Steelheart (The Reckoners #1)(75)

Megan looked deeply troubled.

“What?” Cody said.

“It’s what you said,” she replied.

“Illusionists. They’re annoying. I’m just hoping we don’t have to face one.”

“I don’t think we’ll have to,” I said. “I’ve thought it through and, despite Fire ght’s reputation, he doesn’t seem terribly dangerous. I can’t squarely attribute any deaths to him, and he rarely ghts. It has to be because he wants to be careful not to reveal what he really is. I’ve got the facts in these folders. As soon as Fire ght appears, all we have to do is shoot the one creating the illusion—this man in the photos—and all of his illusions will go down. It shouldn’t be too hard.”

“Y’all might be right about the illusions,” Cody said, looking through another group of photos.

“But I’m not sure about this person you think is making them. If Fire ght were smart, he’d create the illusion, then turn himself invisible.”

“It’s possible he can’t,” I said.

“Not all illusionists are capable of that, even powerful ones.” I hesitated. “But you’re right. We can’t know for certain who’s making the fake Firefight, but I still think Fire ght won’t be a problem.

All we need to do is spook him—set up a trap that will expose his illusion as fake. When he’s threatened with being revealed, I’ll bet he bolts. From what I’ve been able to determine about him, he seems like something of a coward.”

Cody nodded thoughtfully.

Megan shook her head. “I think you’re taking this too lightly.” She sounded angry. “If Steelheart really has been fooling everyone all this time, then it’s likely that Fire ght is even more dangerous than we thought. Something about this bothers me; I don’t think we’re prepared for it.”

“You’re looking for a reason to call o this mission anyway,” I said, annoyed at her.

“I never said that.”

“You didn’t need to. It—”

I was interrupted by motion at the tunnel into the hideout and I turned in time to see Tia climbing through, wearing old jeans and her Reckoner jacket. Her knees were dusty. She stood up, smiling.

“We’ve found it.”

My heart leaped in my chest and sent what felt like electricity jolting through my body. “Steelheart’s weakness? You found out what it is?”“No,” she said, her eyes seeming to glow with excitement. “But this should lead to the answers. I found it.”“What, Tia?” Cody asked.

“The bank vault.”





25

“I rst started considering this possibility when you told your story, David,” Tia explained. The entire team of Reckoners was following her down a tunnel in the steel catacombs. “And the more I investigated the bank, the more curious I became. There are oddities.”

“Oddities?” I asked. The group moved in a tense huddle, Cody taking point, Abraham watching our tail. He had replaced his very nice machine gun with a similar one, only without quite as many bells and whistles.

I felt pretty comfortable with him at our back. These narrow con nes would make a heavy machine gun especially deadly to anyone trying to approach us; the walls would work like bumpers on the sides of a bowling lane, and Abraham wouldn’t have any trouble at all getting strikes.

“The Diggers,” Prof said. He was at my side. “They weren’t allowed to excavate the area beneath where the bank had stood.”

“Yes,” Tia said, speaking eagerly. “It was very irregular.

Steelheart barely gave them any direction. The chaos of these lower catacombs proves that; their madness made them hard to control. But one order he was rm on: the area beneath the bank was to be left alone. I wouldn’t have thought twice about that if it hadn’t been for what you described, that Steelheart had most of the main room of the bank turned to steel by the time Faultline came that afternoon. Her powers had two parts, it—”

“Yes,” I said, too excited not to interrupt. Faultline—the woman Steelheart had brought to bury the bank after I’d escaped. “I know.

Power

duality—melding

two

second-tier abilities creates a rst-tier one.”

Tia smiled. “You’ve been reading my classification system notes.”

“I figure we might as well use the same terminology.” I shrugged. “I have no trouble switching over.”

Megan glanced at me, the hint of a smile on the corners of her lips.

“What?” I asked.

“Nerd.”

“I am not—”

“Stay focused, son,” Prof said, shooting a hard look at Megan, whose eyes shone with amusement.

“I happen to have a fondness for nerds.”

“I never said that I didn’t,”

Megan replied lightly. “I’m just interested whenever someone pretends to be something they’re not.”

Whatever, I thought. Faultline was a tier-one Epic, by Tia’s classi cation,

without

an

immortality bene t. That made her powerful, but fragile. She should have realized that; when she’d tried to seize Newcago a few years back, she’d never had a chance.