The Legacy Series Boxed Set (Legacy, Prophecy, Revelation, and AWOL)

by Ellery Kane

  “No,” Max answered. “Why?”

  “Because I need one. Obviously.” Edison sighed. “Sorry. I’m just freaking out here. Every time I swipe the keycard, I’m prompted for a six-digit code. Any ideas?”

  “Six digits could be a date.” Mr. Van Sant pulled out his cell phone and began typing. “Maybe Xander’s birthday,” he suggested, scrolling through the search results. “It’s 11-19-08. Try that.”

  As the crowd quieted, Quin continued speaking. “As many of you know, I have a history with emotion-altering medications, and it hasn’t been pretty. As a former member of the Guardian Force turned Resistance, I understand your hesitation.”

  “Not it,” Edison growled.

  “His mother’s birthdate?” Mr. Van Sant offered. “12-15-77.”

  “No!”

  “But I believe in Zenigenic. I believe in Docil-E. And most importantly, I believe in Xander Steele.” My stomach panging, I studied his face as he delivered his lines. This was a different Quin. His voice sounded confident, but his posture was uncertain. He scanned the crowd before he lowered his eyes to read. “I want you all to know Docil-E is safe and effective.”

  “How much time do I have?” Edison asked.

  “Not much,” I replied. “Max is stalling her. Five more minutes, tops.” Barely enough time for him to get into the office, copy Xander’s hard drive onto the password-skirting device Barry gave him, and get out.

  Quin pointed to the large screen where his face was replaced by a table of predictable statistics showing an overwhelmingly favorable response to Docil-E. “Experimental trial results have shown only a miniscule percentage of participants suffered mild side effects. Most experienced none. I’ve witnessed several successful experimental trials myself.” Exhibit A: Augustus, I thought to myself. If only he was still medicated. I followed that thought, breadcrumb by breadcrumb, and suddenly I knew.

  “It’s the date!” I yelled into the radio. “The date of the next Chicago! 01-23-43.”

  “Try it!” Mr. Van Sant urged.

  Spokesman Quin reappeared on the screen. “Like Mr. Steele, I will be using Docil-E regularly. And I recommend you all do the same.”

  I heard an encouraging click. “Brilliant, Lex. Brilliant.”

  Xander joined Quin, putting a firm hand on his shoulder. “Let’s all do our part to make the world a little kinder.” They concluded Quin’s speech in unison, but only their voices synchronized. Xander’s body was tense as he pushed against Quin’s arm, trying to move him from behind the podium. Quin stood firm, both of them vying for position.

  “Something’s wrong.” I was whispering again, afraid to say the words out loud. Afraid it would make them true. I wasn’t the only one confused. A few hands clapped, but most of the crowd was silent.

  Sensing the audience’s discomfort, Xander forced a strained smile. “We’d like to thank you all—”

  “Gun!” A scream from the crowd sliced Xander’s sentence in two, leaving one part unfinished and one part forever unspoken. That word, just one, and the beast awakened again, spreading itself in all directions. The pop-pop-pop of bullets followed. While watching Xander cower behind the plexiglass shield where there was only room for one, I understood. Quin must have known.

  “Eddie.” Mr. Van Sant breathed the name. “He’s got to get out of there.”

  “Edison!” Elana was yelling into the radio, already swimming against the current, fighting her way through the mob. “I’ll go find Max,” she said. “We’ll meet you back at the tunnels.” The tunnels. I instantly regretted our decision to leave the car and navigate the derelict BART underground to get here. It was safer—we wouldn’t be seen—but slow. And whatever was happening, I wanted to leave it behind us, far and fast.

  “Edison, can you hear me?” I asked. A faint crackling was the only answer.

  Mr. Van Sant was on his feet. “Let’s go,” he urged, heading toward the door, but I couldn’t leave—not yet. I fastened the radio to my waistband and crouched near the ledge, still watching through my binoculars.

  “Alexandra! Let’s go!” Mr. Van Sant was insistent now. He was holding the door with one hand and waving the other with urgency. I stood and took one step backward toward him. I couldn’t turn away without knowing Quin was safe. He was hunched at the edge of the stage, turned away from the crowd. He had taken off his jacket to shield his face, anticipating the deployment of Docil-E.

