The usual chaos and excitement in the hideout is gone; a sour mood hangs in the air like a heavy cloud. The mission team is scattered about the sloping cavernous room that functions as the living room and the hub of the hideout. Sasha is flicking through feeds on the modified holoprojector, making expressive hand gestures and talking about the news while Tanya listens, her head tilted. Ricky has his leg propped up; the gash is neatly bandaged. Eyebrows knitted, he’s staring at the twins. He probably forgot who was who again, which is absurd since Ricky’s spent years going to classes with them at Meta-Human Training. Emma’s only known them a few weeks, but she can’t imagine confusing the two.
Behind them, an intricate map of the twenty-four regions of the North American Collective covers the entire wall; it’s marked up with bits of colored string and notes and sketches. On a cluttered table along the far wall are their ancient computers, the radio setup, and other bits of cobbled-together tech.
In the background, a reporter’s tinny voice echoes from the holoprojector; every so often the signal causes it to blip. “Preparations for the P019 event are well underway… New Bright City in the Hopestar Region is leading the charge in building a state-of-the-art repulsion shield… new technology… protect the entire city and its constituents from the impact… many other Regions are following suit, constructing shelters… travel advisory warnings will go into effect on November…”
Emma tunes out the report and focuses on helping Bells inside.
Thomas in the kitchen catches her eye and points to a tray of granola bars, sliced apples, and other snacks. Emma shakes her head, mouths “no thanks,” and gestures at her own chin hoping Thomas realizes that there’s red sauce flecked in his salt-and-pepper beard. He doesn’t catch on.
Kyle appears from the doorway of his quarters with his arms piled so high with soft, fleecy blankets that only his tousled brown hair is visible. “Dinner’s ready in ten,” Kyle says, adding the blankets to the considerable heap already on the couch.
Despite Bells’ protests that he’s fine, he lets Emma lead him to the couch and wrap him in a soft cocoon of blankets. He gives her a bemused look as Emma fluffs up the pillows behind him and props his feet up. She can’t help but blush when he presses a quick kiss to her cheek, and the room erupts into whistles and whoops.
“Hi,” Bells says. One of his dreadlocks turns purple as he looks up at her.
“Hi.” Emma reaches out. She’s not sure if she should kiss him back— on the cheek too? On the lips? She touches his face instead, and Bells closes his eyes and leans into the touch. Emma tries to enjoy it without over-analyzing, but her brain is already on hyperspeed. What does it mean? This is nice, right? It feels nice, not entirely different from cuddling or hugging before— before everything changed. And now she doesn’t know what this means, now that she and Bells are— What are they? Boyfriend-girlfriend? They haven’t talked about this much since that fevered kiss in the Rockies and they’ve been so busy with the mission plans that they have had only a few stolen moments. Emma’s done the dating thing, but never with anyone she knew so well, not with her best friend.
They stare at each other, and Emma can’t help but grin wildly. This is nice, she decides.
Ricky whistles. “Benefits of dating the president.”
“I’m not the president of the Resistance,” Emma says, rolling her eyes at him. “We’re not doing that. See how well that worked out for the Collective?”
Sasha hums. “Eh, we’re too small to have, like, a council or something like that. But we should.”
“The Council system isn’t terrible,” Thomas says. “Although I hear a lot of people complaining, and then when it comes time to vote for a new Council member to represent their Region, they don’t.”
“I mean, you do give a lot of speeches, Em,” Bells teases. “I feel like that makes you president.”
“Aren’t the presidents of the Collective just figureheads?” Cal asks, entering the main cavern from one of the adjoining tunnels. “I’m done fixing the radio, by the way! All ready for our call with the Rocky Mountains headquarters.” They plop down on the beanbags between Tanya and Sasha, sniffing the air. “It smells great. Why are we talking about presidents again?”
“The three presidents—technically the Northern regions call theirs the prime minister—embody a cultural role rather than political. They serve on the Council with the rest of the representatives from each region, and each of the twenty-four have just as much power as anyone else,” Thomas says.
Kyle nods. “Emma, your mom is the rep for the Nevada region. Would you say she and Kingston have the same amount of power?”
Emma laughs. “Not at all.”
