“And also…,” Max said, his voice distant. “I’m needed here.”
Nova ground her teeth. Though there might be some truth to what Max was saying, she couldn’t help but feel that it was also a whole lot of fear propaganda, intended to keep him a compliant prisoner.
“For Agent N?” she asked.
Max nodded.
“How long have you known about it?” said Nova. “Did you know what they were doing with your DNA samples all this time?”
“Not … exactly,” Max said, tucking Turbo into his pocket. “For a long time I thought they were trying to find a way to neutralize me. So they wouldn’t have to be keep me separate from everyone anymore. Eventually, I realized it was more than that, though. I figured it was something like Agent N, but I didn’t know for sure.”
“Skies, Max, maybe it would work on you,” said Adrian, eyes brightening again. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of it until now. I was so excited about the charm, but … why couldn’t we just inject you with Agent N? You wouldn’t be a prodigy anymore! You could…” His words dwindled off as Max shook his head.
“They tried that already,” he said. “It doesn’t work on me.”
“They tried to take away your powers?” Nova gasped. “Why? Because you’re a threat?”
Max laughed at her obvious disgust. “No, because I asked them to. After they had their first few successes on prodigies at Cragmoor and it didn’t, you know, turn them into big piles of radioactive sludge or anything, I asked them to use it on me. I wanted it to work. It’s not really that much fun to be a prodigy when you’re trapped in a place like this.” He gestured around at his glass prison.
“Oh,” said Nova. Her vehement anger on Max’s behalf faded. “I guess I can understand that.”
“Nova is concerned with prodigy rights,” explained Adrian. “She’s worried we’re going to start abusing the power of Agent N.”
“If I recall correctly,” said Nova, “you weren’t exactly convinced that it would be handled with the utmost responsibility either.”
“Why?” asked Max. “It’s only for bad guys. They would never neutralize a Renegade.”
Every muscle in Nova’s body tightened, eager to argue the distinction between Renegade and bad guys. “They’re planning to dole it out to every patrol unit, to be used however we see fit. I guarantee mistakes will be made and this power will be mishandled. How long before innocent prodigies are being threatened or blackmailed, just because they haven’t been conscripted into the Renegades yet? This life isn’t for everyone, you know.”
“Threatened and blackmailed?” said Max. “By who?”
“I don’t know, how about Frostbite and her goons?” said Nova, remembering a time, not long ago, when she had witnessed Frostbite trying to bully Ingrid into making a false confession. “Or thieves like Magpie? Not every Renegade is as chivalrous and upstanding as Adrian.”
She made the mistake of glancing at Adrian as she said it and saw surprised flattery flash across his face. She jutted a finger at him. “Don’t take that the wrong way.”
“Is there a wrong way to take that?”
She glowered and Adrian lifted his hands, still beaming from the compliment. “All right, I agree that restrictions need to be in place, and I don’t like the idea that they’re going to start injecting every questionable prodigy out there with it either. In my opinion, someone like the Sentinel definitely doesn’t deserve that sort of punishment, without even being given a chance to explain himself, first.”
“Oh, please,” said Nova. “He’s the least of my concerns.”
Max’s expression brightened into an odd, goofy grin. “Of course you’re not concerned about him, now that he’s fish food and all. Right, Adrian?”
Adrian’s lips pinched. “Right. My point is, there are still some kinks that need working out with the Agent N thing, but it has potential. I’m glad we never have to worry about the Puppeteer anymore, and we would have saved ourselves a lot of headache if the Detonator had been neutralized before Cosmopolis Park happened.” He turned to Max. “And now that they have Agent N figured out, they don’t still need you and your blood samples, right? You’re done with testing?”
“I think so,” said Max. “They haven’t taken any in a while, and … I don’t think they would have agreed to try to neutralize me if they still needed my powers to work.”
“Right. See? No more testing, no more samples, and now this.” Adrian tapped the Vitality Charm. He pulled Max in for another exuberant squeeze. “It’s like the Bandit hit a jackpot.”
Max groaned loudly and squirmed out of the embrace. “You know, you like to make fun of Hugh for being so corny, but sometimes you’re just as bad.”
Nova felt again like she was intruding on something. “I need to get ready for my shift in artifacts. See you both later, okay?”
“Your shift?” said Adrian. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“Prime work hours,” agreed Nova, with a carefree smile. “I like the peace and quiet.”
She waved and headed toward the elevator, her grin fading as soon as her back was turned. There was a charm that could protect Max. A charm that could maybe protect from Agent N.
Her nerves vibrated with the possibility.
She wanted that charm.
But not as much as she wanted Ace’s helmet. And tonight, that was exactly what she planned to get.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
IT WAS JUST past one in the morning when Nova scanned her wristband against the digital lock and entered the vault. A handful of sparse lights flickered on down the rows of shelving units, one after another, lighting the corridor with a dull, eerie glow. Nova shut the door behind her and settled the large plastic tub she’d brought on a waiting cart.
She ignored the security cameras, though she could feel the lens watching her as she pushed the cart down the main aisle. Looking at the cameras always garnered suspicion, so she kept her expression neutral. Her pace casual.
