Dr. Malcolm Goode was one of their science instructors. When he wasn’t teaching them chemistry and physics, Dr. Goode headed up the Academy’s research staff. He studied their Legacies, helping the students better understand what they could do. He had a son of his own with Legacies, although he didn’t attend the Academy. Isabela wondered how he’d gotten so lucky to avoid the monotony.
With Caleb now in the lead, the trio made their way down the path that led out to the helipad. The day was sunny and breezy, like it always seemed to be on these coastal cliffs. Sometimes, Isabela missed the sticky heat of Rio de Janeiro, parading around the Zona Sul in her bikini and sarong, looking for trouble. The wind here chilled her, made goose pimples on her light brown skin and forced her to wear more clothes than she would’ve liked. She shoved a curly tangle of dark hair out of her face.
The helipad was constructed in an open field to the east of the Academy. From here, Isabela could see the woodlands that created a buffer between the campus and the fence erected to protect them. When she was particularly bored, she liked to visit with the UN Peacekeepers who patrolled the perimeter. The soldiers were always sweet and stammer-prone—she was beautiful and possessed superpowers, a combination that drove ordinary men to speechlessness. The power to make even grown men nervous was intoxicating.
It was during one of those visits, casually flirting with a group of idle guards, that Isabela realized how easy it was for a person with her Legacy to escape from campus. She’d dipped down to San Francisco a half-dozen times since then, sometimes alone and sometimes in the company of Lofton, the handsome Canadian currently wrapped tightly around her little finger. His eighteenth birthday was quickly approaching and he’d recently been notified that the administration thought he was ready to graduate. They would have to make at least one more excursion to the city before he left the Academy to join Earth Garde.
Then, she’d need to find a replacement.
Ignoring Simon and Caleb, Isabela daydreamed about the little bar she and Lofton had found in Haight-Ashbury, the one that didn’t bother checking IDs. She closed her eyes, let the sun heat her cheeks and imagined the boozy tang of margarita on her tongue.
The newbies waited for them next to the UN chopper, its propeller still making a slow rotation. Just as Simon predicted, Dr. Goode had arrived ahead of them.
“Kopano and Taylor,” Dr. Goode introduced the new kids. “This is Simon, Isabela and Caleb. They’ll show you around and get you settled in. You’re in good hands.”
Isabela quickly sized up the new recruits. The first was a sturdy African boy with a wide grin, the type that thought the Academy would be superhero camp. They got plenty of those. Next to him was a frightened-looking all-American girl. Isabela thought Taylor might almost be pretty if not for the huge bags under her eyes.
Caleb made sure to properly shake hands with the two new arrivals. Isabela didn’t miss that he held Taylor’s hand a little longer than necessary. The new girl smiled shyly. Caleb let go only when Isabela loudly cleared her throat. She gave Caleb a look of acidic amusement. These American boys. Always so obvious.
“So, you guys both speak English, huh?” Simon asked, sounding disappointed. He stuck the smooth pebble he’d been playing with back in his pocket.
“Simon’s Legacy is quite unique,” Dr. Goode explained to the blank-faced Kopano and Taylor. “He can charge objects with knowledge. Whoever touches an object thus charged can then access that information as if it were stored in their own neurons.”
“Amazing!” Kopano stared down at Simon with reverence.
“It’s especially useful considering Simon is a hyperpolyglot.”
“Hyper-what?” Taylor asked.
“I learn languages easily,” Simon explained. “Even before the Legacy.”
“Isabela is using one of Simon’s creations now,” continued Dr. Goode. “She isn’t a native English speaker, but the bracelet allows her to understand us as well as communicate seamlessly.”
Isabela held out her arm so they could get a closer look at her bracelet.
“Pretty,” Taylor said.
“Not so much when you need to wear it every day,” Isabela said, adding dryly, “but it’s worth it to understand all the interesting things you’re saying.”
“It lasts forever?” Kopano asked.
Simon shook his head. He was puffed up from all the attention. “I have to recharge them every week or so. Most people have me charge like a watch or a necklace.”
