United as One (3 page)

THIS ROOM REMINDS ME OF THE KIND OF PLACES
that Henri and I used to stay in during the early days. Old roadside motels that the owners hadn't updated since the seventies. The walls are wood paneled, and the carpet is an olive-green shag, the bed underneath me stiff and musty. A bureau rests against one wall, the drawers filled with a mixture of clothing, different sizes and different genders, all of it generic and dated. The room doesn't have a TV, but it does have a radio with a clock that uses those old-school paper numbers that flip around, every minute punctuated by a dry slap.

4:33 A.M.

4:34 A.M.

4:35 A.M.

I sit here in the Patience Creek Bed & Breakfast and listen to the time pass by.

On the wall across from my bed, there's a painting that looks like a window. There aren't any actual windows, on account of the room being located deep underground, so I suppose the designers did the best they could. The scene in my fake window is bright and sunny, with tall, green grass blowing in the wind and the indistinct shape of a woman in the distance clutching a hat to her head.

I don't know why they made the room look like this. Maybe it was meant to convey a sense of normalcy. If that's the case, it isn't working. Instead, the room seems to magnify every poisonous emotion you'd expect staying in a scuzzy motel by yourself—loneliness, desperation, failure.

I've got plenty of those emotions on my own.

Here's what this room has that some dump off the interstate doesn't. The painting on the wall? It slides aside, and behind it is a bank of monitors that broadcast security feeds from all around the Patience Creek Bed & Breakfast. There's a camera pointed at the front door of the quaint cabin that sits above this sprawling underground facility, another pointed at the serendipitously flat meadow with its hard-packed soil and perfectly maintained grass that just happens to be the exact dimensions necessary to land a medium-sized aircraft, and dozens of other feeds surveilling the property and what lies beneath. This place was built
by some very paranoid people who were planning for a potential invasion, a doomsday scenario.

They were expecting Russians, not Mogadorians. But even so, I guess their paranoia paid off.

Beneath the unassuming bed-and-breakfast located twenty-five miles south of Detroit, close to the shore of Lake Erie, are four subterranean levels so top secret they have been virtually forgotten. The Patience Creek facility was originally built by the CIA during the Cold War as a place for them to ride out a nuclear winter. It fell into disrepair over the last twenty-five years, and, according to our hosts in the US government, everyone who knew about it is either dead or retired, which means that no one leaked its existence to MogPro. Lucky for us a general named Clarence Lawson came out of retirement when the warships appeared and remembered that this place was down here.

The president of the United States and what's left of the Joint Chiefs of Staff aren't here; they're being kept someplace secure, probably someplace mobile, the location of which they aren't divulging even to us allied aliens. One of his handlers must have decided it wouldn't be safe for the president to be around us, so we're here with General Lawson, who reports only to him. In our conversation, the president told me he wanted to work together, that we had his full support against Setrákus Ra.

He said a lot of things, actually. The details are fuzzy in my memory. I was in shock when we spoke and not really listening. He seemed nice. Whatever.

I just want to finish this.

I've been awake since—well, I'm not exactly sure when. I know I should try to sleep, but every time I close my eyes I see Sarah's face. I see her face back on that first day at Paradise High School, half hidden behind a camera and then smiling as she finishes snapping my photo. And then my imagination takes over, and I see that same beautiful face pale and bloodied, lifeless, the way she must look now. I can't shake it. I open my eyes and there's a twisting pain in my gut, and I feel like I've got to curl up around the hurt.

Instead, I stay awake. This is what it's been like for the last few hours, alone in this strange place, trying to wear myself out to the point where I'll be able to sleep like, well . . . like the dead.

Practice. It's the only hope I have.

I sit on the bed and look at myself in the mirror that hangs over the bureau. My hair is getting a little long, and there are dark circles around my eyes. These things don't matter now. I stare at myself . . .

And then I disappear.

Reappear. Take a deep breath.

