CHAPTER SIX

NOVA HAD NEVER been inside the main conference room at Renegade Headquarters. According to the others, it wasn’t used much. Oscar had once mentioned an annual meeting in which the Council liked to bore everyone to tears with statistics on their successes over the past twelve months, and lengthy discussions of their priorities for the future. When he told her this, Nova attempted to act sympathetic—how awful, how boring, how can anyone stand it? When in truth, she would have loved nothing more than to sit in on some of the Council’s upcoming plans for Gatlon City.

Danna led the way into the room, which consisted of a platform at the front facing hundreds of plastic chairs set into rows. The seats were filling up fast as Renegades poured in. Nova tried to eavesdrop on their huddled conversations, but it seemed the rest of the organization was as baffled as to the purpose of this meeting as her team was.

Though she’d been a Renegade for months now, Nova still found herself growing anxious when she was surrounded by so many superheroes at once. She calmed herself with practice observations—counting exits, determining what objects in the room would make decent weapons, estimating potential threats, and developing a mental escape route should anything happen.

Nothing ever happened, though. She was beginning to feel like all her preparation was unwarranted—the Renegades were as clueless to her true motives as they had been the day she entered the trials. But she couldn’t make herself relax. Any small slipup could reveal her identity. Any little clue could end this charade. An attack could come the moment she let down her guard.

It was exhausting to maintain her vigilance while still acting as though she belonged there, but she was getting used to being on edge. She couldn’t imagine being any other way, at least not inside headquarters.

“There are five seats together,” said Danna, pointing toward a row not far from the front. She moved to stake their claim.

“Nova McLain?”

Nova spun around. Evander Wade, one of the five Council members who was more generally known by his alias, Blacklight, sauntered through the crowd. “Do you have a second?”

“Um.” Nova glanced at Adrian, then at the platform at the front of the room. A microphone and a stool were waiting for a presenter, but the stage was empty. “I guess so.”

“I’ll save you a seat,” said Adrian, with the faintest, almost unnoticeable brush of fingers against her elbow, before he followed the rest of the group.

Almost unnoticeable.

Nova and her traitorous nerves, of course, noticed it keenly.

“I wanted to discuss the request you submitted a couple weeks ago,” said Evander, folding his arms over his chest. The stance was not so much defensive as it was a display of innate power. Nova had seen Evander Wade standing like this a number of times—feet planted into the floor, chest ever-so-slightly lifted. Unlike the rest of the Council, who could at least feign normalcy on occasion, Evander never seemed to be able to turn off his “superhero” self. The fact that he was currently dressed in his iconic uniform made the effect even more pronounced: all black Lycra formed to each muscle, white boots, white gloves, and a glow-in-the-dark emblem on his chest.

To Nova, it made him seem pompous and a little ridiculous, but the crowds of giggling girls who always followed after him at public events must have felt otherwise.

“My … request?” she said.

“About doing some part-time work in the artifacts department.”

“Oh! That. Right. Is it … still under consideration?”

“Well, I’m sorry it’s taken us this long to get back to you.” Evander tilted his head toward her as if they were in a conspiratorial conversation. “Been busy around here, you know?”

“Of course.”

“But … well, when can you start?”

Nova’s heart expanded. “Really? Uh—now! Or, whenever. As soon as you’d like me to.”

“Excellent.” Evander flashed a smile, his white teeth visible beneath a curled red mustache. “I’ve already talked to Snapshot about it. She heads up the department, and she’s excited to have you onboard. I think you two will get along well.”

Snapshot. Nova knew that alias. Simon Westwood, the Dread Warden himself, had mentioned the name to her when he’d told her that Ace’s helmet was not strictly available for public viewing, but … “Maybe if you made a really great bribe to the people in weapons and artifacts. I hear Snapshot is a sucker for sour gummies.”

Nova wasn’t sure if he’d been making a joke or not. What she did know was that Ace Anarchy’s helmet was somewhere in that department. Most of the world believed that Captain Chromium had destroyed it, a lie perpetuated by the Council themselves. They even kept a damaged replica in a display case outside their offices. But the real helmet was actually somewhere in this building and, presumably, this Snapshot knew how to access it.

“Now, that does leave one conundrum,” said Evander.

“It does?”

