Return to Zero

by Pittacus Lore

  Meanwhile, Nigel jogged to the other side of the roof, the side closer to the dorms. Nine joined him and they focused their telekinesis. Together, they started pulling down the blast shields.

  When Nigel first learned about the little jail beneath the Academy, he’d wondered what other “safety” features their school came equipped with to potentially keep the students in line. It turned out there were titanium panels installed over every window in the dorms, just in case a Garde ever lost control and needed to be locked in. If the power wasn’t out, they could’ve brought those shields down with the press of a button. Instead, they had to use telekinesis.

  Nine and Nigel sealed the windows that they could see while Taylor and her Garde ran around to the sides and yanked down the metal plates there. Soon, every window in the building was battened down. Then, Lisbette erected a thick barrier of ice across the front doors. Within minutes, they’d successfully trapped fifty Peacekeepers inside the building.

  “Right, then,” Nigel said. “Job well done.”

  Another small victory over the Peacekeepers, which they were able to celebrate for exactly the amount of time it took Nigel to make that comment. Then, twice the number of soldiers they’d just locked into the dorms came charging out of the trees and smoke.

  “Shit,” Nine said. “I gotta get down there.”

  “Take me with you,” Nigel said. “I’m done playing human megaphone. All our traps are sprung. We bare-knuckle it from here on out.”

  “What’s that saying you British guys have?” Nine asked as he grabbed hold of Nigel. “Once more into the bitches?”

  “Yeah,” Nigel said dryly. “That’s it.”

  They didn’t bother with the Loralite. Instead Nine ran them straight down the side of the building and they hit the ground at a sprint. Well, Nine did. Nigel quickly lost pace with the Loric. He was a dervish of flying black hair and shining mechanical arm—trucking a Peacekeeper here, ripping a tranquilizer gun free from one there.

  The latest wave of Peacekeepers made it chaos on the ground. Nigel heard Taylor shouting above the fray.

  “Use the tranquilizers against them! Stay tight!”

  She couldn’t keep the Garde together, though. There were too many enemies. The Garde scattered and started fighting individual battles or else booked it for one of the buildings where there was a teleportation stone. The Peacekeepers swarmed them.

  A few yards ahead of Nigel, Anika sent a cloud of tranquilizer darts flying back towards their shooters. As she did that, another Peacekeeper rushed her from behind, jabbed a shock stick into her back and electrocuted her. Anika fell to the ground and the Peacekeeper pulled a shock collar off his belt, but Nigel whistled sharply into his ear and the Peacekeeper fell back.

  Maiken zoomed by and snatched the collar out of the reeling Peacekeeper’s hand. While Nigel knelt next to Anika and tried to get her back on her feet, Maiken zipped through the lines of Peacekeepers, ripping away their equipment as she passed. That worked well until one of the soldiers fired an Inhibitor cannon at the ground—he missed Maiken entirely with the collar, but the tensile wire snagged her legs and she fell onto her face at speed. The Peacekeepers were on her before she could get back up.

  “Come on, come on,” Nigel said to Anika, trying to help her stand. “We need to get you out.”

  A heartbeat after Nigel got Anika to her feet, there were three Peacekeepers bearing down on them. With a shout, Nicolas intercepted them. He clotheslined two of the soldiers, then kicked another one in the chest—the force sent the man flying across the field. Nicolas waded into the heart of another pocket of Peacekeepers. As he did, Nigel noticed three tranquilizer darts sticking out of his back. He wouldn’t last long.

  “Can you shoot?” That was Nemo, who was suddenly right next to Nigel. She held a tranquilizer gun in each hand and floated a third one nearby with her telekinesis. There was a cut on her scalp, causing her aquamarine hair to turn dark purple.

  Nigel snatched the gun out of the air. “Thanks—”

  A Peacekeeper was on them, trying to yank barely conscious Anika away from Nigel. He aimed the gun Nemo had given him and fired a dart into the man’s neck. When he looked up, Nemo was gone. Another group of Peacekeepers were incoming.

