Whatever they are, I wish they’d stop happening.
I take a few deep breaths to clean the smell of Washington out of my nostrils, even though I know it’s all in my head. What’s worse than the smell is that I can remember every little detail, right down to the horrified look on John’s face when he saw me on that stage with Setrákus Ra, condemning Six to death. He was trapped in the vision, too, just like I was. I was powerless up there, stuck between Setrákus Ra, self-appointed ruler of Earth, and . . .
Five. He’s working for the Mogadorians! I have to warn the others. I sit bolt upright and my head swims—too fast, too soon—rust-colored blobs floating through my vision. I blink them away, my eyes feeling gummy, my mouth dry and throat sore.
This definitely isn’t the penthouse.
My movement must trigger some nearby sensor, because the room’s lights slowly grow brighter. They come on gradually, the room eventually bathed in a pale red glow. I look around for the source of the light and discover it pulsing from veins interwoven through the chrome-paneled walls. A chill goes through me at how precise the room looks, how severe, lacking any decoration at all. The heat from the blanket increases, almost as if it wants me to curl back up beneath it. I shove it away.
This is a Mogadorian place.
I crawl across the mammoth bed—it’s bigger than an SUV, big enough for a ten-foot-tall Mogadorian dictator to comfortably relax in—until my bare feet dangle over the metal floor. I’m wearing a long gray nightgown embroidered with thorny black vines. I shudder, thinking about them putting me into this gown and leaving me here to rest. They could’ve just killed me, but instead they put me in pajamas? In my vision, I was sitting alongside Setrákus Ra. He called me his heir. What does that even mean? Is that why I’m still alive?
It doesn’t matter. The simple fact is: I’ve been captured. I know this. Now what am I going to do about it?
I figure the Mogs must have moved me to one of their bases. Except this room isn’t like the horrific and tiny cells that Nine and Six described from when they were captured. No, this must be the Mogadorians’ twisted idea of hospitality. They’re trying to take care of me.
Setrákus Ra wants me treated more like a guest than a prisoner. Because, one day, he wants me ruling next to him. Why, I still don’t understand, but right now it’s the only thing keeping me alive.
Oh no. If I’m here, what happened to the others in Chicago?
My hands start to shake and tears sting my eyes. I have to get out of here. And I have to do it alone.
I push down the fear. I push down the lingering visions of a decimated Washington. I push down the worries about my friends. I push it all down. I need to be a blank slate, like I was when we first fought Setrákus Ra in New Mexico, like I was during my training sessions with the others. It’s easiest for me to be brave when I just don’t think about it. If I act on instinct, I can do this.
Run, I imagine Crayton saying. Run until they’re too tired to chase you.
I need something to fight them with. I look around the room for anything I can use as a weapon. Next to the bed is a metallic nightstand, the only other furniture in the room. The Mogs left a glass of water there for me, which I’m not dumb enough to drink even though I’m insanely thirsty. Next to the glass, there’s a dictionary-sized book with an oily, snaky-skin cover. The ink on the cover looks singed, the words indented and rough around the edges, as if it were printed with acid for ink.
The title reads The Great Book of Mogadorian Progress, surprisingly in English. Under it are a series of angular boxes and hash marks that I assume is Mogadorian.
I pick up the book and open it. Each page is divided in half, English on one side and Mogadorian on the other. I wonder if I’m supposed to read this thing.
I slam the book closed. The important thing is that it’s heavy and I can swing it. I won’t be turning any Mogadorian guards into ash clouds, but it’s better than nothing.
I climb down from the bed and walk over to what I think is the door. It’s a rectangular panel cut into the plated wall, but there aren’t any knobs or buttons.
As I tiptoe closer, wondering how I’m going to open this thing, there’s a mechanical whirring noise from inside the wall. It must be on a motion sensor like the lights, because the door hisses upward as soon as I’m close, disappearing into the ceiling.
I don’t stop to wonder why I’m not locked down. Clutching the Mogadorian book, I step into a hallway that’s just as cold and metallic as my room.
“Ah,” says a woman’s voice. “You’re awake.”
