“Vault?” said Nova, ears perking.
Tina waved a hand absently toward the back wall. “That’s just what we call it. There’s been a surplus of new items coming in lately, what with the library and the Anarchist holdings. I’ve got an entire shelf back there full of confiscated hair accessories from Queen Bee herself, believe it or not.”
Nova coughed. “Do you?”
“Left behind when the Anarchists abandoned their lair.”
She said lair like it was an unmentionable word.
“But for now,” Snapshot continued, her tone brightening, “I think we’ll have you monitor the rentals. This is our checkout form.” She nudged the clipboard with a mostly blank chart toward Nova. “Not the most high-tech system, but you know what they say. If it ain’t broke…” She trailed off.
Nova smiled tightly. She’d always felt that, just because something wasn’t broken, didn’t mean there wasn’t room for improvement. But it didn’t seem wise to be contrary in the first five minutes of her new job.
There were half a dozen sheets of paper curled over the top of the clipboard. Nova flipped the front sheet down and scanned through the columns.
She didn’t recognize any of the names or aliases on the chart, but she did recognize some of the objects they’d checked out. Nova turned the page again and her heartbeat sped up. Suncloak. Key of Truth. Zenith’s Pocket Watch.
“I didn’t know we could rent this stuff.”
“Well, you haven’t been here all that long, have you?” said Tina. “All new recruits require a ninety-day clearance before they’re given access to the stacks.”
Nova set the clipboard back on the desk. “How do we find out what’s available to be rented? Is there a catalog or something?”
“Just the database,” said Tina. “You do know about the database, don’t you?”
Nova nodded. She had spent some time cataloging the new weapons that had been confiscated from the Librarian—a black-market arms dealer—so she was familiar with the system. But no one had said anything about the information being open to all Renegades or that they could borrow the stuff.
“But there are limitations on it, right? You wouldn’t just let anyone come in here and take”—Nova hesitated, scanning her own words to make sure she wasn’t overplaying her cards, before continuing—“I don’t know. Ace Anarchy’s helmet, or something.”
Tina chuckled and started digging through a drawer. “Oh, sure. Lot of good it would do them in its current state.”
Nova frowned. Was Tina referring to the lie that the Renegades had promoted to the public for the last ten years, that Ace Anarchy’s helmet had been destroyed?
“But you’re right,” added Tina, handing Nova a three-ring binder. “Each object is coded based on its usability and danger levels. More hazardous objects require higher clearance. This has all the information you’ll need. The code levels are explained on page four, and rental procedures on page seven. Why don’t you start going through it while you wait for Callum?”
Nova took the binder and sat down at the desk. Tina busied herself shuffling around stacks of papers for a moment, then disappeared into the back room again.
Nova opened the cover on the binder. The first page was a short essay describing the importance of maintaining the historical integrity of the artifacts housed in the Renegade collection. Page two listed the expectations of any Renegade wanting to use a weapon or artifact. A sticky note on top of the page pointed out that each Renegade needed to sign a copy of the rules for their files before they could rent their first object.
Page three outlined the steps for searching and retrieval, followed by the procedure for restocking a returned object.
As Tina had said, page four listed the various codes and limitations on the artifacts, and how they were categorized in the larger system. There were types: hand-to-hand combat weaponry, long-distance weaponry, explosives, and the vague yet curious categorization of unprecedented. There were power sources: user-generated, opponent-generated, elemental, unknown, other. There were danger levels, on a point scale from zero to ten. Some objects were classified by their ease of use—some could be operated by anyone, even a non-prodigy, while others were tied to a specific user and would be useless in the hands of anyone else, such as the coronet that had once been worn by a prodigy called Kaleidoscope.
Nova glanced up to see that Tina had closed the door to the filing room behind her.
Chewing the inside of her cheek, she turned on the computer and pulled up the object database.
She had downloaded a record of the artifact collection weeks ago, but at the time, a search for Ace’s helmet had been fruitless. She’d never taken the time to peruse the list further. Maybe this department kept a more complete record.
