Worse still, these are not human soldiers. They"re Mogs.
"Guys," I say, shaking Malcolm"s shoulder. "We have company."
I act without thinking, pulling Malcolm away from the bars and shouting to Sam, "Stand in the center of your cell and cover your head!"
Sam is confused, unsure of what I"m about to do, but he"s smart enough to know we don"t have time for explanations: he quickly a.s.sumes a huddle in the middle of his cell.
I reach my hands through the bars, sending feelers out to the other side of the cell"s wall. I find the wall, the floor, then I sense the entire structure of the wall.
And then I blast.
The wall behind Sam crumbles, seismic shock ripping straight up its seams. But this whole structure is connected, and the impact sends aftershocks through the concrete floor beneath Sam. The floor of the cell juts out against the gangway, banging it so hard it almost buckles.
Sam tumbles forward and Malcolm and I are knocked hard against the gangway"s railing.
The Mogadorians are getting closer.
I turn back to the cell, where the dust is beginning to settle. There"s now an opening for Sam to get through the wall to the other side.
"Go!" I say. "Run!"
Sam picks himself off the floor, looks at me, then does as I tell him.
I look around. The floor beneath the cell has fissured, warping the cell bars enough that I think we can squeeze through them. I push Malcolm forward, but he struggles to get through the bars.
Mogadorians have completely swarmed the complex now-there must be at least thirty of them, with more coming, and they"re already making their way up the stairs to the gangway we"re standing on. We have thirty seconds, max.
Malcolm finally squeezes through into the cell, then turns to me.
"Hurry!" he pleads.
I look back at the approaching Mogadorian swarm. In the rear, in commander"s attire, I see Ivanick. The only person in this world I fear as much as my father.
The General said he had been promoted, that he was working in the Southwest. And here he is.
My blood runs cold.
I step to the bars, about to squeeze through. Then I stop.
"What are you doing?" Malcolm begs. "Adam?"
I realize I"m not going through those bars. If Malcolm and Sam are going to have a shot of escaping the Mogadorians, one of us is going to have to hold them off. They won"t stop chasing Malcolm and Sam unless someone makes them stop.
Besides, I don"t want to run from my own people anymore. I want to kill them.
"Go," I say.
"What? Adam, no."
"Go with your son. Now."
I can see from Malcolm"s eyes, from the dawning horror in his face as he realizes what I"m saying, how much he cares about me.
But I also know he has a greater responsibility to his son than he has to me. After one last moment"s hesitation, he turns and disappears through the hole in the cell"s wall.
I turn back to the approaching Mogs. They"ve slowed down, but their swords are raised. They"re coming from both ends of the gangway, surrounding me.
I scan the complex. The stairways are full, the first floor is swarming with Mogs, and both routes down the gangway are blocked.
I have a choice: be captured, or go out swinging.
I aim my Legacy at the corner of the room behind one group of Mogadorians, and blast. The entire room shudders, and the gangway breaks free from the wall, knocking several Mogadorians to the ground below.
I grip onto the gangway as tight as I can. Whirling to the other side of the room, I blast again.
This time I almost flip over the gangway myself as the struts supporting it give out completely and it tips out towards the center of the room. There"s no way back into the cell now. I"m flat against the railing, but still safe.
The floor below is teeming with Mogadorians. I look both ways down the gangway. Some Mog soldiers are merely struggling to stay on the precarious, creaking structure, but those with a firm grip are still coming, sliding along the railing towards me like acrobats. Getting closer.
I could blast the gangway again to hurt the Mogs still clinging to it, but that"s not nearly enough to get me out of here safely.
My situation is so hopeless I almost laugh.
"Adamus," I hear. I look down to the floor, to the ma.s.sed Mogadorians, weapons all pointed at me. Among them stands Ivanick, staring up at me.
His expression is cold, mock-pitying. Nothing about his manner betrays any surprise at seeing me here, under these circ.u.mstances.
"Long time no see," he says.
I know I"ve only bought Sam and Malcolm a minute"s lead on the Mog sc.u.m, but I hope it helps. I"m ready to deal with whatever comes my way next.
"You"ve got some power, Adam. It"s impressive. I"m sure Dr. Zakos or one of our other scientists would love to study you, to learn from your ability. Give up now and maybe we can work something out. You can be a test subject or something. I know how you like that." It"s strange to see Ivanick promoted to a leadership role. He doesn"t really have the brains for it. But brains never counted for much among the Mogs.
"I mean," he says, letting out a little laugh, "of course we"ll still have to kill you when we"re done."
I cling to the bars. The Mogadorians are sliding closer, just waiting for the order to take me out.
"You suck at bargaining," I say.
Ivan laughs. "Well, what else are you going to do? From what I can see, you"ve run out of options. It"s surrender-or-be-killed time."
There"s no way I"m letting myself get captured.
Go out swinging.
I look to the wall perpendicular to the half-fallen gangway. The armory is behind it. I get an idea.
"That"s not exactly true, Ivan."
I reach forward with my mind: one hundred yards, two hundred yards, three hundred yards. I stop.
There it is.
I see Ivan, staring up at me. His face has changed from mocking to suspiciously fearful. There"s no way he can know exactly what I"m about to do, but he knows me well enough to read my expression: I"m going to wipe us all out.
"That"s right," I say. "The armory."