Rather than guards, a Mogadorian woman perches on a stool outside my room, obviously waiting for me. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a female Mog before, and definitely not one like her. Middle-aged, with wrinkles forming in the pale skin around her eyes, the Mog looks surprisingly unthreatening in a high-necked, floor-length dress, like something one of the Sisters would wear back at Santa Teresa. Her head is shaved except for two long, black braids at the back of her skull, the rest of her scalp covered by an elaborate tattoo. Instead of being nasty and vicious, like the Mogs I’ve fought before, this one is almost elegant.
I stop short in front of her, not sure what to do.
The Mog glances at the book in my hands and smiles.
“And ready to begin your studies, I see,” she says, getting up. She’s tall, slender and vaguely spiderlike. Standing before me, she dips into an elaborate bow. “Mistress Ella, I shall be your instructor while—”
As soon as her head comes low enough, I smack her across the face with the book as hard as I can.
She doesn’t see it coming, which I guess is strange because all the Mogs I’ve encountered have been ready to fight. This one lets out a short grunt and then hits the floor with a fluttering of fabric from her fancy dress.
I don’t stop to see if I’ve knocked her out or if she’s pulling a blaster from some hidden compartment in that dress. I run, choosing a direction at random and hurtling down the hallway as fast as I can. The metal floor stings my bare feet and my muscles begin to ache, but I ignore all that. I have to get out of here.
Too bad these secret Mogadorian bases never have any exit signs.
I turn one corner and then another, sprinting through hallways that are pretty much identical. I keep expecting sirens to start blaring now that I’ve escaped, but they never do. There aren’t any heavy Mogadorian footfalls chasing after me either.
Just when I’m starting to get winded and thinking about slowing down, a doorway opens on my right and two Mogadorians step forward. They’re more like the ones I’m used to—burly, dressed in their black combat gear, beady eyes glaring at me. I dart around them, even though neither of them makes any attempt to grab me. In fact, I think I hear one of them laughing.
What is going on here?
I can feel the two Mog soldiers watching me run, so I duck down the first hallway that I can. I’m not sure if I’ve been going in circles or what. There isn’t any sunlight or outside noises at all, nothing to indicate that I might be getting closer to an exit. It doesn’t seem like the Mogs even care what I do, like they know I’ve got no chance to get out of here.
I slow down to catch my breath, cautiously inching down this latest sterile hallway. I’m still clutching the book—my only weapon—and my hand is starting to cramp. I switch hands and press on.
Up ahead, a wide archway opens with a hydraulic hiss; it’s different from the other doors, wider, and there are strangely blinking lights on the other side.
Not blinking lights. Stars.
As I walk under the archway, the metal-plated ceiling gives way to a glass bubble, the room wide-open, almost like a planetarium. Except real. There are various consoles and computers protruding from the floor—maybe this is some kind of control room—but I ignore them, drawn instead to the dizzying view through the expansive window.
Darkness. Stars.
Earth.
Now I understand why the Mogadorians weren’t
chasing me. They know there’s nowhere for me to go.
I’m in space.
I get right up to the glass, pressing my hands against it. I can feel the emptiness outside, the endless, ice-cold, airless space between me and that floating blue orb in the distance.
“Glorious, isn’t it?”
His booming voice is like a bucket of cold water dumped on me. I spin around and press my back to the glass, feeling like the void behind me might be preferable to facing him.
Setrákus Ra stands behind one of the control panels, watching me, a hint of a smile on his face. The first thing I notice is that he’s not nearly as huge as he was when we fought him at Dulce Base. Still, Setrákus Ra is tall and imposing, his broad physique clad in a stern black uniform, studded and decorated with an assortment of jagged Mogadorian medals. Three Loric pendants, the ones he took from the dead Garde, hang from around his neck, glowing a subdued cobalt.
“I see you’ve already taken up my book,” he says, gesturing to my dictionary-sized club. I didn’t realize I was clutching it to my chest. “Although not necessarily in the way I’d hoped. Fortunately, your Proctor wasn’t badly injured . . .”