I go invisible again. This time I hold it for longer. For as long as I can. I stare at the empty space in the mirror
where my body should be and listen to the paper numbers on the clock tick by.

With Ximic, I should be able to copy any Legacy that I've encountered. It's just a matter of teaching myself how to use it, which is never easy, even when the Legacy comes naturally. Marina's healing, Six's invisibility, Daniela's stone gaze—these are the abilities I've picked up so far. I'm going to learn more, as many as I can. I'm going to train these new Legacies until they come as naturally to me as my Lumen. And then I'm going to repeat the process.

All this power, and only one thing to look forward to.

The destruction of every Mogadorian on Earth. Including and especially Setrákus Ra, if he's even still alive. Six thinks she might have killed him in Mexico, but I won't believe that until the Mogs surrender or I see a body. A part of me almost hopes he's still out there so that I can be the one to end the bastard.

A happy ending? That's out the window. I was stupid to ever believe in it.

Pittacus Lore, the last one, the one whose body we found hidden in Malcolm Goode's bunker, he had Ximic, too, but he didn't do enough. He couldn't stop the Mogadorian invasion of Lorien. When he had the chance to kill Setrákus Ra all those centuries ago, he couldn't do that either.

History will not repeat itself.

I hear footsteps in the hallway that stop right outside my door.

Even though they speak softly and even though I'm listening through a reinforced steel door, with my enhanced senses, I can still hear every word Daniela and Sam say.

“Maybe we should just let him rest,” Daniela says. I'm not used to hearing her speak in such a gentle tone. Usually, Daniela's a mix of abrasive and gung ho. In just a couple of days, she's completely left behind her old life and joined our war. Although she didn't have much choice considering the Mogs burned her old life to the ground.

Another human swept up in our war.

“You don't know him. There's no way he's sleeping in there,” Sam replies, his voice hoarse.

Sitting in this stale room, reflecting on the past and the damage I've caused, I started to wonder: How would Sam's life be different if Henri and I had chosen Cleveland or Akron or somewhere else instead of Paradise? Would he still have gotten Legacies? I'd be worse off, maybe dead, without him. That's for sure.

Sarah would still be alive, though, if we'd never met.

“Uh, okay, I'm not really talking about him getting a good night's sleep. Dude's a superhero alien; for all I know he sleeps three hours a night hanging from the
ceiling,” Daniela replies to Sam.

“He sleeps same as we do.”

“Whatever. Point is, maybe he needs some space, you know? To work his shit out? And he'll come to us when he's ready. When he's . . .”

“No. He'd want to know,” Sam says, and then knocks softly on my door.

I'm off the bed in a flash to open the door. Sam's right about me, of course. Whatever's happening, I want to know. I want to be distracted. I want forward momentum.

Sam blinks when the door opens and stares right through me. “John?”

It takes me a second to realize that I'm still invisible. When I appear from thin air in front of them, Daniela stumbles back a step. “Goddamn.”

Sam barely arches an eyebrow. His eyes are red rimmed. He seems too worn-out to be surprised.

“Sorry,” I say. “Working on my invisibility.”

“The others are about ten minutes out,” Sam tells me. “I knew you would want to be there when they land.”

I nod and close my door behind me.

The illusion of a motel disappears as soon as I'm outside my room. The hallway beyond, more like a tunnel really, is all austere white walls and cold halogen lights. It reminds me of the facility underneath Ashwood
Estates, except this place was built by humans.

“I got a VCR in my room,” Daniela says, trying to make conversation as the three of us walk down one of the identical hallways in this mazelike complex. When neither Sam nor me immediately responds, she presses on. “You guys got VCRs? Shit's crazy, right? I haven't seen a VCR in years.”

Sam looks at me before answering. “I found a Game Boy wedged under my mattress.”

“Damn! Want to trade?”

“It's got no batteries.”

“Never mind.”

