‘Creatures?’ I reply, looking up at him. Nine’s expression has gone blank – well, blanker than usual – the way he gets when he’s using his animal telepathy.
‘Oh, I forgot to mention we found some new friends!’
It’s John, jogging towards us from the crooked doorway of a house that looks half smashed, like the ground tried to swallow it up but couldn’t quite finish. Sam is a few steps behind him, beaming at me, although when he notices me noticing him, he quickly tones down the wattage of his smile, going for something a little less eager. Behind John and Sam, pushing a gurney, are Malcolm and a pale, lanky guy that I assume must be Adam, the dark hair hanging in his face making him look half-Mog and half-emo rock star.
‘So many Chimærae,’ Nine says, nodding excitedly as he gazes out into the darkness. ‘That’s awesome.’
‘We named the chubby, lazy one after you,’ Sam replies.
‘Less awesome.’
Upon reaching us, John wraps Marina in a tight hug. It’s dark out, but I can see days of worry etched in the dark bags under his eyes. I remember that wide-eyed kid I found fighting Mogadorians at his high school and wonder if John felt like that again, like he was back to being alone against the world. It should be a relief that we’re reunited, but we’re one less, and I know John well enough to know that he’s been beating himself up over our loss for days.
‘You made it,’ John says as he lets Marina go and hugs me next. His voice is quiet, for me only. ‘I didn’t know what I was going to do if –’
‘You don’t have to say anything,’ I reply, squeezing him back. ‘We’re here now. We’re going to fight. We’re going to win.’
John takes a step back from me, a relieved look briefly passing across his face, like he needed someone to tell him that. He nods to me and then walks over to the ship, taking Eight’s body in his arms so that Nine can jump down. Everyone falls silent as Malcolm wheels the gurney forward so that John can set down the body.
‘The Mogs put something on him,’ Marina says. She takes a lurching step towards the gurney. ‘Some electrical field.’
Adam takes a tentative step forward and clears his throat. ‘Electrodes? Over the heart? On the temples?’
‘Yes,’ Marina replies without looking at Adam, her eyes fixed on Eight’s body bag.
‘The Mogs use that to, uh …’ Adam pauses, then finishes awkwardly. ‘To keep specimens fresh. It won’t harm the remains, just preserve them.’
‘Specimens,’ Nine repeats dryly.
‘I’m sorry about your friend,’ Adam says quietly, pushing a hand through his hair. ‘I just thought you should know …’
‘It’s all right. Thanks, Adam,’ John says. He puts a hand on Marina’s shoulder. ‘Come on. Let’s get him inside.’
‘What –’ Marina chokes up and has to take a deep breath. ‘What’re you going to do with him?’
‘We’ve set aside a quiet room inside,’ Malcolm replies gently. ‘I’m not sure what customs the Loric have for burials …’
I look first at John, whose face is scrunched up in thought, then at Nine, who looks absolutely baffled.
‘We don’t know them either,’ I say. ‘I mean, when was the last time we had a chance to properly honor one of our fallen?’
‘We can’t bury him here, though,’ Marina says. ‘This is a Mog place.’
Malcolm nods, understanding, and touches Marina softly on the shoulder. ‘Do you want to help me bring him inside?’
Marina nods. Together, she and Malcolm wheel Eight’s body back towards the sunken house. Adam follows them at a respectful distance, his hands clasped awkwardly behind his back. After a moment, Nine claps John hard on the back, breaking the tension.
‘So did I mishear over the communicator, or did you send your girlfriend off on a super-sexy secret mission with her ex-boyfriend?’
‘We’re fighting a war here, Nine, it’s not a joke,’ John replies sternly. After a moment’s awkward pause, a begrudging smile breaks on his face. ‘Also, shut up. It’s not super sexy. What does that even mean?’
‘Wow, you really need my guidance,’ Nine says. He throws his arm around John’s shoulders and leads him towards the house. ‘Come on. I’ll explain what sexy is.’
‘I know what it – ugh, why am I even discussing this with you?’ John shoves Nine in frustration, but Nine just holds on tighter. ‘Get off me, idiot.’
‘Come on, Johnny, you need my affection now more than ever.’