She typed a query into the search form.
Ace Anarchy
Two objects appeared on the list. A stone relic found in the debris of the cathedral that had served as a sanctuary for Ace Anarchy before his death (significance: historical; danger level: zero; applications: none). And also something called the Silver Spear.
Nova clicked on it and was astonished to learn that, despite its name, the Silver Spear was not silver at all, but chromium. It was the javelin the Captain had used to try to destroy the helmet, which was now stored among the rest of the prodigy-created weaponry in the warehouse.
She returned to the search field and tried Alec Artino, Ace’s given name, and returned no matches.
She tried Helmet.
A list scrolled down the page. Astro-Helm. Helmet of Cylon. Helm of Deception. Kabuto of Wisdom. Titan’s Golden Headpiece.
None of them were Ace’s.
Despite her disappointment, she couldn’t smother a spark of interest at the sheer breadth of the collection. She remembered reading about the Helmet of Cylon and how Phillip Reeves had confounded an entire enemy battalion with it during the Four-Decades War, even though he supposedly wasn’t a prodigy. Or how Titan had survived being crushed in an avalanche, which many attributed to his famous headpiece. Some of these artifacts were so mythical, she had trouble believing they were real at all, much less being housed in a drab warehouse on the fourteenth floor.
And people could just … borrow this stuff?
The elevator dinged. Nova straightened, expecting a stranger—that Callum guy Tina had mentioned—but her polite expression fizzled when her eyes landed on a pale, scrawny girl with a bob of shiny black hair.
Magpie. A Renegade, and a thief, though the rest of the organization seemed willing to overlook that character flaw.
Nova wrapped a hand around the bracelet her father had made when she was a child—the last of his creations before he’d been murdered. Magpie had tried to steal it during the Renegade Parade. She would have gotten away with it, too, if Adrian hadn’t seen it happen.
Nova still shivered when she thought of how Adrian had taken her wrist and redrawn the clasp on her skin.
Magpie froze when she saw Nova, and her flush of dislike must have mirrored Nova’s exactly. The girl was carrying a small plastic bin, which she hefted over to Nova’s desk and dropped to the floor with a loud thunk.
“Have fun,” she said, scowling. She turned on her heel to head back to the elevator.
“Hold on.” Nova pushed herself out of the chair and rounded the desk. “What is this?”
Magpie let out a melodramatic sigh, complete with drooping shoulders and rolling eyes. “You’re new, aren’t you?”
Nova’s jaw clenched. Crouching, she peeled the lid off the bin. Inside she saw what appeared to be a lot of junk. A corkscrew. A metal ashtray. A stack of tattered postcards featuring photos of Gatlon City, pre–Age of Anarchy.
“I’m on cleanup duty,” said Magpie, fisting her hands on her hips. “You know, after your patrol buddies make an enormous mess of things—again—they send us in to put things back together and scavenge anything useful.” She nudged the bin with her toe. “Here’s our latest findings. So you can catalog them, or whatever i
t is you do. It’s a bunch of rubbish in this haul, if you ask me.”
“Not surprising,” said Nova, “given that anything you find of value is more likely to end up in your pockets than the Renegade system, right?”
Magpie returned her glare and they stood in mutual hate-filled silence for a moment, before the girl heaved another sigh of exasperation. “Whatever. I did my job. You do yours.” She pivoted away.
Nova picked a doll off the top of the heap, and her attention caught on something metallic. “Wait,” she said, reaching for it. Her fingers wrapped around the edge of the piece of curved metal and she pulled it from the bin.
Her pulse skipped.
It was Nightmare’s mask. Her mask.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“WHERE DID YOU get this?” said Nova.
Magpie pressed the elevator call button, then slowly turned around, her expression rife with disinterest. “Where do you think?” she said, with barely a glimpse at the mask. “Pulled it out of the rubble at Cosmopolis Park. You were there that day, weren’t you?” She crossed her arms. “Superiors thought it should be filed away, but I don’t care if you throw it in the trash. It’s just a piece of banged-up aluminum. Even I could make one if I wanted to.”
