Reckoners 01 - Steelheart

outside.
    I couldn’t hold my breath any longer. I ducked outside, staying low, and kicked the smoke grenade off the landing. I started down the stairwell and took a deep breath.
    Then, eyes watering, I scanned the playground. Cody knelt on top of the playground equipment, rifle out. At the base of the tower, Megan stood with her gun out, a body in black and yellow at her feet. Refractionary.
    Megan fired again into the body, just to be certain, but the woman was obviously dead.
    Another Epic eliminated.

11
    MY first move was to go back in and toss Roy’s rifle, which he had been crawling toward, out the door. Then I checked on the two other soldiers. One was dead; the other had a weak pulse—but he wasn’t going to be waking anytime soon.
    Time to move quickly. I pulled the notebooks from my mattress and stuffed them in my backpack. Six thick notebooks and one index caused the backpack to bulge. I thought for a moment, then took my extra pair of shoes out of the pack. I could buy new shoes, but I couldn’t replace these notebooks.
    The last two fit, and beside them I slid the folders about Steelheart, Nightwielder, and Firefight. After a moment I added the one about Conflux. It was the thinnest. Very little was known about the clandestine High Epic who ran Enforcement.
    Roy was still coughing, though the smoke had cleared out. He pulled off his helmet. It was surreal to see that familiar face—one I’d known for years—wearing the uniform of the enemy. We hadn’t been friends; I didn’t really have those, but I’d looked up to him.
    “You’re working with the Reckoners,” Roy said.
    I needed to try to lay down a false trail, get him to think I was working for someone else. “What?” I said, doing my best to look baffled.
    “Don’t try to hide it, David. It’s obvious. Everyone knows the Reckoners hit Fortuity.”
    I knelt down beside him, pack slung over my shoulder. “Look, Roy, don’t let them heal you, okay? I know Enforcement has Epics who can do that. Don’t let them, if you can manage it.”
    “What, why—”
    “You want to be laid out sick for this next part, Roy,” I said softly, intensely. “Power is going to change hands in Newcago. Limelight is coming for Steelheart.”
    “Limelight?” Roy said. “Who the hell is that?”
    I walked over to the rest of my folders, then reluctantly took a can of lighter fluid from my trunk and poured it on the bed.
    “You’re working for an Epic?” Roy whispered. “You really think anyone can challenge Steelheart? Sparks, David! How many rivals has he killed?”
    “This is different,” I said, then got out some matches. “Limelight is different.” I lit the match.
    I couldn’t take the remaining folders. They were source material, facts and articles for the information I’d collected in my notebooks. I wanted to take them, but there was no more room in my bag.
    I dropped the match. The bed started aflame.
    “One of your friends might still be alive,” I said to Roy, nodding to the two Enforcement officers who were down. The leaderhad been shot in the head, but the other one only in the side. “Get him out. Then stay out of things, Roy. Dangerous days are coming.”
    I slung the pack over my shoulder and hastened out the door and onto the stairwell. I met Megan on the way down the steps.
    “Your plan failed,” she said quietly.
    “Worked well enough,” I said. “An Epic is dead.”
    “Only because she left her mobile on vibrate,” Megan said, hurrying down the steps beside me. “If she hadn’t been sloppy …”
    “We were lucky,” I agreed. “But we still won.”
    Mobiles were just a part of daily life. The people might live in hovels, but they all had a mobile for entertainment.
    We met Cody at the base of the playground tower near Refractionary’s corpse. He handed back my rifle. “Lad,” he said, “that was
awesome
.”
    I blinked. I’d been expecting another berating, like Megan had given me.
    “Prof is going to be jealous he didn’t come himself,” Cody said, slinging his rifle over his shoulder. “Were you the one who called her?”
    “Yeah,” I said.
    “Awesome,” Cody said again, slapping me on the back.
    Megan didn’t look nearly as pleased. She gave Cody a sharp look, then reached for my pack.
    I resisted.
    “You need two hands for the rifle,” she said, pulling it free and slinging it over her shoulder. “Let’s move. Enforcement will …” She trailed off as she noticed Roy barely