Steelheart (The Reckoners #1)(46)

“What are they?” I asked.

“Advanced stealth explosives,”

Diamond answered proudly. He reached up and tapped a section of the wall, and an image appeared on it. He had an imager hooked up here, apparently. It showed a water bottle sitting on a table. A businessman strolled past, looking at some papers in his hand. He set them on the table, then twisted the cap off the water.

And exploded.

I jumped back.

“Ah,” Diamond said. “I hope you appreciate the value of this footage —it’s rare that I get good shots of a stealth explosive being deployed in the

eld. This one is quite

remarkable. Notice how the explosion ung the body back but didn’t damage too much nearby?

That’s important in a stealth explosive, particularly if the person to be assassinated might have valuable documents on them.”

“That’s disgusting,” I said, turning away.

“We are in the business of death, young man.”

“The video, I mean.”

“He wasn’t a very nice person, if it helps.” I doubted that mattered to Diamond. He seemed a able as he tapped the wall. “Good explosion. I’ll be honest—I half keep these to sell just because I like showing o that video. It’s one of a kind.”

“Do they all explode?” I asked, examining the innocent-looking devices.

“The pen is a detonator,”

Diamond said. “Click the back and you set o one of those little eraser devices next to it. They’re universal blasting caps. Stick them close to something explosive, trigger them, and they can usually set it o .

Depends on the substance, but they’re programmed with some pretty

advanced

detection

algorithms. They work on most explosive substances. Stick one of those to some guy’s grenade, walk away, then click the pen.”





“If you could clip one of those to his

grenade,”

Megan

said,

approaching, “you could have just pulled the pin. Or better yet, shot him.”

“It’s not for every situation,”

Diamond said defensively. “But they can be very fun. What’s better than detonating your enemy’s own explosives when he’s not expecting it?”“Diamond,” Abraham called from down the corridor. “Come tell me about this.”

“Ah! Excellent choice. Wonderful explosions from that one …” He scuttled off.

I looked at the panel full of innocent yet deadly objects.

Something about them felt very wrong to me. I’d killed men before, but I’d done it honestly. With a gun in my hands, and only because I’d been forced to. I didn’t have many philosophies about life, but one of them was something my father had taught me: never throw the rst punch. If you have to throw the second, try to make sure they don’t get up for a third.

“These could be useful,” Megan said, arms still crossed. “Though I doubt that blowhard really understands what for.”

“I know,” I said, trying to redeem myself. “I mean, recording some poor guy’s death like that? It was totally unprofessional.”

“Actually, he sells explosives,”

she said, “so having a recording like that is professional of him. I suspect he has recordings of each of these weapons being red, as we can’t test them hands-on down here.”

“Megan, that was a recording of some guy blowing up.” I shook my head, revolted. “It was awful. You shouldn’t show off stuff like that.”

She hesitated, looking troubled about something. “Yes. Of course.”

She looked at me. “You never did explain why you were so bothered by being called a nerd.”

“I told you. I don’t like it because, you know, I want to do awesome stuff. And nerds don’t—”

“That’s not it,” she said, staring at me coolly. Sparks, but her eyes were beautiful. “There’s something deeper about it that bothers you, and you need to get over it. It’s a weakness.” She glanced at the water bottle, then turned and walked over to the thing Abraham was inspecting. It was some kind of bazooka.

I secured my ri e over my shoulder and stuck my hands in my pockets. It seemed that I was spending a lot of time lately getting lectured. I’d thought that leaving the Factory would end all of that, but I guess I should have known better.

I turned from Megan and Abraham and looked across at the wall nearest me. I was having trouble focusing on the guns, which was a rst for me. My mind was working over what she’d asked.

Why did being called a nerd bother me?

I walked over to her side.

“… don’t know if it’s what we want,” Abraham was saying.

“But the explosions are so big,”

Diamond replied.

“It’s because they took the smart ones away,” I said softly to Megan.

I could feel her eyes on me, but I continued staring at the wall.

“A lot of kids at the Factory tried so hard to prove how smart they were,” I said quietly. “We had school, you know. You went to school half the day, worked the other half, unless you got expelled.

If you did poorly the teacher just expelled you, and after that you worked full days. School was easier than the Factory, so most of the kids tried really hard.