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‘What do we do?’ Marina asks.
I notice storm clouds gathering overhead. Six is ready to throw down if we need to. But so far, the government guys haven’t done anything except make a lot of noise. They didn’t come in shooting, which is the only reason I haven’t fired up my Lumen.
‘I don’t want to hurt them if we don’t have to,’ I say. ‘But we don’t have time for any bullshit. I’m damn sure not being taken in for questioning.’
Apparently, Nine interprets my words as encouragement to do something crazy. He strides forward and picks up the base of Dr Anu’s chair, which got sheared in half by blaster fire during this afternoon’s battle. The thing must weigh close to two hundred pounds, but Nine hefts it easily with one hand, swinging it back and forth as a demonstration.
‘You guys are on private property!’ Nine shouts. ‘And I don’t see any warrants!’
Before I can stop him, Nine flings the entire chunk into the air, putting it just inches from the nose of the nearest helicopter. It’s pretty obvious from my vantage point that the chopper isn’t in any real danger, but I guess the human pilot isn’t used to having superstrong Garde chucking scrap metal at him. The pilot pulls back on his controls and the chopper shakily gains altitude, its spotlight making erratic trails across the lawn. The chair piece comes down with a loud crash in the middle of the street.
‘That was unnecessary,’ Adam observes from the doorway.
‘Eh, agree to disagree,’ Nine says.
As he bends down to pick up another piece of the chair, I hear the telltale cocking of guns from the line of SUVs. Six must hear them too from wherever she’s lurking, because a wave of fog suddenly rolls across the lawns of Ashwood Estates, making us much harder to target.
I light my Lumen and step forward, putting myself between Nine and the SUVs. I hold up my hands so the agents can clearly see that they’re enveloped in fire.
‘I don’t know why you’re here,’ I yell towards the line of cars, ‘but you’re making a mistake. This is a fight you seriously cannot win. Smartest thing you can do is go back to your bosses and tell them there was nothing here.’
To punctuate the speech, I send a telepathic command to our Chimærae. Howls rings out from the darkness on the SUVs’ flanks. Suddenly panicked, some of the agents start aiming their guns into the shadows, and one of the choppers uses its spotlight to begin combing the fields alongside the access road. We’ve got them scared.
‘Last warning!’ I shout, letting a basketball-sized fireball float up from my palm.
‘Jesus Christ!’ a woman’s voice shouts from the line of cars. ‘Everybody stand down!’
One by one, the agents at the cars lower their weapons. As they do, one of them squeezes between a pair of SUVs and walks towards us, her hands raised in surrender. Through the fog, I recognize her rigid posture and severe ponytail.
‘Agent Walker? Is that you?’
Next to me, Nine laughs. ‘Oh, come on. You going to try arresting us again?’
Walker grimaces as she gets closer, her sharp features more lined than I remember. She’s pale, an alarming streak of gray running through her red hair. I try to remember how badly she was hurt back at Dulce Base. Could she still be feeling the effects of that?
Before she can get too close, Six manifests behind Walker and grabs her by the ponytail. ‘Not another step,’ she snarls.
Walker, eyes wide, obediently stops. Six reaches down and takes the gun off her hip, dropping it into the grass.
‘I’m sorry for the commotion,’ Walker says, her voice slightly strangled thanks to the angle Six has her head at. ‘My agents saw that Mogadorian ship land and we thought you might be under attack.’
I let the Lumen in my hands go out, tilting my head at her. ‘Wait. You came rushing in here because you thought we were under attack?’
‘I know you have no reason to believe me,’ Walker says, her voice hoarse. ‘But we’re here to help.’
Next to me, Nine scoffs. I stare hard at Walker, waiting for the punch line, or the secret signal for her men to open fire.
‘Please,’ she says. ‘Just hear me out.’
I sigh and motion towards the house. ‘Bring her in,’ I tell Six, then turn to Nine. ‘If the rest of them try anything even a little suspicious –’
Nine cracks his knuckles. ‘Oh, I know what to do.’
