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Before Isabela could do that, one of the people standing by the station wagon jogged into their headlights and waved. Taylor relaxed a bit when she saw it was just a girl, no more than a few years older than herself.
The girl’s pretty face was framed by a hijab, the dark fabric gaudily bedazzled. She wore a dress that covered her from neck to ankle, obviously expensive and fashionable. Completely normal, thought Taylor.
“Hey! Can you help us?” the girl yelled, standing right in their way.
Kopano laughed. “A stranded girl! And you cruel people wanted to flee the scene.”
Isabela put the van in park and rolled down her window. The girl hustled over, smiling sweetly as she got on her tiptoes and looked into the van.
“Thank you, thank you,” she said breathlessly. “My dad and I have been stuck out here for like an hour. We just need a jump.”
“I do not know what that is,” Isabela said.
While they talked, Taylor found herself not looking at the girl but at the burly shape of her father. She couldn’t see much of him besides that he had a tangled mane of curly hair. As he fiddled with the engine, his arms briefly came into the light. Taylor spotted a strange smudge of grease on his forearm. She leaned forward, trying to get a better look . . .
“Do you have cables?” Caleb asked. He got up and opened the back of the van. “Hang on. Let me come take a look.”
As Caleb brushed by him, Nigel pressed up against the window. His head tilted. Something moved out there. He was sure of it. He cupped his hands around his eyes, trying to see through the glass into the dark.
“Oi, Ran . . . ,” he said quietly.
The Japanese girl perked up and came to his side.
“Someone’s out there,” Nigel whispered.
Meanwhile, as Caleb climbed out of the back of the van, the girl waved to her father. “These are the ones, Dad! They’re going to help us out!”
These are the ones. What a strange way to say that. The girl’s words set off Isabela’s finely tuned bullshit detector. She shot a glance in Taylor’s direction, but Taylor was too busy staring wide-eyed at the girl’s “father” to notice.
The man had straightened up from his hunched position over the station wagon. He waved to his daughter and his arm came fully into the light. Taylor immediately recognized the symbol tattooed on the inside of his forearm.
Circle. Snake. Scythe.
“Isabela! We have to go!” Taylor screamed.
But it was too late.
As Taylor turned to Isabela, panicked, the other girl smoothly pulled a pistol from within the folds of her dress and shot Isabela in the neck.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
EINAR
MAR A VISTA—CALIFORNIA
HIS ATTACHÉ IN HAND, EINAR WALKED SLOWLY down the dark road towards the sounds of chaos. Shouting, the roar of motorcycle engines, the electronic buzzing of the Inhibitor-2a’s. Headlights from dozens of motorcycles flashed, creating a strobe-light effect in the otherwise peaceful night. Einar scratched his cheek thoughtfully.
Perhaps he should have waited for a more opportune moment to make his move.
The Academy Garde were trapped. They hunkered down around the van they’d been driving, fending off an assault from the first wave of Harvesters. Meanwhile, a dozen bikers rode in a circle around the area, fencing them in.
If he’d had the Blackstone Group out here instead of these half-witted trailer trash, this battle would already be over.
Reverend Jimbo had almost fifty men at his disposal. Einar had been worried about how their numbers had been growing.
Suddenly, they didn’t seem like enough.
“I thought you said there were only six of them!” Reverend Jimbo yelled in his ear. The old man walked next to Einar, nervous but excited, brandishing a chrome-plated six-shooter. Silas stood on his other side, watching the fight with wide eyes.
Only. Einar sniffed. As if six Garde, even poorly trained ones, could ever be taken lightly. Oh well. It wouldn’t be long now. One way or another, his mission to America was at an end. After tonight, he could wash his hands of the Harvesters and their ignorance.
“There are only six of them,” Einar replied to the reverend.
“Then why do I see—?” The reverend squinted into the distance, trying to count. “A whole goddamn bunch?”
“One of them duplicates,” Einar said.
“He does what?”
“He produces clones of himself.”
“That’s the unholiest thing I’ve heard yet.”
Einar suppressed a sigh. He had read the file on Caleb Crane and found his Legacy to be an enviable one. According to his dossier, Caleb deferred to authority and followed instructions readily. Strange, then, to find him out here, apparently engaged in an attempt to escape from the Academy. Einar did recall some mention of instability with the boy. Possible multiple personality disorder. That would make sense, considering his Legacy.
“If your men can isolate the real duplicator and render him unconscious, the clones will disappear,” Einar said.
“They’ll do more than render that abomination unconscious,” the reverend replied. He cocked his pistol.
Einar turned to glare at the reverend.
