Reckoners 01 - Steelheart

moved, “I saw Megan.”
    “You
what
?” Tia asked.
    “I saw
Megan
. She’s alive.”
    “David,” Abraham said. “She’s dead. We all know this.”
    “I’m telling you I saw her.”
    “Firefight,” Tia said. “He’s trying to get to you.”
    As I crawled I felt a sharp sinking feeling. Of course—an illusion. But … something felt wrong about that.
    “I don’t know,” I said. “The eyes were
right
. I don’t think an illusion could be that detailed—that lifelike.”
    “Illusionists wouldn’t be worth much if they weren’t able to create realistic puppets,” Tia said. “They need to— Abraham, not left! The other way. In fact, throw a grenade down there if you can.”
    “Thanks,” he said, puffing slightly. I could hear an explosion twice—once through his microphone. A distant portion of the stadium shook. “Phase three is a failure, by the way. I got a shot off on Steelheart right after I revealed myself. It didn’t do anything.”
    Phase three was Prof’s theory—that one of the Faithful could hurt Steelheart. If Abraham’s bullets had bounced off, then it wasn’t viable. We only had two other ideas. The first was my theory of crossfire; the other was the theory that my father’s gun or bullets were in some way special.
    “How’s Prof holding up?” Abraham asked.
    “He’s holding up,” Tia said.
    “He’s
fighting
Steelheart,” Cody said. “I’ve only been able to see a little, but— Sparks! I’m going offline for a moment. They’re almost on me.”
    I crouched in the narrow tunnel, trying to sort through what was happening. I could still hear a lot of gunfire and the occasional blast.
    “Prof’s keeping Steelheart distracted,” Tia said. “We still don’t have any confirmed crossfire hits, though.”
    “We’re trying,” Abraham said. “I’ll get this next group of soldiers to follow me around the corridor, and then let Cody goad them into firing across the field at him. That might work. David, where are you? I might need to set off a distraction blast or two to flush out the soldiers behind cover on your side.”
    “I’m taking the second concessions tunnel,” I said. “I’ll be coming out on the ground floor, near the bear. I’ll head westward after that.”
The bear
meant a giant stuffed bear that had been part of some promotion during the football season, but which was now frozen in place like everything else.
    “Got it,” Abraham said.
    “David,” Tia said. “If you saw an illusion, it means you’ve got both Firefight and Nightwielder on you. On one hand that’sgood—we were wondering where Firefight ran off to. It’s bad for you, though—you’ve got two powerful Epics to deal with.”
    “I’m telling you, that wasn’t an illusion,” I said, cursing as I tried to juggle the gun and the flashlight. I searched in my cargo pocket, fishing out my industrial tape. My father had told me to always keep that industrial tape handy; I’d been surprised, as I grew older, how good that advice had been. “She was real, Tia.”
    “David, think about that for a moment. How would Megan have gotten here?”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe they … did something to revive her.…”
    “We flash-burned everything in the hideout. She’d have been cremated.”
    “There would have been DNA, maybe,” I said. “Maybe they have an Epic who can bring someone back or something like that.”
    “Durkon’s Paradox, David. You’re searching too hard.”
    I finished taping the flashlight to the side of the barrel of my rifle—not on the top, as I wanted to be able to use the sights. That left the weapon off balance and clunky, but I felt I’d still be better with it than the handgun. I stuffed that into its holster under my arm.
    Durkon’s Paradox referred to a scientist who had studied and pondered the Epics during the early days. He’d pointed out that, with Epics breaking known laws of physics, literally anything was possible—but he warned against the practice of theorizing that every little irregularity was caused by an Epic’s powers. Often that kind of thinking led to no actual answers.
    “Have you
ever
heard of an Epic who could restore another person to life?” Tia said.
    “No,” I admitted. Some could heal, but none could reanimate someone else.
    “And weren’t you the one who said we were probably facing an illusionist?”
    “Yes. But how would they know what Megan looked like? Why wouldn’t they use Cody or Abraham