Archenemies

by Marissa Meyer

  She wondered if there was any of Fatalia’s breath still inside these bombs.

  And she wondered how difficult it would be to fill them with something like Agent N. Seeing them in real life, she was already picturing how she could make it work.

  If the Anarchists were really going to try to weaken the Renegades with their own weapon, a dispersal device like this would be far more effective than trying to take out every opponent with an injection dart. Besides, not everyone could be shot. The darts wouldn’t puncture Captain Chromium’s skin or Gargoyle’s.

  The Renegades wouldn’t use Agent N in gas form because it was too risky. But if she had that Vitality Charm …

  The chime from the front clanged through the vault.

  Cheek twitching, Nova settled the mist-missile back into the box.

  She returned to the reception area and tossed the metronome at Genissa without fanfare. Genissa stumbled and barely caught the device on a rising bed of ice crystals. She scowled at Nova.

  “There you go! Enjoy!” Nova chirped.

  With a sound of disgust, Genissa grabbed the Deadener and marched back to the elevator.

  “You’re welcome!” Nova shouted after her.

  Once she was gone, Nova sank into the desk chair and tapped her fingers against the clipboard. Steal the missiles, or rent them? If she got caught stealing them, it would send off all sorts of alarms. But if she was able to turn them into Agent N bombs, then later they could be traced back to the rental agreement. By that point, though, the Anarchists would be in full attack mode, and this charade would be over anyway.

  Her lips twisted. Maybe she should wait and discuss it with Leroy and Ace first.

  The elevator dinged again and Callum swept into the room, his expression giddy. “Was there really an explosion?”

  Nova tensed. “What?”

  “I got paged from security. What happened?”

  Panic seized Nova’s gut, but Callum didn’t look concerned so much as curious. And eager, of course. Always so eager.

  “N-nothing,” she said. “I was just … um … cleaning some stuff. I think maybe I mixed some bad chemicals.”

  Callum deflated. “That’s it? I was thinking maybe you’d uncovered a new magical function for something.”

  She shook her head, feigning disappointment. “I don’t think so. Sorry.”

  “Meh.” He waved a hand through the air, his expression clearing. “It’s probably a good thing. Spontaneous combustion is cool and all, but not great for the workplace.” He bent over the desk and swiveled the checkout sheet toward him. Nova had noticed that he always checked who was renting the equipment and what they had taken—an argument in favor of stealing the missiles, now that she thought of it. He grimaced. “Frostbite came in? She terrifies me.”

  “You’re not completely infatuated with her super snowflake skills?”

  He chuckled. “Are you kidding? She’s totally using her power wrong. If I had ice manipulation, I would wear ice skates all the time and make a constant path of ice in front of me everywhere I went.” He pushed the clipboard away. “What did she want the Sound Deadener for?”

  “Not sure,” she muttered, refusing to admit that her team had been passed over for the Hawthorn case. “It’s not my job to ask questions.” She paused. “I mean, it’s not, is it? Are we allowed to say no to someone if they want to check out something we don’t think they should have?”

  He grunted. “Typically, no. Not if they’ve passed clearance and signed the agreement. But if you’re really hesitant about something, you can ask Snapshot to bring it up to the Council. I only had to do it once, when I was pretty sure that one of the new recruits was using a skeleton key to break into people’s apartments. I’m sad to say that I was right.”

  Nova gawked. “What happened?”

  “He was taken off patrols and spent a lot of time doing community service after that. He works in the food court now.”

  “Lucky for him. If he pulled a stunt like that today, he’d probably be stuck with Agent N.”

  “I don’t think so.” Callum rubbed the pale fuzz on his chin. “He was breaking the law, but he wasn’t particularly dangerous. The punishment seemed fitting.”

  Nova grunted, but she wasn’t sure if she agreed. Once the public knew about Agent N, they’d be crying for it to be applied to every case of prodigy wrongdoing. And the Council was so eager to hold on to their reputation, she suspected they would acquiesce easily.

