The Fugitive (9 page)

DON’T MISS BOOK FIVE IN THE
NEW YORK TIMES
BESTSELLING I AM NUMBER FOUR SERIES

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.

How long have I been asleep, and where the heck am I?

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.”

FROM THE CRACKED SECOND-FLOOR WINDOW OF
an abandoned textile factory, I watch an old man in a ragged trench coat and filthy jeans crouch down in the doorway of the boarded-up building across the street. Once he’s settled, the man pulls a brown-bagged bottle from his coat and starts drinking. It’s the middle of the afternoon—I’m on watch—and he’s the only living soul I’ve seen in this abandoned part of Baltimore since we got here yesterday. It’s a quiet, deserted place, and yet it’s still preferable to the version of Washington, D.C., I saw in Ella’s vision. For now at least, it doesn’t look like the Mogadorians have pursued us from Chicago.

Although technically, they wouldn’t have to. There’s already a Mogadorian among us.

Behind me, Sarah stomps her foot. We’re in what used to be the foreman’s office, dust everywhere, the floorboards swollen and mildewed. I turn around just
in time to see her frowning at the remains of a cockroach on the bottom of her sneaker.

“Careful. You might go crashing right through the floor,” I tell her, only half joking.

“I guess it was too much to ask for all your secret bases to be in penthouse apartments, huh?” Sarah asks, fixing me with a teasing smile.

We slept in this old factory last night, our sleeping bags laid on the sunken floorboards. Both of us are filthy, it’s been a couple of days since our last real shower, and Sarah’s blond hair is caked with dirt. She’s still beautiful to me. Without her at my side, I might’ve totally lost it after the attack in Chicago, where the Mogs kidnapped Ella and destroyed the penthouse.

I grimace at the thought, and Sarah’s smile immediately fades. I leave the window and walk over to her.

“This not knowing is killing me,” I say, shaking my head. “I don’t know what to do.”

Sarah touches my face, trying to console me. “At least we know they won’t hurt Ella. Not if what you saw in that vision is true.”

“Yeah,” I snort. “They’ll just turn her into a brainwashed traitor, like . . .”

I trail off, thinking of the rest of our missing friends and the turncoat they traveled with. We still haven’t heard anything from Six and the others, not that
there’s an easy way for them to get in touch with us. All their Chests are here and, assuming they could even try reaching us by more traditional methods, they wouldn’t have the first clue how to find us, seeing as we had to flee Chicago.

The only thing I know for sure is that I have a fresh scar on my leg, the fourth of its kind. It doesn’t hurt anymore, but it feels like a weight. If the Garde had stayed apart, if we’d kept the Loric charm intact, that fourth scar would’ve symbolized my death. Instead, one of my friends is dead in Florida, and I don’t know how, or who, or what’s happened to the rest of them.

I feel in my gut that Five is still alive. I saw him in Ella’s vision, standing alongside Setrákus Ra, a traitor. He must have led the others into a trap, and now one of them won’t be coming back. Six, Marina, Eight, Nine—one of them is gone.

Sarah wraps her hand around mine, massaging it, trying to ease some of the tension.

“I can’t stop thinking about what I saw in that vision . . . ,” I begin, trailing off. “We’d lost, Sarah. And now it feels like it’s happening for real. Like this is the beginning of the end.”

“That doesn’t mean anything and you know it,” Sarah replied. “Look at Eight. Wasn’t there some kind of death prophecy about him? And he survived.”

I frown, not stating the obvious, that Eight could be
the one who was killed down in Florida.

“I know it seems bleak,” Sarah continues, “and, I mean, it is pretty bad, John. Obviously.”

“Good pep talk.”

She squeezes my hand, hard, and widens her eyes at me like
shut up
.

“But those guys down in Florida are Garde,” she says. “They’re going to fight, they’re going to keep going and they’re going to win. You have to believe, John. When you were comatose back in Chicago, we never gave up on you. We kept fighting and it paid off. Just when it seemed like we’d lost, you
saved
us.”

I think about the state my friends were in when I finally awoke back in Chicago. Malcolm was mortally wounded and Sarah badly hurt, Sam nearly out of ammo and Bernie Kosar unaccounted for. They’d put it all on the line for me.

“You guys saved me first,” I reply.

“Yeah, obviously. So return the favor and save our planet.”

The way she says it, like it’s no big deal, makes me smile. I pull Sarah close and kiss her.

