Firefight (The Reckoners 2)

“And Megan?” I asked.

He didn’t reply.

“Prof,” I said. “Before you kill her, at least try out what she said. Light a fire. See if it destroys the images she creates. You’ll have proof that she was telling me the truth.”

Prof reached up and touched the glass of the window. He’d left his lab coat on the back of the chair and was wearing only a pair of slacks and a button-down shirt, both the same oddly antiquated style that he favored. I could almost imagine him out in the jungle with a machete and a map, exploring ancient ruins.

“You can control the darkness inside,” I said to him. “And since you can do it, Megan can too. It—”

“Stop,” Prof whispered.

“But listen, it—”

“Stop!” Prof yelled, spinning on me. His hand moved so fast I barely saw it before he grabbed me by the throat and hauled me into the air, turning and slamming me back against the large window.

I let out a gurk. The only illumination in the room was that lamp on the desk, backlighting Prof, hiding his face in shadows. I scrambled, choking, trying to pry his fingers free from my throat. Prof took me under the arm with his other hand and lifted me up, relieving some pressure on my throat. I was able to wheeze in a short breath.

Prof leaned against me, forcing more air out of my lungs, and spoke slowly. “I’ve tried to be patient with you. I’ve tried to tell myself your betrayal isn’t personal, that you were seduced by an expert illusionist and con woman. But damn it, son, you’re making it very hard. Even though I knew what you’d do, I hoped for better. I thought you, of all people, understood. We can’t trust them!”

I struggled to wheeze something out, and he let me breathe a little more.

“Please … put me down …,” I said.

He studied me for a moment in the dim light, then stepped back, letting me drop to the floor. I gasped for air, pushing myself up beside the wall, tears rolling from the corners of my eyes.

“You should have come to me,” Prof said. “If you’d just come to me instead of hiding everything …”

I struggled to my feet. Sparks! Prof had a grip. Did his power portfolio include enhanced physical abilities? I might have to change the entire subset of Epic I’d categorized him under.

“Prof,” I said, rubbing my neck, “something is very, very wrong about this city. And we’re blind! Yes, your plan for Obliteration is a good one, but what is Regalia plotting? Who is Dawnslight? I didn’t get a chance to tell you. He contacted me again, yesterday. He seems to be on our side, but there’s something strange about him. He mentioned … surgery on Obliteration? What is Regalia planning? She has to know that we’re going to try to kill some of her pet Epics. She seems to be encouraging it. Why?”

“Because of what I’ve been saying all along!” Prof said, throwing his hands into the air. “She’s hoping we’ll be able to stop her. For all I know, she brought Obliteration here so we could kill him.”

“If that’s true, it would imply an element of resistance inside of her,” I said, stepping forward. “It means she’s fighting back. Prof, is it so far a stretch to believe that she might be hoping you’ll be able to help her? Not kill her, but restore her to what she once was?”

Prof stood in the darkness, a hulking silhouette. Sparks, he was so intimidating when he chose to be. Broad-chested, square-faced—almost inhuman in his proportions. It was easy to forget how big he was; you start thinking of him as the manager, the leader of the team. Not as this figure of lines and muscles, cut of blackness and shadow.

“Do you realize how dangerous this talk of yours is?” he asked softly. “For me?”

“What?”

“Your talk of good Epics. It gets inside my brain, like maggots eating at the flesh, worming their way toward my core. I decided long ago—for my sanity, for the world itself—that I could not use my powers.”

I felt cold.

“But now, here you come. Talking about Firefight, and how she lived among us for months, using her powers only when necessary. It starts me wondering. I could do it too, couldn’t I? Aren’t I strong? Don’t I have a handle on it? When you left me yesterday, in the room by myself, I started creating forcefields again. Little ones, to bottle up chemicals, to glow and give me light. I keep finding excuses to use them, and now I’m planning to use my powers to stop Obliteration—create a shield bigger than any I’ve created in years.”

He stepped forward and grabbed me by the front of my shirt again. He yanked me close.

“It’s not working,” Prof hissed at me. “It’s destroying me, step by step. You are destroying me, David.”

