Return to Zero

by Pittacus Lore

  “You still have your pendant, though, right?”

  She sighed. “Yes, yes. The ugly thing is wrapped in a sock in my bag.”

  “Because you’re welcome whenever. I miss . . .” He looked away. “Everybody misses you.”

  Isabela stood up abruptly. Caleb had pressed too hard, broken one of their unspoken agreements.

  “I’m going in,” she said. “You?”

  “No,” Caleb replied. “I’ve gotta get back.”

  “Okay,” she said, and pecked him on the cheek. “See you next time, Caleb.”

  “See you,” Caleb replied.

  Caleb watched Isabela saunter over to the pool. He was about to touch the Loralite stone and teleport home when she turned back to him.

  “Caleb?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t stop asking me, okay?” Isabela said.

  Caleb smiled. He could do that.

  THE HAGUE—SOUTH HOLLAND, THE NETHERLANDS

  “State your name and role for the record.”

  “Colonel Ray Archibald. Former head of security at the Human Garde Academy.”

  “Your statement, Colonel?”

  “In my time at the Academy, I had the pleasure of witnessing a number of gifted young Garde realize their potential. It is my belief that the mission of the Academy and Earth Garde was pure, at least at first. However, these institutions were gradually corrupted by insidious outside forces that—”

  “Excuse me, Colonel, but we have heard sworn testimony from your men that your judgment may be clouded. May I ask why you were relieved of duty?”

  “I allowed a Garde who was in my custody go free.”

  NEW LORIEN—THE HIMALAYAS, INDIA

  “We teleported! We teleported! It was dope! Can we do it again?”

  Obi and Dubem, Kopano’s two little brothers, launched themselves at him. Laughing, Kopano wrapped them both up in a hug, squeezing them tight. It’d been more than a year since he last saw them, when he’d snuck away from Lagos in the dead of night. Now they were here, high up in these strange mountains, staring at him with wide, glistening eyes.

  It was family day at New Lorien.

  “We read all your emails,” Dubem told Kopano in a rush.

  “Over and over,” Obi added.

  “I can’t believe you fought the great John Smith,” Obi said. “And nearly beat him!”

  Dubem jabbed Kopano’s sternum. “Until he ripped your heart out of your chest!”

  “Has he ever apologized?” Obi asked. “He should!”

  “Hush about that,” Kopano said, looking around, making sure John wasn’t in earshot. “John doesn’t like to talk about that day. And, anyway, it wasn’t really him.”

  Kopano rubbed his shoulder at the memory. Any lingering pain was all in his mind. John had apologized, right after he personally healed Kopano’s shoulder. It was John that had come to get Kopano after all the chaos of that day. Colonel Archibald hadn’t argued. He’d let Kopano go without so much as a question.

  The two of them didn’t talk much. It was strange to be around John. Even though it wasn’t really him that had nearly killed Kopano—and so many others—seeing him brought back strange memories. The Garde were all here, in a place that John built, but John himself tended to keep his distance. Kopano hoped that it would get less weird in time. After all, John used to be his idol. But being a hero, Kopano had learned, was not always glorious.

  “What do you want to see first?” Kopano asked his brothers. He gestured down the path to the longhouse that had recently been built at the edge of the village. The one with PROFESSOR NINE’S FUNHOUSE spray-painted in ominous script on the side. “Do you want to try the obstacle course? You can train like a genuine Garde!”

  “First, I need a bathroom. Does this place even have toilets?”

  That came from Udo. Kopano’s father ambled down the pathway from the cave, rubbing the sides of his prodigious beer belly. He patted Kopano gruffly on the shoulder.

  “You look taller. That’s good,” Udo said. He rubbed his arms. “It’s too cold here. Where is the alien that warms things up?”

  Kopano rolled his eyes—so often the subject of eye rolls himself, it felt good to do it to someone else—and looked beyond his father. The pathway behind him was empty. There was no one else.

  “Where’s Mom?” Kopano asked.

  His brothers looked down at their shoes. Udo cleared his throat.

