“Are we interrupting something?” Taylor asked with a smile.
“Not at all, not at all.” Nigel winked at Ran. “It’s a rare occasion for us to be graced by all three of the lovely ladies of room 308. To what do we owe the pleasure?”
“Oh, stop flirting when you don’t mean it,” Isabela said with a dismissive wave. She put her hands on her hips, surveying the boys’ messy living environment. “It is truly disgusting in here.”
“I was just going to clean up,” Kopano said, unreasonably intimidated by the fiery shape-shifter. He began to gather up some loose clothes. Isabela slapped them out of his hands.
“Stop that!” she said. “Chores later. Tonight, we are going out.”
Nigel leaned forward, bony elbows on his knees. “What’s this, then?”
Isabela explained the plan to sneak away from the Academy. Her tone made it clear that the boys joining them was something of a foregone conclusion.
“My, my, my,” Nigel said. He shot Ran a baffled look. “You’re into this, even?”
Ran folded her arms. “We have been cooped up here too long, have we not?”
“Gods yes, I could use a pint,” Nigel said, his smile crooked. “When do we leave?”
“Dark,” Isabela said. “Obviously.”
“I always wanted to see America,” Kopano said dreamily. He finally found a shirt that was clean enough and tugged it on. “I thought they would show us more when we came to the Academy. There should be field trips.”
“Yeah. Instead they bring in military guys to beat us up,” Taylor added. “We deserve a night off after that ordeal today.”
Kopano smiled at her. He liked the rebellious glint that he saw in Taylor’s eye. He spoke to her in a tone of faux virtue. “It is my duty to warn you, Taylor, that this activity does not sound very boring.”
She smiled at him. “Nope. It does not.”
Just then, they all heard a loud bang from Caleb’s room, followed by a pair of identical voices agitatedly whispering to each other. Everyone slowly turned towards Caleb’s closed door. Except for Isabela. She whipped around to glare at Nigel.
“Your freak roommate is here? The whole time?”
Nigel ran a hand over his spiky hair, exchanging a look with Kopano. “We, ah . . . we didn’t check.”
Isabela stomped her foot and yelled at the closed door, “Spy! Come out of there!”
Slowly, the door to Caleb’s room creaked open and Caleb poked his head out.
“I didn’t hear anything,” he said.
Isabela groaned and flailed her arms. “This one! He is the ultimate tattletale. We must tie him up and gag him until we return.”
Kopano laughed until Isabela turned to glare at him. “Wait. You are serious?”
Taylor watched Caleb warily, their weird encounter the week before not forgotten. Ran and Nigel, meanwhile, exchanged a subtle look. For his part, Caleb seemed to regret stumbling into the whole plan. He held up his hands.
“I won’t say anything. I promise,” he said.
“No. He cannot be trusted,” countered Isabela.
Suddenly, Caleb stumbled forward. A duplicate hidden behind him had pushed Caleb out of his room. “Tell them you want to go, pansy,” the duplicate hissed.
Nigel sighed and stepped forward. “Caleb, mate, what did we say about the duplicates?”
Caleb glanced over his shoulder, then absorbed the duplicate back into himself. Isabela shuddered.
“Sorry,” Caleb said.
“Our roommate, he’s got difficulties expressing himself proper like,” Nigel declared, turning to face the rest of the group. “Bit of a weirdo, innit he? He owes it to his rigid upbringing and troubled childhood or some such.”
“Um, we don’t need to get into all that, thanks, Nigel,” Caleb said quietly.
“I don’t suppose any of us have similar back stories?” Nigel continued. “Or have had some trouble fitting in around this bloody Academy?”
“I am not a weirdo,” Isabela declared.
Taylor smirked. “You aren’t?”
Isabela shot Taylor a look. “No.”
Kopano shrugged happily, like he’d missed most of the discussion. “You should come with us, Caleb. We are going to San Francisco!”
“I . . .” Caleb looked uncertainly at Isabela. “I mean, I would go if . . .”
