I Am Number Four: The Lost Files: The Fallen Legacies Page 7

  “I’ll toughen you up yet, Adamus,” he sneers, standing over me, blood squeezing through my fingers as I hold my arm. “Make your father proud.”

  “Thank you, Brother,” I reply.

  What little free time I have, I spend in the capital. I don’t bring Ivan along on these trips anymore, and I no longer waste time human-watching at the National Mall. I find a quiet bookstore where I entertain myself for hours reading what titles I can remember from Two’s favorite books lists. I begin with George Orwell.

  “Why did I have to get stuck in the brain of the universe’s most boring Mogadorian?” complains One during a weekend trip to the bookstore. She visits me often, sometimes more than once a day. In a way, she’s sort of my only friend. She teases me, but I know she doesn’t mind these quiet periods of reading something other than the Great Book. During my Mogadorian classes, I can feel her mind growing restless inside me. Sometimes she manifests, commenting on how heinously pale my instructors are, or when I’m sparring with Ivan, how the discovery of deodorant would be a great step in Mogadorian progress. I’ve learned not to acknowledge her in public, to limit our conversations to the night, when everyone else is asleep.

  It’s then that we plan. I lie in bed, thinking. One paces around the room, anxious and bored.

  “We should escape tomorrow,” she says. “We could tell the president that there are a bunch of gross aliens planning war right in his backyard.”

  “Not yet,” I reply, shaking my head. “We’ll know when the time is right.”

  “What if the time is never right?”

  I’ve spent two years like that, acting the part, waiting for an opportunity to make a difference. Even with their vast resources, my people are slow in finding the other Garde. There are successful operations from other cells: a mission in upstate New York yields a captive Garde. More often there are missions that never get off the ground because the target disappears, or the scout team does. I’m not sure how long the Garde can keep this up. I hope they manage to get organized soon, but I worry that One is right, that I’m biding my time for an opportunity that will never come.

  And then, finally, word comes to us about Africa.

  CHAPTER 22

  For the first time in years I’m invited into the General’s briefing room.

  “We have reliable intelligence that a member of the Garde might be hiding in Kenya,” says my father, handing out a printout of an article from a travel magazine. The article is a few months old, and considering its vague content, it is no wonder it took our techs so long to unearth it. In the article, while gushing about a small marketplace in Kenya, the writer describes a kid with a strange ankle branding that’s unlike anything he’s seen on other local tribespeople. The description bears a striking resemblance to the Loric charm.

  “Has this been confirmed?” I ask, getting in my question before Ivan is even finished dragging his finger along the article’s middle sentences.

  “Obtaining confirmation using normal methods has proven an obstacle.”

  “We can’t exactly blend in with this kind of community,” I say, earning a sharp look of annoyance from my father, even though he knows I’m right.

  “What’s that mean?” asks Ivan, slow on the uptake as usual.

  It is just the two of us being briefed by the General. Whatever my father has planned in Kenya, it will be the first time Ivan and I will be out on our own. We both know what a prestigious and dangerous mission this is. I’m a little surprised the General chose me for this assignment—for any assignment, really. Could it be that he doesn’t worry about placing me in harm’s way anymore? I decide now is a good time to play the apt pupil, to demonstrate my commitment to Mogadorian progress.

  “Assuming they’re in an African village environment,” I explain to Ivan, keeping my words insultingly slow, “it would make slipping in a scout team extremely difficult. They’d know we weren’t locals, and we’d risk tipping our hand to the Loric prematurely. It’s smart planning on the Garde’s part. Isn’t that right, Father?”

  “Yes,” my father concedes, “that is correct.”

  “Why don’t we just go wipe out this village?” asks Ivan. “Who cares about blending in?”

  I snort. “How many incidents like London do you think we can have before the humans start asking questions?”

  “So what if they ask questions?”

  “You’d endanger the security of the entire war effort to massacre one village, then?”

  “Adamus,” says the General, his voice a menacing rumble, “would you like to run this briefing?”