  “She did not want to come,” Udo said frankly. “She thought the Academy would cure you. This—?” He waved his arms. “This, she does not understand at all. I told her it was a free vacation, but no, the woman would not listen. She told me that she’ll pray for you.”

  Kopano forced his smile not to falter. “Yeah. I’ll pray for her, too.”

  Udo dug his elbow into Kopano’s ribs. “The pretty girl who teleported us here, she spoke very highly of you. Is she your lady friend?”

  “No, Dad,” groaned Dubem, speaking on Kopano’s behalf. “That was Rabiya. She’s just his friend. Taylor’s the girlfriend.”

  Kopano grinned at his brother. He truly was a student of Kopano’s many rambling emails. He turned away from his family for a moment, looking around, and spotted Taylor standing on an overlook up above with her own father.

  “She’s up there,” Kopano said. “We’re all having dinner later. I beg you, Dad, please don’t talk.”

  Up above, Taylor saw Kopano pointing at her and waved back. All week, he’d been filling her head with warnings about his father. Udo didn’t look so bad from where she stood, strutting around, pretending like he wasn’t impressed by anything. She saw the way that Udo kept stopping himself from patting Kopano on the back. He was proud, she would tell Kopano later, he just didn’t want to show it.

  Brian Cook whistled through his teeth. Her own father had arrived earlier that day and never even tried to hide his awe.

  “Pretty far cry from South Dakota,” he said. “From California, even.”

  Taylor nodded. They stood on a favorite perch of hers, just a short hike up from the mouth of the cave. She came up here often to stare out at the mountains and the village below. There were new buildings being constructed every day—more cottages along the switchback path, a new wing on the school that they shared with the villagers, a bigger hospital so that they could bring in patients from outside. It was growing. They were rebuilding what they’d lost.

  They also lived under the perpetual glow of a force field, the dim blue light always visible in the sky above. Taylor hoped they wouldn’t need that forever. The territory they’d been granted by the Indian government was a bit of a gray area. The UN didn’t acknowledge their existence, but the neighboring countries did. No one had made a move on them yet, especially not with the hearings ongoing.

  “Do you like it better?” her dad asked, breaking a silence that Taylor didn’t realize had dragged on. “Than California, I mean.”

  “I think I do,” Taylor said. “It’s a change. But I think it’s good.”

  She didn’t mention what they’d lost to save this place. Who they’d lost.

  “Well, it’s a long truck from the states, assuming your teleporting friend doesn’t sneak me off every time I want to see you,” Brian said, sighing. “How much is a plane ticket to Nepal, anyway?”

  “We’re building something here, Dad,” Taylor said, turning to him. “But we don’t want to do it alone. The Loric had these people called Cêpan. They didn’t have Legacies themselves, but they helped train the Garde. Helped them make sure they were doing the right thing. We’re looking for people like that, who might want to live here and help us.”

  Brian nodded. “Yep. Sure. Seems like a good idea.” Then, it dawned on him what Taylor was really saying. “Hold up. You mean . . .”

  “I destroyed the farm,” Taylor said. She pointed down the hill at one of the new cottages. “Least I can do is get you a mountain estate.”

  THE HAGUE—SOUTH HOLLAND, THE NETHERLANDS

&nb
sp; “State your name and job for the record.”

  “Beatrice Barnaby. I’m a philanthropist.”

  “Mrs. Barnaby, your name has come up quite a bit in our investigation.”

  “Truly, I have no idea why.”

  “The Foundation, perhaps?”

  “The Foundation was an organization I was very tangentially involved with. Its purpose was to locate Garde from non–Earth Garde nations and provide them with the means of escaping what were often terrible conditions in their home countries. From our earliest days, we had the full support of Earth Garde. Our purposes were strictly humanitarian. All of this conspiracy talk is pure lunacy.”

  NEW LORIEN—THE HIMALAYAS, INDIA

  Family day. After months in the Himalayas, it was the first time the Garde would be letting in outsiders. It took planning. They needed to contact the families, first of all. Then, the ones who wanted to visit, they needed to design plans to sneak away. Many of their parents were under constant surveillance. Nigel helped out in every way he could—from logistics to teleporting. It was good for him to always be working.

