Steelheart

24

Megan hadn’t gone far. I found her at the bottom of the tunnel, sitting on a pile of old crates just outside the hideout. I walked up, hesitantly, and she shot me a suspicious glance. Her expression softened after a moment, and she turned back to studying the darkness in front of her. She had her mobile turned all the way up to give light.

I climbed up on the crates beside her and sat, but didn’t speak. I wanted to have the perfect thing to say, and-as usual-I couldn’t figure out what that would be. Trouble was, I basically agreed with Prof, even though it made me feel guilty that I did. I didn’t have the schooling to predict what would happen to Newcago if its leader were killed. But I did know Steelheart was evil. No court would convict him, but I had a right to seek justice for the things he had done to me and mine.

So I just sat there, trying to formulate something to say that wouldn’t offend her but that also wouldn’t sound lame. It’s harder than it seems-which is probably why I just say what comes to me most of the time. When I stop to think, I can never come up with anything.

“He really is a monster,” Megan eventually said. “I know that he is. I hate sounding like I’m defending him. I just don’t know if killing him is going to be good for the very people we’re trying to protect.”

I nodded. I got it, I really did. We fell silent again. As we sat I could hear distant sounds in the corridors, distorted by the bizarre composition and acoustics of the steel catacombs. Sometimes you could hear water rushing, as the city sewage pipes ran nearby. Other times I swore I could hear rats, though it baffled me what they could be living on down here. Other times the land seemed to be groaning softly.

“What are they, Megan?” I asked. “Have you ever wondered that?”

“You mean the Epics?” she asked. “Lots of people have theories.”

“I know. But what do you think?”

She didn’t reply immediately. Lots of people did have theories, and most would be happy to tell you about them. The Epics were the next stage in human evolution, or they were a punishment sent by this god or that, or they were really aliens. Or they were the result of a secret government project. Or it was all fake and they were using technology to pretend they had powers.

Most of the theories fell apart when confronted by facts. Normal people had gained powers and become Epics; they weren’t aliens or anything like that. There were enough direct stories of a family member manifesting abilities. Scientists claimed to be baffled by the genetics of Epics, but I didn’t know much about that kind of thing. Besides, most of the scientists were either gone now or worked for one of the more powerful Epics.

Anyway, a lot of the rumors were silly, but that had never stopped them from spreading, and probably never would.

“I think they’re a test of some kind,” Megan said.

I frowned. “You mean, like religiously?”

“No, not a test of faith or anything like that,” Megan said. “I mean a test of what we’ll do, if we have power. Enormous power. What would it do to us? How would we deal with it?”

I sniffed. “If the Epics are an example of what we’d do with power, then it’s better if we never get any.”

She fell silent. A few moments later I heard another odd sound. Whistling.

I turned and was surprised to see Cody walking down the corridor. He was alone, and on foot, which meant he’d left the industrial scooter-which had pulled the crates of supplies-in the hangar. He had his gun over his shoulder and wore his baseball cap embroidered with the supposed coat of arms of his Scottish clan. He tipped the cap to us.

“So … we having a party?” he asked. He checked his mobile. “Is it time for tea?”

“Tea?” I asked. “I’ve never seen you drink tea.”

“I usually have some fish sticks and a bag of potato chips,” Cody said. “It’s a British thing. Y’all are Yanks and wouldn’t understand.”

Something seemed off about that statement, but I didn’t know enough to call him on it.

“So why the dour expressions?” Cody asked, hopping up beside us on the crates. “You two look like a pair of coon hunters on a rainy day.”

Wow, I thought. Why can’t I come up with metaphors like that?

“Prof and I got into an argument,” Megan said with a sigh.

“Again? I thought you two were past that. What was it about this time?”

“Nothing I want to talk about.”

“Fair enough, fair enough.” Cody got out his long hunter’s knife and began trimming his fingernails. “Nightwielder’s been out in the city. People are reporting him all over, passing through walls, looking in on dens of miscreants and lesser Epics. It has everyone on edge.”

“That’s good,” I said. “It means Steelheart is taking the threat seriously.”

“Maybe,” Cody said. “Maybe. He ain’t said anything about the challenge we left him yet, and Nightwielder is checking in on a lot of regular folks. Steelheart might suspect that someone’s trying to blow smoke up his kilt.”

“Maybe we should hit Nightwielder,” I said. “We know his weakness now.”

“Might be a good idea,” Cody said, fishing a long, slender device out of his hip pack. He tossed it to me.

“What’s this?”

