Steelheart (The Reckoners #1)(69)

“Sure. You know, guy paints a black line on a canvas, calls it a metaphor, sells it for millions.”

“That never happened.”

She looked up at me, amused.

“Sure it did. You never learned about abstract art in school?”

“I was schooled at the Factory,” I said. “Basic math, reading, geography, history. Wasn’t time for anything else.”

“But

before

that.

Before

Calamity.”

“I was eight,” I said. “And I lived in inner-city Chicago, Megan. My education mostly involved learning to avoid gangs and how to keep my head down at school.”

“That’s what you learned when you were eight? In grade school?”

I shrugged and kept pulling. She seemed troubled by what I’d said, though I’ll admit, I was troubled by what she’d said. People hadn’t really paid that much money for such simple things, had they? It ba ed me. Pre-Calamity people had been a strange lot.

I hauled the next crate up, and Megan hopped down from her chair again to move it. I couldn’t imagine that she was getting much reading done, but she didn’t seem bothered by the interruptions. I watched her, taking a long gulp from my cup of water.

Things had been … di erent between us since her confession in the elevator shaft. In a lot of ways she was more relaxed around me, which didn’t make that much sense.

Shouldn’t things have been more awkward? I knew she didn’t support our mission. That felt like a pretty big deal to me.

She really was a professional, though. She didn’t agree that Steelheart should be killed, but she didn’t abandon the Reckoners, or even ask for a transfer to another Reckoner cell. I didn’t know how many of those there were— apparently only Tia and Prof knew —but there was at least one other.

Either way, Megan stayed on board and didn’t let her feelings distract her from her job. She might not agree that Steelheart needed to die, but from what I’d pried from her, she believed in ghting the Epics. She was like a soldier who believed a certain battle wasn’t tactically sound, yet supported the generals enough to fight it anyway.

I respected her for that. Sparks, I was liking her more and more. And though she hadn’t been particularly a ectionate toward me lately, she wasn’t openly hostile and cold any longer. That left me room to work some seductive magic. I wished I knew some.

She got the crate in place, and I waited for Abraham to call up that I should start pulling again. Instead he appeared at the mouth of the tunnel and started to unhook the pulley system. His shoulder had been healed from the gunshot using the harmsway, the Reckoner device that

helped

esh

heal

extraordinarily fast.

I didn’t know much about it, though I’d spoken to Cody—he’d called it the “last of the three.”

Three bits of incredible technology brought to the Reckoners from Prof’s days as a scientist. The tensors, the jackets, the harmsway.

From what Abraham told me, Prof had developed each technology and then stolen them from the lab he’d worked in, intent on starting his own war against the Epics.

Abraham got the last parts of the pulley down.

“Are we done?” I asked.

“Indeed.”

“I counted more crates than that.”

“The others are too big to t through the tunnel,” Abraham said.

“Cody’s going to drive them over to the hangar.”

That was what they called the place where they kept their vehicles. I’d been there; it was a large chamber with a few cars and a van inside. It wasn’t nearly as secure as this hideout was—the hangar had to have access to the upper city and couldn’t be part of the understreets.

Abraham walked over to the stack of a dozen crates we’d heaved into the hideout. He rubbed his chin, inspecting them. “We might as well unload these,” he said. “I’ve got another hour to spare.”

“Before what?” I asked, joining him at the crates.

He didn’t reply.

“You’ve been gone a lot these last few days,” I noted.

Again, he didn’t reply.

“He’s not going to tell you where he’s been, Knees,” Megan said from her lounging position at the desk.

“And get used to it. Prof sends him out on secret errands a lot.”

“But …,” I said, feeling hurt. I’d thought I’d earned my place on the team.

“Do not be saddened, David,”

Abraham said, grabbing a crowbar to crack open one of the crates. “It is not a matter of trust. We must keep some things secret, even within the team, should one of us be taken captive. Steelheart has his way of getting to what one hides— nobody except Prof should know everything we are doing.”

It was a good rationale, and it was probably why I couldn’t know about other Reckoner cells either, but it was still annoying. As Abraham cracked open another crate, I reached to the pouch at my side and slipped out my tensor.

With that, I vaporized the wooden lids off a few crates.

Abraham raised an eyebrow at me.“What?” I said. “Cody told me to keep practicing.”

“You are growing quite good,”

Abraham said. Then he reached into one of the crates I’d opened and shed out an apple, which was now covered in sawdust. It made something of a mess getting it out.