“Prof,” I said softly, turning away, “you sure I can’t pair up with Cody for this mission?”
“Cody and Tia are interference,” Prof said. “We’ve been over this, son.”
“Maybe I could go with Abraham, then. Or you.” I glanced over my shoulder, then spoke even more softly. “She doesn’t really like me much.”
“I won’t have two members of my crew not getting along,” Prof said sternly. “You will learn to work together. Megan is a professional. It’ll be fine.”
Yes, she’s professional, I thought. Too professional. But Prof wasn’t hearing any of it.
I took a deep breath. Part of my nervousness, I knew, was because of the job. One week had passed since my conversation with Prof, and the rest of the Reckoners had agreed that hitting the power station—and imitating a rival Epic while doing so—was the best plan.
Today was the day. We’d sneak in and destroy Newcago’s power plant. This would be my first real Reckoner operation. I was finally a member of the team. I didn’t want to be the weak one.
“You good, son?” Prof asked.
“Yeah.”
“We’re moving. Set your timer.”
I set my mobile for a ten-minute countdown. Prof and Abraham were going to break in first on the other side of the station, where all the huge equipment was. They’d work their way upward, setting charges. At the ten-minute mark, Megan and I would go in and steal a power cell to use with the gauss gun. Tia and Cody would come in last, entering through the hole Prof and Abraham had made. They were a support team; ready to move and help us extract if we needed to, but otherwise hanging back and giving us information and guidance.
I took another deep breath. On the hand opposite my mobile, I wore the black leather tensor, with glowing green strips from the fingertips to the palm. Megan eyed me as I strode up to the end of the tunnel that Abraham had dug the day before during a scouting mission.
I showed her the countdown.
“You’re sure you can do this?” she asked me. There was a hint of skepticism in her voice, though her face was impassive.
“I’ve gotten a lot better with the tensors,” I said.
“You forget that I’ve watched most of your practice sessions.”
“Cody didn’t need those shoes,” I said.
She raised an eyebrow at me.
“I can do it,” I said, stepping up to the end of the tunnel, where Abraham had left a pillar of steel jutting from the ground. It was short enough that I could step up on it to reach the low ceiling. The clock ticked down. We didn’t speak. I mentally sounded out a few ways to start conversation, but each one died on my lips as I opened my mouth. Each time I was confronted by Megan’s glassy stare. She didn’t want to chat. She wanted to do the job.
Why do I even care? I thought, looking up at the ceiling. Other than that first day, she’s never shown me anything other than coldness and the occasional bit of disdain.
Yet … there was something about her. More than the fact that she was beautiful, more than the fact that she carried tiny grenades in her top—which I still thought was awesome, by the way.
There had been girls at the Factory. But, like everyone else, they were complacent. They’d just call it living their lives, but they were afraid. Afraid of Enforcement, afraid that an Epic would kill them.
Megan didn’t seem afraid of anything, ever. She didn’t play games with men, fluttering her eyes, saying things she didn’t mean. She did what needed to be done, and she was very good at it. I found that incredibly attractive. I wished I could explain that to her. But getting the words out of my mouth felt like trying to push marbles through a keyhole.
“I—” I began.
My mobile beeped.
“Go,” she said, looking upward.
Trying to tell myself I wasn’t relieved by the interruption, I raised my hands up to the ceiling and closed my eyes. I was getting better with the tensor. I still wasn’t as good as Abraham, but I wasn’t an embarrassment any longer. At least not most of the time. I pressed my hand flat against the metal ceiling of the tunnel and pushed, holding my hand in place as the vibrations began.
The buzzing was like the eager purr of a muscle car that had just been started, but left in neutral. That was another of Cody’s metaphors for it; I’d said the sensation felt like an unbalanced washing machine filled with a hundred epileptic chimpanzees. Pretty proud of that one.
