The Rise of Nine

8

The smoke is thick but beginning to dissipate. From where I am on the floor, I can see dozens of legs and black boots. I raise my eyes and see almost as many rifles, all of them aimed at my head.

My eyes move from the heavy boots up to the gas masks, relieved to see they belong to humans and not Mogadorians. But what kind of humans have Mogadorian weapons? A gun barrel is pushed into the back of my skull. Normally, I’d use my telekinesis to rip it away and toss it a mile into the mountains, but the pain from the bracelet is too intense for me to be able to focus my energy on that. One of the men says something to me, but I can’t concentrate enough to make out what he’s saying.

I search for a focal point to help get me through the pain, and see Nine groaning on the carpet. From where I am, it looks as if he’s having trouble breathing; it also looks like he can’t move his arms and legs. I want to help him, and struggle to get up, but I’m kicked back down as soon as I start to move. I roll onto my back and immediately a long cylindrical tube is pressed into my left eye. There are hundreds of lights inside the tube, and I watch them swirl together to become one solid green beam. It’s definitely a Mogadorian cannon, the same kind that paralyzed me outside our burning house in Florida. I focus my other eye past the side of the weapon and see a man in a khaki trench coat. He pulls back his gas mask to reveal a ring of white hair and a fat, crooked nose that looks like it’s been broken more than once. I find myself looking forward to breaking it again.

‘Don’t move,’ he growls at me, ‘or I’ll pull the trigger.’

I glance over at Nine, who seems to be recovering. He’s sitting up, looking around, struggling to shake off his dazed expression. The man with the cannon pressed to my face looks over at him. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he says.

Nine smiles up at him, clear eyed and calm. ‘Trying to decide which one of you I’m going to kill first.’

‘Shut him up!’ a woman yells as she enters the house, also carrying a Mog cannon. Two men press their boots against Nine’s shoulders and force him back to the floor. The woman motions at me, and someone takes me by the shoulders and pulls me onto my feet. Another man grabs my wrists to put me in handcuffs.

‘Son of a bitch!’ he cries as he touches my red bracelet. I may not know everything the bracelet does, but I like this part of it.

Once upright, I get my bearings. There are ten or twelve men in masks, all holding rifles. The man and woman who were speaking seem like they’re in charge. I look for Bernie, but don’t see him. Even so, I can hear him inside my head.

Just wait. Let’s see what they want and what they know.

‘What do you want with us?’ I ask the man with the broken nose.

He laughs and looks over at the woman. ‘What do we want, Special Agent Walker?’

‘For starters, I want to know who your friend is over there,’ she says, pointing the tube back at Nine.

‘I don’t know this kid,’ Nine says. He blows his hair out of his face and offers a smile. ‘I just stopped by to sell him a vacuum cleaner. The place looked like a dump and I thought he could use it.’

The man circles over to Nine. ‘Is that what you have in these fancy chests here? Vacuum cleaners?’ He nods to one of the other officers and says, ‘Let’s have a look at these vacuum cleaners, shall we? I may be interested in one myself.’

‘Be my guest.’ Nine’s smile is menacing. ‘I’m having a sale. Two for the price of three.’

For a split second, Nine and I make eye contact. Then Nine sweeps his eyes over to the wall, where a moth is hovering near the ceiling. Bernie Kosar. I’m sure Nine also heard BK’s orders to wait to see where this is going. I wonder if he’ll be able to control himself. One of the soldiers slaps a pair of handcuffs on Nine, and he quickly sits up again. I can see the handcuffs around his wrists are already broken. He’s only holding his hands together to keep up the charade.

Nine’s just waiting for the right time to attack. I don’t know if he ever intended to do as BK asked. I pull my arms apart behind me, quietly and easily breaking my own handcuffs. Whatever is about to happen, I’d better be ready.

A bunch of the men have surrounded Nine’s Chest. One of them is slamming the butt of his rifle over and over on the lock holding it closed, but it doesn’t have any effect. He smashes it a few more times anyway, clearly frustrated.

