My only choice is to turn away.
The techs are so absorbed by the action, they don’t hear when the station monitoring internet activity chimes. I inch my chair over to the screen, squinting at a red-flagged blog posting.
It reads: Nine, now eight. Are the rest of you out there?
CHAPTER 16
It takes only a few keystrokes to isolate the blog posting’s IP address—it’s here in London. The techs aren’t paying any attention to me, especially now that calls for tactical support are coming in. Hoyle is proving to be one hell of a distraction.
A few keystrokes more and I’ve pinpointed the location to an address only a few blocks from the Mogadorian base.
I’ve discovered the location of a fugitive Garde. Not the General, not Ivan. Me. For a moment, I feel a swelling of pride. Take that, Ivan. I guess growing big and strong doesn’t count for everything after all.
Now, what do I do with this information?
I should turn the Garde’s location over to the techs, have them call my father back from battle. It would mean major glory for myself and my family, and another step for Mogadorian progress.
It’s what I was raised to do. And I almost do it. But as soon as the thrill of discovery passes, I realize I don’t want that at all.
I want to help this Garde. Maybe I can prevent another scene like Malaysia.
Wait. Is that what I want, or is that one of One’s suggestions, a thought left over from traveling through her memories? If I’m hallucinating her, is there even a difference between One’s thoughts and my own anymore?
“Deep stuff,” says One, peering at the computer screen over my shoulder. “Maybe sort out your philosophical questions after we’ve saved this one’s life, hmm?”
That settles it. I minimize the report before the techs have a chance to see it and slip out of the room. I run down hallways now empty of personnel, all of them having joined the ambush on Hoyle. The way I figure it, I’ve got only as long as Hoyle can keep fighting. After that, the techs will most certainly discover the blog post and relay the details to the strike team.
I’m already winded when I reach the street. I have to push myself. My leg muscles feel about ready to snap after years of disuse; my lungs are on fire, gray spots floating in and out of my vision.
Still, I strip off my coat, which marks me as a Mogadorian, and begin to run. Sirens sound in the distance, the local authorities on their way to the site of the battle.
It takes me ten minutes to get to the quiet backstreet where the building is. I can’t believe the Garde safe house was right under our noses. If we had waited, Conrad Hoyle would have come to us, and all the mayhem on the streets could have been avoided. Of course, it’s lucky for me that things played out like they did.
I’m gasping for breath as I stand at the doorway to the building. It’s an old redbrick town house, now home to three apartments, according to the buzzers outside. Luckily, an old woman is just leaving to walk her white, puffy dog, and I’m able to catch the front door before it closes. I race to the second-floor apartment, the only one not to have a name stickered to the buzzer downstairs.
I pound on the apartment door, probably too hard. If I was a fugitive Garde, that kind of loud knocking would send me running for the fire escape. I hear startled movement inside the apartment, a TV being muted, and then silence.
I knock again, gentler this time, and press my ear to the door.
Muffled footsteps pad closer to the other side of the door, but the girl says nothing.
“Open the door,” I whisper, trying to keep my voice gentle and urgent. “You’re in danger.”
No response.
“Your Cêpan sent me,” I try. “You need to get out of here.”
There’s a lengthy pause, and then a small voice answers. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
Good question, but I don’t have time for this. By now Conrad Hoyle has probably been overcome by the Mogadorian strike team. I could tell this girl that her Cêpan is as good as dead, that my people will be here soon. I could try breaking down the door, but I doubt I have the strength.
Just like that, One is standing next to me in the hallway. Her face is somber and distant.
“Tell her about the night they came,” says One. “The night your people came.”
I think back to One’s memory of the airstrip, the frightened faces around her, the mad dash towards the ship.
“I remember the night they came,” I begin, uncertainly at first but gaining confidence as I go. “There were nine of us and our Cêpans, all running panicked. We saw a Garde fight off a piken. I don’t think he survived. Then they pushed us onto the ship and …”
I trail off, recounting the last night of Lorien making me feel strangely sad. I glance to where One was standing, but she’s disappeared back into my head.
A half dozen deadbolt locks are unlatched, and the apartment door swings open.
CHAPTER 17
Her alias is Maggie Hoyle.
From what little I saw of Conrad Hoyle, I’m expecting Maggie to be a minimilitant in training. Instead, she is the polar opposite of her Cêpan. Maggie can’t be more than twelve years old; and she’s small for her age, mousey, with a mane of reddish-brown curls hanging on either side of a pair of thick glasses. The only sign of Hoyle’s influence is the small handgun she’s holding when I walk in, the kind of polite-looking weapon a rich lady might carry with her in a bad neighborhood. Maggie looks relieved to set the gun down as soon as the door is locked behind me.
