Hunt for the Garde

Dr. Zakos is waiting for us outside along with half a dozen other trueborn scientists who serve as his staff.

  “Straight to the vats,” he says to two of his men, who sprint inside with Beloved Leader’s body. Then he motions to the others. “The rest of you retrieve any Loric energy the Anubis managed to siphon out of the ground at the Sanctuary. You know what to do.”

  The men grunt and make haste. Zakos then turns to me. “You did well, Phiri Dun-Ra. Beloved Leader will surely commend you.”

  “How long do you think he’ll be out?” I ask.

  “Hard to tell based on the reports the doctors sent. But he should regain some consciousness soon after he’s put into the vats. Unless his injuries are worse than anticipated.” Zakos casts a wary eye on the ship behind me. “I’m impressed you made it here so quickly.”

  “The crew of the Anubis are our best,” I say. “They know how to push the ship to its limits.”

  “Yes.” He rubs his chin. “Quite the crew indeed. Given everything they’ve witnessed, I wonder if they should stay on the ship and make sure everything’s in working order.” He gestures to scorch marks on one side of the hull. “Plenty of repairs and diagnostics to be run, I imagine.”

  I see what he’s getting at. Our leader will be okay—he’ll awaken stronger than ever, no doubt—but there’s no reason for the rest of our fleet to know that our commander is healing in the vats. The fewer people who know about what happened at the Sanctuary, the better. When Beloved Leader is at the helm again, none of this will matter, anyway.

  “I’ll take care of it,” I say.

  “Good.” Zakos nods. “Most of our higher-ranking officers are on warships at this point, but those who are still here are aware of your homecoming. I believe your old quarters inside are vacant, if you’d like to use them.”

  I nod.

  “And I’d recommend a cryo pack for the eye. It looks like shit.”

  “I’ve been in battle,” I say. “Not holed up in safety experimenting on piken.”

  “As Beloved Leader’s most trusted disciple, the one in charge of overseeing his plans for Mogadorian Progress, it’s in the fleet’s best interest to keep me safe, isn’t it?” He turns to the base, talking over his shoulder. “I’ll need some time alone with him. Come see me in a few hours. We’ve much to talk about. I think you’ll find what I’m working on very interesting.”

  I wonder what this might mean. With Zakos, it’s never easy to tell. I turn back to the Anubis. A few of the ship’s crew are loitering at the end of the loading ramp.

  “Back to your posts,” I shout at them.

  I follow them aboard and patch myself into the PA system.

  “This is Phiri Dun-Ra, voice of Beloved Leader,” I say. “All crew members and troops stationed aboard the Anubis are to stay on the ship until further notice. In addition, we are now on a communications lockdown. Any off-ship transmissions must be cleared with Beloved Leader first.”

  Then I head off the ship.

  It’s been so long since I’ve been inside the base that I’m unprepared for the acrid smell of it. It looks the same, except that the rivers of green liquid that flowed through the main chamber have been replaced by a viscous black ooze, not unlike what Setrákus Ra uses to augment and better our forces—probably due to whatever experiments and further augmentations Beloved Leader began testing since I left. Still, my mind floods with memories of this place, of training troops and demanding the best of every vatborn Mogadorian sent to me, breaking whips and stun rods over their backs when they weren’t up to snuff. I pass the piken and kraul pens and the cell blocks where I watched humans, Loric allies, and even the occasional Cêpan or Garde cower in fear. I can’t see them, but I know the interrogation chambers are past the cells, stocked with all sorts of instruments and tools designed to extract information.

  I didn’t realize how much I’d missed this place.

  I ignore my quarters and head instead to the central command room, the heart of Mogadorian Progress. I want to know what’s happening with the rest of our operations. Unlike the rock walls of the main chamber, it’s sleek, every surface a dull-gray metal. Computers and monitors cover the walls. A table in the center of the room displays a digital map of our warships across the globe. Most of the trueborn inside appear to be young officers-in-training.

  “Phiri Dun-Ra,” a gravelly bass voice says.

