The Search for Sam lltlf-4

by Pittacus Lore

  He’s always patient, gracious, and kind about my misfires. Which only makes me happier when I manage a perfect score at this game we’ve created, rumbling the earth immediately beneath his feet without sending him flying. It takes extraordinary control, and so much mental effort I usually wind up with a minor migraine, but it’s worth it to see his proud face.

  My parents disowned me. I don’t think my father ever loved me. I was never going to have the kind of unconditional love from a parent I saw on television or read about in human literature.

  During the three years I spent in One’s mind, I saw her close relationship with Hilde, and I was jealous. They fought all the time, but on some deep level they trusted and loved each other. Hilde trained and cultivated One’s talents, encouraged her when she succeeded. Ever since I witnessed that, I’ve craved something like it. A mentor. And now I have one.

  One promised me I wouldn’t be alone. She was right.

  Our route through the country becomes a zigzagging path, designed to escape Mogadorian detection. It’s so roundabout that I never even consider we’re heading somewhere specific, that Malcolm has a destination in mind.

  I enjoy the aimlessness. I feel safer off the grid, like I did back at the aid camp. But I know that eventually we’re going to need a plan, some way to reconnect with the scattered Garde. I may cringe at bloodshed, and I may fear that they will reject me for being a Mogadorian, but I can’t help being excited by the prospect of meeting my new allies.

  After a long night’s trek, we camp out in a small grove at the edge of the woods in rural Ohio. Malcolm devotes so much time and energy to training me that I’ve been repaying the favor, usually as we’re settling down for a day’s sleep.

  I train him. I ask him questions about his past, trying to jog his memory. I know his patchy memory is frustrating, but he will never recover his memories unless he works at it. So I grill him, pressing him for details.

  “What happened before the darkness?” I ask tonight.

  He’s clearing some brush on the ground, making a smooth surface to sleep on. “I hate this.”

  “I know,” I say. We’re both exhausted and mental training is the last thing either of us wants to do right now.

  But I keep going. “What happened before the darkness?”

  “I’m tired,” he says, stretching out on the dirt. “And I can’t really remember.”

  “Come on. One thing,” I say. “Just tell me one thing you remember from before the Mogs took you.”

  He’s quiet.

  “Malcolm. You already told me there’s one important thing you remember from before, one thing you didn’t even have to try to remember.” I figure I can at least get that out of him. “Just tell me that.”

  He turns to me, suddenly serious. “My son. I remember my son.”

  Whoa. I had no idea he had a son.

  “The details of how I made contact with the Loric, how I was captured by the Mogs … those things are starting to come back to me, though they’re still fuzzy. But I remember everything about my life back in Paradise.” He smiles. “I remember everything about Sam.”

  “Don’t you want to see him?” I ask.

  “Of course I do. That’s why I’ve been leading us back towards my old hometown.” He looks at me, clearly concerned about how I will react.

  I’m stunned. “That’s where he is?”

  “Well, I can’t be sure he’s still there, but it’s my only guess. It’s only a day or two days’ trek from here.”

  I’m confused. I thought we were just running from the Mogadorians, but this whole time Malcolm’s been leading us to his home. “But our path, it’s been so random.”

  “I’m still trying to keep the Mogadorians off our tail. That we continue to evade detection is even more important, the closer we get to Sam.” He sits up, giving me a solemn look. “You don’t have to come into town with me. It could be dangerous. For all I know the Mogadorians are waiting for me there.”

  Malcolm looks at me, waiting to see how I’ll react. Under his gaze, I feel it: that familiar twinge of fear in my gut. My typical reluctance to enter the fray.

  But there’s something different about me now. I have One’s Legacy—my Legacy. I don’t feel as powerless as I used to.

  If anything, I feel a strange itch to see what I can do with my new ability. Months ago, One tried to rouse me back to the Loric cause and I balked. It took her creating an epically complex psychological trick to get me to leave the aid camp.

  But I don’t need much persuading from Malcolm.

  “Let’s go,” I say.

