Firefight

PART THREE
17

I awoke to darkness.

Groaning, I stirred in the overstuffed bed. It was like swimming through whipped cream. I finally managed to reach the side of the bed and sit up, running a hand through my hair. By reflex I reached for my mobile, feeling around on the bedside stand until I remembered it was broken and I’d given it to Mizzy.

I felt lost for a moment. What time was it? How long had I slept? Living in the understreets, I’d often had to rely on my mobile to tell time. Daylight had been a thing of memories, like grass-filled parks and my mother’s voice.

I stumbled out of the bed, kicking aside my jacket-which I’d taken off during the night sometime-and felt my way to the door. The hall outside was lit from one direction, and soft voices echoed distantly. Yawning, I made my way toward the light, eventually approaching the atrium-the place with the piano and the glass ceiling. It glowed with a soft blue illumination coming from above.

Filtered sunlight showed that we were about fifty feet deep. The water was murkier than I’d anticipated-not a crystalline blue, but a darker, more opaque color. Anything could be hiding in that.

I could hear the voices better now. Prof and Tia. I crossed the atrium, pointedly not looking up anymore, and found the two of them in the library.

“She sounded like she was genuinely conflicted, Jon,” Tia said as I approached. “She obviously wanted you in Babilar, so you’re right on that point. But she could have killed us, yet she didn’t. I think she does want you to stop her.”

I didn’t want to eavesdrop so I peeked into the room. Prof stood by the wall of books, one arm resting on a shelf, and Tia sat at a desk, a notebook computer open beside her and surrounded by books. She held a kind of pouch drink with a straw coming out of it-a way to drink without risking a surface that Regalia could peer through, I realized. Knowing Tia, the pouch was filled with cola.

Prof nodded toward me, so I wandered in. “I think Tia’s right,” I said. “Regalia is fighting the use of her powers and resisting their corruption.”

“Abigail is wily,” Prof said. “If you assume you know her motives, you’re probably wrong.” He tapped his finger on the shelf. “Call Exel back in from his reconnaissance, Tia, and set up the meeting room. It’s time for us to discuss a plan.”

She nodded, then closed her notebook and slipped out of the room.

“A plan,” I said, stepping up to Prof. “You mean for killing Regalia.”

He nodded.

“After all this time watching, you’re just going to up and murder her?”

“How many people died yesterday when Obliteration attacked, David? Did you hear the count?”

I shook my head.

“Eighty,” Prof said. “Eighty people burned to death in a matter of minutes. Because Regalia unleashed that monster on the city.”

“But she’s resisting,” I said. “She’s fighting off whatever darkness it is that-”

“She’s not,” Prof snapped, walking past me. “You’re mistaken. Go get ready for the meeting.”

“But-”

“David,” Prof said from the doorway, “ten months ago you came to us with a plea and an argument. You convinced me that Steelheart needed to be brought down. I listened to you, and now I want you to listen to me. Regalia has gone too far. It’s time to stop her.”

“You were friends, weren’t you?” I said.

He turned away from me.

“Don’t you think,” I said, “it’s at least worth considering whether we can save her or not?”

“This is about Megan, isn’t it?”

“What? No-”

“Don’t lie to me, son,” Prof interrupted. “In regard to Epics, you’re as bloodthirsty as men come. I’ve seen it in you; it’s something we share.”

He walked back into the room, stepping up to me. Man, Prof could loom when he wanted to. Like a gravestone about to topple on a sprouting flower. He stood like that for a moment, then sighed and reached up, placing his hand on my shoulder.

“You’re right, David,” Prof said softly. “We were friends. But do you really think I should stay my hand just because I happen to like Abigail? You think our previous familiarity condones her murders?”

“I … No. But if she’s under the sway of her powers, this might not be her fault.”

“It doesn’t work that way, son. Abigail made her choice. She could have stayed clean. She didn’t.” He met my eyes, and I saw real emotion in there. Not anger. His expression was too soft, his grimace too pained. That was sorrow.

