“Lincoln, Skylar, get out of our way!”
Mr. Spencer came rushing through the RTC doorway, staff in hand. Lincoln and Skylar dove out of the way as more and more faculty members sprinted into the foyer, ready to battle the charging raiders. The raiders saw they were too late and stopped their charge. They turned around and ran for the stairwell, hoping to get back to the first floor where their reinforcements were waiting. Unfortunately, something large and hairy now stood blocking their exit.
Samson roared, loud enough that the raiders close to him covered their ears with their hands. They stopped running, trapped between Samson and the faculty. Lincoln prepared for another battle.
As it turned out, the raiders weren’t that stupid. Realizing they had no chance, they surrendered. They were bound and gagged, lying in a row along one of the walls. Skylar stood next to Mr. Spencer and Miss Grimes, giving them a quick version of the past several hours.
“Where’s Mr. Rockwell?” Lincoln asked as soon as she finished. He was the only faculty member not trapped inside the RTC.
Mr. Spencer shrugged. “They sent him with the Council.”
Lincoln nodded. “Xander’s after something. He wants Mr. Rockwell to tell him where it is. The Council’s locked up on the seventh floor with only a few guards keeping watch. We should go free them now, before it’s too late.”
“That’s not what Gordon would want,” said Mr. Spencer. “First and foremost, we have a responsibility to the children. After we rescue the recruits, we’ll worry about him and the Council.”
“What about us?” Lincoln asked. “What do you want us to do?”
“What do I want you to do?” Mr. Spencer repeated, raising his eyebrows. “I want you to go hide in a closet until this whole thing is over. But,” he added, cutting Lincoln off before he could protest, “I have a feeling that won’t happen. So you and your friends can come along, but I want you to stay in the back and be careful.” Lincoln nodded. “You better make me proud. I want these raiders to know what happens when you mess with my recruits.”
Lincoln grinned and turned to find Samson. As he was walking away, he could hear Mr. Spencer muttering, “I’m getting too old for this. I should have retired years ago.”
CHAPTER 26
THE RESCUE
“ALL DONE,” OTIS ANNOUNCED, WIPING his hands on his pants. He and the other Keepers had just finished forcing their prisoners into the RTC. The only exception was Boggs. No one had ever seen a man turned into a statue before, and after a short debate, they decided to leave Boggs where he was. They were worried he could shatter if they moved him. Besides, as Mr. Spencer told the others, it’s not like Boggs would be going anywhere anytime soon.
Mr. Spencer closed the RTC doors, placed the black lock between them, and then pressed the small button next to the lock’s keyhole. The spokes reemerged, followed by the outer ring which secured the two doors together. Miss Grimes, who was standing next to Mr. Spencer, tugged on the doors, making sure the lock held firm. Satisfied, she nodded toward the rest of the group.
“Okay,” Mr. Spencer said, “everybody follow me.”
He led them down the stairs to the first floor. Two armed guards stood at the opposite end of the lobby, near the Assembly Hall. They saw the faculty. One of the guards raised his gun and pointed it at Mr. Spencer. His finger found the trigger. Before he could pull it, however, the other guard whacked him across the back of the head with the butt of his rifle. The first guard fell to the floor as the second one dropped his gun and raised his arms into the air. Someone from the faculty shot an air blast at him. He flew into the air and crashed to the floor.
“He’s on our side!” Lincoln cried out. Those ahead of him stopped running. They glanced back and forth in confusion from Lincoln to the man lying on the ground. Lincoln ignored them, rushing past and crouching next to Duncan.
“You okay?” Lincoln asked.
“I’ll be fine.” He grunted as Lincoln helped him up. “It looks like our plan worked.”
“Perfectly.”
Duncan nodded. “A few minutes after I showed up, we heard the commotion you were causing up above. That got ‘em real nervous. They decided to post guards outside the Assembly Hall, so I volunteered for the first watch.”
Lincoln turned to Mr. Spencer, who was watching Duncan suspiciously. “Mr. Spencer,” Lincoln told him, “this is Duncan, the one who helped us.”
They stared at one another for what felt like several minutes. Finally, Mr. Spencer nodded and extended his hand. Duncan took it, shaking hands briefly before pointing to the Assembly Hall.
