Steelheart

38

I coughed, rolling over. I was on the ground, my ears ringing. Bits of trash burned nearby. I blinked away the afterimages in my eyes, shaking my head.

“What was that?” I croaked.

“David?” Abraham said in my ear.

“An explosion,” I said, groaning and pulling myself up to my feet. I looked around the hallway. Megan. Where was she? I couldn’t see her anywhere.

She’d been real. I had felt her. That meant it wasn’t an illusion, right? Was I losing my mind?

“Calamity!” Abraham said. “I thought you were down the other end of the concourse. You said you’d go westward!”

“I ran to get away from Nightwielder,” I said. “I ran the wrong way. I’m a slontze, Abraham. Sorry.”

My rifle. I saw the stock sticking out of a nearby pile of trash. I pulled it out. The rest of the gun wasn’t attached. Sparks! I thought. I’m having a devil of a time holding on to these lately.

I found the rest of the gun nearby. It might still work, but without a stock I’d be firing from the hip. The flashlight was still strapped to it, however, and still shining, so I snatched the whole thing up.

“What’s your condition?” Tia asked, voice tense.

“A little stunned,” I said, “but all right. It wasn’t close enough to hit me with anything more than the concussion.”

“Those will be amplified in these hallways,” Abraham said. “Calamity, Tia. We’re losing control of this situation.”

“Damn you all,” Prof’s voice said, sounding feral. “I want David out here now. Bring me that gun!”

“I’m coming to help you, lad,” Cody said. “Stay put.”

A sudden thought struck me. If Steelheart and his people really were listening in on our private line, I could use that.

The idea warred with my desire to hunt for Megan. What if she was hurt? She had to be around here somewhere, and there seemed to be a lot more rubble in the hallway now. I needed to see if …

No. I couldn’t afford to be tricked. Maybe that had been Firefight, wearing Megan’s face to distract me.

“Okay,” I said to Cody. “You know the restrooms near the fourth bomb position? I’m going to hide in there until you arrive.”

“Got it,” Cody said.

I dashed away, hoping that Nightwielder, wherever he was, had been disoriented by the blast. I neared the restrooms I’d mentioned to Cody, but I didn’t go into them as I’d said. Instead I found a spot nearby and used my tensor to blast a hole into the ground. This was a place where I’d be relatively well hidden but would also have a good view of the rest of the corridor-restrooms included.

I dug the hole deep, then burrowed down in it as Prof had taught me, using the dust to cover up. Soon I was like a soldier in a foxhole, carefully hidden. I turned my mobile to silent and buried my half rifle just under the surface of the dust, so the light from the flashlight was concealed.

Then I watched the door to that restroom. The corridor fell silent. Lit only by burning scraps.

“Is anyone there?” a voice called into the hallway. “I … I’m hurt.”

I tensed. That was Megan.

It’s a trick. It has to be.

I scanned the dim room. There, on the other side of the hallway, I saw an arm wedged in a mountain of rubble from the blast. Chunks of steel, some fallen girders from above. The arm twitched, and blood ran down the wrist. As I looked closer, I could see her face and torso in the shadows. She looked like she was only now beginning to stir, as if she’d been briefly knocked unconscious by the blast.

She was pinned. She was hurt. I had to move, to go help her! I stirred but then forced myself down.

“Please,” she said. “Please, someone. Help me.”

I didn’t move.

“Oh Calamity. Is that my blood?” She struggled. “I can’t move my legs.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. How were they doing this? I didn’t know what to trust.

Firefight is doing it somehow, I told myself. She’s not real.

I opened my eyes. Nightwielder was emerging from the floor in front of the bathroom. He looked confused, as if he’d been inside looking for me. He shook his head and walked through the corridor, searching about him.

Was that really him, or was it an illusion? Was any of this real? The stadium shook with another blast, but the gunfire outside was dying down. I needed to do something, quickly, or Cody would stumble into Nightwielder.

Nightwielder stopped in the center of the hallway and crossed his arms. His normal calm had been shattered and he looked annoyed. Finally he spoke. “You’re in here somewhere, aren’t you?”

Dared I take the shot? What if he was the illusion? I could get myself killed by the real Nightwielder if I exposed myself. I turned carefully, examining the walls and floor. I saw nothing other than some darkness creeping from the shadows nearby, tendrils moving like hesitant animals seeking food. Testing the air.

If Firefight was really pretending to be Megan, then shooting her would stop the illusions. I’d be left only with the real Nightwielder, wherever he was. But there was a good chance that the fallen Megan was a full illusion. Sparks, the girders could be an illusion. Would a distant blast have really knocked those down?

