Steelheart (The Reckoners #1)(101)

“Excuse me?” Edmund said. “Shut down what?”

“You’re a gifter,” Prof said. “A transference Epic. Draw your power back from the people you’ve given it to. Remove it from the mechanized armors, the copters, the power stations. I want you to cut o every person you’ve granted your power.”

“If I do that,” Edmund said hesitantly, “Steelheart will not be pleased with me when he recovers me.”

“You can tell him the truth,” Prof said, raising a handgun in one hand so that it pointed out in front of the spotlight. “If I kill you, the power will go away. I’m not afraid to take that step. Recover your power, Edmund. Then we’ll talk further.”

“Very well,” Edmund said.

And just like that, he all but shut down Newcago.





33

“I don’t really think of myself as an Epic,” Edmund said, leaning forward across the makeshift table.

We’d made it out of a box and a plank, and we sat on the oor to eat at it. “I was captured and used for power only a month after my transformation. Bastion was my rst owner’s name. I’ll tell you, w a s he unpleasant after we discovered I couldn’t transfer my power to him.”

“Why do you suppose that is?” I asked, chewing on some jerky.

“I don’t know,” Edmund said, raising his hands in front of himself. He liked to gesture a lot when he talked; you had to watch yourself, lest you get an accidental ninja punch to the shoulder during a

particularly

emphatic

exclamation about the taste of a good curry.

That was about as dangerous as he got. Though Cody stayed near, his ri e never too far from him, Edmund hadn’t been the least bit provocative. He actually seemed pleasant, at least when he wasn’t mentioning

our

inevitable

gruesome deaths at Steelheart’s hands.

“That’s the way it has always worked

for

me,”

Edmund

continued, pointing at me with his spoon. “I can only gift them to ordinary humans, and I have to touch them to do it. I’ve never been able to give my powers to an Epic.

I’ve tried.”

Nearby, Prof—who had been carrying some supplies past— stopped in place. He turned to Edmund. “What was that you said?”

“I can’t gift to other Epics,”

Edmund said, shrugging. “It’s just the way the powers work.”

“Is it that way for other gifters?”

Prof asked.

“I’ve never met any,” Edmund said. “Gifters are rare. If there are others in the city, Steelheart never let me meet them. He wasn’t bothered by not being able to get my powers for himself; he was plenty happy using me as a battery.”

Prof looked troubled. He

continued on his way, and Edmund looked to me, his eyebrows raised.

“What was that about?”

“I don’t know,” I said, equally confused.

“Well, anyway, continuing my story. Bastion didn’t like that I couldn’t gift him, so he sold me to a fellow named Insulation. I always thought that was a stupid Epic name.”

“Not as bad as the El Brass Bullish Dude,” I said.

“You’re kidding. There’s really an Epic named that?”

I nodded. “From inner LA. He’s dead now, but you’d be surprised at the stupid names a lot of them come up with. Incredible cosmic powers do not equate with high IQ … or even a sense of what is dramatically appropriate. Remind me to tell you about the Pink Pinkness sometime.”

“That name doesn’t sound so bad,” Edmund said, grinning. “It’s actually a little self-aware. Has a smile to it. I’d like to meet an Epic who likes to smile.”

I’m talking to one, I thought. I still hadn’t quite accepted that. “Well,”

I said, “she didn’t smile for long.

She thought the name was clever, and then …”

“What?”

“Try saying it a few times really quickly,” I suggested.

He moved his mouth, then a huge grin split his mouth. “Well, well, well …”

I shook my head in wonder as I continued eating my jerky. What to make of Edmund? He wasn’t the hero people like Abraham and my father were looking for, not by a long shot. Edmund paled when we talked of ghting Steelheart; he was so timid, he often asked for permission to speak before voicing an opinion.

No, he wasn’t some heroic Epic born to ght for the rights of men, but he was nearly as important. I’d never met, read of, or even caught a story of an Epic who so blatantly broke the stereotype. Edmund had no arrogance, no hatred, no dismissiveness.

It was ba ing. Part of me kept thinking, This is what we get? I nal y nd an Epic who doesn’t want to kil or enslave me, and it’s an old, soft-spoken Indian man who likes to put sugar in his milk?

“You lost someone, didn’t you?”

Edmund asked.

I looked up sharply. “What makes you ask?”

“Reactions like that one, actually. And the fact that everyone in your team seems to be walking on crumpled tinfoil and trying not to make any sound.”

Sparks. Good metaphor. Walking on crumpled tinfoil. I’d have to remember that one.