Steelheart (17 page)

I’d only ever owned two guns—my pistol and my rifle. The rifle was a good friend. I’d had her for three years now, and I’d come to rely on her a lot. She worked when I needed her. We had a great relationship—I cared for her, and she cared for me.

At the sight of Diamond’s shop, though, I felt like a boy who’d only ever owned a single toy car and had just been offered a showroom full of Ferraris.

Abraham sauntered into the hallway. He didn’t give the weapons much of a look. Megan entered and I followed on her heels, staring at the walls and their wares.

“Wow,” I said. “It’s like … a banana farm for guns.”

“A banana farm,” Megan said flatly.

“Sure. You know, how bananas grow from their trees and hang down and stuff?”

“Knees, you
suck
at metaphors.”

I blushed.
An art gallery
, I thought.
I should have said “like an art gallery for guns.” No, wait. If I said it that way, it would mean the gallery was intended for guns to come visit. A gallery
of
guns, then?

“How do you even know what bananas are?” Megan said quietly as Abraham greeted a portly man standing beside a blank portion of wall. This could only be Diamond. “Steelheart doesn’t import from Latin America.”

“My encyclopedias,” I said, distracted.
A gallery of guns for the criminally destructive. I should have said that. That sounds impressive, doesn’t it?
“Read them a few times. Some of it stuck.”

“Encyclopedias.”

“Yeah.”

“Which you read ‘a few times.’ ”

I stopped, realizing what I’d said. “Er. No. I mean, I just browsed them. You know, looking for pictures of guns. I—”

“You are such a nerd,” she said, walking ahead to join Abraham. She sounded amused.

I sighed, then joined them and tried to get her attention to show off my new metaphor, but Abraham was introducing us.

“… new kid,” he said, gesturing to me. “David.”

Diamond nodded to me. He had on a brightly colored floral-pattern shirt, like people supposedly once wore in the tropics.
Maybe that was where I’d gotten the whole banana metaphor. He had a white beard and long white hair, though he was balding at the front, and wore a huge smile that sparkled in his eyes.

“I assume,” he said to Abraham, “you want to see what’s new. What’s exciting. You know, my
—ahem
—other clients haven’t even been through here yet! You’re the first. First picks!”

“And highest prices,” Abraham said, turning to look at the wall of guns. “Death comes at such a premium these days.”

“Says the man carrying an electron-compressed Manchester 451,” Diamond said. “With gravatonics and a full grenade dock. Nice explosions on those. Little on the small side, but you can bounce them in really fun ways.”

“Show us what you have,” Abraham said politely, though his voice seemed strained. I could swear he had sounded more calm talking to the thugs who had shot him. Curious.

“I’m getting some things ready to show you,” Diamond said. He had a smile like a parrot fish, which I’ve always assumed look like parrots, though I’ve never actually seen either. “Why don’t you just have a look around? Browse a bit. Tell me what suits your fancy.”

“Very well,” Abraham said. “Thank you.” He nodded to us—we knew what we were supposed to do. Look for anything out of the ordinary. A weapon that could cause a lot of destruction—destruction that could seem like the work of an Epic. If we were going to imitate one, we’d need something impressive.

Megan stepped up beside me, studying a machine gun that fired incendiary rounds.

“I’m
not
a nerd,” I hissed at her softly.

“Why does it matter?” she asked, her tone neutral. “There’s nothing wrong with being smart. In fact, if you
are
intelligent, you’ll be a stronger asset to the team.”

“I just … I … I just don’t like being called that. Besides, who ever heard of a nerd jumping from a moving jet and shooting an Epic in midair while plummeting toward the ground?”

“I’ve never heard of
anyone
doing that.”

“Phaedrus did it,” I said. “Execution of Redleaf, three years ago up in Canada.”

“That story was exaggerated,” Abraham said softly, walking by. “It was a helicopter. And it was all part of the plan—we were very careful. Now please, keep focused on our current task.”

I shut my mouth and began studying the weapons. Incendiary rounds were impressive, but not particularly original. That wasn’t flashy enough for us. In fact, any type of basic gun wouldn’t work—whether it shot bullets, rockets, or grenades, it wouldn’t be convincing. We needed something more like the energy weapons Enforcement had. A way to mimic an Epic’s innate firepower.

I moved down the hallway, and the weapons seemed to grow more unusual the farther I walked. I stopped beside a curious group of objects. They appeared to be innocent enough—a water bottle, a mobile phone, a pen. They were attached to the wall like the weapons.

