The Fall of Five (I Am Number Four) (23 page)

We stop walking and she reaches up to touch my face. “I don’t want to take you away from your destiny. Please don’t think I’m trying to do that.”

“No, of course not. But I don’t want to go back to Lorien without you.”

“I’m not sure I’d want to stay on Earth without you,” she replies.

“So where does that leave us?”

“I don’t know what the future holds,” Sarah says. “But I love you, John. For now, that’s all that matters. We’ll figure the rest out when we get there.”

“I love you too,” I reply, pulling her close and kissing her.

Just then my bracelet begins to tingle.

“WHAT’S WRONG?” SARAH ASKS WHEN I SUDDENLY
pull away from her.

“My bracelet’s warning me. Something’s up,” I reply, spinning around, trying to take in everything around us at once. “Something bad.”

“This seriously can’t keep happening,” Sarah says with disbelief, referring to last night’s BK emergency.

“No, this is different. Worse.”

Instinctively I touch my bracelet as it sends icicles up and down my arm. We’re on a pretty crowded street in downtown Chicago. I scan the faces around us; people walking home from work, couples heading out for dinner, humans all of them. Not a pale face with a penchant for dark clothing to be seen. Yet the bracelet has never steered me wrong in the past. There’s danger nearby.

“We should get back home,” Sarah says. “Warn the others.”

I shake my head. “No. If they’re following us and we don’t flush them out, we could end up leading them to the others.”

“Crap, you’re right. So what do we do?”

“We have to find them.” I grab Sarah’s hand and walk a few steps down the block. The pins-and-needles sensation on my wrist begins to fade, which means the danger is in the other direction. I turn back around and head that way, although I don’t see anything out of the ordinary.

“John . . . ,” Sarah says warningly, clutching my hand in both of hers. She’s trying to hide the glow that my skin is suddenly giving off. My Lumen has triggered, both my hands lighting up, ready for a fight. I take a deep breath and calm myself, willing my hands to go back to normal. Luckily, no one around us seems to notice.

“Over here,” I say, and lead Sarah towards the mouth of a dark back alley. The bracelet is practically screaming at me now, my entire arm numb from the pins and needles. I slide up against the wall and poke my head around the corner of the alley.

There are three of them. Mogadorian scouts by the look of them. They’re not even making much effort to pass as human, their pale heads clean shaven but without tattoos, dressed in the dark trench coats that would spook just about anyone. Whatever they’re doing here,
it’s pretty clear they aren’t expecting to be spotted. Two of them are keeping watch while the third runs his hands underneath a Dumpster. He yanks something free from beneath the metal, an envelope of some kind.

“There’re three,” I whisper to Sarah. She’s standing next to me, her back against the wall. “They must be the vat-grown ones Malcolm was talking about. Pale and ugly, as usual.”

“What’re they doing here?”

“Don’t know,” I reply. “But they’re easy targets.”

“I didn’t bring a gun on our date,” she whispers back. “I should’ve known better.”

“It’s okay,” I tell her. “They haven’t spotted us.”

Sarah looks down at my hands. “We can’t just let them do whatever they’re doing, can we?”

“Hell no,” I reply, realizing that my fists have clenched. For once, I’ve got the drop on Mogadorians. I want to know what they’re up to. No more running scared. “If things go bad, you run for help.”

“Things won’t go bad,” Sarah says firmly, and confidence flows through me. “Light those assholes up.”

I step into the alley and walk right towards the Mogs. Their hollow eyes focus on me in unison. For a moment, that old familiar chill runs through me, that fugitive feeling. I shove it down; this time, I’m choosing fight over flight.

“You guys lost?” I ask casually, striding closer.

“Get outta here, kid,” one of them hisses, flashing a row of tiny teeth. The Mog next to him opens up his coat, showing me the handle of a blaster tucked into his pants. They’re trying to scare me off like I’m just some human taking a really ill-advised shortcut home. They don’t recognize me for what I am. That means whatever they’re doing here, it isn’t hunting me.

“Getting kinda chilly,” I say, stopping about ten yards away from them. “You warm enough?”

Without waiting for a response, I trigger my Lumen. A fireball swirls into existence over my palm and I lob it at the closest Mog. He doesn’t even have a chance to react before it envelops his face, lighting him up like a matchstick for a moment before he disintegrates to ash.

