I am getting lunch with Max Everhart. The words sounded so surreal, being tossed around in Maggie's head as she left the pawn shop without a backward glance at August. How is this even reality?

Maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was just a dream, just something her imagination had concocted while she lay on her mildew-covered bed, wrapped in her thin, moth-eaten blankets, and she was going to be sorely disappointed when she woke up.

That was probably the case, just like it had been that time when she was eight and she'd dreamed her vanished older sister had come to the Prodigy Children's Home and adopted her. Maggie had been devastated for a while after that, until she'd realized how much better off she was without anyone looking after her.

Well. If this day with Max turned out to be a dream, that would probably be better too. Maggie didn't need the distraction of hanging out with arguably the most famous boy in all of Gatlon City. She had a very important job to do.

But she could enjoy the dream while it lasted, at any rate.

"I feel bad," Max said suddenly as they turned onto Beltway Avenue. "I just realized you didn't have a chance to do whatever it was you were going to do in the pawn shop. Should we go back?"

"Oh," Maggie's hand subconsciously drifted to her purse, which today held a gold bracelet, a wallet, and a diamond necklace. "No, that's okay. I wasn't going in for anything important."

"Do you browse there a lot?" Max asked, cocking one eyebrow upward.

Maggie fixed him with a hard look. Was he implying that he didn't believe her? "Yes," she said defensively. "Some people rather like to browse around at pawn shops, you know."

"I know," said Max, lifting his hands in a show of innocence. "I'm not judging or anything."

"I never said you were." Maggie cringed at the tone of her own voice. The words had come out sounding testy and irritated, which wasn't how she felt at all. "So, those boys in the store," she said, changing the subject. "They're your friends?"

Max nodded. "My best friends. Sterling and Jade Tucker. Or, they prefer to be known as the Silver Snake and the Green Machine. They weren't prodigies before, so, you know, that makes their abilities all the more exciting now, I guess."

Maggie thought about Duncan and Kevin, both of whom hadn't been prodigies before and viewed the change in a negative light. "Do you ever wonder if some people might have been happier before becoming prodigies?" Maggie asked. "Or whether there are any people who were disappointed, when everyone got powers, about what their powers turned out to be?"

"For sure," Max answered without hesitation. "If I'd been a non-prodigy all my life, and then I suddenly ended up with the power of absorption and had to go live in the quarantine after getting to experience all this—" He gestured around them, at the street, the bustling sidewalk, the buildings looming overhead "I think I'd be pissed."

Maggie nodded, strangely pleased that Max could empathize with the trials faced by some of the members of her gang.

"But I think for the most part," Max continued, "people are pretty happy about the way things turned out. The Great Equalization solved a lot of problems, like prodigy oppression, and people relying too heavily on superheroes for everything."

Maggie couldn't hide her snort. Max gave her a curious glance. She hesitated for only a fraction of a second before elaborating. "I know everyone calls it the Great Equalization, but what's so equal about some people being able to, I don't know, fly or manipulate water or shoot flames from their fingertips, while other people have to deal with smelling like a skunk every time they lose their temper?"

Max let out a small laugh. "Is that someone's actual power?"

"Oh—I don't know," Maggie backtracked. "I think I've heard of someone with a power that's something like that. But do you get my point? Just because everyone has powers doesn't mean everyone's equal."

Max listed his head to the side. "No," he agreed. "I guess it doesn't. But I still think, on the whole, things are better now." He grinned. "Of course, my perspective might be a little bit biased."

They had reached the restaurant on the corner of Beltway and Broad, and Max reached the door first and held it open for Maggie. It was a simple gesture, but one that felt foreign to Maggie, who had lived almost her entire life—apart from her time with the Renegades—surrounded by people who would have let the door close in her face without a second thought.

"Thanks," Maggie muttered as she stepped inside, and the word felt just as strange as everything else about this day. Maggie couldn't remember the last time she'd thanked someone.

"No problem," Max replied cheerfully, getting into line behind her.

