Calamity (Reckoners, #3)(59)

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.”





SHARP Tower rose, a dark form in the night save for the top floors, which glowed from the inside. The salt was a dusty grey in this area, so that the top floors seemed somehow both light and dark at once. Like a black hole wearing a silly birthday hat.

Megan and I approached, packs slung over our shoulders, wearing new faces courtesy of another dimension. This sort of little illusion was easy for her, and she could maintain it indefinitely so long as I didn’t stray too far from her. I couldn’t help trying to work out the mechanics of it. Were these the faces of some random people? Or were they people who, in their dimension, were going the same place we were?

A large number of people gathered on the ground floor of the building. The old windows, made of thinner salt, had a warm glow to them, and several doors had been opened up to let the elite gather. I stopped, watching another group arrive, conveyed in bicycle rickshaws.

They were dressed like people in Newcago: short, sparkling 1920s-style dresses and bright lipstick on the women; pinstriped suits and sharp hats, like in old movies, on the men. I half expected them to be carrying tommy guns in violin cases. Instead, their bodyguards were armed with Glocks and P30s.