“The smart ones, though … the really smart ones … the nerds … they left. Got taken to the city above. If you showed some skill with computers, or math, or writing, off you went. They got good jobs, I hear. In Steelheart’s propaganda corps or his accounting offices or something like that. When I was young I’d have laughed about Steelheart having accountants. He’s got a lot of them, you know. You need people like them in an empire.”
Megan looked at me, curious. “So you …”
“Learned to be dumb,” I said. “Rather, to be mediocre. The dumb ones got kicked out of school, and I wanted to learn—knew I needed to learn—so I had to stay. I also knew that if I went up above, I’d lose my freedom. He keeps a lot better watch over his accountants than he does his factory workers.
“There were other boys like me. A lot of the girls moved on fast, the smart ones. Some of the boys I knew, though, they started to see it as a mark of pride that they weren’t taken above. You didn’t want to be one of the smart ones. I had to be extra careful, since I asked so many questions about the Epics. I had to hide my notebooks, find ways to throw off those who thought I was smart.”
“But you’re not there anymore. You’re with the Reckoners. So it doesn’t matter.”
“It does,” I said. “Because it’s not who I am. I’m not smart, I’m just persistent. My friends who were smart, they didn’t have to study at all. I had to study like a horse for every test I took.”
“Like a horse?”
“You know. Because horses work hard? Pulling carts and plows and things?”
“Yeah, I’ll just ignore that one.”
“I’m not smart,” I said.
I didn’t mention that part of the reason I had to study so hard was because I needed to know the answer to each and every question perfectly. Only then could I ensure that I would get the exact number of questions wrong to remain in the middle of the pack. Smart enough to stay in school, but not worthy of notice or attention.
“Besides,” I continued. “The people I knew who were really smart, they learned because they loved it. I didn’t. I hated studying.”
“You read the encyclopedia. A few times.”
“Looking for things that could be Epic weaknesses,” I said. “I needed to know different types of metal, chemical compounds, elements, and symbols. Practically anything could be a weakness. I hoped something would spark in my head. Something about him.”
“So it’s all about him.”
“Everything in my life is about him, Megan,” I said, looking at her. “Everything.”
We fell silent, though Diamond continued blabbing on. Abraham had turned to look at me. He seemed thoughtful.
Great, I realized. He heard. Just great.
“That will be enough, please, Diamond,” Abraham said. “That weapon really won’t work.”
The weapons merchant sighed. “Very well. But perhaps you can give me a clue as to what might work.”
“Something distinctive,” Abraham said. “Something nobody has seen before, but also something destructive.”
“Well, I don’t have much that isn’t destructive,” Diamond said. “But distinctive … Let me see.…”
Abraham waved for us to keep searching. As Megan moved off, however, he took me by the arm. He had quite a strong grip. “Steelheart takes the smart ones,” Abraham said softly, “because he fears them. He knows, David. All of these guns, they do not frighten him. They won’t be what overthrows him. It will be the person clever enough, smart enough, to figure out the chink in his armor. He knows he can’t kill them all, so he employs them. When he dies it will be because of someone like you. Remember that.”
He released my arm and walked after Diamond.
I watched him go, then walked over to another group of weapons. His words didn’t really change anything, but oddly, I did feel myself standing a little taller as I looked at a line of guns and was able to identify each of the manufacturers.
I’m totally not a nerd though. I still know the truth at least.
I looked over the guns for a few minutes, proud of how many I could identify. Unfortunately none of them seemed distinctive enough. Actually, the fact that I could identify them guaranteed that they weren’t distinctive enough. We needed something nobody had seen before.
Maybe he won’t have anything, I thought. If he has a rotating stock, then we may have picked the wrong time to visit. Sometimes a grab bag doesn’t give anything worthwhile. It—
I stopped as I noticed something different. Motorcycles.
There were three of them in a row near the far side of the hallway. I hadn’t seen them at first, as I’d been focused on the guns. They were sleek, their bodies a deep green with black patterns running up their sides. They made me want to hunch over and crouch down to make myself have less wind resistance. I could imagine shooting through the streets on one of these. They looked so dangerous, like alligators. Really fast alligators wearing black. Ninja alligators.
I decided not to use that one on Megan.
They didn’t have any weapons on them that I could see, though there were some odd devices on the sides. Maybe energy weapons? They didn’t seem to fit with much of what Diamond had here, but then again, what he had was pretty eclectic.
Megan walked past me and I raised a finger to point at the motorcycles.
“No,” she said, not even looking.
“But—”
“No.”
“But they’re awesome!” I said, holding up my hands, as if that should have been enough of an argument. And, sparks, it should have been. They were awesome!
“You could barely drive some lady’s sedan, Knees,” Megan said. “I don’t want to see you on the back of something with gravatonics.”
“Gravatonics!” That was even more awesome.
“No,” Megan said firmly.
I looked toward Abraham, who was inspecting something nearby. He glanced at me, then over at the bikes, and smiled. “No.”
I sighed. Wasn’t shopping for weapons supposed to be more fun than this?
“Diamond,” Abraham called to the dealer. “What is this?”
