Return to Zero

by Pittacus Lore

  As he picked himself up, Caleb hazarded a look below. There were red and blue flashing lights at the hotel’s entrance. Police, at best. A highly trained mercenary kill squad, at worst. Either way, their cover here was blown. They needed to move. Where was Five with that ship?

  The duplicates managed to cover Isabela’s head with a pillowcase, making her telekinetic aim less accurate. Caleb sent two more duplicates into the room, one to try shaking Ran awake and the other to tie a tourniquet around Duanphen’s arm. That first-aid class everyone took at the Academy had come in handy.

  “Caleb?” Einar called down from the balcony above. “Are you alive? Are you yourself?”

  Caleb looked up. He could just see Einar’s head poking over the edge of the terrace.

  “I’m fine,” Caleb said. “Duanphen and Ran are down.”

  “Dead?”

  “No. Hurt. And Lucas is possessing Isabela.”

  There was a whoosh of air as the skimmer descended at speed, blowing Einar’s meticulous hair out of place as it hovered directly above him. A hatch opened up in the ship’s belly, a rope ladder dangling down in front of the Icelandic boy.

  “Knock her out and let’s go,” Einar said sharply. “We’ve got what we came for.”

  Reluctantly, Caleb peered back into the hotel room, where Isabela continued to squirm against his duplicates. She twisted her body in such a way that he was worried that she might dislocate something, but the duplicates did a good job of restraining her.

  “I don’t want to hurt her,” Caleb said.

  “It’s hurt her or leave her behind,” Einar said, grasping the bottom rung of the ladder. “Decide quickly.”

  Isabela clapped her hands as the Calebs overwhelmed her physical body, the noise echoing in the empty warehouse. “Yes! You’re smarter than you look!” she cheered. Her lips quirked to the side as one of the duplicates hugged her from behind. “Always looking for an excuse to grope me.”

  Suddenly, a curtain fell over the tiny aperture she’d been peering through. They’d covered her head with something so that Lucas couldn’t see. That was a good move, she supposed, although it meant Isabela was stuck in here with nothing to do.

  “I need you to bring him out.”

  Isabela jumped as a man’s authoritative voice came from behind her. She spun around, but there was no one there.

  “Are you kidding me?” A woman’s voice answered the first. “Salma just checked in. She says they’re close.”

  There was a crack in the wall opposite Isabela. It hadn’t sealed back up after the mental prison briefly came apart when Lucas tried to jump into Caleb’s duplicate. She glanced back at the tiny doorway that opened onto her own eyes—still nothing to see there—then walked towards the sound of the voices.

  As soon as she moved, the room tilted. Upended. Like she was inside a cube that had been flipped on its side. She fell backwards, landing right next to the tiny doorway. The crack in the opposite wall was now high above her on the ceiling. And, to make matters worse, the fire that had died down when Isabela reached the doorway now started back up again, the room heating up, smoke billowing in from unseen crevices.

  “Oh, so you don’t want me to go that way?” Isabela said aloud, standing up on what had once been the warehouse’s wall. She smirked. “Too bad I know your tricks now.”

  Isabela crouched down, her legs pulled in tight. This was her mind. Lucas might be able to keep her stuck in here and use her trauma to keep her scared, but, ultimately, he didn’t make the rules. She did.

  It was like pushing off the wall of a swimming pool. Isabela imagined herself gliding across water. She extended her legs and raised her arms and it was so. She floated towards the crack in the ceiling, spinning through smoke and the winking lights of the disco ball.

  This was how she’d felt in those moments before the fire had claimed her. Dancing. Free.

  She landed on the ceiling, right up against the crack where the light came through.

  “That Karlsson fool is losing control of the situation at the Academy,” said the man. “But an opportunity we can’t pass up has presented itself. We need to get Lucas in position.”

  “And what if, at this very moment, he’s eliminating Einar?” the woman asked in response. “You want to take responsibility for blowing that?”

  Peeking through the crack, Isabela could see into a harshly lit white room. Above her, fluorescent lights were drilled into a concrete ceiling. She could hear the steady beep-beep of a heart monitor and glimpsed an IV bag nearby.

