It ends when one of the warriors puts his sword through Number One’s back, impaling her.
“That was awesome!” shouts Ivan. Even my father allows himself a thin smile of approval.
I know I should share in their elation, but my hands won’t stop shaking. I feel grateful that I only had to watch from a distance, that I wasn’t one of the Mogadorians now reduced to ash on a Malaysian riverbank. I’m also grateful not to be Loric, not to have to spend my life running in fear from impossible odds, only to be stabbed in the back.
It occurs to me that I’m feeling something close to empathy for the Garde. The Great Book warns against that, so I shut it away. I need to get beyond these childish feelings. The battle was less glorious than I expected, but still a great victory for Mogadorian progress. Only eight more loose ends remain and then Ra’s vision will be fulfilled; nothing will stand in the way of our expansion to Earth. Nine dead Garde are a small price to pay for my sweet penthouse at the top of the Washington Monument.
They shove Number One into a body bag and dump her in the plane with the rest of the cargo. The Loric Chest she had with her is taken as well, although even the strongest of our warriors can’t pry open the lock. One’s pendant is ripped off her body by my father, though I’m not sure what use he has for Loric jewelry.
Her Cêpan’s body is left behind. She is of no importance to us now.
On the plane ride back, the benches are a lot less crowded. I stay quiet, but Ivan pesters the warriors from the front line for gory details until the General hisses at him to shut up. If they had been a football team, I’m sure the surviving warriors would be dousing each other with Gatorade the way that human athletes do after a win. But we’re not a football team. We’re Mogadorians. And my father doesn’t even know what Gatorade is. We travel the rest of the way in silence.
During the flight, the General comes to sit beside me.
“When we get back to Ashwood Estates,” he says, “I have an important task for you.”
I nod. “Yes. Of course, sir.”
My father looks down at my hands, still shaking no matter how hard I try to steady them.
“Stop that,” he growls before heading back to the cockpit.
CHAPTER 4
Although I saw her in the battle, the girl on the metal slab isn’t what I was expecting.
Ever since the First Great Expansion, we’ve been taught that the Garde are the last true threat to our way of life. We’ve been taught that they are fierce warriors, lying in wait to one day take up arms against the engine of Mogadorian progress. Somehow I thought this threat to my people would look more fearsome.
In death, Number One doesn’t look like much at all. She looks to be around my age or just a bit older, and her skin, once tan, is now bloodlessly pale. Her lips are blue. Streaks of dried blood run through her blond hair. Her body is covered with a white sheet, but under the bright lights of the laboratory I can see the grisly shadow of the wound that blossoms across her midsection.
We are beneath Ashwood Estates, in the underground laboratory of Dr. Lockam Anu. I’ve never been allowed down here before, so I try to take in as many of the strange, blinking machines as possible without openly gawking. The General would not be kind if he thought I was distracted.
I stand next to my father, both of us silent, watching as Anu gently eases One’s head into a strange mechanical helmet. Anu is an old man, his spine hunched, his tattooed scalp disgustingly wrinkled. He circles around One, connecting loose wires to the open diodes that clutter the helmet.
“Should be ready,” mutters Anu, stepping back.
“Finally,” grunts my father.
Anu pauses over One’s left ankle, tracing the Loric charm scarred there. What the Loric charm looks like is one of the first things we were taught when we came to Earth. Scrutinizing every bare ankle for its presence became second nature for me long ago.
“Four years of searching for a child with this symbol,” muses Anu. “You certainly take your time, General.”
I can practically feel my father clench his fists. It’s like standing next to a gathering storm. Yet he makes no reply. Dr. Anu heads up the research and science team at Ashwood Estates and is entitled to certain benefits, like making a dig at the General without being immediately beaten.
Anu looks in my direction, his left eye involuntarily drooping and half lidded.
“Did your esteemed father explain why you are here, boy?”
I glance at the General. He nods, granting me permission to speak.
“No, sir.”
“Ah. ‘Sir.’ What a polite young man you’ve raised, General.” Anu gestures to a nearby metal chair, over which hangs an imposing piece of complicated technology. “Come, have a seat.”
I glance again at my father, but his face gives nothing away.
“You will do our family proud today, Adamus,” rumbles the General. I’m relieved that my hands have finally stopped shaking.
I sit down. Anu crouches before me, his old bones creaking in protest. He binds my wrists and ankles to the chair with rubber straps. I know that I should trust my father. I’m too important for him to let anything bad happen to me. Still, I can’t help but squirm a bit as I’m buckled in.
“Comfortable?” asks Dr. Anu, smirking at me.
“What is this?” I reply, forgetting the General’s rule against asking questions.
My father gazes at me with surprising patience. Maybe he’s as uncomfortable seeing his only son being strapped down as I am being strapped.
“Dr. Anu believes this machine will let us access the Loric girl’s memories,” explains my father.
“I know that it will,” corrects Anu. He rubs a warm liquid on my temples before connecting a pair of rubber electrodes. The electrode wires run to a monitor positioned next to Number One, which suddenly hums to life.
“Would you stake your life on this untested creation, Dr. Anu?” growls my father.
