Steelheart (The Reckoners #1)(57)

To want Newcago, you’d have to be ambitious. You’d have to want to be a king. You’d have to want Epics at your beck and call. And so, killing them o one by one wouldn’t make sense. You see?”

“You’d want them alive so they’d follow you,” I said, slowly understanding. “Every Epic you kill would lessen your power once you actually took Newcago.”

“Exactly,”

Prof

said.

“Nightwielder, Fire ght, maybe Con ux … they’ll have to go. But you’d be very careful who to kill and who to try to bribe away.”

“Only

we can’t bribe them away,” I said. “We wouldn’t be able to convince them that we’re an Epic, not long term.”

“So you see another problem,”

Prof said.

He was right. I wilted, like soda going at in a cup left out overnight. How had I not seen this hole in my plan?

“I’ve been working on these two problems,” Prof said. “If we’re going to imitate an Epic—and I think we still should—we need to be able to prove that we were behind it all along. That way the truth can ood Newcago and spread across the Fractured States from there. We can’t just kill him; we have to lm ourselves doing so.

And we need to, at the last minute, send information about our plan to the right people around the city— so that they know and can vouch for us. People like Diamond, non-Epic crime magnates, people with in uence but no direct connection to his government.”

“Okay. But what about the second problem?”

“We need to hit Steelheart where it hurts,” Prof said, “but we can’t spread it out over too much time, and we can’t focus on Epics. We need one or two massive hits that make him bleed, make him see us as a threat, and we need to do it as a rival seeking to take his place.”

“So …”

Prof tapped the wall, rotating the text from the oor up in front of him. He tapped a section and some of the text started glowing green.

“Green?” I said, amused. “What was that about liking things old-fashioned?”

“You can use colored chalk on a chalkboard,” he said gru y as he circled a pair of words: sewage system.

“Sewage system?” I said. I’d been expecting something a little more grand, and a little less … crappy.

Prof nodded. “The Reckoners never attack facilities; we focus only on Epics. If we hit one of the city’s main points of infrastructure, it will make Steelheart believe it’s not the Reckoners working against him, but some other force.

Someone speci cally trying to take down Steelheart’s rule—either rebels in the city, or another Epic moving on his territory.

“Newcago works on two

principles: fear and stability. The city has the basic infrastructure that many others don’t, and that draws people here. The fear of Steelheart keeps them in line.” He rolled the words on the walls again, bringing over a network of drawings he’d done in “chalk” on the far wall. It looked like a crude blueprint. “If we start attacking his infrastructure he’ll move on us faster than if we’d attacked his Epics. Steelheart is smart. He knows why people come to Newcago. If he loses the basic things—sewage, power,

communications—he’ll lose the city.”

I nodded slowly. “I wonder why.”

“Why? I just explained.…” Prof trailed o , looking at me. He frowned. “That’s not what you mean.”

“I wonder why he cares. Why does he go to so much trouble to create a city where people want to live? Why does he care if they have food, or water, or electricity? He kills them so callously, yet he also sees that they’re provided for.”

Prof fell silent. Eventually he shook his head. “What is it to be a king if you have nobody to follow you?”

I thought back to that day, the day when my father died. These people are mine.… As I considered it I realized something about the Epics. Something that, despite all my years of study, I’d never quite understood before.

“It isn’t enough,” Prof whispered.

“It isn’t enough to have godly powers, to be functionally immortal, to be able to bend the elements to your will and soar through the skies. It isn’t enough unless you can use it to make others follow you. In a way, the Epics would be nothing without the regular people. They need someone to dominate; they need some way to show off their powers.”

“I hate him,” I hissed, though I hadn’t meant to say it out loud. I hadn’t even realized I’d been thinking it.

Prof looked at me.

“What?” I asked. “Are you going to tell me that my anger doesn’t do any good?” People had tried to tell me that in the past, Martha foremost among them. She claimed the thirst for vengeance would eat me alive.

“Your emotions are your own business, son,” Prof said, turning away. “I don’t care why you ght, so long as you do ght. Maybe your anger will burn you away, but better to burn yourself away than to shrivel up beneath Steelheart’s thumb.” He paused. “Besides, telling you to stop would be a little like a hearth telling the oven to cool down.”

I nodded. He understood. He felt it too.

“Regardless, the plan is now realigned,” Prof said. “We’ll strike at the wastewater treatment plant, as it’s the least well guarded. The trick will be making sure Steelheart connects the attack to a rival Epic, rather than just rebels.”