Lowell Kingston, President of the Central Regions of the North American Collective, has long been pushing his own agenda. Only recently they discovered how closely he’s invested in the League’s scam to make sure no one is paying attention to his involving the Collective in conflict overseas. Remove Kingston from power—one of the end goals of the Resistance—seems daunting, impossible even, especially in the face of today’s disaster.
“Anything about the train yet?” Emma asks.
Sasha changes the channel; the feed flickers wildly. It’s the only connection to the outside world in the hideout and is made of scrap pieces of pre-Collective tech cobbled together with an old DED that’s modified with a burner citizen ID.
“Nothing yet,” Tanya says. “Just the usual warnings about P019. Oh, and there was another report about rogue meta-humans unaffiliated with the League. Go back to the news from the Hopestar region, maybe—”
A mild-mannered reporter stands in front of a brand-new factory. “Monroe Industries insists that the features of the MR-D4R series are completely safe and are only to protect—”
Flick.
“And while Starscream says he and Aerodraft aren’t quite dating, we spotted the two heroes looking quite cozy—”
Flick. Flick. Flick.
“Wait! Right there! Go back.” Cal gestures at the projection.
“The Collective provides.” Kingston stands at the podium. His holo flicks in and out, but his voice carries clearly. The Northern Prime Minister and the Southern President stand beside him, nodding in agreement. Emma’s seen plenty of announcements over the past few years with the three leaders of the North American Collecting standing side by side, announcing new economic policies, ensuring the public of their safety from radiation, and the like. Less familiar are the rows of rectangular MR-D4Rs flanking them.
Kingston’s smiling, but it doesn’t reach his cold, unwavering eyes. “I am happy to once again thank my fellow leaders Priscilla Gobal and Hector Martinez for their support in my campaign for President of the Central Regions of the North American Collective. Our nation was born out of cooperation between the three countries on this grand continent when it was besieged by the Disasters. Our innovativeness continues to move our great country forward…”
The speech is met with polite applause from the studio audience and groans and boos from everyone in the room. A few apple slices and crackers are thrown at the projection.
Emma flicks through channels and shakes her head as she skims through several shows and a few commercials, looking for some news about Middleton and the damaged train.
“Do you think the other members of the Council know what he’s done with the League?” Cal asks.
“No,” Emma says. “I mean, my mom knew he was corrupt in other ways; she didn’t how far he was taking the hero-villain system of the League until I told her.”
She flicks through several news broadcasts about Starscream fighting with Dynamite in New Bright City and is annoyed that the League is continuing to stage these fights.
“Middleton! There we go.”
A reporter in a maroon headscarf is finishing a weather segment, and it seems she’s about to pass to another newscaster. But she continues, clutching her microphone tighter.
Bells snaps his fingers. “Oh! I’ve seen her before. Rao, I think her last name is. She does the weather for Middleton and a few other Central Regions, but she seems honest, for a reporter.”
Emma manipulates the feed for more information: Farha Rao. A quick search on the Net shows only a few credits in the last few months for news and weather segments; she must be a new reporter.
“In other news, a supply train from Vegas with a new order of MonRobots seems to be damaged. Thirty brand-new MonRobots, class MR-D4R, appear to have been destroyed in an accident. Monroe Industries assures that the rest of the robots are in pristine condition, and customers who have been awaiting their orders will all be able to pick up their robots at the normal time. The train did not malfunction, and whether this is the work of a new villain remains to be seen…”
Ricky rolls his eyes and turns down the volume with a wave of his hand. “What new villain! It was us! The Resistance!”
“A new villain,” Emma muses. “Well, that’s not the worst thing they could have thought. Maybe we should have left a note, like…”
“Signing as a new villain? Or what about just spreading the word that the League is a lie?” Sasha cocks her head.
“Shhh, wait.” Emma turns the volume back up, trying to focus on what Farha is saying. The reporter keeps shifting her eyes, as if she’s afraid that she’ll be shut down at any moment.
