“I brought the most unusual ones,” she said. “I stowed the rest in the pocket we made outside. We can fetch them. So far as I know, Enforcement hasn’t found them.”
“We take everything and spread it all out here,” Prof said, pointing at the steel floor of the stadium, which had once been soil. “David’s right; that’s where Steelheart will probably land. We don’t have to know specifically what weakened him—we can just haul it all over and use it.”
Abraham nodded. “A good plan.”
“What do you think it is?” Prof asked him.
“If I had to guess? I would say it was David’s father’s gun or the bullets it shot. Every gun is slightly distinctive in its own way. Perhaps it was the precise composition of the metal.”
“That’s easy enough to test,” I said. “I’ll bring the gun, and when I get a chance I’ll shoot him. I don’t think it will work, but I’m willing to try.”
“Good,” Prof said.
“And you, Prof?” Tia asked.
“I think it was because David’s father was one of the Faithful,” Prof said softly. He didn’t look at Abraham. “Fools though they are, they’re earnest fools. People like Abraham see the world differently than the rest of us do. So maybe it was the way David’s father viewed the Epics that let him hurt Steelheart.”
I sat back, thinking it over.
“Well, it shouldn’t be too hard for me to shoot him too,” Abraham said. “In fact, we should probably all try it. And anything else we can think of.”
They looked at me.
“I still think it’s crossfire,” I said. “I think Steelheart can only be harmed by someone who isn’t intending to hurt him.”
“That’s tougher to arrange,” Tia said. “If you’re right, it probably won’t activate if any of us hit him, since we actually want him dead.”
“Agreed,” Prof said. “But it’s a good theory. We’d need to find a way to get his own soldiers to hit him by accident.”
“He’d have to bring the soldiers first,” Tia said. “Now that he’s convinced there’s a rival Epic in town, he might just bring Nightwielder and Firefight.”
“No,” I said. “He’ll come with soldiers. Limelight has been using minions, and Steelheart will want to be ready—he’ll want to have his own soldiers to deal with distractions like that. Besides, while he’ll want to face Limelight himself, he’ll also want witnesses.”
“I agree,” Prof said. “His soldiers will probably have orders not to engage unless fired upon. We can make certain they feel they need to start fighting back.”
“Then we’ll need to be able to stall Steelheart long enough to set up a good crossfire,” Abraham said. He paused. “Actually, we’ll need to stall him during the crossfire. If he assumes this is just an ambush of soldiers, he’ll fly off and let Enforcement deal with it.” Abraham looked at Prof. “Limelight will have to make an appearance.”
Prof nodded. “I know.”
“Jon …,” Tia said, touching his arm.
“It’s what must be done,” he said. “We’ll need a way to deal with Nightwielder and Firefight too.”
“I’m telling you,” I said, “Firefight won’t be an issue. He’s—”
“I know he’s not what he seems, son,” Prof said. “I accept that. But have you ever fought an illusionist?”
“Sure,” I said. “With Cody and Megan.”
“That was a weak one,” Prof said. “But I suppose it gives you an idea what to expect. Firefight will be stronger. Much stronger. I almost wish he was just another fire Epic.”
Tia nodded. “He should be a priority. We’ll need code phrases, in case he sends in illusory versions of the other members of the team to confuse us. And we’ll have to watch for false walls, fake members of Enforcement intended to confuse, things like that.”
“Do you think Nightwielder will even show?” Abraham asked. “From what I heard, David’s little flashlight show sent him running like a rabbit before the hawk.”
Prof looked to me and Tia.
I shrugged. “He might not,” I said.
Tia nodded. “Nightwielder’s a hard one to read.”
“We should be ready for him anyway,” I said. “But I’ll be perfectly fine if he stays away.”
“Abraham,” Prof said, “you think you can rig up a UV floodlight or two using the extra power cells? We should arm everyone with some of those flashlights as well.”
We fell silent, and I had a feeling we were all thinking the same thing. The Reckoners liked extremely well-planned operations, executed only after weeks or months of preparation. Yet here we were going to try to take down one of the strongest Epics in the world with little more than some trinkets and flashlights.
It was what we had to do.
“I think,” Tia said, “we should come up with a good plan for extraction in case none of these things work.”
Prof didn’t look like he agreed. His expression had grown grim; he knew that if none of these ideas let us kill Steelheart, our chances of survival were slim.