“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 na?ve.
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 searching 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.