“Show-off,” Six said as Sam helped her to her feet and wrapped his arms around her. Six hugged him back. “I could have taken her, you know.”
“I know,” Sam said. “But I was getting tired of sitting around on Saturn without you.”
Nine alighted on the roof next to them. “We need to get these two to a hospital,” he said.
“We’re not leaving without Max. No more splitting up,” Nemo said.
“I’m right here,” Max said, emerging from the darkness. “Although you almost killed me with that,” he added, pointing to the collapsed statue.
“How’d you get away from Freakshow?” Nemo asked him.
“I’d like to say I kicked her ass and got away,” Max said. “But the truth is, Seamus came back to the room, and the two of them took off. I don’t know where they went.”
“We’ll find them,” Nine said. “With Magdalena and Eleni out of the picture, they’re probably running scared.” He looked at Sam. “By the way, there’s quite a mess in the plaza down there.”
Sam grinned. “I’ll be sure to leave the cleaning staff a big tip when I check out.”
EPILOGUE
GHOST AND NEMO
POINT REYES, CALIFORNIA
GHOST OPENED HER EYES.
“How do you feel?”
Ghost looked at the girl standing beside her bed. “Edwige?”
Edwige smiled and nodded.
“I feel okay,” Ghost said. “Did you do this?”
“Dr. Fenris did the surgery,” Edwige said. “I healed you afterwards.”
Ghost looked around. “Where am I?”
“Human Garde Academy,” a voice said from the doorway.
Ghost looked over and saw Nemo standing there. For a moment, she felt panic flicker in her chest.
“It’s okay,” Nemo said. “You’re safe.”
“I should go,” Edwige said. She squeezed Ghost’s hand. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
Edwige left, and Nemo came and sat down on the edge of Ghost’s bed. There was an uncomfortable silence as neither really looked at the other.
“So,” Nemo said.
“What happened?” Ghost asked. “On the roof of the hotel, I mean. All I remember is looking at you. Then everything hurt.”
Nemo hesitated, as if she didn’t want to tell the story. “You got hit by one of Boomer’s explosives,” she said. “He was trying for me, but you kind of got in the way.”
“Oh,” Ghost said, not sure what to say. “Is he . . .”
“Yeah,” Nemo said, nodding. She looked like she might cry. Then she did. “It’s all my fault.”
Instinctively, Ghost reached out and took her friend’s hand. Nemo startled, then relaxed. “Sorry,” she said, almost laughing while she wiped her eyes with her free hand. “I thought you were going to teleport us somewhere else.”
“Not this time,” Ghost said. “Unless you want to go to Disneyland or something.”
Now Nemo did laugh. “Maybe later,” she said. Then she turned serious. “We’ve been through some tough shit.”
“Yeah, we have,” Ghost agreed. “And nobody is . . . mad at me?”
“Well, I’m not,” Nemo assured her. “And I don’t think Max is. You know he can’t stay mad at anyone for very long. Especially you.”
“What about, you know, the others?”
“Nine will definitely have some questions for you,” Nemo said. “And they’ll probably want you to talk to someone about what happened. You know, to make sure you’re really okay.”
“In the head, you mean,” said Ghost.
“Well, yeah,” Nemo said.
“I kind of went off the deep end,” Ghost admitted. She waited for Nemo to comfort her, to say again that everything was going to be fine. When her friend didn’t respond, Ghost said, “Are we okay?”
“We will be,” Nemo said, adding, “You’re not going to disappear on me again, are you? That Legacy of yours can be really annoying, you know.”
Ghost shook her head. “No more disappearing,” she said. “I promise.”
Another uneasy silence settled over them. Ghost knew it was going to take time before things were back to the way they were before. There was nothing she could do about that. And it was okay. She still didn’t entirely understand why she had done the things she did either, so how could Nemo understand them?
“You should get some rest,” Nemo said.
“Yeah,” Ghost agreed. “Thanks for coming.”
