“I guess that’s one possibility,” he said. “Things did change after that. These days, being around dogs still dampens my powers, but it doesn’t completely negate them. I assumed I’d been wrong all along—I thought maybe my weakness was actually pet dander or something like that. I couldn’t experiment though, without alerting everyone to what I was doing.”
Would that happen to Megan too? Over time, would fire stop negating her powers? Her weakness still worked on her, but she could make the darkness retreat. Perhaps what Edmund experienced was the next stage.
I zipped up the pack and set it with the others beside the wall.
“Tell me,” Edmund said. “Why is it that, if dogs are my weakness, devices with power cells charged by my abilities don’t fail when they’re around dogs?”
“Hmm?” I said, distracted. “Oh, the Large Dispersal Rule.”
“What?”
“An Epic’s weakness has less and less influence on their powers the farther you get from the Epic’s presence,” I said, zipping up the fourth pack. “Like in Newcago—if Steelheart’s powers had been negated in all places where someone didn’t fear him, then he wouldn’t have been able to turn the whole city to steel. Most of the people in the city didn’t know who he was, and couldn’t fear him. There would have been pockets of non-steel all over the place.”
“Ah…,” Edmund said.
I stood up, setting the pack with the others. This hat was not working as well as I wanted it to—it was too front-heavy, and kept slipping down.
Needs ballast, I decided. I grabbed the duct tape and used what was left to attach a canteen to the back of the cap. Much better.
“Are you…all right?” Edmund asked.
“Yup. Thanks for the information.”
“You can repay me,” he said, “by agreeing to give me to another master.”
I stopped in place, the empty cardboard roll from the duct tape in my hand. “I thought you liked helping us.”
“You’ve grown weak.” He shrugged. “You can’t protect me any longer, David. I’m tired of hiding in this little room; I’d rather serve a High Epic who can make sure I’m cared for. I hear Night’s Sorrow is still dominant.”
I felt sick. “You can go free, Edmund. I won’t stop you.”
“And risk being murdered?” He gave me a thin-lipped smile. “It’s dangerous out there.”
“You’ve escaped the darkness, Edmund,” I said. “You stumbled on the secret before anyone else. If you don’t want to run off, why not come join us? Be a member of the team?”
He picked up a book, turning away from the screen. “No offense, David, but that sounds like an awful ruckus. I’ll pass.”
I sighed. “We’ll send you another supply drop,” I said. “Knighthawk might want you to charge some power cells for him though.”
“Whatever I am commanded to do,” Edmund said. “But David, I do think you’re wrong about one aspect of the powers. You claim my fear of dogs created my weakness originally, but before Calamity, I wasn’t so afraid of them. I didn’t like them, mind you. Might even have hated them. But this fear? It seemed to bloom alongside my powers. It’s like the powers…needed something to be afraid of.”
“Like water,” I whispered.
“Hmm?”
“Nothing.” That was silly. Calamity couldn’t have been watching me then. “Thanks again.”
He nodded to me, then switched off the mobile. I knelt down and went over the contents of the last pack, then set it with the others. Right as I was doing so, Megan peeked in on me. She hesitated in the doorway, looking at me with a befuddled expression, mouth half open, as if she’d forgotten what she was going to say.
The hat, I realized. Pull it off or play it cool? I decided to play it halfway, and reached up to yank my mobile out of the duct tape but left the hat on. I calmly strapped the mobile to my arm. “Yes?” I asked, ignoring the metric ton of silvery refuse hanging at eye level.
The hat slipped backward, now too heavy in the rear because of the canteen. I caught it and yanked it into place.
Yup. Smooth.
“I’m not even going to ask,” she said. “You done in here?”
“Just finished the last one. Had a nice chat with Edmund too. His experiences match yours.”
“So there’s no getting rid of the weakness for good.”
“Well, the potency of his weakness seems to have decreased over time.”
“That’s something, at least. We’re ready out here.”
“Good.” I stood, gathering up the packs.
“You’re…not going to wear the hat on the mission, are you?”
I casually removed the hat—though I had to yank it hard, as the tape was stuck to my hair—then took a drink from the canteen. With the hat still attached to it.
I put the hat back on and tugged it into place. “Just testing some ideas.”
So smooooth.
She rolled her eyes as she left. I tossed the hat aside as soon as she was gone, then carted the packs out.
The team was gathered in the main room, lit by glowing mobiles in the waning light. This base had only one story. On either side of the large, round main room was a smaller room. Mizzy and Abraham wore our stealth suits, sleek and form-fitting, with heat sinks at the waists and goggled hoods that could be pulled up and over their faces.
“Team Hip, ready to go,” Mizzy said as I handed her and Abraham their backpacks, which were the heaviest.
“What happened to ‘Team One’?” I asked.
“Obviously not hip enough,” she said. “I considered ‘Team Black’ instead, but figured that was like, kinda racist or something.”
“Isn’t it all right if you call yourselves black though?” Megan asked, leaning against the wall, arms folded. “Since you’re both African American?”
“Canadian,” Abraham corrected.
“Yeaaah,” Mizzy said. “Maybe it’s okay if I pick the name? Honestly, I can never remember. Pre-Calamity folks cared a lot about race. Like, it’s good to remember that not everything sucks worse now than it did then. Some stuff sucked in those days too. It’s like, without the Epics, everyone had to find other things to argue about. Race, nationality…oh, and sports teams. Seriously. If you go back in time, do not bring up sports teams.”
“I’ll try to remember that,” I said, handing Cody his pack. I wished the things she mentioned were confined to the past, but the way Ildithians seemed to have segregated themselves indicated that even with the Epics, we were still perfectly capable of arguing about race.
Cody took his pack. He was wearing camo, his sniper rifle over his shoulder, and Herman—the crystal grower—attached to his belt. He would use it to create a hiding place out of salt for running ops from the top of a building near Sharp Tower. With the rifle, he might be able to give us some emergency cover.
I’d suggested myself as ops, but Mizzy and Abraham would need someone on ops who could dig into files and schematics and coach them on technological details. That left me on Megan’s team, which I wasn’t complaining about. We would be sneaking into the party, though we’d had to alter Tia’s plan, picking one of her backup options as our method of getting in.
I handed Megan her pack. “Everyone ready?”
“Ready as we can be,” Abraham said, “with less than a week to practice.”
“What about me?” a voice asked. We turned to find Larcener standing in the doorway to the hideout’s last room. He’d decorated it in his preferred fashion, though with fewer sofas. Some of the mass he could use in manifesting objects was dedicated to maintaining the tools he’d made for the team.
“You want to come?” I asked, surprised.
He glared at me. “What if someone shows up here while you’re gone?” he said. “You’re abandoning me.”
“Sparks,” I said. “You’re worse than Edmund. If someone shows up, project yourself into a decoy and lead them away. That’s one of your powers, right?”
“It’s painful,
” he said, folding his arms. “I don’t like doing it.”
“Oh for the…” I shook my head, turning to the rest of the team. “Let’s do this.”