Kiya was still squeezing the hand that’d been frozen, as if rubbing away an ache. “They haven’t been this…loud before.”
“They haven’t been home before,” Gamora said.
“I am Groot!” A Grootling barely larger than Peter’s hand came running at Rocket and promptly tripped over his own feet.
“Aw, buddy. Small buddy. Clumsy buddy.” Rocket crouched and helped him up. “You okay?”
“I am Groot!”
“’Course. You’re tough.”
The Grootling clamped onto Rocket’s finger. “I am Groot,” he giggled.
Rocket gently lifted the Grootling onto his shoulder. “So how’s it going down here?”
“I am Groot. I am Groot.”
“All right,” Peter said. “We’ll stock up at our next stop.”
“What are you…?” Kiya scoffed. “You’re joking.”
Peter raised his eyebrows. “What? If they want fertilizer, they’re getting fertilizer.”
“Are you saying you understand them?”
“Of course.”
“They’re intelligent?”
So Kiya hadn’t known. That changed the situation. In a way, it both helped and hurt her case. “He’s our friend.”
“It’s a he?”
“You’ve spent how much time growing them? And you didn’t realize he could talk?” Rocket crossed the room and thumped onto a tattered, plaid couch. Another few Grootlings ran up to him.
“I just thought…well.” She crossed her arms, then uncrossed them. She hadn’t moved from her spot by the entrance. “If he were speaking another language, my translator implant would’ve picked up on it. It doesn’t translate lower-level communication like animals’ speech.”
“Hey, there ain’t nothing lower-level about Groot’s talking.”
Kiya examined the Groots, then the team. Finally she said, “If they can talk, prove it. They saw me have breakfast this morning. What did I eat?”
“I am Groot,” said the Grootling on Rocket’s shoulder.
“He says you’re a disgusting liar and you skipped breakfast,” Rocket said. He lay back on the couch, arms under his head as a pillow. Two Grootlings snuggled under his tail.
“Paraphrased,” Peter said.
“I am Groot.”
“Gross,” Rocket said. “Last night, you ate a synthetic steak. For some reason.”
Kiya sucked in a breath. She stared at the Grootlings in front of them.
Peter watched her closely. With the Guardians, he usually had at least a hunch what was in their heads at any given moment. Even the newly grown Groots scattered around the room were familiar to him. They’d gotten quieter since the group entered, as if unsure what to make of their teammates standing side-by-side with the girl who’d grown and planned to sell them.
But Peter didn’t know Kiya. Watching her told him only one thing: That silence of hers was only the surface. A hell of a lot went on underneath.
Peter suddenly felt like he had brought an awfully big wild card on board.
He tried to shake it off. Two Grootlings had stood up for Kiya in her apartment; another had helped her chip off the ice when Peter had brought her into the ship.
She’d been wrong to grow and sell them. She’d been shortsighted not to realize they were sentient.
But he didn’t think she’d been cruel.
“I thought they were just plants,” she said. “Smart plants, maybe, like pets, but not…”
“Would you have sold them if you’d known?” Peter asked.
“No,” she said, fast enough that either she’d already been thinking about it, or she knew what he wanted to hear.
Sometimes Peter really missed having a telepath around.
“Did you notice they’re getting weaker?”
“Even if I hadn’t, the buyers’ complaints would’ve made it clear. It’s why I moved locations.” She put a hand on her neck. “I’ve been looking into why—like maybe I wasn’t growing them right for long-term survival, or the modifications I made so they couldn’t reproduce further had side effects, or—”
“It’s you, lady,” Rocket piped up from the couch. “You’re the one doing it. The more of them you grow, the weaker they get.”
Peter explained the situation, carefully watching Kiya’s reaction all the while. She was studying the Groots, some of which had resumed conversation, while others had come down to the group to listen in.
Her skin turned a shade or two lighter. Her jaw clenched. She scratched at a long, gray-green incision on her arm. Her mouth moved, but no sound came out.
“So?” Peter pressed.
