Reckoners 01 - Steelheart

thought, wiggling my toes, then raising both arms.
The jacket’s shielding device protected me. And … and we’re still being chased
.
    Calamity! I
was
a slontze. I rolled onto my knees and let Megan help me to my feet. I coughed a few times but felt more stable by the moment. I let go of her and was pretty steady by the time we reached the cycle, which she’d landed without crashing.
    “Wait,” I said, looking around. “Where is …”
    The gauss gun lay in several pieces where it had fallen and hit a steel rock. I felt a sinking feeling, though I knew the gun wasn’t nearly as useful to us now. We couldn’t use it to pretend to be an Epic any longer, not now that Enforcement had seen me shooting it.
    Still, it was a pity to lose such a nice weapon. Particularly after leaving my own rifle in the van. I was making a real habit of that sort of thing.
    I climbed onto the cycle behind Megan, who pulled on her helmet again. The poor machine was looking pretty ragged, scratched and dented, the windshield cracked. One of the gravatonics—a palm-size oval on the right side—didn’t light up like the others anymore. But the cycle still started, and the engine roared as Megandrove us down the ravine toward a large tunnel up ahead. It looked like it led into the sewage system, but a lot of things like that were misleading in Newcago, what with the Great Transfersion and the creation of the understreets.
    “Hey, all y’all?” Cody said softly in our ears. By some miracle I’d kept my mobile and earpiece through the fall. “Something strange is going on. Something very, very strange is going on.”
    “Cody,” Tia said. “Where are you?”
    “Limo’s down,” he said. “I shot out one of the tires and it drove itself into a wall. I had to eliminate six soldiers before I could approach.”
    Megan and I passed into the tunnel, the darkness deepening. The ground sloped downward. I was vaguely familiar with the area, and I figured this would lead us into the understreets near Gibbons Street, a relatively unpopulated area.
    “What about Conflux?” Prof asked Cody.
    “He wasn’t inside the limo.”
    “Maybe one of the Enforcement officers you shot was actually Conflux,” Tia said.
    “Nah,” Cody said. “I found him. In the trunk.”
    The line was quiet for a moment.
    “You’re sure it’s him?” Prof asked.
    “Well, no,” Cody said. “Maybe they had some
other
Epic tied up in their trunk. Either way, the dowser says this lad’s
very
powerful. But he’s unconscious.”
    “Shoot him,” Prof said.
    “No,” Megan said. “Bring him.”
    “I think she’s right, Prof,” Cody said. “If he’s tied up, he can’t be that strong. Either that, or they’ve used his weakness to make him impotent.”
    “We don’t know his weakness, though,” Prof said. “Put him out of his misery.”
    “I’m not shooting an unconscious fellow, Prof,” Cody said. “Not even an Epic.”
    “Then leave him.”
    I was torn. Epics deserved to die. All of them. But why was he unconscious—what were they doing with him? Was it even Conflux?
    “Jon,” Tia said. “We might need this. If it
is
Conflux, he could tell us things. We might even be able to use him against Steelheart, or bargain for our escape.”
    “He’s not supposed to be very dangerous,” I admitted, speaking into the line. My lip was bleeding. I’d bit it when I’d fallen, and now that I was a little more aware of things I realized my leg was aching and my side was
throbbing
. The jackets helped, but they were far from perfect.
    “Fine,” Prof said. “Bolt-hole seven, Cody. Don’t take him to the base. Leave him tied up, blindfolded, and gagged. Do
not
talk to him. We need to deal with him together.”
    “Right,” Cody said. “I’m on it.”
    “Megan and David,” Prof said, “I want you to—”
    I lost the rest as gunfire erupted around us. The cycle—battered as it was—spun out and went down.
    Right onto the side where the gravatonics were broken.

30
    WITHOUT the gravatonics, the cycle reacted like any normal motorcycle would when falling onto its side at very high speed.
    Which isn’t a good thing.
    I was immediately ripped free, the cycle skidding out from underneath me as my leg hit the ground and the friction pulled me backward. Megan wasn’t so lucky. She got pinned under the cycle, its weight grinding her against the ground. It collided with the wall of the tubular steel corridor.
    The tunnel wavered, and my leg burned