Firefight

10

Val cut the motor and handed oars to me, Mizzy, and Exel, keeping one for herself. The four of us took up rowing duty. We floated out from between the two taller buildings and approached a series of much lower structures, their tops only a few feet above the water.

They might have once been small apartment buildings, now submerged except for the uppermost floor or so of each. People lived on the roofs, mostly in tents-vibrant, colorful tents that glowed from the spraypaint casually marking them with symbols and designs. Some of the paintings were beautiful while others displayed no skill whatsoever. I even saw some glows beneath the water-graffiti that had been flooded over. So old spraypaint glowed as well as newer paintings like the ones atop the skyscrapers.

The city was so alive. Lines strung between poles hung with drying clothing. Children sat on the sides of the lowest buildings, kicking their legs in the water, watching us pass. A man rowed a small barge past us-it looked like it was constructed out of a bunch of wooden doors lashed together. Each had been spraypainted with circles of different colors.

After the lonely, empty trip here, I was shocked by the sudden sense of overwhelming activity. So many people. Thousands of them in little villages on the roofs of sunken buildings. As we moved farther into the city, I realized that these tents and buildings weren’t just shanties or temporary places for transients. It was all too neat, and many of the rooftops had nice, well-made rope bridges strung between them. I was willing to bet that many of these people had been here for years.

“Should we be in the open like this?” I asked, uncomfortable.

“Babilar is a busy city,” Prof said, “particularly at night, when the lights come on. We’d be a lot more conspicuous if we tried to sneak in. Right now we’re just another ship.”

“Can’t use the motor, though,” Exel noted. “Not a lot of people have working motors in the city.”

I nodded, watching some youths paddle past in a glowing canoe. “They look so …”

“Destitute?” Mizzy asked.

“Normal,” I said. “Everyone’s just living their lives.”

In Newcago, you’d never been able to simply live. You worked long hours at factories producing weapons for Steelheart to sell. When you were off work you kept your head down, always watching for Enforcement. You jumped when you heard a loud noise, because it could be one of any number of Epics looking for entertainment.

These people laughed, they played in the water, they … lounged. In fact, very few people seemed to be doing anything productive. Perhaps it was the late hour. That was another oddity. It was the middle of the night, but even children were up and about.

We rowed past a larger building, which rose some three stories above the water. Through the broken glass windows I saw what appeared to be plants. Growing inside the building.

Fruit glowing a soft yellow-green studded the plants, and their leaves had the same painted look as the petals we’d found on Sourcefield. “What in Calamity is going on in this city?” I whispered.

“We have no idea,” Val said. “I’ve been embedded here for over two years-I arrived about six months after Regalia stopped her tyranny and decided to clean the place up.” As she’d indicated earlier, Val didn’t seem to mind saying Regalia’s name, so long as it was whispered to the rest of us via our earpieces.

“I feel like I know less than when I first came,” Val continued. “Yes, plants grow inside the buildings, and seem to need no cultivation, no sunlamps, no human attention at all. The trees produce flowers, fruits, and vegetables in plenty, enough that nobody here wants for food-so long as one of the gang cartels hasn’t monopolized everything.”

“Regalia stopped that,” Mizzy whispered over the line, dipping her oar into the water. “Things were pretty bad for us here before she came.”

“For ‘us’?” I asked.

“I’m from Manhattan,” Mizzy said, “born and raised. I don’t remember a whole lot of the early days, but I do remember Calamity. The glows came immediately afterward; anything spraypainted-old or new-started glowing. Only spraypaint works though. The plants started growing at the same time-they just grew in the streets back then-and nobody has a good explanation, except to credit Dawnslight.”

“An Epic?” I asked.

“Maybe?” Mizzy said, shrugging. “Some think so. Dawnslight is what they call the person, force, Epic, or whatever who causes all of this. Except the waters, of course. Those came after, when Regalia arrived. Sweeping into the streets, flooding buildings. We lost a lot of people back then.”

“She killed thousands,” Prof continued, voice low. “Then she let the gangs rule for years. It was only recently that she decided to rescue the city. Even now she controls the gangs, though they don’t terrorize. They watch.”

“Yeah,” Val said, looking at a group of people dancing atop a building. Drums banged to a pleasant rhythm. “It’s creepy.”

“Creepy?” Exel asked. “That an Epic wants to do something good for a change? I think what’s happening here is wonderful.” He waved affably to some of the people we passed.

They know him, I realized, studying the people who waved back at him. I assumed they didn’t know what he really was, that his being “embedded” here had led to creating some sort of false identity and mingling with the people.

“No, Exel,” Prof said over the line, his voice a harsh whisper. “Regalia is planning something. Her supposed benevolence worries me, particularly since she’s been sending Epics to try to eliminate my team in Newcago. Don’t forget that she also employs the … person who killed Sam.”

Val, Exel, and Mizzy looked to him.

“So is that why you’re here?” Val asked softly. “Are we finally going to bring Regalia down?”