“The kids are tied up in the audience chairs, and the raiders have locked all the doors. That one right there,” Duncan pointed to one of the four Assembly Hall entrances, “is the one they use to come in and out. I can get them to unlock it with the password.”
While Mr. Spencer and the rest of the faculty considered this idea, Otis and Bernie tied up the unconscious guard and hid him behind the lobby desk, the same place Lincoln and his friends had hidden when this whole mess started.
“Do the recruits know we’re coming?” Mr. Spencer asked. Duncan nodded. “And where are the raiders?”
“There are two guarding the entrance,” answered Duncan. “The rest are all over the Assembly Hall.”
“How many?” asked Miss Grimes.
“A lot,” answered Duncan. “Around a hundred kids and at least thirty adults.”
Mr. Spencer frowned. They were outnumbered four-to-one. Their only hope was to turn the numbers in their favor by freeing the recruits.
The creak of a door opening grabbed everyone’s attention. It was the lobby entrance. Samson leaped toward it, fist raised, ready to attack whatever walked in from the outside. He dropped his hand, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief as Guga and Jack walked through the front door.
“We’re through playing watchdog while you have all the fun,” complained Jack. “We want some action.”
Lincoln gave him a grin and then watched Mr. Spencer approach Samson and point at the Assembly Hall.
“The locks on these doors are hundreds of years old. They can’t be broken by any of us Guardians.” Mr. Spencer pointed at Samson. “But I doubt they were designed to withstand your strength.”
Samson nodded, and Mr. Spencer immediately turned and began to position the other faculty members against the walls along each of the Assembly Hall entrances. “After Samson tears off these doors,” Mr. Spencer whispered, “we rush inside.”
Lincoln felt someone grab his shoulder and turned to see Otis standing there, shaking his head. “Not you guys.” He pointed to the lobby desk. “You wait over there. After we’ve gone in, count to ten, then you can sneak in and start freeing the recruits.”
Jack opened his mouth to object, but he closed it without saying a word after a don’t-mess-with-me look from Otis. Skylar, Guga, and Jack ran to the lobby desk, hiding next to the bound-and-gagged guard.
Lincoln didn’t follow his friends. “Otis,” he whispered, hoping no one could overhear him. Otis looked at him, eyebrows raised. “Do you know who helped the raiders get into the academy?” Otis nodded, and from the look on his face, Lincoln knew the answer to his next question before he asked it, but he asked anyway. “Was it Simon?” Again, Otis nodded. “Why?”
Otis shrugged. “Does it really matter? He betrayed us. People have died because of what he did.”
“Milo didn’t have anything to do with it. He’s been helping us the whole time.”
“Good,” Otis replied. “Once this is all over, we can let Mr. Rockwell decide how to handle Simon and his friends, but for now, we treat them just like we treat the raiders. No mercy.”
Lincoln nodded and joined his friends behind the desk. Samson walked to the middle of the lobby. His eyes were glowing brightly.
The air inside the lobby changed. It became colder and strangely lighter. The sensation grew stronger and stronger, as though a giant vacuum were above the lobby, sucking the a
ir out. It became difficult to breathe. Lincoln was about to black out. He grabbed the desk in front of him and looked at his friends. From their pale faces and worried expressions, he guessed they were feeling the same way.
Suddenly, the four Assembly Hall entrances burst open as the doors ripped off their hinges and flew across the lobby, crashing into the far wall and falling to the ground. The suction sensation vanished. Lincoln gasped, air filling his deprived lungs, and checked on his friends. They were shaken but otherwise okay.
The faculty ran through the open doors and into the Assembly Hall as the guards inside cried out in alarm. Samson sank to the floor, exhausted. The battle had begun.
“One ... two ... three ...,” Lincoln counted out loud. “Ah, screw it!”
He jumped out from behind the desk and raced into the Assembly Hall, his friends right on his tail. Inside was pure chaos. Faculty and raiders battled everywhere. Lincoln and his friends took advantage of the confusion and snuck to where the other recruits sat bound to their chairs.