“So?” She looked stricken, her glare momentarily gone, and he knew he’d reached her.
“Can you fix them? Bring these Groots and any others we find back into one?”
“I could try.” She shifted her weight to her other foot. Looked up warily. “If I do, you’ll keep me safe from…him?”
“We will,” Gamora said.
“Question is, are we safe from you?” Rocket asked. He propped himself up on his arms. “How can we trust you? You gonna grab the Grootlings the second you can and bolt? You gonna slit our throats while we sleep?”
“You gonna slit mine?” Kiya eyed the blaster, squeezed between Rocket and the couch backrest.
“Not ruling anything out.”
“No,” she said finally. “I want to go home. That’s all.”
“Then what’re you growing and selling these Groots for? A shuttle to DiMave ain’t that expensive.”
Kiya didn’t answer.
Rocket’s face settled into a scowl. He looked down at the Groots that had joined him on the couch. “None of you bundles of twigs are gonna let her try anything funny, are you?”
“I am Groot?” two Grootlings said, blinking owlishly.
“You do right by us, Kiya, we do right by you,” Peter said. “We’ll keep you safe from the Collector. And no one”—he pointedly looked at Rocket—“is cutting anyone’s throat!”
Rocket harrumphed, but wisely kept quiet.
Kiya chewed her lip, glancing at Gamora for a half second, then back at the Grootlings. Peter might have been mistaken, but he thought he saw her face soften.
“I’ll help,” she said. “I’ll stay.”
16
NONE of them had expected the Collector to be pleased about their betrayal.
None of them had expected him to take so long to detail just how displeased he was, either—especially since he must’ve figured out pretty quickly that they’d dumped his trackers. It took well over half a Kree day before their ship was politely hailed.
Gamora, Rocket, and Quill stood on the bridge as the holo flared up. The Collector’s grim, larger-than-life face filled the viewport, a glossy scarf wrapped around his neck.
He looked good. Not tired. Not injured.
Gamora supposed she hadn’t expected him to—she’d healed perfectly by now, and she wasn’t even immortal—but it still irked her. The fight in Kiya’s apartment had nearly killed her and Drax. She’d have enjoyed seeing a black eye at the very least.
“Friends,” the Collector said.
“Still?” Quill asked. “Hate to say it, but you need to take a hint.”
“Even one-sided amity is amity, Peter. I am so glad we have a chance to speak, now that I have found transportation and am on my way home.”
“What do you want?” Gamora did not feel like indulging him with chatter this time.
“You’re being rather rude.”
Quill shrugged. “Yes, well, you did kind of lie to us and betray us, and kidnap and experiment on a teenage girl—and all that jazz.”
“I hardly lied. Perhaps…withheld? Regardless. I want the girl. I have invested tremendous resources and energy in her. She is a highlight of my collection.”
“I would’ve thought that was the raccoon.”
“If that’s s’posed to be me, by the by,” Rocket said, “I’m seriously offended. Yeah, that’s ri
ght. We know about your messed-up little project.”
“‘Messed-up’? Oh, dear Rocket. Here I thought you would appreciate that I chose to form a tribute—”
“Ha!” Quill said. “Tribute! That’s what I said—I mean, never mind, carry on, carry on.”
“—rather than immortalizing the five of you in my collection.”
“Oh yes, we lo-ove when innocents are screwed over on our behalf,” Quill said. “Love it! It’s a hero thing.”
“It’s our jam,” Rocket spat.
Gamora crossed her arms. The others were taking too long to get to the point. Having to look at the Collector’s face without the opportunity to beat it in was a chore. He’d found Kiya. He’d found another Zen-Whoberian, and he’d kept her hidden and locked up for months—perhaps longer—
How had he even found her? Did he know of others?
“Is that all?” she asked before her thoughts could stray too far.
“Well, I had thought that allowing your continued freedom would be a sign of my admiration for your work, but…if one of you wants to join my collection in Kiya’s place, I would accept the trade. Happily.”
