Max held his hand out, his face tensing in concentration. The miniature float began to tremble, then lifted and hovered in the air. It bobbed slowly but steadily through the city, along Raikes Avenue, around the corner onto Park Way, before clunking down beside him.
He exhaled and opened his eyes. “Thanks.”
“I think you’re getting stronger,” said Adrian. “That was steadier than usual. I’m pretty sure.”
“No, I’m not,” said Max in a matter-of-fact tone that would have disguised his disappointment from just about anyone else.
“Well … some telekinesis is still better than none, right?” Adrian scratched his temple with the capped end of the marker. “Did you want figurines of the Council to go on top?”
Max shook his head. “I still have the ones you made last year.” He glanced around. “Somewhere.” His expression darkened as he turned back to Adrian. “Did someone really try to assassinate the Captain?”
Adrian hesitated, but there was no reason to keep Max from the truth. He was a smart kid, and too observant for his own good. He watched the news more than he ever watched movies or cartoons, and even being stuck in this glass prison, he always seemed to know more about what was happening in the world than Adrian did.
“Yeah,” he said. “A villain who goes by Nightmare.”
“You’ve fought her before.”
“Not me. Oscar and the others had a run-in with her a few months back, and some of the other teams have seen her before too.”
“Why would she want to hurt the Council?”
Adrian started doodling marching band characters onto the glass. A drummer and a tuba player. A whole line of trombones. “Some people liked the way things were before the Renegades took over.”
“Back when everyone was always stealing things and stabbing each other?”
“I don’t get it, either. But I guess the people in power back then would have been living pretty good, right?” His brow knit together as he tried to picture the intricate coils on a French horn. Giving up, he gave the musician a trumpet instead.
“Do you think this new guy wants that too? To give the city back to the villains?”
“New guy?”
Max pointed at the screens. Adrian followed the look and a chill swept down his spine. The news was showing a photo of the Sentinel. It was a grainy image of him lobbing himself between rooftops, taken from the ground a hundred feet below. Captured in that moment it almost looked as though he could fly.
Though the picture quality was terrible, it was the first time he’d seen himself in the suit, and it was both eerie and comforting.
There was no way to tell it was him. There couldn’t be. No one had to know that he was the one who had failed to catch Nightmare. He was the one who had hurt Monarch.
“I don’t think…” Adrian hesitated. “We don’t know that he’s a villain. He might have been trying to help. He fought Nightmare, and they say he wears an R on his chest.”
“But he’s not one of us, is he?”
Adrian started pushing the marching band through to Max, one musician at a time. “I don’t know. Oscar thinks maybe he’s some secret weapon they’ve been developing upstairs.”
A commotion on the main floor drew Adrian’s attention to the bright entryway. The Council had finally returned, dragging the Puppeteer between them, wrapped in chromium chains. The Captain pushed the villain off to one of the waiting teams, giving orders for him to be taken up to the prison block. Tsunami went with them, holding a wall of water at the ready, should Winston Pratt try anything. He seemed to be in too much giddy awe being inside Renegade Headquarters to formulate an attack, though.
Blacklight slapped both the Captain and the Dread Warden on their backs, and even from up here Adrian could hear his boisterous voice saying something about Thunderbird as he, too, made his way toward the elevators.
Adrian stood. Captain Chromium glanced up toward him and his face softened, perhaps with relief, though there hadn’t been much reason for him to be concerned. As far as he knew, as far as anyone knew, Adrian had been down in the crowd watching the parade the whole time, and he could hold his own against a handful of brainwashed kids.
Still, he couldn’t help but smile back as he lifted one hand in a welcome-back salute.
He turned and knocked twice on Max’s window. Max waved good-bye without looking up, already organizing the band in front of the parade float.
Adrian made his way to the ground floor. The Captain weaved through the crowd that had gathered around him, everyone shouting questions about the attempted assassination, the Puppeteer, Nightmare, the Sentinel, but they all went ignored. The Captain met Adrian at the bottom of the steps and wrapped him in a quick hug, before pulling away and gripping Adrian’s shoulders. Adrian grimaced as he felt his stitches pull against the wound, but did his best to cover it with a smile.