“Six is too many,” Isabela said, stomping her foot. “I cannot sneak out a small army.”
“Yes, you can,” Ran said, breaking her long silence.
Isabela glared at Ran. The Japanese girl stared back impassively. After a few seconds, Isabela relented with a toss of her hair.
“Fine,” she said. “Fine. I will do it because my heart is so big and full of charity.”
The six of them waited until dark before they set out from the dorms. There were no rules about the students roaming the grounds at night—at least not before the midnight curfew—so they made their way towards the woods at a casual pace.
They hiked deep into the trees, until the fence that surrounded the Academy came into view. Isabela stopped them before they got too close.
“Do we climb over?” Kopano asked.
Isabela gave him a deadpan look. “I do not climb.” She checked her watch. “We need to wait about seven more minutes.”
“For what?” Caleb asked.
“Perimeter patrol.”
Sure enough, seven minutes later, a Peacekeeper truck rumbled by on the dirt road that encircled the fence. As soon as the red taillights were out of sight, Isabela stepped out of hiding. The others followed, cautiously.
“First,” she said, “we deal with the camera.”
The others hadn’t even noticed the little camera mounted on top of the fence. With a gentle nudge of her telekinesis, Isabela turned the device so it pointed in the other direction.
“Doesn’t someone notice that?” Taylor asked.
“Of course they notice,” Isabela replied. “But it is very windy out here. A technician will come out, turn the camera back around, tighten the screws. No big deal.”
Next, Isabela stepped carefully back into the overgrown woods. She returned with a huge dead log, levitating the mossy debris with her telekinesis.
“It took me awhile to find one exactly the right size,” she said. “I keep worrying that one night it will be gone, that the groundskeepers will clean it up.”
Isabela propped the log up against the fence. She took off her heels and gracefully scaled the improvised ramp. Lightly, she jumped down on the other side of the fence, dusted off the soles of her feet and put her shoes back on.
“Coming?” she asked the others through the fence.
One by one, they each ascended the ramp and jumped down. Kopano caught Taylor when she leaped down. Caleb watched them, biting his lip. When they were all on the other side, Isabela used her telekinesis to shove the log away from the fence.
“What happens now?” Nigel asked. “It’s a long walk to San Francisco.”
Isabela pointed across the dirt road. “Now, you wait here. There is a ditch over there. Hide in it until I return.”
“Where are you going?” Taylor asked.
“You are all so nosy! Please. I know what I’m doing,” Isabela complained. The others stared at her, so she threw up her hands resignedly. “Look, I am going to get us a car. Then, we drive off. Nothing to it. Get in your ditch so the patrols won’t see you.”
Isabela sauntered off into the darkness, leaving the others to hunker down in the grass on the side of the road. They stared up at the stars—blinking and visible out here in the middle of nowhere. They were nervous at first, but as the seconds turned into minutes, a peace settled over the five of them.
“This is kinda nice,” Caleb said.
“Don’t ruin the moment by talking about it,” Nigel replied. Ran elbowed him.
They tensed up when another car rolled by, the headlight beams gliding right over their position. The patrol didn’t even slow down.
/> “It’d be kind of funny if she just left us out here,” Caleb said.
“She wouldn’t do that,” Taylor replied.
“I know . . . I’m just joking.” Caleb shrugged. “We could camp out here. Worse comes to worst.”
Kopano chuckled. “Sleeping outside on purpose. Something I will never understand about this wonderful country.”
Another vehicle puttered up the dirt road. This time, it was a van. And this time, it slowed to a stop right above their ditch.
“Gotta be Isabela,” Nigel said, standing up before Ran could stop him.
He was greeted by the face of the red-bearded soldier who he’d scared in the competition earlier, the man staring at him through his rolled-down window. “The hell are you doing out here, boy?”
Nigel tensed up. “Uh . . .”
In a blur of flesh that looked like melting clay, the soldier’s face changed into Isabela’s. She grinned at him. “Just kidding. Come on, get in!”
