Steelheart (The Reckoners #1)(24)

What was it? “Smoke!” I exclaimed, then blushed at the sound of it. Megan shot me a glare.

“It’s her weakness,” I whispered.

“She always avoids people who are smoking, and stays away from any kind of re. It’s pretty well known, and reasonably substantiated, as far as Epic weaknesses go.”

“Guess we’re back to starting the place on re after all,” Cody said.

He seemed excited by the prospect.

“What? No.”

“Prof said—”

“We

can

still

get

the

information,” I said. “They’re waiting for me, but they only sent a minor Epic. That means they want me, but they haven’t sorted through that the Reckoners were behind the assassination tonight— or maybe they don’t know how I was involved. They probably haven’t cleaned out my room yet, even if they did break in and scan through what’s there.”

“Excellent reason to burn the place,” Megan said. “I’m sorry, but if they’re that close …”

“But see, it’s essential that we go in now,” I said, growing more anxious. “We have to see what has been disturbed, if anything. That’ll tell us what they’ve discovered. We burn the place down now, and we blind ourselves.”

The other two hesitated.

“We can stop them,” I said. “And we might be able to kill us an Epic in the process. Refractionary has plenty of blood on her hands. Just last month someone cut her o in tra c. She created an illusion of the road turning up ahead and drove the o ender o the freeway and into a home. Six dead.

Children were in the car.”

Epics had a distinct, even incredible, lack of morals or conscience. That bothered some people, on a philosophical level.

Theorists, scholars. They wondered at the sheer inhumanity many Epics manifested. Did the Epics kill because

Calamity

chose—for

whatever reason—only terrible people to gain powers? Or did they kill because such amazing power twisted a person, made them irresponsible?

There were no conclusive answers. I didn’t care; I wasn’t a scholar. Yes, I did research, but so did a sports fan when he followed his team. It didn’t matter to me why the Epics did what they did any more than a baseball fan wondered at the physics of a bat hitting a ball.

Only one thing mattered—Epics gave no thought for ordinary human life. A brutal murder was a tting retribution, in their minds, for the most minor of infractions.

“Prof didn’t approve hitting an Epic,” Megan said. “This isn’t in the procedures.”

Cody chuckled. “Killing an Epic is always in the procedures, lass.

You just haven’t been with us long enough to understand.”

“I have a smoke grenade in my room,” I said.

“What?” Megan asked. “How?”

“I grew up working at a munitions plant,” I said. “We mostly made ri es and handguns, but we worked with other factories.

I got to pick up the occasional goody from the QC reject pile.”

“A smoke grenade is a goody?”

Cody asked.

I frowned. What did he mean? Of course it was. Who wouldn’t want a smoke grenade when o ered one? Megan actually showed the faintest of smiles. She understood.

I don’t get you, girl, I thought. She carried explosives in her shirt and was an excellent shot, but she was worried about procedures when she got a chance to kill an Epic? And as soon as she caught me looking at her, her expression grew cold and aloof once again.

Had I done something to o end her?

“If we can get that grenade, I can use it to negate Refractionary’s powers,” I said. “She likes to stay near her teams. So if we can draw the soldiers into an enclosed space, she’ll probably follow. I can blow the grenade, then shoot her when it makes her appear.”

“Good enough,” Cody said. “But how are we going to manage all of that and get your notes?”

“Easy,” I said, reluctantly handing my ri e to Megan. I’d have a better chance of fooling them if I wasn’t armed. “We give them the thing they’re waiting for.

Me.”





10

I crossed the street toward my at, hands in the pockets of my jacket, ngering the roll of industrial tape I usually kept there. The other two hadn’t liked my plan, but they hadn’t come up with anything better. Hopefully they’d be able to fulfill their parts in it.

I felt completely naked without my ri e. I had a couple of handguns stashed in my room, but a man wasn’t really dangerous unless he had a ri e. At least, he wasn’t consistently dangerous.

Hitting something with a handgun always felt like an accident.

Megan did it, I thought. She not only hit, but hit a High Epic in the middle of a dodge, ring two guns at once, one from the hip.

She’d shown emotion during our ght with Fortuity. Passion, anger, annoyance. The second two toward me, but it had been something. And then, for a few moments after he fell … there had been a connection.

Satisfaction, and appreciation of me that had come out when she’d spoken on my behalf to Prof.

Now that was gone. What did it mean?

I stopped at the edge of the playground. Was I really thinking about a girl now? I was only about ve paces from where a group of Enforcement o cers were hiding, probably with automatic or energy weapons trained on me.