Nova’s fingers curled defensively. “That was a long time ago. Why are you just bringing it in now?”
Magpie lifted an impetuous eyebrow. “Because for the last month we’ve been digging through all the junk down in the subway tunnels left behind by those pathetic Anarchists. I deserve a medal for how much of their trash I’ve had to sift through. Nothing of value and absolutely nothing to help the investigation. A waste of time—that and the funhouse. But”—she lifted her hands—“what’s it to me? I’m just a laborer.”
“Did you find anything else … interesting?”
“What, like body parts? My abilities don’t translate to human flesh.”
“And … nothing from the tunnels either?”
The elevator dinged and Magpie turned away. “You’re the one who has to catalog it all, right? I guess you’ll find out.”
Nova glowered. She stood, still clutching the mask. “How do your powers work, anyway? Are you, like, a walking metal detector? Or a magnet? Or what?”
The doors opened, revealing a lanky boy with shaggy brown hair and a spattering of freckles. His face lit up when he spotted Magpie.
“Maggie Jo, say it ain’t so! Bring us some new treasures today?” He went to give her a fist bump, but it was ignored as Magpie brushed past him into the elevator.
“That’s not my name,” she spat, jamming her thumb into one of the floor buttons. “And my powers,” she said, returning her glare to Nova, “are none of your business.”
The boy stepped back as the elevator shut.
Using his distraction, Nova tucked the metal mask into the back of her waistband. Anything that wasn’t in the database had never been received, right?
“That kid needs to lighten up,” the boy said, spinning toward Nova. “She does bring in cool stuff, though. Once dredged up an antique music box from the bottom of Harrow Bay. It didn’t have any special powers, but still, how cool is that?” His grin brightened. “You must be the infamous Insomnia.” He practically skipped to her side and thrust one palm toward her. “Callum Treadwell. A fine pleasure.”
“Nova,” she said, shaking his hand. “Tina said you’d be able to show me around?”
“I can, indeed.” Callum picked up the plastic bin and tucked it behind the desk. “We have some of the coolest stuff here. You’re gonna love it. Come on.”
He marched toward the filing room without checking to see if Nova was behind him. Shoving open the door, he greeted Tina with the same zeal he’d greeted Nova and Magpie, then bypassed the rows of filing cabinets on his way to a larger metal door at the back of the room.
“This is the filing room,” he said, with a general wave to the collection of filing cabinets. “Any paperwork or historical documentation we have on the artifacts gets stored here, along with items that are so small they could get lost on the bigger shelving units. You know, chunks of lightning-fused fulgurite, ion-enhanced meteor dust, magic beans, stuff like that.”
“Magic beans?”
Callum paused at the door and shot her an eager look. “You never know.”
He waved his wristband over a scanner, and Nova heard the locks clunking. Callum shoved the door open with his shoulder.
“And this,” he said, lifting both arms like a circus director revealing a grand spectacle, “is the vault.”
Nova stepped in beside him. The door slammed shut.
The vault was enormous, taking up the entire fourteenth floor of the building, and broken up only by structural support columns and row upon row of industrial shelving. It was cold concrete and steel and fluorescent overhead lights, one of which was flickering in the corner of Nova’s vision.
Yet her breath caught all the same.
“Is that … the Shield of Serenity?” she asked, pointing.
“Oh, you’re a fan!” Callum bounced toward the shelf and lifted the shield as tenderly as a priceless vase. “The one and only. Donated by Serenity herself. Almost pristine condition, except this dent back here.” He flipped it over to show Nova. “An intern dropped it a few years ago. Not me, I swear!” He lowered his voice into a conspiratorial whisper. “But if anyone ever asks, the damage was totally incurred in battle.”
