Thump, thump. Thump, thump.
The rhythm gets faster and stronger. Steadier.
It’s a heartbeat.
I’m not sure how long I’m bathed in that pure blue light, how long I listen to the sonorous heartbeat of Lorien. It could be two minutes or it could be two hours. The experience is hypnotic and comforting. When the light begins to die down and the volume of the heartbeat lowers to a steady thrum in the background, I almost miss it. It’s like waking up from a warm dream that you don’t want to leave.
I open my eyes and immediately gasp.
Eight’s body hovers upright over the Sanctuary’s well, the column of blue light surrounding him. I snatch at Marina’s hand.
‘Are you doing this?’ I ask, unintentionally shouting.
Marina shakes her head and squeezes my hand. There are tears in her eyes.
A few steps behind us, Adam is on his knees. He must’ve collapsed during the light show. He looks up at Eight, completely mystified.
‘What’s happening? What is this?’
‘Look at him,’ Marina says. ‘Look.’
I’m about to tell Adam I have no idea what’s going on when I see Eight’s fingers move. Was it just a trick of the light? No – Marina must have seen it too because she makes a little squeaking sound and covers her mouth with her free hand, her other squeezing down hard on mine.
Eight wiggles his fingers. Floating, he shakes out his arms and legs. He rolls his head as if working out a crick in his neck.
Then, he opens his eyes. They are pure Loralite. Eight’s eyes glow the same cobalt shade as the deepest veins in the wall. When he opens his mouth, blue light comes flooding out.
‘Hello,’ Eight says, in an echoing voice that doesn’t belong to our friend. It’s a melodic, beautiful voice, like nothing I’ve ever heard before.
It is the voice of Lorien.
26
Most people have the sense to run. These New Yorkers have seen enough movies to know what happens when an alien spaceship parks itself over your city. They stream down the sidewalk in droves. Some even abandon their cars in the middle of the avenues, which makes it slow going for our convoy of black SUVs. Luckily, outside Sanderson’s hotel, Agent Walker was able to convince the local cops who showed up in response to the shooting to help us. When it comes to alien invasions, I guess there’s something about a federal agent in a black suit and sunglasses.
Even with the added sirens and flashers of the NYPD, it’s hard cutting through the city. Through the chaos.
And yet, some people aren’t running away from the East River, where the Mogadorian warship hovers ominously over the United Nations. They’re running towards it. People with their phones out, recording, eager to catch a glimpse of alien life. I can’t make up my mind if they’re brave, crazy or just stupid. Probably a combination of the three. I want to shout out the window for them to turn and run, but there’s no time.
I won’t be able to save all of them.
‘Michael Worthington, a senator representing Florida.’ Agent Walker barks the name into her cell phone, reading it off a yellow legal pad. She’s in the passenger seat, looking harried and wild. She knows there’s not enough time for her orders to make a difference, but she’s giving them anyway.
‘Melissa Croft, she’s on the joint chiefs of staff. Luc Phillipe, the French ambassador.’ Walker pauses, reaching the end of her list. She glances into the backseat, where Bud Sanderson is sandwiched in between me and Sam. ‘Is that everyone?’
Sanderson nods. ‘Everyone that I know of.’
Walker nods and speaks into the phone. ‘Arrest them. Yes, all of them. If they resist, kill them.’
She hangs up the phone. The list of politicians associated with MogPro – dozens of names relayed one by one by Walker to her contacts – came courtesy of Sanderson. Even if the rogue agents Walker has in her command can pull it off, the arrests might not do much good now, at the zero hour. At the very least, we have to hope Walker and her people will knock the Mog-friendly traitors out of power, leaving behind a government that’s ready to resist. Although how much resistance they’ll be able to mount remains to be seen.
How long did Henri tell me it took the Mogs to conquer Lorien? Less than a day?
Through the windshield, the Mogadorian warship is visible. It makes the city’s skyscrapers look like toys and casts blocks-long shadows in every direction. The thing looks like a giant roach poised over New York. There are hundreds of blaster turrets along its sides and on its belly, and I think I can make out openings where smaller Mog ships are probably docked. Even with the full Garde, Legacies blazing, I’m not sure we could take down that hulk.
