Supernova, page 29
He finally stopped after the sixth time, rendering the doll little more than broken pieces and battered clothing. Panting from the exertion, Winston handed the spear back to the Captain, then he craned his head one more time to the microphone. “But even more important than that,” he said, his voice full of emotion, “I am no longer a villain.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
EVEN ABOVE THE buffeting wind, Nova could hear the crowd inside the arena erupt over her earpiece. She flinched from the noise—a thunderstorm of applause.
She used the moment to catch her breath. She wasn’t exhausted from scaling the exterior wall of the arena. Rather, she felt like she’d hardly breathed during Winston’s speech. She was supposed to be focusing on the job ahead, but instead she was caught up in his story. Her throat was dry. Her heart felt like it was strapped into a vise. She wondered how it was possible to live beneath the same roof—or, in the same subway tunnels—with a person for ten years and still know so very little about them.
As the cacophony within the arena quieted, Nova heard Phobia’s voice rattling in her ear.
“Traitor.”
She flinched. Though she knew Phobia was talking about Winston, it felt like an accusation of her and her sympathy, too.
She didn’t respond.
“Let him choose weakness and mediocrity if that’s what he wishes,” said Honey. “We need to focus on getting our Acey back.”
“Precisely,” said Leroy. “Nightmare, what’s your status?”
Shaking away the lingering feeling of heartbreak, Nova double-checked the reading on her laser measurer. “Almost in position,” she said, marking the exterior outline of her entry point. Precision was important. Cut the entry point too far afield and she’d end up with a hundred-foot free fall, right into the waiting arms of the Renegades. “Thirty more seconds,” she said, her own voice muffled behind the metal face mask.
“No rush,” said Leroy. “They’re just now bringing out the prisoners.”
Honey sighed heavily. “And knowing Captain Chromium, he’ll be droning on for at least another twenty minutes before anything exciting happens.”
Nova hoped the Captain was feeling particularly verbose.
Calculations complete, she hooked the laser measurer back to her belt and retrieved the diamond-bladed electric saw. She waited until the Captain’s booming voice filled her earpiece, being fed to the group by Cipher, one of Narcissa’s allies who was unknown to the Renegades and had no trouble getting entry to the event, along with sixteen others from their growing group, after Millie concocted fake media passes for them. They would be positioned around the arena, waiting to help Nova and the Anarchists complete their mission.
Nova’s objective was simple.
Get the helmet to Ace.
The curved roof of the arena vibrated beneath her knees, both from the buzz of her saw and the thundering speakers inside. She paused each time the Captain did, trying to sync the noise she was making to the times his speech grew particularly impassioned.
With one hand gripping the suction cup she’d attached to the roof, she finished the last cut. She gave a hard tug and the piece of roofing popped upward. She slid it away from the hole.
Exactly eight feet below her hung a platform for one of the lighting and sound system operators. She could see only the top of the woman’s head, covered in large headphones, her attention on the huge spotlight she was aiming toward the field below.
The beam of light was following the line of prisoners that were being led out from what had once been the arena’s locker rooms, where Nova had waited for her turn at the trials. The prisoners all wore the glaring black-and-white jumpsuits from Cragmoor prison. Their ankles were bound in shackles, each shackle chained to the next prisoner in line. Their hands were fully enclosed in chromium cuffs. A number of armed guards walked beside them, most of whom Nova recognized from Cragmoor, their weapons targeted at the more dangerous of the prodigies in the line.
Ace came last, and even from so high above, Nova could sense the buzz in the crowd as he appeared. His complexion was ghastly white, with deep purple bruises beneath his eyes. The skin hung from his bones as though it could slough off at any moment. He was broken and defeated, his back bent and his head heavy as he was led in on the chain of prisoners. A mockery of the prodigy he had once been. He was not a threat. He was not to be feared, not anymore.
Nova’s teeth ground, hating to see him reduced to this.
