“Unhook it and attach it back to the tensor suit,” I said. “Knighthawk, how much can your drones lift?”
“About a hundred pounds each,” he said. “I work them in tandem for heavier things. Why?”
“Bring some down, grab Cody, pull him out. Is Abraham still alive?”
“Don’t know,” Knighthawk said. “His mobile is still on him though, so I can show you his location.”
I looked at Mizzy and she nodded, plugging the wires from the harmsway into the vest of the tensor suit, which I was now wearing. “I’ll find him,” she said, “and stabilize him until you can get back with this.”
“Get the drones hooked to Cody first.”
“Assuming I can get drones in to you,” Knighthawk said. “Jonathan’s military has the place surrounded up above. They don’t seem too eager to come down and join the fight.”
“And get between two High Epics?” I said. “They’ll stay back unless directly ordered. They know what happened to the soldiers at Sharp Tower. I’m surprised he was able to get even Loophole to come down here, after that.”
“Yeah,” Mizzy said. She looked overwhelmed, hand still trembling. I didn’t feel much better myself, though with a jolt I felt the harmsway engage. My pains faded.
“Get out of here, Mizzy,” I said. “You’ve done what you can. Try to get Abraham and Cody to safety; I’ll bring the harmsway for Abraham as soon as I can. If I don’t make it, set up with Knighthawk.”
She nodded. “Good luck, David. I’m, um, glad I didn’t shoot you in Babilar.”
I smiled, yanking on first the right tensor glove, then the left.
“You going to be able to make it work?” Mizzy asked. “Without practice?”
The lights on the gloves lit up a deep green. I felt their hum course through me, a distant melody that had once been precious to me, yet one I’d somehow forgotten. I released it, reducing the stone wall nearby to a wave of dust.
“Feels like coming home,” I said.
In fact, I felt almost good enough to face a High Epic.
I sprinted through the tunnel, passing shimmering rips on either side—windows to other worlds. Several were to Firefight’s realm, but others—fainter, misty and less distinct—looked farther away. There were worlds where unfamiliar figures fought in these tunnels, or where the place was completely dark, and even worlds where there were no tunnels here, just rock.
The tensors hummed on my hands, eager. It was as if…as if the powers themselves knew I was trying to save Prof. They sang me a battle hymn. As I reached the chamber where I’d seen Prof earlier, I let out a burst of vibrating energy, dispelling the rock of a ledge before me, creating a set of dust-covered steps that I strode down.
Prof glowed green in the center of the chamber, the sleeves of his coat rolled back to expose forearms covered with dark hair. He turned on me, then laughed. “David Charleston,” he said, his voice booming in the chamber. “Steelslayer! Come to finally take responsibility for what you began in Newcago? Have you come to pay?”
The floor here was pocked with tensor holes, and those alternated with piles of rubble and dust that had collapsed from the ceiling. Sparks. This place was a few breaths and a modest bass beat away from a cave-in.
I stepped up before him, hoping I could make the suit’s forcefields work. Where was Megan? She’d be reborn if she’d died, so that didn’t worry me as much as the existence of all these tears in reality.
One of them hovered nearby. Darkness visible only because of the shimmering at its sides.
Megan stepped out of it.
I jumped. Sparks, it was her, but a…strange version of her. Blurry.
Because it’s not just one of her, I realized. I wasn’t looking at one Megan, but hundreds. Overlapping one another, each similar but somehow individual. A freckle in a different place, hair that parted another way. Eyes too pale here or too dark there.
She smiled at me. A thousand smiles.
“I’ve got Abraham,” Mizzy said. “He’s alive, but it would be reaaaal nice if you kept the harmsway safe, David. If you want Abraham back to one piece, at least. Pulling out now.”
“Roger,” I said, looking at Prof. His clothing was dusty, ripped. He’d bled—and healed—from multiple cuts on his face. One hadn’t healed, a place where Cody had hit him with the powers somehow.
Beleaguered though he was, Prof didn’t seem afraid. He stood tall, confident. Four glowing lances of light appeared around him.
“The price, David,” Prof said softly.
He released the lances, driving them toward me. I was able to vaporize them with the tensors, which shattered the forcefields to tiny specks. They sprayed across me before twinkling away. Not content to get pushed around, I charged Prof, trying to summon forcefields of my own.
All I got were a few shimmers of green, ripples like light reflecting off a pond. Crud.
Prof sent a second set of spikes, but—like Cody—I was familiar enough with the tensors to stop these as well. I leaped over a pit in the ground, then slammed my hand on the floor, opening up a gap with a blasting humm.
Prof dropped a mere inch before landing on a disc of green light. He shook his head, then flung his hand toward me, sending a gout of tensor energy that dropped the ground out from beneath me, as I’d done to him.
I frantically tried to create a forcefield to land on, but only got another shimmer of light. Then an instant later the hole wasn’t as deep—and I hit bottom three feet down.
Megan stood beside the hole. “There are many worlds where he did not dig deep enough with that blast,” she said, her voice overlapped by a hundred whispers.
Prof growled, charging me and summoning spears of light, one after another. I hopped out of the hole, falling in beside Megan, destroying the spikes where I could.
Each time I did so, Prof winced.
“So, how do we fight him?” Megan asked in overlapping voices. “All I’ve been able to do is distract him. Is the plan still to make him confront his fears somehow?”
“Not sure, honestly,” I said, thrusting my hands in front of me and straining. Finally I produced a forcefield wall. It was kind of like using the tensors in reverse. Instead of releasing a hum, I let it build up inside me until it coalesced.
“How much can you alter?” I asked, looking at Megan.
“Little things,” she said. “Reasonable things. My powers haven’t
changed, I just know them. David, I can see worlds…so many worlds.” She blinked, an action that seemed to trail infinite shadows of eyelids. “But they’re all ones that are nearby. It’s amazing, yet frustrating. It’s like I can count as many numbers as I want, but only if they happen to be between zero and one. Infinity, yet still bounded.”
Prof shattered our forcefield, then raised his hands, causing the ceiling to shake. I summoned the tensor powers as I anticipated his move—indeed, he tried to bring the ceiling down on us by vaporizing a ring of rock, dropping a large stone in the center.
I vaporized the chunk right above us. We were showered with dust, and the way it fell on Megan proved she was here and real, not a shadow as a piece of me had feared.
Prof winced again.
I’m using his power. And it hurts.
“All right, I have a plan,” I said to Megan.
“Which is?”
“To run,” I said, turning and dashing out of the main chamber into a side tunnel.
Megan cursed, following. We ran side by side and I engaged the tensors, vaporizing ribbons of stone along our path. I wasn’t sure what I could do to change him or make him return to us. All of my plans had failed so far; the best thing I could do at the moment was keep the suit working and keep him in pain.
Behind us, Prof roared. He teleported in front of us, but I simply grabbed Megan by the hand and turned the other direction while disintegrating the forcefield Prof tried to use to trip us up. We ran into a tunnel without any light, but glowsticks appeared a second later, summoned by Megan from a realm where Mizzy had lit this place.
When Prof teleported in front of us again, red-faced and snarling, I turned us back the other way, unrelentingly using the suit’s powers on random stones we passed. Each use of the tensors was driving him further into a fury.
I’ve been here before, I thought, feeling the echoes of another event. Another fight. Driving an Epic to anger…
Prof appeared again, and this time Megan reacted first, yanking me to the side as spears of light—faster than I could track—struck like blades around us. Sparks! I barely stopped them. Maybe this wasn’t such a good plan.