Calamity (Reckoners, #3)

I sat down, trying to clear my mind, trying to recover some strength and confront the opportunity I’d been handed. I tried to sort through it. Prof defeated, but drained of powers. He’d seemed so numb when I’d looked at him, as if he’d been hit by some strong blow to the head. He’d recover, right? Some assumers left their prey stunned, even brain-dead, after their powers were taken. Those people recovered when the powers were restored, but Larcener never gave back what he stole. How had I never considered that?

Sparks, how had I missed Prof’s weakness? His timid planning, the way he looked for excuses to give away his powers and mitigate failures—it all pointed to his fears. All along, he’d been unwilling to fully commit.

“Well?” Obliteration finally asked. “We have no more time.”

I didn’t feel any more rested, despite the breather. “I’ll go,” I whispered, hoarse. “I will do it.”

“Well chosen.” He led me to the bomb that, I assumed, had been placed here in this wasteland to gather heat from the sun. I moved closer to it and got a sense of its shape—a metal box about the size of a footlocker. It wasn’t hot, though it seemed as if it should be.

Obliteration knelt and put one hand on it; the other he placed on my arm. “?‘You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands; you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you.’ Farewell, Steelslayer.”

My breath caught as I was seized in the flash of light. A second later, I found myself looking down at Earth.

I barely heard the crash behind me as Obliteration left, abandoning me. I was in space. I knelt on what appeared to be a surface of glass, looking down at a gloriously stomach-twisting sight: the Earth in its splendor, surrounded by a haze of atmosphere and clouds.

So peaceful. From up here, my daily concerns seemed insignificant. I tore my eyes away from that sight to look around, though I had to put my back to the bomb and squint to make anything out over its light. I was in some kind of…building, or ship? With glass walls?

I stumbled to my feet, noting the walls’ rounded corners, and a distant red light somewhere in this glassy structure. Then I realized that despite the fact that I was all the way up in space, my feet remained planted on the surface beneath me. I would have expected to float.

The bomb shone like a star behind me. I fingered the detonator. Should I…do it now?

No. No, I needed to see him first. Up close. He glowed crimson, bright as the bomb, but was somewhere ahead of me in the ship, his light refracting through corners and surfaces of glass.

My eyes were gradually adjusting, and I noticed a doorway. I stumbled toward it, as the floor was uneven, lined with ladderlike grips and bars. The walls were also uneven, made of different compartments filled with wires and levers—only it was all glass.

I passed through a corridor, with difficulty. There was something etched into one wall, and I ran my hand over it. English letters? I could read them—some kind of company name, it seemed.

Sparks. I was in the old international space station, but it had been transformed into glass.

Feeling an unreal disconnect, I continued toward the light. The glass was so clear, I could almost believe that it wasn’t there. I stumbled through room after room, my arm out to make sure I didn’t walk into a wall, and the red light grew larger.

I eventually stepped into one last room. It was bigger than the others I’d passed through, and Calamity waited on the far side—facing away from me, I thought, though he was so bright it was difficult to make out much about him.

Arm raised against the light, I clutched the detonator tighter. I was being stupid. I should have blown the bomb. Calamity might kill me the moment he saw me. Who knew what powers this being had?

But I had to know. Had to see him with my own eyes. I had to meet the thing that had ruined my world.

I walked through the room.

Calamity’s light dimmed. My breath caught in my throat, and I tasted bile. What would the people below think? Calamity going out? The light lowered to a faint glow, revealing a young man in a simple robe, with red glowing skin. He turned to face me…and I knew him.

“Hello, David,” Larcener said.





“YOU,” I whispered. “You were down below! With us, all along!”

“Yes,” Larcener said, turning to regard the world. “I can project a decoy of myself; you know this. You even mentioned the power on several occasions.”

I reeled, trying to connect it all. He’d been with us.

Calamity had been living with us.

“Why…What…”

Larcener sighed, a shockingly human sound. Annoyance. An emotion I’d felt from him quite often. “I keep looking at it,” he said, “trying to find what you see in it.”

I hesitantly stepped up beside him. “The world?”

“It’s broken. Terrible. Horrid.”

“Yeah,” I said softly. “Beautiful.”

He looked at me, narrowing his eyes.

“You’re the source of it all,” I said, resting my fingers on the glass in front of me. “You…all along…The powers you stole from other Epics?”

“I simply took back what I once gave,” he said. “Everyone was so quick to believe in an Epic who could steal abilities, they never realized they’d had it backward. I’m no thief. ‘Larcener,’ they called me. Petty.” He shook his head.