I nodded, then felt foolish because she couldn’t see that. I forced myself to start climbing again. “Thank you, Megan,” I whispered over the line. What she’d given me just then had taken a lot of guts to say.
She let out a breath. “Yeah, well, you’re never willing to just let things alone. You’ve got to find answers. So … well, maybe you’ll find this one.”
I reached the next flight of stairs, then twisted around the stairwell to keep going up. As I did, my foot trod on something that crunched.
I shivered and looked down. Another fortune cookie. I was tempted to just leave it there—the last ones had been seriously weird. Nobody in the base had been able to make sense of them. But I knew I couldn’t just leave it. I knelt down, anxious about making too much noise, and held up the slip of paper to the light of a glowing fruit.
Is this a dream? the paper asked.
I took a deep breath. Yeah. Still creepy. What did I do? Respond?
“No, it’s not,” I said.
“What?” Megan asked in my ear.
“Nothing.” I waited, uncertain what kind of response I expected. None came. I started up the stairwell again, watching my feet. Sure enough, I found another set of cookies growing from a vine on the next flight.
I popped one open.
Gnarly, it read. I get confused sometimes.
Was that a reply? “Who are you?”
“David?” Megan asked.
“I’m talking to fortune cookies.”
“You’re … Huh?”
“I’ll explain in a minute.”
I made my way upward slowly. This time I was able to catch a vine curling down, cookies sprouting from it like seeds. I waited for one to grow to full size in front of me, then pulled out the slip.
They call me Dawnslight. You’re trying to stop her, right?
“Yes,” I whispered. “Assuming you mean Regalia, I am. Do you know where she is?”
I broke open a few more cookies, but this pod all read the same thing, so I climbed up a little bit until I found another cluster.
Don’t know, dude, it read. I can’t see her. I watched that other one, though. On the operating table.
“Obliteration?” I asked. “On an operating table?”
Sure. Yeah. They cut something outta him. You’re sure this isn’t a dream?
“It’s not.”
I like dreams, the next cookie read.
I shivered. So Dawnslight was an Epic for certain. And this city was his.
“Where are you?” I asked.
Listen to that music.…
That’s the only response I got, no matter what questions I asked.
“David,” Megan said on the line, worry bleeding into her voice, “you are seriously freaking me out right now.”
“What do you know about Dawnslight?” I asked her, continuing upward at a slow pace in case any other cookies appeared.
“Not much,” Megan said. “When I asked Regalia, she claimed that he was ‘an ally’ and implied that was all I needed to know. Is that who you were talking to?”
I looked at the slips of paper in my hand. “Yeah. Using a kind of bizarre Epic texting plan. I’ll show you later.” I needed to get this camera placed and move on. Fortunately, floor twenty was the final flight. I pushed on the door out of the stairwell, but it didn’t budge. I grunted and shoved a little harder.
I winced as it opened with a loud creak. Beyond was an entryway accented by dark wood trim, with a very nice rug covering a marble floor, though that had been broken up by the plants.
“David, what did you just do?” Megan asked.
“Might have opened a door a little too loudly.”
“Well, the bird just looked your direction. Sparks! He’s flying toward the building. Hurry.”
I cursed softly, making my way through the room as quickly as possible. I passed an overgrown reception desk and pushed into the office beyond. The window here looked out right at Obliteration.
I climbed up on the windowsill.
“The bird just landed on a window on your building, one story down from you, but on the south side,” Megan said. “He must have heard you, but he wasn’t certain of the location.”
“Good,” I whispered, reaching out and affixing the camera on the outside of the building. This was the east side, so the bird shouldn’t see me. The camera stuck in place easily. “Obliteration?”
“Not looking your way,” Megan said. “He hasn’t noticed. But if that bird really is one of Newton’s Epics …”
If he is …
An idea started to form in my head. “Mmm …,” I said, tapping the camera to activate it.
“David?” Megan said. “What does that tone mean?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re improvising, aren’t you?”
“Maybe.” I ducked quietly back into the room. “Tell me, Megan. What is one surefire way to know if this Knoxx guy has been hiding his powers all along, or if Regalia—either through trickery or some other means—gave him his abilities?”
She was silent for a moment. “Sparks. You want to kidnap him, don’t you?”
“Well, Val isn’t going to be back for another hour at least. Might as well do something useful with my time.” I paused. “I’m really itching to see if that guy has had any nightmares lately.”
“And if Prof or Obliteration notices what you’re doing?”
“It won’t come to that,” I said.
“Slontze,” Megan said.
“Guilty as charged. Can you get into position to cover me through some of the windows?”
Megan sighed. “Let me see.”
37
THIS, I thought as I crossed back through the swanky overgrown office, is crazy.
Moving against an Epic I barely knew? One about which I had no research, no notes, no intel at all? It was like jumping into a swimming pool without first looking to see if your friends had filled it with snakes.
I had to do it anyway.
We were blind; Regalia had us all running. Prof had been unresponsive for a day, during our most difficult stages of planning—but worse, even if he helped, Regalia was probably manipulating us based on her knowledge of him and Tia.
