Calamity (Reckoners, #3)(99)

I stumbled away from Loophole, then brought up my arms to block, my hand-to-hand training—and my brain—kind of fuzzy at the moment. Her flurry of punches backed me against the wall, where she continued to quite liberally beat on my face, then stomach, in turn. I had one chance to reach for my handgun, which I wore strapped to my leg, but she knocked it out of my grasp.

She seemed to have grown a few inches, and she towered over me. As my gun clattered away, the only thing I could think to do was jump for her and throw my weight against her, which worked well enough—in that it tumbled us both to the ground.

She got up first. I was pretty dizzy, my shirt in tatters. I groaned, rolling over, and found her picking up her fallen handgun.

Something dropped from the ceiling onto her back. A mechanical crab? Another one jumped at her from the side, then a third fell from above. They didn’t look particularly dangerous, but they startled her, causing her to spin around and grab at her back.

The breather was a lifesaver for me, giving me enough time to stop the room from spinning. I dug in my pocket, getting out some more dust. Guns wouldn’t work on her. I’d have to be cleverer.

“Thanks, Knighthawk,” I mumbled as Loophole shrank to get out of the grip of the crabs.

I reached for her, and—like before—she shrank me as soon as I touched her tiny form. I was ready for it this time, and lunged for her as soon as I was tiny. I crashed into her again, grabbing at the pouch around her neck. I felt the thin metal rectangle through the leather inside. The motivator!

“Persistent little idiot, aren’t you?” she growled at me as the two of us, still tiny, grappled across the floor.

I grunted, managing to roll us up beside the crack-chasm in the ground. Then she head-butted me—and it stung. The room shook and I gasped, letting go—of both her and the pouch.

She rose, standing before me, the crack in the ground behind her. “I know his plan,” she said. “Epic of all Epics. Sounds like a great deal to me. I let him gather the pieces, then I make off with them. Go up and pay a visit to old Calamity myself.”

I looked up at her, dazed, my nose bleeding.

“I…,” I said, gasping.

“Yes?”

I panted. “I…suppose this…would be an awkward time to ask for an autograph.”

“What?”

I threw the dust into her face, then—as she cursed—I slammed my shoulder into her, grabbing the pouch while simultaneously knocking her backward. The cord snapped, leaving the pouch in my fingers. She fell into the chasm-crack, and I rocked there, on the edge, almost following her in.

She dropped to the bottom, where she hit with a soft thump. “You idiot!” she called up. “You realize that at this size”—she stopped, sniffling for a second—“at this size, a fall isn’t harmful at all. You could fall off a building, and—and— Oh, hell—”

I jumped away from the crack. A very faint sneeze came from behind.

Followed by a gut-wrenching splat. I winced, peeking at the mess of pulped flesh and broken bones that Loophole had become by growing too quickly inside far too small a space. Parts of her burbled out the top of the crack, like rising dough that had outgrown its bowl.

I swallowed, nauseous, then stumbled to my feet and pulled the motivator from the pouch. A bit of dust and one sneeze later, both it and I were back to regular size—though my Gottschalk was nowhere to be found.

I grabbed my handgun instead. “Mizzy, I’ve got the motivator,” I said over the line. “Where are you?”





I stumbled through the caverns underneath Ildithia, passing walls blasted open with the tensors, leaving scattered piles of sand. The glowsticks gave the tunnels a radioactive cast. I stopped, steadying myself during another tremor, then continued toward the nook where Mizzy had dragged Cody. Was that them ahead?

No. I pulled up short. Light poured through a rent in the air, like cut flesh where the skin had curled to the sides. Through it I saw another cavern, this one lit by a lively orange light. Inside, Firefight struggled against Loophole.

I gaped, watching the woman I’d just killed shrink and run from him while causing a set of falling rock chips to become boulders. Firefight zipped backward, his flames heating the rocks to a reddish orange.

I looked down the passage and glimpsed other rents in the air. Megan had been pushing herself, it seemed. I gulped and continued toward Mizzy. A flash of light to my left illuminated figures struggling in the shadows—a section of the cavern network beyond where Mizzy had placed her glowsticks.

Prof suddenly appeared a little ways down the cavern, forming like light coalescing. He was using Obliteration’s powers to teleport. Sparks! Even as he appeared, a section of the roof collapsed. Not an illusion this time, an actual rockfall, which Prof was forced to catch with a forcefield above his head. He bellowed with rage, holding up the fallen rocks, then sent a few lances of light off into the distance.

They’d both been forced, it seemed, to grasp for dangerous resources. Prof using his hidden teleportation device; Megan reaching further and further into other realities. How far had she gone? What if I lost her, as I’d lost Prof?

Steady, I thought at myself. She’d been certain she could handle it. I had to trust her. I ducked my head and scrambled down a side tunnel, eventually spotting bloodstains on the stones. I rounded another corner, then stumbled to a halt as I almost tripped over Mizzy and Cody.