The second Mog at least manages to reach for his blaster but that’s as far as he gets. I hit him with a fireball right in the chest. He lets loose a short scream and then joins the first Mog as dust on the dirty alley ground.

I don’t hit the final Mog with my Lumen. He’s the one holding that envelope and I don’t want to risk torching it. I want to see what the Mogs are after, what secret mission has these Mogadorians skulking around Chicago. He stares at me, almost as if he’s waiting for me to dispatch him as easily as I did the others, the envelope clutched to his chest. When he realizes that I’m hesitating, he takes off, sprinting down the alley.

A Mogadorian running from me. Now there’s a welcome change of pace.

I grab the Dumpster with my telekinesis and launch it at the Mog before he can get too far. The Dumpster’s metal sides screech as they grind against the alley wall. It hits the Mog and pins him up against the wall, his bones crunching.

“Tell me what you’re doing here and I’ll make this quick,” I say, walking over to him. To demonstrate, I put a little telekinetic pressure on the Dumpster, grinding it farther into his mangled body. A bubble of dark blood dribbles down the Mog’s chin. His scream of frustration and pain makes me hesitate. I’ve never done anything like this before. The Mogs I’ve killed have all been quick and in self-defense. I hope I’m not going too far.

“You—you’re all going to die,” spits the Mog.

I’m wasting my time. I’m not likely to learn anything important from some lowly scout. I shove the Dumpster one last time with my telekinesis, finishing him off. Then I pull the Dumpster away from the wall and pluck the envelope from the pile of Mogadorian ash. I turn it over in my hands—it’s stuffed with papers.

“What is it?” Sarah asks, approaching cautiously from the mouth of the alley.

I light up one of my hands so I can see the papers in the darkness. I’m holding three pages covered in rigid script that looks like a cross between hieroglyphics and
Chinese. Written in Mogadorian, of course. I guess it’d be too lucky to catch the Mogs sending secret orders in English. I hold up the papers so that Sarah can see.

“Know any good Mogadorian translators?” I ask.

Back at the penthouse, I gather everyone in the dining room to describe my encounter with the Mogs. Nine pats me on the back when I get to the part about killing the three Mogadorians.

“You should’ve brought that last one back here,” he says. “We could’ve tortured something out of him like they did to us.”

I shake my head. I glance over at Sam, who has begun surreptitiously rubbing his scarred wrists. “That’s not what we do,” I say. “We’re better than that.”

“It’s a war, Johnny,” Nine replies.

“What does this mean?” Marina asks. “Do they know where we are?”

“I doubt it,” I say. “If they were here for us, they’d have sent more than three. They didn’t even recognize me when I approached.”

“Yeah, and you’re a famous Mogadorian killer,” says Eight. “Weird.”

“They’d have come by now if they were coming,” Six adds. “They aren’t exactly known for their subtlety. We need to figure out what these papers say. It could be some kind of invasion plan.”

“Just like my dream,” whispers Ella.

The papers in question are being passed around the table, everyone taking a look at the meaningless symbols on the pages.

Malcolm takes the papers, frowning. “I spent time in captivity, but I never learned their language.”

“Pretty sure there’s some translating software on Sandor’s computer,” offers Nine. “Doubt it has Mogadorian, though.”

Malcolm runs a hand over his beard, still looking over the papers. “There are patterns here, like with all languages. This can be cracked. If you show me that software, I may be able to use it.”

Everyone around the table looks nervous. It’s the first whiff of the Mogadorians we’ve had since battling them in Arkansas.

“This doesn’t change anything,” I say. “Whatever is in those documents, I’m sure it’s something the Mogadorians don’t want us to know. It’s something we can use to our advantage. But, until we know for sure, we press on with the plan we’ve already made. Get some rest, everyone; we leave for Florida in the morning.”

I STAND OVER MY FATHER’S SHOULDER AS HE
scans the Mogadorian documents into Sandor’s computer system. Once the documents are scanned, my dad loads up some translating software along with some kind of hacker program that’s supposed to be able to crack through firewalls and crap like that.

“Do you think you’ll be able to translate it?” I ask.

“The first step was figuring out which program to use.”

