Steelheart (The Reckoners #1)(95)

“Time to die,” I whispered. “I think I’ll do it while ring a handgun at a fteen-foot-tall suit of powered armor. At least it will be dramatic.”

I took a deep breath, nearly surrounded by Enforcement forms creeping forward in the dark corridor. I began to stand, my gun leveled at Megan more rmly this time. I’d shoot her, then force the soldiers to gun me down.

I noticed that my mobile was blinking.

“Fire!” a soldier yelled.

The ceiling melted.

I saw it distinctly. I was looking down the tunnel, not wanting to watch Megan as I shot her. I had a clear view of a circle in the ceiling becoming a column of black dust, cascading in a shower of disintegrated steel. Like sand from an enormous spigot, the particles hit the oor and billowed outward in a cloud.

The haze cleared. My nger twitched, but I had not pulled the trigger. A gure stood from a crouch amid the dust; he had fallen from above. He wore a black coat —thin, like a lab coat—dark trousers, black boots, and a small pair of goggles over his eyes.

Prof had come, and he wore a tensor on each hand, the green light glowing with a phantom cast.

The o cers opened

re,

releasing a storm of bullets down the hallway. Prof raised his hand and thrust forward the glowing tensor. I could almost feel the device hum.

Bullets

burst

in

midair,

crumbling. They hit Prof as little shavings of uttering steel, no more dangerous than pinches of dirt. Hundreds of them pelted him and the ground around him; the ones that missed ew apart in the air, catching the light. Suddenly I understood why he wore the goggles.

I stood up, slack jawed, gun forgotten in my

ngers. I’d

assumed I was getting good with my tensor, but destroying those bullets … that was beyond anything I’d been able to comprehend.

Prof didn’t give the ba ed soldiers time to recover. He carried no weapon that I could see, but he leaped free of the dust and dashed right toward them. The mechanized units started ring, but they used their rotary guns—as if they couldn’t believe what they’d seen and gured a higher caliber was the answer.

More bullets popped in the air, shattered by Prof’s tensors. His feet skidded across the ground on the dust, and then he reached the Enforcement troops.

He attacked fully armored men with his fists.

My eyes widened as I saw him drop a soldier with a st to the face, the man’s helmet melting to powder before his attack. He’s vaporizing the armor as he attacks.

Prof spun between two soldiers, moving gracefully, slamming a st into the gut of one, then spinning and slamming an arm into the leg of the other. Dust sprayed out as their

armor

failed

them,

disintegrating just before Prof hit.

As he came up from the spin he pounded a hand against the side of the steel chamber. The pulverized metal poured away, and something long and thin fell from the wall into his hand. A sword, carved from the steel by an incredibly precise tensor blast.

Steel ashed as Prof struck at the disordered o cers. Some tried to keep ring, and others were going in with batons—which Prof destroyed just as easily as he had the bullets. He wielded the sword in one hand, and his other hand sent out near-invisible blasts that reduced metal and kevlar to nothing. Dust streamed o soldiers who got too close to him, making them slip and stumble, suddenly unbalanced as helmets melted around their heads and body armor fell away.

Blood ew in front of high-powered ashlights, and men

collapsed. It had been mere heartbeats since Prof had dropped into the room, but a good dozen of the soldiers were down.

The armored units had drawn their shoulder-mounted energy cannons, but Prof had gotten too close. He hit a patch of steel dust at a sprint, then slid in a crouch forward, moving on the dust with obvious familiarity. He twisted to the side and swung his forearm, smashing through the armored unit’s leg. Powder sprayed out the back as Prof’s arm passed completely through it.

He slid to a stop, still on one knee. The armor collapsed with a resounding thud as Prof leaped forward and drilled his st through the second armor’s leg. He pulled his hand out and the leg bent, then snapped, the unit collapsing sideways. It red a yellow-blue blast into the ground as it fell, melting a portion of the floor.

One foolhardy member of

Enforcement tried to charge Prof, who stood over the fallen armors.

Prof didn’t bother with the sword.

He dodged to the side, then slammed his st forward. I could see the st approach the soldier’s face, could see the helmet’s visor vaporizing just in front of Prof’s punch.

The soldier dropped. The hallway grew silent. Sparkling steel akes oated in beams of light like snow at midnight.

“I,” Prof said in a powerful, self-

assured voice, “am known as Limelight. Let your master know that I am more than aggravated by being forced to bother myself with you worms. Unfortunately, my minions are fools, and are incapable of following the simplest of orders.

“Tell your master that the time for dancing and playing is through.

If he does not come to face me himself, I will dismantle this city piece by piece until I nd him.”

Prof strode past the remaining soldiers without sparing them a glance.

He walked toward me, his back to the soldiers. I grew tense, waiting for them to try something.

But they didn’t. They cowered. Men did not ght Epics. They had been taught this, had it drilled into them.