I can hear the distant hum of generators, the buzz of tools and the grunts of men working. The one drawback of Patience Creek being so under the radar is that a lot of its systems aren't what you'd call updated. For security reasons General Lawson had decided they should run a stripped-down operation here. With everything going on, there's not exactly time to call in civilian contractors. Still, there's got to be almost a hundred army engineers working around the clock to bring the place up to date. When we arrived late last night, I saw that Sam's dad, Malcolm, was already here, helping a crew of electricians install some of the Mogadorian tech recovered from Ashwood Estates. As far as the army is concerned, Malcolm's basically an expert on the extraterrestrial.

Sam and Daniela's conversation has trailed off, and I quickly realize that it's because of me. I'm silent, eyes straight ahead, and I'm pretty sure my expression is stuck in neutral. They don't know how to talk to me anymore.

“John, I—” Sam puts a hand on my shoulder, and I can tell he's going to say something about Sarah. I know what happened to her hurt him bad, too. They grew up together. But I don't want to have that conversation right now. I don't want to give in to grieving until this is over.

I force a halfhearted smile. “Did they give you any tapes for that VCR?” I ask Daniela, clumsily changing the subject.

“
WrestleMania III
,” she says, and makes a face.

“Hell yeah, I'll be by to pick that up later, Danny,” Nine says, emerging from one of the many hallways with a grin.

Out of all of us, Nine looks the most rested. It's only been about a day since he and Five brawled all over New York City. I healed the big goon back in New York, and his own superhuman stamina has apparently done the rest. He pats Sam and me hard on the back and joins our procession down the hallway. Of course, Nine acts like there's nothing wrong at all, and, honestly, I prefer it that way.

As we pass by, I glance down the hallway Nine came
from. There are four heavily armed soldiers there, standing guard.

“Everything squared away?” I ask Nine.

“Yeah, Johnny,” Nine replies. “They got some pretty whacked-out prison cells in this place, including one that's straight up padded walls. With Chubby tethered to some cushions and strapped into a straitjacket, he ain't going anywhere.”

“Good,” Sam says.

I nod in agreement. Five is a complete psychopath and deserves to be locked up. But if I'm being brutally practical about winning this war, I'm not sure how long we can afford to keep him in a cage.

We round a corner, and the elevator bank comes into view. Overhead, the halogen lights buzz loudly, and I notice Sam pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Man, do I miss your penthouse, Nine,” Sam says. “Was the only hideout we ever had with mellow lighting.”

“Yeah, I miss it too,” Nine replies, a note of nostalgia creeping into his voice.

“This place is already giving me a serious migraine. Should've gotten some dimmer switches to go with those VCRs.”

There's a crackle of electricity over our heads, and one of the bulbs flickers out. The hallway lighting is suddenly a whole lot more tolerable. Everyone except
for me pauses to look up.

“Well, that was weirdly timed,” says Daniela.

“Better, though, isn't it?” Sam says with a sigh.

I hit the button to call the elevator. The others gather around behind me.

“So, they're, uh . . . they're bringing her back here?” Nine asks, his voice lowered, being about as tactful as he can manage.

“Yeah,” I say, thinking about the Loric ship right now descending towards Patience Creek, filled with our friends and allies, and the lost love of my life.

“That's good,” Nine says, then coughs into his hand. “I mean, not good. But we can, you know, say good-bye.”

“We get it, Nine,” Sam says gently. “He knows what you mean.”

I nod, not prepared to say anything else. The elevator doors open in front of us, and when they do, the words come spilling out.

“This is the last time,” I say, not turning around to face the others. The words feel like ice in my mouth. “I'm done saying good-bye to people we love. I'm done with sentiment. Done with grieving. Starting today, we kill until we win.”

TWISTED METAL SHRIEKS BY OVERHEAD. CLUMPS
of dirt and ash batter my face, the wind whips at what feels like one hundred miles per hour, and I throw everything I have into it. Blaster fire sears across my legs. I ignore it. A jagged strut from an exploded Mogadorian Skimmer crashes into the dirt next to me. Only a few feet closer and I would have been impaled.

