Firefight (2 page)

And it was her weakness.

Heart thumping, I unslung my rifle. Sourcefield stared at her dripping torso as if in shock, though the black mask she wore kept me from seeing her expression. Lines of electricity still worked across her body like tiny glowing worms.

I leveled the rifle and pulled the trigger. The
crack
of gunfire
indoors all but deafened me, but I delivered a bullet directly toward Sourcefield’s face.

That bullet exploded as it passed through her energy field. Even soaked with the Kool-Aid, her protections worked.

She looked at me, her electricity flaring to life—growing more violent, more dangerous, lighting the room like a calzone stuffed with dynamite.

Uh-oh …

2

I
scrambled into the hall as the doorway exploded behind me. The blast threw me face-first into the wall, and I heard a
crunch
.

On one hand, I was relieved. The crunching sound meant that Prof was still alive—his Epic abilities granted me a protective field. On the other hand, an evil, angry killing machine was chasing me.

I pushed myself back from the wall and dashed down the metal hallway, which was lit by the mobile I wore strapped to my arm.
Zip line
, I thought, frantic.
Which way? Right, I think
.

“I found Prof,” Abraham’s voice said in my ear. “He’s encased in some kind of energy bubble. He looks frustrated.”

“Throw Kool-Aid on it,” I said, panting, dodging down a
side hall as electric blasts ripped apart the hallway behind me. Sparks. She was furious.

“I’m aborting the mission,” Tia said. “Cody, swing down and pick up David.”

“Roger,” Cody said. A faint thumping sounded over his communication line—the sound of copter rotors.

“Tia, no!” I said, entering a room. I threw my rifle over my shoulder and grabbed a backpack full of water balloons.

“The plan is falling apart,” Tia said. “Prof is supposed to be point, David, not you. Besides, you just proved that the balloons don’t work.”

I pulled out a balloon and turned, then waited a heartbeat until electricity formed on one of the walls, announcing Sourcefield. She appeared a second later, and I hurled my balloon at her. She cursed and jumped to the side, and red splashed along the wall.

I turned and ran, shoving my way through a door into a bedroom, making for the balcony. “She’s afraid of the Kool-Aid, Tia,” I said. “My first balloon negated an energy blast. We have the weakness right.”

“She still stopped your bullet.”

True. I jumped out onto the balcony, looking up for the zip line.

It wasn’t there.

Tia cursed in my ear. “That’s what you were running for? The zip line’s two apartments over, you slontze.”

Sparks. In my defense, hallways and rooms all look very similar when everything’s made of steel.

The thumping copter was near now; Cody had almost arrived. Gritting my teeth, I leaped up onto the rail, then threw myself toward the next balcony over. I caught it by its railing, my rifle swinging over one shoulder, backpack on the other, and hauled myself up.

“David …,” Tia said.

“Primary trap point is still functioning?” I asked, climbing over a few lawn chairs that had been frozen in steel. I reached the other side of the balcony and jumped up onto the railing. “I’ll take your silence as a yes,” I said, and leaped across.

I hit hard, slamming into the steel railing of the next balcony over. I grabbed one of the bars and looked down—I was dangling twelve stories in the air. I shoved down my anxiety and, with effort, hauled myself up.

Behind me, Sourcefield peeked out onto the balcony I’d left. I had her scared. Which was good, but also bad. I needed her to be reckless for the next part of our plan. That meant provoking her, unfortunately.

I swung up onto the balcony, fished out a Kool-Aid balloon, and lobbed it in her direction. Then, without looking to see if the balloon hit, I jumped onto the railing and grabbed the zip line handle, then kicked off.

The balcony exploded.

Fortunately, the zip line was affixed to the roof, not the balcony itself, and the cable remained firm. Bits of molten metal zipped through the dark air around me as I dropped along the line, picking up speed. Turns out those things are a lot faster than they look. Skyscrapers passed me on either side in a blur. I felt like I was
really
falling.

I managed a shout—half panicked, half ecstatic—before everything lurched around me and I crashed into the ground, rolling on the street.