Maggie scanned the menu, which boasted an extensive list of hamburgers and fried items. She had been to Superburger only a few times before, preferring to pick up cheap items from the grocery store as she saved up for the items she and her gang would need the day of the parade.

"What are you going to get?" she asked Max.

"I think… probably the Bacon Supreme. How about you?"

"I don't know." Maggie chewed her lip. "I can't decide whether I want a burger or chicken nuggets."

"Then get both," Max suggested.

Not everyone is part of the richest family in Gatlon City, Maggie thought with a twinge of resentment. In all honesty, she didn't know whether Max's family was the richest in the city, but judging by the fact that his dads were part of the original Council and basically owned Renegade Headquarters, she figured they were pretty up there.

"I'll just get a burger," she decided, stepping up to the counter to place her order. As she went to hand the money to the cashier, Max stepped up next to her.

"I'll pay," he offered, holding out money of his own to the cashier.

Maggie felt a different sort of twinge in her stomach, but quickly buried it with irritation. "I can take care of myself."

Max stared at her. "I know, but I'm the one who invited you here, so I figured I should be the one to pay…"

"I don't need charity. I don't need anything from anyone."

Max's face took on a wounded expression. "That's not… I'm just…"

"You guys are holding up the line," the cashier informed them in a bored tone of voice.

Maggie used her telekinesis to transfer the coins from her own hand into the cashier's, simultaneously preventing Max's coins from leaving his hand. The cashier didn't bat an eye as she dumped the coins into the cash register and printed out Maggie's receipt. "Are you ordering?" she asked Max.

With a disgruntled glance at Maggie, Max replied, "I'll have a Bacon Supreme, a large fry, and a large chicken nugget, please."

They moved over to wait for their order in silence. Max's gaze was cast toward the floor, the corners of his mouth turned slightly downward. A weight settled on Maggie's chest as she replayed the exchange that had just occurred. She hadn't meant to sound so affronting and abrasive.

Maggie opened her mouth, surprised at how hard it was for her lips to form a word she'd used probably thousands of times throughout her life. But this was different. This time, she actually meant it.

"I'm sorry," she muttered.

Max glanced up, his eyes locking with hers for a second before he looked down again. "I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to offend you or anything."

"I know." Maggie stared at their feet, side-by-side. Her own tattered sneakers and his comfortable, Renegade-issued boots. Maggie missed her Renegade boots. She'd outgrown them years ago.

She could feel Max looking at her, waiting for an explanation, but she didn't have one to give him. She recognized that she had overreacted, but everything she'd said had been true. She didn't need anything from anyone. She could handle everything herself.

Their food came out moments later, and they each grabbed their respective bags and headed into the dining area. Max unwrapped his burger and set it in front of him, then placed the fries and chicken nuggets in the middle of the table. "These are for us to share," he told Maggie, a hint of uncertainty in his eyes. "Although if you don't want any, that's okay."

Maggie debated with herself for a moment before reaching for one of the nuggets. A truce.

"Ohhhhh….." Max exclaimed in dismay, staring at the nugget in her hand, then down at the rest of the pieces.

Maggie froze with the item halfway to her mouth. "What?"

"They started making them shaped like dinos again!" Max pushed the box of nuggets closer to Maggie. "You can have them all, and don't complain, because I seriously didn't know they were going to be dinos until we got them."

Maggie eyed the nugget—which was indeed shaped like a small Tyrannosaurus Rex—then gave Max a nonplussed look. "What's wrong with dinos?"

Max took a bite of his burger, looking sheepish. "Nothing. It's silly. It's just—I used to have a pet velociraptor, so eating anything shaped like a dinosaur is just kind of weird for me. It feels almost like I'm eating my pet."

Maggie stared at him, wondering if he'd lost his marbles or just thought she was extremely stupid. "You had a velociraptor as a pet," she drawled.

"Yeah. His name was Turbo. Adrian drew him for me." Max started, as if just realizing something. "Sorry! I keep forgetting we just met. It kind of feels like I've known you a lot longer." His cheeks tinged pink, but before Maggie had time to process what that might mean, he plowed on. "Adrian—my brother—his power is artwork genesis. Anything he draws, he can make come to life. For a little while, anyway. So one time he drew this little dinosaur, and it lived in the quarantine with me, and I fed it and took care of it just like if it was a real pet. I mean, he was a real pet. To me, at least." Max's expression grew wistful. "I still miss him sometimes. Isn't that weird? To miss an animal that was never even technically a real animal?"

