Return to Zero

by Pittacus Lore

  Nine’s lips compressed. That was the face the big lunk made when he was trying to figure out the angles. The self-appointed professor was more of a straight-ahead-hit-something type, but he was really trying to be more circumspect. To see the big picture.

  “You aren’t going to incite a mass rebellion, are you?” Nine asked. “I can only handle, like, one of those a month.”

  “They already know something is up,” Taylor said. “We can’t keep them in the dark forever.”

  Nine thought this over. “I trust you,” he said finally. “Do what you’ve gotta do.”

  Taylor went back to the student union. This time, she didn’t blast open the doors. Instead, she slipped in unnoticed via the side entrance. Everyone was focused on Kopano, who sat at a central table with a massive burrito bowl in front of him. They were all talking at once, so Taylor watched and listened.

  “They told us you were taken away for your own protection,” Lisbette said to Kopano. “Was that not true?”

  Taylor found herself taking stock of Lisbette. She was from Bolivia. She could create and manipulate ice. She was way more into using her Legacy to erect glittery sculptures than, like, stabby icicles, but she still showed good control. She could be useful.

  “Uh, I guess that’s one way to put it,” Kopano replied. He shoveled some rice and beans into his mouth, using the food as a method of deflection. “Sorry, guys, I’m really hungry . . .”

  “Gosh, me too,” Maiken said. “I’m always starving after I run.” She reached out and snagged some tortilla chips off Kopano’s plate, eating them at high velocity. “Seriously, though, Kopano, you have to tell us what’s going on . . .”

  Maiken was Greek. Nosy and talkative. Fast as hell.

  “I’m not sure how much I can tell you,” Kopano replied, swallowing. Taylor could see that a part of him was enjoying the attention. “It’s sort of top secret.”

  “Is no one going to mention how Taylor just hauled Miki out of here like she’s some kind of cop?” That came from Danny, a Canadian tweeb, whose lunch Taylor had ruined when she flung aside Miki’s table.

  “She looked pissed,” said Greta Schmidt, a German Garde whose Legacy allowed her to see in all different spectrums of light.

  “She always looks pissed,” Danny replied.

  “I don’t know,” Anika Jindal spoke up, setting down the plastic cutlery she was using on her lunch. “Taylor’s always been really nice about healing me. If she’s mad at Miki, she probably has a good reason.”

  Anika was new at the Academy, newer even than Taylor. She was from Delhi and her Legacy was magnetism. She didn’t have good control yet and so was frequently pulling sharp metal objects towards herself. Taylor had fixed her up multiple times.

  “Forget about Taylor and Miki,” boomed Nicolas Lambert, the Belgian with superstrength, as he loomed over Kopano. “I want to know what these secret missions you guys keep going on are all about.”

  “The first time wasn’t a secret mission,” Kopano replied innocently. “We just got in trouble sneaking off campus.”

  “Merde, Nic, let the guy eat,” said Simon. He was seated across from the Moroccan fire-breather Omar Azoulay, the two of them engaged in a game of chess. Omar was more focused on his next move than all the conversations around him.

  “It doesn’t bother you that they don’t tell us anything?” Nic asked Simon.

  “Not really,” Simon replied.

  “It bothers me,” Maiken put in.

  “Like, we go here too,” Nic continued, glaring at Kopano, who kept on cheerfully eating. “We deserve to know what’s going on.”

  “Checkmate, you French fool,” Omar said.

  “It’s not even your turn,” Simon replied distractedly. He reached across the table and grabbed Omar’s bracelet. “Did you forget how to play? Let me recharge this.”

  “I wish I could tell you guys more,” Kopano said. “I’m—”

  “You could tell us more,” Nic butted in. “You just don’t want to. You guys are a clique. Trying to keep all the action to yourselves.”

  “How long have you been at the Academy, Nic?” The question came from the girl with the spiky turquoise-dyed hair who Taylor hadn’t seen before.

  “I’ve been here since the beginning, ‘Nemo,’” Nic replied with air quotes. “What does that matter?”

