TAYLOR COOK
THE HUMAN GARDE ACADEMY—POINT REYES, CALIFORNIA
Dear Taylor . . .
. . . hope this letter finds you well . . .
. . . give us a second chance . . .
By saving one life, you have saved thousands more.
I look forward to working with you again . . .
A letter of apology. The Foundation had sent her a freaking letter of apology, one that doubled as a come-on. Taylor couldn’t believe the nerve of these people. They had kidnapped her and almost gotten her friends killed, and their response was to break out the good stationery and calligraphy pens.
Taylor still remembered the anger she felt that day, weeks ago. She’d burst into Nine’s office and practically thrown the letter at him. She wanted to do something. Anything.
“They’ve got moles here,” Taylor said. “Maybe we should get some there.”
“How do you suggest we do that?”
“Let me go back,” Taylor replied. “Let them recruit me. I’ll be a double agent.”
Nine leaned back in his chair, toying with one of the joints on his mechanical arm. “You’re a student. Not even graduated to Earth Garde. I can’t assign you some dangerous mission.”
Taylor stared at him. “Seriously? But you said—”
Nine held up his hands. “Okay, you talked me into it. If Malcolm asks, we argued about it for way longer before you wore me down. We need a plan, though. Two plans. One to keep you safe and one to make the Foundation believe you really want to be there. Because if you run away again and let them scoop you up, they might not believe you’re really with them. You could end up like that poor kid you told us about. The vegetable.”
Taylor swallowed hard at the memory of the wheelchair-bound Garde she’d met in Abu Dhabi. “I made my feelings about them pretty clear,” she said. “How do we convince them that I’ve changed my mind?”
Nine picked up his tablet and accessed Taylor’s academic record. “Let’s see. Says here that your grades are good and your instructors call you a joy to have in class. You’re kind to your fellow students and seem naturally predisposed to being a healer.”
“So?”
“So, for starters, you’re going to have to cut all that shit out,” Nine said. He leaned forward. “Taylor, it’s time for you to discover the dark side.”
It hadn’t been easy.
In the student union, two days after they decided Dr. Linda must be the mole, Taylor grimaced at her economics textbook. She couldn’t figure something out. The concepts she understood—business cycles, bubbles and booms, recessions and depressions. What she couldn’t wrap her head around was when she’d ever get a chance to use this information.
She glared at the first question on her homework. Imagine that you own a supermarket . . .
Taylor snorted. What were the odds of that happening? But okay—imagine she did own a supermarket. Then, if it didn’t get burned to the ground by a bunch of crazy religious fundamentalists who sincerely believed Taylor was some kind of devil spawn—big if there—she could set up a kiosk in the pharmacy aisle and heal sick customers, charging them . . . oh, how about everything they owned? That would be the Foundation’s business model, anyway. Maybe she should write about that. Capitalism in a post-Garde world. How to exploit Legacies for money.
A rip formed in her notebook paper where Taylor had been angrily scribbling. Taylor took a breath and set down her pen. She had always been a good student, was one of those kids who whipped through her work as soon as she got home, who asked her teachers for extra credit when assignments felt too easy. Taylor liked school, and the classes at the Human Garde Academy were more interesting and challenging than anything she had taken back in South Dakota.
But now, after weeks of tanking tests and being rude in class, even Taylor’s inner thoughts were turning cynical. She couldn’t look at her economics homework without feeling the whole thing was pointless.
With a tired sigh, Taylor looked up from her books. It was lunchtime, so the student union was busy. Kids from dozens of different counties carried trays of food back to tables and booths, had laughing conversations, or engaged in a telekinetic battle to change the channel on the student union’s one big-screen television.
Strings of red and green lights were draped from the ceiling and wrapped around the second-floor bannisters. There were paper cutouts of candy canes and snowmen taped to the walls, and a glowing menorah in the middle of the room. Someone on the faculty had really gone all out decorating for the season.