Laughing and excited, they scrambled out of the ditch and into the van. Taylor sat shotgun. There weren’t any seats in the back—Isabela explained that the van was meant for doing supply runs, which was the pretense she used to sign it out from the vehicle pool, all under the identity of one of the many soldiers she’d memorized. The four others held on to leather cargo straps that dangled from the van’s walls and ceiling.
“You’re really something else,” Taylor told Isabela.
“I know.”
“In addition to something else, I hope you are also a good driver,” Kopano said.
“Oh, I am,” Isabela replied, setting off at a breakneck pace that jostled the four in the back. They were too amped up to complain, a game soon developing where they tried to keep their balance as Isabela zoomed through the curves of the patrol road. She slowed down when they reached a paved turnoff that led toward the Peacekeeper base proper and the final checkpoint before their exit.
“You should hide in the back. I need to put my face back on,” Isabela told Taylor. The five of them all crouched in the shadows of the cargo area, holding in laughter, even Caleb giddy with the possibility of escape. “Are you ready?” Isabela asked. “Soon, there will be no turning back.”
“We’re ready,” the others said in unison, not at all nervous as they approached the checkpoint. Isabela’s confidence was contagious.
They were waved through without incident.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
TARGET #4
MAR A VISTA—CALIFORNIA
IN THE “FAMILY AREA” OF JIMBO’S MOTOR HOME, Einar ground his teeth until his jaw hurt. The room stunk—a mixture of body odor and cigarette smoke. His legs ached from standing, but he refused to crowd in with the others around the faded dinette set. Not until Reverend Jimbo was done with his Bible study.
He hated Reverend Jimbo.
He hated his disgusting mobile home.
He hated the Americans.
In the background, Reverend Jimbo read a passage in his slow drawl. Einar watched the old man without listening—thick gray hair slicked halfway down the back of his neck, pockmarked face, the glistening eyes of a true believer. A group of Reverend Jimbo’s followers crowded in around him, rapt, paying attention, although Einar figured the reverend could have read his flock anything—The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, for instance, one of Einar’s childhood favorites—and they would have taken it as gospel.
All of Jimbo’s followers—bikers, ranchers, survivalists, burnouts—had the same stupid tattoo. A scythe slashing down on a serpent as it burst forth from a circle. The symbolism didn’t require much unpacking.
Harvesters, they called themselves.
Einar glanced around the motor home. On the walls were pinned a jumble of newspaper stories about alien life, hand-drawn maps of UFO sightings and snatches of Scripture. Piled against one wall was a stack of rifles.
These people weren’t professional. Compared to the research and resources of the Foundation, Jimbo’s group was laughable.
Even though they often looked at him like a child, Einar missed the efficiency of Jarl and his Blackstone mercenaries. They were banned from operating on American soil, which made getting them into the United States for this operation too much of a risk. His employers had to use what resources were available. In this case, a grassroots cult that believed the Loric were devils made flesh and that any humans touched by them were irredeemably corrupted.
He and Rabiya were alone on this one. A calculated risk by the Foundation, Einar supposed. Even with the addition of the Italian Earth Garde healer, his employers still needed more healing power. Einar sensed the matter was becoming desperate.
If the Harvesters knew what Einar and Rabiya really were, they would certainly try to kill them. Einar sensed the way Jimbo and some of his brighter lights looked at him. They already had suspicions. But his presence had come with a generous contribution to the reverend’s mobile church, both in money and weapons. Not to mention, Einar promised them violence, gave them a purpose. That kept the Harvesters from looking too hard at him and his partner. At least for now.
The weapons Einar provided were like nothing the Harvesters had seen before. They were designed specifically to fight the Garde and currently available only to select government agencies. Select government agencies and the Foundation. Einar and Rabiya were posing as representatives from Sydal Corp, the weapons manufacturer, spending time with the Harvesters so that they could field-test their anti-Garde technology. That made the Harvesters feel special.
