The Fate of Ten

CHAPTER NINE

THE SOLDIERS RUSH US THROUGH THE SUBWAY tunnels, out through the nearest station and finally into daylight. They’re constantly in a tight knot around us, a human shield, treating us like the Secret Service does the president. I let myself be hustled along, knowing that I can easily shove through them at the first sign of trouble. We don’t encounter any Mogadorian patrols on the way back to their armored Humvees, and pretty soon we’re rumbling through streets filled with broken chunks of building, the wreckage the result of last night’s Anubis bombardment.

We reach the Brooklyn Bridge quickly and without incident. On the Manhattan side, the army has set up a heavily armed checkpoint—soldiers packing mounted machine guns watch the streets from behind a blockade of sandbags. Behind them, three rows of tanks are parked six across on the bridge, their turrets armed with surface-to-air missiles and aimed at the sky. Helicopters laden with more missiles patrol the skies and some muscular-looking boats sit ready in the river. If the Mogadorians try to push into Brooklyn, they’ll definitely encounter some resistance.

“Have you had to fight many off?” I ask the soldier driving our Humvee as we’re waved through the security checkpoint and begin slowly weaving through the choke points on the bridge.

“None whatsoever, sir,” he replies. “The hostiles have stuck to Manhattan so far. That big ship flew right over us this morning and didn’t engage. You ask me, they don’t want a piece of us army boys.”

“Sir,” Daniela repeats, raising an eyebrow at me and snickering.

“They’re holding Manhattan,” I say, leaning back and frowning, not understanding why the Mogs haven’t pressed their attack.

“It’s like Setrákus Ra is sending a message,” Sam says quietly. “Look at what I can do.”

“If they come at us, we’ll be ready,” the soldier says, overhearing. Looking out the window, I make out snipers hidden among the bridge’s high struts, watching the Manhattan side of the bridge through their scopes.

I exchange a doubtful look with Sam. I want to believe in this show of force by the army and echo the soldier’s confidence, but I’ve seen what kind of destruction the Mogs are capable of. The only reason this Brooklyn camp is still standing is because Setrákus Ra allowed it.

The soldier parks our Humvee in the middle of a city block that’s been converted into a staging area for the military. There are tents nearby, more Humvees and a lot of anxious-looking soldiers with guns. There’s also a long line of civilians, many of them filthy and superficially injured, clutching their scant possessions as they wait in a haggard line. At the front of the line, some Red Cross volunteers with clipboards take down the exhausted people’s information before waving them onto commandeered city buses.

Our escort notices me watching the slow procession of refugees. “Red Cross is trying to keep track of the displaced,” the soldier explains. “Then we’re evacuating them to Long Island, New Jersey, wherever. Getting them away from the fighting until we can retake New York.”

The soldier sizes up Sam and Daniela, then looks at me again. It suddenly occurs to me that this guy is looking to me for orders.

“Do you want these two evacuated?” the soldier asks, referring to my companions.

“They’re with me,” I tell him, and he nods, accepting that without further question.

Daniela watches the aid workers check in an elderly couple and help them onto a bus. “They have a list or something I could check? I’m . . . looking for someone.”

The soldier shrugs like this isn’t his area of expertise. “Sure. You could ask.”

Daniela turns to me. “I’m gonna—”

“Go,” I say, nodding. “I hope you find her.”

Daniela smiles at Sam, then me, and starts to turn away. “Um, about that whole saving-the-world thing,” she says, hesitating.

“When you’re ready, come find me,” I tell her.

“You’re assuming I’ll ever be ready,” Daniela replies. She hasn’t mentioned her duffel bag of stolen money since it got left behind on the subway.

“Yeah. I am.”

Daniela lingers for a second longer, eyes locked with mine. Then, nodding to herself, she turns and jogs over to hassle the Red Cross. Sam looks at me like I’m crazy.

“You’re just letting her go? One of the only . . .” Sam glances at the soldier who’s still patiently standing nearby, not sure how much he should say.

“I can’t force her to join us, Sam,” I reply. “But what happened to her—what happened to you . . . there has to be a reason. I have faith it won’t be for nothing.”

