I saw it distinctly. I was looking down the tunnel, not wanting to watch Megan as I shot her. I had a clear view of a circle in the ceiling becoming a column of black dust, cascading in a shower of disintegrated steel. Like sand from an enormous spigot, the particles hit the floor and billowed outward in a cloud.
The haze cleared. My finger twitched, but I had not pulled the trigger. A figure stood from a crouch amid the dust; he had fallen from above. He wore a black coat—thin, like a lab coat—dark trousers, black boots, and a small pair of goggles over his eyes.
Prof had come, and he wore a tensor on each hand, the green light glowing with a phantom cast.
The officers opened fire, releasing a storm of bullets down the hallway. Prof raised his hand and thrust forward the glowing tensor. I could almost feel the device hum.
Bullets burst in midair, crumbling. They hit Prof as little shavings of fluttering steel, no more dangerous than pinches of dirt. Hundreds of them pelted him and the ground around him; the ones that missed flew apart in the air, catching the light. Suddenly I understood why he wore the goggles.
I stood up, slack jawed, gun forgotten in my fingers. I’d assumed I was getting good with my tensor, but destroying those bullets … that was beyond anything I’d been able to comprehend.
Prof didn’t give the baffled soldiers time to recover. He carried no weapon that I could see, but he leaped free of the dust and dashed right toward them. The mechanized units started firing, but they used their rotary guns—as if they couldn’t believe what they’d seen and figured a higher caliber was the answer.
More bullets popped in the air, shattered by Prof’s tensors. His feet skidded across the ground on the dust, and then he reached the Enforcement troops.
He attacked fully armored men with his fists.
My eyes widened as I saw him drop a soldier with a fist to the face, the man’s helmet melting to powder before his attack. He’s vaporizing the armor as he attacks. Prof spun between two soldiers, moving gracefully, slamming a fist into the gut of one, then spinning and slamming an arm into the leg of the other. Dust sprayed out as their armor failed them, disintegrating just before Prof hit.
As he came up from the spin he pounded a hand against the side of the steel chamber. The pulverized metal poured away, and something long and thin fell from the wall into his hand. A sword, carved from the steel by an incredibly precise tensor blast.
Steel flashed as Prof struck at the disordered officers. Some tried to keep firing, and others were going in with batons—which Prof destroyed just as easily as he had the bullets. He wielded the sword in one hand, and his other hand sent out near-invisible blasts that reduced metal and kevlar to nothing. Dust streamed off soldiers who got too close to him, making them slip and stumble, suddenly unbalanced as helmets melted around their heads and body armor fell away.
Blood flew in front of high-powered flashlights, and men collapsed. It had been mere heartbeats since Prof had dropped into the room, but a good dozen of the soldiers were down.
The armored units had drawn their shoulder-mounted energy cannons, but Prof had gotten too close. He hit a patch of steel dust at a sprint, then slid in a crouch forward, moving on the dust with obvious familiarity. He twisted to the side and swung his forearm, smashing through the armored unit’s leg. Powder sprayed out the back as Prof’s arm passed completely through it.
He slid to a stop, still on one knee. The armor collapsed with a resounding thud as Prof leaped forward and drilled his fist through the second armor’s leg. He pulled his hand out and the leg bent, then snapped, the unit collapsing sideways. It fired a yellow-blue blast into the ground as it fell, melting a portion of the floor.
One foolhardy member of Enforcement tried to charge Prof, who stood over the fallen armors. Prof didn’t bother with the sword. He dodged to the side, then slammed his fist forward. I could see the fist approach the soldier’s face, could see the helmet’s visor vaporizing just in front of Prof’s punch.
The soldier dropped. The hallway grew silent. Sparkling steel flakes floated in beams of light like snow at midnight.
“I,” Prof said in a powerful, self-assured voice, “am known as Limelight. Let your master know that I am more than aggravated by being forced to bother myself with you worms. Unfortunately, my minions are fools, and are incapable of following the simplest of orders.
“Tell your master that the time for dancing and playing is through. If he does not come to face me himself, I will dismantle this city piece by piece until I find him.” Prof strode past the remaining soldiers without sparing them a glance.
He walked toward me, his back to the soldiers. I grew tense, waiting for them to try something. But they didn’t. They cowered. Men did not fight Epics. They had been taught this, had it drilled into them.
Prof reached me, face shrouded in shadows, light shining from behind.
“That was genius,” I said softly.
“Get the girl.”
