Steelheart (The Reckoners #1)

I swore I could hear one chuckling inside his helmet as he said something over the comm unit to his companion. They assumed Megan and I would both be dead— or at least knocked out of ghting shape—by such a crash.

To Calamity with that, I thought, cheeks hot with anger. Before I’d had time to think, I’d unholstered the pistol under my arm—the pistol that had killed my father—and unloaded four shots at nearly point-blank range into the men. I didn’t aim for their chests, not with their armor. The sweet spot was the neck.

Both men fell. I breathed in a deep, ragged breath, my hand and gun shaking in front of me. I blinked a few times, shocked that I’d managed to hit them. Maybe Megan was right about handguns.

I groaned, then managed to sit up. My Reckoner jacket was in tatters; many of the diodes along its inside—the ones that generated the protective eld—were smoking or entirely ripped free. My leg was scraped badly along one side.

Though it hurt

ercely, the

lacerations weren’t too deep. I was able to stumble to my feet and walk. Kind of.

The pain was … rather

unpleasant.

Megan! The thought came through the daze, and—stupid though it was—I didn’t check to see if the two soldiers were actually dead. I limped over to where the fallen cycle had skidded up against the wall. The only light here was from my mobile. I pushed aside the wreckage and found Megan

sprawled beneath, her jacket in even worse shape than mine.

She didn’t look good. She wasn’t moving, her eyes were closed, and her helmet was cracked, only halfway on. Blood trailed down her cheek. It was the color of her lips.

Her arm was twisted at an awkward angle, and her entire side —leg up to torso—was bloodied. I knelt, aghast, the cool, calm light of my mobile revealing horrible wounds everywhere I turned it.

“David?” Tia’s voice came softly from my mobile, which hung in its





place from my jacket. It was a miracle it still functioned, though I’d lost my earpiece. “David? I can’t reach Megan. What’s going on?”

“Megan’s down,” I said numbly.

“Her mobile is gone. Shattered, probably.” It had been attached to her jacket, which was mostly gone also.

Breathing. I have to see if she’s breathing. I leaned down, trying to use my mobile screen to catch her breath. Then I thought to check for a pulse. I’m in shock. I’m not thinking right. Could you think that, when you weren’t thinking right?

I pressed my ngers against Megan’s neck. The skin felt clammy.

“David!” Tia said urgently.

“David, there’s chatter on the Enforcement channels. They know where you are. There are multiple units converging on you. Infantry and armor. Go!”

I felt a pulse. Shallow, light, but there.

“She’s alive,” I said. “Tia, she’s alive!”

“You have to get out of there, David!”

Moving Megan could make

things worse for her, but leaving her would de nitely make things worse. If they took her she’d be tortured and executed. I pulled o my tattered jacket and used it to wrap my leg. As I worked I felt something in the pocket. I pulled it out. The pen detonator and blasting caps.

In a moment of lucidity I stuck one of the blasting caps on the cycle’s fuel cell. I’d heard you could destabilize and blow those, if you knew what you were doing—which I didn’t. It seemed like a good idea, though. My only idea. I took my mobile and attached it to my wrist mount. Then, sucking in a deep breath, I shoved aside the broken motorcycle—the front wheel had been ripped clean o —and lifted Megan.

Her broken helmet slipped free, falling o and cracking against the ground. That made her hair cascade down over my shoulder.

She was heavier than she looked.

People always are. Though she was small, she was compact, dense. I decided she’d probably not like hearing me describe her that way.

I got her up over my shoulders, then began an unsteady hike down the tunnel. Tiny yellow lights hung from the ceiling periodically, giving barely enough light to see by, even for an understreeter like me.Soon my shoulders and back were complaining. I kept on going, one foot after another. I wasn’t moving very quickly. I wasn’t thinking very well either.

“David.” Prof’s voice. Quiet, intense.

“ I ’ m not leaving her,” I said through clenched teeth.

“I wouldn’t have you do

something like that,” Prof said. “I’d much sooner have you stand your ground and make Enforcement gun you both down.”

Not very comforting.

“It’s not going to come to that, son,” Prof said. “Help is on its way.”

“I think I can hear them,” I said.

I’d nally reached the end of the tunnel; it opened onto a narrow crossroads in the understreets.

There were no buildings here, just steel corridors. I didn’t know this part of town well.

The ceiling was solid, with no gaps up to the air above like there were in the area where I’d grown up. Those were de nitely shouts I heard echoing from the right. I heard clanks from behind, steel feet pounding against the steel ground.

More shouts. They’d found the cycle.

I leaned up against the wall, shifting Megan’s weight, then pressed the button on my pen detonator. I was relieved to hear a pop from behind as the cycle’s fuel cell blew. The shouts rose. Maybe I’d caught a few of them in the blast; if I was really lucky they’d assume I was hiding somewhere near the wreckage and had tossed a grenade or something.

I hefted Megan, then took the left turn at the crossroads. Her blood had soaked my clothing. She was probably dead by— No. I wouldn’t think about that.

One foot in front of the other. Help was coming. Prof promised help was coming. It would come. Prof didn’t lie. Jonathan Phaedrus, founder of the Reckoners, a man I somehow understood. If there was anything in this world I felt I could trust, it was him.

I walked a good ve minutes before I was forced to pull up short. The tunnel in front of me ended in a at wall of steel. Dead end. I glanced over my shoulder to see

ashlights and shadows

moving. No escape that way.

The corridor around me was wide, maybe twenty paces across, and tall. There was some old construction equipment on the ground, though most of it looked to have been picked over by opportunists. There were a few heaps of broken bricks and cinder blocks. Someone had been building more rooms down here recently.

Well, those might provide some cover.

I stumbled over and laid Megan down behind the largest of the piles, then I ipped my mobile to manual response. Prof and the others wouldn’t be able to hear me unless I touched the screen to broadcast, but it also meant they wouldn’t give away my position by trying to contact me.

I crouched down behind the bricks. The pile didn’t give me complete cover, but it was better than

nothing.

Cornered,

outgunned, with no way to …

Suddenly I felt like an idiot. I dug in the zip pocket on my trouser leg, shing for my tensor. I pulled it out triumphantly. Maybe I could dig down to the steel catacombs, or even just dig out to the side and find a safer path.

I pulled on the glove, and only then did I realize that the tensor had been shredded. I stared at it with a sinking despair. It had been in the pocket on the leg I’d landed on when falling, and the pouch had been ripped at the bottom. The tensor was missing two ngers, and the electronics had been shattered, pieces hanging o like eyes drooping out of a zombie’s sockets in an old horror movie.

I almost laughed as I settled back down. The Enforcement soldiers were searching the corridors.

Shouts. Footsteps. Flashlights.

Getting closer.

My mobile blinked softly. I turned the volume way down, then pressed the screen and leaned in.

“David?” Tia asked in a very quiet voice. “David, where are you?”

“I reached the bottom of the tunnel,” I whispered back, holding the mobile up to my mouth. “I turned left.”

“Left? That’s a dead end. You need to—”

“I know,” I said. “There were soldiers the other directions.” I glanced at Megan, lying slumped on the oor. I tested her neck again.

Still a pulse. I closed my eyes in relief. Not that it matters now.