SHARD: Book One of The Shard Trilogy (A YA Sci-fi Teens with Powers Series)

by A. M. Pierre

  Kaia laughed. “I think so, too.” Actually, I’m not thinking anything—just random gibberish like “the scar on your eyebrow’s kinda cute” and “I really hope there’s nothing in my teeth.” Very exciting stuff.

  “So, Kaia, how do you normally handle nervous feelings like these?”

  Yes! A question I know the answer to! “Music. I listen to music.”

  “Oh? What kind of music?”

  Great. Should have seen that coming. He’s going to think I’m such a dork. “Um, I like a lot of different kinds like . . . like . . .” She sighed, defeated. “The truth is, I like some popular stuff but my favorite is”—her voice was barely a mumble—“classical.”

  “That is very unique. What got you into that, exactly?”

  Did he just . . . ? He did. He sounded genuinely interested. When was the last time that happened? A warm feeling spread through her like fire. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him, but at least she managed to open her mouth. “I played the violin. Two of my foster parents—really nice ones—bought it for me. They even came to all of my recitals.” They had been nice—two of the nicest people she’d ever known. Kaia had even thought they were going to adopt her, and then, for no apparent reason— No, stop it. I’m talking with a very cute boy about music. Lovely, lovely music. “I like how the emotion in instrumental music is so specific. Even if I don’t know what exactly the composer was thinking, I can tell what he was feeling.” Don’t babble. Guys don’t like girls who babble. They get bored. I think. Do they? “No matter how I feel when the music starts, it can make me feel happy.” She risked a quick glance in his direction. I don’t think he’s bored.

  “I am glad you have something like that.” A shadow seemed to fall over his face. “It is good to have something to bring you joy in dark times.”

  “Do you? Have something like that, I mean?”

  Ezio tensed, and Kaia knew she’d done something wrong. “I am sorry,” he said, “but I would rather not say.”

  “No, no, no, I’m sorry, please . . .” She was desperate to fix it, but she didn’t know what she’d broken. “I’m always messing things up so please forget I said anything, okay?”

  Ezio rested a hand on her shoulder, probably to quiet her. No worries there—she couldn’t have spoken if she’d wanted to. “It is okay, Kaia. Everyone has things they do not like to talk about. And there are some things,” he said, his voice tight, “which they cannot talk about even if they want to.” His hand fell away. “I am sorry, but I need to get some rest before our mission.” He rotated his chair away and reclined it, leaving Kaia to think about everything and nothing as she swayed with the motion of the van.

  Daisuke loved being in the van. Not any van, though—his van. Not that he’d actually bought this van. He could have, but he hadn’t. While he couldn’t change pencils into diamonds like Gabriela, he definitely had the necessary skills to make money off his various inventions—even if his real name was nowhere near the patent papers. How else was he supposed to pay for his virtual reality simulators, off-the-grid emergency shelters, and every other “extraneous” application The Company didn’t approve?

  The van, however, they had paid for. That didn’t make it any less Daisuke’s baby. After all, it was his modifications that had transformed it into a top-of-the-line operations center. Did it have multiple computers with access to military surveillance satellites and enough processing power to make a small nation jealous? Of course. Enough monitors for instant visual access to all necessary mission information as well as streams of the newest anime series simultaneously? Anything less would be absurd. Every single solitary tool conceivably needed by an incursion team of super-powered teenagers? Please. Daisuke had been called many things, but “unprepared” wasn’t one of them.

  He surveyed the multiple video feeds from the bad guys’ security system. Daisuke loved security systems. They made his job so much easier.

  Nothing had changed in the 30 seconds since he’d checked the feeds last. Granted, nothing had really changed in the 20 minutes since they’d arrived on site and everyone had moved into position, but it paid not to let your guard down. Even before they’d begun their infiltration, Daisuke had already memorized the guards’ patterns, so he was fairly confident in his ability to guide the team in without incident. Okay, so it was more like he was absolutely confident without a shred of doubt in his mind, but it didn’t sound nice to say so. Of course, that would be taking it for granted that the current scenario couldn’t possibly change, and Daisuke was far too smart to take anything for granted.

