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I don’t reply. Instead, I back away from the laptop while Setrákus Ra is still talking, my gaze shifting towards Agent Walker.
“You have forty-eight hours to surrender, or I will have no choice but to relieve humanity of your foolish leadership and liberate your cities by force . . .”
The clip stops and Walker turns to face me. When she does, I’ve already got a small fireball prepared, hovering it above the palm of my hand.
“Oh, Jesus Christ, John,” she groans, leaning away from the heat.
“Is that why you brought me here?” I snap at her, backing up. I’m half expecting a group of soldiers to burst in and try to restrain me, so I keep one eye on the tent’s exit as I move towards it. “Are my friends safe?”
“Do you think I showed you that as prelude to an ambush? Calm down. You’re safe.”
I stare at Walker for another couple of seconds. At this point, I don’t really have much choice but to trust her, especially considering the alternative is fighting my way through an army. If the government wanted to trade me to Setrákus Ra as a gesture of goodwill, it probably would’ve already happened. I extinguish my fireball and frown at Walker.
“So, is it true?” Walker presses. “What Setrákus Ra said about humans manifesting unnatural abilities? Does he mean that humans are getting Legacies?”
“I . . .”
I’m not sure how much to share with Walker. She tells me I’m safe, but it wasn’t too long ago that she was chasing me across the country. Even though she claims MogPro have been driven underground, there are still humans out there working against us. Hell, she just told me not to trust the government. What if there are new Garde all over the world, and what if a sellout like Secretary of Defense Sanderson gets to them before we can? And could I really out Sam and Daniela to Walker? I can’t tell her anything. Not until I’ve figured it out myself.
“I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about, Walker,” I say after a moment. “He’ll say anything to get what he’s after.”
I think she can tell I’m holding out on her. “I know it’s hard to accept considering our history, but I’m on your side,” Walker says. “For now, so is the United States.”
“For now? What does that mean?”
“It means, no one’s real eager to surrender to the alien maniac that just blew up New York. But if he starts torching more cities and we haven’t figured out a way to successfully fight back? Things might change. That’s why your request for a military operation in Mexico isn’t going to happen. For one, it’s a losing proposition against the warship. And two, prevailing wisdom right now is that we shouldn’t openly aid you.”
“They’re hedging their bets,” I say, unable to keep a sneer off my face. “In case they decide to surrender.”
“Word from the president is that all options are currently open, yes.”
“Giving up isn’t an option. I’ve seen—” I stop myself from referencing Ella’s vision of the future, figuring Legacy-powered prophecies won’t carry much weight with the hyperpractical Walker. “It won’t end well for humanity.”
“Yeah, you and I know that, John. But when Setrákus Ra starts killing civilians and all he wants in trade is you and the other Garde? That’s a course of action the president will be forced to consider.”
I turn away, opening up the tent flap to look outside, wondering where Sam is with that satellite phone. I also want to hide my face from Walker, feeling a choking panic coming on. I don’t know what to do. If Setrákus Ra’s deadline passes and he starts bombing another city, am I supposed to just let that happen? Do I turn myself in? Meanwhile, what do I do about his impending attack on the Sanctuary? And what about Nine and Five, who are still unaccounted for? It’s too much to handle.
“John?”
Slowly, I face Walker, making sure my expression is neutral. Even so, she must detect something there, because she crosses the tent and stands right in front of me. She grabs my shoulder with her good arm and I’m so surprised that I let it happen. There’s fear in Walker’s eyes, mixed with a kind of suicidal determination. I’ve seen that look before worn by my friends, right before they threw themselves into battle against impossible odds.
“You need to tell me how to do this,” Walker says to me, her voice low and shaky. “Tell me how to win this war in less than forty-eight hours.”
CHAPTER
TEN
“HOW’S IT GOING?”
Adam jumps when I put my hand on his shoulder and lean in to check on his progress. He hunches over a workbench where the Mogs tweaked their weapons before pointless attempts to bring down the Sanctuary’s force field. Adam has swept all the Mog crap that was cluttering the bench onto the ground and replaced it with an assortment of mechanical parts. The mismatched pieces come from the disabled Skimmers collecting dust on the airstrip, some from within the guts of the engines, others from behind the touch-screen dashboards. Among the ship parts are other odds and ends—the battery from one of the halogen lamps, a broken-down Mog blaster and the casing of a laptop. All these things have been bent, warped or hammered by Adam as he tries to replace our ship’s destroyed conduit using spare parts.
