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FOR A FEW MINUTES THERE, I ACTUALLY THOUGHT this meeting might go off without a hitch and I could quickly get back to my own plans to take down Setrákus Ra. Guess I underestimated the depths of the government’s stupidity.
Six is the first one to her feet when they bring Adam into the room, his chains clanking together. She’s up so fast that her chair topples over. Some of the armed soldiers at the room’s edges anxiously lift their weapons just a fraction. When she stands up, so do Sam and Nine.
“What is this bullshit?” Six yells at Lawson while pointing at Adam.
“It’s all right, Six,” Adam says tiredly, his eyes on the armed guards. “I’m fine.”
Nine turns around to look at the guards with a grin. He nods to one guy whose finger is hovering just over his assault rifle’s trigger.
“He’s with us, old man,” Six growls at Lawson, ignoring Adam’s attempt to defuse the situation. “He’s our friend.”
Lawson hasn’t even moved from his seat. In fact, he looks amused by the whole situation. I wonder if this is him trying to get a rise out of us on purpose, trying to see just how far he can push us, wondering what kind of allies we’ll be.
“Your friend,” Lawson responds calmly, “is a member of a hostile alien race that is bent on the subjugation of this planet. You brought him here—to the doorstep of humanity’s best hope for resistance—and expected, what? That we let him roam around freely?”
“Pretty much,” Nine says.
When she first came into the room, I noticed the way Six sized up the military firepower. I recognized that look. She was figuring out our odds of taking them in a fight. Though I didn’t expect things to go south, I have to admit that I made my own similar calculation. It’s a survival instinct we’ll probably never shake.
Judging by the apprehensive looks on a lot of the soldiers’ faces, they’ve also done the math. They don’t know Six or some of the others, but I’m sure they’ve seen footage or heard rumors about what I did in New York City.
They know they can’t win.
I think of Sarah. I know she’d tell me to stay calm, and she’d be right. I don’t want to hurt anyone. We need to work with these people if we’re going to save the planet. I know that. But they also need to know just what we’re capable of, especially General Lawson. He needs to know that we aren’t his asset in the war against Setrákus Ra.
He’s ours.
I stand up very slowly so that no one gets more jumpy. As I do, I look around and use my telekinesis to eject the cartridge from every firearm in the room. The soldiers’ eyes widen when their ammo spills across the carpet.
Everyone is watching me now. Good. I step around the table and approach the two guards holding on to Adam’s arms.
“Step back,” I tell them.
They do.
Adam catches my eye, and I see him subtly shake his head, like he doesn’t want me to make a bigger scene. But I’ve got to get my point across.
I ignite my Lumen, my hand white-hot in a matter of seconds. I reach out and carefully melt through Adam’s chains so that his hands are free.
With that done, I turn around and look at the others. The government types all wear the same expression, caught somewhere between anger and fear. Some of our people—like Daniela and Sam—look nervous. Others, like Nine and Six, look at me with devilish encouragement. Agent Walker, surprisingly, hides an amused smile behind her hand.
I focus on Lawson. His expression remains completely controlled and neutral.
“You could’ve just asked for the keys,” he tells me.
“We don’t answer to you,” I reply, putting my now-cool hand on Adam’s shoulder. “You don’t get to make decisions about us. Do you understand, sir?”
“I understand, and it won’t happen again,” Lawson replies without even an ounce of bad feeling. His mellowness is almost worrying. “You need to understand, we had to make sure your . . . your friend here was on the level.”
“And you need to understand that we’re going after Setrákus Ra as soon as my people are well enough,” I say.
And as soon as I’m strong enough, I almost add. As soon as I’ve added as many Legacies to my arsenal as possible.
“We’re going to kill him and bury him inside that mountain of his,” I continue. “How does that align with your plans for a counterattack?”
“Sounds pretty darn great,” Lawson says, and motions for me to retake my seat. I nudge Adam and let him take my chair at the head of the table instead.
With the situation relatively defused, Six and the others sit back down. The soldiers around us don’t make a move to pick up their ejected magazines. While everyone’s getting settled again, Six leans across the table to Adam.
“You all right?”
He nods quickly, brushing the whole thing off, even though there are still handcuff bracelets around his wrist. “All they did was ask me questions, Six. No big deal.”
I fold my arms and look down at Lawson. “So what else is there to discuss?”
Lawson clears his throat, still unperturbed. “While we support your assassination of the Mogadorian leader wholeheartedly, we do have some timing issues that need to be ironed out. As well as some other questions and concerns.”
“Timing issues,” I repeat dully. “Questions and concerns.”
“For instance,” Lawson continues. “I’m aware that you recently used a sort of extrasensory perception to communicate with what’s believed to be hundreds of LANEs around the world.”
I blink at that. He’s talking about the telepathic summit that Ella dragged us into. For a second, I’m off balance, not sure how Lawson could possibly be aware of that. Then I glance over his shoulder at the two stone-faced twins—Christian and Caleb—who have been hovering around Lawson constantly since we got here. They’ve got Legacies, so of course they were in the room when I met all the newly powered-up humans. They must have reported the details to Lawson. If not them, then maybe it was the president’s daughter.
“What about it?” I ask him.
“Well, John, these are hundreds of minors who you’re recruiting from all over the world. There are concerns for the safety of these children.”
I shoot a meaningful look at the twins flanking Lawson before responding, hoping that he appreciates the irony.
“There’s going to be nowhere safe on this planet soon,” I tell Lawson. “They need training that only we can give them.”
“I get that,” Lawson responds. “But you understand why it might make some people nervous, don’t you? You building an army from our young people?”
I shake my head in disbelief and hope my expression conveys just how ridiculous I find this bureaucratic nonsense. It almost makes me look back fondly on my days on the run.
“We aren’t building anything,” I say, then look at the twins. “You two. Did I demand that you come here? Did I force the others?”
The twins look taken aback to be spoken to directly. They exchange a glance, then look to Lawson for permission.
“Speak freely,” he says.
“No. You didn’t do anything like that,” Caleb replies immediately, his brother sitting there stone-faced. Caleb points at Nine. “That one did call us all wimps, though.”
Nine shrugs at that. I look at Lawson.
“Satisfied?”
“For now,” he replies. “At least give us a heads-up if you’re going to do anything like that again.”
I sigh. “You said something about timing concerns?”
Lawson motions to the map behind him, the one depicting the positions of two dozen Mogadorian warships.
“Like I said, we’re all for you trying to chop the head off this snake. Hell, I’ll send as much backup with you to West Virginia as we can afford to spare,” Lawson begins. “But right now the enemy thinks we’re belly-up. When we strike, what happens to all these cities? Everyone’s in evacuation mode right now, but it isn’t easy moving millions of people. One attack on Setrákus Ra could open up battles on every front.”
Lexa speaks up. “As the only survivor of our planet’s Mogadorian invasion old enough to really remember how it went down, let me tell you, their tactics have changed. They laid waste to our planet in hours. . . .”