  She was looking through Lucas’s eyes.

  Isabela got the sense that Lucas’s real body—temporarily abandoned while he hijacked hers—was lying on a gurney. His wrists and ankles were bound to railings that ran up either side. The room was completely devoid of decorations—a cell, definitely—except for the nearest wall. A painting of Jesus cuddling a lamb hung there.

  A woman stood over Lucas. She was in her forties but could have passed for younger; her lips and eyes had the tightened skin of someone who got regular work done. She seemed sharp and coldly beautiful, yet she was dressed in a frumpy woolen frock and a dowdy turtleneck. A prominent golden crucifix dangled from around her neck.

  On the other side of the bed stood a man in his fifties, skin tanned to a leathery brown. He was well built and rigid in posture, which suggested a military background to Isabela. He wore a dark blue suit that bulged in the breast from the pistol strapped beneath. Isabela’s attention was drawn to his right hand, which was covered by a mechanized glove with a digital interface on the back. Strange. She wondered what that did.

  The man met Isabela’s gaze and she reflexively shrank back from the crack in the wall, even though she knew he couldn’t actually see her.

  “You know his eyes are open,” the man observed.

  The woman looked down at Lucas’s face, unhidden disgust in her eyes. “Yes. He does that sometimes.” She snapped her fingers over Lucas’s head. “I’m going to personally shoot you in the face when we’re done with you,” she told him, then glanced up at the man. “He’s not aware while in this state.”

  “You better hope not,” the man replied. He tapped a sequence into the keypad on the back of his glove. “I’m going to bring him out.”

  The woman raised a hand in warning. “Again, I have to object. If he’s in the middle of doling out his judgment and we yank him back, he’ll be very upset. If he comes unglued and we’re forced to sedate him, he’ll be no good for whatever mission you want him on next.”

  The man gave her a level look. “That’s why you’re here. You’re his Cêpan. You’re meant to keep him calm.”

  “It’s not so easy, Warden,” the Cêpan replied.

  “You sound afraid of him.”

  “I’m afraid of all of them,” she hissed back.

  Isabela took all this in. The woman was Lucas’s Cêpan, part of that idiotic program they’d been talking about on the news. She was in charge of controlling him. And the man—Warden—was that his name or was it his job? Could this be the person in charge of the Foundation’s holding facility?

  “I see you,” Isabela whispered through the crack in the ceiling. “I see you.”

  She memorized their faces.

  One of Caleb’s duplicates pulled Duanphen onto the balcony. She was still unconscious and looked deathly pale, but at least the duplicate had stopped the bleeding with a torn bedsheet. With Einar on board, the skimmer dropped enough altitude so that the ladder dangled right next to Caleb. He wasn’t exactly sure how he’d manage to drag Duanphen’s limp body up there. Luckily, Five chose that moment to jump out of the skimmer’s underbelly, floating down to the balcony.

  “Damn,” Five grimaced, after taking one look at Duanphen. “Here. Let me take her.”

  While Five flew back up to the ship, Caleb turned his attention to the hotel room. His duplicates were still restraining Isabela. A muffled stream of invective came from beneath the pillowcase covering her head—demons, s
inners, judgment. Caleb couldn’t understand most of it, but he got the gist.

  With one of Caleb’s duplicates gently shaking her shoulders, Ran finally came awake. Her first reaction was to backhand the duplicate away from her.

  “Mean,” the duplicate said, rubbing its cheek.

  “Sorry,” Ran replied. She did a full-body shudder, still feeling the effects of getting shocked by Duanphen. Her eyes quickly scanned the room—the damage, the blood, the team of duplicates wrangling a hooded and screaming Isabela. “What happened? What is happening?”

  “Lucas,” the duplicate reported, glancing sidelong at Isabela. “Most of my brothers are having fun wrestling, but I’m more of a gentle soul. I think we should try talking to this guy. Maybe some peer mediation. Explain that we don’t want him to kill us.”

  “Hmm,” Ran replied.

  Caleb absorbed the duplicate that was apparently one of his softer sides and shouted to Ran from the balcony. “Come on, Ran! We need to go!”

