Reckoners 01 - Steelheart

field.
    This put me high enough to watch what was going on around the stadium, but I also had a route to ground if I needed to try firing my father’s gun at Steelheart. The tunnel and rope farther up the deck would get me there quickly.
    I’d drop down, then try to sneak up on him, if it came to that. It would be like trying to sneak up on a lion while armed only with a squirt gun.
    I huddled in my spot, waiting. I wore my tensor on my left hand, my right hand holding the grip of the pistol. Cody had given me a replacement rifle, but for now it lay beside me.
    Overhead, fireworks flared in the air. Four posts around the top of the stadium released enormous jets of sparks. I don’t know where Abraham had found fireworks that were pure green, but the signal would undoubtedly be seen and recognized.
    This was the moment. Would he really come?
    The fireworks began to die down. “I’ve got something,” Abraham said in our ears, his light French accent subtly emphasizing the wrong syllables. He had the high-point sniping position and Cody had the low-point sniping position. Cody was the better shot, but Abraham needed to be farther away, where he could be outside the fight. His job was to remotely turn on the floodlights or blow strategic explosives. “Yes, they’re coming indeed. A convoy of Enforcement trucks. No sign of Steelheart yet.”
    I holstered my father’s gun, then reached to the side to pick up the rifle. It felt too new to me. A rifle should be a well-used, well-loved thing. Familiar. Only then can you know that it’s trustworthy. You know how it shoots, when it might jam, how accurate the sights are. Guns, like shoes, are worst when they’re brand-new.
    Still, I couldn’t rely on the pistol. I had trouble hitting anything smaller than a freight train with one of those. I’d need to get close to Steelheart if I wanted to try it. It had been decided that we’d let Abraham and Cody test out the other theories first before risking sending me in close.
    “They’re pulling up to the stadium,” Abraham said in my ear.
    “I’ve lost them.”
    “I can see them, Abraham,” Tia said. “Camera six.” Though she was outside of the city in the copter, with Edmund’s gifted abilities to power it, she was monitoring a rig of cameras we’d set up for spying and for recording the battle.
    “Got it,” Abraham said. “Yes, they’re fanning out. I thought they’d come straight in, but they’re not.”
    “Good,” Cody said. “That’ll make it easier to get a crossfire going.”
    If Steelheart even comes
, I thought. That was both my fear andmy hope. If he didn’t come, it would mean he didn’t believe that Limelight was a threat—which would make it far easier for the Reckoners to escape the city. The operation would be a bust, but not for any lack of trying. I almost wanted that to be the case.
    If Steelheart came and killed us all, the Reckoners’ blood would be on my hands for leading them on this path. Once that wouldn’t have bothered me, but now it itched at my insides. I peered toward the football field but couldn’t see anything. I glanced back behind me, toward the upper stands.
    I caught a hint of motion in the darkness—what looked like a flash of gold.
    “Guys,” I whispered. “I think I just saw someone up here.”
    “Impossible,” Tia said. “I’ve been watching all the entrances.”
    “I’m telling you, I
saw
something.”
    “Camera fourteen … fifteen … David, there’s nobody up there.”
    “Stay calm, son,” Prof said. He was hiding in the tunnel we’d made beneath the field, and would come out only when Steelheart appeared. It had been decided that we wouldn’t try blowing the explosives down there until after we’d tried all the other ways to kill Steelheart.
    Prof wore the tensors. I could tell he hoped he wouldn’t have to use them.
    We waited. Tia and Abraham gave a quiet running explanation of Enforcement’s movements. The ground troops surrounded the stadium, secured all the exits they knew about, then slowly started to infiltrate. They set up gunnery positions at several points in the stands, but they didn’t find any of us. The stadium was too large, and we were hidden too well. You could build a lot of interesting hiding places when you could tunnel through what everyone else assumed was un-tunnel-through-able.
    “Tap me into the speakers,” Prof said softly.
    “Done,” Abraham replied.
    “I am not here to fight worms!” Prof