Calamity (Reckoners, #3)(68)

“Tia,” I said, trying to be rational, “I’m in command of this mission, and I’m telling you to extract. That information isn’t worth risking my team. Abraham, Mizzy, get out of there.”

Deathly silence came over the line. I could imagine them one floor down, looking Tia in the eye, considering.

“Roger that, David,” Abraham said. “Team Hip extracting.”

“I’m with him,” Mizzy said. “This isn’t the time for a power struggle, Tia. Let’s get out of here.”

Tia muttered something inaudible but made no further argument. Megan tugged on my arm, leading me the last distance toward the door to the stairwell, which we could now make out by the light of several glowing Epics. Unfortunately, with the power out, Prof’s team was gathering there as well, and blocked the way.

“David?” Mizzy asked over the line a short time later. “What about you two?”

“Keep on with your emergency extraction plan,” I said quietly. “We have false identities. We’re safe up here.”

“We’re ready,” Abraham said. “Won’t need the inflatables. Regrettably, we have something superior.”

“Go,” Cody said. “You should be clear.”

I thought I heard a window being blown open below, or at least felt the vibrations.

“Parachutes!” someone in our room shouted. “Outside!”

People rushed for the windows; Megan and I backed away. Prof’s Epics shoved past us to a window, and then the blonde woman I thought I recognized waved over several guards. She glanced at Prof, who stood with arms folded, lit by the glowing Epics nearby. He nodded.

“Bring them down,” the woman said, pointing.

The guards started shooting. The window shattered amid the cacophony of indoor weapons fire. It was like firecrackers, if they’d been stapled to your head and stuffed in your ears.

Muzzles flashed, illuminating the dark room like strobe lights. I winced, backing away as the guards filled Abraham’s parachutes with holes. Fortunately, the action at the window had drawn everyone’s attention that way. Megan and I were able to retreat toward the stairwell at the center of the room.

“Parachutes down, my lord,” the blonde Epic said, turning to Prof.

We didn’t have long until they discovered that the chutes were attached to the corpses of the dead guards. Abraham, Mizzy, and Tia would be using the distraction to reach the elevator doors, then ride their wire climbers down the cables and exit the building.

“We’re at the elevators,” Abraham said.

“Go!” Cody said.

“Right.”

I waited a tense few moments.

“We’ve hit the second floor,” Abraham finally said, out of breath. “Stopping here.”

“That was quuuuiiite the ride,” Mizzy added. “Like a zip line, except straight down.”

“At least the wire didn’t break on you halfway,” I noted.

“What?” Mizzy asked.

“Nothing.”

“David,” Abraham said, composed again. “There is a problem. Tia didn’t come with us.”

“She what?”

“Tia remained above,” Abraham said. “When we jumped into the elevator shaft, she ran the other way.”

Toward Prof’s room. Calamity’s shadow, that woman was stubborn. After all the work we’d done, she was going to get herself killed.

“Continue your extraction,” I said. “Tia is on her own now. Nothing we can do.”

“Roger.”

After all the work we’d gone through to get to her, she did this. Part of me couldn’t blame her; I was tempted by that information too. The rest of me was irate with her for forcing me into this position, where I had to make the call to leave a team member behind.

The lights suddenly came on again.

The ground lurched under the dining tables—Megan and I, near the hub, were on the nonrotating portion. To our left a short, balding Epic from Prof’s team approached around the hub, triumphantly raising the dampening device we’d attached to the generator.

Prof looked at it, then shouted, “They’re here! Secure both the elevators and the steps. Wiper, sweep the room!”

Wiper…That was a name I recognized.

“Oh!” Cody said. “Right, Wiper. I found that Epic for you, David. Sorry, lad. Had it in hand right as everything went to Wales in a handbasket. Wiper. Her powers—”

“—are to disrupt other Epics’ abilities,” I whispered. “Short them out for a second.”

A flash of light pulsed through the room. In that moment, I turned and found Megan looking at me. Not the false face she’d created, but Megan herself. Beautiful though that was, it wasn’t what I’d wanted to see at all.

Our disguises were gone.





FOR better or worse, my time with the Epics had seriously helped me deal with being surprised. I was almost as quick as Megan was in pulling out my handgun.

Pointedly, while we both moved by instinct, neither of us fired on Prof. Megan gunned down the three armed soldiers who had been firing out the window. Our little popguns acquitted themselves well, for compacts.

I shot Wiper.

She died a lot more easily than most Epics I’d killed—in fact, watching her drop in a spray of blood almost surprised me more than losing our disguises. I’d grown used to Epics being exceptionally tough; it was sometimes difficult to remember that the majority of them had only one or two powers, not a full suite.