Enders (10 page)

I agreed with them, but they didn’t know that. They just
saw a big, expensive SUV, and they shouted at us as we drove past.

Hyden looked at the grid. “We’re almost there.”

He drove a few more blocks, and I watched our black dot get closer to the red dot.

“Look around, the Metal could be here,” Hyden said as he turned the corner.

The two dots overlapped. Ernie spotted her first. A Starter sitting on a bus bench. Asian, with short hair.

“That’s her,” I said. “The pretty one with black hair.”

“The
perfectly
pretty one with zero physical imperfections,” Hyden said.

She stood, as if tired of waiting for the bus, and started walking.

“You’re sure she’s the one?” I asked.

“Only one way to find out,” Ernie said.

Hyden pulled over to park ahead of the girl as she walked toward us.

Several blue lights flashed on the computer. It reminded me of Redmond’s monitor back at his old lab, the one that showed my chip.

“Go, Ernie,” Hyden said. “Cover her eyes!”

“Wasn’t I supposed to persuade her?” I said.

Ernie had his hand on the door. “You want to talk to her?”

“No,” Hyden said. “We don’t want to lose her.”

As the petite girl passed our car, Ernie jumped out and lunged for her. But she spotted him. Her face registered alarm but she wasn’t intimidated. She leapt straight up into the air to get away from him, then did a somersault midair and landed on a thick wall. She ran along it until she came to
the end; then she leapt off and reached for a tree branch. She swung out and landed on a table at an outdoor café, sending cups flying and patrons scattering.

Ernie tried to chase her, but she was outsmarting him. He couldn’t seem to anticipate her next move. She went right, he went left.

I watched it all from the car window. “This is not how I thought it would go.”

“At least we know her body’s not being hijacked. She’s too good, too smooth,” Hyden said. “That’s all her.”

“What do you mean?”

“You saw—Reece had the jerky movements.”

“The Old Man used to be able to hijack people perfectly.”

“Under perfect circumstances. Here, he has no cooperation of the donor body. It’s not like he’s in the Prime lab, setting up both donor and renter. His first-access signal from a distance has far less control.”

I nodded, even though I wasn’t positive I understood. I turned my attention back to Ernie. Finally, he anticipated the girl’s move correctly. As she leapt out, hoping to catch a store’s awning to get away, he caught her in his arms on the upswing instead.

“He’s got her,” I said.

Hyden unlocked the back panel door and raised it with a button so all Ernie had to do was throw the kicking, biting, screaming Metal in the back. He kept one hand over her eyes, then climbed in after her. She stopped screaming, but I was afraid she would tear his eyes out, because she reached for him as he slammed the back door. But in one quick move, he put his hand to her neck and she froze. Her eyes became glassy; then she slumped down as if she’d suddenly fallen asleep.

“She okay?” Hyden yelled back to Ernie.

“Out like a baby,” he said.

I saw Ernie held a tiny disc in his palm. He slipped it into a pocket as Hyden drove us away.

“Why cover her eyes?” I asked.

“In case she was being hijacked,” Hyden said. “But she wasn’t.”

“If I’d had time, I would’ve blindfolded her,” Ernie said. “But she was hopping around like a bunny rabbit with its tail on fire.”

Ernie sat beside her body in the back cargo area.

“Is she going to be all right?” I asked, staring at her shiny black hair.

“Sleeping Beauty will wake up,” Ernie said. “Eventually.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

By the time we got to Hyden’s place, the Metal Ernie had captured lay in the back, gently rocking to the car’s movement. It was hard to believe this was the same girl who just an hour ago had been leaping through the air and clawing at Ernie like a wildcat. I wondered what she’d be like when she woke up.

“Wouldn’t it have been better if she came of her own free will?” I asked. “Now she’s going to be angry.”

“You wanted her, we got her,” Ernie said.

Hyden gave me an apologetic look as he pulled into the garage. Ernie got out, holding his gun close to his chest. He checked the place over just as Hyden had before. Then he pressed the button on the wall.

“He’s talking to Redmond?” I asked.

“To make sure everything is okay,” Hyden said.

When Ernie returned to the car to get the Metal, he slung her over his shoulder as if she were a duffel bag, her weight barely affecting his confident stride. He put her on a bed in
one of the empty rooms not far from mine while we watched from just outside the door.

“It’ll be best if you’re here when she comes to,” he told me, handing me the wallet he’d fished from her purse. “Her name is Lily.”

I sat on the bed. I wondered how I’d feel, waking up in a strange place, having some girl I didn’t know staring at me. But better she see me than Ernie.

After a few minutes, Ernie brought in a tray holding a turkey and cheese sandwich and a glass of apple juice.

Soon, Lily started twitching and mumbling. Then she opened her eyes with a start.

“What?” she said, disoriented. “Who are you?”

“I’m Callie. And you’re okay. It’s safe here.”

She struggled to sit up.

“Just rest,” I said. “Are you hungry?” Food could turn an enemy into a friend … or at least buy a little trust.

I brought the tray over. She picked up the sandwich and sniffed. Then she bit into it.

“Have you got more?” she asked.

I knew then we were going to be okay.

