Steelheart (12 page)

“There are standard classifications?” I asked.

“Several different systems,” she said. “It looks like you’ve got a few of the terms here that cross between the systems, like High Epic—though I personally prefer the tier system. In other places, what you’ve come up with is interesting. I do like some of your terminology, like
prime invincibility
.”

“Thanks,” I said, though I felt a little embarrassed. Of course there were ways of classifying Epics. I hadn’t the education—or the resources—to learn such things, so I’d made up my own.

It was surprising how easy it had been. There were outliers, of course—bizarre Epics with powers that didn’t fit any of the classifications—but a surprising number of the others showed similarities. There were always individual quirks, like the glimmering of Refractionary’s illusions. The core abilities, however, were often very similar.

“Explain this to me,” Tia said, holding up a different notebook.

Hesitantly, I slid off my stool and joined her on the floor. She was pointing toward a notation I’d made at the bottom of the entry for a particular Epic named Strongtower.

“It’s my Steelheart mark,” I said. “Strongtower shows an ability like Steelheart has. I watch Epics like that carefully. If they get killed, or they manifest a limitation to their powers, I want to be aware of them.”

Tia nodded. “Why didn’t you lump the mental illusionists with the photon-manipulators?”

“I like to make groupings based on limitations,” I said, getting out my index and flipping to a specific page for her. Epics with illusion powers fell into two groups. Some created actual changes in the way light behaved, crafting illusions with photons themselves. Others made illusions by affecting the brains of the people around them. They really created hallucinations, not true illusions.

“See,” I said, pointing. “The mental illusionists tend to be limited in similar ways to other mentalists—like those with hypnotism powers, or mind-control effects. Illusionists that can alter light work
differently. They are far more similar to the electricity-manipulation Epics.”

Cody whistled softly. He’d gotten out a canteen and held it in one hand while still leaning back against the table. “Lad, I think we need to have a conversation about how much time you’ve got on your hands and how we can put it to better use.”

“Better use than researching how to kill Epics?” Tia asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Sure,” Cody said, taking a swig from his canteen. “Think of what he could do if I got him to organize all of the pubs in town, by brew!”

“Oh please,” Tia said drily, turning a page in my notes.

“Abraham,” Cody said. “Ask me why it’s tragic for the young David to have spent so much time on these notebooks.”

“Why is it tragic for the boy to have done such research?” Abraham said, still cleaning his gun.

“That’s a very astute question,” Cody said. “Thank you very much for asking.”

“It is my pleasure.”

“Anyway,” Cody said, raising his canteen, “why do you want so badly to kill these Epics?”

“Revenge,” I said. “Steelheart killed my father. I intend—”

“Yes, yes,” Cody said, cutting me off. “Y’all intend to see him bleed again, and all that. Very dedicated and familial of you. But I’m telling you, that ain’t enough. You’ve got passion to kill, but you need to find passion to live. At least that’s what I think.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that. Studying Steelheart, learning about Epics so that I could find a way to kill him,
was
my passion. If there was a place I fit in, wasn’t it with the Reckoners? That was their life’s work too, wasn’t it?

“Cody,” Prof said, “why don’t you go finish working on the third chamber?”

“Sure thing, Prof,” the sniper said, screwing on the lid of his canteen. He sauntered out of the room.

“Don’t listen too much to Cody, son,” Prof said, setting one of my notebooks on the stack. “He says the same things to the rest of us. He worries we’ll focus so hard on killing the Epics that we’ll forget to live our lives.”

“He might be right,” I said. “I … I really haven’t had much of a life, other than this.”

“The work we do,” Prof said, “is not about living. Our job is killing. We’ll leave the regular people to live their lives, to find joy in them, to enjoy the sunrises and the snowfalls. Our job is to get them there.”

I had memories of the world before. It had only been ten years ago, after all. It’s just that it was difficult to remember a world of sunshine when darkness was all you saw each day. Remembering that time … it was like trying to recall the specifics of my father’s face. You forget things like that, gradually.

“Jonathan,” Abraham said to Prof, slipping the barrel back onto his gun, “have you considered the things this boy said?”

“I’m not a boy,” I said.

They all looked at me. Even Megan, standing beside the doorway.

