Firefight

  As I got my balance, the bird’s form fuzzed and reshaped into a man. Knoxx’s face was pale where it wasn’t blue, and blood covered his shoulder. He stumbled back from me, clutching one hand to his shoulder, pulling out a knife with the other.

  I stopped and stared at him for a moment, waiting. Then, finally, he toppled over, unconscious.

  “I’ve got him,” I said, staying back in case he was faking. “At least, I think I do.”

  “Where are you?” Megan asked.

  I looked around, trying to orient myself after my frenzied chase. We’d curved through the streets and come back around to near where we’d begun.

  “Two streets over from the building where I placed the camera. Look for a rooftop about four stories above the ocean, sparsely populated, a big mural of some people picking fruit spraypainted on the top.”

  “Coming,” Megan said.

  I unstrapped my gloves, then took Megan’s gun from my pocket. I didn’t want to get any closer to Knoxx without backup, but with that wound, would he bleed out on me if I didn’t do something? There was too much to lose, I decided. I needed this man alive. I inched forward and finally decided that either he was a really good faker, or he actually was unconscious. I bound his hands as best I could using his own shoelaces, then tried to bandage his wound with his jacket.

  “Megan?” I asked over the line. “ETA?”

  “Sorry,” she said. “No bridges. I’m having to weave all the way around to get to you. It’s going to be another fifteen minutes or so.”

  “All right.”

  I settled down to wait, letting my tension melt away. It was replaced by a realization of the full foolishness of what I’d just done. I’d obviously underestimated Knoxx’s transformation powers—he could turn into more than just a bird. What if he’d been even more powerful than that? What if he’d been a High Epic, impervious to bullets?

  Prof had called me reckless, and he was right. While I should have felt triumphant in what I’d done, I found myself embarrassed. How would I explain this to the other Reckoners? Sparks. I hadn’t even called Tia.

  Well, at least it had turned out okay.

  “Listen carefully,” a voice said from behind me. “You’re going to drop the gun. Then you’re going to put your hands into the air, palms facing forward, and turn around.”

  A jolt of fear washed through me. But I recognized that voice. “Val?” I said, looking back.

  “Drop the gun!” she ordered. She’d come out through the stairwell that connected the top floor of this building to the rooftop. She had a rifle tucked into her shoulder, sights on me.

  “Val,” I said. “Why are you—”

  “Drop it.”

  I dropped Megan’s gun.

  “Stand.”

  I obeyed, my hands out to the sides.

  “Now your mobile.”

  Sparks. I ripped it off my shoulder and laid it on the ground, just as Megan said in my ear, “David? What’s happening?”

  “Kick it forward,” Val instructed. When I hesitated, she focused her sights right on my forehead. So I kicked the mobile toward her.

  She knelt, gun still on me, and picked it up with one hand.

  “Sparks, David,” Megan said in my ear. “I’m hurrying as fast as—”

  She cut off as Val ended the signal, then slipped my mobile into her pocket.

  “Val?” I asked as calmly as I could. “What’s wrong?”

  “How long have you been working for Regalia?” she replied. “Since the beginning? Was she the one who sent you to Newcago to infiltrate the Reckoners?”

  “Working for … What? I’m not a spy!”

  Val swung the rifle and actually fired, planting a bullet at my feet. I yelped, jumping back.

  “I know you’ve been meeting with Firefight,” Val said.

  Sparks.

  “You’ve been suspicious since you got here,” Val continued. “You didn’t save those people in the burning building, did you? It was a plot by you and Regalia to ‘prove’ how trustworthy you were. Did you even really kill Steelheart? You really didn’t think anyone would notice when you helped Firefight enter our base? Calamity!”

  “Val, listen. It’s not what you think it is.” I stepped forward.

  And she shot me.

  Right in the thigh. Pain tore through me and I dropped to my knees. I wrapped my hands around the wound, cursing. “Val, you’re crazy! I’m not working for them. Look, I just captured an Epic!”

  Val glanced at Knoxx lying bound on the ground. Then she swung her rifle toward him and shot him square in the head.

  I gasped, growing numb despite the pain. “What …,” I sputtered. “After all I just did to—”

  “The only good Epic is a dead Epic,” Val said, sights back on me. “As a Reckoner, you should know this. But you’re not one of us. You never were.” She growled that last part, and her hand tightened on her weapon, her eyes narrowing. “You’re the reason Sam is dead, aren’t you? You gave them intel on us, on all the Reckoner cells.”

  “No, Val,” I said. “I swear it! We’ve been lying to you, yes, but on Prof’s orders.” Blood dripped between my fingers as I squeezed my leg. “Let’s call Tia, Val. Don’t do anything rash.” Anything else rash.

  Val kept the sights right on me. I met her gaze.

  Then she pulled the trigger.

  38

  I tried to dodge, of course, but there was no chance I could get out of the way quickly enough. Beyond that, I was worn out and had just been shot in the leg.

  So, when I came out of my awkward roll, I was surprised to find myself still alive. Val was surprised too, judging by her expression, but that didn’t stop her from shooting me again.

  The bullet stopped at my chest, implanting itself into my wetsuit but not breaking skin. Little spiderweb cracks of light spread out from it, then quickly faded.

  Though I was glad to be alive, dread washed over me. I knew that effect—Prof’s forcefields sometimes looked like that when they absorbed a blow. I looked up and found him, a silhouette in the night, standing on the single bridge leading to this rooftop. It swung slowly back and forth in the darkness.

  Prof wasn’t lit at all. He was a brick of blackness, lab coat fluttering in the lethargic breeze.

  “Stand down, Valentine,” Prof said softly, drawing her attention.

  Val turned to look, then visibly jumped. She obviously hadn’t figured out how I’d survived—but of course, she didn’t know that Prof was an Epic. To her the forcefields were a product of advanced Epic technology.

