Calamity (Reckoners, #3)(70)

Something trembled inside me, like an ancient leviathan stirring in its slumber within a den of water and stone. The hair on my arms stood up, and my muscles tensed, as if I were straining to lift something heavy.

I looked into Prof’s eyes and saw my death reflected back at me, and something within me said no.

That sense of confidence was gone in a moment, replaced with sheer terror. We were going to die.

I leaped to the side, dodging a spear of light. I rolled as Megan jumped back against the wall, managing to get out of the way of another razor-sharp lance of forcefield.

I tried to scramble down the hallway, but smashed right into a glowing green wall. I groaned, turning to see Prof studying me with a look of disdain. He raised a hand to destroy me.

Something tiny hit him in the side of the head. He started, then turned, and another one smacked him in the forehead. Bullets?

“Oh yeah,” Cody said over the line. “Did y’all see that? Who just sniped a guy at a thousand yards? I did.”

The bullets didn’t penetrate Prof’s defensive powers, though they did seem to annoy him. I scrambled over to Megan. “Can you do anything?” I asked.

“I…”

A forcefield sprang up, surrounding both me and Megan, gouging out a large chunk of the saltstone floor as well. Sparks. This was it. We were going to be crushed like Val and Exel.

I reached for Megan, wanting to be holding her as it happened. She had adopted a look of concentration, teeth clenched, eyes staring sightlessly.

The air shimmered. Then someone else appeared inside the globe with us.

I blinked in surprise. The newcomer was a teenage girl with red hair worn short in a pixie cut. She had on a plain pair of jeans and an old denim jacket. She gasped and looked up at the forcefield globe surrounding us.

Prof closed his hand into a fist to make the globe shrink, but the young woman thrust her hands to the sides. I felt a thrumming vibration, like a voice with no sound. I knew that sound. The tensors?

Prof’s forcefield disintegrated, dropping us to the ground. I lost my balance, though the young woman landed easily on two feet. I was utterly baffled, but I was alive. I’d take that exchange. I grabbed Megan, pulling her away from the girl. “Megan?” I hissed. “What did you do?”

Megan continued to stare sightlessly.

“Megan?”

“Shhh,” she snapped. “This is hard.”

“But…”

Prof cocked his head.

The girl stepped forward. “…Father?” she asked.

“Father?” I repeated.

“I couldn’t find an uncorrupted version of him in a close enough reality,” Megan muttered. “So I brought what I could find. Let’s see if your plan works.”

Prof regarded his “daughter” contemplatively, then waved his hand, summoning another forcefield around Megan. The girl destroyed it in a flash, hands forward, releasing a burst of tensor power.

“Father,” the girl said. “How are you here? What’s happening?”

“I have no daughter,” Prof said.

“What? Father, it’s me. Tavi. Please, why—”

“I have no daughter!” Prof roared. “Your lies will not fool me, Megan! Traitor!”

He thrust his hands to the sides and spears of green light appeared there, shaped like glass shards. He flung them down the hallway toward us, but Tavi waved her hand, releasing a burst of power. That was the tensor power—as Tavi destroyed the spears of light, she vaporized the wall nearby as well. It fell to dust.

A set of blue-green spears appeared around Tavi, just like Prof’s. Sparks! She had his same power portfolio.

Prof’s eyes widened. Was that fear in his expression? Worry? Megan hadn’t brought a version of him into this world, but this was apparently close enough. Yes, he was afraid of her powers. His powers.

Face your fears, Prof, I thought, desperate. Don’t flee. Fight!

He bellowed in frustration, sweeping his hands before him, destroying the hallway in a long swath and sending a wave of salt dust over us. Forcefields flashed into existence—shards of light that struck at Tavi, walls that swept in to crush, a cacophony of destruction.

“Yes!” I shouted. He wasn’t running.

Then, unfortunately, the floor disappeared beneath me.





PROF’S wave of destructive power had ended right about as it hit me, and though I fell into the hole in the floor, I was able to reach out and grab the edge to stop myself. Megan knelt by the ledge, oblivious to the hole that had opened beside her.

The drop was about ten feet, but that was a little far for me to want to risk. I started to pull myself up.

“David,” Tia’s voice suddenly said in my ear, “what are you doing?”

“Trying not to die,” I said with a grunt, still dangling. “You still here on the seventieth floor somewhere?”

“In Jon’s chambers, trying to get into his office. Can you cut the power for me, maybe? There’s an electronic lock on the security door here.”

A tensor wave hummed above, and I heard an ominous groan from the ceiling.

“Dampener is gone, Tia,” I said, getting to my feet—and finding myself in a war zone. “And we have bigger troubles than getting into Prof’s rooms. He’s here.”