“I love you, Sarah Hart.”

“Love you back, John Smith.”

“Um, I love you guys, too . . .”

Sarah and I both turn to find Sam standing in the doorway, an awkward smile on his face. Curled up in
his arms is a huge orange cat, one of the six Chimærae that our new Mogadorian friend brought with him, drawn to us by Bernie Kosar’s rooftop howling. Apparently, the stick BK took from Eight’s Chest was some kind of Chimæra totem used to lead them to us, like a Loric dog whistle. We stuck to back roads on our way to Baltimore, careful to make sure we weren’t tailed. The crowded van ride gave us plenty of time to brainstorm names for our new allies. This particular Chimæra, preferring a chubby cat-shape as its regular form, Sam insisted we name Stanley, in honor of Nine’s old alter ego. If he’s still alive, I’m sure Nine will be thrilled to have a fat cat with an obvious affection for Sam named after him.

“Sorry,” Sam says, “did I spoil the moment?”

“Not at all,” Sarah replies, stretching out one arm towards Sam. “Group hug?”

“Maybe later,” Sam says, looking at me. “The others are back and setting everything up downstairs.”

I nod, reluctantly letting go of Sarah and walking over to the duffel bag with our supplies. “They have any problems?”

Sam shakes his head. “They had to settle for just a couple of little camping generators. Not enough cash for something big. Anyway, it should be enough juice.”

“What about surveillance?” I ask, pulling the white locator tablet and its adapter free from the duffel bag.

“Adam said he didn’t see any Mog scouts,” Sam answers.

“Well, out of anyone, he’d know how to spot them,” Sarah puts in.

“True,” I reply halfheartedly, still not trusting this so-called good Mogadorian, even though he’s done nothing but help us since showing up in Chicago. Even now, with him and Malcolm setting up our newly purchased electronics on the factory floor below, I feel a vague sense of unease at having one of them so close. I push it down. “Let’s go.”

We follow Sam down a rusty spiral staircase and onto the floor of the factory proper. The place must’ve been closed down in a hurry because there are still racks of musty, eighties-style men’s suits pushed up against the walls and half-full boxes of raincoats abandoned on conveyor belts.

A Chimæra in golden retriever form that Sarah insisted we call Biscuit tumbles into our path, her teeth clenched around the ripped sleeve of a suit, locked in a tug-of-war with Dust, the gray husky. Another Chimæra, Gamera, which Malcolm named after some old movie monster, trundles after the others but has trouble keeping up in his snapping turtle form. The two other new Chimærae—a hawk we dubbed Regal and a scrawny raccoon we named Bandit—watch the game from one of the inoperative conveyor belts.

It’s a relief to see them playing. The Chimærae weren’t in the best shape when Adam liberated them from Mogadorian experimentation, and they still weren’t doing so hot when he brought them to Chicago. It was slow going, but I was able to use my healing Legacy to fix them up. There was something inside of them, something Mogadorian, that actually felt like it was pushing back against my powers. It even made my Lumen flare up briefly, something that’s never happened when using my healing. Ultimately, though, whatever the Mogs did was washed away by my Legacy.

I’d never actually used my healing Legacy on a Chimæra before that night. Luckily, it worked, because there was one Chimæra in even worse condition than all our new friends.

“Have you seen BK?” I ask Sam, scanning the room for him. I had found him on the roof of the John Hancock Center, shredded by Mogadorian blaster fire and barely clinging to life. I used my healing on him, praying that it would work. Even though he’s better now, I’ve still been keeping an extra-close eye on him, probably because the fates of so many of my other friends are unknown.

“There,” Sam replies, pointing.

At one end of the room, against a wall covered with competing graffiti tags, are a trio of industrial-size laundry bins overflowing with piles of khaki pants. It’s
at the summit of one of these piles that Bernie Kosar rests, the antics of Biscuit and Dust seeming to tire him out. Despite my healing, he’s still weak from the fight in Chicago—and also missing a jagged chunk from one of his ears—but with my animal telepathy I can sense a sort of contentedness coming off him as he watches the other Chimærae. When BK sees us enter, his tail thumps fresh dust clouds from the pile of old clothes.

Sam sets down Stanley, and the cat trundles over to the clothes piles with BK, settling into what I guess is the designated Chimæra napping zone.

“Never thought I’d have my own Chimæra,” Sam says, “much less a half dozen of them.”

“And I never thought I’d be working with one of
them
,” I reply, my gaze settling on Adam.

