Brandon Sanderson - Firefight

“I suppose.”

She crossed her arms, looking me over. “All right. We should do something about that outfit.”

“What? You think a guy wandering around in a wetsuit with strange Epic-derived devices strapped to his limbs is suspicious?”

She didn’t answer me, instead placing her hand on my shoulder. Jeans and a jacket-both almost exactly like ones I actually owned-faded into existence around me, covering up the wetsuit. The bottoms of the legs flared, wide enough to go around the spyril. I was pretty sure that wasn’t fashionable, but what did I know about fashion? In Newcago, the rage was outfits based on old 1920s Chicago.

I poked at the clothes. They weren’t real, though I thought I could feel them just faintly. Or, like, I felt a memory of them. Does that make any sense? Probably not.

She inspected me, raising a critical eyebrow.

“What?” I asked.

“Trying to decide if I should change your face to make it less likely you’ll be spotted sneaking up on Obliteration.”

“Uh … okay.”

“There are side effects, though,” she said. “When swapping someone’s body, I’m always worried I’ll end up swapping them out completely with the version from another reality.”

“Have you done that before?”

“I don’t know,” she said, arms crossed. “I’m mostly convinced that every time I die, my ‘reincarnation’ is really just my powers summoning out of another dimension a version of myself that didn’t die.” She shivered visibly. “Anyway, let’s leave you like you are. I wouldn’t want to swap your face and get it stuck that way. I’ve gotten used to the one you have. Shall we move on?”

“Yeah,” I said.

We left the abandoned half tent and continued walking toward where Obliteration had set up. “How are you feeling?” I asked.

“Little hungry,” she said.

“That’s not what I meant.” I glanced over at her.

She sighed as we walked. “I’m irritable. Like I haven’t gotten enough sleep. I want to snap at anyone close by, but it should fade soon.” She shrugged. “It’s better this time than it has been in the past. I don’t know why-though, despite what it might seem, I’m not really that powerful.”

“You said something like that before.”

“Because it’s true. But … well, that might be an advantage. It’s why I can do these things and not turn immediately. It’s harder for the really powerful Epics. For me, the only time it gets really bad is when I reincarnate.”

We started across a bridge. “It feels odd,” I noted, “having an Epic to talk to about all this so frankly.”

“It feels odd,” she said, “having your stupid voice say so much about my secrets.” Then she grimaced. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right. A pleasant stroll with Megan wouldn’t feel right if a few wry comments didn’t accompany us.”

“No, it’s not all right. That isn’t me, Knees. I’m not acerbic like that.”

I raised an eyebrow at her.

“Okay,” she snapped, “maybe I am. But I’m not downright insulting. Or, at least, I don’t want to be. I hate this. It’s like I can feel myself slipping away.”

“How can I help?”

“Talking is good,” she said. She took a deep breath. “Tell me about your research.”

“It’s kind of nerdy.”

“I can handle nerdy.”

“Well … I found those connections between some Epics and their weaknesses, right? Turns out, there’s a step beyond that. But to investigate it I’ll need to kidnap some Epics.”

“You never think small, do you, Knees?”

“No, listen.” I stopped her. “This is a great idea. If I can capture some Epics, then use their weaknesses to prevent them from using their powers, I can find out how long it takes them to turn normal. I can interview them, tease out connections from their past that might indicate what creates weaknesses in the first place.”

“Or, you know, you could interview the perfectly willing Epic walking beside you.”

I coughed into my hand. “Well, um, this scheme may have started because I was thinking about how to rescue you from your powers. I figured if I knew how long it took, and what was required to hold an Epic … You know. It might help you.”

“Aw,” she said. “That has to be the sweetest way someone has ever told me they were planning to kidnap and imprison me.”

“I just-”

“No, it’s okay,” she said, actually taking my arm. “I understand the sentiment. Thank you.”

I nodded, and we walked for a time. There was no urgency. Val would take hours on her mission, and Obliteration wasn’t going anywhere. So it was okay to enjoy the night-well, enjoy it as much as was possible, all things considered.

Babilar was beautiful. I was growing to like the strange light of the spraypaint. After the dull, reflective grey of Newcago, so much color was mesmerizing. The Babilarans could paint whatever murals they wanted, from scrawled names along the side of one building we passed, to a beautiful and fanciful depiction of the universe on the top of another.

While I still wasn’t comfortable with how relaxed people were here, I did have to admit that there was a certain appealing whimsy about them. Would it really be so bad if this were all there was to life? Tonight, as we passed them swimming or chatting or drumming and singing, I found the people annoyed me far less than they had before.

Perhaps it was the company. I had Megan on my arm, walking close beside me. We didn’t say much, but didn’t need to. I had her back, for the moment. I didn’t know how long it would last, but in this place of vibrant colors I could be with Megan again. For that I was thankful.

We passed up onto a tall building, approaching the eastern side of town, where Obliteration waited. I turned our path toward a bridge leading to an even higher building. That would be a good spot to either place Tia’s camera or scope out a better location.

“I’m worried that when I reincarnate, it’s not really me that comes back,” Megan said softly. “It’s some other version of me. I worry when it happens that eventually, something will go wrong and that other person will mess things up. Things I don’t want messed up.” She looked at me.

“It’s the real you,” I said.

“But-”

“No, Megan. You can’t spend your life worrying about that. You said that the powers grab a version of you that didn’t die-everything else is the same. Just alive.”

“I don’t know that for certain.”

“You remember everything that happened to you except the time right before the death, right?”

“Yeah.”

“It means you’re still you. It’s true-I can sense that it is. You’re my Megan, not some other person.”

She grew silent, and I glanced at her, but she was grinning. “You know,” she said, “talking to you sometimes-it makes me wonder if you’re actually the one who can reshape reality.”

A thought occurred to me. “Could you swap Obliteration?” I asked. “Pull out a version of him without powers, or with a really obvious weakness, then stuff this one into another dimension somewhere?”

She shook her head. “I’m not powerful enough,” she said. “The only times I’ve done anything truly dramatic are right after I die, on the morning when I reincarnate. Those times … it’s like I can pull bits of that reality with me, since I just arrived from it. But I’m not myself enough then to really control it at those times either, so don’t get any ideas.”

“It was worth asking,” I said, then scratched my head. “Though, I suppose even if you could do it, we probably shouldn’t. I mean, what good is it to protect this Babilar if we let tons of other people die in another Babilar.” If the things she could do were even from other worlds that did exist, rather than just possibilities of worlds that could have existed.