“I’ll be back later,” Nemo promised her, letting go of her hand and standing up. “I mean, you saved my life. The least I can do is bring you some chocolate, right? And I’ll bring Max with me.”
Nemo left, giving her a wave from the doorway. When she was gone, Ghost felt herself start to be afraid again. She’d done some things that seemed unforgivable. She was especially nervous about seeing Max. She knew he must be disappointed in her. For a moment she considered breaking her promise and teleporting away. Then she forced herself to calm down. Maybe Nemo was right, and everything would be okay. Not easy, but okay.
She looked out the window and saw a blue sky. For the first time in a long time, she felt hopeful. For now, that was enough.
SEAMUS
UNDISCLOSED LOCATION
“What did you do to me?”
Seamus glared at his father, trying to summon something—anything—to attack him. It wasn’t the first time he’d tried to use his Legacy since waking up and finding himself in a cell that morning.
“We’ve implanted you with an Inhibitor,” Peter McKenna said. “It’ll help us keep your abilities under control.”
Seamus snorted. “So, if I don’t do what you want, you’ll just control me like a robot?”
His father’s expression remained impassive. “You know why this had to be done. You’re dangerous.”
“Wow,” Seamus said, clapping his hands together. “Congratulations. You finally got what you always wanted—complete control.”
“I never wanted to control you, son” his father said.
Seamus ignored him. He thought back to the night before. He remembered running from the fight on the roof, going back to the room. He remembered telling Freakshow and Spike that they needed to leave, and them slipping past the crowd in front of the hotel.
Then things got a little hazy. He’d argued with Freakshow and Spike about where to go. With Eleni and Magdalena gone, he knew things would fall apart. They were better off sticking together. But Freakshow and Spike wanted to return to their new hideout and wait for orders, so he headed off alone.
He remembered stealing a car, but there was a roadblock on the freeway. Then a voice telling him to step out of the vehicle.
“You’re lucky Watchtower got involved and they didn’t shoot you when you tried to attack them.”
“I wish they had,” Seamus said. “At least then maybe I’d be back with Catriona.”
At the mention of Seamus’s sister’s name, he finally saw some emotion on his father’s face. It was there only for a moment, but he could tell he’d struck a nerve. He pushed. “Then you’d have killed off both your kids. Isn’t there some kind of merit badge for that?”
His father seemed about to speak. Then, abruptly, he turned and walked out of the cell, the door sliding open and then shut behind him.
Seamus lay back on his cot and wondered if he should have stuck with Freakshow and Spike. Surely they weren’t worse off than he was, trapped here with no way out.
Except that there was always a way out. He just had to find it. And when he did, a lot of people were going to be very sorry. Especially his father.
MAX
POINT REYES, CALIFORNIA
“Do it again!” Max cried.
“Okay,” Kalea said. “Hang on.”
The ground beneath their feet rumbled. Max fell down, laughing. Rena, holding on to a tree trunk for balance, shook her head. “That is one dangerous Legacy.”
“It’s not as bad as Kona’s,” Kalea said,
pointing to her brother. “At least I don’t turn things into liquid fire.”
“I don’t know,” said Bats, seated at a picnic table nearby, watching her friends show off. “I think Rena’s Legacy might be the coolest.”
Rena walked over and sat down across from her. “We all have great Legacies,” she said as the others joined her and Bats.
Max could tell by the expression on Kalea’s face that she still wasn’t entirely comfortable with them. He couldn’t blame her. After all, until recently she’d kind of been playing for the opposite team.
“You guys are all going to love it here,” he said enthusiastically.
“I already do,” said Bats.
Kona put his arm around his sister. “I’m just happy to have my sister back.”
Looking at Kona and Kalea, Max couldn’t help but think about Ghost. Nemo had invited him to come with her to visit, but he’d said no. The weird thing was, he wanted to see her more than anything in the world. But he wasn’t ready.
He knew that every time he looked at her he was going to think about what she’d done, and he wasn’t sure he could ever trust her again, not completely.
