“It needed to be done,” I said, grunting as I pulled myself up past another floor.
Prof was silent for a few moments. “That it did. Look, we can’t have you extract down this same route. It will take too long, so you’ll have to go out another way. Tia will let you know where. Wait for the first explosion.”
“Affirmative,” I said.
“And, David,” Prof added.
“Yeah?”
“Good work.”
I smiled, pulling myself up again.
We continued at it, climbing up the elevator shaft. I worried that the elevator would come down at some point, though if it did it should miss us by a few inches. We were on the side of the shaft where there should have been a ladder. They just hadn’t installed one.
Perhaps Steelheart has watched the same movies that we have, I thought with a grimace as we finally passed the second floor. One more to go.
My mobile clicked in my ear. I glanced at it on my wrist—someone had muted our channel.
“I don’t like what you’ve done to the team,” Megan called up, her voice muffled.
I glanced over my shoulder at her. She wore the backpack with our equipment in it, and her nose and mouth were covered with the scarf. Those eyes of hers glared at me, softly lit by the glow of the mobile strapped to her forearm. Beautiful eyes, peeking out above the shroud of a scarf.
With a huge, black pit stretching behind her. Whoa. I lurched woozily.
“Slontze,” she called. “Stay focused.”
“You’re the one who said something!” I whispered, turning back around. “What do you mean you don’t like what I did to the team?”
“Before you showed up we were going to move out of Newcago,” Megan said from below. “Hit Fortuity, then leave. You made us stay.”
I continued climbing. “But—”
“Oh, just shut up and let me talk for once.”
I shut up.
“I joined the Reckoners to kill Epics who deserved it,” Megan continued. “Newcago is one of the safest, most stable places in the entire Fractured States. I don’t think we should be killing Steelheart, and I don’t like how you’ve hijacked the team to fight your own personal war against him. He’s brutal, yes, but he’s doing a better job than most Epics. He doesn’t deserve to die.”
The words stunned me. She didn’t think we should kill Steelheart? He didn’t deserve to die? It was insanity. I resisted the urge to look down again. “Can I talk now?” I asked, making another pair of handholds.
“Okay, fine.”
“Are you crazy? Steelheart is a monster.”
“Yes. I’ll admit that. But he’s an effective monster. Look, what are we doing today?”
“Destroying a power plant.”
“And how many cities out there still have power plants?” she asked. “Do you even know?”
I kept climbing.
“I grew up in Portland,” she said. “Do you know what happened there?”
I did, though I didn’t say. It hadn’t been good.
“The turf wars between Epics left the city in ruins,” Megan continued, her voice softer now. “There is nothing left, David. Nothing. All of Oregon is a wasteland; even the trees are gone. There aren’t any power plants, sewage treatment plants, or grocery stores. That was what Newcago would have become, if Steelheart hadn’t stepped in.”
I continued climbing, sweat tickling the back of my neck. I thought about the change in Megan—she’d grown cold toward me right after I’d first talked about taking down Steelheart. The times when she’d treated me the worst had been when we’d been making breakthroughs. When we’d gone to fetch my plans and when I’d found out how to kill Nightwielder.
It hadn’t been my “improvising” that had set her against me. It had been my intentions. My successes in getting the team to target Steelheart.
“I don’t want to be the cause of something like Portland happening again,” Megan continued. “Yes, Steelheart is terrible. But he’s a kind of terrible that people can live with.”
“So why haven’t you quit?” I asked. “Why are you here?”
“Because I’m a Reckoner,” she said. “And it’s not my job to contradict Prof. I’ll do my job, Knees. I’ll do it well. But this time, I think we’re making a mistake.”
She was using that nickname of hers for me again. It actually seemed like a good sign, as she only seemed to use it when she was less annoyed at me. It was kind of affectionate, wasn’t it? I just wished the nickname hadn’t been a reference to something so embarrassing. Why not … Super-Great-Shot? That kind of rolled off the tongue, didn’t it?
We climbed the rest of the way in silence. Megan turned our audio feed to the rest of the team back on, which seemed an indication that she thought the conversation was over. Maybe it was—I certainly didn’t know what else to say. How could she possibly think that living under Steelheart was a good thing?