Val’s expression cracked, a hint of a smile tugging at her lips. She nodded to me. “That’s Steelslayer?”
“Yes,” Prof said as I finally stepped out of my cover.
“Excellent reflexes,” Val said, looking me up and down. “Terrible fashion sense. Mizzy, where the hell are you?”
“Sorry!” that voice from before came again, followed by clanks. “Coming!”
I stepped up beside Tia as I spotted a young black woman climbing down from a catwalk above, a sniper rifle slung over her shoulder. She hit the ground and jogged toward us, a bounce in her step. She wore jeans and a short jacket, with a tight white shirt underneath. She had her hair braided in cornrows on the top, and it exploded into a frizzy puff behind her head.
Tia and Prof looked at Val; Tia cocked an eyebrow.
“Mizzy is quite capable,” Val said. “She’s just a little …”
As Mizzy scuttled toward us, she tried to duck under the front of a half-assembled jeep that was up on risers. However, the rifle over her shoulder stuck up too high, and it clanged against the front of the jeep, pushing her backward. She gasped, grabbing the jeep as if to steady it—though it hadn’t budged. Then she patted it as if in apology.
She was maybe seventeen years old or so, and had a cute face with round features and creamy brown skin. She smiles too wide to be a refugee, I thought as she ran over and saluted Prof. Where has she been living that hasn’t beaten that bubbly nature out of her? I wondered.
“Where’s Exel?” Tia asked.
“Watching the boat,” Val said.
Prof nodded, then pointed at Val. “David, meet Valentine, leader of this cell of the Reckoners. She and hers have been living in Babylon Restored for the last two years, doing reconnaissance on Regalia. You obey orders from her as if they came from me. Understand?”
“Got it. Val, are you point?”
Val’s expression darkened. “Operations,” she said, giving no indication why my words had bothered her. “Though if Tia is going to be joining this crew …”
“I am,” Tia said.
“Then,” Val said, “she’ll probably run operations. I’d rather be in the field anyway. But I don’t run point. I do heavy weapons and vehicle support.”
Prof nodded, gesturing toward Mizzy. “And this is Missouri Williams, I assume?”
“Excited to meet you, sir!” Mizzy said. She seemed the type to be excited about pretty much everything. “I’m the team’s new sniper. Before, I did repairs and equipment, and I have experience with demolitions. I’m training to run point, sir!”
“Like hell you are,” Val said. “She’s good with a rifle, Prof. Sam had kind of taken her under his wing.…”
Probably the person they lost recently, I thought, reading Prof’s stiff expression, Tia’s look of sorrow. Sam. I guessed he’d been their point man, the one who shouldered the most danger—interacting with Epics and drawing them into the traps.
It was the job I did in our team. The job Megan had done before she left. I didn’t know Sam, but it was hard not to feel a surge of empathy for the fallen man. He’d died fighting back.
But Megan had not been responsible, no matter what Prof claimed.
“Glad to have you, Mizzy,” Prof said, voice even. I sensed a healthy dose of skepticism in that tone, but that was only because I knew him pretty well. “Go pull our jeep into the garage. David, go with her, scope out just in case.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. He returned a flat gaze. Yes, the gaze said, I’m getting rid of you for a few minutes. Deal with it.
I sighed but followed Mizzy out the side door, turning off the lights on the way. That left the others in the dark, in order to make the opening and closing doors less noticeable.
I got out my new rifle, extending the night-vision scope, and walked with Mizzy toward the jeep. Behind us, one of the garage doors opened, making almost no noise at all. Inside, by the faint starlight, I saw Prof, Tia, and Val in hushed conversation.
“Sparks,” Mizzy said softly, “he’s intimidating.”
“Who?” I asked. “Prof?”
“Yeaaah,” she said, reaching the jeep. “Wow. Phaedrus himself. I didn’t make too much a fool of myself, did I?”
“Um. No?” No more a fool than I had made of myself on several occasions after first meeting Jon. I understood how intimidating he could be.
“Good.” She stared at Prof in the darkness, and frowned. Then she turned to me and stuck out a hand. “I’m Mizzy.”
“They just introduced us.”
“I know,” she said, “but I didn’t get to introduce myself. You’re David Charleston, that guy who killed Steelheart.”
“I am,” I said, taking her hand hesitantly. This girl was a little weird.