  “So you’ve been safe in here for almost two years. You don’t know how crazy life’s gotten out in the real world,” Nemo replied. “Whatever Kopano and the others were doing, I’m sure they were helping people like us.”

  “They still shouldn’t keep us in the dark. It’s not fair,” Nic countered with a surly frown. “Like I’m not good enough for their secret missions? Look at me. I can do more than swim for a long time, at least.”

  Nemo rolled her eyes. “Legacy-shaming. Real nice.”

  Someone cleared their throat next to Taylor. She turned her head to find that Nigel had sidled up beside her along the wall. His eyes were red-rimmed, his posture like a wilted flower. If anyone had a rougher last few weeks than Taylor, it was Nigel. She started to say something, to put a hand on his shoulder, but he jerked his chin in Kopano’s direction.

  “You going to let the big lad take all the heat?”

  Taylor returned her gaze to Kopano, who had leaned back in his chair and was now blotting at his mouth with a napkin while Nic stood over him.

  “My friends, truly, I wish I could tell you more about our many adventures,” Kopano declared grandly, “but they are highly classified.”

  “Aw, that’s horseshit,” Nic complained. “Classified by who?”

  “We should say something to Professor Nine or one of the other administrators,” Maiken said. “This situation is really detracting from my ability to learn.”

  Taylor sighed. She pushed away from the wall. Looking beyond the crowded tables and arguing students, Taylor saw there were a few members of the kitchen staff hovering around the buffet, plus a Peacekeeper guarding the back exit. She couldn’t tell if they were eavesdropping. Couldn’t take any chances.

  She turned to Nigel. “Can you put us in a sound bubble so no one outside can hear?”

  “You and me?”

  “No,” Taylor said, shaking her head. She motioned to the Garde at the tables surrounding Kopano. “All of us.”

  “What’re you going to do?”

  “There’s too many secrets,” Taylor replied. “I’m sick of it.”

  With that, she strode forward, into the midst of her classmates. They fell gradually silent as they realized Taylor had been standing there for a good portion of their argument. Nic spun away from Kopano and sized her up.

  “What’d you do with Miki?” he asked.

  Taylor held up a finger. She waited until she sensed a change in the air and could no longer hear the birds chirping outside the student union. Nigel had done as she asked.

  “You want to know what’s been going on?” Taylor looked straight at Nic, then past him, at all the faces turned in her direction.

  “Uh, I mean, you could go take a shower first . . . ,” Lisbette said quietly. “We’d wait.”

  Taylor ignored her, taking a deep breath. She could tell by the expectant looks that her classmates were all ears.

  “We first found out about the Foundation when they kidnapped me . . . ,” she began.

  Taylor told them everything.

  About the Foundation and Bea Barnaby.

  About the mole at the Academy.

  About Watchtower, the clandestine organization working within Earth Garde.

  About Sydal Corp and the weapon designer’s ties to both Earth Garde and the Foundation.

  About all the factions interested in controlling them or profiting off them or simply eradicating them.

  And then Taylor told them what might happen next.

  It was nearly sunset when Taylor finally finished fielding what seemed like endless questions from her classmates. The size of the crowd kept growing, her classm
ates leaving to go get their roommates or friends, to let them know big stuff was happening. Classes got skipped. Every student came through eventually. She felt like she had to keep explaining the same things over and over, but she stayed patient. At one point, Professor Nine and Dr. Goode popped in to watch, but they respectfully stayed outside Nigel’s sound bubble.

  Her mouth was dry from talking. Still in her battle-shredded snowsuit, now unzipped to the waist, Taylor trudged back towards the dormitory feeling like she could sleep for a year. Luckily, Kopano was at her side and seemed happy to let her lean against his shoulder.

  “That was very cool,” he told her.

  Taylor rubbed her jaw. “I’m freaking exhausted.”

  “You know, when the first generation of Human Garde got their Legacies, John Smith pulled us all into a vision and explained everything about the Mogadorians. For the longest time, I thought I dreamed it.”

  “Yeah,” Taylor said tiredly, “you told me about that.”

  “You reminded me of him just now,” Kopano said.

  Taylor snorted. “Of John Smith? Really? Your idol?”