  Dragging Anika, Nigel fled to the nearest building. The training center. He’d get Anika there, then go back for someone else. He wouldn’t let any Garde get taken. That was the best he could do.

  Nigel thrust open the doors of the training center. The Loralite stone grew just a few yards away, Nine’s sadistic obstacle course looming behind it. He was almost there when the Loralite lit up and—

  “Do you jerks think you’re the only ones who know how to use these stupid rocks?”

  Woof! A fist struck Nigel right in the belly, the punch packing enough power to lift him completely off his feet. He collapsed to his hands and knees, retching and gasping. Anika fell beside him.

  Melanie Jackson whipped off her gas mask and tossed it aside. Lofton St. Croix had teleported in with her, spikes protruding from his shoulders and arms, ready for battle. Their Earth Garde uniforms weren’t even a little dirty.

  “I knew they’d put a stone in here,” Lofton said proudly.

  Melanie snapped her fingers at him. “Get collars on them,” she ordered.

  She frowned at Nigel. “Why are you guys even fighting us? You know Earth Garde’s doing the right thing here.”

  Nigel was too winded to respond. Not that he would’ve known where to begin with this airheaded sellout. Instead, as Lofton approached brandishing a shock collar, Nigel pushed them with his telekinesis. Melanie and Lofton used their own telekinesis to stabilize themselves, only allowing Nigel to shove them back a few feet. But that was all Nigel needed.

  He just needed to get them onto the course.

  “Stop being a dick,” Lofton said, starting forward again.

  Nigel knew every one of Nine’s traps. He knew there was a redwood log attached to chains that swung down from the ceiling right at the start. He’d been knocked on his ass enough times that he’d never forget that stupid battering ram. He reached out with his telekinesis and slid open the compartment in the ceiling, let the log fall free—

  Melanie saw what he was doing. At the last moment, she simply reached up and caught the log, holding it above her head like it weighed nothing.

  “I don’t know who built your bootleg training center,” Melanie said. “But the one in Washington is way— Hhkk!”

  The Inhibitor collar snapped around Melanie’s neck and sent a jolt through her before she could finish speaking. As her muscles spasmed, Melanie lost her grip on the log and dropped it on top of herself, pinning her to the floor.

  “Put that on your poster, bitch,” Taylor said.

  Taylor stood in the training center doorway, holding the Inhibitor cannon. She gave Melanie an extra shock to make sure she was out, then tossed the weapon aside. Taylor’s eyes were red-rimmed; there were traces of blood in her hair and smudges of dirt on her cheeks. She had two tranquilizer guns shoved into her pants and a glare on her face that was savage enough to freeze Lofton in his tracks.

  “You,” Taylor said.

  Lofton paused for a moment, then dropped the Inhibitor and raised his hands to clutch at the sides of his head. He looked down at Nigel in terror.

  “What are you doing?” Lofton screamed. “Your sonic attack is destroying my equilibrium!”

  Lofton fell over, flopped around and then lay still.

  Nigel managed to suck in the first solid breath since Melanie punched him, and staggered back to his feet. He stared at Lofton. He hadn’t done anything to the guy. “What the actual fuck?”

  Lofton opened one eye. “Dude, they said it was either come here and fight or go to Garde prison. Just pretend you messed me up and I’ll stay down. My Cêpan will never know the difference now that Melanie’s out.”

  “Christ,” Nigel said, slapping his forehead. “You’re a moron.”

  Ni
colas barreled into the training center with Maiken’s unconscious body slung across his shoulder. He set her down next to Anika, then fell to his knees in front of Taylor. She immediately set to work pulling darts out of his back and healing him.

  “We’re losing,” Nicolas said breathlessly. “For every one we take down, another two show up. Plus, I think they’ve got a healer of their own. I swear I knocked out the same dude twice.”

  “That’s Jiao,” Taylor said coolly. “We need to find her. Take her out of the fight.”

  Nigel peeked out through the doors. There were still battles happening all across the grounds. As he watched, Omar drove a group of Peacekeepers back with his fire breath. Nearby, a group of tweebs guided tranquilizer darts into the backs of some soldiers. A new cloud of tear gas bloomed near the student union, and Nigel watched Nine emerge from within it, a stolen gas mask pulled over his face.

