Steelheart (The Reckoners #1)(68)

“It is an Epic,” a woman near me breathed. “Who would be so foolish …”

I ashed a smile at Megan, and we joined the ood of people running to the gates in the wall surrounding the grounds. The guards there tried to hold people in, but when the next explosion went o they gave up and opened the gates. Megan and I followed the others out into the dark streets of the city, leaving the smoldering building behind.

“Security cameras are still up,”

Cody reported on the open channel to everyone. “Building is still evacuating.”

“Hold the last explosions,” Prof said calmly. “But blow the leaflets.”

There was a soft pop from behind, and I knew that the lea ets proclaiming that a new Epic had come to town had been blasted from the upper oors and were oating down to the city.

Limelight, we were calling him— the name I’d chosen. The yer was lled with propaganda calling Steelheart out, claiming that Limelight was the new master of Newcago.

Megan and I were to our car before Cody gave the all clear. I climbed in the driver’s side, and Megan followed through the same door, shoving me over into the passenger seat.

“I can drive,” I said.

“You destroyed the last car going around one block, Knees,” she said, starting the vehicle. “Knocked down two signs, I believe. And I think I saw the remains of some trash cans as we ed.” There was a faint smile on her lips.

“Wasn’t my fault,” I said, thrilled by our success as I looked back at Station Seven rising into the dark sky. “Those trash cans were totally asking for it. Cheeky slontzes.”

“I’m triggering the big one,”

Cody said in my ear.

A line of blasts sounded in the building, including the explosives Megan and I had placed, I guessed.

The building shook, res burning out the windows.

“Huh,” Cody said, confused.

“Didn’t bring it down.”

“Good enough,” Prof answered.

“Evidence of our incursion is gone, and the station won’t be operating anytime soon.”

“Yeah,” Cody said. I could hear the disappointment in his voice. “I just wish it had been a little more dramatic.”

I pulled the pen detonator from my pocket. It probably wouldn’t do anything—the explosives we’d placed on the walls had probably already set o the ones in the oor. I clicked the top of the pen anyway.

The following explosion was about ten times as strong as the previous one. Our car shook and debris sprayed out over the city, dust and bits of rock raining down.

Megan and I both spun around in our seats in time to catch the building collapse in an awful-sounding crunch.

“Wow,” Cody said. “Look at that.

I guess some of the power cells went up.”

Megan glanced at me, then at the pen, then rolled her eyes. In seconds we were racing down the street in the opposite direction of re

trucks

and

emergency

responders, heading for the rendezvous point with the other Reckoners.





PART THREE





23

I grunted, hauling the rope hand over hand. A plaintive squeak came from the pulley system with each draw, as if I had strapped some unfortunate mouse to a torture device and was twisting with glee.

The construction had been set up around the tunnel into the Reckoner burrow, which was the only way in or out. It had been ve days since our attack on the power station, and we’d been lying low during most of that, planning our next move—the hit on Con ux to undermine Enforcement.

Abraham had just gotten back from a supply run. Which meant that I’d stopped being one of the team’s tensor specialists and started being their source of free teenage labor.

I continued pulling, sweat dripping from my brow and beginning to soak through my T-shirt.

Eventually

the

crate

appeared from the depths of the hole, and Megan pulled it o its rollers and heaved it into the room.

I let go of the rope, sending the roller board and rope back down the tunnel so Abraham could tie on another crate of supplies.

“You want to do the next one?” I asked Megan, wiping my brow with a towel.

“No,” she said lightly. She heaved the crate onto a dolly and wheeled it over to stack it with the others.

“You sure?” I asked, arms aching.

“You’re doing such a ne job,”

she said. “And it’s good exercise.”

She settled the crate, then sat down on a chair, putting her feet up on the desk and sipping a lemonade while reading a book on her mobile.

I shook my head. She was unbelievable.

“Think of it as being chivalrous,”

Megan said absently, tapping the screen to scroll down more text.

“Protecting a defenseless girl from pain and all that.”

“Defenseless?” I asked as Abraham called up. I sighed, then started pulling the rope again.

She nodded. “In an abstract way.”

“How can someone be abstractly defenseless?”

“Takes a lot of work,” she said, then sipped her drink. “It only looks easy. Just like abstract art.”

I grunted. “Abstract art?” I asked, heaving on the rope.