He was about to turn back when his flashlight caught on one of the tags posted beside the next tunnel.
EXHIBIT N/A: NIGHTMARE?
An arrow had been drawn, pointing into the tunnel.
Pushing up his glasses, Adrian hopped down onto the tracks. A quarter of a mile later he reached a wide chamber of arched ceilings, where multiple train lines intersected and diverged. A series of narrow platforms stood on either side of the tracks, not for passengers, but perhaps maintenance crews.
Adrian hadn’t been in this part of the tunnels before. He had never been on one of the patrols sent to check that the Anarchists weren’t hoarding weaponry or recruiting new members. He had only been to visit the villain gang once, when he caught Frostbite and her squad trying to bully the Anarchists into false confessions. Though he still didn’t agree with their tactics, he couldn’t help thinking that if he had let Genissa and her crew handle things, probably the Anarchists would have been arrested that day, and the city would have been spared a lot of trauma.
It made his jaw twitch to think about.
An abandoned train car sat at one end of the chamber, still on its track as if it could roll away at any second, though the accumulation of dirt and grime on its windows made it clear that it hadn’t moved for a long time.
Adrian approached the car and read the sign on one of its windows. EXHIBIT 47: TRAIN CAR—USED BY NIGHTMARE?
Flexing his fingers and tightening them back into fists, Adrian stepped around to the door on the side. He had been so close. All that time he had been searching for her, and if he had just questioned the Anarchists a little more, if he had dared to search their dwelling more thoroughly, he would have found this. He would have found her.
He stepped into the car, but if he’d hoped to find anything of use there, his hopes quickly evaporated. The interior was as stripped of belongings as Winston’s platform had been. All that was left behind were the Renegades’ tags—a hundred white squares pasted over the walls and floor indicating where evidence had been found. Here: a small suitcase of clothing. There: a workbench containing deconstructed weaponry in varying stages of completion. On that window: a magazine cover with a photo of Captain Chromium inundated with small puncture holes.
He tried to imagine her, a girl he had never met, who had never met him or his family, carrying so much hostility for his dad that she threw darts at magazine photos, practicing for the day when she would try to assassinate one of the most beloved superheroes of all time. What could possibly have driven her to such hatred?
Shaking his head, he turned away. The train car shifted under his weight as he descended back to the tracks. He tried to imagine living down here. The stale, damp air. The years of trash accumulated at the edges of the tracks. The cobwebs strung between the broken light fixtures. No breezes, no sunlight, no flowers or trees or animals or birds … other than the rats and the cockroaches, that is.
The only splotches of color were the graffiti tags and a line of advertising posters hung up on one wall, though their plastic covers were so dingy it was hard to make out what they were trying to sell. One promoted the opening of a new exhibit at the Gatlon Art Museum—Adrian couldn’t help but wonder how much of that priceless art had gone missing during the Age of Anarchy. Another poster offered “wedding-day skin” after sixty days of using a newly patented night cream. Beside it was an ad for time shares at a tropical resort, though someone had drawn crude images over the bikini-clad model.
Adrian tilted his head, inspecting the last poster. A book was pictured, a thriller novel with a shadowy figure silhouetted between two pine trees. The book’s tag line read, It’s not that he’s back … it’s that he never went away.
And though Adrian couldn’t be sure, it almost appeared as if the large poster was … crooked.
He stepped over the tracks, the flashlight trailing down the next tunnel. He could see no more Renegade signs that way. Perhaps this was the last platform that the Anarchists had claimed for themselves.
Approaching the poster, he saw that it definitely was askew. Not drastically, but enough to make his fingers twitch to straighten it. Probably the hardware that had held it up all these years had started to pull free of the wall. And yet—there was something about it that made the hair prickle on the back of Adrian’s neck. A bit of dirt smudged on the corner, almost like a handprint. The way the tiled wall was chipped around its frame.
Adrian was about to reach for the poster when a shadow loomed in the corner of his eye.
Heart lurching, Adrian spun and sent the flashlight beam into the tunnel.
A rat squeaked angrily and scurried out from behind an empty milk jug before skittering off down the tracks.
Cold sweat dampened his forehead as Adrian flashed the light all around the tunnel, across the tracks, over the arched ceilings. Whatever had startled him had disappeared, or—more likely, he had to admit—had been nothing more than his own imagination.
