“Easy,” I said, my mood lifting. “Firefight isn’t what he seems.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’ll need my notes to explain,” I said. “But he’ll be the easiest of the three to take down—I promise you that.”
Megan made a face as if she were offended by this, annoyed that I wasn’t willing to engage her without my notes. “Whatever,” she said, then made a gesture, spinning the room around in a circle and sending me stumbling again, though there was no momentum. She glanced at me, and I saw a hint of a smile on her lips. Well, at least I knew one thing that broke through her coldness: nearly making me lose my lunch.
When the room stopped rotating, our view pointed upward at an angle. Every part of me said I should be sliding backward into the wall, but I knew it was all just done with perspective.
Directly ahead of us a group of three copters moved through the air low, just above the city. They were sleek and black, with two large rotors each. The sword-and-shield emblem of Enforcement painted in white on their sides.
“It probably won’t even come to Firefight and Nightwielder,” she said. “I should have brought this up first: Enforcement.”
“She’s right,” Abraham said. “Steelheart is always surrounded by Enforcement soldiers.”
“So we take them out first,” I said. “It’s what a rival Epic would probably do anyway—disable Steelheart’s army so they could move in on the city. That will only help convince him that we’re a rival Epic. The Reckoners would never do something like take on Enforcement.”
“We wouldn’t do it,” Megan said, “because it would be pure idiocy!”
“It does seem a little outside our capabilities, son,” Prof said, though I could tell I had him hooked. He watched with interest. He liked the idea of drawing Steelheart out. It was the sort of thing the Reckoners did do, playing on an Epic’s arrogance.
I raised my hands, imitating the gestures the others had been making, then thrust them forward to try moving the viewing room toward Enforcement headquarters. The room lurched awkwardly, tipping sideways and streaking through the city to slam into the side of a building. It froze there, unable to continue into the structure because the spynet didn’t look there. The entire room quivered, as if desperate to fulfill my demand but uncertain where to go.
I toppled sideways into the wall, then plopped down on the ground, dizzy. “Uh …”
“Y’all want me to get that for you?” Cody asked, amused, from the doorway.
“Yeah. Thanks. Enforcement headquarters, please.”
Cody made the gestures and raised the room up, leveled it out, then spun it about and moved it over the city until we were hovering near a large black box of a building. It looked vaguely like a prison, though it didn’t house criminals. Well, just the state-sanctioned kinds of criminals.
I righted myself, determined not to look like a fool in front of the others. Though I wasn’t certain if that was possible at this point. “There’s one simple way to neuter Enforcement,” I said. “We take out Conflux.”
For once an idea of mine didn’t prompt an outcry from the others. Even Megan looked thoughtful, standing just a short distance from me, her arms crossed. I’d love to see her smile again, I thought, then immediately forced my mind away from that. I had to stay focused. This wasn’t a time to let my feet get swept out from underneath me. Well … in a figurative sense, at least.
“You’ve considered this,” I guessed, looking around the room. “You hit Fortuity, but you talked about trying for Conflux instead.”
“It would be a powerful blow,” Abraham said softly, leaning against the wall near Cody.
“Abraham suggested it,” Prof said. “He fought for it, actually. Using some of the same arguments that you made—that we weren’t doing enough, that we weren’t targeting Epics who were important enough.”
“Conflux is more than just the head of Enforcement,” I said, excited. They finally seemed like they were listening. “He’s a gifter.”
“A what?” Cody asked.
“It’s a slang term,” Tia said, “for what we call a transference Epic.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Great,” Cody said. “So what’s a transference Epic?”
“Don’t you ever pay attention?” Tia asked. “We’ve talked about this.”
“He was cleaning his guns,” Abraham said.
“I’m an artist,” Cody said.
Abraham nodded. “He’s an artist.”
“And cleanliness is next to deadliness,” Cody added.
“Oh please,” Tia said, turning back to me.
“A gifter,” I said, “is an Epic who has the ability to transfer his powers to other people. Conflux has two powers he can give others, and both are incredibly strong. Maybe even stronger than those of Steelheart.”
“So why doesn’t he rule?” Cody asked.
“Who knows?” I shrugged. “Probably because he’s fragile. He isn’t said to have any immortality powers. So he stays hidden. Nobody even knows what he looks like. He’s been with Steelheart for over half a decade, though, quietly managing Enforcement.” I looked back at Enforcement headquarters. “He can create enormous stores of energy from his body. He gives this electricity to team leaders of Enforcement Cores; that’s how they run their mechanized suits and their energy rifles. No Conflux means no power armor and no energy weapons.”
“It means more than that,” Prof said. “Taking out Conflux might knock out power to the city.”
“What?” I asked.
“Newcago uses more electricity than it generates,” Tia explained. “All of those lights, on all the time … it’s a huge drain, on a level that would have been hard to sustain even back before Calamity. The new Fractured States don’t have the infrastructure to provide Steelheart with enough power to run this city, yet he does.”
“He’s using Conflux to augment his power stores,” Prof said. “Somehow.”
“So that makes Conflux an even better target!” I said.
“We talked about this months ago,” Prof said, leaning forward, fingers laced before him. “We decided he was too dangerous to h
it. Even if we succeeded, we’d draw too much attention, be hunted down by Steelheart himself.”
“Which is what we want,” I said.
The others didn’t seem convinced. Take this step, move against Steelheart’s empire, and they’d be exposing themselves. No more hiding in the various urban undergrounds, hitting carefully chosen targets. No more quiet rebellion. Kill Conflux, and there would be no backing down until Steelheart was dead or the Reckoners were captured, broken, and executed.
He’s going to say no, I thought, looking into Prof’s eyes. He looked older than I’d always imagined him being. A man in his middle years, with grey speckling his hair, and with a face that showed he had lived through the death of one era and had worked ten hard years trying to end the next era. Those years had taught him caution.
He opened his mouth to say the words, but was interrupted when Abraham’s mobile chirped. Abraham unhooked it from its shoulder mount. “Time for Reinforcement,” he said, smiling.
Reinforcement. Steelheart’s daily message to his subjects. “Can you show it on the wall here?” I asked.
“Sure,” Cody said, turning his mobile toward the projector and tapping a button.
“That won’t be ne—” Prof began.
The program had already started. It showed Steelheart this time. Sometimes he appeared personally, sometimes not. He stood atop one of the tall radio towers on his palace. A pitch-black cape spread out behind him, rippling in the wind.
The messages were all prerecorded, but there was no way to tell when; as always there was no sun in the sky, and no trees grew in the city any longer to give an indication of the season either. I’d almost forgotten what it was like to be able to tell the time of day just by looking out the window.
Steelheart was illuminated by red lights from below. He placed one foot on a low railing, then leaned forward and scanned his city. His dominion.
I shivered, staring at him, presented in large scale on the wall in front of me. My father’s murderer. The tyrant. He looked so calm, so thoughtful, in this picture. Long jet-black hair that curled softly down to his shoulders. Shirt stretched across an inhumanly strong physique. Black slacks, an upgrade from the loose pants he’d worn on that day ten years ago. This shot of him seemed like it wanted to present him as the thoughtful and concerned dictator, like the early communist leaders I’d learned about back in the Factory school.