“Everyone at their stations,” she said, tightening the straps on her backpack. She abandoned the saw on the rooftop, not wanting the added weight. Bracing her arms on either side of the hole, she slipped her legs inside, dangled for a moment, then dropped.
She landed with a thud behind the lighting operator. The woman startled, but before she could turn, Nova’s fingers were on the back of her neck and she collapsed into Nova’s arms. Nova laid her down on the platform. “I’m in.”
She checked that the spotlight was still positioned on the stage. It was one of four such spotlights, each one currently targeting Captain Chromium, who was at the podium again while the inmates stood shoulder to shoulder down the length of the field.
Knowing that the other three operators would likely be the first to notice their absent peer, Nova ducked back toward the scaffolding that connected the platforms around the perimeter of the roofline and started making her way toward the next operator.
She mostly ignored the Captain’s droning voice, but a handful of words still filtered into Nova’s consciousness as she crept through the shadows.
Villains … neutralized … execution.
She reached the second operator and felled him as easily as the first. Two down …
Below, the Captain was listing Ace’s many crimes against humanity, justifying their choice to end his life in this public manner. “Before we proceed,” he said, “I would extend a dignity that this villain never offered to any of his victims. Please, escort Ace Anarchy to the stage.”
At the end of the line, Ace’s shackles were unlocked from his neighbor’s. The guards prodded him, urging him toward the steps and onto the platform. He fixed his attention on the Captain, who waited for him at the podium. The loathing between the two men was palpable.
The arena hushed. Nova slowed so that her footsteps would make no sound as she made her way to the third platform with as much stealth as possible.
Once Ace stood before the Council, Captain Chromium spoke again into the microphone. “At this time, I ask my longtime rival, this enemy of humanity, Alec James Artino, if you would like to express any final words.”
He stepped back, offering the microphone to Ace.
Nova swallowed. She wanted to stop and watch, to listen, but she knew there was no time for that.
She reached the third platform, and put to sleep the woman she found there.
One more to go.
Below her, the arena was quiet. Her thoughts shifted to Winston, who was still on the stage, now only feet from Ace. She wondered if the two of them had made eye contact as Ace was brought up to the podium. She wondered if Ace had heard Winston’s story. Would he, like Phobia, see Winston as a traitor, or would he feel the same sympathy that Nova had?
She thought also of Adrian, who she knew was somewhere down in that crowd. She wondered if she would ever see him again, knowing that—if all went according to the plan—the answer would likely be no.
She wondered if she would regret not finding a way to say one last good-bye.
Ace approached the podium. It felt like the whole arena had gone still. Even Nova had to remind herself to keep breathing as she crept along the walkway.
His voice, when he spoke, was brittle and dry from disuse. “As I stand before you…,” he said, his words barely a croak. Nova flinched to think of him as he once was, powerful and strong, a true visionary. Now he was little more than a relic, a memory from a foregone era. “Knowing that my time left on this earth is short, I am faced with an excruciating truth. I once destroyed a world order in which prodigies were condemned and persecuted by those who feared us, those who could not appreciate our potential. And now…” He faced the Captain. “Now we are condemned and persecuted by our own.” He lifted his chin. “Alec James Artino is already dead, but Anarchy will live on. It will persist in the hearts of all prodigies who refuse to bow before this dictatorship. Our fight is not over, and we will not rest until there is freedom and autonomy for all our brethren. Until we no longer need to fear for our well-being, not from those who fear us, not from those who hate us, and not from those who envy us. The Renegades will fall, and we will rise again!”
The fourth operator was reaching for his walkie-talkie, probably confused as to why the other three lights had fallen motionless, when Nova’s fingers reached out from the shadows and brushed the back of his hand. She caught him as she had the others, then released a long exhale.
Phase one complete.
Down below, Ace was being led back onto the field, while a parade of men and women in lab coats marched out to join the prisoners, each one holding a syringe.
