“Everyone follow me,” he said, standing up.
I shared a glare with Megan, and then we all moved, joining him as he walked toward the smaller room to the right of the main chamber. Even Cody made his way in from the third room—unsurprisingly, he’d been listening. He wore a glove on his right hand. It glowed with a soft green light at the palm.
“Is the imager ready?” Prof asked.
“Mostly,” Abraham said. “It’s one of the first things I set up.” He knelt beside a device on the floor connected to the wall by several wires. He turned it on.
Suddenly, all of the metal surfaces in the room turned black. I jumped. It felt like we were floating in darkness.
Prof raised a hand, then tapped on the wall in a pattern. The walls changed to show a view of the city, presenting it as if we were standing atop a six-story building. Lights sparkled in the blackness, shining from the hundreds of steel buildings that made up Newcago. The old buildings were less uniform; the new buildings, spreading out onto what had once been the lake, were more modern. They had been built from other materials, then intentionally transformed to steel. You could do some interesting things with architecture, I’d heard, when you had that option.
“This is one of the most advanced cities in the world,” Prof said. “Ruled by arguably the most powerful Epic in North America. If we move against him, we raise the stakes dramatically—and we’re already betting up to the limits of what we can pay. Failure could mean the end of the Reckoners completely. It could bring disaster, could end the last bit of resistance against the Epics that mankind has left.”
“Just let me tell you the plan,” I said. “I think it will persuade you.” I had a hunch. Prof wanted to go after Steelheart. If I could make my case, he’d side with me.
Prof turned to me, meeting my eyes. “You want us to do this? Fine, I’ll give you your shot. But I don’t want you to persuade me.” He pointed to Megan, who stood beside the doorway, her arms still crossed. “Persuade her.”
13
PERSUADE her. Great, I thought. Megan’s eyes could have drilled holes through … well, anything, I guess. I mean, eyes can’t normally drill holes through things, so the metaphor works regardless, right?
Megan’s eyes could have drilled holes through butter. Persuade her? I thought. Impossible.
But I wasn’t going to give up without trying. I stepped up to the wall of glistening metal overlaid with the outline of Newcago.
“The imager can show us anything?” I asked.
“Anything the basic spynet watches or listens to,” Abraham explained, standing up from the imaging device.
“The spynet?” I said, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. I walked forward. This device was remarkable; it made me feel as if we really were standing on top of a building outside in the city, rather than in a box of a room. It wasn’t a perfect illusion—if I looked around closely I could still see the corners of the room we were standing in, and the 3-D imaging wasn’t great for things nearby.
Still, so long as I didn’t look too closely—and didn’t pay attention to the lack of wind or scents of the city—I really could imagine I was outside. They were constructing this image using the spynet? That was Steelheart’s surveillance system for the city, the means by which Enforcement kept tabs on what the people in Newcago were doing.
“I knew he was watching us,” I said, “but I hadn’t realized that the cameras were so … extensive.”
“Fortunately,” Tia said, “we’ve found some ways to influence what the network sees and hears. So don’t worry about Steelheart spying on us.”
I still felt uncomfortable, but it wasn’t worth thinking on at the moment. I stepped up to the edge of the roof, looking down at the street below. A few cars passed, and the imager relayed the sounds of their driving. I reached forward and placed my hand on the wall of the room—seemingly touching something invisible in midair. This was going to be very disorienting.
Unlike the tensors, room imagers I’d heard of—people paid good money to visit imager films. My conversation with Cody left me thinking. Had we learned how to do things like this from Epics with illusion powers?
“I—” I began.
“No,” Megan said. “If he has to convince me, then I’m driving this conversation.” She stepped up beside me.
“But—”
“Go ahead, Megan,” Prof said.
I grumbled to myself and stepped back to where I didn’t feel I was on the verge of a multistory plummet.