Cheerleaders From Planet X

by Lyssa Chiavari

  My stomach knotted inside me. This was who I’d sensed earlier. But who was he? He was taller than Andronicus, more lithely built. Something about his stance made him seem younger. Though his face was concealed by the hood, he still felt familiar to me.

  “This ends now,” he said. He clenched his fist, revealing a set of brass knuckles with spikes on them, like some kind of Wolverine wannabe.

  “I don’t think so,” growled Shailene, lunging for him.

  I gasped—engaging a man who was wearing spiked knuckles in hand-to-hand combat didn’t exactly seem like the smartest plan of action—but one of the two sentries intercepted her, drawing her away from the hooded man. Janice whirled neatly into Shailene’s place, lashing out with her foot and connecting directly with her sternum. “Stay back, Laura,” she ordered.

  I watched, dumbfounded, as the hooded man swung his fist at Janice. She ducked, but the spikes on his knuckles dragged across her shoulder, severing the strap of her backpack. She cried out in pain, clutching at her shoulder as the bag fell, ricocheting off the top of the train. Without thinking, I dove for it, catching it just before it fell off the roof. Quickly, I unzipped it, starting to rummage through it. There had to be some weapons in here, something I could use…

  “Laura Clark.”

  My head snapped up. One of the sentries was looming over me, its arms like lobster claws. I realized in horror that it had been talking to me. How did it know my name?

  “You are in violation of Statute 127.8,” it said, its mandibles tremoring. “Stand down immediately, or I shall have to take you into custody.”

  “You’re not taking me anywhere, cockroach,” I spat, lunging forward and swinging blindly at it with my fist.

  The sentry dodged my punch easily. “Andronicus shall hear of this,” it said, grabbing my upper arm with its claws and squeezing painfully. It was strong, and I realized that I had been a moron to try to confront it when I had no clue how to fight. Janice had been right; I should have stayed back.

  I struggled violently. “Let go of me,” I growled, wrenching my arm against the sentry’s iron grip. Come on, Laura, use those superpowers, I thought desperately. You know you’ve got them… My mind raced as the air whipped past me, grasping for anything, any kind of hidden strength my body might be concealing from me that I could use against him.

  My skin suddenly burned in the spot on my arm the sentry was clutching. There was a sharp, razor-like pain, and then my arm started to morph. The skin rippled, oscillating a prism of colors before turning black, hardening.

  Looking very much like the arm of the sentry itself.

  I screamed, ripping my arm away with a strength I didn’t know I had. My skin bubbled, shimmering as my arm reformed itself into its regular shape. The sentry staggered back in what I thought was surprise at my sudden transformation—but then I heard Shailene shout, “Laura, get down!”

  I ducked just as Shailene pummeled the sentry a second time with some kind of nightstick that crackled with electricity. The sentry reeled, spinning away from me and turning its attention to Shailene, struggling to maintain its balance as toxic electricity rippled through its body.

  Blue light pulsed across the weapon’s surface, sparking as she brandished it like a sword.

  Before she could swing again, the second sentry charged her. The two of them thrusted and parried, electric nightstick to claw. The first sentry shook itself off, recovering from the electric attack, and jumped into the melee.

  I ripped the backpack open again, rummaging through it for any kind of weapon I could find. There was nothing recognizable as a weapon in the bag, though, nothing like a gun or Taser or even a nightstick like Shailene’s. I settled for one of the cloaking tripods.

  “Hey, Lobster Face,” I yelled, rushing forward. “Two against one isn’t fair play!” I bashed the first sentry over the head as hard as I could with the tripod. This didn’t have much effect, but it distracted the creature long enough for Shailene to get the upper hand again. Electricity pulsed as she slammed the nightstick into the sentry’s chest. It screamed, a horrible, grating sound, collapsing to its knees. I raised my arm, preparing to club it with the tripod again.

  “Laura Clark,” a girl’s voice said.

  I froze, suddenly rooted in my spot, my arm awkwardly fixed over my head like a statue.

