Reckoners 01 - Steelheart

smiling.
    Reinforcement
. Steelheart’s daily message to his subjects. “Can you show it on the wall here?” I asked.
    “Sure,” Cody said, turning his mobile toward the projector and tapping a button.
    “That won’t be ne—” Prof began.
    The program had already started. It showed Steelheart this time. Sometimes he appeared personally, sometimes not. He stood atop one of the tall radio towers on his palace. A pitch-black cape spread out behind him, rippling in the wind.
    The messages were all prerecorded, but there was no way to tell when; as always there was no sun in the sky, and no trees grew in the city any longer to give an indication of the season either. I’d almost forgotten what it was like to be able to tell the time of day just by looking out the window.
    Steelheart was illuminated by red lights from below. He placed one foot on a low railing, then leaned forward and scanned his city. His dominion.
    I shivered, staring at him, presented in large scale on the wall in front of me. My father’s murderer. The tyrant. He looked so calm, so thoughtful, in this picture. Long jet-black hair that curled softly down to his shoulders. Shirt stretched across an inhumanly strong physique. Black slacks, an upgrade from the loose pants he’d worn on that day ten years ago. This shot of him seemed like it wanted to present him as the thoughtful and concerned dictator, like the early communist leaders I’d learned about back in the Factory school.
    He raised a hand, staring intently at the city beneath him, and the hand started to glow with a wicked power. Yellow-white, to contrast the violent red below. The power around his hand wasn’t electricity but raw
energy
. He built it up for a time, until it was shining so brightly the camera couldn’t distinguish anything but the light and the shadow of Steelheart in front of it.
    Then he pointed and launched a bolt of blazing yellow force into the city. The power hit a building, blasting a hole through the side, sending flames and debris exploding out the opposite windows. As the building smoldered, people fled from it. The camera zoomed in, making sure to catch sight of them. Steelheart wanted us to know he was firing on an inhabited structure.
    Another bolt followed, causing the building to lurch, the steel of one side melting and caving inward. He fired twice more into a building beside it, starting the innards there aflame as well, walls melting from the enormous power of the energy he threw.
    The camera pulled back and turned to Steelheart again, still in the same half-crouched stance. He looked down at the city, face impassive, red light from beneath limning a strong jaw and contemplative eyes. There was no explanation of why he’d destroyed those buildings, though perhaps a later message would explain the sins—real or perceived—that the inhabitants were guilty of.
    Or perhaps not. Living in Newcago brought risks; one of them was that Steelheart could decide to execute you and your family without explanation. The flip side was that for those risks, you got to live in a place with electricity, running water, jobs, and food. Those were rare commodities in much of the land now.
    I took a step forward, walking right up to the wall to study the creature that loomed there.
He wants us to be terrified
, I thought.
It’s what this is all about. He wants us to think no one can challenge him
.
    Early scholars had wondered if perhaps Epics were some new stage in human development. An evolutionary breakthrough. I didn’t accept that. This thing wasn’t human. It never had been. Steelheart turned to look toward the camera, and there was a hint of a smile on his lips.
    A chair scraped behind me and I turned. Prof had stood up and was staring at Steelheart. Yes, there was hatred there. Deep hatred. Prof looked down and met my eyes. It happened again, that moment of understanding.
    Each of us knew where the other stood.
    “You haven’t said how you’ll kill him,” Prof said to me. “You haven’t convinced Megan. All you’ve shown is that you have a fragile half of a plan.”
    “I’ve seen him bleed,” I said. “The secret is in my head somewhere,Prof. It’s the best chance you or anyone will ever have at killing him. Can you pass that up? Can you
really
walk away when you’ve got a shot?”
    Prof met my eyes. He stared into them for a long moment. Behind me Steelheart’s transmission ended, and the wall went black.
    Prof was right. My plan, clever