Suddenly, in my hands, the book begins to glow red, just like the piece of debris I picked up back at Dulce Base. I don’t know exactly how I’m doing it, or even what I’m doing.
“Ah,” Setrákus Ra says, watching with a raised eyebrow. “Very good.”
“Go to hell!” I scream, and fling the glowing book at him.
Before it’s even halfway to him, Setrákus Ra raises one huge hand and the book stops in midair. I watch as the glow I’d infused it with slowly fades.
“Now, now,” he chides me. “Enough of that.”
“What do you want from me?” I shout, frustrated tears filling my eyes.
“You already know that,” he replies. “I showed you what’s to come. Just as I once showed Pittacus Lore.”
Setrákus Ra hits a few buttons on the control panel in front of him and the ship begins to move. Gradually, the Earth, seeming both impossibly far and also like it’s so close I could reach out and grab it, drifts across my view. We aren’t moving towards it; we’re turning in place.
“You are aboard the Anubis,” Setrákus Ra intones, a note of pride in his gravelly voice. “The flagship of the Mogadorian fleet.”
When the ship completes its turn, I gasp. I reach out and press my hand against the glass for support, knees suddenly weak.
Outside, in orbit around the Earth, is the Mogadorian fleet. Hundreds of ships—most of them long and silver, about the size of small airplanes, just like the ones the Garde have described fighting before. But among them are at least twenty enormous warships that dwarf the rest—looming and menacing, mounted cannons jutting off their angular frames, aimed right at the unsuspecting planet below.
“No,” I whisper. “This can’t be happening.”
Setrákus Ra walks towards me, and I’m too shocked by the hopeless sight before me to even move. Gently, he drapes his hand on my shoulder. I can feel the coldness of his pale fingers through my gown.
“The time has come,” he says, gazing at the fleet with me. “The Great Expansion has come to Earth at last. We will celebrate Mogadorian Progress together, granddaughter.”
CHAPTER TWO
FROM THE CRACKED SECOND-FLOOR WINDOW OF an abandoned textile factory, I watch an old man in a ragged trench coat and filthy jeans crouch down in the doorway of the boarded-up building across the street. Once he’s settled, the man pulls a brown-bagged bottle from his coat and starts drinking. It’s the middle of the afternoon—I’m on watch—and he’s the only living soul I’ve seen in this abandoned part of Baltimore since we got here yesterday. It’s a quiet, deserted place, and yet it’s still preferable to the version of Washington, D.C., I saw in Ella’s vision. For now at least, it doesn’t look like the Mogadorians have pursued us from Chicago.
Although technically, they wouldn’t have to. There’s already a Mogadorian among us.
Behind me, Sarah stomps her foot. We’re in what used to be the foreman’s office, dust everywhere, the floorboards swollen and mildewed. I turn around just in time to see her frowning at the remains of a cockroach on the bottom of her sneaker.
“Careful. You might go crashing right through the floor,” I tell her, only half joking.
“I guess it was too much to ask for all your secret bases to be in penthouse apartments, huh?” Sarah asks, fixing me with a teasing smile.
We slept in this old factory last night, our sleeping bags laid on the sunken floorboards. Both of us are filthy, it’s been a couple of days since our last real shower, and Sarah’s blond hair is caked with dirt. She’s still beautiful to me. Without her at my side, I might’ve totally lost it after the attack in Chicago, where the Mogs kidnapped Ella and destroyed the penthouse.
I grimace at the thought, and Sarah’s smile immediately fades. I leave the window and walk over to her.
“This not knowing is killing me,” I say, shaking my head. “I don’t know what to do.”
Sarah touches my face, trying to console me. “At least we know they won’t hurt Ella. Not if what you saw in that vision is true.”
“Yeah,” I snort. “They’ll just turn her into a brainwashed traitor, like . . .”
I trail off, thinking of the rest of our missing friends and the turncoat they traveled with. We still haven’t heard anything from Six and the others, not that there’s an easy way for them to get in touch with us. All their Chests are here and, assuming they could even try reaching us by more traditional methods, they wouldn’t have the first clue how to find us, seeing as we had to flee Chicago.