“Ah … you are a discerning man, are you, David?”

I jumped, turning to see Diamond grinning behind me. How could a fat man move so quietly?

“What are they?” I asked.

“Advanced stealth explosives,” Diamond answered proudly. He reached up and tapped a section of the wall, and an image appeared on it. He had an imager hooked up here, apparently. It showed a water bottle sitting on a table. A businessman strolled past, looking at some papers in his hand. He set them on the table, then twisted the cap off the water.

And exploded.

I jumped back.

“Ah,” Diamond said. “I hope you appreciate the value of this footage—it’s rare that I get good shots of a stealth explosive being deployed in the field. This one is quite remarkable. Notice how the explosion flung the body back but didn’t damage too much nearby?
That’s important in a stealth explosive, particularly if the person to be assassinated might have valuable documents on them.”

“That’s disgusting,” I said, turning away.

“We are in the business of death, young man.”

“The video, I mean.”

“He wasn’t a very nice person, if it helps.” I doubted that mattered to Diamond. He seemed affable as he tapped the wall. “Good explosion. I’ll be honest—I half keep these to sell just because I like showing off that video. It’s one of a kind.”

“Do they all explode?” I asked, examining the innocent-looking devices.

“The pen is a detonator,” Diamond said. “Click the back and you set off one of those little eraser devices next to it. They’re universal blasting caps. Stick them close to something explosive, trigger them, and they can usually set it off. Depends on the substance, but they’re programmed with some pretty advanced detection algorithms. They work on most explosive substances. Stick one of those to some guy’s grenade, walk away, then click the pen.”

“If you could clip one of those to his grenade,” Megan said, approaching, “you could have just pulled the pin. Or better yet, shot him.”

“It’s not for every situation,” Diamond said defensively. “But they can be
very
fun. What’s better than detonating your enemy’s own explosives when he’s not expecting it?”

“Diamond,” Abraham called from down the corridor. “Come tell me about this.”

“Ah! Excellent choice.
Wonderful
explosions from that one …” He scuttled off.

I looked at the panel full of innocent yet deadly objects. Something about them felt very wrong to me. I’d killed men before, but I’d done it honestly. With a gun in my hands, and only because I’d been forced to. I didn’t have many philosophies about life, but one of them was something my father had taught me: never throw the first
punch. If you have to throw the second, try to make sure they don’t get up for a third.

“These
could
be useful,” Megan said, arms still crossed. “Though I doubt that blowhard really understands what for.”

“I know,” I said, trying to redeem myself. “I mean, recording some poor guy’s death like that? It was totally unprofessional.”

“Actually, he sells explosives,” she said, “so having a recording like that
is
professional of him. I suspect he has recordings of each of these weapons being fired, as we can’t test them hands-on down here.”

“Megan, that was a recording of some guy
blowing up
.” I shook my head, revolted. “It was awful. You shouldn’t show off stuff like that.”

She hesitated, looking troubled about something. “Yes. Of course.” She looked at me. “You never did explain why you were so bothered by being called a nerd.”

“I told you. I don’t like it because, you know, I want to do awesome stuff. And nerds don’t—”

“That’s not it,” she said, staring at me coolly.
Sparks
, but her eyes were beautiful. “There’s something deeper about it that bothers you, and you need to get over it. It’s a weakness.” She glanced at the water bottle, then turned and walked over to the thing Abraham was inspecting. It was some kind of bazooka.

I secured my rifle over my shoulder and stuck my hands in my pockets. It seemed that I was spending a lot of time lately getting lectured. I’d thought that leaving the Factory would end all of that, but I guess I should have known better.

I turned from Megan and Abraham and looked across at the wall nearest me. I was having trouble focusing on the guns, which was a first for me. My mind was working over what she’d asked. Why did being called a nerd bother me?

I walked over to her side.

“… don’t know if it’s what we want,” Abraham was saying.

“But the explosions are
so big
,” Diamond replied.

“It’s because they took the smart ones away,” I said softly to Megan.

I could feel her eyes on me, but I continued staring at the wall.

“A lot of kids at the Factory tried so hard to prove how smart they were,” I said quietly. “We had school, you know. You went to school half the day, worked the other half, unless you got expelled. If you did poorly the teacher just expelled you, and after that you worked full days. School was easier than the Factory, so most of the kids tried really hard.

“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.