I Am Number Four: The Lost Files: Last Defense

by Pittacus Lore

  “How long was I out for?” I ask Sam, sitting up, feeling a little better physically but also feeling guilty for sleeping when there are people dying all over New York.

  “About an hour,” Sam replies. “I was going to let you rest, but . . .”

  In explanation, Sam gestures behind him, towards the small flat-screen television attached to the room’s far wall. The local news is actually broadcasting. Sam’s got the volume muted and the picture occasionally gives way to bursts of static, but there it is—New York City burning. Grainy footage shows the looming hulk of the Anubis crawling across the skyline, its side-mounted cannons bombarding the uppermost floors of a skyscraper until there’s nothing left but dust.

  “I didn’t even think to check if it was working until a few minutes ago,” Sam says. “I figured the Mogs would’ve knocked out the TV stations for, you know, war reasons.”

  I haven’t forgotten what Setrákus Ra said to me as I dangled from his ship over the East River. He wants me to watch Earth fall. Thinking even further back, to that vision of Washington, D.C., which I shared with Ella, I remember that city looking pretty busted up, but it wasn’t completely razed. And there were survivors left over to serve Setrákus Ra. I think I’m beginning to understand.

  “It’s not an accident,” I say to Sam, thinking out loud. “He must want the humans to be able to see the destruction he’s bringing down. It’s not like on Lorien where his fleet just wiped everyone out. That’s why he tried putting on that big show at the UN, it’s why he tried all that shadowy MogPro shit to bring Earth under his control peacefully. He’s planning to live here afterwards. And if they’re not going to worship him like the Mogs do, he at least wants his human subjects to fear him.”

  “Well, the fear thing is definitely working,” Sam replies.

  On-screen, the news has switched to a live shot of an anchor at her desk. The building that houses this channel has probably taken some damage from the fighting because it looks like they’re barely keeping themselves on the air. Only half the lights are on in the studio and the camera is cockeyed, the picture not as sharp as it should be. The anchor is trying to keep up a professional face, but her hair is caked with dust and her eyes are red-rimmed from crying. She speaks directly into the camera for a few seconds, introducing the next piece of footage.

  The anchor disappears, replaced by shaky video shot with a cellular phone. In the middle of a major intersection, a blurry figure spins round and round, like an Olympic discus thrower warming up. Except this guy’s not holding a discus. With inhuman strength he’s whipping around another person by the ankle. After a dozen spins, the guy lets go of the curled-up body, flinging it through the front window of a nearby movie theater. The video stays centered on the thrower as, shoulders heaving, he yells out what’s probably a curse.

  It’s Nine.

  “Sam! Turn it up!”

  As Sam gropes for the remote, whoever’s filmed Nine dives behind a car for cover. It’s disorienting as hell, but the cameraman manages to keep recording by sticking one hand above the car’s trunk. A group of Mogadorian warriors have appeared in the intersection, blasting away at Nine. I watch as he dances nimbly aside, then uses his telekinesis to fling a car in their direction.

  “. . . again, this is footage taken in Union Square just moments ago,” the shaky-voiced anchor is saying as Sam turns up the volume. “We know this apparently superpowered, um, possibly alien teenager was at the UN scene with the other young man identified as John Smith. We see him here engaged in combat with the Mogadorians, doing things not humanly possible . . .”

  “They know my name,” I say, quietly.

  “Look,” Sam says, hitting my arm.

  The camera has panned back to the movie theater, where a burly form slowly rises from the shattered window. I don’t get a good look at him, but I immediately know exactly who Nine was throwing around. He flies up from the movie theater window, slashes through the few Mogs still in the intersection and then careens violently into Nine.

  “Five,” Sam says.

  The camera loses track of Five and Nine as they plow through the grass of a small nearby park, churning up huge chunks of dirt as they go.

  “They’re killing each other,” I say. “We have to get over there.”