  Everything seemed to stand still, the train almost feeling like it was moving in slow motion. Even my heart seemed to stop as I saw her approaching Shailene and me across the roof of the rear car. The wind from the fast-moving train whipped her braids around her face. Behind her, I could see Janice frozen three cars ahead of us, seemingly rooted in place the way I felt now. The man in the hood stood beside her, not touching her, not holding her in her spot—just watching her. We all were riveted, staring at the girl approaching as casually as if she were walking down the street and not the roof of a speeding train.

  Erikka.

  “That is enough out of you,” she said to me, her expression stern. She didn’t seem any different than when I’d seen her this morning—no glowing eyes, no visible signs that she’d been possessed. But her entire demeanor was changed. When she spoke, she almost sounded like a female version of Andronicus, cool and smooth. “This is your final warning. Stay out of Anesidoran affairs, or there will be consequences.”

  I was trembling, but I still couldn’t move. My ears rang from the stabbing pain in my head, centered between my eyes.

  She smiled, a slight quirk to the corners of her lips. “That’s more like it. And as for you—” She turned to Shailene, who was frozen in a crouch, staring at Erikka unblinkingly. Erikka lifted her hand, beckoning to her. “It’s time for this to end.”

  She was going to erase Shailene, as surely as Andronicus had erased her. “No,” I tried to say, but my voice caught in my throat, and the word came out like a croak. It was like being trapped in a dream where you can see what’s happening but can’t move your limbs, can’t get the words to come out.

  Shailene rose, taking a step forward.

  This couldn’t happen.

  Her expression was blank as she stared at Erikka, her eyes glassy. My head pounded. It was this morning all over again. The red lightning would flash, and then Shailene would be gone. They’d all be gone. And only I would know what had happened.

  I couldn’t let it happen.

  Erikka reached for Shailene, and I hurled myself forward. My head felt like it was going to explode as I charged ahead, somehow breaking the inertia of the spell. Lights flashed in my vision—not the red lightning, but the sparking fireworks of the headache ripping through me. I couldn’t see where I was going, but I felt my body collide with another. I didn’t know whose. We toppled backward, and then there was nothing beneath my feet. Nothing but air.

  The nothingness only lasted a second, and then we slammed into the ground with an agonizing thud. I felt myself disentangle from whomever I’d tackled, and I rolled and bumped painfully across rocks and dirt. Tears stung at my eyes from the pain, and I knew that if I had been an ordinary human, I’d be dead.

  After a moment, I managed to force my eyes open and found myself collapsed in a pile of broken branches. My jeans were shredded, blood beginning to pool from scrapes and roadburns on my knees. I could feel bruises forming all over my body, but incredibly, it didn’t feel like anything was broken.

  I struggled into a sitting position. Crumpled on the ground five feet away from me was Shailene.

  “Shailene!” I gasped, crawling painfully over to her. I started to reach out to her, but she was already stirring.

  “What happened?” she asked weakly.

  “Don’t you remember?” I asked her.

  She blinked at me, like she was struggling to remember my face. Then recognition dawned. “No,” she said. “The last thing I remember is the sentry grabbing you. Then it’s like… it’s like waking up from a dream. I can almost see it, but it’s slipping away.”

  “It was Erikka,” I said.


  “What?” Shailene hissed.

  “She tried to… She tried to do to you whatever Andronicus did to her. It’s like I said earlier: The Anesidorans must be brainwashing the Strikers. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  “How did we get away?”

  “I, uh… I guess I pushed you off the train.” I hesitated. “You’re still you, right? You don’t feel a sudden urge to go join with the Anesidorans?”

  “Of course not,” she said.

  I sighed in relief. “Good. I stopped her in time.”

  Shailene breathed out, looking down, a slight tinge of pink on her dirt-encrusted cheeks. “Thank you,” she whispered. She sat up, pulling at her hair, brushing it away from her neck. She looked around. “Where’s Coach?”

  “Oh,” I said, my eyes widening. The force of the impact had knocked my senses out of me. I had forgotten Janice completely. “She’s—” I looked down the track, but the train was long gone. The valley was empty apart from the freeway above our heads. Janice was nowhere to be seen. “I don’t know.”

