United as One

by Pittacus Lore

  Marks looks up at me, and what I see on his face surprises me. It’s pity. I realize what I just said wasn’t really a question for him. It’s a question for me. I’m a little afraid to find out the answer.

  “That won’t bring her back,” he says.

  I don’t respond. I take one last look at Sarah and walk back towards the ship’s exit. In the doorway, I pause and half turn.

  “Will you do something for me?” I ask him, my voice low, all the feeling sapped out.

  Mark works his thumb across his raw knuckles. “What?”

  “I’m going to get our military friends to loan us a vehicle. We’re only a few hours away from Paradise. Would you . . . ?” My voice catches, and I brace one hand on the cool metal of the doorway. “Would you bring her home?”

  Mark snorts. When he speaks, that bitterness is back in his voice. “Sure, John. I know you’re busy, so I’ll do the hard part for you. Should I tell her mom you say hi?”

  I close my eyes, take a deep breath and let it go.

  “Thank you, Mark,” I say without feeling, and then I’m leaving him and Sarah’s body behind. I stride down the ship’s ramp and across the lawn, heading back to the unimposing cabin that currently hides humanity’s best hope for survival. The sun is coming up, a bright orange slash on the horizon, heating the cool blue of the lake. I think of Sarah’s pale face, her icy lips, and then I remember how the sun would filter through her blond hair and she would’ve turned to me during a moment like this and squeezed my hand in that way of hers, and we would’ve shared it together.

  I put the memories away. Bury them down somewhere deep. I head inside the cabin with one purpose and one purpose only.

  I used to think there could be more for me than running and fighting.

  Now all that’s left is killing.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  WHEN I WAKE UP, IT TAKES ME A MOMENT TO realize where the hell I am. Some bad motel art stares down at me from the wood-paneled walls. I’m all tangled up in a scratchy sheet. Must have been tossing and turning like crazy. It feels like I’ve only slept for a few hours.

  The Patience Creek Bed & Breakfast. An old spy hangout from the Cold War era. Sam filled me in on the details while he half carried me through the halls. I was so spent and delirious, I’m a little amazed that I retained any of what he’d told me.

  Sam.

  He’s next to me. On the other side of the bed. Already awake and sitting up, his feet on the floor, back to me. He hasn’t noticed that I’m stirring yet. Sam scratches his neck and yawns. He took off his shirt to sleep, and I watch him reach out towards the worn gray T-shirt where it hangs over the back of a chair, concentrate and float the shirt towards him with telekinesis.

  I smile drowsily. It’s hard to believe this is the same kid who bumbled around the halls of Paradise High School nearly getting himself killed the night we first met. That wasn’t so long ago, but so much has changed. Sam’s still skinny and a little on the gangly side, yet there’s a scrappy layer of muscle on him now. And then there are the scars, fresh pink and upraised on his wrists and forearms, the results of Sam’s time getting tortured by Setrákus Ra.

  I put my hand on Sam’s back and trace down the bumps of his spine. He jumps, loses his concentration, and his T-shirt flops out of the air.

  “Good morning,” I say quietly. “It is morning, right?”

  “Almost noon,” Sam replies as he turns around to look at me with a smile. His eyes linger on me for a moment but then he catches himself, flushes and shyly looks away.

  It occurs to me then that I’m not wearing any clothes.

  Now I remember what happened. After Ella broke the news to me that I didn’t kill Setrákus Ra, I about broke down. Once Sam got me to his room, he strongly encouraged that I take a shower, and I did, washing off the gray-green dust of what used to be the Sanctuary along with Sarah’s dried blood. I remember very clearly the way that the grime pooled around my toes and circled down the drain. I inhaled steam and pressed my forehead against the cool tiles, let my skin wrinkle and turn bright red from the heat.

  And then, at some point, I crawled into bed. Sam had tried to stay awake, I think, but he couldn’t pull it off. He hadn’t left me anything clean to wear, so . . .

  “I put some clothes on the desk,” Sam says cautiously.

  “Oh, I guess you did,” I say out loud. A loose-fitting flower-print tunic and some jeans that looked dangerously close to bell-bottoms wait for me across the room. I guess we’re picking from whatever leftover garments are floating around the hideout. At least they’re clean.

