Renegades (Renegades #1)(29)
Author: Marissa Meyer
The villains’ poor life choices weren’t exactly the bees’ fault, after all.
Even though he hadn’t learned anything about Nightmare or found any evidence he could use to incriminate the rest of the Anarchists, he was glad he’d decided to go into the tunnels that night. Word had quickly spread throughout headquarters that the Sentinel had made a reappearance, claiming to have been sent by the Council themselves. When the Council adamantly refused the claim, and it became clear that the Sentinel had been lying, the humiliation heaped on Genissa and her team was almost palpable.
Adrian had tricked them into abandoning their mission. He had made them look like fools, and he couldn’t help but feel a tinge of smugness every time he thought of it.
The downside, however, was that the mystery of the Sentinel was growing daily. Who was he? Where did he come from? Could he actually be a secret project undertaken by research and development, or was he somehow involved with Nightmare or the Anarchists—an enemy meant to confuse them all?
What had started out as an investigation into Nightmare was quickly becoming an investigation into him, and that made him uneasy.
The other teams began dispersing across the field, too, some looking up questioningly at the Council, unsure if they were supposed to wait or not, but the Council was busy talking to one another and not paying the field much attention. The circle of tables started to fill up. The onlookers in the stands squealed, excited fans trying to catch the attention of their favorite heroes.
“Here we go!” called Oscar, appearing from the crowd in the corridor. His free hand was carrying a tray loaded with food and drinks waiter-style over his head. “Two-tone cotton candy for the lady, popcorn for my man, please help yourselves to some garlic fries or choco-crunchies, but do not touch my smoothie or I won’t hesitate to kill you and everyone you’ve ever loved.”
Ruby snagged the bag of cotton candy from the top of the pile. “Oscar, can I have a sip of your smoothie?”
Oscar fixed a cold look on her for three, four seconds, then wilted. “Yeah, all right.”
Jigging in place, Ruby took the smoothie from the tray. Oscar’s eyes followed the straw into her mouth, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
Adrian rolled his eyes, sneaking a handful of popcorn.
On the Council’s platform, Blacklight approached the microphone and held his arms open to the crowd. “Welcome to the fourth annual Renegade trials!”
The crowd cheered. The stands were full of fluttering signs, screaming fans, stomping feet.
Adrian suspected this had not been the intention when the Renegades had first risen up all those years ago. Back then, anyone who was willing to stand up and fight against the villain gangs was a hero. You didn’t need a special pin or a title to do it. You didn’t need anyone’s approval.
Now, they weren’t so much vigilantes as celebrities. Celebrities who had an important job to do, but celebrities nonetheless. And they were becoming so political, influenced not by the needs of the people, but by what would garner the most public support. What would make them more interesting.
He knew the Council was only trying to hold the city together, still trying to solidify their tenuous control. He knew it hadn’t been easy for them. They had all been in their twenties when they defeated Ace Anarchy—except Blacklight, who had been barely nineteen at the time. They had been heroes and crime fighters for years, but none of them had planned on becoming leaders and lawmakers.
They had done their best. They had built a new city on the bones of an old one, working tirelessly to heal the wounds the villain gangs had left on their society. Order and justice had come first—some sort of legal system, with the Renegades themselves both the creators and defenders of the new order. But that had been only the beginning.
The people told them they needed food, so the Renegades cleared away entire city blocks of rubble and debris to make room for community gardens and agriculture.
The people needed shelter, so they repaired countless abandoned buildings to make them habitable and safe.
The people needed education for their children, so they allocated funding for teachers and supplies and selected community centers where regular classes could take place.
The people needed security and representation, so they set up the Renegade call center and weekly appointments with the Council for citizens who wished to share their grievances.
The people needed livelihoods, so the Council fought to bring manufacturing and construction work into the city, establishing new trade deals with countries that had been cut off for decades.
When there was no funding to keep society moving forward, the Council exchanged the one resource they did have—superheroes and superpowers. In some ways, Renegades had become a commodity, one of the most valuable commodities the world over. Though prodigies came from all over the world to be trained and indoctrinated in Gatlon City, once they were a part of the ever-growing syndicate, they might be sent overseas to assist with hurricanes and floods, fight wars, vanquish crime rings, or help with extracting natural resources from the earth. Foreign governments, many of which had suffered themselves from the rise of villains and Anarchist copycat gangs, were willing to pay handsomely for the Renegades’ services, and that wealth had trickled back into the city, just enough to keep them moving forward.
The relationships had come with a side benefit too. In a short time, the Renegades had become a multinational corporation, with embassies scattered across the globe. The result was that more and more young prodigies aspired to become one of the world’s greatest heroes and would make the pilgrimage to the annual trials in hopes of being accepted into their fold.
So the Renegades grew stronger, and so did the city, and so did the Council. They had accomplished much in a decade. They had much to be proud of.
And yet, with all this fanfare, all the hoopla and ceremony, Adrian couldn’t help feeling like they’d lost sight of the entire point. They were forgetting what they were.
Not celebrities. Not politicians.
Heroes.
“Would all patrol units please come onto the field,” said Blacklight.
The teams who had opted to stay in the corridor filed forward. Adrian found their table almost directly across from the gate where prodigy contestants would enter the field. He sat in the middle, with Ruby and Oscar on either side of him. Oscar scattered his array of snacks before them, and if he or Ruby cared that they were the only team snacking on fries and candy, they didn’t show it.
Ruby grabbed the small tablet that sat on the table and began reading through the instructions on how to accept or reject a contestant, and the important responsibility each team carried to make choices that would strengthen the Renegades as a whole.
After the initial burst of enthusiasm from the crowd had quieted, Blacklight explained the rules. Each contestant would be called out, one at a time, to answer questions from the team captains and perform a demonstration of their powers. Team captains could accept or reject the candidate, and the Council would have an opportunity to accept anyone who was not claimed by a team. If two or more teams wanted the same prodigy hopeful, that prodigy could choose which team to join.
“And at any time,” Blacklight went on, “should a team disagree with the selection from one of their contemporaries, they may challenge an acceptance. In this event, the prodigy hopeful must go head-to-head against a member of the challenging team, and must win their duel in order to join the Renegades.”
The crowd hollered. This was what they were hoping for. Not an easy selection process, but one full of twists and challenges and duels.
It wasn’t about finding new heroes to protect the people, Adrian thought. It was about the spectacle.
But the rules weren’t up to him.
“And now,” said Blacklight, lifting a fist into the air, “let the trials begin!”
Jets of light exploded from his hand—beams of red and gray bursting into fireworks over the arena.
The crowd roared.
Adrian took out his marker and doodled a miniature cannon onto the tablecloth, its fuse already lit. It was no bigger than his hand, but let off a startling bang as it released a torrent of confetti and smoke. The recoil pushed the cannon back on its wheel carriage and Adrian barely caught it as it rolled off the table’s edge. Ruby and Oscar clapped, but some of the Renegades at the next table cast them annoyed looks.
“A kazoo,” whispered Oscar. “Make me a kazoo.”
“Oh—I want cymbals,” said Ruby. “The cute little finger ones?”
Adrian set the cannon down and kept doodling as Blacklight went on, “Please welcome our first contestant of the evening, trying out for his third year in a row … Dan Reynolds, aka … The Crane!”
“I think I remember this guy,” said Ruby. “The origami one, right?”
It was indeed the origami one. A college-aged guy who could fold paper into intricately shaped creatures, and then make them move or flutter under his command. Unfortunately, the creatures weren’t sentient, which severely limited their usefulness.