Reckoners 01 - Steelheart

blazing yellow sun, leaving thestadium scorched, burned, blasted, but with the scent of triumph. My father told me that Soldier Field had been named in honor of the military men and women who had fallen in battle. Now it had hosted the most important battle since Calamity. The field’s name had never seemed more appropriate to me.
    We rose above a city that was seeing real light for the first time in a decade. People were in the streets, looking upward.
    Tia piloted the copter, one hand reaching over to hold Prof’s arm, as if she were unable to believe he was really there with us. He looked out his window, and I wondered if he saw what I did. We hadn’t rescued this city. Not yet. We’d killed Steelheart, but other Epics would come.
    I didn’t accept that we just had to abandon the people now. We’d removed Newcago’s source of authority; we’d have to take responsibility for that. I wouldn’t abandon my home to chaos, not now, not even for the Reckoners.
    Fighting back had to be about more than just killing Epics. It had to be about something greater. Something, perhaps, that had to do with Prof and Megan.
    The Epics
can
be beaten. Some, maybe, can even be rescued. I don’t know how to manage it exactly. But I intend to keep trying until either we find an answer or I’m dead.
    I smiled as we turned out of the city.
The heroes will come … we might just have to help them along
.
    I always assumed that my father’s death would be the most transformative event of my life. Only now, with Steelheart’s skull in my hand, did I realize that I hadn’t been fighting for vengeance, and hadn’t been fighting for redemption. I hadn’t been fighting because of my father’s death.
    I fought because of his dreams.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
    THIS one has been a long time brewing. I had the first idea for it while on book tour in … oh, 2007? With a long ride like that involved in getting the book finished, a
lot
of people have given me feedback over the years. I hope I don’t miss any of you!
    Notably, thanks go out to my delightful editor, Krista Marino, for her extremely capable direction of this project. She’s been a wonderful resource, and her editing was top-notch, taking this book from plucky upstart to polished product. Also, we should make note of that rascal James Dashner, who was kind enough to call her up and get me an introduction.
    Others who deserve a cheer are: Michael Trudeau (who did a superb copyedit); and at Random House, Paul Samuelson, Rachel Weinick, Beverly Horowitz, Judith Haut, Dominique Cimina, and Barbara Marcus. Also, Christopher Paolini, for his feedback and help on the book.
    As always, I wish to give big thanks to my agents, Joshua Bilmes, who didn’t laugh too hard when I told him I had this book I wanted to write instead of working on the twenty other projects I needed to do at the time, and Eddie Schneider, whose jobs include dressing better than the rest of us and having a name I have to look up every time I want to put it in acknowledgments. On the
Steelheart
film front (we’re trying hard), thanks go to Joel Gotler, Brian Lipson, Navid McIlhargey, and the superhuman Donald Mustard.
    A big thumbs-up goes to the incandescent Peter Ahlstrom, my editorial assistant, who was part of this book’s cheering section from the get-go. He was, editorially, the first one who got his hands on this project—and much of its success is due to him.
    I also don’t want to forget my UK/Ireland/Australia publishing team, including John Berlyne and John Parker of the Zeno Agency,and Simon Spanton and my publicist/mother-in-the-UK, Jonathan Weir of Gollancz.
    Others with Epic-level powers in reading and giving feedback (or just great support) include: Dominique Nolan (Dragonsteel’s official Gun-Nut super-reference man), Brian McGinley, David West, Peter (again) and Karen Ahlstrom, Benjamin Rodriguez and Danielle Olsen, Alan Layton, Kaylynn ZoBell, Dan “I Wrote Postapocalyptic Before You” Wells, Kathleen Sanderson Dorsey, Brian Hill, Brian “By Now You Owe Me Royalties, Brandon” Delambre, Jason Denzel, Kalyani Poluri, Kyle Mills, Adam Hussey, Austin Hussey, Paul Christopher, Mi’chelle Walker, and Josh Walker. You’re all awesome.
    Finally, as always, I wish to thank my lovely wife, Emily, and my three destructive little boys, who are constant inspiration for how an Epic might go about blowing up a city. (Or the living room.)
    Brandon Sanderson