“Yes. But you can only hold it for so long, you know. Nothing we can do about it now. Let’s catch up to this scumbag.”
“How do you know he’s a scumbag?” I say as the saucer hovers over the spot where we just were. Gas bellows out of the bottom of it.
“Kidnappers always are.” She says this so matter-of-factly that despite all the adrenaline and craziness, I actually envy her. She believes in polarities, in black and white. There are no moral grays in the world of Janeice. I’m just glad she’s on my side. Then I have a thought. “Wait. How did the government know to come? At the diner they came because of the bomb Wharff set off. The Men in Black came because of the tracking device on the bus. I guess it’s all more connected than I realized.”
Wharff met China at the diner because China’s agency was looking for information about the crystal, but Wharff was really there to meet me because he suspected I had it. He blew up the diner because he wasn’t getting anywhere. I still didn’t go with him and stayed with China. Then the U.S. government sent the saucer to cover it up. Now, the government is covering up Wharff’s actions again. That seems pretty connected. No wonder he has so many resources.
“Is that guy Wharff?” She gestures toward the copter in front of us.
“Yeah.”
“Maybe he told them. Maybe he’s on the government’s side, or they are on his.”
“Do not make my head explode.”
“Naw. That would be messy.”
I can’t tell if she’s kidding or not.
Out of nowhere she goes, “Hold on. I want to try this button out.”
“Hold on to what?”
She doesn’t answer, just presses the button and the helicopter shudders. The screen in front of me reads Missiles Armed.
“Do we want this guy dead or alive?”
“Well, I would rather not kill anyone. I mean, I didn’t even kill my principal, Mrs. Sweet, and she’s a super-jerk.”
“Your kindness will haunt you someday, I freaking swear.” She scoffs. The screen flashes the words Ready Now. I try to back away, but I have nowhere to back away to, honestly. “Is that a touch screen?”
“I think so.” She reaches over.
Slapping her hand away, I yell, “Don’t touch it!”
The helicopter in front of us flies over a mountain. The Google map I studied said it was Cadillac Mountain, which has a road that’s not open to motor vehicles in the winter, but there’s a parking lot and visitor center on top. Wharff’s copter circles back around.
“Is he landing?”
“I think so,” she says. “Us, too? Or you just want to zap him with a missile?”
“It’s sort of a tough choice, honestly.”
“I vote zap.”
“He hasn’t zapped us.”
“He hasn’t zapped us because he needs you. It’s obvious. Duh.”
Sometimes I do not like Janeice. Wharff’s helicopter whips around so I can see who is inside, and it’s him and one other guy—one other long, lanky guy with ridiculous eyebrows.
“Oh god…” I mutter.
“Lyle got freaking captured!” Janeice pounds her thigh with her fist so hard I think it’s a miracle she doesn’t break a bone. “What an idiot.”
“Is he alive?” My insides have suddenly hollowed out. Anxiety races through. Lyle. Lyle can’t be dead. Not Lyle. Never Lyle.
“I don’t know. If he is, I will kill him,” Janeice growls. Her anger is contagious, and all the anxiety inside of me splinters into a thousand parts. Anger doesn’t begin to explain it. Sorrow doesn’t begin to explain it. I am a mountain of fury, a fire moving through dry trees during a windstorm. I am screaming for her to land the helicopter even as Wharff’s copter lands, facing us. He’s out first, yanking Lyle out with him and dropping his limp body on the ground. I’ve unbuckled before we land and Janeice is screaming for me to wait, but I don’t wait. I open the door while she’s still about twelve feet up and I land, hard but well, and I use that momentum to fast flip forward, kicking at Wharff’s face as I enter his space. I make contact and he oomphs backward. I get the first hit and it’s a good one.
I know I can’t win this fight.
I don’t care.
My fists have lives of their own, but they aren’t as strong as my elbows. “What have you done to him? What did you do to him? What. You. Agh.”
One strike. Another.
My words don’t make sense. Even I know that.
Wharff’s do, though, and he roars, pushing me full force away. “Get off me!”