“I can’t believe that you—”
Prof looked at me, and I finally caught sight of his features. Jaw clenched, eyes seeming to blaze with intensity. There was contempt in those eyes, and the sight of it caused me to stumble back in shock.
Prof seemed to be shaking, his hands forming fists, as if he were holding back something terrible. “Get. The. Girl.”
I nodded dumbly, stuffing my gun back in my pocket and picking up Megan.
“Jon?” Tia’s voice came from his mobile; mine was still on silent. “Jon, the soldiers have pulled out from my position. What’s going on?”
Prof didn’t reply. He waved a tensored hand and the ground before us melted away. The dust drained, like sand in an hourglass, revealing an improvised tunnel to the lower levels below.
I followed him through the tunnel, and we made our escape.
PART FOUR
31
“ABRAHAM, more blood,” Tia said, working with a frantic urgency. Abraham—his arm in a sling, which was stained red with his own blood—hastened to the cooler.
Megan lay on the steel conference table in the main room of our hideout. Stacks of paper and some of Abraham’s tools lay on the floor where I’d swept them. Now I sat to the side, feeling helpless, exhausted, and terrified. Prof had burrowed us a path into the hideout from the back; the front entrance had been sealed by Tia using some metal plugs and a special type of incendiary grenade.
I didn’t understand much of what Tia was doing as she worked on Megan. It involved bandages and attempts to stitch wounds. Apparently Megan had internal injuries. Tia found those even more distressing than the huge amounts of blood Megan had lost.
I could see Megan’s face. It was turned toward me, angel’s eyes closed softly. Tia had cut free most of Megan’s clothing, revealing the extent of her wounds. Horrible wounds.
It seemed strange that her face was so serene. But I felt like I understood. I felt numb myself.
One step after another … I’d carried her back to the hideout. That time was a blur, a blur of pain and fright, of aching and dizziness.
Prof hadn’t offered to help a single time. He’d almost left me behind at several points.
“Here,” Abraham said to Tia, arriving with another pouch of blood.
“Hook it up,” Tia said distractedly, working on Megan’s side opposite me. I could see her bloodied surgical gloves reflecting the light. She hadn’t had time to change, and her regular clothing—a cardigan over a blouse and jeans—was now stained with streaks of red. She worked with intense concentration, but her voice betrayed panic.
Tia’s mobile beeped a soft rhythm; it had a medical package, and she had set it on Megan’s chest to detect her heartbeat. Tia occasionally picked it up to take quick ultrasounds of Megan’s abdomen. With the part of my brain that could still think, I was impressed by the Reckoners’ preparations. I hadn’t even
known that Tia had medical training, let alone that we had blood and surgical equipment in storage.
She shouldn’t look that way, I thought, blinking out tears I hadn’t realized were forming. So vulnerable. Naked on the table. Megan is stronger than that. Shouldn’t they cover her a little with a sheet or something as they work?
I caught myself rising to fetch something to cover her, something to give a semblance of modesty, but then realized how stupid I was being. Each moment was crucial here, and I couldn’t go blundering in and distract Tia.
I sat down. I was covered in Megan’s blood. I couldn’t smell it anymore; I guess my nose had gotten used to it.
She has to be okay, I thought, dazed. I saved her. I brought her back. She has to be all right, now. That’s the way it works.
“This shouldn’t be happening,” Abraham said softly. “The harmsway …”
“It doesn’t work on everyone,” Tia said. “I don’t know why. I wish I knew why, dammit. But it has never worked well on Megan, just like she always had trouble working the tensors.”
Stop talking about her weaknesses! I screamed at them in my head.
Megan’s heartbeat was getting even weaker. I could hear it, amplified by Tia’s phone—beep, beep, beep. Before I knew it, I was standing up. I turned toward Prof’s thinking room. Cody hadn’t returned to the hideout; he was still watching the captured Epic in a separate location, as he’d been ordered. But Prof was here, in the other room. He’d walked straight there after arriving, not once looking at Megan or me.
“David!” Tia said sharply. “What are you doing?”
“I … I …,” I stammered, trying to get out the words. “I’m going to get Prof. He’ll do something. He’ll save her. He knows what to do.”
“Jon can’t do anything here,” Tia said. “Sit back down.”
The sharp order cut through my dazed confusion. I sat and watched Megan’s closed eyes as Tia worked, swearing softly to herself. The curses almost matched the beat of Megan’s heart. Abraham stood to the side, looking helpless.