“I told you. No lethal weapons until I have what I’m after.”
“Right, right. Your precious field test,” Reverend Jimbo said with a snort. “Son, I’m grateful for the support and all, but I can’t promise my boys won’t get tired of batting these devils around with your little toys.”
Einar took a step close to the reverend, focused his power and coaxed a feeling of fear out of the older man. Intimidation. If he pressed any harder, he could have the reverend on the ground praying to him. But there wasn’t time for that.
With a shaky hand, Reverend Jimbo eased down the hammer on his pistol.
“I’ll—I’ll make sure my men don’t fly off the handle,” the reverend said meekly. He waved Silas and one of the other Harvesters towards the battle. “Sorry,” he muttered to Einar, clearly unsure why he was apologizing.
“Mm,” Einar replied noncommittally. He turned to watch a burly biker sneak up on a Caleb and fire an Inhibitor-2a leash at him.
The Inhibitor version 2a. One of Sydal Corp’s finest creations. It then fired a collar made of a proprietary mercury-based alloy that snapped into place around the target’s neck and self-welded shut. If knocked off course—say, by telekinesis—the weapon’s sensors automatically recalibrated for the target’s throat by homing in on the heat of the carotid artery. Once attached, the collar remained connected to the crossbow by high-strength tensile wire, delivering shocks on command to the target. The electric bursts were enough to disrupt any Legacies.
Einar would know; he had been on the receiving end many times during the weapon’s testing. He remembered bitterly how an early version had nearly decapitated him.
The Inhibitor fired by the biker snapped around Caleb’s neck. He watched Caleb convulse from the shock. Then, the collar dropped uselessly to the ground; Caleb had disappeared. A clone, then. Not the real deal.
As the biker reeled his inhibitor back in, he was struck in the chest by a vicious punch to the sternum. The biker flew backwards, slammed into the van the Garde had been driving and lay still.
That was Kopano Okeke who threw the haymaker. Einar’s intelligence on him was far from complete. The exact nature of the Nigerian’s Legacies was unknown to the Academy, and thus unknown to Einar’s employer. Einar didn’t need reports to tell him that Kopano’s strength was enhanced. He could see that for himself.
That would be useful.
Two more Harvesters armed with Sydal Corp tranquilizer guns fired at Kopano. The darts bounced harmlessly off him. A moment later, a glowing orb landed at the feet of the two Harvesters. They barely had a chance to register the projectile before it exploded, throwing the two bikers to the side of the road.
Ran Takeda. And if she was here, then it was likely Nigel Barnaby was as well. Skilled combatants, survivors of the massacre at Patience Creek. Einar might not have initiated this operation had he known they were present. The pair crouched for cover at the back of the van, using the doors for a shield. As Einar watched, Ran
picked up a handful of gravel and charged it with her Legacy. She chucked the stones at another pack of Harvesters, the resulting concussive blast knocking them off their motorcycles. Word had reached the Foundation that Ran had sworn off using her Legacies. Apparently, she had chosen tonight to make an exception.
“My men are getting destroyed out there!” Reverend Jimbo screamed.
“Yes. They are very poorly trained,” Einar replied as he continued to scan the battlefield.
There. Near the driver side door of the van, Einar could see a trio of three Calebs standing shoulder to shoulder. A human wall. They were protecting someone. Through their legs, Einar could see a body in the road, a second person crouching over it. An injured person and a healer.
“I see you, Taylor,” Einar said to himself. He waited a moment for a Harvester on a motorcycle to pass, then darted through their snarling chopper perimeter and headed towards the battle.
“Where are you going?” Reverend Jimbo shouted.
“To finish this.”
Time was of the essence. Already, the frustrated and frightened Harvesters were abandoning the nonlethal weapons he’d provided them with and were turning to more conventional, and deadlier, methods of assault. Although any injuries would surely be blamed on the Harvesters, a bunch of dead Garde would not be a welcome development. This mission would already bring too much attention.
A group of Harvesters armed with tire irons and baseball bats had descended upon Kopano. He blocked each of their attacks with a forearm or a shoulder or, in one case, his face. None of the blows hurt him. Einar watched as, one by one, Kopano knocked the Harvesters out with powerful uppercuts.
“Leave us alone!” the young man shouted, a note of fear in his voice despite his near invulnerability. “Leave us—!”
Kopano hesitated. He had spotted Einar walking towards him. A strange sight—a young man in a suit and tie, holding a briefcase, walking calmly through the fray.
Meanwhile, a Harvester advanced on Kopano from behind. He carried an old-fashioned sawed-off shotgun. Einar wondered if that would be enough to break Kopano’s thick skin.