“We weren’t sure if you were at the parade when it started,” said Captain Chromium.
The Dread Warden appeared beside them and gave Adrian a sideways embrace. “We’re glad you made it back safely.”
To the world, they were Hugh Everhart and Simon Westwood. Superheroes. Councilmen. Founding members of the Renegades.
But to Adrian, they were mostly just his dads.
He rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “Knock it off. You guys are embarrassing me.”
“Not for the last time, I’m sure,” said Simon. “Were you involved in the fight?”
Adrian shook his head. “I was a few blocks away when it started. Spent most of my time playing traffic controller to a few busloads of children.”
“It’s a tough job,” said Hugh, “but someone has to do it.”
“Has an investigation started yet?” asked Adrian. “The Puppeteer wasn’t acting alone. More Anarchists might have been there too—and Nightmare was on the rooftops.” He frowned at Hugh. “She was after you.”
“I’m fine,” said Hugh, scratching his temple. Adrian knew that’s where the dart had struck him, but there wasn’t even a mark.
“I can see that,” he said, “but still, she tried to assassinate you today—and she almost succeeded. And she took down Thunderbird. This girl … she keeps cropping up, and I really don’t think she’s working alone.”
“Neither do we,” said Simon. “We’re looking into it, but so far there’s no solid evidence that Nightmare is with the Anarchists or any other gang affiliation, new or old. She could have just gotten lucky to be able to use Winston’s balloon for a convenient getaway. And without evidence—”
Adrian muttered dully, “—it’s against the code to go after them.”
“If we don’t mind the rules, then we’ll be just like them,” said Hugh.
Adrian didn’t respond. Back when the Renegades had first formed, they didn’t have to play by any rules—there were no rules to play by. They were more like vigilantes than law enforcers, and they certainly weren’t lawmakers. They did what needed to be done in order to make the world a better, safer place. Even if that meant blackmailing someone for information, or infiltrating a hideout because they thought there was something suspicious going on—with or without hard evidence.
There were days when Adrian thought things were better that way. When superheroes were left to be superheroes, not leaders.
Maybe that’s why the idea of the Sentinel appealed to him. There was a freedom in anonymity. There was power in not having to answer to anyone.
Except, as today had shown, that didn’t mean there weren’t consequences.
“Try not to worry so much,” said Simon, and Adrian realized he’d been scowling. “We had Nightmare’s weapon sent over earlier for examination. We’ll see if it turns up anything useful.”
“She’s just a newbie villain, trying to earn herself some credibility,” added Hugh. “We’ve handled a lot worse.”
Adrian couldn’t argue with that. They’d taken down Ace Anarchy himself, among countless others. Still, something told him that N
ightmare wasn’t to be ignored. As far as he knew, that one dart had come closer to killing Captain Chromium than anything had before.
Simon looked up at the wall of screens, flashing between images of the Puppeteer, Nightmare waving from the basket of the hot-air balloon, and, every once in a while, the Sentinel.
Hugh followed Simon’s gaze, frowning at the image of the armored prodigy. “Speaking of investigations, what do we know about him?”
Though they were surrounded by reporters, assistants, and patrol teams, no one answered.
Adrian scratched his chest, where the zipper tattoo was hidden, where the Sentinel was tucked safely away. “My team saw him when they were facing off against Nightmare. The Sentinel was after her too.”
Hugh glanced at him. “Did they see him use any abilities?”
“I … think so. Yeah.” He swallowed. “Oscar thought maybe he’s a product out of research and development?”
“Would be news to me,” Simon muttered. “I’ll talk to Oscar and Ruby, see what we can figure out.” A sudden clarity entered his eyes. “I heard about Danna. Is she all right?”
Adrian stiffened. He could still feel the warmth of his own fire. Could still see those butterflies blackening and disintegrating before his eyes. “The healers say she will be.”