I ignore that too. I'll die here, if that's what it takes.

Across an empty pit where the Sanctuary used to stand, Setrákus Ra staggers up the ramp of his warship. I can't let him make it back on board the
Anubis
. I shove out with my telekinesis, and I don't care about the consequences. I hurl every goddamn thing at him, and he pushes back. I feel his power strain against mine like two invisible tidal waves crashing together, sending up a spray of metal parts and dirt and stone.

“Die, die, die . . .”

Sarah Hart is next to me. She screams something into my ear that I can't hear over the roar of the battle. She grabs my shoulder and starts to shake me.

“Die, die, die . . .”

“Six!”

I gasp and wake up. It isn't Sarah shaking my shoulder. It's Lexa, our pilot, seated behind the controls. Through the windshield, I can barely make out the peaceful countryside zipping by underneath us. In the glow of the control panel, I can see a look of concern on Lexa's face.

“What is it?” I ask, still groggy as I gently push her hand away.

“You were talking in your sleep,” Lexa replies, and goes back to looking straight ahead, our flight path mapped out on the screen before her.

My feet are up on the dashboard, my knees tucked in close to my chest. My toes are all pins and needles. I set my feet down on the floor and sit up straight, then strain my eyes into the darkness outside. Just as I do, the countryside drops away and is replaced by the blue-black water of Lake Erie.

“How close are we to the coordinates Malcolm sent us?” I ask Lexa.

“Close,” she replies. “About ten minutes out.”

“And you're sure we lost them?”

“I'm sure, Six. I ditched the last of the Skimmers over Texas. The
Anubis
broke off before that. Seemed like the
warship didn't want to keep up the chase.”

I rub my hands across my face and through my sticky tangle of hair. The
Anubis
stopped chasing us. Why? Because they had to rush Setrákus Ra somewhere? Because he was dying? Or maybe already dead?

I know I hurt him. I saw that metal bar pierce that bastard's chest. Not many could survive that injury. But this is Setrákus Ra. There's no telling how fast he heals or what technology he's got at his disposal to nurse him back to health. It went straight into his heart, though. I saw it. I know I got him.

“He has to be dead,” I say quietly. “He has to be.”

I unstrap from the copilot's seat and stand up. Lexa grabs hold of my forearm before I can leave the cockpit.

“Six, you did what you had to do,” she says firmly. “What you thought was best. No matter what happens, if Setrákus Ra is dead or alive . . .”

“If he's alive, then Sarah died for nothing,” I reply.

“Not for nothing,” Lexa says. “She pulled you out of there. She saved you.”

“She should've saved herself.”

“She didn't think so. She— Look, I hardly knew the girl. But it seemed to me that she knew what was at stake. She knew that we're fighting a war. And in war there are sacrifices. Casualties.”

“Easy for us to say. We're alive.” I bite my lip and pull my arm away from Lexa. “You think— Shit, Lexa. You
think any of that cold-ass pragmatic talk is going to make it easier for the others? For John?”

“Has anything ever been easy for any of you?” Lexa asks, looking up at me. “Why would it start now? This is the end, Six. One way or the other, we're closing in on the end. You do what has to be done, and you feel bad about it later.”

I exit the cockpit with Lexa's words ringing in my ears. I want to feel anger. Who is she to tell me how to act? The Mogs weren't hunting her. She hid for years without ever trying to contact us. She only showed up now because she realized how desperate our situation had become, that it was all hands on deck. Telling me what to feel.

Thing is, she's right. She's right, because the truth is, I wouldn't change what I did. I'd take my shot at Setrákus Ra, even knowing what would happen to Sarah. Potentially billions of lives are on the line.

I had to do it.

In the main cabin, someone has used the touch-screen walls to command cots to emerge from the floor. Those are the same cots we slept on all those years ago when we first came to Earth. I carved my number into one of them.

Sarah's body rests on that one, because the universe has a sick sense of humor.