Still, the feeling that he wasn’t alone, that something was watching him from the shadows, was impossible to shake.
His heart rate was just beginning to slow when a musical ditty erupted from his wristband, making him jump all over again. He cursed and hurried to shut it off. Scowling, he peered at the message. There was no way he was getting reception down here, and he’d already turned off notifications from the call center …
Oh. Right.
Not a message, not an alert. It was the reminder he’d set for himself to be at City Park in an hour, or risk Ruby’s wrath when he was late for her brothers’ first competition.
He did a quick calculation of how long it would take to get there, cursed again, and started to run.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE PARK WAS as crowded as Adrian had ever seen it, overrun with children, almost all of whom were bedecked in sparkling spandex, neon tights, and bedazzled capes. There were small booths set up where vendors were selling miniature Renegade uniforms or costumes that mimicked the nostalgic superhero costumes of the past. Others were selling custom T-shirts, handmade jewelry, and even superhero costumes for cats and dogs. Beyond the shops, there was a long line of food trucks, as promised, and a courtyard of inflatable bounce houses, and even a temporary stage where a music band was setting up their speakers and microphones.
But the main draw of the day, it was immediately clear, was on the sports fields that were snuggled between native flower gardens and duck ponds and running paths. There were more than a dozen types of competitions kids could compete in, separated by age group and skill level, in hopes of winning a medal and being dubbed an (unofficial) superhero sidekick. There were track races and gymnastics courts, archery and long jumps, wrestling and martial arts. A large tent near the playground even held intellectual-focused contests, such as speed-reading tests and a spelling bee. Adrian wasn’t entirely sure how being an excellent speller would translate to defending justice, but he liked that the Sidekick Olympics were so inclusive. Every kid deserved to feel like they could be a superhero, even if only for a day.
He was worried he was already late by the time he arrived at the bleachers that surrounded the main event—an elaborate obstacle course that took up an entire soccer field. He found Ruby, Danna, and Nova near the front.
Ruby waved at him excitedly, indicating a seat they’d saved for him. “Come on, come on,” she said. “The twins are in this next round.”
“Where’s Oscar?” he asked, sliding in beside Nova. Opposite to Ruby’s enthusiasm, Nova looked vaguely bewildered as she observed the crowds of costumed children.
“Where do you think?” said Danna, cupping her chin in her hands.
Adrian didn’t respond. Food, obviously.
“There they are!” Ruby jumped to her feet and started screaming her brothers’ names, but either they couldn’t hear her or they were too embarrassed to acknowledge their older sister. They were huddled with a group of kids, all around eleven or twelve years old, but their identical heads of light blond hair were easy to spot in the mix. Adrian had only met the twins once before, at a Renegade family picnic last summer, but he remembered how much their faces had been just like younger versions of Ruby’s, freckles and all. He wondered if Ruby had had the same thick blond hair at their age, too, before she started dyeing it in layers of black and white.
“They look great,” said Adrian, admiring their gray-and-red suits.
“Thanks, my mom and grandma made their costumes. Jade hasn’t wanted to take it off all week. I’ll be glad when today is over so maybe he’ll actually let us wash it.”
“Make way, coming through!” Oscar shuffled down the bench, one hand clutching a paper bag, the bottom of which was already soaked through with grease. Adrian and Nova both turned their legs toward each other to make room for him to pass, their knees knocking together. “Sorry,” Adrian muttered, making eye contact with her for the first time since he’d arrived.
She smiled, the look oddly flustered. “Have you been to this before?”
“No, but I’ve heard a lot about it. Kind of fun, right?”
Nova pursed her lips. It took her a long moment to answer, and when she finally did, she sounded almost sad. “People sure do like their superheroes.”
“I brought enough to share,” said Oscar, who had plopped down beside Ruby and was handing out cardboard cartons overflowing with salty fries. “But pace yourselves, okay? There are also gyros and chicken wings out there, and I’ve got my eye on a strawberry shortcake cart for dessert.” Propping his cane between his legs, he peered out at the field. “Which ones are—oh, never mind, I see them.”
Ruby frowned at him. “You’ve never met my brothers.”
“I know, but they look just like you.” He pointed, then grabbed a fry from Ruby’s carton and chomped it in half. “Except, you know, the hair. How long before they start?”
“Any minute now,” said Ruby, eyeing Oscar speculatively. “Sterling’s going to be great on this one, but Jade’s more excited about archery later.”