Brandon Sanderson: Firefight

I looked down at the broken gun. The P31 was a great rifle, based off the old M14, one of the best rifles ever made. Those were solid weapons, designed before things got all modern, fancy, and sterile. We’d made P31s at Steelheart’s munitions factory back when I was a kid; they were sturdy and dependable.

But Steelheart hadn’t equipped his own soldiers with these; the P31 had been for selling to others. Steelheart hadn’t wanted to give modern equipment to potential enemies.

“Yeah,” I said. “All right.” I set the rifle down. I mean, it’s not like I was attached to it. It was just a tool. Really.

Abraham squeezed my shoulder in sympathy, then led me to the equipment room, where he began hunting through boxes. “You’ll want something mid-range. A 5.56 all right?”

“I suppose.”

“AR-15?”

“Ugh. AR-15? I’d rather not have my gun break down on me every second week.” Besides, every wannabe and their dog had an M16 or M4 variant these days.

“G7.”

“Not accurate enough.”

“FAL?”

“A 7.62? Maybe,” I said. “Though I hate the triggers.”

“As picky as a woman with her shoes,” Abraham grumbled.

“Hey,” I said. “That’s insulting.” I knew plenty of women who were pickier with their guns than they were with their shoes.

Abraham fished in a chest and came up with a rifle. “Here. What about this?”

“A Gottschalk?” I said skeptically.

“Sure. It’s very modern.”

“It’s German.”

“Germans make very good weapons,” Abraham said. “This has everything you’ll need. Automatic, burst, or semiauto settings, remote fire, electron-compressed retractable scope, huge magazines, the ability to fire flash-shots and modern bullets. Very accurate, good sights, solid trigger without too much or too little give.”

I took the rifle hesitantly. It was just so … black.

I liked guns with some wood on them, a gun that felt natural. Like you could take it hunting, rather than only kill people with it. This rifle was all plastic and black metal. It was like the weapons Enforcement carried.

Abraham slapped me on the shoulder as if the decision had been made and walked out to talk to Prof. I held the rifle up by its barrel. Everything Abraham said about it was right. I knew my guns, and the Gottschalk was a fine weapon.

“You,” I said to it, “are on probation. You’d better impress me.”

Great. Now I was talking to guns. I sighed and slung it over my shoulder, then pocketed a few magazines.

I stepped out of the equipment room, looking over my small pack of possessions. It hadn’t taken long at all to put together my entire life.

“Devin’s team from St. Louis is already on its way,” Prof was saying to Abraham and Cody. “They’ll help you hold Newcago. Don’t let anyone know I’m gone, and don’t engage any Epics until the new team arrives. Keep in touch with Tia, and let her know everything that happens here.”

Abraham and Cody nodded. They were used to teams splitting up and moving around. I still didn’t know how many people were in the Reckoners altogether. The members sometimes talked as if this were the only team, but I knew that was an affectation to throw off anyone who might be spying on the group.

Abraham clasped hands with me, then pulled something from his pocket and held it up. A small silver chain with a pendant in the shape of a stylized S hanging on the end. It was the mark of the Faithful, the religion to which Abraham belonged.

“Abraham …,” I said.

“I know you don’t believe,” he said. “But you are living the prophecy right now, David. It’s as your father said. The heroes will come. In a way, they have .”

I glanced to the side, where Prof set down a duffel bag for Cody to carry. I closed my fist around Abraham’s pendant and nodded. He and his kind believed that the evil Epics were a test from God, and that good Epics would come if mankind endured.

It was naive. Yes, I was starting to think about how good Epics-like Prof-might help us, but I didn’t buy into all of the religious mumbo jumbo. Still, Abraham was a friend, and the gift was sincere.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Stand,” Abraham said. “This is the true test of a man. He who will stand when others grow complacent.”

Abraham picked up Tia’s pack. She and Prof hadn’t taken much longer to get ready than I had. As a Reckoner, you learned to live light. We’d already changed hideouts four times while I’d been with them.

Before we left, I ducked into Edmund’s room to say goodbye. He was sitting and reading a novel by lamplight, an old science fiction book with yellowed pages. He was the strangest Epic I could imagine. Soft-spoken, slender, aging … He had a genuine smile on his lips as he rose.

“Yes?” he asked.

“I’m leaving for a while,” I said.

“Oh!” He hadn’t been listening. Edmund spent most days in this little room, reading. He seemed to take his subservient postion for granted, but he also seemed to enjoy his life as it was. He was a gifter, like Prof-in Edmund’s case, he granted his powers to men and women in Enforcement who used them to charge the power cells that ran the city.

“Edmund?” I asked as he clasped hands with me. “Do you know what your weakness is?”

He shrugged. “I’ve told you before that I don’t seem to have one.”

And we suspected he was lying. Prof hadn’t pushed the issue; Edmund complied with us in every other way.

“Edmund, it might be important,” I said softly. “For stopping the Epics. All of them.” There were so few Epics people had actually had a conversation with, particularly about their powers.

“Sorry,” Edmund said. “I thought I knew it for a while-but I was wrong. Now I’m as baffled as anyone.”

“Well, what did you think it was?”

“Being near a dog,” he said. “But it really doesn’t affect me like I thought it did.”

I frowned, making a mental note to tell Prof about this. It was more than we’d gotten from him before. “Thanks anyway,” I said. “And thanks for what you do for Newcago.”

Edmund walked back to his chair, picking up his book. “Some other Epic will always control me, whether it be Steelheart or Limelight. It doesn’t really matter. I don’t care to be in charge anyway.” He sat down and continued reading.

I sighed and made my way back out into the main room. There, Prof slung a pack onto his shoulder, and I joined him as the last one out, entering the catacombs under Newcago.

We made little conversation as we hiked a half hour or so to one of the hidden garages near a road leading up out of the understreets and into the city. There, Abraham and Cody packed our gear into a jeep for us. I’d been hoping we’d take one of the copters, but that was apparently too showy.

“Watch out for pucas as you travel, lad,” Cody said, shaking my hand. “Could be imitating anything out there.”

“Once again,” Tia said as she settled into the seat in front of me, “those are from Irish mythology, you nitwit.”

Cody just winked at me and tossed me his camouflage baseball cap. “Y’all stay safe.” He gave us a thumbs-up, then he and Abraham retreated back into the understreets.

So it was that-a short time later-I found myself sitting in the back of the jeep, wind blowing my hair, holding a new gun and watching my home for all nineteen years of my life retreat behind me. The dark skyline was something I’d rarely seen. Even before Calamity I’d almost always been among, or beneath, the city’s buildings.

Who was I, if I wasn’t in Newcago? It was similar to the hollowness I felt inside some nights when I wondered what I was supposed to do with my life now that he was gone. Now that I’d won, and my father was avenged.