The Navigator (9 page)

TWO WEEKS AFTER THE MOGADORIANS KILLED
Zophie, a seemingly unrelated story is published in someone’s online journal. It’s a short account of an incident at Philadelphia International Airport. A man refused to let a piece of carry-on luggage go through the airport scanner. He and his companion, a young boy, were scheduled to fly to Africa. There’s a picture of the two of them, the man older and flustered, the boy four, maybe five years old and freckled. The man holds one side of a chest that’s covered in Loric symbols. A member of airport security holds on to the other. I don’t know who they are, but they are almost certainly one of the Garde and his Cêpan. I want to reach through the photo and shake the old man for being so foolish, but I unfortunately don’t have that Legacy. I only hope he will learn. That he will do better.

I destroy every line of the journal’s code and overload
the host site’s servers for good measure. Then, over the course of lunch in a diner in South Carolina, I track down the writer and photographer’s email address and send her a message containing a computer virus under the guise of it being a note from a fan of her journal. By the time I finish dessert, she’s downloaded my worm, which rapidly eats up her hard drive. I pay my waitress and leave, continuing my aimless wandering.

Zane is dead. So is Zophie. And Janus.

I’m alone again, just as I was on Lorien.

Well, not technically, I suppose. Assuming the other Garde and Cêpan survived and that Ella and Crayton are still in hiding, there are twenty other Loric who I know of on Earth.

I consider flying back to Egypt, trying to track down Crayton and Ella. But they must be long gone by now. And even if I did find them, what if I unintentionally led the Mogs to them? What if somehow my presence ruined things?

I do better on my own, anyway. Sitting behind a computer screen. Gathering information. Piecing things together.

When I think of what happened to Zophie, I have to swallow down the urge to vomit. I blame myself. I should have been up-front with her about Janus as soon as I knew he was dead. I realize that now, but there’s nothing I can do. She’s gone.

My blood fills with rage and fire when I think of the Mogadorians. I’m still not sure why the Elders chose to send such a small number of our people to Earth, but I know that they must be important. Why else would the Mogs be here, going after them? Janus said they had scattered. I don’t know if that was the truth or one final lie he was able to keep from his captors, but going their separate ways would make the most sense. The photo of the duo headed to Africa seems to corroborate his claim.

And so, what Zophie and I were trying to do—to find them all—was really dangerous for everyone. For the remaining Loric. I realize that now. It would be much better for them to stay hidden. At least until the Garde are strong enough to fight.

I can still help, though, and by doing so hurt the Mogs. From afar. Because the closer I get to people, the more they tend to get hurt. And I can’t go through losing someone else. I just don’t think I have it in me.

What I
can
do is work behind the scenes. I can be a phantom. Anonymous. The ghost in the machine. Just like I did with the blog—I can watch out for my people in the digital world. Cover up their tracks when I can. Help ensure that their mission, whatever it is, is completed. Find any information that might help them along the way. Train myself in this planet’s technologies until I can control them fully.

I can try to help protect my people.

Maybe I’m not a ghost. Maybe I’m something else. Something more like a guardian.

I can gather resources for them should the day come when they are ready to rise against the Mogs. There are many powerful and dangerous weapons on Earth. And some not of this world too. There’s still a Loric ship that can fly. Janus’s ship. Maybe the Mogs have it. Maybe it’s still hidden somewhere.

I wonder how hard it would be for me to find it.

THE NIGHTMARE IS OVER. WHEN I OPEN MY EYES,
there’s nothing but darkness.

I’m in a bed, that much I can tell, and it’s not my own. The mattress is enormous, somehow contoured perfectly to my body, and for a moment I wonder if my friends moved me to one of the bigger beds in Nine’s penthouse. I stretch my legs and arms out as far as they’ll go and can’t find the edges. The sheet draped over me is more slippery than soft, almost like a piece of plastic, and it is radiating heat. Not just heat, I realize, but also a steady vibration that soothes my sore muscles.

I try to remember what happened to me, but all I can think of is my last vision. It felt like I was in that nightmare for days. I can still smell the burned-rubber stench of Washington, D.C. Smog clouds lingered over the city, a reminder of the battle fought there. Or the battle that will be fought there, if my vision actually comes true.

The visions. Are they part of a new Legacy? None of the others have Legacies that leave them traumatized in the morning. Are they prophecies? Threats sent by Setrákus Ra, like the dreams John and Eight used to have? Are they warnings?

Whatever they are, I wish they’d stop happening.

I take a few deep breaths to clean the smell of Washington out of my nostrils, even though I know it’s all in my head. What’s worse than the smell is that I can remember every little detail, right down to the horrified look on John’s face when he saw me on that stage with Setrákus Ra, condemning Six to death. He was trapped in the vision, too, just like I was. I was powerless up there, stuck between Setrákus Ra, self-appointed ruler of Earth, and . . .

