The Fate of Ten

CHAPTER ELEVEN

A FEW MINUTES AFTER AGENT WALKER TELLS ME I’ve got forty-eight hours to win a war, a pair of soldiers in full body armor and a middle-aged civilian carrying a tablet device arrive at her tent. They want to deliver some kind of urgent report related to a recording the civilian made on his tablet that morning. I’m not paying much attention—my ears are ringing, heart pounding. I can feel the new arrivals stealing looks at me, like I’m a cross between a celebrity and a unicorn. That doesn’t help my feeling that the tent walls are slowly closing in.

I think I might be having a panic attack.

Agent Walker takes one look at me and holds up her hand, stopping the soldiers from saying anything more. “Let’s take a walk, gentlemen,” she says. “I need the fresh air.”

Walker ushers the three men out of her tent and follows them, pausing at the exit. She looks back at me, grimacing like she’s in pain. I know she probably wants to say something comforting or encouraging, and I also know that Agent Walker simply isn’t equipped for that.

“Take a few minutes,” she says gently, and that’s probably the most empathy I’ve ever seen from her.

“I’m fine,” I reply sharply, although I don’t feel fine. Not at all. I’m rooted in place and struggling to keep my breathing even.

“Of course, I know that,” Walker says. “Just—I don’t know, you’ve had a rough twenty-four hours. Take a breath. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

As soon as Walker’s gone, I immediately collapse into the chair in front of her laptop. I shouldn’t be taking a minute. There’s too much to do. My body isn’t cooperating, though. This isn’t like the exhaustion I was pushing through yesterday—it’s something else. My hands are shaking, and I can hear my heartbeat thumping loud in my head. It reminds me of yesterday’s explosions—the screams, the dead. Running for my life, passing by the corpses of people I wasn’t good enough to save. And more of that to come.

Unless I can do the impossible.

I feel like I’m going to throw up.

Needing something to focus on, something to pull me out of this funk, I turn on Walker’s laptop. I know what I’m hoping to find, what I need to hear. In addition to the video she showed me of Setrákus Ra’s threat, Walker has a few other files open on her desktop. I’m not at all surprised to see the video I’m looking for there, already open.

FIGHT FOR EARTH—SUPPORT THE LORIC

I turn the volume up and click play.

“This is our planet, but we are not alone.”

Daniela was right: Sarah does sound like she’s trying to come off as older and more professional than she actually is, like a newscaster or documentarian. It makes me smile, all the same. I close my eyes and listen to her voice. I don’t even necessarily listen to the words—although it’s definitely nice to hear your girlfriend describe you as a hero to the human race. Hearing Sarah’s voice starts to settle my nerves, but it also creates a feeling of longing that I’ve been too panicked to indulge over the last couple of days. I imagine us back in Paradise, way more innocent, hanging out in my bedroom while Henri’s out running errands . . .

I’m not sure how many times I’ve replayed the clip before Sam enters Walker’s tent. He clears his throat to get my attention and holds up a satellite phone in each hand.

“Mission accomplished,” Sam says. He cranes his neck to see the laptop screen. “What’re you watching?”

“The, um, the video that Sarah made,” I reply, feeling embarrassed. Of course, Sam doesn’t know that I’ve just played the video a dozen times, that I’m listening to my girlfriend’s voice to try to attain some kind of zen state. I sit up straight and try to look like the strong leader the video portrays me as.

“Is it awesome?” Sam asks, coming over. He sets one of the phones down next to me.

“It’s . . .” I trail off, not sure what to say about the video. “It’s pretty corny, actually. But, right now, it’s also kind of the greatest thing ever.”

Sam nods and pats my shoulder, understanding. “Why don’t you just call her?”

“Sarah?”

“Yeah. I’ll call Six and check in with Team Sanctuary,” he says, sounding eager. “Find out where they are. Maybe they’ve already made it back to Ashwood Estates. I’ll let them know what’s up with us and we’ll figure out a place to meet. I should probably call my dad, too. Let him know I’m alive.”

I realize Sam is looking at me the same way that Walker did, like I’m suddenly fragile. I shake my head and start to stand up, but Sam puts a hand on my shoulder.

“Seriously, dude,” he says. “Call your girlfriend. She’s got to be worried sick.”

I let Sam push me back into the chair. “All right,” I say. “But if anything’s happened to Six and the others, or you can’t reach them—”

“I’ll come get you right away,” Sam says as he heads towards the exit. “I’ll give you some privacy until the next crisis.”

When Sam’s gone, I push both my hands through my hair and leave them there, squeezing my head, like I’m literally trying to keep it together. After a moment of composing myself, I reach for the phone Sam left behind and punch in the number that I’ve committed to memory.

Sarah answers on the third ring, breathless and hopeful. “John?”

“You have no idea how badly I needed to hear your voice,” I reply, glancing sidelong at Walker’s laptop screen and finally closing it. I press the phone tight to my ear, shut my eyes and imagine Sarah is sitting next to me.

“I was so worried, John. I saw—we all saw what happened in New York.”

I have to bite the inside of my cheek. The image of Sarah I was calling up in my mind’s eye is replaced by one of buildings crumbling under the bombardment of the Anubis.

“It was—I don’t know what to say about it,” I tell her. “I feel lucky to have made it out.”

I don’t mention the guilt I’ve been feeling, or how hard it has been to keep going. I don’t want Sarah to know that about me. I want to be the heroic guy from her video.