He let go of my shoulder and turned to leave. “Perhaps she really is resisting her powers, as you say. If that’s the case, then I suspect that deep down the reason she lured me here is because she’s looking for someone who can kill her. Someone who can save her from herself. She sent for me so that I could stop her from killing people, and that’s what I’m going to do. She won’t be the first friend I’ve had to put down.”

Before I could say anything to that, he walked out of the room and I could hear him moving down the hallway. I leaned back against the wall, feeling drained. Conversations with Prof always had a distinct intensity to them.

Eventually I went looking for a way to take a shower. It turned out I had to do it in the darkness, and with cold water. Both were fine. Back in my Factory days, I’d been allowed just one shower every three days. I appreciated anything more than that.

A half hour later, I stepped into the meeting room, a chamber a few doors down from my bedroom. One entire wall was glass and looked out into the water of the sound. Delightful. And everyone sat facing it too. It wasn’t that I was frightened; I just didn’t like being reminded that we were submerged under all that water. One little leak and we’d all end up drowning in here.

Exel sat in a comfortable-looking easy chair with his feet up. Mizzy was fiddling with her phone, and Val stood by the doorway, arms crossed. The Hispanic woman looked like she had no intention to sit down and relax. She took life seriously-something I appreciated. We shared a nod as I walked in and settled myself in a chair next to Mizzy.

“How’s the city up there?” I asked Exel.

“Lots of funerals,” he said. “Attended a really nice one over near the central expanse. Flowers on the water, a beautiful eulogy. Terrible embalming, though I suppose you can’t blame them, considering the lack of resources.”

“You did reconnaissance at a funeral?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said. “People like to chat at funerals. It’s an emotional time. I caught some of Newton’s flunkies watching from a distance.”

Mizzy looked up from her mobile. “What did they do?”

“They just watched,” Exel said, shaking his head. “Can’t figure that group out, honestly. We may need to infiltrate them at some point.…”

“I doubt her gangs are recruiting fat dudes in their forties, Exel,” Val said from the doorway.

“I’d just pretend to be a chef,” Exel said. “Every organization needs both good chefs and good morticians. The two great constants of life. Food and death.”

Tia and Prof entered a short time later, Prof carrying an easel under one arm. Tia took a seat in the room’s remaining chair while Prof set up the easel and paper just in front of the aquariumlike window. How wonderful. I was going to have to stare at that water the entire time.

“Imager isn’t set up yet,” Prof said. “So we’ll do this the old-fashioned way. Mizzy, you’re low man on the team roster. You get scribe duties.”

She hopped up from her chair and actually seemed excited by the prospect. She took a marker and wrote Reckoner Super Plan for Killing Regalia at the top of the sheet. Each i was dotted with a heart.

Prof watched this with a flat expression, then soldiered onward. “In killing Steelheart, the Reckoners made a promise, one we need to keep. Powerful Epics aren’t beyond our reach. Regalia has proven her disrespect for human life, and we are the only law capable of bringing her to justice. It’s time to eradicate her.”

“I’m worried about this,” Exel said, shaking his head. “Regalia has been running a solid PR campaign lately. People in the city don’t love her, but they don’t hate her either. Are you certain this is what we should be doing, Prof?”

“She spent the last five months sending assassins to try to kill my team in Newcago,” Prof said, voice cold. “Sam is dead by her order as well. It’s personal, Exel. Good PR or not, she’s murdering people right and left in this city. We bring her down. It’s not negotiable.”

He looked at me when he said it.

Mizzy wrote Really important, and we totally need to do it on the paper, with three big arrows pointing at the heading above. Then, after a moment, she added Boy, it’s on now in smaller letters beside that one.

“All right,” Val said from beside the doorway. “So we’ll need to find her weakness, which is something we’ve never been able to do. I doubt soap is going to be enough.”

Prof looked to Tia.

“Abigail isn’t a High Epic,” Tia said.

