Calamity (Reckoners, #3)(34)

“The closer the better,” she whispered back as we moved into the crowd. “Otherwise, I risk catching more people in the ripple between worlds.”

So we had to cross the street in front of Prof without drawing attention. He was fully in the grip of his powers, so he’d be selfish to the extreme, completely lacking the ability to empathize. It wouldn’t matter who we were or what we looked like; if someone inconvenienced him, he’d kill them as easily as another man swatted a mosquito.

I slumped my shoulders and pinned my eyes to the ground. The act was still second nature to me; they’d drilled it into us at the Factory. I used it now to become inconspicuous as I stepped away from the mass of other people and headed eastward across the street, moving purposefully, yet careful to keep my posture hunched and subservient.

I shot a furtive glance over my shoulder to see if Megan was following, and she was—but she stood out like a hammer in a birthday cake. She was obviously trying to look innocuous, hands shoved in her pockets, but she walked too tall, too unafraid. Sparks. Prof would spot her for certain. I reached out and took her hand, then whispered to her, “You need to be more beaten down, Megan. Pretend you’re carrying a lead statue of Buddha on your back.”

“A…what?”

“Something heavy,” I said. “It’s a trick we learned in the Factory.”

She cocked her head at me, but then slouched. That was better, and I was able to enhance it by clinging to her in a frightened way, pushing the back of her head so that she bowed it farther while we walked arm in arm. My shuffling—while acting extra nervous and dodging out of the way of others when they got too close—got us about halfway across the street, but then the press of people grew too great.

“Bow!” Prof bellowed at us. “Kneel before your new master.”

The people went down in a wave, and I had to tow Megan with me to follow. Never before in our relationship had the disparity between us been so obvious. Yes, she had Epic powers and I didn’t—but at the moment, that distinction seemed slight compared to the fact that she obviously had no concept of how to properly cower.

I was strong. I fought, and I didn’t accept Epic rule. But Calamity…I was still human. When an Epic spoke, I jumped. And though I seethed inside, when one told me to kneel, I did it.

The crowd hushed as more people piled out of the garage, filling the street, kneeling. I couldn’t see much with my head down. “Mizzy?” I hissed. “You out yet?”

“Near the back,” she whispered over the line. “By a light post with blue ribbons on it. Should I run?”

“No,” I said. “He’s watching for that.”

I glanced up at Prof, who stood imperiously before us, new Epic lackey at his side, Stormwind hovering in her prison beyond. Prof scanned the crowd, then turned sharply as someone exited a nearby building and sprinted away.

Prof didn’t capture her in a globe of force; instead, he raised his hands to the sides and two long spears made of light, almost crystalline in shape, appeared and shot toward the fleeing woman. They speared her through, dropping her—crumpled—to the street.

I swallowed, brow damp with sweat. Prof stepped forward, and something glowing shot out beneath his feet. A pale green forcefield that made a path for him. His own personal roadway, it elevated him three or four feet above us, so that when he walked he didn’t have to risk brushing against one of the huddled figures.

We crouched lower, and I pulled the earpiece from my ear, worried it might remind him of the Reckoners, though we weren’t the only ones to use them. Megan did likewise.

“The fight for Ildithia is over,” Prof said, his voice still amplified. “You can see that your most powerful Epic master, Stormwind, is mine. Your onetime leader hides as a coward from me. I am your god now, and with my arrival I create a new order. I do this for your own good; history has proven that men cannot care for themselves.”

He stopped uncomfortably close to me on his radiant pathway. I kept my eyes down, sweating. Sparks, I could hear him breathe in before every proclamation. I could have reached out and touched his feet.

A man I loved and admired, a man I’d spent half my life studying and hoping to emulate. A man who would kill me without a second thought if he knew I was there.

“I will care for you,” Prof said, “so long as you do not cross me. You are my children, and I your father.”

It’s still him, I thought. Isn’t it? Twisted though they were, those words reminded me of the Prof I knew.

“I recognize you,” a voice whispered beside me.

I started, turning, and found Firefight kneeling beside me. He wasn’t aflame like he had been at the Foundry; right now he looked like a normal man, wearing a business suit with a very narrow tie. He knelt but did not cower.

“You’re David Charleston, aren’t you?” Firefight asked.

“I…” I shivered. “Yes. How did you get here? Are we in your world or mine?”

“I don’t know,” Firefight said. “Yours, it would seem. So in this world, you live still. Does he know?”

“He?”

Firefight faded before he could answer, and I found myself staring at a frightened young man with spiky hair. He seemed baffled that I’d been speaking to him.

What had all that been? I glanced toward Megan, who knelt on my other side, then nudged her. She looked at me.