Reckoners 01 - Steelheart

know about it,” she added, glancing at me.
    “I’m giving it,” Cody said, relaxed. “He’s going to see anyway, lass. And
don’t
quote Prof’s rules at me.”
    She closed her mouth; she looked like she’d been about to do just that.
    “The tensors?” I asked again.
    “Something Prof invented,” Cody said. “Either right before or right after he left the lab. He’s got a couple of things like that, inventions that give us our main edge against the Epics. Our jackets are one of those—they can take a lot of punishment—and the tensors are another.”
    “But what
are
they?”
    “Gloves,” Cody said. “Well, devices in the form of gloves. They create vibrations that disrupt solid objects. Works best on dense stuff, like stone and metal, some kinds of wood. Turns that kind of material to dust, but won’t do anything to a living animal or person.”
    “You’re kidding.” In all my years of research I’d never heard of any technology like that.
    “Nope,” Cody said. “They’re difficult to use, though. Abraham and Tia are the most skilled. But you’ll see—the tensors, they let us go where we’re not supposed to be. Where we’re not expected to be.”
    “That’s amazing,” I said, my mind racing. The Reckoners
did
have a reputation for being able to get where nobody thought they could. There were stories … Epics killed in their own chambers,well guarded and presumed safe. Near-magical escapes by the Reckoners.
    A device that could turn stone and metal to powder … You could get through locked doors, regardless of the security devices. You could sabotage vehicles. Maybe even knock down buildings. Suddenly, some of the most baffling mysteries surrounding the Reckoners made sense to me. How they’d gotten in to trap Daystorm, how they’d escaped the time when Calling War had nearly cornered them.
    They’d have to be clever about how they entered, so as to not leave obvious holes that gave them away. But I could see how it would work. “But why …,” I asked, dazed, “why are you telling me this?”
    “As I said, lad,” Cody explained. “You’re going to see them at work soon anyway. Might as well prepare you for it. Besides, you already know so much about us that one more thing won’t matter.”
    “Okay.” I said it lightly, then caught the somber tone of his voice. He’d left something unsaid: I already knew so much that I couldn’t be allowed to go free.
    Prof had given me my chance to leave. I’d insisted they bring me. At this point I either convinced them utterly that I wasn’t a threat and joined them, or they left me behind. Dead.
    I swallowed uncomfortably, my mouth suddenly dry.
I asked for this
, I told myself sternly. I’d known that once I joined them—if I joined them—I wouldn’t ever be leaving. I was in, and that was that.
    “So …” I tried to force myself not to dwell on the fact that this man—or any of them—might someday decide I needed to be shot in the name of the common good. “So how did he figure these gloves out? The tensors? I’ve never heard of anything
like
them.”
    “Epics,” Cody said, his voice growing amiable again. “Prof let it drop once. The technology came from studying an Epic who could do something similar. Tia says it happened in the early days—before society collapsed, some Epics were captured and held. Not all of them are so powerful they can escape captivity with ease. Differentlabs ran tests on them, trying to figure out how their powers worked. The technology for things like the tensors came from those days.”
    I hadn’t heard that, and some things started to click into place for me. We’d made great advances in technology back then, right around the arrival of Calamity. Energy weapons, advanced power sources and batteries, new mobile technology—which was why ours worked underground and at a significant range without using towers.
    Of course, we lost much of it when the Epics started to take over. And what we didn’t lose, Epics like Steelheart controlled. I tried to imagine those early Epics being tested. Was that why so many were evil? They resented this testing?
    “Did any of them go to the testing willingly?” I asked. “How many labs were doing this?”
    “I don’t know,” Cody said. “I reckon it’s not very important.”
    “Why wouldn’t it be?”
    Cody shrugged, rifle still over his shoulder, the light of his mobile illuminating the tomblike metal corridor. The catacombs smelled of