  She cocked her head at Caleb, nodded and then did the exact opposite. Instead of going for the exit, she walked to where Isabela was and yanked the pillowcase off her head. Immediately, objects began to whip around the room, tossed by Isabela’s telekinesis. Caleb steeled himself, not sure how much damage his duplicates could take but ready to make more. He didn’t have to bother. Ran swatted down each flying lamp and shard of broken glass with her own Legacy. When King’s misplaced loafer came rocketing at her head, she snatched it right out of midair.

  “Enough,” she said. “Lucas Sanders. My name is Ran Takeda. Why—?”

  Isabela’s eyes lit up, that crooked smile spreading across her face. “The girl who blows things up. Oh, I know all about you.”

  “Why are you like this?” Ran asked pointedly. “Why would you use your Legacies to hurt us? Why work for the Foundation?”

  “You’re monsters,” Isabela replied. “All of you. You deserve what you get.”

  “You’re one of us,” Ran said calmly. “Consider that your father told you nothing but lies.”

  “Consider that it’s still a sin, even if you do it on accident,” Isabela said with a sick laugh. “You know that’s true, don’t you, Ran? I don’t even need to be in your mind to know what you are. What you’ve done. If only someone like me could’ve been there to stop you.”

  Caleb saw Ran’s expression cloud over through the eyes of his duplicates. He didn’t understand exactly what Lucas was saying, but it had gotten to her.

  “We should go,” Caleb said. “Cover her head and bring her.”

  “Where is he being sent, anyway?” Lucas’s Cêpan asked. The warden gave her a look, but she didn’t flinch. “You need to tell me. If he comes out pissed off, I have to be able to spin this. Feed him some shit about a higher calling.”

  “California,” the warden answered. “The Academy. Apparently, a high-priority target has appeared there.”

  “More high-priority than Einar?”

  “Galactically.”

  Isabela recoiled. They were sending this monster Lucas towards her friends. She needed to get out of here, needed to warn them.

  The warden hit a button on his glove and Isabela got her wish. She could feel the voltage passing through Lucas—the glove must have been keyed to his Inhibitor. Lightning crackled through the walls of the warehouse, breaking them apart. A scream of rage and frustration rang out at a volume that seemed impossible, like it could shear right through Isabela’s brain. Instinctively, she clutched her ears and then—

  One second, Isabela glowered at Ran while simultaneously jerking her head away from the duplicates trying to shove her head back into the pillowcase. Then, suddenly, she went completely slack in the Calebs’ arms, like she had fainted. Caleb wondered what this new ploy from Lucas might be. It didn’t matter; he wasn’t going to fall for it. His duplicates gruffly shoved Isabela’s head into the pillowcase and began dragging her towards the balcony.

  Isabela’s body jerked back to life, although she didn’t thrash against the duplicates with the same reckless ferocity as before. A muffled stream of annoyed-sounding Portuguese came from under the fabric.

  “Wait,” Caleb ordered the duplicates. “Take that off her.”

  Caleb came off the balcony for the first time, potentially exposing himself to an attack. But, having listened to the boy rant and rave in his languid Southern accent, he sensed there’d been a change. Lucas’s Legacy didn’t seem to make him fluent in other languages.

  Isabela tossed her head as the pillowcase came free. She blew a curl of hair out of her eye and fixed Caleb with a pointed look.

  “I bet you’re loving this,” she said, puckering her lips at him.

  Caleb stared into Isabela’s eyes, looking for some kind of sign—he wasn’t sure what. “Are you you?”

  Isabela reclined in the arms of his duplicates, letting them carry her weight. She even made an attempt to kick her feet up. It suddenly looked more like they were practicing a dance number than restraining her.

  “This isn’t so bad, actually,” Isabela declared. “I’ve been on my feet all night.”

  “It’s her,” Ran said flatly.

  With a mental command, Caleb got the duplicates to relax. They fell back to a respectful distance from Isabela, causing her to pout as she nearly lost her balance. He didn’t absorb them—there was still the matter of the local police, who were probably closing in on their location. His copies might still be needed.

