Page 63 of Renegades

NOVASTOODONTHE SIDEWALKoutside Renegade Headquarters for longer than she probably should have, ignoring the people that moved around her, grumbling at the girl in their way or the tourists who clustered beside the bus stops to take pictures of the red letters hung over the massive glass doors.

Even tilting her head back she could only barely see the top of the building. It was practically a haze, so far up in the sky, towering over the rest of the cityscape. She had seen the building from afar a thousand times, stared at it from rooftops across the city and imagined how she could scale the walls, slip inside, take revenge against the Council and so-called heroes who treated it like their palace. But she had never pictured herself entering through the revolving main entrance. Never once thought she would be welcome there.

Those revolving doors had been spinning incessantly since she’d arrived. She didn’t think everyone who worked in the building was a prodigy, but there were certainly plenty of people coming and going who wore the signature gray uniforms, though just as many in suits and casual business clothes. Some of the Renegades stoppedto smile and wave at the tourists, and were always greeted with a flurry of squeals and camera flashes. All the worshipers come to gawk.

Nova’s brow tightened as she glanced around, realizing thatshewas among the awestruck gawkers. Huffing, she tore her feet from the sidewalk and forced them to move forward. Her palms were sweating as she neared the doors. A woman emerged in a sleek pantsuit. She didn’t even glance at Nova as she took off down the sidewalk, speaking into a device around her wrist and leaving the door to spin leisurely behind her. The gap between the glass barricades yawned open in admittance.

Nova swallowed and stepped inside.

Her heartbeat was a rapid staccato as the doors enclosed around her, then circled open on the other side.

Just like that, she was inside Renegade Headquarters. She dodged out from the revolving door and froze, every muscle braced, but not a single alarm sounded.

She was on a landing that overlooked a bright and sprawling lobby, where the RenegadeRgreeted her, inset into the glossy white floor. A staircase led down to the lobby on her left, a curving ramp to her right, both dropping toward a half-moon desk with the wordINFORMATIONbolted to the front in large steel letters.

The Anarchists had contemplated an attack on Renegade HQ a thousand times, but they had always known it would be too much risk to try to infiltrate it. There would never be a time when they weren’t vastly outnumbered, as hundreds of prodigies worked and trained inside the building on any given day. Nova could see now that what they’d assumed was true—the Renegades had not left themselves vulnerable to attack. After a quick scan of the lobby she had already pinpointed more than a dozen cameras and sensors and alarms, alongwith, of course, the armed and uniformed Renegades posted at practical intervals around the space, including one on either side of the landing where she stood. She wondered if guard duty was a full-time gig around here, or if it was a role they rotated people in and out of. She would have to find out. That was precisely the type of information Leroy had meant when he suggested she could make a good spy for them.

Everyone else seemed to be ignoring the guards, so she did, too, though her nerves twitched as she passed one on her way toward the staircase. An ominous chill went down her spine as she had the premonition that she was about to be tackled from behind. That she would be arrested, bound, made to answer for her crimes against the Council. That maybe her acceptance into the Renegades had been nothing but a ploy to lure her here.

But no. Nothing happened. She passed by the guard without looking into his face, and so far as she could tell, he didn’t look at her, either, though he might have glanced disinterestedly at theRpinned to her shirt, the one that felt like it was burning a hole into her skin. That was her pass, after all. That was the secret code to enter this place.

This pin was proof that she belonged there.

As she made her way down the stairs, the vast lobby seemed to transform around her. No longer flanked by security guards, she began to take in other details about the space. There were seating areas with sleek leather couches and coffee tables littered with newspapers and magazines. A small café stood in the distant corner, surrounded by little round tables where people were bent over paperwork as they sipped from paper cups. On the far side of the lobby were stairs curving up toward a wide sky bridge and a glass overlook—a large, circular room encased in glass. She could seesome sort of glass sculpture taking up the floor of the enclosure, but couldn’t tell from this distance what it was.

Her attention turned up to the television screens that were scattered around the room, hanging from the ceiling or attached to pillars. Most were tuned to a variety of news stations, both local and international, but some offered internal messaging.ANNUAL RENEGADE POTLUCK THIS SUNDAY, BRING THE WHOLE FAMILY!Or,NEW ENFORCER NEEDED FOR NIGHT PATROL TEAM—APPLY AT SECURITY DESK.Or—

Nova’s feet stalled on the last step as one of the messages on the screens was replaced with something new. A hazy photo ofher.

WANTED: “NIGHTMARE”—REPORT ANY INFORMATION TO THE COUNCIL.

Her back went rigid and she felt that sickening swirl of anxiety in her stomach again, the same sensation she’d had all night and all morning. What was shedoing?

She would be found out. Surely someone would recognize her.

Except—two of the Renegades who should have recognized her already had seemed oblivious. Surely, if she could fool Red Assassin and Smokescreen, she could fool anyone.

She looked hard at the image on the screen. Costumed as Nightmare, there was nothing to give her away. You couldn’t even see her eyes in the photo, just the glint of her mask beneath the overhang of her black hood. No one would recognize her, not by looks at least. It was her mannerisms that threatened to give her away, those little things that one did subconsciously. The way she walked, or where she put her hands when she was standing still, or even how she fought in hand-to-hand combat. And, perhaps more than anything, the way she despised the Renegades and the Council, and the way that hatred could overflow from her mouth at any moment.

She would have to take care to smother those instincts. To play the game. To be one of them.

She reached for the pin attached to her T-shirt, the one Adrian Everhart had drawn at the trials. Her fingers ran over the sharp corners of theR, traced along the letter’s curve.

Today she was a Renegade, so that someday she would be their downfall.

She approached the information desk, where a portly man with impressive sideburns was typing at a computer. He smiled when he looked up at her, but Nova couldn’t quite bring herself to return it.

“Hi,” she started. “I was recruited at the trials. I’m supposed to—”

“Insomnia,” he said brightly, launching to his feet and holding a hand toward her. She stared at it for a long time—pinkish-red skin and neat fingernails and a braided leather bracelet around his thick wrist. Though it was an innocent gesture, anormalgesture, everything about it felt uncanny.

Here was a Renegade, maybe a prodigy, maybe not, but either way, he was offering his hand to her. Contact.Skin.

Even the Anarchists didn’t like to touch her. Not because being put to sleep was such a great tragedy, but because sleep left you vulnerable.Shemade people vulnerable.

She waited too long.

The man—Sampson Cartwright, according to the tag on the desk—awkwardly closed his hand into a fist and reeled it back. “I saw you at the trials,” he said, snapping his fingers as though this could make up for the awkward moment. “You were great. The look on Gargoyle’s face…” His eyes glinted, almost merrily, or perhaps with mocking, and it was a strange realization for Nova to think that not every Renegade got along with one another.

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