She raised an eyebrow. “I seem to have hit you on the head too hard.”
He laughed in delight. “Hard enough to convince me I could never truly imitate the real thing. But if none of you care to take my offer, I’ll simply need to keep at it.”
“Is that all?” she repeated.
“After we worked so well together, you would simply—”
“Yes.”
“Happily,” Quill added.
The Collector pursed his lips.
“I want my Groots back,” Rocket said.
“If you’re open to further negotiations, you can talk to them when I return.”
“Great. Bye-bye now!” Quill made a fist with his hand, abruptly fading the holo to nothing. “Well! That was enlightening.”
“He’s maaad,” Rocket said. “He was playing all nice, but he’s seriously mad. You ever seen a Shi’ar get a buzzcut? No? I have. Don’t ask.” He snickered. “No, ask me about it sometime, it was hilarious. My point is, I’d say that’s about…a fifth of how angry the Collector is right now.”
“I do enjoy it,” Gamora admitted.
“So!” Rocket clapped his hands together. “We gonna sneak in, or do a full-on attack? What’s the plan?”
“The plan?” Quill said.
“To break into the Collector’s. We know he’s got at least four Groots.”
“Oh, that plan. That plan is on hold.”
“’Scuse me?”
Quill jabbed a thumb at the spot where the Collector’s face had hovered seconds before. “It’s a traaa-aaap. Notice how he mentioned he wasn’t back yet—twice? He wants us to think the museum is undefended. I bet he’s already home. If he really did want to talk to us en route, he could’ve reached out sooner. I’m guessing he followed the trackers, realized he lost us, sped back home, realized we weren’t there either, and promptly reached out to try to draw us in. We’re not falling for it.”
“So what if it’s a trap? We’re the Guardians of the Galaxy. We don’t let that kinda junk scare us off. He’s got Groot!”
“Yes. And he wants Kiya,” Gamora pointed out. She didn’t like the idea of avoiding the Collector, either, but she also didn’t want to set course for his museum knowing they had precisely what he wanted.
Quill nodded. “We shouldn’t play into his hands. We’re going to get his Grootlings, but there are other duplicates out there—Kiya knows who she sold them to—that need us just as much. And finding those doesn’t risk the Collector stealing back the person who’s our best shot at bringing Groot back together.”
Rocket glared up at the both of them, his hands balled into fists. “Yeah. All right. She’d better pull her weight, though.”
“She’s already given locations.”
“Groots to find, people to shoot,” Gamora said.
That seemed to cheer up Rocket slightly. “So, where to?”
“You may enjoy this one.”
17
NEW TON-TON’S fourth moon was known colloquially as Ton-Four and officially by about 93 different names, courtesy of New Ton-Ton’s 93 major languages and its inhabitants’ utter inability to agree or compromise on anything.
The other Guardians hadn’t spent much time there—too small, too messy, why bother when a perfectly good Knowhere already existed?—but Rocket always thought Ton-Four had its appeal. The moon had good bars, good fighting pits, good trade, a good amount of law enforcement—meaning: zero—and a good mix of folk that meant sometimes he was only the fourth or fifth weirdest thing in the room.
Rocket hated seeing good things spoiled, and he had a hunch Ton-Four was about to be.
“Perhaps the Grootling was not purchased for a fighting pit,” Drax said after the second pit that night came up empty. They’d saved a few fighters who had ended up in the pits against their will, offered to save others only to learn the painful way that they were there very much voluntarily, and seen exactly zero Grootlings.
“Trust me,” Rocket said. “Anyone on Ton-Four buys a Groot, it’s for a fighting pit.”
“I am Groot,” Groot agreed.
They had left the Grootlings they’d already retrieved at the ship—too risky with so many to keep an eye on, no matter how much all of them had pleaded—but Kiya had come along. No way were they leaving her behind with a ship to steal and a gaggle of Grootlings to sell.
The six of them stood on the roof of a rundown casino, overlooking the third and final underground fighting ring out in the crappy tail end of the main market.