“What?” Exel said. “Of course she is. I’ve never met an Epic as powerful as Regalia. She raised the water level of the entire city to flood it. She moved millions of tons of water, and holds it all here!”

“I didn’t say she wasn’t powerful,” Tia said. “Only that she isn’t a High Epic-which is defined as an Epic whose powers prevent them from being killed in conventional ways.”

Mizzy wrote Regalia totally needs to get with the business on her sheet.

“What about Regalia’s prognosticative abilities?” I asked Tia.

“Overblown,” Tia said. “She’s barely class F, despite what she’d have people believe. She can rarely interpret what she sees, and it certainly can’t elevate her to High Epic status by virtue of its protective nature.”

“I’ve theorized about that in my notes,” I said, nodding. “You’re sure it’s true?”

“Very.”

Exel raised his hand. “Um, I’m lost. Anyone else lost? Cuz I’m lost.”

Mizzy wrote Exel needs to pay better attention to his job on the board.

“Regalia,” I explained to him, “has no form of protective powers, not directly. That’s what makes someone a High Epic. Steelheart’s skin was impenetrable; the Clapper warped air around him so anything stabbing or hitting him was teleported to his other side; Firefight reincarnates when killed. Regalia has none of that.”

“Abigail is powerful,” Prof agreed, “but actually quite fragile. If we can find her, we can kill her.”

It was true, and I realized I’d been thinking about Regalia like I had Steelheart. That was wrong. Killing him had been all about his weakness. The “weakness” that would stop Regalia’s powers wasn’t nearly as important as finding out where she was hiding her physical form.

“This, then,” Tia said, taking a sip of her cola, “should probably be the core of our plan. We need to locate Regalia. I’ve told you that the functional range on her abilities is just under five miles. We should be able to use that knowledge to pinpoint where she’s hiding.”

Mizzy obligingly wrote on the board, Step One: find Regalia, then totally explode her. Lots and lots.

“I’ve always wondered,” Val said, regarding Tia, “how do you know so much about her powers? From the lorists?”

“Yes,” Tia answered, completely straight-faced. Sparks. Tia was a good liar.

“You’re sure,” I said, “that there isn’t more?”

Prof glared at me and I stared right back at him. I wasn’t going to outright say things he’d told me in confidence, but this hiding things from the team made me uncomfortable. The rest of the team should at least know that Prof and Regalia had a history together.

“Well,” Tia said, reluctantly. “You should all probably know that Jon and I knew Regalia during the years just after she became an Epic. This was before the Reckoners.”

“What?” Val said, stalking forward. “You didn’t tell me?”

“It wasn’t relevant,” Tia replied.

“Not relevant?” Val demanded. “Sam is dead, Tia!”

“We’ve passed on to you things we’ve thought you could use against her.”

“But-” Val began.

“Stand down, Valentine,” Prof said. “We have kept secrets from you. We will continue to do so if we think it’s for the best.”

Val fumed but crossed her arms, now standing beside my chair. She didn’t say anything, though Mizzy wrote on the board, Step Two: put Val on decaf. I wasn’t certain what that meant.

Val took a deep breath, but she finally sat down.

Mizzy kept writing. Step Three: Mizzy gets a cookie.

“Can I have a cookie too?” Exel asked.

“No,” Prof snapped. “This meeting is going nowhere. Mizzy, write down …” He trailed off, looking at her sheet for the first time since we’d started, and realizing she’d already filled the entire thing up with her comments.

Mizzy blushed.

“Why don’t you sit down?” Prof said to her. “We probably don’t need that anyway.”

Mizzy scurried to a seat, head down.

“Our plan,” Prof said, “needs to be about locating Regalia’s base of operations, then sneaking in to kill her, preferably when she’s asleep and can’t fight back.”

My stomach lurched at that. Shooting someone in the head while they’re sleeping? Didn’t seem very heroic. But I didn’t say anything, and neither did anyone else. At our core we were assassins, and that was that. Was killing them in their sleep really any different from luring them into a trap and killing them there?