I roll my eyes as the guys walk towards the house, having their little bro moment. That leaves me alone with Sam, standing a few feet away, looking at me intently. I can see him trying to figure out what to say, or more likely working up the nerve to say it. The guy’s probably been chewing on this moment for hours, working on his amazing speech to the girl he wasn’t sure he’d ever see again.
‘Hey,’ is what he settles on at last.
‘Hey back,’ I reply, and before he can get another word out, I wrap my arms around him and kiss him hard enough that I probably knock the wind out of him. Sam seems stunned at first but kisses back after a moment, trying to match my intensity. I grab him by the front of the shirt and pull him so that we’re pressed up against the side of the Skimmer – not exactly the most romantic place in the world, but I’ll take it. I grab Sam’s hands and put them on my hips, then clutch the sides of his face and run my fingers up through his hair, all this desperate energy pouring out of me and into this kiss.
After a couple of minutes, Sam breaks away from me, breathless. ‘Six, whoa, what is going on?’
The look on Sam’s face isn’t what I was expecting. Yes, there’s flushed bewilderment, but mixed in with that surprise is an undercurrent of concern. It makes me look away.
‘I just really wanted to do that,’ I reply, telling him the truth. ‘I didn’t know if I’d get another chance.’
I press my face against the side of Sam’s neck and feel his heartbeat against my cheek. I’ve spent the last few days putting on a strong front, trying to keep it together with Marina and Nine both on the verge of falling apart. Finally, at least while we’re out here in the dark, I can let myself go a little bit. Sam has me around the waist, so I sink against him, let him hold me up and take a shuddering breath against his neck.
‘It can just end so quickly …,’ I whisper, leaning back to get a look at him. ‘I didn’t want to not have done that, you know? I don’t care if it complicates things.’
‘Me neither,’ Sam says. ‘Obviously.’
We start to kiss again, this time a lot gentler, Sam’s hands slowly moving up my sides. When the wolf howls – loud, echoing, nearby – my first instinct is that it’s Nine spying on us from the house and making stupid noises. But then a second and third wolf make a howling chorus and I lean back to peer at Sam.
‘What the hell is that?’ I ask. ‘Wolves in the suburbs?’
‘I don’t know –’ he starts to reply, but then his eyes widen. ‘The Chimærae. They’re warning us.’
A moment after he says it, I hear the whup-whup-whup of at least three helicopters bearing down on us. If I squint, I can see their outlines approaching in the night sky. And then there are the blue flashing lights coming from the housing development’s only access road; the lights are attached to a caravan of black SUVs, all of them speeding in our direction.
15
At the sound of screeching tires and helicopter rotors, Nine and I burst back outside, leaping over the house’s broken porch and on to the lawn. We’re just in time to see a lightning strike slice down from the sky, courtesy of Six. It’s a warning shot; the bolt erupts a piece of asphalt right in front of a black SUV that’s careening up the access road, causing it to swerve.
‘The hell is this?’ Nine growls. ‘I thought we were done with the feds.’
‘Adam said they’re supposed to leave this place alone,’ I reply. ‘Some deal with the Mogs.’
‘I guess that ended when you killed them all, huh?’
&n
bsp; There are three choppers overhead, circling like vultures. Some signal must pass between them, because they all turn on spotlights at the same time. One of them trains on me and Nine, another on the entrance of the house behind us and a third on Six and Sam. In the bright light, I notice Sam, unarmed, quickly climbing into the Skimmer for cover. Six, her hands splayed in the air, in the process of summoning some nasty weather for our uninvited guests, goes invisible before the spotlight can really get a fix on her.
Meanwhile, undeterred by the lightning strike, a parade of black SUVs files up the access road, blue lights flashing beneath their windshields. They skid to a stop next to each other in a tight formation, eventually creating a blockade of bulletproof glass and shiny, dent-resistant paneling. Their doors fling open and a bunch of agents in identical navy-blue windbreakers leap out. The ones who aren’t yelling into walkie-talkies have guns trained on us, all of them hunkered behind their car doors for cover. It takes them less than a minute to have us pinned down in the cul-de-sac.
‘Do they really think this will stop us?’ Nine asks as he takes a step away from the house, almost daring the agents to try shooting him.