  “Are you okay?” Caleb asked. He stepped forward to touch Isabela’s shoulder.

  He expected the usual sharp reply, but instead Isabela put her hand on top of his. Her fingers trembled.

  “That bastard . . . ,” she said. “It was bad.”

  “What happened to Lucas?” Ran asked. “Where did he go?”

  Isabela’s eyes widened. “The Academy. They pulled him back to send him to the Academy.”

  Before Caleb could reply, his duplicates turned as one towards the door. Thanks to six sets of ears, Caleb heard heavy footfalls in the hallway, the familiar metallic clank of body armor, the rattle of guns pulled from their holsters. The authorities were here.

  “We have to get out of here,” he said. “Now.”

  Caleb left his duplicates in a wall facing the doorway. While the three of them retreated for the balcony, the door exploded inward, kicked off its hinges. Someone tossed a flash-bang grenade into the room, sparks and white smoke cluttering the air. In response, Ran lobbed King’s charged loafer over the duplicates and towards the breaching cops. Caleb couldn’t see through the smoke, but he heard pained shouts in response to the detonation. They fired back into the room—bullets, actual bullets. One of his duplicates went down, shot in the forehead. The others marched forward, sponging up the gunfire until they could take no more, stalling.

  Isabela went first up the ladder. Then Ran. Caleb was last. He’d barely gotten his foot on the bottom rung when the skimmer started gaining altitude. He clung on tight to the ladder, wind whipping across his face.

  He glanced back at the hotel, at the penthouse garden. He could make out Derek King slumped over the table, a dark pool spreading across the tablecloth. There was a steak knife jammed into the side of his neck, King’s own hand still clutched around the handle.

  Einar had lied. Einar had killed.

  And yet, after what these people had done to him—to Duanphen, to Isabela—how remorselessly they’d tried to hurt them . . .

  Caleb couldn’t bring himself to care.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  KOPANO OKEKE

  THE HUMAN GARDE ACADEMY—POINT REYES, CALIFORNIA

  THIS IS THE GREATEST DAY OF MY LIFE, KOPANO thought. He almost said it out loud, but he had a sudden vision of Taylor rolling her eyes at him, so he kept silent. Played it cool.

  “Okay, do you see this here? Underneath the armory? That’s the warship’s core.”

  Even though he didn’t geek out vocally, Kopano couldn’t suppress the dopey grin. He thought
back to that day during the invasion when he’d been swept up in a telepathic vision and declared to his family he was a Garde, only for them to tell him the whole thing was just a dream. He remembered how his powers had been late in coming, how he’d endured merciless teasing at school, how his classmates had tied him to a soccer goal and kicked balls at him, daring him to stop them with his nonexistent telekinesis. Where were those kids now? Back in Lagos, rushing through their math homework so they could go play pool. Oh, maybe they’d win a few bucks—how awesome. Really, really dope, you guys.

  And where was Kopano? Former victim of their slander and abuse?

  Oh, just planning a mission with John Smith. No big deal.

  “Kopano,” John said. “Are you listening?”

  He wiped the grin off his face and nodded vigorously.

  “Yes, John Smith.”

  “Just John is fine, man.”

  “Okay, John,” Kopano said, then made a studious face and turned his attention back to the laptop John had borrowed from Lexa.

  A 3-D blueprint of a Mogadorian warship was displayed on the screen. John tapped the spot he’d been talking about—the core—aptly named since it was positioned right at the ship’s central point, arteries of connections fanning out from there to every corner of the spacecraft.

  “You’ll find the force field generator here,” John continued. “Once the Osiris lands and powers down, it’ll be safe to disconnect. We’re not going to have that much time with the Peacekeepers looking over our shoulders, so we’ll have to be quick.”

  Miki raised his hand. The three of them stood in an empty classroom, huddled around a teacher’s desk. The diminutive Miki looked tired and twitchy—Kopano supposed a few weeks cooped up in a cell would do that to a person who was used to transforming into wind. Regardless, he seemed grateful to be released, albeit after a very stern and threatening lecture from Professor Nine.

  “I have a question,” Miki said. “No offense, but why do you even need us? I thought you had every Legacy.”