  “What?!” Shailene jumped up so fast I could barely see her movement. She started forward, but her knees gave out and she pitched forward. “We have to follow them! We have to save her!”

  “Maybe she’s okay,” I said, limping over to her. “Maybe she got off farther up the line and she’ll backtrack.”

  “No,” Shailene said, a note of hysteria in her voice. “I can’t feel her anymore, Laura.”

  “What?” I closed my eyes, trying to reach out for Janice myself, but there was nothing.

  “She’s gone.” Shailene’s voice broke. “Janice is gone. They have her. She’s gone.”

  “Shailene, it’s okay. We can still—”

  She shook her head, curling into herself. Sobs racked her. I wanted to reach out to her, wrap my arms around her, do something comforting, but I was afraid to touch her. I didn’t know what would happen, and I didn’t dare incapacitate myself or her.

  I looked around, feeling helpless. On the ground, several yards from where we’d landed, Janice’s backpack lay in a heap. I’d thought my answers might be in that bag. Maybe they still were. I’d seen the amplifier, her phone and tablet, and a bunch of tech that I didn’t recognize when I’d been looking for a weapon. If they hadn’t broken in the fall, we could try to use them. Maybe it wasn’t too late.

  “We’ll find her, Shailene,” I said weakly.

  She shook her head again, and I watched her as she cried.

  Shailene and I walked back to Union Station in silence. The train we’d been following had disappeared, and after the fight, I couldn’t sense the hooded man or Andronicus anywhere. Going back to the station and waiting for the next ghost train seemed like our only choice.

  As we meandered alongside the tracks, I rolled up my sleeves, letting the sun hit my skin as much as I could. Beside me, Shailene had taken off her jacket, tying its arms around her waist. By the time we were approaching the City limits, the bloody scabs on my knees and elbows had already shrunk and begun to fade, the sun’s rays accelerating the healing process.

  “So, I guess that’s a thing that happens now,” I commented, looking myself over. I wondered when it had started. Had I always been this way, and just never noticed? I couldn’t remember ever cutting myself up this badly before, so maybe that was why. Not that you could tell now. My ripped jeans and dirty knees made me look grungy, but that was preferable to looking like I’d been in a car accident.

  “If you’re going to build a super army, you want to make sure they heal quickly,” Shailene said dourly. She looked down at her phone again. She’d been trying to get a signal as we’d been walking, eager to get a hold of the other cheerleaders—what was left of them, anyway. She told me as we trudged down the track that as of this morning, it had just been her, Janice and Erikka, one sophomore, and a couple freshmen left, out of their typical squad of twelve. They’d already lost two since this morning, and if I hadn’t body-slammed her, Shailene would be gone, too. I dreaded to think what had happened to the other girls while we’d been separated.

  She held her phone up, shading it from the sun with her hand and peering at the dim screen. A spiderweb of cracks ran through it; the impact of our bodies hitting the ground had shattered both our phones, though Shailene’s had gotten the brunt of it. Mine just had a single fracture—enough to be annoying, but not enough to prevent me from using it as normal. Shailene would be lucky if she could place outgoing calls from hers.

  “Two bars,” she said. “I’m going to give it a try.”

  She dialed a number and held the phone up to her ear. No one answered. She tried this five more times. By the time she hung up the last time, she was white as a sheet, though I could see she was trying to keep the strain from showing on her face.

  “No one,” she said.

  “Maybe the signal’s not strong enough to get through. Or maybe your phone is too smashed and it’s not actually working,” I suggested. “Do you want to try mine?”

  “No. It’s working. I… I can’t feel any of them, Laura.”

  Her voice was hollow. I tried to suppress the panic that the numbness of her tone made me feel. “You don’t think…?”

  “I don’t see how there’s anything else to think.”

  “Then that means… you’re the last one.”

  She didn’t respond. The silence was agonizing.

  “It’s okay. It’ll be okay,” I said at last, not sure if I was trying more to reassure Shailene or myself. “We’ll find them. At least we know now that you not being able to sense them doesn’t mean they’re”—I swallowed—“you know, dead.”

