Return to Zero

by Pittacus Lore

  “And you believe this entity is intelligent?”

  Five pursed his lips. “What do you mean?”

  “That it isn’t a phenomenon like an earthquake or a tornado. It’s aware. It knows what it’s doing.”

  Five drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, thinking that over. “I don’t remember much of Lorien. I was young when my parents blasted me across the damn universe. But I know my people worshipped the entity like a god. Not the way you humans have gods who hang out in the clouds and judge people when they die. More like Mother Nature. A nurturing force of general goodness or some shit.”

  “So not something that thinks or communicates like us,” Ran said. “Something that just is.”

  “I didn’t say it doesn’t communicate.” Five’s look darkened and Ran worried that he might not say anything more. He picked at one of the dark splotches on the back of his hand, where the Mogadorian ooze had eaten into him. “Some of the other Garde—my Garde, the numbered ones—they spoke to the entity. One of them was even carrying an extra bit of its power around for a while. They . . . they don’t like me very much. They never told me what it said to them or what they saw.”

  “I see.”

  Five cleared his throat. “Setrákus Ra claimed that the Loric energy wasn’t anything more than a resource that could be harnessed and used. That ooze you saw back in Switzerland—that’s created by corrupting the Loric energy. Setrákus Ra thought that if he could master that process, he could give Legacies and take them away. Eliminate the randomness of it all.”

  Five held out his arm so Ran could see where the dark, scab-like blots covered him. She couldn’t swear to it, but she thought Five’s condition had worsened since they fought back in Switzerland and he had transformed his entire body into the flowing, viscous ooze. The stuff was eating away at him.

  “Nice, right?” Five asked, referring to his skin. “That’s the result of all Setrákus Ra’s hard work.”

  “I am sorry that happened to you,” Ran said.

  Five merely grunted in response and tugged his sweatshirt sleeves down to his knuckles. Ran was quiet for a moment, trying to figure out how to best phrase her next thought.

  “I know that he was an atrocious, evil man,” Ran said tentatively. “But I can understand Setrákus Ra’s desire to control Legacies.”

  Five’s lips curled back. “You can,” he said flatly.

  “If the entity is an intelligent life-form, why would it bestow a Legacy onto a boy with such hatred in his heart?”

  Five frowned. “I wasn’t always like this.”

  “No, no,” Ran said quickly. “Not you. The boy in the video.”

  “Oh. Him.”

  “Why would he get Legacies?” Ran asked again. “And that power. To take control of another person. To make them a prisoner in their own body. What good can that possibly do the world? For that matter . . .” Ran glanced surreptitiously over her shoulder. “What is the benefit to a Garde like Einar? Manipulating people—”

  “He soothes me,” Five interrupted, although not with any malice. “I know what you guys think of him. I know he’s hurt you. Hurt your annoying British friend especially. But I . . . I’ve never been able to control my emotions. It’s even worse sometimes after what happened to me . . . what happened during the invasion. I feel pain and rage and . . . I just lose it. When it gets like that, Einar can help me feel normal again. He helps me forget what a toilet my life has been.”

  Five spoke quietly, with little inflection. It was the most Ran had ever heard him say at once. She had hoped to drag a few answers about the nature of their Legacies from their Loric associate. She’d never expected to have him open up about himself. Not with his brutal reputation. She thought about putting a hand on his arm, but decided against it. Better to maintain a companionable distance. She looked out at the sky, matching the direction of Five’s gaze.

  “I did not know,” she said. “Maybe there is a use and I’m just not seeing it . . .”

  “You talking about that Lucas kid? Or yourself?”

  Ran smiled inwardly. “Is it that obvious?”

  “I paid attention back in Switzerland,” Five said. “You said you didn’t want to be anyone’s weapon.”

  “I . . .” Ran looked down at her hands.

  She thought about how the ceiling of her apartment collapsed when the Mogadorians opened fire on Tokyo. She could hear her little brothers crying. Panicked, she shoved debris away with her newly discovered telekinesis—she didn’t even know what she was doing, how hard she was pushing. She freed herself. But her brothers stopped crying after that.

