Steelheart (The Reckoners #1)(59)

“Megan wasn’t very happy with it.”“Megan liked the way things were before,” Prof said. “Adding a new team member always upends the dynamic. Besides, I think she’s worried you’re showing her up.

She’s still smarting from being unable to make the tensors work.”

Megan? Worried that I was showing her up? Prof must not know her very well.

“Out with you, then,” Prof said.

“I want you up to speed with the tensor by the time we hit the power plant. And don’t worry too much about Megan …”

“I won’t. Thank you.”

“… worry about me.”

I froze.

Prof started writing on the board and didn’t turn back when he spoke, but his words were sharp.

“You got results by risking the lives of my people. I assume nobody was hurt, otherwise you’d have mentioned it by now. You show promise, as I said. But if you brashly get one of my people killed, David Charleston, Megan will not be your problem. I won’t leave enough of you for her to bother with.”

I swallowed. My mouth had suddenly gone dry.

“I trust you with their lives,” Prof said, still writing, “and them with yours. Don’t betray that trust, son.

Keep your impulses in check. Don’t just act because you can; act because it’s the right thing to do. If you keep that in mind, you’ll be all right.”

“Yes sir,” I said, leaving with a quick step out the cloth-covered doorway.





21

“HOW’S the signal?” Prof asked through the earpiece.

I raised my hand to my ear.

“Good,” I said. I wore my mobile— newly tuned to the Reckoner mobiles and made completely secure from Steelheart’s prying—on my wrist mount. I’d also been given one of the jackets. It looked like a thin black and red sports-style jacket—though it had wiring all around the inside lining and a little power pack sewn into the back. That was the part that would extend a concussion eld around me if I was hit hard.

Prof had built it for me himself.

He said it would protect me from a short fall or a small explosion, but I shouldn’t try jumping o any cli s or getting shot in the face. Not like I was intending to do either.

I wore it proudly. I’d never been o cially told I was a member of the team, but these two changes seemed essentially the same thing.

Of course, going on this mission was probably a good indication too.

I glanced at my mobile; it showed that I was only on the line with Prof. Tapping the screen could move me to a line to everyone in the team, cycle me to a single member, or let me pick a few of them to talk to.

“You in position?” Prof asked.

“We are.” I stood in a dark tunnel of pure steel, the only light that of my mobile and Megan’s up ahead. She wore a pair of dark jeans and her brown leather jacket, open at the front, over a tight T-shirt. She was inspecting the ceiling.

“Prof,” I said softly, turning away, “you sure I can’t pair up with Cody for this mission?”

“Cody and Tia are interference,”

Prof said. “We’ve been over this, son.”

“Maybe I could go with

Abraham, then. Or you.” I glanced over my shoulder, then spoke even more softly. “She doesn’t really like me much.”

“I won’t have two members of my crew not getting along,” Prof said sternly. “You will learn to work together. Megan is a professional. It’ll be fine.”

Yes, she’s professional, I thought.

Too professional. But Prof wasn’t hearing any of it.

I took a deep breath. Part of my nervousness, I knew, was because of the job. One week had passed since my conversation with Prof, and the rest of the Reckoners had agreed that hitting the power station—and imitating a rival Epic while doing so—was the best plan.

Today was the day. We’d sneak in and destroy Newcago’s power plant. This would be my rst real Reckoner operation. I was nally a member of the team. I didn’t want to be the weak one.

“You good, son?” Prof asked.

“Yeah.”

“We’re moving. Set your timer.”

I set my mobile for a ten-minute countdown. Prof and Abraham were going to break in rst on the other side of the station, where all the huge equipment was. They’d work their way upward, setting charges. At the ten-minute mark, Megan and I would go in and steal a power cell to use with the gauss gun. Tia and Cody would come in last, entering through the hole Prof and Abraham had made. They were a support team; ready to move and help us extract if we needed to, but otherwise hanging back and giving us information and guidance.

I took another deep breath. On the hand opposite my mobile, I wore the black leather tensor, with glowing green strips from the ngertips to the palm. Megan eyed me as I strode up to the end of the tunnel that Abraham had dug the day before during a scouting mission.

I showed her the countdown.

“You’re sure you can do this?”

she asked me. There was a hint of skepticism in her voice, though her face was impassive.

“I’ve gotten a lot better with the tensors,” I said.

“You forget that I’ve watched most of your practice sessions.”

“Cody didn’t need those shoes,” I said.