The Search for Sam

CHAPTER 12

There’s a shape in the dark, moving around me.

I see the sky. Stars above.

The shape is moving my limbs. Resting my head on a soft mound of earth. Pouring water over my wounds. Forcing me to drink.

The shape’s skin is as white as the moon.

“Malcolm,” I say.

“Yes,” he says. He laughs, crouching beside me. “I’m Malcolm. I remember that now.”

I sit up, half expecting to find myself still trapped in the lab, despite the sky. Despite the stars. But we’re in the wilderness, in a field at the edge of a forest.

“I carried you as far as I could. Then I needed to rest.” He sighs, taking a sip of water. “But we have to keep moving soon.”

I’m baffled, utterly confused. How did we escape?

Malcolm senses my confusion. “I woke up in the lab. Mogadorians were at the doors, trying to break in. That doctor was on the floor. And you … you were convulsing. And then, just as the Mogadorians came through the door, there was …”

He trails off, laughing with amazement. “There was an earthquake.”

As soon as I regain my strength, we begin to make our way on foot through forests, pastures, and farmland, traveling mostly at night to escape detection. We’re headed west, trying to put as much space between us and what remains of Ashwood Estates as we can.

Outside of Ashwood, with only the sky to measure time, days and nights pass without comment. I lose track of the hour, the day of the week, how long we’ve been on the road. Ten days? Twelve days? I cease to measure time in numbers, counting instead the shifting landscapes, the changing scenery.

Malcolm eventually explains that the earthquake seriously damaged the underground facilities. He says it was a miracle he was able to get us both out through the collapsing structure without being apprehended. He says it was as if the entire structure was collapsing around us, but never on us—almost like it was creating an escape for us with every step he took. He figures the Mogs have their hands full rebuilding, that there’s a good chance they haven’t yet realized we even survived the devastation.

But he thinks we need to keep moving to be safe.

I agree.

We’ve camped out for the day in an unused shed at the edge of a tobacco farm. My limbs are tired from our constant trekking, but my cuts and scrapes are starting to heal.

Malcolm sees me mopping down the worst of my remaining cuts. “It’s a miracle you weren’t hurt worse.” He shakes his head in wonderment. “It’s a miracle we weren’t both killed. And it’s an even bigger miracle the earthquake happened in the first place. If not, there would’ve been no escape.”

Now’s as good a time as any to tell him.

“It was no miracle.”

He stops what he’s doing, looks at me curiously.

I haven’t used One’s Legacy on my own since the day I used it to destroy the Mogadorian lab. But I know the ability is still inside me. I can feel it there, nestled, pulsing, waiting for me to pick it up. To play.

I close my eyes and concentrate. The ground beneath us heaves and ripples, the walls of the shed quake. A few rusted tools, hung by hooks, clatter off the wall to the ground.

It’s nothing major, barely a tremor: I only wanted to test myself, and to show Malcolm my gift.

Malcolm’s stunned, eyes bulging. “That was amazing.”

“It’s a Legacy. A gift from the Loric.”

Malcolm looks at me with one of his befuddled expressions.

“Do you know about the Loric?” I ask. I still don’t really know what Malcolm remembers, how much is left of his brain.

“I know a little,” he says. “My memory, it has … patches.” He sighs heavily, clearly frustrated. “I’ve been working on it. Trying to remember everything. But mostly I remember the darkness.”

“The darkness?” I ask, but as soon as the words are out of my mouth I realize what he means. The darkness of the containment pod. All those years in an induced coma, hooked up to machines, having his brain dredged for information. I shudder.

“When I try to summon a memory, it’s like I have to go back into the darkness to find it. I have to go back through years of nothing to remember any one thing.” He laughs, with a note of bitterness I’ve never heard in his voice before. “But there are a few things I remember that I don’t have to fight to recall. Important things.”

Malcolm goes quiet, lost in thought. Before I can press him to explain, he changes the subject.

“You said you were given a Loric’s power.” He leans forward. “So you’re not a Loric?”

I grin. “You thought I was Loric?”

He nods. “Yeah. That or a high-priority human captive like me.”

“No,” I say, a bit nervously. “I’m not human. And I’m not Loric.” I’ve been dreading telling him the truth. How will he react if he knows I belong to the same breed that held him in captivity and tortured him for years? But I knew I’d have to come clean eventually. I figure now’s as good a time as any.