  And with every prodigy who was neutralized, the Renegades’ power would grow and grow.

  “You don’t like Agent N either, do you?”

  She started. “What?”

  Callum leaned against the desk. “I think it’s tragic. For someone to be given these incredible abilities, only to have them stripped away? It’s so wasteful. To know what this world could look like, what humanity could be, if only we all chose to do our best, to help others, to … to be, well, heroes. I don’t like to think of that chance being taken away from someone before they’ve lived up to their potential.”

  “Right,” said Nova. “Except, having superpowers doesn’t automatically turn you into some selfless hero. People are greedy and cruel, and … for some, having superpowers just makes them even more greedy and cruel.” Her jaw tightened. “Genissa Clark is proof of that.”

  “Yes…,” Callum said, speaking slowly, as if he were forming his thoughts as he spoke. “But I think that when given the choice to do good or to do harm, most people choose good.”

  “And I think,” Nova countered, “that nothing is as black and white as people want to pretend. Doing good and doing harm aren’t mutually exclusive.”

  He listed his head. “Example?”

  Nova pulled the chair toward her and dropped into it. “I don’t know. Ace Anarchy?”

  Callum’s expression turned to delight. “I’m listening. Go on.”

  Nova frowned at him. Sweet rot, he was a strange guy. “Well, he’s a villain, right? Everyone knows that. Unquestionable. He killed people. He destroyed half the city.”

  “But?”

  “But if it weren’t for him, prodigies would still be living in fear. Persecuted, victimized, abused … He created a world where prodigies could stand up for themselves. To declare what we are and not be afraid that we’ll be punished for it. He fought for the rights of all prodigies. Whereas the Renegades only seem interested in defending prodigies who agree to their code.”

  “But people were still afraid,” said Callum. “The Age of Anarchy was not a nice time—not for anyone. It was the Renegades who made people feel safe again. So really, it was the Renegades who showed the world that prodigies deserved rights.”

  “The Renegades wouldn’t have existed without Ace Anarchy.”

  “Do the ends justify the means?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Then Ace Anarchy was a hero.”

  She peered at him suspiciously. “I didn’t say that.”

  His grin returned, and Nova had the impression that this conversation was little more than a fun debate to him. She wondered if he was one of those devil’s advocate types—who could argue on either side, regardless of his actual opinion.

  “Follow me,” he said, turning his back on her.

  “What? Where are we going?”

  “I want to show you something.”

  Nova didn’t move. As Callum waited for the elevator to arrive, he shot her an impatient look.

  Nova stood. “Fine. But I’d better not get fired over this.”

  Callum chuckled. “You and I are the only ones in this whole organization who think that working in the artifacts department is fascinating. Trust me. They’re not going to fire you.”

  The elevator arrived and Nova followed him inside. She felt compelled to deny his assumption—she wasn’t working here because the artifacts were fascinating. She was here because she had a job to do. She had a helmet to retrieve.

  But then she realized that Callum wasn’t altogether wr
ong. She did think the job was interesting. As an inventor, she could appreciate the innovation that had gone into a lot of things in the collection.

  Still, though. She wasn’t about to nerd out about it like Callum did.

  The elevator began to rise, and Nova glanced at the panel of numbers. With a start, she pushed herself away from the wall.

  Callum was taking her to the topmost floor, where the Council’s private offices were located.

  Tension wrapped around her limbs.

  Why was he taking her to the Council? Had he figured her out? Did he know?

  She shouldn’t have defended Ace Anarchy. She shouldn’t have been so careless with the electrolysis experiment. She shouldn’t have criticized the Renegades and Agent N.

  Nova curled her fingers, feeling the familiar sensation of her power warming her skin. She targeted the back of Callum’s neck. Half a second and he would be unconscious.

  Her attention skipped to the camera attached to the elevator ceiling and she hesitated.