  “You are my new idol.”

  Taylor squeezed his arm. “I’m glad that’s who you were thinking of, because the whole time I was talking I kept thinking about Einar.”

  “Yuck. Why?”

  “His whole speech about us sticking together. About liberating us. He’s an insane, murderous asshole, but some of that stuff made sense. He wanted to get it all out in the open.”

  “I sense a ‘but’ coming,” Kopano said. “I hope there’s a ‘but’ coming.”

  As they neared the entrance to the dorms, Taylor’s eyes started to feel heavy. Her bed. So close. She took a long pause, getting her thoughts together.

  “But,” she said at last, “he was wrong about one thing, especially. About us needing to be liberated. We don’t need that. We already have a place where we can be free.”

  “We do?”

  Taylor waved a hand in front of her, encompassing the grounds, the lights flickering on in the buildings, the Garde hanging around in small groups, probably discussing all the insane stuff she’d just told them.

  “It’s here,” she said. “This is our place. And we’re going to fight for it.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  CALEB CRANE

  ROME, ITALY

  AS HE STOOD IN THE DOORWAY OF THE MASTER bedroom, which was roughly the size of the entire first floor of his house back in Nebraska, Caleb was struck by how every inch of the villa seemed to glitter. He’d read somewhere that all the gold ever mined in human history would fit into just three Olympic swimming pools. Caleb figured this place had to account for at least a bathtub’s worth. The marble floor tiles were flecked with gold. Veins of gold ran through the massive bed’s wooden posts. The bizarre painting on the wall—topless angels with flaming swords chasing after a grinning man in a sparkling race car—was housed in an ornate gold frame.

  Caleb couldn’t quite wrap his head around the style. The guy who lived here was superrich. Got it. Understood. But why did he feel the need to constantly remind himself of the fact? Something was definitely wrong with anyone who needed to be so flashy.

  Then again, the villa’s owner was a member of the Foundation, so bad taste was just the tip of the iceberg of his psychological problems.

  The bedroom was empty, just like all the other rooms Caleb had checked so far. The top floor was clear. He was about to go in search of the others when something jabbed him in the small of the back.

  “Stop looking at boobs,” commanded a voice behind him. “We’re trying to do an infiltration here.”

  Caleb spun around to find Isabela smirking at him. She held a nectarine in one hand and a knife in the other, the handle still pointed at Caleb.

  “You shouldn’t sneak up on me,” Caleb said, blushing as he realized how it must have looked to Isabela: like he was ogling that skeevy painting. “One of my duplicates could’ve attacked you.”

  “Oh please, all your selves love me,” she replied, brushing past him. “Anyway. The place is empty. We’ve checked everywhere.”

  “Just like the last one,” Caleb said sourly.

  Two weeks had gone by since Switzerland. Two weeks since Caleb turned his back on Earth Garde and teamed up with Einar (a psychopath), Five (also a psychopath) and Duanphen (surprisingly normal by comparison). After a couple of days resting up on Einar’s cramped spaceship, they had tried to track down more of his former Foundation contacts. Even after the mess in Switzerland, they all agreed that bringing Foundation members to justice was the best use of their time. Well, Isabela thought they should be partying and enjoying the wealth they’d amassed, but the rest of them wanted to do something productive.

  In Greece they found a conspirator’s estate deserted. They’d tried another name with another mansion, this time in Croatia. No one home. And then, they’d come here, to the villa of a former Formula One driver turned angel investor, apparently a big spender on the Human Garde black market. But he was gone, too.

  “Rome seems like it’ll be more fun than Crete,” Isabela said cheerily. “But the other mansion was much nicer. This place is kinda trashy, don’t you think?”

  “It hurts my eyes,” Caleb said, always happy to be able to agree with Isabela about something. He cleared his throat. “Also, I wasn’t looking at those boobs before. Just so you know.”

  Isabela considered the painting like she was at a museum, tapping her knife on her chin. “Why not? Don’t you like them?”

  Caleb opened his mouth but didn’t manage a response.