I needed to do something unexpected, and the secrets Knoxx knew could make a huge difference. I consoled myself with the idea that at least I wasn’t trying to take on Obliteration or Newton on my own. This was just a minor Epic, after all.
I wasn’t certain what Prof’s reaction would be. I’d told him my plan about kidnapping an Epic—and he’d said that either I was just what the Reckoners needed, or I was dangerously reckless. Maybe I was both.
But he hadn’t specifically forbidden me to try it. He just hadn’t wanted me endangering the team. This wouldn’t do that.
I peeked back into the stairwell. What I needed to do was make more noise so that Knoxx would figure out he’d gotten the wrong location. When he came up to check on me, I could clock him. Easy as pie.
Not that I actually knew how to make pie.
I stamped on the floor and knocked an old desk lamp off a side table, then I cursed as if I’d bumped into it. After that I moved back to the stairwell and held Megan’s gun up, two-handed and at high ready, mobile darkened so that the only light was the moonlike glow of the plump fruit drooping from branches.
I waited, tense, and just listened. Indeed, I heard something in the stairwell. It echoed, a scraping that sounded far distant down below. Or was it coming from the floor right below me? With the strange echoing, it was difficult to tell.
“He’s moving in.” I jumped at Megan’s voice. Though I’d turned the receiver way down, it seemed like thunder in my ear. “He entered the window and is on the floor just beneath you.”
“Good,” I said softly.
“There’s movement on the first floor too,” she said. “Well, the first floor above the water level, anyway. David, I think someone else is in that building.”
“Scavengers?”
“I’d like to avoid gunfire if possible,” I said. “Who knows what kind of attention that will bring?”
“Does this rifle have a built-in suppressor?” Megan asked.
“Uh …” Did it?
“Yup, here it is,” Megan said. “Electron-compressed muzzle suppressor. Sparks, this gun is nice.”
I felt a stab of jealousy, which was utterly stupid. It was just a gun. And it wasn’t even as good a gun as my last one. I immediately felt ashamed for thinking ill of the gun—which was even more stupid.
I listened at the stairwell, trying to pick out sounds of someone sneaking up. I heard something, but it came from behind me, inside the room where I’d planted the camera.
I stifled a curse. Knoxx had somehow circled around and come in the window of the executive office. My first instinct was to run toward him, but I pressed that down and instead eased open the door to the stairwell and slipped through.
Not a moment too soon. As I watched through the cracked stairwell door, the door into the executive office inched open and a figure emerged into the light of the hanging fruit in the receptionist’s entryway. Knoxx. Slender, with buzzed hair and about forty earrings. He wore a mobile on his shoulder and carried a sleek-looking Beretta compact in two hands. He checked his corners, then inched into the room.
“Whoever it was,” he whispered, “they were in here.”
I couldn’t hear the reply; he had in an earpiece.
“You’re such an idiot, Newton,” he said, kneeling to inspect the lamp I’d knocked over. “It’s probably just some kids looking for food that nobody else has touched.”
I frowned, surprised that a High Epic let a man like this talk to her that way. He must be more powerful than I’d assumed.
Knoxx stood and moved toward the stairwell. Again a noise echoed up from down below, and the man hesitated. “I heard something,” he said, moving forward less carefully. “From the stairwell, far below. They’re running, it seems.… Yes …” He reached the door to the stairwell. “Okay, I’ll check it out. We—”
I kicked the door open into his face.
Knoxx’s voice cut off midsentence. I jumped into the room and buried my fist into his stomach, making him drop his gun. I carried Megan’s handgun in my off hand, and brought it down, hoping to smack it against the back of Knoxx’s head.
He managed to throw himself to the side and I missed, but I immediately lunged and grabbed him around the neck. Abraham had taught me a few grappling moves. If I could choke him, make him pass out …
Knoxx vanished.
Right. Transformation powers.
Idiot, I thought as the pigeon fluttered away from me. Fortunately, they weren’t the most agile of birds. While the pigeon tried to get its bearings, I ran for the door that led to the executive office—the one with the window. I slammed that door, trapping the pigeon in our smaller chamber.
It fled down into the stairwell.
“David?” Megan asked in my ear.
“He got away from me,” I said. “But he dropped his gun, and I kept him from getting out of the building. He’s in the stairwell somewhere.”
“Be careful,” she said, tense.
“I will be,” I said, peeking into the stairwell. I couldn’t be certain he was unarmed—lots of men carried two guns, and it seemed any clothing and weapons he had on him vanished when he transformed, reappearing when he became a human again. That was pretty standard for shifters of moderate power.
I thought I heard a flutter of wings, and decided to follow it down the stairs. Unfortunately, this meant I could be running into a trap like the very one I’d just set for him.
“Do you see anything?” I asked.
“Watching …,” Megan said. “Yes! The floor below the top floor has shadows moving in the fruit lights. He’s making a run for it. Want me to send him ducking?”
“Yes please,” I said, pressing my back to the concrete wall.
I heard a few shots over the line. A suppressor, even a modern one, didn’t completely eliminate the sound of gunfire—but they worked marvels nonetheless. Any spark from her shots would be hidden, which was important at night like this, and the gunfire didn’t sound much like gunfire. More like metallic clicks.