“Suggestions?” Prof said.

“You sure that finding her base will work?” I asked. “Steelheart moved around a lot, sleeping in different places each night. I know a lot of Epics who maintain many different residences precisely to stop something like this from happening.”

“Regalia isn’t Steelheart,” Prof said. “She isn’t anywhere near as paranoid as he was-and she likes her comforts. She’ll have picked one place and bunkered down in it, and I doubt she moves from it often.”

“She’s getting old,” Tia agreed. “When we knew her before, she could spend days at a time in the same chair, receiving visitors. I agree with Jon’s interpretation. Abigail would rather have one base, protected very well, than a dozen lesser hideouts. She’ll definitely have a backup, but won’t use it unless she knows her primary base is compromised.”

“I’ve considered this before,” Exel said, thoughtful. “A five-mile radius means she could be almost anywhere in Babilar and still have influence here. Her base could be over in old New Jersey, even.”

“Yes,” Tia said, “but each time she appears, she narrows that down for us. Since she can only make projections five miles away from wherever her base is, each time she does appear, we learn more about where she might be.”

I nodded slowly. “Like a catapult that shoots enormous grapes.”

Everyone looked at me.

“No, listen,” I said. “If you had a grape catapult, and it was good at lobbing grapes, but sometimes lobbed them different distances, you could leave it firing over a long period of time. And maybe put it on some sort of spinner. Then, when you came back, even if someone had stolen the catapult you’d be able to tell where it was located-by the pattern of grapes it launched. It’s the same here. Only Regalia’s projections are the grapes, and her base is the catapult!”

“That … almost makes sense,” Exel said.

“Can I be the one firing the catapult?” Mizzy asked. “Sounds like fun.”

“Colorful description notwithstanding,” Tia said, “this will work if we can get enough data points. And we won’t need nearly as many of … uh … the grapes David mentions. Here’s what we do: We pick predetermined locations and set up situations we’re sure will provoke Regalia to appear via one of her projections. If she does appear in that location, we get a data point. If she doesn’t, that might be outside her range. Do this enough times, and I’m sure I’ll be able to pinpoint her location.”

I nodded, understanding. “We need to go make some noise in the city, and see if we can make Regalia come out and interact with us.”

“Exactly,” Tia said.

“What about the range on her other powers?” I asked. “If she’s raised the water around the city, can’t we use the limit of those abilities to pinpoint her?”

Tia looked toward Prof.

“Her water manipulation powers come in two flavors,” he said. “The little tendrils, like you’ve seen, and the large-scale ‘shoving’ of massive amounts of liquid. The small tendrils can only go out as far as she can see, so yes, spotting her using those will work for our plan. Her large-scale powers don’t tell us much-they’re more like the movement of tides. She can raise up water in a vast area, and can do it on a massive scale. This ability takes less precision-and she can do it from a lot farther away. So there’s no telling from the shape of water in Babilar where exactly she might be hiding.”

“That said,” Tia added, “we’re fairly certain Abigail doesn’t know we discovered the range limit on her small-scale powers, so we have an edge. We can use them to find her. The trick is going to be coming up with ways to draw her attention-events so compelling that she’ll either come confront us, or we’ll be reasonably certain from her absence that she wasn’t able to.”

“Surefire ways to draw her attention?” I said.

“Yes,” Tia replied. “Preferably done in a way that doesn’t make it obvious we’re trying to get her attention.”

“Well, that’s easy,” I said. “We hit Epics.”

The others looked toward me.

“Look, we’re going to have to kill Obliteration eventually anyway,” I said. “Regalia’s using him as some kind of gun to our heads, a threat to the entire city. If we remove him, we remove one of her primary tools-and so a hit on him is really likely to draw her out to try to stop us. If we succeed, we’ve hindered Regalia, stopped the killing, and gained a point of data that we can use to further pinpoint her base. Plus, we avoid looking suspicious, since we’re doing what the Reckoners always do.”