  My last look was like a puzzle, a kaleidoscope. Turned one way, the pieces came together with ease: Black and blue. Satan’s Syndicate and Oaktown Boys. Gun on gun, bullet for bullet, they joined together in a predictable chaos. Soldiers advanced from the wall, gas masks deployed, spray canisters in their hands. In seconds, a cloud of Docil-E descended over the makeshift battleground.

  But turn it another, and it was all wrong. The pieces didn’t fit, not at first. Someone didn’t belong. String. He climbed up the Z, opposite all the others who scurried down it, helter skelter, like ants—displaced and disturbed. He stood there high above Docil-E’s fog, as if this exact moment was the one he’d been waiting for … the one he wanted to remember. He wasn’t there for the New Resistance, that much I knew. A broken river of red bandanas, they were running away along with everyone else.

  String aimed his gun at Quin’s back with the studied precision of someone who had practiced.

  “Quin!” My scream burned my throat, but it went nowhere. It was a ghost, appearing and disappearing without consequence.

  String must have pulled the trigger, but I didn’t see it. Mr. Van Sant grabbed my arm and yanked me with him. Like a dead star plummeting toward earth, the binoculars fell from my opened hands.

  CHAPTER FIFTY - ONE :

  COMPLIANCE

  “Cover your face.” Mr. Van Sant had already removed his sweatshirt. He wrapped it across his nose and mouth as he raced down the stairs ahead of me.

  I heard him—even through the white noise roaring in my head—but my feet kept going. If I stopped, I would freeze. And if I froze, I would be stuck, tied to the tracks, a train of panic baring down on me. So I kept my eyes on the concrete steps, taking them one at a time.

  “Do it!” Muffled, Mr. Van Sant’s yell was still fierce. But only a part of me was listening. The rest of me kept seeing String, Quin, and the space between them. “Alexandra! We’re almost to the door.” He tugged at my sleeve. “Take this off.” Already I could smell it. The air was pungent, sickeningly sweet like lilac.

  I pulled off my jacket and let him secure it, tying the leather arms behind my head. “Quin.” I couldn’t say anything else.

  “I know. I’m worried too.” I was glad he didn’t try to reassure me. “Right now, we have to concentrate on getting out of here.” I nodded, letting my legs carry me down the last flight. “Ready?” he asked, his hand on the knob.

  He didn’t wait for an answer.

  The wet, white haze was all I could see at first. I shielded my eyes with my hands, but I could already feel them stinging. I followed behind Mr. Van Sant, palming the building with my hand to guide me. The quiet was a shock. The sudden absence of sound felt brutal, raw. Just when I started to wonder if the earth had opened up and swallowed everything, I saw a neat line of legs through the thinning cloud, guns laid on the ground in front of them. Their silent owners were seated near Zenigenic’s entrance. Blue and black. Side by side. Calm and obedient.

  “Stay here.” Mr. Van Sant headed toward the still-cloaked stage until I couldn’t make him out anymore.

  Quin is dead. The moment I pressed my back to the wall—stopped moving—the thought came in a rush, the way a dam breaks open. String’s perfect aim, the bullet’s long flight, Quin’s last breath. I imagined it all. Inside me, a coil of despair wrapped tight and squeezed. Stop it, stop it, stop it. Stop. It. Lex. “Quin is not dead.” I said the words aloud so I could feel them on my lips. So I could believe them. Concentrating on the cold steel of the building flush against my shirt, I turned on my radio. I pressed it agai
nst my covered mouth. “Elana?” I whispered. There was only static.

  “Get up.” A stern but muffled voice directed the line. In near synchronicity, they stood and began walking, leaving their guns behind for the soldiers to collect. As I watched them march, a breeze shifted the cloud of Docil-E. In the clearing, there was a body and another and another. A dark river of red flowed between them, pooling in the center.

  My radio beeped. “Lex?” Elana. Her voice was a momentary comfort, an excuse to look away. “Is Edison with you?”

  “No. Maybe he’s with Max.”

  Elana’s breathing was ragged. “Max is here. We’re in the tunnels. Edison never came out of the building.”

  “Have you tried to radio him?”

  “A million times. He must’ve … ” She sighed, and I could feel her heart measuring, weighing the possibilities, the way I had. The good, the bad, and the unthinkable. “Oh Lex, I’m worried.”