  Paradise, Ohio, is a classic small town. A harmonious blend of farmland and suburbia, a far cry from the tacky faux-luxe of Ashwood’s McMansions. Walking with Malcolm along the road leading through the town, sticking to the other side of the tree line to stay out of view, I take a deep breath.

  Yeah. I like it here.

  Just as Paradise’s main drag comes into view down the road, Malcolm starts leading us away, deeper into the woods. We walk for a mile through the trees. We pass houses out here in the woods—some prosperous-looking farmhouses, some busted-down-looking shacks. We avoid all of them, beelining through the woods to avoid being seen by anyone.

  “What’s he like?” I ask. As we’ve been traveling, I’ve told Malcolm almost everything there is to know about me—about how the son of a respected Mogadorian leader came to be the traitor that I am now. But there’s so much about Malcolm that’s still a mystery to me. Sometimes I wonder if it’s because he doesn’t like to think about it himself.

  Still walking and staring straight ahead, Malcolm smiles sadly. “I don’t know,” he says.

  “You mean you can’t remember?”

  “No, not that. My memories of Sam haven’t faded at all. It’s just—” He stops. “I can’t say what he’s like now, not when I haven’t seen him in all this time. I’ve missed everything. He was just a kid when I got taken. He was smart, and he was kind. A great kid.” He laughs. “He was Sam.”

  “What happens when we find him?” I ask.

  Malcolm’s expression darkens.

  “I just need to see him. To know he’s okay. You and I, we’re marked for death by the Mogadorians. I know I can’t exactly be a father to him under those conditions, but I need to see him at least once. After that …” he says, his voice trailing off.

  I finish his thought. “After that we go back on the run.”

  Malcolm nods. “It won’t be safe for us to stick around.”

  I feel a strange twinge of relief at that thought.

  “We’re close,” he says, quickening his stride.

  I see a house up ahead, through the trees.

  “That’s it,” he says.

  As we walk, the texture of the dirt beneath our feet begins to shift. I look down: it’s burned. Scarred. My antennae go up, preparing for a possible attack.

  The closer we get, the worse it is. More scorched earth, more fallen trees. There’s been a battle here.

  “Malcolm,” I say. “The Mogadorians have been here.”

  But of course he’s already noticed. He’s speeding up, racing towards the house. I keep pace behind him, worried what we’re running into.

  But when he runs up to the house’s side door and bangs on it, and a shocked-looking woman steps outside, eyes bulging at Malcolm, I stop running. Malcolm’s given me no instruction; I have no idea what’s going on.

  I hang back.

  Malcolm holds the woman by the shoulders, talking to her, asking her questions. The woman’s expression of shock and wonderment begins to melt, giving way to something else.

  Anger.

  She slaps him. Then slaps him again. Soon she’s unleashed a barrage, and Malcolm just stands there, absorbing each and every blow. I can’t hear her from where I stand, but I know what she’s saying. “Where were you? Where were you? Where were you?”

  She falls to her knees on the porch and begins to sob. Moments later, Malcolm joins he
r.

  I wait. Malcolm has been inside with the woman for an hour now. We exchanged a look before he headed inside with her. I nodded, giving him the sign that I’d be fine out here on my own.

  Kicking the scorched dirt, I’m anxious, keyed up. To judge by the tracks, by the burned patches of earth, there was some kind of conflict here not long ago. Mogadorians could be close.

  I have One’s Legacy now, I remind myself. Even if I come face-to-face with a Mog force, I’m not powerless anymore. I can fight back.

  The more time passes, the more I worry about Malcolm. To come all this way and discover that something has happened to his son would be devastating.

  Malcolm finally emerges from the house. He walks with a hard-nosed determination, strutting right past me and back into the woods.

  All he says is “Come.”

  I follow him across the backyard to a large stone well.

  “It’s open,” he says, shaking his head.

  “So?” I ask. “Malcolm, you have to tell me what’s going on.”

  Without answering, Malcolm climbs into the well and disappears.

  Again, I follow.