“Whoa,” I said, pushing myself up off the ground. The city spun like a lopsided top. My shoulder hurt, and although I’d heard a crunch as I hit, it hadn’t been loud. The protective field that Prof had granted me was running out. They could only take so much punishment before he had to renew them.

“David?” Tia said. “Sparks. Sourcefield cut the zip line with one of her shots. That’s why you fell at the end.”

“Balloon worked,” a new voice said over the line. Prof. He had a strong voice, rough but solid. “I’m out. Couldn’t report earlier; the energy bubble interfered with the signal.”

“Jon,” Tia said to him, “you weren’t supposed to fight her.”

“It happened,” Prof snapped. “David, you alive?”

“Kind of,” I said, stumbling to my feet and picking up the backpack, which had slipped off as I rolled. Red juice drink streamed from the bottom. “Not sure about my balloons, though. Looks like there might be a few casualties.”

Prof grunted. “Can you do this, David?”

“Yes,” I said firmly.

“Then run for the primary trap point.”

“Jon,” Tia said. “If you’re out—”

“Sourcefield ignored me,” Prof said. “It’s just like before, with Mitosis. They don’t want to fight
me
; they want
you
. We have to bring her down before she gets to the team. You remember the path, David?”

“Of course,” I said, searching for my rifle.

It lay broken nearby, cracked in half in the middle of the forestock. Sparks. Looked like I’d messed up the trigger guard too. I wouldn’t be firing that anytime soon. I checked my thigh holster and the handgun there. It seemed good. Well, as good as a handgun can be. I hate the things.

“Flashes in the windows of that apartment complex, moving down,” Cody said from the copter. “She’s teleporting along the outer wall, heading toward the ground. Chasing you, David.”

“I don’t like this,” Tia noted. “I think we should abort.”

“David thinks he can do this,” Prof said. “And I trust him.”

Despite the danger of the moment, I smiled. I hadn’t
realized until joining the Reckoners just how lonely my life had been. Now, to hear words like those …

Well, it felt good. Really good.

“I’m bait,” I said over the line, positioning myself to wait for Sourcefield and searching in my backpack for unbroken balloons. I had two left. “Tia, get our troops into position.”

“Roger,” she said reluctantly.

I moved down the street. Lanterns hung from the old, useless street lamps nearby, giving me light. By it, I caught sight of some faces peeking through windows. The windows had no glass, just old-fashioned wooden shutters we’d cut and placed there.

In assassinating Steelheart, the Reckoners had basically declared all-out war on the Epics. Some people had fled Newcago, fearing retribution—but most people had stayed here, and many others had come. During the months since Steelheart’s fall, we’d almost doubled the population of Newcago.

I nodded to the people watching. I wouldn’t shoo them back to safety. We, the Reckoners, were their champions—but someday, these people would have to stand on their own against the Epics. I wanted them to watch.

“Cody, do you have a visual?” I asked into my mobile.

“No,” Cody said. “She should be coming any moment.…” The dark shadow of his copter passed overhead. Enforcement—Steelheart’s police force—was ours now. I still wasn’t sure how I felt about it. Enforcement had done its best to kill me on several occasions. You didn’t just get over something like that.

In fact, they
had
killed Megan. She’d recovered. Mostly. I felt at the gun in my holster. It had been one of hers.

“I’m getting into position with the troops,” Abraham said.

“David? Any sign of Sourcefield?” Tia asked.

“No,” I said, looking down the deserted street. Empty of
people, lit by a few lonely lanterns, the city almost felt like it had back in Steelheart’s days. Desolate and dark. Where was Sourcefield?

She can teleport through walls
, I thought.
What would I do in her case?
We had the tensors, which let us tunnel through basically anything we wanted. What would I do now if I had those?

The answer to that was obvious. I’d go down.

She was underneath me.

3

“SHE’S
gone into the understreets!” I said, pulling out one of my two remaining water balloons. “She’s going to come up nearby, try to surprise me.”

Even as I said it, lightning moved across the street, and a glowing figure materialized up through the ground.

I hurled my Kool-Aid balloon, then ran.

I heard it burst, then heard Sourcefield swear. For a moment, no energy blasts tried to fry me, so I assumed that I’d hit her.