“That’s an honest-to-God multinational corporation, y’hear?” Reverend Jimbo had told his men when he introduced Einar. “We ain’t just pissing in the wind out here. The powers-that-be, they’re starting to take notice.” That Einar and Rabiya were a little young to be representing a prominent weapons manufacturer like Sydal Corp didn’t seem to occur to the Harvesters. That they were both obviously foreigners didn’t raise any red flags either. Jimbo had stressed multinational, after all.
And what better place to test these weapons than out here, on the coast of California? They just had to wait for a suitable target to come along. A straggler. That’s what Einar had told Jimbo and the others, anyway.
They didn’t need to know that he and Rabiya were waiting for someone in particular.
Einar brushed a spot of lint off the front of his black button-down. The Harvesters favored what Einar considered silly postapocalyptic costumes—leather, gas masks, outlaw bandannas. He stuck out in their company by wearing a fine gray suit and wingtip shoes. Despite the preponderance of mildew in Reverend Jimbo’s narrow motor home shower, Einar managed to stay immaculately clean. He kept his light brown hair rigidly parted from the side. There was not a speck of dirt under his fingernails.
He and Rabiya had been out here for a week. Living among the vermin. Waiting.
A walkie-talkie buzzed to life. “Got one coming your way,” said the scratchy voice of a Harvester. Aside from the reverend, Einar hadn’t bothered to learn any of their names. “White van. Looks like another supply run.”
Einar quickly picked up his attaché. He turned to the reverend and his disciples, who had paused in their reading.
“I’ll look into it,” Einar said. “Ready yourselves.”
“With the Lord’s guidance, we are always ready,” the reverend responded. He motioned for one of the Harvesters—a muscular young man with slicked-back black hair—to join Einar. The reverend always had someone watching him.
Einar stepped outside, the cool night air a relief after the stuffy odors of the motor home. His escort followed him. Outside were a dozen more Harvesters and their motorcycles. They had skipped Bible study to drink beers and grill what were probably steaks but Einar imagined to be squirrels.
Their encampment was on a ridge that overlooked the Mar a Vista scenic roadway. In the decades before the Academy took over this piece of California, Mar a Vista was popular with tourists and surfers. Now, according to the Foundation’s source inside t
he Academy, it was the route the Peacekeepers used when they wanted to travel unobserved. Unlike the nearby Shoreline Highway, this road was secluded. Usually without traffic. Perfect for discreet travel, but also ripe for a trap.
Thanks to their source, Einar knew exactly where the Academy’s security checkpoints were located. The Harvesters had a handful of vagabond-looking bikers posted nearby there—far enough away to avoid detection but close enough to observe any comings and goings. That’s who had radioed in.
In addition, there was a small team farther south on the highway, ready to spring a roadblock on Einar’s command. Rabiya was down there, supervising that piece of the operation. If they were discovered as Garde and the Harvesters turned on them, it was better that Einar be with the bulk of the group. He could handle them.
Einar’s source had assured the Foundation that the target made frequent visits to San Francisco, where she honed her skills at a local hospital. She would come this way. In all likelihood, she would be escorted by Peacekeepers and some Academy personnel. All expendable.
Whenever a vehicle left the Academy via Mar a Vista, they checked it. So far, there had been no sign of their target.
The Peacekeepers would detect their presence eventually. They couldn’t camp out here forever without attracting attention. Every day, much to Einar’s chagrin, the number of Harvesters increased. Word was spreading, a small army amassing. The atmosphere around the reverend’s camp got more and more like a party. But Einar could tell the Harvesters were growing restless. Soon, they’d want some action, whether approved by Einar or not. He’d already overheard the idiots pondering an assault on the Academy. A lot of bold talk.
The operation would have to fold up if the Harvesters became too unruly. He hadn’t been sent here for a pointless attack on the Academy.
The whole mission was riskier than Einar would’ve liked. Riskier, even, than kidnapping the sniveling Italian boy in the Philippines. Acting so close to the Academy; there would be consequences. His employers surely knew that. They’d likely run dozens of cost-benefit analyses.