“You…named it?” Abraham asked.
“Sure. Why not? Look, I’m starting to think you don’t want me to give you this tech after all.”
“We do,” I said. “Please, continue.”
He rolled his eyes, then accepted another piece of popcorn from his marionette’s hand. “So, a few months back, an Epic died in Siberia. A squabble between two despots, kind of dramatic. An enterprising merchant was in the area, and managed to harvest one of the—”
“Rtich?” I said, perking up. “You managed to emulate Rtich?”
“Kid, you know far too much about all this for your own good.”
I ignored the comment. Rtich—pronounced something like “r’teech”—had been a powerful Epic. I’d been looking for something that would let us go toe-to-toe with Prof. We needed an edge, something he wouldn’t expect—
Megan elbowed me in the stomach. “Well? Gonna share?”
“Oh!” I said, noticing that Knighthawk had stopped his explanation. “Well, Rtich was a Russian Epic with a very eclectic set of abilities. She wasn’t technically a High Epic, but she was very powerful. Are we talking about her entire portfolio, Knighthawk?”
“Each motivator can only provide one ability,” he said.
“Well,” I said, standing, “then I assume in this case, you emulated her quicksilver globe. Why are we sitting here? Let’s go get it! I want to try it out.”
“Hey, Scotsman,” Knighthawk said, “will you get me a cola out of the fridge while you’re up?”
“Sure,” Cody said, pouring a fresh batch of popcorn into a bowl. He reached over and fished a cola from the fridge, the same brand that Tia had liked.
“Oh,” Knighthawk added, “and that bin of potato salad.”
“Potato salad and popcorn?” Cody asked. “You’re a weird dude, if you don’t mind me saying.” He walked over and slid the translucent bin across the table, cola on top. Then he plopped down beside Mizzy and put his feet—work boots—up on the table, leaning back in his chair and attacking his bowl of food like a man whose house had once been burned down by a particularly violent ear of corn.
I remained standing, hoping everyone else would join me. I didn’t want to sit around and talk about Epic powers. I wanted to use them. And this specific ability should prove to be as exciting as the spyril, but without the water, which I was totally up for. I might have been willing to let the depths consume me in order to save my friends, but that didn’t mean water and I liked one another. We had more of a truce.
“Well?” I urged.
Knighthawk’s mannequin popped open the bin of potato salad. There, sitting in the middle of the stuff, was a little black box. “It’s right here.”
“You keep your priceless super power devices,” Megan said flatly, “in the potato salad.”
“Do you know how many times people have broken in to rob me?” Knighthawk asked.
“Never successfully,” I said. “Everyone knows this place is impregnable.”
Knighthawk snorted. “Kid, we live in a world where people can literally walk through walls. No place is impregnable; I’m just good at telling lies. I mean, even you people managed to snitch a few things from me—though you’ll find that the ones Abraham grabbed are mostly useless. One creates the sound of a dog barking, and another makes fingernails grow faster—but not any stronger. Not every Epic power is amazing, though I’d like those two back anyway. They make good decoys.”
“Decoys?” Abraham asked, surprised.
“Sure, sure,” Knighthawk said. “Always got to leave a few things out so people feel like they’re grabbing something useful for their efforts. I have this whole routine—furious they’ve robbed me, swearing to get vengeance. Blah blah. Usually makes them leave me alone, happy to have gotten what they did. Anyway, across dozens of break-ins, you want to guess how many people thought to look in the potato salad bin?”
His mannequin dug the little box out and set it on the table—he’d packed it in a watertight bag, at least—and I sat back down to admire it, imagining the possibilities.
“How do you get the fairies inside something that small?” Cody asked, pointing at the device. “Doesn’t it crush their wee wings?”
We all pointedly ignored him.
“You mentioned another piece of technology?” Abraham said.
“Yeah,” Knighthawk said, “I’ve got an old crystal grower lying around here somewhere. Attach it to a pure crystal lattice, and you can grow new formations in seconds. That might be handy.”