  For now, though, everything was as it should be. Alizée was still crouched behind some shrubberies near the exit route while Ezio and Kaia were under cover near the back entrance to the compound. Daisuke grimaced. Calling it a “compound” was an insult to the word. This was more like an overgrown clubhouse. A clubhouse with gun-toting guards and a bomb, granted, but a clubhouse nonetheless. It had a fence and the usual security trappings, sure, but where was the style? The sense of drama? The visual cues that would show the world a force of diabolical evil lay within? He wasn’t saying they needed a moat or anything . . . though a moat would definitely be cool—and a portcullis! Or, better yet, an electrified portcullis. Oh, yeah. Nothing would say “evil” in a quiet suburban neighborhood like a moat and a Portcullis of Doom.

  “Dice!”

  Daisuke blinked as Alizée’s angry voice rudely pushed his portcullis visions away. “What’s up?”

  “You promised no daydreaming! What do you call what you’ve been doing the last five minutes?”

  “I’d call it ‘letting my mind explore various random permutations of reality during hours of sunlight.’ And it hasn’t been five minutes.”

  Ezio’s voice broke through. “I was asking for a situation update, Daisuke.”

  “Sure thing. Unbelievably primitive security system? Hacked. All my additional micro-cameras? In position.”

  A tentative voice interrupted him. “But you’ve been in the van since we got here. How did you . . . ?”

  “Custom copper casings, Kaia.” Daisuke smiled to himself. “Huh. That was unintentionally but pleasingly alliterative. Anyways, I designed my cameras to be insanely small—not nanotech but still a lot easier to hide—and it’s not like we need superior resolution to see a big burly guard dude strolling down a hallway. The icing on this particular electronic cake is that I encased each one in a copper shell, so I can place them all over the enemy’s ‘compound’”—he retched slightly—“without risking any of our necks to do it. Cool, huh?”

  “Yes, Daisuke, we can all agree it is very cool,” Ezio said. “

  “All right. Five-minute countdown to mission start. Beginning . . . now.”

  Four beeps as everyone synced up their Wrist-Borne Time-Relating Computational Marvels. Not watches. Calling his patent-pending modified timekeepers “watches” was like calling a Ferrari a go-kart—inaccurate and insulting. He did need to give them a less awkward name, though. Perhaps one with an acronym. He looked over his pre-mission checklist. Now for the fun part. “Okay, everyone, call in using your code names. Not that I’m afraid of unwanted ears eavesdropping through my encryption algorithm, but we all need to follow Company policy, don’t we?” He paused to savor the moment. “This is Battousai calling our fearless leader.”

  “Acknowledged. This is Stony, checking in.”

  “Thank you, Stony. Next up, our little silicon tornado generator?”

  “Um, Dorothy here, I guess.”

  “And last but certainly not least—mademoiselle?” Daisuke heard an exasperated grunt. “Sorry, I’m not receiving you.”

  “Tinker Bell here.”

  Awesome.

  Tinker Bell didn’t seem to share his sentiments. “That name has nothing to do with me!”

  “Au contraire, mon amie. Tinker Bell is a famous fictional fairy. Fairies
are closely related to sprites. And Sprite—well, even you should be able to see the correlation there.”

  Before Alizée could reply, Kaia’s voice came through. Well, that made sense. It wasn’t like she’d ever seen Alizée’s abilities in action. “I’m not sure I understand Ez—I mean ‘Stony’s’ code name.” Huh. She only wants to know about Ezio’s name. Interesting. “What did you say the full version was—‘Stony Turk’?”

  Daisuke tried to hide his frustration. After all the trouble he went through to pick names that were appropriate and also entertaining, he always had to explain the joke. “Stony Tark. It’s a parody made by flipping the beginning sounds of the two names. Like Daia Kavis.”

  Tink was clueless, as usual. “But still, why would you call him that?”

  “Because our leader’s element is iron, man.” Silence. “I don’t know why I bother. Seriously. Oh, and I have a new team name for us, too.” He heard Alizée groan. “You haven’t even heard it yet, Tink, so don’t judge.”