  “Have you been up here before?” said Callum, watching the numbers flash above the metal doors. “They keep some of the coolest things from the collection on display outside the Council offices, though between you and me, their choices are questionable. I mean, everything has its place, but people are way too obsessed with weapons and warfare. If it were up to me, I’d display something like the Legacy Torch. It may not be flashy, but it played a huge role in early prodigy history.”

  As he rattled on, Nova allowed herself to relax.

  He wasn’t turning her over to the Council. He was just showing her more of his beloved memorabilia.

  Figured.

  Prism was seated at an imposing desk when they stepped off the elevator, her crystal skin glinting in the light from a blown-glass chandelier. She beamed when she saw Callum, her teeth sending a dazzling array of rainbows across the glossy white floor.

  “Hey there, Wonder Boy,” she said. “Is it already time to change out the exhibits?”

  “Not today. I just wanted to show Insomnia the scenery. Have you met?”

  Prism’s smile alighted on Nova. “Just once. So nice to see you again.” She stretched out a hand. When Nova shook, she found her skin was as hard and cold to the touch as glass. Here, she realized, was yet another prodigy who might not be vulnerable to Agent N darts.

  Though she couldn’t imagine why anyone would care to neutralize Prism. As far as she could tell, the woman was made of some sort of crystal, and … that was it. Her only “power” was a pretty show when light struck her skin the right way.

  “Go on,” said Prism, gesturing toward a door. “The Council isn’t in yet, so you’ll have plenty of peace and quiet.”

  They passed through a circular lobby with various display cases and prominent paintings, but Callum didn’t comment on the prized artifacts. Not even the enormous painting that depicted the defeat of Ace Anarchy on the Day of Triumph—a painting that infuriated Nova as much now as it had the first time she’d seen it. Instead, Callum showed her through a wide door, down a short corridor that passed Tsunami’s office, and out onto the headquarter building’s observation deck.

  Nova stepped outside and felt the temperature drop. They were surrounded by glass and steel—beneath their feet and curving upward to form a transparent shelter over their heads. Callum went ahead of her, placing his hands on a rail that wrapped around the deck.

  Nova followed.

  Her breath hitched.

  The view wasn’t like anything she’d ever seen before. She had spent plenty of time on the rooftops of buildings, even skyscrapers, but never had she been so high up. Never had she seen Gatlon City laid out like a dream. There was the bay in the distance, where the morning sun was dancing on the waves like molten gold. She could see both the Sentry and the Stockton Bridges spanning the river, majestic with their towering pylons and the graceful arcs of their suspension cables. There was the landmark Merchant Tower, with its recognizable glass spire, and the centuries-old Woodrow Hotel, still sporting a ghost sign on its brick. Things she had seen a thousand times before, but never like this. From so far away, she could no longer see the scars of time left on the city. The buildings that were crumbling to the elements. The abandoned neighborhoods. The drifts of garbage and debris piled up on sidewalks and in alleyways. There was no noise up here to compete with the tranquility. No sirens, no shouting, no car horns. No yowling of stray cats or squawking of territorial crows.

  It was breathtaking.

  “You know what’s amazing?” said Callum. He pointed, and she followed the angle of his finger down to City Park—its lush green fields and autumn-painted forests like an unexpected oasis in the sea of concrete and glass. “You see that tree, near the southeast corner of the park? The evergreen, that kind of stands up over all those little deciduous ones? That’s a queen cypress tree. Do you know how slow those things grow?”

  Nova blinked at him, unable to discern where he was going with this. “I don’t.”

  “Slow,” Callum said. “Really slow. So whoever planted that tree, they must have known that they were going to have to wait years—decades—before they could sit under it and enjoy its shade. Maybe they never got to. Maybe they planted it, hoping that their kids or their grandkids, or even complete strangers, generations away, would be able to sit under the boughs of that tree and that maybe someone would spare a moment of gratitude for the person who had the foresight to plant a little sapling in the first place.”

  He fell silent and Nova’s brow furrowed. This was the important thing he had to show her?