I fly through the air and land against Wharff’s helicopter.
He stands, but he’s obviously hurt from that bullet. He favors one side.
“Do you know what I can do, Mana?” he asks as I struggle back up to my feet. Pain ripples through my hips, which took most of the impact.
“Talk. A lot. Make some sort of nasty blue energy wave or light or something that comes out of your mouth. Talk more. Be evil. I think that’s your entire repertoire, am I right?”
He half smiles. “So funny. Always so funny. I like how you mask the fear with humor, very evolved, very human. But no. I can control minds. Do you know whose mind I am controlling right now? Lyle’s. I could wake him up and make him kill you. Tell me why I shouldn’t?”
“Because you’d rather get the satisfaction of doing it yourself?”
“Buzz. Wrong answer. Because I still need you. I mean, I could find another Enhanced but the only ones I know of are in Australia, the Czech Republic, Ghana, Urzbekistan. It’s all so far.”
“None in South or Central America? That seems wrong. How about the rest of Asia?”
“I’m sure we are everywhere, the guinea pigs, the broken, but I only know of those that are still left. And it would take time to get to them. I am sick of waiting. I want this done now, you and me, on top of a mountain. It seems fitting. Did you know that this is where Americans can first see the sunrise every morning? Unfortunately, I don’t want to wait until sunrise. Do you?”
“Are you actually asking me what I want?”
“Yes.”
“I would like for you to give me the crystal, for the crystal to disintegrate, for everyone to be nice and kind, for the bad aliens to leave us alone, for us to leave the good aliens alone. World peace. A clean environment. An end to racism, sexism, human trafficking, and pretty much any form of bigotry. I’d like to feel smart and loved and have my mom wake up and for everyone to be safe.”
He starts laughing. Real laughing. The kind of laughing that involves bending over at the waist. Finally, after a good twenty seconds of this, he stands up again totally straight-faced, like he never laughed at all, and he says disdainfully, “You are such a child.”
“She’s a dreamer. That’s not childish. It’s hopeful.” Janeice has come out of the helicopter and she’s got a gun trained on Wharff. Her hand doesn’t even shake.
He laughs at her. “The wall speaks.”
He snaps his fingers. She crumples to the snowy ground, the gun still in her hand, unused. She does not move.
“It’s too bad you don’t have mind control as an enhancement. You should have seen them all follow me at the hospital, when they were trying to kidnap you. Oh … It’s fun,” he says to me, turning his back to her. “Maybe you could have all your wishes then. People could be kind to each other, stop the war and hate. If you got good enough at it, you could make the world so kind.”
“Like you care about that.”
“I care very much about that! That’s why I’m doing this. I’m trying to fix things, give our world time so that we can save ourselves.”
What do you say to someone like this? Someone who rationalizes genocide? I’m not sure you can say anything.
He jumps and I jump at the same time, somehow sensing his attack. We meet in the air.
“I can have her kill you and she will,” he whispers in my ear as he locks his arm around my neck. “It would be so easy.”
“You could
kill me in the headlock right now, so you obviously don’t want me dead.”
“Not yet.”
“Exactly.”
We hit the ground, a twirling mess of limbs. The snow seeps into my pants, stings my face as he sticks my head into it. I try to buck him off. I can’t. He yanks me to my feet, arms behind my back. Seppie did not teach me the Krav move for this, but I have my own special skills: I spring into a back twist. The momentum of my jump yanks my arms free and my torso connects with his face as my body attempts to ascend. It ruins the move, that hit, but it doesn’t matter, I was ready for it, and now I’m free. I launch into another tumbling run because it’s faster for me than scrambling and my movements are harder to predict. I land by Lyle and try to yank him up so I can escape with him, but Wharff still has the crystal. The world, the aliens, or whoever gets final use of it … It’s so confusing, but I know I have to keep it safe and keep it from him. I let Lyle go and rush back toward Wharff.
“Janeice!” he barks. “Train the gun on the boy.”
She stands up and moves forward, all the way forward to Lyle, and puts the gun at his temple. His eyes are still closed.