The weapons merchant began waddling over. “Oh, it’s wonderful. Great explosions. It …” His face fell as he neared and saw what Abraham was actually looking at. “Oh. That. Um, it is quite wonderful, though I don’t know if it would suit your needs.…”
The item in question was a large rifle with a very long barrel and a scope on top. It looked a little bit like an AWM—one of the sniper rifles the Factory had used as a model in building their products. The barrel was larger, however, and there were some odd coils around the forestock. It was painted a dark black-green and had a big hole where the magazine should have fit.
Diamond sighed. “This weapon is wonderful, but you are a good customer. I should warn you that I don’t have the resources to make it work.”
“What?” Megan asked. “You’re selling a broken gun?”
“It’s not that,” Diamond said, tapping the section of wall beside the gun. An image displayed of a man set up on the ground, holding the rifle and looking through the scope at some run-down buildings. “This is called a gauss gun, developed using research on some Epic or another who throws bullets at people.”
“Rick O’Shea,” I said, nodding. “An Irish Epic.”
“That’s really his name?” Abraham asked softly.
“Yeah.”
“That’s horrible.” He shivered. “Taking a beautiful French word and turning it into … into something Cody would say. Câlice!”
“Anyway,” I said. “He can make objects unstable by touching them; then they explode when subjected to any significant impact. Basically he charges rocks with energy, throws them at people, and they explode. Standard kinetic energy Epic.”
I was more interested in the idea that the technology had been developed based on his powers. Ricky was a newer Epic. He wouldn’t have been around back in the old days when, as the Reckoners had explained, Epic
s had been imprisoned and experimented on. Did this mean that kind of research was still going on? There was a place where Epics were being held captive? I’d never heard of such a thing.
“The gun?” Abraham asked Diamond.
“Well, like I said.” Diamond tapped the wall and the video started playing. “It’s a type of gauss gun, only it uses a projectile that has been charged with energy first. The bullet, once turned explosive, is propelled to extreme speeds using tiny magnets.”
The man holding the gun in the video flipped a switch and the coils lit up green. He pulled the trigger and there was a burst of energy, though the thing seemed to have almost no recoil. A splash of green light spat from the front of the gun’s barrel, leaving a line in the air. One of the distant buildings exploded, giving off a strange shower of green that seemed to warp the air.
“We’re … not sure why it does that,” Diamond admitted. “Or even how. The technology changes the bullet into a charged explosive.”
I felt a shiver, thinking about the tensors, the jackets—the technology used by the Reckoners. Actually, a lot of the technology we now used had come with the advent of the Epics. How much of it did we really understand?
We were relying on half-understood technology built from studying mystifying creatures who didn’t even know how they did what they did themselves. We were like deaf people trying to dance to a beat we couldn’t hear, long after the music actually stopped. Or … wait. I don’t know what that actually was supposed to mean.
Anyway, the lights given off by that gun’s explosion were very distinctive. Beautiful, even. There didn’t seem to be much debris, just some green smoke that still floated in the air. Almost as if the building had been transformed directly to energy.
Then it hit me. “Aurora borealis,” I said, pointing. “It looks like the pictures I’ve seen of it.”
“Destructive capability looks good,” Megan said. “That building was almost completely knocked down by one shot.”
Abraham nodded. “It might be what we need. However, Diamond, might I inquire about what you mentioned earlier? You said it didn’t work.”
“It works just fine,” the merchant said quickly. “But it requires an energy pack to fire. A powerful one.”
“How powerful?”
“Fifty-six KC,” Diamond said, then hesitated. “Per shot.”
Abraham whistled.
“Is that a lot?” Megan asked.
“Yeah,” I said, in awe. “Like, several thousand standard fuel cells’ worth.”
“Usually,” Diamond said, “you need to hook it up by cord to its own power unit. You can’t just plug this bad boy into a wall socket. The shots on this demo were fired using several six-inch cords running back to a dedicated generator.” He looked up at the weapon. “I bought it hoping I could trade a certain client for some of his high-energy fuel cells, then be able to actually sell the weapon in working condition.”
“Who knows about this weapon?” Abraham asked.
“Nobody,” Diamond said. “I bought it directly from the lab that created it, and the man who made this video was in my employ. It’s never been on the market. In fact, the researchers who developed it died a few months later—blew themselves up, poor fools. I guess that’s what you get when you routinely build devices that supercharge matter.”
“We’ll take it,” Abraham said.
“You will?” Diamond looked surprised, and then a smile crossed his face. “Well … what an excellent choice! I’m certain you’ll be happy. But again, to clarify, this will not fire unless you find your own energy source. A very powerful one, likely one you won’t be able to transport. Do you understand?”
“We will find one,” Abraham said. “How much?”
“Twelve,” Diamond said without missing a beat.
“You can’t sell it to anyone else,” Abraham said, “and you can’t make it work. You’ll be getting four. Thank you.” Abraham got out a small box. He tapped it, and handed it over.
“And we want one of those pen exploder things thrown in,” I said on a whim as I held my mobile up to the wall and downloaded the video of the gauss gun in action. I almost asked for one of the motorcycles, but figured that would really be pushing things.