The spectacle of it was too surreal. It felt more like a choreographed stage production, like it had all been planned with more consideration for the pictures that would later appear on the fronts of newspapers than for the dignity of those involved.
Nova examined the trusses that held the light fixtures and speaker boxes, a complicated maze of metal scaffolding crisscrossing the ceiling of the arena. She pulled herself onto the railing surrounding the spotlight’s platform, reached for the nearest overhead truss, and hauled herself up the rigging.
Blacklight had the honor of signaling for the neutralization. All of the inmates were to be neutralized simultaneously, and so he began by counting down from ten. Nova did her best to ignore what was happening below, focusing instead on putting one hand in front of the other as she crawled toward the center of the building.
She did pause, though, when Blacklight reached number one. She peered down through the metal bars.
She could only see the tops of their heads—the prisoners, the lab technicians, the Council. Winston and Ace. She couldn’t see any of their expressions. She was too far away to tell if any of the prisoners flinched as the needles were plunged into their arms.
A second passed. Then two. Ten seconds. Twenty.
Even from her bird’s-eye view, Nova could tell when the technicians began to stir uncomfortably. She saw the Council shifting in their seats, trading looks with one another. She noticed Dr. Hogan checking her wristwatch.
The arena was quiet enough that she heard one of the journalists cough from their box.
Not all prodigies had physical characteristics that indicated their powers, but plenty did. Not just Nova’s yellow-skinned friend, but also Colosso, who was more than ten feet tall, and Billie Goat, who had vicious pointed horns growing from the top of her head, and the Scrawl, who regularly had blue-black ink overflow from her lips and stain the front of her jumpsuit. By now, all of those characteristics should have been fading away. By now, those villains should have been reduced to average humans.
But, as the Renegades were beginning to realize, that wasn’t happening.
Even the inmates were squirming uncomfortably, unsure if they were supposed to feel something different.
Nova spotted a flicker of movement from the otherwise motionless stands. She did not need a close-up view to know that it was a small paper crane, crafted from the most delicate pink-and-gold paper.
She smiled.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
THE AUDIENCE’S ATTENTION shifted from the row of prisoners on the field—who had apparently not been neutralized—to the paper bird fluttering over their heads. Adrian stared, his brow pinched with suspicion, as the bird made a full circle over the stands before dipping down and hovering in front of Captain Chromium. He snatched it from the air, crumpling its wings in one fist. His visage was already dark as he unfolded the square of paper. There must have been something written on the inside, because his scowl deepened before he crushed it again and threw it onto the stage. He was about to speak when a voice boomed throughout the arena.
“Ladies and gentlemen, prodigies and prisoners, superheroes and scientists…”
The voice did not seem to be coming from the overhead speakers. If anything, it seemed to be coming from everywhere at once.
“We do apologize for the delay in today’s Renegade-sponsored programming,” the voice continued, with an edge of sarcasm. “While your honorable Council members sort through these technical difficulties, we hope you’ll enjoy this free entertainment, compliments of … the Crane.”
Adrian frowned at his team, who were all sharing the same baffled look.
“The Crane?” said Ruby. “Wasn’t he at the trials?”
“The origami guy?” said Oscar.
Adrian saw them then. Everyone saw them—hundreds, perhaps thousands, of paper cranes in the most beautiful array of pastel and jewel tones soaring into the arena. Adrian leaped to his feet. He wasn’t alone, as the stands all around him erupted with concern.
But only a little concern, Adrian noted.
They were just paper cranes.
“They’re coming in through the air vents,” said Danna. She was gripping the railing, her knuckles white.
“Could it be a diversion?” asked Ruby.
Adrian didn’t respond. He had no answers, but he had a feeling that Nightmare and the Anarchists had something to do with this.
He loosened his collar, making easier access to the zipper tattoo.
