Calamity (The Reckoners 3)

“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.