“In the meantime, the Elgen have continued to build Starxource plants, which, for the most part, have been very successful. The Elgen are already earning more than seven billion dollars a year selling electricity. Hatch has used the plants’ success to appease the board over his continual experiments with producing more electric children—something most of the board was opposed to.
“Hatch knew that his conflict with the board would someday come to a head, so he prepared for it. He trained an army of Elgen guards with the stated purpose of protecting their Starxource plants, but his real reason was to someday take over the company, which is what he did less than a month ago.
“This brings us to where we are today. A few weeks ago a scientific paper surfaced online from the Chinese province of Shanxi. It was written by a Chinese scientist named Lin YuLong, which, translated to English, means ‘jade dragon.’
“The paper theorized that human DNA could be electrically altered through the use of magnetically altered electrons. As with many major discoveries, only a few understood the importance of the theory, and the paper was largely ignored by the scientific world. The first paper YuLong wrote hypothesized that the result would likely kill 71.43 percent of the species, which, remarkably, is within a half percent of the actual mortality rate of the MEI.
“Then YuLong claimed to have solved the problem, predicting a 0.003 percent mortality rate. Fortunately, the scientist did not divulge the mathematical formula used on the alteration.
“We immediately sent our Taiwanese associate to China to track down this scientist. We were surprised to discover that Jade Dragon wasn’t a scientist, but rather a nine-year-old girl, and that only days before she had been kidnapped.”
“How do you know that the Elgen kidnapped her?” Ostin asked.
“We don’t. But this is what we do know. First, we know that the Elgen desperately want the information she has. Second, we know that the Elgen Lung Li force was called to the Shanxi province of China just days before Jade Dragon disappeared.”
Ostin looked at me. “What’s a Lung Li?” he whispered. I shrugged.
“And third, we know that the Volta, the Elgen’s floating laboratory, has changed course and is now sailing to Taiwan. The pieces all fit.”
“Why would they need the Volta?” I asked.
“It’s where the original MEI is. And more important, it’s where their scientists are.”
“How long ago was she kidnapped?” Ostin asked.
“It’s been seven days.”
“Then it may already be too late,” Ostin said. “Once they have the information, it’s over.”
“We have hope that she will not turn the information over to them.”
“They’ll get it from her,” Jack said. “They’ll torture her.”
“You know better than anyone that the Elgen are not above torture—even with a child. But in the case of Jade Dragon it probably won’t do them any good. Jade Dragon is not only deaf and mute, she’s an autistic savant. She is, in all likelihood, extremely confused and frightened.”
“What’s a savant?” Abigail asked.
“Savants are highly gifted individuals capable of remarkable mental feats,” Gervaso said. “For instance, an American autistic savant named Kim Peek could read two pages of a book at the same time in about three seconds and memorize everything on them. Before he died, he had read more than twelve thousand books and could recite any of them word for word.
“Another savant is Leslie Lemke; he was born blind and with such severe birth defects that he didn’t learn how to walk until he was fifteen years old. When he was sixteen, his mother woke in the middle of the night to the sound of piano music and thought she’d left the television on. She discovered that it was her son. Even though Leslie had never had a single lesson, he was flawlessly playing a Tchaikovsky piano concerto after hearing it just once on the television.
“There are also reports of a savant who could learn a foreign language in less than a week, and another who could solve math equations as quickly as a calculator and recite pi up to twenty-eight thousand places.”
“Ostin, to how many places can you recite pi?” Abigail asked.
Ostin gulped. “Maybe a couple hundred.”
“You mean they’re even smarter than Ostin?” Zeus asked.
Ostin frowned.
“Perhaps in a specific field,” Gervaso said kindly. Ostin relaxed.
“How long until the Volta reaches Taiwan?” I asked.
“If she continues at her current speed, about two weeks. You’ll need to be in Taiwan well in advance to prepare.”
“So what do we do while we’re here?” Taylor asked.
“We’d like to work with you in developing your powers,” Gervaso said.
“Like the Elgen did,” Zeus said.
“I do not like the comparison, but yes. The Elgen are evil, not stupid.” Gervaso looked around the room. “Are there any more questions?”
“Is there a gym?” Jack asked.
“Yes. It’s in building C, near the silos. There’s also a pool and hot tub.”
“That’s where we’re headed,” Tessa said.
“By ‘we’ you mean ‘you,’ ” Zeus said.
“I didn’t say you have to get in,” she replied.
“If there are no more questions,” Gervaso said, “I think that’s enough for now. You have the rest of the day free. I’ll see you here tomorrow morning at nine thirty. Have a good day.”
Gervaso stopped me on the way out. “Michael, I’d like to try something with your powers. Would that be all right?”
“Sure.”
“I’ll meet you here after lunch.”
As we walked from the room Ostin said to me, “I know what I’m going to do to prepare.”
“What?” I asked.
“I’m going to learn Chinese.”
“In one week?”
“Probably not all of it,” he said. Then added, “I’m not a savant.”
I patted him on the back. “Trust me, you’re close enough.”
Lunch was fried chicken, mashed potatoes with white gravy, and a homemade soda the lunch lady called sarsaparilla, which tasted like root beer. Taylor and I sat next to Jack and Abigail.