She shook my hand, then pulled in closer to me. “You,” she said softly, “are awesome. Sparks. Two heroes in one day. I will have to write this in my journal.” She swung into the jeep and started it up. I did a sweep of the area with my rifle, looking to see if we’d been noticed. I didn’t see anything, so I backed into the garage, following the jeep Mizzy drove.
I tried not to pay too much attention to the fact that Prof had asked her, and not me, to pull the jeep in. I could totally park a jeep without crashing. Sparks, I didn’t even crash going around corners anymore. Most of the time.
Mizzy lowered the garage door and locked up the place. Prof, Tia, and Val ended their clandestine conversation, then Val led us through the back of the shop, down into a tunnel under the streets. I expected to keep walking for a while, but we didn’t—only a few minutes later she led us up again, through a trapdoor to the outside.
Here, water lapped against a dock, and a wide river led out of the city into a dark bay. Colorful lights shone distantly on the other side. Hundreds upon hundreds of them. I’d looked at maps before coming, and could guess where we were. This was the Hudson River, and that was old Manhattan over there—Babylon Restored. They had electricity, it seemed, and that was the source of the distant haze of illumination I’d seen earlier. But why were the lights so colorful? And oddly dim?
I squinted, trying to make out details, but the lights were just clusters of specks to me. I followed the team along the docks, and my attention was quickly drawn by the water. Despite living in Newcago, I’d never actually been near a large body of water before. Steelheart had turned enough of Lake Michigan to steel that I’d never been to the coast. Something about those dark depths made me strangely uncomfortable.
Ahead of us at the end of the dock, a flashlight flicked on, illuminating a medium-sized motorboat with an enormous man seated at the back, wearing about five shirts’ worth of red flannel. Bearded and curly haired, he waved at us with a smile.
Sparks, this man was large. It was like one lumberjack had eaten another lumberjack, and their powers had combined to form one really fat lumberjack. He stood up in the boat as Val hopped on. He shook hands with Prof and Tia, then smiled at me.
“Exel,” the man said softly, introducing himself. He paused briefly between the syllables, as if he were saying it “X.L.” I wondered which position in the team he’d fulfill. “You’re Steelslayer?”
“Yeah,” I said, shaking his hand. The darkness, hopefully, covered my embarrassment. First Val, then this guy, referring to me that way. “But you don’t really need to call me that.”
“It’s an honor,” Exel said to me, stepping back.
They expected me to climb onto the boat. That shouldn’t be a problem, right? I realized I was sweating, but I forced myself to step onto the unsteady v
ehicle. It rocked a lot more than I’d have wanted—and then rocked even more as Mizzy climbed on. Were we really going to cross this enormous river in something so small? I sat down, discomforted. That was a lot of water.
“Is this it, sir?” Exel asked once we were all on.
“This is everyone,” Prof said, settling himself by the prow of the boat. “Let’s move.”
Val took the seat at the back next to the small outboard motor. She started it with a soft sputtering sound, and we pulled away from the dock onto the choppy black water.
I held on to the rail tightly, watching the water. All of that blackness beneath us. Who knew what was down there? The waves weren’t huge, but they did rock us. Again, I wondered if we shouldn’t have something larger. I scooted closer to the middle of the vessel.
“So,” Val said as she steered us along. “Have you prepped the new guy?”
“No,” Prof said.
“Now might be a good time, considering …,” Val said, nodding toward the distant lights.
Prof turned toward me, his form mostly hidden in shadows. The wind ruffled his dark lab coat. I hadn’t completely gotten over the awe I’d felt upon first meeting him. Yes, we were close now, but occasionally it still struck me—this was Jonathan Phaedrus, founder of the Reckoners. A man I’d practically worshipped for most of my life.
“The one who rules this city,” he said to me, “is a hydromancer.”
I nodded eagerly. “Rega—” I began.
“Don’t say her name,” Prof interrupted. “What do you know of her abilities?”
“Well,” I said, “supposedly she can send out a projection of herself, so when you see her, it might just be her duplicate. She also has the portfolio of a standard water Epic. She can raise and lower water, control it with her mind, that sort of thing.”
“She can also see out of any open surface of water,” Prof said. “And can hear anything spoken near the water. Do you have any idea of the ramifications of that?”
I glanced at the open water around us. “Right,” I said, shivering.
“At any time,” Exel said from nearby, “she could be watching us. We have to work under that assumption … and that fear.”