  “We can’t win,” Nigel told Taylor bluntly. “We need to start pulling people out—”

  A huge piece of metal appeared out of thin air in front of the training center and crashed to the ground, tearing up chunks of grass as it skidded to a stop just in front of Nigel. His first reaction was that the Peacekeepers were now dropping invisible refrigerators on them. Luckily, before Nigel could voice that stupid thought, Miki appeared, stumbling towards him. The kid looked a proper mess—gaunt, dark circles under his eyes, near exhaustion. He collapsed and Nigel bounded forward to catch him.

  “John Smith,” Miki said weakly. “He’s coming to kill us.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  ISABELA SILVA

  CALEB CRANE

  LA CALDERA—DURANGO, MEXICO

  THE FIGHT AT THE PRISON WAS ALREADY GOING when Isabela’s truck pulled up to the front entrance. The other SUVs skidded to a stop nearby, her escort piling out, weapons at the ready. The body of a guard came flying off the roof—thrown, obviously—and landed directly on the windshield of one of the trucks. Isabela stifled a smirk. That had to be a good sign, right? Her friends had not only survived the skimmer crash, they were winning.

  “Go! Go!” Isabela bellowed as the warden. “Get in there and kick some ass!”

  As the guards sprinted in formation through the entrance, Isabela caught up with the one that was handling Einar. He was still stuck on the end of an Inhibitor, feet moving robotically beneath him as the guard dragged him along. A very un-Einar-like line of drool dribbled from the corner of his mouth. How many times had they shocked him on the way here? Were those three minutes he needed to get his shit together cumulative?

  Isabela put her shoulder into Einar’s guard and snatched the Inhibitor from him. “I’ll take it from here, officer,” Isabela said. “Bastard is my prisoner.”

  The guard didn’t object. After all, Isabela was his boss. He joined the rest of his comrades as they kicked open the doors of the prison. They trampled into the central intake—a large room bisected by a series of chain-link fences and checkpoints. Isabela remembered from Einar’s discussion of the prison that the floor here could be electrified at any moment in order to bring down an escaping Garde. She shuffled her feet uncomfortably.

  “I want that imposter warden brought down here ASAP!” she yelled. “Be careful. He’s got my Skeleton Key.”

  Some of the guards set up a perimeter in the main room while the others split off to check ancillary hallways. Isabela’s eyes tracked to the gated staircase that led to cells below. They needed to get down there.

  Something exploded on a higher floor and water began to trickle down from the ceiling.

  With the guards distracted, she shook the Inhibitor around Einar’s neck.

  “Einar?” she said quietly, out of the corner of her mouth. “You with me?”

  Einar’s head lolled to the side and he swayed on his feet; his eyes had trouble focusing on her. Isabela resisted the urge to snap her fingers in his face.

  “Give him another shock, sir,” one of the men suggested. “If you think he’s coming to.”

  Shouting. A second group of guards poured into the room from the level above, their weapons raised and ready. They outnumbered the squad that Isabela had wormed her way into by at least two to one. Even so, Roberts and the rest of his people took up defensive positions around her. She had the guards aiming their guns at each other, so at least that was going according to plan.

  “Stand down, men!” the real Warden Pembleton commanded as he entered the scene. His voice was more booming and pompous than Isabela had given him credit for. “You’re being tricked!”

  “Imposter! Take him into custody!” Roberts shouted back.

  “He passed the retinal, Roberts!” said one of the guards on Pembleton’s side.

  “So did ours,” Roberts countered. “He—”

  “Roberts!” Pembleton called off the name, crisp and clear. “Whitehall! Stewart! Big Stewart! Jeffries!”

  It took Isabela a moment to realize what Pembleton was up to. He was rattling off the last name of every man on her side of the standoff. When he was finished, he waved a hand in her direction.

  “Now you, freak,” he said darkly. “Name even five of my men and maybe we won’t blow your head off right away.”

