Steelheart (The Reckoners #1)(6)

We live with them. We try to e x i s t despite them. Once the Capitulation Act was passed, most people stopped ghting. In some areas of what we now call the Fractured

States,

the

old

government is still marginally in control. They let the Epics do as they please, and try to continue as a broken society. Most places are chaos, though, with no law at all.

In a few places, like Newcago, a single godlike Epic rules as a tyrant. Steelheart has no rivals here. Everyone knows he’s

invulnerable. Nothing harms him: not bullets, not explosions, not electricity. In the early years, other Epics tried to take him down and claim his throne, as Faultline attempted.

They’re all dead. Now it’s very rare that any of them tries.

However, if there’s one fact we can hold on to, it’s this: every Epic has a weakness. Something that invalidates their powers, something that turns them back into an ordinary person, if only for a moment.

Steelheart

is

no

exception; the events on that day in the bank prove it.

My mind holds a clue to how Steelheart might be killed.

Something about the bank, the situation, the gun, or my father himself was able to counteract Steelheart’s invulnerability. Many of you probably know about that scar on Steelheart’s cheek. Well, as far as I can determine, I’m the only living person who knows how he got it.

I’ve seen Steelheart bleed.

And I wil see him bleed again.





PART ONE





1

I skidded down a stairwell and crunched against steel gravel at the bottom. Sucking in air, I dashed through one of the dark

understreets of Newcago. Ten years had passed since my father’s death.

That fateful day had become known by most people as the Annexation.

I wore a loose leather jacket and jeans, and had my ri e slung over my shoulder. The street was dark, even though it was one of the shallow understreets with grates and holes looking up into the sky.

It’s always dark in Newcago.

Nightwielder was one of the rst Epics to swear allegiance to Steelheart, and is a member of his inner

circle.

Because

of

Nightwielder there are no sunrises, and no moon to speak of, just pure darkness in the sky. All the time, every day. The only thing you can see up there is Calamity, which looks kind of like a bright red star or comet. Calamity began to shine one

year before men started

turning into Epics. Nobody knows why or how it still shines through the darkness. Of course, nobody knows why the Epics started appearing,

or

what

their

connection is to Calamity either.

I kept running, cursing myself for not leaving earlier. The lights along the ceiling of the understreet ickered, their coverings tinted blue. The understreet was littered with its typical losers: addicts at corners, dealers—or worse—in alleyways. There were some furtive groups of workers going to or from their jobs, thick coats and collars ipped up to hide their faces. They walked hunched over, eyes on the ground.

I’d spent most of the last decade among people like them, working at a place we simply called the Factory. Part orphanage, part school, it was mostly a way to exploit children for free labor. At least the Factory had given me a room and food for the better part of ten years. That had been way better than living on the street, and I hadn’t minded for one moment working for my food. Child labor laws were relics of a time when people could care about such things.

I pushed my way past a pack of workers. One cursed at me in a language that sounded vaguely Spanish. I looked up to see where I was. Most intersections were marked by spray-painted street names on the gleaming metallic walls.

When the Great Transfersion caused the better part of the Old City to be turned into solid steel, that included the soil and rock, dozens—maybe hundreds—of feet down into the ground. During the early years of his reign, Steelheart pretended to be a benevolent—if ruthless—dictator. His Diggers had cut out several levels of understreets,

complete

with

buildings, and people had owed to Newcago for work.

Life had been difficult here, but it had been chaos everywhere else— Epics warring with one another over territory, various para-governmental or state military groups trying to claim land.

Newcago was di erent. Here you could be casually murdered by an Epic who didn’t like the way you looked at him, but at least there was electricity, water, and food.

People adapt. That’s what we do.

Except for the ones who refuse to. Come on, I thought, checking the time on my mobile, which I wore in the forearm mount of my coat.

Blasted rail line outage. I took another shortcut, barreling through an alleyway. It was dim, but after ten years of living in perpetual gloom, you got used to it.

I passed huddled forms of

sleeping beggars, then leaped over one sprawled in the street at the end of the alleyway and burst out onto Siegel Street, a wider thoroughfare that was better lit than most. Here, one level underground, the Diggers had hollowed out rooms that people used as shops. They were closed up for the moment, though more than a few had someone watching out front with a shotgun. Steelheart’s police theoretically patrolled the understreets, but they rarely came to help except in the worst cases.

Originally, Steelheart had spoken of a grand underground city that would stretch down dozens of levels. That was before the Diggers had gone mad, before Steelheart had given up the pretense of caring about the people in the