“Untested?” I start, jerking against my bonds. I immediately regret the note of panic in my voice; it causes the General to grimace. Dr. Anu flashes me a placating smile.
“We never had one of the Garde to experiment on before, so yes, untested.” He shrugs merrily, excited to test this contraption. “But the theory behind it is very strong. Of the trueborns here in Washington, you are closest in age to the girl, which should make the memory download go more smoothly. Your mind will interpret the Garde’s memories as visions rather than through her eyes. I’m sure your father wouldn’t suddenly want his only son in the body of a little girl, hmm?”
My father bristles. Dr. Anu glances over his shoulder. “Just kidding, General. You have a good, strong son here. Very brave.”
At the moment, I don’t feel very brave. I’d watched Number One get struck down—she was barely capable of defending herself in life; she is certainly harmless in death—yet being connected to her, it renews the feeling of unease I felt on the plane ride back from Malaysia. I almost start to volunteer Ivan to be Anu’s guinea pig but clamp my mouth shut just in time.
Ivan enjoyed watching One die; it’s all he’s been able to talk about. For me, even thinking about it makes my hands start to shake again. I steady myself—stop being such a coward, Adamus—this is a great honor, something I should be proud of.
I try not to look at the dead girl as Anu reaches above the chair and lowers a metal cylinder down from the ceiling, covered with circuitry that wouldn’t look out of place on the inside of a rocket. The vast majority of the wires connected to Number One connect to the cylinder. Anu pauses before the cylinder is in place over my head and peers down at me.
“You’ll feel a little shock,” he muses. “Maybe go to sleep for a few minutes. When you wake up, you’ll be able to tell us what this one knew about the other Garde.”
I realize Anu’s free hand is on my shoulder. His grip is tight.
A few days ago my biggest worry was dumbing down essay answers enough to pass my work off as Ivan’s. Since
then I’ve seen firsthand the Mogadorian warrior I’m expected to grow into, and I’m not sure I’m up for it. Now I’m being ordered to temporarily share a brain with my mortal enemy. I know it’s my father’s will, and that if the machine works it will help our cause and bring honor to my family. Still. I don’t want to admit it, but I’m scared.
Anu lowers the cylinder over my head until it covers my face. He and my father disappear from view.
I hear Anu shuffle across the laboratory. His fingers click across a series of buttons, and the cylinder begins to vibrate.
“Here we go,” announces Anu.
The inside of the cylinder explodes with light—searing white light that burns my eyes, all the way through to the back of my head. I shut my eyes, but somehow the light still penetrates. I feel as if I’m coming apart, the light tearing through me, breaking me into tiny particles. This is what death must feel like.
I think I scream.
And then, everything is darkness.
CHAPTER 5
It’s like I’m falling.
Bursts of color flash across my vision. There are shapes—indistinct faces, blurry scenery—but I can’t make any of it out. It’s like being stuck inside my TV while Kelly plays with the remote. Nothing makes any sense, and I start to get this panicky feeling, like sensory overload. I try to squeeze my eyes shut, but that’s useless; this is all happening inside my mind.
Just when I feel like my brain is about to be fried to a crisp by the bombardment of colors, everything snaps into focus.
Suddenly, I’m standing in a sunlit banquet hall. Light pours into the room via a skylight through which I can see trees unlike any I’ve ever seen before, red and orange flowered vines hanging off tangled branches.
Although I’ve never been there—have only looked down on it from orbit—somehow I know that this is Lorien. And then I realize that I know where I am because Number One knows.
This is one of her memories.
In the center of the room is a large table covered with strange yet delicious-looking foods. Seated all around the table are Loric, all of them wearing fancy dresses and suits. I flinch when I see them—I’m outnumbered and my first instinct is to run, yet I’m pinned to this spot. I couldn’t move if I tried, stuck in this memory.
The Loric are all smiling, singing. They don’t seem at all alarmed that a Mogadorian has just appeared at their party. That’s when I realize they can’t see me. Of course not, I’m just a tourist in Number One’s mind.
And there she is, seated at the head of the table. She’s so young, maybe five or six, her blond hair pulled into two braids that dangle down her back. When the adults finish singing, she claps her hands in excitement, and I realize this is her birthday celebration. We don’t celebrate such foolish occasions on Mogadore, although some great warriors are known to mark the anniversary of their first kill with a feast.
What a useless memory. The General won’t be impressed if all I come back with is intel on Loric birthday parties.
Just like that the world goes blurry again and I’m falling. Time passes in a rush and I’m swept along, feeling sickeningly out of control.
Another memory takes shape.
Number One wanders through an open field, her hands extended so that the tall grasses tickle her outstretched palms. She’s maybe a year older than at the birthday party, still just a child, happily wandering around her undestroyed planet.
Boring.
One bends down and picks some flowers, twining the stalks together, then wrapping the flower chain around her wrist like a bracelet. How much of this am I going to have to sift through?
Maybe if I focus I can get some control of these memories. I need to see the other Garde, not this girly, happy Loric crap. I try to think about what I want to see—the faces of the Garde, their Cêpans—and then the memory in the field flashes away and I am somewhere else.