‘I don’t know what they’re thinking,’ I reply. ‘But they don’t know about the Chimærae.’
I can sense them lurking in the shadows just off the access road. These government guys might think they’ve got us surrounded, but the glowing eyes in the darkness would argue otherwise. The Chimærae hold their position, waiting for a signal.
I hear a creak behind me and half turn to find Marina on the porch, jagged icicles extending from her hands like twin daggers. That’s new. Next to her, using the doorway for cover, is Adam, holding a Mogadorian blaster.
‘What do we do?’ Marina asks.
I notice storm clouds gathering overhead. Six is ready to throw down if we need to. But so far, the government guys haven’t done anything except make a lot of noise. They didn’t come in shooting, which is the only reason I haven’t fired up my Lumen.
‘I don’t want to hurt them if we don’t have to,’ I say. ‘But we don’t have time for any bullshit. I’m damn sure not being taken in for questioning.’
Apparently, Nine interprets my words as encouragement to do something crazy. He strides forward and picks up the base of Dr Anu’s chair, which got sheared in half by blaster fire during this afternoon’s battle. The thing must weigh close to two hundred pounds, but Nine hefts it easily with one hand, swinging it back and forth as a demonstration.
‘You guys are on private property!’ Nine shouts. ‘And I don’t see any warrants!’
Before I can stop him, Nine flings the entire chunk into the air, putting it just inches from the nose of the nearest helicopter. It’s pretty obvious from my vantage point that the chopper isn’t in any real danger, but I guess the human pilot isn’t used to having superstrong Garde chucking scrap metal at him. The pilot pulls back on his controls and the chopper shakily gains altitude, its spotlight making erratic trails across the lawn. The chair piece comes down with a loud crash in the middle of the street.
‘That was unnecessary,’ Adam observes from the doorway.
‘Eh, agree to disagree,’ Nine says.
As he bends down to pick up another piece of the chair, I hear the telltale cocking of guns from the line of SUVs. Six must hear them too from wherever she’s lurking, because a wave of fog suddenly rolls across the lawns of Ashwood Estates, making us much harder to target.
I light my Lumen and step forward, putting myself between Nine and the SUVs. I hold up my hands so the agents can clearly see that they’re enveloped in fire.
‘I don’t know why you’re here,’ I yell towards the line of cars, ‘but you’re making a mistake. This is a fight you seriously cannot win. Smartest thing you can do is go back to your bosses and tell them there was nothing here.’
To punctuate the speech, I send a telepathic command to our Chimærae. Howls rings out from the darkness on the SUVs’ flanks. Suddenly panicked, some of the agents start aiming their guns into the shadows, and one of the choppers uses its spotlight to begin combing the fields alongside the access road. We’ve got them scared.
‘Last warning!’ I shout, letting a basketball-sized fireball float up from my palm.
‘Jesus Christ!’ a woman’s voice shouts from the line of cars. ‘Everybody stand down!’
One by one, the agents at the cars lower their weapons. As they do, one of them squeezes between a pair of SUVs and walks towards us, her hands raised in surrender. Through the fog, I recognize her rigid posture and severe ponytail.
‘Agent Walker? Is that you?’
Next to me, Nine laughs. ‘Oh, come on. You going to try arresting us again?’
Walker grimaces as she gets closer, her sharp features more lined than I remember. She’s pale, an alarming streak of gray running through her red hair. I try to remember how badly she was hurt back at Dulce Base. Could she still be feeling the effects of that?
Before she can get too close, Six manifests behind Walker and grabs her by the ponytail. ‘Not another step,’ she snarls.
Walker, eyes wide, obediently stops. Six reaches down and takes the gun off her hip, dropping it into the grass.
‘I’m sorry for the commotion,’ Walker says, her voice slightly strangled thanks to the angle Six has her head at. ‘My agents saw that Mogadorian ship land and we thought you might be under attack.’
I let the Lumen in my hands go out, tilting my head at her. ‘Wait. You came rushing in here because you thought we were under attack?’
‘I know you have no reason to believe me,’ Walker says, her voice hoarse. ‘But we’re here to help.’
Next to me, Nine scoffs. I stare hard at Walker, waiting for the punch line, or the secret signal for her men to open fire.