Agent Walker is staring at the ship, too. I guess it’s probably impossible to ignore the massive, alien object that crowds the horizon. She turns to look at me.
‘You can destroy that thing, right?’
‘Sure,’ I reply, trying to mimic Nine’s casual bluster. He’s in the SUV behind ours, probably explaining to his escort of agents how he’ll rip apart that warship with his bare hands. ‘We got this. No problem.’
Next to me, Sanderson chuckles darkly, but shuts up when Walker fixes him with a menacing look. On the other side of the disgraced secretary of defense, Sam finally looks up from the cell phone he ‘borrowed’ from that innocent bystander outside the hotel.
‘The upload is done,’ he says to me. ‘Sarah’s got the footage.’
‘Thanks, Sam,’ I reply, and pull my own phone out from my pocket, immediately dialing Sarah’s number.
I wonder what Henri would think of me and Sam uploading footage of me using my Legacies to the website of They Walk Among Us. In my wildest dreams, I don’t think I could’ve concocted a scenario where I’d willingly take my powers public. But here we are.
Sarah answers on the first ring. I can hear activity in the background – people talking, a television blaring.
‘John, thank God! The Mogs are all over the news! Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine,’ I tell her. ‘Just making my way towards the biggest Mogadorian ship I’ve ever seen.’
‘John, I hope you know what you’re doing,’ Sarah replies, worry in her voice.
‘It’s nothing we can’t handle –’ I start to reassure her, until a blast of static cuts me off. ‘Sarah? Are you still there?’
‘I’m here,’ she replies, sounding a little more distant than before. ‘I think something’s interfering with the connection, though.’
It must be the warships. I’m sure those huge things coming down from orbit aren’t doing any favors for the cellular networks. Not to mention all the panicked phone calls like this one that must be going on around the country. I have to talk quicker in case I lose service.
‘Sam just sent some video files to Mark’s website. Did you guys get them? I think they could be useful.’ I remember what Sam said to me outside the gas station. ‘We don’t want to just scare people. We also want to give them hope.’
Next to me, Bud Sanderson snorts. I guess the old man doesn’t have too much faith in anything we’re doing on They Walk Among Us. I don’t know if it’s going to work either – like Walker’s arrests, like anything we do today, it might be too late for it to matter. But we’ve got to cover every possible angle of fighting back against the Mogs.
‘I’m looking at it now,’ Sarah says, and her breath catches. ‘John, it’s – you’re amazing. But I’m a sucker for handsome aliens performing miracles.’
I’ve been trying to look stone-faced in front of my uneasy allies, so I have to turn away from Sanderson to hide my smile.
‘Uh, thanks.’
‘We can definitely use this,’ Sarah says, and I can hear her already tapping out keystrokes. ‘What are you going to do now, though? That ship looks huge.’
I glance at the chaos outside the window. ‘We’re going to try to end this war before it gets started.’
Sarah’s voice sounds concerned. She knows I’m about to tell her something
crazy. ‘What do you mean, John? What’s the plan?’
‘We’re going to the Mogadorian warship,’ I tell her, trying to sound confident about a plan that seems more desperate the closer we get to that looming warship. ‘We’re going to lure Setrákus Ra out. And we’re going to kill him.’
Our convoy has to stop ten blocks short of the United Nations when the traffic becomes impassable. The streets are clogged with people trying to get a closer look at the warship. Some of them are even standing on top of cars or, in one case, a stalled city bus. There are cops everywhere trying their best to restore some order, but I doubt they’re trained for first-contact scenarios; most of them are busy staring up at the ship, too. The crowd is buzzing and there’s a lot of excited shouting.
Just a bunch of easy targets for the Mogadorians. I dread the moment those cannons along the sides of the warship open fire on this crowd. I want to tell everyone to run, but that might just start a panic. If anyone would even listen to me.
‘Move! Get out of the way!’ Walker screams as she gets out of the SUV. She’s got her badge in the air, although no one’s really paying attention to her.