Snapshot wouldn’t arrive for hours. Until then, she had the vault all to herself.
She hoped it would be enough time.
A brilliant idea had come to Nova the day before. She was never going to magic her way into the chromium box that held Ace’s helmet. The box would never be chopped open with a mystical ax or smashed with an indestructible hammer. Adrian would never draw an opening into it for her, no matter how much awkward flirting she suffered through.
But Nova had forgotten what she was capable of. She may not have superstrength or psychic powers or control over the natural elements, but she had science, and she had persistence, and she was going to get into that box.
She didn’t hurry, knowing there was someone in the security room right now who could be watching her slow progress down the aisles. They might be curious why she was there in the middle of the night. They might even be suspicious. But they would lose interest by the time she got to the helmet. Nova kept her actions slow and trivial. She and the cart ambled from row to row, its squeaking wheels grating on her nerves. She made frequent stops, checking the clipboard that hung off the side of the cart, pretending to make notations from time to time. She pulled mundane items from the cart and spent time organizing them neatly on the shelves.
Nova had never been in the vault when she didn’t have Callum’s constant jabbering in her ear, and she noticed for the first time how a number of the relics seemed to hum, as if with a quiet electrical current. Some even emitted a subtle coppery glow, not unlike Ace’s helmet.
The similarities made her hesitate as she was passing the Infinite Hourglass, where the glittering white sand was being pulled upward into the top half of the container. Stepping closer, Nova placed her finger against the ebony wood base. That glow. It was familiar. The exact shade and vibrancy of all the wonderful things she’d watched her father create when she was little.
She peered down the length of the aisle. Now that she was searching for them, she could easily spot the glimmering
artifacts. She knew there were probably things in the vault that had in fact been made by her father, but not all of these. Not the Ravenlore Quill, which had been around for centuries. Not the Arctic Saber, which had been forged on the other side of the world.
She shook her head and turned the cart back into the main aisle.
“Stay focused,” she whispered to herself. She would have time to dwell on the many mysteries of the artifacts department later. For now, all she cared about was Ace’s helmet and how she was going to free it.
Nova turned into the last aisle, past the RESTRICTED sign posted at the end of the shelf. Halfway down the row, she positioned the cart a few feet away from the chromium box, keeping her back to the camera at the far end of the aisle. She opened her plastic crate and pulled out her equipment—a battery and connector clips, a large bucket full of an electrolyte solution that Leroy had mixed up for her earlier, and a steel wheel she’d found in the gutter on Wallowridge, which she’d painstakingly cleaned in a bath of sodium chloride and acetic acid.
She checked the clipboard again, pretending to be dutifully following orders from above. Then, opening the bucket, she dumped the solution into the bin. The smell of chemicals wafted up, making her nose wrinkle. Smothering a cough, Nova grabbed the wheel and submerged it inside the vat.
Taking a deep breath, she wrapped her hands around the chromium box. The metal was cool to the touch, and though it was heavy, she managed to lift it into the bin with only mild straining. The solution sloshed up its sides. She wasn’t sure how thick the walls of the box were, but she hoped the solution was deep enough to corrode the entire base. She hoped there would be enough time to complete the process. She hoped no one bothered to come to the restricted section while the experiment was underway.
She hoped a lot of things.
Electrolysis. The idea had struck her like one of the Sentinel’s laser beams. It was the process that was used for metal plating, and chromium was used to plate other metals all the time. Using a battery, she could alter the charge of the neutral atoms at the box’s base. The atoms would lose electrons, turning them into positively charged ions, which would dissolve right off the box. Over time, the positive chromium ions would move through the solution, attracted by the electrons that were being pushed out from the other side of battery, and be turned back into solid metal on the surface of the wheel.
The result: no more chromium box.
Or, at least, a big hole in the chromium box.
As an added bonus, she might even have a newly indestructible chromium-plated wheel once the process was complete.
It was so simple, so obvious, she couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it before. She’d even begun to wonder whether the Captain himself could be weakened this way, although it would be considerably more difficult to hook him up to a battery or dunk him into a vat of chemicals.
She attached the conductors.
Crossing her fingers, Nova switched on the battery.
And hoped.
She half expected the battery to flare to life with sparks and the sizzle of energy, but of course it didn’t. Only the digital readings on its side indicated that amps were flowing through the system. Nova adjusted the dials, increasing the voltage.
She inspected the wheel, not really expecting to see any visible change. The process would take time.
“A watched cathode never plates,” she muttered to herself, then pushed the entire electrolysis cell back into the shadows of the shelving unit.
She would let it run for an hour, she decided, before coming to check on it. She knew it could take all day before there would be visible signs of the chromium eroding. Which was fine. Ace had gone without his helmet for a decade. If he could be so patient, then so could she.
As long as it worked in the end. And as long as she kept Callum or Snapshot from coming to check on the restricted collection while the process was underway. She wasn’t entirely sure how she would accomplish that, but she was considering a toxic chemical spill in the next row. Or maybe she could orchestrate a diversion on the other side of the vault. A few broken jars of radioactive rocks would keep them busy for a while …
Brushing off her hands, Nova set the bucket on the cart and started to wheel it away, leaving the chromium box and her experiment behind.