“The Heroes’ League of Heroes declined to comment on this situation here in Middleton, and I have to wonder— if this was the work of a new villain, why didn’t Middleton’s own hero, Fireheart, appear on the scene immediately? I’m not one of the Authorities, but even I can see that the damage was clearly done en-route as the train was traveling through the Nevada and Utah regions. Smasher and Shockwave may have retired, but clearly, if a hero sees danger, they would rush to be on the scene. Why didn’t Salt Lake City’s Bellevue apprehend the culprits?” The reporter’s face is grim; her jawline is set. “I’m Farha Rao, reporting live from Middleton and I wonder—”
The news host cuts her off. “Thank you, Miss Rao! And now we’re going to Wilton Lysander over in New Bright City for the latest in fashion and hair in this fall’s trends with Aerodraft and Starscream—”
Emma sighs and turns off the feed.
Cal readjusts their goggles. “I mean, what impact are we really having on the League by reprogramming these MonRobots?”
“We’re preventing people from having militarized spies in their homes,” Emma says, but even as she speaks, she hears how hollow she sounds. “It’s something. It’s better than nothing.”
“How about we go after the meta-humans imprisoned in Corrections? Wouldn’t we have some badasses like Plasmaman and then we could just— kapow!” Ricky punches his fist into his hand.
“Plasmaman already escaped,” Emma says dully. “We met him. He’s at the Villain’s Guild hideout and is very strongly in the camp of ‘let’s stay here and not do anything.’”
“What about finding other meta-humans?”
Emma sighs. “That’s what Jess and Abby are working on. The adults at the Villain’s Guild and the other meta-humans that they’ve rescued from Orion’s experiments…”
Ricky glances from Bells to Emma. “Wasn’t there a list? Like a directory of every single meta-human ever registered?”
“Yep,” Bells says, almost amused. “Found it. Destroyed it. You know the story.”
“I mean, that sounds pretty useful,” Cal muses.
Bells shrugs. “The point of destroying it was so Captain Orion couldn’t get it. She was planning to kidnap everyone for her experiments, you know, to make her own powers last longer.”
“Wouldn’t taking it have had the same effect of getting it out of her hands?” Sasha asks.
Emma gives them both pointed looks. They’ve gone over this, but somehow there’s a strong disconnect between those who were there, staring at the massive collection of printed files and no possible way to carry them out of there with rogue MonRobots on their tail. “It’s no use quibbling over what we could have or should have done,” she says. “What we need to do now is focus on what we need to do next.”
Everyone turns to look at her. Emma’s heart pounds; she’s got nothing. The train mission was her big plan, and the next mission would have built upon the success of this one, but now her brain is a blank slate.
Thomas brings out a heaping platter of chili cheese fries, and everyone is distracted by food. Bells sighs contentedly, shoving fries into his mouth. He looks better already; there are streaks of purple and blue in his short dreadlocks. His energy must be recovering quickly if he’s able to change his hair already. Around them, the former members of the film club and the meta-humans recruited from the League’s training center eat and chat about a new game Ricky installed on one of the computers. It seems that everyone is avoiding discussing the failed mission, probably to spare Emma’s feelings.
She scrapes the leftovers on her plate into the compost bin, then looks at the clock. It’s almost time for their scheduled check-in with Jess and Abby. Dread settles in her stomach; she doesn’t want to share the bad news just yet.
Footsteps sound down the tunnel. After a shared look of shock, everyone springs into action. Thomas brandishes his spatula. Sasha and Tanya stand up, Ricky disappears, and Cal pulls their goggles down over their eyes. Bells raises an eyebrow at Emma as if to say, really?
Emma nods. They aren’t expecting anyone else in the hideout today, but it could be one of the newer members who forgot to message ahead. Emma stands up, prepared just in case; she’s actually quite proud of everyone’s vigilance.
The door opens and shut— Ricky’s scouting out the tunnel.
Several shrieks of surprise, and then: “Ricky! Why do you always have to scare me like that!”
Ricky enters the room again with Michelle and Anita, two Vegas locals Cal recruited a few weeks ago. Of all the new members, they’ve been most enthusiastic about Emma’s directives, also the most forgetful about protocols.
“The mission was a huge success!” Michelle announces with a flourish, grinning at everyone. Her braces catch the light as she bounces on her feet.
“We told twelve people, and they were like whoa, and they definitely are passing the information on! My cousin Joan says she’s going to tell three…” Anita blinks owlishly behind her thick gold frames. “Thomas, what are you doing with that spatula?”
