“Mizzy? You there? Cody? Abraham?”
No reply came.
“Impossible,” the man said to Megan. “I’ve tried numerous times to capture that type of power in a motivator, and I doubt anyone has the knowledge to do what I could not. Dimensional rifting is too complex, too strong to…”
I glanced up at Megan, who stood tall and proud before the arrayed army, even though I knew her head must be splitting with pain. She’d spoken earlier in humility, as if beaten—but her posture told another story. Of a refusal to back down, to bend a knee, or to bow to anyone or anything.
“You’re an Epic, aren’t you?” the voice said, tone growing hard. “There is no technology, no motivator. Jonathan is recruiting, then? Now that he’s turned?”
I couldn’t stifle my gasp. How did he know about Prof? I wanted to demand answers, but I was in no position to do so. I rested my head against the floor, suddenly drowsy. Sparks. How much blood had I lost?
As my head touched the headset, it crackled and Mizzy’s voice cut in. “Megan? Sparks, talk to me! Are you—”
“I’m here, Mizzy,” I whispered.
“David? Finally! Look, I’ve placed charges to collapse the tunnel. Can you get out that way? I can blow it after you pass.”
Charges. I glanced at the drones surrounding us.
Megan’s illusions…
“Do it now, Mizzy,” I whispered.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
Then I braced myself.
The explosion blew above, and it somehow seemed louder because I’d been expecting it. The chunks of metal fell exactly where they had before, slamming to the ground inches from where I crouched—but I was left unharmed, as was Megan.
The robots, on the other hand, acted like a bunch of youthful dreams and got thoroughly crushed.
Megan was at my side in an instant, handgun pulled from her thigh holster, firing at the remaining drones. I managed to pull the knife out of my calf sheath and I held it up, drawing a glance from Megan that said, “Seriously?”
“At least it’s not a stupid samurai sword,” I muttered, putting my back to the debris. As the falling dust cleared, Megan picked off one final drone, sending it spinning to the ground.
I pushed myself to my feet—well, foot—and hobbled along the wreckage of the tunnel toward my gun.
“Where did that come from?” Megan asked, gesturing toward the broken ceiling. Mizzy’s charges hadn’t completely collapsed the tunnel—in fact, so far as I could tell, the fallen wreckage was identical to the illusory debris that Megan had created.
“Mizzy said she could blow the place after our escape.”
“And you had her drop it on top of us instead?” Megan said, fetching my gun and handing it to me, then grabbing her rifle.
“I was thinking, your illusions pull from alternate realities, right? And the closer the reality is to ours, the easier it is to pull? You were really tired—”
“Still am.”
“—and I figured you used a reality very like our own. Explosion from above. Mizzy had placed charges. So I guessed it would happen the same way.”
Megan got under my arm again and helped me limp around the wreckage. She shot a drone that was trying to extricate itself from some fallen stone. “That might not have worked,” she said softly. “Things don’t always turn out like they do in the other realities. You could have crushed yourself, David.”
“Well, I didn’t,” I said, “so for now we’re safe….”
I trailed off as sounds echoed up the corridor, coming from far behind us. Metallic sounds. The whirring of copters. Treads on metal.
Megan looked at me, then at the exit to the forest ahead, still a hundred feet away.
“Let’s hurry,” I said, hobbling forward.
Instead, Megan took my arm from around her shoulders and placed it against the wall so I could hold myself up. “You’re going to need some time to extract,” she said.
“So we should hurry.”
Megan shouldered her rifle, then faced back down the corridor.
“Megan!”
“That spot beside the rubble is defensible,” she said. “I can hold them off for a good long while. Get going.”
“But—”
“David, please. Just go.”
I took her by the shoulder, then pulled her to me and kissed her. That twisted my leg, causing pain to flare up my side, but whatever. A kiss from Megan was worth it.
I released her. And then I left, as she had said.
I felt cowardly, but part of being in a team was about recognizing when someone else could do a job better than you. And part of being a man was learning to let your immortal girlfriend take a turn being the heroic one.