Sarah doesn’t say anything for a few seconds. I can hear her breathing, slow and shaky, the way it gets when she’s trying to keep her emotions from bubbling out. When she finally speaks, her voice is a quiet and desperate whisper, coming from far away.

“It was so horrible, John. All those poor people. They’re dying, the world’s basically ending, and all—all I could think about was what might have happened to you, why you weren’t calling. I don’t—I don’t have a charm on my ankle to keep track of you. I didn’t know if . . .”

I realize that Sarah’s relief at hearing my voice is the angry kind, the kind that comes when you’ve spent sleepless nights worrying about a person. I remember how it felt when the Mogadorians had taken her, how it felt like a piece of me was missing. I also remember how much simpler things were then—avoid the Mogs, rescue Sarah, there weren’t millions of lives hanging in the balance. Crazy to think that used to seem like a crisis.

“My sat phone got destroyed or I would’ve called sooner. We made it to Brooklyn where the army has set up. I’m fine,” I reassure her, knowing that I’m partly trying to convince myself.

“I’ve felt like a ghost these last couple days,” Sarah says quietly. “Mark and me, we’ve been hitting the internet hard, working on projects to help, you know, win hearts and minds. And we finally met GUARD in person, which—oh my God, John, I have so much to tell you. But I need you to know first that during all this keeping busy, I’ve felt like I’m just going through the motions. Like I’m out of body. Because all I could think about was you getting blown up with those people in New York.”

I should ask Sarah about the identity of the mysterious hacker she and Mark have been working with. I should find out the details of what she and Mark have been doing. I know I should. Except in that moment, all I can think about is how much I miss her.

“I know part of the reason you went to find Mark was because you didn’t want to be a distraction,” I say, trying to sound more reasonable than desperate. “Not being able to talk to you, to see you, to touch you—that might be a bigger distraction than anything. You’ve been helping so much, but . . .”

“I miss you too,” Sarah replies, and I can tell when she speaks that she’s trying to find her resolve, to be tough like she was when I dropped her off at the bus station in Baltimore. “We made the right decision, though. It’s better this way.”

“It was a stupid decision,” I reply.

“John . . .”

“I don’t know how I let you talk me into this,” I continue. “We should’ve never separated. After everything that happened in New York, everything I had to see—”

My breath catches for a moment as I remember the fires, the destruction, the wounded and the dead. I realize that I’m shaking again, and definitely not from exhaustion. I feel like I might have hit my limit, like there’s only so much brutality my brain can endure. I try to focus on Sarah and on getting my words out, on making sense and not sounding too desperate.

“I need you with me, Sarah,” I manage to finish. “I feel like these are the last battles we’re ever going to fight. After New York, I—I’ve seen how quickly it can all be taken away. I don’t want us to be apart if something happens, if this is the end.”

Sarah gathers a deep breath. When she speaks next, her voice is firm.

“This is not the end, John.”

I realize how I must sound to her. Weak and scared, not at all like the alien hero she portrayed in that video. I’m embarrassed by how I’m acting. Alone for the first time since the attack in New York, without constant skirmishes to distract me, with things finally slowed down enough for me to think—the result is me breaking down while on the phone with my girlfriend. We’ve been in bad situations before, fought some brutal battles and seen friends die. But, until now, I’ve never felt hopeless.

When I’m silent for a few moments, Sarah continues, her voice gentle. “I can’t imagine what it was like to be in New York during . . . that. I can’t imagine what you’re going through—”

“It was my fault it happened,” I tell her quietly, glancing to the tent flap in case someone outside might overhear. “I could’ve killed Setrákus Ra at the UN. I had time to prepare for this invasion. And I failed.”

“Oh, John. You cannot possibly blame yourself for New York,” Sarah replies, her tone understanding but insistent. “You are not responsible for the murderous rampage of an alien psycho, okay? You were trying to stop him.”

“But I didn’t.”

“Yeah, and neither did anyone else. So either all of us are equally to blame, or maybe it’s the evil Mogadorian’s fault and we can leave it at that. Your guilt isn’t going to bring anyone back, John. But you can avenge them. You can stop Setrákus Ra from doing it again.”

I laugh bitterly. “That’s just it. I don’t know how to stop him. It’s too much.”

“We’ll find a way,” Sarah replies, and her certainty almost convinces me. “We’ll do this together. All of us.”

I rub my hands over my face, trying to get myself together. Sarah’s telling me exactly what I need to hear. As usual, I know she’s right, at least on a logical level. But that doesn’t loosen the knot of guilt tying up my guts, or make the future seem any less overwhelming.

“They look at me like a hero,” I say, scoffing. “I walk around this camp and the soldiers, the survivors, everyone looks at me like I’m some kind of superman. They don’t know—”

“I guess my video really worked,” Sarah quips, trying to lighten the mood. “They look at you that way because you are a hero, John.”

I shake my head. “They don’t know that I have no idea what I’m doing. I don’t know how to fight a battle on this scale. Nine’s missing, Ella’s taken and basically getting tortured, I don’t know what’s taking Six and the others so long to get back from the Sanctuary, but when they do we might have to go back anyway because that’s right where Setrákus Ra is headed. Meanwhile, there are twenty-five warships over twenty-five different cities. I don’t know how to deal with this, Sarah.”

“Well,” Sarah replies, her voice calm and collected, like I haven’t just dropped an insurmountable pile of problems at her feet. “It’s a good thing you’ve got friends. Now let’s take this one thing at a time. Let me tell you about GUARD.”