“It doesn’t work that way, son. Abigail made her choice. She could have stayed clean. She didn’t.” He met my eyes, and I saw real emotion in there. Not anger. His expression was too soft, his grimace too pained. That was sorrow.
He let go of my shoulder and turned to leave. “Perhaps she really is resisting her powers, as you say. If that’s the case, then I suspect that deep down the reason she lured me here is because she’s looking for someone who can kill her. Someone who can save her from herself. She sent for me so that I could stop her from killing people, and that’s what I’m going to do. She won’t be the first friend I’ve had to put down.”
Before I could say anything to that, he walked out of the room and I could hear him moving down the hallway. I leaned back against the wall, feeling drained. Conversations with Prof always had a distinct intensity to them.
Eventually I went looking for a way to take a shower. It turned out I had to do it in the darkness, and with cold water. Both were fine. Back in my Factory days, I’d been allowed just one shower every three days. I appreciated anything more than that.
A half hour later, I stepped into the meeting room, a chamber a few doors down from my bedroom. One entire wall was glass and looked out into the water of the sound. Delightful. And everyone sat facing it too. It wasn’t that I was frightened; I just didn’t like being reminded that we were submerged under all that water. One little leak and we’d all end up drowning in here.
Exel sat in a comfortable-looking easy chair with his feet up. Mizzy was fiddling with her phone, and Val stood by the doorway, arms crossed. The Hispanic woman looked like she had no intention to sit down and relax. She took life seriously—something I appreciated. We shared a nod as I walked in and settled myself in a chair next to Mizzy.
“How’s the city up there?” I asked Exel.
“Lots of funerals,” he said. “Attended a really nice one over near the central expanse. Flowers on the water, a beautiful eulogy. Terrible embalming, though I suppose you can’t blame them, considering the lack of resources.”
“You did reconnaissance at a funeral?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said. “People like to chat at funerals. It’s an emotional time. I caught some of Newton’s flunkies watching from a distance.”
Mizzy looked up from her mobile. “What did they do?”
“They just watched,” Exel said, shaking his head. “Can’t figure that group out, honestly. We may need to infiltrate them at some point.…”
“I doubt her gangs are recruiting fat dudes in their forties, Exel,” Val said from the doorway.
“I’d just pretend to be a chef,” Exel said. “Every organization needs both good chefs and good morticians. The two great constants of life. Food and death.”
Tia and Prof entered a short time later, Prof carrying an easel under one arm. Tia took a seat in the room’s remaining chair while Prof set up the easel and paper just in front of the aquariumlike window. How wonderful. I was going to have to stare at that water the entire time.
“Imager isn’t set up yet,” Prof said. “So we’ll do this the old-fashioned way. Mizzy, you’re low man on the team roster. You get scribe duties.”
She hopped up from her chair and actually seemed excited by the prospect. She took a marker and wrote Reckoner Super Plan for Killing Regalia at the top of the sheet. Each i was dotted with a heart.
Prof watched this with a flat expression, then soldiered onward. “In killing Steelheart, the Reckoners made a promise, one we need to keep. Powerful Epics aren’t beyond our reach. Regalia has proven her disrespect for human life, and we are the only law capable of bringing her to justice. It’s time to eradicate her.”
“I’m worried about this,” Exel said, shaking his head. “Regalia has been running a solid PR campaign lately. People in the city don’t love her, but they don’t hate her either. Are you certain this is what we should be doing, Prof?”
“She spent the last five months sending assassins to try to kill my team in Newcago,” Prof said, voice cold. “Sam is dead by her order as well. It’s personal, Exel. Good PR or not, she’s murdering people right and left in this city. We bring her down. It’s not negotiable.”
He looked at me when he said it.
Mizzy wrote Really important, and we totally need to do it on the paper, with three big arrows pointing at the heading above. Then, after a moment, she added Boy, it’s on now in smaller letters beside that one.
“All right,” Val said from beside the doorway. “So we’ll need to find her weakness, which is something we’ve never been able to do. I doubt soap is going to be enough.”
Prof looked to Tia.
“Abigail isn’t a High Epic,” Tia said.
“What?” Exel said. “Of course she is. I’ve never met an Epic as powerful as Regalia. She raised the water level of the entire city to flood it. She moved millions of tons of water, and holds it all here!”