“Agent Walker is this way, sir,” the soldier says, motioning Sam and me to follow.

“Are cell phones working yet?” I ask him as we walk through the busy camp. “I need to make a call. It’s important.”

“Traditional methods are still down, sir. The hostiles saw to that. We’ve probably got something you can use in the communications center, though,” the soldier says, gesturing to a nearby tent bustling with activity. “I’m supposed to bring you directly to Agent Walker, though. If you’ll allow it.”

“If I’ll allow it?”

“We were briefed on your history of . . . difficulty with authority,” the soldier says, sheepishly examining the handle of his rifle. “We were told not to engage in combat or force you to do anything. Mission parameters are limited to, uh, gently prodding.”

I shake my head in disbelief. It wasn’t too long ago that I was considered an enemy of the state. Now, I’m being treated like a foreign dignitary by the army.

“All right,” I say, deciding not to make life difficult for our escort. “Point me in the direction of Agent Walker and then help my friend Sam get his hands on a satellite phone.”

Moments later, I walk along the concrete pier overlooking the East River and Manhattan. The air is crisp and cool, although still tinged with the acrid, burned smell that blows in from Manhattan. From here, I have a clear view of the destruction the Mogadorians wreaked on the city. Pillars of dark smoke rise into the bright blue sky, fires still burning. There are gaps in the city’s skyline, spaces where I know buildings should be, simply erased by the powerful energy weapons of the Anubis. Occasionally, I can make out a Skimmer zipping between buildings, the Mogs patrolling the streets.

Agent Walker stands alone at the railing, staring out at the city.

“How’d you find me?” I ask by way of greeting as I approach.

The FBI agent who once tried to have me imprisoned actually smiles at me.

“Some survivors trickling in mentioned seeing you,” Walker answers. “We sent teams out to the general area. Figured we’d start looking where the alpha warship was dropping heavy ordnance.”

“Good call,” I reply.

“Glad you’re alive,” she says brusquely.

Walker’s gray-streaked red hair is pulled back in a tight ponytail. She looks exhausted, heavy bags under both of her eyes. At some point she traded in her customary FBI Windbreaker and pantsuit for a Kevlar vest and fatigues, probably borrowed from the large army contingent securing this area. Her left arm is in a sling, and there’s a hastily bandaged gash on her forehead.

“Do you want me to heal those?” I ask.

In response, Walker takes a look around. The two of us are alone for the moment, standing in the small park tucked under the Brooklyn Bridge. Or rather, alone as one can get in what’s basically become a refugee camp overnight. The hilly lawn behind us is cluttered with makeshift tents, wounded and frightened New Yorkers packed in tight. I guess these are the people who refused to be evacuated by the Red Cross, or else are too injured to make the trip. The tents spread out into the surrounding blocks, and I’m sure there are people squatting in the fancy riverfront apartment buildings nearby. Interspersed throughout the survivors, keeping order and tending to the wounded, are soldiers, cops and a few medics, just a small part of the force of thousands I saw gathered closer to the bridge. It’s essentially organized chaos.

“Those powers of yours have limits?” Walker asks, watching as a woman sprawled in the park’s grass has her severely burned arm treated by a harried doctor.

“Yeah. I hit them pretty hard yesterday,” I reply, rubbing the back of my neck. “Why do you ask?”

“Because much as I appreciate the offer, we’ve got thousands of injured here, John, with more trickling in every hour. You want to spend your whole day patching people up?”

I stare out over the rows of people in the park, many of them resting on nothing more than grass. A lot of them are watching me. I’m still not comfortable with this, being the face of the Garde. I turn back to Walker.

“I could,” I say. “It would save some lives.”

Walker shakes her head and gives me a level look. “The badly injured are in the triage tent. We can stop by later if you want to do the whole Mother Teresa thing. But you and I both know there are better ways to be spending your time.”