‘Please,’ she says. ‘Just hear me out.’
I sigh and motion towards the house. ‘Bring her in,’ I tell Six, then turn to Nine. ‘If the rest of them try anything even a little suspicious –’
Nine cracks his knuckles. ‘Oh, I know what to do.’
Six shoves Walker up the broken steps of Adam’s house and through the front door. I follow a few steps behind, leaving the rest of our friends to keep an eye on the small army of government agents.
‘Is that a Mogadorian I saw out there?’ Walker asks as Six pushes her into the living room. ‘You have one of them prisoner?’
‘He’s an ally,’ I say. ‘Right now, you’re the prisoner.’
‘Understood,’ Walker says, sounding more tired than anything. Without Six having to push her, Walker sits down heavily on one of the sofas. In the light of the living room, I can see that there’s definitely something off about her. Maybe it’s owing to the odd streak of gray in her hair, but Walker looks drained. She notices the entrance to the Mogadorian tunnels but doesn’t look particularly interested or surprised.
‘Ah, a guest,’ Malcolm says as he appears in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen, his rifle slung over his shoulder. ‘And she brought lots of friends. Is everything all right?’
‘I’m not sure yet,’ I reply, an edge to my voice, keeping my guard up. Six circles around the couch so she can stand where Walker can’t see her.
‘Hm,’ Malcolm says. ‘I was about to put a pot of coffee on. Would anyone else like some? I think I saw some tea in the kitchen, too.’
A shaky smile forms on Walker’s face. ‘Is this some kind of good-cop, bad-cop routine?’ She looks from Malcolm to me. ‘Is he one of your … what do you call them? Cêpans?’
Six raises her hand to Malcolm. ‘I’ll take a cup, actually.’ When I flash her an annoyed look, she shrugs. ‘What? Trust me, I can drink some coffee and take down this lady at the same time, if I need to.’
Agent Walker glances over her shoulder at Six. ‘I believe her.’
I stride forward so I’m standing right in front of Walker and snap my fingers in her face. ‘All right, stop wasting time. Say what you came here to say.’
‘Agent Purdy is dead,’ Walker states, looking up at me. ‘Had a heart attack at Dulce Base.’
‘Aw, I remember him,’ Six says. ‘What a shame.’
I remember Agent Walker’s partner, too – an older guy, white hair, crooked nose. I shrug, not seeing what this has to do with us. ‘Condolences, I guess. So what?’
‘Guy was a prick,’ Walker replies. ‘It isn’t so much that he croaked, it’s what happened after.’
Walker shows me her hands, then very slowly reaches into the front pocket of her FBI-issue windbreaker. She removes a stuffed Manila folder, rolled-up and rubber-banded. She opens it up, reaches inside and pulls out a Polaroid photograph. Walker hands it to me and I find myself examining a close-up of a dead Agent Purdy – or what’s left of him. Half his face is melted away, disintegrated into ash on the concrete underneath him.
‘I thought you said it was a heart attack,’ I say.
‘It was,’ Walker replies. ‘Thing is, afterward, Purdy started to dissolve away. Just like one of the Mogadorians.’
I shake my head. ‘What does that mean? Why?’
‘He’d been getting treatments,’ Walker says. ‘Augmentations, the Mogs call them. Most of the senior MogPro people have been getting them for years.’
The term ‘MogPro’ rings a bell from They Walk Among Us, but I don’t know how this all adds up with the augmentations Adam told us about.
‘Back up,’ I tell her. ‘Start at the beginning.’
Walker self-consciously touches her streak of gray hair and for a moment I wonder if she’s having second thoughts about this confession. But then she hands me the folder she’s been clutching, meeting my eyes.
‘First contact was ten years ago,’ she says. ‘The Mogadorians claimed they were hunting fugitives. They wanted to use our law-enforcement network, have free rein to move around the country, and in exchange they’d provide us with weapons and technology. I was just out of the academy when all this happened so I obviously wasn’t invited to any meetings with the aliens. I guess no one wanted to piss them off or turn down weapons more powerful than any we’d ever seen, because our government caved real quick. The director of the bureau himself was in on the negotiations. This was before he got promoted. Might’ve been why he got promoted, in fact.’