I’d be back for her though, dead or not. And soon. No way was I going to leave her body to end up like those in the tubs I’d found. I stumbled up the slope, trying not to dwell on what might happen to Megan. She’d have to shoot herself once the drones overwhelmed her, as she couldn’t risk getting captured.
Behind me, Megan started firing, the rifle shots echoing in the steel hallway. The drones scuttled and clacked. Automatic weapons fire followed.
I had almost reached the exit, but I saw shadows in the sunlight outside. I was getting sick of drones. I winced as I pulled out my handgun. Fortunately, the shadows resolved into a stout black man in tight, dark clothing, night-vision goggles on his brow and a very, very large gun in his hands. Abraham cursed as he saw me, voice softly laced with his French accent.
“How are you?” he said, hurrying down the short slope. “And Megan?”
“She’s covering our escape,” I said. “She wants us to go without her.”
He met my eyes, then nodded, turning to walk with me the last couple of feet. “Drones outside pulled back into the complex once you were spotted,” he said. “Everyone else is at the jeeps.”
We had a chance then.
“She is an Epic.”
I jumped, looking around. It was that voice from before. Had a drone found us?
No. A panel on the wall had turned into a display. The same shadowed figure as before was on-screen, facing us.
“David?” Abraham said, standing in the sunlight of the open roof of the exit. “Let’s go.”
“She is an Epic,” I said instead, facing the screen. That figure…was it familiar?
A light suddenly switched on, banishing the shadows and revealing a stocky older man with a round head, bald save for some wisps of white hair that stuck up almost like a crown. I had seen him before. One time. In a picture of Prof’s, taken years ago.
“I have seen something unbelievable today,” the man said, “and it leaves me curious. You’re the one they call Steelslayer, aren’t you. Yes…the kid from Newcago. Don’t you kill Epics?”
“Just the ones that deserve it,” I replied.
“And Jonathan Phaedrus?”
“Jonathan Phaedrus is gone,” Abraham said softly. “Only the Epic Limelight remains. We will do what needs to be done.”
I didn’t say anything. It wasn’t that I disagreed with Abraham, but saying the words was hard for me.
The man studied us. Suddenly, the gunfire behind us fell silent. “I have recalled my machines. We need to talk.”
In reply, I fainted.
“WE wouldn’t have had this problem if you’d been willing to deal with us.”
Megan’s voice. Mmm…I lay in darkness, enjoying that sound, and was annoyed when the next speaker wasn’t her.
“What was I supposed to do?” It was the voice of that man, the one from Knighthawk. “First I get word that Phaedrus has turned, then you immediately contact me and demand weapons? I wanted nothing to do with it.”
“You could have guessed that we would resist him,” Abraham said. “The Reckoners would not simply join with a tyrant because he was once our leader.”
“You’re missing my point,” the man said. “I didn’t turn you away because I thought you were work
ing with him; I turned you away because I’m not a sparking idiot. Phaedrus knows too much about me. I’m not going to cross him or sell to him. I wanted nothing to do with you people.”
“Then why did you invite us in here?” Megan demanded.
I groaned, forcing my eyes open. My leg ached, but it didn’t hurt like I expected it to. When I shifted it, I felt only a superficial pain. But sparks. I was exhausted.
I blinked, my eyes struggling to focus, and a moment later Megan’s head appeared above me, golden hair hanging down around her face. “David?” she asked. “How do you feel?”
“Like a piece of bread at a rock party.”
She relaxed visibly and turned around. “He’s all right.”
“A piece of what?” the Knighthawk man’s voice asked.
“Piece of bread,” I said, sitting up with difficulty. “At a rock party. You know, because nobody wants bread at a rock party. They’ve come to see the cool rocks. So they toss the bread on the floor and it gets stomped on.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Sorry,” I grumbled. “I’m usually more eloquent after getting shot.”