The only thing I know for sure is that I have a fresh scar on my leg, the fourth of its kind. It doesn’t hurt anymore, but it feels like a weight. If the Garde had stayed apart, if we’d kept the Loric charm intact, that fourth scar would’ve symbolized my death. Instead, one of my friends is dead in Florida, and I don’t know how, or who, or what’s happened to the rest of them.
I feel in my gut that Five is still alive. I saw him in Ella’s vision, standing alongside Setrákus Ra, a traitor. He must have led the others into a trap, and now one of them won’t be coming back. Six, Marina, Eight, Nine—one of them is gone.
Sarah wraps her hand around mine, massaging it, trying to ease some of the tension.
“I can’t stop thinking about what I saw in that vision . . . ,” I begin, trailing off. “We’d lost, Sarah. And now it feels like it’s happening for real. Like this is the beginning of the end.”
“That doesn’t mean anything and you know it,” Sarah replied. “Look at Eight. Wasn’t there some kind of death prophecy about him? And he survived.”
I frown, not stating the obvious, that Eight could be the one who was killed down in Florida.
“I know it seems bleak,” Sarah continues, “and, I mean, it is pretty bad, John. Obviously.”
“Good pep talk.”
She squeezes my hand, hard, and widens her eyes at me like shut up.
“But those guys down in Florida are Garde,” she says. “They’re going to fight, they’re going to keep going and they’re going to win. You have to believe, John. When you were comatose back in Chicago, we never gave up on you. We kept fighting and it paid off. Just when it seemed like we’d lost, you saved us.”
I think about the state my friends were in when I finally awoke back in Chicago. Malcolm was mortally wounded and Sarah badly hurt, Sam nearly out of ammo and Bernie Kosar unaccounted for. They’d put it all on the line for me.
“You guys saved me first,” I reply.
“Yeah, obviously. So return the favor and save our planet.”
The way she says it, like it’s no big deal, makes me smile. I pull Sarah close and kiss her.
“I love you, Sarah Hart.”
“Love you back, John Smith.”
“Um, I love you guys, too . . .”
Sarah and I both turn to find Sam standing in the do
orway, an awkward smile on his face. Curled up in his arms is a huge orange cat, one of the six Chimærae that our new Mogadorian friend brought with him, drawn to us by Bernie Kosar’s rooftop howling. Apparently, the stick BK took from Eight’s Chest was some kind of Chimæra totem used to lead them to us, like a Loric dog whistle. We stuck to back roads on our way to Baltimore, careful to make sure we weren’t tailed. The crowded van ride gave us plenty of time to brainstorm names for our new allies. This particular Chimæra, preferring a chubby cat-shape as its regular form, Sam insisted we name Stanley, in honor of Nine’s old alter ego. If he’s still alive, I’m sure Nine will be thrilled to have a fat cat with an obvious affection for Sam named after him.
“Sorry,” Sam says, “did I spoil the moment?”
“Not at all,” Sarah replies, stretching out one arm towards Sam. “Group hug?”
“Maybe later,” Sam says, looking at me. “The others are back and setting everything up downstairs.”
I nod, reluctantly letting go of Sarah and walking over to the duffel bag with our supplies. “They have any problems?”
Sam shakes his head. “They had to settle for just a couple of little camping generators. Not enough cash for something big. Anyway, it should be enough juice.”
“What about surveillance?” I ask, pulling the white locator tablet and its adapter free from the duffel bag.
“Adam said he didn’t see any Mog scouts,” Sam answers.
“Well, out of anyone, he’d know how to spot them,” Sarah puts in.
“True,” I reply halfheartedly, still not trusting this so-called good Mogadorian, even though he’s done nothing but help us since showing up in Chicago. Even now, with him and Malcolm setting up our newly purchased electronics on the factory floor below, I feel a vague sense of unease at having one of them so close. I push it down. “Let’s go.”
We follow Sam down a rusty spiral staircase and onto the floor of the factory proper. The place must’ve been closed down in a hurry because there are still racks of musty, eighties-style men’s suits pushed up against the walls and half-full boxes of raincoats abandoned on conveyor belts.