Reckoners 01 - Steelheart

of my nervousness, I knew, was because of the job. One week had passed since my conversation with Prof, and the rest of the Reckoners had agreed that hitting the power station—and imitating a rival Epic while doing so—was the best plan.
    Today was the day. We’d sneak in and destroy Newcago’s power plant. This would be my first real Reckoner operation. I was finally a member of the team. I didn’t want to be the weak one.
    “You good, son?” Prof asked.
    “Yeah.”
    “We’re moving. Set your timer.”
    I set my mobile for a ten-minute countdown. Prof and Abrahamwere going to break in first on the other side of the station, where all the huge equipment was. They’d work their way upward, setting charges. At the ten-minute mark, Megan and I would go in and steal a power cell to use with the gauss gun. Tia and Cody would come in last, entering through the hole Prof and Abraham had made. They were a support team; ready to move and help us extract if we needed to, but otherwise hanging back and giving us information and guidance.
    I took another deep breath. On the hand opposite my mobile, I wore the black leather tensor, with glowing green strips from the fingertips to the palm. Megan eyed me as I strode up to the end of the tunnel that Abraham had dug the day before during a scouting mission.
    I showed her the countdown.
    “You’re sure you can do this?” she asked me. There was a hint of skepticism in her voice, though her face was impassive.
    “I’ve gotten a lot better with the tensors,” I said.
    “You forget that I’ve watched most of your practice sessions.”
    “Cody didn’t need those shoes,” I said.
    She raised an eyebrow at me.
    “I can do it,” I said, stepping up to the end of the tunnel, where Abraham had left a pillar of steel jutting from the ground. It was short enough that I could step up on it to reach the low ceiling. The clock ticked down. We didn’t speak. I mentally sounded out a few ways to start conversation, but each one died on my lips as I opened my mouth. Each time I was confronted by Megan’s glassy stare. She didn’t want to chat. She wanted to do the job.
    Why do I even care?
I thought, looking up at the ceiling.
Other than that first day, she’s never shown me anything other than coldness and the occasional bit of disdain
.
    Yet … there was something about her. More than the fact that she was beautiful, more than the fact that she carried tiny grenades in her top—which I still thought was awesome, by the way.
    There had been girls at the Factory. But, like everyone else, they were complacent. They’d just call it living their lives, but they were afraid. Afraid of Enforcement, afraid that an Epic would kill them.
    Megan didn’t seem afraid of anything, ever. She didn’t play games with men, fluttering her eyes, saying things she didn’t mean. She did what needed to be done, and she was very good at it. I found that
incredibly
attractive. I wished I could explain that to her. But getting the words out of my mouth felt like trying to push marbles through a keyhole.
    “I—” I began.
    My mobile beeped.
    “Go,” she said, looking upward.
    Trying to tell myself I wasn’t relieved by the interruption, I raised my hands up to the ceiling and closed my eyes. I
was
getting better with the tensor. I still wasn’t as good as Abraham, but I wasn’t an embarrassment any longer. At least not most of the time. I pressed my hand flat against the metal ceiling of the tunnel and pushed, holding my hand in place as the vibrations began.
    The buzzing was like the eager purr of a muscle car that had just been started, but left in neutral. That was another of Cody’s metaphors for it; I’d said the sensation felt like an unbalanced washing machine filled with a hundred epileptic chimpanzees. Pretty proud of that one.
    I pushed and kept my hand steady, humming softly to myself in the same tone as the tensor. That helped me focus. The others didn’t do it, and they didn’t always have to keep their hand pressed against a wall either. I eventually wanted to learn to do it like they did, but this would work for now.
    The vibrations built, but I contained them, held them in my hand. Kept hold of them until it felt like my fingernails were going to rattle free. Then I pulled my hand back and
pushed
somehow.
    Imagine holding a swarm of bees in your mouth, then spitting them out and trying to keep them pointed in a single direction bythe sheer force of your breath