‘How about this.’ Special Agent Walker pulls out a revolver. She fires at the lock and the bullet ricochets around the room, barely missing another officer’s leg.

The broken-nose man grabs Nine by the back of his neck, pulls him to his feet, then shoves him forward. Nine can’t maintain the ruse of his handcuffs and braces his fall, landing on his hands and knees. Realizing Nine’s hands are now unrestrained, the man yells over his shoulder, ‘Somebody get me some more handcuffs! We’ve got a broken pair over here!’

His chin tucked into his chest, Nine’s whole body vibrates with laughter. He pops his legs out and does a pushup. Then he does another one. An officer kicks his right hand out from underneath him, but Nine doesn’t miss a beat. He does another pushup with just his left hand. The officer kicks at his left hand, but Nine is too fast to let that knock him over. His right hand is down in a flash and his one-handed pushup shows off his perfect form. Four officers jump on him, each one holding a leg or arm, but Nine just keeps on laughing. Suddenly, I find myself joining him. His bizarre sense of humor is infectious. Man, I have to give him props.

Special Agent Walker turns to me. I slowly pull my arms out from behind me, the broken handcuffs dangling from my wrists. I wiggle my fingers and casually place both hands behind my head and start whistling.

She narrows her eyes and arranges her face in the most intimidating glare she has. ‘Do you know what happens to kids like you in prison?’ she asks.

‘They escape? Like I did last time?’ My eyes are wide and innocent.

I hear Nine howling with laugher at my performance from under the pile of officers. I have to admit, Nine does bring a weird kind of fun to the proceedings. My smile breaks wide now. I know these men are just trying to do their jobs. They think they’re keeping their country safe. Right now, though, I hate them. I hate them for slowing us down and I hate this woman’s tough-guy act. I hate that they have Mog cannons. But most of all I hate them for working with Sarah to capture Sam and me last week. I wonder what they promised her to get her to turn me in. Did they play on her sympathies? Convince her she would save me, by letting them take us? Did they say she could visit me, while I paid the price for my so-called mistakes? I look over at Bernie Kosar, but I don’t see the moth anymore. That’s when a fat brown and white cockroach scurries up my leg and burrows into my jeans pocket.

Nine will go along with this for a while longer, BK tells me. But I don’t know how much longer. Find out everything you can, quickly.

The lead guy claps his hands to get the attention of the other men. ‘Okay! Let’s get these guys out of here before our friends show up.’

‘Who are your friends?’ I ask him, though I’m already pretty sure that for some reason the U.S. government and the Mogadorians are working together. That’s the only explanation for why they’d be using Mog weapons against us. ‘Who don’t you want to show up?’

‘Shut up!’ Special Agent Walker yells. She pulls out a cell phone and dials a number. ‘We’re bringing him in, plus another one,’ she says into the phone. ‘Two Chests. No, but we’ll get them open. See you soon.’

‘Who was that?’ I ask. She ignores me as she puts her phone away.

‘Hey, buddy, I thought you wanted to buy a vacuum,’ Nine says to me. ‘I really need this sale. My boss is going to kill me if I come home with a full box of Hoovers again.’

They pull Nine to his feet. He stretches his back and smiles, like a cat smug and full of mouse. ‘It doesn’t matter where you take us, there’s no prison that can hold us. If you knew who we are, you wouldn’t waste your time with this crap.’

Agent Walker laughs. ‘We know who you are, and if you were as smart or as tough as you think you are, we would never have found you in the first place.’

Officers pick up our Chests and walk out the front door. New handcuffs are slapped over our wrists. They use three pairs on Nine.

‘You have no idea what we’re capable of,’ Nine says in a sickeningly sweet voice as they lead us through the front yard. ‘If I wanted to, I could kill you all in a matter of seconds. You’re damn lucky I’m being such a good boy. For now.’