“You’re a monster either way,” I said. “Divine powers don’t make you a god, I guess. They make you a bully who happens to have the biggest gun.”
I pulled the trigger. The gun didn’t even fire.
“I removed the powder,” Calamity noted. “Nothing you can possibly do—whether the result of Epic powers or the craftiness of men—can hurt me.” He hesitated. “You, however, have no such protections.”
“Um…,” I said.
Then I ran.
“Really?” he asked after me. “This is what we’re doing?”
I tore out of the room, scrambling back the way I’d come, which was tough considering that this place had been made for people who moved in freefall, not people who walked.
I reached the room where I’d first arrived. Dead end.
Calamity sprang into existence near me.
I swallowed, my mouth dry. “Noninterference, right?”
“Of course, David,” Calamity said. “Though you did break the station. I needn’t save you from…the natural result of your actions. This place can be so fragile.” He smiled.
I lunged for a handgrip on the floor—just in time, as a large hole opened in the side of the room. The wind howled.
“Goodbye, David Charleston,” Calamity said, strolling over to kick at my fingers.
Light flashed in the room.
Then someone punched Calamity square in the face, sending him sprawling. The rushing of air stopped, and I gasped in a huge breath, looking up at the newcomer.
Prof.
He wore his black lab coat and no longer bore the vacant look that had been in his eyes when I’d left him. It was replaced by an expression of determination and sheer grit.
“You,” Calamity said, sprawled on his back. “I reclaimed the powers from you!”
Prof pulled apart his lab coat. There, strapped to his chest, was the vest that Knighthawk had made, quickly repaired, motivators replaced.
“Useless!” Calamity said. “If I reclaimed them, that shouldn’t work. It…I…” He looked, befuddled, at the forcefield on the wall, which glowed green.
Prof offered me his hand.
I let out a long sigh of relief. “How do you feel?” I asked, taking the hand.
“Haunted,” he whispered. “Thank you for bringing me back. I hate you for it, David. But thank you.”
“I didn’t bring you back,” I said. “You faced it, Prof.” I suddenly understood—in strapping on the motivators and trying to take up his powers again after what had happened, he’d faced them. He’d come to risk failure. He’d done it.
He’d claimed the powers. Like Megan, he’d ripped the darkness from the abilities, and sent one sprawling away while seizing the others.
Prof’s powers were now his, and not Calamity’s. The motivator boxes were meaningless.
Prof grabbed me, perhaps intending to teleport us away, but a sudden wave of something slammed into us, sending us sprawling. Calamity started glowing again, a harsh red light, and he spoke….Sparks, that voice. Inhuman, unreal.
Something tumbled from Prof’s hand, and it vaporized as Calamity pointed.
“What was that?” I asked over the terrible screeching that was now Calamity’s voice, speaking a language I couldn’t conceive.
“That was our way out,” Prof said. “Run.”
The teleporter. Hell. I scrambled to my feet as Prof placed a forcefield between us and Calamity, but it was gone in a heartbeat. Fighting him was impossible, it—
Some unseen force tossed me to the ground. Calamity glowed and raised his hands, a beam forming, then shooting right toward me.
Light flashed again, and the beam missed.
Megan stood in the room, holding Obliteration by the throat. He appeared to be choking. I gaped in surprise as she tossed the man aside—he vanished a moment later, not in his customary fashion, but just fading away. Megan raised her gun and started firing at Calamity. It still didn’t do any good, though Calamity screamed again in that strange language.
Megan cursed and dropped down to a crouch beside me. “Plan?” she asked.
“I…Megan, how did you…”
“Easy,” she said, firing again. “Grabbed the Obliteration from the other dimension, showed him the picture of this place, and made him take me up here. He’s still a slontze there, I’ll have you know. Now…plan?”
Plan.
Sometimes you don’t know what you need until you’re in the thick of it.
“Send us both,” I said, stumbling to my feet. “Send Calamity and me into Firefight’s world—but not out in space, please. Send us to Firefight, wherever he is.”
“David, Calamity will kill you!”
“Please, Megan. Please. Trust me.”
She drew her lips to a line, and as I lurched toward Calamity in the shaking room, she released her powers.
I grabbed him, and together the two of us slipped into another place.
WE stumbled onto a rooftop in Ildithia, near a gaping hole smoldering in the ground. Night had fallen; darkness covered the salt city, but I recognized the location. It was above where I’d faced down Prof at the end.
At first I thought something had gone wrong. Had we really entered another dimension? But there were differences. Here, the hole looked like it had been made by an explosion rather than by the tensors. There were also far fewer bodies.
I turned and found that Calamity was standing there growling at me. He raised his hands, summoning light.
“I can show you,” I whispered, “what it is we see in the Earth. You say you’re curious. I can show you something you will wish to see. I promise.”
He sneered at me. But as I watched, his rage seemed to subside. Like…well, like an Epic when their powers retreated.
“You’re curious,” I said. “I know you are. Don’t you want to understand, finally, so that your curiosity will stop nagging at you?”