Maggie fingered the bullet in her pocket. "I don't know. I don't really think it's that weird."

"You don't?" Max looked relieved. He took a bite of his burger and chewed thoughtfully for a moment. "So. What are you doing at two today?"

"What?" Maggie jolted. How did Max know—

"You said you had to be somewhere at two o'clock, right?"

Oh. That's right, she had said that, back when Max had first invited her to join him for lunch. But she wasn't about to tell Max where she was really going.

"Seeing a friend," she lied. "Someone I haven't talked to in a while."

"Oh. That's cool. How long have you known her?" Max paused. "Him? Her?"

"Her," Maggie said definitively. "We met at the Prodigy Children's Home when we were kids. After I left, we didn't really stay in touch, but we just ran across each other recently and decided to get—" she hesitated, the word lunch on the tip of her tongue. "Together again," she finished instead.

"That's great that you'll get a chance to catch up all those years," Max commented, sounding so genuine it made Maggie's heart clench. "How long were you at the children's home?"

Maggie shrugged, suddenly regretting infusing that little bit of truth into her lie. She should've let Max believe she'd grown up with a family, a nice mom and dad and maybe a sibling or two. Not because she actually would have liked something like that, but just because it would have made her seem more normal. Less like the street scavenger she really was.

"Eight or so years," she confessed. "I was a little under a year old when I was brought there, and then lived there till I was nine."

"And then you joined the Renegades?"

Maggie had actually joined the Renegades shortly before she'd left the Children's Home, at the insistence of August's grown daughter, Mara. It had been during one of Maggie's very first visits to the pawn shop, just days after she'd discovered that she could make good money trading in objects she pickpocketed using her powers. Mara had caught her subtly attempting to pilfer coins from the cash register, but instead of kicking her out or getting her in trouble, she had told Maggie that she could put her talents to good use if she joined the Renegades' scavenging team. Maggie had laughed in her face, reminding Mara that she'd need to go to the trials, and that the teams were surely looking for people with more interesting talents than hers. Mara had insisted that she at least give it a try.

So she had tried out, during the second year of trials, and the Council had immediately taken her on as a member of their scavenging team. Looking back, Maggie wondered how much their decision had been influenced by the fact that she was an eight-year-old orphan who, in their minds, needed direction and guidance. Pfff. If that was what they'd thought, they'd been so wrong. But she supposed it had worked out. The Renegades had provided her with halfway decent food, boots that were admittedly quite comfortable, a meager but workable income, and a buttload of information about various places in the city.

"Yeah," she told Max with a smile. "That's when I joined the Renegades."

"But you're not working for them anymore." Max didn't sound accusing, just factual. He opened his mouth again, and Maggie braced herself for a question about what she was doing now, or perhaps why she'd left the Renegades. But instead he asked, "What kind of stuff do you like to do in your free time? Do you have any hobbies?"

Maggie blinked. "Hobbies?"

"Yeah." Max's expression was earnest. "What do you do for fun?"

For fun. Maggie tried to think back to the last time she'd done anything for fun. Everything she'd been doing these past three years had been for the cause, working toward her goal of excavating Ace Anarchy's helmet and becoming a supervillain. Other than that, her interest had always pretty much consisted of survival, money, and getting better at her talent so she could, well, survive and make money. "I… don't know," she admitted.

"You don't know?" Max's expression seemed torn between amusement and confusion. "You don't know what you do for fun?"

"I'm just really busy," Maggie explained. "I don't have time for fun."

"Well, what do you think you would enjoy, if you had the chance?"

Maggie cast her gaze around the small restaurant, not even sure what kinds of things were supposed to be enjoyable. Kevin liked computers, she knew, and Duncan played guitar. Eminya liked to read, and Yasmin was into dueling and sparring. Chester liked playing pranks and teasing people.