  I make my way down a long, narrow ladder and finally arrive at the bottom of the well.

  “Malcolm?” I ask. No response. I feel my way along the walls down a narrow passageway, which slowly gives way into a room.

  A large halogen lamp lights up, illuminating the space. Malcolm holds it, and swings it around the room.

  I follow the arc of the beam. Bare walls, some computer equipment in the corner. A shelf with supplies: water bottles, canned food—

  Startled by what I see, I gasp. Against the wall, close enough for me to touch, is a massive skeleton.

  The skeleton’s head is tipped downwards in an angle of dignified, almost lordly resignation. But it’s still a skull, with deep hollow sockets pointing right at me. I yelp, backing against the opposite wall.

  “The Mogadorians didn’t find this place,” says Malcolm. “If they had, they wouldn’t have left it like this. They would have destroyed this skeleton, or taken it. But the well was open. Someone’s been here.” Malcolm resumes poking around in the chamber. “The tablet’s gone. He must have come here, and then after …”

  “Malcolm,” I whisper, hoping he will calm down and explain himself. “I’m in the dark here,” I say. “Quite literally.”

  He ignores my joke.

  “My wife saw Sam with some other kids; she said there was a battle. By what she described, those other kids had to be members of the Garde. Sam was with them, fighting by their side.”

  I experience a brief chill of excitement at the thought that the Garde was here only a short time ago. The Garde. My people. My new people.

  “In my absence, I guess he took up my cause, and wound up in battle with Mogs and … now he’s gone.”

  Malcolm stares at me, a haunted look on his face.

  “My son Sam is gone.”

  Malcolm’s wife won’t let him in the house again. She’s too angry.

  As a result, we’ve camped out in his underground bunker, stretching out on the bare stone floor. I’ve slept in some pretty rough quarters since going on the run with Malcolm, but I’ve never faced a challenge quite like trying to fall sleep under the hollow nose of an eight-foot-tall skeleton.

  Malcolm explains that she is crushed by grief for her missing son. That as angry as she is with Malcolm for disappearing, the worst part is him finally reappearing only weeks after Sam disappeared—too late to save him.

  She blames Malcolm for whatever’s happened to Sam. And Malcolm says she’s right to blame him.

  “It was my fault. I was so excited to make contact with the Loric, I didn’t even consider the consequences. Once I saw what the Mogadorians were capable of, I realized my role as a Greeter might be a danger to my family, but it was too late. Before I could do anything to protect them, I was taken.”

  Malcolm theorizes that, haunted by his disappearance, Sam began to unravel some of the mysteries of the Mogadorian invasion. That he somehow forged an alliance with members of the Garde.

  And that at some point in the past few weeks, in battle near his house, he was captured by the Mogs, and either killed or detained.

  When Malcolm says this, my mind races back to the memo I encountered while snooping around the underground server in the Media Surveillance facility. The memo was already a year old when it declared all future detainees and captives were to be routed to the Dulce base in New Mexico. If Sam was captured weeks ago, there’s a good chance he’s being kept there.

  I stare at Malcolm, stretched out on the floor, his back to me.

  “Malcolm,” I say.

  He rolls over and turns to me. I can see from his gaze that he’s lost in doubt and guilt and grief. Clearly the search for his son is what’s been driving him since we escaped from Ashwood.

  “I think I know where your son is.”

  CHAPTER 13

  I stand back as Malcolm opens the garage door. Inside, covered in dust, is an old Chevy Rambler. “I can���t believe it’s still here,” he says, diving towards the passenger door.

  We are at a storage facility on the outskirts of Paradise. Malcolm explains that he paid for this garage space many years in advance, keeping the car fueled up and ready should he ever need to skip town on short notice. In fact, he was headed for this garage when he was abducted by the Mogadorians years ago.

  I’m impressed with his recall. “Your memory’s improving.”

  “Yeah,” he says, smiling slyly. “It seems to be. Must be all of your annoying quizzes.” I laugh as he turns to the car’s glove compartment, pulling something out. He holds it out of the car door for me to see.

