The tea was already cooling when she left Honey’s room and headed for the fork in the tunnels. Nova passed another abandoned platform, a mural of chipped and grungy tiles marking the stop for Blackmire Station, and again she paused, considering.
The platform was set with three children-size circus tents, each one barely big enough to stand up in. Their wide stripes done in once-vibrant primary colors had been dulled with years of dirt and grime. The tents were connected through flaps torn into the fabric and stitched together with shreds of old sleeping bags and bedsheets, forming a sort of miniature tent-palace. The most striking change, though, was that their pennant flags had been replaced with skewered doll heads, one to each tent, their dull black eyes watching anyone who dared approach.
Nova set down the cup of tea and hauled herself up onto the platform. She peeled back the front flap of the tent and spent a moment letting her eyes adjust to the dimness, and her wrinkled nose adjust to the stark odor of Winston Pratt, who had never been particularly adept at self-hygiene.
Holding her breath, she stepped over the scattered remains of broken windup toys and dried-out paint sets, making her way to the second tent, where a child’s wooden kitchenette greeted her, overflowing with food both real and plastic.
She rummaged through the fake refrigerator and cabinets until she found a bag of kettle corn and a candy bar. She stuffed them both into her pockets.
Winston wouldn’t be back for them anytime soon.
By the time she reached Leroy’s train car, where a lantern was glinting in the window, the tea was lukewarm. Things never stayed hot for long in the damp tunnels.
Nova stepped up to the side door and knocked.
“Enter at your own risk,” came the familiar greeting.
Nova pried open the glass door, which had long ago been painted black, and stepped into the car. Leroy, or Cyanide, as the world knew him, was at his worktable, measuring a spoonful of green powder and dumping it into a vial full of yellowish liquid. The concoction crackled and hissed inside the tube.
He looked up at Nova and smiled, pushing his goggles to the top of his head. “You look terrible.”
“Just what I needed to hear, thanks.” She threw herself into a brown recliner. Though the cushion had once been home to a family of mice and the fake leather upholstery was torn in multiple spots, it still remained one of the most comfortable seats on the entire westbound line. “What are you working on?”
“Just a little experiment,” said Leroy. He was a pudgy man, with brown hair that was always matted to his forehead and a face that was a patchwork of scars and discolorations from a multitude of botched experiments over the years. He was missing three teeth and both eyebrows and always smelled of chemicals, but of all the Anarchists, he had always been Nova’s favorite.
“How was the parade?”
She shrugged. “We didn’t kill the Council. Or any Renegades, for that matter.”
“Shame.”
“I think I might have broken one of Thunderbird’s wings, though.”
Leroy’s eyes brightened, impressed, as he lifted the vial. The mixture inside had stopped bubbling. “Were you able to use the dart?”
Her frown deepened. “I tried. I missed.”
He hummed, unconcerned. “Maybe next time.”
Nova leaned back and the footrest jutted upward. “Winston showed up.”
“Oh?”
“He wasn’t supposed to.”
“I didn’t think so.”
Nova stared up at the metal bars stretching down the length of the car. The aged yellow maps of the city. The ceiling that had started to crack on one side.
“He was captured by the Renegades.” She took a sip of tea. “It might have been my fault.”
Leroy didn’t respond. Nova listened to the sounds of his work. Measuring, pouring, mixing.
She set her tea down on the floor, then reached an arm upward and folded it behind her head, trying to stretch out the muscles. “I probably could have saved us both, if I’d really tried.”
Leroy stoppered one of the vials and wrote out a label for it. “If he’d been stronger than the Renegades, he wouldn’t have fallen to them.”
It was logical. Anarchist logic. Comfortable, blameless logic.
“Anyway,” said Nova, switching to the other arm, “Ingrid thinks the Renegades will raid us tonight, in retaliation, or maybe to find out if any of us were involved.”
“I trust you’ll be well hidden when they arrive.”
“Yeah, but … maybe you should put some of this stuff away?”
Leroy’s lips quirked to one side, making half of his face go slack with disuse. “Believe it or not, everything I do here is perfectly legal.”
Nova couldn’t tell if he was joking. “Yeah, well … don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Warning duly noted, with my heartfelt appreciation.” He pulled an empty jar and a funnel from a nearby cabinet. “Were they advertising the trials at the parade?”
“Like it’s a national holiday,” Nova grumbled, then added mockingly, “Do you have what it takes to be a hero? Ugh. Stab me with an egg beater.”
She took the kettle corn from her pocket, the bag crinkling and squealing as she pried it open. She held it out toward Leroy, but he just shook his head.
“The world needs heroes,” he said, lowering the goggles again to transfer the concoction into the bottle. They made his eyes look three times bigger.
“That’s what they keep telling us.” Nova popped a handful of popcorn into her mouth. “But we both know the world would be better off without heroes. Without villains. Without any of us, getting in the way of normal, happy people and their normal, happy lives.”
Leroy’s lips lifted in a subtle smile. “Have you ever considered trying out?”
She laughed. “What, to be a Renegade?”
“They don’t know who you are, what you look like.” He turned the flame of a burner to low and set a glass jar on top. “You would make a promising spy.”
“Except there’s no way I could pretend to respect those righteous, arrogant, pretentious … heroes long enough to learn anything useful.”
Leroy shrugged. “You could, if you wanted to.”