It still felt odd that he hadn’t challenged me on my passion for vengeance. He was pretty much the first person who hadn’t served me some platitude on revenge.
“Fine,” I said. “But I think the sewage station is the wrong place to hit.”
“Where would you go?”
“The power station.”
“Too well guarded.” Prof examined his notes, and I could see that he had a schematic of the power station as well, with notations around the perimeter. He’d considered it.
I got a thrill from the idea that the two of us thought along the same lines.
“If it’s well guarded,” I said, “then blowing it up will look that much more impressive. And we could steal one of Steelheart’s power cells while we’re there. We brought back a gun from Diamond, but it’s dry. It needs a powerful energy source to run.” I raised my mobile to the wall and uploaded the video of the gauss gun firing. The video appeared on the wall, shoving aside some of Prof’s chalk writings, and played.
He watched in silence, and when it was done he nodded. “So our fake Epic will have energy powers.”
“And that’s why he’d destroy the power station,” I said. “It’s in theme.” Epics liked themes and motifs.
“It’s too bad that removing the power station wouldn’t stop Enforcement,” Prof said. “Conflux powers them directly. He powers some of the city directly too, but our intel says he does it by charging power cells that are stored here.” He pulled up his schematics of the power station. “One of those cells could power this gun—they’re extremely compact, and they each have more juice packed into them than should be physically possible. If we blow the station, and the rest of those cells, it will cause serious damage to the city.” He nodded. “I like it. Dangerous, but I like it.”
“We’ll still have to hit Conflux,” I said. “It would make sense, even for a rival Epic. First remove the power station, then take out the police force. Chaos. It will work particularly well if we can kill Conflux using that gun, giving off a big light show.”
Prof nodded. “I’ll need to do more planning,” he said, raising a hand and wiping away the video. It came off like it had been drawn in chalk. He pushed aside another pile of writing and raised his stylus to start working. He stopped, however, then looked at me.
“What?” I asked.
He walked over to his Reckoner jacket, which sat on a table, and took something out from under it. He walked back and handed it to me. A glove. One of the tensors. “You’ve been practicing?” he asked me.
“I’m not very good yet.”
“Get better. Fast. I won’t have the team underpowered, and Megan can’t seem to make the tensors work.”
I took the glove, saying nothing, though I wanted to ask the question. Why not you, Prof? Why do you refuse to use your own invention? Tia’s warning not to pry too much made me hold my tongue.
“I confronted Nightwielder,” I blurted out, only now remembering the reason I’d come to talk with Prof.
“What?”
“He was there, at Diamond’s place. I went out and pretended to be one of Diamond’s helpers. I … used a UV fingerprint scanner he had to confirm Nightwielder’s weakness.”
Prof studied me, his face betraying no emotions. “You’ve had a busy afternoon. I assume you did this at great risk to the entire team?”
“I … Yes.” Better he heard it from me, rather than Megan, who would undoubtedly report—in great detail—of how I’d deviated from the plan.
“You show promise,” Prof said. “You take risks; you get results. You have proof of what you said about Nightwielder?”
“I got a recording.”
“Impressive.”
“Megan wasn’t very happy with it.”
“Megan liked the way things were before,” Prof said. “Adding a new team member always upends the dynamic. Besides, I think she’s worried you’re showing her up. She’s still smarting from being unable to make the tensors work.”
Megan? Worried that I was showing her up? Prof must not know her very well.
“Out with you, then,” Prof said. “I want you up to speed with the tensor by the time we hit the power plant. And don’t worry too much about Megan …”
“I won’t. Thank you.”
“… worry about me.”
I froze.
Prof started writing on the board and didn’t turn back when he spoke, but his words were sharp. “You got results by risking the lives of my people. I assume nobody was hurt, otherwise you’d have mentioned it by now. You show promise, as I said. But if you brashly get one of my people killed, David Charleston, Megan will not be your problem. I won’t leave enough of you for her to bother with.”
I swallowed. My mouth had suddenly gone dry.
“I trust you with their lives,” Prof said, still writing, “and them with yours. Don’t betray that trust, son. Keep your impulses in check. Don’t just act because you can; act because it’s the right thing to do. If you keep that in mind, you’ll be all right.”
“Yes sir,” I said, leaving with a quick step out the cloth-covered doorway.
21