She was on a landing that overlooked a bright and sprawling lobby, where the Renegade R greeted 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 word INFORMATION bolted 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, along with, 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 the R pinned 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 see some 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 of her.
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 she doing?
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 the R, 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, a normal gesture, 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. She made 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.
Sampson cleared his throat. “Anyway, you’re on Sketch’s team, right? I don’t think he’s come in yet, but I can check and see if…”