NONE OF THEM had come up with anything new or concrete the next day, or the next.
By the third night after the Puppeteer interrogation, Nova was beginning to relax. This might largely have been because she felt like she was making progress, learning things that might actually hold value, thanks to the cataloging job.
She found that she liked headquarters best at night. It was so quiet, after most everyone had gone home. Not entirely empty—there was always security staff monitoring the building, and late-night patrol units coming and going in between jobs, but the difference when compared with daytime was striking. The tranquillity was refreshing.
Nova had long had mixed emotions when it came to those most still hours of the night. The suspension of time in which all the world became lonely and shadowed. There had been periods in her childhood when she would frequent twenty-four-hour diners for no other purpose than to feel a sense of connection to whatever other sad souls were sleepless that night, where she would eat her stacks of blueberry pancakes and concoct life stories for the delivery man slurping black coffee at the bar, or the waitress who made up for her tired eyes with effusive perkiness. Eventually, though, someone always asked where Nova’s parents were, and once their gazes turned to pitiful assumptions, she would have to leave.
There were other nights, though, when she craved that solitude. Nights when she would spend hours staring at the moon and imagining she was the last person alive on this planet. Imagining there was no one left to cause war or strife. No one struggling to claim power. No one left to fear or hate prodigies. No prodigies left to hate.
Being inside headquarters at three o’clock in the morning felt like a wholesome mix of both. The tranquillity that came with being alone, but also the knowledge that she wasn’t, not really. Even if she was surrounded by her enemies, there was a strange sort of comfort in that thought.
She had been set up with her own little cubicle on the third floor, with a window that looked down onto the vast open lobby and a desk that she was told she could decorate with personal items, but so far all she’d thought to bring was a poster of the constellations that she picked up at a cheap print shop a few miles away, and then only because she worried they would think it was weird if she didn’t bring in anything at all.
The assignment she’d been given wasn’t exactly thrilling. She had spent three straight nights reviewing photographs that their forensics department had taken of all the destroyed artillery in the library, cataloging model numbers when they were available or otherwise scanning for identifying characteristics and comparing them with known weaponry in a global database. It wasn’t exciting work, but it did give her an excellent opportunity to alter the metadata when she came across scans of a series of gas bombs that she recognized from Cyanide’s laboratory, but which would now forever live in the Renegades’ files as amateur-crafted explosives from an unknown source.
The assignment also gave her ample opportunity to delve further into the Renegades’ system. Over the past nights, she had mapped out the locations of all security cameras and alarms within the headquarters building. Downloaded a full list of the weaponry and prodigy artifacts kept in their storerooms. Discovered the complete directory of current Renegades, with aliases, abilities, and even home addresses (including her own). And she had even, to her delight, found a folder titled “Concerns—For Future Consideration,” which turned out to be full of public complaints lodged at the Council’s ongoing failures and disappointments.
Nova finished entering the data on a box of ammunition—one of the few that hadn’t exploded when exposed to the heat from the fire—and took a moment to stretch out her spine. A flicker caught her eye and she glanced out the window to see that the lights inside Max’s quarantine were on, lighting up his glass city in a pale shade of yellow. She was sure it had been dark in there before. Was he having trouble sleeping?
She scooted closer to the window but could see no sign of the boy beyond the walls of his enclosure. Her eyes scanned the rest of the lobby. She could see one security guard pacing in front of the main entryway, but otherwise the place seemed as abandoned as it always did this time of night.
With a curious grunt, she leaned back in the sleek office chair, pulling her legs up until she was seated cross-legged. Checking the data list that had been provided for her, she decided to enter just three more items, and if Max’s light was still on when she was done, she would go check on him.
Nova rolled her shoulders and pulled up the next batch of photos, showing a simple handgun taken from multiple angles. She discovered the serial number near the base of the barrel and punched it in to the database.
A window popped into view—ONE MATCH FOUND.
She clicked on it, pulling up the profile of the weapon, its manufacturer, and the year it had been produced, and at the bottom, a list of known criminals and gangs this or similar guns had been connected with over the years. Often this list was blank or contained only vague notes from the field when there was a match between a gun’s serial number and a bullet casing found at a crime scene.
There was only one connection listed—not of this exact gun, but to another handgun of the same model. Reading the words felt like a kick to Nova’s gut.