What if that was Firefight, though, wearing Megan’s face so that if I touched her I’d feel something real? I raised my father’s gun and sighted on her bloodied face. I hesitated, heart pounding in my ears. Surely Nightwielder could hear that pounding. It was all that I could hear. What would I do to get to Steelheart? Shoot Megan?

She’s not real. She can’t be real.

But what if she is?

Heartbeats, like thunder.

My breath, held.

Sweat on my brow.

I made my decision and leaped from the foxhole, bringing up the rifle in my left hand-light shining forward-and the handgun in my right. I let loose with both.

On Nightwielder, not Megan.

He spun toward me as the light hit him, eyes wide, and the bullets ripped through him. He opened his mouth in horror and blood sprayed out his back. His solid back. He dropped, turning translucent again the moment he got out of the direct line of my flashlight. He hit the ground and began to sink into it.

He only sank halfway. He froze there, mouth open, chest bleeding. He solidified slowly-it was almost like the view from a camera coming into focus-half sunken in the steel floor.

I heard a click and turned. Megan stood there, a gun in her hand. A handgun, a P226 just like she preferred to carry. The other version of her, the one trapped by rubble, vanished in a heartbeat. So did the girders.

“I never did like him,” Megan said indifferently, glancing toward Nightwielder’s corpse. “You just did me a favor. Plausible deniability and all of that.”

I looked into her eyes. I knew those eyes. I did. I didn’t understand how it was happening, but it was her.

Never did like him …

“Calamity,” I whispered. “You’re Firefight, aren’t you? You always were.”

She said nothing, though her eyes flickered down toward my weapons-the rifle still held at my hip, the handgun in my other hand. Her eye twitched.

“Firefight wasn’t male,” I said. “He … she was a woman.” I felt my eyes go wide. “That day in the elevator shaft, when the guards almost caught us … they didn’t see anything in the shaft. You made an illusion.”

She was still staring at my guns.

“And then, when we were on the cycles,” I said. “You created an illusion of Abraham riding with us to distract the people following, to keep them from seeing the real him flee to safety. That’s what I saw behind us after he split off.”

Why was she looking at my guns?

“But the dowser,” I said. “It tested you, and it said you weren’t an Epic. No … wait. Illusions. You could just make it display anything you wanted. Steelheart must have known the Reckoners were coming to town. He sent you to infiltrate. You were the newest of the Reckoners, before me. You never wanted to attack Steelheart. You said you believed in his rule.”

She licked her lips, then whispered something. She didn’t seem to have been listening to anything I said. “Sparks,” she murmured. “I can’t believe that actually worked.…”

What?

“You checkmated him …,” she whispered. “That was amazing.…”

Checkmated him? Nightwielder? Was that what she talking about? She looked up at me, and I remembered. She was repeating one of our first conversations, following her shooting Fortuity. She’d held a rifle at her hip and a handgun out forward. Just like I had done to gun down Nightwielder. The sight seemed to have triggered something in her.

“David,” she said. “That’s your name. And I think you’re very aggravating.” She seemed to only just be recalling who I was. What had happened to her memory?

“Thank you?” I said.

A blast rocked the stadium and she looked over her shoulder. She still had the gun pointed at me.

“Whose side are you on, Megan?” I asked.

“My own,” she said immediately, but then she held her other hand to her head, seeming uncertain.

“Someone betrayed us to Steelheart,” I said. “Someone warned him we were going to hit Conflux, and someone told him we were hacking the city cameras. Today someone’s been listening in on us, reporting to him what we’ve been doing. It was you.”

She looked back at me, and didn’t deny it.

“But you also used your illusions to save Abraham,” I said. “And you killed Fortuity. I can buy that Steelheart wanted us to trust you, so he let you kill off one of his lesser Epics. Fortuity was out of favor anyway. But why would you betray us, then help Abraham escape?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I …”

“Are you going to shoot me?” I asked, looking down the barrel of her gun.

She hesitated. “Idiot. You really don’t know how to talk to women, do you, Knees?” She cocked her head as if surprised the words had come out.

She lowered the gun, then turned and ran off.

I’ve got to follow her, I thought, taking a step forward. Another explosion sounded outside.

No. I ripped my eyes away from her fleeing form. I’ve got to get outside and help.

I dashed past Nightwielder’s corpse-still half submerged in steel, frozen, blood seeping down his chest-and headed for the nearest exit out onto the playing field.

Or in this case, the battlefield.