I don’t reply, but I don’t press the issue any further. Walker grunts and walks along the pier, heading towards a collection of army tents set up in a nearby plaza. I take another quick look around the park. Crossing over the bridge, things looked pretty secure. Back here, though, it’s absolute madness. Injured people, soldiers, military officials—I don’t even know where to begin. I might be in over my head.

“So, you’re in charge here?” I ask Walker, attempting to get my bearings.

She snorts. “You’re kidding, right? There are five-star generals on the scene planning counteroperations. The CIA and the NSA are here, coordinating with people in Washington, trying to make sense of the intel that’s coming in from around the world. They had the president on video conference earlier this afternoon from whatever bunker the Secret Service spirited him off to. I’m just an FBI agent, very much not in charge.”

“Okay, if that’s the case, why did they bring me to you, Walker? Why are we talking?”

Walker stops and turns to me, her hands on her hips. “Because of our history, our relationship—”

“That’s what you’re calling it?”

“I’ve been named your liaison, John. Your point of contact. Anything you can tell us about the Mogadorians, their tactics, this invasion—that goes through me. Likewise for any requests you might have of the U.S. armed forces.”

I let out a sharp, humorless laugh. I wonder where the generals are set up. I scan the nearby tents, looking for one that appears more important than the others.

“No offense, Walker, but I don’t need you as a go-between.”

“Not up to you,” she replies, resuming her walk along the pier. “You have to understand that the people in charge, the president, his generals, what’s left of his cabinet—they weren’t MogPro people. When the Mogs made contact, we almost had a glorified coup on our hands with the MogPro scum advocating surrender. Luckily, with Sanderson out of the picture—”

“Hold up. What happened to him?” I ask. I lost track of the secretary of defense during the battle with Setrákus Ra.

“He didn’t make it,” Walker replies grimly. “I had enough people in Washington to get rid of most of the bad apples. The ones we knew about, at least.”

“So you’re saying MogPro is mostly gone and we’re left with . . .”

“A fractured government that’s been kept totally in the dark. This invasion, the idea of aliens from outer space attacking us, it’s all new to them. They accept that you’re fighting on our side. But you’re still an extraterrestrial.”

“They don’t trust me,” I say, unable to keep the bitterness out of my voice.

“Most of them don’t even trust each other anymore. And anyway, you shouldn’t trust them,” Walker replies emphatically. “The known members of MogPro have all been arrested, killed or gone underground. But that doesn’t mean we got them all.”

I give Walker a look, rolling my eyes. “So better for me to stick with the devil I know, huh?”

She opens her arms, obviously not really expecting me to hug her. “That’s right.”

“All right, here’s my first request, liaison,” I say. “The Anubis—that’s the warship that left New York this morning—it’s carrying Setrákus Ra and is on its way to Mexico—”

“Oh, good,” Walker interrupts. “They’ll like that. One less threat in U.S. airspace.”

“They need to scramble jets, fighters, drones, whatever they’ve got,” I continue. “It’s headed to a place of great power, a Loric place. I’m not sure what Setrákus Ra wants there, but I know it’s bad if he gets it. We need to take the fight to him.”

Walker’s expression darkens the more I talk. I can already tell that I’m not going to like whatever she’s got to tell me. She leads me off the pier, across some matted grass and stops in front of a canvas tent slightly isolated from the others.

“A direct attack isn’t going to happen,” she says.

“Why the hell not?”

“My headquarters,” she says, pushing open the entrance flap. “Let’s talk inside.”

Inside Walker’s tent is an unused cot, a cluttered table and a laptop computer. There’s a map of New York City with red lines crisscrossing it—if I had to guess, I’d bet that line represents the path the Anubis took during yesterday’s attack. Walker pulls a second map from beneath the New York one, this one of the entire world. There are ominous black X’s drawn over a bunch of major cities—New York, Washington, Los Angeles and faraway places like London, Moscow and Beijing. There are more than twenty cities marked in this way. Walker taps her fingers on the map.

“This is the situation, John,” she says. “Every marking is one of their warships. You know how to bring one of those things down?”

I shake my head. “Not yet. But I haven’t tried.”

“The air force tried yesterday. It didn’t go well.”

I frown. “I saw them flying in. I know they didn’t make it.”