Returning the shield to its spot, Callum began walking along the aisle. “The vault is organized by category. Did Tina show you the binder? It’s all in there. Within each category, every object is given a number and shelved in order. Except weapon types, those are alphabetical, then by object number. So all the swords, scimitars, and spears are grouped together in the weapons section, but over here in artifacts, a chalice might be in a completely different aisle from, say, a chain-mail suit. Unless they were input into the system together, in which case, they would have back-to-back object numbers. Seems confusing, but you’ll get the hang of it.”
“Is there really a chalice?” said Nova.
Callum spun to her but kept walking backward as his arms flailed. “Yes! The Widow’s Cup. Put a marriage band in it, and it automatically turns any wine into poison. Awesome, right? Don’t be fooled by the gender-specific title, it works on wives too.” He shook his head. “I would love to know how they figured some of this stuff out.”
He headed down a central aisle, with rows of shelves stretching away from them, going so deep into the building Nova couldn’t see where they ended. She followed in his footsteps, trying to ignore the mask digging into her spine.
Callum recited the various categories as they strolled. “Body armor here, and costumes on this side. You know, iconic capes, masks, color-coordinated belt-and-boots sets, stuff like that. Lots of nostalgia. When you have a chance, you should definitely check out Gamma Ray’s jumpsuit. It is a work of art.”
Nova spotted a mannequin wearing Boilerplate’s unmistakable armor and another donning Blue Ninja’s original costume, which was, Nova noted, actually more of a seafoam green.
Callum continued, “This way we have protective artifacts, most notably Magnetron’s Shield. Behind those ominous doors,” he said, pointing at a pair of fortified chromium doors in the far wall, “is the official armory. Sounds impressive, but it’s mostly basic weaponry. A sword that’s just a sword, a crossbow that’s just a crossbow. No extra powers, but still useful for a lot of Renegades. That’s also where we keep the heavier artillery, like guns and bombs, et cetera. And…” He swooped his arms up. “… what you’ve all been waiting for! Our supernatural, prodigy-specific, largely historic collection of fine artifacts. We’ve got power-bestowing earrings. Boxing gloves equipped with superstrength. A lightning-charged trident. And oh, so much more. It’s a treasure trove of awe and amazement. Including my personal favorite—Sultan’s Scimitar, said to be able to slice through absolutely any material on this planet, excepting only the invincible Captain Chr
omium.”
He shot Nova a grin and she couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not, so she smiled wryly back. “Has anyone tried?”
His smile fizzled into uncertainty, and Nova turned away before he could decide if she was joking or not. She saw a pile of bones on a nearby shelf—though she couldn’t tell the animal it came from—and a shallow bronze dish on another. Down one aisle she spotted a set of golden wrist cuffs. On the next, a stone wheel that was as tall as Nova.
Walking through the warehouse felt like walking through a comprehensive museum of prodigy history, and yet she couldn’t help being annoyed by Callum’s infatuation with the objects surrounding them. He wasn’t even trying to hide how enamored he was with it all, and he seemed just as impressed with the silver shovel that held the power to liquefy solid earth as he was with a brush that painted secrets into portraits, and had gotten one unlucky artist burned at the stake in the seventeenth century.
She assumed, as they made their way through the vault, that Callum wasn’t a prodigy. Only civilians were this excited by superpowers or supernatural objects. Plus, he wasn’t wearing a uniform. She wondered if perhaps it had seemed safer to give the job of maintaining such powerful objects to someone who wouldn’t be able to wield most of them, even if he tried.
“So, what do you do here?” asked Nova, once Callum had finished telling her about the fifteenth-century prodigy who had single-handedly defended an entire village from raiding conquerors using nothing but his powers of flora manipulation and a branch taken from a willow tree. (The branch could be found two aisles over.) “Prodigy historian?”
“Might as well be,” he said, chuckling. “But no. I mostly do cataloging, cleaning, researching, sorting, filing … whatever Snapshot needs done.”
“I’d like to help with all of that,” Nova said, working up her enthusiasm. “I’m really fascinated by this stuff and I want to learn as much as I can. Snapshot said I’d start working the checkout counter, but eventually I’d like to do more back here. Cataloging, cleaning … I can do it all.”
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