“I’m going to destroy you, little man!” Sourcefield yelled after me. “I’ll rip you apart like a piece of tissue paper in a hurricane!”

“Wow,” I said, reaching an intersection and taking cover by an old mailbox.

“What?” Tia asked.

“That was a really good metaphor.”

I glanced back at Sourcefield. She strode down the street, alight with electricity. Lines of it flew from her to the ground, to nearby poles, and to the walls of the buildings as she approached. Such
power
. Was this what Edmund—the kindly Epic who powered Newcago for us—would be like if he weren’t constantly gifting his abilities away?

“I refuse to believe,” the woman shouted, “that you killed Steelheart!”

Mitosis said the same thing
, I thought. He’d been another Epic who had come to Newcago recently. They couldn’t accept that one of their most powerful—an Epic that even others like Sourcefield had feared—had been killed by common men.

She looked magnificent, all in black with a fluttering cape, electricity leaping from her in sparks and flashes. Unfortunately, I didn’t need her magnificent. I needed her
angry
. Some members of Enforcement crept out of a building nearby, carrying assault rifles on their backs and Kool-Aid balloons in their hands. I motioned them toward an alley. They nodded and pulled back to wait.

It was time for me to taunt an Epic.

“I didn’t kill only Steelheart!” I shouted at her. “I’ve killed dozens of Epics. I’ll kill you too!”

An energy blast hit my mailbox. I dove for cover behind a building, and another blast hit the ground only inches from where I crouched. As I brushed the ground with my arm, a
shock
ran up it, jolting me. I cursed, putting my back to the wall, and shook my hand. Then I peeked around the side of the building. Sourcefield was running for me.

Great! Also,
terrifying
.

I sprinted for a doorway across the street. Sourcefield tore around the corner just as I entered the building.

Inside, a path had been cleared through what had once been some kind of car showroom. I ran straight across it, and Sourcefield followed, teleporting past the front wall at speed.

I dashed through room after room, following the pattern we’d set out earlier.

Right, duck into that room.

Left down a hallway.

Right again.

We’d used another of Prof’s powers—the one he disguised as technology called the tensors—to drill doorways. Sourcefield followed on my tail, passing through walls in flashes of light. I never stayed in her sight long enough for her to get off a good shot. This was perfect. She …

… she slowed down.

I stopped beside the door out the back of the building. Sourcefield had stopped following. She stood at the end of a long hallway leading to my door, electricity zipping from her to the steel walls.

“Tia, you see this?” I whispered.

“Yeah. Looks like something spooked her.”

I took a deep breath. It was far less than ideal, but … “Abraham,” I whispered, “bring the troops in. Full-out attack.”

“Agreed,” Prof said.

The Enforcement troops who had been lying in wait stormed in the front of the car dealership. Others came down the steps from above; I heard their tromping footfalls. Sourcefield glanced back as a pair of soldiers entered the hallway in full gear, with helms and futuristic armor. The fact that they lobbed bright orange water balloons slightly spoiled the coolness of the effect.

Sourcefield laid a hand on the wall beside her, then transformed
into electricity and melded into the steel, disappearing. The balloons broke uselessly on the floor of the corridor.

Sourcefield emerged back into the hallway and released bursts of energy down the corridor. I squeezed my eyes shut as the shots blasted the two soldiers, but I heard their cries.

“This is the best the infamous Reckoners can do?” Sourcefield shouted as more soldiers came in, throwing water balloons from all directions. I forced myself to watch, pulling out my handgun, as Sourcefield dropped through the floor.

She came up behind a group of soldiers in the middle of the corridor. The men screamed as the electricity took them. I gritted my teeth. If they lived, Prof would be able to heal them under the guise of using “Reckoner technology.”

“The balloons aren’t working,” Tia said.

“They are,” I hissed, watching as one hit Sourcefield. Her powers wavered. I took a shot, as did three Enforcement gunmen who had set up opposite me on the far end of the corridor.

All four bullets hit; all four were caught in her energy field and destroyed. The balloons were working, just not well enough.

“All units on the southern side of the corridor,” Abraham’s voice said, “pull back. Immediately.”