Bounders (28 page)

And then it's coming from outside, too. A second noise. An alarm.

The others are bent over like me. Shielding their ears and trying to escape the noise. And then the noise fades—not the alarm, that keeps ringing—but the other noise. The inner noise.

I lift my head and turn toward the cell. The alien rises. He is on his feet. He is walking to the door of the cell. And I know, as certainly as I've known anything in my life, that the noise came from him.

Mira steps closer to the cell glass. Every instinct in me screams to pull her back, but I can't. I'm frozen. Frozen in fear and completely mesmerized and immobilized by the green manlike figure walking toward us. The figure who, despite being locked behind a reinforced glass door and guarded by an occludium shield, just invaded my brain.

He reaches the glass. He tips his large, bulbous head to the side, like he's considering us. The moment stretches on and on.

And the alarm keeps ringing. We'll be busted in seconds. We aren't even trying to get away.

Mira lifts her gloved hand—slowly, like she's pulling it up through fast-moving water—until it lies flat against the thick glass wall separating her from the alien. Then the alien raises his wide, green, pulsing palm. He places it against the glass.

Mira's glove glows. Streams of light race to her fingers and pulse to the rhythm of the alien's hand. Their eyes lock.

They are communicating.

Mira's face colors pink, and her eyes gleam as she communes with the alien. I've never seen her so engaged. She's beautiful. I can't tear my eyes from her.

Shouts erupt from the end of the hall and shake me from my trance.

I blink hard and turn to the others. “We need to go! Now! Use your packs!”

“This way,” Cole says. He soars down an adjacent hallway. Marco and Lucy jet after him.

Mira doesn't move. I yank her free hand. “Mira! Snap out of it. We're going.” I shove her down the hallway. “Fly!”

She takes off, and I follow. We quickly catch up to the others. Marco is in the lead. He zooms around corners and soars through the halls until we come to a wall.

“What now?” he asks, looking at me.

“Backtrack?” I suggest. “Take another turn?”

Cole shakes his head. “No good. I've reviewed the blueprint, remember? Marco was right. There's only one way in and one way out. This is a dead end.”

“Find a place to hide,” I say. I start back down the hallway, searching for an unlocked door.

“No dice,” Marco says. “These are all cells. See-through glass. Face it, Ace. We're busted.”

Everyone stares at me. But I don't have any ideas. And who made me the leader anyway? I crouch down and cover my head. I have to think. There has to be a way out.

The shouts in the hall intensify. They'll be on us in a minute. That's it. We're cooked.

Mira stands a few meters away. In her own space, as usual. I don't pay any attention to her. None of us do. It's not like any of us think she'll offer up a great idea for escape.

But a glimmer catches my eye, and I turn. A ball of light emerges in the air before Mira. And—
bam!
—she's gone.

“That's it!” I yell.

“What?” Cole says.

“Ummm . . . where's Mira?” Lucy asks.

“She bounded!” I say.

“No really. Where'd she run off to?” Lucy says.

“I told you. She bounded. And we have to, too!”

“You're serious?” Marco asks.

“Yes. Do it now. Gather your atoms. Then bound. We don't have much time.”

“Where do we bound to?” Lucy asks.

“The Ezone. That's the only place we all know how to get to. Quick! Do it!” The shouts sharpen. The officers are nearly on us.

Marco and Lucy gather their atoms.

“I can't do it,” Cole says.

“You can.”

Cole shakes his head. “No, Jasper. I can't. I'll disappear. Disintegrate. I've never gotten one hundred percent. Not even in drills. I can't do it.”

I take Cole by the shoulders and dodge my head around so he's forced to look me in the eyes. “Trust me. You can do this. You have to take a leap of faith.” In my peripheral vision, Marco and Lucy vanish.

Cole nods. He scrunches up his face and bites his lip. Then he waves his gloves through the air, gathering up the building blocks he needs to bound.

I do the same—scooping and pulling atoms. Cole looks at me one last time. His ball of light hovers before him.

One, two, three . . . ,
I mouth.

Then I bound.

MY WHOLE BODY TINGLES WITH CREEPY-CRAWLIES,
and my shoulder hits the ground hard.
Ouch.
I open my eyes. Darkness. But a familiar darkness. I made it to the Ezone.

“Jasper the Bounder has arrived,” Marco says.

“Cole?” I ask.

“He's over here,” Lucy calls. “And Mira's here, too.”

Relief floods through me. We all made it. We actually bounded.

“Thank goodness we had our gloves with us,” Lucy says.

Thank goodness is right. I'm not going anywhere without my gloves anymore.

“Well, now, what have we here?” a familiar voice asks.

Oh no. Gedney.

“Finally decided to hurry, did we?” Gedney asks.

Gedney has that wacky professor vibe, so I kind of expect him to be all flustered that the five of us suddenly popped into the Ezone. Nope. Cool and calculating Gedney showed up to the party. I can't tell at first whether he's going to be an ally or the one to sell us down the river.

And cool and calculating Jasper definitely did not show up to the party. I barely have the energy to think. None of us do. We're scattered around the Ezone floor. Only Mira moved from her landing spot. She sits in her lonely corner, rocking.

No one says anything, and I realize they're all looking at me. Again, people, who made me the spokesperson?

“That's right,” I say. He knows we bounded, so the best we can hope for is spin. “We wanted to put everything you've taught us into practice.”

“I see,” Gedney says.

I brace myself for all the obvious follow-ups: you're not supposed to bound on your own; you're not supposed to be out of the dorms; you're not supposed to be in the Ezone without supervision (which I guess, technically, we're not). And those don't even touch the most incriminating questions: Where on earth were you bounding from? And why?

Gedney skips over all of that. “How was it?” he asks.

