I climbed up off the ladder and out into the upper third deck. I had a sudden, surreal flash of memory. This was near where I’d sat the one time I’d come to this stadium. My father had scrimped and saved to buy us the tickets. I couldn’t remember which team we’d played, but I could remember the taste of the hot dog my father bought. And his cheering, his excitement.
I crouched down among the seats, keeping low just in case. Steelheart’s spy drones were probably out of commission now that the city was without power, but he might have people scouting the city and looking for Limelight. It would be wise to remain out of sight as much as possible.
Fishing a rope out of my pack, I tied it around the leg of one of the steel seats, then sneaked back to the hole and down the ladder, returning to the bathroom below the second deck. Leaving the rope hanging for a quicker escape than the ladder would allow, I stowed the ladder and my empty pack in one of the stalls and walked out toward the seats.
Abraham was waiting there for me, leaning against the entryway to the lower seating with his muscled arms crossed, his expression thoughtful.
“So, I take it the UV lights are hooked up?” I asked.
Abraham nodded. “It would have been beautiful to use the stadium’s own floodlights.”
I laughed. “I’d have liked to see that, making a bunch of lights work that had their bulbs turned to steel and fused to their sockets.”
The two of us stood there for a time, looking out at our battlefield. I checked my mobile. It was early morning; we planned to summon Steelheart at 5:00 a.m. Hopefully his soldiers would be exhausted from preventing lootings all night without any vehicles or power armor. The Reckoners usually worked on a night schedule anyway.
“Fifteen minutes until projected go time,” I noted. “Did Cody finish the welding? Prof and Tia back yet?”
“Cody completed the weld and is moving to his position,” Abraham said. “Prof will arrive momentarily. They were able to procure a copter, and Edmund has gifted Tia the ability to power it. She flew it outside of town to park it, so as to not give away our location.”
If things went sour, she’d time her flight back in so that she could sweep down and pick us up as the explosives went off. We’d also blast a smokescreen from the stands to cover our escape.
I agreed with Prof, though. You couldn’t outfly or outgun Steelheart in a copter. This was the showdown. We defeated him here or we died.
My mobile flashed, and a voice spoke into my ear. “I’m back,” Prof said. “Tia’s set too.” He hesitated a moment. “Let’s do this.”
35
SINCE my post was right up against the front of the third deck, if I’d been standing I could have looked down over the edge toward the lowest level of seats. Huddled in my improvised hole, however, I couldn’t see those—though I had a good view of the field.
This put me high enough to watch what was going on around the stadium, but I also had a route to ground if I needed to try firing my father’s gun at Steelheart. The tunnel and rope farther up the deck would get me there quickly.
I’d drop down, then try to sneak up on him, if it came to that. It would be like trying to sneak up on a lion while armed only with a squirt gun.
I huddled in my spot, waiting. I wore my tensor on my left hand, my right hand holding the grip of the pistol. Cody had given me a replacement rifle, but for now it lay beside me.
Overhead, fireworks flared in the air. Four posts around the top of the stadium released enormous jets of sparks. I don’t know where Abraham had found fireworks that were pure green, but the signal would undoubtedly be seen and recognized.
This was the moment. Would he really come?
The fireworks began to die down. “I’ve got something,” Abraham said in our ears, his light French accent subtly emphasizing the wrong syllables. He had the high-point sniping position and Cody had the low-point sniping position. Cody was the better shot, but Abraham needed to be farther away, where he could be outside the fight. His job was to remotely turn on the floodlights or blow strategic explosives. “Yes, they’re coming indeed. A convoy of Enforcement trucks. No sign of Steelheart yet.”
I holstered my father’s gun, then reached to the side to pick up the rifle. It felt too new to me. A rifle should be a well-used, well-loved thing. Familiar. Only then can you know that it’s trustworthy. You know how it shoots, when it might jam, how accurate the sights are. Guns, like shoes, are worst when they’re brand-new.
Still, I couldn’t rely on the pistol. I had trouble hitting anything smaller than a freight train with one of those. I’d need to get close to Steelheart if I wanted to try it. It had been decided that we’d let Abraham and Cody test out the other theories first before risking sending me in close.
“They’re pulling up to the stadium,” Abraham said in my ear.
“I’ve lost them.”
“I can see them, Abraham,” Tia said. “Camera six.” Though she was outside of the city in the copter, with Edmund’s gifted abilities to power it, she was monitoring a rig of cameras we’d set up for spying and for recording the battle.