Steelheart (The Reckoners #1)

“Cody …,” Prof said.

Gun re from behind distracted me from the rest of the conversation. I caught a glimpse of cycles, their drivers holding out SMGs and ring. We were going more slowly now; Megan had driven us into a slum neighborhood where the streets were smaller, and she was weaving us through lots of twists and turns.

“Megan, that’s dangerous,” Tia said. “There are a lot of dead ends in there.”

“The other way is all dead ends,”

Megan answered. She seemed to have recovered from whatever lapse had almost led her to drive us right into a blockade.

“I’m going to have trouble leading you,” Tia said. “Try to take the next right.”

Megan started to break that direction, but an approaching cycle moved to cut us o , the soldier ring an SMG one-handed toward us in a spray. Megan cursed and slowed, sending the soldier on ahead, then she broke left down an alleyway. We nearly slammed into a large garbage bin, but she managed to weave around it. I guessed that we were barely going twenty.

Barely going twenty, I thought.

Twenty mph down narrow alleys while being shot at. It was still insane, just a di erent kind of insane.

I could hold on pretty well with one arm at these speeds, Cody’s pack thumping against my back. I probably should have dropped that by now. I didn’t even know what was …

I felt at the pack, realizing something. I carefully slung it down in front of me, between Megan and myself. I gripped the cycle between my knees, let go of Megan, and unzipped the pack.

The gauss gun lay inside. Shaped like a regular assault ri e, perhaps a little longer, it had one of the power cells we’d recovered hooked up at the side. I pulled it out. With the power cell it was heavy, but I could still maneuver it.

“Megan!” Tia said. “Blockade ahead.”

We turned into another alley, and I nearly lost the gun as I grabbed onto Megan with one arm.

“No!” Tia said. “Not right. That’s —”A motorcycle followed us into the alleyway. Bullets hit the wall just above my head. And right in front of us the alley ended in a wall.

Megan tried to brake.

I didn’t think. I grabbed the gun with both hands, leaned back, and raised the barrel right over Megan’s shoulder.

Then I fired at the wall.





29

THE wall before us went up in a ash of green energy. Megan tried to turn the cycle and stop. We skidded through the churning green smoke, pebbles scattering under our tires, and slid out onto the street on the other side, where we came to a halt. Megan’s body was braced for impact. She seemed stunned.

The Enforcement cyclist burst from the smoke. I swung the gauss gun and blasted his cycle out from underneath him. The shot turned the whole motorcycle into a ash of green energy, vaporizing it and part of the o cer on it. His body went rolling.

The gun was amazing—there was no recoil, and the shots vaporized instead

of

really

exploding. That left little debris, but gave a great light show and a lot of smoke.

Megan turned toward me, a grin splitting her lips. “About time you started doing something useful back there.”

“Go,” I said. The sound of more cycles was coming from the alley way.

Megan revved our motorcycle, then led us in a darting, stomach-churning pattern through the narrow streets of the slum. I couldn’t turn to re the gun behind us as we drove, so instead I clung to her waist with one hand and settled the gun on her shoulder to steady it, using the iron sights, scope folded down to the side.

We roared out of an alleyway and skidded toward a blockade. I blasted a hole through a truck for us, then for good measure hit the armored unit with a shot to the leg.

Soldiers scattered, yelling, some trying to re as we sped through the opening I’d made. The armor unit collapsed and Megan dodged to the side, down a dark alley.

Shouts and curses sounded behind as some of the cycles chasing us got caught up in the confusion.

“Nice work,” Tia said in our ears, her voice calm again. “I think I can get you to the understreets. There’s an old tunnel up ahead at the bottom of a flood gulley. You might have to blast your way through some walls, though.”

“I think I can hit a wall or two,”

I said. “So long as they aren’t good at dodging.”

“Be careful,” Prof said. “That gun drinks energy like Tia with a six-pack of cola. That power cell could run a small city, but it will give you only a dozen shots at best.

Abraham, you still with us?”

“I’m here.”

“You in the bolt-hole?”

“Yes. Bandaging my wound. It’s not too bad.”

“I’ll be the judge of that. I’m almost to you. Cody, status?”

“I can see the limo,” Cody said in my ear as Megan took another corner. “I’ve mostly shaken pursuit.

I’ve got a tensor; I’ll hit the limo with a grenade, then use the tensor to drill myself down to the understreets.”

“Not an option,” Prof said. “It’ll take you too long to drill down that far.”

“Wall!” Tia said.

“Got it,” I said, blasting a hole through a wall at the end of an alleyway. We roared out into a backyard, and I blasted a hole in another wall, letting us cut into the next yard. Megan turned us to the right, then drove us through a very narrow slot between two houses.

“Go left,” Tia said as we reached the street.

“Prof,” Cody said. “I can see the limo. I can hit it.”

“Cody, I don’t—”

“I’m taking the shot, Prof,” Cody said. “Abraham’s right. Steelheart’s going to come for us after this. We need to hurt him as much as we can, while we can.”

“All right.”

“Turn right,” Tia said.

We turned.

“I’m sending you through a large building,” Tia said. “Can you handle that?”

Gun re sprayed against the wall beside us, and Megan cursed, hunkering down farther. I held the gauss gun in a sweaty grip, feeling terribly exposed with my back to the enemy. I could hear the cycles back there.

“They real y seem to want you two,” Tia said softly. “They’re pulling a lot of resources toward you, and … Calamity!”

“What?” I said.

“My video feed just went out,”

Tia said. “Something’s wrong.

Cody?”

“Little busy,” he grunted.

More gun re sounded from

behind. Something hit the cycle, jarring us, and Megan cursed.

“The building, Tia!” I said. “How do we nd that building? We’ll lose them inside.”

“Second right,” Tia told us. “Then straight to the end of the road. It’s an old mall, and the gulley is just behind it. I was looking for other routes, but—”

“This will work,” Megan said curtly. “David, be ready to open the place up for us.”

“Got it,” I said, steadying the gun, though it was harder now that she’d picked up speed. We took a corner, then turned toward a large, at structure at the end of the road. I vaguely remembered malls from the days before Calamity.

They’d been marketplaces, all enclosed.

Megan was driving fast and heading right at it. I took aim carefully and blasted through a set of steel doors in the front. We shot through the smoke, entering the heavy blackness of an abandoned building. The headlight of the cycle showed shops on either side of us.

The place had been looted long ago, though a lot of wares remained in the shops. Clothing that had been turned to steel wasn’t particularly useful.

Megan wove easily through the mall’s open corridors, taking us up a frozen escalator onto the second oor. Engines echoed throughout the building as Enforcement cycles followed us in.

Tia couldn’t guide us any longer, it appeared, but Megan seemed to have an idea of what she was doing. From the balcony above, I got a shot at the cycles following us. I hit the ground in front of them, taking a chunk out of the oor and causing several to skid out, the others scattering for cover.

None seemed to have drivers as skilled as Megan.

“Wall up ahead,” Megan said.