“I’m a Mogadorian.”

That befuddled look again. “If I’d known that,” he says, “I probably would’ve left you in the lab.”

Uh-oh.

But then he begins to laugh..

Before I know it, I’m laughing too, and starting to tell him my story.

Malcolm and I develop a routine, sleeping by day and walking by night. We graze farmland and forests and roadside Dumpsters for sustenance. We cross hills, streams, and highways. We spend weeks—months?—like this. I begin to lose track of time.

When we’re in remote fields, far from roads and houses, we train. Malcolm has no experience with Legacies, but then neither do I. Brute force with my newfound power is no problem: I was able to nearly decimate Ashwood Estates—quite literally—in my sleep. But my precision and control need work. So we focus on that.

In today’s training session Malcolm takes a position on the other side of a field. I stand, getting ready to wield my power. When we’re both ready, we signal each other with our arms. Training time.

I stare across the field at Malcolm, mentally mapping the distance between us. Malcolm has set pebbles on top of the fence posts running the distance between us; for every pebble I knock off its post, he will deduct a few points. It’s easy to send out my seismic force in an indiscriminate wave, knocking everything in its path, but he wants me to hit the area right beneath him, and only that area. He says this practice will increase my precision.

I focus hard on where he is, until everything else disappears. Then I unleash my power.

There are days when I can’t even reach Malcolm, when the farthest I can send my power is ten yards in front of me. There are other days when distance comes too easy, and I wildly overshoot, felling trees fifty yards past Malcolm’s position. Sometimes I hit him with pinpoint accuracy, and the ground trembles delicately below him. When this happens he calls out, telling me to sustain that gentle force. But sometimes the intensity of my seismic power slips outside of my control, and the ground will erupt beneath him, sending him ten feet in the air.

He’s always patient, gracious, and kind about my misfires. Which only makes me happier when I manage a perfect score at this game we’ve created, rumbling the earth immediately beneath his feet without sending him flying. It takes extraordinary control, and so much mental effort I usually wind up with a minor migraine, but it’s worth it to see his proud face.

My parents disowned me. I don’t think my father ever loved me. I was never going to have the kind of unconditional love from a parent I saw on television or read about in human literature.

During the three years I spent in One’s mind, I saw her close relationship with Hilde, and I was jealous. They fought all the time, but on some deep level they trusted and loved each other. Hilde trained and cultivated One’s talents, encouraged her when she succeeded. Ever since I witnessed that, I’ve craved something like it. A mentor. And now I have one.

One promised me I wouldn’t be alone. She was right.

Our route through the country becomes a zigzagging path, designed to escape Mogadorian detection. It’s so roundabout that I never even consider we’re heading somewhere specific, that Malcolm has a destination in mind.

I enjoy the aimlessness. I feel safer off the grid, like I did back at the aid camp. But I know that eventually we’re going to need a plan, some way to reconnect with the scattered Garde. I may cringe at bloodshed, and I may fear that they will reject me for being a Mogadorian, but I can’t help being excited by the prospect of meeting my new allies.

After a long night’s trek, we camp out in a small grove at the edge of the woods in rural Ohio. Malcolm devotes so much time and energy to training me that I’ve been repaying the favor, usually as we’re settling down for a day’s sleep.

I train him. I ask him questions about his past, trying to jog his memory. I know his patchy memory is frustrating, but he will never recover his memories unless he works at it. So I grill him, pressing him for details.

“What happened before the darkness?” I ask tonight.

He’s clearing some brush on the ground, making a smooth surface to sleep on. “I hate this.”

“I know,” I say. We’re both exhausted and mental training is the last thing either of us wants to do right now.

But I keep going. “What happened before the darkness?”

“I’m tired,” he says, stretching out on the dirt. “And I can’t really remember.”

“Come on. One thing,” I say. “Just tell me one thing you remember from before the Mogs took you.”

He’s quiet.

“Malcolm. You already told me there’s one important thing you remember from before, one thing you didn’t even have to try to remember.” I figure I can at least get that out of him. “Just tell me that.”

He turns to me, suddenly serious. “My son. I remember my son.”

Whoa. I had no idea he had a son.