“And did you?” I notice that my dad’s opened and minimized a copy of iTunes. I tap the screen. “Were you going to listen to some music?”

“I—they didn’t have iTunes when I was taken. I thought it might . . .” My dad shrugs self-deprecatingly. “I’ll admit to some trial and error, okay?”

“So now what?”

“I’m approaching it from every angle. All languages—even alien ones—share some commonalities. It’s just a
matter of isolating one and using it to decode the rest of the writing.” He looks over his shoulder at me. “This is pretty boring stuff, Sam. You don’t need to keep me company.”

“No, it’s cool,” I say. “I want to.”

“Really?” he asks, looking me over. “It looks to me like you had other plans.”

Observant as always. I’m dressed in what passes as my best outfit considering I’ve only got like three options. It’s just a boring gray sweater and my least grungy pair of jeans. I’d been psyching myself up to do like John said, to try to have a conversation with Six about my feelings, carpe diem and all that. This latest crisis, even if it just involves paperwork, is a pretty good excuse to put that off.

“They can wait,” I say lamely, making a show of studying the computer screen as various language samples scroll by.

“Hmm.” My dad smiles gently, looking back to the screen himself. “You know, they’re off to Florida tomorrow. After that, there will surely be another mission. And who knows what intel we might glean from these documents. A lot happening.”

“What’s your point?”

“It might be awhile before we have another quiet night like this one,” he says. “Don’t put it off, Sam.”

I find Six on the penthouse roof, which is apparently the hot spot for Garde who want to be alone. It’s night and the wind is stronger up here than normal, probably on account of Six messing with the weather. Both her hands are raised and as she moves them back and forth the sky responds; it reminds me of art class, the way paint would swirl together when we mixed watercolors. Six is doing that to the clouds. If there are any weathermen watching the skies tonight, they’re probably pretty freaked out.

I don’t say anything at first, not wanting to interrupt. I stand next to Six and watch her, the wind whipping her black hair across her face, bathed in the blinking red lights that line the roof. There’s a small smile creeping up on the corners of her mouth. If I didn’t know her better, I’d say Six was actually feeling content.

Slowly, almost like she regrets stopping, Six lowers her hands and looks at me. The wind dies down immediately, the clouds resuming their normal lazy course across the night sky. I feel like I’m interrupting something.

“Hey. You didn’t have to stop.”

“It’s cool. What’s up?” she says. “Did your dad figure out those documents already?”

“Um, no, nothing’s up. I just wanted to talk to you.”

“Oh,” Six replies, looking back up at the sky. “Sure.”

“It’s no big deal,” I say hurriedly, feeling stupid. “You can go back to practicing or whatever. I’ll leave you alone.”

“No, stay,” she says suddenly. “Being cooped up in that
penthouse all the time is hard for me. Ever since I developed this Legacy, I’ve felt connected to the weather. I like to keep in touch with it, if that makes sense.”

“Yeah, totally,” I reply, as if I understand the first thing about being connected to the weather. “You did really great in training today. I’m sorry I screwed up.”

“Come on, Sam,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Enough apologizing already. Is that really what you came up here to talk about?”

“No,” I reply, sighing. Screw it. I decide to just take John’s advice and go for it. “I was wondering if you’d like to—uh, I don’t know—hang out sometime?”

So, maybe not my smoothest attempt at asking someone out. Six playfully arches an eyebrow. “Hang out? We practically live on top of each other in there. We hang out all the time.”

“I mean, like, hang out by ourselves.”

“Aren’t we doing that right now?”

“Yeah—I mean, uh—,” I stammer, then notice the wicked smile on Six’s face. “Are you messing with me?”

“A little,” she says, crossing her arms. “So you’re asking me on a date? Is that it?”

“Yeah, and I’m doing an amazing job at it.”

“You’re not doing so bad,” she says gently, moving a little closer to me. “But we’re fighting a war here, Sam. There’s not a ton of time for hanging out. You know that.”

“Um, John and Sarah went to the zoo today.”

“But I don’t want to have a John-and-Sarah thing with you,” Six says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“Oh.” I shrink back, feeling gut punched. “I just thought—when you went to Spain, John told me how you felt about me, and back in Arkansas the way we hugged—uh, crap, I’m an idiot. I should’ve known you wouldn’t be interested in someone like me.”