“Sometimes he screws up and implants a memory along with the knowledge,” Isabela said with a sly smile. “My last charge came loaded with a traumatic vision of young Simon wetting the bed.”
Simon groaned and stared down at his shoes. “I’d had a lot of water when I was charging that one up,” he complained. “Anyway, I’m getting better at filtering.”
“May I try one?” Kopano asked.
Simon kicked around in the grass until he found a small gray rock. “Give me a second,” he said, then closed his eyes and concentrated. Slowly, the stone changed colors, taking on an otherworldly glow that slowly faded to a barely perceptible twinkle. After a minute, Simon opened his eyes and offered Kopano the stone. “It’s not my best work. Usually takes a lot longer . . .”
Kopano grabbed the stone and squeezed. “Now what?”
“Tu me comprends?” Simon asked.
“Oui!” shouted Kopano. “Je parle Francais!”
While the boys messed around, Dr. Goode excused himself. This was another of Dr. Linda’s policies—after the UN orientation process that involved endless encounters with smelly bureaucrats and pushy scientists, the Academy’s on-site headshrinker believed it important to get new arrivals among their peers as soon as possible. If Dr. Linda had her way, they’d spend the whole day playing icebreakers and doing trust-falls with these wide-eyed newbies. Isabela didn’t know about Caleb and Simon, but she had better things to do.
She turned her attention to Taylor. The girl watched with tired amusement as Kopano and Simon had a rapid-fire dialogue in basic French. She didn’t seem at all aware that Caleb was still staring at her. Isabela knew by the way his mouth worked in silence and the nervous movements of his hands that Caleb was getting ready to talk. Well, at least this might be amusing, she thought.
“Where are you from?” Caleb eventually managed to ask Taylor.
The question startled her. “South Dakota.”
“Oh, cool. I’m from Nebraska.” Caleb appeared puzzled about what to say next. “Our states touch.”
“Yep,” Taylor replied, an eyebrow raised. “They sure do.”
“Cool,” Caleb said. “So . . .”
The conversation was too painful, even for Isabela’s dark sense of humor.
“Thrilling!” she said, gliding in to grab Taylor by the elbow. “Come now. Let’s leave these drooling bobos to their silly games and get you settled in. You look completely exhausted.”
Taylor glanced in Kopano’s direction, like she was nervous to leave him behind. After a moment’s hesitation, she allowed Isabela to whisk her towards campus. “Nice to meet you!” she called over her shoulder to Caleb.
“Yeah, you too,” he said. He watched Isabela lean in close to Taylor and whisper in her ear, probably telling her something malicious about him.
“Our states touch. Real smooth talk, Casanova. That was embarrassing.”
Caleb’s shoulders tightened. He looked in Simon and Kopano’s direction. They’d both fallen silent and were staring at him.
He turned in the opposite direction and found his own face mocking him. A duplicate. One had popped out without Caleb even realizing.
“This is why we never had a girlfriend,” the duplicate said, sneering at Caleb. “Because you’re such a sad los—”
Caleb absorbed the duplicate. He took a deep breath and then turned to Kopano, pretending like nothing had happened.
“Should we get on with the tour?”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
; TARGET #3
MANILA, THE PHILIPPINES
TWO WEEKS EARLIER, AN EARTHQUAKE STRUCK THE Philippines. A 6.2 on the Richter scale. The quake resulted in rough waters off the coast, waves just short of tsunami level. Five hundred died during the tremors and more during the subsequent floods, the casualties worse in the densely packed slums of Tondo and San Andres. Thousands were injured, many more than that displaced.
The world sent aid. The Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, UNICEF, International Relief Team and others were on the scene, tending to the injured and helping the locals rebuild.
Earth Garde was there, too. Two of the young Human Garde along with thirty of their UN Peacekeeper handlers.
It was just the opportunity the Foundation had been waiting for.
Einar sat at an outdoor café amid Manila’s bustling downtown. If not for the broken window behind him, one would never know there had been an earthquake there. The buildings in the wealthier parts of the city were reinforced, history teaching the inhabitants to prepare for the worst. Einar sipped his coffee and admired the patchwork architecture—colorful and glassy modern building competing with old Spanish and French architecture.