  “A second extraterrestrial teenager is fighting the first, at least when they’re not fighting off the invaders,” the anchor says, sounding baffled. “We . . . we don’t know why. We don’t have many answers at all at this point, I’m afraid. Just . . . stay safe, New York. Evacuation efforts are ongoing if you have a safe route to the Brooklyn Bridge. If you’re near the fighting, keep inside and—”

  I take the remote from Sam and turn off the TV. He watches me as I stand up, checking to make sure I’m all right. My muscles howl in protest and I’m dizzy for a second, but I can push through. I have to push through. Never has the expression “fight like there’s no tomorrow” had more meaning. If I’m going to make this right—if we’re going to save Earth from Setrákus Ra and the Mogadorians, then the first steps are finding Nine and surviving New York.

  “She said Union Square,” I say. “That’s where we go.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE WORLD HASN’T CHANGED. AT LEAST, NOT that I can tell.

  The jungle air is humid and sticky, a welcome change from the cold dampness of the Sanctuary’s subterranean depths. I have to shield my eyes as we emerge into the late afternoon sun, ducking one by one through a narrow stone archway that’s appeared in the Mayan temple’s base.

  “They couldn’t have let us come in that way?” I grumble, cracking my back and glancing over to the hundreds of fractured limestone steps we climbed earlier. Once we were at the top of Calakmul, our pendants activated some kind of Loric doorway that teleported us to the hidden Sanctuary beneath the centuries-old human-built structure. We found ourselves in an otherworldly room obviously created by the Elders on one of their visits to Earth. I guess secrecy was a higher priority than ease of access. Anyway, the way out wasn’t such a hike and didn’t involve any disorienting teleportation—just a dizzying hundred yards of dusty spiral staircase and a simple door that, of course, wasn’t there when we first entered.

  Adam exits the Sanctuary behind me, his eyes narrowed to slits.

  “What now?” he asks.

  “I don’t know,” I tell him, looking up at the darkening sky. “I was sorta counting on the Sanctuary to answer that.”

  “I . . . I’m still not sure what we saw in there. Or what we accomplished,” Adam says hesitantly. He pushes some loose strands of black hair out of his face as he watches me.

  “Me neither,” I tell him.

  Truth be told, I’m not even sure how long we were beneath the earth. You lose track of time when you’re deep in conversation with an otherworldly being made of pure Loric energy. We had scraped together as many pieces of our Inheritance as the Garde could spare—basically, anything that wasn’t a weapon. Once inside the Sanctuary, we dumped all those unexplained stones and trinkets into a hidden well connected to a dormant Loralite energy source. I guess that was enough to wake up the Entity, the living embodiment of Lorien itself. We chatted.

  Yeah. That happened.

  But the Entity basically spoke in riddles and, at the end of our talk, the thing went supernova, its energy flooding out of the Sanctuary and into the world. Like Adam, I’m not sure what it all meant.

  I’d expected to emerge from the Sanctuary and find . . . something. Maybe jagged bolts of Loric energy streaking through the skies, on their way to incinerate the nearest Mogadorian not named Adam? Maybe some more juice to my Legacies, putting me on a level where I’d be able to whip up a storm big enough to wipe out all our enemies? No such luck. As far as I know, the Mogadorian fleet is still closing in on Earth. John, Sam, Nine and the others could be rushing towards the front lines right now, and I’m not sure we’ve done anything to help them.

  Marina is last through the temple’s door. She hugs her
self, her eyes wide and watery, blinking in the sunlight.

  I know she’s thinking about Eight.

  Before the energy source went rocketing into the world, it somehow managed to resurrect him, if only for a few fleeting minutes. Long enough for Marina to say good-bye. Even now, already starting to sweat in the oppressive jungle heat, I get chills thinking about Eight returned to us, awash in the Loralite glow, smiling again. It was the kind of intensely beautiful moment I’ve hardened myself to over the years—this is war, and people are going to die. Friends are going to die. I’ve come to accept the pain, to take the ugliness for granted. So it can be a little stunning when something good actually happens.

  Comforting as it was to see Eight again, it was still saying good-bye. I can’t imagine what Marina’s going through. She loved him and now he’s gone. Again.

