Reckoners 01 - Steelheart

it, and the man who made this video was in my employ. It’s never been on the market. In fact, the researchers who developed it died a few months later—blew themselves up, poor fools. I guess that’s what you get when you routinely build devices that supercharge matter.”
    “We’ll take it,” Abraham said.
    “You will?” Diamond looked surprised, and then a smile crossed his face. “Well … what an excellent choice! I’m certain you’ll be happy. But again, to clarify, this will
not
fire unless you find your own energy source. A very powerful one, likely one you won’t be able to transport. Do you understand?”
    “We will find one,” Abraham said. “How much?”
    “Twelve,” Diamond said without missing a beat.
    “You can’t sell it to anyone else,” Abraham said, “and you can’t make it work. You’ll be getting four. Thank you.” Abraham got out a small box. He tapped it, and handed it over.
    “And we want one of those pen exploder things thrown in,” I said on a whim as I held my mobile up to the wall and downloaded the video of the gauss gun in action. I almost asked for one of the motorcycles, but figured that would
really
be pushing things.
    “Very well,” Diamond said, holding up the box Abraham had given him. What
was
that, anyway? “Is Fortuity in here?” he asked.
    “Alas,” Abraham said, “our encounter with him did not leave time for proper harvesting. But four others, including Absence.”
    Harvesting? What did
that
mean? Absence was an Epic the Reckoners had killed last year.
    Diamond grunted. I found myself
very
curious as to what was in that box.
    “Also, here.” Abraham handed over a data chip.
    Diamond smiled, taking it. “You know how to sweeten a deal, Abraham. Yes you do.”
    “Nobody finds out that we have this,” Abraham said, nodding toward the gun. “Do not even tell another person that it exists.”
    “Of course not,” Diamond said, sounding offended. He walked over to pull a standard rifle bag out from under his desk, then began to get the gauss gun down.
    “What did we pay him with?” I asked Megan, speaking very softly.
    “When Epics die, something happens to their bodies,” she replied.
    “Mitochondrial mutation.” I nodded. “Yeah.”
    “Well, when we kill an Epic, we harvest some of their mitochondria,” she said. “It’s needed by the scientists who build all this kind of stuff. Diamond can trade it to secret research labs.”
    I whistled softly. “Wow.”
    “Yeah,” she said, looking troubled. “The cells expire after just a few minutes if you don’t freeze them, so that makes it hard to harvest. There are some groups out there who make a living harvesting cells—they don’t kill the Epics, they just sneak a blood sample and freeze it. This sort of thing has become a secret, high-level currency.”
    So
that
was how it was happening. The Epics didn’t even need to know about it. It worried me more deeply, however, to learn about this. How much of the process did we understand? What would the Epics think of their genetic material being sold at market?
    I’d never heard of any of this, despite my research into Epics. It served as a reminder. I might have figured a few things out, but there was an entire world out there beyond my experience.
    “What about the data chip Abraham gave him?” I asked. “The thing Diamond called a deal sweetener?”
    “That has explosions on it,” she said.
    “Ah. Of course.”
    “Why do you want that detonator?”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “It just sounded fun. And since it looks like a while till I’ll get one of those bikes—”
    “You’ll
never
get one of those bikes.”
    “—I thought I’d ask for something.”
    She didn’t reply, though it seemed as if I’d unintentionally annoyed her. Again. I was having a tough time deciding what was bothering her—she seemed to have her own special rules for what constituted being “professional” and what didn’t.
    Diamond packed up the gun and, to my delight, tossed in the pen detonator and a small pack of the “erasers” that worked with it. I was feeling pretty good about getting something extra. Then I smelled garlic.
    I frowned. It wasn’t
quite
garlic, but it was close. What was …
    Garlic.
    Phosphorus smelled like garlic.
    “We’re in trouble,” I said immediately. “Nightwielder is here.”

17
    “THAT’S impossible!” Diamond said, checking his mobile. “They’re not supposed to be here for another hour