We each screwed a suppressor in place, then tucked our handguns into underarm holsters. I plugged in my mixer, which did work; the loud wrrr it put out gave us covering sound. I threw some ingredients into the mixing bowl just in case, then laid out the decorating tools.
Advantageously, our little pantry had its own door into the main room. I moved over to peek out while Megan tore apart her mixer’s power adapter and removed a small, boxy device much like a mobile.
I cracked the door to do a quick survey of the party. The kitchens were in the absolute center of the seventy-first level, which was important, since a portion of the floor outside rotated.
A revolving restaurant: one of those strange ideas from pre-Calamity that I sometimes had trouble believing were real. Once upon a time, ordinary people could have come up here for a nice meal while they looked over the city. The tower’s pinnacle restaurant was like a wheel, with the hub remaining stationary and the floor rotating in a ring outside. The outer walls were stationary as well. The ceiling rose in places two more floors to the tower’s roof; the partial levels above us were now being used only to position lighting.
The transformation into salt had positively ruined the machinery for the floor, particularly the motors and wires. Getting the place rotating again apparently required the effort of a work crew, engineers, and a minor Epic named Helium who had levitation powers. Loophole went through the hassle every week though, to make something special—something that would stand out. A very Epic thing to do.
I spotted the woman herself sitting at one of the tables on the rotating portion. She had a pixie cut and a slender build. A nice complement to the 1920s-style outfit she wore.
The party up here was more subdued than the one on the first floor; no loud music, just a string quartet. People sat at tables draped in white, waiting for food. In other areas, the salt tables and chairs had been moved aside to allow dancing, but nobody was bothering with that. Instead each table was its own little fiefdom, with an Epic holding court, surrounded by sycophants.
I picked out a series of minor Epics, noting which ones were still alive—meaning they’d thrown their lot in with Prof rather than fleeing the city. Stormwind was there, surprisingly: a young Asian woman sitting on a dais. She had obviously weathered her time in Prof’s prison and been released. Prof had apparently paraded her around as he had in order to show that he was now dominant in Ildithia. But ultimately, he needed her. Without her powers the crops wouldn’t grow, and luxuries—and even basic necessities—in the city would dry up.
I shook my head. I couldn’t see the entire room from my vantage, as it was shaped like a ring, but Prof wasn’t in this half—and I doubted he was in the other half. He wasn’t likely to attend a party like this.
“We’re in position,” Mizzy said softly over the line. “We’ve made it to the seventieth level.”
That was where Tia was being held, and was also where Prof’s rooms would be. The two were on opposite sides of the building though, so hopefully we’d have Tia in hand and be gone before he even realized we’d been here. Her original plan had included luring him out of his rooms with a distraction so she could grab his information without him knowing, but we didn’t have to worry about that now.
“Roger,” Cody said. “Nice work, Team Hip. Wait for David’s or Megan’s go-ahead before continuing.”
“Yeaaah,” Mizzy said. “No risk of us doing otherwise. This place is littered with security cameras. Infiltration suits won’t be enough to get us any farther.”
“We’ll get ready for step three,” I said. “Just let us…”
I trailed off, my jaw dropping as I spotted something out in the main room.
“David?” Cody asked.
Someone had rotated into view, sitting on a salt throne and surrounded by women in tight dresses. A man in a long black coat, with dark hair that tumbled past his shoulders. He sat imperiously, hand resting on the hilt of a sword, which stood point-down beside him like a scepter.
Obliteration. The man who had destroyed Houston and Kansas City and tried to blow up Babilar. The tool that Regalia had used to push Prof into darkness. He was here.
He met my eyes and smiled.
I ducked back into our pantry room, heart thumping, palms sweating. It was all right. I was wearing a false face. Obliteration wouldn’t recognize me. He was just a creepy guy who would give that look to—
Obliteration appeared next to me. Like always with his teleportation, he materialized in a flash of light. Megan cursed, stumbling backward, as Obliteration rested his hand on my shoulder. “Welcome, killer of demons,” he said.
“I…” I licked my lips. “Great Epic, I think you have mistaken me for someone else.”
“Ah, Steelslayer,” he said. “Your features may change, but your eyes—and the hunger within them—are the same. You have come to destroy Limelight. This is natural. ‘For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother…’ ”
Megan’s gun clicked as she rested it against the side of Obliteration’s head. She didn’t shoot. It would draw attention to us, ruining the plan. Besides, he’d simply teleport away before the bullet hit.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded.
“I was invited,” Obliteration said, smiling. “Limelight sent for me, and I could not but agree to appear. His calling card was…demanding.”
“Calling card…,” I said. “Sparks. He has a motivator based on your powers.” Knighthawk had said that if you tried to build a device using a living Epic’s powers, it would work—but would cause them pain, and draw them to it.
“Yes, he did use one of those…devices to summon me. He must wish for death, Steelslayer. As we all do, in the depths of our souls.”
Sparks. Regalia must have made at least one more bomb from Obliteration’s powers—one other than the ones for Babilar and Kansas City. A bomb Prof now had. Prof would have had to charge his with sunlight. I assumed that was what had drawn Obliteration.