  Marina stops and glances back at the temple, almost like she might go back inside. Next to me, Adam clears his throat.

  “Is she going to be okay?” he asks me, his voice low.

  Marina shut down on me once before, back in Florida, after Five betrayed us. After he killed Eight. This isn’t the same—she isn’t radiating a constant field of cold, and she doesn’t look like she’s on the verge of strangling whoever comes close. When she turns back to us, her expression is almost serene. She’s remembering, storing that moment with Eight away and steeling herself for what’s to come. I’m not worried about her.

  I smile as Marina blinks her eyes and wipes a hand across her face.

  “I can hear you,” she replies to Adam. “I’m fine.”

  “Good,” Adam says, awkwardly looking away. “I just wanted to say, about what happened in there, uh, that I . . .”

  Adam trails off, both Marina and I looking at him expectantly. Being a Mog, I think he still finds it a little uncomfortable to get too personal with us. I know he was amazed by the Loric light show inside the Sanctuary, but I could also tell he felt like he didn’t belong, like he wasn’t worthy enough to be in the presence of the Entity.

  When Adam’s pause stretches on, I pat him on the back. “Let’s save the heart-to-heart for the ride, okay?”

  Adam seems relieved as we walk back towards our Skimmer, the ship parked alongside a dozen other Mog crafts on the nearby landing strip. The Mog encampment in front of the temple is exactly the way we left it—trashed. The Mogs that were trying to break into the Sanctuary had cleared jungle in a precise ring around the temple, getting as close to the temple as the Sanctuary’s powerful force field would allow.

  It isn’t until we cross from the vine-strewn overgrowth of the land directly in front of the temple to the scorched brown soil of the Mog camp that I realize the force field is gone. The deadly barrier that protected the Sanctuary for years is no more.

  “The force field must have shut down while we were inside,” I say.

  “Maybe it doesn’t need protection anymore,” Adam suggests.

  “Or maybe the Entity diverted its power elsewhere,” Marina replies. She pauses for a moment, thinking. “When I kissed Eight . . . I felt it. For a split second, I was part of the Entity’s energy flow. It was spreading out everywhere, all through the Earth. Wherever the Loric energy went, now it’s spread thin. Maybe it can’t power its defenses here.”

  Adam gives me a look, like I should be able to explain what Marina just said.

  “What do you mean it spread through the Earth?” I ask.

  “I don’t know how to explain it better than that,” Marina says, gazing back at the temple, now cast half in shadow by the setting sun. “It was a feeling like I was one with Lorien. And we were everywhere.”

  “Interesting,” Adam says, eyeing the temple and then the ground beneath his feet with a mixture of caution and awe. “Where do you think it went? Are your Legacies . . . ?”

  “I don’t feel any different,” I tell him.

  “Me neither,” Marina says. “But something has changed. Lorien is out there now. On Earth.”

  It’s definitely not the tangible result I was hoping for, but Marina seems so upbeat about it. I don’t want to rain on her parade. “I guess we’ll see if anything’s changed back in civilization. Maybe the Entity’s out there kicking ass.”

  Marina glances back at the temple. “Should we leave it this way? Without protection?”

  “What’s left to protect?” Adam asks.

  “There’s still at least some of the, uh, the Entity left in there,” Marina replies. “Even now, I think the Sanctuary is still a way to . . . I don’t know, exactly. Get in touch with Lorien?”

  “We don’t have a choice,” I reply. “The others will need us.”

  “Wait a second,” Adam says, looking around. “Where’s Dust?”

  With everything that happened inside the Sanctuary, I completely forgot about the Chimæra we left outside the temple to stand guard. There’s no sign of the wolf anywhere.

  “Could he have gone into the jungle looking for that Mog woman?” Marina asks.

  “Phiri Dun-Ra,” Adam replies, naming the trueborn that survived our initial assault. “He wouldn’t just go off on his own like that.”

  “Maybe the Sanctuary’s light show scared him off,” I suggest.

  Adam frowns, then cups both his hands around his mouth. “Dust! Come on, Dust!”

