Firefight

Two days later, David accompanies Mizzy and Exel back into the city, where he is newly disturbed by how calm the people are. Exel explains that the people figure they may as well enjoy life because they could be killed at any moment. David cannot understand such a lazy, complacent attitude. Exel argues that everyone can fear whatever they want, just like David’s fear of water. David is annoyed that Exel figured out what he fears, but he is glad that no one knows about his fear of sharks.

The group plans to attend a party, where they will mingle to glean new information. After the group’s closed-room, clandestine meetings with informants in Newcago, David is flummoxed by the concept of attending a party and thinks, “I had a feeling I’d have been much better off in the water with the sharks” (147).

Mizzy introduces David to a group of people their age who may have lost a friend during Obliteration’s attack. David is astonished that the group doesn’t seem to care about the attack, and he is even more surprised when they curse the Reckoners for messing things up. Soon, though, the group moves on to chatting about the music, and David thinks that it is “no wonder the Epics [a]re winning, with attitudes like this” (152). David dances with one of the girls and continuously compares her demeanor to Megan’s more stoic nature, finding that he prefers Megan’s personality to the exuberance of this fun-loving girl. The girl gets pulled away, and David is grateful, particularly when he notices an Epic named Newton at the edge of the crowd.

Newton’s main power is reversing force, meaning that any attack against her is deflected back onto her attacker. David trails Newton until Mizzy stops him and informs him that Newton is there for the party, not to cause a problem. As they dance, Mizzy asks David what it felt like to kill Steelheart. David says that the moment was liberating and empowering and claims, “I’ve never felt so good” (160). Mizzy admires David and vows to follow in his footsteps and kill Firefight. David says nothing, but he knows that he needs to clear Megan’s name if he can.

David gets some distance from the party to think about how different life in Babilar is. He doesn’t understand why Regalia both brought in dangerous Epics but also seems to offer people a decent quality of life, and he is sure that there is more to her story. He notices Newton leaving the party and follows her to a hotel, where she meets with Obliteration. Newton had been following David but lost him. David scrapes his foot over the floor, but when Obliteration whips toward the noise, he doesn’t see David. Obliteration and Newton teleport away, and David realizes that Megan has used her powers to make him invisible. To draw Megan out, David holds the handgun that she gave him out a window, and Megan appears, saying, “If you drop that, you idiot, […] I’ll rip your face off” (170).

David thanks Megan for saving his life twice. She vows not to do it again because “even the little bit [she] did just now, protecting [him] from those two, threatens to destroy [her]” (173). She walks away, and David calls her back with a bad metaphor about how she is a wonderful potato in a minefield. Megan stays, confessing that it is easier to fight the corruption when David is nearby. They almost kiss, but Megan presses her gun to his head instead and gives him a motivator device that makes Epic technology work.

Mizzy and Exel hook the motivator to a spyril—a water jetpack device that allows someone to leap through the air with water-based assistance. On his first try, David flops into the water, so the team dials down the flow. David argues that he doesn’t need special treatment, but Exel says that they already lost one teammate while they were using the spyril and do not want to lose another in a mere practice session. David has no argument.

After practicing for a few hours, David has a better understanding of how to water-jump, though he hasn’t gotten much better at it. After a fall, he tries using the jet power in the water, which lets him swim at super-fast speeds and works much better. When David takes a break, he, Exel, and Mizzy discuss the various capabilities of the Epics, including Firefight. Prof told the Babilar Reckoners that Firefight had fire- and flight-based powers, but David knows the truth—that Megan is an illusionist. David doesn’t understand why Prof lied, but he goes along with this because he believes that “it [i]s safer if this team d[oes]n’t know Megan’s true nature” (192). David goes back to practicing and projects himself into the middle of a large, open area just as Regalia appears.

Regalia and David discuss Steelheart and the broader topic of Epic powers. David insists that Regalia could just stop using her powers in order to be rid of the threat of corruption, but Regalia says it’s not so simple. David jets to two other rooftops, forcing Regalia to move so that he can collect data about her power’s range, but he’s stopped from moving again when Regalia tells him that the water jet powers in the spyril came from an Epic that she created. David is sure that she is lying, but she tells him to ask Obliteration about what she has given him. She leaves David with the final warning that if he tries to fight her, he will end up “gasping for breath in one of these jungle buildings, one step from freedom” (199).