“Honestly, it’s part of the reason we’ve hesitated for so long. There are some people”—he faked a cough and spluttered, “Tamaya,” then another cough—“who worry we’re putting too much on your plate.” He gestured toward the front of the room, where the other four Council members were chatting together beside the platform. It was startling to see them all dressed in their traditional superhero garb, down to the capes and the masks, which made Nova even more curious to know what this meeting was about. “You may not know that Tamaya’s been pushing us to start drafting labor laws for the city for … I don’t know, six years now? It’s not exactly a top priority with everything else, but we all have our passion projects. Anyway, we’re aware that you’re currently on a patrol unit and we want you to stay on patrols. Plus, you’ve been called on to do investigative work and data entry for incoming acquisitions, and that’s asking a lot of you. So you need to let us know if it starts to feel like too much. You want to take some time off, set some limits on your work hours, that sort of thing, you come talk to me … or go to Snapshot and she and I can discuss it. Just, please”—he lowered his voice—“for all the skies, don’t complain to Tamaya without talking to me first, because she is an adamant abuser of the phrase ‘told you so,’ and no one needs that, you know what I mean?”

Nova stared at him. “You really don’t have to worry about that. I’m so excited for this opportunity. Believe me, I want to be involved in … well, as much as you guys need me for. And I have so much free time on my hands, it feels good to be using it for something productive.” She grinned brightly, and it was made easier by the fact that she hadn’t had to tell a single lie. Given that she never slept, she did have a lot of free time on her hands, and having access to the artifacts department would be very productive indeed.

“Great to hear,” said Evander, slapping her on the back, hard enough to make her stumble in surprise. “Adrian really knew what he was doing when he picked you out at the trials. That boy has great intuition.” Stepping back, he pointed his fingers at her, like shooting pretend pistols. “You can report to artifacts tomorrow morning. I’ll let Snapshot know you’re coming.”

She turned away, newly energized.

All of Nova’s previous attempts to learn more had been met with dead ends and unknowns, to the point where it made her want to attack something with a crowbar. She was supposed to be a spy. She was supposed to be the Anarchists’ secret weapon. Now, she could get close to Ace’s helmet and start making a plan for how she was going to get it back.

Most of the crowd had found seats by the time Nova made her way toward her team.

“What did Blacklight want?” Adrian whispered as she sat down between him and Danna.

“He wanted to know if I’m still interested in doing extra work in the artifacts department,” she said. “I start tomorrow.”

Adrian looked surprised and, she thought, a little disheartened. “Artifacts? But … what about…”

“I’ll still be doing patrols. Remember, I have a lot more hours in my day than you guys have.”

Adrian nodded, but she could still see a shadow of concern behind his glasses. She knew exactly what he was thinking. Just because she never slept didn’t mean she shouldn’t occasionally rest. It was an argument she heard a lot. But people who needed sleep and rest couldn’t possibly understand how lack of action only made her irritable. She needed movement, work, momentum. She needed to keep busy during those long hours when the rest of the world was sleeping in order to drive away the anxieties that were always encroaching on her. The constant worry that she wasn’t doing enough.

“It’s fine,” she said. “I want to do this.” Remembering the faint way Adrian had touched her elbow, Nova braced herself and went to place a hand on his knee. But in the space between her brain telling her it was a good idea, and her hand actually making the move, it turned into an uncomfortable balling of her fist that knocked clumsily against the side of Adrian’s thigh, before immediately withdrawing into her own lap.

Adrian stared down at his leg, brow furrowed.

Nova cleared her throat and wished that she’d been gifted with the power to stop blushing at will, rather than eternal sleeplessness.

A hand thumped against a microphone, reverberating through the speakers. The five Council members had taken the stage: Evander Wade, Kasumi Hasegawa, Tamaya Rae, Simon Westwood, and Hugh Everhart.

Hugh stood at the microphone. Though the Council pretended they didn’t have a hierarchy among themselves, most people felt that Hugh Everhart—the invincible Captain Chromium—was the figurehead of the organization. He was the one who had defeated Ace Anarchy. He was the one who had rallied countless prodigies to their side and fought against the villain gangs who had taken control of the city.

He was also, of the entire Council, the one who Nova felt deserved her wrath the most. If anyone should have rescued her family when they were killed more than a decade ago, it should have been Captain Chromium.