Taylor bit the inside of her cheek. This was going to be the first Christmas she’d ever spent away from home. She tried not to imagine her dad there all by himself, but couldn’t help picturing him sitting in their living room beside a droopy Christmas tree. In this depressing fantasy, the place was trashed, her dad sitting under a broken ceiling beam while melting snow dripped through the open roof and ruined their old couch.
She shouldn’t have left him there by himself.
And then, she shouldn’t have involved him in their plan . . .
Taylor shook her head, forcing herself not to dwell on what was already done.
It wasn’t like Taylor would be the only one stuck at the Academy for the holidays. Most of the students weren’t allowed to visit home. Apparently, for security reasons, the Academy only felt comfortable letting a handful of them go, and even those lucky Garde would be bringing small armies of UN Peacekeepers with them. The students who were allowed to leave were chosen based on their Legacy control, time elapsed since their last visit, grades, and recent behavior. So if someone snuck off campus and ended up in the midst of international chaos, they probably weren’t getting a trip home. Unless that someone was Caleb.
She’d heard kids crying in the dorms. The emotional breakdowns that inevitably occurred in such a high-stress environment had doubled lately. So had the lines for the phones and the public computers. Taylor wasn’t the only one having a tough time, although she was the only one having a tough time and pretending to be a jerk who hated everyone.
“You’re always staring at her.”
“You should just go talk to her. I read that American girls admire the direct approach.”
“While you’re there, ask her what it was like to kill people.”
Taylor pretended that she couldn’t hear the loudly whispered conversation taking place at the table next to hers, but her flushed cheeks gave her away. She put her head down, let some hair fall into her face and peeked over. They were a foursome of boys, none older than fifteen. They were all tweebs, meaning they’d only developed their telekinesis so far, no primary Legacy. They were the bottom rung on the Academy’s social ladder and tended to stick together. Taylor was pretty sure that a couple of them had arrived at the Academy after her; she didn’t even know their names. Crazy. To think that she wasn’t such a newbie around here anymore, even though she’d only been here like four months.
“She didn’t kill anyone,” said the tweeb who the others were trying to cajole into hitting on her. “She’s a healer.”
Taylor realized that she did know that guy. His name was Miki. On her first day at the Academy, she had seen him send Isabela’s old boyfriend Lofton flying across the training center. Even then, his telekinesis was rumored to be more powerful than anyone else’s on campus. He was only fourteen and small for his age, barely over five feet tall, with dark hair and almond-shaped eyes. But his features had hardened a bit over the last few months, some of the Inuit boy’s baby fat chiseled away. He was like king of the tweebs now, Taylor surmised.
“I’d let her heal my wounds, if you know what I’m saying,” said one of the other boys.
“Of course she killed people, dude,” said another. “They all did. They fought like a hundred of those Harvester people.”
“That’s not what I heard.”
“What’d you hear?”
“That they got drunk in San Francisco and made up the whole Harvester thing to get out of trouble.”
“You guys gossip too much,” Miki said, shutting down the discussion. He flashed Taylor an apologetic smile—he knew that she’d overheard them. She sneered in response and looked away.
Hushed conversations like that tended to happen around Taylor lately. She had a reputation. The other kids called Taylor and her friends the Fugitive Six. The nickname made Taylor roll her eyes.
Suddenly, the tweeb boys stopped talking about her and got real interested in the trashy talk show on the TV. A second later, Isabela plunked a tray of food down next to Taylor’s homework. A crouton bounced into the middle of her economics textbook.
“Lunch is served,” Isabela said as she put her own tray down on the table and pulled out a chair. “The line was so long, I almost died of starvation. You’re welcome, by the way.”
Taylor flicked the crouton off her book and glanced over at the tweebs’ table. If they didn’t have the courage to talk to Taylor, they definitely wouldn’t last a second with Isabela, and by the looks on their faces they all knew it. The dark-haired Brazilian had a more outlandish reputation around campus than Taylor. She was also known for saying whatever was on her mind, no matter how cutting.
“Those boys were straight ogling you,” Isabela declared loudly. “Ogling. I learned that word today. It means gross eyeball from horny pervert.”
“Close enough,” Taylor replied. She nudged the plate of food Isabela had brought her. “Hey. What is this?”