  “No, sir,” I reply. Ivan smirks.

  “As for your question, Ivanick, subtlety is the correct course of action here.”

  I feel Ivan deflate a little next to me. Subtlety is not something I’m sure Ivan even knows the meaning of.

  “We have managed to secure you cover identities that will not unduly disturb the locals,” continues my father. “You two will infiltrate this village and determine whether there is indeed a Garde presence. I will have a strike team mobilized in the jungle should you obtain confirmation.”

  My father gives me a long look, sizing me up. Then he turns to Ivan.

  “Ivanick, you will be in charge. You will report back to me directly.”

  Ivan nods eagerly. “Yes, sir. Of course.”

  The General turns back to me.

  “Adamus,” he says, “do not disappoint me.”

  “No, sir,” I reply.

  CHAPTER 23

  Ivan watches the mosquito bite his forearm, shakily take flight and then plummet dead onto the hut’s wooden floor. Our blood is apparently poisonous to the insects, although that doesn’t stop them from trying. Ivan glowers at the swollen bites reddening his arms.

  “We should’ve just wiped this place out,” he grumbles.

  The three tanned Italian aid-workers in the hut with us pretend not to have heard him. I don’t know who they think we are, what story they were told to convince them to let us pose as fellow volunteers, but I can tell they’re afraid. I imagine they all have relatives locked in a place like West Virginia, that their complicity is part of some screwed-up deal my people forced on them. I wish I could tell them they weren’t in danger, that this would all be over soon, but that would be a lie.

  We arrived in the village yesterday, in a Jeep driven by one of the sullen aid-workers. The place is small, carved out of the encroaching jungle. It’s comprised of huts around a single well and a modest outdoor marketplace. The village is on the road to Nairobi, so its marketplace attracts people from smaller nearby villages, here to trade with each other or sell goods to the tourists that pass by on buses twice a day. There is a small basketball court next to the hut the aid-workers live in, built by their predecessors to help them connect with the locals. Children sprint across the flattened soil, tossing a ragged, dark-brown basketball at the netless hoop.

  Ivan and I are the perfect choices to be posing as aid-workers. We’re the right age for it: idealistic teenagers come to volunteer their time between high school and college. It’s the kind of activity that would look great on a kid’s college application. Of course, for Mogadorians, assisting the less fortunate would be viewed as a waste of time.

  “Humanitarian aid,” spits One, appearing at my side. “Your people have a sick sense of humor.”

  I shake my head. She’s right, but I doubt the General realizes the grotesque irony of our cover. To my people, these aid-workers and the villagers are mere tactical assets, pawns to help us smoke out the Garde that might be hiding in the jungle.

  Today the aid-workers have circulated word that they have a new shipment of vaccine for the village youths, something to fight against malaria. One by one the local children line up to grit their teeth and receive a shot.

  When the children stop by our tent, Ivan and I study them. Most of them arrive barefoot or in sandals, but the ones wearing sneakers or socks are ordered by Ivan to take off their shoes and socks. N
one of them finds this strange. Humans are too trusting. There are many kids the age of the one we’re looking for, but none of them bears the Loric scar. Every smooth ankle is a relief to me.

  One of the kids receiving his injection stares at Ivan, then says something in Swahili. The other children in line laugh.

  “What did he say?” I ask.

  The aid-worker with the needle pauses, giving me a nervous look. Then, in shaky English, replies, “He says your friend looks like pale hippo.”

  Ivan takes a step towards the boy, but I stop him with a hand on his shoulder.

  “The boy’s right,” I tell the aid-worker, “he does look like a hippo.” I flash the boy a thumbs-up, and the children laugh again.

  “This is a waste of time,” seethes Ivan, and he stomps into the hut’s backroom, where we’ve stored our equipment. I assume he’s going to report to my father: no Loric found yet; Kenyan children hurt my feelings.