“I just wanted to note it,” I said, suddenly uncomfortable. “I mean, I’m eighteen. I’ve hit my majority. I’m not a child.”

Prof eyed me. Then, surprisingly, he nodded. “Age has nothing to do with it, but you’ve helped kill two Epics, which is good enough for me. It should be for any of us.”

“Very well,” Abraham said, voice soft. “But Prof, we have spoken of this before. By killing Epics like Fortuity, are we really achieving anything?”

“We fight back,” Megan said. “We’re the only ones who do. It’s important.”

“And yet,” Abraham said, snapping another piece onto his gun, “we are afraid to fight the most powerful. And so, the domination of the tyrants continues. So long as they do not fall, the others will not truly fear us. They will fear Steelheart, Obliteration, and Night’s
Sorrow. If we will not face creatures such as these, is there any hope that others will someday stand up to them?”

The steel-walled room went quiet, and I held my breath. The words were nearly the same I had used earlier, but coming from Abraham’s soft-spoken, lightly accented voice, they seemed to hold more weight.

Prof turned to Tia.

She held up a photograph. “This is really Nightwielder?” she asked me. “You’re sure of it?”

The picture was a prize of my possessions, a photograph of Nightwielder beside Steelheart on the Day of Annexation, just before his darkness had come upon the city. As far as I knew, it was one of a kind, sold to me by an urchin whose father had taken it with an old Polaroid camera.

Nightwielder was normally translucent, incorporeal. He could move through solid objects and control darkness itself. He appeared often in the city, but was always in his incorporeal form. In this picture he was solid, wearing a sharp black suit and hat. He had Asian features and black shoulder-length hair. I had other pictures of him in his incorporeal form. The face was the same.

“It’s obviously him,” I said.

“And the photo wasn’t doctored,” Tia said.

“I …” That I couldn’t prove. “I can’t promise it wasn’t, though its being a Polaroid makes that less likely. Tia, he has to be corporeal
some
of the time. That photo is the best clue, but I have others. People who have smelled phosphorus and spotted someone walking by who matches his description.” Phosphorus was one of the signs of him using his powers. “I’ve found a dozen sources that all match this idea. It’s
sunlight
that makes the difference—I suspect it’s the ultraviolet part of sunlight that matters. Bathed in it, he turns corporeal.”

Tia held the photo before her, contemplating it. Then she began scanning through my other notes on Nightwielder. “I think we need
to investigate it, Jon,” she said. “If there’s a chance we can actually get to Steelheart …”

“We can,” I said. “I have a plan. It will work.”

“This is stupidity,” Megan cut in. She stood by the wall with her arms crossed. “Sheer stupidity. We don’t even know his weakness.”

“We can figure it out,” I shot back. “I’m sure of it. We have the clues we need.”

“Even if we did figure it out,” Megan said, throwing a hand up into the air, “it would be practically useless. The obstacles in even
getting
to Steelheart are insurmountable!”

I locked eyes with her, fighting down my anger. I got the feeling she was arguing with me not because she actually disagreed, but because she found me offensive for some reason.

“I—” I began, but Prof interrupted me.

“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
.”

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.

“It’s simple,” Megan said. “There’s one enormous problem in facing Steelheart.”

“One?” Cody asked, leaning back against the wall. It made
him look like he was leaning against open air. “Let’s see: incredible strength, can shoot deadly blasts of energy from his hands, can transform anything nonliving around him into steel, can command the winds and fly with perfect control … oh, and he’s utterly impervious to bullets, edged weapons, fire, radiation, blunt trauma, suffocation, and explosions. That’s like … 
three
things, lass.” He held up four fingers.

Megan rolled her eyes. “All true,” she said, then turned back to me. “But none of that is even the first problem.”

“Finding him is the first problem,” Prof said softly. He’d set out a folding chair, Tia as well, and the two were sitting in the center of the imaged rooftop. “Steelheart is paranoid. He makes certain nobody knows where he is.”

“Exactly,” Megan said, raising her hands and using a thumbs-out gesture to control the imager. We zoomed through the city, the buildings a blur beneath us.

I wobbled, my stomach flip-flopping. I reached for the wall, but I wasn’t certain where it was, and stumbled to the side until I found it. Abruptly we halted, hanging in midair, looking at Steelheart’s palace.