Titan Base (23 page)

Then Emma’s note:

“You see it?” he asked her.

“Sure, they’re different. A little. So what? That doesn’t—”

“And remember how there was that draft of the note in their secret safe?”

The annoyance on Emma’s face melted away as she remembered.

Ethan went on. “All the differences were crossed out. Mom and Dad were making a—”

“Code,” Emma whispered. “One that you could only figure out if you had
both
notes
together
. One that only the two of
us
could figure out if the Ch’zar didn’t get us.”

She pored over the two letters with new interest, pulled out a notebook from her flight suit, and jotted down a few words.

“There are tons of differences,” she said. “I never saw them all before.”

“The important words, I think,” Ethan said, elbowing her to one side, “are the ones that mean numbers.”

She elbowed him back. “I see that.”

Emma wrote down “31st May.”

“That’s
three, one
, and
five
,” she explained, “since May is the fifth month of the year.”

Ethan pointed to the paragraphs in the middle of his letter. “
Twins
there and there,” he said. “That could mean ‘two.’ ”

Emma carefully wrote down “2 2” next to her first numbers.

“The last part has a bunch of them,” she said, checking and double-checking and then penciling in: “1 0 4 2.”

“Oh,” Emma said, looking slightly startled, and penciled in one last number. “There’s the ending of my letter: ‘Two big hugs.’ That’s another two.”

She held her notepad for Ethan to see:

3 1 5 2 2 1 0 4 2 2

They stared at the numbers.

They didn’t mean anything to Ethan.

“The combination to a safe somewhere?” Emma asked.

Ethan shook his head. “That doesn’t feel right … like there are too many numbers.” He chewed his lower lip, concentrating. “Maybe ‘May’ in the date isn’t supposed to be a number in the code.”

“Okay.” Emma crossed out the 5, which left:

3 1 2 2 1 0 4 2 2

It still made no sense to Ethan, so he split the number in half (more or less), into the first four (3122) and the last five (10422).

He’d been reading numbers like those for weeks on their flight maps.

The answer must’ve popped into Emma’s head at the same time, too, because together they said, “Longitude and latitude!”

Felix gave up trying to coax the luna moth from its
deep slumber and came over to see what they were doing. He glanced at the numbers and immediately understood as well. “Coordinates to where?” he asked.

“Nowhere yet,” Ethan said. He pulled a folded map from his flight suit vest pocket. He tapped the map and interfaced with the flight computer inside his wasp. A globe spun into focus on electronic paper.

“We don’t know if those numbers mean anything,” Ethan explained. “There are no north–south or east–west designators to go with the latitude and longitude.”

“I bet we can eliminate some of the possible combinations,” Emma said, tracing her finger over the world. “Thirty-one south latitude, east or west, is in the ocean.”

“One-oh-four east longitude is in China,” Felix noted, still not understanding but playing along. “Too much radiation there for anything but glowing glass.”

“Here,” Ethan said, pointing to 31 north latitude and 104 west longitude. “That used to be Texas.”

He spread his fingers apart, zooming in on the spot.

More accurate numbers ticked off alongside the map page: 31.22, 104.22.

The map showed a detailed view of a desert that looked like ancient dried skin from the satellite’s vantage. There were scattered patches of sagebrush and a dirt road (or it could’ve been a rabbit track it was so faint).

“Nowhere,” Ethan said, feeling a black hole of disappointment fill him.

He’d been
so
sure his parents’ notes meant more than just goodbye.

“There has to be something here,” Emma said, her forehead wrinkling with confusion and concentration. “That spot just
feels
right.”

Ethan felt it, too. There
was
something there. Even if it didn’t show up on the map.

Felix’s shoulders sagged, and his chest heaved with a shuddering sigh. “I don’t know what you’re looking for … but I’m so tired, guys. And I can’t get the stupid moth to wake up. I think it’s dead.”

That seemed to be the last straw for indestructible Felix. Tears streamed down his cheeks and he hung his head.

Emma gave him a hug. “It’s okay,” she whispered.

Ethan didn’t know how she could say that, all things considered, but he patted Felix on the back to try and make him feel better.

He needed Felix now more than ever.

Ethan glanced at the map to get their current location. They were on the Louisiana coast. All they had to do was dodge a few radiation zones and they could be in West Texas in an hour.

There was one thing, though, that Ethan had to repair before they could even try. It wasn’t refueling or getting their I.C.E. weapons recharged and reloaded. While he’d been sitting around feeling sorry for himself, he had forgotten to protect the most important thing in his squadron: his people.

They were broken, exhausted, and demoralized.

He had to lead them. He owed it to everyone in the Seed Bank who’d died protecting them. That was his duty.

Harder than that … Ethan had to tell them the truth.

   
26
   
SECRET THINGS

ETHAN PLUCKED UP THE TWO NOTES. HE CALLED
out to his team, “Stop whatever you’re working on. We have a new plan.”

The Sterling kids climbed out of the hidden bunker. Madison and Paul, though, sat where they were. So Ethan took a few steps closer so they could hear, too.