“Uh,” Mizzy said, raising her hand. “Anyone else confused as to why, exactly, we’d want something like that? Sounds cool and all, but…crystals?”
“Well, you see,” Knighthawk said, “salt is a crystal.”
We all looked at him, stupefied.
“You are going to chase down Jonathan, right?” Knighthawk said. “And you’re aware he’s in Atlanta?”
Atlanta. I settled back into my seat. Atlanta would be under the jurisdiction of the Coven, a loose affiliation of Epics who had basically promised not to bother one another. Occasionally one would help another murder a rival who tried to steal their city—which for Epics was practically like being best buddies.
But for all I knew of Epics, my knowledge of the world was spotty. The nature of Babilar, with its glowing fruit and surreal paints, had taken me completely by surprise. I was still at my core a sheltered kid who’d never left his home neighborhood before a few months ago.
“Atlanta,” Abraham said softly. “Or what is now Ildithia. Where is it currently?”
“Somewhere in eastern Kansas,” Knighthawk said.
Kansas? I thought, the comment jarring my memory. That’s right. Ildithia moves. But so far? I’d read about it moving, but had assumed it stayed in the same general region.
“Why is he there though?” Abraham asked. “What is there for Jonathan Phaedrus in the city of salt?”
“How should I know?” Knighthawk said. “I’m doing my best to avoid drawing the man’s attention. I watched where he went for self-preservation’s sake, but there’s no way in Calamity that I’m going to start poking him with a stick.”
Knighthawk’s mannequin set down the bowl. “I’m out of popcorn, which means it’s time to attach some strings to this little gift of mine. You can take the rtich and the crystal grower on the condition that you get out of here now, and you don’t contact me anymore. Don’t mention me to Jonathan; don’t even talk about me to one another, in case he overhears. He likes things done right. If he comes here for me, he’ll leave a smoldering hole and not much else.”
I looked toward Megan, who was staring at Knighthawk, unblinking, lips downturned. “You know we have the secret,” she said softly to him. “You know we’re close to answers. A real solution.”
“Which is why I’m helping you in the first place.”
“Halfway,” Megan accused him. “You’re willing to toss a grenade into the room, but you don’t want to look and see if it did the job or not. You know that something needs to change in this world, but you don’t want to have to change with it. You’re lazy.”
“I’m a realist,” Knighthawk said, his mannequin standing up. “I take the world as it is, and do what I can to survive in it. Even giving you these two devices will be dangerous for me; Jonathan will recognize my handiwork. Hopefully he’ll think you got them off an arms dealer.”
The mannequin walked to the fridge and removed a few other items, dropping some in a sack. He set one on the table for us; it looked like a tub of mayonnaise, but when he pried off the top, inside was another small device settled into the gooey condiment. The mannequin slung the sack by a strap over its arm, then walked over to lift Knighthawk from behind.
“I have other questions,” I said, rising.
“Too bad,” Knighthawk said.
“You have other technology you could give us,” Abraham said, pointing at the sack. “The ones you’ve given us are only what you think won’t get you in too much
trouble with Prof.”
“Good guess, and you’re right,” Knighthawk replied. “Get out. I’ll send a bill with a drone. If you survive, I expect it to be paid.”
“We’re trying to save the world, you know,” Mizzy said. “That includes you.”
Knighthawk snorted. “You realize that half the people who come to me are trying to save the world? Hell, I’ve worked with the Reckoners before, and you’re always trying to save the world. Looks pretty unsaved to me so far; in fact, looks a fair bit worse now that Jonathan has flipped.
“If I’d given you things for free all along, I’d have gone bankrupt years ago, and you wouldn’t even have had the option of coming to try to rob me. So don’t climb up on a high horse and spit platitudes at me.”
And then the mannequin turned and walked out. I stood at my chair, feeling frustrated, and looked back at the others. “Did that exit feel abrupt to any of you?”
“Did you miss the part about him being a really weird dude?” Cody asked, nudging the potato salad bin with his foot.
