to soup. Buildings burst into flames. Stones melted to magma.
Tens of thousands dead in moments.
Well, from what I remembered of my notes, I should have a little time before he could reappear. He could only use his teleportation powers every few minutes, and—Obliteration appeared beside me.
I felt the heat before I spotted him, and I spun that direction. Sweat prickled on my brow, like I’d stepped up to a trash can fire on a cold night.
I shot him again.
I heard half a curse from his lips as he again exploded into shards of light. The heat vanished.
“Be careful, David,” Tia said in my ear. “If he gathers heat and pops up right next to you, that aura could overcome your Reckoner shield and fry you before you get a chance to shoot.”
I nodded, scrambling away from where I’d been before, rifle still to my shoulder and sights lined up. “Tia,” I whispered over the line, “do you have access to my notes?”
“I’ve pulled those up, along with notes from the other lorists.”
“Aren’t his teleportation powers supposed to have a recharge time?”
“Yes,” she said. “At least two minutes before—”
Obliteration popped into existence again, and this time I caught him coming, like light coalescing. I had a bullet heading that way before he’d even completely formed.
Again the teleportation saved him, but I’d known it would. I was just a diversion. In truth, I had no idea how we were going to kill him, but at least I could inconvenience him and prevent him from killing innocents.
“My notes are wrong,” I said, sweat trickling down the sides of my face. “There’s barely a few seconds’ delay between his teleports.” Sparks. What else had I gotten wrong?
“Jon,” Tia said over the line. “We’re going to need a plan. Fast.”
“I’m thinking of one,” Prof answered in a staccato voice, “but we need more information.” Across on the other rooftop, where Obliteration had been attacking before teleporting to me, Prof climbed up and took cover behind some rubble. “David, when he ports, does he automatically take everything touching him, or does he have to specifically choose to bring things like his clothing?”
“Not sure,” I said. “Information on Obliteration is scant. He—”
I stopped as he appeared beside me, reaching his hand out to touch me. I jumped, swinging around, feeling a wave of heat wash across me.
A gunshot fired, and Obliteration ported just before he touched me. As before, he left a glowing outline hanging for just a second behind him. The figure exploded into fragments that bounced off me, then vaporized to nothing.
As the flash of light faded from my eyes, I saw Prof on the other rooftop lowering his rifle. “Stay alert, son,” Prof said over the line, voice tense. “Mizzy, get some explosives ready. David, is there anything else—anything at all—you can remember about him or his powers?”
I shook myself. Prof’s energy shield had probably saved me from Obliteration’s heat. He’d just saved my life twice over, then. “No,” I said, feeling useless. “Sorry.”
We waited, but Obliteration didn’t reappear. Instead I heard screams in the distance. Prof cursed over the line and gestured for me to follow the sounds, and I did, heart thumping—yet it was accompanied by the strange calm that comes with being in the middle of an operation.
I passed abandoned tents on one side, people swimming in the waters nearby on the other side. Following the screams led me to a taller building. Thick with vegetation glowing inside the broken windows, the building rose some ten stories or more above the surface of the water. Light flashed inside one of those upper stories, and I saw Obliteration pass in front of an opening. I sighted on him with my rifle and saw that he was smiling, as if in challenge. I fired, but he’d already stepped out of sight deeper into the building.
People continued to scream from inside. Obliteration knew he didn’t have to come to us; we’d go to him.
“I’m going in,” I said, jogging toward a rope bridge that ran to the taller building.
“Be careful,” Prof said. I could see him moving onto his own bridge, heading the same way. “Mizzy, can you cook up a mother switch on something dangerous?”
“Uh … I think so.…”
Mother switch, short for “mother and child.” A bomb that would stay dormant as long as it was receiving a regular radio signal. When the signal stopped, the bomb went off. Kind of like an electronic dead-man’s switch.
“Clever,” I whispered, crossing the rickety bridge in