“So what’s the story on this Gervaso guy?” I asked. “He looks like a Marine.”
“He’s tougher than that,” Jack said. “He was Delta Force, the army’s elite tactical-combat and antiterrorist unit. They only take the best of the best. They’re trained in marksmanship, demolition and entry, hostage rescue, espionage, surveillance, and diplomatic protection. He’s like a one-man army.”
“Like you,” Abigail said to Jack. He smiled.
Taylor looked at Jack for a moment, then asked, “How are you doing?”
“Fine,” he said. Then he flinched a little. “You mean, with Wade?”
Taylor nodded. “Yes.”
“I miss him.”
“We do too,” I said.
Jack took a deep breath, then said, “Around four summers ago I went over to Wade’s house. He was still living with his old man back then. I didn’t get along with his father, so I usually just went around back and climbed in through Wade’s window.
“This time, after I climbed inside, I couldn’t find Wade. Then I heard him. He was in his closet. There was blood all over the floor and his face and his eyes were nearly swollen shut. His father had almost beaten him to death. I helped him out and wiped off some of the blood, then I went out looking for his dad. I was only like fifteen, but I was already more than six feet and a hundred and ninety pounds. His father was a little man. He was drunk, sitting on the floor in the hall.
“The dude came at me with a bottle. I was crazy mad. I knocked him down, then started waling on him. Then Wade shouted, ‘Stop! Please stop.’ He had crawled out of his room to save his father. If it wasn’t for Wade I might have killed that drunk.” Jack slowly shook his head. “I was so pumped with adrenaline that I lifted the guy with one hand
and shoved him against the wall. I told him if he ever touched Wade again that the next time I wouldn’t stop.” Jack looked down. “Child services took Wade out of the house the next week.”
Abigail reached over and took Jack’s hand.
“From then on, I felt like it was my job to protect him. That’s what I can’t get over. Failing him.” Jack looked into my eyes. “I relive his death over and over. If I could just have those five minutes back. Just five minutes . . .”
Taylor’s eyes welled up. “I’m so sorry.”
Jack looked up at her. “Can you take the pain away from me? Like you did with Zeus?”
Taylor frowned. “Maybe. But I’d have to take away all your memories of Wade. Do you really want to forget him?”
Jack thought for a moment, then slowly shook his head. “No. It’s all I have left of him.” He put his hand over his eyes.
Abigail put her arm around Jack. I think she was using her power because I noticed that he relaxed a bit. We finished eating in silence.
* * *
About fifteen minutes later Gervaso walked into the dining room looking for me. “Are you ready?”
“Sure. How long will we be?”
“About half an hour.”
“I’ll be in my room,” Taylor said. “Come find me when you’re done.”
I followed Gervaso outside the dining hall to a warehouse near the stables. He grabbed a green metal ammo box from a shelf, and then we got in one of the jeeps and drove about a half mile from the house to a shooting range. There were targets scattered all over the terrain and the ground was littered with brass bullet casings. Gervaso parked the jeep next to a gun mounted on a turret.
“Come,” he said. We walked about a hundred feet to a round bull’s-eye mounted to a bale of hay. “I’ve been speaking with Jaime,” he said. “He told me that he saw you push an army truck with your magnetism. Is that true?”
“Yeah. It wasn’t moving too fast; it was in a convoy.”
“I want to try something. When I say ‘now,’ I want you to push like you did that jeep. That direction,” he said, pointing away from me.
“What do you want me to push?”
“Just the air,” he said. “Don’t move, just push when I tell you to. Understand?”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“Stand right here,” he said, moving me toward the target. He turned and walked back to the mounted gun, then looked through the gun’s scope and put his finger on the trigger. The gun was pointing right at me.
“Wait!” I shouted. “You’re not going to shoot that thing at me are you?”
“Not at you. The target.”
“Yeah, and I’m like six inches away from the target. No offense, but I don’t know how good of a shot you are.”
“It won’t hit you. The gun’s been calibrated to hit the target dead center each time.”
“This is crazy,” I mumbled. “How many bullets?”
“This is an M16 automatic, so I’m going to fire a thirty-round clip.”
I stepped back. “Wait, you didn’t tell me you’re firing a freaking machine gun at me. What if you’re off a few inches?”
“Don’t worry, they’d definitely fire me if I killed you.”
I just stared at him.
He grinned. “I’m joking.” He looked back through the scope. “I’ve already tested more than three hundred rounds.”
Shaking my head, I stepped back toward the target. “Whatever.”
“Are you ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” I said. I started ticking, blinking my right eye.
“Are you ready?” he repeated.
“All right. Ready!” I shouted.
“Now!”
I pulsed. Fire leaped from the gun barrel as it spit bullets toward the target. I suppose I was pretty hyped up from adrenaline because I pulsed hard enough to knock over a metal ammo box almost twenty yards away.
“Clear!” Gervaso shouted. He raised his head from the gun as smoke drifted up from its barrel.
I stepped back and examined the target. None of the bullets had hit the bull’s-eye. Not one. “I thought you said this thing was calibrated!” I shouted.