“Very well,” Diamond said, holding up the box Abraham had given him. What was that, anyway? “Is Fortuity in here?” he asked.
“Alas,” Abraham said, “our encounter with him did not leave time for proper harvesting. But four others, including Absence.”
Harvesting? What did that mean? Absence was an Epic the Reckoners had killed last year.
Diamond grunted. I found myself very curious as to what was in that box.
“Also, here.” Abraham handed over a data chip.
Diamond smiled, taking it. “You know how to sweeten a deal, Abraham. Yes you do.”
“Nobody finds out that we have this,” Abraham said, nodding toward the gun. “Do not even tell another person that it exists.”
“Of course not,” Diamond said, sounding offended. He walked over to pull a standard rifle bag out from under his desk, then began to get the gauss gun down.
“What did we pay him with?” I asked Megan, speaking very softly.
“When Epics die, something happens to their bodies,” she replied.
“Mitochondrial mutation.” I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Well, when we kill an Epic, we harvest some of their mitochondria,” she said. “It’s needed by the scientists who build all this kind of stuff. Diamond can trade it to secret research labs.”
I whistled softly. “Wow.”
“Yeah,” she said, looking troubled. “The cells expire after just a few minutes if you don’t freeze them, so that makes it hard to harvest. There are some groups out there who make a living harvesting cells—they don’t kill the Epics, they just sneak a blood sample and freeze it. This sort of thing has become a secret, high-level currency.”
So that was how it was happening. The Epics didn’t even need to know about it. It worried me more deeply, however, to learn about this. How much of the process did we understand? What would the Epics think of their genetic material being sold at market?
I’d never heard of any of this, despite my research into Epics. It served as a reminder. I might have figured a few things out, but there was an entire world out there beyond my experience.
“What about the data chip Abraham gave him?” I asked. “The thing Diamond called a deal sweetener?”
“That has explosions on it,” she said.
“Ah. Of course.”
“Why do you want that detonator?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “It just sounded fun. And since it looks like a while till I’ll get one of those bikes—”
“You’ll never get one of those bikes.”
“—I thought I’d ask for something.”
She didn’t reply, though it seemed as if I’d unintentionally annoyed her. Again. I was having a tough time deciding what was bothering her—she seemed to have her own special rules for what constituted being “professional” and what didn’t.
Diamond packed up the gun and, to my delight, tossed in the pen detonator and a small pack of the “erasers” that worked with it. I was feeling pretty good about getting something extra. Then I smelled garlic.
I frowned. It wasn’t quite garlic, but it was close. What was …
Garlic.
Phosphorus smelled like garlic.
“We’re in trouble,” I said immediately. “Nightwielder is here.”
17
“THAT’S impossible!” Diamond said, checking his mobile. “They’re not supposed to be here for another hour or two.” He paused, then held his ear—he wore a small earpiece—his mobile twinkling in his hand.
He grew pale, likely getting news of an early arrival from the girl outside. “Oh dear.”
“Sparks,” Megan said, slinging the gauss gun’s bag over her shoulder.
“You had an appointment with Steelheart to
day?” Abraham said.
“It won’t be him,” Diamond said. “Assuming he were a client of mine, he would never come himself.”
“He just sends Nightwielder,” I said, sniffing the air. “Yeah, he’s here. Can you smell that?”
“Why didn’t you warn us?” Megan said to Diamond.
“I don’t speak of other clients to—”
“Never mind,” Abraham said. “We leave.” He pointed down the hallway, opposite the way we’d come in. “Where does it lead?”
“Dead end,” Diamond said.
“You left yourself without a way out?” I asked, incredulous.
“Nobody would attack me!” Diamond said. “Not with the hardware I’ve got in here. Calamity! This is not supposed to happen. My clients know not to arrive early.”
“Stop him outside,” Abraham said.
“Stop Nightwielder?” Diamond asked, incredulous. “He’s incorporeal. He can walk through walls for Calamity’s sake.”
“Then keep him from walking all the way down the hallway,” Abraham said calmly. “There are some shadows back there. We’ll hide.”
“I don’t—” Diamond started.
“There isn’t time to argue, my friend,” Abraham said. “Everyone pretends to not care that you sell to all sides, but I doubt Nightwielder will treat you well if he discovers us here. He’ll recognize me; he’s seen me before. If he finds me here, we all die. Do you understand?”
Diamond, still pale, nodded again.
“Come on,” Abraham said, shouldering his gun and jogging down the hallway past the rear of the store. Megan and I joined him. My heart was thumping. Nightwielder would recognize Abraham? What history did they have together?
There were piles of crates and boxes at the other end of the hallway. It was indeed a dead end, but there were no lights. Abraham waved for us to take cover behind the boxes. We could still see the walls full of weapons back where we’d been. Diamond stood there, wringing his hands.
“Here,” Abraham said, setting his large gun down on a box and aiming it directly at Diamond. “Man this, David. Don’t fire unless you must.”
“Won’t work against Nightwielder anyway,” I said. “He has prime invincibility—bullets, energy weapons, explosions all pass through him.” Unless we could get him into the sunlight, assuming I was right. I put up a good front for the others, but the truth was, all I had was hearsay.