I gasp and fight harder, but Wharff blocks every hit that I try to make and I fall, trying to fight against him from the ground where I am at a massive disadvantage.
“Janeice, kill him if she keeps fighting.”
I stop fighting. I don’t know what else to do. I just stop. I was losing anyway.
Wharff stands there as the wind blows snowflakes around us. I am still sitting.
“We’re in a mini–snow globe,” he says. “How sweet.”
If I was the type of person who spits, I would spit right here. Instead, I ask a question, stall. “So, you were the person who brainwashed everyone at the hospital?”
“I was trying to get them to kidnap you.” He shakes his head, casual again despite his ruffled clothes and wound. He sticks his tongue out and catches a snowflake on it. “Honestly, Mana, you are always one step behind, aren’t you?”
“Pretty much,” I admit.
“To be fair you have a lot of catching up to do.” He sighs. “I understand that. So, I’m going to give you a brief summary before you help me save the world from the disgusting parasites that mutilated us, that are waiting to kill us. You ready?”
“Do we have to do this now?” I ask. “It’s cold. I’m bleeding. I’d rather beat you up.”
“Don’t pretend like you’re aggressive. You are no beast. No badass. You’re a cheerleader, aren’t you? You’re a good kid. I saw you after the diner, trying to rescue those children, mourning the waitress despite her tedious flirting. I know who you are, Mana Trent. Let me tell you, all your life you’ve done the right thing, cheered other people on, made them happy. Now you’re going to do the ultimate cheerleading; it’s just for the human race. You should probably try to think about it that way.”
“Killing does not equal cheerleading.” I think there should be a better comeback here, a better way to argue, but my brain is hyper-focused on how to get the crystal without actually killing anyone, especially Lyle and Janeice. My body is throbbing in pain. I am no good for funny sarcasm.
“What you lack, Mana, is a mission. Stay with me. Stay with me … I’ve been thinking about this.” He pulls the crystal out of his pocket, holds it in his hand. I want to lunge for it and grab it, but even if I got it, what then? Lyle is still knocked out. Janeice is brainwashed. I can’t destroy the damn thing.
He sighs. “Are you focusing on me? Or are you just paying attention to the crystal?”
“To be fair, you talk a lot. It’s easy to zone out.”
“Rude.”
“I know.” I apologize out of habit. “Sorry.”
“Apology accepted. What I was saying is what you lack is an objective, something that you want more than anything in the world. For me, it is this. The eradication of the aliens. But for you, it isn’t so simple, is it? You want your friends safe, your mom back, maybe to be loved and respected. You want to have a purpose, but you are always questioning your motives, everyone’s motives. You don’t just give in to your higher calling—”
“Which is to be a genocidal maniac?”
“Which is to be the savior of humanity.” He holds the crystal above his head, savoring it, I guess. “Purpose. It is inside all of us. It waits there, hoping to be released, to have its wings unfettered, to launch forward and roar. It talks to you, an inner voice, it whispers in your dreams, screams in your passions. It controls us. And yet you refuse to obey it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Humans, us, most of us are like you. We blunder around ignoring our purpose. And we never unite. It’s all live in the moment, seize the day before you die, but the actual death part? Everyone pretends that it isn’t going to happen to them. We all repress our one unifying feature. We kill each other. We torment each other. This is our purpose, to unite against an alien threat, to make the Earth great again.”
Wharff is evil. I know that. But this … what he’s saying? It reminds me of … me.
“I kind of feel like you’re talking in circles,” I say, shivering, “and it’s cold, so why don’t we just come to the conclusion that I am not going to help you. I am just not. There are good aliens out there, too, aliens like Lyle and Pierce and probably more that I just don’t know about.”
… like the girl in the bathroom.
“Honestly, Mana, what other choice do you have than to help me? You don’t want your friend’s death to be for nothing.”
I blanch. “What do you mean, my friend’s death?”