“UV flashlight,” he said. “I managed to find a place that sold them-or, well, bulbs anyway, which I put in the flashlights and fixed us up a few. Best to be ready in case Nightwielder surprises us.”

“Do you think he’ll come here?” I asked.

“He’ll start in on the steel catacombs eventually,” Cody said. “Maybe he’s started already. Having a defensible base means nothing if Nightwielder just decides to phase through the walls and strangle us in our sleep.”

Cheery thoughts. I shivered.

“At least we can fight him now,” Cody said, fishing out another flashlight for Megan. “But I think we’re poorly prepared. We still don’t know what Steelheart’s weakness is. What if he does challenge Limelight?”

“Tia will find the answer,” I said. “She has a lot of leads in discovering what was in that bank vault.”

“And Firefight?” Cody said. “We haven’t even started planning how to deal with him.”

Firefight, the other of Steelheart’s High Epic bodyguards. Megan looked at me, obviously curious as to what I’d say next.

“Firefight won’t be a problem,” I said.

“So you said before, when you pitched this whole thing to us. But you ain’t said why yet.”

“I’ve talked it over with Tia,” I said. “Firefight’s not what you think he is.” I was reasonably confident about that. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

Cody raised an eyebrow but followed as I crawled back up the tunnel. Prof already knew what my notes said, though I wasn’t certain he believed. I knew he was planning a meeting to talk about Firefight and Nightwielder, but I also knew that he was waiting on Tia before moving too far ahead in the plan. If she didn’t come up with the answer to how to kill Steelheart, nothing else would matter.

I didn’t want to think about that. Giving up now because we didn’t know his weakness … it would be like finding out that you’d drawn lots for dessert at the Factory and been only one number off. Only it didn’t matter, because Pete already snuck in to steal the dessert, so nobody was going to get any anyway-not even Pete, because it turns out that there had never been any dessert in the first place. Well, something like that. That metaphor’s a work in progress.

At the top of the tunnel I led Cody to the box where we kept my notes. I flipped through them for a few minutes, noting that Megan had followed us up. She had an unreadable expression on her face.

I grabbed the folder on Firefight and brought it over to the desk, spreading out some pictures. “What do you know about Firefight?”

“Fire Epic,” Cody said, pointing at a photo. It showed a person made of flames, the heat so intense the air around him warped. No photo could capture the details of Firefight’s features, as they were composed of solid flames. In fact, each photo I pulled out showed him glowing so brightly that it distorted the picture.

“He’s got standard fire Epic powers,” Megan said. “He can turn to flame-in fact, he pretty much always remains in fire form. He can fly, throw fire from his hands, and manipulate existing flames. He creates an intense heat field around him, capable of melting bullets-though they likely couldn’t hurt him even if they didn’t melt. It’s a basic fire Epic portfolio.”

“Too basic,” I said. “Every Epic has quirks. Nobody has exactly the same portfolio of powers. That was what first tipped me off. Here’s the other clue.” I tapped the series of photographs-each was a shot of Firefight taken on a different day, usually with Steelheart and his retinue. Though Nightwielder often went out on missions, Firefight usually remained near Steelheart to act as first-line bodyguard.

“Do you see it?” I asked.

“See what?” Cody asked.

“Here,” I said, pointing to a man standing with Steelheart’s guards in one of the pictures. He was slender and clean-shaven and wore a stiff suit, a pair of dark shades, and a wide-brimmed hat that obscured his face.

I pointed to the next photo. The same person was there. And the next photo. And the next. His face was hard to make out in the other pictures too-none of them were focused on him specifically, and the hat and shades always masked his features.

“This person is always there when Firefight appears,” I said. “It’s suspicious. Who is it, and what is he doing there?”

Megan frowned. “What are you implying?”

“Here,” I said, “take a look at these.” I got out a sequence of five photos, a rapid-fire series of shots capturing a few moments. The scene was Steelheart flying through the city with a procession of his minions. He did that sometimes. Though he always looked like he was going somewhere important, I suspected these were really just his version of a parade.

Nightwielder and Firefight were with him, flying about ten feet above the ground. A cavalcade of cars drove beneath, like a military convoy. I couldn’t make out any faces, though I suspected the suspicious person was among them.

Five pictures. Four of them showed the trio of Epics flying side by side. And in one of them-right in the middle of the sequence-Firefight’s shape had fuzzed and gone translucent.

“Firefight can go incorporeal, like Nightwielder?” Cody guessed.

“No,” I said. “Firefight’s not real.”

Cody blinked. “What?”