  Prof stepped onto the rooftop, the glow of the mural beneath lighting his face. “I gave you an order,” he said to Val. “Stand down.”

  “Sir,” she said. “He’s been—”

  “I know,” Prof said.

  Uh-oh, I thought, sweating. I started to rise, but a glare from Prof made me flop back down. The pain in my leg flared up again, and I pressed my hand back against the wound. Odd how in a moment of panic, I’d completely forgotten that I’d been shot.

  I hate getting shot.

  “His mobile,” Prof said, holding out his hand to Val. She produced it, and Prof typed something in. I had the screen set to lock with a passcode the moment it was turned off—so he shouldn’t have been able to get it back on. But he did.

  “Text the person he’s been communicating with,” Prof said to Val. “That is Firefight. Say exactly this: ‘Everything is all right. Val thought I was one of Regalia’s men with Knoxx at first.’ ”

  Val nodded, lowering the gun and sending a message to Megan.

  Prof looked at me, crossing his arms.

  “I …,” I said. “Um …”

  “I’m disappointed in you,” Prof said.

  Those words crushed me.

  “She’s not evil, Prof,” I said. “If you’d just listen to me—”

  “I have been listening,” Prof said. “Tia?”

  “I’ve got it, Jon,” Tia answered, her voice coming in over my
earpiece. “You can listen to the entire thing again here, if you want.”

  “You bugged my phone,” I whispered. “You didn’t trust me.”

  Prof raised an eyebrow at me. “I gave you two chances to come clean, the latest being just earlier this very night. I wanted to be wrong about you, boy.”

  “You knew?” Val asked, turning to Prof. “All along, you knew what he was doing?”

  “I didn’t get where I am without learning to read my men, Val,” Prof said. “Has Firefight replied?”

  Val looked down at the screen of my mobile. I lay back, sick to my stomach. They’d been listening in. They knew. Sparks!

  “She says, ‘Okay. You’re sure everything’s all right?’ ”

  “Say yes,” Prof told Val. “And say, ‘You should stay away for now. Val called Prof over, and we’re going to head back to base. I think I can explain things away to them. I’ll let you know what we find out from this Epic.’ ”

  As Val tapped on the phone, Prof walked over to me. He placed his hand on my leg and got out a little box, the thing he called the harmsway—his “technology” for healing others.

  The pain in my leg went away. I looked at him and realized I was having difficulty holding back tears. I didn’t know if they were from shame, pain, or pure rage.

  He’d been spying on me.

  “Don’t feel so bad, David,” Prof said softly. “This is why you’re here.”

  “What?”

  “Firefight did exactly as we expected,” Prof said. “If she was so good she could infiltrate my own team, I knew she’d have little difficulty compromising you. You’re a good fighter, David. Passionate, determined. But you’re inexperienced, and you melt for a pretty face.”

  “Megan’s not just a pretty face.”

  “And yet you let her manipulate you,” Prof said. “You let her into our base, and you told her our secrets.”

  “But I …” I hadn’t let her into the base. She’d done that on her own. Prof didn’t know everything, I realized. He’d bugged my mobile, but obviously that only gave him information when I had it on. He didn’t know things Megan and I had talked about in person, only what we’d said over the line.

  “I know you don’t believe me, David,” Prof said. “But everything she told you, everything she has done, has been part of a game. She played you. Her mock vulnerability, her supposed affection … I’ve seen it all before, son. All lies. I’m sorry. I’d bet even this ‘weakness’ she told you about is a fabrication.”

  Her weakness! Prof knew Megan’s weakness. She’d told it to me over the mobile. He didn’t believe, but he still knew. I felt a spike of alarm.

  “You’re wrong about her, Prof,” I said, meeting his eyes. “I know she’s being sincere.”

  “Oh?” Prof said. “And did she tell you about how she killed Sam?”

  “She didn’t. I—”

  “She did,” Prof said quietly, firmly. “David, we have it on film. Val showed it to me when I got to Babilar. Sam’s mobile was recording as he died. Firefight shot him.”

  “You didn’t tell me that!”

  “I have my reasons,” Prof said, standing up.

  “You used me as bait,” I said. “You said … this is why I’m here! You were planning a trap for her from the start!”

  Prof turned to walk back to Val, who nodded at him, showing him the screen of my mobile.

  “Let’s move,” Prof said. “Where’s the sub?”

  “Down below,” Val said. “I didn’t plant the supplies. I tracked David instead. You should have told me.”

  “The plan required him to believe that we didn’t know what he was doing,” Prof said, taking my mobile and putting it into his pocket. “The fewer who knew, the better.” He looked back at me. “Come on, son. Let’s head back.”

  “What are you going to do?” I demanded, still sitting where I’d been shot, my blood a stain beneath me. “About Megan.”

  Prof’s expression darkened, and he didn’t reply.

  From that, I knew. The Reckoners had used ploys like this before, luring an Epic into a trap with a series of false texts they thought were from an ally.

  I had to warn Megan.

  I turned and threw myself off the rooftop, engaging the spyril. Which didn’t work. I had about enough time to let out a shout of surprise before I hit the water four stories down from the roof.

  It did not feel pleasant.

  Once I sputtered out of the water and grabbed the side of the building, I looked up. Prof stood on the edge of the roof, tossing something up and down in his hand. The spyril’s motivator. When had he lifted that? When he was healing me, probably.

  “Fish him out,” he said to Val, loud enough that I could hear. “And let’s get back to the base.”

  39

  I spent the next day in my room.

  I wasn’t confined there, not explicitly, but when I left, the looks I got from Val, Exel, and Mizzy drove me back into solitude.

  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 ent
ire 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.”