  He and Marina fan out, searching for any sign of the Chimæra. I climb onto our Skimmer to get a better look at the surrounding area. From up here, something catches my eye. A gray shape squirming out from beneath a rotten log at the edge of the jungle.

  “What’s that?” I yell, pointing the writhing form out to Adam. He races over, Marina right behind him. A moment later, Adam carries the small shape over to me, his face twisted with concern.

  “It’s Dust,” Adam says. “I mean, I think it is.”

  Adam holds a gray bird in his hands. It’s alive but its body is stiff and twisted, like it suffered from an electric shock and never recovered from the spasms. His wings jut out at odd angles and his beak is frozen half-open. Even though this is nothing like the powerful wolf we left behind just a short time ago, there’s a quality that I immediately recognize. It’s Dust, for sure. Bad as he looks, his black bird eyes dart around frantically. He’s alive, and his mind is working, but his body isn’t responding.

  “What the hell happened to him?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” Adam says, and for a moment I think I see tears in his eyes. He steadies himself. “He looks . . . he looks like the other Chimæra did right after I rescued them from Plum Island. They were experimented on.”

  “It’s okay, Dust, you’re okay,” Marina whispers. She gently smooths down the feathers on his head, trying to calm him. She uses her Legacy to heal most of the scratches that cover him, but it doesn’t release Dust from the paralysis.

  “We can’t do anything more for him here,” I say. I feel bad, but we need to keep moving. “If that Mog did this to him, she’s long gone. Let’s just get back to the others. Maybe they’ll have ideas about what to do.”

  Adam brings Dust on board the Skimmer and wraps him in a blanket. He tries to make the paralyzed Chimæra as comfortable as possible before he sits down behind the ship’s controls.

  I want to get in touch with John, find out how things are going outside the Mexican jungle. I retrieve the satellite phone from my pack and settle into the seat next to Adam. While he begins powering up the ship, I call John.

  The phone rings endlessly. After about a minute, Marina leans forward to look at me.

  “How worried should we be that he’s not answering?” she asks.

  “The normal amount of worried,” I reply. I can’t help but glance down at my ankle. No new scars—as if I wouldn’t have felt the searing pain. “At least we know they’re still alive.”

  “Something’s not right,” Adam says.

  “We don’t know that,” I reply quickly. “Just because they can’t answer right this second doesn’t mean—”

  “No. I mean with t
he ship.”

  When I take the phone away from my ear, I can hear the strange stuttering noise the Skimmer’s engine is making. The lights on the console in front of me flicker erratically.

  “I thought you knew how to work this thing,” I say.

  Adam scowls, then angrily flips down switches on the dashboard, powering the ship off. Beneath us, the engine rattles and clangs, like something’s not catching.

  “I do know how to work this thing, Six,” he says. “It’s not me.”

  “Sorry,” I reply, watching as he waits for the engine to settle before powering the ship up again. The engine—Mogadorian technology that should be deathly silent—once again burps and spasms. “Maybe we should try something besides turning it off and on again.”

  “First Dust, and now this. It doesn’t make sense,” Adam grumbles. “The electronics are still working. Well, everything except for the automated diagnostic, which is exactly what would tell us what’s wrong with the engine.”

  I reach over and hit the button that opens up the cockpit. The glass dome parts above our heads.

  “Let’s go have a look,” I say, standing up from my seat.

  We all climb back out of the Skimmer. Adam jumps down to inspect the ship’s underside, but I remain atop the hood, next to the cockpit. I find myself gazing at the Sanctuary, the ancient limestone structure casting a long shadow thanks to the setting sun. Marina stands next to me, silently taking in the view.

  “Do you think we’re going to win?” I ask her, the question just popping out. I’m not even sure I want an answer.

  Marina doesn’t say anything at first. After a moment, she rests her head on my shoulder. “I think we’re closer today than we were yesterday,” she says.

  “I wish I knew for sure that coming down here was worth it,” I say, clutching the satellite phone, willing it to ring.

  “You need to have faith,” Marina replies. “I’m telling you, Six, the Entity did something . . .”