“At least we got something,” Abraham said, turning one of the small boxes over in his hands. “This puts us in a far better position than where we began—and beyond that, we know where Jonathan has set up base.”
“Yeah,” I said, glancing at Megan, who seemed troubled. So she felt it too. We’d gotten some weapons, sure, but we’d missed an opportunity for answers.
“Grab that stuff,” I said. “Cody, search the fridge just in case. Then let’s get out of here.”
The group moved to do as instructed, and I found myself staring out the door and into the hallway. There were still too many questions.
“So…,” Megan said, joining me. “You want me to guide the rest of the team out?”
“Hmm?” I asked.
“Remember how you chased Prof and us into the understreets of Newcago, after expressly being told you’d be shot if you didn’t stay put?”
I smiled. “Yeah. Back then, I figured getting shot by the Reckoners would be so cool. Think about showing off a bullet scar to your friends, and saying that Jonathan Phaedrus himself shot you.”
“You’re such a nerd. My point is, are you going after Knighthawk?”
“Of course I’m going after him,” I said. “Make sure everyone gets out safely, then try to save me from my stupidity if this goes sour.” I gave her a swift kiss, caught my rifle as Abraham tossed it to me, then went to chase down Knighthawk.
I didn’t have to search far.
The hallway was empty, but I stepped up to the room we’d passed earlier—the one with the trophies on the back wall—and peeked in. I was unsurprised to find Knighthawk sitting in an easy chair on the far side of the room. A gas fireplace crackled beside him, and his mannequin lay, its invisible strings cut, on the ground beside it.
At first that worried me. Was Knighthawk all right?
Then I saw his eyes—reflecting the writhing flames—staring at the silvery box in the center of the room, the one that looked like a coffin. As a tear rolled down Knighthawk’s cheek, I realized the man had probably wanted to be alone, without even the mannequin’s silent gaze upon him.
“Prof killed her, didn’t he?” I whispered. “Your wife. She went evil, and Prof had to kill her.”
I finally remembered the details of a conversation I’d had with Prof weeks ago, right outside Babilar, in a little bunker where he’d been doing science experiments. He’d told me about his team of friends, Epics every one. Him, Regalia, Murkwood, and Amala. Over time, three of them had eventually gone evil.
Sparks. Four of them, when you included Prof.
It doesn’t work, David, he’d said. It’s destroying me….
“You don’t listen to instructions very well, do you, boy?” Knighthawk asked.
I slipped into the room and walked to the coffin. Part of the lid was translucent, and I could see a pretty face lying peacefully inside, golden hair fanned out behind.
“She tried so hard to resist it,” Knighthawk said. “Then one morning, I got up and…and she was gone. She’d been awake all night, judging by the six empty cups of coffee she’d left. She’d been afraid to sleep.”
“Nightmares,” I whispered, resting my fingers on the glass of the coffin.
“I think the stress of being up all night snapped her. My dear Amala. Jonathan did us both a favor in hunting her down. I must see it that way. Like you should discard this foolish notion you have of saving him. End him, kid. For his own good, and for all of us.”
I looked up from the coffin toward Knighthawk. He hadn’t wiped away that tear. He couldn’t.
“You have hope,” I said. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have invited us in. You saw the way Megan was acting, and your first thought was that we’d found some way to beat the darkness.”
“Maybe I invited you in out of pity,” Knighthawk said. “Pity for someone who obviously loves an Epic. Like I did. Like Tia did. Maybe I invited you in to give you a warning. Be ready for it, kid. One morning you’ll get up, and she’ll just be gone.”
I crossed the room, rifle over my shoulder, and reached for Knighthawk. I wasn’t prepared for how quickly his mannequin could move. It leaped to its feet, catching me by the arm before I rested my hand on Knighthawk’s shoulder.
His eyes flickered to my hand, apparently deciding I hadn’t intended to harm him, and the mannequin released me. Sparks, its grip was strong.
That let my hand fall on his shoulder, and I squatted down before his chair. “I’m going to beat this, Knighthawk, but I need answers only you can give me. About motivators, and how they work.”