  “I’m sure he’s okay. He’s probably on his way now.” But I wasn’t sure at all. In Barry’s last message to Mr. Van Sant, he said Edison was in Xander’s office when the shooting started. Right after that, he lost the video feed. “We’ll be there soon.”

  I turned off the radio and clipped it to my jeans. Squinting at the stage, I searched for Mr. Van Sant, but the air there was still thick and white, impenetrable. Uncertain, I walked to the edge of the chemical fog. By now I was used to the cloying smell, but my eyes burned a little more with each step. My foot knocked against something hard, sending it scuttling. It was an empty spray canister branded with the words Docil-E2, Property of the United States Government. A second version of Docil-E? I picked it up.

  When I raised my head, I gasped. There was a soldier directly in front of me. He wore no mask. His eyes were glassy, his expression blank. “Hello.” His voice was one flat note. “I’m Greenhorn 935.”

  “Uh—hi.” He stood there expectant, like he was waiting for someone to tell him what to do. “Come closer,” I said, testing him. He progressed toward me without question until his face was inches from mine. His sweat was milky white, his breath stagnant with Docil-E. “Not that close.”

  “I apologize.” He stepped back.

  “Why aren’t you wearing a mask?” I asked him, gesturing to my mouth, still shielded with my jacket.

  He put his hands to his face, touching his cheeks and searching, as if he was only now realizing he was exposed. The edges of a familiar tattoo peeked from underneath his uniform sleeve. “It must have fallen off,” he said finally, but he seemed uncertain. “Should I find one?”

  “It’s too late.” He cocked his head to the side, confused—but accepted my answer without further explanation. I pointed to the holster at his side. “Give me your weapon.” No hesitation, he passed me the gun just as Mr. Van Sant returned. I saw him watching the soldier’s movements with curiosity.

  “Hello,” the soldier repeated, this time to Mr. Van Sant. “I’m Greenhorn 935.”

  “Sit down,” I told him, and he did. I laid the gun down at his feet.

  “Well, I have to hand it to Xander. That Docil-E is impressive stuff,” Mr. Van Sant said, smiling a little the way my mother used to when she didn’t want me to worry. He wiped his eyes with his shirtsleeve. They were red and watery. “There are two more just like him by the stage. Their masks must’ve come off in the melee.”

  I nodded, trying to decide on a question for Mr. Van Sant. One I wasn’t scared to ask. There was none.

  “The stage was clear. No sign of Quin,” he said, answering the most unspeakable of them. “Or Steele.”

  I couldn’t decide if that was good or bad. “What about String?”

  He shook his head. “There’s no one, just the military.”

  “Edison hasn’t shown up at the tunnels yet. Should we wait here?”

  Mr. Van Sant didn’t answer at first, but his face crumpled a little. He took a long pause. “Let’s go,” he said. “You can’t be seen here.” I know it took everything in him to turn his back to the stage, to Zenigenic, to Quin, and most of all, to Edison. I know because it took everything in me to follow.

  “Stop!” The voice was firm and final like the shutting of a door, startling me into stillness before I’d taken a second step. It came from behind us where the Docil-E was finally clearing, the aftermath fully visible now. There were at least five bodies being tended to by paramedics and another five already covered with plastic sheets. Like Greenhorn 935, a few unmasked soldiers wandered, aimless and lost, while the others secured the perimeter.

  Mr. Van Sant jerked my arm. “Keep moving. Don’t look back.”

  “I said, Stop.” I could hear the soldier’s footsteps, heavy and booted, behind us. When my eyes met Mr. Van Sant’s, I saw confirmation of my own fears. We were being hunted.

  “Hey,” the man yelled, “I need backup here. That’s the girl—”

  “Greenhorn 935, shoot him!” Mr. Van Sant barked the order. Stunned, I stared at Greenhorn 935 as he reached for the gun at his feet. Make the world a little kinder—I heard Xander’s voice in my head. We were already running when he fired the first shot. A little kinder. And a second. Kinder. I stopped counting at five. With each pull of the trigger, I flinched with a stark realization. Docil-E2 had nothing to do with kindness and everything to do with compliance.