Tia uncovers evidence that Sourcefield’s grandparents tried to kill her by poisoning her Kool-Aid, and David is sure that this past event is linked to the fact that Kool-Aid was Sourcefield’s weakness. David wants to help with further research, but he would have to give up fieldwork so that he couldn’t be captured and interrogated. Feeling restless with nothing to do, David joins Exel, who is using a radio to listen in on various conversations in Babilar. Before the Epics came to be, Exel was a spy for the CIA, and if he had the option now, he would love to live a carefree life like the people in the city. David argues that the Reckoners’ quest is a necessary step in changing the world so that things don’t stagnate, but Exel replies, “I could live with stagnation, […] if it meant no war. No killing” (208).

Exel has gathered extensive notes of people’s conversations about Dawnslight, the Epic who is allegedly responsible for the glowing fruit in Babilar. David wonders if it is possible for an Epic to be purely good. Exel is sure that it is and believes that change could be as simple as finding a few good Epics to stand up to the corrupt ones. Suddenly, the radio picks up a conversation about Obliteration, who is just sitting in the sunlight. Obliteration did this in the past, right before he destroyed whole cities with massive explosions, and David fears that this is now about to happen again.

David and Prof go to the surface. On the way, David receives a message from Megan, who asks him to meet. Prof reveals that he is thinking about sending David back to Newcago because he believes that David is too volatile and has sympathies for Epics who don’t deserve them. Prof knows that David has been keeping secrets and demands to know what they are.

Instead of telling Prof the truth about Megan, David says that he wants to capture Newton to see if depriving an Epic of powers can turn them good. Prof lets David stay in Babilar for now, concluding that David is “either exactly what the Reckoners need, and have needed for years” or else just “a representation of the reckless heroism [they have] been wise to avoid” (221). Prof pulls the submarine into a building and sends David up to investigate Obliteration while he keeps the motor running. David finds fortune cookies growing out of one of the plants, all of which contain messages asking for help. David takes a sample and moves on to a window, where he sees Obliteration sitting as described in the radio conversation.

By comparing Obliteration’s current glow to photos of his past city-wide demolitions, the team realizes that they have a week until the Epic stores enough power to destroy Babilar. Suddenly, Newton appears and cuts away a bridge linking a building to the one where Obliteration sits. The water pulls back, and Newton throws small objects into the building, making David realize that she is “burning the building down. With the people inside” (233).

David rushes to equip the spyril so that he can help the people trapped in the soon-to-be-destroyed building. Prof argues that Regalia will simply have another building destroyed, but David refuses to stop, saying, “If we stop helping people because we’re afraid, or ambivalent or whatever, then we lose” (235). Partway to the building, the spyril loses power, and David is forced to retreat to another building. As he watches, water crashes back down around the building, completing the job. Nearby, Regalia’s image glances at him and then vanishes. Prof calls David to explain that he ran across the ocean floor and is now holding back the water and flames with forcefields. He orders David to get the people to safety in the submarine and then goes silent so that he can fight against the corruption that is threatening to overwhelm him.

Tia and David develop a cover story about how David saved the people using the spyril; their goal is to hide Prof’s status as an Epic. On the way to pick up supplies, David bonds with Val over a past operation in which she killed an Epic by shooting him with his own tank. For the first time, David feels as though the Babilar Reckoner accepts him. He is “glad to have finally had a conversation with Val that didn’t involve a lot of scowling” (248).

While gathering supplies, David checks on Prof, who went into hiding to recover from the threat of corruption. David sees pictures of Prof that were taken years ago, including one where he is with Regalia. When David asks about it, Prof says that he doesn’t want to discuss it. He admits, “I thought the world could be a different place back then, […] a place of heroes” (253). David argues that it still could be, and something in Prof seems to change, as if he might actually believe it.

