Beside her, Exel was smiling. He knelt down and reached out to help me from the water, but I engaged the jets and shot up at an angle. I managed to land on the rooftop beside them without falling on my face, though much arm-waving was involved.
Mizzy laughed again and tossed me a towel. I settled down on one of the chairs, shivering. Spring might be upon us, but the air was still chilly. I accepted a cup of hot tea from Exel as he settled down beside me and put in his earpiece. I followed suit.
“That water,” I said, speaking in the soft way of the Babilaran Reckoners, “doesn’t seem as cold as it should be.” I realized, now that I was in the open air and shivering, that it was warmer in the water than out of it.
“It isn’t,” Exel said. “And it’s even warmer down in the southern parts of Babilar. There are currents that move through the streets bearing a tropical warmth all times of year, even midwinter.”
“That sounds …” I trailed off.
“Impossible?” Exel volunteered.
“Yeah,” I said. “But I realize how stupid that sounds, considering everything else happening in this city.”
Exel nodded, and we sat for a while, me chowing down on a sandwich I’d dug out of my pack.
“So,” Exel said, “are we done for the day?”
“Nah,” I said, munching the last bite of sandwich. “We’ve only been out here for an hour or two. I want to get this down. Just let me rest for a minute and I’ll get back to it.”
Mizzy took a seat and checked her mobile. “Val reports that Newton is in Eastborough right now. No movement this direction. It doesn’t look like we’ve been spotted.”
I nodded and took a pull on the tea as I thought. It was sweeter than I was used to. “We’ll need to figure out her weakness, if we can.”
“I’d rather find out Obliteration’s,” Exel said. “He scares me.”
“He should.”
I’d spent the week thinking about Megan, but I probably should have let Obliteration dominate more of that time. Why had he suddenly decided to vaporize Houston? And then in rapid succession two other towns? What had changed, and why had I been wrong about the cooldown on his teleportation powers?
I pulled out my new mobile and searched through the digitized version of my notes. It wasn’t too different from my old one, though a few of Mizzy’s improvements—such as a slow-charging solar panel on the back—seemed like they’d be useful.
I stopped at a photo of Obliteration, taken in Houston only a few days before he’d destroyed the place. I’d traded half my rations for two weeks to another kid in the Factory for a copy of the photo, which he’d had forwarded on to him from a friend.
In the picture, Obliteration sat in the middle of a city square, cross-legged, basking in the sun with eyes closed and face turned toward the sky. A few days later, Houston was gone—which had shocked me, as I assumed he would remain emperor of the city for years, like Steelheart in Chicago. Nothing I’d read about him had prepared me for such an event.
My notes had been wrong about him. Consistently, not just regarding his powers, but also his motives and intentions. I thought a moment, then pulled up Val’s number and pressed the call button.
“Yo,” she said softly.
“Mizzy says you’re still on reconnaissance,” I said.
“Yeah. What do you need?”
“Has anyone spotted Obliteration sitting out in the sun?” I asked. “Here in the city, I mean?”
“Don’t know,” Val said. “There are lots of rumors about him, but not much concrete info.”
I looked up at Exel sitting in his chair beside me. He shrugged. “I can try to find out more if you’d like,” he offered.
“Thanks,” I said. “Val, just keep your eyes open, all right? I think Obliteration needs to charge himself that way; it’s how he acted in the other cities before he destroyed them. We’ll want to know if he starts doing that here.”
“Right.” Val signed off.
“We’re worrying about him too much,” Mizzy said. She sat by the edge of the rooftop, idly tossing broken chips of brick into the water.
Exel chuckled softly, then spoke over the line. “Well, he is the one who is likely to try to melt the city, Missouri.”
“I suppose. But what about Firefight?” Mizzy stared out over the waters, her brow furrowed in an uncharacteristic way. Angry. “She’s the one who killed Sam. She infiltrated the Reckoners, betrayed us. She’s a fire Epic too, like Obliteration. Why aren’t we talking about how to kill her?”
Fire Epic. I was pretty sure that she wasn’t actually—she was some kind of illusion Epic—though honestly I didn’t know the extent of what she could do. There was something odd about the images she created, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
“What did Prof tell you about Firefight?” I asked Mizzy and Exel, curious.