The cranes spread throughout the audience, hovering inches over their heads. One was caught by Fiona Lindala, or Peregrine, who was standing in the next row with her beloved bird of prey perched on her shoulder. Adrian watched as she unfolded the paper, the falcon’s head bobbing curiously. All around him, Renegades were doing the same. Snatching the paper birds from the air. Unfolding them to uncover their secrets.
Fiona cried out in surprise, drawing Adrian’s attention back to her. Her eyes were wide, though perhaps in more surprise than pain. She dropped the crane, but it left behind another creature.
A chubby, fuzzy, black-and-yellow bumblebee sitting on her palm.
Adrian had barely registered the sight before the peregrine shot forward and caught the bee in its beak.
“It stung me,” Fiona said to no one in particular, picking the stinger out of her palm.
Then there were more. More bees, almost adorable in their plumpness, leaving the protection of the paper cranes and buzzing toward the nearest Renegades.
“Queen Bee,” said Adrian, swatting one away. All around, he could hear disgruntled gasps, though the sounds were more of annoyance or surprise than anything else. It wasn’t fun to be stung by a bumblebee, but compared to daily life as a Renegade, it wasn’t exactly petrifying, either.
Danna’s face was contorted in disbelief. “Why bumblebees? Why not hornets or wasps or…?”
Adrian yelped in surprise and clapped a hand to the back of his neck. His fingers came away cradling the furry body of a bumblebee. He tossed it to the ground and reached back, rubbing where it had stung him.
Around them, people were crushing the bees in fists and under boots, tearing the beautiful paper cranes into shreds. Baffled. Confused.
Until a sickening wail began to rise up around them.
It started with Peregrine, who was gaping, horrified, into her companion’s intelligent eyes. “No,” she cried, stretching one finger to stroke the bird’s wing. But the bird ducked away. It walked down the length of her outstretched arm, staring at her like it wasn’t sure whether or not she was edible. “Pern, please, it’s me.”
The peregrine shifted its head away, its talons digging into her forearm. Then it spread its massive wings and leaped into the air, soaring over the stands. Fiona cried out, reaching, but she had no hope of catching it. Her eyes filled with tears. “I can’t sense him anymore,” she stammered. “He doesn’t understand … what’s happening?” She looked around, searching nearby faces for answers. “My power. It’s gone.”
Realization struck Adrian like a gunshot. He scanned the audience, as all around, expressions morphed into panic. Renegades inspecting their outstretched hands as they felt their powers drain away. As scales sloughed off of baby-soft human skin, as sixth-sense antennas retracted beneath human hair. A girl made of smoldering black embers watched as her skin mutated into plain human flesh. A boy with horns on his back cried out as the horns snapped off and were left like discarded nail clippings on the ground. Sparks extinguished. Energy evaporated. Shadows dispersed.
The voice returned, echoing and amused. “If you’re one of the unlucky Renegades who have just received a tiny sting, we urge you to remain calm. You’re bound to experience some slight discomfort, maybe a bit of queasiness, but in just a few moments you’ll be back to normal. Completely, utterly normal.”
“Agent N,” said Adrian. “The stingers have Agent N on them.”
Oscar cursed and squished a bumblebee beneath the butt of his cane, even though Adrian was pretty sure it was already dead.
“The syringes must have had a decoy,” said Adrian. “The Anarchists switched it out somehow.”
“Adrian,” said Danna. “Your powers?”
He shook his head. “My tattoo should protect me. But something tells me this isn’t the worst of it. Come on, I need to find a place to transform.”
“We’re coming with you,” she said.
He slipped from the row, preparing to dash up the stairs to the back of the arena, but he was stopped by a voice, meek and trembling.
“Guys?”
He turned back. Danna and Oscar paused, too, all of them staring at Ruby.
Her face was pale, her eyes watering and round. In her right palm, she held a dead bumblebee.
In her left was the red stone that always hung from the wire at her wrist.
