“I didn’t want to be here.”
I had to listen to Prof as I crept back up the tunnel, lit by the sickly green light of glowsticks.
“I wanted to remain quiet,” Prof continued, grunting as he fought. “I didn’t want to push myself, or my teams, too hard. This is your fault, David. Everything that happens here is because of you.”
I couldn’t see the battle. I still wore the domed headset, but my task was now Loophole and that motivator. I had one screen fixed on the map of the caverns with her location pinpointed; another showed the view from the camera watching her. They hovered at the edges of my vision; I needed the area right in front of my eyes clear.
I walked carefully, as if preparing to join the battle with Prof. I didn’t want to alert Loophole.
“Tia…,” Prof whispered. “You drove me to this, David. You and your idiot dreams. You upset the balance. You should have accepted that I was right.”
I gritted my teeth, face flushing. I couldn’t let him get to me. But his words were dangerous for reasons he likely didn’t know. Last time I’d been in a fight, back in Sharp Tower…things had happened.
Something lurked inside me. And so, while Prof’s belittling voice in my ears was abrasive, Larcener’s taunts from the rooftop earlier were what truly dug into me.
You see the truth of men manifest in those first moments, David…New Epics. They murder, they destroy, showing what every man would do if his inhibitions were relaxed. Men are a race of monsters, inefficiently chained….
Loophole. I had to focus on Loophole. She was the problem right now! What could she do?
She…she had slightly augmented speed and could alter the size of things, herself included. She had to touch them first though. Her size manipulation lasted a few minutes if left unchecked—she couldn’t do it permanently, but she could shrink something and leave it. It would return to normal on its own later, or if she touched it and changed its size again.
Fortunately, unlike other similar Epics, when she shrank she didn’t retain her strength or mass. She was fast, clever, and dangerous—but not a High Epic. And her weakness…I strained trying to remember…her weakness was sneezing. Her powers disappeared if she sneezed. I had explicit records of that.
Well, just because she wasn’t a High Epic didn’t mean she wasn’t dangerous. I reached the part of the corridor where she was hiding, then continued down it toward the others, pretending I didn’t know she was there. Light shone down from the hole Prof had made in the ceiling. I grabbed a handful of rock dust off the ground, shoving it into my pocket. Distant crashes and shouts echoed from ahead. I resisted the urge to switch camera views and check in.
“And where are you, David?” Prof said in my ear. “You let the others die fighting me, but you hide? I never would have figured you for a coward.”
On the screen hovering to my right, Loophole was beside her rock, waiting with her back pressed against it. She didn’t seem concerned; she was a mercenary, known for giving her loyalty to whichever powerful Epic paid her. Prof had likely hired her only to steal the motivator. She’d want nothing else to do with this fight.
Too bad for her.
Go.
I leaped toward the rock where she was hiding, shoving it against the wall of the cavern, hoping to pinch her in place. Halfway through my push the rock vanished, shrinking to the size of a pebble. I hit the ground, scrambling to grab the tiny figure as it sprinted away.
I got ahold of her but immediately felt a lurching jolt. Loophole was my size again, but she was halfway down the tunnel from me. Why was the tunnel so much larger now?
Aw, didgeridoo, I thought, she shrank me!
I scrambled to my feet between pebbles that were now the size of boulders. In front of me, a small crack in the floor had become a chasm—though granted, it was only about twice as deep as I was tall. I’d been shrunk, as had everything I’d been holding.
Loophole, also tiny, had gotten a good fifty feet in front of me, or at least what seemed fifty feet at my current size. Her augmented speed let her run quickly, but it wasn’t true super speed. Just a little edge on a regular person.
That meant she couldn’t outrun bullets or anything like that. I unslung my tiny Gottschalk, took aim, and released a burst, intentionally missing. I could still easily pierce the motivator, effectively killing Cody. I’d take that chance if she didn’t stop, but a warning shot seemed appropriate.
“I’ve got you, Loophole!” I shouted to her. “Give me the motivator and leave. You don’t care about this fight, and I don’t care about you.”
She stopped in the corridor and glanced at me.
Then grew to normal size.
Uh-oh…
She came stomping toward me, each footfall shaking the floor like an earthquake. I yelped and threw myself into the nearby crack, sliding down onto a ledge as Loophole loomed overhead. She reached down for me, and I unloaded with the Gottschalk. Apparently even a tiny gun on full auto doesn’t feel good. She pulled her fingers back and cursed—a sound like a thunderstorm.
Bits of rock dust tumbled into my chasm, falling like a shower of hail. I reached in my pocket and pulled out some of the dust I’d grabbed earlier; it had shrunk with me.
I had to get it into her face. Great. It would be like climbing Everest to get up there. Also, noses look really strange from below. I did notice a small pouch hanging from a strap around her neck. The motivator, maybe?
She came at me with a knife next, jabbing it into the crack. I grabbed hold of the back of it with one hand, letting the Gottschalk hang from my shoulder by its strap. I was able to ride the knife out as she lifted it, but my plans of climbing up her arm were ruined as she shook the knife, dropping me some twenty feet to the floor.
I braced myself and hit…but it didn’t hurt much. Huh. Being little had its advantages. I rolled to my feet as she stomped at me. I barely avoided being squished by a footfall. Blast, I’d lost my handful of dust in the fall. In fact…
In fact…I…
I sneezed, and thumped my head against the wall of the cavern as I crashed up against it. I’d increased in size again. Loophole and I regarded one another with similar expressions of shock.
“Sneezing works on either of us, eh?” I said. “Nice to know.”
She growled, reaching for the holster at her side and the handgun there. I kicked it from her grip as soon as she got it free, then slung the Gottschalk around. “Sure you don’t want to give me the motivator?”
She reached for me. So, reluctantly, I fired.
Each bullet, as it hit her, shrank to the size of a gnat. They still seemed to hurt, judging by her winces, but they certainly didn’t do the whole “killing you dead” thing I’d been hoping for.
She had a hold on the rifle a second later, and it vanished in my hands, shrinking to minuscule size and falling off its strap. I gaped at Loophole. She’d shrunk bullets as they were hitting her.
“That was awesome,” I said.
She decked me, knocking my head against the wall of the cavern again and smashing my headset. I cursed, kicking at her, then scrambled to my feet. “Seriously,” I said to Loophole, “I might have to reevaluate. You could be a High Epic after a
ll.”
“What is wrong with you?” she asked, coming at me swinging.
I brought my hands up and managed to block. Unfortunately my return jab at her missed, and she clocked me across the face a second time. Sparks. When she came in again, I grabbed hold of her, as Abraham had taught me. I was bigger, so grappling seemed smart.
She shrank my shirt.
It just about strangled me, but fortunately it ripped before doing that. I still let go of the woman, gasping. Loophole slammed her hand into my chest, and I grew to twenty feet tall, smashing my head into the roof of the cavern.
“David!” Mizzy said over the line. “Hurry! He’s in a bad way.”
“Trying,” I croaked as Loophole shrank me down to normal size, then punched me in the face again. The cavern shook and rattled, chips of rock falling from the ceiling, and shouts came from the direction of Prof, Megan, and Abraham.
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.