“I …” I licked my lips.

“Yes,” Prof whispered, dropping me. “We tried this once. Me. Abigail. Lincoln. Amala. A team, just like in the movies, you know?”

“… And?”

He met my gaze in the gloom. “Lincoln went bad—you call him Murkwood these days. He always did love those sparking books. I had to kill Amala.”

I swallowed.

“It doesn’t work, David,” Prof said. “It can’t work. It’s destroying me. And …” He took a deep breath. “It has already destroyed Megan. She texted this morning. She wants to meet with you again. So at least something good will come out of this.”

“No!” I said. “You’re not—”

“We’ll do what we do, David,” Prof said quietly. “There will be a reckoning.”

I felt a mounting horror. I had an image of Sourcefield powerless in the deluge of Kool-Aid, struggling with the bathroom door, looking back at me with pleading in her eyes. Only in my mind, she had Megan’s face.

A pulled trigger.

Red mixing with red.

“Please,” I said, frantic, scrambling for Prof. “Don’t. We can think of something else. You heard about the nightmares. Is that what happens to you? Tell me, Prof. Was Megan right? Do they have something to do with weaknesses?”

He took me by the arm and shoved me backward. “I forgive you,” he said. Then he walked toward the doorway.

“Prof?” I demanded, following him toward the door. “No! It—”

Prof raised a hand absently and a forcefield sprang into place in the doorway, separating us.

I pressed my palms on it, watching Prof walk down the hallway. “Prof! Jon Phaedrus!” I pounded on the forcefield, for all the good that did.

He stopped, then looked back at me. In that moment, his face in shadows, I didn’t see Prof the leader—or even Prof the man.

I saw a High Epic who had been defied.

He turned and continued down the hallway, vanishing from my sight. The forcefield remained. If the jackets were any guide, it could stay in place as long as it was needed, and Prof could travel quite a distance without it vanishing.

A short time later I spotted the sub in the enormous window, passing in the dark water. They left me without my mobile, the spyril, or any way to escape.

I was alone.

Just me and the water.

PART FOUR

40

I spent the next hour or so slumped at Tia’s desk in the meeting room, the huge window looming over me like a roommate who just heard you unwrap a bag of toffee-pulls. I stood up and began pacing, but moving only reminded me of what the team would be doing out there. Running, fighting for their lives. Trying to save the city.

And here I was. Benched.

I looked up at Prof’s forcefield. I couldn’t help feeling that Prof specifically wanted me out of the way for this operation—that catching me with Megan was an excuse, not a reason.

Megan. Sparks! Megan. He wouldn’t really kill her, would he? My thoughts kept turning back to her over and over, like a penguin who couldn’t be convinced that these plastic fish weren’t real. She’d trusted me. She’d told me her weakness. Now Prof might kill her because of it.

I hadn’t completely sorted out my emotions regarding her. But I was sure I didn’t want her to get hurt.

I stalked back to the desk

and sat, trying to keep my eyes off that dominating view of the dark waters. I started digging through the desk drawers, looking for something to distract myself. I found an emergency sidearm—just a little nine-millimeter, but at least I would be armed if I could ever get out of this stupid room—and ammunition. In another drawer I found a datapad. It had no connectivity to the Knighthawk networks, but it did contain a folder with a copy of Tia’s notes about Regalia’s location.

The map showed the path that the Reckoners would use for today’s trap. They’d follow Newton on her rounds, then hit her in a specific spot in an attempt to make Regalia appear. I found a little X on the datapad’s battle map with an oblique reference to Prof in position for an emergency—and I now recognized that as an indication of where Prof would be waiting to stop Obliteration if necessary. But what were they planning to do about Megan?

Prof has my mobile, I thought. He wouldn’t even have to work to set a trap for Megan. All he’d have to do is send her a text asking to meet, then attack her. And if she died by fire, she wouldn’t reincarnate.

Feeling even more anxious, I started looking through the datapad, though for what I didn’t know. Maybe Tia had recorded something about a plan to hurt Megan.

There. A file named “Firefight.” I tapped it.

It turned out to be a video file.