question. I don’t know how this works, David. Any of it. It frightens me sometimes. But fire is my weakness.” She hesitated. “I wanted you to know what it was. In case … you know. Something needs to be done about me.”
“Don’t say things like that.”
“I have to,” Megan whispered. “David, you need to know this. Our house burned down when I was just a kid. I was almost killed. I crawled through the smoke, holding on to my stuffed kitty, everything burning around me. They found me on the lawn, covered in soot. I have nightmares about that day. Repeatedly. All the time. If you do manage to interrogate other Epics, David … ask them what their nightmares are about.”
I nodded, then felt foolish because she couldn’t see that. I forced myself to start climbing again. “Thank you, Megan,” I whispered over the line. What she’d given me just then had taken a lot of guts to say.
She let out a breath. “Yeah, well, you’re never willing to just let things alone. You’ve got to find answers. So … well, maybe you’ll find this one.”
I reached the next flight of stairs, then twisted around the stairwell to keep going up. As I did, my foot trod on something that crunched.
I shivered and looked down. Another fortune cookie. I was tempted to just leave it there—the last ones had been seriously weird. Nobody in the base had been able to make sense of them. But I knew I couldn’t just leave it. I knelt down, anxious about making too much noise, and held up the slip of paper to the light of a glowing fruit.
Is this a dream? the paper asked.
I took a deep breath. Yeah. Still creepy. What did I do? Respond?
“No, it’s not,” I said.
“What?” Megan asked in my ear.
“Nothing.” I waited, uncertain what kind of response I expected. None came. I started up the stairwell again, watching my feet. Sure enough, I found another set of cookies growing from a vine on the next flight.
I popped one open.
Gnarly, it read. I get confused sometimes.
Was that a reply? “Who are you?”
“David?” Megan asked.
“I’m talking to fortune cookies.”
“You’re … Huh?”
“I’ll explain in a minute.”
I made my way upward slowly. This time I was able to catch a vine curling down, cookies sprouting from it like seeds. I waited for one to grow to full size in front of me, then pulled out the slip.
They call me Dawnslight. You’re trying to stop her, right?
“Yes,” I whispered. “Assuming you mean Regalia, I am. Do you know where she is?”
I broke open a few more cookies, but this pod all read the same thing, so I climbed up a little bit until I found another cluster.
Don’t know, dude, it read. I can’t see her. I watched that other one, though. On the operating table.
“Obliteration?” I asked. “On an operating table?”
Sure. Yeah. They cut something outta him. You’re sure this isn’t a dream?
“It’s not.”
I like dreams, the next cookie read.
I shivered. So Dawnslight was an Epic for certain. And this city was his.
“Where are you?” I asked.
Listen to that music.…
That’s the only response I got, no matter what questions I asked.
“David,” Megan said on the line, worry bleeding into her voice, “you are seriously freaking me out right now.”
“What do you know about Dawnslight?” I asked her, continuing upward at a slow pace in case any other cookies appeared.
“Not much,” Megan said. “When I asked Regalia, she claimed that he was ‘an ally’ and implied that was all I needed to know. Is that who you were talking to?”
I looked at the slips of paper in my hand. “Yeah. Using a kind of bizarre Epic texting plan. I’ll show you later.” I needed to get this camera placed and move on. Fortunately, floor twenty was the final flight. I pushed on the door out of the stairwell, but it didn’t budge. I grunted and shoved a little harder.
I winced as it opened with a loud creak. Beyond was an entryway accented by dark wood trim, with a very nice rug covering a marble floor, though that had been broken up by the plants.
“David, what did you just do?” Megan asked.
“Might have opened a door a little too loudly.”
“Well, the bird just looked your direction. Sparks! He’s flying toward the building. Hurry.”
I cursed softly, making my way through the room as quickly as possible. I passed an overgrown reception desk and pushed into the office beyond. The window here looked out right at Obliteration.