  “I have hurt people with these Legacies,” she said quietly. “People I didn’t mean to hurt. I did bring my friend back to life but it was . . . it was luck. And I could’ve just as easily killed him. I don’t understand why the entity would give me these powers. I don’t understand what purpose I’m supposed to serve.”

  Five breathed out slowly through his nose. “I used to love to fly. Then Setrákus Ra told me that back on Lorien, flying was almost as common as telekinesis. It’s a nothing power, he said. He told me that my strongest Legacy, the one that matters, is this . . .” A flash of silver as Five briefly transformed his skin into the same metal as the steering column. “My skin. What is it good for except absorbing damage and dishing out pain?”

  “You have thought about this too,” Ran said.

  “Yeah, I had a lot of time to think after the invasion. I was on an island, pretty sure I was going to die any day. A girl who hates my guts was watching me, worried I might do something evil.” He snorted. “Even she lost interest eventually and moved on. It was just me until Einar showed up, told me about these Foundation people and how they wanted to enslave the Garde. Like you said before about history . . . it was the cycle starting over again.”

  “So you believe we have these Legacies to fight the Foundation?” Ran asked. “That is our purpose.”

  “No, not exactly,” Five said. “I think what we are—what Garde are—is a self-defense mechanism. The entity cares about the Loric and Lorien or humanity and Earth only so far as it gets to continue existing. It needs a place to live. We’re given Legacies to defend it. We aren’t here to improve life or save society or any of that happy horseshit. We’re here to make sure some ancient ball of energy gets to go on burning. That’s it.”

  “That is . . .” Ran paused. “That is bleak.”

  Five showed his teeth, an approximation of a smile. “You know who ruled on Lorien? A council of Elders—the oldest and most powerful of the Garde. It was a peaceful place before the end. Almost a utopia, to hear the other refugees tell it. But Setrákus Ra told me what came before there was a Council of the Elders.”

  Ran wasn’t sure she wanted to know what Five would say next. She was getting more answers than she’d bargained for.

  “Setrákus Ra was a liar,” she said quietly.

  “Sure was,” Five agreed. “And maybe this was a lie. But to hear him tell it, there were plenty of Loric without Legacies who wanted to control the Garde, or who didn’t like a bunch of random jerks having superpowers. There was a war.”

  “What happened?” Ran asked, even though she could guess the answer.

  “The Garde took control of the planet and all the normal Loric that stood against them were wiped out,” Five answered simply. “Like you said, history repeats itself.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  NIGEL BARNABY

  STUDENT UNION

  THE HUMAN GARDE ACADEMY—POINT REYES, CALIFORNIA

  AS HE PULLED ON HIS THREADBARE CONVERSE IN their pod’s common area, Nigel could somehow hear Kopano snoring through the closed door to his room. He didn’t understand how the big lad could sleep so soundly all the time. Nigel was jealous. He hadn’t gotten a good night’s rest in weeks. He was always half expecting to wake up and find Bea standing over him, sipping a cup of tea and holding an Inhibitor attached to Nigel’s neck.

  Ran suffered from insomni
a, didn’t she? Used to run around campus at night until she tired herself out, winning the battle with her body. That wasn’t Nigel’s style, though. Sometimes, he went up to the vacant room that he and Caleb once used for band practice and plucked at a guitar until his fingers hurt. That didn’t help him sleep, though.

  Thinking about the friends who bailed on him to hang with a murderer always failed to ease his mind. Surprise, surprise.

  Shoes on, Nigel slipped out of his dorm room. It was nearly dawn, anyway. The Academy was beginning to come to life. He heard showers running and sleepy grumbling as he made for the stairwell. The first classes of the day began in an hour. Nigel was pretty sure he was scheduled for Physics of Legacies then. That was a special class designed by Dr. Goode where they studied the scientific laws that their Legacies were breaking, in an attempt to better understand their powers. He’d been tossed in that class so he could learn more about sound waves. It was kind of interesting, as far as lots of squiggly lines and gibberish formulas went.

  He’d skipped the last few classes. No one had said anything. There was no reprimand coming his way. Even Dr. Goode and the other remaining instructors knew to give him space.