It’s nighttime, although the darkness is lit by dozens of fires raging nearby. The two Loric moons hang on opposite sides of the horizon. The ground shakes beneath my feet, an explosion nearby.
Number One and eight other children rush across a secluded airstrip, headed for a ship. Their Cêpans hurry them along, shouting orders. Some of the children are crying as their feet slap against the pavement. Number One is not; she stares over her shoulder as a Loric in a sleek bodysuit fires a cone of freezing cobalt energy into the face of a snarling piken. Number One’s eyes widen in admiration and fear.
This is it. The First Great Expansion. Exactly the memory I need to see.
“Run!” the Loric in the bodysuit shouts at the fleeing group of young Garde. His Legacies fully developed and powerful. Still, he’ll die on this night, just like all the others.
I sweep my eyes over the children, trying to take in as many details as I can. There’s a feral-looking boy with long black hair and another blond girl, younger than Number One, being carried by her Cêpan. Number One is older than most of the other kids, a detail that I know will help my father construct profiles of the remaining Garde. I count how many of them are boys and how many are girls, and try to memorize their most distinguishing features.
“Who the fuck are you?”
The voice is clearer than the thunderous sounds of war from the memory, as if it’s being piped right into my brain.
I turn my head and realize Number One is standing right next to me. Not the child Number One of the memory—no, this is Number One as I last saw her: blond hair flowing down her back, shoulders squared defiantly. A ghost. She’s looking right at me, expecting an answer.
She can’t be here; that doesn’t make sense. I wave my hand in front of her face, figuring that this must be some kind of glitch in Anu’s machine. There’s no way she’s really seeing me.
Number One slaps my hand away. I’m surprised that she can touch me, but then I remember that we’re both ghosts here.
“Well?” she asks. “Who are you? You don’t belong here.”
“You’re dead,” are the only words I can muster.
One looks down at herself. For a moment, the massive wound on her abdomen flickers into being. Just as quickly, it’s gone.
“Not in here.” She shrugs. “These are my memories. So in here I guess you’re stuck with me.”
I shake my head. “It’s impossible. You can’t be talking to me.”
One squints at me, thinking. “Your name is Adam, right?”
“How do you know that?”
She smirks. “We’re sharing a brain, Mog-boy. Guess that means I know a thing or two about you, too.”
Around us, the fleeing Garde have all boarded their ship, the engines now rumbling to life. I should be scanning the ship for any helpful details, but I’m too distracted by the dead girl sneering at me.
“Your scary-ass pops is going to be so disappointed when you wake up with nothing juicy to tell him.” She grabs me by the elbow, and the feeling is so real that I have to remind myself that this is basically just a dream.
A dream that Number One is suddenly in control of.
“You want my memories?” she asks. “Come on. I’ll give you a guided tour.”
As the scene changes again, I start to understand what’s happened.
I’m trapped in here with my sworn enemy. And she seems to be in charge.
CHAPTER 6
This time the memory shift is different. Before, I was falling through time, falling through memory. Now I feel still, and suddenly I’m standing outside a secluded ranch in Coahuila, Mexico. In this memory, One and her Cêpan are carrying boxes into the house. It’s moving day. This is the first place One and her Cêpan—Hilde, her Cêpan’s name was Hilde—settled after the Garde landed on Earth and parted ways.
Wait—how do I know all this?
It’s strange. In addition to finding myself existing here, observing this particular moment in One’s life, I also have a general sense of her memories of the time. I know the things that she knows and remember what she remembers. The memorie
s are so vivid, it’s like they’re my own.
It’s like I’m her.
Ghost-One appears next to me, watching with me as the younger version of herself and Hilde unpack dishes in the kitchen. It’s creepy to have her here, gives me a feeling like vertigo. I try to ignore her, but she just keeps talking to me.
“We stayed here for a while,” she says, sounding almost wistful. “Then Hilde thought she saw some of your peeps snooping around the city, so we had to leave.”
The Garde move a lot, city to city, country to country, their movements unpredictable. My father will want to know this. It’s completely the opposite of the way we Mogadorians have done it, consolidating our power in bases across the globe. That’s why they’re so difficult to track.
“She was sort of a drag sometimes,” says One, watching her Cêpan. “Probably a lot like your dickbag dad. Except, you know, not eeee-vil.” She rubs her fingers together and cackles an eeee-vil cackle in punctuation.
“Shut up,” I spit, sounding angrier than I even realized I was. “You don’t know him.”
I find myself studying Hilde in spite of myself. She’s in her late fifties, and her face is wrinkled, both with the natural lines of age and the premature weathering of stress. Her gray hair tightly bound in a stern braid. Her eyes have a hardness to them; her voice is steely and measured, even when just telling One—the “real” One—which cupboard the plates belong in. Truth be told, she does remind me of the General.
“I loved her like a mom, though,” says ghost-One, sadness breaking her voice. My mind drifts to the dead old woman we left to rot in Malaysia, and I feel something like guilt but quickly push it away. She’s messing with your head, Adamus.
“I wish you’d stop talking to me,” I tell her.
I Am Number Four: The Lost Files: The Fallen Legacies Page 2
