Mitosis recap

A short story set in Newcago after Steelheart's death. The city is recovering in daylight for the first time in ten years and the Reckoners are running it rather than hiding in it, which suits David badly. An Epic called Mitosis, who can split into an unlimited number of identical copies of himself, arrives and publicly demands that Steelheart's killer face him, killing people to force the issue. With no file on what cancels his invulnerability, David insists on staying and working the problem rather than evacuating, hunts down the detail that makes Mitosis vulnerable and uses it, destroying him and all his duplicates. The city survives, but the episode makes clear that Newcago will now attract Epics indefinitely, and that guarding it is a permanent job.

Previously: Newcago, the steel city that was Chicago, was ruled for a decade by the invulnerable Epic Steelheart under a permanent artificial night. David Charleston, who as a child watched Steelheart kill his father, talked his way into the Reckoners, the only organisation that hunts and kills Epics, and helped them destroy Steelheart's lieutenants and then Steelheart himself, whose weakness turned out to be that he could not be harmed by anyone who did not fear him. The darkness over the city lifted. Along the way David learned that the Reckoners' leader, Prof, is himself an Epic who lends his abilities to the team through equipment and refuses to use them openly because Epic power corrupts the person using it, and that his teammate Megan is an Epic who returns to life after being killed; she left the city afterward. With Steelheart gone, the Reckoners have stayed in Newcago to hold it while ordinary life slowly restarts.

Newcago is rebuilding. The sun is back, shops and restaurants are reopening, and the Reckoners are governing the city instead of operating secretly inside it, which David finds far less satisfying than hunting Epics. The reputation that comes with having killed a High Epic draws exactly the attention the team feared it would. An Epic calling himself Mitosis arrives, announces himself openly and demands that Steelheart's killer come out and face him, killing people to make sure the demand is taken seriously. He can divide into identical copies of himself without any apparent limit, so ordinary force accomplishes nothing, and the Reckoners have no file on what cancels his invulnerability.

The Reckoners move to get civilians clear while the copies spread through the city. David refuses to let the team simply pull out and give Newcago up, and takes on the problem he is actually good at: finding the one specific thing that will strip an Epic of invulnerability. The fight becomes a running retreat through streets filling with duplicates, with the team stretched thin and the recovering city's population at risk.

David works out the specific weakness that cancels Mitosis's invulnerability and uses it, killing him and every duplicate he has produced. Newcago holds and the damage is contained. The episode settles something for the Reckoners: with Steelheart gone, his city is a prize and a reputation, and Epics will keep coming for both, so defending Newcago is now a standing commitment rather than a temporary one. David is left restless in the role of guardian, still thinking about Megan, and increasingly interested in the question of why Epics turn out the way they do, which points the team's attention outward again.

David identifies the specific thing that cancels Mitosis's invulnerability and uses it, killing him and every copy he has made, and Newcago holds. The incident confirms what the Reckoners had feared since Steelheart's death: his city is now a prize, and Epics will keep arriving either to claim it or to build a reputation against the people who took it, so holding Newcago will be a permanent job rather than a temporary one. Newcago itself keeps recovering, with businesses reopening in daylight for the first time in a decade. David ends the story still uncomfortable in the role of city guardian, still thinking about Megan, who left after Steelheart fell, and increasingly interested in why Epics behave the way they do rather than only in how to kill them. The team's attention begins to turn outward again.