Reckoners 01 - Steelheart

from room to room?
    I raised my hand and, with some concentration, vaporized a four-foot-wide hole in the wall. I glanced through it, shining my mobile. I’d ruined some computer equipment on the wall, and I had to shove a desk out of the way to get in, but there was nobody inside. At this hour of the night much of the station was unoccupied, and Tia had drawn up our path very carefully, with the goal of minimizing the chances that we’d run into anyone.
    After we crawled through, Megan took something from the pack and placed it on the wall beside the hole I’d made. It had a small red light that blinked ominously. We were to place explosive charges beside each hole we created so that when we detonated the building, it would be impossible to find out about the tensors from the wreckage.
    “Keep moving,” Cody said. “Every minute y’all are in there is a minute longer that someone might wander into a room and wonder where all those bloody holes came from.”
    “I’m on it,” I said, sliding my finger across my mobile’s screen and bringing up Tia’s map. If we continued straight ahead through three rooms, we’d reach an emergency stairwell with fewer securitycameras. We could avoid those, hopefully, by looping through some walls and moving up two floors. Then we needed to make our way into the main storage chamber for energy cells. We’d set the rest of our charges, steal a power cell or two, and bolt.
    “Are you talking to yourself?” Megan asked, watching the door, her gun at chest level and arm straight and ready.
    “Tell her you’re listening to ear demons,” Cody suggested. “Always works for me.”
    “Cody is on the line,” I said, working on the next wall. “Giving me a delightful running commentary. And telling me about ear demons.”
    That almost provoked a smile from her. I swore I saw one, for a moment at least.
    “Ear demons are totally real,” Cody said. “They’re what make microphones like these ones work. They’re also what tell you to eat the last slice of pie when you know Tia wanted it. Hold for a second. I’m patched into the security system, and there’s someone coming down the hall. Hold.”
    I froze, then hastily quieted the tensor.
    “Yeah, they’re entering that room next to you,” Cody said. “Lights were already on. Might be someone else in it too—can’t tell from the security feed. Y’all might have just dodged a bullet. Or rather, dodged having to dodge quite a few of them.”
    “What do we do?” I asked tensely.
    “About Cody?” Megan asked, frowning.
    “Cody, could you just patch her in too?” I asked, exasperated.
    “You really want to talk about her cleavage when she’s on the line?” Cody asked innocently.
    “No! I mean. Don’t talk about that at all.”
    “Fine. Megan, there’s someone in the next room.”
    “Options?” she asked, calm.
    “We can wait, but the lights were already on. My guess is some late-night scientists still working.”
    Megan raised her gun.
    “Uh …,” I said.
    “No, lass,” Cody said. “You know how Prof feels about that. Shoot guards if you have to. Nobody else.” The plan included pulling an alarm and evacuating the building before we detonated our charges.
    “I wouldn’t have to shoot the people next door,” Megan said calmly.
    “And what else would you do, lass?” Cody asked. “Knock them out, then leave them for when we blow up the building?”
    Megan hesitated.
    “Okay,” Cody said. “Tia says there’s another way. You’re going to have to go up an elevator shaft, though.”
    “Lovely,” Megan said.
    We hurried back to the first room we’d come through. Tia uploaded a new map for me, with tensor points, and I got to work. I was a little more nervous this time. Were we going to find random scientists and workers just hanging around all over? What
would
we do if someone surprised us? What if it was some innocent custodian?
    For the first time in my life, I found myself nearly as worried about what I might end up doing as I was about what someone might do to me. It was an uncomfortable situation. What we were doing was, basically, terrorism.
    But we’re the good guys
, I told myself, breaking open the wall and letting Megan slide through first. Of course, what terrorist
didn’t
think he or she was the good guy? We were doing something important, but what would that matter to the family of the cleaning woman we accidentally killed? As I hastened through the next darkened room—this