The Taking 02: Hover (6 page)

Chapter 6

Jackson and I walk the entire way to Zeus’s building in silence. We reach the doors and he stops me, my hand midmotion to the door. “Are you sure?”

I smile a little. “It’ll be fine,” I say, though I know the words are as much for my sake as his. And then for no reason other than the need to feel his strength, I lean in and hug him tightly. “I’ll be fine.”

Jackson walks me to Zeus’s office, hesitates, then dips back to the stairs. He mouths,
I’ll be right here
, then closes the door, leaving me alone to face Zeus. I lift my hand to knock just as Zeus’s office door opens. “I’ve been expecting you.”

I step inside and take in my surroundings. Dad once told me a wise attack is one where you know your exits. From what I can see there are four doors inside his office, including the one I just came through. I make a mental note that there may be guards stationed outside each of the other doors. Or they could be closets. I had no idea.

Zeus walks over to the wall of windows behind his desk, no doubt the windows Jackson was referring to when we discussed the plan. I feel the gun against my calf, tucked just inside my left boot, and draw a breath. Should I do it now or wait? Zeus presses a hand against the window. It’s dark outside, only a few lights in the distance give away that we’re in a city. He stays in the same position so long, with me standing a few feet away, neither of us speaking, that I begin to wonder if I’m being tested or if he’s expecting someone else to join us. But with each passing second, I feel my heart rate increasing, my nerves twisting into a pretzel. I consider asking about Triad, as Jackson suggested, and then the Operative in me takes over and I reach down for the gun, just as Zeus turns around. I kneel quickly, pretending to adjust the buckle on my boot. Sweat collects on my forehead and I have to draw a quick breath before I stand.

“What are you doing?” Zeus asks as he walks toward me.

I clear my mind, my face of any emotion. “It’s taking me some time to get used to your clothes here. They fit differently than what I’m used to.”

Zeus considers me. “Take your boots off.”

“Sorry?”

He steps closer. “Remove your boots. Now.”

“I wasn’t aware that you had a no-shoe policy in your office,” I say, buying time. If I remove my boots, he’ll know. He may already know. I glimpse around at the doors again. I could shoot and run. I’m a solid shot. Even if I can’t get a kill shot, I would injure him enough that he wouldn’t be able to dial for help, but he could still speak, and if he yelled they would know something happened. Then the healers would get to him before he bled out. An injury shot wouldn’t work, it has to kill him.

This processes through my mind in a second, all while I try to maintain my stress-level. Any increases in my levels, and he would interpret my thoughts. I have to keep them shadowed.

Zeus tilts his head to the side and I can tell he’s trying to puncture through my thoughts. I’m preparing myself that this is about to get bad and fast, when Zeus’s door opens and Jackson comes in, shock on his face. “Oh, I didn’t realize you were still meeting.” Zeus gives him a look that could make children cry.

“Is there something you need?”

Jackson stands tall, so at ease that if we weren’t in such a dire situation I would bow down to his efforts. He’s so much better at this than me. “Yes, you’ve been requested at the Vortex. Another outbreak.”

Zeus glances from Jackson to me and back, each second like watching a wild animal preparing to attack its prey. “Very well,” he finally says. “We will continue this tomorrow.”

I hesitate, unsure if I’ve been dismissed or what. Jackson nods toward the door for me to go and I start for it, when Zeus calls out. “Tomorrow, no boots.”

I am down the stairs and out of his building so fast I feel sure my heart is going to burst out of my chest. I don’t stop until I’m back at the house, inside Jackson and my room, my breathing labored. He definitely knew something was up. But did he know what?

Jackson comes through the door a minute later, looking as jarred by the whole thing as me. “Are you all right?” he asks as he places his hands on my face.

“Yes. But he knew something was up, didn’t he?”

Jackson sits down on the bed and rakes a hand through his hair, then over his face, before finally glancing up at me. “I don’t know. He had guards waiting outside the room. I think he suspected, but he wasn’t sure of what exactly. That was close. Too close.”

“Was there really an uprising?”

He sighs. “No, but the guard refused to disagree with me in front of Zeus, so he said they had contained it.”

I lay back on the bed, allowing my breathing to relax. “Jackson?”

He turns to me. “Yeah?”

“Why are you okay with this? I mean, he’s your grandfather.”