  I step outside the hut, watching as the villagers go about a normal day. I can’t help but indulge in a fantasy like I used to when observing Washington DC, about what kind of improvements could be made to this place. This time it’s not a fantasy of conquest; it’s one of assistance. With the technological advancements the Mogadorians are capable of, we could vastly improve these people’s lives.

  “Their lives would be most improved,” says One, “if you just left their planet the hell alone.”

  “You’re right,” I whisper back, feeling stupid.

  On the basketball court, teams are beginning to form up. A boy about fourteen years old sees me watching and waves. When I wave back, he jogs over and says something in what I think is Italian.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, “I don’t understand.”

  “Ah,” says the boy, and I see the wheels turning as he tries to place my language. “English? American?”

  I nod. The boy is fit, tall for his age. He is dark skinned, yet a few shades lighter than many of the other villagers, a smattering of sun-born freckles across his cheeks and nose. He looks somehow exotic. He is wearing a tank top and mesh shorts, a pair of worn basketball high-tops and striped high socks. High socks. My stomach drops as I realize who he is.

  The Garde.

  “Sorry,” he says in slow but perfect English. “The other aid-workers speak Italian. My English is a little rusty.”

  “No,” I say, swallowing hard. “It’s very good.”

  He steps forward to shake my hand. “I’m Hannu.”

  “Adam.”

  “Like the first man. That’s good, but right now we need a tenth man for even teams.” He gestures over his shoulder at the other kids waiting on the basketball court. “You want to play?”

  What I want is to scream at Hannu to run. I glance over my shoulder, wondering where Ivan is. I can’t make this too obvious, can’t make a scene. If Ivan detects anything unusual, he’ll radio in to my father right away. Hannu’s only advantage right now is that my people don’t know who he is. There’s still a chance for him and whoever his Cêpan is to slip away undetected.

  I need to get him away from the aid-worker’s hut.

  “Sure,” I say, although I’ve never so much as touched a basketball. “I’ll play.”

  We haven’t gone three steps before Ivan is jogging to catch up to us. The only way to describe his grin is shit eating.

  “Adam,” he says, talking to me while sizing up Hannu. “Who’s your new friend?”

  “Hannu,” replies the Garde, shaking Ivan’s hand. I can tell by the way Hannu grimaces that Ivan’s grip is vice-like. “Another American. Cool.”

  Everything about Hannu is easygoing, even the leisurely way he walks us over to the basketball court. He looks at home here, comfortable. Too comfortable. I wonder how long he’s lived here—how often he’s come to this court to shoot hoops. I think about the paranoid behavior of the other Cêpans, the nomadic life that One was forced to endure, the shut-in existence of Two. It seems like Hannu has had such a peaceful time on Earth that he’s forgotten there’s a war on.

  Some of the younger children beam at Hannu as he passes by. He pats them on their heads, smiling back, joking with them in Swahili. I wonder how many languages he knows.

  “Did you get vaccinated?” Ivan asks, blunt as ever. “I don’t remember you coming by.”

  Hannu waves this away with a serene smile. “Me? I’m strong like an ox. Save that for the kids that really need it.”

  One of the other kids passes Hannu the ball, and he floats up a shot on a lazy arc. It drops through the basket without even brushing the rim.

  “Have you lived here long?” I venture.

  “All my life,” he replies. The kids pass the ball back to Hannu, and he flips it over to Ivan. “Take a shot, big man.”

  Ivan squeezes the ball so tightly that for a moment I’m afraid it will pop. Then he hurls it towards the basket in an ugly imitation of Hannu’s stroke, the ball clanging wildly off the side of the backboard. Some of the kids, including the one who called Ivan a hippo, laugh.

  “Good try,” says Hannu cheerily, winking at the laughing kids.

  Ivan’s expression darkens. I jump in, trying to direct the conversation in a way that will raise Hannu’s dormant danger alarms without tipping off Ivan.

  “Is it weird to have strangers just showing up at your village?” I ask.