  “I don’t have to have heard it,” she replied. “I already know it will be terrible.”

  “We’re amazing, and we transform things, so we could be . . . The Marvelous Metamorphosers!”

  “. . . I rest my case.”

  Monsieur Iron interjected. “We are two minutes out from mission start. Perhaps we can finish this discussion at a later time.”

  “No problem, Stony.” Daisuke cracked his knuckles. “Tinker Bell, hold position. No guards in your vicinity—I’ll let you know if that changes. Hopefully before they shoot you.”

  “Thanks ever so much, Butter-sai.”

  “It’s Battousai. Try to pay attention, Tink. Now, Stony, if I’ve timed the guards’ paces correctly, which I have, you and Dorothy will have 30 seconds to cross the distance to the back door, get through, and hide the evidence of your entry. Tight, I know, but this particular window of opportunity gives you the most undisturbed time inside the clubhouse—sorry, ‘compound.’ We’re only one minute out, so everyone get ready . . .” Daisuke cycled each of the dozens of camera views through his main monitor. Clear, clear, clear, clear, cl—wait, what?

  For a split second, the barest blink of an eye, the camera had showed him. He cycled back. Nothing. But it had been there. It had. He jumped out of his chair and scoured the walls behind him, looking for the telltale glint of a lens or the glow of copper wiring. He tried to ignore the churning in his stomach and the ice water that seemed to be running through his veins. It can’t be, it can’t be, it can’t be—

  “What was that, Battousai? Has something changed? . . . This is Stony Tark, calling Battousai. Do you copy? . . . Daisuke!”

  “I’m here, I’m here, it’s just there’s a camera in the van and I can’t find it and I have to find it because why would there be a camera in the van? There shouldn’t be, there can’t be—but there is, I know it, I saw it, it was there—why was it there? Why would they spy on us—no, spy on me? Or are they everywhere and I fluked into finding mine?”

  “Listen to me, Battousai. I need you to focus. Whatever you are talking about, we will discuss it later. But right now, we are less than ten seconds out, and I need a final confirmation. Can you give it to me?”

  Daisuke struggled to push the paralyzing paranoia and its thousands of worst-case-scenarios toward the back of his brain. Deep breath. I can do this. He scanned the dozens of camera views and compared them to the moving map of guards he had running in the back of his mind. Everything matched. Everything came up clear. “On my mark . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . Go!”

  * * *

  This is it. No time to second-guess yourself. It’s you and the cute Italian versus gun-toting fanatics and one big bomb. No problem. Kaia concentrated on her breathing. Not because it calmed her down, but because she actually thought she might forget to breathe otherwise. She barely registered Dice’s freak-out about the “invisible camera.” She only started hearing him again when he began the countdown.

  “On my mark . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . Go!”

  Push off the ground with feet and fingers both. Push so hard you skin your fingertips on the asphalt. Ignore the quick flash of pain. Ignore how weird it feels to breathe through the dark mask you’re wearing. Ignore it all. Run for the door. Thirty seconds. Well, twenty-nine now. Twenty-eight. Only twenty-eight seconds until guys with guns. Door ahead. Big black security door covered with bars. Bars curled to look decorative but sturdy enough to stop two random teenagers. Unless the cutie running two feet ahead can pick locks. He probably can. Probably just another job requirement for hot teenage superhero team leaders: Must be able to pick locks, deliver inspiring speeches, and make sad puppy-dog eyes that melt the hearts of anyone with a soul. Focus! You’re almost at the door! Cutie’s not getting out any lock picks. What is he going to . . . what on earth?

  The door is melting. Wait, no. Not melting. Flowing. Flowing through the air, curving away from the glass in dancing spirals.

  A fierce whisper from Ezio—well, as fierce as one can sound while whispering. “Break the glass, Kaia, but try not to let the shards hit the ground hard. Quickly, or the guard will see this before I can shift it back.”

  Right. The bars are wrought iron. Iron. Duh. Idiot. Let’s see if the idiot can do her one job properly. Close your eyes. Listen for the sound of the glass. Focus on it. Push all the other sounds away. It’s there, humming below the surface—bring it up. It’s a cello, played slowly. Adjust the pitch, bring it up. Higher, higher. Almost there.