Adrian’s heart sank. “Ruby … no…”
They all watched as the stone began to melt, dissolving into a sticky, bloody mess over her fingers, dripping down to the concrete floor below.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
EVEN ABOVE THE buffeting wind, Nova could hear the crowd inside the arena erupt over her earpiece. She flinched from the noise—a thunderstorm of applause.
She used the moment to catch her breath. She wasn’t exhausted from scaling the exterior wall of the arena. Rather, she felt like she’d hardly breathed during Winston’s speech. She was supposed to be focusing on the job ahead, but instead she was caught up in his story. Her throat was dry. Her heart felt like it was strapped into a vise. She wondered how it was possible to live beneath the same roof—or, in the same subway tunnels—with a person for ten years and still know so very little about them.
As the cacophony within the arena quieted, Nova heard Phobia’s voice rattling in her ear.
“Traitor.”
She flinched. Though she knew Phobia was talking about Winston, it felt like an accusation of her and her sympathy, too.
She didn’t respond.
“Let him choose weakness and mediocrity if that’s what he wishes,” said Honey. “We need to focus on getting our Acey back.”
“Precisely,” said Leroy. “Nightmare, what’s your status?”
Shaking away the lingering feeling of heartbreak, Nova double-checked the reading on her laser measurer. “Almost in position,” she said, marking the exterior outline of her entry point. Precision was important. Cut the entry point too far afield and she’d end up with a hundred-foot free fall, right into the waiting arms of the Renegades. “Thirty more seconds,” she said, her own voice muffled behind the metal face mask.
“No rush,” said Leroy. “They’re just now bringing out the prisoners.”
Honey sighed heavily. “And knowing Captain Chromium, he’ll be droning on for at least another twenty minutes before anything exciting happens.”
Nova hoped the Captain was feeling particularly verbose.
Calculations complete, she hooked the laser measurer back to her belt and retrieved the diamond-bladed electric saw. She waited until the Captain’s booming voice filled her earpiece, being fed to the group by Cipher, one of Narcissa’s allies who was unknown to the Renegades and had no trouble getting entry to the event, along with sixteen others from their growing group, after Millie concocted fake media passes for them. They would be positioned around the arena, waiting to help Nova and the Anarchists complete their mission.
Nova’s objective was simple.
Get the helmet to Ace.
The curved roof of the arena vibrated beneath her knees, both from the buzz of her saw and the thundering speakers inside. She paused each time the Captain did, trying to sync the noise she was making to the times his speech grew particularly impassioned.
With one hand gripping the suction cup she’d attached to the roof, she finished the last cut. She gave a hard tug and the piece of roofing popped upward. She slid it away from the hole.
Exactly eight feet below her hung a platform for one of the lighting and sound system operators. She could see only the top of the woman’s head, covered in large headphones, her attention on the huge spotlight she was aiming toward the field below.
The beam of light was following the line of prisoners that were being led out from what had once been the arena’s locker rooms, where Nova had waited for her turn at the trials. The prisoners all wore the glaring black-and-white jumpsuits from Cragmoor prison. Their ankles were bound in shackles, each shackle chained to the next prisoner in line. Their hands were fully enclosed in chromium cuffs. A number of armed guards walked beside them, most of whom Nova recognized from Cragmoor, their weapons targeted at the more dangerous of the prodigies in the line.
Ace came last, and even from so high above, Nova could sense the buzz in the crowd as he appeared. His complexion was ghastly white, with deep purple bruises beneath his eyes. The skin hung from his bones as though it could slough off at any moment. He was broken and defeated, his back bent and his head heavy as he was led in on the chain of prisoners. A mockery of the prodigy he had once been. He was not a threat. He was not to be feared, not anymore.
Nova’s teeth ground, hating to see him reduced to this.
“Everyone at their stations,” she said, tightening the straps on her backpack. She abandoned the saw on the rooftop, not wanting the added weight. Bracing her arms on either side of the hole, she slipped her legs inside, dangled for a moment, then dropped.