Six shoves Walker up the broken steps of Adam’s house and through the front door. I follow a few steps behind, leaving the rest of our friends to keep an eye on the small army of government agents.
‘Is that a Mogadorian I saw out there?’ Walker asks as Six pushes her into the living room. ‘You have one of them prisoner?’
‘He’s an ally,’ I say. ‘Right now, you’re the prisoner.’
‘Understood,’ Walker says, sounding more tired than anything. Without Six having to push her, Walker sits down heavily on one of the sofas. In the light of the living room, I can see that there’s definitely something off about her. Maybe it’s owing to the odd streak of gray in her hair, but Walker looks drained. She notices the entrance to the Mogadorian tunnels but doesn’t look particularly interested or surprised.
‘Ah, a guest,’ Malcolm says as he appears in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen, his rifle slung over his shoulder. ‘And she brought lots of friends. Is everything all right?’
‘I’m not sure yet,’ I reply, an edge to my voice, keeping my guard up. Six circles around the couch so she can stand where Walker can’t see her.
‘Hm,’ Malcolm says. ‘I was about to put a pot of coffee on. Would anyone else like some? I think I saw some tea in the kitchen, too.’
A shaky smile forms on Walker’s face. ‘Is this some kind of good-cop, bad-cop routine?’ She looks from Malcolm to me. ‘Is he one of your … what do you call them? Cêpans?’
Six raises her hand to Malcolm. ‘I’ll take a cup, actually.’ When I flash her an annoyed look, she shrugs. ‘What? Trust me, I can drink some coffee and take down this lady at the same time, if I need to.’
Agent Walker glances over her shoulder at Six. ‘I believe her.’
I stride forward so I’m standing right in front of Walker and snap my fingers in her face. ‘All right, stop wasting time. Say what you came here to say.’
‘Agent Purdy is dead,’ Walker states, looking up at me. ‘Had a heart attack at Dulce Base.’
‘Aw, I remember him,’ Six says. ‘What a shame.’
I remember Agent Walker’s partner, too – an older guy, white hair, crooked nose. I shrug, not seeing what this has to do with us. ‘Condolences, I guess. So what?’
‘Guy was a prick,’ Walker replies. ‘It isn’t so much that he croaked, it’s what happened after.’
Walker shows me her hands, then very slowly reaches into the front pocket of her FBI-issue windbreaker. She removes a stuffed Manila folder, rolled-up and rubber-banded. She opens it up, reaches inside and pulls out a Polaroid photograph. Walker hands it to me and I find myself examining a close-up of a dead Agent Purdy – or what’s left of him. Half his face is melted away, disintegrated into ash on the concrete underneath him.
‘I thought you said it was a heart attack,’ I say.
‘It was,’ Walker replies. ‘Thing is, afterward, Purdy started to dissolve away. Just like one of the Mogadorians.’
I shake my head. ‘What does that mean? Why?’
‘He’d been getting treatments,’ Walker says. ‘Augmentations, the Mogs call them. Most of the senior MogPro people have been getting them for years.’
The term ‘MogPro’ rings a bell from They Walk Among Us, but I don’t know how this all adds up with the augmentations Adam told us about.
‘Back up,’ I tell her. ‘Start at the beginning.’
Walker self-consciously touches her streak of gray hair and for a moment I wonder if she’s having second thoughts about this confession. But then she hands me the folder she’s been clutching, meeting my eyes.
‘First contact was ten years ago,’ she says. ‘The Mogadorians claimed they were hunting fugitives. They wanted to use our law-enforcement network, have free rein to move around the country, and in exchange they’d provide us with weapons and technology. I was just out of the academy when all this happened so I obviously wasn’t invited to any meetings with the aliens. I guess no one wanted to piss them off or turn down weapons more powerful than any we’d ever seen, because our government caved real quick. The director of the bureau himself was in on the negotiations. This was before he got promoted. Might’ve been why he got promoted, in fact.’
