“Maggie Jo, say it ain’t so! Bring us some new treasures today?” He went to give her a fist bump, but it was ignored as Magpie brushed past him into the elevator.
“That’s not my name,” she spat, jamming her thumb into one of the floor buttons. “And my powers,” she said, returning her glare to Nova, “are none of your business.”
The boy stepped back as the elevator shut.
Using his distraction, Nova tucked the metal mask into the back of her waistband. Anything that wasn’t in the database had never been received, right?
“That kid needs to lighten up,” the boy said, spinning toward Nova. “She does bring in cool stuff, though. Once dredged up an antique music box from the bottom of Harrow Bay. It didn’t have any special powers, but still, how cool is that?” His grin brightened. “You must be the infamous Insomnia.” He practically skipped to her side and thrust one palm toward her. “Callum Treadwell. A fine pleasure.”
“Nova,” she said, shaking his hand. “Tina said you’d be able to show me around?”
“I can, indeed.” Callum picked up the plastic bin and tucked it behind the desk. “We have some of the coolest stuff here. You’re gonna love it. Come on.”
He marched toward the filing room without checking to see if Nova was behind him. Shoving open the door, he greeted Tina with the same zeal he’d greeted Nova and Magpie, then bypassed the rows of filing cabinets on his way to a larger metal door at the back of the room.
“This is the filing room,” he said, with a general wave to the collection of filing cabinets. “Any paperwork or historical documentation we have on the artifacts gets stored here, along with items that are so small they could get lost on the bigger shelving units. You know, chunks of lightning-fused fulgurite, ion-enhanced meteor dust, magic beans, stuff like that.”
“Magic beans?”
Callum paused at the door and shot her an eager look. “You never know.”
He waved his wristband over a scanner, and Nova heard the locks clunking. Callum shoved the door open with his shoulder.
“And this,” he said, lifting both arms like a circus director revealing a grand spectacle, “is the vault.”
Nova stepped in beside him. The door slammed shut.
The vault was enormous, taking up the entire fourteenth floor of the building, and broken up only by structural support columns and row upon row of industrial shelving. It was cold concrete and steel and fluorescent overhead lights, one of which was flickering in the corner of Nova’s vision.
Yet her breath caught all the same.
“Is that … the Shield of Serenity?” she asked, pointing.
“Oh, you’re a fan!” Callum bounced toward the shelf and lifted the shield as tenderly as a priceless vase. “The one and only. Donated by Serenity herself. Almost pristine condition, except this dent back here.” He flipped it over to show Nova. “An intern dropped it a few years ago. Not me, I swear!” He lowered his voice into a conspiratorial whisper. “But if anyone ever asks, the damage was totally incurred in battle.”
Returning the shield to its spot, Callum began walking along the aisle. “The vault is organized by category. Did Tina show you the binder? It’s all in there. Within each category, every object is given a number and shelved in order. Except weapon types, those are alphabetical, then by object number. So all the swords, scimitars, and spears are grouped together in the weapons section, but over here in artifacts, a chalice might be in a completely different aisle from, say, a chain-mail suit. Unless they were input into the system together, in which case, they would have back-to-back object numbers. Seems confusing, but you’ll get the hang of it.”
“Is there really a chalice?” said Nova.
Callum spun to her but kept walking backward as his arms flailed. “Yes! The Widow’s Cup. Put a marriage band in it, and it automatically turns any wine into poison. Awesome, right? Don’t be fooled by the gender-specific title, it works on wives too.” He shook his head. “I would love to know how they figured some of this stuff out.”
He headed down a central aisle, with rows of shelves stretching away from them, going so deep into the building Nova couldn’t see where they ended. She followed in his footsteps, trying to ignore the mask digging into her spine.
Callum recited the various categories as they strolled. “Body armor here, and costumes on this side. You know, iconic capes, masks, color-coordinated belt-and-boots sets, stuff like that. Lots of nostalgia. When you have a chance, you should definitely check out Gamma Ray’s jumpsuit. It is a work of art.”
Nova spotted a mannequin wearing Boilerplate’s unmistakable armor and another donning Blue Ninja’s original costume, which was, Nova noted, actually more of a seafoam green.
Callum continued, “This way we have protective artifacts, most notably Magnetron’s Shield. Behind those ominous doors,” he said, pointing at a pair of fortified chromium doors in the far wall, “is the official armory. Sounds impressive, but it’s mostly basic weaponry. A sword that’s just a sword, a crossbow that’s just a crossbow. No extra powers, but still useful for a lot of Renegades. That’s also where we keep the heavier artillery, like guns and bombs, et cetera. And…” He swooped his arms up. “… what you’ve all been waiting for! Our supernatural, prodigy-specific, largely historic collection of fine artifacts. We’ve got power-bestowing earrings. Boxing gloves equipped with superstrength. A lightning-charged trident. And oh, so much more. It’s a treasure trove of awe and amazement. Including my personal favorite—Sultan’s Scimitar, said to be able to slice through absolutely any material on this planet, excepting only the invincible Captain Chromium.”
He shot Nova a grin and she couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not, so she smiled wryly back. “Has anyone tried?”
His smile fizzled into uncertainty, and Nova turned away before he could decide if she was joking or not. She saw a pile of bones on a nearby shelf—though she couldn’t tell the animal it came from—and a shallow bronze dish on another. Down one aisle she spotted a set of golden wrist cuffs. On the next, a stone wheel that was as tall as Nova.
Walking through the warehouse felt like walking through a comprehensive museum of prodigy history, and yet she couldn’t help being annoyed by Callum’s infatuation with the objects surrounding them. He wasn’t even trying to hide how enamored he was with it all, and he seemed just as impressed with the silver shovel that held the power to liquefy solid earth as he was with a brush that painted secrets into portraits, and had gotten one unlucky artist burned at the stake in the seventeenth century.
She assumed, as they made their way through the vault, that Callum wasn’t a prodigy. Only civilians were this excited by superpowers or supernatural objects. Plus, he wasn’t wearing a uniform. She wondered if perhaps it had seemed safer to give the job of maintaining such powerful objects to someone who wouldn’t be able to wield most of them, even if he tried.
“So, what do you do here?” asked Nova, once Callum had finished telling her about the fifteenth-century prodigy who had single-handedly defended an entire village from raiding conquerors using nothing but his powers of flora manipulation and a branch taken from a willow tree. （The branch could be found two aisles over.） “Prodigy historian?”