She landed with a thud behind the lighting operator. The woman startled, but before she could turn, Nova’s fingers were on the back of her neck and she collapsed into Nova’s arms. Nova laid her down on the platform. “I’m in.”
She checked that the spotlight was still positioned on the stage. It was one of four such spotlights, each one currently targeting Captain Chromium, who was at the podium again while the inmates stood shoulder to shoulder down the length of the field.
Knowing that the other three operators would likely be the first to notice their absent peer, Nova ducked back toward the scaffolding that connected the platforms around the perimeter of the roofline and started making her way toward the next operator.
She mostly ignored the Captain’s droning voice, but a handful of words still filtered into Nova’s consciousness as she crept through the shadows.
Villains … neutralized … execution.
She reached the second operator and felled him as easily as the first. Two down …
Below, the Captain was listing Ace’s many crimes against humanity, justifying their choice to end his life in this public manner. “Before we proceed,” he said, “I would extend a dignity that this villain never offered to any of his victims. Please, escort Ace Anarchy to the stage.”
At the end of the line, Ace’s shackles were unlocked from his neighbor’s. The guards prodded him, urging him toward the steps and onto the platform. He fixed his attention on the Captain, who waited for him at the podium. The loathing between the two men was palpable.
The arena hushed. Nova slowed so that her footsteps would make no sound as she made her way to the third platform with as much stealth as possible.
Once Ace stood before the Council, Captain Chromium spoke again into the microphone. “At this time, I ask my longtime rival, this enemy of humanity, Alec James Artino, if you would like to express any final words.”
He stepped back, offering the microphone to Ace.
Nova swallowed. She wanted to stop and watch, to listen, but she knew there was no time for that.
She reached the third platform, and put to sleep the woman she found there.
One more to go.
Below her, the arena was quiet. Her thoughts shifted to Winston, who was still on the stage, now only feet from Ace. She wondered if the two of them had made eye contact as Ace was brought up to the podium. She wondered if Ace had heard Winston’s story. Would he, like Phobia, see Winston as a traitor, or would he feel the same sympathy that Nova had?
She thought also of Adrian, who she knew was somewhere down in that crowd. She wondered if she would ever see him again, knowing that—if all went according to the plan—the answer would likely be no.
She wondered if she would regret not finding a way to say one last good-bye.
Ace approached the podium. It felt like the whole arena had gone still. Even Nova had to remind herself to keep breathing as she crept along the walkway.
His voice, when he spoke, was brittle and dry from disuse. “As I stand before you…,” he said, his words barely a croak. Nova flinched to think of him as he once was, powerful and strong, a true visionary. Now he was little more than a relic, a memory from a foregone era. “Knowing that my time left on this earth is short, I am faced with an excruciating truth. I once destroyed a world order in which prodigies were condemned and persecuted by those who feared us, those who could not appreciate our potential. And now…” He faced the Captain. “Now we are condemned and persecuted by our own.” He lifted his chin. “Alec James Artino is already dead, but Anarchy will live on. It will persist in the hearts of all prodigies who refuse to bow before this dictatorship. Our fight is not over, and we will not rest until there is freedom and autonomy for all our brethren. Until we no longer need to fear for our well-being, not from those who fear us, not from those who hate us, and not from those who envy us. The Renegades will fall, and we will rise again!”
The fourth operator was reaching for his walkie-talkie, probably confused as to why the other three lights had fallen motionless, when Nova’s fingers reached out from the shadows and brushed the back of his hand. She caught him as she had the others, then released a long exhale.
Phase one complete.
Down below, Ace was being led back onto the field, while a parade of men and women in lab coats marched out to join the prisoners, each one holding a syringe.
The spectacle of it was too surreal. It felt more like a choreographed stage production, like it had all been planned with more consideration for the pictures that would later appear on the fronts of newspapers than for the dignity of those involved.