“Untie them,” Lincoln whispered. He transformed the mayoke into a small knife and went to work, using the razor-sharp blade to quickly free several recruits. His friends joined in, crawling to the various rows full of prisoners and untying knot after knot.
By working quickly and quietly, they were able to free most of the recruits before the raiders noticed what they were doing. Lincoln was bent over, freeing one of the last prisoners, when he heard someone shout, “The prisoners! They’re escaping!”
He looked up to see a boy dressed in one of the dark hoodies with the red X pointing at the recruits. Bernie saw him too. The Keeper pointed his staff. The boy went flying across the Assembly Hall, but the alarm had already been sounded. Several teenage raiders came running.
“Hold them off,” Lincoln shouted to the freed recruits. He bent back down, slicing through another prisoner’s bindings as Jack led the others against the charging raiders. Lincoln could hear the clash as the recruits and the raiders met. A girl screamed in pain. Lincoln didn’t look up. There were still five recruits he needed to free.
Finally, Lincoln sliced through the ropes holding the last recruit, a third-year girl from Jamus. She jumped up and gave him a quick hug before chasing after the other recruits. Lincoln stood and surveyed the chaos.
Faculty and raiders battled throughout the auditorium, scattered among the rows of chairs. Lincoln spotted Miss Grimes and Mr. Spencer near the back, standing on a pair of chairs while attacking a group of raiders, all of whom were covered in blood and bruises, their eyes wide with fear.
Jack and the rest of the recruits were near the front of the auditorium, fighting a large group of mostly teenage raiders. Lincoln spotted ten or so recruits among the raiders, including Simon, who was leading the attack against his former friends. Even though the recruits held superior numbers, Simon and his army were better organized and were forcing the recruits backward toward the stage.
“Lincoln!” Skylar yelled from behind him. She pointed at Simon and then shrugged her shoulders.
“Come on!” he yelled back.
He and Skylar weaved their way to the front of the auditorium. Lincoln leaped onto the stage and shot a burst of blinding white light high into the air. The recruits and raiders below stopped fighting as they tried to shield their eyes.
“Recruits, listen to me! We will not lose this fight. We are the academy defenders!” Lincoln’s yell rang through the Assembly Hall.
The light extinguished. The sounds of the faculty and the older raiders still battling in the back of the auditorium seemed to fade as everyone nearby paused and looked up at Lincoln. Simon watched him curiously.
Someone else leaped onto the stage from the mass of recruits below. It was Guga. “Follow Lincoln!” he shouted. “Make these suckers wish they never came here!”
He turned toward Lincoln and raised his fist into the air. Lincoln returned the signal, but as he did so a flash of light reflected in his eyes and he saw something zooming toward his friend. Guga saw the panic in Lincoln’s eyes and realized something was wrong. He turned toward the raiders just as a piece of jagged metal hit him, sinking several inches into his chest. His eyes widened, first in surprise and then in pain. Seconds later, his eyes went blank, and his lifeless body sank to the floor.
“Nooo!” Lincoln screamed at the top of his lungs. He turned to face Simon, who was looking at Guga, his glowing eyes proof of his guilt. Simon had killed Guga.
Cold rage filled Lincoln. Using his power over gravity, he yanked Simon into the air and then hit him with the strongest air blast he could muster. Simon flew across the Assembly Hall and slammed into one of the walls with so much force he went straight through it, landing on the lawn outside of the tower.
Lincoln turned back to the rest of the teenage raiders, who were now eyeing him warily, and raised his fist into the air. “For Guga!” he yelled and jumped off the stage toward them, ready to obliterate every last one of the raiders all by himself.
He came down with a side-thrust kick into the nearest raider’s chest. The boy fell to the ground. Lincoln landed on his feet and used his powers, ripping pieces of stone off the floor and shooting them at the raiders. He threw them with such force that they ripped through the raiders’ air shields and slammed into them, knocking them to the ground.
Lincoln wasn’t finished. He jumped into the air, spinning like a top as he controlled gravity to keep himself suspended a few feet in the air. At the same time, he shot a fifteen-foot flame from each of his hands. The raiders surrounding him dove to the ground, desperate to avoid the spinning flames. A few weren’t fast enough. They yelped with pain and fell to the floor, burned and blistered by the scorching flames. Lincoln dropped to the floor and sent a final burst of power into the flames, doubling their size and making them so hot they turned bright blue. Another half-dozen raiders fell to the ground. The flames vanished and Lincoln doubled over, exhausted.