  I turn to find General Krah. In the grand scheme of things, it’s rare that a Mogadorian dies of old age. So much of our lives are spent fighting that we tend not to expire from “natural causes.” Krah may prove to be an exception, though, and not because he’s shied away from battle. The trueborn’s face is a web of scar tissue and unnatural grooves.

  “General Krah,” I say, nodding to him in deference.

  He crosses the room in a few heavy steps. When he speaks again, his voice is quieter so that only I can hear it. I brace myself. When I was kicked out of the mountain base, Krah was one of the officers responsible for choosing where I would be relocated.

  “Dr. Zakos informed me of the situation you found yourself in.” He narrows his one good eye at me, studying my face. The other is a milky white, rendered useless by some injury long ago.

  “I acted as I thought Beloved Leader would want,” I say. “But I regretfully let the Loric scum escape. Our Skimmers lost their ship somewhere over Texas.” My eyes fall to the floor. “I understand this failure is unforgivable. If it warrants an end to my life, I will offer my neck to your blade willingly.”

  Krah grunts.

  “You’ve always been a good soldier, Dun-Ra. Even when you fail, your loyalty never wavers. You were right to bring Beloved Leader here, long may he reign. If you die because of your actions, it will be by his hands, not by mine.”

  I nod, a small wave of relief rushing over me.

  “Sir.” One of the officers-in-training stands, removing his headphones. “Several of our warships are still asking about the Loric ship the Anubis was chasing. I believe many of the captains would like to engage it if possible.”

  “Of course they would,” Krah says. He glances at me. “I know you were hoping to head the bastards off, but you’ve made our entire North American fleet restless.”

  “How should we respond?” the young trueborn asks.

  “That they’re to remain put,” Krah says. “That Beloved Leader will tell them when they have new orders.” He raises his chin a little. “And that our invasion of Earth is going just as he designed.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  KRAH FILLS ME IN ON THE STATE OF OUR CAMPAIGN. For now we’re in a holding pattern. The Anubis’s unexpected flight to the Sanctuary changed our timeline. Once Beloved Leader awakens, his plans will resume, but for now the warships wait in silence. The only anomaly has been the humans who’ve suddenly begun to display Garde-like powers. But according to Krah, they’re more of a curiosity than a threat at the moment. The affected humans appear to all be little more than children, untrained and incapable of using their newfound abilities in any way that might harm our cause. In fact, it’s believed they may prove to be useful in other ways.

  I get more of a sense of this when I visit Zakos in the afternoon.

  There are five metal slabs that serve as beds lining the walls of his laboratory. Three are empty. One is covered in blood and what looks like chunks of human flesh. One has an unconscious human girl with short, red hair strapped down to it. Zakos is bent over her, prodding her with some sort of baton wired to an electronic tablet in his hands.

  “Doctor,” I say.

  “Ah, Phiri.” He drops the tablet on the girl’s stomach. She doesn’t react. “I was just about to send for you.”

  “Who is this child?” I ask. “I thought we’d learned everything to know about human anatomy.”

  His eyes light up a bit at this. “So had I. And yet this girl has exhibited signs of Loric power. Telekinesis, to be specific. We have reports that other Legacies have been displayed by these newly powered humans as we
ll.”

  “Which is why you have her drugged, I’m guessing.”

  “That’s right,” he says.

  “And that one?” I point to the slab where blood is congealing.

  “An unfortunate blunder on my part. It won’t happen again. I tried to use the same techniques as my predecessor, Dr. Anu, to isolate Legacies. Unfortunately, his methods apparently only worked on Loric physiology. I’ve made some adjustments to his methods. As you can see, this specimen is still alive. And if she does die, well, several of our warships have teams devoted to collecting new samples for me. I don’t think I’ll have any problem finding more subjects.”

  I step closer to the sleeping girl and take a better look at her. Slender metal probes stick out of her chest and arms. Her eyes move back and forth beneath thin lids.

  “How did they get these powers?” I ask.

  Zakos dismisses the question with a wave of his hand as he moves to a computer terminal.