Back at base, Tia has recovered footage of a man from Newton’s gang who appears to display Epic powers, though he never has before. They wonder if Regalia really can create Epics, and David realizes that he can no longer trust everything he thought he knew about how Epics operate. This includes Prof, and David realizes that he has new hope for the future because Prof has been able to accomplish wonders without allowing his powers to corrupt him. David moves to unload supplies and finds Megan inside the base.

Megan snuck onto the submarine during the supply run and then accessed the base. Now, David drags her to his room, where she confesses that it is getting more difficult to avoid using her powers. David shares his theory that the Epics’ specific weaknesses can be used to reverse the corruption. Megan wants to believe this because she is tired of fighting. When David moves to kiss her, she allows it. Their kiss is interrupted by the opening door.

Megan dives under the bed as Tia enters and tells David that he needs to install a camera in order to monitor Obliteration. David distracts the team so that Megan can sneak back onto the submarine, and she sneaks out again once the craft surfaces in the city to join David in the water. Using the spyril, David gets himself and Megan to a nearby building. Megan thanks him for trusting her and for just being himself, to which David responds, “I’ve had all these years to practice—I hardly ever get it wrong these days” (277).

Megan goes with David to spy on Obliteration, revealing that Regalia wants her to seduce David. David feels confused but decides to trust Megan since she told him about this order instead of simply seducing him. According to Megan, Regalia has been claiming that she could enhance Epic powers, and Megan came to Babilar in the hopes that if Regalia could enhance powers, she could also make Megan “normal again” (281). Megan reveals that she doesn’t actually create illusions. In addition to having the power of reincarnation, she can borrow from other possible realities to make things appear a certain way to others. Therefore, the Epic known as Firefight is a possible Megan from another potential world in which she has fire-based powers and is a man. Megan also states that she knows her weakness. David doesn’t ask what it is, but Megan confirms that it feels related to her past, and this supports David’s theory that Epics’ weaknesses are not random.

While David makes his way to a nearby roof to plant the camera, Megan keeps a lookout and discovers one of Newton’s operatives and Prof, who are both watching Obliteration from different vantage points. David explains that Prof saved the group on the night that Megan destroyed their base in Newcago. Megan says that more powerful Epics have greater difficulty with resisting the corruption, but David believes that this is good. He reasons that if someone as powerful as Prof can resist the corruption, “it proves that Regalia and the others could fight it off too” (298). Megan reveals that her weakness is fire, theorizing that if she died in a fire, she wouldn’t reincarnate. She also nearly died in a fire as a child and has recurring nightmares about it.

David finds more fortune cookies as he climbs. The cookies pose questions that he answers out loud, and one of the messages identifies its creator as Dawnslight, who claims to have seen surgeons removing something from Obliteration. David reaches the roof and plants the camera. Megan sees Newton’s associate land nearby in bird form. David plans to kidnap the bird.

As the Epic closes in on David’s location, Megan wounds him with a gunshot. The Epic flees, and David gives chase across buildings, finally catching the Epic when he falls unconscious from blood loss. Megan works her way toward David’s location, but before she can get there, Val arrives and trains a gun on David, accusing him of working with Regalia. David argues that matters are not as Val thinks. He begs her to let the Newcago team explain. As he meets her gaze, imploring, she “pull[s] the trigger” (314).

Val’s bullet is stopped by one of Prof’s shields. Prof bugged David’s phone and has been using David to draw Megan out so that he can kill her himself. Now, Prof tells David, “I’m disappointed in you” (316), and these words hurt him worse than getting shot.

David spends the next few days alone, unable to bear the looks that the others give him. On the day of the operation to capture Newton, he visits Prof, who confirms that David has been bait from the very beginning. David argues that if Prof can fight the corruption, then Megan can, too. Prof violently disagrees, explaining that he has been using his powers a bit at a time and now plans to use them to destroy Obliteration. Years ago, he and a group of Epics failed to stop using their powers, just as he is failing now. Prof is sure that Megan has fallen victim to the corruption, and he promises David that “there will be a reckoning” (326). He then leaves, putting up a forcefield to keep David trapped in one room.