  She nodded. “The Anesidorans are doing something to them. I don’t know what. But there still has to be a chance we can get them back.” She clenched her fist. “There has to be.”

  “What about the I.G.A.?” I asked. “Shouldn’t you call them? Bring them in on it?”

  Shailene snorted. “Screw the I.G.A. They’re worse than useless.”

  My eyes widened. “Whoa, what now?”

  “You think we didn’t alert them as soon as this started happening? They’re a bunch of idiots. More than that… they’re shady. Remember what your dad said? I’m starting to think he was right.”

  I shifted awkwardly, remembering the folder in Janice’s backpack. I’d glanced inside the bag before we’d started heading back to make sure it was still there, but I hadn’t been able to look at it yet. I opened my mouth to tell Shailene about it, but something made me hold back. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it had nothing to do with my dad.

  Or worse, maybe it did.

  Regardless, for some reason I didn’t want Shailene around when I looked at that folder. Not until I knew what was really inside it. So I shut my mouth, and we trudged on in silence.

  When we drew close to the station, I hesitated. “Maybe let’s not go back in there yet,” I said. “I don’t sense Andronicus or his hoodie sidekick around, but they’re probably looking for you.” I looked over at the tall clock tower on the Hilltop Mall. “We can go in there, get cleaned up, get something to eat… regroup. Figure out what we’re going to do next, rather than just barreling in.”

  She followed my gaze up to the clock tower. It was just after three o’clock. My stomach was growling—I hadn’t had anything but those granola bars and yogurt since breakfast this morning, eight hours ago at that point. Shailene hadn’t even had that much. She was probably starving.

  “Okay,” she said after a moment. Together, we crossed the bustling street.

  The Hilltop Mall wasn’t an ordinary shopping mall. For one thing, it was almost as old as the City itself. The three-story shopping center had been built in the late eighteen-hundreds—it was one of the few buildings in the City that had been out of the path of the Great Fire a century ago—and it was rare in that it had been built as a shopping center, rather than being converted from another type of building. That made it one of the oldest original malls on the West Coast, an
d it also made it incredibly unique. Unlike other shopping plazas with their bright lights, linoleum floors and wide, open floor plans, the Hilltop was a maze of hardwood floors and winding corridors. The food court area was the only space in the mall that opened up to all three floors of the building. Clusters of small, old-fashioned tables wound their way between food carts on the ground floor, while balconies on the second and third floors led to more traditional restaurants: Sol Azteca Mexican Food, Papadopoulos’ Greek Cuisine, Genovese Italian Delicatessen and Bakery.

  “What are you thinking you might want?” I asked, gesturing to the signs hanging from the wrought iron railings above us.

  “I don’t know.” Shailene sank into an empty chair next to the Dolce Mamma ice cream cart. I took the seat across from her, setting Janice’s backpack on the floor between my feet and glancing around at the crowded food court to make sure there weren’t any sentries around. “I don’t know if I can eat. I feel like everything is just starting to catch up with me.” She slumped onto the table, crossing her arms and burying her face in her elbows. “How the hell am I supposed to do this alone? What am I supposed to do without Janice?” Her voice was muffled by her arms, but it sounded like it was about to break.

  I watched her fretfully, thinking back to the way she’d collapsed when she’d learned that we’d lost Janice. She’d been angry and upset about the disappearance of the other cheerleaders, but that had been nothing compared to the way she’d sobbed when I’d said Janice was gone. I hadn’t thought it was possible for cool, unflappable Shailene to lose it like that.

  “You’re really close with Janice, huh?” I asked tentatively. She didn’t respond. Awkwardly, I added, “I mean, that’s natural. She’s your coach, and your squad isn’t exactly normal. You probably have a tighter bond than most—”

  “She’s my mom.”

  I broke off midsentence, my mouth hanging open like a fish. “What?”

  She kept her head on the table, but she looked up at me over her folded arms, her black hair pooling around her like some kind of undersea creature surfacing from the water. “You heard me.”