Then again, if Kona could forgive his sister, maybe Max could forgive his friend. After all, he cared about her. A lot. They’d been through so much together even before meeting Six and Sam. And he’d made mistakes himself, and nobody was bringing that up. Didn’t Ghost deserve the same chance?
“You okay?” Rena whispered in his ear, bringing him back to the moment.
“Yeah,” Max said brightly. “I was just thinking about how tomorrow it’s back to classes. It’s like we’ve been on Christmas break and now it’s over.”
“I don’t know about you,” Bats said, “but my Christmas breaks never involved fighting giant dinobots on top of a hotel in Sin City.”
Everybody, including Kalea, laughed as Max nodded. “Okay, well, maybe it wasn’t quite like Christmas,” he said. “And maybe this school isn’t exactly like my old one. But we still have classes tomorrow.”
He tried to imagine life going back to normal. Was there even such a thing now?
“I haven’t been in school in a long time,” Bats remarked. “Not a real one, anyway.”
“Don’t worry,” Max said. “At least here you’ll always get to sit with the cool kids at lunch.”
Bats turned to him. “Really?” she said. “Are you going to introduce me to them?”
The table erupted in laughter again as Bats put her arm around Max, hugging him.
Yeah, he thought. Everything is going to be fine.
SIX AND SAM
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
Sam placed a folded-up T-shirt on top of the other clothes in his suitcase, then closed the top.
“That should be enough for two weeks, don’t you think?”
Six held up a bathing suit. “This is all I need,” she said. “I don’t plan on leaving the beach.”
“Then I say Operation Bye-Bye Parasites is officially underway,” Sam said.
They’d been given the all clear by Dr. Fenris only hours earlier. And thanks to Edwige, all of their other injuries were healed as well. It was as if Vegas had never happened.
“And Nine said he’d take care of cleanup, right?” Six said.
Sam nodded. “McKenna used his connections with the Vegas police to squash any further investigations, and they’ve done damage control with the press. As far as anyone knows, what happened was simply a publicity stunt gone wrong.”
“Publicity stunt,” Six said. “People will believe anything.”
Sam shrugged. “You know what they say, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Anyway, they picked up Freakshow and Spike, and they’re in custody. Now they just have to round up what’s left of the Mogs.”
Six picked up her bag. “In that case, let’s get out of here before somebody finds another monster for us to fight.”
“I’m afraid Bali will have to wait,” said a voice with an accent Six couldn’t quite place.
An older man with slicked-back brown hair and a tailored suit had walked into the room. Six didn’t recognize him, but he looked like someone who didn’t want to be noticed or remembered.
“Who are you?” she asked.
Two more men entered the room. They were wearing light body armor and Six eyed the weapons holstered at their sides. This apparently wasn’t a casual visit. The man, ignoring Six’s question, reached into his pocket and took out a tablet, which he held up so that Sam and Six could see the screen. A video began to play. It showed Six riding the grindle up the side of the Saturn Hotel.
“And?” Six said.
“That video made it onto YouTube,” the man said. “Briefly, but long enough for certain people to see it and become very interested in what a member of the Garde was doing involved in, shall we say, unsanctioned interaction with Mogadorian rebels.”
“In case you can’t tell, I was stopping her,” Six retorted.
The man touched the screen of the tablet and another video played. This one showed Sam standing in the middle of the casino while the machines around him spit out rivers of coins.
“This one came from a security camera,” the man said. “The casino owner isn’t too happy about paying out all those jackpots.”
“Like Six said, we were fighting the Mogs,” Sam argued. “Surely you can explain to—”
“You’re missing the point,” the man said. “The fact that the two of you went rogue after you left Watchtower and didn’t let them or the Earth Garde handle this isn’t sitting well with some people.”
“What people?” Sam asked.
“People who make decisions about the future of the Garde,” the man said. “People whose job it is to enforce the Accord, and make sure the public believes it’s working. And you’re starting to give them the wrong impression.”