Thomas sets his spatula down. “I thought we were under attack!”
“It could have been MR-D4Rs,” Cal offers.
“We wouldn’t have heard them,” Emma says, gritting her teeth.
“They can fly.” Bells’ gaze hardens. Some of the purple disappears from his hair.
“Hovertech,” Emma clarifies to the confused looks in the room. It’s hard, with her and Bells the only ones here with firsthand experience of what those bots can do. That was supposed to be the point of the outreach mission, spread the truth by word of mouth— but it all seems like baby steps.
Anita shrugs. “Well, if they come back, we can just fight them off! The physical training has been going great!”
“Come on, it’s time for the call.” Bells stands up with the blanket trailing from his shoulders like a cape.
Emma doesn’t think she can bear to hear any more talk about how successful that mission was— a mission that is literally just talking to other people. Who came up with that? Right, Emma did. Ugh. What a mastermind she is. She feels like such a fake.
Ducking through the low doorway, Emma follows Bells into the next room. The radio, as Cal promised, is actually fixed. It’d been glitching, not receiving properly, but that had been due to a broken antenna. It took a while to set up all the repeaters from the Nevada region to the high Rockies. Ever since the last repeater was installed at the top of nearby Turtlehead Peak they’ve been able to check in regularly.
Bells is already tuning to the correct channel. They switched it last week after testing to see if anyone else was transmitting, but so far they haven’t heard anything but static. Even with this ancient method of communication, it’s important to be careful since anyone could stumble upon their frequency. It’s not the most secure system, but it’s so old Emma thinks no government official or the League would think of it.
Bells bites his lip and listens to the static as he turns the dial, and then there’s the faint tinkling sound of dramatic music and a man talking in a gruff voice.
“So Meeks faked his own death?” This is definitely the correct frequency. Emma decided it was best to blend in with the other hobbyists and play something innocuous, just in case someone was to tune in. It’s an episode from The Gentleman Detective, looping over and over again.
“Meeks has been lying to us this whole time,” Styx Kipling, the wisecracking detective, says in a familiar drawl. “Don’t you worry, sweetheart, I’m on the case. Soon everyone will know the truth.”
Bells hums to himself. “Such a good episode.”
Emma rolls her eyes. “You’ve seen this one so many times, you’ve got it memorized.”
Bells shrugs, listening intently to the scene. He taps on the microphone. “Hello?”
The episode plays a jangly tune as Kipling finds a clue. “We should change this loop, I swear, every time we call them it’s playing this episode,” Emma says.
“It’s one of the best ones,” Bells insists.
Emma rolls her eyes but smiles all the same.
“Hello, hello!” Jess’ voice comes on the line, and the sound of the episode cuts out.
“Jess!” Bells and Emma say in unison, and then they both launch into questions.
“Did you guys find any more meta-humans?”
“What’s the update on Dynamite?”
Jess laughs. “One a time, one at a time. Not much to report over here. Getting them to decide on anything takes forever.”
“Really?”
Jess makes a hmm noise. “I think my mom has almost convinced the others that it’s time to make a stand against the League, but I don’t think they’re quite ready to do something public. They keep going back and forth about how staying put is the safest. Numbers are the same. We’ve got a total of five who are ready for action and seven who are strongly against it, and everyone else keeps arguing about what to do first. I think I’ve made progress with Tree Frog, though. She definitely is coming around.”
“Okay.” Bells sighs and taps on the desk.
Emma shakes her head. It’s been almost a month since they got back. They should have made more progress by now, but she guesses something is better than nothing. “Okay, Abby, what about rescuing your dad?”
The line is silent for so long that Emma thinks there’s something wrong with the signal. “Abby’s in the research room right now. Uh… Mr. Monroe… Phillip… his location keeps changing,” Jess says. “I can’t get a read on where he is. If we go after him, by the time we to wherever he is, he’ll probably be somewhere else. And I don’t have a way of knowing distance; I can only still tell direction.”
