble. I hit the ground, scrambling to grab the tiny figure as it sprinted away.

  I got ahold of her but immediately felt a lurching jolt. Loophole was my size again, but she was halfway down the tunnel from me. Why was the tunnel so much larger now?

  Aw, didgeridoo, I thought, she shrank me!

  I scrambled to my feet between pebbles that were now the size of boulders. In front of me, a small crack in the floor had become a chasm—though granted, it was only about twice as deep as I was tall. I’d been shrunk, as had everything I’d been holding.

  Loophole, also tiny, had gotten a good fifty feet in front of me, or at least what seemed fifty feet at my current size. Her augmented speed let her run quickly, but it wasn’t true super speed. Just a little edge on a regular person.

  That meant she couldn’t outrun bullets or anything like that. I unslung my tiny Gottschalk, took aim, and released a burst, intentionally missing. I could still easily pierce the motivator, effectively killing Cody. I’d take that chance if she didn’t stop, but a warning shot seemed appropriate.

  “I’ve got you, Loophole!” I shouted to her. “Give me the motivator and leave. You don’t care about this fight, and I don’t care about you.”

  She stopped in the corridor and glanced at me.

  Then grew to normal size.

  Uh-oh…

  She came stomping toward me, each footfall shaking the floor like an earthquake. I yelped and threw myself into the nearby crack, sliding down onto a ledge as Loophole loomed overhead. She reached down for me, and I unloaded with the Gottschalk. Apparently even a tiny gun on full auto doesn’t feel good. She pulled her fingers back and cursed—a sound like a thunderstorm.

  Bits of rock dust tumbled into my chasm, falling like a shower of hail. I reached in my pocket and pulled out some of the dust I’d grabbed earlier; it had shrunk with me.

  I had to get it into her face. Great. It would be like climbing Everest to get up there. Also, noses look really strange from below. I did notice a small pouch hanging from a strap around her neck. The motivator, maybe?

  She came at me with a knife next, jabbing it into the crack. I grabbed hold of the back of it with one hand, letting the Gottschalk hang from my shoulder by its strap. I was able to ride the knife out as she lifted it, but my plans of climbing up her arm were ruined as she shook the knife, dropping me some twenty feet to the floor.

  I braced myself and hit…but it didn’t hurt much. Huh. Being little had its advantages. I rolled to my feet as she stomped at me. I barely avoided being squished by a footfall. Blast, I’d lost my handful of dust in the fall. In fact…

  In fact…I…

  I sneezed, and thumped my head against the wall of the cavern as I crashed up against it. I’d increased in size again. Loophole and I regarded one another with similar expressions of shock.

  “Sneezing works on either of us, eh?” I said. “Nice to know.”

  She growled, reaching for the holster at her side and the handgun there. I kicked it from her grip as soon as she got it free, then slung the Gottschalk around. “Sure you don’t want to give me the motivator?”

  She reached for me. So, reluctantly, I fired.

  Each bullet, as it hit her, shrank to the size of a gnat. They still seemed to hurt, judging by her winces, but they certainly didn’t do the whole “killing you dead” thing I’d been hoping for.

  She had a hold on the rifle a second later, and it vanished in my hands, shrinking to minuscule size and falling off its strap. I gaped at Loophole. She’d shrunk bullets as they were hitting her.

  “That was awesome,” I said.

  She decked me, knocking my head against the wall of the cavern again and smashing my headset. I cursed, kicking at her, then scrambled to my feet. “Seriously,” I said to Loophole, “I might have to reevaluate. You could be a High Epic after a
ll.”

  “What is wrong with you?” she asked, coming at me swinging.

  I brought my hands up and managed to block. Unfortunately my return jab at her missed, and she clocked me across the face a second time. Sparks. When she came in again, I grabbed hold of her, as Abraham had taught me. I was bigger, so grappling seemed smart.

  She shrank my shirt.

  It just about strangled me, but fortunately it ripped before doing that. I still let go of the woman, gasping. Loophole slammed her hand into my chest, and I grew to twenty feet tall, smashing my head into the roof of the cavern.

  “David!” Mizzy said over the line. “Hurry! He’s in a bad way.”

  “Trying,” I croaked as Loophole shrank me down to normal size, then punched me in the face again. The cavern shook and rattled, chips of rock falling from the ceiling, and shouts came from the direction of Prof, Megan, and Abraham.

  I stumbled away from Loophole, then brought up my arms to block, my hand-to-hand training—and my brain—kind of fuzzy at the moment. Her flurry of punches backed me against the wall, where she continued to quite liberally beat on my face, then stomach, in turn. I had one chance to reach for my handgun, which I wore strapped to my leg, but she knocked it out of my grasp.

  She seemed to have grown a few inches, and she towered over me. As my gun clattered away, the only thing I could think to do was jump for her and throw my weight against her, which worked well enough—in that it tumbled us both to the ground.

  She got up first. I was pretty dizzy, my shirt in tatters. I groaned, rolling over, and found her picking up her fallen handgun.

  Something dropped from the ceiling onto her back. A mechanical crab? Another one jumped at her from the side, then a third fell from above. They didn’t look particularly dangerous, but they startled her, causing her to spin around and grab at her back.

  The breather was a lifesaver for me, giving me enough time to stop the room from spinning. I dug in my pocket, getting out some more dust. Guns wouldn’t work on her. I’d have to be cleverer.