I was in a dim room filled with an inordinate number of sofas, one of which I had been lying on. Another one—long, black, overstuffed—near the far wall had a low table in front of it that was covered with an array of monitors and other computer equipment, as well as a small stack of dirty plates. The Knighthawk man sat on a different sofa closer to me, near a little nightstand piled with peanut shells and two large, empty plastic cups. Beside him sat a full-sized mannequin.
Like, really. A mannequin. The type you might find in an old department store, modeling clothing. It had a completely featureless wooden face, and was dressed like the Newcago elite in a wide-brimmed hat and pinstriped suit. It had been positioned to sit in a relaxed pose, legs crossed and hands clasped.
Right…
Abraham stood in front of the sofa, arms folded, still in his black infiltration suit. He’d removed his mask—it hung from his belt—but he still wore his imposing P328 gravatonic minigun strapped to his back. Other than Megan, he was the only member of my team in the room.
“Nice place,” I said. “I assume you spent your entire decorating budget on the freaky laboratory?”
The man sniffed. “The laboratory needs to remain clean for the work I do there. I have invited you into my home, young man. A rare honor.”
“I apologize for not bringing some ceremonial stale pizza crusts as an offering,” I said, nodding to the dirty plates on the table across the room. I climbed to my feet, wobbling—although with one hand on the armrest of the couch I managed to remain upright. My leg throbbed, and I looked down to find that my pants had been sliced to get at the wound.
It was scabbed over, and looked like it had been healing for weeks, perhaps months.
“Hmm,” the man said. “Sorry that it’s not completely healed. My device isn’t as powerful as some others.”
I nodded to Megan, indicating I was all right. She didn’t offer me an arm to lean on, not in front of an enemy, but she did remain close by.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“Underneath my Foundry,” the man said.
“And you are?”
“Dean Knighthawk.”
I blinked. “Seriously? Like, that’s your name?”
“No,” the man said, “but my name was stupid. So I use this one instead.”
Well, points to him for honesty, though my skin crawled at the idea of giving up your name. I wasn’t even fond of the nickname people gave me, Steelslayer. David Charleston was good enough. My father gave me that name. These days, it was about the only thing I had left of him.
Knighthawk was indeed the man I’d seen in Prof’s photo back in Babilar. The man was older now, more bald and more paunched, with jowls hanging down beside his neck, like melted cheese sloughing off the top of a piece of bread in the microwave.
He and Prof had obviously been friends, and he knew that Prof was an Epic—had known for a long while.
“You were part of Prof’s first team,” I guessed. “The one with Regalia and Murkwood, when all of them became Epics.”
“No,” Knighthawk said. “I wasn’t. But my wife was.”
That’s right. There had been four of them, I remembered Prof saying. A woman named…Amala? There was something important about her, something I couldn’t quite remember.
“I was an interested observer,” Knighthawk said. “A scientist, and not the ‘Hey kids, watch me freeze this grape with liquid nitrogen’ type like Jonathan. A real scientist.”
“And a real businessman,” Abraham said. “You’ve built an empire upon the bodies of the dead.”
Beside Knighthawk, the mannequin spread its arms apart, hands to the sides, as if to say, “Guilty as charged.” I jumped, then glanced at Megan.
“Yeah,” she whispered, “it moves. Haven’t figured out how.”
“Mizzy and Cody?” I whispered.
“Stayed outside in case this was a trap.”
“I pioneered motivator technology,” Knighthawk said to Abraham. “And yes, I have benefited from it. So have you. So let us not point fingers, Mr. Desjardins.”
Abraham maintained a calm expression, but he couldn’t have been happy to hear Knighthawk use his last name. Even I hadn’t known what it was; we didn’t talk much about our pasts.
“That’s great,” I said, then walked by Abraham and flopped down onto the couch opposite Knighthawk and his creepy mannequin. “Again, why did you invite us in here?”
“That Epic,” Knighthawk said, and his mannequin pointed at Megan, “is Firefight, isn’t she? She was a dimensionalist all along?”
