Nine's Legacy (7 page)

The van is riding hard on our tail, trying to grind us off the road. Other cars let loose whining honks as we speed down the middle of the road. Maddy looks over her shoulder, staring in horror at the van bearing down on us and its stone-faced driver.

“They’re right behind us.” Her voice is almost a whisper. Her hand is clutching my arm, nails digging right through my shirt. “Why is this happening?”

I don’t respond; there’s no lie I can think of that could possibly explain it.

With sweaty fingers, I flick open a hidden panel on the steering wheel. Sandor planned for this sort of thing.

“Sit back,” I warn. Maddy looks at me, her frightened expression apparently not reserved just for the Mogs.

I hit the button for nitrous oxide.

The convertible’s engine roars and then bucks and for a moment I’m worried the car can’t handle Sandor’s modification. Then, with a gut punch of pressure, it screams forward.

We’re going way over the speed limit. I’m too afraid to check the speedometer, keeping my eyes pinned to the road as I weave through traffic. Maddy is glued to her seat, terrified. Seeing us coming, other cars try to move out of the way. Red traffic lights fly by. I hear a siren and, briefly, blue lights flash across my rearview, but any cops are outdistanced before they can even make out my license plate. We’re a blur.

I keep driving until my iMog stops vibrating, and then I swing the car into a secluded alley and kill the lights.

My body hums with adrenaline. I can’t believe what I just did, evading a pack of Mogs in a high-speed chase like something out of a movie. I’m an action hero. A mixture of euphoria and relief hits me.

And I don’t really know where the next part comes from. Maybe it’s pure adrenaline or maybe I’m just going totally crazy. But before I even realize I’m doing it, I lean into Maddy and start to kiss her.

I guess it wasn’t the right thing to do.

“You bastard!” Maddy cries, pushing me away. She throws open her door, knocking over some nearby trash cans. In the dim light of the alley I can see that her beautiful face is streaked with tears.

Stunned from her reaction, I don’t say anything as she runs out of the alley.

Alone in Sandor’s banged-up convertible, I’m left to ponder the adventure-filled life of a Loric hero.

Chapter Seventeen

I abandon the convertible in the alley and head back to the John Hancock building on foot. I stick to side streets and back alleys as much as possible. My iMog never vibrates. Wherever those Mogs came from, they’re gone now.

I call Sandor and tell him what happened. I catch him as he was on his way to try and find me—just as I suspected, he was monitoring me the whole time and freaking out.

It’s past midnight when I make it back home. Sandor is waiting for me outside the building.

“What the hell?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” I say. “They just appeared.”

“A high-speed chase through the middle of Chicago? What were you thinking?”

“It was the only way.”

Sandor groans, dismissing that with a wave of his hand.

“You’re acting like a child.”

“You said there weren’t any Mogs in the city,” I protest.

“So stupid,” he says. “I was so stupid to let you take that car. To even let you out of my sight. All because of some girl.”

“She’s fine, by the way,” I snap.

“Who cares?” Sandor hisses, getting right in my face. “She doesn’t matter.
You
matter. Do you understand what you’ve put at stake? The years of progress you’ve undone in one night, all for some stupid crush?”

I take a step away from him. “Don’t talk about her that way.” He’s being such a hypocrite. He was the one who wanted me to go after Maddy in the first place.

Sandor rubs his hands over his face, exasperated.

“Where did you leave the car?”

I give him the rough address of the alley.

“It needs to be destroyed,” he says, “our presence here minimized. I’ll handle that. You—you go upstairs and pack a bag.”

“What? Why?”

“We’re leaving in the morning.”

I was close. So close to having a life that was more than just Sandor, more than just training.

I pace around the penthouse, letting my gaze drift aimlessly across all the luxuries we’ve amassed over the last five years. Five years living here in peace and comfort—all ruined because I was bored. When I killed that Mog in the elevator, I thought things would change. I thought that I would assume my destiny and begin the war against the Mogadorians. I thought that would make me happy.

Instead, it’s only made things worse.

What felt best about killing that Mog wasn’t that some small justice was done. It was that I had chosen how and when to do it. It was my choice.

