Steelheart

Ten years after the Annexation—that day when Steelheart destroyed the bank and claimed authority over Newcago—David runs through the understreets to reach his destination on time. When Steelheart’s Great Transfersion transformed every particle of Old Chicago to steel, he assigned Diggers to cut out an undercity beneath the surface. Nightwielder, one of Steelheart’s closest allies, blocks out the sky, sun, and moon, obliterating all light from the city. Most people stick to the upper levels, avoiding the dangerous and unfinished “steel catacombs” beneath, while only Epics and the most successful humans live on the overstreets—the surface. David approaches an overstreet theater where his target appears: Fortuity, a precognition Epic with the ability to foresee the future. He is nearly impossible to kill because he can anticipate his assassin’s every move before he strikes.

However, David’s primary mission isn’t killing Fortuity; he wants to join the Reckoners, a highly secret underground organization dedicated to eliminating the Epics. He thinks the Reckoners will target Fortuity that night. A young blonde woman in a red dress approaches Fortuity and guides him away from bystanders. David briefly admires the woman, thinking, “Even a ninety-year-old blind priest would stop and stare at this woman. If he weren’t blind, that is” (25). The woman leads Fortuity toward a dance club, but a minor Epic named Curveball distracts him, gesturing that Fortuity should follow him back to the theater. David decides to help the woman—whom he assumes works with the Reckoners—and steps out from his hiding place.

David runs toward Curveball and says that Spritzer—the theater manager—no longer needs Fortuity. Over the past several years, David has carefully studied Epics—as well as the important humans under Steelheart’s payroll—so he can bluff convincingly. David manages to lure Curveball away from Fortuity and smiles at the woman. When she and Fortuity leave, David wishes he’d somehow communicated that he helped her intentionally. As David and Curveball walk toward the theater, David turns to see Fortuity and the woman kissing. David mentions that he works under Eddie Macano, who he knows works for Spritzer. Unfortunately, Eddie died two days back, and Curveball reaches for his handgun.

David dives into an alley as Curveball—whose power is having an endless supply of bullets—opens fire. Fortunately, his mediocre aim allows David to gain distance. David, who is a good shot with a rifle, aims at Curveball, but Fortuity steps between them. David notices Fortuity’s handcuffed wrists—the woman’s handiwork—and then sees Curveball drop from a gunshot. The woman then turns her firearm on David, who jumps back into the alley. She follows, and David frantically explains that he’s trying to help. Now vaguely annoyed, the woman calls her colleague to “blow it,” and the nearby theater explodes. Confused, David asks her why the Reckoners would kill innocents in the blast. The woman—now known as Megan—gauges him, then orders him to kneel with hands on his head. She comms a man named Hardman, saying, “If Knees here so much as sneezes, put a slug through his neck” (36), and then she chases after Fortuity. However, she doesn’t see the four thugs in close pursuit. David decides to risk his neck and aims his rifle at the thugs.

David eliminates the four thugs easily, relieved that Hardman didn’t take his shot. David catches up with Megan, ignoring her dismissive comments. He hatches a plan: They continue shooting at Fortuity to keep him off-balance, which they can use to checkmate him by firing two guns on either side of him simultaneously. She scoffs at his plan, but he gives her his rifle and tells her to chase Fortuity. David then hijacks a woman’s car and drives around the block so that the vehicle obstructs Fortuity’s route. The Epic finds himself trapped between Megan’s rifle and David’s car, which forces him to reveal a hidden power: super reflexes. Fortuity jumps feet-first onto the windshield, shattering it, and lands perfectly with a flip. He runs toward David with vengeance, but while he’s off-balance, Megan manages to trap him with David’s checkmate idea, killing him.

Megan appears surprised that the plan worked. More thugs round the alleyway with Uzi guns, and David and Megan take cover inside the car. Megan launches what looks like a lipstick case out the window, and it explodes. With the thugs distracted, David follows Megan to a garbage truck, where the shadowed driver allows David to jump in. They speed away, and David starts believing the Reckoners will let him join them.

They abandon the garbage truck and descend into the steel catacombs, wandering around the maze for an hour. David describes the corridors: “There were choke points, tunnels that went nowhere, and unnatural angles. In some places electrical cords jutted from the walls like those creepy arteries you find in the middle of a chunk of chicken” (47). They finally enter a small cut-out room, where David finds himself surrounded and realizes that the Reckoners haven’t accepted him—they’ve captured him.

The Reckoner team consists of five people: Megan, Prof (the leader and driver), Abraham (a muscular man with a French accent), Tia (a redheaded, middle-aged woman), and Cody (a sniper who is not Hardman, a person Megan fabricated to make David compliant). Tia tests David by scanning him with a flat device called a dowser and taking a blood sample. Both tests prove David is not an Epic, so Prof questions David about how he got his information. David explains that their target was obvious: The Reckoners don’t kill the most important Epics or the inconsequential ones, and among the lesser Epics with prime invincibility—David’s name for certain powers that make Epics functionally invulnerable—Fortuity is the most vicious. Prof remains skeptical, but Megan vouches for David, saying, “Knees here did try to help. Kind of” (53), using the nickname she coined after convincing him to kneel under a phantom sniper. Prof finally decides to let David live, but David insists he wants to join. Prof maintains that they don’t accept newcomers. David challenges their methods, arguing that they could really change the world by targeting the biggest Epics, like Steelheart, but Prof rejects the notion: “We have to fight the battles we have a chance of winning” (55). The Reckoners exit, leaving David dejected.

David grows resolute, and he follows the Reckoners: “Your work means something! […] So long as you leave [the High Epics] alone, you’re essentially proving what they’ve always said. That if an Epic is strong enough, he can take what he wants, do what he wants” (56-57). They only halt when David exclaims that he has seen Steelheart bleed. They finally give him an audience, and David tells his story for the first time in his life. After he finishes, the Reckoners debate the story’s legitimacy; no one ever knew why Steelheart first attacked the bank or what made him go into a mad rage that day, but David’s testimony aligns with what they know. Surprisingly, only Megan adamantly opposes David, though she advocated for him only minutes before. David promises that he has a detailed plan for killing Steelheart. Finally, Prof challenges David to describe their next destination, which David does. Prof decides to remain in Newcago for now, though he doesn’t make David any promises. After Tia calls Prof “Jon,” David pieces together the leader’s identity: “Prof, I thought. Professor, PhD. The man who founded the Reckoners is named Jonathan Phaedrus. P-h…d” (62). Prof is not merely a team chief; he’s the organization’s founder.