The Fall of Five

30

Nobody gets any sleep that night. Well, except for the two of us that can’t be woken up, and that’s a sleep I don’t think anyone is eager to join.

My dad and I lifted John onto the bed next to Ella, laying them side by side, the two of them sporadically thrashing. Sarah refuses to leave the room; she holds John’s hand, stroking it gently, trying to coax him awake. Bernie Kosar won’t leave either; he lies curled up at the foot of the bed, whining occasionally, nuzzling John and Ella’s feet.

I poke my head into the room a few hours after John first collapsed. Sarah has her head down, pressed to the back of John’s hand. I’m not sure if she’s asleep or not and I don’t want to disturb her. Nothing has changed with John and Ella. Their facial muscles twitch, and their bodies occasionally lurch as if they’ve just tripped in a dream and are scrambling for their balance. I’ve had those dreams before, the ones where you trip or fall off a bike, and I always wake up before I hit the ground. That doesn’t seem to be the case for John and Ella.

I take a closer look at John. It has only been a few hours, but already his skin has taken on a pallor similar to Ella’s, dark circles forming around his eyes. It’s almost as if he’s being drained somehow. Now that I think about it, Ella looked pretty washed out before training this morning. I’m worried there’s some kind of physical aspect to the nightmares, like they’re weakening John and Ella, or worse.

“Sarah?” I whisper, and then realize there’s no point in keeping quiet. We want these two to wake up. I should be banging on pots and pans. “Everyone’s getting together in the living room.”

Sarah stirs, shaking her head. “I’m going to stay here,” she says quietly. “I don’t want to leave them.”

I nod and don’t press the issue. I leave the room and head over to the workshop, where my dad has spent the rest of the night hunched over a computer. When I enter, language samples are scrolling by on the screen, but it doesn’t look like he’s any closer to cracking those Mogadorian documents.

“Anything?” I ask.

“Not yet,” he replies, turning to face me. He has to blink a few times, his eyes dilated from staring at the screen. “I’ve worked up an auto decoder so I don’t have to sit here monitoring the progress. It’s pretty, ah, old school. I’m a little behind the times when it comes to software, but it should be able to crack it eventually. I only hope it’s quick enough.”

I glance at the scanned Mogadorian pages. “You think any of this is related to the nightmares?”

“I don’t know. The timing certainly seems convenient.”

“Yeah.” I notice my dad’s cell phone sitting out on the desk. I tap it. “Were you trying Adam again?”

I didn’t think it was possible, but my dad’s face droops even farther. “Yes. No progress there either.”

I pat him on the shoulder. “Come on. The others are meeting and want us to join them.”

The remaining Garde are waiting in the penthouse living room. They’re already discussing the nightmare situation, which is pretty much what we’ve been doing for the last couple hours without making any progress.

“Ella did that to me before,” Marina is saying, her voice hushed. “Sucked me into her dream. I should have warned him, should’ve warned everyone. But I was touching her before, when I first tried to wake her up, and nothing happened. I was in such a panic. . . .”

Sitting next to her on the couch, Eight puts his arm around Marina’s shoulders. She leans against him as he says, “It’s okay. You couldn’t have known this would happen.”

Nine is pacing back and forth across the length of the room, which is actually an improvement over him pacing across the ceiling. He’d probably still be wearing a track into the space around the chandelier if Six hadn’t snapped at him for being annoying. For once, he didn’t bother with a comeback and simply resumed his pacing somewhere less obtrusive. He looks up at me hopefully when I reenter.

“Well?” Nine asks.

I shake my head. “No change. They still haven’t woken up.”

Five slaps his hands on his legs in frustration. “This sucks. I feel useless sitting here.”

Six’s brow was knit in consternation when I first entered, but she looks up when Five speaks. She nods her head slowly, considering. “We should talk about that.”

“About what?” Marina asks.

“About continuing on with the mission. Five’s Chest isn’t going to recover itself.”

Nine stops pacing, considering what Six has just said. Marina looks aghast at the notion of going on a mission.

“You want to leave now?” Marina asks. “Have you gone crazy?”

“Six is right,” Five jumps in. “We’re not doing any good sitting around here.”

“Our friends are in there comatose and you just want to leave them?” hisses Marina.

“You make it sound cold, but I’m just trying to be practical,” Six says. It sounds similar to what she was telling me on the roof, how she’s reluctant to start a relationship because of that moment where things go to shit. It seems like that moment is here.

