“Kool-Aid?”
“A generic,” Tia said, “but close enough. The grandparents were a strange pair, fascinated by cults and old stories. It was a copycat killing, or an attempted one, based on an older tragedy in South America. The important thing is that Sourcefield—rather, Emiline—was old enough at the time to realize that she’d been poisoned. She crawled out into the street when her throat and mouth started burning, and a passerby took her to the hospital. She became an Epic years later, and her weakness—”
“Was the very thing that had almost killed her,” I finished, excited. “It’s a connection, Tia.”
“Maybe a coincidental one.”
“You don’t believe that,” I said. How could she? This was another connection, a real one—like Mitosis, but even more promising. Was this where Epic weaknesses came from? Something that nearly killed them?
But how would bad rock music nearly kill a guy? I wondered. Touring, perhaps? An accident. We needed to know more.
“I think a coincidence is possible,” Tia said, then looked up and finally met my eyes. “But I also think it’s worth investigating. Nice work. How did you guess?”
“There’s got to be some logic to it, Tia,” I said. “The powers, the weaknesses, the Epics … who gets chosen.”
“I don’t know, David,” Tia said. “Does there really have to be a rationale behind it? In ancient days, when a disaster struck everyone would try to make sense of it—find a reason. Somebody’s sins. Angered gods. But nature doesn’t always have a reason for us, not the type we want.”
“You’re going to look into it, right?” I asked. “This is like Mitosis—similar at least. Maybe we can find a connection with Steelheart and his weakness. He could only be harmed by someone who didn’t fear him. Maybe in his past he was nearly killed by someone who—”
“I’ll look into it,” Tia said, stopping me. “I promise.”
“You seem reluctant,” I pressed. How could she be so skeptical? This was exciting! Revolutionary!
“I thought we were beyond this. The lorists spent the early years searching for a connection between Epic weaknesses. We decided there wasn’t one.” She hesitated. “Though I suppose that was a challenging time—when communication was difficult and the government was collapsing. We made other mistakes back then; I suppose I wouldn’t be surprised to discover we’d been too hasty in making some of our decisions.” She sighed. “I’ll look into this further, though Calamity knows I don’t have the time these days with the Regalia issue.”
“I can help,” I said, taking another step forward.
“I know you can. I’ll keep you informed of what I discover.”
I stayed where I was, stubborn not to leave so easily.
“That was a dismissal, David.”
“I—”
“The people I work with are very secretive,” Tia interrupted. “I’ve been implying to them that you should be allowed to join our ranks, but if you do you’ll have to give up on fieldwork. Having access to our knowledge necessitates preventing you from taking risks, lest you get captured and interrogated.”
I grunted, annoyed. I’d been looking forward to the chance, someday, to meet with Tia’s lorists. But I wasn’t going to give up on running point, not when there were Epics to kill. Being a lorist sounded like a job for a nerd anyway.
I sighed and retreated from the library. This left me with the same problem as before, unfortunately. What to do with myself? Tia wouldn’t let me in on the research, and Val didn’t want me nearby.
Who would have thought that living in an awesome undersea base would be so boring?
I walked slowly back toward my room. The hallway was quiet except for some echoing sounds from farther down the dark stretch. Faint, with a rasping quality, they called to me like the ding on a microwave as it finished nuking a pizza pocket. I passed door after door until I eventually reached Exel’s room. He had the door wide open, and the inside was plastered wall to wall with posters of interesting buildings. An architecture buff? I wouldn’t have guessed—but then again, I was having trouble guessing anything about Exel.
The man himself sat filling up a large chair near a small table set with an antiquated piece of machinery. He nodded to me, then continued to fiddle with the machine in front of him. It made buzzing noises.
Feeling welcome for the first time all day, I walked in and settled into a seat beside him. “A radio?” I guessed as he turned a dial.
“Specifically, a scanner,” he said.
“I have no idea what that means.”
“It just lets me look for signals, mostly local ones, and see if I can hear them.”
“How … old-fashioned,” I said.