Mark sits next to Sarah's cot, chin against his chest, asleep. His face is puffy, and he's covered in dried blood, like pretty much all of us. He hasn't left Sarah's side since
it all went down. Frankly, I'm glad he's finally asleep. I couldn't handle many more of the accusatory looks the guy has been throwing around. I know he's angry and hurting, but I can't wait to get off this cramped ship and away from him.

Bernie Kosar lies on the floor next to Mark. He watches me emerge from the cockpit and quietly stands. The beagle comes over and nuzzles against my leg, whining quietly. I reach down to scratch absently behind his ears.

“Thanks, boy,” I whisper, and BK whines again, softly.

I move farther back. Ella is curled up on one of the cots, her face turned towards the wall. My gaze lingers on her for a second, just long enough to make sure that she's still breathing. Ella was the first person I watched die yesterday, except she somehow managed to come back to life. When she tossed herself into that pillar of Loric energy at the Sanctuary, she broke the charm that Setrákus Ra had placed on her. Apparently, there are side effects to bathing in a bunch of Loric energy and briefly dying. Ella's returned to us as . . . well, I'm not entirely sure.

At the very back of the ship, I find Adam sitting on the edge of another cot. Looking at the dark circles around his eyes and his increasingly pale skin, I know for sure that Adam hasn't slept. Instead, he's been keeping his eye on Marina. She's strapped down on the same cot Adam sits on, her eyes closed, her face horribly bruised, blood still crusted around her nostrils. Setrákus Ra smashed her into
the ground over and over, and she hasn't regained consciousness since. She's holding on, though, and hopefully John will be able to heal whatever's wrong with her.

Adam manages a weak smile as I sit down across from him. Another one of our wounded friends is bundled in his arms. Dust was nearly killed back at the Sanctuary. Although he's still twitchy and weak, Dust has regained some of his movement and has at least managed to change his shape into that of a wolf cub. Not exactly ferocious, but a step in the right direction.

“Hey, doc,” I say to Adam, keeping my voice quiet.

He snorts. “You'd be surprised how little practical medical training we Mogadorians receive. It's not a priority when most of your soldiers are disposable.” Adam turns his head to regard Marina. “Her pulse is strong, though. Even I can tell that.”

I nod. That's exactly what I wanted to hear. I reach across the gap between us and scratch Dust on his nose. One of his back legs starts to pump in response, though I'm not sure if it's from enjoyment or the lingering effects of his electroshock.

“He's looking a little better,” I say to Adam.

“Yeah, he'll be howling at the moon in no time,” Adam replies, looking me over as he does. “What about you? How are you feeling?”

“Like shit.”

“I'm sorry I couldn't do more,” Adam says. When the
battle at the Sanctuary came to an end, it was Adam and Mark who got Marina onto Lexa's ship before Setrákus Ra could finish her off. That's how it came to be me and Sarah facing Setrákus Ra alone.

“You did enough. You saved Marina. Got her back here. I . . .”

My gaze involuntarily drifts towards Sarah. Adam clears his throat to get my attention back. His eyes lock onto mine, wide and steady.

“That wasn't your fault,” he says firmly.

“Hearing that doesn't make it easier.”

“It still needed saying.” Now it's Adam's turn to break eye contact. He looks over at Ella's huddled body and frowns. “I hope you killed him, Six. The thing is, knowing you, if you'd have known the consequences, you would have stopped.”

I don't interrupt Adam, even though what he's saying about me might not be true. It's weird to feel hope that I killed Setrákus Ra at the same time as the guilt for what happened to Sarah, all of it worsened by an undercurrent of dread that I accomplished nothing at all. I'm a mess.

“I respect that about you guys,” Adam continues. “Most of you Garde, it's like they built strength and compassion into you. It's the opposite for my people. I . . . I would've pressed on no matter what happened.”

Back at the Sanctuary, Adam had a moment when he'd got the drop on Setrákus Ra. This was back before
Ella broke the charm that bound her life to her evil great-grandfather's. Even knowing that it would kill Ella, Adam went right for Setrákus Ra's jugular.