“You don’t know him the way I do. If you did, you’d understand. It’s late. We should get some sleep.” He shuts out the light and I pull off my boots and place the gun under my pillow. I think back to him at the Vortex, how controlled he was, how you could tell they wanted to impress him.

“What?” he asks. I hadn’t realized I was staring at him.

“You were unbelievable today,” I admit, embarassed to say it out loud. “The way they responded to you, respected you. I had no idea…”

He slumps against his pillow on the floor. “It’s the name, Ari, not me.”

I lean over the side of the bed, holding his gaze. “No. It was you, all you.” I lay back down before I give away just how enthralled I’d been with him. I fumble with my covers, my eyes on the ceiling. “So, what now? We try again tomorrow?”

“No. We come up with a new plan.”

Chapter 7

The next day, Jackson walks me to the Panacea for a required check with Emmy before RES training. He doesn’t mention Zeus all morning, and I find myself wishing we would talk about the new plan already so I could stop worrying about it.

I notice the other Ancients watching us as we walk along the path that borders the Cutana River, and I find myself wishing I would have asked to go there alone. I don’t want the others to assume he’s going easier on me, not because I’m worried about how they’ll view me. I don’t want to jeopardize the respect they have for him.

Emmy and I walk out the back of the Panacea and down the back steps into the Juniper Gardens below. Jackson left at Emmy’s insistence that she needed to observe me on her own, which at first made me nervous, but now I’m grateful.

In front of us is nothing but row after row of flowers that smell so sweet they hit me like a spray of perfume the moment we near. To the far left I can see the factories that make everything we use for daily life. And then to the right I spy what I had been most curious about since coming to Loge. It is a forest full of trees, all the same size and shape, all perfectly spaced. A wooden sign stands post at the front of each row, each with a number on it, though from this distance I can’t make out what the numbers are or determine what they might represent. I know what the forest is without having to ask.

“Those are Taking trees, aren’t they?” I motion to the forest, curious what it would have looked like just before the Ancients came to Earth to Take. The trees function as hyperspaces between Earth and Loge, which allowed the Ancients to travel between planets during the Taking. I imagine Ancients lined up in their designated rows, disappearing into the trees like magic. Now, it reminds me of a closed store back home, dark and lonely, desperate to be open for business.

Emmy nods. “That the Taking Forest, though it not been used in some weeks now. Zeus have it monitored.”

I remembered Madison mentioning it yesterday, but it was dark when we passed and I was too tired at that point to care. “What is that beside it?” I ask, pointing to the fenced in square structure to the right of the forest. It is smaller than the houses here, but no more than ten or so Ancients could fit inside. It has the texture of wood, but the sun reflects off it as though it were metal.

“That the Earthly port. It link to the main ports on Earth.”

My pulse speeds up. “You mean that takes you to Earth? Is it operational?”

Emmy gives me a concerned look. “It dangerous, child. Guarded all day, every day.”

I see what she means. Standing just inside the fence are two guards, both armed. “Right,” I say, but inside my mind is churning. Two guards. That’s nothing. I could—

Emmy stops, her expression serious. “Not here.”

“I wasn’t—”

“Not here,” she repeats.

“Okay.” I follow Emmy down the center path that cuts through the Juniper Gardens, forcing my thoughts to remain on the scenery—and not on the plan already developing in my mind.

The flowers are wilder looking than the ones back home. No petunias or roses. These are huge with flowing petals, all rich with vibrant colors—deep purples and bright pinks and yellows that rival the sun. I stare up into the sky and smile. Jackson had said the sky was purple and he was right, though the simple description doesn’t do it justice. The sky is a very faint lavender mixed with teal blue, so it looks more like something someone painted than a reality in front of me. There are clouds in the sky, but very few and the ones that are there are wispy. For the most part it is a clear, beautiful day. The sun is present, as it is on Earth, and that similarity brings me tremendous comfort, even though I know I’m staring at a different sun than ours.

“How you feel, child?” Emmy asks, and now that I’ve met several Ancients, I wonder why her accent is different. Most of the others sound like me, but Emmy sounds as though the language is new for her.

She chuckles lightly behind me. “We hear you too, child,” she says, motioning to her ear. “We hear much more than that device of yours detects.”

I turn to her, studying her to see if I can feel anything from her, but all I see is the same wrinkled woman in front of me and no emotions or stress moving from her to me. “Why can’t I feel you, Emmy?” I ask, hoping I don’t sound rude.

