Steelheart (The Reckoners #1)

But even if we fail, we might be the cause of his death. Someday.”

“Don’t be so sure we’ll fail,” Prof said. “If I thought this was suicide for certain, I wouldn’t let us continue. As I said, I don’t intend to pin our hopes of killing him on a single guess. We’ll try everything.

Tia, what do your instincts say will work?”

“Something from the bank

vault,” she said. “One of those items is special. I just wish I knew which one.”

“Did you bring them with you when we abandoned the old hideout?”

“I brought the most unusual ones,” she said. “I stowed the rest in the pocket we made outside. We can fetch them. So far as I know, Enforcement hasn’t found them.”

“We take everything and spread it all out here,” Prof said, pointing at the steel oor of the stadium, which had once been soil. “David’s right; that’s where Steelheart will probably land. We don’t have to know speci cally what weakened him—we can just haul it all over and use it.”

Abraham nodded. “A good plan.”

“What do you think it is?” Prof asked him.

“If I had to guess? I would say it was David’s father’s gun or the bullets it shot. Every gun is slightly distinctive in its own way. Perhaps it was the precise composition of the metal.”

“That’s easy enough to test,” I said. “I’ll bring the gun, and when I get a chance I’ll shoot him. I don’t think it will work, but I’m willing to try.”

“Good,” Prof said.

“And you, Prof?” Tia asked.

“I think it was because David’s father was one of the Faithful,”

Prof said softly. He didn’t look at Abraham. “Fools though they are, they’re earnest fools. People like Abraham see the world di erently than the rest of us do. So maybe it was the way David’s father viewed the Epics that let him hurt Steelheart.”

I sat back, thinking it over.

“Well, it shouldn’t be too hard for me to shoot him too,” Abraham said. “In fact, we should probably all try it. And anything else we can think of.”

They looked at me.

“I still think it’s cross re,” I said.

“I think Steelheart can only be harmed by someone who isn’t intending to hurt him.”

“That’s tougher to arrange,” Tia said. “If you’re right, it probably won’t activate if any of us hit him, since we actually want him dead.”

“Agreed,” Prof said. “But it’s a good theory. We’d need to nd a way to get his own soldiers to hit him by accident.”

“He’d have to bring the soldiers rst,” Tia said. “Now that he’s convinced there’s a rival Epic in town, he might just bring Nightwielder and Firefight.”

“No,” I said. “He’ll come with soldiers. Limelight has been using minions, and Steelheart will want to be ready—he’ll want to have his own soldiers to deal with distractions like that. Besides, while he’ll want to face Limelight himself, he’ll also want witnesses.”

“I agree,” Prof said. “His soldiers will probably have orders not to engage unless red upon. We can make certain they feel they need to start fighting back.”

“Then we’ll need to be able to stall Steelheart long enough to set up a good cross re,” Abraham said.

He paused. “Actually, we’ll need to stall him during the cross re. If he assumes this is just an ambush of soldiers, he’ll y o and let Enforcement deal with it.”

Abraham looked at Prof. “Limelight will have to make an appearance.”

Prof nodded. “I know.”

“Jon …,” Tia said, touching his arm.

“It’s what must be done,” he said.

“We’ll need a way to deal with Nightwielder and Firefight too.”

“I’m telling you,” I said, “Fire ght won’t be an issue. He’s —”“I know he’s not what he seems, son,” Prof said. “I accept that. But have you ever fought an

illusionist?”

“Sure,” I said. “With Cody and Megan.”

“That was a weak one,” Prof said. “But I suppose it gives you an idea what to expect. Fire ght will be

stronger. Much stronger. I almost wish he was just another fire Epic.”

Tia nodded. “He should be a priority. We’ll need code phrases, in case he sends in illusory versions of the other members of the team to confuse us. And we’ll have to watch for false walls, fake members of Enforcement intended to confuse, things like that.”

“Do you think Nightwielder will even show?” Abraham asked.

“From what I heard, David’s little ashlight show sent him running like a rabbit before the hawk.”

Prof looked to me and Tia.

I shrugged. “He might not,” I said.

Tia nodded. “Nightwielder’s a hard one to read.”

“We should be ready for him anyway,” I said. “But I’ll be perfectly fine if he stays away.”

“Abraham,” Prof said, “you think you can rig up a UV oodlight or two using the extra power cells?

We should arm everyone with some of those flashlights as well.”

We fell silent, and I had a feeling we were all thinking the same thing. The Reckoners liked extremely well-planned operations, executed only after weeks or months of preparation. Yet here we were going to try to take down one of the strongest Epics in the world with little more than some trinkets and flashlights.

It was what we had to do.

“I think,” Tia said, “we should come up with a good plan for extraction in case none of these things work.”

Prof didn’t look like he agreed.

His expression had grown grim; he knew that if none of these ideas let us kill Steelheart, our chances of survival were slim.

“A copter will work best,”

Abraham said. “Without Con ux, Enforcement is grounded. If we can use a power cell, or even make him power a copter for us …”

“That will be good,” Tia said.

“But we’ll still have to disengage.”

“Well, we’ve still got Diamond in custody,” Abraham said. “We could grab some of his explosives—”

“Wait,” I said, confused. “In custody?”

“I had Abraham and Cody grab him the evening of your little encounter,” Prof said absently.

“Couldn’t risk letting him say what he knew.”

“But … you said he’d never …”

“He saw a hole made by the tensors,” Prof said, “and you were linked to him in Nightwielder’s mind. The moment they saw you at one of our operations, they’d grab Diamond. It was for his safety as much as our own.”

“So … what are you doing with him?”

“Feeding him a lot,” Prof said, “and bribing him to lie low. He was pretty unsettled by that run-in, and I think he was happy we took him.” Prof hesitated. “I promised him a look at how the tensors work in exchange for him remaining in one of our bolt-holes until this all blows over.”

I sat back against the wall of the room, disturbed. Prof hadn’t said it, but I could read the truth from his tone. The emergence of knowledge of the tensors would change the way the Reckoners worked. Even if we beat Steelheart, they had lost something great—no longer would they be able to sneak into places unexpectedly. Their enemies would be able to plan, watch, prepare.

I’d brought about the end of an era. They didn’t seem to blame me, but I couldn’t help feeling some guilt. I was like the guy who had brought the spoiled shrimp cocktail to the party, causing everyone to throw up for a week straight.

“Anyway,”

Abraham

said,

tapping the screen of Tia’s datapad, “we could dig out a section under the eld here with the tensors, leave an inch or so of steel, then pack the hole with explosives. If we have to punch out, we blow the thing, maybe take out some soldiers and use the confusion and smoke to cover our escape.”

“Assuming Steelheart doesn’t just chase us down and shoot the copter out of the sky,” Prof said.

We fell silent.

“I believe you said I was a downer?” Abraham asked.

“Sorry,” Prof replied. “Just pretend I said something self-righteous about truth instead.”

Abraham smiled.

“It’s a workable plan,” Prof said.

“Though we might want to try to set up some kind of decoy explosion, maybe back at his palace, to draw him o . Abraham, I’ll let you handle that. Tia, can you send a message to Steelheart through these networks without being traced?”