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Ella’s shoulders slump. I place my hand gently on the back of her neck.
“You did everything you could,” I tell her.
She snorts. “Uh-huh.”
I take a long look at the machine Ella’s hooked up to, trying to memorize the details. Maybe if we ever manage to hook back up with Adam, he can shed some light on how exactly this thing works.
“He’s not controlling you now,” I say, gesturing around to the frozen-in-time Mogadorian operating theater. “You’re doing this. You’re still fighting him.”
“I’ve been able to hide that I’m telepathic,” Ella replies, straightening up a bit. “Whenever he hurts me, I hide inside my own mind. I practice. My Legacies are getting stronger. I could sense you down there from on board the Anubis. I was able to pull you into my, um . . . my dream? Whatever this is.”
“Just like in Chicago,” I muse, trying to work this out. “Only, you needed to touch me that time.”
“Not anymore. I guess I’m getting stronger.”
I give Ella’s shoulder a squeeze. This should be a proud moment, her coming into her own, learning to master such a powerful Legacy when she’s still so young. But our situation is too dire for any real congratulations.
I look across the medical bay towards the door, then back at Ella.
“Can you show me around?” I ask. “Is that even possible?”
Ella manages a shaky smile. “You want the tour?”
“It might come in handy to know what the ship’s like. For when I get up here and rescue you.”
Ella lets out a mirthless laugh, looking away from me. I hope that she hasn’t given up hope. The odds might seem bad now, but I won’t let her stay Setrákus Ra’s pet grandchild forever. I will find a way. Before I can tell her all that, Ella nods.
“I can show you around. I’ve been all over this ship. If I’ve seen it, then it’s stored up here,” Ella says, tapping her temple.
We step out of the medical bay and into the hallway. It’s all stainless metal walls lit by dull red lighting, a cold and economical place. Ella leads me through the Anubis, showing me the observation deck, the control room, the barracks, all these areas completely empty. I try to commit every detail to memory so that I can draw a map when I wake up.
“Where are all the Mogs?” I ask her.
“Most of them are down in the city. The Anubis only has a skeleton crew now.”
“Good to know.”
Deep down in the ship, we pause in front of a glass window that looks into another laboratory. Inside, the floor is completely taken up by a vat of viscous black liquid. There are two catwalks crisscrossing over the vat, each one equipped with a variety of control panels, monitoring equipment and, oddly enough, heavy-duty mounted blasters. Growing out of the liquid is an oblong shape that vaguely resembles an egg, except it’s covered in dark purple mold and throbbing black veins.
I press my hand to the laboratory glass and turn to Ella. “What the hell is this place?”
“I don’t know,” she replies. “He doesn’t let me in there. But . . .”
Ella knuckles her forehead and appears to strain for a moment. Inside the laboratory, figures suddenly manifest. A half-dozen Mogs wearing gas masks stand on the catwalks, silently operating the strange machines. Standing among them is Setrákus Ra himself. Seeing him there causes me to flinch towards the glass. I have to resist the urge to attack him, reminding myself that this isn’t exactly real.
“Is this . . . is this a memory?” I ask Ella.
“Something I saw, yeah,” she answers. “I think—I don’t know. It might be important.”
As we watch, Setrákus Ra lifts his stolen Loric pendants over his head. He holds them in his thick hands for a moment, considering the blue Loralite jewels. He’s got several of them—three from the Garde he killed and the rest were probably taken from the Garde he captured at one point or another. He seems almost nostalgic for a moment as he gazes upon his trophies.
Then, he drops them into the vat. Four tiny little mouths open up on the egg and suck in the pendants, smothering their glow.
“What was that?” I ask Ella, feeling like I might be sick even in this dream state. “When did this happen? What’s he doing?”
Setrákus Ra’s gaze suddenly shoots towards us and he shouts something. A second later, he and the rest of the Mogs disappear back into thin air.
“That’s when he caught me spying,” Ella explains, biting her lip. “I don’t know what he was doing, John. I’m sorry. Everything’s a bit . . . fuzzy.”