  A spare pair of prescription glasses.

  “Jackpot,” he says, triumphantly. He wipes the lenses with the tail of his shirt and slips them onto his head.

  He sits back in the passenger seat, looking at me through the windshield.

  “I can’t tell you how amazing it feels to be able to see clearly. It’s been so long,” he says.

  He lets out a contented sigh. “Amazing.”

  “I didn’t even know you needed glasses.”

  “Big-time,” he says. “This is actually the first time I’ve seen your face as anything but a big smudge.” He squints up at me. “I can definitely see the Mogadorian thing, now. Yeah, definitely something evil about your face.”

  I laugh, giving him the finger. Teasing me for being a Mogadorian has become a running joke between us. Joking about it is really just a testament to how accepting of me Malcolm has been.

  “Full tank?” I ask.

  He leans over, starts the engine, peering owlishly as the gas gauge whirs up.

  “Very nearly.”

  He slides behind the wheel as I get into the passenger seat. We’re traveling light. Heading to New Mexico.

  “You ready for this?” he asks.

  “Not at all,” I reply.

  “Yeah,” he says. “Me neither.”

  And we’re off.

  If we weren’t traveling incognito, trying to avoid detection by taking side roads, we could’ve made the trip to the base in three days. As it is, the trip takes almost a week.

  I don’t mind the extra time.

  Sitting beside Malcolm in the passenger seat, it occurs to me that we may be driving towards our own ends. That just as I had to say good-bye to One, I may have to say good-bye to Malcolm. Right when I thought I’d found a father figure, I now find myself embarking on what could be a suicide mission with him. I can’t be Malcolm’s son. He already has a son, and—for better or worse—I have a father. But I can help save Sam.

  I remember what One said to me, that she’d pegged me for a hero, wanted me to try for “great” things.

  Well, it turns out a hero’s lot is not glory or reward, but sacrifice. I’m still not sure I’m ready for that. I’d be happy if this car trip lasted forever. But soon enough we’ll cross the border into New
Mexico and be only hours away from the base.

  A big part of me doesn’t want to go find Sam. If I can’t have a normal life, I want to stay with Malcolm, living on the edges of society and evading the Mogs.

  But I know that’s not possible.

  I know what we’re doing is what must be done.

  We’re at the fenced edge of the Dulce base. We parked out in the desert at dusk and crossed the still hot sands to the electrified perimeter fence, which is a quarter mile or so from the compound itself. Malcolm explained that he knew how to find the base from his alien-conspiracy days, long before he’d known anything about Mogadorians or Loric, when his awareness of extraterrestrials was limited to conspiracy newsletters and countless viewings of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The Dulce base was a lightning rod for crazed speculation about governmental cover-ups of alien life. The irony, he said, is that all that speculation must have predated any actual human contact with the real extraterrestrials by several years. Until recently, it probably was just a military base. “Guess me and my wacko friends were ahead of our time,” he joked.

  We crouch low to the ground, figuring there are surveillance cameras surrounding the fence. We’ve approached at the rear edge of the compound, far away from the base’s entrance. Malcolm thinks security might be a little more diffuse at this end of the base.

  For all of Malcolm’s knowledge from old newsletters, not to mention the tiny bit of preparatory research we did at an internet café en route, there’s only so much you can find out about a secret government base through public channels. We’re mostly going in blind.

  Malcolm pulls out a crappy pair of binoculars we bought at a truck stop and scans the facility.

  After a moment he taps me, pointing out a watchtower a few hundred yards down the fence. Squinting through the evening’s half-light, I can see a generator a few paces off from the watchtower. We can only hope that generator powers the fence. If I can hit it with my Legacy, it’s our one chance of getting inside.

  “Tower’s got to be three hundred yards … no, four hundred yards away.”

  “Yeah,” I say. I start pounding my fist into my hand, a little pre-Legacy ritual I picked up. It doesn’t make any sense that warming up my hands would help with my accuracy—the power comes from deep inside me, from my core, not from my hands—but it’s become habit by now.