Five. He’s working for the Mogadorians! I have to warn the others. I sit bolt upright and my head swims—too fast, too soon—rust-colored blobs floating through my vision. I blink them away, my eyes feeling gummy, my mouth dry and throat sore.

This definitely isn’t the penthouse.

My movement must trigger some nearby sensor, because the room’s lights slowly grow brighter. They come on gradually, the room eventually bathed in a pale red glow. I look around for the source of the light and discover it pulsing from veins interwoven through the chrome-paneled walls. A chill goes through me at how precise the room looks, how severe, lacking any decoration at all. The heat from
the blanket increases, almost as if it wants me to curl back up beneath it. I shove it away.

This is a Mogadorian place.

I crawl across the mammoth bed—it’s bigger than an SUV, big enough for a ten-foot-tall Mogadorian dictator to comfortably relax in—until my bare feet dangle over the metal floor. I’m wearing a long gray nightgown embroidered with thorny black vines. I shudder, thinking about them putting me into this gown and leaving me here to rest. They could’ve just killed me, but instead they put me in pajamas? In my vision, I was sitting alongside Setrákus Ra. He called me his heir. What does that even mean? Is that why I’m still alive?

It doesn’t matter. The simple fact is: I’ve been captured. I know this. Now what am I going to do about it?

I figure the Mogs must have moved me to one of their bases. Except this room isn’t like the horrific and tiny cells that Nine and Six described from when they were captured. No, this must be the Mogadorians’ twisted idea of hospitality. They’re trying to take care of me.

Setrákus Ra wants me treated more like a guest than a prisoner. Because, one day, he wants me ruling next to him. Why, I still don’t understand, but right now it’s the only thing keeping me alive.

Oh no. If I’m here, what happened to the others in Chicago?

My hands start to shake and tears sting my eyes. I have
to get out of here. And I have to do it alone.

I push down the fear. I push down the lingering visions of a decimated Washington. I push down the worries about my friends. I push it all down. I need to be a blank slate, like I was when we first fought Setrákus Ra in New Mexico, like I was during my training sessions with the others. It’s easiest for me to be brave when I just don’t think about it. If I act on instinct, I can do this.

Run,
I imagine Crayton saying.
Run until they’re too tired to chase you.

I need something to fight them with. I look around the room for anything I can use as a weapon. Next to the bed is a metallic nightstand, the only other furniture in the room. The Mogs left a glass of water there for me, which I’m not dumb enough to drink even though I’m insanely thirsty. Next to the glass, there’s a dictionary-sized book with an oily, snaky-skin cover. The ink on the cover looks singed, the words indented and rough around the edges, as if it were printed with acid for ink.

The title reads
The Great Book of Mogadorian Progress
, surprisingly in English. Under it are a series of angular boxes and hash marks that I assume is Mogadorian.

I pick up the book and open it. Each page is divided in half, English on one side and Mogadorian on the other. I wonder if I’m supposed to read this thing.

I slam the book closed. The important thing is that it’s heavy and I can swing it. I won’t be turning any Mogadorian
guards into ash clouds, but it’s better than nothing.

I climb down from the bed and walk over to what I think is the door. It’s a rectangular panel cut into the plated wall, but there aren’t any knobs or buttons.

As I tiptoe closer, wondering how I’m going to open this thing, there’s a mechanical whirring noise from inside the wall. It must be on a motion sensor like the lights, because the door hisses upward as soon as I’m close, disappearing into the ceiling.

I don’t stop to wonder why I’m not locked down. Clutching the Mogadorian book, I step into a hallway that’s just as cold and metallic as my room.

“Ah,” says a woman’s voice. “You’re awake.”

Rather than guards, a Mogadorian woman perches on a stool outside my room, obviously waiting for me. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a female Mog before, and definitely not one like her. Middle-aged, with wrinkles forming in the pale skin around her eyes, the Mog looks surprisingly unthreatening in a high-necked, floor-length dress, like something one of the Sisters would wear back at Santa Teresa. Her head is shaved except for two long, black braids at the back of her skull, the rest of her scalp covered by an elaborate tattoo. Instead of being nasty and vicious, like the Mogs I’ve fought before, this one is almost elegant.

I stop short in front of her, not sure what to do.

The Mog glances at the book in my hands and smiles.

“And ready to begin your studies, I see,” she says,
getting up. She’s tall, slender and vaguely spiderlike. Standing before me, she dips into an elaborate bow. “Mistress Ella, I shall be your instructor while—”

As soon as her head comes low enough, I smack her across the face with the book as hard as I can.

She doesn’t see it coming, which I guess is strange because all the Mogs I’ve encountered have been ready to fight. This one lets out a short grunt and then hits the floor with a fluttering of fabric from her fancy dress.