The air was humid and sticky, not Einar’s preferred climate. He tugged at the neck of his powder-blue Habitat For Humanity T-shirt. Looking down at himself—the dumb shirt, his khaki cargo shorts, his brown flip-flops—Einar had to stifle a groan. He hated the outfit, but at least it kept him anonymous. Just another good-hearted young person here to volunteer.
He glanced over at the girl sitting at the table next to his. Another foreigner. Saudi Arabian. A zebra-print hijab framed her pretty face, her long-sleeved dress a matching black-and-silver. She daintily sipped from a cup of tea.
“This heat doesn’t bother you,” Einar said, pushing his own coffee away from him.
“I’m used to it,” Rabiya replied lightly. She cringed as a man rushing down the sidewalk bumped into her table. “It’s the crowds that get me.”
“Won’t be long now.”
Einar much preferred working with Rabiya to the brutish Blackstone mercenaries. Their first mission on behalf of the Foundation had taken them to Shanghai. China didn’t participate in the Earth Garde program, preferring instead to keep control of their own Garde. However, the invasion followed by the ongoing problems with Mogadorian insurgents on the Mongolian border had kept China from properly organizing and securing their Garde. Thanks to Rabiya’s Legacy, they had easily accessed the Chinese research station and acquired their target—Jiao Lin, a healer. The mission was made even simpler when they discovered Jiao actually wanted to defect, the girl welcoming the lifestyle the Foundation could offer her.
It was always better when the targets saw reason, Einar thought, his mind drifting to Bunji and what had become of the Australian boy since Einar plucked him up from the outback.
He had a feeling today’s target might prove uncooperative.
“Do you think this will be enough?” Rabiya asked him. “Enough . . . healing power?”
Einar glanced around. “Be careful what you say in public,” Einar admonished gently. Her cousin was sick, dying slowly, and Einar knew this weighed heavily on Rabiya’s mind. He smiled at her, using his Legacy to make sure Rabiya found his words and gestures properly reassuring. “This will be enough. I know it.”
It had better be, Einar thought. Attacking Earth Garde directly, even if their tracks were properly covered, would have consequences.
Einar’s earpiece crackled to life. “Target incoming,” said Jarl’s gravelly voice. Einar gazed up at the nearby rooftops where he knew the mercenaries were positioned. He couldn’t see them; they were too well hidden.
“Ready,” Einar replied into the microphone hidden in his shirt collar. Rabiya, overhearing, set down her tea and pulled her bulky purse into her lap. She nodded to Einar.
From within one of his cargo pockets—he’d had to leave his attaché case at home for this mission, unfortunately—Einar produced a padded box. Inside was a small device, the size and shape of a large thumbtack. He pricked his thumb with the sharpened end, then bumped his fingernail across the barbed shaft that made the thing extra painful to remove. He knew what that felt like. He resisted the urge to touch his own temple and suppressed a shudder—Rabiya was watching him.
“You’re going to chip him,” she said.
Einar nodded. “Safest way.”
Rabiya shook her head disapprovingly. “I don’t like those things.”
Einar said nothing. He traced his thumb across the device’s flat head—the microchip and power source—and found himself thinking of Bunji again. They’d had to chip the aboriginal boy when they first brought him back to the Foundation. He was out of control. That was months ago, and there were . . . unfortunate side effects.
“Target at your location,” Jarl said in his ear.
“I see them,” Einar replied through his teeth.
The Earth Garde team was impossible to miss. A cavalcade of black SUVs drove up to the hotel across the street. A crowd was already amassing out there. It was the same thing as yesterday and the day before, for as long as Einar had been here, watching and waiting.
“They love the attention,” he muttered.
Melanie Jackson hopped out of one of the trucks, smiling brightly for the camera-waving onlookers. There were smudges of dirt on her cheeks from work at the rebuilding sites, but her curly blond hair looked perfect. The quintessential poster girl for Earth Garde, never one to miss a photo op. She took selfies with the crowd, even lifting some of them up with her superstrength. The Foundation’s research indicated that enhanced strength was one of the more common Legacies—common, but not desirable. Not like healing.