The agents from the two SUVs along with the cops Walker recruited back at the hotel form a tight perimeter around me, Sanderson and Sam. Nine shoves his way in next to us, glaring at a group of teenagers cheering encouragement at the spaceship.
‘Idiots,’ he grumbles, then looks at me. ‘This is nuts, Johnny.’
‘We need to protect as many as we can,’ I reply.
‘They need to protect themselves,’ Nine says, then shouts over the shoulder of one of our agents. ‘Go home, you morons! Or get some guns and come back!’
Walker glares at him. ‘Please don’t encourage the civilians to get armed.’
Nine gives her a wild look and keeps shouting. ‘It’s war, lady! These people need to get prepared!’
Some of the people around us have overheard, or maybe they’re just unnerved by the growing police presence. I notice a few exchange nervous looks and people begin trickling back the way we came. Walker grimaces at Nine, then slaps one of the agents on the shoulder.
‘Forward!’ she shouts. ‘We need to move forward!’
There’s still a mob separating us from the UN, and it shows no signs of really thinning out. Walker’s agents and the cops start muscling through and we’re carried along with them.
‘Watch it, dude! No cutting in the line to get beamed up!’ shouts one bystander.
‘Holy shit! It’s the Men in Black!’ screams another.
‘Are they going to hurt us?’ a woman we pass yells at Sanderson, maybe recognizing him as someone important looking. ‘Are we in danger?’
Sanderson averts his eyes and soon the woman is lost in the crowd. It’s slow going, even with a dozen cops and agents bull-rushing ahead of us. These people need to get out of our way.
A wild-eyed guy with a scraggly beard who looks like the type to be waving handmade signs about the end of the world barrels right into Agent Walker. She’s thrown off balance, and I reach out to steady her. Walker doesn’t thank me – there’s fury and frustration in her eyes. Fed up with the crowd, she reaches for the gun holstered on her hip, maybe thinking she’ll fire a few shots in the air to clear the area. I stop her arm and shake my head when she glares at me.
‘Don’t. You’ll start a panic.’
‘This is already a panic,’ she replies.
‘Personally, I’d be panicking more if someone was shooting,’ Sam chimes in.
Walker makes an annoyed noise and goes back to pushing her way through the crowd. I elbow Nine in the ribs. ‘Let’s help them,’ I tell him, adding, ‘But don’t hurt anyone.’
Nine nods and we begin using telekinesis to move people out of our way. Nine’s gentler than I would have expected. We create a sort of telekinetic bubble around us, the nearby bystanders sliding off it. No one gets trampled, and slowly the path starts to clear for Walker and the rest of our escort.
As we move closer to the UN, we come directly under the shadow of the Mogadorian warship. A chill goes through me, but I try not let it show. There are flags of every nation planted in the ground on both sides of the road we’re pressing down, all these symbols flapping in a gentle spring breeze, caught beneath the looming Mogadorian vessel.
Up ahead, I see that a stage has been hastily erected at the front entrance of the UN. There is a more organized police force there – both local cops and the UN’s private security. They keep people away from the stage and from storming the entrance to the main building. There’s a concentration of press up ahead, too, all of them with cameras eagerly swinging between the stage and the hovering spacecraft.
I grab Sanderson around the shoulders and yank him close, pointing to the stage.
‘What’s the deal with that? What’s supposed to happen here?’
Sanderson grimaces at me but doesn’t try to wriggle away. ‘The Beloved Leader has a taste for theatrics. Did you know he wrote a book?’
‘Reading is stupid,’ grunts Nine, more focused on the crowd.
‘I don’t care about his propaganda. Explain the stage, Sanderson.’
‘Propaganda, like you said,’ Sanderson replies. ‘Myself and some of the others from MogPro – the ones our dear friend Walker probably had arrested – we were supposed to greet Setrákus Ra. He was going to demonstrate the gifts the Mogadorians could offer humanity.’
I remember the state we found Sanderson in, all black veined and nearly keeled over, all strung out on the Mogadorian’s so-called medical advancements.
‘He was going to heal you,’ I say, putting it together.