“Your people,” Adam continues after a moment, “you consider the costs, you mourn your losses, you try to do what's right. I envy that. The ability to know what's right without—without having to fight against your nature.”

“You're more like us than you realize,” I tell him.

“I'd like to think that,” Adam replies. “But sometimes I don't know.”

“We all regret things,” I say. “It's not a matter of nature. It's a matter of moving on and being better.”

Adam opens his mouth to respond, but no words come out. He's looking past me. A soft blue glow emanates from over my shoulder.

I turn around to see Ella has sat up on her cot. She still crackles with Loric energy, her brown eyes completely replaced by roiling orbs of cobalt blue. When she speaks, her voice has that odd echoing quality, like it did when Legacy was speaking through her.

“You don't have to feel guilty,” she tells Adam. “I knew what you were going to do as soon as I got off the
Anubis
. I was rooting for you.”

Adam stares at Ella. “I didn't—I didn't even know what I was going to do when you got off the
Anubis
.”

“Oh, you did.”

Adam looks away, clearly uncomfortable under Ella's
stare. If he's relieved that Ella let him off the hook for what happened at the Sanctuary, it doesn't show.

“And Six.” She turns to me now. “As she left this world, Sarah thought about many things. Mostly about John and her family. But also she thought about you, and how she was glad you would be here to take care of John and the rest of us.”

“You were in her head when she died?” I ask Ella, still trying to get a grip on her new and expanded Legacies.

She pinches the bridge of her nose and shuts her eyes, which causes the room to get a little darker. “I'm still getting used to what I can do. It is hard sometimes to . . . tune out.”

“Is that all she was thinking about?”

The question comes from Mark. I'm not sure how long he's been awake and listening to our conversation. He looks at Ella with desperate hope, and I notice that his lower lip shakes. Ella looks back at him coolly, and I wonder if some emotional wiring got fried during her encounter with Legacy.

“What do you really want to ask me, Mark?” Ella says calmly.

“I . . . nothing. It's not important,” Mark replies, looking back down at the floor.

“You crossed her mind, too, Mark,” Ella says.

Mark swallows hard when he hears this and nods, trying not to show any emotion. Studying Ella, I'm not
sure if she's telling the truth or just trying to make Mark feel better. Her electric eyes are unreadable.

“We're here,” Lexa announces over the intercom. “I'm bringing us down.”

Lexa lands the ship in a wide-open field next to a small log cabin. Looking out the window at the place, it's hard to believe that this is where the government is planning its counterattack against the Mogadorians. I guess that's sort of the point. With the sun just beginning to rise over Lake Erie, pink flares of light bend across the surface of the water. It's a tranquil scene and would look totally like some hippie yoga retreat if not for the presence of the armed soldiers and their Humvees camouflaged in the tree line.

There are two groups waiting for us outside the cabin and, even in my rattled state, it's easy to read the situation based on the distance between the factions. The first group is our people—John, Sam, Nine, Malcolm, and a girl who I recognize from Ella's telepathic summit but whose name I don't know. Behind them, separated by about thirty yards, is a contingent of military personnel who watch our ship with keen interest. It seems to me that even though the military is working together with the Garde, they're still very much keeping an eye on us. Together, but apart.

In that group of soldiers, I recognize Agent Walker. As I watch, she nervously stubs out a cigarette and turns to answer a question posed by the older man standing next to
her. He's clearly in charge. The guy sports a silver buzz cut and a leathery tan, like they just pulled him away from the golf course. He looks like one of those senior citizens who's still out there running marathons, all rigid posture and stringy muscles. He wears formal military attire covered with a stupid amount of medals. He's surrounded by a half dozen soldiers with assault rifles—for our protection, I'm sure. Two guys in his retinue stand out; they're twins if I'm not mistaken, and look to be about my age, too young to really be enlisted soldiers, although they wear the starched light-blue uniforms of cadets.