“It is practical, but that doesn’t mean it’s right,” I murmur. I don’t mean to say that out loud, but it’s been a long night and there’s a lot on my mind.

A shadow of hurt passes over Six’s face, but it’s gone as soon as she looks away from me. She turns to Nine. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Nine says. “I don’t like abandoning John and the squirt.”

“If even Nine’s backing down from a mission, then you know it’s not the right idea,” snaps Marina, sounding exasperated. “What if they need us, Six?”

“We wouldn’t be abandoning them,” Five says, his voice level. “At least, we wouldn’t be abandoning them any more than we are by sitting out here having this pointless discussion. The humans will take care of them, just like they are now.”

“Absolutely,” my dad says. “We’ll do everything we can.”

“We need to figure out why this is happening,” Marina says. “If not what’s causing the nightmares, then what Ella did to knock out John.”

“Did you guys notice the way her hand glowed when she touched him?” I ask. “It was like a Legacy or something.”

“What kind of Legacy does that?” Nine asks, pointing towards the bedroom.

“John thought she used some new Legacy to scare off Setrákus Ra in New Mexico,” Marina says, thinking this through. “We never had a chance to test it.”

“Or it could be her telepathy gone crazy. Maybe she got in his head and lost control,” suggests Eight. “She’s only just started getting her Legacies. Who knows what she might be capable of?”

I think back to our time in Paradise, remembering how much work it took John to control his Lumen over those first few weeks. It seems like Ella’s telepathy would be an even more difficult Legacy to master. I notice Five nodding his head slowly as if he’s remembering something too.

“Back when I first developed my Externa, I had problems changing my skin back to normal,” Five says. “Albert used this prism thing from my Chest and it helped, I don’t know, relax me somehow. I was able to change my skin back.”

Six points at Five. “There you go. Another argument for going to the Everglades, to get whatever that was.”

Nine nods in agreement. “I can’t believe it, but you actually might be on to something, Five.”

Five holds his hands up. “Well, wait, I don’t even know if it would work on Ella. Or how it works.”

“I still don’t think we should leave them like this,” says Marina.

“Actually, I think separating all of you from John and Ella is a good idea,” my dad says. “Who’s to say this couldn’t start spreading somehow, especially if it’s related to her telepathy? We can’t afford to have any more of you in a catatonic state.”

“How do we fight this?” Nine asks gruffly, his brow furrowed, probably having exhausted all the possible ways to punch out a nightmare. “I mean, if Setrákus Ra can just put us into some dream coma, how are we supposed to fight back against that?”

“He’s come at us with these dreams before,” says Eight. “We woke up, no problem.”

“It’s different this time,” Marina insists.

“Last time Johnny woke up,” Nine says. “That means this shit got stronger.”

“Or maybe the difference is Ella,” says Six. “Maybe Setrákus Ra has been focusing on her because he knew it would make her psychic powers go haywire.”

I look over at Five. “And you think this prism thing from your Chest can help?”

He shrugs in response. “I’m not even sure what it does exactly, only that it helped me. Going after it seems more productive than sitting around here.”

Nine claps his hands. “I’m with Five. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Marina has been quiet since initially arguing against the Everglades. Now Six reaches over and puts a hand on her arm. “Are you all right with this?” she asks.

Marina nods slowly. “If you believe this is the best way to help them, then I’m with you.” I head down to the parking garage to see the Garde off. Sarah won’t be budged from John’s side and my dad has gone back to check on the Mogadorian translator. I’m holding a folder full of documents that John had me prepare using Sandor’s computer— fake driver’s licenses for each of the Garde, some paperwork documenting a phony school trip, the itinerary of their direct flight from Chicago to Orlando. They should be able to travel undetected.

I fish John’s documents out of the file and stick them in my pocket. “Guess you won’t need these,” I say, handing the rest over to Six. I hold on to the file a second too long and Six ends up having to tug it loose from my hand. “Sorry. Just nervous about this.”

“It’s the right move, Sam. It’ll be okay.”

Nine pats me on the shoulder and goes off to pick out a car to drive to the airport. Five follows him, not bothering with a good-bye. To my surprise, Marina wraps me in a hug.

“Take care of them, okay?” she says.

“Of course,” I reply, trying to sound reassuring. “They’ll be fine. You guys just hurry back.”