IN CONNECTION WITH MULTI-VICTIM MURDER—KINGSBOROUGH APARTMENTS. SEE SUMMARIZED REPORT.
Kingsborough Apartments.
She had lived in the Kingsborough Apartments.
Her hands were shaking as she opened the report.
It brought up a summary drafted by Hugh Everhart—Captain Chromium himself—dated the night of her family’s murders. The night of. Mere hours after it happened.
Nova’s heart thundered.
He had been there. He had been there that night.
But he had been too late.
Four people found dead. David Artino: age 31. Tala Artino: age 30. Evie Artino: age 11 months. One unnamed man: age unknown. Suspected Anarchist or Roach affiliation.
Forensics confirm all deaths were a result of direct trauma from bullet wounds, without prodigy interference. Prints found on the gun matched both those of the unnamed man and also those of Alec Artino (alias: Ace Anarchy).
There is reason to suspect the deaths of the three family members were done as a killing for hire. The motive for the homicides remains under investigation. See the full report as filed by Hugh Everhart (Captain Chromium) here.
Additional notes: The eldest child,a six-year-old girl, was not found at the scene. Neighbors have reported no knowledge of her whereabouts. A report has been made to the Renegades missing persons unit.
An icon at the bottom of the report indicated a folder of pictures taken from the crime scene. Nova shuddered. She had been saved from seeing the bodies of her family all those years ago, and she would not look at them now. But to know they were out there … that such photos existed, mere clicks away, made her sick to her stomach.
With her heart feeling as though it were being squeezed in a clamp, Nova forced herself to click on the link to open the full report.
A small window popped into the center of the screen.
RESTRICTED ACCESS. ENTER PASSCODE: _ _ _ _ _ _
Nova stared at those words for a long time, in turns furious that something so personal to her could be kept confidential, but also in part relieved.
She knew what had happened to her family. She knew that the cowards in the Roaches had hired a hitman to kill them because her dad had refused to keep making weapons for them. She knew the Renegades hadn’t been there to stop it, even after they’d promised to protect David’s family, and neither had they been the ones to track down the gang and ensure justice was served. No—it was Ace who had destroyed them all in retaliation.
She stared at those words—RESTRICTED ACCESS—and felt new resentment smoldering inside her. The Renegades knew her family was being threatened. Captain Chromium knew they might be targeted, and yet he had failed to save them. He was too late. Could it be that the full report was confidential because he recognized his own ineptness? Was he so embarrassed to have failed to save this family that he would hide it from the world?
It was easy to believe. He hadn’t protected them. He hadn’t saved them. He’d only recorded their deaths, entering the information like notes on a ledger.
But people believed he was the world’s greatest superhero. A hit like that to his reputation would be inconceivable to all the fools who idolized him.
With a shudder, Nova closed the summary report. She squeezed her eyes shut, pushing her chair back from the desk.
It was good she had found this, she told herself. It was a reminder of how the Council had betrayed her family’s trust. How they had not been there when they were needed most.
They were not superheroes. They were frauds, and this whole system that was meant to protect and serve was nothing more than a failed social experiment. She could see now that many Renegades had good intentions—Adrian was proof enough—but it didn’t change the fact that their society was not being run by strong, competent leaders, but by dictators who had put themselves in this position of power without cause, and now had no idea what to do with it.
The people would be better off on their own.
The world would be better off without them.
Nova waited for the tight knot in her gut to start to unravel, and peeled open her eyes. She was facing the window again, and her gaze immediately shifted toward Max’s quarantine.
Her brow furrowed.
She rose from her chair and stepped closer to the window, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. A light was still on, but not the full overhead lights that had been on before. It was dimmer now, pale gold shimmering off the glass facades of his tiny skyscrapers.
And they were … floating.
Nova rubbed her eyes and looked again.
The same image greeted her. Not every building of the model city, but perhaps a few dozen of them, their glass spires hovering above the ground, bobbing like buoys on a calm lake. As she watched, larger bits of the city began to rise up too. Like a hundred shimmering missiles launching slowly into the air.
At their center sat Max, cross-legged and levitating.
Levitating.
“He’s telekinetic,” she whispered, but saying the words aloud did not make them any less surprising. Because … he shouldn’t be telekinetic. She had seen his profile, when she found the directory. She struggled to recall what it had said—something that had been made intentionally vague, she recalled, because she’d been annoyed at the time that she didn’t know what it meant.