  CHAPTER FIFTY - TWO :

  CUJO

  We followed the halo of Elana’s flashlight, none of us speaking. The BART tunnel was colder than before and pitch black. I pulled my jacket tight around me, still smelling lilac. Inside it, I could feel the icy metal of the empty spray canister through my T-shirt. There was a constant crunching underfoot. Debris? Gravel? The bones of small animals? I didn’t really want to know. Rats fled from the edges of the light as we walked in the direction of the Civic Center stop, nearest Pacific Heights. Almost two miles from the Embarcadero station, this section of the tunnels was never used by the Resistance—the tracks were still in place—but Quin and I ran this far a few times with Artos. Back then, it was an adventure. Scary, but thrilling with possibility. After all, I was with Quin and he was invincible. But then again, so was my mother. Now I only felt lonely here. Quin is not dead. It seemed necessary to remind myself. My worst-case scenario kept gnawing through the box I’d put it in. I knew death had no respect for invincibility.

  “Somebody say something, please.” Max spoke through gritted teeth. He hadn’t said anything since Mr. Van Sant told him and Elana what we saw. “Are you sure it was String?” When I’d nodded, he’d gone silent. We all had.

  I started to speak, but everything I wanted to say would have only made it worse. So I just shrugged.

  Elana put her hand on Max’s shoulder. “You know, I wish Artos was here.” Max chuckled a little.

  “Why?”

  She shined the flashlight back and forth between the tunnel walls, sending rats scurrying in every direction. “Got it,” Max said, realizing. “He is an expert at rodent control.”

  In spite of everything—because of everything—I laughed. “And he always knows exactly what to say.”

  Our laughter played out quickly, and the quiet resettled like dust. After a few minutes, Elana directed her flashlight up ahead a few hundred feet to the marker we’d left at the boarded entrance, the tunnels still shut indefinitely for public safety. We were close now.

  From behind me, I heard a pitiful sound, the gasping gulp of a swallowed sob. When I turned around, Mr. Van Sant was on his knees. “I can’t … go … back home. Not without … ” He buried his face in his hands. “ … Eddie.” The sight of Mr. Van Sant crying was unbearable to watch. His shame radiated as hot and unrestrained as his tears. Elana turned off her flashlight, leaving all of us in complete darkness.

  When we cracked the door to Mr. Van Sant’s house, only Barry’s head turned. Artos and Augustus were seated across from each other, their eyes locked in a stalemate. I could hear Barbara Blake blaring on the television.

  “At least five dead and
another 15 wounded in the gang-related shooting today at Zenigenic’s unveiling of the highly anticipated Docil-E. Authorities on the scene tell us the damage could have been much worse without quick-thinking military personnel who deployed canisters of the wonder drug that promotes kindness.

  One soldier described two of the warring Oaktown Boys and Satan’s Syndicate shaking hands and laughing after Docil-E was administered. We have yet to receive a statement from Xander Steele who was reportedly present for the duration, aiding the wounded.”

  Mr. Van Sant picked up another vase from the table in the entryway and aimed it at the television. I cringed, readying myself for an epic crash—but secretly, I wanted him to throw it. It would have felt liberating to see something break open, to watch the pieces scatter with no intention of putting them back together. “Turn it off.” His voice was flat as he returned the vase to its resting place unceremoniously. Barry quickly silenced the television.

  “Rough day?” A smirk played on the edges of Augustus lips. “Would it be a bad time to say I told you so? I told you it was a bad idea, Nicholas. An awful one. Harebrained. But you insisted—Eddie knows what he’s doing … Eddie is just as smart as me. Well that’s what happens when you put your fate in the hands of a man-child. Speaking of which, where is the chip off the old block?” Artos’ mouth curled in a snarl. His growl was low but threatening like a distant rumble of thunder. “And can we do something about Cujo here? He’s been eyeing me like a piece of steak since you left.”

  “Augustus—” I tried to interrupt, but he didn’t even pause. He shushed me with a flip of his hand.

  “I know what you’re going to ask, Ms. Knightley.” His tone was condescending. “Cujo was a little before your time.”

  “Augustus! Shut up!” Max stomped up the steps, leaving an open-mouthed Augustus in his wake. At least he stopped talking. Sort of.

  “Nobody tells me to shut up,” he mumbled under his breath, Barry squeezing his shoulder in a vise grip.