  “Also,” said Callum, “trains. Trains are so cool.”

  Nova hummed to herself and began plotting what she could say to politely remove herself from this conversation and go back to work.

  “Think of the early steam trains. All that engineering, all those resources … It must have been faith at first, right? A confidence that this was the future—travel and industry and trade. There was no guarantee that those tracks would be laid, connecting all these cities and ports, but someone had enough conviction to go ahead with it anyway.”

  “Callum—”

  “And the alphabet!” he said, turning to her. “Have you ever stopped to consider the alphabet?”

  “Uh…”

  “Think about it. These symbols, they’re just lines on paper. But someone, at some point, had the idea to assign them a meaning. And not just that, but then to teach those meanings to other people! To envision a way for ideas and thoughts to be recorded and shared … it must have seemed like an impossible task at first, but they persisted, and think of all that’s led to. Isn’t that fantastic?”

  “Callum,” Nova said, more firmly now. “Do you have a point?”

  He blinked the excitement from his eyes, and peered at Nova, almost sadly for a moment. “My point is that Ace Anarchy, whatever his motives might have been, was ultimately a destructive force. He destroyed things. But we are so much stronger and better when we put our energy into creating things, not destroying them.”

  “Of course,” she said sourly. “And the Renegades are the ones that create.”

  Callum shrugged. “They’re trying, but no one’s perfect. Like you said, even Ace Anarchy was fighting for a cause he believed in—a cause that was worth fighting for. But he didn’t build anything. Instead, he killed and he destroyed and he left the world in shambles. The result wasn’t freedom for prodigies. It was twenty years of fear. Twenty years in which people weren’t thinking about writing books or planting trees or building skyscrapers. It was an accomplishment just to survive another day.” He smiled wryly. “But then … Agent N is a destructive force too. It depletes, but it doesn’t replenish. I’m worried it’s a step backward, for all of us.”

  They were silent for a moment, then Callum groaned and ruffled his own hair. “I’m sorry. People have told me I’m boring when I talk about this stuff, but sometimes it’s so frustrating to go through life seeing all of this.” He spread his a
rms wide, as if he could embrace the city below. “There are so many things to marvel at. How could anyone want to hurt it? How can people wake up every morning and not think—look, the sun is still there! And I’m still here! This is incredible!” He laughed and turned to Nova again. “If I could just make everyone see … I mean, for more than just a minute, then … I don’t know. I can’t help but think that then we could all start working to create things. Together, for once.”

  Nova regarded the city again. She saw fishing boats cutting through the waves, heading toward the sea. Cars making their way through the streets, almost as if they were part of a choreographed dance. Teams of cranes and construction workers repairing fallen buildings and erecting new structures over the skeletons of the old.

  Hundreds of thousands of people, going about their lives. Day after day. Year after year. Generation after generation. Somehow, humanity had managed to build all of this. Despite everything that had tried to get in its way. Somehow, they prevailed. They continued on.

  It was incredible. How had she never considered it before? Maybe because she’d never had a chance to see it like this. She had spent so much of her life underground. Squirreled away in the dark, lifeless tunnels. She had never paid much thought to exactly how much that secrecy was costing her and the Anarchists. The lives they could never live.

  Or maybe she was seeing it now, because …

  Because.

  “Wonder Boy?” she whispered.

  Callum groaned. “Just Wonder. Prism thinks adding the Boy turns it into a cute nickname, which would have been fine when I was seven.”

  She turned to him, shaking her head. “I didn’t think you were a prodigy.”

  “Yeah, it doesn’t come up often. Being able to temporarily reveal all the great wonders of this world”—he swooped his arm toward the horizon again—“doesn’t seem like much when compared to chrome biceps or volcanic eruptions coming out of your fingertips.” He snapped to prove his point, but rather than seem disappointed, his face took on that captivated expression again. “Did you know that in the seventeenth century, a prodigy held back the lava flow of an erupting volcano so their village could be—”