Lincoln’s attack gave the recruits the edge they needed. “For Guga!” Lincoln heard Jack yell as he and the other recruits charged past Lincoln. They attacked savagely. The raiders fought back, but without Simon to lead them, they seemed confused and unsure of themselves. Jack and Skylar fought side by side, a lethal combination of strength, skill, and speed.
Lincoln caught his breath and rejoined the fight, sliding in alongside Skylar and Jack. He pulled out the mayoke, transformed it into a staff, and cracked a tall, skinny raider across the forehead, knocking him to the ground.
“Nice shot!” called out Jack. “Weren’t you awful at combat training?”
“I wasn’t that bad,” Lincoln protested, grinning. “Just not as good as you or Skylar. Besides, I find the real thing’s easier for me.”
“No kidding,” muttered Jack as he grabbed two raiders and smashed their heads together.
As the battle continued, the fighting grew more difficult. Bodies and debris cluttered the floor. Lincoln noticed with satisfaction that the vast majority of those on the ground wore dark hoodies.
One of the raiders finally gave up and ran away, leaving the Assembly Hall through the hole Simon had smashed through the wall. Another raider followed, then another, and another.
Lincoln glanced toward the back of the Assembly Hall. Three raiders had Bernie surrounded. He raised his staff and then slammed it into the ground. Like a tidal wave, dirt and stone rose from the ground and crashed into the raiders, knocking them from their feet.
A red light shot high into the air. It must have been the raiders’ signal for retreat, because as soon as they saw it, those who hadn’t already left raced to the broken wall. One by one, they jumped out the hole.
Recruits and faculty chased after them. “Come on,” Jack urged his friends.
Lincoln was about to follow when he saw someone walk through the Assembly Hall entrance. “Mr. Rockwell,” he shouted, pointing to where Mr. Rockwell and Mr. Henry now stood, surrounded by Council members and their aides.
Those still i
nside the tower immediately lost interest in their pursuit of the raiders, instead hurrying to make sure Mr. Rockwell was okay. Lincoln and his friends did the same.
“Are you okay?” Otis asked.
Mr. Rockwell smiled grimly. “I will be, although due to a recent dose of Deleo poison, I won’t be of much use for the next twenty-four hours.”
“How did you get away from your guards?” This time it was Mr. Spencer who asked the question.
“As soon as they heard the sounds of battle, they fled.”
“Where’s the rest of the Council?” asked Otis. Lincoln did a quick count and realized there were only six Council members in the auditorium, not eight.
Mr. Rockwell’s expression saddened. “Unfortunately, James and Mary are no longer with us. Xander and his followers tortured them to death.” His face hardened. “We can’t let them escape.”
“I’ll go organize the hunt,” Otis volunteered.
“Send everyone in groups of four, and assign at least one faculty to each group,” Mr. Rockwell ordered.
Otis nodded and then began directing faculty and the few remaining recruits to the grounds. Lincoln and his friends tried to follow, but Bernie stopped them.
“Mr. Rockwell’s going to want to talk to you,” he told them. “Wait here.”
So Lincoln and his friends watched as everyone else aside from Mr. Spencer, the remaining Council members, and Mr. Rockwell left the tower. Mr. Rockwell, Mr. Henry, and Mr. Spencer stood away from the others, talking. Miss Pratt and Mr. Jenner stood on their own as well, whispering quietly to each other.
Mr. Rockwell and Mr. Henry finished their conversation with Mr. Spencer, shook his hand, and then walked over to where Lincoln, Skylar, and Jack were waiting. Mr. Henry gave them a big smile and shook each of their hands. “If Patrick’s stories are true, then I owe the three of you my life. I won’t forget that.”
“We had a lot of help,” Skylar told him as she turned a light shade of pink. Both Lincoln and Jack just stared at him, too shocked to say anything at all. Mr. Henry gave them one more smile and then went back to speak to the other Council members.
The Academy Defenders Page 20