  “I’m not concerned about the how so much as what we can do with them. The how we’ll figure out later. The how I might be able to reverse engineer. Or, more likely, Beloved Leader will be able to explain.”

  “How is he?” I ask.

  “See for yourself.”

  I follow him through a door in the back of his lab and out into a huge open area. The place smells like sulfur, and there are big black rectangles spotting the metal floor, pits full of the dark sludge that gets pumped into augmented soldiers, and that incubates the vatborn.

  These are the healing vats.

  “He rests below us,” Zakos says. “Already he has begun to recover. It won’t be long before he walks among us again.”

  “So quickly?” I ask.

  “Yes,” he says, sounding a little annoyed. “He designed this system when he brought us the vatborn and the Great Book of Mogadorian Progress. You must trust in his knowledge, Phiri.”

  I grit my teeth at the implication that I don’t and manage to keep myself from clawing at the doctor’s face. Meanwhile, he’s taken an interest in my bandaged palms.

  “May I?” he asks.

  I begrudgingly offer him my hands. He takes off one of the bandages.

  “Burns,” he says. “Energy based, but not blaster fire. You should have told me about them sooner.”

  “They’re from some sort of force field I encountered at the Loric Sanctuary,” I say. “I don’t need them healed. They’re a good reminder of what happens when I am less than Beloved Leader would like me to be.”

  “He would like you at your full potential.” Zakos drops my hands and points to one of the dark rectangles in the floor. “I’ll get you some clean bandages. If you’ll spread a little bit of the vat liquid on your palms, they’ll be healed in no time.”

  I walk over to the vat and stare down into the slick darkness. A few seconds pass before I stick two fingers into the black sludge. It’s viscous and warm, but when I spread it over my wounds, it starts to tingle, turning cold.

  I let out a sharp breath.

  “Yes,” Zakos says, coming up from behind me. “It can be quite jarring.”

  He takes my hands again, cleaning off the excess ooze with a towel before starting to rewrap them in clean, white bandages. He’s finishing up my first hand when he speaks again.

  “You are a strong soldier, Phiri Dun-Ra.”

  I don’t respond.

  “I need strong soldiers.”

  “For what?” I ask. “To retrieve more subjects for you? I’m not a delivery service.”

  “Of course not,” he says with a slight smirk. He starts on my other hand. “I misspoke. He needs you. I’m working on something for Beloved Leader—a project he is most interested in. A new way to arm our troops.”

  “He’s developed new augmentations?” I ask.

  “Something like that. But only the strongest among us will be able to wield his new weapons. Not just trueborn, but those with physical and mental strength. Endurance. And loyalty.”

  He looks me in the eyes.

  “That’s you, Phiri,” he says. “Before he flew to the Sanctuary, Beloved Leader left me with very specific plans and goals concerning the future of Mogadorian Progress, and I know that nothing would make him happier than to emerge from the vats with a new force to command. Will you serve our glorious commander and ascend to the level he requires of you?”

  I stare back at him, trying to process what he’s saying. But in the end, I know there is only one answer to this question.

  “I will do whatever Beloved Leader asks of me.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that,” he says as he finishes bandaging my other hand. “I’ll begin the preparations at once. I’ll send for you when I’m ready. Go get some rest.” He grins. “Evolution can be a painful process.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  AFTER MEETING WITH ZAKOS, I HEAD TO MY OLD quarters at the mountain base. It holds none of my personal belongings other than a few old uniforms and a dog-eared copy of the Great Book. And yet it feels good to be back there after so many nights camped out in Mexico, wondering how the hell I was going to break through the Sanctuary’s force field. On the small bed in the room I sleep the deep, dreamless sleep of one who has been running on nothing but adrenaline for days.

  I’ve barely woken the next morning when Dr. Zakos sends for me. It’s well past sunrise. I know my body needed the rest, but I still feel lazy, like I should have been awake at dawn and doing something, anything, to help the invasion move forward.

