“There is no way Roux would want to come back,” Airin signed as soon as they caught her up. “If she has a life now, or if she is even still alive, there is no reason for her to come back.”

“Not to mention we have no flippin’ clue where she is,” Jayden said as she plopped back onto the couch at the hideout. She frowned at an ancient cigarette burn on the armrest. “We don’t even know if she stayed in Singe.”

“Well, there is a way to find anyone,” Brandy sang.

Jayden immediately stood up. “No. We’re not doing that.”

“Doing what?” Airin asked. They were talking too fast for her to keep up. Brandy started interpreting, but Roux could always do it better and faster.

Brandy gave a smirk. “Remember the Helios job?” She smoothed down her leggings. “Councilman Helios keeps records of everyone with a previous arrest.”

. “No, no, no, no, no,” Jayden said. “No. I’m not doing a job. I came here to clear my name and then I’m going back..”

“Shush,” Brandy said.

Airin tapped a finger on her chin. “But Roux does not have a previous arrest,” she signed. “Her name has always been clean.”

Brandy kept spinning around in her chair. “She doesn’t, but guess who does?”

Jayden groaned loudly. “How many times do I have to say ‘no’ for you to get the hint? If I said no to doing a job, the answer’s obviously still no to bringing in –”

“Marius?” Brandy teased.

“Yes!”

“Oh! Marius!” Airin realized. His namesign looked suspiciously similar to a certain single-fingered gesture. He and Roux had been given theirs at the same time by Airin, and needless to say, Airin never liked him. While Roux’s namesign was a gorgeous flourish of the wrist that meant something close to “playful flower,” Marius’s was… well. “Oh. Marius.”

Jayden buried her head in her hands. “Maybe if I pretend I don’t see them, I don’t have to do anything about it,” she muttered to herself.

“Besides, we don’t have to bring him in,” Brandy was saying. “All we need is to check his past addresses –”

“– which would also be Roux’s past addresses,” Airin finished. “And possibly her current ones.”

“I’m not doing it,” Jayden groaned.

Suddenly, Brandy snapped. She stomped her boots on the ground and slammed her chair into the wall. It crashed against the door and fell onto its side, its wheels spinning uselessly in the air. “What is WRONG with you?” she roared, startling Jayden into a terrified silence. “You’ve done nothing but complain for the last two hours! If we want to clear our names, we need Announcer Underground! We need the confident, cocky strategist with a stupidly brilliant mind who cares about her reputation! Not – not whatever this sniveling coward of a surface kid is!”

Jayden flinched as if Brandy had punched her. Her hand flew to her necklace, the hideout key. Brandy’s eyes flickered to it, then back to her face.

Jayden’s heart was beating a mile an hour, and she dug the key’s grooves into her palm a little bit deeper. Her voice sounded a lot stronger than she felt. “Announcer Underground would’ve been locked in a soundproof jail cell for the last year.”

“And we would’ve broken you out!”

“She would’ve been disowned by her family and barred from ever going to school.”

“You never liked them, and you’re too smart for school anyways!”

Jayden’s voice started wavering. “She would’ve been exiled from the safest, most united city in the world. What does that say about her?”

“That you’re smart and skilled enough to not need rules holding you back?”

“Don’t you get it?” Jayden pleaded. “I don’t want to not have rules holding me back! I mean – I don’t like unjust rules, but they’re rules for a reason! They stop people from being hurt. From – from hurting themselves – and others.”

Brandy scoffed. “The surface drilled that into you. Since when did you become such a sheep?”

“Brandy –”

“Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb! Mary had a little lamb who won’t have any fun!”

“Brandy!”

She paused, but her gaze made it clear it was momentary.

Jayden took another breath. “My first day at school, I saw someone get dragged out of my lecture hall by watchmen for a senior prank gone wrong. My roommate was arrested  for smoking a month before her birthday. I was so ready to come right back underground and take on every official who ever wronged me.”

“Mmm.” Brandy didn’t believe her.

“But then, my favourite professor didn’t show up for class for three days. When she came back, she had huge burns down the entire side of her face. There had been an attack by a student because he didn’t like how the teachers were marking, and he managed to torch down half the eastern wing before they had to send a superhero  to – to neutralize  him. I knew him. He was in my second year calculus class.”

Airin was sitting patiently off on the side, doodling on her arm. She gave up trying to understand what was going on.

“We never hurt anyone like he did my professor, but we did hurt people. Good people, like my professor. Watchmen who had families and friends and volunteered at the local animal shelter. Officials who worked their way up, like I might’ve done in a different life. And we were being selfish, no matter what our whole ‘Robin Hood’ shtick seemed like. And I – I just don’t want to break any more rules.

“Rules are there for a reason,” she finished, “and I swore that I wouldn’t break them anymore.”

Brandy pinched the bridge of her nose, skewing her glasses. “Okay, I see your point, but lemme just ask you this: did you kill the president?”

“No!”

“Then shouldn’t you be allowed to clear your name? Then you can go back to your little ethics crusade or whatever and pretend this was just a horrible week that never happened. But you can’t do that if you’re stuck in a jail cell or shipped off to a state that still calls for the death penalty.”

“I can’t just turn my beliefs on and off,” Jayden warned. “That’s not how it works.”

“Well then, pretend that’s how it works!” Brandy threw her hands up in defeat. “But whatever! I’m going to go break into an office, and you’re going to sit here and pretend you’re not committing a crime just by not stopping me.”

“...and so you’re saying I might as well go all the way.”

“Bingo.”

Jayden groaned again, but she knew Brandy was right. Killing the president is one heck of a black mark on a permanent record. “Fine. But we’re not jaywalking or entering through ‘exit’ doors or anything.”

“Sure, sure,” Brandy laughed.

“I’m serious.”

Brandy blinked (the normal kind, not the teleporting kind). “Well. I’m going to go translate all that for Airin.” They both suddenly remembered Airin existed, and looked over at her petting a cat that had somehow materialized out of nowhere.

Brandy waved at Airin and began her choppy translation. Jayden cringed. “Wish Roux was here,” she grumbled.

“That’s kind of the point.”