Calamity (Reckoners, #3)

“Another attack?” she whispered.

I wasn’t sure anymore. I tried to force out a reply, but then the ceiling caved in on us.

I stumbled, looking up, but Megan managed to turn the rtich to stop the sudden torrent of stone and dust. Garish sunlight streamed down out of the hole Prof had made, as wide as the entire cavern. I blinked, unaccustomed to the light, and looked at Prof, who had stepped out of the way of the downpour and now stood under the lip, in shadow.

“Fire,” he said.

Only then did I notice that surrounding the perfect hole about thirty feet above was a squadron of fifty men and women.

They carried flamethrowers.





FLAMES rained down toward us. They’d been prepared for this—we hadn’t been forcing Prof to retreat. He’d been leading us by the nose!

The rtich vanished as the flames surrounded us. Megan’s images and shadows all snapped together and there was suddenly one crisp version of her, lit by firelight. She threw herself to the ground as the sheets of flame fell.

“No!” I screamed, thrusting my hand toward her, my glove flashing. I couldn’t afford to be bad at forcefields. Not now! I strained, like I was stretching to carry too heavy a weight.

Blessedly, a glowing protective dome appeared around Megan, blocking the flames. She pressed her hands against the shield I’d created, eyes wide as the entire thing was bathed in fire.

I stumbled back from the heat, my hand in front of my face. The fires got awfully close, but the burns I took healed.

Up above, men and women began firing automatic weapons. I screamed, releasing the tensor power and vaporizing the weapons in a wave of dust. Guns and flamethrowers crumbled. The gap above widened, raining down salt—and then people as their footing vanished beneath them.

The fires stopped falling, but the damage was done. Pools of liquid flame burned in the now-open cavern floor, curling black tongues of smoke toward the sky. It was so hot, sweat beaded on my forehead. Megan’s powers would be worthless in here. I blinked against the dust and smoke as Prof emerged from the shadows—grim, bloodied, but still not afraid.

Sparks. Still not afraid.

“Did you think I wouldn’t have a plan?” he said to me softly. “Did you think I wouldn’t prepare for Megan and her powers?” His feet ground against salt dust as he walked past a groaning soldier. “That’s what you forget, David. A wise man always has a plan.”

“Sometimes the plans don’t work,” I snapped. “Sometimes careful preparation isn’t enough!”

“And so you storm in, taking no care?” he shouted, startlingly angry.

“Sometimes you just have to act, Prof! Sometimes you don’t know what you need until you’re in the thick of it!”

“That doesn’t give you an excuse to upend another man’s life! Doesn’t give you an excuse to ignore everyone else to follow your own stupid passions! Doesn’t excuse your complete lack of control!”

I roared, building a crescendo of tensor power. I didn’t aim it toward the ground or the walls. I hurled it toward him: a charge of raw power, a vessel for my frustration, my anger. Nothing was working. Everything was falling apart.

It hit him, and he leaned back as if struck by something physical. Buttons on his shirt disintegrated.

Then Prof yelled and sent a blast of tensor power at me in return.

I hit it with my own. The two slammed against one another, like discordant sounds, and the cavern shook, stone rippling as if it were made of water. Vibrations washed over me.

The gun in my hand crumbled to dust, as did the tensor glove on the hand holding it. But the blast didn’t reach the rest of me. Still, the shock of it knocked me off my feet.

I groaned and rolled over. Prof was there, looming above me. He reached down and grabbed the three boxes on the front of my vest, ripping them free of the fabric—removing the motivators from the tensor suit. “These,” he said, “belong to me.”

No…

He backhanded me, a powerful blow that sent me sprawling across the rock and dust.

I came to rest near Megan, who was out of her protective dome—I was no longer holding the power to maintain it. She stood in the firelight, raised her gun in two hands, and shot at Prof.

A meaningless popping. Prof didn’t even seem to care. I lay there with my arm buried in the mottled dust of the floor.

“You’re fools,” Prof said, tossing the motivators aside. “Both of you.”

“Better a fool than a coward,” I hissed. “At least I’ve tried to do something! Tried to change things!”

“You’ve tried and you’ve failed, David!” Prof said, stepping forward as Megan ran out of bullets. I could hear the anguish in his voice. “Look at you. You couldn’t defeat me. You’ve failed.”

I rose to my knees, then settled back, feeling suddenly drained. Megan sank down beside me, burned, exhausted.