“Is Conrad all right?” she asks me.
The muted TV in the corner of the small flat is tuned to a news report, a helicopter filming the burning wreckage of Hoyle’s bus. It looks like the fight is over. We have to move quickly.
“I don’t know,” I tell her, not wanting to say that I doubt her Cêpan survived. We need to get moving, and I don’t want to upset her. There’s no time for grieving right now.
Not only is she way younger than I expected, Maggie doesn’t possess any of the bravado I thought came prepackaged with the Garde after spending years in One’s memories. She’s fidgety and nervous, not cool and confident, and not at all ready to fight.
So that makes two of us.
I take in the rest of the apartment. It doesn’t look lived in. Maggie probably moved in within the last week. A layer of dust still covers the empty mantel and countertops. There’s a small suitcase open next to a half-deflated air mattress, with piles of clothes spilling out onto the floor around it, and a desk with a bowl of cereal on it, a couple of marshmallows still floating in the pink-tinted milk. I scan around the room, looking for the Chest that we’ve been taught all the Garde have, but I don’t see it anywhere. Either she doesn’t have it or she’s found a good place to hide it.
Next to the cereal bowl is the laptop that brought me here. The computer is still open to the blog post, scrolled down to the bottom of the page where comments would go. The poor kid has just been sitting here waiting for someone to reply, and I’m the one who showed up.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” I say, nodding to the laptop.
Maggie looks guilty, rushing over to the laptop to shut it.
“I know. Conrad would be mad,” she says, glancing over at the scene on TV. “I was just worried he wouldn’t come back and …”
Maggie stops herself, looking embarrassed. She doesn’t have to finish; I know what she was going to say. That she was afraid she’d be alone.
Fear. Loneliness. It was a similar blend of feelings that caused One to take up with brain-dead surfers and start shoplifting. I don’t really want to admit it, but they’re the same feelings I’ve been having since waking up.
“What number are you?” she says.
“It doesn’t matter now,” I say. I think back to my course on Legacy preparedness. Our instructors warned us about so many different powers the Garde might possess, and I try to think of one that might be helpful now. “Is it too much to hope that you can teleport?”
“What?” she asks, not understanding.
“Your Legacies,” I explain.
“Oh.” She shakes her head. “No. Conrad says I’m a couple years from developing those.”
Maggie studies me as I walk across the room, kneeling down in front of her suitcase. “Why?” she asks. “What can you do?”
I don’t answer. Next to her suitcase is a small backpack that I unzip to find filled with books, novels by human authors who I’ve never heard of. I dump out the books and begin stuffing handfuls of Maggie’s clothing into the backpack. We’ll need to travel light. I don’t pay attention to what I’m packing, only that it won’t be enough to slow her down if we need to run.
“What’re you doing?” she asks, still rooted to the spot next to the laptop.
“Packing,” I reply. “Grab only what you need. Definitely leave the computer.”
Maggie doesn’t make any move to help. I can feel her watching me, trying to figure out what’s happening.
“I want to wait for Conrad,” she says, her voice small but firm.
“He won’t be coming,” I reply, trying not to snap at her. She needs to start moving—now. I zip the backpack shut and stand. “You have to trust me.”
“Winston trusted Julia and look how that turned out.”
Winston? Julia? I try to remember what little I can of Loric culture, thinking that this is some kind of Loric saying I’m unfamiliar with, or maybe they’re some other members of the Garde I should know; but I come up with nothing. I decide to guess.
“I haven’t seen them since we landed on Earth,” I say.
“Um, they’re from Earth,” says Maggie. “Also, they’re not real.”
I stare at her, confused.
“1984,” says Maggie, seeing my confusion. “George Orwell?”
One of the books from her backpack. I shake my head. “Never read it.”
“Who did you think I was talking about?”
“Uh—”
“You aren’t Loric,” she says, examining my gaunt face, my pale skin.
“No,” I reply.
“And you aren’t human either.” This sounds more like an accusation.
When I shake my head, Maggie inches towards where she set down her little gun. I don’t make any move to stop her. She’s perceptive. I can see the wheels turning in her head, analyzing her situation. She knows there’s trouble, but she’s not sure if it’s on its way or if it’s already here.
“If you’re one of them, why haven’t you tried to kill me yet?” she asks. She reminds me of myself a little bit: small, intelligent and holding on to a belief that she can think her way out of problems.
“I don’t know what I am,” I manage, realizing as I say this that it’s the truth. “But I’m not here to hurt you.”
I toss her the backpack.
“You need to run. It doesn’t matter if it’s with me or from me. Just run.”
Suddenly there’s a sharp, breaking sound, the apartment’s front door splintering as it is torn off its hinges.