Wax launched himself after the truck, decreasing his weight and flying through the large garage doors to track the truck as it screeched around another corner, nearly toppling in its haste.
Wayne would take care of the stragglers. Wax needed to know what was in those trucks.
He roared into the air in a rush, gaining height, and spotted the last of the three trucks heading back into the heart of the city. He’d spent the whole day running to catch up, to tease together plots that had been in motion for years. He was tired of half answers, of feeling like he was a hundred steps behind his sister.
Now he had solutions in sight. Those trucks held real answers, perhaps even the bomb itself. He’d be damned to an eternal pit of ash before he let them get away.
He Pushed off a manhole cover, gaining more height. From there, streetlamps — which were just starting to come on as the sun neared the horizon — became his anchors, like stepping stones across a lake. He Pushed on a pair at a time for lift and momentum, then began using buildings as enormous anchors. Then a moving car, to gain even more speed, borrowing its momentum.
Air became a whistle, then a roar around him — his mistcoat tassels whipping and snapping. His furious pace let him gain on the three trucks, even as they moved at speed on the highway. He had almost reached the last one in line when a slot opened in the back door and the barrels of several automatic rifles — aluminum — peeked out.
They’d saved the good weapons for themselves as they fled. A hail of aluminum bullets followed. Wax moved by instinct. His pursuit so far had been too direct, making him an easy target.
He dodged to the side as the bullets cracked in the air. He lurched away from the highway over cars full of startled civilians, then between two buildings to give him cover. There he ground to a stop, boots on asphalt, tassels falling still around him.
This isn’t right, he thought. His path following the trucks had been obvious, but their path along the highway was more so. Could they be playing him yet again? He launched himself off a bullet, then gained speed by Pushing against the buildings to the sides, rattling windows — cracking a few as he warped their metal housings.
In Elendel, he had to hold himself back. Moderate his actions to minimize property damage. But Harmony had set Wax on this path, and you didn’t bring Dawnshot out of retirement to play nice. The lives of millions were at stake.
He’d break a few windows to stop it. Hell, he’d break a few necks. He barreled up over cars, ignoring the cries of startled pedestrians as he moved parallel to the highway — trying to gain enough speed to catch up to the enemy truck, but keeping buildings between him and it. At the right moment he ducked back out, shattering windows, and darted across the highway — finding the third truck exactly where he’d hoped it would be.
It was in a pack of civilian vehicles, so Wax dodged behind cover again and followed, parallel, for another minute. He soared down that side street, feeling … alive. Propelled by steel, a bullet in flight. Perhaps he’d been without this for too long, and so had forgotten the rush, but he felt more in control than he ever had before.
Have to stop that truck slowly, he thought. In case the bomb is inside. He assumed the device couldn’t be detonated simply by being jostled — his experiment the other day had shown that the real explosion required specific mechanical intervention. But he had to be careful regardless.
At the next intersection, he glanced right and saw what he’d hoped to see: the truck, in its haste to stay ahead of him, had pulled away from the pack of civilian vehicles into a more open stretch of the highway.
Wax darted in, over the edge of the highway, and increased his weight tenfold. He slowed in the air as a result, and hit the side of the passing truck with a Steelpush, grinding it into the highway’s sidewall. It jostled more than he would have liked, but it did slow.
Wax changed trajectory, staying alongside the truck, forcing it into the sidewall until its tires burst and it stopped. He hit the ground near the broken rear door, sighting three unsteady gunmen within. He took them out, then drilled a bullet right through the front wall of the truck, hitting the driver in the back of the head. But other than those people, the truck was empty.
It was a decoy.
Damn it!
He launched back into the air, Pushing off the truck, bending and warping the crumpled roof as he sought height. Such a Push could only take him up so far — the farther you went from your anchor, the less force you could Push upon it.
He reached the zenith of what his anchor could provide and spun, scanning the city below, searching for …
There. The second truck was racing along the highway ahead. He almost darted straight for it. But …
Three trucks. At least one decoy. He spotted another far ahead, on the straightaway. This was too easy. They were so visible on a highway like this; they could keep his attention, draw him away from …
He hovered there, still Pushing, holding himself upright — though wind began to blow him to the side, upsetting his anchor. As he began to lose altitude …
… he spotted it. A fourth truck with the same markings, winding its way through the side streets perpendicular to the highway. It was heading inward, toward the center of the city. He barely glimpsed it as it moved behind some buildings.
That was the one he needed to catch. He left the others, hoping his instincts were right, and dropped into the city. He slowed with a Push on the top of a parked automobile, cracking the windshield with his weight, then warped the hood as he landed. He launched forward through the center of a park, scattering a flock of ravens, then bounded up the side of a building — barely reaching the top as his Push gave out.
There was an invigorating thrill to the motion. The city was so full of metal, so packed with obstacles. In a chase, each could be an advantage. Wax could soar over buildings, get height, track the vehicle — and gain on it, as the truck had to keep to the roads and deal with traffic.
Wax dropped over the side of a building, then propelled himself between two others with the force of a swimmer pushing off the wall at the start of a lap. He swept around corners and almost seemed to be able to ride the cries of the people below, like a bird riding thermals in the desert.
Chases in the Roughs had their own charm. But nothing there could truly compete with the thrill of landing inside a building via the balcony, charging through, and emerging on the other side to find his quarry right below. A balcony railing was a springboard, and nearby structures let him fine-tune his descent.
Here, he could fly in a way he’d never been able to in that land of dust and stone. He could acknowledge that — no, embrace it — now that he had let go of his past.
The people in the truck ahead pulled open another slot on the back door. Wax sighted with Vindication, but not toward the window. Toward the door itself.
He plugged it with a hazekiller round, one with a secondary explosion designed to rip apart Hemalurgist bodies. It blasted the door to shrapnel and split open the rear of the truck. As the gunmen stumbled away, Wax got a view inside. No bomb, but a ton of boxes, ledgers, and documents.
That would have to do. He let the truck pull ahead as the gunmen started laying down fire. Wax increased his weight and shoved on a grate below him in the street — bending and twisting it out of the way as he dropped through and entered the storm drain tunnels again.
He twisted in the air, delivered two bullets into the tunnel wall behind him, then Pushed off those — and the remnants of the grate that had plunged into the mud — to send himself screaming through the tunnel right under the street.