  “I, uh, well, you just kinda fell asleep in here . . . ,” Sam proceeds awkwardly. “I didn’t want to wake you up. Sorry if it’s— Uh, anyway, we can get you your own room. . . .”

  “It’s okay, Sam. Relax,” I reply as I sit up, not feeling very modest. I sidle over to him, drape one arm over his shoulder and hook the other around his waist, hugging him close. His skin is warm against mine.

  “After what happened, I thought you would . . . I don’t know. Push me away again,” Sam says quietly, half-distracted, probably on account of me kissing the back of his neck.

  “Nope,” I reply.

  “Good,” he mumbles.

  Okay, so maybe this isn’t the most appropriate time. I’ve still got a lot on my mind and on my conscience, but if I learned anything from John and Sarah, it’s that you have to embrace these moments, not run from them. You never know when it might be your last chance.

  Of course, we’re interrupted about two minutes later by a knock on the door. Sam leaps off the bed like he’s going to get in trouble, pulls on his shirt and goes to the door. He looks back at me, and I smirk, pulling the sheet up to my chin.

  Sam opens the door a crack. I’m surprised to see the young buzz-cut twins who I noticed when we arrived, the ones who were with that General Lawson dude who Sam told me is in charge.

  One of them just stares at Sam, completely deadpan. The other, a little friendlier but still economical with his words, announces, “There’s a meeting.”

  “All right,” Sam replies. “We’ll be out in a minute.”

  The twins raise an eyebrow in unison at Sam’s use of “we.” He shuts the door in their faces.

  “Guess we’re on,” he says to me.

  “Back to the war,” I reply with a bittersweet smile.

  As I begin to get dressed, I nod my head in the direction of the door. There’s a lot about our situation that I still don’t know. Better to get my questions out of the way before we head off to this meeting with the military.

  “What’s with the twins?”

  “Caleb and Christian.” Sam tells me their names and shrugs. “They’re a couple of military school kids. They’re LANEs.”

  “Yeah, they seemed like lames.”

  Sam laughs. “No, not ‘lame.’ ‘LANE.’ L-A-N-E. Not sure why I’d expect you to know brand-new acronyms that the government just invented. It means Legacy-Afflicted Native Earthling.”

  “Afflicted?” I pause while pulling on my shirt. “They make it sound like a bad thing.”

  “Yeah, they use ‘augmented’ instead of ‘afflicted’ when you Garde are around, but my dad saw one of the internal emails.” Sam shrugs apologetically, like he’s the ambassador for all humanity. “I guess the people in charge aren’t entirely sure yet if Legacies are a good thing for a bunch of human teenagers to develop. They’re concerned there could be drawbacks or side effects.”

  “Yeah, one of the side effects is that it makes it a lot harder for the Mogs to shoot you in the face.”

  “Come on, I know that,” Sam replies. “For your average human, though? This is a lot to take in. I mean, we’ve got two brand-new types of intelligent life to wrap our heads around, and that’s before we even get to how you Loric mutated us.”

  I raise an eyebrow.

  “Mutated in a good way,” Sam adds.

  “So what do those twins do?” I ask, circling back.


  He shrugs. “Only telekinesis, as far as I know.”

  I’m fully clothed, but I’ve still got more questions. I stand in front of the doorway with my hands on my hips.

  “So that Lawson guy. What’s his deal?”

  “He was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs back in the nineties, I guess. Retired.”

  I give Sam a blank look.

  “Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is, like, the highest military posting in America. Reports directly to the president, yadda yadda yadda.” Sam rubs the back of his neck. “I didn’t know what it was either, and I was actually born on this planet.”

  “Okay, so what happened to the current chairman?”

  “He was MogPro. They brought Lawson back because he’d been retired so long, no one bothered corrupting him. He’s like the human version of this place.”

  “Speaking of MogPro, I saw Agent Walker hanging around last night, too,” I say, a little edge to my voice. “You trust her? You trust this Lawson guy?”

  “Walker’s all right. She fought alongside us in New York. As for Lawson . . .”