She was nearly to the end of the aisle when a sound made her ears prickle. It sounded like something was … boiling.
Frowning, Nova slowly turned around.
A cloud of steam was drifting up from the shelf where she’d left her experiment.
Her pulse skipped. “What now?” she murmured, abandoning the cart. The sound of bubbling got louder. The steam grew thicker. The air stung her throat with the tang of chemicals.
Nearing the plastic vat, she saw that the electrolyte solution was boiling—great, rolling bubbles popping at the surface and splattering the sides.
“How is that even—”
It exploded.
Nova gasped, jumping backward as the solution splattered everywhere, coating the underside of the next shelf. It flowed over the edges of the bin and splashed across the floor. One of the conductor cables snapped off the battery and was flung from the cell, nearly taking out Nova’s eye before it crashed into the wall.
With the circuit severed, what was left of the liquid quieted to a simmer and soon became still, but for the last dregs still dripping down the sides.
The chromium box sat unaffected, looking infuriatingly innocent inside the bin.
Nova gawked at the mess of chemicals. Her destroyed battery. The wheel that she had scrubbed for a solid hour to make sure it was clean enough for the chromium atoms to adhere to.
A guttural scream tore from her mouth. She grabbed the nearest thing in reach—a gemstone-encrusted brooch—and flung it down the aisle. When it struck the concrete floor, it emitted a blinding white flash. Nova threw her arms in front of her face and stumbled back, but the light disappeared as fast as it had come and the brooch clacked and skittered a few more feet. As the ghost of the flash faded from Nova’s vision, the brooch appeared, luckily, unharmed.
“Okay,” she said, rubbing her eyelids. “I probably shouldn’t have done that.”
“McLain?”
She jumped and spun in a full circle before realizing that the stern voice had been coming from her wristband.
Gulping, she lifted her hand. “Uh … yes?”
“This is Recoil in security. We just saw what appeared to be a small explosion there in the artifacts department. Is everything all right?”
Nova willed her nerve to stop trembling. “Uh—yeah. Sorry. Everything’s fine. I was just”—she cleared her throat—“cleaning a few of the objects here, and, um … must have mis-measured the … cleaning … solution. Sorry to worry you.”
“Would you like us to send down a cleaning crew?”
“No,” she said, adding a lighthearted laugh. “No, no. I’ll take care of it. You know the things in here can be … temperamental. I think it’s best if I handle it.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
The communication faded out, and Nova inspected the results of her failed—oh, so very failed—experiment.
She ran her hands through her hair and cursed.
So much for science and persistence.
Shoulders slumped, she picked up the brooch and set it gently back in its place, then went off to find a mop.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
ADRIAN’S CHEST ACHED from his newest tattoo, still sore from a thousand tiny pricks of the needle. Of all his tattoos, this had been the easiest to persuade himself to go through with. He’d known he would do it the moment the Vitality Charm had successfully admitted him into Max’s presence.
The charm worked, and this tattoo would too. After this, he would be able to come and go from the quarantine as he pleased.
With so much importance resting on this design, he had not simply copied the symbol onto his skin. He had spent hours
poring through dictionaries, encyclopedias, and tomes on symbolism and ancient healing practices. The symbols that the blacksmith had long ago stamped into the medallion were found across multiple religions and cultures, often carrying messages of protection and health.
The open right hand was said to be a ward against evil, and snakes had been associated with healing and medicine for eons. The more he read, the more he understood how this design could protect someone from forces that would seek to weaken him or her.
Protection. Health. Strength.
The words came up again and again in his research, and had repeated like a mantra in Adrian’s mind as he’d worked on the tattoo.
A serpent curled inside the palm of an open hand.
The hand held up in defiance—Stop. You may not pass.
The serpent, ready to devour any affliction that dared to ignore the hand’s warning.
Together—immunity.
The tattoo, inked directly over his heart, would work. Adrian had already accomplished remarkable things by inking new designs into his skin. He had stretched the limits of his power beyond anything he would have previously thought possible. He had made himself into the Sentinel, and the scope of his abilities seemed endless, limited only by his imagination.
So who was to say that he couldn’t give himself this ability too? Not complete invincibility, like the Captain had. The only way he could think to accomplish that would have been with a tattoo that spanned the full length of his body, and he wasn’t ready for that sort of commitment.
But invincibility from Max? It could be done. It was possible. He had never been so sure of anything in his life.
He went to the mirror to inspect his work. The design looked good. Clean and sharp. Despite having had to work upside down on himself, he was pleased to see how balanced he’d gotten the overall shape. It had turned out exactly how he’d envisioned. A perfect replica of the symbol on the Vitality Charm.
Relaxing his shoulders, Adrian pressed his palm over the tattoo and let his power seep into his body. He felt the same warm, stinging sensation he had every time he did this, as the design sank through his skin and into his muscles, through his ribcage, into his steadily beating heart. As it became a part of him.
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