I shake my head. “Look, when all this is over, if you two want to lock yourselves in a steel cage and work your shit out once and for all, that’ll be fine with me. But right now, we can’t waste any more time.”
Nine frowns and falls silent. Five keeps on staring at me like he can see right through me. After a second, he clicks his tongue.
“What a difference a day makes,” Five says. Then he addresses Nine like I’m not even in the room. “Yesterday he was doing everything he could to keep us from killing each other, remember? The Boy Scout. Now it’s all changed.” He fixes me with a smile that looks almost proud. “I see that look in your eyes, John. You weren’t ready before, but now you are.”
“Ready for what?” I ask, inwardly kicking myself for how easily I took the bait.
“For war,” Five replies. “Ready to do whatever’s necessary to win. Maybe ready to do more than what’s necessary, hmm?” He looks at Nine again. “You see it, too, don’t you? He’s like us now. Bloodthirsty.”
Nine doesn’t immediately respond. He’s got an uncertain look on his face; and, I realize, despite his hatred for Five, what’s just been said about me has struck a chord. How could I not be changed after what’s happened? If I’m bloodthirsty, if I’m willing to do whatever it takes to end Setrákus Ra, well, I’m not ashamed of that.
I ignore the entire exchange and look Five in his one eye. “I need you to teach me to fly,” I say.
Five concentrates for a moment and then he floats up from the cushioned floor. Cross-legged and with his shaved head, hovering four feet off the ground, he looks like a twisted version of a monk.
“This what you want?” he asks.
I study the way he floats. “It isn’t enough.”
He frowns at me. “You’ve got the copycat Legacy like Pittacus Lore, right? I saw what you did in New York with the new girl and her stone eyes. You just had to observe her Legacy. So, observe.”
It wasn’t as simple as Five seems to think. First of all, I was desperate. That always seems to help when it comes to mastering Legacies. I could also feel the power building when I tried to heal Daniela’s headache. My Ximic tapped directly into her budding Legacy, and I could actually sense how it worked. I think that’s why I was able to copy Marina’s healing Legacy without even knowing what I was doing and why I was able to re-create Six’s invisibility without too many problems. I’ve actually felt those Legacies before, had them used on me, touched the power. Watching Five float around like a sociopathic Buddha isn’t nearly hands-on enough.
“With Daniela, it was heat of the moment. Plus, I could sense how the Legacy worked,” I explain to Five. “Staring at you isn’t going to do me any good.”
“I’ve flown you around before,” Five reminds me. “Back on the first day we met. Don’t you remember what it felt like?”
“Probably like being carried around by a chubby ass hat,” Nine offers unhelpfully.
Ignoring Nine, I close my eyes and try to recall what it was like flying with Five. The feeling of weightlessness, my legs dangling, the idea that he might drop me at any second . . .
I look down at my feet, unsurprised to find them still on the floor.
“I remember what it was like to be carried,” I say. “That’s a lot different than actually propelling myself up in the air.”
Five gets a thoughtful look. It’s almost nostalgic. Not something I’ve ever seen before on his usually rage-filled face.
“Flying is a lot like telekinesis,” Five says after a moment. “Like how you visualize an object you want to move floating through the air. How you imagine making that happen and it happens. You guys did that crap a million times just like me, right?”
Nine and I both murmur agreement.
“Well, imagine you’re doing that to your own body,” Five continues. He jerks against his straitjacket suddenly and frowns. He was trying to spread his arms and forgot that they were strapped tight across his chest. “Hold out your arms and imagine strings underneath them, pulling you up.”
“Like a puppet,” Nine says.
“Like an actor in a show,” Five answers, glowering. “Rising up above the stage. Graceful.”
“Even lamer,” Nine says.
“Try it, John,” Five says gently. “Hold out your arms. Imagine you’re safely attached to the wires. Imagine your telekinesis can manipulate those wires and then stop imagining and do it.”