Return to Zero

by Pittacus Lore

  “I see,” Malcolm replied. “Consider me unimpressed, Greger. Kindly take your job and shove it.”

  Malcolm disconnected. As soon as he did, he let out a jagged sigh and groped behind him for a chair. Nigel came forward, shaking his head.

  “Well played, Doc,” Nigel said, finally stepping forward. “Put that wanker in his place.”

  Malcolm nodded, his gaze distant as he stared down at his blank phone. He flopped backwards into the chair, looking like he’d been punched in the stomach.

  “Dr. Goode?” Nigel asked. “What’s the matter?”

  Malcolm held up his phone. The ID from the disconnected call was still displayed there.

  Sam.

  “That son of a bitch,” Malcolm said quietly. “He just called me from my son’s phone.”

  Nigel swallowed. “Oh.”

  “Yes,” Malcolm said as he tossed the phone onto the table in front of him. “His implication seems to be that Earth Garde has taken him prisoner.”

  Sam Goode. From what Nigel knew, the guy had been working for Watchtower, the same secretive offshoot of Earth Garde that swept up Ran and Kopano. Sam and Number Six had been working with the group willingly, though. Sam had played by the rules and now it sounded like Greger was using him as leverage. So maybe it wasn’t just the Academy’s students that were in trouble with Earth Garde.

  “I’m sure your boy’s fine, Doc,” Nigel said, attempting to sound reassuring and sincere, always a difficult task for him. “I’ve seen him in action a time or two. He’s got the stuff.”

  “Yes, Nigel, thank you . . . ,” Malcolm replied distantly. “I just . . . I thought our years of being on the run and finding each other locked in cells were behind us. I—”

  Something on one of the monitors distracted Malcolm. He leaned forward, squinting at an infrared feed from a camera pointed out at the ocean.

  “Do you see that?” he asked Nigel. “That heat signature?”

  Nigel leaned in over Malcolm’s shoulder. He did notice something odd in the air over the ocean. There was something out there letting out sporadic bursts of heat, although nothing visible to the naked eye.

  “What is that?” Nigel asked. “A thunderstorm?”

  “No,” Malcolm replied, reaching for his walkie-talkie. “That’s traveling way too fast to be a storm. That—that is something else. And it’s headed this way.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  KOPANO OKEKE

  STUDENT UNION

  THE HUMAN GARDE ACADEMY—POINT REYES, CALIFORNIA

  KOPANO POLISHED OFF THE LAST GREASY BITE OF his second meat loaf sandwich, licked the tips of his fingers and then leaned back in his chair with a satisfied belch. “So good.”

  Across the table, Simon picked at a salad. “That was horrific to watch.”

  “I feel great,” Kopano declared, rubbing the sides of his belly.

  “How do you have a girlfriend?” Simon replied, shaking his head.

  The kitchen only served meat loaf like once a month and while a lot of the Academy kids turned their noses up at greasy slices of ground beef, Kopano loved the stuff. It reminded him of the kafta he used to buy from a stall outside his family’s apartment complex in Lagos. The cooks didn’t usually reheat the previous night’s leftovers for lunch, but they’d been short-staffed since yesterday and Kopano guessed they had to improvise. Whoever came up with the frankly brilliant idea to sandwich some meat loaf between toasted rye bread with melty slices of bright orange cheese deserved a Nobel Prize. America was wonderful.

  Kopano’s meat loaf–induced euphoria dimmed slightly when he spotted Karen Walker entering the lunchroom. The agent had stuck mostly to the administration building since the two of them arrived. Kopano knew that she was helping Malcolm and Lexa with the Academy’s security systems and that she’d been reporting in a steady stream of excuses to Watchtower while figuring out her next move. Their next move, technically. She was supposed to be Kopano’s handler, although Walker seemed pretty comfortable abdicating that responsibility so that Kopano could return to his normal life here. However, based on the grim look on her face and the beeline she made towards his table, he could tell something had changed.

  “I need a word with Kopano,” Walker said to Simon. The French boy grabbed his tray and cleared out, letting her take his seat.

  “What’s up, Karen?” Kopano asked with a smile. “You should eat a sandwich. You look thin.”