  A crescendo, a brief moment of silence, and the cello disintegrates into a thousand violins screaming madly.

  “Perfect! Now set the pieces over there where the guard is not likely to see them.”

  The violins are quieter now. Floating violins, all playing the melodies I request. One tune in particular, heard so long ago. It’s always there, always playing, but I can never pin it down. The violins float to the ground. The music stops, leaving only a mild hum behind.

  Kaia blinked a couple of times, as if waking up from a dream. It had happened again. That same feeling from the training session, when she lost control and started a sand whirlwind. Yeah, that’s the way to succeed when lives hang in the balance—get completely lost in your own abilities. At least Ezio hadn’t had to slap her or anything. That would’ve been . . . less than cool.

  Ezio motioned for her to follow him inside. Even as she cleared the doorway, the metal bars warped back into place, reforming into the exact same shape they had been before. Impressive.

  She glanced down at her watch. Twelve seconds to spare. She couldn’t help smiling. Ezio gestured toward a nearby door. In there, he mouthed. He held it open for her, and then, with a last glance down the hallway, shut the door behind him with a muffled click.

  Kaia took the knit mask off her face as soon as the door closed. She knew it might not be the best idea, but she couldn’t breathe with it on. She tucked it into one of the many pockets on her cargo pants before taking a look around the room.

  She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, but it seemed so . . . ordinary. It looked like her science classroom back home, with its tall black tables and stools. And sitting on one of those tables . . . “Is that it?” she whispered. Ezio nodded, his eyes fixed on the solid black cube, about a foot long on each side, resting a few feet away.

  “LAME!”

  Kaia nearly jumped out of her skin as Dice’s voice blared in her ear.

  “Battousai,” Ezio said, his eyes squeezed shut, “please control yourself. You startled us, and I am not comfortable being startled while in close proximity to an explosive device. Clear?”

  “Yeah, sorry, Stony. But look at it! There’s no multi-colored wires or random moving parts. Even if you don’t actually need them, you should have them. What’s the point in making a bomb if you can’t do it with style?”

  “I am sorry it offends your sensibilities, Battou
sai. At the moment, however, I am much more interested in your insights on disarming it.”

  “Oh, that shouldn’t be any problem at all, Stony. Once I figure out how to open it and if there’s any booby-traps or last-minute security upgrades and what triggers it and how the explosive sequence goes, it shouldn’t take more than a minute or two.”

  Kaia gulped. “And how long before the guards come back?”

  “At least four and a half minutes. Maybe even five. Plenty of time. Oh, and Stony—if you don’t need Dorothy standing anxiously at your side, I have a job for her.”

  “That should be fine, Battousai.” Ezio nodded at her encouragingly.

  Kaia managed a strangled smile in return.

  “All right, Dorothy,” Dice began, his voice annoyingly peppy, “in a nearby room, there’s a desk with a bunch of papers on it. They look intriguing, so I want you to take a few high-res pictures.”

  You can do this. The guards are nowhere near here, and Ezio can help out if things go wrong. “Sure thing,” Kaia said, but her voice cracked a little.

  Before she could change her mind, Dice was directing her down the hall, away from the one person in the building who had her back. Yeah, and he’s also about to dismantle a bomb.

  Maybe a little distance wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

  * * *

  “The main chemical container is out. Now what?”

  Daisuke chewed merrily on a candy bar. Ezio still sounded nervous, but he had done great. “Now you do a happy dance to celebrate your victory over the forces of tyranny. I’d keep it quiet, though, so the forces’ local representatives can’t hear you.”

  “So that’s it?”

  “Essentially. At this point, I can safely say you’ve saved a school. A primary school in South London, to be exact. I still want you to shred the electronics, though.”

  “Are you sure we have enough time?”

  “After the way you flew through the first part? Positive. Plus, the guard patrolling this area stopped for a cigarette break, so we have more time than anticipated. Start with those circuit boards on the left . . .”