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One swoons.
Oh, come on, I think, and ghost-One appears at my side.
“Cut me some slack,” she says. “He’s hot, and I was stupid. I mean, I wasn’t that stupid. I knew he was full of it, obviously. But, look at him. He’s hot. ”
“I wouldn’t know,” I say self-consciously.
That memory was a couple months before the one I slip into next. We’re still at the beach, and One wriggles out of her wet suit and settles on the sand next to Wade. She’s been regularly skipping training to come surfing with Wade. One and Hilde are barely speaking, except for when Hilde tries to chastise her.
I haven’t been enjoying these Wade memories. They’re of no relevance to the Mogadorian cause. Besides … I feel like One could be doing so much better.
“I was having fun,” says One, popping up to defend herself again. “I liked pretending I was normal. ”
I don’t say anything.
“Didn’t you ever want to get away from it all?” asks One. She knows that I do. She’s been rummaging through my thoughts too. “You and that douche you hang out with spend a lot of time in DC, but you never talk to any other kids. ”
“It’s forbidden. ”
“Why?”
“To interact directly could compromise operational integrity,” I reply, quoting from the Great Book.
“You sound like a robot,” she says. “They don’t want you to know the humans because then it’d be harder for you to kill them. Just like with me. ”
“What do you mean, just like with you?”
“I mean that you kind of like me,” she says, looking at me in a way that makes me feel uncomfortable. “They didn’t know what they were doing sending you in here. If you knew all this about me before, would you still want to kill me?”
My head hurts thinking about it, and I wave One away. I am not ready to go back to the memory of the riverbank in Malaysia. Then I remind myself that Malaysia is in the future, not the past.
“Don’t feel too bad,” she says. “I don’t know if I’d want to kill you either. ”
CHAPTER 8
This is how my people find her. The General didn’t share these details with me, but I know them now:
Wade believes in taking a stand against capitalism. He does this by shoplifting at every opportunity he gets. He also talks, sometimes endlessly, about the amazing record collection he was forced to leave behind when he left his parents’ mansion.
This puts an idea in One’s head. She’s going to shoplift some records from a store by the beach for him. Part of her wants to impress Wade, another part of her just wants to experience the thrill that he’s talked about.
But One gets caught coasting out of the store with a backpack full of merchandise. The owner of the store is a take-no-prisoners type. He calls the cops.
“How was Wade even going to listen to those?” I ask. “Does his van have a record player?”
One laughs as we watch her former self being slapped into handcuffs. “I didn’t even think of that. ”
Number One is taken to the police station. Her “grandmother” is contacted. The police are going to let her off with a warning, but a particularly overzealous detective notices the Loric charm on One’s ankle. He mistakes the charm for a brand and starts asking One about gang affiliation.
“Yeah,” sneers One, “I’m in a gang called the Space Invaders. We do surf-by shootings. No lifeguard can stop us. ”
The detective doesn’t seem to think it’s a very funny joke.
He takes a picture of One. He takes a picture of the Loric charm. He uploads both images to a statewide database. As soon as the flash on the camera goes off, I know that this is how it happened.
My people have teams working around the clock patrolling the internet, even the internal government sites, for tips just like this. We have artificial intelligences set up that do nothing but scan image feeds for anything resembling the Loric charm.
After four years of searching, One is on our radar.
Hilde doesn’t lecture One when she picks her up from the police station. She doesn’t need words to express her disappointment. One knows what it means to have had her picture taken by the police.
For the first time, One’s rebellious streak gives way to fear. She packs a bag with shaking hands before Hilde even tells her to. I’m reminded of the way my hands shook after I saw her killed. It wasn’t until then that the war we’re fighting began to feel real. One must be feeling the same way now.
This time they travel light. Hilde thinks they need to get out of America. They rush to the airport and board the first international flight they can. Their destination is Malaysia.
One notices the two pale men in trench coats at the airport, but she doesn’t realize what they are. I do. I recognize my own.
For all their precautions, all their training, all their knowledge of their enemies, what’s so clear to me is completely unrecognized by Hilde and One. A Mogadorian scout team is on to them. I know the protocol in a situation like this. When my people have a lead on a Loric, vat-born scouts are dispatched to every conceivable place of departure. We cover them all: airports, train and bus stations, rental car huts. Their objective isn’t to engage. Their job is just to keep an eye on Number One.
“You need to lose them,” I find myself muttering. “You need to lose the scouts before you flee. ”
“Oh, thanks for telling me, dude,” the One standing next to me says. She has a sad, rueful look on her face.
For some reason I’m positioning myself between the scouts and One. It makes no sense. I’m a ghost here; they see right through me. And besides, this has already happened. Nothing I can do can change it.