“How does it look like it’s going?” he replies, glumly setting down the blowtorch he was about to ignite. “I’m not an engineer, Six. This is strictly trial and error. So far, one hundred percent error.”
The sun is only now climbing above the jungle’s tree line to scorch the landing strip, no reprieve from the sticky heat out here. Adam has already sweated through his shirt, the pale skin on the back of his neck turning pinkish. I leave my hand on his shoulder until he sighs and turns to face me. His dark eyes are bleary and a little wild, gray circles forming around them.
“You didn’t sleep,” I say, knowing this for a fact. He worked through the entire night, his hammering and cursing often interrupting the fitful hours of rest I managed while curled up in the Skimmer’s cockpit. The only breaks he took were to check on Dust, whose paralyzed condition hadn’t changed. “Maybe I’m not up on my Mogadorian biology, but I was pretty sure you guys needed to do that.”
Adam brushes some hair out of his eyes, trying to focus on me. “Yeah, Six, we sleep. When it’s convenient.”
“You’re going to push yourself to exhaustion and then what’ll you be good for?” I ask.
Adam frowns at me. “Same thing I’m good for now,” he says, glancing at the collection of trashed parts in front of him. “I hear you, Six. I’m fine. Let me keep working.”
In truth, I’m glad Adam is so devoted to his work. As much as I don’t want to see him hurt himself, we desperately need to get out of Mexico. There’s still no word from John. I’m afraid we’re missing the war.
“At least eat,” I tell him, yanking a light green banana off the bunch I just picked from a nearby tree and shoving it into Adam’s hand.
He considers the banana for a moment. I can actually hear Adam’s stomach growl as he begins to peel it. Food wasn’t something we thought to pack—we didn’t know what to expect when we came to the Sanctuary, but we definitely weren’t planning to get stranded. We didn’t bring the necessary supplies for an extended stay.
“You know, Nine had these stones in his Chest that, if you sucked on them, they’d give you all the nutrients of a meal,” I tell Adam, peeling my own banana. “Kinda gross, especially after you thought about where they’d been and how many times Nine probably reused them. But right now, I really wish we hadn’t tossed them down that well in the Sanctuary.”
Adam smirks, glancing over at the temple. “Maybe you should go back in and ask real nice. I’m sure that energy-thing doesn’t want Nine’s spit-stones.”
“Maybe I should ask it for a new engine while I’m at
it.”
“Couldn’t hurt,” Adam replies, and swallows the rest of his banana in a hurry. “I’m going to get us out of here, Six. Don’t worry.”
I leave a second banana on the table and let Adam get back to work. I cut across the airstrip, heading to where Marina sits cross-legged in the grass, facing the Sanctuary. I’m not sure if she’s meditating or praying or what, but she was in that spot when I woke up this morning and hasn’t moved in the time that I’ve been out scrounging the jungle for food.
I’d like to think it’s an accident that my route to Marina takes me by the Skimmer strut where Phiri Dun-Ra is tied, but I know it’s not. We’ve got her tied up securely in the middle of camp and have all been keeping an eye on her. I want the Mogadorian to say something, to give me an excuse. She doesn’t disappoint.
“He’s going to fail, you know.”
“Did you say something?” I ask, stopping and turning slowly to face her. I heard Phiri Dun-Ra perfectly.
Our Mogadorian prisoner smiles gruesomely at me, her teeth outlined with dried blood. Her right eye is swollen shut. I did that to her last night. After learning about the Mogadorian invasion, I got real tired real quick of her incessant cackling. So, I clocked her. Not my proudest moment, punching out a tied-up Mogadorian, but it felt good. In truth, I probably would’ve done more if Marina hadn’t dragged me away. As I stare at Phiri Dun-Ra, her good eye narrows in amusement. My fist clenches again. I want to hit something. All I need is a reason.
“You heard me, little girl,” she replies, jerking her chin towards Adam. Phiri Dun-Ra projects her voice enough that I’m sure he can hear, too. “Adamus Sutekh will fail, as he always does. You see, I have known him much longer than you. I know what a perpetual disappointment he was to his father. To our people. It’s no wonder he turned traitor.”
I glance over my shoulder at Adam. He’s pretending not to hear Phiri Dun-Ra, but his hands have stopped working and his shoulders are bunched up.
“You want to get knocked out again?” I ask Phiri Dun-Ra, taking a step towards her.