“I have a few things to tell you guys. Secret things. But there’s no reason for secrets anymore.”

Emma whispered, “
What
are you doing?”

He looked his sister in the eye and didn’t back down. This was the right thing to do and she knew it.

Emma blinked, pursed her lips, and nodded.

“Emma and I came from a neighborhood,” Ethan told them. “We were always different, though.”

Angel’s gaze focused to laser intensity when Ethan mentioned being different. She winked at him.

Ethan felt uncomfortable whenever Angel looked at him that way, as if he needed more reasons to feel uncomfortable right now.

“Our parents were different, too,” Ethan said. “They taught Emma and me to think for ourselves. And when I discovered what the world was really like, they didn’t try and capture me; they tried to
warn
me about the Ch’zar.”

At this, Paul, Madison, and Felix traded confused looks. Ethan had never told them this part of his story. He was worried about what the Resisters would think of him.

“It had to be a Ch’zar trick,” Paul muttered. “Every single adult in those neighborhoods belongs to the Collective. They can’t help it. People get older, go through puberty, and their brains get taken over.”

“That’s what Ethan is trying to tell you,” Emma said. “
Our parents
weren’t. They learned how to shield their brains.”

“That’s impossible,” Madison whispered.

“It’s not,” Emma told her. “I’ve done it. You saw it,
Madison, when we faced down that ant lion in Santa Blanca.”

Madison went pale. “And you waited until
now
to tell us this?” Her voice broke with anger. “Don’t you think the Resistance could’ve used that information a while ago?”

“It wasn’t until we went back to our neighborhood that we figured most of this out,” Ethan told her.

Madison had suspected part of this. So had Ethan. He just hadn’t put all the pieces together until he’d seen those two notes side by side.

Oliver held up his hand. He pushed up his glasses. “It’s all fascinating, Ethan, but what does that have to do with us now?”

“Our parents left us a clue,” Ethan told him. “Coordinates to something. They made it so Emma and I had to be together to find it. But I don’t think they could’ve cooked it up by themselves—two people coincidentally immune to Ch’zar mind control in Santa Blanca. I think they belong to
another
resistance.”

Everyone stared at Ethan for a long moment.

“No offense, Ethan,” Felix finally said, “but we would’ve known about another organization fighting the aliens.”

“Would you?” Emma asked, and crossed her arms. “If they were silently immune to the Collective’s influence and blending in among hundreds of others? It’s not like
everyone in the neighborhoods wears T-shirts that say ‘mind controlled.’ ”

Paul stood and brushed off his flight suit. “Count me out of this craziness, Blackwoods.” He started plodding toward the distant sand dunes. “I’ll try and figure out how to make it on my own.”

“You can’t, Paul,” Ethan said, his tone frosty.

“Save it,” Paul snapped. “You’re not giving orders anymore. There’re no more ranks. No more Resistance. Just us survivors.”

“You won’t last long,” Kristov said, trying to sound sympathetic.

Paul shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

“I’m not
ordering
you,” Ethan said, and took a step closer. “I’m
telling
you. I need every pilot and every I.C.E. if we’re going to survive without the Seed Bank. There’s no choice.”

The tension in the air seemed to pull taut between the two boys as they glared at one another.

Ethan couldn’t afford a mutiny now. If he had to knock Paul’s lights out and stuff him into his mantis, locking the controls on autopilot, he’d do it.

Paul balled his hands into fists.

Ethan made fists, too.

This was going to get ugly.

Angel jumped between the boys. “I
like
this plan.” She shot a sideways glance at Paul along with a wry smile. “Besides, I’m from Texas. It’ll be like going home.”

Paul considered Angel for a long time; then he finally shook his head and smiled. “Why not? I’ll tag along and keep Angel company. Maybe there is a second Resister outpost in the middle of the desert. Maybe we’ll find a herd of purple unicorns, too.”

Ethan ignored the sarcasm. He knew it was the best he could expect from Paul Hicks under the circumstances.

“Do we leave the moth and supplies?” Felix asked, unsure. “We’ll need them.”

“The moth comes with us,” Ethan told his friend. Feeling energized, he marched to the edge of the emergency supply bunker.

Ethan held up his hands, closed his eyes, and imagined touching the truck-sized moth. His mind found the insect brain: a small spark in the darkness. Ethan breathed on it like he’d puff on a fire to get it going. Sparks flared, and thought pathways and preflight subroutines booted.

The long-slumbering creature
wanted
to fly. It longed to see the moon again.

Ethan opened his eyes and gestured for the giant insect to rise. Its jets sputtered and coughed soot. Exhaust
ducts angled down and roared with fire, making the moth hover out from the bunker. It sat on the ground with a tremendous thud and a flutter of scaled wings.

“Luna moth combat carrier, serial number eight-five-nine-JK, code-named Io, ready for duty,” Ethan told Felix.

Felix’s mouth dropped open. He closed it with a clack of his teeth and nodded his approval.

“So let’s move out,” Ethan told everyone.

The members of Sterling Squadron climbed into their I.C.E.s … except Madison. She remained sitting on the ground.