The prints on the screen were obviously mutilated—entire patches of the whorls in her skin cut through with flat, empty planes.
“I burned them when I was a kid,” she said, the rehearsed lie tumbling out of her before he could ask. “You’ll see on my application that I’m really into science—chemistry and engineering, and … um. Anyway, I was doing an experiment. With acid. And … that happened.” She gestured to the screen.
The man’s lips pursed. “Well,” he said, glancing at a second monitor, “they’re not pulling up any matches in our system. So.” He jerked his thumb over a shoulder. “Head on back through those doors and wait to be called.”
Her body stilled. “Really?”
“Really, what?”
“Really, I can just … I can try out?”
“That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it?” He peered around her. “Next?”
“Oh. Okay. Thanks.”
Nova ducked away from the table and scurried through the swinging double doors.
The room he sent her to must have been a locker room at one point—dank, cold, full of concrete and poor lighting, with the faint aroma of old sweat permeating the walls. The actual lockers had been removed, leaving faded impressions on the walls where they had been, and an alcove in the corner still had drains in the tile floor, though only holes where plumbing and shower heads had once been installed.
Now the room was full of uncomfortable benches and a lot of nervous prodigies giving themselves quiet pep talks. A tinted picture window on one side looked out onto the field, where they could watch the ongoing trials. A current Renegade hopeful was making his way out into the center ring. Tables hosting the teams were set all around the field, and a giant paper banner had been strung between two pillars over the middle: DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES?
To her right, a platform jutted out over the field, where all five Council members sat watching the proceedings. Even from down here she could see bandages wrapped around Thunderbird’s wing and she felt a spark of pride at the sight.
Last year, Detonator had suggested they stage an attack at the trials, but Cyanide talked her out of it, believing there would be too strong a concentration of prodigies and Renegade supporters for them to be effective.
Seeing it for herself, Nova knew he was right. There were prodigies everywhere. Renegades everywhere. It felt a bit like being surrounded by Queen Bee’s hives, if one happened to be allergic to bee stings.
She focused on the field, where the contestant had just revealed that he had four extra arms emerging from his rib cage. The crowd came alive with red signs, the vast majority proclaiming—HERO!
Nova scoffed. Did they really think that extra limbs made you a hero? Or being able to shoot fireworks from your hands? Or even having a layer of chromium beneath your skin?
Heroism wasn’t about what you could do, it was about what you did.
It was about who you saved when they needed saving.
She crossed her arms, tapping her fingers against her elbows while the trials went on. Prodigies had come from all corners of the city, some from the far reaches of the world, even, in hopes of being accepted among the elite.
Many were accepted, but those who weren’t … the looks of devastation on their faces almost, almost made Nova feel bad for them. That’s what they got, though, for putting so much faith into the Renegades.
She shut her eyes and exhaled. The bitterness was pooling on her tongue, filling her mouth with a sour taste. The smell of sweat and nerves clogged her throat.
She did not belong here. She didn’t even want to be here. If Cyanide hadn’t put the idea in her head, she doubted it ever would have crossed her mind.
But if she made it—if she became a Renegade—she could make a difference. What could she learn from the inside, about their headquarters, the Council, their plans for the city?
Not to mention her new enemy.
The Sentinel.
Even thinking the name made her stomach tighten, and she thought again of the smug righteousness he’d had on the rooftop when he’d said it. I am the Sentinel.
Gag. Ew. Bleh.
He was nothing but a fancy science experiment, but the nature of the experiment eluded her the more she thought of it. He had too many powers, too many abilities for one prodigy. She’d never seen anything like it. And if the Renegades had somehow contrived a way to bestow multiple superpowers on one individual, what would stop them from making an entire army of them?
It was already hard enough to fight against them. For ten years the Anarchists had clung to the last shreds of livelihood and freedom. Nova feared the Sentinel could be the end of life as they knew it.
But not if she could learn more, and find out some way to fight against him, or to destroy him entirely, and anyone else they made in his image.
Knowledge is power.
One of Ace’s favorite phrases, drilled deep into her head over the years. To overthrow the Renegades, they needed knowledge. They needed to know their enemy’s weaknesses and vulnerabilities.
And if they succeeded … if she succeeded …
To no longer be seen as a parasite in society. To be feared would be so much better than this—the sneering, the mocking, the small-minded insults from people who would rather be kept under the thumbs of their idols than be allowed to live free, by their own will and choices.
She opened her eyes again. Could she really pull it off? She would have to spend days or weeks or even months pretending to be one of them. How long would she be able to maintain such an act? How long before they, too, realized she did not belong?
Out in the arena, the crowd went into fits of laughter as a prodigy demonstrated her power—expanding her head like a helium balloon, then floating a few feet above the ground until it deflated again.