I pushed and kept my hand steady, humming softly to myself in the same tone as the tensor. That helped me focus. The others didn’t do it, and they didn’t always have to keep their hand pressed against a wall either. I eventually wanted to learn to do it like they did, but this would work for now.
The vibrations built, but I contained them, held them in my hand. Kept hold of them until it felt like my fingernails were going to rattle free. Then I pulled my hand back and pushed somehow.
Imagine holding a swarm of bees in your mouth, then spitting them out and trying to keep them pointed in a single direction by the sheer force of your breath and will. It’s kind of like that. My hand flew back and I launched the half-musical vibrations away, into the ceiling, which rattled and shook with a quiet hum. Steel dust fell down around my arm, showering to the ground below like someone had taken a cheese grater to a refrigerator.
Megan crossed her arms and watched, a single eyebrow raised. I prepared myself for some cold, indifferent comment. She nodded and said, “Nice work.”
“Yeah, well, you know, I’ve been practicing a lot. Hitting the old wall-vaporizing gym.”
“The what?” She frowned as she pulled over the ladder we’d brought with us.
“Never mind,” I said, climbing up the ladder and peeking my head into the basement of Station Seven, the power station. I’d never been inside any of the city stations, of course. They were like bunkers, with high steel walls and fences surrounding them. Steelheart liked to keep things under a watchful eye; a place like this wouldn’t just be a power station but would have government offices on the upper floors as well. All carefully fenced, guarded, and observed.
The basement, fortunately, had no cameras watching it. Most of those were in the hallways.
Megan handed me my rifle, and I climbed out into the room above. We were in a storage chamber, dark save for a few of those glowing “always on” lights that places tend to … well, always leave on. I moved to the wall and tapped my mobile. “We’re in,” I said softly.
“Good,” Cody’s voice came back.
I blushed. “Sorry. I meant to send that to Prof.”
“You did. He told me to watch over y’all. Turn on the video feed from your earpiece.”
The earpiece was one of those wraparound kinds and had a little camera sticking out over my ear. I tapped a few times on my mobile screen, activatin
g it.
“Nice,” Cody said. “Tia and I have set up here at Prof’s entrance point.” Prof liked contingencies, and that usually meant leaving a person or two back to create diversions or enact plans if the main teams got pinned down.
“I don’t have much to do here,” Cody continued, his Southern drawl as thick as ever, “so I’m going to bother you.”
“Thanks,” I said, glancing back at Megan as she climbed up out of the hole.
“Don’t mention it, lad. And stop looking down Megan’s shirt.”
“I’m not—”
“Just teasing. I hope you keep doing it. It’ll be fun to watch her shoot you in the foot when she catches you.”
I looked away pointedly. Fortunately it didn’t appear that Cody had included Megan in that particular conversation. I actually found myself breathing a little easier, knowing that Cody was watching over us. Megan and I were the two newest members of the team; if anyone could use coaching it would be us.
Megan carried our pack on her back, filled with the things we’d need for the infiltration. She had out a handgun, which honestly would be more useful in close quarters than my rifle. “Ready?” she asked.
I nodded.
“How much ‘improvising’ do I have to be ready for from you today?” she asked.
“Only as much as needed,” I grumbled, raising my hand to the wall. “If I knew when it would be needed, it wouldn’t be improvising, would it? It would be planning.”
She chuckled. “A foreign concept to you.”
“Foreign? Did you not see all the notebooks of plans I brought to the team? You know, the ones we all almost died retrieving?”
She turned away, not looking at me, and her posture grew stiff.
Sparking woman, I thought. Try making some sense for once. I shook my head, placing my hand against the wall.
One of the reasons that the city stations were considered impregnable was because of the security. Cameras in all of the hallways and stairwells; I had thought we’d hack into security and change the camera feeds. Prof said we’d certainly hack the feeds to watch them, but changing those feeds to cover sneaking rarely worked as well as it did in the old movies. Steelheart didn’t hire stupid security officers, and they’d notice if their video looped. Besides, soldiers patrolled the hallways.