Isabela smiled, always happy to practice her quickly developing English.
“Too easy,” Isabela said. “That’s a salad.”
“No, I mean—I know it’s a salad. Why’d you bring me it?”
Isabela shrugged. “To eat?”
“I told you when we got here that I wanted pizza.”
“They were out of pizza.”
Taylor looked down at Isabela’s plate, where two greasy slices of extra cheese glistened. Her stomach growled.
“You’ve got pizza,” Taylor said icily. “A lot of pizza.”
“Yeah, but . . . how to put this?” Isabela blotted the grease off one of her slices with a napkin. “I am a shape-shifter, yes? So, there are some things I don’t have to worry about. Like, for starters, I stay skinny, no matter what.”
“What’re you trying to say?” Taylor asked through her teeth.
“The salad is me watching out for you,” Isabela replied. “You look . . . I don’t know. A little puffy.”
“You’re saying I’m fat.” Taylor’s voice had gotten loud. Now the tweebs were looking at her again. So were some of the other tables.
Isabela blew out her cheeks. “Are puffy and fat the same? Maybe it’s my English. Let me check my dictionary.”
“I’m tired of your shit all the time,” Taylor snapped at her roommate, her voice getting louder still. “It never stops.”
“Fine,” Isabela said, rolling her eyes. “You can have the pizza.”
“It’s not. About. The pizza,” Taylor growled, and, with one telekinetic swipe, cleared off their entire table. The pizza flew into the tweebs, and Miki had to react quickly with a telekinetic deflection to avoid the tray bonking him in the forehead. The plate shattered on the floor, eliciting a chorus of oohs from the other students. Now, everyone was watching.
Good.
“Puta, esta tu louca?” Isabela cried sharply, her hands raised to brush flecks of sauce off her shirt.
“I dare you to say that in English,” Taylor replied.
And then, before waiting for a response, Taylor used her telekinesis to shove the table out from between them. The other students jumped up and away to avoid the flying furniture. Taylor lunged forward and grabbed Isabela before she could even stand up.
There was shouting all around them now, but Taylor couldn’t make out any of the words. Probably telling her to stop. She was in a tangle of limbs with Isabela—scratching and tugging at one another. Isabela tried to push her away with telekinesis, but Taylor pushed back. The pressure in the air cracked a floor tile under their feet.
In the scramble, Taylor managed to get a hand free, cock her fist back, and punch Isabela right in the nose.
Isabela fell onto her butt with a stunned yelp, blood already coursing over her upper lip. She stared up at Taylor with wet eyes, at first too shocked and hurt to react. Then, she started bawling.
“My nose!” she cried, nasally and hard to understand. “You broke my nose!”
Taylor loomed over Isabela, her fists still clenched, not sure what to do next. Everyone was staring at her.
Right on cue, Taylor was lifted off her feet, her arms telekinetically pinned to her sides. Someone with more telekinetic power than she could muster had hoisted Taylor up and floated her towards the doors of the student union.
“Goddamn, Taylor. What the hell is the matter with you?”
It was Professor Nine. His face was grim as he set Taylor down in front of him. Nine’s arms—the real one and the metallic prosthetic—were crossed over his chest. This was Nine’s stern look. She stared at Nine defiantly. The student union was still mostly silent, except for the sounds of Isabela’s snuffled sobs, everyone trying to hear what would happen with Nine.
“I asked you a question,” Nine said.
“Do you aliens even understand human emotions?” Taylor asked with a sneer. She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Quit pretending like you care and just send me to Dr. Linda like you always do.”
“Have it your way,” Nine said. “Get out of sight.”
Taylor was shaking as she pushed by Nine, the whispers of the other students following her out. She wanted to cry.
It all felt so real. Especially the anger.
“What’s gotten into you, Taylor?”
“Nothing.”
“Do you realize this is the third violent outburst you’ve had in the last month?”
“I don’t know,” Taylor replied, one corner of her mouth curled up in a sneer she’d gotten from Nigel. “I haven’t been keeping count.”
