Reckoners 01 - Steelheart

by many of the odder Epic powers while the other could not.
    My breath fogged the window as we passed the playground, which was no longer safe for play. The weeds were now jagged bits of metal. Steelheart’s steel didn’t rust, but it could break, leaving sharp edges.
    “Okay,” Prof said a few minutes later. “I’m here. Climbing up the outside of the building. Megan, I want you to repeat back to me our contingencies.”
    “Nothing is going to go wrong,” Megan said, her voice sounding both beside me and in my ear comm.
    “Something always goes wrong,” Prof said. I could hear him puffing as he climbed, though he had a gravatonic belt to help him. “Contingencies.”
    “If you or Tia give the word,” Megan said, “we’ll pull out and split up. You’ll create a distraction. The four of us in the van will break into two squads and go opposite directions, heading for rally point gamma.”
    “That’s what I don’t get,” I said. “How exactly are we going to go separate directions? We’ve only got one van.”
    “Oh, we’ve got a little surprise back here, lad,” Cody said; I’d unmutedhim when I’d unmuted Prof and the rest. “I’m actually hoping something goes wrong. I kinda want to use it.”
    “Never hope for something to go wrong,” Tia said.
    “But always expect it to,” Prof added.
    “You’re paranoid, old man,” Tia said.
    “Damn right,” Prof said, voice muffled, probably because he was hunkering down with his rocket launcher. I had assumed they’d put Cody in that position with a sniper rifle, but Prof said that he’d rather have something heavier when Enforcement might be involved. Diamond would have been proud.
    “You’re getting close, Megan,” Tia said. “You should be on them in another few minutes. Maintain your speed; the limo is driving faster than it usually does.”
    “Do they suspect something?” Cody asked.
    “They’d be fools not to,” Abraham said softly. “Conflux will take extra care these days, I should think.”
    “It’s worth the risk,” Prof said. “Just be careful.”
    I nodded. With widespread power outages in the city, disabling Enforcement would leave the city in disorder. It would force Steelheart to step forward and take a firm hand to prevent looting or riots. That would mean revealing himself one way or another.
    “He’s never afraid to fight other Epics,” I said.
    “What are you talking about?” Prof asked.
    “Steelheart. He’ll face other Epics, no problem. But he doesn’t like putting down riots by himself. He always uses Enforcement. We assumed it’s because he doesn’t want to bother, but what if it’s something more? What if he’s afraid of crossfire?”
    “Who’s that?” Abraham asked.
    “No, not an Epic. It just occurred to me—what if Steelheart is afraid of getting hit accidentally? What if that’s his weakness? He got hurt by my father, but my father wasn’t aiming for him. What if he can only be hurt if the bullet was meant for someone else?”
    “Possible,” Tia said.
    “We need to stay focused,” Prof answered. “David, shelve that idea for the moment. We’ll come back to it.”
    He was right. I was letting myself get distracted, like a rabbit doing math problems instead of looking for foxes.
    Still …
If I’m right, he wouldn’t ever be in danger in a one-on-one fight. He’s faced other Epics with impunity. What he seems to be afraid of is a big battle, where bullets are flying around
. There was a sense to it. It was a simple thing, but most Epic weaknesses
were
simple.
    “Slow down just a tad,” Tia said softly.
    Megan complied.
    “Here it comes.…”
    A sleek black car pulled out onto the dark street in front of us, going the same direction we were. It was flanked by a couple of motorcycles—good security, but not great. We knew from the Reckoners’ original plan to hit Conflux that this convoy was probably his. We’d use the dowser to make sure, though.
    We continued along behind the limo. I was impressed; even though they didn’t know where the limo was going, Tia and Megan had timed it so that the limo came onto
our
street, not the other way around. We’d look far less suspicious this way.
    My job was to keep my eyes open and, if things went wrong, to return fire so Megan could drive. I slipped a small pair of binoculars out of my pocket and hunkered down, sighting through them and inspecting the limo ahead.
    “Well?” Prof asked in my ear.
    “Looks good,” I