Nova turned a startled look on him, and there was a moment in which the confident, bold contestant from the trials stood beside him. But a second later, her cheeks flushed and she shrank back slightly, bashful or disoriented. He couldn’t quite tell which.
Danna nodded appreciatively. “It sounds like you’ll be fine. Just try to keep them out of trouble, won’t you?”
“Is that in my job description?” Nova asked.
“Not at all,” said Danna, pulling her dreadlocks back and securing them in a low tail. “But I’ll feel better if I know you’re spending half as much energy watching over these guys as you apparently spend watching everyone else.”
Nova grinned brightly and stuck up her thumbs, in what Adrian was absolutely sure was mock positivity. “You can count on me.”
“Well,” said Adrian, clapping his hands together. “We better let you get back to it. Don’t let Ballistic push you around too much, okay?”
Danna grunted, waving halfheartedly after them as they made their way back toward the stairs.
“That just leaves one more stop on this tour,” said Adrian.
“The cafeteria?” said Nova, not very enthusiastically.
“Don’t knock the cafeteria,” said Oscar. “It is free and it is awesome.”
Adrian shook his head. “Not the cafeteria, though I’m sure Oscar will gladly show you around there later if you ask. Actually, I have someone special I want you to meet. We call him the Bandit.”
“The Bandit?” she said, with a mild laugh.
“Yep. He has, in fact, requested a special audience with you.”
“The Bandit,” she drawled again. “What is this, the Wild West?”
Adrian grinned back at her. “Some days I wonder.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THEY TOOK THE ELEVATOR back up to the main lobby, then climbed a spiraling staircase, through a short corridor, and out onto the sky bridge Nova had noticed when she first entered the building. She spotted the glass room again, a circular enclosure full of small sculptures that had glistened like crystal stalagmites from down below.
As they got closer, the view through the windows became clear and she saw that it wasn’t random sculptures at all, but a model of Gatlon City, constructed in jaw-dropping detail. It was made entirely of clear, sparkling glass.
“What is this, an art installation?” she said as her eyes traced the skyline to the edge of City Park, up to the top of Renegade Headquarters and across to Merchant Tower, then down to the docks on the marina and the bridges that spanned Snakeweed River.
“Not exactly,” said Adrian, rapping his knuckles on the window. “It’s more like … a model playset. It’s sort of the Bandit’s pastime.”
“And who is the Bandit?”
“His real name is Max.” He knocked on the glass. “Hey, Max—you have a guest.”
Nova spotted a figure emerging on the other side of the cityscape. He was a kid, maybe ten years old, with sand-blond hair that curled messily around his ears and thick eyebrows. He picked his way through the glass city, his bare feet making their way along Broad Street, stepping carefully over taxicabs and trees in miniature planter boxes and the occasional glass pedestrian. He was so intent at first on watching his footing that he was halfway across the city before he noticed Nova.
He froze, his eyes widening. “Insomnia!”
“Bandit?” she guessed.
He jogged the rest of the way to the window that divided them. On this side of the model city, the skyscrapers dropped off into warehouses and shipyards. A wide expanse of what would have been the beach surrounding Harrow Bay offered him a convenient place to stand. “That fight at the trials—that was the best thing I’ve ever seen. I can’t stand Gargoyle. And wow, look, you’re even shorter than I thought!”
Oscar leaned against the glass wall. “Have you ever even talked to Gargoyle?”
Max cast his gaze upward in disgust. “Please. I’ve seen enough interviews with Frostbite and her team to know his brain is two-thirds sedimentary.”
Nova’s mouth stretched into what might have been the first real smile she’d had all day. “Did you just make a geology joke?”
Max ignored the question, turning instead to Adrian. “Can you draw her?”
Nova’s eyes widened. “Draw … who? Me?”
“Uh, sure,” said Adrian, his gaze darting in her direction. “If she doesn’t mind.”
“You have to say yes,” said Max, digging into his back pocket and pulling out a six-inch-tall glass figurine of Gargoyle. “Look. I’m setting up the trials.” He pointed in the direction he’d come from. “The arena’s back there. I wanted to stage it at the part where you won and joined our team.”