Archenemies (Renegades, #2)(25)
“No,” she said, quieter now. “I’m sorry. I’m just … worried about what Agent N could mean. You said yourself that people are going to abuse it.”
“No, I said it would be easy to abuse it, not that I think someone will. We’ll have to see how the training goes.”
Nova shook her head. “This is a clear corruption of power. They can’t just send patrol units out on the streets with this stuff and expect that mistakes won’t be made. That people won’t let their emotions get away from them. What about a fair trial? Evidence? What if someone makes a living using their ability, and then it gets taken away, without a second thought?” She thought of Cyanide, who, for all his illegal dealings, also made a lot of legitimate concoctions that he sold to legitimate customers, from insecticides to wart removers. “Or what if someone were to turn their life around and start using their power to help people? Agent N would take that choice away from them. You know, the Renegades talk an awful lot about human rights, but this is a violation of prodigy rights.”
“Villains don’t get rights.”
Nova jumped. She hadn’t heard Danna come up behind her, and the glare Danna was fixing on her made her immediately wary. “Agent N is going to be used on villains. On people who don’t follow the code. Yet you seem awfully keen to defend them.”
“Not everyone who disagrees with the code is a villain,” said Adrian.
Danna stared at him, aghast. “Really? What would you call them?”
Adrian scratched his ear with his capped marker. “The code hasn’t even been in place for ten years, and the Council is making changes to it all the time. Who knows what it will look like in another ten years, or fifty years? It’s not all black and white, good and bad. People’s actions … their motives … there are”—he circled his hands in the air—“gray areas.”
“Exactly,” said Nova, and she felt the knot in her chest begin to loosen. “And people deserve to have a chance to explain their actions and their motives before they have their abilities stripped away.”
“I don’t need to know what Hawthorn’s motivation was,” said Danna, “to know that she is a thief and a danger to society. If I’d had Agent N the other day, I would have neutralized her without a second thought, and I certainly wouldn’t be feeling guilty about it now. Can any of you say otherwise?” She glowered at Nova.
Nova clenched her jaw, annoyed to feel a snag in her own conviction. Even Hawthorn deserved a trial, surely. Even she deserved a chance to choose a different path.
But then Nova thought of Ingrid. She had shot her. Killed her. There had been no trial. No reasoning with her. It had been self-defense. It had been protecting innocent lives.
It had also been irreversible.
And she didn’t regret it.
Would she have regretted seeing Hawthorn being neutralized by Agent N? A fate which, surely, had to be better than death?
“You know, Nova,” said Adrian gently, before she could formulate a response, “you once said that the world would be better without any prodigies in it at all. So … maybe, in that way, Agent N can be a good thing?”
“No,” she said, firmly. “This is different. I do think humanity would be better off without any prodigies at all. People would have control over their own world again and be forced to make their own decisions. Helping themselves for once rather than relying on superheroes all the time. It would level the playing field.” She considered her own team and thought of the amazing powers surrounding her just in this small group, and then all the powers of all the prodigies all over the world. Normal humans, without any such abilities, could never compete with what the Renegades had become. “But that’s not what’s happening here. This is oppression, pure and simple. If they succeed, the Renegades will be putting themselves even higher above everyone else than they already have. There will be no one to challenge … us. No one to stand in our way or keep us from achieving total power, and then where will humanity be?”
“It will still be better off than it was in the hands of the villains,” said Danna.
Scowling, Nova forced herself to meet her gaze and hold it this time. “And once they”—she paused—“once we have total power, what’s to keep us from becoming villains ourselves?”
CHAPTER NINE
ADRIAN WAS STILL waiting outside the meeting room, tapping his foot and listening to the rise and fall of conversations beyond the door. The rest of his team had headed off to the cafeteria, at Oscar’s urging, of course, but he’d had an idea during the meeting that kept him from joining them. He’d been waiting to talk to Hugh or Simon for nearly twenty minutes now, but the Council was taking forever to leave the room, stopping to talk to every single person who accosted them. Finally, Hugh split off from a group of patrol units, all evidently excited about the prospect of starting Agent N training.
“Hey, Dad!” Adrian worked his way through the lingering crowd.
Hugh turned to him, beaming. “Adrian! What’d you think?”
“Uh—great,” he said quickly, though saying it felt like a betrayal, of both Nova’s hesitations and his own. He needed more time to process Agent N and what it could mean for the organization and society at large. What it could mean for the Sentinel. But that wasn’t what he wanted to talk about now. “I have a question.”