“The details of how I made contact with the Loric, how I was captured by the Mogs … those things are starting to come back to me, though they’re still fuzzy. But I remember everything about my life back in Paradise.” He smiles. “I remember everything about Sam.”

“Don’t you want to see him?” I ask.

“Of course I do. That’s why I’ve been leading us back towards my old hometown.” He looks at me, clearly concerned about how I will react.

I’m stunned. “That’s where he is?”

“Well, I can’t be sure he’s still there, but it’s my only guess. It’s only a day or two days’ trek from here.”

I’m confused. I thought we were just running from the Mogadorians, but this whole time Malcolm’s been leading us to his home. “But our path, it’s been so random.”

“I’m still trying to keep the Mogadorians off our tail. That we continue to evade detection is even more important, the closer we get to Sam.” He sits up, giving me a solemn look. “You don’t have to come into town with me. It could be dangerous. For all I know the Mogadorians are waiting for me there.”

Malcolm looks at me, waiting to see how I’ll react. Under his gaze, I feel it: that familiar twinge of fear in my gut. My typical reluctance to enter the fray.

But there’s something different about me now. I have One’s Legacy—my Legacy. I don’t feel as powerless as I used to.

If anything, I feel a strange itch to see what I can do with my new ability. Months ago, One tried to rouse me back to the Loric cause and I balked. It took her creating an epically complex psychological trick to get me to leave the aid camp.

But I don’t need much persuading from Malcolm.

“Let’s go,” I say.

Paradise, Ohio, is a classic small town. A harmonious blend of farmland and suburbia, a far cry from the tacky faux-luxe of Ashwood’s McMansions. Walking with Malcolm along the road leading through the town, sticking to the other side of the tree line to stay out of view, I take a deep breath.

Yeah. I like it here.

Just as Paradise’s main drag comes into view down the road, Malcolm starts leading us away, deeper into the woods. We walk for a mile through the trees. We pass houses out here in the woods—some prosperous-looking farmhouses, some busted-down-looking shacks. We avoid all of them, beelining through the woods to avoid being seen by anyone.

“What’s he like?” I ask. As we’ve been traveling, I’ve told Malcolm almost everything there is to know about me—about how the son of a respected Mogadorian leader came to be the traitor that I am now. But there’s so much about Malcolm that’s still a mystery to me. Sometimes I wonder if it’s because he doesn’t like to think about it himself.

Still walking and staring straight ahead, Malcolm smiles sadly. “I don’t know,” he says.

“You mean you can’t remember?”

“No, not that. My memories of Sam haven’t faded at all. It’s just—” He stops. “I can’t say what he’s like now, not when I haven’t seen him in all this time. I’ve missed everything. He was just a kid when I got taken. He was smart, and he was kind. A great kid.” He laughs. “He was Sam.”

“What happens when we find him?” I ask.

Malcolm’s expression darkens.

“I just need to see him. To know he’s okay. You and I, we’re marked for death by the Mogadorians. I know I can’t exactly be a father to him under those conditions, but I need to see him at least once. After that …” he says, his voice trailing off.

I finish his thought. “After that we go back on the run.”

Malcolm nods. “It won’t be safe for us to stick around.”

I feel a strange twinge of relief at that thought.

“We’re close,” he says, quickening his stride.

I see a house up ahead, through the trees.

“That’s it,” he says.

As we walk, the texture of the dirt beneath our feet begins to shift. I look down: it’s burned. Scarred. My antennae go up, preparing for a possible attack.

The closer we get, the worse it is. More scorched earth, more fallen trees. There’s been a battle here.

“Malcolm,” I say. “The Mogadorians have been here.”

But of course he’s already noticed. He’s speeding up, racing towards the house. I keep pace behind him, worried what we’re running into.

But when he runs up to the house’s side door and bangs on it, and a shocked-looking woman steps outside, eyes bulging at Malcolm, I stop running. Malcolm’s given me no instruction; I have no idea what’s going on.

I hang back.

Malcolm holds the woman by the shoulders, talking to her, asking her questions. The woman’s expression of shock and wonderment begins to melt, giving way to something else.

Anger.

She slaps him. Then slaps him again. Soon she’s unleashed a barrage, and Malcolm just stands there, absorbing each and every blow. I can’t hear her from where I stand, but I know what she’s saying. “Where were you? Where were you? Where were you?”