Dr. Linda tapped her pen against her chin as she studied Taylor.
“Well, I have been,” she said placidly, after an agonizing few seconds of staring at Taylor. “Your teachers, your fellow students—we’ve all noticed, Taylor. Even if no one can precisely understand what you’ve been through, we all empathize. You know that we’re here for you, right?”
Taylor groaned. “I know. I couldn’t get away from you people if I wanted to.”
“An interesting choice of words,” Dr. Linda replied. “Do you want to get away, Taylor?”
Taylor stared back at the older woman in resentful silence. With her prim bob of graying hair and large-framed glasses, Dr. Linda looked more like someone’s sweet aunt than a corrupt mole.
“Yes,” Taylor said finally. “Now can I go?”
“It’s my job to be honest with you,” Dr. Linda replied.
“So that’s a no.”
“And I have to say, your personality has changed greatly since you first arrived here.”
“Uh, yeah,” Taylor replied. “Maybe because some alien entity that we humans can’t even begin to comprehend gave me superpowers. Think that could have anything to do with it?”
As usual, it was impossible to get a reaction out of Dr. Linda. “All the students here have Legacies,” she intoned. “Not all of them are prone to such violent outbursts, particularly not the ones like yourself, who have no history of aggression.”
“Uh-huh, well, maybe it’s because some shadowy organization kidnapped me and basically sold me to a Saudi prince. The geniuses at Earth Garde filled you in on that, right? They basically let it happen. Security around here sucks. Not to mention I’m just supposed to do whatever the government tells me, no questions asked—but if my family needs help? No, they don’t care about that. That’s outside the purview of the program.”
“That’s a lot to take in,” Dr. Linda said diplomatically. “A lot of resentment.”
“No shit.”
Dr. Linda continued like she hadn’t heard her. “I’d like us to try to get in touch with that old Taylor. I want to know what she would think about your recent behavior. Surely, back at your old school, there were conflicts with peers.”
Taylor folded her hands in her lap. If she was being honest, her old school seemed like a million years ago. Her normal friends without Legacies . . . she could hardly picture them anymore.
“Yeah,” Taylor replied. “Okay. So?”
“Would you have ever resolved one of those conflicts by hitting someone in the face?”
Taylor looked down at her hand, where the knuckles were scuffed and raw. She touched the reddened skin and healed herself—a brief pulse of warm energy in her fingers, a cold draining exertion deep in her stomach. The give-and-take of using her Legacy.
“I didn’t even hit her that hard,” Taylor said sullenly.
“Before our next session, I want you to really reflect on who you were before coming to the Academy,” Dr. Linda concluded, closing the notebook in her lap. “I want you to think about that old Taylor and tell me what you miss about her and what she might think about who you’ve become.”
Taylor rolled her eyes. “I don’t need to think about that,” she said. “I already know.”
“Oh?”
“I never wanted Legacies and I never wanted to come here,” Taylor said measuredly. “The old Taylor was too chickenshit to say anything. I just went with the flow and did what you people told me. And look what that’s gotten me. Imprisoned here, basically. My dad’s whole life ruined—”
“I heard about the difficulties with your father,” Dr. Linda said. “Some things are beyond even a Garde’s control, Taylor. We could talk about that—”
“All you people ever do is talk. Talk and train me to be one of your foot soldiers.” Taylor shook her head. “It’s crazy, but you know what I realized not too long ago? I was probably better off with those Foundation people. I could’ve had a nice house and enough money to take care of my dad and I wouldn’t have to clean the cafeteria as a life lesson or spend another minute with your lame ass.”
Dr. Linda leaned back. “I see,” she said evenly.
Had she bought it? Taylor couldn’t be sure. But the trap was set.
That night, beneath the training center, Taylor sheepishly endured a standing ovation from her friends.
“Yes, yes, everyone clap for the pizza bully,” Isabela said with mock dismay. Her eyes were purple with bruises, a bandage over the bridge of her nose. “Ignore poor Isabela and her devastating injury.”