  But then the day came and there were happy people all around him and Nigel wanted to puke.

  Obviously, no one would be coming to see him.

  So he hiked down the mountain, through the village and out onto one of the craggier paths that led farther down. He’d done all these hikes over the last few months. Turning into a real nature lover. Not punk rock at all.

  He knew Ran would have loved it up here. It was days like today that he missed her the most.

  Nigel touched the scars on his cheek where her fingerprints were still burned. Taylor hadn’t even asked him if he wanted those healed. She knew better.

  Eventually, Nigel came to a crystal-blue stream fed from the ice at the top of the mountain. The water bubbled and bent as it coursed downwards over the rocky terrain. He followed along the curving bank until he reached the force field, as far as he could go. The water smashed up against the energy barrier and diverted to the left and right, creating an icy puddle.

  Something caught his eye. Movement beyond the force field. He squinted.

  “What the shit is that?” Nigel asked the air.

  Nigel waded into the water, not caring about the cold soaking through his sneakers. There was something familiar out there, butting its head up against the barrier again and again. He needed to get a closer look to be sure.

  “No way,” Nigel whispered.

  Nigel raced back to the village, up the mountainside and into the cave. The visitors had all been teleported in by then, so the space was empty except for whoever was standing guard over the stone. At that moment, it was Marina. The Loric girl had returned to New Lorien shortly after the exodus from the Academy. Her relationship status with John Smith was a popular topic around the mountain, although they never talked about that when she came to the weekly group-therapy sessions Nigel and Nic had organized.

  Marina sprang to her feet when Nigel burst in. “Hey! Is everything okay?”

  “I need . . .” He took a breath. “I need to go outside.”

  “Should I call down to the Vishnu Nationalist Eight?” Marina asked. “Do you need an escort?”

  “No, no,” Nigel panted. “I’ll be quick.”

  Nigel touched the Loralite stone and pictured one of the smaller chunks that they’d hidden outside the force field’s boundary. In a flash of light, he stood in a snowy thicket outside New Lorien.

  “Please still be there, please still be there . . . ,” Nigel said as he jogged back up the mountain, towards the blue glow of their shield, along the dried riverbed.

  It was a giant tortoise that Nigel spotted outside the force field, although by the time he reached it, the Chimæra had transformed into a ram, butting its horns ineffectually against the energy barrier. Nigel chuckled and wiped a hand across his eyes. The creature was stubborn. Just like its old owner.

  Nigel whistled. “Oi, remember me, mate?”

  The Chimæra turned its head, spotted Nigel and transformed back into its turtle shape. That was its preferred form. The one that Nigel had last seen it take when it fled into the ocean, ahead of the Earth Garde soldiers who wanted to imprison it.

  The tortoise trundled over and laid his chin down right across Nigel’s sopping feet. It remembered him. Of course it did. Nigel bent down and stroked its smooth head.

  “Hello, Gamora,” Nigel said, smiling for the first time in months, remembering what Ran had named her old pet. “Where ya been, mate?”

  THE HAGUE—SOUTH HOLLAND, THE NETHERLANDS

  “State your name.”

  “I . . .”

  “State your name, please.”

  “Einar. Mag— Magnusson.”

  “I’d like the court to note that my client is equipped with an Inhibitor that sends a low-grade shock through his system every six seconds. That makes it extremely difficult for him to focus for any sustained period. Additionally, the conditions he’s being kept in are far from ideal and—”

  “Thank you, counsel. Begin, please, Mr. Magnusson.”

  “I have . . . I have hu— hurt people. Many people. Kidnapped. Killed. The Found— The Foundation. Took me. Molded me. I am— I am here now to take— to take respons— responsibility. I know their names. The one—the ones who profited. Who helped me. Will you—will you finally listen?”

  NEW LORIEN—THE HIMALAYAS, INDIA

  “I’d like to say, I’m still very much against this idea,” Malcolm said, peeling off his rubber gloves. “Even now that I’ve helped you do it. I don’t like it.”