That meant that somewhere in this city was a device capable of destroying it in an instant. How terrible would it be if Prof gave up his humanity to protect Babilar, only to inflict the exact same destruction on Ildithia?
Obliteration watched us, relaxed. When we’d parted last, it had been after a long chase in which he’d tried his best to kill me. He didn’t seem to bear a grudge, fortunately.
But before we’d parted, I’d been forced to reveal something to him. “You know the secret of the weaknesses,” I said.
“Indeed,” he answered. “Thank you very much for that. Their dreams betray them, and so my holy work may proceed. I need only discover their fears.”
“You mean to rid this world of Epics,” Megan said.
“No,” I said, holding Obliteration’s eyes. “He means to rid this world of everyone.”
“Our paths align, Steelslayer,” Obliteration said to me. “We will need to face one another eventually, but today you may proceed with your task. God will make of this world a glass, but only after the burning has come…and we are his fires.”
“Damn, you’re creepy,” Megan said.
He gave her a smile. “ ‘And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light.’ ” With that, he vanished. As always, when he teleported away, he left a statuelike image of himself created from glowing white ceramic that shattered a second later, then quickly evaporated.
I sagged against the doorway and Megan caught me by the arm, propping me up. Sparks. As if there weren’t enough to worry about already.
“Where are those pastries!” a voice shouted outside. “Move, you slontzes. She’s demanding cupcakes.”
The tall chef burst into our pantry. Megan spun toward him, tucking her gun behind her back. And suddenly, the pan full of cupcakes from earlier had intricate frosting on the tops.
The tall chef let out a relieved breath. “Thank heavens for that,” he said, gra
bbing the pan. “Let me know if you two need anything.”
He moved away. I watched, horrified, worried that once it got too far from Megan, the frosting would vanish. She rested her hand on the counter, then slumped, and it was my turn to grab her.
“Megan?” I asked.
“I…think I managed to make those permanent,” she said. “Sparks, that’s more than I’ve done in a long time. I can feel the headache coming on already.” Her skin felt clammy under my fingers, and she’d gone pale.
That said, it was remarkable. “Imagine what you could do with more practice!”
“Well, we’ll see.” She paused. “David, I think I found a dimension where you’re not an expert in guns, but in pastries.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah,” she said, righting herself. “Yet—in all of infinity—I don’t think I’ve ever found a dimension where you can kiss worth a hill of beans.”
“That’s unfair,” I said. “You didn’t complain last night.”
“You stuck your tongue in my ear, David.”
“That’s way romantic. Saw it in a movie once. It’s like…a passionate wet willie.”
“All y’all do realize your line is open to me, right?” Cody asked.
“Shut up, Cody,” Megan said, tucking her gun back into its place under her arm. “Warn Abraham and Mizzy we had a run-in with Obliteration. We’re moving on step three now.”
“Roger,” Cody said. “And David…”
“Yeah?”
“Y’all ever stick your tongue in my ear, and I’ll shoot ya in yer bagpipes.”
“Thanks for the warning,” I said, then proceeded to undress.
I was wearing slacks under my bulky jeans and a button-up shirt underneath my jacket. Megan tossed me her jacket; I pulled out the lining, which reversed the jacket into a tuxedo coat.
Her sweater came off next, revealing the gown she had bunched up around her waist. Off came her trousers—she wore tight biker shorts beneath—and then she yanked down the gown’s skirt, covering her legs.
I tried not to gawk. Or, well, I tried to gawk covertly. Megan’s sleek red gown was all sparkly and gorgeous and…well, it really accented her curves. Like how a nice cheekpiece with shadow lines accents a perfect rifle stock.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t wearing her own face. That ruined the effect. But still, that neckline…
I caught her looking at me and blushed. Only then did I realize she didn’t seem to have noticed my ogling, but was instead nodding to herself, a faint smile on her lips.
“Are you…staring at my chest?” I asked.
“What?” she said. “Stay focused, Knees.”
Awesome, I thought, tossing on my jacket.
“Take this,” she said, handing me the small box she’d removed from her mixer’s power adapter. “Dresses like this don’t have much in the way of storage.”
“Don’t you usually…” I nodded toward her cleavage.
“I’ve already got my mobile stuffed in there,” she said. “And before you ask, no, there wasn’t more room for any mini-grenades. I strapped those to my thigh. A girl’s got to be prepared.”
Sparks, I love this woman.
I tucked the box into a pocket, and the two of us stepped to the door. Megan concentrated, transforming our features again. I felt a warping as it happened. A blink of another world, another reality. In it, the people we’d been disguised as walked away—a woman with the face Megan had been wearing, and a man with a solemn expression and wide lips.
Gone were the two pastry chefs. What stepped out into the main room was instead a pair of rich dinner guests wearing a different pair of false faces. For a moment there, I’d seen what Megan must when she used her powers—the ripples of time and space that made up our reality.
Megan slipped her arm through mine and we started to stroll through the large disc of a room, on the upper walkway, a portion that didn’t rotate. I noted that Obliteration had returned to his throne, a coconut in hand, of all things. He’d probably teleported somewhere and fetched one. So far as I’d been able to discover, there was no distance limitation to his teleportation—he simply had to have seen the place, or at least had it described, to get there.
