Steelheart (The Reckoners #1)

I looked at the panel full of innocent yet deadly objects.

Something about them felt very wrong to me. I’d killed men before, but I’d done it honestly. With a gun in my hands, and only because I’d been forced to. I didn’t have many philosophies about life, but one of them was something my father had taught me: never throw the rst punch. If you have to throw the second, try to make sure they don’t get up for a third.

“These could be useful,” Megan said, arms still crossed. “Though I doubt that blowhard really understands what for.”

“I know,” I said, trying to redeem myself. “I mean, recording some poor guy’s death like that? It was totally unprofessional.”

“Actually, he sells explosives,”

she said, “so having a recording like that is professional of him. I suspect he has recordings of each of these weapons being red, as we can’t test them hands-on down here.”

“Megan, that was a recording of some guy blowing up.” I shook my head, revolted. “It was awful. You shouldn’t show off stuff like that.”

She hesitated, looking troubled about something. “Yes. Of course.”

She looked at me. “You never did explain why you were so bothered by being called a nerd.”

“I told you. I don’t like it because, you know, I want to do awesome stuff. And nerds don’t—”

“That’s not it,” she said, staring at me coolly. Sparks, but her eyes were beautiful. “There’s something deeper about it that bothers you, and you need to get over it. It’s a weakness.” She glanced at the water bottle, then turned and walked over to the thing Abraham was inspecting. It was some kind of bazooka.

I secured my ri e over my shoulder and stuck my hands in my pockets. It seemed that I was spending a lot of time lately getting lectured. I’d thought that leaving the Factory would end all of that, but I guess I should have known better.

I turned from Megan and Abraham and looked across at the wall nearest me. I was having trouble focusing on the guns, which was a rst for me. My mind was working over what she’d asked.

Why did being called a nerd bother me?

I walked over to her side.

“… don’t know if it’s what we want,” Abraham was saying.

“But the explosions are so big,”

Diamond replied.

“It’s because they took the smart ones away,” I said softly to Megan.

I could feel her eyes on me, but I continued staring at the wall.

“A lot of kids at the Factory tried so hard to prove how smart they were,” I said quietly. “We had school, you know. You went to school half the day, worked the other half, unless you got expelled.

If you did poorly the teacher just expelled you, and after that you worked full days. School was easier than the Factory, so most of the kids tried really hard.

“The smart ones, though … the really smart ones … the nerds … they left. Got taken to the city above. If you showed some skill with computers, or math, or writing, o you went. They got good jobs, I hear. In Steelheart’s propaganda

corps

or

his

accounting o ces or something like that. When I was young I’d have laughed about Steelheart having accountants. He’s got a lot of them, you know. You need people like them in an empire.”

Megan looked at me, curious. “So you …”

“Learned to be dumb,” I said.

“Rather, to be mediocre. The dumb ones got kicked out of school, and I wanted to learn—knew I needed to learn—so I had to stay. I also knew that if I went up above, I’d lose my freedom. He keeps a lot better watch over his accountants than he does his factory workers.

“There were other boys like me.

A lot of the girls moved on fast, the smart ones. Some of the boys I knew, though, they started to see it as a mark of pride that they weren’t taken above. You didn’t want to be one of the smart ones. I had to be extra careful, since I asked so many questions about the Epics. I had to hide my notebooks, nd ways to throw o those who thought I was smart.”

“But you’re not there anymore.

You’re with the Reckoners. So it doesn’t matter.”

“It does,” I said. “Because it’s not who I am. I’m not smart, I’m just persistent. My friends who were smart, they didn’t have to study at all. I had to study like a horse for every test I took.”

“Like a horse?”

“You know. Because horses work hard? Pulling carts and plows and things?”

“Yeah, I’ll just ignore that one.”

“I’m not smart,” I said.

I didn’t mention that part of the reason I had to study so hard was because I needed to know the answer to each and every question perfectly. Only then could I ensure that I would get the exact number of questions wrong to remain in the middle of the pack. Smart enough to stay in school, but not worthy of notice or attention.

“Besides,” I continued. “The people I knew who were really smart, they learned because they loved it. I didn’t. I hated studying.”

“You read the encyclopedia. A few times.”

“Looking for things that could be Epic weaknesses,” I said. “I needed to know di erent types of metal, chemical compounds, elements, and symbols. Practically anything could be a weakness. I hoped something would spark in my head.

Something about him.”

“So it’s all about him.”

“Everything in my life is about him, Megan,” I said, looking at her.

“Everything.”

We fell silent, though Diamond continued blabbing on. Abraham had turned to look at me. He seemed thoughtful.

Great, I realized. He heard. Just great.

“That will be enough, please, Diamond,” Abraham said. “That weapon really won’t work.”

The weapons merchant sighed.

“Very well. But perhaps you can give me a clue as to what might work.”

“Something

distinctive,”

Abraham said. “Something nobody has seen before, but also something destructive.”

“Well, I don’t have much that isn’t destructive,” Diamond said.

“But distinctive … Let me see.…”

Abraham waved for us to keep searching. As Megan moved o , however, he took me by the arm.

He had quite a strong grip.

“Steelheart takes the smart ones,”

Abraham said softly, “because he fears them. He knows, David. All of these guns, they do not frighten him. They won’t be what overthrows him. It will be the person

clever

enough, smart enough, to gure out the chink in his armor. He knows he can’t kill them all, so he employs them.

When he dies it will be because of someone like you. Remember that.”

He released my arm and walked after Diamond.

I watched him go, then walked over to another group of weapons.

His words didn’t really change anything, but oddly, I did feel myself standing a little taller as I looked at a line of guns and was able to identify each of the manufacturers.

I’m totally not a nerd though. I still know the truth at least.

I looked over the guns for a few minutes, proud of how many I could identify. Unfortunately none of them seemed distinctive enough.

Actually, the fact that I could identify them guaranteed that they weren’t distinctive enough. We needed something nobody had seen before.

Maybe he won’t have anything, I thought. If he has a rotating stock, then we may have picked the wrong time to visit. Sometimes a grab bag doesn’t give anything worthwhile. It— I stopped as I noticed something different. Motorcycles.

There were three of them in a row near the far side of the hallway. I hadn’t seen them at first, as I’d been focused on the guns.

They were sleek, their bodies a deep green with black patterns running up their sides. They made me want to hunch over and crouch down to make myself have less wind resistance. I could imagine shooting through the streets on one of these. They looked so dangerous, like alligators. Really fast alligators wearing black. Ninja alligators.

I decided not to use that one on Megan.

They didn’t have any weapons on them that I could see, though there were some odd devices on the sides. Maybe energy weapons?

They didn’t seem to t with much of what Diamond had here, but then again, what he had was pretty eclectic.

Megan walked past me and I raised a nger to point at the motorcycles.