Steelheart (The Reckoners #1)

“Calamity,” Tia swore. I heard gun re and jumped, thinking it was from my position. But it wasn’t. It was from the line.

“Tia?” I hissed.

“They’re here,” she said. “Don’t worry about me. I can hold this place. David, you have to—”

“Hey, you!” a voice called from the intersection.

I ducked down, but the mound of bricks wasn’t large enough to hide me completely unless I was practically lying flat.

“There’s someone over there!”

the voice shouted. Powerful, Enforcement-issue

ashlights

pointed my direction. Most of those would be on the ends of assault rifles.

My mobile ashed. I tapped it.

“David.” Prof’s voice. He sounded winded. “Use the tensor.”

“Broken,” I whispered. “I ruined it in the crash.”

Silence.

“Try it anyway,” Prof urged.

“Prof, it’s dead.” I peeked over the bricks. A large crowd of soldiers was gathering at the other end of the hall. Several were kneeling with guns pointed in my direction, eyes to scopes. I kept low.

“Just do it,” Prof ordered.

I sighed, then pressed my hand against the ground. I closed my eyes, but it wasn’t easy to concentrate.

“Hold up your arms and walk forward slowly!” a voice shouted down the hall toward me. “If you do not show yourself, we will be forced to open fire.”

I tried as best I could to ignore them. I focused on the tensor, on the vibrations. For a moment I thought I felt something, a low hum—deep, powerful.

It was gone. This was stupid.

Like trying to saw a hole in a wall using only a bottle of soda.

“Sorry, Prof,” I said. “It’s busted up good.” I checked the magazine on my father’s gun. Five rounds left. Five precious rounds that might be able to hurt Steelheart. I’d never have the chance to find out.

“You are running out of time, friend!” the soldier called toward me.“You have to hold out,” Prof said urgently. His voice sounded frail with the volume down so low.

“You should go to Tia,” I said, preparing myself.

“She’ll be

ne,” Prof said.

“Abraham is on his way to help her, and the hideout was designed with an attack in mind. She can seal the entrance and wait them out. David, you must hang on long enough for me to arrive.”

“I’ll see that they don’t take us alive, Prof,” I promised. “The safety of the Reckoners is more important than I am.” I shed at Megan’s side, getting out her handgun and then ipping o its safety. SIG Sauer P226, .40 caliber.

A nice gun.

“I’m coming, son,” Prof said softly. “Hold out.”

I peeked up. The o cers were advancing, guns raised. They probably wanted to take me alive.

Well, maybe that would let me take a few of them out before I fell.

I lifted Megan’s gun and let loose a burst of rapid-fire shots. They had the intended e ect; the o cers scattered, seeking cover. Some red back, and chips sprayed across me as bricks exploded to automatic-weapon fire.

Wel , so much for hoping they wanted me alive.

I was sweating. “Hell of a way to go, eh?” I found myself saying to Megan as I ducked around and fired on an officer who’d gotten too close. I think one of the bullets actually got through his armor—he was limping as he jumped behind a few rusty barrels.

I hunkered down again, assault-ri e re sounding like recrackers in a tin can. Which was, as I thought about it, kind of what this w a s . I’m getting better. I smiled wryly as I dumped the magazine from Megan’s gun and locked a new one in.

“I’m sorry to let you down,” I said to her immobile form. Her breathing had grown more shallow.

“You deserved to live through this, even if I didn’t.”

I tried to re o more rounds, but gun re drove me back to cover before I could get o a single shot.

I breathed hard, wiping some blood from my cheek. Some of the exploding rubble had hit hard enough to cut me.

“You know,” I said, “I think I fell for you that rst day. Stupid, huh?

Love at rst sight. What a cliché.” I got o three shots, but the soldiers were acting less scared now. They had gured out there was only one of me, and that my gun was only a handgun. I was probably only alive because I’d blown the cycle, which made them worry about explosives.

“I don’t even know if I can call it love,” I whispered, reloading. “Am I in love? Is it just infatuation?

We’ve known each other for less than a month, and you’ve treated me like dirt about half that time.

But that day ghting Fortuity and that day in the power plant, it seems like we had something.

A … I don’t know. Something together. Something I wanted.”

I glanced at her pale, motionless figure.

“I think,” I said, “that a month ago, I would have left you by the cycle. Because I wanted so badly to get my vengeance on him.”

Bam, bam, bam!

The pile of bricks shook, as if the o cers were trying to cut through them to get to me.

“That scares me about myself,” I said softly, not looking at Megan.

“For what it’s worth, thank you for making me care about something other than Steelheart. I don’t know if I love you. But whatever the emotion is, it’s the strongest one I’ve felt in years. Thank you.” I red widely but fell back as a bullet grazed my arm.

The magazine was empty. I sighed, dropping Megan’s gun and raising my father’s. Then I pointed it at her.

My

nger hesitated on the

trigger. It would be a mercy. Better a quick death than to su er torture and execution. I tried to force myself to pull the trigger.

Sparks, she looks beautiful, I thought. Her unbloodied side was toward me, her golden hair fanning out, her skin pale and eyes closed as if asleep.

Could I really do this?

The gunshots had paused. I risked glancing over my crumbling pile of bricks. Two enormous forms were mechanically clomping down the hallway. So they had brought in armor units. A piece of me felt proud that I was such a problem for them. The chaos the Reckoners had caused this day, the destruction we’d brought to Steelheart’s minions, had driven them to overkill. A squad of twenty men and two mechanized armors had been sent to take down one guy with a pistol.

“Time to die,” I whispered. “I think I’ll do it while ring a handgun at a fteen-foot-tall suit of powered armor. At least it will be dramatic.”

I took a deep breath, nearly surrounded by Enforcement forms creeping forward in the dark corridor. I began to stand, my gun leveled at Megan more rmly this time. I’d shoot her, then force the soldiers to gun me down.

I noticed that my mobile was blinking.

“Fire!” a soldier yelled.

The ceiling melted.

I saw it distinctly. I was looking down the tunnel, not wanting to watch Megan as I shot her. I had a clear view of a circle in the ceiling becoming a column of black dust, cascading in a shower of disintegrated steel. Like sand from an enormous spigot, the particles hit the oor and billowed outward in a cloud.

The haze cleared. My nger twitched, but I had not pulled the trigger. A gure stood from a crouch amid the dust; he had fallen from above. He wore a black coat —thin, like a lab coat—dark trousers, black boots, and a small pair of goggles over his eyes.

Prof had come, and he wore a tensor on each hand, the green light glowing with a phantom cast.

The o cers opened

re,

releasing a storm of bullets down the hallway. Prof raised his hand and thrust forward the glowing tensor. I could almost feel the device hum.

Bullets

burst

in

midair,

crumbling. They hit Prof as little shavings of uttering steel, no more dangerous than pinches of dirt. Hundreds of them pelted him and the ground around him; the ones that missed ew apart in the air, catching the light. Suddenly I understood why he wore the goggles.

I stood up, slack jawed, gun forgotten in my

ngers. I’d

assumed I was getting good with my tensor, but destroying those bullets … that was beyond anything I’d been able to comprehend.