It wasn’t exactly true. When Megan spoke of Firefight, she spoke of him externally—a being from another dimension who she could bring into ours, fleetingly. She didn’t consider herself to be Firefight, though that was a small distinction.
“Yes,” Megan said, stepping up and—after considering for a moment—sitting down next to me. She rested her arm along the back of the couch, exposing her underarm holster and making it easily accessible. “There’s more to it, but basically…yes. I am what you say.”
I rested my hand on her shoulder. Megan could be cold—part was her native personality, part was wanting to keep her distance from people because…well, Epics tended to be dangerous to get to know. I could see past that, to the tension in the way she watched Knighthawk, the way she wiggled her thumb as if cocking an imaginary revolver. Her hand had a big red blister on it where she’d grabbed the flame.
We knew how to keep the darkness at bay, but this war wasn’t won yet. She was worried about what had happened to her earlier. Frankly, so was I.
Knighthawk’s mannequin leaned forward in a thoughtful posture and tipped its hat back to better expose its featureless face. “What you did in the lab, young woman,” Knighthawk said, “fooled all of my sensors, cameras, and programming. You aren’t just any dimensionalist, you’re a powerful one. My robots report scarring on the walls of the room, and some of my drones were destroyed. Permanently. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.”
“You’re not getting my DNA,” Megan said.
“Hmm?” Knighthawk said. “Oh, I already have that. I collected a dozen different samples before you two made it to the access corridor. You think you could come in here wearing anything other than a cleanroom suit and escape without me getting some of your skin cells? But you needn’t worry; I’m far from creating a motivator based on you. There is more to it than…is generally assumed.”
The mannequin continued to gesture while Knighthawk talked. But Knighthawk’s not moving at all, I noticed. And the overstuffed couches and pillows make it seem like he’s wedged into his seat. Dean Knighthawk was at least partially paralyzed. He could talk—every word he spoke came from his own mouth—but he didn’t move anything more than his head.
How could he be disabled? If he had technology to hea
l me, then why wouldn’t he have healed himself?
“No,” Knighthawk said, still addressing Megan, “I’m not interested in exploiting your powers right now, but I do want to understand them. What you did earlier was powerful. Incredible. The manipulation of reality is no small-scale stuff, young lady.”
“I hadn’t realized,” she said dryly. “What are you getting at?”
“You were going to sacrifice yourself,” Knighthawk said. “You stayed behind so the others could escape.”
“Yeah?” Megan said. “It’s not a big deal. I can survive a lot of things.”
“Ah…so a High Epic?” Knighthawk said, his mannequin sitting up straighter. “I might have guessed as much.”
Megan drew her lips to a line.
“Get to the point, Knighthawk,” I said.
“The point is this,” he replied, his mannequin waving to us. “This conversation. Such an explosive use of that woman’s powers should have driven her to isolation, rage, and a supreme annoyance at anyone near to her. Jonathan is one of the few Epics I know who could control the darkness—and following the use of his powers, he would often stay away from people for days before he was under control again. Yet this young lady used her powers but wasn’t consumed by darkness at all—as proven by the fact that she subsequently selflessly risked her life for her team.”
The mannequin leaned forward.
“So,” Knighthawk continued, “what’s the secret?”
I looked toward Abraham, who shrugged almost imperceptibly. He didn’t know if we should share the information or not. So far, we had been careful about when, and with whom, we talked about how to drive back the darkness in Epics. With this knowledge, we could accidentally tip the power structure in the Fractured States—as the secret of overcoming the darkness also gave away the secret to discovering Epic weaknesses.
I had half a mind to broadcast these things far and wide. If the Epics discovered one another’s weaknesses, maybe they’d kill each other off. Unfortunately, the truth would probably be more brutal. Power would shift, and some Epics would rise while others fell. We might end up with one group of Epics ruling the entire continent, and be forced to deal with an organized, powerful regime instead of a network of city-states fighting one another and remaining weak because of it.