“Bah,” he said, but lowered his hands and transformed into Larcener. Well, he’d always been Larcener, but he’d stopped glowing, his skin had returned to a human tone, and his robe had transformed to the shirt and slacks he often wore.
“What do you think to do here?” he demanded, looking around. “This is another Core Possibility, isn’t it? One adjacent to yours? You realize I can just send us back.”
“Specks!” Firefight’s voice said. I twisted to find him on the next rooftop over, standing near Tavi. She remained behind, studying me while Firefight jumped, gliding across the open space, trailing flames. “He’s here!” Firefight said, obviously speaking into a mobile. How had he found one that didn’t burn up? “Yes, him.”
“Can you summon the person who wants to meet me?” I asked Firefight, glancing toward Calamity.
“Oh, don’t worry,” Firefight said. “He’s coming.”
“There is something strange about this place,” Calamity said, looking up and squinting at the sky. “Something wrong…”
“It’s a world that you left, Calamity,” I said. “It’s a world where some Epics don’t destroy. Where some protect and fight against those who would kill.”
“Impossible.” He spun on me. “Lies.”
“You know your powers,” I said. “You know what Megan does. You told me yourself, you are their master. Before, you demanded that I deny what I was. Well, I don’t, not anymore. I’m one of you. Now you do it! I dare you to deny what you’re seeing. Deny that this place, this possibility, exists!”
“I…” He seemed bewildered. He looked up at the dark sky, where Calamity should have been. “I…”
Powerful spotlights lit the area nearby, where people searched for survivors in the aftermath of whatever conflict Firefight and his team had faced. Down below, when people saw him standing near me, they cheered.
Sparks, they cheered an Epic.
“No…,” Calamity said. He looked at Firefight, then the people. “This one must…he must be an anomaly…like your Megan….”
“Is that so?” I said, sc
anning the area. I spotted a figure rising from the city, the figure I’d been waiting for. He streaked toward us, cape fluttering behind. An outfit I knew all too well.
I seized Calamity by the front of his clothing. “Look at it!” I said. “Look at a place where the Epics are free from your corruption. Look at the one who comes, the most terrible of them all. A murderer in our world, a destroyer. Look and see that here, Calamity, Steelheart himself is a hero!”
I thrust my hand to the side as the figure landed on the rooftop.
“That…,” Calamity said. “That is not Steelheart.”
What?
I looked at the figure again. Magnificent silver cape. Baggy black pants, a shirt stretched taut across a powerful physique. It was Steelheart’s costume, though it now bore a symbol on the chest. That was the only difference in the clothing.
But his face…his face was that of a kindly man, not a tyrant. Round features, thinning hair, a wide smile, and such understanding eyes.
Blain Charleston.
My father.
“MY David,” Father whispered. “My little David…”
I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move. It was him. In this world, my father was an Epic.
No, in this world, my father was the Epic.
He took a hesitant step forward, such a timid action for one who bore the musculature, stature, and regal air of a powerful Epic. “Oh, son. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
I released Calamity, stunned. Father took another step forward, then I seized him in an embrace.
It all came out. The worry, the terror, the frustration and mind-numbing exhaustion. It poured out in heaving sobs.
I released over a decade of pain and sorrow, a decade of loss. He held me tight, and he smelled like my father, Epic or not.
“Son,” he said, clutching me, weeping. “I killed you. I didn’t mean to. I tried to protect you, to save you. But you died. You died anyway.”
“I let you die,” I whispered. “I didn’t help you, didn’t stand up. I watched him murder you. I was a coward.”
Our words became a jumble as we spoke. But for a moment, somehow, everything was all right. I was in my father’s arms. Impossible, yet true.
“But…it is him,” Calamity whispered from behind. “I can see the powers. The same powers.”
I finally released my father, though he kept a grip on my arm, protective. Calamity stared at the sky again.
“You brought him here?” my father said.
Calamity nodded absently.
“Thank you, hero,” my father said, speaking with a confidence I hadn’t known in him since before Mother’s death. “Thank you for giving me this gift. You must be a mighty man of compassion in your realm.”
Calamity looked at us, frowning. From my father, to me, and back.
“By the Eternal Sparks,” Calamity whispered. “I see it.”
I felt the fading sensation. Megan’s power was running out, and we would soon return.
I grabbed my father again. “I’m going,” I said. “I don’t have a choice. But…Father, I forgive you. Know that I forgive you.” It didn’t need to be said, yet I knew that I had to say it.
“I forgive you,” Father said, tears in his eyes. “My David…it is enough to know that somewhere, you still live.”
The world faded, and with it my father. I anticipated pain, a lurching, a tearing away—but I felt only peace.
He was right. It was enough.
Calamity and I reappeared on the glass space station. Megan and Prof stood at the ready, her with her gun, Prof with spears of light. I raised my hands to still them.
Calamity remained in his human form. He didn’t change back; he simply knelt on that glass floor, staring sightlessly. A small red glow finally started to rise from him, and he looked at us.
“You are evil,” he said, almost a plea.
“I am not,” Megan said.
“You will…you will destroy everything…,” he said.
“No,” Prof said, his voice rough. “No.”