He motions toward Lyle. “We have to kill him, put his DNA in the crystal. The crystal needs it. It uses it to find all the other aliens. It’s pretty impressive. It locates the DNA and then explodes it. All the aliens on Earth, gone.” He snaps the fingers of his free hand. “Just like that.”
“You don’t have to kill him. You can just have him spit or bleed or pull out a piece of his hair. How stupid are you? DNA is in everything.”
“He will die anyway once we enable the crystal.”
This is actually logical. I wish China were here. I wish Seppie could help me out-logic Wharff. But I’m on my own.
“Still a no,” I say. “Plus, he’s just one alien species. We’d just be killing his species, wouldn’t we? Not all of them?”
“Do you understand anything? Do you have any idea what they are planning? If we don’t stop them? Stop them now? They have plans.” He scoffs. “First, the biggest plan was the crystal—the ultimate device to just kill all humans. But they didn’t want to have to resort to that. So instead, they worked on the Enhanced. Each of us has a chip inside of us. When that chip turns on, we become soldiers, mind-controlled soldiers meant to take down humans.”
“Are there enough of us to do that? It’s not like you can even find enough of us to activate the crystal.”
“No. That’s why they’ve influenced the government to make chips in our credit cards. Those will render anyone within a five-foot radius motionless. And they are creating other Enhanced constantly. The abductions are increasing and then we, the Enhanced, will turn on humans, fight with the aliens against our own people. Do you want that, Mana?”
“There’s no chip in me.”
“Your mother and the agency took it out. You’re a lucky one. Your DNA is enhanced but the chip is gone.”
“How do you know this is true?”
He doesn’t answer, just moves closer to me and I let him because it means I’m closer to the crystal. I sneak a glance at Janeice. She’s still got the gun to Lyle’s head, but her arm is shaking, probably from muscle fatigue from being in one position for so long. Poor thing. She’ll hate herself when this is over.
“Mana, you have no choice and this has gone on long enough. Even I can’t keep monologuing forever.”
“Could have fooled me.” I smile.
He smiles back. It is not a happy smile. It is a predatory smile. “Janeice
, kill him.”
“No!” I’m screaming and turning even as the gun goes off, but the bullet doesn’t hit Lyle. The gun isn’t facing Lyle. It’s facing us, me and Wharff, and I don’t have enough time to react, to try to stop the bullet before it slams into its target.
Lyle jumps up into standing position as Wharff falls, backward and sideways, into the snow. The crystal rolls out of his hand and glows, burning the snow around it even as his blood seeps toward it.
“Janeice!” I yell her name, but I’m not sure why. I’m not sure what’s just happened. I turn my back on her and scramble toward Wharff, who is flat on the snow. His eyes are motionless. His chest is motionless. He is vacant. Even the blood is abandoning him. It drenches the crystal, which seems to soak it in. “You poor stupid man.”
I reach for the crystal and Janeice is yelling for me to stop, so I do, since she has a gun.
She and Lyle stand next to me. I didn’t even see them move. “You can’t touch it. It has that guy’s DNA in it—Enhanced DNA. His blood touched it. If you touch it, you might activate it.”
“I thought it needed two Enhanced to activate it,” I say.
“Yours plus his equals two.” Janeice’s voice is strong and sure. I think she’s right.
Lyle’s shaking his head and asking what is going on, but we don’t answer him because we have to figure that out, too.
“I thought you were hypnotized or mind-controlled or whatever,” I say, and I hug her. She one arm–hugs me back. The gun dangles at her side. “You saved Lyle.”
“Nope. I was faking it. I’m Enhanced, too,” she says, matter-of-factly. “I can’t be mind-controlled.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Nobody does,” she answers. “I was abducted for years. My mom, too. I think it’s different than how it happened to you, but it happened.”
I stare at her blankly.
“Nobody in the agency knows. Nobody but my mom knows.”
“You hid it?”
She half shrugs like the conversation isn’t worthy of pursuing. “I’m slow to trust people, honestly, and once I got there it became really obvious that the people at the agency are slow to trust, too. I mean, look at how they treated you because you’re Enhanced.”