  Maybe he’d pop in that morning. The lecture might help him catch a few winks. A boy could hope.

  Outside, the morning air was damp and cold. The sky was just beginning to lighten, casting the campus in a dreamlike gray haze. Nigel cut across the wet grass of the lawn towards the student union. The other day, his evil mother had commented that he was “skinnier than usual,” and when Nigel looked in the mirror that morning he did notice his cheekbones jutting more than normal. Better try to eat something.

  Nigel found a small group of other early risers inside, all of them bleary-eyed and slump-shouldered like him. The students were huddled up near the food line, engaged in a discussion. Something wasn’t right.

  Every morning since they’d staffed this place up, the student union had smelled like coffee and bacon. But not today.

  The kitchen was empty.

  “What’s all this, then?” Nigel asked as he joined the other students.

  “There’s no food,” Omar Azoulay told him.

  “I’m starving,” groaned Danny, the fourteen-year-old Canadian tweeb, his brown hair long and floppy like some boy-band reject. “What’re we supposed to do?”

  Nigel sighed. The rest of the kitchen staff must have called it quits. He couldn’t blame them for not sticking around. There were plenty of food service jobs out there that didn’t require a security clearance. Starving the students of resources seemed to be Greger’s plan to get Nine to accept his termination. The Earth Garde liaison must not have realized how stubborn Nine was—or how much the student body supported him.

  “Get a grip,” Nigel told the whiney tweeb as he hopped over the counter and entered the kitchen. “Just because the help’s taken a powder doesn’t mean the pantry’s empty.”

  Nigel rifled through the cabinets, quickly finding where the staff stored the packaged muffins and single-serving cereal boxes. He tugged these bins out and floated them towards the buffet line with his telekinesis.

  “Help me put these out,” he told the others, who were just standing there watching him.

  “They said we’d be taken care of if we came here,” Danny said. He looked almost dazed. “Now we’re just . . . we’re on our own?”

  The word “wanker” was on the tip of Nigel’s tongue, but he managed to hold back. The kid wasn’t just upset about the lack of a healthy breakfast. He was scared. Many of these Garde hadn’t done more than watch the invasion play out on TV. Since then, they’d been sheltered by Earth Garde. They’d never faced down what Nigel and his friends had.

  “Bloody hell. You’re a sorry bunch,” Nigel said, crossing his arms. “You’re supposed to be Garde. Most fearsome beings on the planet. Would-be protectors of the free world. And here I find you huddled about like some wet babies, afraid to make breakfast? I’m embarrassed to be amongst ya.”

  “Okay, Nigel, we get it,” Lisbette said. “What should we do?”

  “Someone go check the fridges and get the juices out. Put ’em in the nice vase-looking things.”

  “Carafes,” Lisbette said. “They’re called carafes.”

  “I don’t carafe what they’re called,” Nigel replied. He waved to the empty space on the buffet where the drinks were supposed to be. “You make ice, don’t you? Fill that up and then go get the drinks.”

  Lisbette made a face at him but did as she was told. Omar raised his hand.

  “My family owned a restaurant,” Omar said. “I can scramble eggs.”

  Nigel held out his hands like a blessing had been bestowed on them from on high. “So what are you waiting for? Get to it. You can even use that fire-breathing of yours to roast the sausages. I’ll get Nine to give you extra credit for practicing.”

  “Gross,” Lisbette protested. “I don’t want his fire-spit on my food.”

  “Someone put out plates and silverware. And someone else get coffee brewing, or the professors will probably lose their minds . . .” As Nigel divvied out tasks for the others, the irony wasn’t lost on him. He’d grown up tended to by a team of obedient servants. He couldn’t actually scramble any eggs or even work a coffee machine himself. His abilities maxed out at slapping the bread slices together for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. At least the aristocrat in him knew how to order around the help.

  Soon, the student union was humming with activity. It almost seemed normal. As more students trickled in, some of them were too tired to even notice that it was Omar behind the kitchen counter instead of the usual attendants.

  “One tiny battle at a time,” Nigel muttered.

  Across the room, Nigel took note of Dr. Susan Chen entering. The dean of academics looked like she’d gotten dressed in a hurry. She forewent her usual thermos of coffee, instead heading directly to the bulletin board where announcements were posted. Nigel met her there.

