Steelheart: Part Four–Epilogue

I caught myself rising to fetch something to cover her, something to give a semblance of modesty, but then realized how stupid I was being.

Each moment was crucial here, and I couldn't go blundering in and distract Tia.

There was no flatline sound from the mobile. Just silence that carried a weight of meaning. Nothingness laden with data.

I took a blanket from Megan's bedroll—it didn't have sheets—and brought it back to lay over her. Prof looked at me, and he seemed about to object to the frivolous action, but he held his tongue.

I looked up through bleary eyes and found his expression harsh, eyes wide and angry.

"Why is Prof so mad at me?" I asked softly. "He looked...He looked indignant that he had to come rescue me."

I had lost a lot of people in the last ten years. Life in Newcago wasn't easy, particularly for orphans. But none of those losses had affected me this profoundly since my father's death.

He was back to his normal self, for the most part—maybe a little more solemn today. So were the rest of them, even Cody. Losing a teammate wasn't a pleasant experience, though I got the sense that they'd been through all of this before.

The captive was a spindly older man—perhaps in his sixties—balding and dark skinned.

Conflux wasn't supposed to have powers like that. But then, Fortuity wasn't supposed to have had heightened dexterity.

That's just too convoluted, and too dangerous. Why would they think we would decide to kidnap Conflux? We could just as easily have killed him right there when we found him.

But here was an Epic who was a slave...nothing more than a power plant. This had huge ramifications for everyone in Newcago.

He liked to gesture a lot when he talked; you had to watch yourself, lest you get an accidental ninja punch to the shoulder during a particularly emphatic exclamation about the taste of a good curry.

No, he wasn't some heroic Epic born to fight for the rights of men, but he was nearly as important. I'd never met, read of, or even caught a story of an Epic who so blatantly broke the stereotype. Edmund had no arrogance, no hatred, no dismissiveness.

The Reckoners liked extremely well-planned operations, executed only after weeks or months of preparation. Yet here we were going to try to take down one of the strongest Epics in the world with little more than some trinkets and flashlights.

I nodded, grateful for the chance to just spend more time with the tensor. It was Cody's. He'd given it up for me, as mine was still a ripped, zombie-droopy-eyed mess. I hadn't asked Prof about the two he carried. It didn't seem prudent.

"All right. I can see where this is going. You may ask one question about my past." He said it as if it were a gift, a kind of... penance. He had treated me poorly, in part because of something in his past.

He had treated me poorly, in part because of something in his past. The recompense he gave was a piece of that past.

I decided to pick something more benign. "What were you?" I asked. "Before Calamity. What was your job?"

We kept walking through the pitch-black space beneath the stands that was kind of like a large, curved hallway—I think it was called a concourse.

My father had scrimped and saved to buy us the tickets.

They were able to procure a copter, and Edmund has gifted Tia the ability to power it.

"I've got something," Abraham said in our ears, his light French accent subtly emphasizing the wrong syllables.

I eventually spotted a point of light in the darkness, getting closer. Gradually it resolved into three figures flying down toward the center of the stadium. Nightwielder floated amorphously.

He didn't seem to notice the junk from the bank vault. We'd strewn it around the center of the field and mixed it with garbage we'd brought in to mask what we'd done.

He'd come for me. He had a vendetta—he knew I'd been the one to figure out his weakness.

The light shone across discarded bits of trash that had fused to the ground in the Great Transfersion, some formerly retractable stanchions for line control, a few posters frozen on the wall.

Though it seemed as if Nightwielder could animate shadows, really he exuded a black mist that pooled in darkness.

I can't keep this up, I thought as a black spear struck my jacket and was rebuffed by the shielding.

Phase three was Prof's theory—that one of the Faithful could hurt Steelheart. If Abraham's bullets had bounced off, then it wasn't viable.

I'll get this next group of soldiers to follow me around the corridor, and then let Cody goad them into firing across the field at him.

I might need to set off a distraction blast or two to flush out the soldiers behind cover on your side.

Durkon's Paradox referred to a scientist who had studied and pondered the Epics during the early days. He'd pointed out that, with Epics breaking known laws of physics, literally anything was possible—but he warned against the practice of theorizing that every little irregularity was caused by an Epic's powers. Often that kind of thinking led to no actual answers.

I was saved from the strike by a fluke. I thought I saw something in the distance, and I lunged toward it, trying to get more light on it. As I did, three spears of darkness struck at me. One sliced clean through the back of my jacket and cut a line through my flesh. Just another fraction of an inch and it would have severed my spine.

As I expected, it passed right through, the apparition wavering faintly like a projected image.

The Reckoners tended to be circumspect about their conversations over the network, just to be extra careful.

Her arrogant expression made her look like she owned the world. Megan had acted like that before, but there was something more here. Her bearing was more confident, even though she had pursed her lips, perplexed.

"You just did me a favor. Plausible deniability and all of that."

I raised the pistol, and in a fleeting moment I wondered what Abraham would say when he learned that I'd lost his gun.

I could see his eyes, imperious and arrogant.