Page 77 of Renegades

Scowling, Nova crouched down and nudged the figure through the sleeping bag. The figure yelped and rolled over, then shot upward. The man had a beard of thick whiskers and ears that stuck out too far from his head. Despite the gray sprouting in his hair and the wrinkles cut through his brow, Nova had the impression he was younger than he looked, but had been aged prematurely by toomany unkind years. His hand went for the spot where the gun had been, but when it landed on only the floorboards, he glanced down and spotted it tucked behind Nova.

His bewilderment turned to a sneer. “Who’re you?” he barked.

“The new tenant,” she said. “Sorry, but you’re going to have to find somewhere else to crash.”

His eyes swooped over her Renegade uniform and she could see indecision warring behind his groggy eyes. It was clear he wanted to tell her to get lost and let him go back to sleep, but most people these days opted to treat any Renegade with respect, regardless of whether or not they actually supported their rule over the city.

“What?” he said. “You people claiming this block for another one of your social projects or something?”

“Or something.” Grabbing the gun, she stepped over the man’s sleeping bag and threw open the sash of the nearest window. She tossed the gun outside. It landed with a soft thud in a patch of weeds in the back alleyway.

“Hey!” the man yelled.

Nova headed back toward the staircase. “You’ve got two minutes,” she called over her shoulder. “If you’re not gone by then, you’ll be the next thing I throw out the window.”

She was halfway through the next room when he yelled back, “You think you can throw me out a window? I’ve had mutts that were bigger than you!”

Nova paused and turned back, peering at him through the doorway. “Now you have one minute.”

She went back downstairs to finish her tour of the house, which was composed of a powder room and a small kitchen-dining-room combo in the back of the ground floor. A sliding glass door led out onto a tiny square yard, which was mostly weeds, including aparticularly monstrous blackberry bush that was in the process of devouring a child’s tricycle.

Thirty-four seconds later, she heard the stairs creek and the front door slam shut.

Nova exhaled. “Home, sweet home.”

She returned to the kitchen and started digging through the cabinets. She found a box of black trash bags tucked into one corner and started filling it with bottle caps and crushed soda cans and the occasional dead cockroach that littered the floors. She hadn’t planned to stay there when she first decided to come check the place out. Rather, she’d been thinking strategically. She figured that if the Renegadesweretracking her movements through the communicator band, they would expect her to return home at some point, so she might as well get it out of the way. Her plan had been to hide the bracelet here, then return to the subway tunnels to tell the others what she’d learned during her first day at HQ.

But now that she was here, it occurred to her that, if theyweretracking her, it wouldn’t be enough to just stop by from time to time. She would be spending time here, like it or not, and she might as well make it… well, not comfortable. But somewhat tolerable.

She had finished her preliminary trash collection when she heard the front door squeal open again.

Groaning, she dropped the trash bag and stormed back toward the front room. “I’m telling you, this place is no longer—”

She drew up short.

Ingrid stood in the doorway, lip curled in disgust as she scanned the entryway. “Well,” she said, stepping over the threshold, “I was going to congratulate you on your improved lot in life, but I’m no longer sure this is an improvement.”

Leroy and Honey filed in behind her. Honey turned around toshut the door, but hesitated and used her toe to nudge it shut instead. She was clutching her hands at her chest, as if afraid they might inadvertently touch something and end up with tetanus.

Nova rolled her eyes. Almost a decade spent in a dank, gloomy tunnel and Honey Harper still managed to be an elitist.

“What, no Phobia?” Nova said dryly.

“He wasn’t interested in joining us,” said Ingrid. “His lack of curiosity is inhuman.”

“That,” said Honey, sneering, “or he happens to have a deep-seated fear of paisley wallpaper. No, wait, that’s me.”

Nova’s cheek twitched. “What are you doing here?”

“We were curious how your first day went,” said Leroy. He fluffed a dingy floral throw pillow and plopped into one of the armchairs. Honey gawped at him, horrified.

“I was going to come back to the tunnels after I”—she glanced around—“scouted out the place.”

“We figured.” Ingrid made a slow pass around the perimeter of the room, inspecting the drab furnishings and wallpaper. “But we didn’t think that would be such a great idea, in case you’re being followed.”

Nova frowned. “And if I am being followed, you don’t think it’s a problem that whoever’s following me would have just seen three Anarchists letting themselves in to my house?”

“Well, you’re not being followed, obviously,” said Ingrid. “Except by us. We’ve been tailing you since you left Renegade Headquarters. We would have noticed if someone else was too.”

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