  Sam frowns. “I don’t know. Hard for me to trust any kind of organization after MogPro, but they’d have to be crazy to turn on us now—”

  While Sam speaks, an old TV set perched on a stand against the far wall suddenly comes to life with a burst of static. We both turn in that direction.

  “What the hell?” I ask.

  Sam rubs his temples. “This old place is wired weird or something. That TV’s probably filled with spiders.”

  “Or hidden cameras.”

  Sam smirks at me. “I hope not. Anyway, I don’t think they’re organized enough to be spying on us yet.”

  Sam wanders over to the TV and hits the button to turn it off. Nothing happens.

  “See? Broken,” he says, before smacking the side of the TV. “Come on!”

  When Sam speaks, all the electronics in the room—the TV, the nightstand lamp, the ancient rotary phone—they all flare to life for a second. A burst of static from the TV, a flicker of light from the lamp, a shrill ring from the phone. Sam doesn’t notice. He’s too busy unplugging the TV from the wall, which finally turns it off.

  “See? Crazy. Whole place is nuts.”

  I stare at him. “Sam, it’s not the wiring. It’s you.”

  “What’s me?”

  “You did that just now with the electronics,” I tell him. “I think you’re developing a new Legacy.”

  Sam’s eyebrows shoot up, and he looks down at his hands. “What? Already?”

  “Yeah, they come on quick once the telekinesis manifests,” I reply. “You saw that kid in Ella’s dream-share thing. The German.”

  “Bertrand the Beekeeper,” Sam says, reminding me of his name. “Daniela got one, too. I guess I didn’t think it would happen so soon for me. I’m still getting used to being telekinetic.”

  I don’t know who Daniela is, but I nod along anyway. “The Entity knew the world needs protecting in a hurry.”

  “Huh,” Sam says, mulling this over. “So, it’s something to do with electronics.”

  He turns back to the TV and thrusts his palms at it. He succeeds in emitting a telekinetic burst that knocks the TV off its stand and to the floor with a loud crash.

  “Oops.”

  “Well, you’ve got the telekinesis down at least.”

  Sam turns to me. “If you’re right, how do I get it to work?”

  Before I can tell Sam that I have no idea, we’re interrupted by another knock on the door. A second later, one of the twins’ muffled voice reaches us.

  “Uh, whatever you guys are doing in there, could it wait? General Lawson told us if we didn’t round everyone up by oh-nine-hundred, it’d be our asses.”

  I exchange a look with Sam. “We’ll talk about this later,” I say.

  He nods, and we open the door to join the two sullen military cadets. As we head down the hallway, Sam stares at every overhead light like an enemy that needs to be conquered.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  NOT MUCH FOR CONVERSATION, THE TWINS LEAD us through the twisting corridors of the subbasement. Soon we’re outside the conference room. Malcolm arrives at the same time from a different hallway and waves to us. The twins dart inside, probably worried about being late, while the Goode men and I linger outside.

  Malcolm puts a gentle hand on my shoulder. “How you holding up, Six?”

  I manage a smile. “I’m hanging in there.” I glance at Sam, and the smile doesn’t seem so forced anymore. “Your son’s helping me keep it together.”

  Sam blushes and turns away from his dad a bit. Malcolm pats him on the back.

  “Good, good,” he says. “In times like these, we need to lean on each other.”

  “How’s Marina?” I ask Malcolm. The last I saw of her, he was wheeling her into the cabin on a gurney.

  “The medics say her vitals are strong, and she woke up a little while ago to take some food,” Malcolm replies. “John healed her, yes, but when the damage is that severe, you don’t want to rush anything. She’s resting.”

  “Six was asking about Lawson,” Sam says to his dad, lowering his voice. He looks at me. “My dad was with Walker’s people at Ashwood until they all had to evacuate. Then you were . . . where was it?”

  “Liberty Base. I met the president,” Malcolm says with an amused smile. “He told me he was a big fan of my papers on intergalactic communication. Quite the skilled bullshitter.”

  “The president, is he here now?” I ask.

  “No, I left Liberty Base in a hurry to reconnect with you guys, but the last I heard they were going to keep Jackson moving. Safer that way.”