And yet now my options are fewer than ever. Sandor wants us back on the road, just when I was starting to figure things out. It doesn’t seem right that he should get to call all the shots.

Shouldn’t I get some say in our next move?

I can’t bring myself to pack a bag. I’m still clinging to some hope that Sandor will change his mind.

I try to call Maddy, but her phone goes right to voice mail. Not that I would know what to say if she did answer. What kind of lie could I tell her? I spend the better part of an hour trying to compose an apology for nearly getting her killed, for scaring her, and for not even realizing that I was doing it.

In the end, I settle on texting a simple “I’m sorry.”

There’s going to be no sleep for me tonight.

I pass through Sandor’s workshop and into the Lecture Hall. There are automated training modules programmed into the room’s interface. I select one at random and stride into the center of the room, holding my pipe-staff.

When the first ball bearing fires out of the Lectern’s turret I don’t deflect it with my telekinesis or bat it away with my pipe-staff. I let it hit me right in the chest. I suck in my breath as dull pain courses through my sternum.

Gritting my teeth, I clasp my hands behind my back and lean forward. The next ball bearing strikes me a few inches to the left of the first, bruising my ribs.

When the third ball bearing is fired, my instincts take over. I push it aside with my telekinesis and pivot to the side, anticipating the next shot. I spin my pipe-staff over my head as the program really gears up, heavy bags swinging at me from behind, a mechanical tentacle grasping at me from the floor.

My mind turns off. I fight.

I’m not sure how long I keep going like that, dodging and swinging, acting instead of thinking. Eventually I’m dripping with sweat, my shirt completely soaked through. It’s then that the Lecture Hall’s patterns change; the attacks become less predictable, more coordinated than the auto-program could pull off.

I realize that Sandor has returned and climbed into the Lectern’s seat, his fingers dancing across the control panel.

Our eyes meet as I leap over a metal-plated battering ram. His look is one of sadness and disappointment.

“You didn’t pack,” he says.

I square my shoulders and glare at him in defiance.
Go ahead,
I want to tell him,
throw everything you can at me. I can take it.

I’m going to prove to Sandor that I’m not his young ward anymore.

“I suppose one last training session before we leave won’t hurt,” Sandor says.

A glimmering tennis ball
–
sized object floats up from the floor, emitting a disorienting strobe light. It makes the next round of projectiles harder to see, but I manage to catch them in the air, using my mind to hold them inches from my bruised chest.

“That hasn’t been decided yet,” I say evenly as I launch one of the projectiles at the flashing ball, exploding it. It clatters to the floor, blinking out.

“What hasn’t been decided?” he asks.

“That we’re leaving.”

“No?”

A pair of heavy bags careen toward me, quickly followed by another volley of ball bearings. I swing the pipe-staff as hard as I can at one of them, my muscles screaming in protest. The pipe-staff shreds through the bag, sending sand spilling onto the floor.

One of the ball bearings strikes me in the hip, but I catch the others and hurl them back the way they came. The turrets in the wall hiss and pop when the ball bearings reenter their barrels the wrong way. There’s a short puff of smoke and then they hang dormant.

“I get a vote,” I tell him. “And I vote we stay.”

“That’s impossible,” Sandor replies. “You don’t understand what’s at stake. You’re not thinking clearly.”

Three drones deploy from the floor. I’ve never fought that many at once before. One is the propeller-powered toaster that just days ago we were trying out on the roof. The others I haven’t seen before. They’re the size of soccer balls, metal plated, with scopes attached to the front.

The toaster bobs in front of me, distracting me as the other two flank me. When they’re in position, the soccer balls emit two bursts of electricity, jolting me.

I retreat toward the back of the room, the drones zapping at me. My ears are ringing from the last shock. The drones close in, pursuing me. I’m running out of room.

Before I realize what I’m doing, I run up the wall. My aim was to flip off the wall, to land behind the drones, but something is different. I don’t feel gravity pulling at me. I plant my feet.

I’m standing on the wall. Except for a sudden feeling of vertigo, it feels no different than standing on the ground.

My Legacy. I’ve developed one of my Legacies.

