Unexpected Consequences

20. Lex Keeps His Promise

THE ENTIRE BLOCKADE was gone. All the officers and agents were responding to frantic distress calls about drones, armed men, and metal men. That left just me and Lex. We both knew exactly where this was headed, so there would be no consequences for sticking up my middle finger at him, which I did. He smiled. Still cold.

"Does he have it?" Kavanagh asked, talking loudly over screeching tires and someone—probably Nichols—cursing as they swerved.

"He does. I'll call when it's over."

Kavanagh and Jenny started protesting, but I disconnected them both and moved the map out of my vision. I waited a minute, holding my breath, but they didn't try to connect again, so they understood. This fight could kill me, and I was not letting them listen to me die. If they had something important to say, then they trusted that they could call and that I would pick up—and I would.

With a few taps on my sleeve hologram computer, I removed the warnings. No need to be reminded of the pain. My ears were ringing, my hands hurt, and my head was pounding, but I looked up at Lex and spread my arms wide, ready. "Get down here."

He stepped off the window ledge. I backed up, expecting him to land in front of me, but the anti-gravity boots kicked in and suspended him in the air. He stayed like that for a moment, clearly enjoying looking down on me—even though he got to do it all the time, since I was shorter than him—and then he flew away.

I chased after him, because what else was I supposed to do? I needed that remote, and if that meant following him to wherever he wanted this to end, then I had to oblige.

I lost him pretty quickly; he flew faster than I could run, but I followed the soft noise of the boots, not worried. He wouldn't go too far ahead—the whole point was that we were fighting, and that couldn't happen if he let himself get away.

I skidded to a stop when I found him. We stood on the barely sloped beginning of a bridgeway, on top of a series of support beams that snaked into the underbelly of the bridge, surrounded by two three-way roads, an empty intersection, and a few buildings. I guess fighting in a desolate area with no casualty risk or property damage was too much to ask.

"It doesn't have to end this way," I said, shaking my head. "Just give me the remote."

"It's not a remote," he snapped. "This is a kill switch. I'd rather not be compared to that mediocre idiot you locked away in April."

Remote Man, I thought with a sigh. Simpler times.

I waited. Neither of us moved, only meeting each other's eyes in unflinching, cold stares. The longer we stood still, the more I came to understand that even from the very beginning, from when I simply decided to be kind and save a man from falling, I was always headed here. Everything would've led up to this point. Maybe not at this time, maybe not in this way, maybe not against Lex—but facing a cunning opponent as everything went wrong was always going to happen, and I should've been more ready for it.

But the truth was that I wasn't as ready as I wanted to be, and it didn't matter. I took a deep breath. "Fine. We'll do this the hard way."

Lex's mask pixelated over his face. He extended his staff, and it lit up blue, crackling with power.

I'd run into more fights than I could count. Against supervillains, against regular criminals—but none felt as important as this one. It was my life at stake and everyone else's, too; it was Lex's terrorist network and the future of heroism, it was the first true showdown between a hero and his villain.

So we ran at each other, full of determination: one to topple peace, another to defend it. An active force and a reactive force, both hoping for the first hit, both going for it with all the energy they could pour into it. Lex swung his staff—it cracked through the air sharply, and I caught it with both hands. Electricity tingled my skin—any normal person would've burned their hands. Still, I knew I couldn't hold it for too long, so I pushed. Suit or no suit, I was still stronger in terms of sheer force, and he had to stagger back, taking his staff with him. He flicked it in the air, and it grew brighter, more powerful—maybe not enough to stop me from touching it, but it was definitely riskier now.