“They had some success against the smaller ships, but they didn’t even get close to the Anubis. The air force was considering another strike when the Chinese went all in.”

“What does that mean?”

“A couple hours after the attack on New York, they got trigger-happy. Were probably worried they might be attacked next. They threw everything short of a nuke at the warship over Beijing.”

“And?”

“Casualties in the tens of thousands,” Walker answers. “The warship still in the air. They’re shielded somehow. Chinese scientists say it’s some kind of electromagnetic field. They got tired of crashing jets up against it, so they tried parachuting a small force directly onto the warship. Those guys didn’t survive contact with the field.”

I’m reminded of the force field surrounding the Mogadorian base in West Virginia. The shock I received from touching it was enough to knock me out and make me sick for days.

“I’ve run into their force fields before,” I tell Walker. “Literally.”

“How’d you break them down?”

“Never did.”

Walker gives me a deadpan look. “And here I was getting my hopes up.”

I look back at Walker’s map and shake my head. Every black X looks to me like a fight I don’t know how to win.

“Twenty-five cities under attack. You have any good news, Agent Walker?”

“That’s just it,” she says. “This is the good news.”

I raise an eyebrow at her.

“Some places, like London and Moscow, sent troops out to fight the Mogs. But the response is nothing like here or Beijing. No bombardment, no rampaging monsters. It’s like the Mogs are taking it easy on them. And then there are the places like Paris and Tokyo that didn’t put up any fight at all. Those cities aren’t actually under attack. The warships and scout ships are controlling the airspace, but other than that there aren’t any Mogs on the ground. And then, this morning, that warship flies right over us, like we’re nothing. It’s got some people thinking maybe they don’t want to fight. Maybe it’s all just a big misunderstanding with the aliens, that we shouldn’t have attacked them first.”

“We didn’t,” I snap.

“I know that. But around the world, what they saw—”

“Setrákus Ra is sending a message,” I say. “Even though he’s got the advantage, he doesn’t want a protracted fight. He wants to frighten humanity into submission. He wants us to give in.”

Walker nods and walks over to her laptop. She enters a series of passwords, no easy task considering she’s typing one-handed, before finally pulling up an encrypted video.

“You’re more right than you know,” Walker says. “It’s not clear how he got access, but this video appeared via secure channels in the president’s private inbox. Other world leaders we’ve talked to have reported receiving the same thing.”

Walker clicks the play button and an HD-quality image of Setrákus Ra’s face appears on the screen. My blood runs cold at the sight of his pale skin and empty black eyes, at the dark-purple scar that encircles his neck, at the smug way he smiles into the camera. It’s the exact same smile he wore right before chucking me into the East River. Setrákus Ra is seated in the ornate commander’s chair on the Anubis—I remember seeing it when Ella showed me around the ship. Over his shoulder, New York City is visible through a massive floor-to-ceiling window. The sun is rising, the city still in flames. There’s no doubt in my mind he chose this background on purpose.

“Respected leaders of Earth,” Setrákus Ra begins, these polite words issued in a scratchy rumble, “I pray that this message finds you open-minded after the unfortunate events in New York and Beijing. It was with great reluctance, and only after an attempted assassination by alien terrorists, that I used a fraction of the available Mogadorian force against your people.”

“You’re the alien terrorists, by the way,” Walker says.

“Yeah. I got that.”

Setrákus Ra continues. “Despite these regrettable circumstances, my offer to embrace humanity and show it the way of Mogadorian Progress still stands. I am nothing if not forgiving. While my forces will continue to hold New York City and Beijing as a reminder of what happens when inconsiderate beasts bite a gently guiding hand, the other cities where my warships are positioned have nothing to fear. Assuming, that is, my generals receive unconditional surrender from these governments within the next forty-eight hours.”

My head whips around to Walker. “They’re not actually buying this shit, are they?”

She points at the screen. “There’s more.”