  Random articles of clothing were pooled on the bedroom floor or sloppily hung from half-open drawers. The door to the walk-in closet was ajar, empty hangers piled in one corner. From the look of things, the race car driver must have packed in a hurry. Maybe he sensed the avenging angels from his painting were finally catching up to him.

  Isabela plucked a lavender silk shirt from the ground and tossed it into Caleb’s face.

  “Put that on and we can go clubbing,” Isabela said.

  Caleb disentangled himself from the shirt and made a face. “You need to take this more seriously.”

  “Oh, right, we’re on a mission.” Isabela dropped her voice to a whisper and wiggled her fingers at him. “Psh. I would’ve stayed at the Academy if I wanted lectures, Caleb.”

  “It doesn’t bother you that none of Einar’s leads on the Foundation have panned out? That we haven’t accomplished anything? That we’re basically fugitives without a plan?”

  “We have a spaceship filled with money. What do we need a plan for?” She grazed her knife against the bed frame. “Think this is real gold?”

  “Isabela. Come on.”

  “You should be happy we haven’t found any Foundation people,” Isabela said, her eyes darkening as she focused on Caleb. “Einar and Five would probably want to kill them, you and Ran would say no and I’d have to listen to all the arguing.”

  “We said we wouldn’t kill anyone,” Caleb replied. “We aren’t murderers. We’re trying to bring these people to justice.”

  Isabela scoffed. “You’re sweet.”

  “You mean that as an insult.”

  “Obviously.” Isabela waved her knife through the air as she spoke. “Who do you think will help with this ‘justice,’ hmm? Earth Garde wants to arrest us. Every government thinks we are terroristas. The Foundation buys its way out of any trouble. If you want justice, killing them is really the best we can do.”

  “You don’t really believe that,” Caleb said quietly.

  She popped the last slice of fruit into her mouth and tossed away the pit. “Look, I’m with you. Killing is a big waste of effort. We have a saying—se correr o bicho pega; se ficar o bicho come. If you run, the beast catches you; if you stay, the beast eats you. Get it?”

  “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”

  “Exactly! So if there is nothing we can do without screwing ourselves, our bes
t option is to go screw.”

  “I’m not sure that means what you think it does.”

  “Forget all this fighting. We can do anything.” She jumped up on the bed. “We have money; we have powers; we can—Ah!”

  Isabela lost her balance as the bed shifted weirdly beneath her feet. She would’ve fallen off, but Caleb hopped forward and she braced herself on his shoulder.

  “A waterbed,” Isabela declared, stomping down on the rippling mattress. “How ridiculous. Now we know that this man is evil.”

  Isabela pushed off Caleb’s shoulder and navigated the bed’s waves until she stood on the pillows directly beneath the painting. She flipped her knife into an overhand grip.

  “He must have had this made special, yes? What do you think he asked for? Sistine Chapel but for a horny loser?”

  Caleb cracked a smile and tried to think up a joke. He wasn’t the best when it came to riffing, especially not with Isabela. Before he could formulate something witty, Isabela slashed her knife through the canvas. Caleb cringed.

  “I mean, someone did spend time painting that . . . ,” he said weakly.

  “Yes, and they got paid and then probably spent a week washing their eyeballs.” Isabela flopped into a sitting position, the motion ‘accidentally’ plunging her knife into the waterbed. She left it there, a steady trickle of water bubbling up around the handle. “Oops.”

  “So, we’re vandals now,” Caleb said. “That’s what we left Earth Garde for.”

  She stood up and gently slapped his cheek, her fingers still sticky from the nectarine. “I don’t know why you left,” Isabela said. “Me? I was tired of being told what to do. You might not want to admit it, but I think you like this too.” She gave the leaking bed an emphatic kick. “You’re tired of orders. But you have that little thing inside—a conscience or whatever—it keeps telling you that you need to do something important. The sooner you stop listening to that, the happier you’ll be.”

  Once again, Caleb’s mind filled with half-formed sentences, none of which would do as responses to Isabela. His mouth hung open and he made a conscious effort to snap it shut so that he wouldn’t look like a total idiot. Isabela didn’t notice. She had already started across the room, towards the attached bathroom.