Gervaso walked up to the target, counting the holes as he approached. “You’re right. Only eight of thirty rounds even hit on the target.”
“You could have killed me,” I said, still ticking.
“No,” he said calmly. “Not if I wanted to.” He ran his finger down the target, then looked back at me. “The gun wasn’t off. You moved those bullets.”
“You’re saying it’s my fault you missed?”
He smiled. “I’m saying that with a little more practice, you’re going to be bulletproof.”
That night after dinner I went out for a walk. I wanted to be alone. No, I needed to be alone. Since the moment we’d left Peru I hadn’t had much privacy, and I had a lot to think about. I suppose that I needed some solitude to let everything settle before I took on the next phase of my bizarre new life. I think Taylor must have understood because she didn’t say anything as I slipped out the back.
Even though the sun had set an hour earlier, it was still warm outside and the compound grounds were lit by a nearly full moon. I walked over to the helipad to look at the helicopter, then wandered farther back to where Taylor and I had talked the night before.
As I approached the stable I thought I heard someone crying. I walked quietly around the side of the Ranch House to see a woman leaning against the fence. The moon’s illumination was bright enough that I could at least partially see her. She was older than me, probably in her late twenties, tall and thin with long dark hair that fell over half her face. I didn’t remember seeing her at the reception.
She was crying. I felt awkward for intruding on her privacy, and I was about to turn back when she looked up at me with a startled expression. I think my glow must have frightened her. (If you’ve never seen one of us glow, it takes a little getting used to—just one of many reasons I was never allowed sleepovers as a child.) For a moment we just looked at each other.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She wiped her eyes. “You’re one of them.”
Them? I wasn’t sure how to respond. Finally I said, “Sorry, I’ll leave you alone.”
As I turned to leave she said, “I’m crying for my husband.”
I turned back. “Your husband?”
“He was killed in action.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
For a moment she just looked at me with dark, angry eyes. Then she said, “You should be. You killed him.”
Her words rolled over me like a train. “I didn’t kill your husband.”
“He was on the Ampere when you blew it up.”
For several moments I was speechless. Finally I said again, “I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” she said. She wiped her eyes, then turned and walked back to the house.
I woke in the night drenched in sweat. I had dreamed about the Ampere again. This time I was trying to save someone trapped inside, but the smoke and flames and the force of the water kept me back. I wasn’t sure who it was, I just knew it was someone important to me. When I finally got to them they were underwater, drowned, their limbs and hair floating, lifeless. Then I saw the person’s face. It was white and swollen, and his eyes were wide open. It was me.
It took me several hours to fall asleep again. I felt like I’d only slept a few minutes when Ostin woke me.
“Michael, it’s time to get up.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I groaned. “I didn’t sleep.”
“More nightmares?”
“Yeah.”
“Just stay in bed. I’ll tell them you’re sick.”
I rubbed my eyes. “No, I’ve got to get up.”
As I gathered myself, Ostin sat back on his bed. “Where were you last night?”
“I went for a walk.”
“With who?”
“Just me.”
Osti
n frowned. “I thought you were with Taylor. Why didn’t you come get me?”
“I wanted to be alone.”
He looked at me with concern. “Is something wrong?”
“Yeah.” I exhaled slowly. “Does it ever bother you about what we did to the Ampere?”
“We did what we had to do.”
“I know. But all those lives . . . there were innocent people on that boat.”
“Not so innocent,” he said. “If you take the beast’s money, you are part of the beast. That’s the way war is. There is no middle ground.” He leaned forward. “We either stopped the Elgen from enslaving and killing more people or we didn’t. That’s the only issue.” He looked at me quizzically. “Did something happen last night?”
“On my walk I met a woman. Her husband was on the Ampere when we blew it up. She said we killed him.”
Ostin nodded slowly. “No wonder.” He looked me in the eyes. “Listen, if he was on the Ampere, he knew what was going on. In fact, he might have been the one who told them that we had to sink the boat. He accepted the risk, just like we did. We almost died on that boat.”
“But we didn’t.”
“No, we got lucky.” He seemed to study me for a moment, then he said, “What you’re feeling is called survivor’s guilt. It happens in war. But you can’t blame yourself for the chaos of war. You stood up to the bully to protect someone else. You didn’t do it because you wanted to or for personal gain. You didn’t act carelessly. You did it to protect others. That makes you a hero and no matter how awful war is, that doesn’t change that fact. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Especially yourself.”
I pondered his words for a moment, then said, “Thanks, buddy.”
“That’s what I’m here for,” he said. “Now can we get some breakfast?”
* * *
After another big breakfast we met with Gervaso again. This time he had a map of the island of Taiwan taped to the wall behind him.
“Today we’re going to talk about your mission. We now have positive verification from our informants that Jade Dragon is being held at the Taiwan Starxource plant, waiting for the Volta, the Elgen’s science boat, to arrive.” He walked over to his map. “The Starxource plant is located about here,” he said, touching a point on the map with his finger, “in southwest Taiwan, just a few kilometers northwest of the city of Kaohsiung, the second largest city in Taiwan.