There was a cracking of glass from the room nearby. Megan wasn’t trying to hit the Epic; her shots just needed to make him more worried about her than he was about me. I thought I heard a man curse in the next room.
“Going in,” I said. I leaped off a tree trunk and pulled open the swinging door, then ducked down in a crouch, searching for my mark. I heard heavy breathing, but could see nothing. It was a big room, a kind of large office space with broken cubicles and old computers. As I crept forward I passed a few of those cubicles that had been capped by canvas, making little dwellings filled with discarded pots and the occasional other refuse of human habitation. All were abandoned.
Megan had fired in through the large series of windows on the wall opposite me. Dust floated in the air, lit by fruit that dangled from the ceiling like snot from the nose of a toddler who had been snorting glowsticks.
How would I find Knoxx in this room? He could hide practically forever if he turned into a bird. I’d never—
Something launched out of the cubicle beside me, a black form with fur and claws. I yelped, firing out of instinct, but my aim was off. The thing hit me hard, knocking me back, and Megan’s gun thumped against the floor. I struggled, trying to throw the creature off. It wasn’t as big as I was, but those claws! They raked me along the side, which burned something fierce.
I flailed, one hand forcing the beast back, the other reaching for my gun. I didn’t find it, but instead gripped something cold and metal from inside the covered cubicle beside us. I raised it and slammed it into the side of the beast’s head.
A can of spraypaint?
As the beast turned back at me I sprayed it in the face, covering the thing’s snout in glowing blue paint. The light let me pick out that the creature was a dog, though I didn’t know my breeds. It was lean, with short hair and a pointed face.
It scrambled back, then the edges of its form fuzzed and the dog became a man. He stood, wiping paint from his eyes.
“Help!” I shouted. “You have a shot?”
“Maybe,” Megan said. “I thought you wanted him alive, though!”
“I want me alive more,” I said. “Take the shot!”
Knoxx reached the gun I’d dropped.
Something shattered one of the windows, and Knoxx lurched to the side as Megan’s bullet took him in the shoulder. A spray of dark blood painted the wall behind him.
Knoxx slumped down, looking dazed, his face still glowing with blue paint. He groaned and dropped the handgun, then became a pigeon and fluttered away, crookedly.
“Did I get him?” Megan said in my ear.
“Right in the shoulder,” I said, breathing out a tense breath. “Thank you.”
“I’m just glad I didn’t shoot you,” Megan said. “I was aiming through infrared.”
I groaned, climbing to my feet, hand to my side where Knoxx’s claws had caught me. I was alive, but I’d failed to capture him. Still, I should probably count myself lucky.
A flutter of wings sounded from the other side of the room.
I frowned, picking up Megan’s gun and inching forward. By the light of drooping fruit I saw spots of dark liquid on the desk nearby. I followed them to where the pigeon crouched on a windowsill, face glowing blue.
It’s wounded, I realized. It can’t fly.
The pigeon saw me and leaped out the window, fluttering awkwardly, losing feathers as it struggled to stay aloft. It barely made it to the next building over before being forced to land.
So it could fly, but not well. I looked down at my side. The clawing hurt, but didn’t s
eem life-threatening. I looked out the window again, then put away the gun and shoved my hands into the gloves clipped to my belt. I raised them, then checked the legjets as the spyril warmed up.
“I’m going after him,” I said.
“You’re—”
I lost the rest of Megan’s words as I jumped out the window. Twin jets of water lifted me from below before I hit the ocean, and I bobbed back up into the air, one hand down—streambeam pointed into the water. I spun for a moment, orienting myself.
Just ahead, the pigeon—still glowing blue across the face and neck—leaped off its perch and tried to flee. I grinned and sprayed the handjet behind me, tipping myself forward so my legs shot water downward and back at an angle.
I was off, wind blowing against my face as I tailed the weakened bird. It moved in a sudden, desperate burst of speed, keeping ahead of me despite its wound. I jetted after it, turning a corner by twisting and thrusting my legs to the side like a skier, then resetting and pointing the new direction.
Ahead, the bird landed on the windowsill of a building to rest. As soon as I got close, it lurched into the air again, fluttering and flapping, a glowing bob of blue.
I roared after it, and realized I was grinning. Ever since I’d started practicing with the spyril, I’d wanted to try something like this. A real test of my skills, fledgling though they were.
The bird, frantic, ducked into a building through a small gap in a broken window. I jetted up behind and used a spray of water from my handjet to shatter the window further, then I followed with my shoulder, breaking into the room. I managed to land without falling on my face—barely—and charged after the blue animal. It darted out another window, and I broke through, leaping into the air again.
“David?” I could barely hear Megan’s voice. “Were those windows? Sparks, what is going on?”
I smiled, too focused to give a report. My chase wound through the waterway streets of Babilar, passing people on rooftops who pointed and cried out. The bird tried to fly high at one point, but the strain was too much and it came back down to land on a rooftop. Yes, I thought. This is it. I jetted up onto the roof and landed near it.
Firefight Page 25