Page 44 of Renegades

Leroy did not hesitate. “Rummaging through the supplies in the art department at the university. Searching for precision knives and laminate, if I’m not mistaken.”

The woman grumbled under her breath and slammed the window shut.

Nova glanced at Leroy from the corner of her eye.

“She had a run-in with a face-changer a while back,” he whispered. “Almost put her out of business. She’s been a bit paranoid about it ever since.”

The door at the end of the cabin swung open and the light from inside cut across the water. “Come in, then,” the woman said. “Quick now, before anyone sees you.”

Nova glanced around. There was nothing but cliffs and empty road and the ocean in every direction. Leroy’s lone yellow car was the only sign of civilization in sight.

Leroy stepped over the rail onto the deck and slipped into the cabin of the houseboat. Nova followed, shutting the door behind her as she looked around.

The cabin was narrow and crammed so full of stuff that Leroy had to turn sideways to fit down the aisle, following the woman as she made her way to the back of the boat. Open shelving covered the walls, sporting everything from cleaning supplies to cans of food to more wine. A wood stove in the far corner was the source of the light and an encompassing warmth that tipped just slightly toward oppressive. To her left, the wall was lined with more shelving units and storage crates of all shapes and sizes, many stacked with dishes, pottery, and piles of neatly folded towels. To her right, an assembly of old printers and computer monitors, scanners and an office copy machine, a laminator, boxes of blue latex gloves, and stacks and stacks and stacks of paper of all different colors and thicknesses. A maze of string crisscrossed overhead, down the full length of the cabin, hung with drying laundry and a variety of paper documents.

“Millie,” said Leroy, pausing behind the woman as she set the gun down on top of a filing cabinet and started to remove a few sheets of paper from one of the lines, “I’d like you to meet Nova. Ace’s niece.”

“I know who she is,” said Millie, thunking the edges of the papers together to level them, then pulling an empty folder from a desk drawer and sliding them inside. “Welcome aboard, Nova McLain.”

“Um. Artino, actually.”

Millie peered around Leroy and held the packet toward her. “Not anymore.”

Taking the packet, Nova flipped open the folder and looked at the top sheet. It was a birth certificate, as simple and unembellished as those created during the Age of Anarchy tended to be. With fewdoctors’ offices left to perform deliveries, many women gave birth at home with the help of a midwife, who may or may not have had professional training, who may or may not have cared to complete any sort of paperwork afterward, especially when there were no governmental departments expecting such paperwork to be submitted. Nova knew that both she and Evie had been delivered at home, but as far as she knew, her parents had never gotten a certificate for either of them.

This document, though, looked as professional as the ones that came from the era, stamped and signed by a oneJanice Kendall, midwife.It included signatures from her imaginary parents,Robert and Joy McLain.It included her birthday, and it actuallywasher birthday—May 27—perhaps so Nova would be less likely to give the false date should anyone ask for it.

And, printed in neat handwriting in the center of the page, was her name.

Almost.

Nova Jean McLain

“Do I look Scottish?”

“Your father was Scottish,” said Millie, opening the bed of a scanner and pulling out a sheet of paper. “You take after your mother.”

Nova opened her mouth to refute—her dad was Italian, her mom Filipino, and she liked to think she was a strong mix of them both—but she stopped herself. What did it matter what the world thought her name was, or where she got her blue eyes or her black hair? What did it matter if anyone thought her parents were Robert and Joy… whoever they were.

She couldn’t walk into the Renegades trials with the name Artino, and Nova Jean McLain was as good a secret identity as any.

She lifted the birth certificate. The next page was the requiredapplication to participate in the Renegade trials. It had been filled out using an old typewriter.

Name: Nova Jean McLain

Alias: Insomnia

Prodigious Ability (Superpower): Requires no sleep or rest; maintains full wakefulness at all times without any decline in aptitude from sleep deprivation.

“Insomnia,” Nova muttered. It wasn’t exactly the sort of name that would strike fear in the hearts of her enemies, but it wasn’t bad, either. She wondered if Leroy had come up with it, or Millie.

“There’s a spot on the last page for your signature,” said Millie, holding out a ballpoint pen. “Don’t sign the wrong name, now.”

Nova took the pen without looking up. Outside, the waves drummed a steady, crashing melody against the side of the boat. “I live on East Ninety-Fourth and Wallowridge?” She frowned. “Are there even habitable homes in that area?”

“Would you rather I put ‘subway tunnel off the defunct Mission Street station’?” said Millie.

Nova glanced up. “I just don’t want anyone to come investigating me and find out the residence in my paperwork is actually some convenience store that burned down twenty years ago or something.”

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