  John Smith sat up from where he’d been lying on his side. It was a simple procedure really. Just a small cut at his temple, the insertion of the chip and then done. Taylor brushed her fingers across his head, healing him. John could’ve done that himself, but he’d asked her to be here so she might as well pitch in.

  “Twice now an enemy has been able to use my powers against our people. I can’t let that ever happen again,” John said.

  Malcolm shook his head. “Well, like you requested, I’ve given bio-keyed remotes to Nine, Six, Sam, Marina and . . .” He turned to look at Taylor.

  She touched her front pocket where she’d stuck the thin remote. The device that would shock John Smith into submission was no bigger than a lipstick.

  “I still don’t understand why,” Taylor said to John. “Why me? The other Loric and Malcolm I get, but . . . why trust me with this?”

  “Because I trust you to do what’s necessary,” John replied. “I trust all the others, too, obviously. But we have history. They might hesitate, in the moment. I don’t think you will.”

  Taylor chuckled. “I don’t think Nine would hesitate.”

  “No,” John admitted. “I’m honestly surprised he hasn’t shocked me already. For fun.” He hopped off the table. “We should get going. They’re waiting for us.”

  The three of them left John’s cottage—just one of the many along the path leading up to the cave, no bigger or smaller than any of the others. There were other Garde walking in the same direction. Lisbette and Nicolas were coming up. They smiled and waved at Taylor, but slowed down when they noticed she was with John. Picking up on the vibe, John bent down and pretended to tie his shoe so that they could walk by.

  “They’ll get over it,” Taylor said to John, his hurt expression obvious. “I mean, you broke my back and I’m over it.”

  “I know,” John said quietly. “For a year, though, I dreamed of filling this place with our people. Of doing great things. And now, you’re here, it’s happening and—I don’t feel like one of you.”

  “John Smith! Stop using your gloomy charms on my woman!” Kopano shouted. He charged up from behind and grabbed Taylor around the waist, squeezing and kissing her neck until they almost fell off the path. In spite of himself, John laughed.

  “Stop, stop, gross, stop,” Taylor said, slapping at Kopano.

  He let Taylor go, only so he could bounce up and down and rub hi
s hands together. “I am so pumped, you guys! We’re going to go live! Whose world do you think we’ll save first?”

  Kopano slapped John on the back, then ran on ahead. Taylor turned to John.

  “See? You’ll be one of us again in no time.”

  “Ow,” John said, rubbing his shoulder. “Now I’m not sure I want to be.”

  They entered the cave and found it filled with Garde, all of them gathered around the massive wooden table that John had carved. Their conversations didn’t stop when John and Taylor entered.

  “Your parents sound totally badass,” Six was saying to Miki.

  “Yeah, they’re pretty cool,” Miki replied. “You should come say hi to them tonight.”

  Six stroked her chin. “I feel like I could get really into ecoterrorism.”

  Sam groaned. “Please don’t say stuff like that, Six.”

  “I really wish you’d stop turning my traps to stone,” Nine said to Daniela, rubbing his bicep. “I gotta keep chiseling the gears. It’s a pain in the ass.”

  “Sorry, bro.” Daniela shrugged. “But stone-vision fixes everything.”

  “Also,” Nine continued, turning to Rabiya, “teleporting from one side of the course to the other doesn’t qualify you for best time.”

  “Says you,” Rabiya replied.

  “You ever heard of this band Journey?” Caleb asked Nigel.

  “Yeah, mate, they suck,” Nigel said.

  “I know. My dad loves them.” Caleb said. “Maybe we should ruin some of their songs with badly played covers.”

  Nigel grinned. “Yes. Nigel and the Clones reunion revenge tour, coming soon to a very unprepared village!”

  Taylor draped her arms around Nigel and Caleb, smiling at them, taking it all in. There were almost forty of them in here and more still squeezing their way inside. It was like a party.

  “Okay, everyone!” Lexa shouted, getting their attention. She leaned over a laptop attached to a holographic projector that displayed a rotating globe over their big table. That had been Daniela’s idea. “We’re coming online!”

  The website was simple. Type “GARDE” into any search engine and the top result brought you to a plain black screen with a single question and a box to enter text.