“He’s not going to tell you where he’s been, Knees,” Megan said from her lounging position at the desk. “And get used to it. Prof sends him out on secret errands a lot.”
“But …,” I said, feeling hurt. I’d thought I’d earned my place on the team.
“Do not be saddened, David,” Abraham said, grabbing a crowbar to crack open one of the crates. “It is not a matter of trust. We must keep some things secret, even within the team, should one of us be taken captive. Steelheart has his way of getting to what one hides—nobody except Prof should know everything we are doing.”
It was a good rationale, and it was probably why I couldn’t know about other Reckoner cells either, but it was still annoying. As Abraham cracked open another crate, I reached to the pouch at my side and slipped out my tensor. With that, I vaporized the wooden lids off a few crates.
Abraham raised an eyebrow at me.
“What?” I said. “Cody told me to keep practicing.”
“You are growing quite good,” Abraham said. Then he reached into one of the crates I’d opened and fished out an apple, which was now covered in sawdust. It made something of a mess getting it out. “Quite good,” he continued. “But sometimes, the crowbar is more effective, eh? Besides, we may wish to reuse these crates.”
I sighed, but nodded. It was just … well, hard. The sense of strength I’d felt during the power station infiltration was difficult to forget. Opening the holes in the walls and creating those handholds, I’d been able to bend matter to my will. The more I used the tensor, the more excited I grew about the possibilities it offered.
“It is also important,” Abraham said, “to avoid leaving traces of what we can do. Imagine if everyone knew about these things, eh? It would be a different world, more difficult for us.”
I nodded, reluctantly putting the tensor away. “Too bad we had to leave that hole for Diamond to see.”
Abraham hesitated, just briefly. “Yes,” he said. “Too bad.”
I helped him unload the supplies, and Megan joined us, working with characteristic efficiency. She ended up doing a lot of supervising, telling us where to stow the various foodstuffs. Abraham accepted her direction without complaint, even though she was the junior member of the team.
About halfway through the unloading, Prof came out of his planning room. He walked over to us while scanning through some papers in a folder.
“Did you learn anything, Prof?” Abraham asked.
“Rumors are going our way, for once,” Prof said, tossing the folder onto Tia’s desk. “The city’s buzzing with the news of a new Epic come to challenge Steelheart. Half the city is talking about it, while the other half is bunkering down in their basements, waiting for the fighting to blow over.”
“That’s great!” I said.
“Yes.” Prof seemed troubled.
“What’s wrong, then?” I asked.
He tapped the folder. “Did Tia tell you what was on those data chips you brought back from the power plant?”
I shook my head, trying to hide my curiosity. Was he going to tell me? Perhaps it would give me a clue to what Abraham had been up to the last few days.
“It’s propaganda,” Prof said. “We think you found a hidden public manipulation wing of Steelheart’s government. The files you brought back included press releases, outlines of rumors planned to be started, and stories of things Steelheart has done. Most of those stories and rumors are false, so far as Tia can determine.”
“He wouldn’t be the first ruler to fabricate a grand history for himself,” Abraham noted, stowing some canned chicken on one of the shelves that had been carved to fill the entire wall of the back room.
“But why would Steelheart need to do that?” I asked, wiping my brow. “I mean … he’s practically immortal. It’s not like he needs to look more powerful than he is.”
“He’s arrogant,” Abraham said. “Everybody knows this. You can see it in his eyes, in how he speaks, in what he does.”
“Yes,” Prof said. “Which is why these rumors are so confusing. The stories aren’t meant to bolster him—or if they are, he has an odd way of going about it. Most of the stories are about atrocities he’s committed. People he’s murdered, buildings—even small towns—he has supposedly wiped out. But none of it has actually happened.”
“He’s spreading rumors about having slaughtered towns full of people?” Megan asked, sounding troubled.
“So far as we can tell,” Prof said. He joined in, helping unload the crates. Megan had stopped giving orders, I noticed, now that he was around. “Someone, at least, wants Steelheart to sound more terrible than he really is.”
“Maybe we found some kind of revolutionary group,” I said, eager.