We move on. Eventually, Ella brings me to the docking bay. It’s a huge area with high ceilings, filled by row after row of Skimmers. It’s from here that the squadrons of Mogs currently terrorizing New York City first took flight.
“They’re always coming and going from here,” Ella says, waving at the big metal doors at the end of the docking bay. “You might be able to get in through there, if they’re open. It’s where Five and I tried to escape from.”
I make a note of the docking bay doors. We’d just have to figure out a way to make the Mogs open them up. It’d be pretty easy to get on board if we had someone who could fly us up there.
“About Five . . . ,” I say, hesitating, not sure how much Ella has heard. “Do you know what he did?”
Ella bites her lip, looking down at the floor. “He murdered Eight.”
“But he also tried to help you escape,” I say, feeling her out. “Is he . . . ?”
“You’re trying to figure out how evil he is?”
“I’m looking for him right now. I’m trying to figure out, when I find him, if I should kill him.”
Ella frowns and walks away from me, looking at a dented spot on the floor. I assume it’s from when she and Five tried to escape.
“He’s confused,” she says after a moment. “I don’t know . . . I don’t know what he’ll do. Don’t trust him, John. But don’t kill him.”
I remember the last time Ella sucked me into one of these dream states, back when her Legacy was first manifesting and out of control. It was back in Chicago. That time, she didn’t bring me to her present location. Instead, we were trapped in a vision of the future, watching Setrákus Ra lord over the people of Washington in a world where the Mogadorians had won the war.
“Don’t we know what he does, though?” I ask, my fists clenching on reflex. “You showed it to me. Five goes back to Setrákus Ra. He works for the enemy. He captures Six and Sam . . .”
I trail off, not wanting to further dredge up the memory of witnessing my friends’ execution. I don’t want to remember that doomed prophecy of how we’re going to lose. Ella shakes her head. She opens her mouth, and suddenly I realize that there’s something big she isn’t telling me.
“That future doesn’t exist anymore, John,” she says after a lengthy pause. “My visions . . . they aren’t like the nightmares Setrá
kus Ra used to give you guys. And they aren’t prophecies. We aren’t locked into them, like Eight thought. They’re premonitions. Possibilities.”
“How do you know that?”
Ella thinks for a moment. “I’m not sure. How do you know how to make fireballs? You just do. It’s instinct.”
I take a step towards her. “So that vision of D.C., where everyone was dead and you were . . . ?”
“I can’t see it anymore. Something in the present changed what will happen.”
“If it’s a Legacy like my Lumen . . .” My eyes widen as I consider the possibilities. “Can you control the visions now? Can you look into the future at will?”
Ella’s eyebrows are scrunched, like she’s not sure how to describe what she’s seen. “I can’t control it exactly. The visions . . . they aren’t reliable. I don’t know if that’s because of me, because I’m just learning or if it’s because the future is so unstable. Either way, I’ve spent a lot of time searching through them . . .”
Now I know why Ella looks so exhausted even in this dream space, why she’s suddenly so wise beyond her years. She mentioned before how much time she’s spent hiding in the safety of her own mind. I wonder how much of that time was spent wrestling with visions of the future. It must be agonizing to sift through all those possibilities.
“What have you been searching for?” I ask her.
Ella hesitates, avoiding my eyes. “I wanted . . . I wanted to see if there was a future where I die.”
“Ella, no,” I say, my voice sharp. Five told me about the twisted Loric Charm that Setrákus Ra used on himself and Ella, the one that binds them together so we’ll have to kill her to get at him. “We’ll figure out a way to break the charm. There’s gotta be a weakness.”
Ella shakes her head, not believing me. Or maybe already knowing that I’m wrong.
“I’m not putting myself before the whole world, John. I wanted to see a future where Setrákus Ra is killed, no matter the consequences.” Now she looks right at me, fire in her eyes. “I wanted to see a future where someone has the guts to do what needs to be done.”
I swallow hard. I’m not sure if I really want to know the details of Ella’s visions, but I can’t stop myself from asking.