What did she enjoy?

She was enjoying this, this one-on-one conversation with Max Everhart, eating dino-shaped nuggets and a burger that had just the right ratio of bun, meat, cheese, and condiments. But she couldn't say that.

"I… think I'd be into jewelry making, if I ever got to try it," she realized slowly, envisioning what it would be like to take all kinds of separate materials, and combine them neatly into one beautiful, very valuable object. "That, and then maybe… something outdoors? I don't really know." Why was she even thinking about this stuff? She would never have time to do something fun, so there was no point in dwelling on what fun might look like if she ever got the chance.

"Hmm," said Max. "I have a couple ideas." He glanced down at the Renegades communicator band he wore around his left wrist. "But I don't think we'll have time to do them today. Do you think… would you want to… maybe… meet up again sometime? And do a couple fun things? When you have time?" He met her gaze, uncertainty in his eyes.

Why does he keep wanting to hang out with me? Maggie wondered, unable to wrap her mind around the situation. He was Max Everhart. She was no one! Just a thieving street orphan who technically should have died thirteen years ago, who had concocted an insane plan to—

A panicked, paranoid thought struck her. What if the Renegades suspect about the plan? Could that be why Max was showing interest in her? Had someone somewhere down the line gotten wind of what Maggie and her gang were planning to do? Had someone in the gang betrayed them?

She eyed him shrewdly, trying to determine whether there was any deviousness in those warm brown eyes. All she could see was that same doubt, compounded now by an air of self-consciousness. "I'm sorry," he apologized quickly, waving his hands in the air. "I know you're busy, and you don't really know me at all, and I'm sorry if I'm creeping you out by inviting you places, and I totally understand if you don't want to. That's cool. It's no problem."

"No," Maggie blurted out before she could stop herself. "It's okay. I'd like that."

"Really?" Max's lips turned up in a shy smile.

Maggie nodded, twisting her fingers together under the table. "Yeah. I just don't know how we'd coordinate a time to meet up or anything. I don't have a communicator or a phone or anything." This was technically a lie. She did have a phone, an older model she'd picked up from the pawn shop a few years back and bought prepaid minute cards for. She hardly ever carried it with her, though, and only ever used it to contact her gang when necessary.

"Do you go to the pawn shop every day?"

Maggie made a face. She did, more or less, but she didn't want really want Max to keep meeting her there. "How about we just pick a time right now," she suggested. Her mind raced ahead to the upcoming week. She had a meeting with her gang's allies tomorrow, and she didn't want to miss the event at Cosmopolis Park the day after, in which the park was offering tickets at half-price to all who dressed in their best "hero attire," whatever that meant. Maggie didn't want to miss out on the loot afforded by the guaranteed crowds. But after that… "I can do Thursday, if that works for you."

"What time? The activities I have in mind will take a couple hours, so I was thinking noon, maybe?"

A couple hours. Maggie tried hard to push down both her excitement and her suspicion. "Yeah. Cool. Noon sounds good. Want to meet here?"

"Here?" Max blinked. "I mean… I don't know where you live, but I guess… wherever's convenient…"

Maggie nodded vehemently. "Yes. Here is very convenient." Very far away from the theatre. Very far away from anyone who would question why she, the world's next supervillain, was hanging around with the world's biggest superhero.

"All right," said Max, smiling.

Half an hour later, Maggie couldn't prevent a small laugh from escaping from her mouth as she stepped out of the restaurant. Who would have ever thought she and Max Everhart would spend time together hanging out once, let alone make plans to meet again?

Focus, Maggie, she told herself as she set off down the sidewalk. Meetings with Max Everhart are not what you should be thinking about right now. You need to be thinking about the meeting, planning out what you're going to say, what signs you're going to be on the lookout for.

The meeting she was going to right now was important. Much more important than silly lunches and "fun" with a—well, Max wasn't exactly her friend, but whatever. The meeting she was heading toward at the moment had the chance to help Maggie's cause tremendously, or destroy it altogether.

She was going to meet the girl who could potentially be their newest gang member.