“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 arms 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—”

“Callum.”

He drew up short.

Nova stared at him. “You were manipulating me. I thought … there was a second when I … You can’t just mess around with people’s emotions like that!”

“Ah, common misconception,” he said, unperturbed. “I can’t do anything to people’s emotions. I can only show them their true feelings … or what they would see, if they bothered to look close enough. And when people see the truth—that they really are surrounded by a lot of amazing things—they tend to naturally experience an overwhelming sense of awe. I mean, why wouldn’t you?”

She frowned, not sure if she was buying his explanation. She felt toyed with, like she’d had a moment of blinding clarity, only to discover it was an illusion.

Except now, she wasn’t so sure what was real and what wasn’t.

It was, she had to admit, kind of a neat gift, to bestow a sense of wonder on those around you. It wasn’t flashy, but she suspected he was right. Maybe the world would be different if everyone could see it the way he did.

“Why don’t they have you on patrols?” she said. “With a power like that, you’d be able to defuse a lot of dangerous situations.”

“Eh, not as easily as you might think. People have to take a second to notice the world around them, and when someone’s in the middle of a brawl or committing a crime, they’re not going to stop and smell the hypothetical roses. I can have more of an impact here. Helping other Renegades change their perspective, reminding people what it is we’re trying to accomplish. If we are going to rebuild the world, I’d like it to be built on a foundation of gratitude and appreciation, not greed or pride.”

“If that’s your goal,” said Nova, rubbing her forehead, “then I’m not sure you’re succeeding.”

“It’s a slow process, but I’m patient.”

Nova paced along the edges of the observation deck, sliding her fingers across the rail. She reached the edge of the balcony and paused. Gatlon City was mostly built on a series of slopes that descended toward the bay, and from this angle she could see Ace’s cathedral, situated at the top of a tall hill, the crumbling bell tower jutting above the wasteland.

She could hear Ace’s voice in her head, telling her that sometimes you needed to destroy the old in order to make way for the new.

Progress was often built on sacrifice.

She hated to think of the Renegades having access to something like Agent N, but her reasons weren’t the same as Callum’s. He hated the idea of obliterating the potential of superpowers, but Nova hated the imbalance of power it would cause more than anything. Yes, superpowers could be used to accomplish great things, but they could also be used for cruelty and domination. And the fewer prodigies there were, the more likely those who remained would become all-powerful tyrants.

If it were up to her … if she could change the future of the world … she would make it so there were no superpowers at all. No more heroes. No more villains.

Just humanity, powerless and vulnerable, all struggling through life together.

Something told her Callum wouldn’t agree with that position.

“Why did you bring me up here?” she asked.

It took Callum a moment to answer. When he did, his voice was quiet. “I like you, Nova. I don’t know what you’ve been through, but I can tell you’ve been hurt. And you’re still hurting.”

She flinched.

“I know that some prodigies become Renegades because they like the idea of having power,” Callum continued, fixing his gaze on her. “And some want the prestige and the fame. But a lot of us are here because we want to make a difference. We want to change things for the better.” He paused, his gaze slipping to the horizon. “I don’t know what your story is, but I think you want to change things for the better, too. I thought that maybe seeing this would be a good reminder of what we’re all doing here. What it is we’re fighting for.”

Nova studied the city beneath her. It was a good reminder of what she was fighting for.

But Callum was wrong about one thing.

Sometimes, things did have to be destroyed before something better could be built.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

“HAVE I MENTIONED that you look ridiculous?” Max whispered, hiding behind Adrian as he peered around the corner.

“Do I?” Adrian looked down at the white hazmat suit. “To be honest, I sort of feel like an astronaut.”

“Well, you look like a walking air mattress.”

Adrian cast a smirk over his shoulder. He could tell Max was nervous. The kid always got irritable when he was nervous. “You ready?”

“No,” Max answered, his brow drawing tight. “This feels like breaking the rules. What if I run into someone? What if I … hurt them?”

“It’s four o’clock in the morning,” said Adrian.

“So, there could be security personnel and late-night patrol units coming and going and sometimes the healers come in early, and you know Nova is always around at weird hours and—”

“Max.” Adrian fixed him with his sternest look. “We just have to get to the elevator. It’s literally”—he estimated the distance—“fifty feet away, and the coast is completely clear. We’re not going to run into anyone.”

“But what if the coast isn’t clear when we’re getting off the elevator? We could be blindsided. Or—we could blindside someone else, I guess, would be more accurate—”

“No one’s getting blindsided. We’ve got the floor staked out, with blockades on the stairwells. It’s going to be fine.”

“What would Hugh and Simon say?”

The corners of Adrian’s mouth twitched, but not wanting to give away the surprise, he only said, “I’m fairly sure they would understand.”