“He’s not real. At least, not in the way we think. Firefight is an incredibly intricate-and incredibly clever-illusion. I suspect that the person we’re seeing in those photos, the one wearing the suit and hat, is the true Epic. He’s an illusionist, capable of manipulating light to create images, a lot like Refractionary-only on a much more powerful level. Together the real Firefight and Steelheart concocted the idea of a fake Epic much the same way we’re concocting Limelight. In these photos we’re catching a moment of distraction, when the real Epic wasn’t concentrating on his illusion and it wobbled and nearly vanished.”

“A fake Epic?” Megan said, dismissive. “What would be the point? Steelheart wouldn’t need to do that.”

“Steelheart has a strange psychology,” I said. “Trust me. I’ll bet I know him better than anyone other than his closest allies. He’s arrogant, like Abraham said, but he’s also paranoid. Much of what he does is about holding on to power, about forcing people into line. He moves the location of his sleeping quarters. Why would he need to do that? He’s immune to harm, right? He’s paranoid, scared that someone will discover his weakness. He destroyed the entire bank because we might have had a hint at how he was hurt.”

“Lots of Epics would do that,” Cody noted.

“That’s because most Epics are equally paranoid. Look, what better way to surprise would-be assassins than to make them prepare for an Epic that isn’t there? If they spend all their time planning how to kill Firefight, then go up against an illusionist instead, they’ll be caught totally off guard.”

“So will we, if you’re right,” Cody said. “Fighting illusionists is tough. I hate not being able to trust my eyes.”

“Look, an illusionist Epic can’t explain everything,” Megan said. “There are recorded events of Firefight melting bullets.”

“Firefight made the bullets vanish when they reached the illusion, then made illusory melted bullets drop to the ground. Later some of Steelheart’s minions went and spread some actual melted bullets down as proof.” I took out another pair of pictures. “I’ve got evidence of them doing just that. I have mountains of documentation on this, Megan. You’re welcome to read through it. Tia agrees with me.”

I picked up a few more pictures from the stack. “Take this. Here, we’ve got photos of a time that Firefight ‘burned’ down a building. I took these pictures myself; see how he’s throwing fire? If you look at the scorch marks on the walls the following day in this next set, they’re different from the blasts Firefight created. The real scorch marks were added by a team of workers in the night. They cleared everyone from the scene, so I couldn’t get pictures of them, but the next day’s evidence is clear.”

Megan looked deeply troubled.

“What?” Cody said.

“It’s what you said,” she replied. “Illusionists. They’re annoying. I’m just hoping we don’t have to face one.”

“I don’t think we’ll have to,” I said. “I’ve thought it through and, despite Firefight’s reputation, he doesn’t seem terribly dangerous. I can’t squarely attribute any deaths to him, and he rarely fights. It has to be because he wants to be careful not to reveal what he really is. I’ve got the facts in these folders. As soon as Firefight appears, all we have to do is shoot the one creating the illusion-this man in the photos-and all of his illusions will go down. It shouldn’t be too hard.”

“Y’all might be right about the illusions,” Cody said, looking through another group of photos. “But I’m not sure about this person you think is making them. If Firefight were smart, he’d create the illusion, then turn himself invisible.”

“It’s possible he can’t,” I said. “Not all illusionists are capable of that, even powerful ones.” I hesitated. “But you’re right. We can’t know for certain who’s making the fake Firefight, but I still think Firefight won’t be a problem. All we need to do is spook him-set up a trap that will expose his illusion as fake. When he’s threatened with being revealed, I’ll bet he bolts. From what I’ve been able to determine about him, he seems like something of a coward.”

Cody nodded thoughtfully.

Megan shook her head. “I think you’re taking this too lightly.” She sounded angry. “If Steelheart really has been fooling everyone all this time, then it’s likely that Firefight is even more dangerous than we thought. Something about this bothers me; I don’t think we’re prepared for it.”

“You’re looking for a reason to call off this mission anyway,” I said, annoyed at her.

“I never said that.”

“You didn’t need to. It-”

I was interrupted by motion at the tunnel into the hideout and I turned in time to see Tia climbing through, wearing old jeans and her Reckoner jacket. Her knees were dusty. She stood up, smiling.

“We’ve found it.”

My heart leaped in my chest and sent what felt like electricity jolting through my body. “Steelheart’s weakness? You found out what it is?”

“No,” she said, her eyes seeming to glow with excitement. “But this should lead to the answers. I found it.”

“What, Tia?” Cody asked.

“The bank vault.”