“He has a point, Jon,” Tia said.

“Perhaps,” Prof said. “But we don’t know where Obliteration will strike-we’ll have to be reactive, which makes it difficult to lay a trap for him. It also makes it harder to pick a location that would give us information about Regalia, if she appears.”

“We could try Newton instead,” Exel offered. “She and her flunkies tend to do patrols around the city, and those are reasonably predictable. Newton’s kind of become Regalia’s right-hand woman. If she’s put in danger, Regalia will show up for certain.”

“Except,” Val said, “Newton really isn’t a threat these days. Her gangs are in check-they might bully a little, but they haven’t been killing people. I agree with Steelslayer; Obliteration is a serious issue. I don’t want to see Babilar go the way of Houston.”

Prof considered for a moment, turning to look out through the shimmering blue water. “Val, does your team have operational plans for bringing down Newton?”

“Yes, but …”

“But?”

“That plan depended on having Sam and the spyril.”

“The spyril?” I asked.

“Broken now,” Val said. “Useless.”

From her tone, I sensed it was a touchy subject.

“Work with Tia and David,” Prof said to her. “Revise your plans and present me with several scenarios for bringing down Newton, then devise another set for bringing down Obliteration. We’ll move forward with David’s plan, and use hits on those two to draw Regalia out. Also give me a list of places where your team has confirmed seeing Regalia’s projections.”

“Sure,” Val said. “But there aren’t many of that last one. We’ve only seen her once or twice, other than what she did last night.”

“Even two points will give us a baseline to work from in locating her,” Tia said. “Exel, do some reconnaissance in the city and gather every rumor about Regalia appearing or using her powers in an obvious way. Some might not be reliable, but we might be able to use it to build a map to work from.”

“I was going to see some people in two days who might know something about this,” Exel said. “We can start there.”

“Very well,” Prof said. “Get on it. Team dismissed. All but you.” He pointed right at me.

Tia remained in her seat as the others left, and I found myself sweating. I shoved that down and forced myself to stand up and walk to Prof, who sat beside the big window filled with endless blue water.

“You need to take care, son,” Prof said quietly. “You know things others don’t. That is a trust I’ve given you.”

“I-”

“And don’t think I didn’t notice you trying to deflect the conversation today away from killing Regalia and toward killing Obliteration.”

“Do you deny it’s better to hit him first?”

“No. I didn’t contradict you because you’re right. It makes sense to hit Obliteration-and perhaps Newton-first to remove some of Regalia’s resources and help box her in. But I remind you not to forget that she is our primary target.”

“Yes sir,” I said.

“Dismissed.”

I walked from the room, annoyed that I was singled out so specifically for that treatment. I made my way down the hall, and for some reason I couldn’t help thinking of Sourcefield. Not the powerful Epic, but the regular person deprived of her powers, looking at me with dawning horror and utter confusion.

I’d never had a problem killing Epics. I still wouldn’t have a problem doing it, when the time came. That didn’t prevent me from imagining Megan’s face instead of Sourcefield’s as I pulled the trigger.

Once, I’d absolutely hated Epics. I realized I couldn’t feel that way any longer. Not now that I’d known Prof, Megan, and Edmund. Perhaps that was why I rebelled against killing Regalia. It seemed to me she was trying to fight her Epic nature. And maybe that meant we could save her.

All of these questions led me toward dangerous speculation. What would happen if we captured an Epic here, like we’d done with Edmund back in Newcago? What if we tied up someone like Newton or Obliteration, then used their weakness to perpetually negate their powers? How long without using their abilities would it take for them to start acting like a regular person?

If Newton or Obliteration weren’t under the influence of their powers, would they help us like Edmund had? And would that not, in turn, prove that we could do the same for Regalia herself? And after her, Megan?

As I reached my room, I found myself mulling over the idea, liking it more and more.