Reckoners 01 - Steelheart

farmlands surrounding the city.
    Expensive foods. I was already getting used to eating them. Odd, how quickly that could happen.
    “Prof,” I said, placing a cheese wheel in the pit, “do you ever wonder if maybe Newcago will be worse without Steelheart than it is with him?”
    At the other side of the room, Megan turned sharply to look at me, but I didn’t look at her.
I won’t tell him what you said, so stop glaring at me. I just want to know
.
    “It probably will be,” Prof said. “For a while at least. The infrastructure of the city will probably collapse. Food will get scarce. Unless someone powerful takes Steelheart’s place and secures Enforcement, there will be looting.”
    “But—”
    “You want your revenge, son? Well, that’s the cost. I won’t sugarcoat it. We try to keep from hurting innocents, but when we kill Steelheart, we’ll cause suffering.”
    I sat down beside the cold-storage hole.
    “Did you never think of this?” Abraham asked. He’d gotten that necklace out from underneath his shirt and was rubbing his finger on it. “In all those years of planning, preparing to kill the one you hated, did you never consider what would happen to Newcago?”
    I blushed, but then I shook my head. I hadn’t. “So … what do we do?”
    “Continue as we have,” Prof said. “Our job is to cut out the infected flesh. Only then can the body start to heal—but it’s going to hurt a lot first.”
    “But …”
    Prof turned to me, and I saw something in his expression. A deep exhaustion, the tiredness of one who had been fighting a war for a long, long time. “It’s good for you to think of this, son. Ponder. Worry. Stay up nights, frightened for the casualties of your ideology. It will do you good to realize the price of fighting.
    “I need to warn you of something, however. There aren’t any answers to be found. There are no good choices. Submissiveness to a tyrant or chaos and suffering. In the end I chose the second, though it flays my soul to do so. If we don’t fight, humankind is finished. We slowly become sheep to the Epics, slaves and servants—stagnant.
    “This isn’t just about revenge or payback. It’s about the survival of our race. It’s about men being the masters of their own destiny. I choose suffering and uncertainty over becoming a lapdog.”
    “That’s all well and good,” Megan said, “to choose for yourself. But Prof, you’re
not
just choosing for yourself. You’re choosing for everyone in the city.”
    “So I am.” He slid some cans onto the shelf.
    “In the end,” Megan said, “they
don’t
get to be masters of their own destinies. They get to be dominated by Steelheart or left to fend for themselves—at least until another Epic comes along to dominate them again.”
    “Then we’ll kill him too,” Prof said softly.
    “How many can you kill?” Megan said. “You can’t stop all of the Epics, Prof. Eventually another one will set up here. You think he’ll be
better
than Steelheart?”
    “Enough, Megan,” Prof said. “We’ve spoken of this already, and I made my decision.”
    “Newcago is one of the best places in the Fractured States to live,” Megan continued, ignoring Prof’s comment. “We should be focusing on Epics who
aren’t
good administrators, places where life is worse.”
    “No,” Prof said, his voice sounding gruffer.
    “Why not?”
    “Because that’s the problem!” he snapped. “Everyone talks about how great Newcago is. But it’s
not
great, Megan. It’s good by comparison only! Yes, there are worse places, but so long as this hellhole is considered the ideal, we’ll never get anywhere.
We cannot let them convince us this is normal!
”
    The room fell still, Megan looking taken aback by Prof’s outburst. I sat down, my shoulders slumping.
    This wasn’t anything like I’d imagined. The glorious Reckoners, bringing justice to the Epics. I hadn’t once thought of the guilt they’d bear, the arguments, the uncertainty. I could see it in them, the same fear I’d had in the power plant. The worry that we might be making things worse, that we might end up as bad as the Epics.
    Prof stalked away, waving a hand in frustration. I heard the curtain rustle as he retreated back to his thinking room. Megan watched him go, red-faced with anger.
    “It is not so bad, Megan,” Abraham said quietly. He still seemed calm. “It will be all right.”
    “How can you say that?” she asked.
    “We don’t need to defeat all