I looked to Prof. He knew Regalia. Personally. I was increasingly certain of it. They’d been friends, perhaps, long ago. I wished I could get more out of him, but this was how Prof was. Years of secrecy, of running the Reckoners, had taught him to be circumspect.

“Yes,” he whispered. “We’re here to bring her down. And every Epic allied with her.” He looked straight at me, as if daring me to say something about Megan.

I didn’t. I needed to know more first.

“Are you sure about this, Prof?” Exel asked. “Maybe Regalia really has decided to care for these people. She’s been shipping in liquor, distributing it freely. She doesn’t let any gangs prevent people from harvesting fruit. Maybe it’s an actual attempt to create a utopia. Maybe an Epic has decided to change and be kind for once.”

Something exploded on a nearby rooftop.

A blossom of fire lit the air, bringing with it screams of terror and pain. People splashed into the waters around us and another explosion followed.

Prof looked at Exel, then shook his head. I stood up, ignoring the exchange. I was so jarred by the explosions that I barely paid attention to how the boat rocked as I stood.

I listened to the distant moans of pain, and looked sharply at the team. “What is it?”

Exel, Val, Mizzy … all looked equally surprised. Whatever this was, it wasn’t normal for the city.

“We should go help,” I said.

“This isn’t Newcago,” Tia said. “Didn’t you listen to Jon? We need to remain hidden.”

Behind us, another explosion sounded, closer. I could feel the blast wave of this one, or I thought I could. I hardened my expression, then stepped to the side of the boat. I wasn’t going to just sit here while people died.

I stopped, though, taking in the water that separated me from the nearest building.

“Tia, David is right,” Prof finally said over our lines. “We can’t let this continue, whatever it is, without seeing if we can help. We’ll investigate, but carefully. Val, do people go about armed in the city?”

“It’s not unheard of,” Val replied.

“Then we can carry. But don’t do anything unless I say. Sit down, David. We need you on your oar.”

Reluctantly, I sat down and helped paddle us toward the nearest building. Above us people rushed across bridges, fleeing the explosions, crowding one another in their haste. The rooftop we reached was low enough-less than a single story showing above the water-and as soon as we arrived I was able to hop up, grab the edge, and tow myself over.

Here I could see the scene better. I was on the roof of a large apartment building that had a sister building on the other side. They were shaped the same with only a small gap of water between them. The other rooftop was where the explosions had happened; it was littered with half-burned tents. The living knelt beside charred loved ones. Others groaned in pain, covered in burns. I felt sick.

Prof heaved himself up beside me, then hissed in anger. “Three explosions,” he said softly. “What’s going on?”

“We have to help,” I said, anxious.

Prof knelt silently for a moment.

“Prof …”

“Tia, Exel,” he whispered into the line, “prepare to help the wounded. Take the boat over. Val, David, and I will cross this rooftop and give you cover support from here. Something about this doesn’t look right to me-too much burning, not enough debris. This wasn’t caused by a bomb.”

I nodded. Val climbed up too, then the three of us ran across the rooftop toward the burning one. Tia and the other two maneuvered the boat through the water alongside us.

Prof stopped Val and me beside the rope bridge leading to the next building. People pushed past us, faces ashen, clothing singed. Prof seized the arm of one who didn’t look too wounded. “What was it?” he asked softly.

The man shook his head and broke away. Prof pointed for me to provide fire support, and I knelt down beside a brick chimney, rifle out, covering Tia and Exel as they moved the boat up beside the burning building, then climbed out and onto it, carrying a pack that I assumed had a first-aid kit in it.

I sat, watching as Exel began to bandage the wounded. Tia took out something else, the small device we called the harmsway-the fake box with wires sticking out of it that we claimed healed people. Prof really did the work; he must have gifted some of his ability to Tia before joining me on the rooftop.

Tia would have to use it sparingly, only to bring the worst of the wounded from the brink of death. Miraculous healing would draw too much attention to us. Sparks. We might draw too much attention anyway. We were obviously organized, armed, and skilled. If we weren’t careful, this might very well undermine Exel’s and Val’s cover stories.

“What about me?” Mizzy asked over the line. The young woman still waited in the boat, which rocked in the dark water near the side of the burning building. “Prof, sir?”

“Watch the boat,” he said over the line.

“I …” Mizzy looked deflated. “Yes sir.”

I focused on my duty, watching for threats to Tia and Exel on the burning rooftop, but my heart wrenched for the girl. I knew what it was like to feel Prof’s skepticism. He could be a hard man. Harder lately. Poor kid.

You’re treating her that way too, I realized. She’s probably not even a year younger than you are. It wasn’t fair to think of her as a kid. She was a woman. A pretty one at that.

Focus.

“Ah, here you are, Jonathan. Very prompt of you.”

The voice, spoken in a businesslike tone, made me jump almost to the stars. I spun on the source of the sound, leveling my rifle.

An older black woman stood beside Prof. Wrinkled skin, white hair in a bun. Scarf at the neck, fashionable-yet somewhat grandmotherly-white jacket over a blouse and slacks.

Regalia, empress of Manhattan. Standing right there.

I planted a bullet in the side of her head.