“In addition,” Setrákus Ra intones, “I believe the United States government is currently harboring the Loric terrorists known as the Garde. To continue assisting these twisted souls will be considered an act of open war. They are to be turned over to me at the time of surrender, in the interest of avoiding the costly and painful process of rooting them out. It is also my understanding that some humans may have suffered a mutation at the hands of the Garde wherein they will manifest certain unnatural abilities. These humans are to be turned over to me for treatment.”

“What does he mean about mutations?” Walker asks me. “More bullshit?”

I don’t reply. Instead, I back away from the laptop while Setrákus Ra is still talking, my gaze shifting towards Agent Walker.

“You have forty-eight hours to surrender, or I will have no choice but to relieve humanity of your foolish leadership and liberate your cities by force . . .”

The clip stops and Walker turns to face me. When she does, I’ve already got a small fireball prepared, hovering it above the palm of my hand.

“Oh, Jesus Christ, John,” she groans, leaning away from the heat.

“Is that why you brought me here?” I snap at her, backing up. I’m half expecting a group of soldiers to burst in and try to restrain me, so I keep one eye on the tent’s exit as I move towards it. “Are my friends safe?”

“Do you think I showed you that as prelude to an ambush? Calm down. You’re safe.”

I stare at Walker for another couple of seconds. At this point, I don’t really have much choice but to trust her, especially considering the alternative is fighting my way through an army. If the government wanted to trade me to Setrákus Ra as a gesture of goodwill, it probably would’ve already happened. I extinguish my fireball and frown at Walker.

“So, is it true?” Walker presses. “What Setrákus Ra said about humans manifesting unnatural abilities? Does he mean that humans are getting Legacies?”

“I . . .”

I’m not sure how much to share with Walker. She tells me I’m safe, but it wasn’t too long ago that she was chasing me across the country. Even though she claims MogPro have been driven underground, there are still humans out there working against us. Hell, she just told me not to trust the government. What if there are new Garde all over the world, and what if a sellout like Secretary of Defense Sanderson gets to them before we can? And could I really out Sam and Daniela to Walker? I can’t tell her anything. Not until I’ve figured it out myself.

“I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about, Walker,” I say after a moment. “He’ll say anything to get what he’s after.”

I think she can tell I’m holding out on her. “I know it’s hard to accept considering our history, but I’m on your side,” Walker says. “For now, so is the United States.”

“For now? What does that mean?”

“It means, no one’s real eager to surrender to the alien maniac that just blew up New York. But if he starts torching more cities and we haven’t figured out a way to successfully fight back? Things might change. That’s why your request for a military operation in Mexico isn’t going to happen. For one, it’s a losing proposition against the warship. And two, prevailing wisdom right now is that we shouldn’t openly aid you.”

“They’re hedging their bets,” I say, unable to keep a sneer off my face. “In case they decide to surrender.”

“Word from the president is that all options are currently open, yes.”

“Giving up isn’t an option. I’ve seen—” I stop myself from referencing Ella’s vision of the future, figuring Legacy-powered prophecies won’t carry much weight with the hyperpractical Walker. “It won’t end well for humanity.”

“Yeah, you and I know that, John. But when Setrákus Ra starts killing civilians and all he wants in trade is you and the other Garde? That’s a course of action the president will be forced to consider.”

I turn away, opening up the tent flap to look outside, wondering where Sam is with that satellite phone. I also want to hide my face from Walker, feeling a choking panic coming on. I don’t know what to do. If Setrákus Ra’s deadline passes and he starts bombing another city, am I supposed to just let that happen? Do I turn myself in? Meanwhile, what do I do about his impending attack on the Sanctuary? And what about Nine and Five, who are still unaccounted for? It’s too much to handle.

“John?”

Slowly, I face Walker, making sure my expression is neutral. Even so, she must detect something there, because she crosses the tent and stands right in front of me. She grabs my shoulder with her good arm and I’m so surprised that I let it happen. There’s fear in Walker’s eyes, mixed with a kind of suicidal determination. I’ve seen that look before worn by my friends, right before they threw themselves into battle against impossible odds.

“You need to tell me how to do this,” Walker says to me, her voice low and shaky. “Tell me how to win this war in less than forty-eight hours.”