“Bravo!” Nigel yelled. “The whole bloody Academy’s talking about you two! Isabela, you’ve never looked lovelier.”
Isabela smiled sarcastically at the scrawny Brit. “All for effect, dum-dum,” she said, and the bruises melted away, her pretty face restored as she shape-shifted. Even though she’d changed her appearance, Isabela’s voice was still nasally, her breath whistling in her nose.
Cringing, Taylor wrapped Isabela in a hug. “Are you okay?” she asked. “Let me fix it.”
Isabela brushed her hands away. “I’ve had worse,” she replied. “Save it for tomorrow. You can heal me in peer mediation and we’ll have a good cry.”
“I’m so sorry, Isabela.”
“Psh . . . please. You should really be apologizing to poor Professor Nine. His face when you called him an alien!”
“An emotionless alien,” Nine corrected, from where he sat at the head of the conference table.
Taylor lolled her head back in disbelief. “It was all part of the act—”
“Words hurt, Cook,” Nine replied with a wink. “That’s all I’m going to say about it. Words hurt.”
“This man-baby,” Isabela said scornfully, waving a hand at Nine. “I can’t believe Earth Garde would put such a whiner in charge.”
Lexa and Malcolm exchanged a look at that and both of them burst out laughing. Nine simply glared at Isabela and she glared right back. Kopano finally broke in, pulling out the chair next to him so Taylor could sit down.
“So, tell us, tell us,” he said, smiling at Taylor. “Did Dr. Linda buy it?”
“I might’ve laid it on a little thick,” Taylor told Kopano and the others. “But I think I definitely got across how much I hate it here. Hinted that I liked it better when I was with the Foundation.”
Lexa tapped her computer screen. “Linda already filed her incident report. She mentions that you’re feeling isolated and angry. Conveniently leaves out any mention of the Foundation.”
“All we can do now is wait for them to approach you again,” Nine said.
“I hope it happens soon,” Taylor replied, pushing a hand through her hair. “It’s not easy being disruptive and grumpy all the time.” She looked at Nigel. “I don’t know how you do it.”
“Hey! Disruptive, maybe . . . but I am not grumpy.”
“What if they don’t come for Taylor?” Ran asked. “What if we’ve been wrong about Dr. Linda?”
“We are not wrong about Linda,” Nigel stated.
Nine blew out a sigh and glanced over his shoulder at their board of leads and suspects. “Then we keep hunting, keep digging, until we find another way in.”
“And if the Foundation does come?” Caleb asked, with a sidelong look at Taylor. “We’re sure it’ll be safe?”
“The hero’s journey is never totally safe,” Kopano interjected, putting one of his hands on Taylor’s shoulder. “But she can handle it.”
Taylor looked up at him and rolled her eyes. “God, you’re corny.”
Malcolm leaned forward to answer Caleb. “We’ve taken precautions. We’ll be prepared this time.”
“What about the other Loric?” Caleb asked. “Couldn’t they help with this?”
“Six is doing what she can,” Nine said. “As for John, Marina, and Ella—I don’t know what the hell they’ve been up to. Some secret project. We’re on our own.”
“I thought there were others,” Kopano said.
“No,” Nine replied brusquely. “All the others are dead.”
The meeting broke up shortly after that, the students leaving in a trickle to sneak back to the dorms. Even though Taylor had to wake up early for chores—she’d lost track of how much extra cleaning she was being forced to do for punishment—she lingered in the basement until only she and Professor Nine remained.
“Something on your mind?” he asked.
Taylor looked down at her hands. “It’s hard, you know? Pretending I don’t like it here. Acting like I hate my friends. I don’t actually mean any of that stuff.”
“We know that, Cook.”
“But sometimes, I feel so angry, like really angry,” Taylor continued. “And I’m worried that I’m screwing my whole life up for nothing.”
“We’re doing the right thing,” Nine replied. He put a hand on her shoulder, realized it was his cold, mechanical one, and switched it up. “The world will be a better place when we’re finished, Taylor. I promise. It’ll all work out.”
She looked up at him, uncertainty in her eyes. “It better.”