He glanced toward me and nodded. Sparks. He saw through this disguise too? I didn’t buy his line about my eyes; he had some kind of power he was keeping hidden. Maybe he was a dowser and could sense Epics. Though this room was filled with Epics. How would he recognize the two of us?
Troubled, I tried to keep my mind on our task.
“Nice work,” Cody said in my ear. “Keep it up. A quarter rotation through the room to go.”
“Team Hip still good?” I asked.
“Ready and waiting,” Cody said.
We continued, passing close to Loophole’s table. The lean, short-haired woman was shrinking servers and making them dance on her table for the amusement of her gathered crowd. I’d always wondered…
Megan steered me onward as I started to linger.
“Her powers are awesome,” I whispered to her. “She has incredible control of what she can shrink and how she does it.”
“Yeah, well, ask for an autograph later,” Megan said.
“Um…are you jealous? Because your powers are way better than—”
“Focus, David.”
Right. We walked around the room until we approached a small door marked with a restroom sign. It was in the central hub, same as the kitchens. We stepped in, and as Tia’s plans indicated, beyond was a small service hallway, with a restroom on either side. Straight ahead was our goal. A nondescript white door, obviously important—the other doors were still salt, heavy and awkward to move. This one was wood, with a silvery doorknob.
I got out a set of lockpicks. “This would be easier if you could swap the door for one that wasn’t locked,” I said, working on the knob.
“I might be able to do that,” she said. “But I don’t know if I could make it permanent. Which would mean that you’d enter through the door, step into another dimension, and change things there—then it would all swap back once you stepped out.”
“You fixed the cupcakes,” I said.
“Yeah,” she said softly, looking over her shoulder. “This is new territory for me, David. Always before, if I pushed this far I lost myself. I often ended up dead. It’s not a good mix, knowing that you’re immortal and having no sense of responsibility. Perfect recklessness.”
I got the door unlocked. It was an easy one, nowhere near as difficult as what Abraham and Mizzy would have to deal with. This door wasn’t locked to keep out determined interlopers; it was here to prevent the casual passerby from getting hurt. I swung the door open.
Beyond were a large generator and an engine that turned the floor. Megan and I slipped into the chamber before anyone entered the hallway to use the restrooms, and I took out my mobile for some light. It was cramped, and the floor was coated with powdery salt.
“Sparks,” Megan said. “How do they get this all in here? They redo this every week?”
“It’s not as tough as it sounds,” I said. “Loophole shrinks all this and carries it up in her pocket. She then shrinks some workers and sends them into the walls and floor with drills to place the wires she needs. With Helium levitating the floor just enough to keep it from grinding, they can get it spinning again.”
I knelt beside the machinery, picking out the engine. It was connected to some wires and metal gears below.
“That’s the power cell,” Megan said, pointing at one part of the machine, “with a backup diesel generator.”
“We didn’t plan on a backup,” I said. “Is that going to be a problem?”
“Nah,” she said, holding out her hand. I placed the box from earlier into it. “We’re fooling with the cords, not the generator itself. We should be good.”
I held out my mobile, the instructions for clipping on the device pulled up. I held this for her as she attached our little box to the proper wires. When we stepped back,
I could barely tell it was there.
“Step three complete,” I announced, satisfied. “We’re pulling out of the generator room.”
“Roger,” Cody said. “Tapping Abraham and Mizzy into the main line. Be ready, you two. Let Megan and David extract, and we’ll move to step four.”
“Roger,” Abraham said.
“Groovy,” Mizzy said.
“There’s that word again,” I said, pushing out into the restroom hallway. “I tried looking it up. Something to do with record grooves? It—”
I broke off, suddenly face to face with a serving girl leaving one of the restrooms. She gaped at me, and then at Megan. “What are you two doing here?” she asked.
Calamity! “We were looking for the restrooms,” I said.
“But they’re right—”
“Those are the peasant restrooms,” Megan said from behind. I stumbled out of her way as she strode past me. “You expect me to use the facilities of the common servants?”
Megan wore the mantle of an Epic like it had been designed with her in mind. She stood up taller, eyes wide, and flames began to flicker in the hallway.
“I didn’t—” the server began.
“You question me?” Megan demanded. “You dare?”
The server shrank down, lowering her eyes, and fell silent.
“Better,” Megan said. “Where might I find the proper rooms?”
“These are the only ones that are maintained. I’m sorry! I can—”
“No. I’ve had enough of you. Away, and be glad I don’t want to upset our great lord by leaving a body for him to deal with.”
The woman scampered out into the main party room.
I cocked an eyebrow at Megan as the flames faded. “Nice.”
“It was too easy,” she said. “I’ve been abusing my powers. Let’s get Tia and pull out.”
I nodded, leading the way back into the restaurant proper. “We’re out,” I said as the two of us stepped down onto the rotating floor. I couldn’t sense anything; it was moving too slowly to be noticeable. We took up position near a table, doing our best to look as innocuous as possible.
“In position,” Abraham said. “On your mark.”