“What?” He lost me. What are we talking about?

“It was your first bound,” he says. “I want to know how you liked it.”

“Oh,” I say. Bounding was awesome, but how do I describe it?

“Tickly,” Lucy says.

Gedney laughs. “Yes, I suppose so. Marco, what did you think?”

“No words, Geds,” Marco says, “except that I swallowed my stomach and thought I might explode. When can we do it again?”

Gedney smiles and turns to Cole. “Good work, son.
I
knew you could do it. But I didn't think
you
knew. What changed?”

“Ummm . . . ,” Cole starts.

Cole is the worst liar. Ever. He's seconds away from blowing our cover.

Someone else is a second ahead of him. The door to the Ezone blasts open. The florescent light from the corridor pours in.

Silhouetted by the light, Bad Breath steps over the threshold.

An acidy taste rises in my throat. He does not belong in the Ezone. He must be here for us.

“Can I help you?” Gedney asks.

“No, old man,” Bad Breath says. “I've found what I'm looking for.” He marches into the Ezone and yanks Marco up by the shirt collar. “Busted, wise guy.”

A million thoughts race through my brain. Should I say something? Try to defend Marco? Offer myself up? Spit out an admission so we get a few extra points for honesty?

“Take your hand off him,” Gedney says. His voice rings with a steely confidence I've never heard him use.

“What's it to you, gramps?” Bad Breath says. “We're looking for a group of five who broke into the cellblock. This crew was missing from the dormitories. The shoe fits. It's a bust.”

“The cellblock, you say?” Gedney's eyes lock with mine. “You have the wrong group. These kids have been with me all night. We've been running extra drills.”

Bad Breath hesitates but doesn't let go of Marco's collar. “Drills? There's no record of that. These kids are supposed to be in the dorms. They're not.”

Gedney elbows in front of Marco, breaking Bad Breath's hold. “No record? My mistake. As I said, we were doing drills. How do you think we got to be the top-ranked pod?”

Bad Breath glares at Gedney. His head twitches. Even in the dark Ezone, I can see his cheeks swell. He knows Gedney's lying. And he knows there's nothing he can do about it. He shifts his gaze to me—his eyes brimming with threats—and then stomps out of the Ezone.

Marco backs away from Gedney and smooths his shirt. “Thanks, Geds.” Marco looks at me and raises his eyebrows. What are we going to tell Gedney about the cellblock?

I have no clue. If we spin some tale that doesn't involve the alien, will he buy it? Probably not. His nickname isn't Einstein for nothing.

Gedney saves me the trouble of deciding what to do. “How did you know he was in the cellblock? How did you know about him at all?” he asks.

Whoa. I guess cool and calculating Gedney is not going to waste time.

I glance back at Marco. We might as well go with the truth. It's less confusing, and I'm too tired to think up a plausible cover story. “We saw him on the first night,” I say. “In the med room.”

“Ahhh.” Gedney shakes his head. “Everything happened so fast that night. And half the staff was busy with the kickoff for the EarthBound Academy. There wasn't time to take the necessary precautions. Other than the shield, of course.”

“The alien just got here?” Cole asks. “So he didn't cause the Incident at Bounding Base 51?”

“Oh, you kids. You've put a lot together, haven't you?” Gedney shuffles across the floor of the Ezone and lowers himself onto the chair we practiced lifting. One of its legs is broken from Mira's throw, so it wobbles whenever Gedney shifts his weight. “No, of course he didn't cause the Incident. He's just one man. The Incident at Bounding Base 51 was a highly orchestrated military event. And he was probably about your age when it occurred.”

“A man?” Lucy says. “All I saw in that room was a green creature with glowing hands and a big pulsing brain.”

“Then perhaps you weren't looking closely enough,” Gedney says. “Is he a human like you and me? No. But how different is he really?”

“But his race. His kind. Whatever you call it,” I say. “They did cause the Incident at Bounding Base 51, right?”

Gedney nods. “We've been at war with his kind for thirteen years.”

I can't believe what Gedney is saying. We've been at war all this time—thirteen years—and no one knew? How is that possible? How could they justify keeping that secret from the billions of people on Earth?

“The alien's a prisoner of war?” Lucy asks.

Gedney nods again.

“We have their man,” Cole says. “They're the ones who'll be looking for revenge now.”

“Oh, I suspect so,” Gedney says.

My breath comes fast, and a low-simmered rage brews in my blood. “If the alien's a war prisoner, what does that make us?”

Gedney doesn't answer. He stands and walks away from our group, hunching more and more with each step.

“I said, what does that make us?” I shout. “Soldiers in your war?”

“It's not my war,” Gedney says. He keeps his eyes fixed on the floor.

What's that supposed to mean? Not his war. Well, it sure is somebody's war. “All this time you've stuck with the story that Bounders have a special gift at space travel. And all the while you've been breeding soldiers!”

I feel like my brain might explode. My body still feels like jelly from the bound, and now Gedney is serving up one nugget of classified planetary security after the next. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to force everything out. When I clear away most of my thoughts, I'm left with one stark image: Mira's glove pressed against the glass, pulsing to the rhythm of the alien's hand. Then it dawns on me. The alien's hands. Gedney's gloves.

“The gloves,” I say. “They're the aliens' technology. We stole it from them. Didn't we?”

Gedney deflates. He braces himself against the Ezone wall. He won't look any of us in the eye. “You'll have to talk to Waters. I've said enough tonight. It's late, and you have a busy few days before you return to Earth.”

The morning pod session is canceled. Waters, Gedney, and the other pod leaders were called to an emergency briefing with Admiral Eames.

“Perfect,” Marco says. “They have to talk strategy about how to defeat the little green men.”