Emma sighs. Their plan to take down the League seemed so solid. But, not being at the Guild’s headquarters and only getting updates once a week leaves her feeling that they’re not making any progress at all. Splitting up seemed like a good idea at the time. Abby wanted to stay with her mom, Jess and her brother wanted to stay with their parents, and the Broussards had to come back to Andover to run their business. It made sense for Emma to come back with them; she missed her moms, and it was time to clue them in on what was happening. But after a month apart and such slow progress, Emma regrets coming back to Nevada.
“I know you wanted to ask me all the boring stuff first because you probably were just being nice about your big news!” Jess crows. “Tell me all about it. How’d it go?”
“Great,” Bells says brightly, glancing at Emma. “The plan was great. We reprogrammed all the MR-D4Rs on the train.”
Technically that is all true.
“Oh, cool! I wonder if we’d be able to pull something like that off—”
“It was a disaster,” Emma says. She crosses her arms.
“No, it wasn’t,” Bells insists. “Our goal was to reprogram all the bots. We did that.”
“And activated a whole car full of MR-D4Rs,” Emma mutters.
“Wait, what happened?” Jess’ face is probably scrunched up in confusion. Emma can see it clear as day in her head. She’s probably got her chin in her hands too.
“We’re all fine,” Bells says. “No one got hurt, and we definitely accomplished the goal. But, uh, a bunch of bots on the last car woke up and started their capture-the-fugitives protocol or whatever, so Ricky decided to just explode everything.”
“I should have had more contingency plans,” Emma grumbles. She should have thought to make extra transponders in case any of them were dropped, but they didn’t have enough parts.
“Emma! Bells!” Abby’s voice crackles over the line. “So excited to hear from you! How’d it go?”
“We only have a minute or so left,” Jess says. “What were you doing?”
“Important research!” Abby says breezily. “So, did you save me a MonRobot?”
“What?” Emma wracks her brain. Did she forget a crucial part of the plan? No, no, if the goal was to retrieve a MR-D4R she would have built the plan around it. What is Abby talking about?
“No, a bunch of—”
“I want to see if my dad left me any messages in the programming,” Abby says eagerly.
“Like in the code?” Jess asks.
“Yes! We used to—”
Bells cuts in. “Hey, we have just enough power for another minute or so. Jess, can you catch Abby up later?”
“Sure,” Jess says. Her voice sounds strained, as though something’s been bothering her.
Bells goes through updates, and Jess does the same on their end: how many new members, progress on training, supplies needed, and the time and date for the next check-in. Emma wishes they had more than just a few minutes each week, but it’s so difficult to coordinate, what with taking care of the repeaters and keeping the signal going. She wants to ask if Jess and Abby are really okay, if things are going as well as they say they are.
“Take care,” Emma says.
“We will,” Jess and Abby chorus. There’s a crinkle of static, and The Gentleman Detective episode starts playing again.
“Hey, it’s August twenty-eighth,” Emma says, distractedly.
“What?”
“It’s the first day of school.” Emma shakes her head. “It’d be our senior year.”
Bells laughs. “Right. School. I don’t miss it.”
Emma gives him a weak smile. “I do.” She misses the structure, the simple routine of going about her day from class to class. She even misses stressing out about class assignments and doing piles of homework. This year they’d be working on their college applications: Bells picking art schools, Emma persuading Jess to join her at the University of Nevada.
“Well, school or not, we’re being productive. Hey, and if this all wraps up soon, we can even think about finishing senior year. If you want to.”
Emma shrugs. “Technically, I’m done. I finished all my credits this year.” It feels strange to think of being finished when her classmates still have another year to go.
Bells whistles. “Really? Why are you still taking classes?”
“It’s part of the experience,” Emma insists. “Spending time with you and Jess, playing volleyball—we were gonna go to Regionals this year, I’m sure—and, you know, dances and stuff.”
“Dances.” Bells waggles his eyebrows at her. “Like prom?”
“Yeah,” Emma says. She’s not sure how she feels about missing the supposedly penultimate high school experience. She went to Homecoming and Spring Fling the past two years, and Carlos asked her to his prom before they broke up. Dances always came with dates; that was part of the package, part of what was expected. Emma’s own high school experience was carefully curated with everything she wanted: all the top classes, sports, college prep, extracurriculars, a healthy social life with friends, regular dates with an attractive and interesting person for the acceptable high school two-month-long relationship-lifespan. But here in the hideout, with the reality of the Resistance, it seems far away, and all the little things Emma did seem trivial now, as if she was playing a part.