  I catch myself in the mirror before heading to the lab. My eye isn’t as swollen as it was but has begun to bruise, turning one side of my face into a mixture of purples, yellows and deep blacks. My mind flashes with thoughts of being tied up in Mexico, beaten by Adamus and Six.

  I promise myself that if I ever see them again, I will bleed them slowly, making them watch helplessly as their friends die in front of them before I even begin to consider gifting the two of them the release of death. Not for the disgrace they caused me by taking me as their prisoner, but for the injuries they inflicted on Beloved Leader. They will pay dearly.

  Someone has cleaned up the blood in Dr. Zakos’s lab, but he’s not around. I loiter there for a few minutes, letting my eyes run over the various notes and documents littering his workstation: designs for new monsters, potential weapon upgrades, scrawlings about the humans who’ve developed Loric powers.

  I’m interrupted by a ragged gasp behind me.

  I turn on my toes and draw my blaster in one fluid motion. From the end of my weapon I see the red-haired girl on the metal slab. She looks different than she did yesterday. She’s paler, and her cheeks are sunken in. Her lips move, but no words come out, and unlike before, her eyes are open—big and green and bloodshot, staring off into space.

  I step over to her side. There are all sorts of new contraptions around her bed, big pieces of machinery and computational equipment with needles, tubes and electrodes hanging from them. I crouch beside her.

  “Lucky little human,” I say. “You have no idea what an honor it is to be in your position. Whatever Beloved Leader and Dr. Zakos have planned for you will surely make our armies stronger, speeding up Mogadorian Process and the invasion of your planet. Any pain you endure in this laboratory is for the greater good of my people. You should consider yourself fortunate: unlike most humans, your death will have meaning.”

  When I finish, her eyes suddenly jerk towards me, wide and full of terror. I smile, knowing she’s heard me. That she understands.

  She takes another gasping breath, and then her eyelids flutter and she falls unconscious again. That’s when I hear a voice filtering into the room from the vats. I go through the door and am immediately hit by the same sulfuric smell as yesterday, even stronger now.

  “Dr. Zakos,” I say, and then I register what’s happening in front of me.

  Zakos stands in his white lab coat over one of the dark pools. He’s got an electronic tablet in his hands. In the vat below him is Beloved Leader, sub
merged up to his shoulders in black ooze. His face is covered with a slick coat of the dense liquid.

  “Beloved Leader,” I say, dropping to my knees with such force that for a second I think I may have cracked my kneecaps. “Forgive me; I didn’t mean to intrude.”

  “Rise, Phiri Dun-Ra,” he says, his voice a deep bellow filling the room.

  “Ah, there you are,” Zakos says. He raises the tablet in his hands. “I was just updating our illustrious commander as to the state of his fleet and everything that’s happened in the last few hours. Including your flight from Mexico.”

  “You took control of the Anubis when I was . . .” My leader pauses. “When I was indisposed.”

  “I did . . .” I hesitate. “I acted as your voice. There was chaos where there should have been order, and I tried to rectify that and act in your interests. I know that I had no right to do this and offer my life as—”

  “You have done well, Phiri,” he says, cutting me off. “In fact, I have plans for you. Call it a reward. By my design, Dr. Zakos has developed a new form of augmentation. I want you to be his first test subject.”

  “Me?”

  “Who better than one who has shown she will stop at nothing to prove her loyalty? The process will be painful. It may push you to the brink of death. I need someone with the will to survive, to endure—to serve as my voice while I mend myself here. My voice, and my fist. We’re going to make you stronger, unbeatable, and in doing so you will become the face of this world’s end. You’ll emerge from this process renewed, my most powerful weapon.”

  My heart pumps in my chest. Something rushes through me, a feeling of contentment and joy unlike anything I’ve ever felt.

  “All you have to do is make it through the process alive,” he says.

  I try to speak without my voice shaking. For a moment, I remember the blood and flesh on the lab table yesterday. That could be me, the first to test this new augmentation.

  But it is his will.

  “It is my purpose to serve you, Beloved Leader. Thank you for honoring me in this way, despite my failure to capture the Loric fleeing the Sanctuary.”