“So …”
Prof tapped the wall, rotating the text from the floor up in front of him. He tapped a section and some of the text started glowing green.
“Green?” I said, amused. “What was that about liking things old-fashioned?”
“You can use colored chalk on a chalkboard,” he said gruffly as he circled a pair of words: sewage system.
“Sewage system?” I said. I’d been expecting something a little more grand, and a little less … crappy.
Prof nodded. “The Reckoners never attack facilities; we focus only on Epics. If we hit one of the city’s main points of infrastructure, it will make Steelheart believe it’s not the Reckoners working against him, but some other force. Someone specifically trying to take down Steelheart’s rule—either rebels in the city, or another Epic moving on his territory.
“Newcago works on two principles: fear and stability. The city has the basic infrastructure that many others don’t, and that draws people here. The fear of Steelheart keeps them in line.” He rolled the words on the walls again, bringing over a network of drawings he’d done in “chalk” on the far wall. It looked like a crude blueprint. “If we start attacking his infrastructure he’ll move on us faster than if we’d attacked his Epics. Steelheart is smart. He knows why people come to Newcago. If he loses the basic things—sewage, power, communications—he’ll lose the city.”
I nodded slowly. “I wonder why.”
“Why? I just explained.…” Prof trailed off, looking at me. He frowned. “That’s not what you mean.”
“I wonder why he cares. Why does he go to so much trouble to create a city where people want to live? Why does he care if they have food, or water, or electricity? He kills them so callously, yet he also sees that they’re provided for.”
Prof fell silent. Eventually he shook his head. “What is it to be a king if you have nobody to follow you?”
I thought back to that day, the day when my father died. These people are mine.… As I considered it I realized something about the Epics. Something that, despite all my years of study, I’d never quite understood before.
“It isn’t enough,” Prof whispered. “It isn’t enough to have godly powers, to be functionally immortal, to be able to bend the elements to your will and soar through the skies. It isn’t enough unless you can use it to make others follow you. In a way, the Epics would be nothing without the regular people. They need someone to dominate; they need some way to show off their powers.”
“I hate him,” I hissed, though I hadn’t meant to say it out loud. I hadn’t even realized I’d been thinking it.
Prof looked at me.
“What?” I asked. “Are you going to tell me that my anger doesn’t do any good?” People had tried to tell me that in the past, Martha foremost among them. She claimed the thirst for vengeance would eat me alive.
“Your emotions are your own business, son,” Prof said, turning away. “I don’t care why you fight, so long as you do fight. Maybe your anger will burn you away, but better to burn yourself away than to shrivel up beneath Steelheart’s thumb.” He paused. “Besides, telling you to stop would be a little like a hearth telling the oven to cool down.”
I nodded. He understood. He felt it too.
“Regardless, the plan is now realigned,” Prof said. “We’ll strike at the wastewater treatment plant, as it’s the least well guarded. The trick will be making sure Steelheart connects the attack to a rival Epic, rather than just rebels.”
“Would it be so bad if people thought there was a rebellion?”
“It wouldn’t draw Steelheart out, for one,” Prof said. “And if he thought the people were rebelling, he’d make them pay. I won’t have innocents dying in retaliation for things we’ve done.”
“But, I mean, isn’t that the point? To show the others that we can fight back? Actually, as I think about it, maybe we could set up here in Newcago for good. If we win, maybe we could lead the place once—”
“Stop.”
I frowned.
“We kill Epics, son,” Prof said, his voice suddenly quiet, intense. “And we’re good at it. But don’t get it into your mind that we’re revolutionaries, that we’re going to tear down what’s out there and put ourselves in its place. The moment we start to think like that, we derail.
“We want to make others fight back. We want to inspire them. But we dare not take that power for ourselves. That’s the end of it. We’re killers. We’ll rip Steelheart from his place and find a way to pull his heart from his chest. After that, let someone else decide what to do with the city. I want no part of it.”
The ferocity of those words, soft though they were, quieted me. I didn’t know how to respond. Maybe Prof did have a point, though. This was about killing Steelheart. We had to stay focused.