Calamity focused on me, standing with the other two.
“Your corruption isn’t enough,” I said. “Your fears are not enough. Your hatred is not enough. We won’t do it, Calamity.”
He wrapped his arms around himself and began to rock.
“Do you know what made the difference?” I demanded of him. “The reason our powers separated from yours? The same thing happened with all of us. Megan running into a burning building. Me entering the ocean. Edmund with the dog. And Prof coming here. It wasn’t only confronting the fears…”
“…it was pushing through them,” Calamity whispered, looking from me to the others, “to save someone.”
“Do you fear that?” I asked him softly. “That we aren’t what you’ve thought? Does it terrify you to know that deep down, men are not monsters? That we are, instead, inherently good?”
He stared at me, then collapsed, curling up on the glass floor. The red light within him dimmed, and then—just like that, he faded away. Until there was nothing.
“Did we…kill him?” Megan asked.
“Close enough,” I said.
The station rumbled, then lurched.
“I knew this thing was too low for such an orbital speed!” Prof shouted. “Sparks. We need to call Tia and…” He grew pale.
The entire station lurched, throwing us to the ceiling. Calamity had been holding it in place. It started to crack, glass all around spiderwebbing from the internal pressure. In seconds we were plummeting toward the Earth, the station shattering around us.
But I was calm.
For in that other world, my father’s shirt had borne a symbol. A symbol I recognized—a stylized S shape. A symbol that meant something.
The symbol of the Faithful.
There will be heroes. Just wait.
I seized the power within me.
I sat on the hillside, resting in the shadow of the fallen space station—which I’d transformed to steel as we fell. I’d made the transformation, then exited through one of the holes in its side. I’d grabbed hold, slowing it, then guided it out of its death spiral and eventually placed it here.
Well…crashed it here. Turns out flying is way harder than people think. In the air, I was about as adroit as seventeen geriatric walruses trying to juggle live swordfish.
Might need to work on that one.
Megan walked over, looking radiant as always, despite the bruises from the, um, smoothness-challenged landing. She sat down and squeezed my arm.
“So,” she said, “you going to get super buff?”
“Dunno,” I said, flexing. “Steelheart was, and my father is. Might come with the portfolio.”
“Should make up for the terrible kissing.”
“Hey, all you have to do to fix that is let me practice.”
“Noted.”
We were somewhere in Australia, according to Knighthawk, who was sending a copter for us. It would be hours before it arrived. I wasn’t about to trust my flying skills to get us back to North America.
I nodded toward the other hillside. “How is he?”
“Bad,” Megan said, looking toward Prof’s silhouette, where he sat staring into the sky. “He’ll have to live with it, as I do. The things we’ve done while consumed by the darkness…well, they feel like our own actions. Dreamlike, sometimes, but still our choice. You can remember enjoying it too….”
She shivered, and I pulled her close. After this, Prof would never be the same. But then, would any of us?
“His powers still work?” I said. “Like yours do?”
She nodded, glancing at her mobile. “Abraham and Cody are doing well, though Prof will need to regrow Abraham’s arm. And…um…you should read this.” She showed me a message she had pulled up from Knighthawk.
“Mizzy?” I asked.
Megan nodded.
“Sparks. I wonder how she’ll take to being an Epic.”
“Well, without the darkness…” Megan shrugged. r />
It was well and truly gone, so far as we could tell. Megan still thought Calamity might return. I didn’t.
A flash of light appeared in front of us, resolving into a man with spectacles and a goatee, wearing a trench coat.
“Ah!” Obliteration said. “You are here.” He tucked away the mobile he’d been carrying.
Hmm, maybe we wouldn’t need that copter after all. I took a deep breath and stood, hopeful. I gave Obliteration a smile and reached out my hand to him.
He slid his sword from its sheath—yes, he still had a sword—and pointed it at me. “You have done well, and blessed are you, for you have cast the dragon from his heaven. I will give you a week to recover. My next target is Toronto. You may face me there, and we shall see what comes of our clash, horseman.”
“Obliteration,” I said, pleading. “Calamity is gone.”
“Yes,” he said, sheathing his sword.
“The darkness is gone,” I said. “You don’t have to be evil.”
“I’m not,” he said. “I thank you for giving me the secrets you know, Steelslayer. I know why the darkness left me five years ago, when I faced my fear. I have been free of it ever since.” He nodded to me. “ ‘And he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.’ ”
He flashed into white ceramic and vanished.
“Calamity,” I said, slumping back down, frustrated. “Calamity.”
“You know,” Megan said, “we might need to think of new curses.”
“I had hoped, maybe, on our side he would be good. Once Calamity was gone.”
“They’re people,” Megan said. “Free to be people, David. As it should be. And that means some of them are still going to be selfish, or messed up, or whatever.”
She settled closer to me. “I’m feeling rested, and am up for some exertion.”
I grinned. “Practice!”
She rolled her eyes. “Not that I’m averse, Knees, but I was referring to my powers.”
Oh, right. I knew that.
“You still want to try this?” she asked.
“Yeah, absolutely. He’ll be waiting.”
“All right. Sit still.”