My stomach still drops when they board the flight to Malaysia. I can’t see the scouts anymore; they’ve disappeared into the crowd. I know what they’re doing, though. They’re radioing back to my father or some other superior, arranging to have a scout team waiting across the ocean when One’s flight touches down. My team.
I dread seeing what comes next.
CHAPTER 9
Hilde and One hide out in an abandoned stilt house on the Rajang River, their closest neighbors the endlessly screeching monkeys that populate the jungle. Hilde is planning a trip into Kuala Lumpur, where she’ll take some money out of their bank account, enough to finance their next move. It’s peaceful, without any of the distractions of America. When the river is clear, One practices her telekinesis on its bank.
By the time our team arrives—after an endless flight through who knows how many time zones—I’ve completely lost track of what day it is. All I know is that the sun is beginning to rise.
Hilde hears the first wave coming. Our soldiers don’t make any effort to hide their approach; they have the house surrounded. Hilde shakes Number One awake just as the warriors kick in the door.
The Cêpan moves fast for an old woman. It’s easy to see her as the great martial artist, trainer of young Garde, that she was on Lorien. She ducks effortlessly under a dagger strike, burying her fist in the throat of an off-balance warrior. Before the first Mogadorian even hits the ground, Hilde has wrapped her arms around the head of a second, snapping his neck. I catch myself cheering her on, then stop myself.
The next Mogadorian through the door dives for Hilde and places her in a headlock; but Hilde, in a movement so subtle I barely even see it, manages to turn his hold against him, flipping him onto his back even though he’s twice her size.
That’s when he whips his blaster from his holster, and—orders not to harm her suddenly forgotten in his humiliation—fires it right at her chest.
When Hilde hits the ground, One screams. The entire house wobbles, its stilts suddenly vibrating. Screaming out in grief and agony, One stomps the floor. A seismic wave erupts from her foot, tearing up the floorboards and sending the Mogadorians flying through the tightly woven sticks of the stilt house’s walls.
Her first Le
gacy has developed. Too late.
The little that’s left of the house is listing on its stilts. With the Mogadorians regrouping outside, One cradles Hilde in her arms. The wound is fatal. Hilde spits a bubble of blood when she tries to speak.
“It’s not too late for you,” Hilde manages to say. “You have to run. ”
One is crying. She feels responsible; she feels helpless.
“I failed you,” sobs One.
“Not yet you haven’t,” replies Hilde. “Go. Now. ”
I’m standing right next her, willing her to move, even though I know what’s waiting for her on the riverbank. The ghost-One, the dead girl who’s been my companion through all of these memories, has abandoned me now. She’s been gone since the airport.
One hesitates for an instant at Hilde’s order, and then, knowing it’s her only choice, flings herself through one of the windows just as the stilts buckle and the house finally collapses into the river. The Mogadorians meet her on the riverbank.
The house’s falling ceiling passes harmlessly through me. I watch as One produces another seismic burst, experimenting with her newfound power, and the wet ground of the riverbank opens up to swallow a pair of advancing Mogadorians.
I remember this. I peer down the riverbank, wondering if she could have seen me where I stood watching with Ivan and my father. No. I was too far away, her attention too focused on the battle around her.
I should be enjoying this, a chance to replay this great victory up close and personal. There’s nothing someone like Ivan wouldn’t give to be able to witness this again. It’s like a highlight reel of Mogadorian dominance. Yet I want to turn away. I was ashamed to admit it the first time, but not now. This battle—one unarmed teenager against two dozen highly trained Mogadorians—repulses me.
Of course, One isn’t completely defenseless. The ground around her continues to shake, leaving the Mogadorians stumbling and off balance. She picks up some sharp sections of the broken house with her telekinesis and lances them through the nearest Mogadorians. The hit warriors disintegrate into ash and are lost in the muddy river water.
I feel nothing for the dead soldiers. We are taught about acceptable losses. These strike teams are expendable.
One is pushing herself too hard. Her newly discovered Legacy is barely under control, her telekinesis sloppy from months of blowing off training. She is already close to exhaustion, and the Mogadorians just keep coming. Finally one of the largest vat-born warriors manages to evade her defensive attacks and grab her from behind, yanking both of her arms behind her back to restrain her. As he does it, One yelps in pain just before she manages to slip from his grasp.
It wasn’t a loud scream—probably more a cry of surprise than one of injury—but it’s enough for the Mogadorians to understand. They’ve hurt her. She can be hurt.
And then things change. I know the Mogadorian training well enough to see the soldiers’ strategy shift instantly. They know it’s her. The First. Number One. She can be killed. And every single one of them wants to be the one to do it.
One’s in such a panic, fighting blindly, that she never even notices the Mogadorian warrior who manages to grab that particular glory. I don’t know the warrior’s name; he’s just another faceless trooper under my father’s command. He approaches her from behind, his glowing sword drawn. He takes his time, plotting his steps carefully across the vibrating ground.