  Walker ignored his suggestion. “I’ve been officially called back to Washington,” she said. “The chaos after Switzerland had the Earth Garde brass scrambling, but it seems like someone finally looked into my reports. They know your Inhibitor is down and that I lost Ran. I’m supposed to report for debriefing. I’ll definitely be fired. Maybe detained. You’re supposed to come with me. You’ll most likely be assigned to a new handler and have another Inhibitor installed.”

  “I see,” Kopano replied, his smile faltering.

  He’d been taking a lot of flak from Taylor lately about his positive attitude. She thought that he should be angrier about what had happened to him. She wasn’t wrong, but it’s not like Kopano was happy to have been kidnapped and conscripted. He was pissed. To show that anger, though—to let it change him—that would be letting the bad guys win.

  “I think I’ll stay here,” Kopano said after a pause. He looked Walker in the eyes and flattened his lips to let her know that he was serious.

  “I figured you’d say that,” Walker replied. “I couldn’t force you to turn yourself in, even if I wanted to. But you should know that they’ll come for you, eventually. Could mean trouble for the Academy.”

  “Maybe,” Kopano said. “But I believe in Earth Garde. I believe that these conspiracies will get sorted out and that we’ll go back to helping people, like we’re meant to.”

  “I hope you’re right.” Walker’s tone was one Kopano heard often from Taylor and Nigel—weary skepticism, like he was a fool to be so optimistic. Still, he pressed on.

  “You should stay here, too,” Kopano suggested. “The instructors keep quitting. You could teach a class in spy craft. That would be sweet.”

  Walker pinched the bridge of her nose. “I have a lot to answer for—”

  “Like me,” said a voice behind Kopano.

  Rabiya stood at Kopano’s shoulder, dressed in a purple tracksuit and a Lycra hijab. Walker visibly winced at the sight of her, perhaps remembering how she’d been complicit in smuggling the teleporter out of the UAE, a territory not governed by Earth Garde.

  “Will they be coming for me too?” Rabiya asked. She’d obviously been eavesdropping.

  “Surprisingly, you didn’t even come up,” Walker said. “I don’t think your father reported your . . . your emancipation.”

  “This is good news,” Kopano said, opening his arms. “See? We can all stay at the Academy. Eventually, Earth Garde will understand that we aren’t dangerous. This will all blow over.”

  Walker frowned. She clearly didn’t agree, but she said nothing. Rabiya laid a hand on Kopano’s shoulder.

  “Come on,” she said. “We’ve got fitness.”

  “I thought you Academy kids were supposed to be in better shape,” Rabiya teased over her shoulder. “What’s wrong with you?”

  Doubled over with his hands on his knees, Kopano sucked in a deep breath and held up his index finger indicating that he needed a minute. Kopano’s sandwich addiction had him doubled over on the track, only a half mile in to what was supposed to be a four-mile run, feeling like his stomach was invading his lungs. He could use his Legacy to make his body lighter, but he’d already been scolded for that before—it wasn’t actually exercise if he cheated.

  Rabiya circled back to stand beside him. Her tracksuit made a rhythmic swishing sound as she jogged in place. She’d barely even broken a sweat.

  “You look unwell,” she observed.

  “I ate too much,” Kopano replied, straightening up with a groan and rubbing his sides.

  “I know. I
saw you at lunch. What did you call it? Fuel for your ever-growing muscles?”

  “I don’t remember saying that,” Kopano said, stifling a belch.

  Rabiya waved her hand at their surroundings. There wasn’t anyone else on the track and they were in the section that cut through the woods. “At least, there is no one to see if you need to poop your pants.”

  “I’m not—!” Kopano protested. “Disgusting.”

  Rabiya kicked a foot back into her hand, stretching her hamstring. “So, are we running or what?”

  Kopano’s stomach bubbled at the thought. “Maybe we could just walk awhile.”

  “Good with me,” Rabiya replied. “I don’t think anyone cares if we hit our fitness goals today.”

  “No,” Kopano agreed. “Doesn’t seem like it.”