Nova examined the trusses that held the light fixtures and speaker boxes, a complicated maze of metal scaffolding crisscrossing the ceiling of the arena. She pulled herself onto the railing surrounding the spotlight’s platform, reached for the nearest overhead truss, and hauled herself up the rigging.
Blacklight had the honor of signaling for the neutralization. All of the inmates were to be neutralized simultaneously, and so he began by counting down from ten. Nova did her best to ignore what was happening below, focusing instead on putting one hand in front of the other as she crawled toward the center of the building.
She did pause, though, when Blacklight reached number one. She peered down through the metal bars.
She could only see the tops of their heads—the prisoners, the lab technicians, the Council. Winston and Ace. She couldn’t see any of their expressions. She was too far away to tell if any of the prisoners flinched as the needles were plunged into their arms.
A second passed. Then two. Ten seconds. Twenty.
Even from her bird’s-eye view, Nova could tell when the technicians began to stir uncomfortably. She saw the Council shifting in their seats, trading looks with one another. She noticed Dr. Hogan checking her wristwatch.
The arena was quiet enough that she heard one of the journalists cough from their box.
Not all prodigies had physical characteristics that indicated their powers, but plenty did. Not just Nova’s yellow-skinned friend, but also Colosso, who was more than ten feet tall, and Billie Goat, who had vicious pointed horns growing from the top of her head, and the Scrawl, who regularly had blue-black ink overflow from her lips and stain the front of her jumpsuit. By now, all of those characteristics should have been fading away. By now, those villains should have been reduced to average humans.
But, as the Renegades were beginning to realize, that wasn’t happening.
Even the inmates were squirming uncomfortably, unsure if they were supposed to feel something different.
Nova spotted a flicker of movement from the otherwise motionless stands. She did not need a close-up view to know that it was a small paper crane, crafted from the most delicate pink-and-gold paper.
She smiled.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
THE AUDIENCE’S ATTENTION shifted from the row of prisoners on the field—who had apparently not been neutralized—to the paper bird fluttering over their heads. Adrian stared, his brow pinched with suspicion, as the bird made a full circle over the stands before dipping down and hovering in front of Captain Chromium. He snatched it from the air, crumpling its wings in one fist. His visage was already dark as he unfolded the square of paper. There must have been something written on the inside, because his scowl deepened before he crushed it again and threw it onto the stage. He was about to speak when a voice boomed throughout the arena.
“Ladies and gentlemen, prodigies and prisoners, superheroes and scientists…”
The voice did not seem to be coming from the overhead speakers. If anything, it seemed to be coming from everywhere at once.
“We do apologize for the delay in today’s Renegade-sponsored programming,” the voice continued, with an edge of sarcasm. “While your honorable Council members sort through these technical difficulties, we hope you’ll enjoy this free entertainment, compliments of … the Crane.”
Adrian frowned at his team, who were all sharing the same baffled look.
“The Crane?” said Ruby. “Wasn’t he at the trials?”
“The origami guy?” said Oscar.
Adrian saw them then. Everyone saw them—hundreds, perhaps thousands, of paper cranes in the most beautiful array of pastel and jewel tones soaring into the arena. Adrian leaped to his feet. He wasn’t alone, as the stands all around him erupted with concern.
But only a little concern, Adrian noted.
They were just paper cranes.
“They’re coming in through the air vents,” said Danna. She was gripping the railing, her knuckles white.
“Could it be a diversion?” asked Ruby.
Adrian didn’t respond. He had no answers, but he had a feeling that Nightmare and the Anarchists had something to do with this.
He loosened his collar, making easier access to the zipper tattoo.
The cranes spread throughout the audience, hovering inches over their heads. One was caught by Fiona Lindala, or Peregrine, who was standing in the next row with her beloved bird of prey perched on her shoulder. Adrian watched as she unfolded the paper, the falcon’s head bobbing curiously. All around him, Renegades were doing the same. Snatching the paper birds from the air. Unfolding them to uncover their secrets.