Eight nods to me and then he and Marina follow after Nine. That leaves just Six and me. She’s making a show of thumbing through the documents I handed her, but I can tell she’s lingering because she wants to say something.

“Everything’s there,” I tell her.

“I know. Just double-checking,” she replies, looking up at me. “We should be back by tomorrow night at the latest.”

“Be careful,” I say.

“Thanks,” she says, touching me on the arm.

There’s an awkward pause, neither of us really sure what to do. I wish we could’ve had just fifteen minutes more alone on the rooftop. I feel like that would’ve been enough to figure out whatever is going on between us. Now, we’re standing here like a couple just back from a really bizarre first date, neither sure what the other is thinking nor whether it’s an appropriate time to make a move. Well, maybe Six knows exactly what I’m thinking and just doesn’t know what to do with that information. I certainly don’t have a clue what’s going through her mind. I feel like I should say or do something, but then the moment passes, her hand drops away from my arm, and she turns to join the others. Whatever is between us, it’ll have to wait. Nine’s penthouse seems even bigger now that it’s emptied out. I wander through the deserted halls and lavish rooms, not really sure what to do with myself. I end up going back to Ella’s room to check in, just as Sarah is leaving. It’s the first time that she’s been away from John since he went down.

“Your dad is making me eat something,” she explains sullenly, looking exhausted from staying awake for the entire night.

“Yeah, he’s got this thing about people not starving to death,” I reply. Sarah gives me a weak smile and I put my hand on her back, guiding her towards the kitchen. She rests her head on my shoulder as we walk.

“We’ve had so many arguments about one of us getting hurt. It’s like the most frequent fight of our relationship.” She laughs bitterly. “Funny thing is, I always thought it’d be me, not John. He’s supposed to be untouchable.”

“Geez, Sarah, you’re acting like he’s been chopped in half or something. He’ll probably pop awake in an hour and be mad they went on the mission without him.” I try to sound optimistic. Sarah is probably too tired to notice the uncertainty in my voice.

“If he was chopped in half, they could probably heal him,” she says. “This is something else. I can see the pain on his face. It’s like he’s being tortured in front of me and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

I pour Sarah a glass of water and take some leftover Chinese food out of the fridge. I don’t bother heating it up. We eat in silence, picking at cold fried rice and boneless spareribs straight from the cartons. I repeat the phrase he’ll be fine over and over in my head, like a mantra, until I’m confident that I can say it with conviction, even if I’m not entirely convinced it’s true.

“He’ll be fine,” I tell Sarah firmly. While Sarah goes back to watch over John and Ella, I try to get some rest in the living room. I guess when you’ve just recently seen your best friend sucked into a state of perpetual sleep, naptime can be a little nerve-racking. Still, my body is more exhausted than my anxiety is strong, and I must fall asleep for at least a few hours.

The first thing I do upon waking up is check on John and Ella. There’s still no change.

I wander down to the Lecture Hall thinking that some kind of workout will do me good. Maybe if I pick out the noisiest guns in Nine’s arsenal to use in target practice, I’ll disrupt John and Ella’s slumber.

I stop through the workshop on my way. It’s empty. My dad must be in his room getting some rest.

The tablet is still plugged in and I can see that five blue dots have made it to Florida, currently moving slowly across the southern tip. That’s good. It means Six and the others didn’t have any problems using their new fake IDs at the airport and that there weren’t any Mogadorian scouts waiting to pick them off. Everything appears to be going just the way John planned. If only he was awake to see it.

I notice something blinking in the corner of one of the computer screens. It’s the translator program my dad set up. It must have been on autopilot this entire time. I restore the window, a dialogue box popping up.

TRANSLATION COMPLETE. PRINT NOW?

I swallow hard, not sure if it’s my place to be the first one viewing these Mogadorian translations, but clicking YES anyway. A printer beneath the desk hisses to life, spitting out the document. I grab the first page before the rest have even finished printing.

Some of the words are jumbled or mixed up, making it clear that the translation program is not 100 percent accurate. But even with the occasional misplaced word, I recognize the document immediately. I’ve seen it before.

I realize that I’m holding my breath, that my fingers have clenched the papers tight enough to wrinkle and bend them. I’m rooted in place, disbelief and fear shutting down my much-needed motor functions.

I’m holding in my hands a copy of the notes my father took on the Garde’s Inheritance. Tacked onto the end is the address of the John Hancock Center.