  The Australian personal trainer—a former distance runner and Olympic medalist that typically oversaw their conditioning—had left campus with some of the other faculty after Greger announced Professor Nine’s firing. Nine himself was busy with his own classes, mainly working with tweebs to unlock their primary Legacies, so he’d told the kids in Kopano’s fitness block to see to their own workouts.

  Just Rabiya and Kopano had showed up at the track. The two of them were the only ones taking classes seriously and they weren’t even really students.

  In the aftermath of Switzerland, Professor Nine had barely blinked when Kopano introduced him to Rabiya. Kopano had explained the deal they cut with her against Agent Walker’s wishes and Nine had basically waved it through. After losing two students and an Earth Garde operative, taking in Rabiya wasn’t such a big deal. Nine never added Rabiya to the official Academy roster, but got her enrolled in classes. To the other students, she was simply a new arrival.

  With both Ran and Isabela on the run, Nine had installed Rabiya in Taylor’s pod. “Your girlfriend is the perfect American, like the nice girls on the sitcoms,” Rabiya had told him during one of their other runs, a statement that made Kopano blush mostly because he and Taylor hadn’t had the formal discussion about their status. However, Kopano also knew that Taylor still harbored some residual ill will from Rabiya’s role in ambushing them when she was a pawn of the Foundation, and that it was only Kopano vouching for her that kept Rabiya from getting stuck down in the cells with Miki and Mrs. Barnaby. Taylor was busy organizing the students into a rebel army anyway. She didn’t have time for new friends.

  So Kopano had taken it upon himself to show Rabiya the ropes. He liked her. She had a dry sense of humor that surprised him. And, unlike Nigel and Taylor, she wasn’t constantly talking about how they’d all soon be subjugated by a murderous cabal.

  “It’s good news that your father hasn’t reported you missing, right?” Kopano said, thinking back to their conversation with Walker. “You get to stay here.”

  “Yes. Good news,” Rabiya said. She tried to make her words sound bright, but there was a note of hurt in her voice. “I’m starting to think the sheikh might be happy I’m gone.”

  Kopano scratched his chin. “You know, when my dad found out I had Legacies, he immediately started scheming how he could turn a profit off me. Kept me a secret from Earth Garde for months until we got in trouble with some bad men . . .”

  “At least you were valued,” Rabiya said with a shake of her head. “Men like my father have a reputation for being overprotective of their daughters. He used to baby me so much, at least until I started moving objects with my mind. After that, he could barely look at me. I think it bothered him that he was no longer the most powerful person in our house. When my brother became sick and the Foundation approached us, I think he saw it as an opportunity to get all this Garde madness out from under his roof.”

  “What was it like working for them?” Kopano asked.

  “They treated us like movie stars as long as we did what they asked,” Rabiya replied. “I saw more of the world in a few months with them than I had in my entire life. At first, it was fun. All I did was move people from place to place. And I was helping to save my brother’s life . . .”

  “Bad deeds for good reasons,” Kopano said. “My dad used to say that.”

  “It wasn’t until we started kidnapping the healers that I saw how the Foundation really thought of us,” Rabiya continued. “As assets. Property. When Einar left me behind and no one from the Foundation came to save me, that’s when I learned how little I was valued.” Rabiya sighed. “When you and your friends showed up and rescued me, I saw how much you cared about each other. Einar always bad-mouthed the Academy as the UN trying to control us. Maybe that’s true in some ways. But at least here you stand up for one another.”

  Kopano’s stomach grumbled when he puffed out his chest, but he did it anyway. “The intentions of this place are good,” he said, then paused, thinking about Nine’s dismissal. “At least, they used to be.”

  “A ripe fruit will always draw the attention of worms,” Rabiya said. “My dad used to say that. I think he was talking about keeping me away from boys, but it still applies. Anyway. I like it here. Even if it’s not all like I imagined.”

  “It’s not?”

  “For one, I didn’t picture so much jogging,” Rabiya said with a half smile. “I don’t know. I get that it’s called an academy, but I didn’t think it would feel so much like regular school. I expected brilliant young Garde using their incredible powers to create world-changing inventions and wonders. Instead, you all play a dumb game where you try to shove each other around with telekinesis.”