Stooping over her desk, she minimized the weapons database and tracked down the Renegade directory again. After a quick search, she found him.
Max Everhart. Alias: The Bandit. Ability: Absorption.
Absorption. That’s right, she remembered it now, and how very frustrating it was that it meant nothing at all. Absorption of what? It offered no explanation for the quarantine or why people seemed to think he was dangerous.
But this …
She looked again. More of the buildings had risen up now, along with every miniature tree from City Park and the entire Sentry Bridge.
This, people might think was dangerous. Not because telekinesis was terribly rare, but because most telekinetics could only manage to move one or two objects at a time. Not dozens and certainly not while keeping themselves aloft as well. That sort of focus and mental aptitude had only been recorded in a handful of prodigies, so far as Nova knew.
And one of those prodigies was Ace Anarchy.
She returned to the window.
She even had a faint memory of seeing Ace in the cathedral, levitating just like Max was now—cross-legged and five feet in the air, one of the few times she’d seen him relaxed enough to go without his helmet. He had surrounded himself with candles in red glass votives, hundreds of them drifting around him, casting swirls of flickering light around the altar.
Seeing Max was so painfully familiar that she half doubted she wasn’t hallucinating.
Down below, Max opened his eyes. For a moment he stared at nothing. Not his floating glass city. Not the lobby below. His expression was serene and still.
Nova pressed her palm against the window of her cubicle.
That small movement must have caught Max’s eye, because he suddenly spotted her.
His concentration broke.
Nova saw it the moment it happened. His eyes widened, his lips parted, and his body dropped back to the ground, while all those sleek glass buildings crashed down around him.
Nova grimaced, embarrassed on his behalf.
But then she saw pain shooting through Max’s expression. Not the sort of pain that accompanied a hard fall, but the sort of pain that was excruciating. She pressed her nose into the glass, her own breath misting against it, and tried to make out what had happened.
As soon as she saw the blood, she turned away from the window and started to run. Down the corridor, past the elevator bank, into the stairwell. She launched herself over the steps to the next landing, then down the next, her feet barely touching the ground. She burst out of the doorway and raced across the sky bridge. She could see Max through the quarantine walls. He was on his knees, bent forward, cradling his hand. His right arm was soaked in blood.
Nova rounded the side of the quarantine and yanked open the door to the tertiary chamber. She charged for the next door, pulled down the lever to release the air lock, and pried it open.
An atmosphere-controlled chamber waited for her. Screaming in frustration at all these barriers, she bolted forward and yanked open the second door.
Her breath hitched.
She was inside the quarantine.
Max hadn’t moved. His back was to her, but he’d fallen onto his hip. He looked back when he heard Nova enter. Pain was still drawn into his features, but his eyes widened in fear when he saw her. Fear and panic and desperation. Nova looked at his hand, which was covered in blood. Beside him, she saw the bloodied spire of the Woodrow Hotel.
“Sweet rot,” she breathed, and already her mind was creating a checklist. Clean the wound. Bandage it up. Get him to the medical wing, or if no healers were available, get him to the hospital.
Nova started making her way through the glass city, kicking aside the fallen buildings in her path.
“No—” Max gasped.
“It’s okay,” said Nova. “You’re fine. You might be in shock, but you’re fine.”
“No, Insomnia, stop!” he yelled. He started to back away from her until he collided with the wall of the arena. “Stay there!”
“You need medical attention,” she said, halfway down Drury Avenue. “Just some basic first aid and then I’ll get you to the heal … healers…”
Her body began to slow.
Her lungs contracted, expelling her last breath.
She stumbled, grabbing the model of Merchant Tower for support.
She blinked at Max, but her vision had blurred.
Terror crossing his features, Max stood and tried to step over the arena, but his ankle caught and he stumbled, knocking over one of the great standing floodlights. “Go back!” he screamed. “Get out!”
But Nova couldn’t move. Her breaths wheezed as she slumped forward. Her eyelids were so heavy. Her brain was clouding over with … with exhaustion.
She felt like her limbs were full of sand. Like her skull was thick with fog.
She fell onto her side. Her shoulder smashed into the model of Gatlon City Hospital. Its north tower tipped over and shattered on the street, which was the last sound she heard before darkness engulfed her.