‘Hallelujah!’ Sanderson says, bitterly. ‘Our savior! Then, we’d invite him inside the UN for discussions and, come tomorrow, a peaceful resolution would be adopted to allow the Mogs into the airspace of every member nation.’
‘And that’s it,’ Sam says. ‘Earth would be surrendered.’
‘At least it would be peaceful,’ Sanderson says.
‘Don’t you think people would freak out?’ I ask Sanderson. ‘I mean, look around. Imagine what will happen when the Mogs actually show themselves? Start walking around? Taking things over? There’d be panic, riots – even with your bullshit diplomacy. How was your plan ever going to work?’
‘Of course he thought of that,’ Sanderson says. ‘That’s how Setrákus Ra plans to identify the dissidents. The problem elements.’
‘So he’ll know who to kill,’ Nine grunts.
‘That’s sick,’ Sam says.
‘A small price to pay for humanity’s survival,’ Sanderson argues.
‘I’ve seen the future under Mogadorian rule,’ I tell Sanderson. ‘Believe me. It’s a bigger price than you’re willing to pay.’
Sam gives me a worried look and I realize how cold I must sound, like war with the Mogadorians on Earth is inevitable, like there’s nothing we can do at this point to keep people from getting hurt. In truth, I’m not sure that there is a way to resolve this without bloodshed. The war is here and it’s going to be fought. But I need the others to keep up hope.
‘It doesn’t have to be that way,’ I add. ‘We’re going to stop Setrákus Ra before this goes any further. But you have to help us.’
Sanderson nods, his eyes fixed on the stage. ‘You want me to go through with it.’
‘Draw him out, just like he wants,’ I say, pulling up the hood on my sweatshirt. ‘And we’ll take him down.’
‘You’re powerful enough for that?’
As I look over at Sanderson to respond, I can see the same question in Sam’s eyes. He wasn’t at our last fight with Setrákus Ra, but he knows it didn’t go well. That was with the whole Garde – now it’s just me and Nine. Well, and all the guns Agent Walker can bring to bear.
‘I have to be,’ I tell Sanderson.
As we get closer to the front of the UN and the stage, we pass by a guy dressed like a bike messenger surrounded by a few news cameras. It’s noticeable because h
e’s the only thing commanding any press attention around here besides the giant Mogadorian warship. I focus my senses to hear what he’s saying.
‘I swear, the guy fell out of the sky!’ the bike messenger exclaims to a skeptical press corps. ‘Or maybe he floated down, I don’t know. He hit the ground hard, but his skin was, like, covered in armor or something. He looked all sorts of messed up.’
Nine’s hand clamps down on my shoulder. He heard it, too, and he’s so distracted that he stops telekinetically pushing people aside. The agents escorting us shuffle and groan as the crowd surges in, but they manage to keep them back.
‘You heard that, right?’ Nine asks, his eyes practically glowing with bloodlust.
‘He could just be some nutjob,’ I say, referring to the bike messenger, although I don’t really believe it. ‘This kind of thing definitely brings them out.’
‘No way,’ Nine says, excitement in his voice. His eyes dart around the crowd with a renewed interest. ‘Five is here, man. Five is here, and I’m going to smash his fat face in.’
27
I feel numb.
In the docking bay, I catch a glimpse of myself in the pearl-colored armor paneling of the small ship we’ll be taking to Manhattan. I look ghostly. There are huge bags under my eyes. They dressed me up in a new formal gown, black with red sashes throughout, and pulled my hair back in a ponytail so severe that my scalp feels like it’s peeling away from my skull. Princess of the Mogadorians.
I don’t really care. I’ve got a cloudy feeling, like I’m just floating along. A part of me knows that I should be focusing up, getting my head straight.
I just can’t.
The entrance to the transport ship opens and a small staircase unfolds for me to climb up. Setrákus Ra gently places his hand on my shoulder and urges me forward.
‘Here we go, dear,’ he says. His voice sounds far away. ‘Big day.’
I don’t move at first. But then a pain starts up in my shoulder where I was stabbed. It feels like little worms wiggling around under my skin. The ache only subsides when I put one foot in front of the other, climb up the steps and flop into one of the vessel’s bucket seats.