Reckoners 01 - Steelheart

studying.”
    “You read the encyclopedia.
A few times
.”
    “Looking for things that could be Epic weaknesses,” I said. “I needed to know different types of metal, chemical compounds, elements, and symbols. Practically anything could be a weakness. I hoped something would spark in my head. Something about him.”
    “So it’s all about him.”
    “Everything in my life is about him, Megan,” I said, looking at her. “Everything.”
    We fell silent, though Diamond continued blabbing on. Abraham had turned to look at me. He seemed thoughtful.
    Great
, I realized.
He heard. Just great
.
    “That will be enough, please, Diamond,” Abraham said. “That weapon really won’t work.”
    The weapons merchant sighed. “Very well. But perhaps you can give me a clue as to what
might
work.”
    “Something distinctive,” Abraham said. “Something nobody has seen before, but also something destructive.”
    “Well, I don’t have much that
isn’t
destructive,” Diamond said. “But distinctive … Let me see.…”
    Abraham waved for us to keep searching. As Megan moved off, however, he took me by the arm. He had quite a strong grip. “Steelheart takes the smart ones,” Abraham said softly, “because he fears them. He knows, David. All of these guns, they do not frighten him. They won’t be what overthrows him. It will be the person clever enough,
smart
enough, to figure out the chink in his armor. He knows he can’t kill them all, so he employs them. When he dies it will be because of someone like you. Remember that.”
    He released my arm and walked after Diamond.
    I watched him go, then walked over to another group of weapons. His words didn’t really change anything, but oddly, I did feel myself standing a little taller as I looked at a line of guns and was able to identify each of the manufacturers.
    I’m totally not a nerd though. I still know the truth at least.
    I looked over the guns for a few minutes, proud of how many I could identify. Unfortunately none of them seemed distinctive enough. Actually, the fact that I could identify them guaranteed that they weren’t distinctive enough. We needed something nobody had seen before.
    Maybe he won’t have anything
, I thought.
If he has a rotating stock, then we may have picked the wrong time to visit. Sometimes a grab bag doesn’t give anything worthwhile. It—
    I stopped as I noticed something different. Motorcycles.
    There were three of them in a row near the far side of the hallway. I hadn’t seen them at first, as I’d been focused on the guns. They were sleek, their bodies a deep green with black patterns running up their sides. They made me want to hunch over and crouch down to make myself have less wind resistance. I could imagine shooting through the streets on one of these. They looked so dangerous, like alligators. Really fast alligators wearing black. Ninja alligators.
    I decided not to use that one on Megan.
    They didn’t have any weapons on them that I could see, though there were some odd devices on the sides. Maybe energy weapons? They didn’t seem to fit with much of what Diamond had here, but then again, what he had was pretty eclectic.
    Megan walked past me and I raised a finger to point at the motorcycles.
    “No,” she said, not even looking.
    “But—”
    “No.”
    “But they’re awesome!” I said, holding up my hands, as if that should have been enough of an argument. And, sparks, it should have been. They were
awesome
!
    “You could barely drive some lady’s sedan, Knees,” Megan said. “I don’t want to see you on the back of something with gravatonics.”
    “Gravatonics!” That was even
more
awesome.
    “No,” Megan said firmly.
    I looked toward Abraham, who was inspecting something nearby. He glanced at me, then over at the bikes, and smiled. “No.”
    I sighed. Wasn’t shopping for weapons supposed to be more fun than this?
    “Diamond,” Abraham called to the dealer. “What is this?”
    The weapons merchant began waddling over. “Oh, it’s wonderful. Great explosions. It …” His face fell as he neared and saw what Abraham was actually looking at. “Oh. That. Um, it is
quite
wonderful, though I don’t know if it would suit your needs.…”
    The item in question was a large rifle with a very long barrel and a scope on top. It looked a little bit like an AWM—one of the sniper rifles the Factory had used as a model in building their products. The barrel was larger, however, and there were some