  Dozens of blank, glaring faces confronted Isabela. Their rifles aimed in her direction. Even the men she’d come in with looked doubtful now, skeptical. She sensed some of them edging around to put her in the crosshairs.

  She’d heard one name over the walkie-talkie. What was it . . . ?

  “Lyon!” she called off, trying to match the warden’s style.

  “Lyon’s down,” Pembleton said coldly. “But good effort.”

  One of the guards beside her chambered a round.

  A dark, quaking terror came over Isabela then. The feeling of anxiety was so powerful that it made her want to curl up into a ball. She couldn’t even run; there was nowhere to go. No escape. No other forms to change into. Never had she been this scared before, even when the Harvesters had her pinned down in a meat locker, even when Lucas had her trapped inside her own mind. That was how she knew that she was about to die.

  Three of the guards screamed, threw down their weapons and ran out the front door. Others fled into adjoining hallways or up the stairs, gibbering and shrieking, their minds broken. Some of them fired off shots into the air, spraying their guns randomly at unseen menaces—a couple were wounded that way, went down, crying and moaning.

  The warden himself did what Isabela would have if she wasn’t frozen in place. He crouched down into a ball, covered his head and rocked back and forth, whispering nonsense.

  Soon, the room was nearly empty, except for a few remaining guards that were hiding under desks.

  Einar smiled.

  “To know me,” he said, “is to fear me.”

  The terror slowly seeped out of Isabela. Her hands were still shaking when she transformed back into her true form and then handed Einar the Inhibitor cannon. With a sneer at the mechanism, he detached himself from the collar.

  “Why didn’t you . . . ?” Isabela swallowed an acidic lump. “Why’d you do that to me?”

  “Sorry,” Einar said quickly. “Too many people in the room. Impossible to be precise. The fear won’t last long once they’re away from me.” He hesitated. “I could’ve opted for a more . . . permanent solution. Except I didn’t want to risk you or our new friend here getting caught in the crossfire.”

  Einar said all that as he stalked across the room to stand over Pembleton. Isabela wondered if he was telling the truth about why he didn’t simply make the guards murder each other. Perhaps Einar really was going soft. Whatever. Isabela didn’t care; that he saved her life was all that mattered.

  The warden looked up at them with dewy eyes and a pouty lip, then lunged forward to cling to Einar’s leg. “Thank God you’re here!”

  Isabela’s lips curled back in a mixture of delight and disgust. To see a man who only moments ago was oozing confidence and ready to kill her turned into a pathetic child by Ei
nar’s emotion manipulation was strange to say the least.

  “Yes, thank God for me,” Einar said coldly. He pulled the warden to his feet by his tie. “Now, shall we go somewhere safe? Down to the cells, perhaps?”

  Caleb and Duanphen edged cautiously down the hall. Without Five and Ran, they would be severely outnumbered if they came across too many guards. From looking at the monitors, Caleb knew there was a bunch of them in the armory, geared up and waiting for orders. Unfortunately, the stairwell was on that end of the floor, which meant they had to improvise.

  Grunting, three Calebs forced open the doors to the elevator. Caleb peeked into the empty shaft and saw that the car was stuck on the ground level. An alarm buzzed—something down there was keeping the doors from closing. He exchanged a look with Duanphen.

  “We don’t want to be pinned down,” she said.

  “You have a better idea?” Caleb asked.

  She shook her head.

  All the same, Caleb sent a duplicate down first. When his double landed on the roof of the elevator, someone on the inside screamed. That was strange.

  Caleb’s duplicate punched open the maintenance grate and dropped into the elevator. An unconscious guard was sprawled in the entrance, the elevator doors repeatedly bumping into the side of his head. A second guard—awake, but curled into a ball—shivered against the elevator’s back wall.

  “Is he gone?” the guard asked. “Is he gone?”

  Caleb’s duplicate blinked. “Huh?”

  “Einar got to them,” Caleb reported back to Duanphen. “Come on. The coast is clear.”

  They dropped down into the elevator, the guard shying away from them. Duanphen reached out and, as gently as she could, electrocuted the terrified man until he passed out.

  “Was that really necessary?” Caleb asked.