“What do you know about her?” I asked. “Her background, I mean. Who she was before Calamity.” Fortunately, the current song was a little less overbearing than the previous ones, with a slower beat and not as much noise.
“Yunmi Park,” Mizzy said. “That’s her real name. Long ago, before all this happened, she was your run-of-the-mill black sheep. A juvenile delinquent born to successful parents who didn’t know what to do about her.”
“So she was evil even then?” I asked.
Mizzy started dancing—not as frantically or as, um, invitingly as Lulu had. Just some simple motions. The dancing was probably a good idea, as we didn’t want to stand out. I followed suit.
“Yeaaaah,” Mizzy said. “Definitely evil. She’d committed murder, so when Calamity arrived, she was already in juvie. Then bam. Super powers. Must have sucked to be the guards at that detention center that day, I tell you. But why does it matter what she was like?”
“I want to know what percentage of Epics were evil before they got their powers,” I said. “I’m also trying to tie their weaknesses to events in their past.”
“Hasn’t anyone tried that before?”
“A lot of people have,” I said. “But most of them didn’t have the level of research I’ve been able to gather, or the access to Epics that being in the Reckoners has given me. The connection, if there is one, isn’t obvious—but I think it’s there. I just have to find the right slant on it.…”
We danced for a few minutes. I could handle this dance. Less flailing was involved.
“What was it like?” Mizzy asked. “Killing Steelheart.”
“Well, we set up in Soldier Field,” I said. “We hadn’t quite figured out his weakness yet, but we had to try anyway. So we made a perimeter, and—”
“No,” Mizzy said. “What did it feel like to kill him? You know, inside of you. What was it like?”
“Is this pertinent to our current job somehow?” I asked, frowning.
Mizzy blushed and turned away. “Whoops. Personal information. Gotcha.”
I hadn’t intended to embarrass her; I’d just assumed I was missing something. I’d been too focused on the job at hand rather than on things like small talk and interpersonal interaction.
“It was awesome,” I said softly.
Mizzy glanced back at me.
“I’d always heard that revenge doesn’t pay off,” I continued. “That when you finally got what you’d been hunting, you’d find the experience unsatisfying and depressing. That’s a sparking load of stupidity. Killing that monster felt great, Mizzy. I avenged my father and liberated Newcago. I’ve never felt so good.”
Mizzy nodded.
Now, what I didn’t say was that killing Steelheart had left me wondering what to do next. The sudden and abrupt removal of my all-consuming goal … well, it was like I was a donut, and somebody had sucked all the jelly out of me. But I could stuff new jelly in there. It would just get my hands a little sticky in the process.
I’d moved on to killing other Epics, like Mitosis and Sourcefield. Which had its own problems. I’d interacted with Epics, even fallen for one. I couldn’t see them uniformly as monsters any longer.
That look in Sourcefield’s eyes as I shot her still haunted me. She’d looked so normal, so frightened.
“You take this all really seriously, don’t you?” Mizzy asked.
“Don’t we all?”
“Yeaaaah, you’re a little different.” She smiled. “I like it, though. You’re what a Reckoner should be.”
Unlike me, that line seemed to imply.
“I’m glad you have a life, Mizzy,” I said. I gestured toward the party. “I’m glad you have friends. You don’t want to be like me. Parties, real life … these are why we’re fighting, in a way. To bring that world back.”
“Even though Babilar is fake, like you think?” Mizzy said. “That this city, and everything in it, is a front for some plan Regalia is concocting?”
“Even then,” I said.
Mizzy smiled, still shifting back and forth to the beat. She was cute. Not like Lulu at all, who was demandingly attractive. Mizzy was just … nice to be around. Earnest, amusing. Real.
I’d stayed away from people like her my entire life. I hadn’t wanted attachments, or so I’d told myself. Really, I’d been so focused that I’d kind of weirded everyone out. But Mizzy … she considered me a hero.
I could grow to enjoy this sort of thing. I wasn’t interested in Mizzy—not that way, and particularly not with Megan on my mind—but friendship with some people my age was something I did find myself longing to have.
Mizzy seemed distracted by something. Perhaps she was thinking along similar lines. Or—
“I need to be more like you,” she said. “I’m too trusting.”
“I like you how you are.”
“No,” Mizzy said. “The person I am hasn’t ever even killed an Epic. This time it’s going to be different. I’m going to do what you did. I’m going to find that monster.”
“That monster?” I said.
“Firefight,” Mizzy said. “The one who killed Sam.”
Oh.