Bells throws an arm around her shoulder, and Emma snuggles into his neck. “If you really want a prom, I can make it happen,” he announces gallantly.
Emma laughs. Appreciating the moment, she closes her eyes. She imagines the over-the-top outfits, dancing with her friends, and enjoying the party. That always seemed fun and appealing, but she hated all the social pressure those kind of dates brought. Bells looks at her and gives her a soft smile, and then it hits her— she’s in a relationship with Bells now. Emma has no idea what she’s doing. How is this going to work?
“All right, Mastermind, what’s next?” Ricky asks. He’s the only one who uses the names they came up with for the Sidekick Squad, and Emma’s pretty sure he’s only using hers because he thinks it’s funny.
“Same agenda from last week,” Emma says, glum. She glances at the clock. It’s late; everyone who doesn’t live in the hideout will be leaving soon.
“What about the communication plan?” Tanya asks. “Keep spreading the truth about the League?”
Anita nods. “That’s good, and we’ve already started on that.”
Michelle’s already got her coat on and is gesturing for Anita to join her at the door. “And my friends are telling their friends in Crystal Springs, and they’re spreading the word.”
Emma clenches her fists. They’ve been doing this for weeks. “How long is it gonna take for the word to spread across the country? What’s it gonna take for the people of the Collective do anything about the League?”
“There’s the upcoming election,” Cal says. “Vote Kingston out. He’s the one in the League’s pocket, right?”
“The other way around,” Bells says. “He’s totally in control of the League and supports what they do, experiments and all. Thinks it helps run the country better.”
Kyle taps his chin. “More like run a smokescreen over all the shady stuff he’s doing overseas.”
Emma glances at the cluster of sketches and drawings they have pinned on the wall that confirm everything they’ve uncovered: the Collective’s military presence in tantalum-rich Constavia, Orion’s experiments and the connection to the disappearing meta-humans, the cover-up about the true nature of the League.
The map also details the whereabouts of the other members of the growing Resistance. Each chapter started from the network of pre-Collective film enthusiasts. But communication is proving difficult because of all the backchannels and encryptions.
Then there are the plans to nullify the new MonRobot threat. But look how well that turned out with the first mission. Maybe better to focus on the exposé.
“It’s the network,” Emma says. “The problem is that we don’t have a way of communicating effectively with the parts of the Resistance or of reaching potential members. Everything on the Net is monitored, so the current encryption you all had—”
“It’s a long process,” Cal says. “I agree. It’s designed to make us hard to find in the first place, and then only for those who were looking in the right places. But do we really need every chapter to get radios right now? I mean, what’s the plan?”
The question hangs over Emma. For the first time, she doesn’t have a plan. She doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know the best course of action.
“What about the old pre-Collective information networks? Even wireless routers were connected to something. There were tons of, like, steel cables underground carrying information, right? Can we tap into those?” Sasha asks.
Emma nods. “That’s a good idea.” The idea is solid, but she has no idea where to start. From the beginning, she guesses, with research. “But it would be like finding a needle in a haystack. Because of the ban on pre-Collective tech.”
Bells raises his hand. “What if there was already an active network?”
Ricky laughs. “Really? Right under our noses the whole time?”
Bells shrugs. “I mean, last year we spent months looking for the Resistance, and you all were here the whole time, so I don’t see why not. Think about it. We wouldn’t have to try and create something that already exists.”
Emma nods. Another faction complete with their own efficient means of communication? That would be great.
“Something to think about,” Bells says.
“Look, I’ve been organizing this thing with Thomas and Kyle for years,” Cal says, steepling their fingers. “If there was such a group, we would have found them by now. I mean, it’s a great idea, Bells, but I don’t think they exist.”
Bells is quiet on the ride to his motorcycle, and Emma is lost in her own thoughts, trying to figure out the next step. The explosion keeps replaying in her head with all of them barely getting to safety.
“I’ll call you later.” Bells gives her a quick kiss. “You did great today, okay? We all tried our best.”
“Thanks,” Emma says. They’re nice words, but she doesn’t think they’re true.