“Which is?” asked Six.
“That maybe the Garde aren’t as harmless as we’ve been led to believe.”
Sam laughed. “This is ridiculous,” he said. “We were helping. If anything, we prevented an even bigger disaster from occurring.”
The man slipped the tablet back into his pocket. “That’s not the way everyone sees it. Your activities have just raised too much concern.”
“Then tell us who we need to talk to,” Six said. “Who needs to understand what really happened.”
The man fixed her with a steely expression. “I’m afraid it’s the two of you who don’t understand,” he said as the men behind him stepped forward with their weapons now raised. “You’re under arrest.”
EXCERPT FROM GENERATION ONE
THE WAR MAY BE OVER—BUT FOR THE NEXT GENERATION, THE BATTLE HAS JUST BEGUN!
DON’T MISS THE START OF THE SERIES SET IN THE WORLD OF I AM NUMBER FOUR.
CHAPTER ONE
KOPANO OKEKE
LAGOS, NIGERIA
THE WEEK BEFORE THE INVASION, KOPANO’S father, Udo, sold their TV. Despite his mother’s fervent prayers for his father to find a new job, Udo was unemployed, and they were three months behind on rent. Kopano didn’t mind. He knew a new TV would manifest soon. Football season was coming and his father wouldn’t miss it.
When the alien warships appeared, Kopano’s whole family crowded into his uncle’s apartment down the hall. Kopano’s first reaction was to grin at his two younger brothers.
“Don’t be stupid,” Kopano declared. “This is some bad American movie.”
“It’s on every channel!” Obi shouted at him.
“Be quiet, all of you,” Kopano’s father snapped.
They watched footage of a middle-aged man, an alien supposedly, giving a speech in front of the United Nations building in New York.
“See?” Kopano said. “I told you. That’s an actor. What’s his name?”
“Shh,” his brothers complained in unison.
Soon, the scene descended into chaos. New York was under attack by pale humanoid creatures that bled black and turned to ash when they were killed
. Then some teenagers wielding powers that looked like special effects showed up and began to fight the aliens. These teenagers were only a little older than Kopano and, despite the madness their arrival had created, Kopano found himself rooting them on. In the coming days, Kopano would learn the names of the two sides. The Loric versus the Mogadorians. John Smith and Setrákus Ra. There was no question who the good guys were.
“Amazing!” Kopano said.
Not everyone shared Kopano’s enthusiasm. His mother knelt down and began to pray, feverishly muttering about Judgment Day until Kopano’s father gently escorted her from the room.
His youngest brother, Dubem, was frightened and clung to Kopano’s leg, so Kopano picked the boy up and held him. Kopano was short and stout like his father, but well muscled where his father was paunchy. He patted Dubem’s back. “Nothing to worry about, Dubem. This is all far, far away.”
They stayed glued to their uncle’s TV day into night. Even Kopano couldn’t maintain his good cheer when the footage of New York’s destruction was played. The broadcasters showed a map of the world, little red dots hovering over more than twenty different cities. Alien warships.
His father scoffed when he saw the map. “Cairo? Johannesburg? These places get aliens and not us?” He clapped his hands together. “Nigeria is the giant of Africa! Where is the respect?”
Kopano shook his head. “You don’t make any sense, old man. What would you do if the Mogadorians showed up here? Hide under the bed, probably.”
Udo raised his hand like he would slap his son, but Kopano didn’t even flinch. They stared at each other until Udo snorted and turned back to the TV.
“I would kill many of them,” Udo muttered.
Kopano knew his father to be a boastful man and an unrepentant schemer. It had been years since Kopano responded to Udo’s big talk with anything but scornful laughter. However, Kopano didn’t so much as chuckle when his father talked about killing Mogadorians. He felt it, too. Kopano itched to do something, to save the world like the guys he’d seen fighting at the UN. He wondered what happened to them. He hoped they were still out there, fighting, turning maggot-aliens to dust.
The Legacy Chronicles: Killing Giants Page 10