Over the next couple of weeks, we brought many more Starters to the lab. We were able to convince most of them by talking instead of using force. But no matter how we brought them in, they all wanted to stay. We had a real dorm going, full of Metals with various skill sets. Some of those skills had been exploited when the Starters were rented, like wrestling or martial arts, and they continued to practice them if it was possible. But other skills, like cooking or making repairs, became useful in our community.

Meals were taken in shifts to accommodate everyone in the dining room. It was just off the kitchen, a large, white-walled, bare-floored space with worktables, and dinner was the happiest time of the day. Breakfast and lunch were grab-and-run, but I wanted everyone to eat dinner together, partly because it made sense to share the cooking duties, but also because it made the Starters a community.

I missed Tyler. Hyden convinced me that the risk of doing another airscreen-talk session was too great. And I wasn’t sure that it wouldn’t just make it harder on both of us in the end. It was easier not to hear my little brother’s voice. It kept me focused on what I had to do.

Rescue Metals.

Hyden and I got so good at it that sometimes we even did it without Ernie. If Hyden had to touch someone, he used a towel or a jacket as a barrier. We were both more relaxed around each other, but he still hadn’t told me what was behind his inability to touch.

“Hyden, what happened to you?” I asked one day when we were driving on a stretch of highway, alone on a Metal hunt. “Why can’t you be touched?”

He was silent for a long moment, then inhaled deeply. He held his breath as if considering whether to answer me. Then he let it out with a sound that I hoped was relief—but maybe was a huff.

“I was working in the lab, with my father. This was back before we split. My mother was there; she’d just brought us cocoa with marshmallows.” He smiled. “I don’t remember most of that day, but I remember the marshmallows. Weird, right?”

I shook my head. I knew what that was like, remembering
some bizarre detail about my life before the spores. Before I became a Starter.

Hyden cleared his throat. “There was an accident, an explosion. We never figured out why, but it happened. My dad was all right, but my mother and I were burnt.” His voice cracked on the word “burnt.” “We had treatments, surgeries, but there was pain for months.”

“That’s awful.”

“Once we were healed to the point where we could handle cloth on our skin, we still couldn’t handle touch. They tried skin desensitization therapy, where a therapist touches you skin on skin, but neither of us could take it. It was excruciating.”

“When was this?”

He gripped the wheel more tightly. “Two years ago. They said I was lucky to be alive, that in the past they wouldn’t have been able to fix me. Look at me—you can’t really tell.”

He pushed back his shirt and held up his arm. The skin was perfect.

“So if your skin has been repaired—”

“And my nerves.”

“And your nerves, then why—”

“There’s a disconnect in my brain. My brain perceives pain when I’m touched.”

I thought about that. “And when you touch someone else?”

“I can only do it with some barrier, like gloves or my jacket.”

“Like when you pushed me away at the bombing.”

He nodded.

“So it could get better someday?” I’d been feeling sorry for
myself, missing my parents’ warm hugs. But Hyden couldn’t be touched by anyone.

“If it’s determined to be a phobia, then yes. They’re not sure.”

I stared out at the torn billboards by the highway that no one could afford to rent anymore. Then something occurred to me.

“You wanted the mind-body transfer for you and your mother, didn’t you? That’s why you invented this.”

He breathed in again. Only I didn’t hear the exhale.

“I hoped it would have many medical applications.” He sounded so weary.

“But what happened?”

“She died of complications before I could get it going.”

“And then your father had his own ideas?”

“He lied to me about what Prime would be,” he said slowly. “And then it was too late.”

We continued driving for another half mile before the scanner picked up a signal.

“It’s south. Get off the freeway,” I said.

He took the next exit and turned right. We drove about a mile. The scanner showed we were close.

I pointed across the street. “It’s coming from that direction.”

We looked and didn’t see any Starters. Just Enders.

He turned right. “It’s from down this street.”

We saw a dark-haired Starter, average height, good-looking, wearing an unbuttoned plaid shirt over a T-shirt. He leaned against a concrete planter and drank from his water bottle.

Hyden slowed down and pulled over while we looked at the Starter.

“His clothes look shabby,” I said.

“What are you, the fashion police?”

“You know what I mean. He doesn’t look like an ex-donor, a Metal.”

“Most of them went back to the streets,” he said. “Not like you. They didn’t even get paid when Prime came down.”

He was right. I felt so stupid. I wasn’t judging him, just looking for clues. But only their appearance could really tell us, and now that I had a better look, this one was close to perfection. He closed his water bottle and slung it over his shoulder.

Hyden parked the car. “Stay here. Don’t get out.”

Before I could say something, he was out and walking toward the Starter.

Hyden tried to be casual, but the guy wasn’t returning Hyden’s smile. Instead, he looked nervous, shaking his head at Hyden’s questions.

Suddenly the Starter pushed him and ran down the street. Hyden flinched in pain but took off running after him. I climbed over the console to get to the driver’s seat and followed them.

I didn’t know what Hyden was going to do when he caught the guy—he obviously couldn’t touch him. The Starter ran into a dead-end alley and saw that he was cornered. I pulled the SUV in right behind Hyden. The Starter turned his back to climb a wall, but Hyden reached up and held something small to the back of the guy’s neck so that only the item made contact. The Starter fainted.