“Foolishness,” he said.
“You kept Amala in stasis. Why?”
“Because I’m foolish too. She had a hole the size of Jonathan’s fist in her chest when I found her. Dead. Pretending otherwise is stupid.”
“Yet you healed her body,” I said. “And preserved her.”
“You see those?” he said, nodding to the far side of the room. To the remnants from fallen Epics. “Those powers didn’t bring her back. Each is from an Epic with healing powers that I made a motivator out of. None worked. There is no answer. There is no secret. We live with the world as it is.”
“Calamity is an Epic,” I whispered.
Knighthawk started, then tore his eyes away from the wall, focusing on me again. “What?”
“Calamity,” I repeated, “is an Epic. A…person. Regalia discovered the truth, even talked to him or her. This thing that destroyed our lives, it’s not a force of nature. Not a star, or a comet…it’s a person.” I took a deep breath. “And I’m going to kill Calamity.”
“Holy hell, kid,” Knighthawk said.
“Saving Prof is step one,” I said. “We’re going to need his abilities to pull this off. But after that, I’m going to get up there, and I’m going to destroy that thing. We’ll return the world to the way it was before Calamity rose.”
“You’re absolutely insane.”
“Well, I spent some time drifting after killing Steelheart,” I said. “I needed a new purpose in life. Figure I might as well aim high.”
Knighthawk stared at me, then kicked his head back and laughed loudly. “I never thought I’d meet someone with more ambition than Jonathan, kid. Kill Calamity! Why not? Sounds simple!”
I looked toward the mannequin; it had grabbed its belly and was rocking back and forth as if it were laughing.
“So,” I said. “You going to help me?”
“What do you know about Epics who were born as identical twins?” Knighthawk asked as the mannequin reached over and wiped the man’s cheeks. Tears of laughter had joined the one he’d shed for his wife.
“There’s only one set, as far as I know. The Creer boys, Hanjah and the Mad Pen, in the Coven. They’ve been active lately in…Charleston, isn’t it?”
“Good, good,” Knighthawk replied. “You do know your stuff. You want a seat? You look uncomfortable.”
The mannequin pulled over a stool for
me and I sat.
“Those two go all the way back,” Knighthawk explained, “to about a year after Calamity, around the time that Prof and the others got their powers. First wave, you lorists call it. And they’re what started some of us thinking about how the powers worked. They have—”
“—the exact same power set,” I said. “Air pressure control, pain manipulation, precognition.”
“Yup,” Knighthawk said. “And you know what, they aren’t the only pair of twin Epics. They’re merely the only pair where one didn’t kill the other.”
“That’s not possible,” I said. “I’d have known about them.”
“Yeah, well, my associates and I made sure nobody heard of the others. Because in them was a secret.”
“Each set of twins had the same abilities,” I guessed. “Twins share a power set.”
Knighthawk nodded.
“So it is genetic, somehow.”
“Yes and no,” Knighthawk said. “We can’t find anything genetic about Epics that gives clues to their powers. That mumbo-jumbo about mitochondria? We made it up; seemed plausible, since Epic DNA tends to degrade quickly. Everything else you’ve heard about motivators is technobabble we use to confuse those who might be trying to figure out how to compete with us.”
“Then how?”
“You realize that by telling you, I’d be breaking an agreement I have with the other companies.”
“Which I appreciate.”
He cocked an eyebrow at me, and his mannequin folded its arms.
“If there’s even the slightest chance that I’m right,” I said, “and I can stop the Epics forever, isn’t it worth the risk?”
“Yes,” Knighthawk said. “But I still want a promise out of you, kid. You don’t share this secret.”
“It’s wrong of you to keep it,” I said. “Perhaps if the governments of the world had possessed this knowledge, they’d have been able to fight back against the Epics.”
“Too late,” he said. “Your word.”
I shook my head. “Fine. I’ll tell my team, but I’ll swear them to secrecy too. We won’t tell anyone else.”