  “Thrust, they call it,” Kopano said with a chuckle. “You know, on my first day here, this guy Lofton broke his wrist playing that. Now he’s graduated to Earth Garde.”

  “Sounds like one of our best and brightest.”

  Kopano lowered his voice, even though there was no one else around. “It isn’t all like I imagined either. I thought we would be zipping around the world helping people and fighting bad guys. Like superheroes.” He paused. “Well, I guess it’s sort of been like that, actually. But everything is more complicated. Nastier. When you realize that the bad guys aren’t cartoon characters and are actually people, it can get kind of intense.”

  “I know what you mean,” Rabiya replied. Her sneakers crunched on the track as they rounded a bend that brought them in view of the fence at the Academy’s western border. “Like I said, it felt like a game with the Foundation. Until I was hung up in a meat locker with those sickos threatening to burn me alive.”

  Kopano breathed out through his nose. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

  “Everyone here has been through something, in one way or another,” Rabiya said, after a moment. She reached over and gave Kopano’s hand a squeeze. “The only way we truly overcome those bad experiences is by refusing to let them change us.”

  “Yes!” Kopano agreed happily. “This is what I’ve been trying to tell Taylor and Nigel, but . . .”

  It took him a moment to realize that Rabiya hadn’t let go of his hand. He raised his eyebrows in confusion, peering down at the smaller girl. Her gaze pointed straight ahead, at the point where the tree line broke open upon the Pacific Ocean, a peaceful expression on her face, like she didn’t even realize she was holding Kopano’s hand.

  “Rabiya, hey—,” Kopano said, worming his hand free.

  “Sorry, sorry,” she replied quickly, yanking her hand back so she could pull at her hijab, perhaps wishing she could cover her face and hide the rising color there. “I was just thinking about how nice you are to be my friend here when I don’t know anyone and—I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “It’s cool,” Kopano replied lamely. He thought that he should say something more to ease the sudden awkwardness, but that’s when he noticed a strange shimmer on the horizon over the ocean. He stopped in his tracks.

  “Come on, let’s keep going,” Rabiya said over her shoulder. “I promise I won’t make things weird again.”

  But weirdness, it seemed, was already coming their way. Kopano pointed out t
owards the ocean.

  “Do you see that?”

  Kopano shaded his eyes, trying to get a good look at the patch of sky where the sunlight bent unnaturally. There was a ripple in the air, sort of like heat lines from pavement during the summer. And it was getting closer.

  “What is—?” Rabiya let out a cry of surprise as a crackle of reddish energy splintered off from the ripple and then another. It was like a small, fast-moving lightning storm.

  Kopano blinked and, suddenly, the ripple was gone. In its place was a Mogadorian skimmer. The bug-like ship was dented and covered in scorch marks. Clearly, its cloaking system had just failed. The ship barely cleared the trees and then started descending towards the track, coming in fast for an emergency landing.

  “Is that Einar and the others?” Rabiya asked.

  Kopano squinted. He’d gotten a good look at Einar’s ship back in Switzerland. It was beaten up, just like this one, but in different places. This skimmer looked like a slightly different model.

  “No,” Kopano breathed. “No. This is someone else.”

  “Someone else?” Rabiya raised her voice, alarmed. “Mogadorians?”

  The knot in Kopano’s stomach returned. Mogadorians. Of course. Who else would be flying one of those ships? Taylor said she’d encountered some of them during her hellish visit to Siberia . . .

  “Get back to campus,” Kopano said. “Warn the others!”

  “What about you?”

  Kopano tightened his molecules, making his skin harder than diamond. “These things cannot hurt me.”

  Rabiya didn’t protest. A funnel of blue light erupted from her palm, a jagged growth of Loralite appearing on the track at her feet. She touched it and, in a flash, was gone, transported to one of the stones she’d installed back on campus.

  Kopano could wait for Rabiya to come back with help. Play it safe. That was the smart thing to do.

  But come on. Mogadorians. The real bad guys. Adventure. Action.

  This was why he’d come here.

  He bounded forward, feet thudding against the track’s packed dirt with his increased mass.