Simon squeezed Adrian’s shoulder, and he knew it was meant to be fatherly and comforting, but something about it made him feel worse. Not only about Danna, but also because he had already decided he couldn’t tell them that he was the Sentinel. Not yet.
Hugh turned away, facing the crowd. “Listen up,” he said, in that deep, heroic voice that could have made an earthworm stand at attention. “If anyone knows anything about this prodigy who calls himself the Sentinel, bring that information to the Council. As far as we know, he isn’t one of us…” He paused, his steely-blue eyes cutting across the room, just in case anyone wanted to step forward and confess right then that, by golly, it was me all along! Avoiding his father’s gaze, Adrian glanced up at Max, who was watching them from the quarantine.
Hugh continued. “But he is using our symbol and our name. I want to know his motives. If he’s an enemy, I want to know who he’s working with. If he’s an ally … I want to know why he’s not working with us.”
He turned to Adrian and flashed his signature Captain Chromium smile, the one that, even after all these years, still made Adrian feel like he was looking at a picture on a cereal box. “Who knows? Maybe he’ll be at the trials.”
“Mr. Everhart, Mr. Westwood.” A woman in a white lab coat and sneakers made her way across the lobby, carrying a clipboard. “May I have a moment? We’ve finished our preliminary tests on the chemical solution that was inside that projectile dart.”
Hugh and Simon joined her and started heading back in the direction she’d come from. Adrian followed, pretending he’d been invited, as the rest of the crowd dispersed.
“We don’t have a run yet on the physical casing of the projectile,” said the woman, flipping a page on her clipboard. “But the solution was nearly identical to poisons that have been traced to Cyanide in the past.”
“Cyanide,” said Hugh. “Leroy Flinn?”
The woman nodded.
“An Anarchist,” said Adrian.
They paused and turned back, and all three seemed surprised that he was still there.
Sighing, Hugh turned back to the technician. “Nothing on the gun yet?”
She started to shake her head, but hesitated. “This isn’t confirmed, but it carried manufacturing marks similar to some we’ve apprehended from nonaffiliated criminals. Black market, if I had to guess.”
“Could be a new dealer in the city,” said Hugh, stroking his chin.
“Or an old dealer,” added Simon, “getting back into the business.”
“Who cares where the gun came from?” said Adrian. “Cyanide made the poison and we know he’s an Anarchist. Between him and the Puppeteer, that’s got to be who Nightmare is working for. Or … with.”
Simon shoved the edges of his cape back from his shoulders. “The Anarchists have been inactive for nine years. More likely the girl’s just some prodigy miscreant trying to make a name for herself on the streets.”
“You don’t know that,” said Adrian. “And what does it matter? They attacked us today—the Puppeteer and Nightmare both. That has to be enough cause to go after the Anarchists, even under the code authority.”
“It isn’t enough to confirm that Nightmare really is one of them.” Hugh smiled then, and there was something so warm and kind about it that Adrian bristled, like his dad was trying to comfort him after a rough day at softball practice. “But maybe you’re right. We’ll send someone to investigate the Anarchists. Ask a few questions, see what they can find out.”
Adrian’s left eyelid began to twitch. “Why not send me? Us? Oscar and Ruby were on the ground today—they know more about Nightmare than anyone at this point. Let my team go.”
“Your team is excellent at patrol work,” said Simon, “but you’re not investigators. We’ll find someone with more experience to handle it.”
Adrian massaged his brow. “I don’t think … I just wonder if another team is going to take this as seriously as they should. Nightmare showed herself to be a real threat today, and if the Anarchists were involved, then we have to stop thinking of them as harmless tunnel rats. Even without Ace, they’re still villains. We can’t be sure what they’re capable of.”
Hugh laughed. “You forget who you’re talking to, Sketch,” he said, using Adrian’s Renegade name, and Adrian couldn’t tell if it was endearing or insulting. “Let the Anarchists try to reclaim power of the city. They would never stand a chance—with or without this Nightmare. We are still superheroes, you know.”