Melanie’s partner, Vincent Iabruzzi, was slower exiting the truck and less enthusiastic about interacting with the crowd. The Italian looked exhausted, drained after a long day of healing the injured in the slums. The boy was barely eighteen, round-faced and a little pudgy, with a mane of kinky black hair and a shadow of beard. The Foundation’s reports indicated that he’d been given the unfortunate nickname of “Vinnie Meatballs” by the so-called professor who ran the Academy. Einar supposed he could see the reason.
With his telekinesis, Einar floated the pronged microchip into the air. It was like a silver bug weaving through the air. No one noticed it. Not until the little device bit into Vincent’s temple.
He yelped and made to swat at his face, but that yelp quickly turned into a scream. His limbs jerked as the chip sent an electromagnetic shock into his brain, the signal specifically designed to disrupt the part of a Garde’s brain that fired when they used their telekinesis. The chip induced seizures, loss of muscle control and sometimes temporary blindness.
“Vincent?” Melanie shouted, pushing away from her now-frightened fans. She reached out to her fellow Earth Garde but stopped short when three tranquilizer darts zipped into her neck and shoulders. That would be Jarl and his Blackstone snipers.
“Rooftops! Rooftops!” shouted one of the Peacekeepers. They drew firearms and tried to cover the dazed Garde, pushing them back to the safety of the cars.
A gas canister rocketed down from a rooftop, shattering a windshield. A second one soon followed, exploding in the middle of the street. The crowd was screaming now—panicked and choking from the tear gas, trampling each other, creating confusion for the Peacekeepers.
Everyone at the café was running for cover except Einar and Rabiya. She opened her purse, retrieved a gas mask and pulled it on. Then, she handed one to Einar and he did the same.
“Shall we?” Einar asked.
The two of them strode into the choking orange gas towards where they’d seen Vincent drop. Any fleeing civilians who got in their way got roughly shoved aside by bursts of telekinesis. They found Vincent prone in the road, drooling, his body twitching. Two Peacekeepers stood over him protectively, tears streaming from eyes swollen by the gas. The two soldiers still managed to get their weapons raised in Einar
’s direction.
With his telekinesis, Einar twisted their arms around. The soldiers pointed their guns at each other’s heads and fired before they even knew what was happening.
Einar knelt down and touched the back of Vincent’s neck. The boy was sobbing. “Hush now,” Einar said. “You’re with friends.”
Rabiya extended her hand, an eerie blue glow emanating from her palm, visible even through the thick blanket of gas.
Seconds later, they were gone.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ISABELA SILVA • TAYLOR COOK
THE HUMAN GARDE ACADEMY—POINT REYES, CALIFORNIA
ISABELA KEPT A TIGHT HOLD ON TAYLOR’S ARM, vaguely worried the fragile-looking girl would pass out. She didn’t need that. On one hand, she wanted to be done with this tour so she could find Lofton and make plans for the night. On the other hand, Isabela rather enjoyed talking and was eager to get a read on her new roommate. Would she be cool? A tattletale? A nighttime crier? Isabela needed to know.
“So,” Isabela started as they walked back towards campus. “What do you do?”
Taylor’s tired mind worked slowly. “Do? I don’t know what you mean . . .”
Isabela scoffed. “Get used to that question, my dear! Everyone will want to know. What is your Legacy?”
“Oh. I’m a healer, I guess. What about you?”
Before Isabela could answer, a golf cart zoomed across their path. The driver was a young UN Peacekeeper. The passenger was a middle-aged man with thinning hair gone gray at the temples. He wore a severely starched and medal-bedecked uniform and he looked, to Taylor, like a solid block of ice. He briefly glanced at the two girls as his cart sped by. Even though they were simply walking around, the man’s look made both of them feel like they were about to get into trouble.
“Who was that?” Taylor asked.
“The warden,” sniffed Isabela, snapping off a mocking salute. “Colonel Ray Archibald. UN Peacekeepers. Head of security. He makes sure no one gets in and none of us get out.”