"No way," he says. "You wouldn"t. You"re Adamus. Son of the great General Andrakkus Sutekh. You can"t bring yourself to kill one of us, let alone all of us."
I grin at him. Watch me.
I let rip another seismic pulse, aimed at the ground right below the armory.
Only a moment after the impulse leaves my body, my blast triggers a ma.s.sive explosion.
There is a deafening boom, steel and concrete flying.
All around me I see Mogadorian bodies getting riddled with shrapnel.
The whole thing begins falling apart around me. The gangway collapses and I go flying, landing so hard on the ground that I"m almost knocked unconscious.
My ears ringing, my eyes half blinded by dust, I crane my neck to see tumbling concrete knocking out Mogadorian after Mogadorian. The whole cave is coming down around us.
On the ground by the fallen gangway I see Ivanick, his head nearly severed from his neck by the collapsed steel. Dead.
Mogadorians scream all around me.
To my own surprise, I like the sound.
Something heavy lands against my shoulder, slamming my head against the floor, pinning me in place. I can"t move, and am too stunned to know if it was a minor wound or a fatal blow.
Why keep track now? I think. There"s more where that came from.
Indeed there is: concrete keeps falling, all around me.
As the entire structure gives out and collapses onto us, I know I only have a few moments of consciousness left. But I"m not afraid.
I survived my fall down the ravine. I survived the implosion of Ashwood Estates. I wasn"t even conscious then, and Malcolm said something kept us from being crushed, that it was as if some force kept us safe as the world fell down around us.
Third time"s the charm.
It may just be exhaustion, it may just be delirium, but I"m overcome by a deep, sweet certainty that I was meant to survive. That my ultimate purpose lies somewhere beyond these tumbling walls, sometime beyond this frenzied moment. That the best of me is yet to come.
I will live.
EXCERPT FROM THE RISE OF NINE.
THE LEGACIES CONTINUE IN.
CHAPTER 1.
6A. Seriously? I look at the boarding pa.s.s in my hand, its large type announcing my seat a.s.signment, and wonder if Crayton chose this seat on purpose. It could be a coincidence. The way things have gone recently, I am not a big believer in coincidences. I wouldn"t be surprised if Marina sat down behind me in row seven, and Ella made her way back to row ten. But, no, the two girls drop down beside me without saying a word, and join me in studying each person boarding the plane. Being hunted, you are constantly on guard. Who knows when the Mogadorians might appear?
Crayton will board last, after he"s watched to see who else gets on the plane, and only once he feels the flight is absolutely secure.
I raise the shade and watch the ground crew hustle back and forth under the plane; the city of Barcelona is a faint outline in the distance.
Marina"s knee bounces furiously up and down next to mine. The battle against an army of Mogadorians yesterday at the lake, the death of her Cepan and finding her Chest-and now, it"s the first time in almost ten years that she"s left the town where she spent her childhood. She"s nervous.
"Everything okay?" I ask. My newly blond hair falls into my face and startles me. I forgot I dyed it this morning. It"s just one of many changes in the last forty-eight hours.
"Everyone looks okay," Marina whispers, keeping her eyes on the crowded aisle. "We"re safe, as far as I can tell."
"Good, but that"s not what I meant." I gently set my foot on hers and she stops bouncing her knee. She offers me a quick apologetic smile before returning to her close watch of each boarding pa.s.senger. A few seconds later, her knee starts bouncing again.
I feel sorry for Marina. She was locked up in an isolated orphanage with a Cepan who refused to train her; she was stuck with a Cepan who had lost sight of why we are here on Earth in the first place. I"m doing my best to help her, to fill in the gaps. I can train her to control her strength and when to use her developing Legacies. But first I"m trying to show her that it"s okay to trust me. Not only did she just lose her best friend, Hector, back at the lake, but, like me, she lost her Cepan right in front of her. Both of us will carry that with us forever.
The Mogadorians will pay for what they"ve done. For taking so many who we"ve loved, here on Earth and on Lorien. It"s my personal mission to destroy every last one of them, and I"ll be sure Marina gets her revenge, too.
"How is it down there, Six?" Ella asks, leaning over Marina.
I turn back toward the window. The men below the plane begin to clear away their equipment, conducting a few last-minute checks. "So far, so good."
My seat is directly over the wing, which is comforting to me. On more than one occasion I"ve had to use my Legacies to help a pilot out of a jam. Once, over southern Mexico, I used my telekinesis to push the plane a dozen degrees to the right, only seconds before crashing into the side of a mountain. Last year I got 124 pa.s.sengers safely through a vicious thunderstorm in Kansas by surrounding the plane with an impervious cloud of cool air. We shot, unharmed, through the storm like a bullet through a balloon.
When the ground crew moves on to the next plane, I follow Ella"s gaze toward the front of the aisle. We"re both impatient for Crayton to board. That will mean everything is okay, at least for now. Every seat is full but the one behind Ella. Where is he? I glance out at the wing again, scanning the area for anything out of the ordinary.
"Six?" Marina asks. I hear her buckle and unbuckle her seat belt nervously.
I lean down and shove my backpack under my seat. It"s practically empty so it folds down easily. Crayton bought it for me at the airport. The three of us need to look like normal teenagers, he says, like high school students on a field trip. That"s why there"s an open biology textbook on my lap.
"Yeah?" I respond.