“It’s not our way. We see you. No one sees us.” She gestures further down the path. “Walk with me. I rarely get to walk.”

I nod my head and she takes my hand, shaking it lightly in hers, a smile on her face. Her demeanor is so different out here, not at all concerned or riddled with fear as I remember her from earlier. Finally, the path we’re on dead ends into another path that runs perpendicular to it. Emmy halts beside me and I look over to find her head high, her expression now morose.

“Emmy…?” I follow her gaze straight ahead to the dark and ashy land beyond the wall. , “How does that happen, Emmy?” I ask, shocked at how the gardens, so beautiful, can lead to something so sad.

She draws a breath. “That what happens to us if we stay here.” Her hand twitches in mine and for the briefest second I feel her emotions—worry and sadness run through her.

She reaches out to the tip of a dying flower on the wall in front us. In its younger day, I imagine it was a deep blue or maybe violet. Now, it’s brown and yellow and every other shade of death. I expect Emmy to pluck it from the wall, pruning as I’ve seen my mom do so many times in our yard, but instead she closes her eyes, cradling the flower so she’s barely touching it. Then suddenly, the brown in the flower’s petals recedes, replaced by a vivid yellow. The wrinkled and broken stem straightens and twists until it looks like a freshly grown flower, young and beautiful, without the slightest imperfection.

I’m in awe.

“So it’s true…” I whisper.

Emmy tilts her head. “We the reason we live.” She turns to me, her hand still in mine. “Twenty-five of us responsible for an entire species. But we dying, child. And there are no more born.”

I realize she isn’t telling me all of this to be informative. “What can I do, Emmy? What are you asking me to do?”

Her expression turns urgent and she jerks me toward her roughly, again shocking me with her strength. Her face is inches from mine, her eyes wild, as she says, “Get us off this planet.”

I shake my head, at a loss for how she could think I could do anything. “But…how? I’m not—how?” I study her eyes, searching for anything that could give me hope because I want to go home more than I want anything else in the world.

She steps back. “You find a way. I see it in you. I see strength and”—she tilts her head again, squinting up at me as though she’s trying to figure out a complex puzzle—”plus something else. You special, child. I feel it. And soon you feel it, too.”

She turns back to the wall and takes out the set of beads she keeps in her pocket, running them through her fingertips again and again as she walks from flower to flower, healing those that are less than perfect.

I replay what she’s told me, hoping to find something in what she said that gives a deeper explanation. The planet is dying, that much is clear. Beyond the beautiful wall in front of me is nothing but rock, leaving no hope of life. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how I can help.

All I know is that the look on Emmy’s face said one thing—Loge is dying and we’re running out of time.

…

I don’t wait for Jackson to come back for me. Instead, wanting time to myself, I walk out of the Panacea and take the path that runs along the river. A few Ancients pass me on the way, and each studies me with curiosity. I keep my head even and my expression blank, not wanting to engage them, not now when I have no idea what I’m doing and all I can think about is how I’m supposed to kill their leader.

I reach Jackson’s house—my house—and slip inside and to our room without seeing any of the others. I have twenty minutes before I need to be at the Vortex for RES training, and I want to take the time to think. I go into the kitchen for some water. It’s kept in a circular dispenser beside the refrigerator, along with various different fruity extracts that I could drop into the water to give it flavor. I’m examining the various different packets, when Vill sits down at the bar in the kitchen, his handiwork etched into every inch of the wood.

“Ari, can we chat?”

I turn to face him, nervous, though he doesn’t give off any peculiar vibes. I wonder if he’s controlling his feelings or if he keeps his true feelings guarded all the time. Or maybe, he’s just so mellow that no hint of emotion ever creeps into his aura. “Sure. We didn’t get a chance to talk much last night. I love your work,” I say, motioning around the kitchen. The walls are a continuous painting of grass growing at different stages. It’s a little strange, except for the detail, which is impeccable. He shows a healer pressing her palms into the earth and then as though on a reel, the scenes change around the room until the final scene is nothing but a valley of green grass.

He scratches his head, looking uncomfortable again at my mentioning his work. “Thanks. I can’t really help it. It’s a part of me, like breathing.”

I nod. “I can imagine.” My eyes drift around the room and then back to him when I realize he’s waiting for me to look at him.

