Reckoners 01 - Steelheart

Steelheart’s High Epic bodyguards. Megan looked at me, obviously curious as to what I’d say next.
    “Firefight won’t be a problem,” I said.
    “So you said before, when you pitched this whole thing to us. But you ain’t said why yet.”
    “I’ve talked it over with Tia,” I said. “Firefight’s not what you think he is.” I was reasonably confident about that. “Come on, I’ll show you.”
    Cody raised an eyebrow but followed as I crawled back up the tunnel. Prof already knew what my notes said, though I wasn’t certain he believed. I knew he was planning a meeting to talk about Firefight and Nightwielder, but I
also
knew that he was waiting on Tia before moving too far ahead in the plan. If she didn’t come up with the answer to how to kill Steelheart, nothing else would matter.
    I didn’t want to think about that. Giving up now because we didn’t know his weakness … it would be like finding out that you’d drawn lots for dessert at the Factory and been only one number off. Only it didn’t matter, because Pete already snuck in to steal the dessert, so nobody was going to get any anyway—not even Pete, because it turns out that there had never been any dessert in the first place. Well, something like that. That metaphor’s a work in progress.
    At the top of the tunnel I led Cody to the box where we kept my notes. I flipped through them for a few minutes, noting that Megan had followed us up. She had an unreadable expression on her face.
    I grabbed the folder on Firefight and brought it over to the desk, spreading out some pictures. “What do you know about Firefight?”
    “Fire Epic,” Cody said, pointing at a photo. It showed a person made of flames, the heat so intense the air around him warped. No photo could capture the details of Firefight’s features, as they were composed of solid flames. In fact, each photo I pulled out showed him glowing so brightly that it distorted the picture.
    “He’s got standard fire Epic powers,” Megan said. “He can turn to flame—in fact, he pretty much always remains in fire form. He can fly, throw fire from his hands, and manipulate existing flames. He creates an intense heat field around him, capable of meltingbullets—though they likely couldn’t hurt him even if they didn’t melt. It’s a basic fire Epic portfolio.”
    “Too basic,” I said. “Every Epic has quirks. Nobody has
exactly
the same portfolio of powers. That was what first tipped me off. Here’s the other clue.” I tapped the series of photographs—each was a shot of Firefight taken on a different day, usually with Steelheart and his retinue. Though Nightwielder often went out on missions, Firefight usually remained near Steelheart to act as first-line bodyguard.
    “Do you see it?” I asked.
    “See what?” Cody asked.
    “Here,” I said, pointing to a man standing with Steelheart’s guards in one of the pictures. He was slender and clean-shaven and wore a stiff suit, a pair of dark shades, and a wide-brimmed hat that obscured his face.
    I pointed to the next photo. The same person was there. And the next photo. And the next. His face was hard to make out in the other pictures too—none of them were focused on him specifically, and the hat and shades always masked his features.
    “This person is always there when Firefight appears,” I said. “It’s suspicious. Who is it, and what is he doing there?”
    Megan frowned. “What are you implying?”
    “Here,” I said, “take a look at these.” I got out a sequence of five photos, a rapid-fire series of shots capturing a few moments. The scene was Steelheart flying through the city with a procession of his minions. He did that sometimes. Though he always looked like he was going somewhere important, I suspected these were really just his version of a parade.
    Nightwielder and Firefight were with him, flying about ten feet above the ground. A cavalcade of cars drove beneath, like a military convoy. I couldn’t make out any faces, though I suspected the suspicious person was among them.
    Five pictures. Four of them showed the trio of Epics flying sideby side. And in one of them—right in the middle of the sequence—Firefight’s shape had fuzzed and gone translucent.
    “Firefight can go incorporeal, like Nightwielder?” Cody guessed.
    “No,” I said. “Firefight’s not real.”
    Cody blinked. “What?”
    “He’s not real. At least, not in the way we think. Firefight is an incredibly intricate—and