Literally underground, in this case. One entrance was at the back of a narrow, dusty fabric shop, while another was in a bar down the street. The Guardians could’ve waltzed right in—either trade a few punches with security or just have Gamora and Drax volunteer to fight—but Quill insisted they wait for the audience to leave. Civilians only got in the way and risked getting hurt.
As impatient as Rocket was to find the Grootling, he understood Quill’s thinking. The civilians watching these kinds of fighting rings might be scumbags, but Rocket had dropped enough money in these places himself that he wasn’t gonna judge.
“They’re trickling out,” Quill reported.
From their position on the rooftop, the group had a full view of the fabric shop. The audience exited in small clusters, talking and laughing in the cool morning dark. Not far down the street, behind empty market stalls abandoned for the night, another door opened.
“Entrance number three.” Gamora sat on the edge of the rooftop beside Quill, with Drax and Groot on the ground beside them, and Rocket pacing back and forth a few feet away.
Kiya sat farther away, leaning uselessly against a busted solar generator. She wasn’t even taking notes on merging the Groots or anything—wasn’t she supposed to be pulling her weight? She just sat there, legs drawn up and rubbing her shins, stonily watching the rest of them.
“Boo,” Rocket said.
Her eyes shifted to look at him. That was the extent of her response.
“What’re you staring at me for?” he asked.
“What are you?” she replied.
“’Scuse me?”
“I’ve never seen a creature like you before.”
“And you’ll never see one after me, neither, so take a good look. You ain’t the only one-of-a-kind one ’round here.” He abruptly swerved, ears pricking upright. “I heard the word ‘Groot.’”
“I am Groot?” Still sitting hunched by the ledge, Groot peered over, visibly straining to hear the conversations down on the street.
Rocket bounded his way, leaping from the gravel on the roof onto Groot’s back to get a better look.
“I am Groot—!”
The moment Rocket’s feet touched down, Groot buckled. He slid sideways, his leg slipping out from under him. Rocket fought to keep his balance, latching onto the rough bark on Groot’s shoulders
.
“The flark?” he said.
“Groot.” Gamora stood instantly by their side. “You all right?”
“I…am Groot.” Slowly, he regained his composure and pushed himself back upright.
“That weren’t nothing,” Rocket snarled. He let himself slip down to the roof again, welcoming steady ground under his feet.
He’d hopped onto Groot’s back with even less warning than that plenty of times, and Groot had never so much as blinked at the extra weight.
“I am Groot.”
Rocket’s eyes narrowed. Just surprised? Bull.
He knew what this was—they both knew, they all knew—but none of them said a thing.
“—Groot—”
There was that voice again, from down on the ground. After a last half-annoyed, half-worried look at Groot, Rocket clambered onto the ledge and scanned the street for a battle-worn Groot, or people talking about the fight they’d just watched or—
Huh. Or neither.
“Grootling.” Rocket pointed. Groups of civilians were slowly heading away from the entrances the Guardians had been watching—some laughing and slapping each other’s backs, others so drunk they could barely even walk straight.
Way down the street, illuminated by a nearby holo springing from someone’s communicator, they could see the unmistakable shape of a pot and the outline of a Grootling. The Grootling’s twig-thin arms moved excitedly about. He couldn’t have been more than a week old.
“Doesn’t look like much of a fighter,” Gamora remarked.
“I sold the one we’re looking for weeks ago. He should be grown.” Kiya stood and joined the others to peer at the street below. “No chance that’s the same Groot. This has to be another duplicate, from a batch I sold a few days back.”
“The pot is being held by a child,” Drax said. “Or by a very diminutive species I am not familiar with.”
“Okay. Rocket, Kiya”—Quill looked at both of them in turn—“let’s go grab him.”
Kiya looked wary. “I thought you only wanted me here to keep an eye on me.”
“And now I want you to talk to those nice people you sold our friend to and help convince them to sell him back. Is that a problem?”
Guardians of the Galaxy: Collect Them All Page 10