  “On the run,” I say. “Yeah. Been there.”

  “One interesting fact I picked up . . .” Malcolm lowers his voice, even though we’re alone out here. “The president’s daughter, Melanie, she’s one of you.”

  My eyebrows shoot up. “Get out. When does she report for duty?”

  Malcolm’s smile tightens. “I don’t think that’s going to happen. But at least it means we’ve got the president on our side.”

  “And Lawson reports directly to him . . .” Sam brings his dad back to what we were originally talking about.

  “Ah, right. Well, he’s a difficult man to read,” Malcolm says thoughtfully. “Seems like a straight shooter, although the ruthlessly pragmatic type. A bit old-school, as they say. At the very least, we all want the same thing.”

  “Yeah, dead Mogs,” I reply, and nod towards the conference room. “Let’s see what he has to say.”

  By the time we walk in, most of our group is already seated around a long, oval table. John sits at one end, slouching a little. Lexa sits next to him, the two deep in a hushed conversation. Lexa holds something out for John to inspect, and I recognize it as one of the cloaking devices we recovered in Mexico. That’s our key to getting through the shields that surround every Mog warship.

  John’s gaze flicks in my direction when I enter, and I practically freeze. He nods to me, though, and once I nod back, immediately returns to his conversation with Lexa. I guess we’re staying focused on the task at hand and grieving later.

  Good.

  Nine sits on John’s other side, and next to him is Ella. Her eyes haven’t stopped glowing, which is drawing a lot of stares from the military personnel clustered in the room. As we take seats by them, Nine leans over to Ella.

  “So, Lite-Brite, is this like a permanent thing now or can you turn it off?”

  I study Ella for a reaction. I’m happy to see a small and embarrassed smile cross her face. The girl used to have such a crush on Nine, and his complaining about her perpetual light show seems to get through. So there’s still a little bit of the old Ella in there. Before responding to Nine, Ella concentrates, and the cobalt energy sparking around her chills out a little.

  “Better?” she asks him.

  “Just remind me to keep sunglasses handy when you’re around,” Nine replies.

  Ell
a smiles, this time more easily, and leans in Nine’s direction.

  “Six.” Sam nudges me. “This is Daniela. We met her in New York.”

  Across the table from me sits the lean girl with braided hair who I noticed first in Ella’s dream meeting and then again last night. She waves awkwardly, looking more than a little uncomfortable to be sitting in this room.

  “Good to meet you,” I say. “Sam said you’ve already developed a Legacy besides telekinesis.”

  “I shoot rays out of my eyes that turn things to stone, apparently,” Daniela says warily. She tosses her head, her braids bouncing. “Would’ve changed my hair up at least if I’d known you people were gonna stick me with such a stupid superpower.”

  “I get it,” Nine says, pointing at her. “Because Medusa.”

  “Yeah, dummy,” Daniela says, rolling her eyes. “You got it.”

  “I like her,” I say to Sam.

  Although no one forced us to choose seats at opposite ends of the table, there’s a very clear line between us and the military personnel that outnumber us almost three to one. They’re all arranged at the far end where Lawson sits at the head. The closest one to our part of the table is Walker, a human buffer zone, seats empty on either side of her. She stares down at the notes in front of her, none of the other government types making any effort to chat with her.

  The twins take seats a little behind and on either side of Lawson. They look like bodyguards. Hell, it occurs to me that most of the people in this room are armed and would protect a guy like Lawson before us. Besides the official types sitting at the table, there’s a bunch of straight-up soldiers hanging around against the walls, their rifles pointed down but still very much loaded and ready. I’m pretty sure we could take this whole bunch, guns and all, but that doesn’t mean I’m not a little concerned at being in close quarters with all this firepower.

  On the wall behind Lawson there’s a huge touch-screen display with a map of the entire world. There are zones highlighted with ominous red heat signatures: New York City, Los Angeles, London and about twenty more. Those must be where Setrákus Ra’s warships are posted. Then, in the United States only, there are a bunch of green dots, much smaller than the warships but numerous. As I look closer, I realize that those dots all form loose circles around the Mogadorian hot spots. These must be the cells that Caleb was talking about, small but organized and ready to strike back.