  Hannu shrugs. “We get tourists on the bus sometimes.” He glances over at Ivan. “I hope you guys packed sunscreen. Your friend is turning red.”

  Ivan grabs my arm before I can form another awkward question. “Come on, Adam. We have work to do.”

  Hannu looks disappointed as Ivan drags me away. “Maybe we’ll play later, yeah?”

  “I hope so,” I tell him.

  As soon as we’re out of earshot, Ivan hisses to me, “That was him!” He looks thrilled. “You might be worthless in a fight, but you can sniff out a Garde better than any of our scouts.”

  I glance over my shoulder. Hannu has already put us out of his mind, helping some of the younger kids practice their form.

  “We can’t confirm that’s him,” I say.

  “Oh, come on, Adamus,” groans Ivan. “I should’ve choked him right out there.”

  “You don’t want to waste the General’s time until we can be sure,” I say, trying to buy time. “Plus, even if that is our Garde, you don’t know he’s Number Three.”

  Ivan sneers at me, and I can tell his mind is made up. When we get back into the hut, he grabs the nearest aid-worker by the shirt and pulls him over to the window.

  “That kid,” he says, pointing at Hannu. “Where does he live?”

  The aid-worker hesitates, but I can see the fear in his eyes.

  “Not sure,” he mumbles. “Outside the village, I think. Near the ravine.”

  “Good enough,” says Ivan, shoving the aid-worker away. He glances at me before disappearing into the backroom. “I’ll tell Father you say hi.”

  So that’s it. Soon the strike team will be here. I return to the doorway, watching Hannu dribble past a defender and flip a layup into the basket.

  “He’s dense,” observes One, suddenly standing next to me, looking at Hannu. “You have to tell him.”

  I nod. No more waiting around, no more planning, no more subtlety. There will never be a more perfect opportunity to defect. I’ve already watched one Loric die because of my uncertainty, because I failed to act in time. I won’t let this one be captured, or worse.

  “You’re right,” I whisper back. “Tonight, we escape.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Night has fallen. The jungle around me is alive with strange noises. I should be worried about what kinds of animals are out there, snapping branches as they stalk me, hissing around my ankles. But there are other, more dangerous predators in the jungle tonight. Ones that I need to stop.

  I run through the jungle with only a vague idea of where I’m going. Maybe running isn’t exactly accurate—more like stumbling; it seems like every vine on the
jungle floor has a mind to trip me. It’s so dark out here, I’m practically blind. My knees and elbows are scraped from falls, my face cut from the branches slapping against it. Still, I press on toward the ravine.

  The communicator on my hip buzzes with static. I swiped it before sneaking out of the aid-worker hut. My plan is simple, the best I can do under such circumstances. Get to Hannu and his Cêpan, tell them what’s happening and use the communicator to monitor my people’s movements. Hopefully, with Hannu’s knowledge of the jungle, we’ll be able to stay one step ahead of the soon-to-be-arriving strike team. It won’t be easy—because of the remote location, my father has authorized a larger unit than normal, including a piken—but I know how my people think, how they attack. I can do this.

  All I have to do is get to Hannu first. A task this thick jungle isn’t making very easy.

  When the jungle begins to thin out before me, moonlight shining through the canopy overhead, I know that I’m close. I can hear rushing water in the distance, the river coursing through the nearby ravine.

  And then I see it. A single, solidly built hut. The jungle around it has been painstakingly cleared, leaving a flat expanse that’s littered with angular mahogany equipment. As my eyes adjust, I realize the objects are some kind of homemade obstacle course. So Hannu does more training than just pickup basketball games in the village. That’s good. He’ll need to be agile for what’s to come.

  I approach the hut cautiously. The last thing I need is to spook Hannu and his Cêpan. If he’s anything like Conrad Hoyle, Hannu’s Cêpan might emerge from that hut with guns blazing.

  I stop, stiffening, the hair on the back of my neck rising. Footsteps are crashing through the jungle behind me. I break out in a cold sweat despite the African heat.