  “Oi, Susan, you and the other grand masters know that the kitchen staff’s all gone on vacation?”

  Dr. Chen gave him a tired look. “Mr. Karlsson of Earth Garde sent out notice last night that no human personnel were to report to work until the Academy’s so-called leadership issues are resolved. The kitchen and maintenance staff don’t live on campus, like the faculty, so I doubt the Peacekeepers would let them back through even if they did choose to violate Greger’s decree.”

  “That’s his strategy, then,” Nigel said with a snort. “Deprive us of pancakes.”

  On the bulletin board, Dr. Chen tacked up a notice about canceled classes. Nigel did a quick once-over of the list. It seemed like almost half the Academy’s staff were taking indefinite leaves of absence.

  “We held a meeting before dawn. Not all the staff want to see Nine replaced by some bureaucrat. And there are some of us, like me, who believe that our first responsibility is to you Garde. What we’re doing here is important.”

  “Right on, Dr. Chen,” Nigel said, patting the woman’s arm. “Just make sure that if shit goes all topsy-turvy, you keep you and your fellow teachers out of harm’s way.”

  Dr. Chen looked up at Nigel with slightly widened eyes. She was trying to keep a cool head, but Nigel could tell that she was as rattled as anyone. It was no accident that Greger had used the word “evacuate” in his memo to the teachers. You evacuated war zones, not schools.

  “I should hope it won’t come to that,” she replied. “Myself and some of the other instructors sent letters to the UN, protesting Nine’s removal. With resistance from the student body as well, I expect them to reconsider. I know the incident in Switzerland is heavy on everyone’s mind, but given enough time, I hope Earth Garde will see reason. Also, Ray Archibald is a good man. He knows his mission is to protect you Garde, not enforce the whims of some bureaucrat.”

  It sounded a bit like Dr. Chen was trying to talk herself into the possibility of cooler heads prevailing. Nigel scratched his pockmarked jaw
line, trying to keep his mother’s voice and her dark promises about the Academy’s future out of his head.

  “Let’s hope everyone at Earth Garde has your good sense, Dr. Chen,” he said.

  “Check it out! They’re talking about us!”

  Someone had turned on the student union’s big screen to a broadcast of one of the morning news shows, already in full swing on America’s East Coast. Nigel bristled when he saw Melanie Jackson on-screen. The last time he’d seen the Earth Garde figurehead was in Switzerland, all teary-eyed and snot-nosed, crying over that dead technocrat Sydal who’d been trying to buy black-market Mogadorian ooze from Nigel’s mother. Nigel remembered how, on the flight back from Switzerland, Melanie wouldn’t hear a single negative word about Sydal. She was in a state of shock, basically, so Nigel had cut her some slack. Still, he couldn’t forget how her eyes had swept the passenger compartment, looking at her fellow Garde like they were monstrous.

  Melanie looked much better on TV than she had a few weeks ago. Her blond hair pulled back in a neat ponytail, her face made-up for the cameras, the girl basically glowing. She wore a pastel sweater and a prominent gold cross.

  “Excuse me, Dr. Chen,” Nigel said, nodding to the screen. “But I get the feeling this is about to be some truly shite TV.”

  Nigel moved closer to the screen, Dr. Chen following after him. Everyone else in the student union had already stopped what they were doing to peer up at the screen.

  “I’m grateful for the chance to sit down with you today, George, to hopefully put some of those fears to rest,” Melanie was saying, in response to a question from the patiently smiling host. “I was there in Switzerland, as you know. I’ve seen firsthand what it looks like when a person like me, with my abilities, goes rogue. People are right to be worried. But we at Earth Garde are taking steps to make sure that never happens again.”

  “What kind of steps?” the host inquired.

  “Before his—” Melanie’s bottom lip quivered and she made a show of composing herself. “Before his untimely death, Wade Sydal was working on a device capable of disrupting a Garde’s Legacies. We actually believe this is why he was targeted for assassination. The chip is about the size of a fingernail—amazing, right?—and can safely and remotely prevent a Garde from using their Legacies.”