“Just like Jackson.”

“Sorry, what’s just like Jackson?”

Vill leans back in his stool, lacing his fingers in front of him as he releases a long breath. “You don’t know him. You might think you do, but you don’t. Not the way I do.” He holds up his hands at the expression on my face. “And I’m not saying that in a threatening way. I’m saying that so you understand that he is what he has been ingrained to be. Sure, he fights it. Sure, he wants to be different. But he can’t change that tick inside him, no more than I could stop painting or sculpting. No easier than you could stop leading.”

At this I take a step back. “Leading? What? And I don’t know what you’re talking about. What tick inside him?”

Vill ignores my last question. “You
are
a leader, Ari. You were born a leader and you will die a leader. It is who you are. Everyone who meets you knows it. And you know it, even if you question it. You react like a leader, thinking ahead of time so you know your actions are properly directed.” He stops to watch me, and I know I must look uncomfortable. I feel uncomfortable. This isn’t at all the conversation I thought we would be having. I look away and then down at my feet.

“I used to be a leader. Now, I’m…I don’t know what I am.”

“You’ll find yourself again. Before you know it, you will be leading again. But you need to first see Jackson, really see him, for who he is, instead of what you thought he was or who you now believe him to be.”

My eyes drift up to his. “To be honest, I don’t know how I see him now.” I think of the boy I knew on Earth, and now the man I see here. I can’t make the two fit together.

“Then do me a favor. Try to imagine what it would be like to be petrified to think or act freely. Not just worried that you will disappoint, but literally afraid that you or someone you love would die if you ever thought or acted of your own accord. That has been Jackson’s life. So before you start judging him for not telling you who he is, maybe you should consider his motives and consider that perhaps, for someone like him, he put everything on the line for you too and you pushed him away.”

I open my mouth to respond, but no words come out. My life is built on simplicity—truth or lies, right or wrong— so much so that it’s impossible for me to imagine a gray area. That maybe someone could lie and it could be righteous, or someone could do wrong and that could be brave. I can’t wrap my mind around it.

Vill gives me a half smile. “Think about it.”

“I will,” I say, realizing that if Vill knew me on anything close to the same level he knows Jackson, then he would know he gave me no choice but to think about it. Because now, I’m left wondering if I know Jackson at all.

I’m about to slip out of the kitchen, when Jackson rushes into the house, never stopping to look at us. Vill and I exchange worried looks and both follow Jackson down the hall and to our room.

“Are you all right?” Vill asks from the open doorway.

Jackson jerks his shirt over his head, exposing his bare chest, and tosses it in a rumpled mess into the corner. “Oh, you know, same old. I’m over at my grandparents—visiting Mami—when he comes home. He of course accuses her of being too easy on me and they get into an argument, which she quickly admits her wrongdoing and apologizes, then he sends her to her room like she’s a child. I can’t stand it. I hate him. I
hate
him.” He yanks on his hair and drops his arms in a long, defeated sign. And that’s when his eyes find mine. He hadn’t realized I was there. “Great. Thanks. I thought we talked about this.” He shoots Vill an annoyed look, then says to me, “He’s requested to see you. You’re skipping RES training today. We have ten minutes,” before shutting the door in our faces.

I take a step back, my mind reeling. In all my time with Jackson, I have never once felt he acted his age, instead always appearing together and organized. He has a demeanor that says he feels childishness is beneath him, especially here, where he exhibits control over others. But this…this was like watching a little boy unravel.

Vill nods toward his room and shuts the door quietly behind us. The room is like an explosion of Vill-ness. The walls are all carved or painted. The floor has splattering of paint here and there, all different shades, all likely belonging to a different project. “See what I mean,” he says to me, motioning to a chair in the corner of the room for me to sit. It’s an animal of some sort, with the head of a lion as the back and giant wings as the arm rests. A cushion covers the wood in the seat area and as I near I realize it’s handmade as well. The words, “One world, one being,” are sewn into the top of the cushion.

“Why did he get upset at you?” I say as I sit in the chair.

Vill grabs a tiny figurine and a knife from his dresser and begins whittling away at it. “He doesn’t want you to know how bad it is. How can he pretend to protect you if he can’t even protect his grandmother? He doesn’t want you to view him as weak. I tried to talk to him about it, but he won’t listen.”