Fiona cried out in surprise, drawing Adrian’s attention back to her. Her eyes were wide, though perhaps in more surprise than pain. She dropped the crane, but it left behind another creature.
A chubby, fuzzy, black-and-yellow bumblebee sitting on her palm.
Adrian had barely registered the sight before the peregrine shot forward and caught the bee in its beak.
“It stung me,” Fiona said to no one in particular, picking the stinger out of her palm.
Then there were more. More bees, almost adorable in their plumpness, leaving the protection of the paper cranes and buzzing toward the nearest Renegades.
“Queen Bee,” said Adrian, swatting one away. All around, he could hear disgruntled gasps, though the sounds were more of annoyance or surprise than anything else. It wasn’t fun to be stung by a bumblebee, but compared to daily life as a Renegade, it wasn’t exactly petrifying, either.
Danna’s face was contorted in disbelief. “Why bumblebees? Why not hornets or wasps or…?”
Adrian yelped in surprise and clapped a hand to the back of his neck. His fingers came away cradling the furry body of a bumblebee. He tossed it to the ground and reached back, rubbing where it had stung him.
Around them, people were crushing the bees in fists and under boots, tearing the beautiful paper cranes into shreds. Baffled. Confused.
Until a sickening wail began to rise up around them.
It started with Peregrine, who was gaping, horrified, into her companion’s intelligent eyes. “No,” she cried, stretching one finger to stroke the bird’s wing. But the bird ducked away. It walked down the length of her outstretched arm, staring at her like it wasn’t sure whether or not she was edible. “Pern, please, it’s me.”
The peregrine shifted its head away, its talons digging into her forearm. Then it spread its massive wings and leaped into the air, soaring over the stands. Fiona cried out, reaching, but she had no hope of catching it. Her eyes filled with tears. “I can’t sense him anymore,” she stammered. “He doesn’t understand … what’s happening?” She looked around, searching nearby faces for answers. “My power. It’s gone.”
Realization struck Adrian like a gunshot. He scanned the audience, as all around, expressions morphed into panic. Renegades inspecting their outstretched hands as they felt their powers drain away. As scales sloughed off of baby-soft human skin, as sixth-sense antennas retracted beneath human hair. A girl made of smoldering black embers watched as her skin mutated into plain human flesh. A boy with horns on his back cried out as the horns snapped off and were left like discarded nail clippings on the ground. Sparks extinguished. Energy evaporated. Shadows dispersed.
The voice returned, echoing and amused. “If you’re one of the unlucky Renegades who have just received a tiny sting, we urge you to remain calm. You’re bound to experience some slight discomfort, maybe a bit of queasiness, but in just a few moments you’ll be back to normal. Completely, utterly normal.”
“Agent N,” said Adrian. “The stingers have Agent N on them.”
Oscar cursed and squished a bumblebee beneath the butt of his cane, even though Adrian was pretty sure it was already dead.
“The syringes must have had a decoy,” said Adrian. “The Anarchists switched it out somehow.”
“Adrian,” said Danna. “Your powers?”
He shook his head. “My tattoo should protect me. But something tells me this isn’t the worst of it. Come on, I need to find a place to transform.”
“We’re coming with you,” she said.
He slipped from the row, preparing to dash up the stairs to the back of the arena, but he was stopped by a voice, meek and trembling.
“Guys?”
He turned back. Danna and Oscar paused, too, all of them staring at Ruby.
Her face was pale, her eyes watering and round. In her right palm, she held a dead bumblebee.
In her left was the red stone that always hung from the wire at her wrist.
Adrian’s heart sank. “Ruby … no…”
They all watched as the stone began to melt, dissolving into a sticky, bloody mess over her fingers, dripping down to the concrete floor below.
