Reckoners 01 - Steelheart

said.
    “Wait,” Megan said. “We’ll
what?
”
    “Thanks,” Abraham said. “Meet up with me at Fourth and Nodell; see if you can take the pressure away from me.”
    Megan tried to twist around and glare at me through her helmet’s visor.
    “Keep driving!” I said urgently.
    “Slontze,” she said, then took the next turn.
Without slowing down
.
    I screamed, certain we were dead. The bike went almost parallel to the ground, skidding against the street, but the gravatonics on the side glowed brightly, keeping us from toppling. We half skidded, half drove around the corner, almost like we were tethered to it.
    We came upright, my scream dying off.
    There was an explosion from behind us and the steel street trembled. I looked over my shoulder, hair whipping in the wind. One of the black Enforcement cycles had just failed to take the corner at speed, and was now a smoking wreck pasted to the side of a steel building. Their gravatonics didn’t seem as good as ours, if they even had any.
    “How many are there?” Megan asked.
    “Three now. No, wait, there are two more.
Five
. Sparks!”
    “Great,” Megan muttered. “How exactly do you expect us to take heat off Abraham?”
    “I don’t know. Improvise!”
    “They’re setting up roadblocks on nearby streets,” Tia warned in our ears. “Jon, copter on Seventeenth.”
    “On my way.”
    “What are you doing?” I asked.
    “Trying to keep you kids alive,” Prof said.
    “Sparks,” Cody cursed. “Roadblock on Eighth. Taking an alleyway over to Marston.”
    “No,” Tia said. “They’re trying to get you to go that way. Circle back around. You can escape into the understreets on Moulton.”
    “Right,” Cody said.
    Megan and I burst out onto a large roadway, and a second later Abraham’s cycle came skidding out of a side street in front of us,almost level to the ground, the gravatonics keeping it from tipping over completely. It was impressive; the bike turned almost on its side, wheels spinning, sparks spraying out from underneath it. The gravatonic mechanisms cushioned the momentum so the wheels could grip the road and the cycle could turn, but only after an extended skid.
    I’ll bet I could drive one of these things
, I told myself.
It doesn’t look too hard
. Like slipping on a banana peel around a corner at eighty miles an hour. Piece of cake.
    I glanced over my shoulder. There were at least a dozen black cycles behind us now, though we were going too fast for them to dare shooting at us. Everyone needed to concentrate on their driving. That was probably the idea behind going so fast in the first place.
    “Armored unit!” Tia exclaimed. “Just ahead!”
    We barely had time to react as a juggernaut of an armor unit, on two legs and standing fifteen feet high, lumbered out onto the street and opened fire with both rotary guns. Bullets hit the steel building wall beside us, creating a spray of sparks. I kept my head down and my jaw clenched as Megan kicked a lever on the cycle and sent us down in a long gravatonic skid, almost parallel to the ground, to pass under the bullets.
    Wind ripped at my jacket, sparks blinded my vision. I could barely make out two enormous feet of steel on either side as we slid between the armor’s legs. Megan brought the cycle up in a wide spin as we turned a corner. Abraham got around the armor to one side, but his cycle was trailing smoke.
    “I’m hit,” Abraham said.
    “Are you all right?” Tia asked, alarmed.
    “Jacket kept me in one piece,” Abraham said with a grunt.
    “Megan,” I said softly. “He doesn’t look good.” Abraham was slowing, one hand holding his side.
    She glanced at him, then turned quickly back to the road. “Abraham,as we take the next curve, I want you to break right into the first alleyway. They’re far enough behind that they might not see. I’ll keep straight and draw them after.”
    “They’ll wonder where I went,” Abraham said. “It—”
    “Do it!” Megan said sharply.
    He didn’t object further. We took the next corner but had to slow down to keep from outpacing Abraham. I could see he was trailing blood, his cycle riddled with bullet holes. It was a wonder it was still moving.
    As we came around, Abraham turned and darted right. Megan punched her cycle and the wind rose to a howl as we raced down a dark street. I risked a glance behind me and almost lost Cody’s pack as it slipped down my shoulder. I had to release Megan for a moment with one hand and