Staring at me, Sandor is too stunned to adjust the course of the drones. The toaster crashes into the wall. From above, I swing my pipe-staff down on the two floating soccer balls, destroying them both.

Sandor lets out a cry of triumph.

“Do you see?” he shouts. “Do you see what you’re capable of? My young ward gets an upgrade!”

“Upgrade?” I growl.

I run up the rest of the wall and onto the ceiling. The room turns upside down. I sprint across the ceiling that’s now the floor to me, gathering up a head of steam. When I’m right above Sandor and the Lectern I jump, twist in midair, and bring my pipe-staff shearing down on the Lectern.

The control panel explodes in a waterfall of sparks. Sandor dives aside, grunting as he lands hard on his shoulder. My pipe-staff has carved deep into the front of the Lectern, practically cutting it in two. It lets out a series of ear-splitting mechanical squawks, and then the Lecture Hall goes dark.

“I’m not one of your gadgets,” I shout into the darkness. “You don’t get to just control me.”

Starbursts of light flash across my vision as my eyes try to adjust to the darkness. I can’t quite see Sandor, but I can hear him shakily climb to his feet.

“I don’t—I don’t think that,” Sandor says. I’m thankful I can’t see his face, the hurt plain enough in his voice. “Everything I’ve ever done, all these years—” He stops, searching for words.

As I come back down to earth, the memories of the night come back to me. I realize what I’ve done.

“Nine. . . .” I feel Sandor’s hand on my shoulder. “I—”

I don’t want to hear this. I shrug his hand roughly away and run.

Chapter Eighteen

The sun is beginning to rise. The air is still cool, chilling my skin under my sweat-dampened T-shirt. I fled the John Hancock building with nothing but the clothes on my back—the same clothes I wore on my ruined date the night before—and my cell phone and iMog tucked into my back pockets.

A part of me knows that I’ll need to go back to Sandor eventually. But right now, I’m ignoring that part as hard as I can.

I want to know how long I can last out here on my own. The day is just beginning. I can do anything I choose with it.

I feel like Spider-Man, using my newest legacy to stand on the outside of an anonymous Chicago skyscraper, fifty stories up. Beneath my feet, inside the windows, the office building’s automatic lights are coming on. I gaze down at the streets below, the city just starting to wake up.

Thanks to my antigravity Legacy, I’m seeing Chicago from angles I never imagined.

I sprint across the skyscraper’s windows, then jump across the narrow gap between buildings. On the next building I jog upward, bounding over a stone gargoyle until I’m balancing right on the roof ledge. I walk across the ledge, my arms spread out like a tightrope walker, even though there’s no chance of me losing my balance. Hundreds of feet above the ground and it’s as if I’m on the sidewalk.

This would have come in handy that first day at the Windy Wall.

Across the street, I catch sight of an executive type settling in behind his desk with his morning coffee. That’s my signal to rein it in. I don’t need Sandor around to tell me it’d be a bad idea to be seen strolling around on the sides of buildings.

I hop onto the roof. For a while I just sit and watch the sun coming up. I’ve got no place to be. It’s peaceful. When the sun hangs in full view above me, the noise of the city below increasing to rush hour decibels, I decide to check my cell phone.

Three voice mails and four text messages. All of them from Sandor.

I delete them.

Suddenly I’m very tired. I didn’t sleep at all last night. It’s a nice day and there’s a sense of calm on this rooftop. My eyelids start to feel heavy.

I curl up in a shady spot near the edge of the precipice. The roof is hard but my body is too exhausted to do much complaining.

For some reason, my mind drifts to the dream I had of Lorien. I think about the way I flung myself at Sandor, getting us both all muddy, and the way he lifted me into the air afterward, grinning. That was a nice memory. I hope I dream it again.

I don’t dream at all. It’s a deep sleep, and when I finally wake up the sun has almost set. I slept away the entire day. My body aches, both from the exertion of the night before and from passing out on a slab of hard rooftop.

Groaning and stretching, I sit up. I decide to check my cell phone again, even though I know what’s waiting for me.

More voice mails and texts from Sandor, the texts increasingly panicked as he begs me to let him know where I am, that I’m all right. My stomach turns over with guilt. I’ll let him know eventually, I decide. I just need more time.