'Calamity' Read-Along Chapters 35-39

 

Welcome, welcome.

Chapter 35

This was what we'd lost. I struggled to hold back my emotions as the video ended. The coming of Calamity had broken this world in more ways than one. Prof should have still been there, teaching those children.

1) Prof sounds like a fantastic teacher, and 2) GEEZ MY HEART. Don't mind me while I pick up the pieces. Carry on.

"You, you are very smart."
"Was that...sarcasm?"
"Smart again," Abraham said.

Wow. New depths to Abraham!

Chapter 36

Now I recognized a hole inside me. For a short time in that drowned city, I'd known true freedom, powered by twin jets of water.

Why is this just hitting me now? Of course David liked the flying aspect of the spyril, not the water aspect. He is another version of Steelheart! Turning stuff to metal, flying... yeah. I don't know why I thought that his powers would have something to do with water—it makes way more sense this way.

"Hmm? Oh. One could force you to speak in rhyme. The other could speak in any made-up language anyone anywhere had imagined."

Quenyarin? Klingon? Dude, I want this power! (I promise I'm not turning evil. But the idea of being able to speak in any made-up language I want, right off the top of my head? Sounds fabulous.)

Chapter 37

"I don't know," I said. "Could be nothing. There were a lot of powers being flung around that room—maybe there was a leftover forcefield, or... or maybe some pocket of another reality..."

source

Duuuuude. You're an Epic. Just accept it and be awesome!

"The powers are mine," she whispered. "I claim them. My burden, my task, my self. I don't know why that mattered, but it did."

source

Chapter 38

I sidled up to Abraham. "The two of them are talking," I said.
"You expected maybe clucking?"
"Well, shouting. Or strangulation."

He may be brilliant when it comes to Epics, but David is remarkably clueless when it comes to how normal people work.

Could Tia have been wrong? I'd decided that she wasn't, but now—confronted with one last shot at stopping Prof—I wavered. Some thing about Prof and his powers didn't add up.
What was it Prof feared?

And we're back to that bit. Prof's weakness is certainly less easy than most of the other Epics they've faced.

"That was foolhardy," I called to him. "Stop trying to put me out of a job!"

Great. Now even Abraham, Mr. Sensible, is becoming Mr. Epic.
Gah. That makes me giddy with excitement. This is going to be the coolest throwdown ever.

Chapter 39

"You sure you don't want to pilot it, lad?"
I shook my head. "You have more experience with the tensors, Cody."

Not to mention that if they don't work for you any more, the rest of the team is going to get suspicious.

"Broke my jaw," Cody said with a laugh. "Don't poke, kid. That's what I learned." He seemed not to care much, though a broken jaw sounded like a pretty big offense to me.
But then, who hadn't wanted to punch Cody on occasion?

So we have Cody the Crazy Scot who's going to run around in the tensor suit... does that make anyone else nervous? Just me? Okay.

"Silly?" Larcener asked. "You think it isn't obvious? A man does not study, learn, obsess as you have because of hatred. No, these are the signs of lust. You have sought a father amoing the Epics, a lover among them." He stepped toward me. "Admit it. You want nothing more than to be one of us."

Gah, I wish Abraham would punch this guy in the jaw.

We're almost to the Epic showdown of the century! What are you guys hoping to see when the team finally faces Prof? (And who else really, really hopes Larcener bites it?)