Landon staggered as the earth wrenched again and again, but he didn’t reach for Amundson to steady him. If anything, Landon hoped a falling building or change would wipe Amundson out, but so far the big man seemed ridiculously blessed. He stood in the shadow of the swaying Smith Tower as if he knew nothing dared touch him.
If they got through this, either Landon was going to have to deal with Amundson—or there was the alternative: leave. There was no way he could work under the man. Certainly no way Landon could continue his work while Homeland Security remained in control.
Already Amundson’s eyes said he was getting ideas watching Gleason and the other Agents who’d won through to the area. Too much calculation, like a theodolite taking multiple readings to determine a point even though he couldn’t see any better than Landon what the Agents accomplished.
Yesler Street was mostly abandoned except for the AGS crew and a fire crew working the saltwater taffy factory that had caught flame. Most of the civilians were gone—down to the waterfront and into the open areas near the Mariner’s stadium southward, leaving the air empty of screams and too full of the groan and roar of concrete and brick collapsing under strain. The dust-filled air stank of ozone and burnt sugar—and hopelessness.
Fear came off the AGS Agents in waves. Overwhelming sea change in so many ways. There was no way Gleason and the others were going to hold back what came.
“I might be blind to Change, but I can feel power, and there’s more here than this motley crew can contain.”
He realized he said it too loudly when both Amundson and Gleason glanced at him.
“We have to try.” Gleason said, trying to be the rock he usually was, but today there was actually fear in his eyes.
Landon caught Gleason’s arm and pulled him aside. “We were stupid. We shouldn’t be here. We should have left when we knew they’d targeted Vallon.”
“We didn’t know they’d try for her so soon. We were trying to fix things.”
Landon couldn’t deny it. “We still should have left and set up shop somewhere else. Or sent others to do so. We still should—could. There’s enough confusion.”
“Like Fitzsimmons would let any agents go.”
Landon leaned in closer. “Some of us would make it.”
“Too many would die.”
“So you’d rather be a servant, a virtual prisoner in your work?”
“I’ll be an employee—like 95% of the population. At least this way we’ll have a chance to mitigate what happens. You said it yourself: they can’t see what we do.”
“You’re a fool if you think that.”
In disgust Landon left to hobble down the hill feeling foolish for his attack on Gleason’s attempt to save them. Foolish with his one bare foot, his soft, white sole complaining at the rough ground. The other foot not much better in the beaded moccasin.
A groan and the heap of brick that had been the face of Bill Speidel’s Underground Tour wasn’t there. He refocused his gaze, straining to see the change. Long enough for a breath of sulfur and ozone, and then the building stood before him. He glanced back at Gleason. His doing.
Landon shoved his hands into his pockets and frowned. Having part of the Gift was an injustice, a twisted taunt of life.
The ground undulated and jerked and the road split at his feet. The Underground building-front swayed and teetered out over the street. Then the upper story slid, brick by brick, before giving way to an avalanche that collapsed into the hole that had enlarged in the street. A miasma of dust and heat and sulfur, he recognized from his transmutation efforts.
If he were going to do the pragmatic thing and get the hell out of town, now would be the time to do it. There was no way Gleason and the others were going to unmake what came from beneath.
But that was Gleason, wasn’t it? A devotion to duty that wasn’t exactly logical to a man of science, but that evoked that loyalty in others. In him, too, damn it.
Landon looked down at his feet, and for once in his life allowed himself to acknowledge how ridiculous he was. Cotton pajama bottoms in a red plaid. He was hopeless. The whole situation was hopeless, and had been hopeless since the agents started dying, if they’d only known it. It was destined that the whole house of cards would come to this.
Well, since when had he taken the safe path, the logical path? Hell, he was an alchemist for god’s sake, and just how out of fashion was that?
He glanced uphill. A couple of the Agents had collapsed from their efforts. The afterburn would take them down one by one. But Gleason got them on their feet and encouraged them. For all Vallon’s reservations, he was a good man.
He looked back at the hole in the street and sighed, then turned to trudge back to Gleason
Stay and take what came. Go out with a bang. Be an Almost Hero for once in his life.