They turned and followed the woman into the elevator bank, and already Adrian could hear them moving on to other topics of Council business—how they would reassure the people after today’s attacks, and what to do about Winston Pratt, and how best to track down this alleged black-market weapons distributor.
Adrian watched them go, his arms crossed tightly over his chest. He couldn’t help but feel that Hugh Everhart was mistaken. They weren’t superheroes anymore—not in the way they used to be. It wasn’t because they were getting older or because they hadn’t been out on the field so much since they’d assembled the Council and left most of the crime fighting to the younger recruits. It was because they had rules now. Rules that they themselves had created, but that kept their hands tied nonetheless.
The solution seemed so simple to him, so obvious. They knew where the Anarchists lived. Renegade teams raided their stronghold every few months to make sure they weren’t harboring illegal weaponry or building bombs or concocting fatal poisons exactly like the one found in that dart. All they had to do was go there and demand that Nightmare be handed over.
Instead they were going to send in some team who would … do what? Ask a few inane questions, then politely apologize for taking up their time?
The Puppeteer and Cyanide were both Anarchists who had been loyal to Ace from the start. The odds that Winston Pratt had been working alone today struck Adrian as unlikely, and the idea that Nightmare’s usage of his balloon and the fact that her dart had Cyanide’s poison in it might be coincidences seemed naïve.
If the Anarchists were growing active again, recruiting new members, plotting against the Council, this might be their best opportunity to stop them, before they were allowed to get out of control.
Because they could not get out of control. Not again. Nine years had passed, yet the world still bore too many scars from the rule of Ace Anarchy.
Adrian wasn’t sure they would be able to recover a second time.
CHAPTER SIX
THE BALLOON HAD CRASHED into an apartment building just south of Bracken Way. Nova jumped from the basket before it hit the pavement and disappeared into the shadows of a connecting street. Knowing the Renegades would be tracking the balloon and sea
rching for her, she forced her legs to carry her almost two miles through back alleys and empty courtyards before she finally collapsed behind a laundromat and a restaurant that advertised both teriyaki and cheeseburgers. She lay on the concrete, staring up through the grates of the fire escape, through the clotheslines strung with underpants and towels, at the faintest glimpse of sky between the brick facades. Grit dug into her back and every muscle ached, but it felt good to remove the hood and face mask. To breathe in the air, even if it smelled of old grease and garlic and, occasionally, a whiff of wet dog.
Only when a real wet dog came sniffing around her head did she shove its nose away, peel herself off the pavement, and start to make her way back home.
Back to the shadows and squalor of everyday life.
She walked for more than an hour before she made it to one of the defunct subway entrances that connected to the network of tunnels the Anarchists had seized after the Renegades’ victory had sent them into hiding. For the last eight years the Council had been saying they were going to get the subway system up and running again, but as far as Nova could tell, there’d been exactly zero progress made. She had serious doubts it would happen anytime soon.
She squeezed past the plywood board and slipped inside.
Darkness engulfed her as she made her way down the stairs. Only when she reached the first landing and turned to face the second did she take the small flashlight from her belt and flick it on. The light danced over familiar scrawls of graffiti and signs advertising books long out of print and stage shows that hadn’t toured in Gatlon in more than thirty years.
The subway system had fallen with the government, back at the start of Ace’s revolution, and the tunnels had become a refuge for those seeking solace from the upheaval above. They offered shelter and anonymity, at least, and that wasn’t nothing. Now the abandoned tunnels belonged to the Anarchists, at least this corner of the labyrinth, with its broken-down train cars, trash-littered tracks, and a darkness that seemed to permeate the very walls.
They weren’t exactly in hiding—the Renegades knew where to find them. But years ago, after the Battle for Gatlon, Leroy had offered a truce to the Council. That’s what he called it. A truce. Though Ingrid said it had been little better than groveling. Still, the Council had accepted his terms. The few surviving Anarchists would be permitted this tiny bit of autonomy, this pathetic little life underground, so long as they never again used their abilities against the Renegades or the people.