She falls to her knees on the porch and begins to sob. Moments later, Malcolm joins her.

I wait. Malcolm has been inside with the woman for an hour now. We exchanged a look before he headed inside with her. I nodded, giving him the sign that I’d be fine out here on my own.

Kicking the scorched dirt, I’m anxious, keyed up. To judge by the tracks, by the burned patches of earth, there was some kind of conflict here not long ago. Mogadorians could be close.

I have One’s Legacy now, I remind myself. Even if I come face-to-face with a Mog force, I’m not powerless anymore. I can fight back.

The more time passes, the more I worry about Malcolm. To come all this way and discover that something has happened to his son would be devastating.

Malcolm finally emerges from the house. He walks with a hard-nosed determination, strutting right past me and back into the woods.

All he says is “Come.”

I follow him across the backyard to a large stone well.

“It’s open,” he says, shaking his head.

“So?” I ask. “Malcolm, you have to tell me what’s going on.”

Without answering, Malcolm climbs into the well and disappears.

Again, I follow.

I make my way down a long, narrow ladder and finally arrive at the bottom of the well.

“Malcolm?” I ask. No response. I feel my way along the walls down a narrow passageway, which slowly gives way into a room.

A large halogen lamp lights up, illuminating the space. Malcolm holds it, and swings it around the room.

I follow the arc of the beam. Bare walls, some computer equipment in the corner. A shelf with supplies: water bottles, canned food—

Startled by what I see, I gasp. Against the wall, close enough for me to touch, is a massive skeleton.

The skeleton’s head is tipped downwards in an angle of dignified, almost lordly resignation. But it’s still a skull, with deep hollow sockets pointing right at me. I yelp, backing against the opposite wall.

“The Mogadorians didn’t find this place,” says Malcolm. “If they had, they wouldn’t have left it like this. They would have destroyed this skeleton, or taken it. But the well was open. Someone’s been here.” Malcolm resumes poking around in the chamber. “The tablet’s gone. He must have come here, and then after …”

“Malcolm,” I whisper, hoping he will calm down and explain himself. “I’m in the dark here,” I say. “Quite literally.”

He ignores my joke.

“My wife saw Sam with some other kids; she said there was a battle. By what she described, those other kids had to be members of the Garde. Sam was with them, fighting by their side.”

I experience a brief chill of excitement at the thought that the Garde was here only a short time ago. The Garde. My people. My new people.

“In my absence, I guess he took up my cause, and wound up in battle with Mogs and … now he’s gone.”

Malcolm stares at me, a haunted look on his face.

“My son Sam is gone.”

Malcolm’s wife won’t let him in the house again. She’s too angry.

As a result, we’ve camped out in his underground bunker, stretching out on the bare stone floor. I’ve slept in some pretty rough quarters since going on the run with Malcolm, but I’ve never faced a challenge quite like trying to fall sleep under the hollow nose of an eight-foot-tall skeleton.

Malcolm explains that she is crushed by grief for her missing son. That as angry as she is with Malcolm for disappearing, the worst part is him finally reappearing only weeks after Sam disappeared—too late to save him.

She blames Malcolm for whatever’s happened to Sam. And Malcolm says she’s right to blame him.

“It was my fault. I was so excited to make contact with the Loric, I didn’t even consider the consequences. Once I saw what the Mogadorians were capable of, I realized my role as a Greeter might be a danger to my family, but it was too late. Before I could do anything to protect them, I was taken.”

Malcolm theorizes that, haunted by his disappearance, Sam began to unravel some of the mysteries of the Mogadorian invasion. That he somehow forged an alliance with members of the Garde.

And that at some point in the past few weeks, in battle near his house, he was captured by the Mogs, and either killed or detained.

When Malcolm says this, my mind races back to the memo I encountered while snooping around the underground server in the Media Surveillance facility. The memo was already a year old when it declared all future detainees and captives were to be routed to the Dulce base in New Mexico. If Sam was captured weeks ago, there’s a good chance he’s being kept there.

I stare at Malcolm, stretched out on the floor, his back to me.

“Malcolm,” I say.

He rolls over and turns to me. I can see from his gaze that he’s lost in doubt and guilt and grief. Clearly the search for his son is what’s been driving him since we escaped from Ashwood.

“I think I know where your son is.”