“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.
Megan was far from a monster, but I couldn’t explain that to Mizzy, not until I had proof of some sort.
For now, I changed the topic. “So, what did you find out from your friends? We’re here for intel, right? Any clues that could lead us to … what we’re looking for?” I didn’t want to say it out loud, even though with the music-and with no water exposed to the air directly nearby-it was unlikely Regalia would be spying on us.
“I’m still looking, but I did find one interesting tidbit. Looks like Regalia has been bringing in scientists.”
“Scientists?” I frowned.
“Yeah,” Mizzy said. “Smart types of all kinds, apparently. Marco heard that a surgeon from Great Falls-one of Revokation’s personal staff-relocated here. It’s odd, as we don’t have a lot of trained professionals in town. Babilar tends to attract people who like free food and fatalism, not scholars.”
Huh. “See if any other professionals have come to town lately. Accountants. Military experts.”
“Why?”
“Just a hunch,” I said.
“Right. I’ll get back to gathering intel.” Mizzy hesitated. “Everything really is all about work for you, isn’t it?”
Not by a mile. But I nodded anyway.
“I am going to find the Epic who murdered Sam,” Mizzy said. “Then I’m going to kill her.”
Sparks. I needed to clear Megan’s name, and quickly. Mizzy nodded to herself, looking resolute as she stepped out of the dancing area.
I went and checked on Newton as surreptitiously as I could. The Epic still lounged by the bar, sipping her drink, standing out like a punk guitarist in a mariachi band. Farther down the improvised bar-it was mostly made of old wooden boxes-Exel chatted with a group of women. They laughed at something he said, and the whole crowd of them looked sincerely interested in him.
Sparks. Exel was a ladies’ man? And at least he was sticking to the plan. I toyed with the idea of looking for Lulu so I could ask her if she’d ever seen Regalia. Instead I found myself walking to the bridge at the edge of the building, then out into the night, wanting to be alone with my thoughts for a while.
21
Babilar was starting to grow on me.
True, all the color was garish, but I couldn’t help but admire it just a little, particularly in contrast to the desolation between here and Newcago. Every glowing line coloring the walls and roofs here was a mark of humanity. A mixture of primitive cave paintings and modern technology, sprayed out of a can and humming with life all around me.
I walked down a bridge-different from the one we’d come in on. It led me to a quiet rooftop, with only a few deserted-looking tents and shanties. People preferred the roofs closer to the water level, it seemed. This one was a little too high.
I wasn’t certain why more people didn’t live inside the buildings. Wouldn’t that be safer? Of course, the insides of the buildings were jungles-humid, shadowy, and obviously unnatural. Perhaps the rooftops were just something the people could claim.
I strolled for a time. Maybe I should have been worried about the danger, but sparks, Regalia had held us all in her grip-then let us go. This wasn’t like Newcago, where Steelheart would have killed us in an eyeblink if he’d been able to find us. This was complicated. This was Epics and people living in a bizarre ecosystem, where the humans accepted that they might die at any moment-but still threw parties. Parties the Epics themselves might decide to visit.