At the center of the factory floor, steelwork benches are bolted into the floor. Sam’s dad, Malcolm, and Adam are setting up the computer equipment they just purchased by trading in some of my waning supply of Loric gemstones. Because there’s no electricity running to this old factory, they had to buy some small battery-powered generators for the trio of laptops and mobile hotspot. I watch Adam hooking up one of the laptop batteries—his deathly pale skin, lank black hair and angular features making him slightly more human looking than the usual Mogadorians—and remind myself that he’s on our side. Sam and Malcolm seem
to trust him; plus he’s got a Legacy, the power to create shock waves, which he inherited from One. If I hadn’t seen him use the Legacy with my own eyes, I’m not sure I’d even think it was possible. Part of me wants to believe, maybe even needs to believe, that a Mog wouldn’t be able to just steal a Legacy, that he has to be worthy. That it happened for a reason.

“Look at it this way,” Sam says quietly as we walk over to the others. “Humans, Loric, Mogs . . . we’ve got like the first meeting of the Intergalactic United Nations over here. It’s historic.”

I snort and step up to the laptop Adam has just finished connecting. He takes one look at me and must detect something—maybe I’m not doing such a good job concealing my conflicted feelings—because he looks down and steps aside, making room for me and moving on to the next laptop. He keeps his eyes fixed on the screen, typing quickly.

“How’d it go?” I ask.

“We got most of the gear we need,” Malcolm replies as he fiddles with a wireless router. Even with his beard starting to get majorly unkempt, Malcolm looks healthier than he did when I first met him. “Anything happen here?”

“Nothing,” I say, shaking my head. “It’d take a miracle for the Garde in Florida to track us down. And Ella . . . I keep hoping her voice will pop into my head
and tell me where they took her, but she hasn’t made contact.”

“At least we’ll know where the others are once the tablet is hooked up,” Sarah says.

“With the gear we bought, I think we can run a hack on the John Hancock building’s phone network,” Malcolm suggests. “That way, if they try calling in from the road, we can intercept the call.”

“Good idea,” I reply, plugging the white locator tablet into the laptop and waiting for it to boot up.

Malcolm pushes his glasses up his nose and clears his throat. “It was Adam’s idea, actually.”

“Oh,” I reply, keeping my voice neutral.

“That
is
a good idea,” Sarah chimes in. She scoots in next to Malcolm and starts working on the third laptop, giving me a look like I should try saying something nice to Adam. When I don’t, an awkward silence settles over the group. There have been a lot of those since we left Chicago.

Before it can get too weird, the tablet boots up. Sam peers over my shoulder.

“They’re still in Florida,” Sam says.

There’s a solitary dot for me on the tablet, pulsing on the East Coast, and then miles to the south are the four dots for the surviving Garde. Three of the dots are bunched together, basically overlapping into one glowing blob, while a fourth is a short distance away.
Immediately, scenarios for that isolated dot begin cycling through my head. Was one of our friends captured? Did they have to separate after they were attacked? Is that Five apart from the others? Does that prove he’s a traitor, like in my vision?

I’m distracted from these thoughts by the fifth dot on the tablet, literally an ocean away from the others. This one hovers over the Pacific, its glow a little dimmer than the rest.

“That must be Ella,” I say, my brow furrowing. “But how—”

Before I can finish my question, Ella’s dot flickers and disappears. A second later, before I can even process my panic, Ella blinks back to life, now hovering over Australia.

“What the hell?” Sam asks, staring over my shoulder.

“It’s moving so fast,” I say. “Maybe they’re transporting her somewhere.”

The dot disappears again, then reappears at an impossible point over Antarctica, nearly off the edge of the tablet’s screen. For the next few seconds, it flickers in and out, bouncing across the map. I smack the side of the tablet with my palm out of frustration.

“They’re scrambling the signal somehow,” I say. “We’ve got no chance of finding her while it’s like this.”

Sam points to the others clustered around Florida.
“If they were going to hurt Ella, wouldn’t they have done it already?”

“Setrákus Ra wants her,” Sarah puts in, looking at me. I had told them all about that nightmare scene in D.C. and Ella ruling alongside Setrákus Ra. It’s still hard for any of us to believe, but at least it gives us one advantage. We know what Setrákus Ra wants.

“I hate to leave her out there,” I say grimly. “But I don’t think he’ll harm her. Not yet, anyway.”