I don’t stop to see if I’ve knocked her out or if she’s pulling a blaster from some hidden compartment in that dress. I run, choosing a direction at random and hurtling down the hallway as fast as I can. The metal floor stings my bare feet and my muscles begin to ache, but I ignore all that. I have to get out of here.

Too bad these secret Mogadorian bases never have any exit signs.

I turn one corner and then another, sprinting through hallways that are pretty much identical. I keep expecting sirens to start blaring now that I’ve escaped, but they never do. There aren’t any heavy Mogadorian footfalls chasing after me either.

Just when I’m starting to get winded and thinking about slowing down, a doorway opens on my right and two Mogadorians step forward. They’re more like the ones I’m used to—burly, dressed in their black combat gear, beady eyes glaring at me. I dart around them, even though neither
of them makes any attempt to grab me. In fact, I think I hear one of them laughing.

What is going on here?

I can feel the two Mog soldiers watching me run, so I duck down the first hallway that I can. I’m not sure if I’ve been going in circles or what. There isn’t any sunlight or outside noises at all, nothing to indicate that I might be getting closer to an exit. It doesn’t seem like the Mogs even care what I do, like they know I’ve got no chance to get out of here.

I slow down to catch my breath, cautiously inching down this latest sterile hallway. I’m still clutching the book—my only weapon—and my hand is starting to cramp. I switch hands and press on.

Up ahead, a wide archway opens with a hydraulic hiss; it’s different from the other doors, wider, and there are strangely blinking lights on the other side.

Not blinking lights. Stars.

As I walk under the archway, the metal-plated ceiling gives way to a glass bubble, the room wide-open, almost like a planetarium. Except real. There are various consoles and computers protruding from the floor—maybe this is some kind of control room—but I ignore them, drawn instead to the dizzying view through the expansive window.

Darkness. Stars.

Earth.

Now I understand why the Mogadorians weren’t chasing me. They know there’s nowhere for me to go.

I’m in space.

I get right up to the glass, pressing my hands against it. I can feel the emptiness outside, the endless, ice-cold, airless space between me and that floating blue orb in the distance.

“Glorious, isn’t it?”

His booming voice is like a bucket of cold water dumped on me. I spin around and press my back to the glass, feeling like the void behind me might be preferable to facing him.

Setrákus Ra stands behind one of the control panels, watching me, a hint of a smile on his face. The first thing I notice is that he’s not nearly as huge as he was when we fought him at Dulce Base. Still, Setrákus Ra is tall and imposing, his broad physique clad in a stern black uniform, studded and decorated with an assortment of jagged Mogadorian medals. Three Loric pendants, the ones he took from the dead Garde, hang from around his neck, glowing a subdued cobalt.

“I see you’ve already taken up my book,” he says, gesturing to my dictionary-sized club. I didn’t realize I was clutching it to my chest. “Although not necessarily in the way I’d hoped. Fortunately, your Proctor wasn’t badly injured . . .”

Suddenly, in my hands, the book begins to glow red, just like the piece of debris I picked up back at Dulce Base.
I don’t know exactly how I’m doing it, or even what I’m doing.

“Ah,” Setrákus Ra says, watching with a raised eyebrow. “Very good.”

“Go to hell!” I scream, and fling the glowing book at him.

Before it’s even halfway to him, Setrákus Ra raises one huge hand and the book stops in midair. I watch as the glow I’d infused it with slowly fades.

“Now, now,” he chides me. “Enough of that.”

“What do you want from me?” I shout, frustrated tears filling my eyes.

“You already know that,” he replies. “I showed you what’s to come. Just as I once showed Pittacus Lore.”

Setrákus Ra hits a few buttons on the control panel in front of him and the ship begins to move. Gradually, the Earth, seeming both impossibly far and also like it’s so close I could reach out and grab it, drifts across my view. We aren’t moving towards it; we’re turning in place.

“You are aboard the
Anubis
,” Setrákus Ra intones, a note of pride in his gravelly voice. “The flagship of the Mogadorian fleet.”

When the ship completes its turn, I gasp. I reach out and press my hand against the glass for support, knees suddenly weak.

Outside, in orbit around the Earth, is the Mogadorian fleet. Hundreds of ships—most of them long and silver,
about the size of small airplanes, just like the ones the Garde have described fighting before. But among them are at least twenty enormous warships that dwarf the rest—looming and menacing, mounted cannons jutting off their angular frames, aimed right at the unsuspecting planet below.

“No,” I whisper. “This can’t be happening.”

Setrákus Ra walks towards me, and I’m too shocked by the hopeless sight before me to even move. Gently, he drapes his hand on my shoulder. I can feel the coldness of his pale fingers through my gown.

“The time has come,” he says, gazing at the fleet with me. “The Great Expansion has come to Earth at last. We will celebrate Mogadorian Progress together, granddaughter.”